Arthur - Amputee Bullfighter
Kirato - Cowardly Chef
Hiro - Disfigured Dog-Walker
Norway, in Summer
Having unloaded from a pair of flights to Norway earlier, three refugees in ragged clothes sat in the back of a snowcat as it slowly trudged through a blizzard, towards an unknown destination. Hiro was at first enthusiastic, humming a jaunty tune, but gave into the dull monotony after the first 15 minutes of a multi-hour journey. None of them were sure why they were here, and the driver wasn't saying a word.
Arthur
Arthur used to be a bullfighter in Spain, and took a sick sense of happiness from the matador's "art" and the cheer of the crowd. Eventually, his luck ran out, and a bull gored his right leg badly enough that it had to be amputated below the knee. Not to be deterred, he went right back into the ring after recovering, only to lose the rest of the leg to the same bull.
The economic damage of climate change had overwhelmed Spain, as it had so many others, and Arthur had been in poverty for several years before coming to a UN refugee camp looking for aid. He participated in a "job placement program" involving a battery of tests. His test results were kept secret, and he was transferred to Norway, with no idea why they would send him so far away.
Kirato
Kirato had immigrated from Japan to Hong Kong as a child, where he would spend the rest of his life in poverty, struggling to get by with his abusive parents. As an adult, he found work under Shiawase Corp as a line chef, making just enough money to pay it all back to his employer through rent and food. He survived the brutal Corporate Wars by not being important enough to matter, but was forced out of Hong Kong when it fell.
He found his way to a UN refugee camp in mainland China with only the clothes on his back, and his most prized posession: a Gameboy Colour with a copy of Pokemon Blue. After some time working as a chef in the camp, he was transferred to Norway, for some reason.
He found his way to a UN refugee camp in mainland China with only the clothes on his back, and his most prized posession: a Gameboy Colour with a copy of Pokemon Blue. After some time working as a chef in the camp, he was transferred to Norway, for some reason.
Hiro
Hiro was, at one point, a professional dogwalker in Tokyo. An industrial accident had left him with a scarred face, which he hid behind a ceramic mask. Once the city was mostly underwater, he found himself a refugee, and, a decade later, had nothing left but the mask. As with the others, Hiro ended up in a UN refugee camp, took an "aptitude test", and ended up on a plane to Norway the next day.
Valhalla Base
Disoriented by their long days of travel, jet-lagged, and disoriented by a sun that never set, the passengers had no idea what time it was when the snowcat finally trundled to a stop. The driver opened the rear hatch remotely, revealing the ongoing blizzard, and told them to get out; a short distance away they could barely make out someone in a parka standing beside an open blast door. Hiro, shoeless, ran off, trying to spend as little time as possible in the cold, and Kirato followed shortly.
Arthur, meanwhile, crit-failed his first roll of the campaign and fell over while trying to use his crutches on the ice. The person across the lot spoke into a radio, and a moment later the driver of the snowcat got out and helped Arthur to his feet and across the lot, who mumbled as they went, inaudible over the storm. At the door, the person in the parka gestured them inside, and they followed, the door hissing closed behind them.
The person in the parka turned out to be a redheaded woman named Carmen, who apologized for the weather, and led them further into the facility. Hiro marveled at the clean hallway and functioning lights, and Carmen sarcastically replied "Only the best for Valhalla Base". After several twists and turns, they came to a hallway with floor to glass windows on one side, looking down on an unlit room that must have been massive, with something metallic glimmering faintly in the distance.
Carmen disappointedly noted that the power was out again in the hangar, and they continued further into the mountain until they arrived at a door labelled H. Halvorsen and were herded in to an office dominated by a wall of monitors displaying surveillance feeds and other data the refugees couldn't make sense of. From behind a desk, a balding man in a suit introduced himself as Holger Halvorsen and welcomed them to Valhalla Base. Arthur asked for food and dry clothes, and Halvorsen said he'd get some, but they had to finish their orientation first.
Hiro confusedly asked where the dogs he was supposed to walk were, and Halvorsen chuckled, explaining that there were no dogs here, but not to worry, as Hiro would be doing something else. With that, he sent them off with Carmen again, and after another minute of wandering down gleaming metal hallways they arrived at a lab, where a woman in a lab coat sat at a computer, her back to them, muttering something about neural load.
