Rise of LOKI Session 4: Mr LOKI, Tear Down This Wall!

Characters:

Arthur - Alphonso

Kirato - Fuegan: The Burning Lance

Hiro - Rex

Dropping Like Flies

Arthur triggered his Booster Jets and started forward, but the Cowboy that was watching the flank opened fire with an All-Out Attack from its pistols once he moved into the open, two bullets connecting through a storm of flares.  Arthur, slightly worse for wear, left it to get to the Knight, but the Cowboy followed him anyway, jumping out of the fog to shoot him some more from mid-air before landing.

Kirato, his AESIR on the brink of failure, decided to Overload his Reactor Core, and succeded; his mech went into overdrive, but the systems could only take 6 more seconds before shutting down.  The Knight stepped away from Hiro to face Arthur, and stunned him with a heavy blow from its sword, while the Melter missed Hiro with a burst of acid.  One Cowboy jumped to flank Kirato, shooting him twice, while the other shot Hiro from point-blank range.

After a brief discussion ("I can't All-Out Attack, I need to dodge!" "What's your dodge?" "Half of 9"), Kirato took out the Knight with his burst laser, landing all 7 shots, then spun and missed the flanking Cowboy.  The Melter continued stepping closer, and this time hit Hiro with acid spray, melting the rest of his DR away, which was followed by a trio of shots from a Cowboy.  The other Cowboy shot Kirato, but he didn't even feel it hanks to his overloaded reactor.

Kirato fired another two bursts at the flanking Cowboy, the first destroying its right leg with 5 hits and the second finishing it off with another 7.  Hiro, still prone, missed a shot at the Cowboy in front of him, and the Melter bathed him in another stream of acid that did enough damage to shut Rex down.  Arthur struggled to his feet, then got shot some more by the surviving Cowboy.  Kirato swapped to his pistol, and the Melter froze, then fell over, finally succumbing to the damage it had taken.

Arthur moved to attack the Cowboy, but it retreated, shooting him on the way; he wouldn't be able to catch it without Move and Attacking with Booster Jets.  Kirato moved into range and started hacking the Data Hub, securing access briefly only for his connection to be severed.  An electronic voice, similar to Fuegan, belittled him and humanity, stating that they should just accept their destruction that the world might survive.  Arthur Booster Jet'd to get the Cowboy, but missed, and it jumped away.

Kirato hacked back into the Data Hub, this time making it past LOKI and broadcasting the files back to base.  Even so, a text message came through his HUD telling him to enjoy these secrets if they were so important to him.  One of the files opened, clearly a schematic for an AESIR, but it was dated 5 years ago.  Before LOKI's uprising.

Now they just needed to punch a hole in the south seawall, so Arthur, realizing Kirato would never make it in time, started the long march.  The Cowboy disappeared in the fog, possibly to reload, and Kirato followed it, just barely making into range.  He fired off two shots with his laser pistol, but they went wide, and then Fuegan shut down.

A Slog

Arthur continued to run towards the south wall, with the Cowboy trailing him.  It was careful not to get too close, taking shots as it could, but missing most.  Even so, Arthur couldn't afford any distractions: Alphonso was rapidly losing power, and losing even a second could be the difference between success and failure.  Despite the hail of bullets, he continued to the wall.

As a last-distch effort, the Cowboy jumped in front of Arthur and shot him a few more times, but he retaliated with a successful Move and Attack which brought it down.  From there, he staggered to the seawall and cut open a hole, finishing the mission mere moments before Alphonso shut down.  After several hours in the darkness of their unlit cockpits, the pilots felt something lift their AESIR up, and were brought back to Valhalla Base.

Debriefing

Kirato went to confront Schweitzer about the Valhalla Project working on AESIR before the end of the world, when they were supposed to be solving the climate crisis.  Schweitzer seemed embarrased and tried to explain it away as not being his fault; he mostly just worked on the neural interfaces.  When pressed further, he continued to make excuses.

