This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City. I used the Freestation Tethys template, rather than get wrapped up in designing different possible factions.
What follows is a chart of the rolls made, the cards drawn, and the following actions:
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
CEO Kennly was sitting alone in his dark office, his finger aimlessly brushing a pen back and forth across his desk. The slow and steady movement of his arm added to the uncanny stillness of the rest of his body gave him an air of focus. It turned what Yoli would have thought was the listlessness of despair into an air of deep thought.
Yoli stepped forward. The office was remarkably well kept, compared to the rest of the station; the former citizens of Tethys Megastation had not bothered keeping things orderly for their exodus.
Kennly looked up, his eyes sagging with exhaustion. “Ah,” he said at last. “I should have known.”
Yoli rubbed their arm. They didn’t know what to say. They knew how to ask questions, not express sympathy or urge action. After so many years of asking questions, they had lost the skill.
After a moment, Kennly leaned forward over his desk. “I suppose you want a quote.”
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
Yoli crouched down behind the bulkhead, listening to the gunfire echo down the thin hallways. The fighting was getting closer.
Taking a deep breath, Yoli turned their attention back to their hand-comp. The dispatch was simple enough — there wasn’t much to say — but as with every report, it was the details and context that mattered the most.
It had been a hellish month, filled with shouting, threats, and ultimately violence. The peace-talks had failed, with a coalition of Xenoethicists resisting all efforts to reach an accord. A series of trades and excuses had left everyone feeling betrayed, and at last a joint force of scientists and Homestation Defense had taken over the transit system from the station to the planet.
The Gleaners protested, of course, but no one cared about them much anymore. No, everyone paid attention to the Lifeboat Corp, who saw Homestation Defense’s seizure of planetary transit as a significant escalation. They retaliated in kind.
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
Yoli sat, staring at the four people sitting around the large conference table. The air was tense, even as the four settled, shuffling papers and positioning glasses of water. When Yoli had first entered the room, they thought the room felt big, compared to the familiar cozy to cramped design of the rest of the Megastation. Now, the whole space seemed tight, filled almost to bursting with people.
Yoli licked their lips as they looked back at their hand-comp for a seventh time. Their notes hadn’t changed. The facts were clear and unassailable; Tethys was being torn apart by infighting. The fact that the talks were even colloquially called “peace-talks” said it all. While no violence had occurred, the different factions in Tethys were bearing their teeth and flexing their muscles in ostentatious displays that could only lead to one place.
These talks were supposed to end all that, and Yoli was here to record it all.
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
Yoli pressed play on their hand-comp again, replaying the speech from the beginning. It was a bothersome chore, but Yoli had heard enough political speeches that they had learned how to quickly pick out the important clues from seas of platitudes.
And there were a lot of platitudes. The newly elected Chief of the Lifeboat Corp, Henne Loann, had used their victory speech to express their intended manifesto for the future of Tethys Station, and it had not gone over well.
Most of what she said had been the same banal assertions of maintaining the station and fulfilling their duties to all who lived on it, but some fool on her team had ignored the political situation. Any other year, the speech might have flown; this year, her constant reminders of the importance of the Lifeboat Corp read as condescending.
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
“Mr. Holss?”
The pepper-haired man looked up from his meal, setting down his knife and fork. “Yes, Ms…Yoli, was it? Have a seat.”
Yoli sat down, making sure their hand-comp was in full view of Mr. Holss. “I wondered if I could talk with you about —”
“Professor Morliss and her protests?” Holss nodded his head. “Certainly, certainly. I think she’s fear-mongering, of course. both myself personally and Fresh-Co officially denies her suppositions as baseless at best and absurd at worst.”
Yoli gave a weak smile. “Yes, I suppose you would. Actually, I’m here on a more recent matter. A source has informed me that you were officially replaced as Regional CEO of Fresh-Co at the last board-meeting. Any comments?”
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
Yoli’s head throbbed. Their eyelids struggled to remain open as they stared at the glowing comp-screen, the words blurring together in a mash of nouns and verbs. It was garbage, all of it. They wanted so desperately to trash the whole file and start again — properly, this time — but they had a deadline, and important things were happening. It didn’t take Yoli’s usual clever nose for news to smell that.
Tethys Station was one of the most important Megastations from the old era. Its history was fascinating, its culture complex, and its daily life a drudgery of monotonous ritual. There was good reason for that; Megastations were carefully balanced ecosystems. All stations were, but the Megastations were at a crucial tipping point: not so robust that they could withstand sustained damage, nor so fragile that they couldn’t support untrained personnel.
This story was made using the solo RPG Bright and Terrible, by Rose on Mars.
Bright and Terrible succeeds mostly through its simplicity. All in all, there are only three aspects to each crisis: two factions, one object of desire, and a twist. From there, the player is free to construct whatever challenge or story they see fit. While there is no rule that only one roll can be made for each crisis, I felt it fit well in the confines of an episodic narrative.
I’ve spoken before about my struggle between writing the story either during or after playing the whole game, and in this case I did a kind of hybrid: I rolled up the situation and wrote it down, leading the Exile to their climactic action. Once I had decided what they would do, I rolled the dice and wrote the chapter’s conclusion. I think this process worked well, as it gave me the chance to play with the situation before I knew whether I was writing a successful action or a failure.
As time passed, Atlantis continued to die.
I sank deeper and deeper into the depths. What mattered the Laws of the Firmament if there were no Shining Towers to uphold them? What sense was there in the Ways of the Spiral if there were no dancers to herald them? Who cared for the Honor of Being when there were no people to celebrate them?
Time continued to kill Atlantis, as I, the only one who remembered their great and terrible beauty, slowly felt the images fade in my mind. The Dance of the Spheres became blurry in my memory. The Morning Songs sung by the Avian Choir turned muted. The murals made by painting colored lights in the sky, mere shadows.
Seated once more on my throne, listening to the whispers of my trapped heretic, I spoke again with the Ophidian Sisters. I condemned them for their actions, and demanded recompense. As ever, they laughed and shook their scaly hair.
“Retribution for what, dear sibling? For giving you the spark of fire you needed to solve your dilemma? For giving you the strength to bend the Pirates to your will? For allowing you to end an ancient curse long since past its use? All has come to pass as the Mother-of-Serpents claimed it would.”
I spent many a day and night with the rock salt pillar. Inside was the mind of a heretic, a villain who had been cast out of Atlantis for crimes greater than any mortal could fathom. I should have been repulsed by it, shunned its mad ramblings and distant thoughts, but by the Shining Towers of Apazil, I could not find disgust in my heart.
I did not feel pity; I was not so far removed from Atlantis that I had forgotten myself. At most I felt regret for myself, that I had come so close to another Atlantean — Oh! — only to find nothing but this eroding soul, a mockery of a companion.
In my lonely madness, I even tried speaking to it. I do not know why I tried; perhaps I imagined the process was not irreversible, that I could bring this heathen back to lucid thoughts. Surely, if any could, it would be I, master of the hammer, diplomat, and changer-of-minds. But no, such dreams were folly, and I soon quit my efforts.
Yet I did not quit my madness; the pillar remained beside my throne, and the whispers of the trapped soul came to my mind every day. I knew not if it soothed my mind or made my loneliness worse, but I was compelled. I turned away servant and petitioner for many a month, consumed with thoughts both terrible and divine.
