The Grand Tour Ends

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

Jealousy and Marius were roaming the galaxy on Jealousy's sentient spaceship, Monarch, playing bait for the Federation in an attempt to lure hostile aliens into trying to capture them. The were followed by their friendly alien backup, Gerint, whom they had met once and not seen since. They had been traveling to far points for over a year, and it was about time to return to Federation space and higher visibility.

Marius and Jealousy decided to stop on the planet that was the scene of the first adventure Beth had ever run, a solo adventure for me, where Marius found the explanation of a virus infecting many of the planet's colonists and first met Dr. Zy Blan of Thanatos Corporation. Thanatos had been one of the few corporations which had cooperated with Marius, who was far more interested in curing the epidemic than in helping anyone, including himself, be the first on the market with whatever formula was needed.

While Marius was more than a little prejudiced against corporations, he was able to work well with Thanatos' people, especially Zy, who echoed his sentiments, saying that she didn't like people who "dick around with viruses". He respected her sentiments and her competence, and found himself becoming enamoured of her, although he did not tell her this. The two of them dealt with eleven people from a different corporation who were using underhanded methods to make sure that their corporation was the first to solve the virus problem. Said corporation professed itself quite shocked to learn what its employees on the planet were doing, and hung these employees out to dry.

Zy Blan was actually on planet, and Marius and Jealousy decided to look her up. Jealousy gave Zy some pointers on her blaster technique, and at one point wondered about whether Zy was attracted to her.

Jealousy (to herself): No, it would be rude to put the moves on Lecks' girlfriend.

It was amusing that Jealous thought of Zy that way, as Marius continued to keep his feelings to himself. Zy knew that Marius seemed attracted to her sexually, but also correctly guessed that he wasn't the type who would want a roll in the hay. The two doctors confined their relationship to discussing their medical research and the medical dirty tricks they had in their bags. Zy's bodyguard, Don, and Jealousy, were both aware of how attracted the doctors were to each other, and that neither seemed to realize the other was attracted. Don and Jealousy exchanged amused looks, finding the whole thing hilarious.

The frequent attacks on the group, or on Zy and Marius whenever they met, were not so amusing. Zy wondered if the attackers were after her, given that she was involved in a very annoying legal case.

A rival corporation had declared a corporate war on Thanatos. This was perfectly legal. The corporation had obtained, via espionage, the knowledge of some of Thanatos' manufacturing details for certain formulae. This was legal if the knowledge had been obtained after the war had been declared.

Thanatos executives believed that the information had been obtained prior to the declaration of the war, and that the war had been declared in an attempt to legitimize the rival corporation's possession of the information. Thanatos wasn't absolutely sure, but was pursuing litigation aggressively, far more aggressively than investigation. After all, there was a chance that an investigation might reveal an inconvenient truth.

As Beth explained:

This was extremely annoying for Zy Blan, who had done a considerable amount of work on these procedures: she had a 2% ownership of 
the patents in question, not to mention considerable knowledge of the procedures and the security used to contain them. She was 
spending her work hours in court as co-plaintiff and witness, instead of either interesting medical research or entertaining 
corporate sabotage.

Zy decided to hire Jealousy to find out what the facts were so she could get back to work. She did this behind Thanatos' back, as the part owner of the patents in her own right. At some point, Zy's corporation learned of this and agreed that Jealousy should keep investigating, but for Thanatos, not for Zy Blan. Zy's bosses were annoyed by what she'd done, but they had a strong enough combination of ethics and pragmatism to know that any kind of retaliation against her would be foolish. Appropriate contracts were drawn up and all parties involved were satisfied.

As it turned out, the rival corporation did obtain the information before the declaration of war, but the corporation's left hand did not know what the right was doing. The elements of the rival corporation that knew about the espionage had been set up to think it was a good idea by a third group, this one military, IIRC. This third group hoped to profit from the ensuing chaos. Zy's superiors informed their rival's counterparts. The rival corporation cleaned house and hired Jealousy, to her amusement and profit.

During all of this, the attacks continued, and it became clear that Marius was their target. Jealousy and Marius set one clever trap after another for the second rate thugs, focusing on finding their employer rather than capturing them. Then, Marius was kidnapped by an extremely professional group of kidnappers. Jealousy chased after them.

Neither Josh, Beth, nor I remember exactly what happened after so long, but I think there were at least 3 air cars involved, maybe more. Marius was being held in one, and it was apparently a very large air car. I tend to think of air cars as flying cars, and relatively small, but Josh says that they're more like small ships, and that they can have multiple rooms. Whatever Marius was being held in had multiple rooms.

There was Jealousy's air car, and there was at least one other air car belong to the kidnappers, aka grabbers. Both of the grabbers' air cars could fire an EMP, I believe. Josh says that Jealousy's air car was shot down, and Jealousy was forced to land it on an island, despite her hacking up a better weapon to shoot back with. The grabbers may have fired an EMP at the her air car, and we're all pretty sure that at some point, an EMP was fired, frying the nanites Jealousy likes to use. Josh says that Jealousy set off an EMP which zapped the weapons of the grabbers who were coming after her and had her surrounded, and that it also took out the controls of their air aircar, leaving all of them stranded. I definitely remember that 2 EMPs were fired.

Once Jealousy had stranded everyone, it was a question of whose back up arrived first, Jealousy's back up being help from Monarch. Unfortunately, it was the grabbers' back up.

