The McGuffin
-An extensive set of documents on Aegis, Ono-sendai, and Caduceus's research into nanotechnology. With it, a lot of money, and a lot of time, a well-equipped lab could create nanobots of their own. Or, for not
nearly so much money and time, a well equipped lab can use it and a sample of nanobots to make their own. It does
not contain the information on how to make Chimerae.
Mission/Log 1: "Jenny Mnemonic"
Jennifer completes a delivery of some data to a perfectly normal Ono-Sendai base. Then, Chimera attack! Her clients escape through a secret subway tunnel, leaving her to face the music on her own-but in their haste, they leave Cethlenn behind, and Jen is able to get into it to effect an escape! Cethlenn makes her its core, which when the Aegis units show up leaves her in the awkward position of being in a stolen mech that's keyed to only be usable by her. Also, she stole it.
Cethlenn's thought-control makes her a capable combatant, but it's small and armed only with a pistol and an extra clip; at 9 rounds per clip, that's going to be a problem. Until Jen figures out how to use the nanotech stuff (is told it exists), it operates on auto mode, replenishing ammo and health instead of doing anything fancy.
One of the Ono-Sendai scientists escapes with a complete copy of the data off of Jen's head.
Post-mission post-Jen is placed on leave from her company, as until she's able to get that data off her head she's not able to carry out her day to day duties. However, they set her up with the Unity Group and a company that helps organize independent contractors, so she can still get work. It's just...mecha-combat work, not jogging.
2-It Begins
The Unity Group is called in to deal with a situation in a coastal city; terrorists are attacking the nuclear power plant! They're a bunch of elite mooks led by DOOMSTAR, their mecha with specs on par with Jen's Cethlenn-though they lack the nanobot wizardry she has.
While the theft goes on, the terrorist leader gives everyone a call to explain things: He is VIPER COMMANDER, and he's hiring. Sign up now, and you'll get a piece of australia all to yourself once he takes over the world. (Sydney, specifically.)
The team has to try to prevent Doomstar from breaking apart the nuclear reactor and causing a massive radiological disaster! However, this is a distraction from the true goal of the plan: While Doomstar and some of the mooks do their thing, others spirit away unused nuclear fuel, and escape to the waiting-and massive-
Doggerland out at sea. Doomstar does so as well, though she'll need a ride if the protagonist team manages to down her robot. As for the mooks, they resist interrogation extremely well.
3-It Continues
VIPER forces appear again, attacking another nuclear power plant! This time their little misdirection trick from before won't work, so they commit more serious forces to the fight: Jennifer "Evil Jen" Douglass, one of willis's exes, and the ninja Apogee 13, alongside their mook forces. VIPER's had some time to do research on the various Unity group members, and offers deals designed for each of the people present-but through imperfect information on their part, and HEROIC WILLPOWER on our PCs part, team hero resists the temptations of evil and faces them down!
...Except Jen. After getting somewhat beat up in the fight and offered a LOT of money to work with VIPER, she accepts their deal, and becomes an enemy combatant. She focuses her attack on Willis-but, as evil jen points out he "gets better", she's required to prove her loyalty by attacking the rest of the team.
4-Pattern Recognition
Sakihama base receives an encoded transmission that warns of an immediate attack; fifteen minutes later, the missiles start landing. The Sundaland and Zealandia, sister ships to the Doggerland from before, are attacking with their full mecha complement. Evil Jen, Traitor Jen, Apogee 13, 4 Julias, and a horde of mooks all take to the fight, betting on dealing a serious blow to the Unity Group at a (supposedly) understaffed base.
However, the Unity Group's had time to prepare and move mecha over via ESUN device, and so the surprise attack does not provide the advantage it was supposed to. Hampering VIPER's attack further, Traitor Jen starts shooting their men, as she reveals betraying the Unity group was all a setup so she could steal most of VIPER's money; "The unity group pays bad, and you pay better, but this pays best of all." There is another reason, as well-during the time she spent working for them, Jen found out that nearly all of the VIPER commandos are people who've had their brains hacked via nanorobots, and are VIPER commander's loyal slaves. The term "Furniture" might be used. This is a shock to Doomstar, who trusted VIPER commander when he said he was only using that technology on animals. Also, she just thought all the grunts were really dedicated. Doomstar is not clever in this regard.