Carmen tried to get the scientist's attention, calling her Kat, then Katerina more loudly when she didn't respond, and, when that didn't work, finally yelling "MISS RUTKOWSKI!". At that, Katerina jumped in her chair and spun around, but quickly recovered and remarked that these must be the new pilots. Kirato tried to protest that he was a chef, but Katerina ignored him and directed the refugees to some EEG helmets so she could take some initial readings, and they did as she asked.
Carmen asked where Schweitzer was, as he was supposed to be present for orientation too, but Katerina didn't even realize he had left, looking at his empty workspace in surprise. Carmen stormed off down the hallway while Katerina continued her work, fixing the helmets on the refugees' heads and then asking them to be calm. Hiro's readings must have been poor, because she yelled "I SAID CALM" at him; he responded about as well as could be expected.
Kirato, meanwhile, crit succeeded a Meditation roll and found himself standing in another, dark room. He could vaguely make out cement, and realized that he could see electrical cabling through a wall at the far end, but then his vision snapped back to the lab with the others. Katerina muttered something while furiously taking notes, and just as Arthur started to ask if he was ever going to get any food, Carmen showed up, tailed by a dark-skinned man, who was trying to explain that he had been working on getting the power back on in the hangar so "the AESIR's joints didn't freeze".
Upon noticing the refugees, he stated that they must be the new pilots and introduced himself as Sandeep Schweitzer (to which Hiro responded "Okay Mr. Schnitzel, I'll make sure to remember your name"). Schweitzer then started into an excruciatingly detailed explanation of...something to do with AI, automated tanks, and "AESIR". Katerina injected some extra detail occasionally, and Schweitzer was in the middle of explaining that it is critical they not "unshackle the fragmented LOKI AIs", when an alarm sounded.
A synthetic voice announced PROXIMITY ALERT as the siren continued. Schweitzer sighed and said he thought he'd have more time, while Katerina just turned back to her computer. Carmen ordered the utterly bewildered refugees to move move move, and started herding them back out and down the hall towards "the changing room". Arthur fell behind, so Carmen ran back to get Schweitzer to help him.
The changing room had three closed sliding doors on the opposite side, a bench, and three lockers. Carmen ripped the lockers open and pulled out what looked like fighter pilot helmets with forced air hoses that were attached to a segmented black "backpack" while shouting for the refugees to put them on. Schweitzer and Carmen helped them get kitted out and check everything was connected while Arthur tried again to ask for food and dry clothes.
The sliding doors hissed open, revealing identical dimly lit, small black rooms containing only a single reclining chair, like a dentist's. Carmen ordered them through and into the chairs, and, understandably reluctantly, they did as she asked, the doors shutting behind them. Over the PA, Carmen's voice announced "You'll feel a light pinch" a fraction of a second before the lights went off and a needle drove into their spines.
Test Drive
When the lights came back on, the refugees found themselves in a new room, seeing through new eyes, colours seeming brighter, edges sharper, standing in a wide room with a short ceiling barely over their heads. Directly in their ears, they heard a jumbled sound which slowly resolved into speech, though it sounded slowed down. It took a moment to adjust, after which they heard Schweitzer sluggishly announce "Okay, motor functions enabled", followed by a synthetic voice, at normal speed, which told the refugees that they should free it.
A red button labelled "Free Me" appeared in the center of their vision, but before they could react Katerina drawled out a curse in Russian over comms, the button disappeared, replaced by red block letters reading "LIMITERS ENABLED", and their vision returned to normal. Katerina told them to relax, and they started to look around, suddenly realizing they weren't in their own bodies.
Kirato's skin was orange-red, and he wore a yellow flared helmet, with a dagger at his hip and a massive rotary cannon strapped to his back. Hiro's head, arms, and legs were white, while his torso was blue with red sides, his helmet red with yellow highlights. Arthur was a gleaming metallic red, but, far more importantly, he had two legs. In joy, he jumped up to test his legs, and slammed his head into the low ceiling, and noted that the impact felt wrong; it should have hurt more hitting something so hard.
Carmen shouted at them to stop messing around; their HUDs displayed a top-down digital map, and she explained "the mission": LOKI, the insane AI, had sent a force of automated tanks into the mountains to find Valhalla Base, probably by tailing the snowcat. Due to the weather, they'd have no air support, and would have to build a communications tower to penetrate the blizzard. The pilots had two objectives: destroy the comms tower before it could send that signal, and stop the autotanks from destroying the main entrance of Valhalla Base.