Meanwhile, Marius tried to escape, with Monarch's help via nanites she controlled remotely. Despite astonishing skill akin to that just displayed by Jealousy, Marius was recaptured at about the same time she was captured. Monarch told Marius that she couldn't reach "Mom", as she called Jealousy, and that her nanites had gotten fried. Marius' captors were quite impressed by his efforts, and they asked him if he were an electrokinetic. He said, truthfully, that he wasn't. They kept him unconscious just as their compatriots kept Jealousy unconscious. Both were handed over, separately, to the grabbers' employer.

This turned out to be the alien faction they had been sent to lure in, finally taking the bait. This faction had not actually been behind the earlier attempts on Marius, but those attempts had led the aliens to Marius and Jealousy.

The prisoners were interrogated separately and not gently. Marius managed to convince his unseen captors that he knew nothing. Josh blew his roll for Jealousy and decided that she blurted out, "Oh, so -that's- what this is about!" We agreed that this was more stylish and better suited to character and campaign than simply breaking under torture.

Marius' captors eventually agreed that he really knew nothing.

Marius: Does this mean you'll release me?

His captors said that they'd have to hold him for an indefinite period of time, and they did something to make him lose consciousness. As he blacked out, Marius realized with dismay that he might actually get bored.

When Marius regained consciousness, he was no longer restrained, and the door to the room was open. He was dubious, but left the room. He passed many other rooms, and found several corpses.

In another part of the base, Jealousy had also been rendered unconscious and had also woken to find herself at liberty. She followed a similar trail of corpses and found Marius.

Jealousy: How would you sneak on board a space station?

Marius: What?

Jealousy: Prove that you're you!

Marius: Your daughter's worried sick about you.

Jealousy had been going for an answer to her question, which should have been, "With a Boys Band". However, she decided that Marius' answer was good enough.

The carnage to the base had been caused by Marius and Jealousy's backup, Gerint. All of it. He had also released the prisoners before leaving. Marius and Jealousy were duly impressed.

As Beth explained when reading an early draft of this memo, she consistently rolled too well for the opposition for Marius and Jealousy to escape, and it made no sense to have incompetent opposition. Gerint was a GM hole card, designed for exactly such a case. As her email says, Gerint let her

play the opponents as not making any mistakes without screwing the PCs too much. Gerint being able to do what he could do wasn't a 
mistake on their part; it was just lack of information: they didn't know the PCs had that sort of backup (shapeshifting alien, 
physically powerful, mentally equipped by Psychology, and trained and physically equipped by the Scouts). BTB, the PCs had 
need-to-know clearance for seeing him operate, but at no time did they acquire any need to know any of it. 

In any case, Jealousy contacted Monarch, much to Monarch's relief. Monarch was having a perfectly understandable case of separation anxiety. As she pointed out, Jealousy and Marius were the only two people who knew she existed.

After Federation forces moved into and Marius and Jealousy returned from the alien base, Marius let Zy know that he was all right, but couldn't say more. He decided to try to contact the people who grabbed him, having the oddly quioxtic urge to give them what warning he could without telling them what was going on. One of the grabbers met him, and he managed to get across that the Federation was taking something related to the grabbing quite seriously, that it wasn't something to get involved in, and that there was a reason he'd almost escaped, despite not being an electrokinetic. The grabber was a bit bemused, but recognized that Marius was sincerely trying to help. He offered to reciprocate by spreading the word that Jealousy and Marius were too much trouble to take on. Marius accepted the offer, with gratitude.

Meanwhile, Jealousy made some progress in her investigation into the incompetent attacks on Marius, finding out that there was an open contract to deliver him alive to a place to be specified when the person who put out the contract was contacted through secure channels. Marius was willing to play bait, but Jealousy vetoed this. As Monarch pointed out, the person wanting Marius alive might just want to shoot the doctor him or herself. Jealousy established an identity for herself as an opportunistic bounty hunter and Marius as her henchthug, then sent a message that Marius had been captured.

The person who had put out the contract arrived, with his own henchthugs in tow. He had been one of the people whose corporation had tried to find out the cause of the epidemic that had hit the planet independently, so that it could market the cure first, and he had made enough of the decisions about the various illegal acts employees took that he was one of the scapegoats of his corporation. It was even possible that the higher ups in this corporation disapproved of his shennanigans, and not just because he got caught.

Regardless, he bore a personal grudge against Marius. As Dr. Lecks did not work for any corporation, the man considered his interference utterly unwarranted, and he hoped to make his point by breaking every bone in Marius' body.

Beth: Including the little ones in the ear.

Marius was full of contempt once he learned this, considering the man an idiot who blamed others for his own stupidity and lack of ethics. The man also wanted Zy Blan dead, but that was nothing personal. Zy worked for a rival corporation, so she had a reason for interfering.

Marius took the man's intent towards Zy personally, and I told Beth that he was now morally outraged. This would have given him a bonus die on rolls involving empathy, but Marius settled for using his blaster to stun the man. The henchthugs fell unconscious when they opened the box that supposedly contained Marius and breathed the gas Jealousy had rigged up. Man and thugs were turned over to the authorities and eventually sentenced to rehab, aka brainwashing. Marius wondered about the family of the man. Jealousy did some research, learning that the man's wife had left him and taken the kids when she realized her husband was fixated on blaming others for his screw ups.