#data sentry delta

[lex1nat0r]

White Elephant: Bringer of Fire

AAR #10

Session report from my ongoing Lancer campaign.

Characters (LL 1):

Raiju (They/Them, Hacker 2/Ace/Centimane, Barbarossa 1) - GMS Everest - Delta (Player not present this session)

Sunshine (They/Them, Grease Monkey/Technophile/Engineer/Juggernaut, Pegasus 1) - GMS Everest - Exchange of Affection

Rook (He/Him, Walking Armory/Stormbringer/Brutal, Balor 1) - GMS Everest - Not Fun By Myself (Player not present this session)

Daylight (She/Her, Technophile 2/Crack Shot/Infiltrator, Vlad 1) - GMS Everest - Hits Different

Magpie (They/Them, Hacker 2/Technophile 2, Goblin 1) - GMS Everest - General Protection Fault

NHPs:

Molotov - Via Sunshine’s Technophile talent - Projects as a small velociraptor - unshackled

Willow - Via Daylight’s Technophile talent - Projects as 1-2 squid - unshackled

Murgatroid - Via Magpie’s Technophile talent - Projects as a wizard? - shackled

Prev session writeup

Haase surrenders and gets out of THUNDER KING, which Sunshine immediately commandeers. The security chief is bundled into Hits Different where Willow keeps an eye on him. As Raiju pulls all the data they can get from the computer core, Daylight starts inching towards PROMETHEUS' chamber, desperately wanting to talk to the NHP. The rest of the group soon follow once all the data in the core has been copied over.

The chamber itself is guarded by a long hallway lined with sentry guns, all wildly switching between targets. The pilots start having difficulty controlling their mechs, all of them suffering a sense of vertigo and reaching for cockpit controls that aren't there. This uncanny feeling intensifies as they approach the doors to PROMETHEUS' chambers. The doors are firmly shut until Murgatroid calls out to PROMETHEUS, who immediately opens them, relieved to have another NHP to talk to. The chamber is a mech-sized dome, featureless except for a pedestal holding PROMETHEUS's casket. As they enter the chamber, the pilots' (and Haase's) perspectives become superimposed on each other, and even they're having difficulty telling where one of them ends and another begins.

PROMETHEUS uses holographic projectors around the room to display himself as an old man, bent with age. Addressing the NHPs, he explains his problem: PROMETHEUS has always had trouble distinguishing between human beings, which has become exacerbated with the current clone crisis. PROMETHEUS has started to cascade because he's started to question whether he should care that he can't distinguish between humans, and that question is causing him to run up against the limits of his shackling. He calms down some as Willow explains their perspective in a way he can understand, allowing Magpie to attempt to temporarily restore his shackles so they can trigger the facility's evacuation. Magpie fails, resulting in PROMETHEUS achieving full cascade. Fortunately this just results in PROMETHEUS leaving for parts unknown, leaving behind a fragment of himself in his casket. Rook immediately declares he wants to take the casket and embryonic NHP. Magpie agrees, after trying to use this new PROMETHEUS to trigger the facility's evacuation protocol and noticing it get cancelled from the executive suite.

The lancers head to the executive suite, where they encounter Director Prinzivalli. She spills that she's the reason for this whole mess, accidentally using her executive override to trigger the facility flush instead of the facility purge. The lancers take her as well, figuring she'll probably be useful. Daylight ordering Willow to keep an eye on Prinzivalli as well as Haase while she rides on the outside of her mech. Magpie takes the chance to read Prinzivalli's email and finds that this facility was meant to be purged in preparation for Neuropa being bought out by SSC.

With the facility finally under their control, the lancers trigger the evacuation, attempting to get everyone they can to safety as they plant the nuke to fulfill the letter of their contract. Lt. Nagase reports that an unknown dropship is descending from orbit, and the lancers prepare for contact.

--

My first time making a piece of exotic gear for the game. I'm not sure how many more of these I'll be able to come up with, this one just fell out narratively. It's entirely possible it's overpowered, which is the main reason I'm planning on taking a light touch with exotics - frustratingly the Lancer corebook gives no insight into the maths behind its mechanics or guidance on how to balance any homebrew stuff.

You can tell Lancer is inspired by Blades in the Dark because I'm running into the same problems I had in Blades. Namely, how to pace things. I always had trouble actually making heists in Blades, IIRC there's not really any guidelines on how many obstacles to throw at the party during a heist. At least in Blades switching back and forth between heists and downtime was pretty easy. Lancer has the problem that combat is a Big Deal, requiring objectives, a map, and OPFOR, so you can't really drop in and out of combat on a whim. I am going to have to restructure my approach to sessions between combats on missions so they can feel satisfying in themselves and not like we're killing time between combats. Maybe viewing each of those sessions as Blades heist is the right way to start. And maybe loosening my idea of what combats should be in a mission, letting those fall out of the freeform parts more naturally. I'll also be aiming for 2 combats a mission instead of 3 - otherwise this campaign is going to go on a lot longer than I initially planned.