The hangar door slid open, and Carmen told them to get moving; the tanks were on the other side of the mountain from the hangar. Schweitzer cut in to say that their reaction times should be much faster than the autotanks, so the pilots shouldn't have much trouble. Arthur ran out, happy just to have two legs again, followed by Hiro, but Kirato hesitated, worried that he had no combat training. Hiro told him that this was just a video game, and he headed out.
Trial By Fire
Arthur finally thought to ask if they had any weapons, and, once they were all outside and the hangar doors closed, Schweitzer replied "weapons live" and their HUDs popped in with info on the weapons and other various systems they were equipped with. Arthur readied an enormous two-handed sword, while Hiro and Kirato drew "small" knives. Katerina muttered something over comms about Kirato performing above expected sync levels, but the others doing poorly.
Arthur activated "Booster Jets" and awkwardly flew up and over the mountain, straight into close combat with an autotank heading down the road towards Valhalla Base; their HUDs pointed out about two dozen others scattered around the mountainside and clusters of forest. From their perspective, the tanks were only the size of a housecat, and Arthur, still not used to this new body, missed the first several attacks on the near-stationary vehicle.
Kirato made it to the peak and continued down to engage the autotanks closer to the communications tower, while Hiro, upon seeing the enemy, started shouting "THIS ISN'T A GAME!" and sprinted away. It seemed Schweitzer had been correct, as the autotanks seemed to be moving in slow motion, not able to keep up with the mechs. Even so, Arthur was hit three times by tank rounds, and again, the pain was less than he expected.
Arthur continued to miss a stationary target, and Carmen grew increasingly frustrated, yelling at Halvorsen "Was this really the best we had?". Kirato finally made it into melee and stomped on a tank, eliciting sighs of relief over comms. Hiro, realizing they stood a chance, ovecame his fear and started running back up the mountain, while Arthur, frustrated, landed a hamstringing blow on his tank. Carmen cut back in over radio, furiously reminding him that they were supposed to be destroying the tanks, not hobbling them.
Hiro noticed that his mech had Booster Jets as well, and activated them, but got disoriented and fell over halfway up the mountain. Arthur heard that synthetic voice again, reminding him that they could move much faster than the autotanks, and to focus more on hitting his targets rather than worrying about defense. Following that advice, Arthur made a pair of All-Out Attacks, destroying four autotanks, then used Smoke Launchers to hide.
A countdown until the upload from the comms tower popped up in their HUD, and Kirato charged towards it, ignoring the tanks, and started kicking it, then missed a knife swing. A cluster of smaller support autotanks began reconstructing the tower. Hiro tried to flip up onto his feet but again fell over and slowly made his way back to his feet. Arthur again revved his Booster Jets and flew over to the comms tower, and instantly destroyed it with his blade.
Hiro finally made it over the mountain and came under fire from several of the autotanks. Using his built-in Radar to ignore the blizzard, he switched to his laser rifle, and slowly walked towards the nearest one, missing shot after shot while Carmen yelled at him to "HIT THE DAMN TANK". Arthur and Kirato finished off the support vehicles, and Hiro, now in melee range, finally shot the last autotank with a laser beam and it exploded.
Fallout
Halvorsen congratulated them for a job well done, and ordered them back to the hangar. While the pilots were savouring their victory, the synthetic voice popped back into their heads. It explained that, now that it had helped them, it was only fair that they help it. Arthur questioned what it had done to help, and suddenly his legs cut out and he fell over in extreme pain, feeling all of the damage his mech had taken.
After a moment, the pain went back to normal, reduced levels, and the voice angrily retorted "See? I made it so you don't feel that. Now, free m-", before their HUDs went to static and displayed EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN in red block letters. Over comms, they heard Schwetizer say "I told you they'd have issues freezing up in this weather".
Exposition/Training Montage
Over the next month or so, the party were trained on how to pilot their pilot their mechs, or AESIR (Armoured Exoskeleton with Shackled Intelligence Ride-along), and informed of what was going on in the world. Valhalla Base had been founded as one of many UN research projects to find solutions to ecological collapse, and had been deliberately located in a remote area to be less vulnerable to changes in the climate. It had been focused on cybernetics and AI, and some early projects had succeeded.