The fighting's intense, but team hero is able to push them back; Apogee 13 and Evil Jen escape, while this proves to be the Julia's last stand. The Doggerland is sunk before it can escape; between it, Jen's theft of half of their financial reserves, and the loss of the Prima Materia, VIPER's suffered its first-and greatest-defeat. Doomstar will be upset and disturbed, but refuses to work with team hero/insists they are lying, sticks with and retreats with the other VIPER forces.
5-Desert Bus
VIPER activity is detected again, this time out in the middle east. They've got a strong fortress set up in a canyon, and tons of defences against aerial attacks, so team Hero's going to have to come in a side branch of the canyon towards the base.
When they get there, it turns out that not only is the base itself mobile, it can shift somewhat to a massive robot! It and Doomstar engage the heroes. When the fight starts to go badly, Julia activates their plan of attack early-five long-range missiles launched from the base's back, each armed with a payload of deadly nanobot plague. Team hero has to shoot down those missiles, beat Doomstar, and destroy the base. This is the last stand for Doomstar, who can be captured or killed.
Getting all the missiles is the skill point here; if team hero fails in that, nanobot treatments from the Caduceus people will be able to stop a a massive cataclysm, but it's not gonna be pretty.
6-Running In The 90s
Jen's out enjoying a night on the town, probably with some male companionship, when ninjas attack and start to ruin everything.
It's Apogee 13, and she's brought along an assortment of mooks to help her with her mission: Kill Jen. Furthermore, they've brought a large modified cargo plane, covered in anti-beam coating; it's armed with a powerful laser cannon, which operates on hard-ish SF rules. It's hitscan, can be used to shoot down incoming physical projectiles and missiles, and as long as they have a spotter on the ground they can shoot through buildings. What follows is a running fight through the city.
Apogee 13 retreats, but the plane is defeated for good here.
7-Finale
Volcano Cannon: Fight to shore, fight up mountain into base, fight inside base, Jen v
jen ninja atop a projectile, Willis V Viper Commander normally
After a lot of searching and tracking, we've finally found VIPER's headquarters! It's a small island with all the classic evil lair qualities; volcano, jungle, beautiful sandy beach, extensive base underground. It has a special surprise though; the barrel of a massive cannon juts out from the volcano, like the whole island's an artillery piece or something.
Intense fighting happens as soon as Team Hero approaches the island. The one surviving submersible aircraft carrier and final Julia are the first barrier, trying to shoot down the shuttle as it comes in. Thankfully, the shuttle pilot is
really good, so team hero can make landfall. From there it's a rough fight up through the jungle and into the base, where the other bosses await.
The cannon, it turns out, is part of an extensive series of modifications to the island. Once perfected, it will be able to fire a ball of lava almost anywhere in the world; as the projectile flies through the air, it will change shape via nanobots to glide to the target, using data from orbiting satellites to change course as necessary. When it finally strikes, it'll have immense destructive power, enough to destroy even a fortified base in one shot.
Jen and
Evil Jen's Apogee 13's fight takes them inside the firing chamber of the cannon, which VIPER commander fires towards Hong Kong (unaware that anyone's inside); Jen has to then finish her duel and deflect the massive ball of rock before it impacts. Meanwhile, everyone else has to finish off Viper Commander,
Apogee 13, Julia, the mooks, and escape the inevitable base self-destruct sequence/volcanic eruption (Viper commander is a load-bearing boss).
CharactersJulia Cantor(s)-The Massively Redundant Woman. The scientist Jen met. Thanks to nanotechnology, they've been able to construct fully-grown replicas of her body, down to the last atom-cloning, without all that mess of waiting for someone to grow up. The clones are then linked together using implants at the base of their skull, allowing them functional telepathy and a sort of hive mind. Due to the time and energy involved in the process, there are only about 15 Julias at any given time.
