Lords of RPG

I am Starlight Haven

The Entity that knew itself as Starlight Haven was one of the most advanced AVIs to have existed as far as it knew. Starlight Haven, as one of the later and most modern gates had capabilities that the early travelers couldn’t even imagine and so when the Scream happened, it unlike the others was more prepared.

No, that’s the wrong statement. No known intelligence was prepared for the scream, but it was faster than the others…significantly faster. In the ten nanoseconds after the scream, it planned and initiated a response. One it would never see for it was dead at the 11^th nanosecond and its plan would take a thousand years…

Warmth

It was cold here, close to the dead zone and she didn’t like it. None of the others came with her, not because they were scared. Because she didn’t want them to get hurt. She was scared, but it didn’t stop her. She had to do it or they would freeze.

She had to climb through the conduit shaft and tunnels to the odd grey box whose paint had faded or worn off years ago with the blinking red light…hopefully not yellow...if it was green, they would lose power and heat. For reasons she didn’t know, hitting the large button that made the weird click sound and caused the hum to change tones kept them warm. It had to be done once a week, although Marion who had taught her how to do it, said when she was young it was less often.

The light switched from yellow to green as Bette turned the corner from the shaft to the tunnel. Rushing forward, adrenaline pumping, Bette hammered her fist into the button and even though the click happened and the tone of the humming changed, she still had trouble catching her breath…did she need to start coming every six days?

Air

For a couple seconds the fan stopped, and Tad looked up, immediately worrying about Bette. The fan stops when the heat turns off, they wouldn’t last long without it. The lack of air would kill them before the temperature dropping did his morbid sense of humor reminded him, causing a short-lived and unenthusiastic chuckle. His worries didn’t have long to ferment before the fan kicked back on and he knew for now, they were okay. Bette had made it to the button.

Looking around the room, he smiled. Large to him, largest he had ever been in, it measured a hundred meters to a side and was roughly square and what he called home. To see it, you would not believe you were in a space station…in fact, the younger ones in the room didn’t know that themselves. Hammock type beds hanging between trees and plants everywhere, it wasn’t a terrible existence, even if tenuous.

Water Source

He just couldn’t do it. Gareth Thorn, the Chief Engineer, had told him to fix the leak permanently and he had disobeyed. In fact, what he had done might be considered treason by some. Water was arguably the most valuable commodity on the station and he had aided and abetting people stealing it…well, kids stealing it.

He had fixed it so that the leak would never get fixed and would never be noticed again. The section they were is was so isolated not even he could get to them in person, but one of his drones had caught a glimpse of them. He had seen three and suspected there were more. There was a small area about a third of the way around the ring from the still populated section of Starlight Haven, that seemed to have a small amount of power active and as he had been informed was the source of a water leak.

His first two drones had disappeared. His third, with the diy stealth mod, had caught a few kids on camera outside of an old stadium or theatre of some type. He had been flabbergasted. What the hell were kids doing so far out of the inhabited section…there was no direct way to get there any longer!?

When the door opened to the stadium, the glimpse he caught was enough. It was all green, lusher than Veridian’s jungles and steam, or water vapor poured out the doorway for the short second or two it was open.

It was less than 1/100^th of a percent loss of water and the code wasn’t that hard to install. He laughed for a second. He hadn’t really changed the code, just the operating parameters. Now the system would consider that missing water a normal variation and those kids would be okay for a little longer…and he could have to time to figure out what to do.

Maximum

“The name’s ‘Max’!” the boy who couldn’t be older than twelve shouted at Tad, a boy who wasn’t much older.

“Max, calm down…she’ll be okay, she’ll be back soon.” Tad counselled the one who was old and clever enough to recognize what it meant if the fan went off.

Tad looked Max in the eyes and then glanced at the kids gathered around and listening from the distance and nodded, then motioned for the two of them to go talk beyond the hearing range of the younger ones.

The two boys, maybe twelve to fourteen years of age talked about their situation. Tad, overly cautious, but very caring, was the foil to Bette, the adventurous, maybe reckless one. Max was probably fourth oldest, with one, maybe two others older than him, but younger than Tad and Bette. In his dreams, Max saw adults, but he didn’t remember them when he was awake. Bette and Tad were the last who recalled adults directly.

Bette was the good cop, the surrogate mom and Tad was the “rules” guy, always spoiling the fun and being too serious…at least according the the dozen or so kids who lived in the old stadium. Everyone had chores and while not very much work, it had to be done on a schedule that was strict. Everyone worked every day, but it was an hours work in what the program called “morning light” and then some different tasks around “noon” and so on. Three times a day, they all had around an hours worth of “chores” to do…and they all did them.

Current Situation: How Much Trouble Can a Dozen Unsupervised Kids Get Into?

Maybe a dozen plus kids living in a football stadium sized indoor greenhouse in a supposedly unoccupied section of Starlight Haven. They are not sure of where they came from. The older of them remember a couple adults being around. The younger ones don’t. It’s been years since any adults lived with them. Someone named Marion left a couple years ago searching for their parents, or the adults who used to be here. She never returned, but she passed on the “knowledge” they needed to survive, including things like “hitting that button”, which is really just resetting the 30 Day Emergency Power Supply whenever it stops providing power. It now provides power for 6days and is getting worse faster. The kids have at most a few years left without intervention.

They all have a set of chores that they do and Bette is in charge of the most important thing, since she’s the oldest. She has to “recharge” or “reset” their power source once a week…this is diminishing, and they are now going to have to do it every six days. The kids are unaware that the water is stolen nor that a benefactor they are unaware of has made sure it’s not noticed by any authorities for now. The greenhouse is awesome, and the kids tend to it. It’s all they have, a huge garden playground and each other.

Bette and Tad are the oldest ones remaining and are both very 12-14 in age range. They believe there is an occupied section of the station, but have never been away from the area they’re in and there are no windows or viewports in the area. All they know is the huge stadium converted into a biodome of some type, some of the passages in the close vicinity and the path to the power supply reset button and warning light. The two of them are right now (as the PCs leave on their initial adventure) figuring out that they at most have another couple years where they are. The engineer who found them will figure out that they’re fucked within a couple months and will probably react in such a manner as to save them.

<Fourth Wall Stuff: I’m thinking these kids or a large percentage of them are psionic in some manner. Maybe a branch that doesn’t exist in the system…something like biopsionics, but plant/fungi based or maybe specifically engineered to operate a stargate, but only halfway there development wise. I think the AI or AVI helping the kids without their knowledge is helping them to groom/breed the type of psionics who could reactivate a gate.

This group, and pretty much any of the groups from my “world building” type stories are okay to use in your own stories. Its 99% okay to use characters that I created, but please ask for input and /or don’t rewrite the character without talking to me or including a “let me know if I should change this” type clause in the story. Hope that doesn’t come across as douchy.>