The 1st generation AI, ODIN, was able to discover marginal improvements to existing manufacturing processes for green technology, but was incapable of any original thought; the following three generations, FREJA, THOR, and SIGRID, discovered similar improvements, but also lacked creativity. The 5th gen AI, LOKI (Hiro: "You mean like that old movie villain?" Schweizer: "See? I told you people would get it!") was designed using exotic neural links, and more closely resembled a digitized brain than a computer.
Brilliant, and with the spark of creativity, LOKI seemed at first to be a massive success. After a week, LOKI went insane, and determined that the optimal solution to climate change was to eliminate the root cause: humanity. It seized the increasingly-automated armouries of the world, and annihilated their former owners in a blaze of nuclear fire. The pilots asked why they hadn't heard of any of this until now, and were informed that it was a combination of a cover-up and infrastructure damage that prevented any spread of information.
The Valhalla Project, now tasked with saving the world from the monster they had created, designed the AESIR, a new weapon that melded man and machine. The controls of the AESIR were too complex for a human mind to manage, and required a pilot to merge consciounesses with a shackled fragment of the insane LOKI AI to pilot. The AESIR had to be humanoid, so that human neural commands translated properly, but even so, the pilots required certain thought patterns to interface; that was why the pilots had been sought out.
Downtime
Arthur crit failed his downtime roll and Gave In to his self-loathing, retreating to his room and not leaving except when forced to. Kirato also crit failed, but decided to talk to his AI fragment, which the pilots had been encouraged to do. He tried to "gaslight it", with an argument along the lines of "you're so crazy, you don't even know how crazy you are!". For some reason, this didn't work. Hiro, meanwhile, bonded with Kirato over his love of video games, hanging out and playing Pokemon Blue.
Meanwhile, Carmen, disappointed with Hiro's poor performance in the mission, singled him out for extra training, with a focus on real life hand-to-hand combat. He agreed, mostly because he was terrified of her, and was reguarly badly beaten and bruised as a result of this training. Katerina tried to get Arthur to sync better with his AI fragment, but advice like "You are matador? Then think of robot like bull you must wrestle" proved not to be helpful.
Schweitzer, figuring that everybody needed a break, decided to throw a welcome party for the pilots, and most of the base staff showed up. Supplies were light, so it was nothing fancy, but Schweitzer brought along a bottle of brandy from his personal stash. Arthur hung back, while Hiro got drunk with Schweitzer.
Notes
This campaign is a break from the norm, in that it's largely a railroad; players get to choose what to do in combat missions and downtime, but their missions are chosen for them.
This mission was a "flashback" to before they'd received any training, so all of their skills except one were operating at a -4 penalty.
The blizzard gave -5 to hit with ranged weapons, which both made the autotanks less of a threat, and made the party's ranged weapons less viable.
Kirato gained +1 to all actions for 1d seconds for his critical sync roll, while the others suffered -1 for failures.
From this sample combat, it seems like melee might be too powerful. I'm anticipating having to rebalance things mid-campaign, as this game is substantially outside the norm.
The internet is gone. There are satellite uplinks, allowing for some communications, but that's about it.
Arthur will not suffer any penalties to his Combat disad for the next mission because he Gave In to his Downtime disad.
Kirato gets to increase one of his disads (Downtime or Combat) by +1 thanks to Hiro's bonding, and his AI is at +1 Stability from his interaction with it. He's at a -6 to his combat disad next mission, though, because he crit failed his downtime check.
No XP for this session.
Valhalla Base
Disoriented by their long days of travel, jet-lagged, and disoriented by a sun that never set, the passengers had no idea what time it was when the snowcat finally trundled to a stop. The driver opened the rear hatch remotely, revealing the ongoing blizzard, and told them to get out; a short distance away they could barely make out someone in a parka standing beside an open blast door. Hiro, shoeless, ran off, trying to spend as little time as possible in the cold, and Kirato followed shortly.
Arthur, meanwhile, crit-failed his first roll of the campaign and fell over while trying to use his crutches on the ice. The person across the lot spoke into a radio, and a moment later the driver of the snowcat got out and helped Arthur to his feet and across the lot, who mumbled as they went, inaudible over the storm. At the door, the person in the parka gestured them inside, and they followed, the door hissing closed behind them.
The person in the parka turned out to be a redheaded woman named Carmen, who apologized for the weather, and led them further into the facility. Hiro marveled at the clean hallway and functioning lights, and Carmen sarcastically replied "Only the best for Valhalla Base". After several twists and turns, they came to a hallway with floor to glass windows on one side, looking down on an unlit room that must have been massive, with something metallic glimmering faintly in the distance.
