What a Fiasco!
Tea: No tea again! Cranberry juice instead which is no where near as good!
Recording: No Recording I’m afraid
OK so I watched tabletops Fiasco play through (excellent by the way) and I grabbed myself a copy. I haven’t had chance to play it however. So when someone called for players for a fiasco game I jumped at the chance.
Oh. My. Ever Living Gods
We were playing the space play set, locked on a huge feudal starship orbiting a white hole, that had been crashed into by an alien space vessel filled with shape shifting aliens called the Crukchell, who have four faces, none of which are on their faces. In the long past, General Vlastikov had lead an attack on the aliens, before losing his nerve and fleeing. However one of his troopers Henrik Von Jippelwell managed to kill all of the Crukchell and escape. The General took the credit and Jippelwell was left having to take a large amounts of drugs to remain vaguely stable. Drugs he procured from the doctor Quinzel, who had actually a Crukchell and was having an affair (involving zero g sex) with the Marquis Malikus who was very much in charge of the ship. Finally came Brines, a police officer of sorts, and the man who discovered a damaged enviro suit belonging to the doctor with obvious damage. She had been murdered, by the Marquis, who had found out that he was sleeping with a Crukchell and decided rather than admit his mistake he killed her.
He had not however banked on VALOR the ships somewhat stupid computer realising that the ship would need its medical officer and having retrieved her body, turned her into an android.
The Marquis found this out as the General and he began dancing round the fact that a damaged enviro-suit had been discovered and neither wanted that to become common knowledge. However the doctor had no idea she had died, nor that she was an android, however thanks to the zero g shenanigans she was certain she was now the Marquis wife. Which he denied, strenuously, until he realised she was possibly going to cause a scene and acquiesced somewhat just to get her gone. He then headed off to see Jippelwell.
What the General didn’t know was that brines had been to see the Marquis directly after he had shown the General what he had found. Not trusting the Generals plan that he would go and confront the Marquis about it, he had rushed to see him first. He confronted the Marquis, who denied everything while at the same time scuppering his own alibi by admitting to the zero g acrobatics with Quinzel. Brines headed off to get proof of the Marquis claims he had been with the General.
The Marquis however went to see the twitching wreck of Jippelwell and persuaded him that he needed to go and see the doctor, and deal with her as she was a Crukchell in disguise. Jippelwell grabbed up a sentience detector he had… Liberated and headed off to the medical bay to check and get more drugs. The Marquis felt pretty good about now, which probably wouldn’t last.
Having persuaded the General to let him investigate (the General who had agreed to back the Marquis up) Brines headed to sickbay to get the sentience detector to check any sentience imprints on the suit and finally implicate the Marquis… Whereupon he ran into the murder victim, they conversed on the subject, but the doctor being worried by his vague talk of things not being as they seemed thought he had made her as a spy so drugged him. Then Jippelwell arrived and using the sentience scanner somewhat without guile checked her, but was satisfied when the trace came back as android… Fine for Jippelwell but terrifying to the doctor who realised she couldn’t shape shift and had a little mental break. She dumped a ton of drugs into Jippelwell who exclaimed he could see through time and wandered off at speed. The doctor then confronted VALOR who confirmed the awful truth, and then questioned Brines who told her that the Marquis had murdered her… Se swore vengeance on her ‘husband’.
The Marquis and the General were meanwhile back in conference, the Marquis telling a stammering General that not only was he an alibi, he was also going to deal with Brines, one shot in the back of the head. Then when Jippelwell dealt with Quinzel they could kill him, blame Brines death on him and get away Scot-free. The General unable to disagree acquiesced already dreading what fate had in store for him.
In the bowels of the ship the doors to VALORS main CPU were ripped from their hinges. Jippelwell confronted the AI about its ability to make androids, seeing them as a final solution to the Crukchell menace. It confirmed it could make them, but only if it took biological samples. Jippelwell’s last words were “liquidise me!”. Followed by the sounds of seven androids stepping from the tubes.
Jippelwell one went immediately to see the Marquis and informed him that the war with the Crukchell would very soon be over. All the Jippelwell’s would be heading to the front-line, and taking the General with them so he could finally earn the medal he had been wearing for years. The Marquis asked if Quinzel had been killed but as she was an android not an alien Jippelwell one responded that she hadn’t. The Marquis however pointed out that he was an android of an alien, so Jippelwell agreed to go deal with her. Sensing an advantage, the Marquis also suggested they took brines to the front… as he was an able soldier. Jippelwell one agreed and immediately contacted two and three to pick him up, five to go get the General, and six to go make more Jippelwell’s.
Brines and Quinzel meanwhile had decided that the Marquis needed to pay for all of his wrong doing, and were heading there to get his sentience trace to finally have the proof that he had murdered the original Quinzel (well the second to last Quinzel at any rate). They had just decided on their plan, when not one but two android Jippelwell’s wandered round the corner. The Jippelwell’s speaking not quite in unison asked if Brines wouldn’t mind joining them on a jaunt to the battlefront. Brines however had other things on his mind and tried to persuade them that they should take the General instead. When they responded that they were doing that as well both Quinzel and Brines demanded to know how many of the robotic Jippelwell’s there were and were somewhat concerned when they responded that they weren’t exactly sure any longer. Quinzel asked why there were so many of them and they responded that they were going to be a final solution to the issue of the Crukchell, as an aside they mentioned that one was looking for her on that particular subject. Quinzel realising that one her cover had been blown, and two if she didn’t get back to her people fast she would be stuck as an android that couldn’t shape shift ever again she needed to get to them as fast as possible. If these Jippelwell’s were like the original she thought, they wouldn’t be able to resist the offer of drugs, so reaching into her big bag of drugs she handed some out, which they gleefully wolfed down. She hurtled off towards the front, leaving the confused Brines to head to the VALOR Hub to try and stop the flow of Jippelwell’s.
