Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega: Part 4: The Decks of the Warden

The Warden is a vast slab of metal, ungainly yet somehow majestic. Within, there are nine main decks and a labyrinth of interdeck passages, spaces, and sub-decks. Even the outer hull of the great vessel is bristling with blisters, turrets, and domes that are, in effect, their own decks. Lift tubes run to every part of the ship, carrying passengers in small cars, traversing the length of the ship in minutes. For shorter trips, ladder tubes and stairwells are located in many locations. It may be vast, but Warden was designed to be accessible. Accessible to those with the proper credentials, that is.

The entrances to all these tubes and access ways are airtight and kept sealed unless they are presented with authorization. In the days of the original crew, this simply involved being recognized by the Warden’s omnipresent AI. Now, of course, the AI recognizes a scant few authorized personnel, at least until the back-up crew is on duty.

The majority of the life on Warden that is ambulatory and awake exists on its nine vast decks. Each was designed to prevent space madness caused by the constant claustrophobic knowledge that the world of the Warden was a relatively tiny mote in a great cosmic void. 

Pains were taken to conceal the walls and ceiling of each inhabited deck with appropriate holographic camouflage, giving the illusion of unlimited room to move and a living, dynamic world. Of course, the original crew and passengers were aware the Warden was merely a ship, but the illusion helped ameliorate that. And ameliorate it the camouflage did; very few cases of space madness ever manifested themselves.

The nine decks of the Warden each have their own function and, where appropriate, ecology. After a number of traumatic centuries, though, some of those functions and ecologies have changed, in some cases drastically.

The decks of the Starship Warden. The quality isn't great, but it gives you the general idea.

Deck Nine is the main cargo space of Warden. A seemingly ceaseless maze of pallets, shelving, warehouses, and horticultural stations, this entire deck hums with robotic activity. Even during its most chaotic times, the ship’s autonomic routines kept every area supplied with everything from foodstuffs to axel grease. In addition, raw materials procured from beyond Warden’s confines are brought onboard here by robotic mining and survey craft to be processed and stored. Most importantly to the ship’s original mission, the bulk of the cryogenic storage facilities are located here, housing genetic samples and full-grown specimens of humans, animals, and plants. These facilities were hard-hit by the radiation the Warden passed through centuries ago, decanting a stream of strangely mutated creatures.

Deck Eight is the factory deck, taking the raw materials of deck nine and manufacturing all the complex parts, tools, machinery, and automatons that kept the ship running. Sometime in the lost centuries, the deck was overrun by tropical flora and fauna, and the ship’s AI adjusted the atmosphere here to accommodate it. The resulting heat and thick humidity caused the factories here to gradually break down, with Warden’s androids and robots working ‘round-the-clock to keep at least a few of them online, if only to build more androids and robots. The city built on this deck to house the factory workers has been long abandoned, overgrown and rusting.

Deck Seven is the farm deck. One of the more climatically pleasant decks, with rolling land and verdant green, spangled with quaint farmhouses and processing plants built to look like old-fashioned barns. Though it looks like a rustic idyll, this deck was as affected by the turmoil of the past centuries as any, and intruders would do well to be on guard.

Deck Six is colloquially known as the jungle deck. In fact, it is a rainforest deck, consisting of the thick green flora of equatorial Africa and the Amazon, as well as the coniferous trees of the Pacific Northwest. The ship’s enviro controls make the transition from a tropical climate to a cooler temperate one gradual. This deck is riotous with life, the most vibrant deck on the Warden. Intelligent plants have effectively claimed this deck for their own, but animal life is abundant, including small tribal cultures of intelligent species.

Also present on deck six, except from outside, is an alien vessel that has attached itself to Warden via a number of tendrils or tentacles that burrowed their way through the ship’s massive metal side. Designated the Tick Shallop by the Warden’s AI, this vessel is a mystery. No record of its arrival, subsequent attachment, or the presence of any crew can be found in the AI’s memory banks.

The Tick Shallop, mysterious alien intruder vessel attached to Warden's hull.

Deck Five is the ranch deck. The livestock here – cattle, swine, poultry, etc. – was intended as an alternative source of fresh genetic stock. While the slaughter of animals for meat had long since been obviated by the generation of meat via carno-replicators, there was still a call for variation in the genetic material used for replication. Unfortunately, the replicators and their genetic samples were particularly vulnerable to the radiation belt the Warden passed through. Now, the deck is overrun by strange amalgamations of humans and horses, humanoid cattle, and intelligent forms of every type of animal to be found on the deck, from pigs to ducks.