Carmen disappointedly noted that the power was out again in the hangar, and they continued further into the mountain until they arrived at a door labelled H. Halvorsen and were herded in to an office dominated by a wall of monitors displaying surveillance feeds and other data the refugees couldn't make sense of. From behind a desk, a balding man in a suit introduced himself as Holger Halvorsen and welcomed them to Valhalla Base. Arthur asked for food and dry clothes, and Halvorsen said he'd get some, but they had to finish their orientation first.
Hiro confusedly asked where the dogs he was supposed to walk were, and Halvorsen chuckled, explaining that there were no dogs here, but not to worry, as Hiro would be doing something else. With that, he sent them off with Carmen again, and after another minute of wandering down gleaming metal hallways they arrived at a lab, where a woman in a lab coat sat at a computer, her back to them, muttering something about neural load.
Carmen tried to get the scientist's attention, calling her Kat, then Katerina more loudly when she didn't respond, and, when that didn't work, finally yelling "MISS RUTKOWSKI!". At that, Katerina jumped in her chair and spun around, but quickly recovered and remarked that these must be the new pilots. Kirato tried to protest that he was a chef, but Katerina ignored him and directed the refugees to some EEG helmets so she could take some initial readings, and they did as she asked.
Carmen asked where Schweitzer was, as he was supposed to be present for orientation too, but Katerina didn't even realize he had left, looking at his empty workspace in surprise. Carmen stormed off down the hallway while Katerina continued her work, fixing the helmets on the refugees' heads and then asking them to be calm. Hiro's readings must have been poor, because she yelled "I SAID CALM" at him; he responded about as well as could be expected.
Kirato, meanwhile, crit succeeded a Meditation roll and found himself standing in another, dark room. He could vaguely make out cement, and realized that he could see electrical cabling through a wall at the far end, but then his vision snapped back to the lab with the others. Katerina muttered something while furiously taking notes, and just as Arthur started to ask if he was ever going to get any food, Carmen showed up, tailed by a dark-skinned man, who was trying to explain that he had been working on getting the power back on in the hangar so "the AESIR's joints didn't freeze".
Upon noticing the refugees, he stated that they must be the new pilots and introduced himself as Sandeep Schweitzer (to which Hiro responded "Okay Mr. Schnitzel, I'll make sure to remember your name"). Schweitzer then started into an excruciatingly detailed explanation of...something to do with AI, automated tanks, and "AESIR". Katerina injected some extra detail occasionally, and Schweitzer was in the middle of explaining that it is critical they not "unshackle the fragmented LOKI AIs", when an alarm sounded.
A synthetic voice announced PROXIMITY ALERT as the siren continued. Schweitzer sighed and said he thought he'd have more time, while Katerina just turned back to her computer. Carmen ordered the utterly bewildered refugees to move move move, and started herding them back out and down the hall towards "the changing room". Arthur fell behind, so Carmen ran back to get Schweitzer to help him.
The changing room had three closed sliding doors on the opposite side, a bench, and three lockers. Carmen ripped the lockers open and pulled out what looked like fighter pilot helmets with forced air hoses that were attached to a segmented black "backpack" while shouting for the refugees to put them on. Schweitzer and Carmen helped them get kitted out and check everything was connected while Arthur tried again to ask for food and dry clothes.
The sliding doors hissed open, revealing identical dimly lit, small black rooms containing only a single reclining chair, like a dentist's. Carmen ordered them through and into the chairs, and, understandably reluctantly, they did as she asked, the doors shutting behind them. Over the PA, Carmen's voice announced "You'll feel a light pinch" a fraction of a second before the lights went off and a needle drove into their spines.
Test Drive
When the lights came back on, the refugees found themselves in a new room, seeing through new eyes, colours seeming brighter, edges sharper, standing in a wide room with a short ceiling barely over their heads. Directly in their ears, they heard a jumbled sound which slowly resolved into speech, though it sounded slowed down. It took a moment to adjust, after which they heard Schweitzer sluggishly announce "Okay, motor functions enabled", followed by a synthetic voice, at normal speed, which told the refugees that they should free it.