All over the ship Jippelwell’s felt the effects.
The General meanwhile was vacillating in his room. He didn’t want to murder Brines really, but at the same time he couldn’t go against the Marquis’ word as without him there would be no authority to keep him from the frontline. H was just trying to work out what to do when his door crashed into the room. In the doorway stood Jippelwell 5 who stalked over to the commanding officer who had fled from the ambush that had left him so damaged, but had claimed all of the credit for his efforts. He was just about to grab hold of Vlastikov when Quinzel’s drugs kicked in. Instead he settled for telling the General that very soon they would be heading to the front line so that he could finally earn the medal he’d worn for twelve years. The General had a brief time in which the android was not as focused as the drugs hit it, but despite all of this he could think of no way out as Jippelwell explained what was about to happen. Instead he remained passive, and the moment the initial drug effects wore off five grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and started marching him towards the front.
In the depths of VALOR six demanded that they make more Jippelwell’s to aid the fight at the frontline. VALOR pointed out that to do so they would have to use less… Biological material in each android which could make them more erratic. Willing to make the sacrifice, six agreed and yet more Jippelwell’s began to pour out of the tubes…
Brines finally made it to VALOR and stepped over the wrecked doors that e original Jippelwell had destroyed. Inside he found a half finished android who introduced itself as 535. Brines was shocked, the things face was hanging off, it didn’t seem very coherent, and was definitely on drugs of some description! He demanded to know what was going on, and when it told him he immediately instructed VALOR to cease production. However VALOR Still thought the doors were locked so Brines could not be in the room to give the commands. He did however manage to convince it to fire the cutting explosives to separate the ship from Crukchell station, much to the frustration of 535. With a crunch the centre of the ship blew, cutting them off, but drastically reducing the mass of the ship… Slowly it began to fall into the white hole.
Way off on the front-line, where many Crukchell had fallen before the onslaught of thousands of Jippelwell’s Dr Quinzel finally arrived and set about reducing the their effectiveness by the application of many drugs. Slowly the tide turned against them as their shape-shifting foes took advantage.
Brines reached the Marquis office only to find him bedding his secretary again. Having turfed the confused Meechelle out he explained the situation. Thousands of Jippelwell’s were killing the Crukchell, the ship had been cut in half, and the part they were on was very soon going to smack face first into the white hole. The Marquis listened for a moment and then came up with a master plan. He and Brines would upload themselves into the android clone bank and then jettison themselves as androids from the ship. They would survive but sadly everyone else would sacrifice themselves for the Marquis greater good. Brines finally realised that he had nothing left to work for, and reluctantly agreed. Together they headed to VALOR.
When they reached there it took the Marquis only a moment to convince VALOR that the doors had been open all along. He then requested the current status of the android bank… and was devastated to hear that of 10678 androids 10676 had already been issued, mostly as Jippelwell’s. However two was all that was needed, so entered his command codes to begin the process. Which is where Brines took over, jettisoning the memory-banks and demanding that the machine take copies of himself and Quinzel ready for storage as androids on an escape buoy. The Marquis was shocked as it did just that using the final two discs and transferring the stored Quinzel biological material. Then it liquidised Brines and requested that the Marquis use the squeegee provided to pour his remains into the collection bucket. Instead the Marquis liquidised himself while standing in the bucket, his body with Brines mind, a sort of escape at least.
The General meanwhile had decided on a plan and as he was dragged towards the front he pointed out to the Jippelwell with him that he would need some weapons if he was going to be effective against the Crukchell. The Jippelwell agreed and changed direction to the nearest arsenal, as the General began to hope that he could grab a weapon to take the obviously psychotic android out. Jippelwell five smashed the doors to the arsenal out of the way and stomped into the arsenal, eyes alight with glee. The general was dragged in behind him and before he could grab an EMP Pistol, or explosive bolt thrower he found his arms filled with some kind of heavy weapon which Jippelwell five was quick to point out would utterly destroy any Crukchell it was pointed at the one’s behind them and quite possible everything in the room. Realising this wasn’t going to meet his requirements the General waited patiently for the next weapon. With a plastic screech and the sound of Gaffa tape being wrapped around his head as a thermonuclear detonator was strapped to his forehead. The face of Jippelwell five hove into view as he explained that they didn’t want to get taken alive so if worst came to worst he could head-butt his way into the next life. Realising that there was no other way to get out of fighting on the front-line the General jerked his head forward, and he and Jippelwell Five travelled to the next world in a blaze of white light and high-energy plasma.
Jippelwell one had been searching for Quinzel on the original ship when he felt the crunch and heard the alarms as the other ship was separated from it. He quickly commanded VALOR to begin firing the cannons on the front of the ship. As the massive weapons began to rapid fire the ship began to lurch back towards the Crukchell ship. There on the cut away section stood Jippelwell One, Plasmablastgun in hand, as it slowly drew closer to his enemy.
General Vlastikov was remembered as Hero for his actions against the Crukchell, while the Marquis was also remembered fondly for going down with his ship. Quinzel One meanwhile was given a fresh cloned Crukchell body and congratulated for rendering the Jippelwell army ineffective, meanwhile Quinzel two, the clone that escaped with Brines prepared the human colony ships for invasion. For his part Brines was not remembered, and when the true scope of Quinzel two’s betrayal became obvious was vilified as a traitor t his race… Finally… somewhere on the Crukchell home ship brood mothers tell their children to be good or Jippelwell will get them… and occasionally a lone Crukchell will disappear without a trace.
N.B. For the people who were involved I apologise if I have gotten any of it wrong I do these from memory and the plot was a bit… hectic!
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