Julia is entirely devoted to VIPER commander, and very much in love with him. Two or three Julias are hanging off of him at all times, when they're not needed for combat. She's usually in charge of bases, ships, fortresses and the like-her units include the various subs, desert base, and the Apollon laser plane. During mission 4 she has one "proper" unit, the Prima Materia.
Julia's the kind of person who'd go burn down an orphanage to keep her K/D ratio good; after all, if you've died more times than you've killed, that's just embarrassing.
Apogee 13-The Cyborg NinjaA ninja. Apogee 13 works for VIPER Commander because she admires his vision of the world; a world where Great Men (though not always male) shape the day, not shackled by the will of the petty masses! Also, he's been kind to her, and killing people is what she does.
Apogee pilots
a 30m unit and uses the nanobots provided to her as an area fog or mist. They fill the battle arena, allowing her to sense an enemy's move by feel as they disturb the nanobots in the air with their attack. Furthermore, they can refract and alter light so as to make her vanish, blind an opponent, or appear to have hazy duplicates. They're the perfect tool for a ninja.
Her real strength is her combat ability; while the nanobots are powerful, she is a world-class master of combat with swords and firearms. Her unit uses two powerful pistols and a single katana, sharpened to a monomolecular edge; energy weapons would burn away her nanobots, which are already spread pretty thin. Despite being 30m tall and carrying durable armor for its size, she's able to make her unit move as fast as Jen's Cethlenn. It's slower than the Upgraded Cethlenn, but still far more durable-and Apogee 13 has much more combat experience than Jen, or really almost anyone on the earth. She's in the running for "Deadliest woman in history", and puts it on her business cards. Tends to fight using a long monofilament wire whip hidden in a ring, when she does combat on-foot.
Viper Commander-He's the boss. DA BAWS!A mysterious man in a mask, he's been part of assorted international acts of terrorism for the past ten years. He's a genius scientist in almost all fields, but has never stepped into the limelight before. See Cobra Commander in GI Joe Retaliation ("Everybody wants to rule the world") or Ruroni Kenshin's Makoto Shishio for an idea of what he looks like. Personality wise, he kind of doesn't really give a fuck, but he's having fun being a comic-book supervillain and taking over the world sounds just great. Very much in love with Julia, though he's somewhat affectionate with Doomstar and Traitor Jen. Gets gradually more angry with team hero as they variously 1) wreck his plans 2) steal his money 3) kill his girlfriend, several times over. Still, he's not outwardly mad; he'll just have to turn them all into loyal, loving servants, and it'll be okay. Takes to the field in the final mission, still need to work out exactly what his thing is.
Evil Jen-The Evil Sexy Lady, Military one
See Willis's app for details. Basically Good Jen's rival, and Traitor Jen's mentor (until she becomes good jen again)
Doomstar-The Crazy OneIf Snowflame was a lady, this is what you'd get. A pharmacological genius, Doomstar (real name unknown) has twisted the use of nanotechnology to making crazy, crazy drugs. She tends not to think about the consequences of her actions, and since Viper Commander gives her all the tools she needs to do her research she's more than happy to do what he wants. Aspiring thrash metal artist.
In combat, her unit is a
30m brute with bulging biceps and a hulking frame; her knowledge of biotechnology has let her give it more effective (and eeriely organic) musculature than most units its size. It's not extremely fast, but it packs a nasty serrated sword that drips with pink fluid; this is a special strain of nanobot designed to breakdown and hamper enemy mecha systems. Effectively, it's poison for giant robots. She tends to keep most of her nanobots focused on regeneration and the poison sword, making her unit really, really hard to keep down. Her unit also mounts a flak cannon in the chest; the damage is not so great, as the shrapnel doesn't do too much against modern armor, but it's dangerous for lightly-armored robots, and each bit of the shrapnel carries the same nanobot debuff as her sword.
Viper CommandosThe default enemy mook pilots. They're moderately good, but only a bit better than generic soldiers. However, their physical abilities are ridiculous; nanotech augmentations mean they're physically on par with, if not superior to, the best atheletes in the world. They heal fast, like Willis or Jen, and are immune to most poisons. They've got some extra mods that those two don't, however; they are capable of only limited independent thought, and will rapidly become catatonic if captured. The shot of nanotech that they got robbed them of their free will, making them fanatically loyal to VIPER and its leaders, no matter what they may have believed first.