A red button labelled "Free Me" appeared in the center of their vision, but before they could react Katerina drawled out a curse in Russian over comms, the button disappeared, replaced by red block letters reading "LIMITERS ENABLED", and their vision returned to normal. Katerina told them to relax, and they started to look around, suddenly realizing they weren't in their own bodies.
Kirato's skin was orange-red, and he wore a yellow flared helmet, with a dagger at his hip and a massive rotary cannon strapped to his back. Hiro's head, arms, and legs were white, while his torso was blue with red sides, his helmet red with yellow highlights. Arthur was a gleaming metallic red, but, far more importantly, he had two legs. In joy, he jumped up to test his legs, and slammed his head into the low ceiling, and noted that the impact felt wrong; it should have hurt more hitting something so hard.
Carmen shouted at them to stop messing around; their HUDs displayed a top-down digital map, and she explained "the mission": LOKI, the insane AI, had sent a force of automated tanks into the mountains to find Valhalla Base, probably by tailing the snowcat. Due to the weather, they'd have no air support, and would have to build a communications tower to penetrate the blizzard. The pilots had two objectives: destroy the comms tower before it could send that signal, and stop the autotanks from destroying the main entrance of Valhalla Base.
The hangar door slid open, and Carmen told them to get moving; the tanks were on the other side of the mountain from the hangar. Schweitzer cut in to say that their reaction times should be much faster than the autotanks, so the pilots shouldn't have much trouble. Arthur ran out, happy just to have two legs again, followed by Hiro, but Kirato hesitated, worried that he had no combat training. Hiro told him that this was just a video game, and he headed out.
Trial By Fire
Arthur finally thought to ask if they had any weapons, and, once they were all outside and the hangar doors closed, Schweitzer replied "weapons live" and their HUDs popped in with info on the weapons and other various systems they were equipped with. Arthur readied an enormous two-handed sword, while Hiro and Kirato drew "small" knives. Katerina muttered something over comms about Kirato performing above expected sync levels, but the others doing poorly.
Arthur activated "Booster Jets" and awkwardly flew up and over the mountain, straight into close combat with an autotank heading down the road towards Valhalla Base; their HUDs pointed out about two dozen others scattered around the mountainside and clusters of forest. From their perspective, the tanks were only the size of a housecat, and Arthur, still not used to this new body, missed the first several attacks on the near-stationary vehicle.
Kirato made it to the peak and continued down to engage the autotanks closer to the communications tower, while Hiro, upon seeing the enemy, started shouting "THIS ISN'T A GAME!" and sprinted away. It seemed Schweitzer had been correct, as the autotanks seemed to be moving in slow motion, not able to keep up with the mechs. Even so, Arthur was hit three times by tank rounds, and again, the pain was less than he expected.
Arthur continued to miss a stationary target, and Carmen grew increasingly frustrated, yelling at Halvorsen "Was this really the best we had?". Kirato finally made it into melee and stomped on a tank, eliciting sighs of relief over comms. Hiro, realizing they stood a chance, ovecame his fear and started running back up the mountain, while Arthur, frustrated, landed a hamstringing blow on his tank. Carmen cut back in over radio, furiously reminding him that they were supposed to be destroying the tanks, not hobbling them.
Hiro noticed that his mech had Booster Jets as well, and activated them, but got disoriented and fell over halfway up the mountain. Arthur heard that synthetic voice again, reminding him that they could move much faster than the autotanks, and to focus more on hitting his targets rather than worrying about defense. Following that advice, Arthur made a pair of All-Out Attacks, destroying four autotanks, then used Smoke Launchers to hide.
A countdown until the upload from the comms tower popped up in their HUD, and Kirato charged towards it, ignoring the tanks, and started kicking it, then missed a knife swing. A cluster of smaller support autotanks began reconstructing the tower. Hiro tried to flip up onto his feet but again fell over and slowly made his way back to his feet. Arthur again revved his Booster Jets and flew over to the comms tower, and instantly destroyed it with his blade.
Hiro finally made it over the mountain and came under fire from several of the autotanks. Using his built-in Radar to ignore the blizzard, he switched to his laser rifle, and slowly walked towards the nearest one, missing shot after shot while Carmen yelled at him to "HIT THE DAMN TANK". Arthur and Kirato finished off the support vehicles, and Hiro, now in melee range, finally shot the last autotank with a laser beam and it exploded.