Deck Four is the water deck. Huge reservoirs of fresh and salt water are found here, with the attendant purification and waste reclamation equipment. While the source of the ship’s water, it is also a preserve for various aquatic environments. There are also islands scattered in a pleasant distribution. These are used as preserves for appropriate flora and fauna, as well as recreation for the crew and passengers. While the water helped serve as a barrier for a good part of the radiation that engulfed the Warden, there is still a spectrum of mutations to be found here, though many are subtle and difficult to detect.

Deck Three was another cargo space for the Warden. The difference between this deck and deck nine is that deck three contained much of the terraforming equipment used on the planets that were Warden’s destination. While the prefab cities and factories were offloaded and put into place, they were intended to be replaced onboard the Warden by new construction produced by the facilities on deck eight. With that deck’s production facilities brought to a virtual standstill, deck three now lays mostly empty. That includes atmospherically, as well over a century ago a meteor managed to make its way past Warden’s point-defense systems, creating a hull breach that evacuated the atmosphere here before the crippled AI could halt it. While the hull breach has been long repaired, the AI decided to not waste resources on pumping in new atmosphere. After all, with so much of the ship’s complement dead or hostile, the fewer places usable as bases for hostile mutants, the better.

Deck Two is the wilderness deck. The climate and terrain is much like that of Yosemite, and the deck once served as a haven for those people on the Warden who sought the solace of rugged uplands. This deck ended up being one of the most war-torn sections of the ship during the worst of the chaotic years. The most evil of the mutant factions ended up destroying each other and themselves, leaving the deck to the sapients who wanted nothing to do with any faction. In the intervening years, the deck has become a true howling wilderness, with isolated homesteads and rustic villages of mutants and non-mutants standing as points of civilization continually besieged by hostile monsters and remnants of the factions that once dominated the deck.

Deck One, or the Command Deck, isn’t a deck, per se. It’s the topside of Warden, and consists of several domes or protrusions on the ship. These range from the large, clear-domed city and garden domes, to the blisters of the observation domes, to the outrigger-like Command Nucleus. The remnants of what life on Warden was like before the radiation disaster can generally be found in these areas.

This overview is to give a taste of what's to come. I tweaked a good bit of it from the original source material to suit my taste. 

Next: Part 5: Deck Nine: Cargo Deck

Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega: Part 3: The Synners

TSR's short-lived "generic" roleplaying game system, Amazing Engine, tried to cover a lot of science-fictional ground in its two-year run. Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega was only outshone by Bughunters as my favorite setting published for the game.

This really tells you all you need to know about Bughunters.

Without a doubt, this is a pastiche of the Alien/Aliens universe. It doesn't focus on one type of xenomorph that threatens to overrun the universe, but it has the same dystopic, horror-movie vibe. Enhanced clones are the sharp edge of a spacefaring sword that stands between humanity and extinction. I decided to borrow only a single element, a concept, really, from the Bughunters setting for this Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega campaign I'm outlining, while rewriting much of the original premise or origin story. Bring on the Synners.

Humanity rushed towards the singularity with open arms. As humans grew increasingly cybernetically close and connected to each other, the medium of that closeness became ever-invasive. Gadgets became increasingly portable, and finally made the leap into ultimate portability by merging with the human body itself. The human species skirted the edge of becoming a true hivemind.

For the first time, some of humanity's worst traits, greed and self-centeredness, served it well. The pushback began slowly, as an increasing number began to realize that sacrificing their individuality to become a mote in a vast intelligence was too high a price to pay for convenience. By that time, though, hacking of implanted technology had reached epidemic proportions, though it had gone largely undetected. Governments, corporations, and a disheartening number of malicious individuals had exploited security breaches in the software and hardware implanted in a large portion of the world population. They subtly maneuvered via these breaches, nudging their victims further into a pliable mass of thralls willingly ceding their freedom and possessions to the "greater whole." The revolution started in one of the boltholes of the great electronic net that engulfed the world, in an online community that was a remnant or echo of the message boards of the old internet. Security breaches can work many ways, and suddenly, on a Thursday afternoon, irrefutable proof of a multi-pronged and often infighting conspiracy to enslave the human race was revealed to all, dumped in a stunning cybernetic flash into every implant and device on Earth. By the end of that Thursday, millions were dead, and even more millions left crippled. Governments fell, corporations dissolved, and rebel movements began. The damage was massive, but humanity as a whole was given a chance to take back its individuality.

Armies had been among the early adopters of implanted technology. The chaos of what would eventually be called the Great Log-Off saw militaries thrown into disarray, going rogue, or being seized by hackers. When the dust settled, most of the armies of the world were left as shadows of themselves, with only the most powerful left with any ability to fulfill their one-time mandate to defend their home countries.

An obscure biotech company suddenly shot to prominence. Teetering on bankruptcy when that fateful Thursday began, it found its stock hitting the stratosphere by Friday afternoon. For the better part of a decade it had lobbied defense departments the world over to fund a project that was often derided as unnecessary, and even backwards, in the age of cybernetically-augmented soldiers: fully biological enhanced clones.  A project that had been on the verge of shutdown one day was being rushed into field testing the next.