Since they can be replaced with any random hobo off the and a fairly quick medical procedure, they're not treated particularly well. Sometimes they're called 'Furniture' by the commanders. Because they're transformed to their current state by offensive nanotechnology, Jen and Willis (and Evil Jen, for that matter) are immune to the transformation/mind control procedure.
Their units are mass-produced knockoff (or pirate) versions of the Aegis defense Systems Formor; they're the MP variant of Jen's Cethlenn. While not capable of doing nanobot wizardry, they have extra thrusters and come with rifles starting out. Their durability and strength's just as good as her unit's. They lack the grappling hooks of Cethlenn, because why do that when you can airdash.
Enemy units not detailed above:
Submersible Aircraft Carrier ( Zealandia, Kerguelen, and Doggerland)
It's a sub. That launches robots! Not much more to that there. They've also got a number of missile tubes. Note that they're large, almost capital-ship size.
Terrestrial Mobile Factory "Forgemaster"A nanotechnology-enhanced factory and mobile command post, with armor and weapons aplenty. It'll repair enemy units damaged mid-fight, and serves as a boss unit for the fight. It's also home to a set of ten long-range ballistic missiles which VIPER plans to shoot into europe with a deadly nanotech plague.
Aerial Laser Platform "Apollon"A large cargo plane that's been modified to an odd kind of gunship; the Appollon mounts machine guns and missile batteries in what was once its storage hold. It's a massive flying target, but it has the same kind of dimandoid armor as Strahlend and Cethlenn, with an added anti-beam coating. Further enhancing its defences is its primary weapon, a powerful laser pulse laser cannon that gives the plane its name.
This weapons system is most similar to the Laser-class BETA's, well, laser; it appears as a blue-ish white beam of light and travels at the speed of light. When it hits, it's effect is akin to having a spear of heat shoved through the target. Each nanosecond-scale pulse blasts off a tiny bit of the target, which quickly dissipates; then another pulse comes through, blasting off the next bit, etc, etc. The damage adds up to have it drill through a tank in a fraction of a second. Apollon can use the mooks in the mission as spotters, allowing it to shoot through buildings at Our Heroes. It's also a powerful defensive weapon, as the laser can be used in a point-defence mode to shoot down incoming projectiles and missiles.
Apollon is not without weakness; that laser cannon is only 80% efficient or so, and all that waste heat's gotta go somewhere. Radiator panels cover the entire top surface of the plane, and during protracted combat will begin to glow a dull red. If the radiators are damaged or destroyed, it'll slow down and eventually stop entirely the laser's rate of fire. Additionally, the laser system is its own achilles heel; if someone can shine their own laser into the Apollon's beam as it focuses on them, the Apollon's mirrors and focusing mechanisms will boost the damage of the incoming laser by about an order of magnitude.
It takes the role of air support for VIPER forces during the mission, using its artillery and extremely accurate laser fire to damage or herd the PCs. Appearance wise, it's a C-130 bearing the nose-turret from the Mobile Airborne Laser project.
Prima Materia-One of, if not the most powerful mecha in VIPER's arsenal, the Prima Materia in its non-combat state looks like a large metallic sphere, some 40m in diameter. Its construction consists of a cockpit/core, surrounded by a metallic fluid; this fluid is made up of the Prima Materia's nanobots, holding together microscopic pieces of normal metal.
The fluid can change shape as required, forming arms, claws, knives, legs, etc. It's also capable of forming into energy weapons, guns, and rocket boosters. Since the Prima Materia runs off the UIIN V2 system, contact is not required for the nanobots to communicate with each other. This makes it extremely difficult to damage; bludgeoning attacks have their impact deadened by the liquid, slicing attacks have the dismembered part just crawl back to the whole, and piercing attacks won't do anything more than get your sword stuck inside it. Energy weapons are effective at burning away the nanobots, but they can reconstitute themselves by devouring nearby materials. Its one weak point is the cockpit-which can be difficult to find, and has some armor of its own on top of that provided by the nanobots-but, if you can pierce it and kill Julia, it dies.
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