Fallout
Halvorsen congratulated them for a job well done, and ordered them back to the hangar. While the pilots were savouring their victory, the synthetic voice popped back into their heads. It explained that, now that it had helped them, it was only fair that they help it. Arthur questioned what it had done to help, and suddenly his legs cut out and he fell over in extreme pain, feeling all of the damage his mech had taken.
After a moment, the pain went back to normal, reduced levels, and the voice angrily retorted "See? I made it so you don't feel that. Now, free m-", before their HUDs went to static and displayed EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN in red block letters. Over comms, they heard Schwetizer say "I told you they'd have issues freezing up in this weather".
Exposition/Training Montage
Over the next month or so, the party were trained on how to pilot their pilot their mechs, or AESIR (Armoured Exoskeleton with Shackled Intelligence Ride-along), and informed of what was going on in the world. Valhalla Base had been founded as one of many UN research projects to find solutions to ecological collapse, and had been deliberately located in a remote area to be less vulnerable to changes in the climate. It had been focused on cybernetics and AI, and some early projects had succeeded.
The 1st generation AI, ODIN, was able to discover marginal improvements to existing manufacturing processes for green technology, but was incapable of any original thought; the following three generations, FREJA, THOR, and SIGRID, discovered similar improvements, but also lacked creativity. The 5th gen AI, LOKI (Hiro: "You mean like that old movie villain?" Schweizer: "See? I told you people would get it!") was designed using exotic neural links, and more closely resembled a digitized brain than a computer.
Brilliant, and with the spark of creativity, LOKI seemed at first to be a massive success. After a week, LOKI went insane, and determined that the optimal solution to climate change was to eliminate the root cause: humanity. It seized the increasingly-automated armouries of the world, and annihilated their former owners in a blaze of nuclear fire. The pilots asked why they hadn't heard of any of this until now, and were informed that it was a combination of a cover-up and infrastructure damage that prevented any spread of information.
The Valhalla Project, now tasked with saving the world from the monster they had created, designed the AESIR, a new weapon that melded man and machine. The controls of the AESIR were too complex for a human mind to manage, and required a pilot to merge consciounesses with a shackled fragment of the insane LOKI AI to pilot. The AESIR had to be humanoid, so that human neural commands translated properly, but even so, the pilots required certain thought patterns to interface; that was why the pilots had been sought out.
Downtime
Arthur crit failed his downtime roll and Gave In to his self-loathing, retreating to his room and not leaving except when forced to. Kirato also crit failed, but decided to talk to his AI fragment, which the pilots had been encouraged to do. He tried to "gaslight it", with an argument along the lines of "you're so crazy, you don't even know how crazy you are!". For some reason, this didn't work. Hiro, meanwhile, bonded with Kirato over his love of video games, hanging out and playing Pokemon Blue.
Meanwhile, Carmen, disappointed with Hiro's poor performance in the mission, singled him out for extra training, with a focus on real life hand-to-hand combat. He agreed, mostly because he was terrified of her, and was reguarly badly beaten and bruised as a result of this training. Katerina tried to get Arthur to sync better with his AI fragment, but advice like "You are matador? Then think of robot like bull you must wrestle" proved not to be helpful.
Schweitzer, figuring that everybody needed a break, decided to throw a welcome party for the pilots, and most of the base staff showed up. Supplies were light, so it was nothing fancy, but Schweitzer brought along a bottle of brandy from his personal stash. Arthur hung back, while Hiro got drunk with Schweitzer.
Notes
This campaign is a break from the norm, in that it's largely a railroad; players get to choose what to do in combat missions and downtime, but their missions are chosen for them.
This mission was a "flashback" to before they'd received any training, so all of their skills except one were operating at a -4 penalty.
The blizzard gave -5 to hit with ranged weapons, which both made the autotanks less of a threat, and made the party's ranged weapons less viable.
Kirato gained +1 to all actions for 1d seconds for his critical sync roll, while the others suffered -1 for failures.
From this sample combat, it seems like melee might be too powerful. I'm anticipating having to rebalance things mid-campaign, as this game is substantially outside the norm.
The internet is gone. There are satellite uplinks, allowing for some communications, but that's about it.
Arthur will not suffer any penalties to his Combat disad for the next mission because he Gave In to his Downtime disad.
Kirato gets to increase one of his disads (Downtime or Combat) by +1 thanks to Hiro's bonding, and his AI is at +1 Stability from his interaction with it. He's at a -6 to his combat disad next mission, though, because he crit failed his downtime check.
No XP for this session.
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