The project was for the development of what was termed Synthetically Derived Proprietary Personnel. Volunteers would be paid to have themselves cloned, and their memories given to the clones. The original person, or Non-Proprietary Personnel, would be able to go on about their lives, with a sizable payment for a few days of discomfort during an admittedly risky procedure. The clones would be automatically enlisted in the military. Everyone rationalized that it wasn't slavery; after all, the original donor willingly and without coercion had donated not just their genetic material, but also their memories and personality to the clone. In essence, the clone was simply an appendage of the original person, an appendage being donated to the military. The clone would know this, of course, and remember the agreement. Most of the individual donors were also military personnel. They were chosen for their loyalty and sense of duty. Regardless, lawyers had already begun choosing sides and biding their time.

From a practical standpoint, the memories and personalities were needed to fill a void. The clones were force-grown to peak physical maturity and enhanced by a battery of chemical and material injections. Bones were reinforced by flexible ceramic, muscles strengthened by enhanced fibrous therapies, skin thickened with genetically-modified dermal coatings, and organs surrounded and cushioned by ballistic bio-gel. But the minds of new-grown clones were empty, not even with the cognitive abilities of a newborn. Legal systems around the world and beyond it would wrangle over the implications in the time to come, but for now these empty brains would be etched with the personalities of the genetic donors.

Initially, the project was a ringing success. The clones were easily, and often eagerly, organized into armies. Unfettered by vulnerable implants and trained extensively in classic military tactics, the clones were tough to corrupt and even tougher to defeat on the field of battle. The renegade cybernetic armies and rogue cyberpunks were met in battle after battle, and rooted out, destroyed, or imprisoned. The new clone armies were hailed as heroes as they returned order and security. They became the darlings of a new, less-invasive media, which had quickly discarded the awkward and vaguely ominous-sounding Synthetically Derived Proprietary Personnel label.

They were now the Synners.

As the world rebuilt and technology receded back to early-21st-century paradigms - with a bit more awareness of how a little separateness was a good thing - the Synners became the backbone of security forces around the world. Years passed, and the world, returning to a peaceful norm, began to look more closely at the Synners. Or, rather, their plight.

A relatively small percentage of Synners had developed psychological problems from the beginning. Depression was the most common malady, as questions about their individuality became a looming existential internal debate. Add to this the growing awareness of the fact that mankind had grown a large number of people who were denied individual rights and treated as property. Eventually, it all came to a head, and massive civil protests eventually overwhelmed any legal maneuvering to cause governments worldwide to declare the Synners as full-status human beings.

It should be noted that peacetime militaries normally need to draw down the numbers of their ranks. So, too, did these armies of the future began to muster out personnel they could no longer afford to keep on payroll, including the Synners. The Synners were offered pensions and the option of homesteading land on the terraformed colonies and artificial living environments now being placed all through the Solar System. These off-world options were unusually generous in their scope: tax-free, and copious in the amount of property granted. It could be forgiven if more than a few Synners began to feel that if they weren't exactly being forced to leave Earth, they weren't being given much incentive to stay.

As the Synners moved off-world in increasing numbers, there was also a certain amount of restlessness among them. Freed from their servitude and with no families and friends of their own - but with families and friends they vividly recalled but were not really connected to - as well as subtly pushed off the home planet, many felt aimless and adrift. Deep down, many, if not the vast majority, found themselves longing for the stability and camaraderie of the military life.

Quiet messages began to find their way into the inboxes of most of the Synners. A new unit was being formed. Top Secret in nature, with even those agreeing to participate not knowing the exact mission, the recruitment targeted the best of an already elite group. 

Around this time, the attention of the Solar System was drawn to the interstellar colonial project being readied. The vast generation ships needed security teams, both for shipboard life and for the prospective colonies. Armies weren't going to be needed in these new worlds, but police forces for the odd few miscreants that always crop up were necessary. Many Synners applied for inclusion in these police forces, as well as the ranks of simple colonists. The fact that any and all Synners applying for the interstellar voyage were accepted escaped the notice of everyone. After all, they were just people, like anyone else, according to law. But the slow, subtle diaspora of Synners from the Earth to the hinterlands of the Solar System now clearly was headed even farther out, quietly shoved away by the powers-that-be who were quite aware of the danger of elite super-soldiers given little to do in a world where war was receding into the history books.