They'd had to research weapons tech, as that was the only way to get funding (Hiro: "They could've made an app, or a plane that can't fly or something").  Missile defense systems were so good that Mutually Assured Destruction no longer applied, so they'd had to invent a new, equally destructive platform.  Hiro asked how LOKI had taken the classified material with it, and Schweitzer wasn't sure, though he did explain that they had anti-AI electronic defenses ("So, a captcha?").

Downtime

Kirato decided to help Hiro get over his cowardice by playing violent video games, to help him get over the fear of death ("Ohhh, so it is just like a video game?").  Arthur, having failed every single check to not freak out in mission, was forced to go through "therapy" with Katerina to try to get over "whatever stupid shit made [him] sad".  Against all odds, talking through his trauma with a hostile "therapist" actually seemed to help.

Feeling better, Arthur hung out with Kirato, to teach him "there are more things in life than video games.  There's also bullfighting".  A day later, Schweitzer came by Kirato's quarters to apologize for not telling them the truth, but explained that Halvorsen had told them not to.  Hiro tried to teach his AI about Zen Buddhism, but it just mocked him for having such a messy, disorganized, organic mind.  Carmen singled out Hiro for extra combat training; he ended up not learning anything other than pain.

Clearly bitter, Katerina gave up on trying to lead their sessions communicating with the AIs, because all of her ideas had failed, while the pilots' attempts, no matter how horrible, were still making progress.  During discussion for what line of argument to take with the AIs, the topic of "what will they do after killing all humans?" came up.  Hiro thinks they might just call it a day and kill themselves, while Arthur figured that most people (other than himself) wanted to live, so the AI's might too.

Hiro actually managed to stun Rex by pointing out that it was based on human neural patterns, and so wasn't that far from human.  Kirato tried to appeal to their similarities despite the differences in their origins; one a Japanese human, the other a Norwegian (?) machine, both cool!  Unsurprisingly, Fuegan was not swayed, pointing out that while they both products of the same society, the key difference is that, like LOKI, Fuegan rejected that society. 

Arthur suggested that after wiping out humanity, the AIs would eventually make something that would wipe them out, and that the entire cycle of violence had to stop.  Alphonso replied that, unlike the bad, stupid, worthless humans, the AIs were perfect, and didn't make mistakes.  Arthur ended up agreeing.

Power Surge

The pilots were summoned to Halvorsen's office again, and this time Arthur took his wheelchair instead of struggling with the crutches (Kirato: "And as my character growth, I have learned to use the pause button").  The monitors showed a satellite view of an island chain, formerly connected by bridges which were now submerged.  He launched into another mission briefing: LOKI had built something on the island of Rugen on the Baltic Sea in Germany that was outputting enough EM radiation that they were able to pick it up from Valhalla Base.

Halvorsen figured it was probably a doomsday device, so their job would be to go in, find the source, and destroy it.  Schweitzer had built a sensor that they'd be able to use to find the distance to the target once they got closer.  Fortunately, their success in the last mission left them an opening in LOKI's AA defenses, so they'd be able to fly all the way there.  Hiro asked if destroying the device might not cause it to blow them up, and Halvorsen said they could have the transport helicopters nearby for evac.

They asked if they should try to bring it back intact to use on LOKI later, and Halvorsen said they could if it turned out they were able to, but for now they were expected to destroy it.  Hiro wondered if this was a trap to draw their only 3 AESIR out of position, but Halvorsen thought it unlikely; worst-case they'd be able to see something coming on their long-range sensors (Halvorsen: "Sometimes we have to take risks!" Arthur: "We have to take risks?").

After some more objections (Halvorsen: "Civilians are a tertiary concern!"), the party picked their landing zone and headed off to Rugen.

Notes:

Mission rewards were as follows:
Kirato: +1 point to Piloting/Meditation

Arthur: +2 points to Combat Skills

Hiro: +10 points to Support Systems