But even most of the powers-that-be were unaware of the battalion-sized number of Synners in cryogenic storage that had been loaded into an interdeck space once intended for a maintenance storage area, as well as the oddly military-style equipment storage bins crammed in with them. The idealistic notion of humans dispensing with the need for a military was a good one; many, however, felt that there needed to be some military presence sent along on the voyage, if only to provide training and organization just in case something untoward happened. Those dissenters were shouted down, of course, by a civilian government weary of any hint of war. But the military had participated in the construction of the massive colony vessels, and requested design changes in the great ships usually entailing maximizing storage facilities and extra life support systems. Unlike their counterparts in the crews of the colony ships, the Synners in storage volunteered for a military mission beyond any they'd ever known before, a mission kept in strictest secrecy. When they awaken, not even their brother and sister Synners among the colonists will be permitted to stand in the way of that mission.

Next: Part 4: The Decks of the Warden

Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega: Part 2: Destination and Mission

The Warden slid into a parking orbit as it arrived at its destination. Automated systems separate from the fragmented AI began a long-awaited project: the terraforming of the major terrestrial planets of the targeted system.

The Warden’s programmed destination was the Xi Ursae Majoris system. The interstellar survey revealed a system with a variety of planetary bodies and a vast potential for wealth. It consisted of 12 planets: 5 were rocky, terrestrial planets; 7 were gas giants of varying size; and a pair of asteroid belts of suitable density. Two of the terrestrial planets were targeted for terraforming due to their almost Earth-like size, gravity, and orbital positions.

Scion occupies an orbit roughly comparable to that midway between Earth and Venus in the Solar System. It’s a warm, generally dry planet after terraforming, though large swaths of tropical areas lay near the equator. It has two moons.

Essence occupies an orbit that is the equivalent to about a third of the way from the Earth to Mars. Generally cooler than Earth, Warden’s terraforming equipment found it relatively easy to develop a lush, varied ecosystem. It has one moon.

In this alternative campaign, the Warden’s automated systems followed a scheduled command to begin terraforming the colony planets once the ship established a safe orbit and had sent drones to perform a survey. Due to the damage to the ship, only a portion of the terraforming equipment could be sent planetside at any given time. This increased the time required to terraform by a wide margin. Still, the robotic equipment had more than enough time to complete its work, and then some, due to the crippled ship's AI. 

The AI, deactivated in parts, damaged in others, and corrupted in still yet more areas, had numerous side projects and experiments begun on its own initiative, and, in some cases, completed after its main work was done. The fragments of the AI, each with its own agenda, personality, and relative sanity, rarely worked in tandem, and often battled each other for supremacy over Warden. Recently, the ship's AI was rebooted, and most of the fragments were reintegrated into a single whole. While each fragment's personality still exists, they work as a team...except for the shards of the AI that fled into hiding, fearing being absorbed into a greater singular intelligence. The potential bolt-holes are numerous, ranging from robots and androids to satellites and planetside facilities. The greater, mostly healed AI feels extraordinarily embarrassed at the loss of these "renegade" shards, as well as many of the "off the books" projects from before the reboot, and has set up a low-key search for all of these that it will only reveal if directly queried about them.
 

The Warden’s terraforming equipment has long since been recovered as the great ship swung about in its leisurely orbit around Xi Ursae Majoris. Robotic construction equipment has completed work on three major cities on each terraformed planet, with a ring of suburban towns and villages for each. One city on each terraformed planet is home to a spaceport. The robots have completed a network of highways that connect most of the main continents on their respective planets, though huge swaths of each world still remain far from a paved road. A halo of weather and communication satellites hovers about these planets, silently and patiently awaiting the day when they will be put to use. Parks, factories, farms, mines, and wilderness areas have been put in place, awaiting the colonists that should have arrived so long ago. Most of the surface of each colony planet still remains relatively untouched, besides terraforming them into human-friendly climates and ecosystems. The intention was for the colonists to decide on their own how to manage their new homes, with solid bases from which to work. 

These planets have been, and are, eerily silent of human activity, with the whir and clank of robotic maintenance the only sign that the human habitations are not long-dead cities scattered across their surfaces.

Except…

The ecosystems so carefully constructed on the planets consist of flora and fauna decanted from Warden's cryo storage and some of the ship's garden domes. Much of it would be easily recognizable as originating on Earth, with wolf packs howling across Essence's spectacular forested highlands as they pursue bison and elk, to the savannahs of Scion, home to teeming herds of antelope and elephants. Yet the radiation that mutated so much of Warden's shipboard life has also shown its effects on the planets. The jungles of Scion are plagued by loping carnivorous trees, and Essence's arctic is haunted by massive, gaunt humanoids with terrifying calls that seem to tear at the listener's sanity. Even more strange lifeforms have begun to manifest after centuries of change forced along by the after-effects of the radiation. As the plants and animals migrate and adapt to all corners of Scion and Essence, the mutations grow in number and strangeness.

When the colonists from Warden finally make planetfall, they will be confronted with worlds far different from the ones they were promised.

 Next: Part 3: The Synners