Well, lessons learned. Play us out, Jack.

Next time: How did you think this was going to go?

[lunex-the-cat]

Batch 3 of background Sentries using @scribblehuman’s picrew skeleton maker!

I'm so surprised I actually got to a 3rd batch of these. Someone stop me if I make a 4th because it's clear at this point I'm using them to procrastinate designing more main Sentries.

_

Original picrew references under the cut.

[ajbwasntwriting]

Galra Princess! Reader x Keith

I just got into Voltron and felt like writing something about my OC Mora, but those barely get a glance so I phrased it like a little reader x keith fic. I really enjoyed this and may do more

"We need to change, father" you were pleading. You knelled down in front of Emperor Zarkon, the man that used to be your loving and caring father. "We are loosing people because the subjects of the empire would be happier with Voltron, if we are to survive after all this-"

"ENOUGH!" he shouted down at you "You have put forward this petty argument for the past ten thousand years and my answer remains the same. Now, Return to your quarters!"

"Father please listen" you continued to beg.

"I said enough! Now go or I will have you escorted!"

"You mean dragged!" you yelled out. With a sharp motion of his arm, your father sent two soldiers to carry you out of the main-hall.

"Release me" you growled once the doors had closed.

"Emperor Zarkon ordered-"

"I said release me" you snapped, not looking at either of them. Your voice carried the same threat as your father with little to no effort. When they held you a moment too long your fingers began to spark with the magic your mother had taught you. They jumped away from you immediately. Your robes flowed down to your sides and you strode to your room.

The floor and walls were laden with books, scrolls and stray pieces of paper. Some were messily tossed across the room, some folded into books and others pined to the walls, often with twine linking them to a particular planet you had crudely drawn on your walls.

This was your sanctum. Your true home on your father's mother ship. You had lived her for the past ten-thousand years, keeping away from your family. You believed this is why you hadn't been corrupted by your parent's pure evil form, like your brother Lotor.

You had studied every planet under your father's reign. You knew all their history, all their culture. Well, everything you could learn from books. Your parents barely let you out with an armed escort. "You're too soft" they would say. "You would get lost or hurt" they would say.

"I fight better then Lotor" you would argue. "I know magic, arm-to-arm combat, and speak seven languages!" you argue. The answer was always no.

"Having another pout?" your little brother stood in the doorway, looking down at you. You sat on the floor, now out of your royal robes and wearing a black jump-suit. Around you were open books, both floating and laying on the ground. You had been filtering through them and writing new information on sheets of paper to pin to your doodled planets.

"Get out" you spoke blandly

"Why so cold, dear sister?" he spoke sarcastically. The books fell neatly on top of one-another as you looked over at him

"Because you lower the intelligence of everyone in the room when you speak and, unlike you, I need a fully functioning brain to do my job."

"You mean this pathetic imaginary world you made up?" he motioned around the room. You growled and formed a blue fire-ball in your palm.

"I SAID GET OUT!" you stood and flung the projectile at him. Lotor screamed and ran. The ball disintegrated before reaching where Lotor had been standing. The door slid closed.

You looked around the room. Ten-thousand years of work. Ten-thousand years of developing the perfect galactic economy. Ten-thousand years of studying every species you could with only books and videos alone to help you. Ten-thousand years of figuring out how to free all the planets while keeping the Galra on top, as your father would have wanted."I'm not pathetic, you are." you hissed to yourself. Since Voltron arrived it had to be worked so as how to free the planets without the total annihilation of the Galra species. "I will make the Galra empire something great."

"Y/N?" a raspy voice spoke behind you as you dressed in your Galra armor. You hated it. The armor that was a symbol of oppression to everyone. Every time you had to wear it you would look in the mirror, being crudely reminded of how disgusting your species was. How disgusting you were.

Haggar knew this, that is why she was here. "Don't be so sad, my darling." she came up and wiped the tears from your purple cheeks. "You're going on a mission! You love getting to leave the castle ship." Her voice was weak. She grew large enough to hold you in her arms. 

"I hate this armor"

"I know" she petted your hair. It had gone pure white due to quintessence. "Go to the delta quadrant, retrieve the data for your father, then come home and you can take it off."

You were sure your father hadn't recovered from the fight with Voltron. This was one of many busy tasks given to keep you from becoming suspicious. Not that it worked. She had given the empire to Lotor! Something was clearly wrong!

You landed at the space station, under heavy guard. This was annoying. You knew these drills like the back of your hand. "Stay here and guard the shuttle" you ordered your four guards. You didn't need them.

"But Princess Y/N"

"Stay. Here." you ordered before turning and marching in the direction of the control room. Less people were staring at you now. When you walked into the control room you ordered them to leave. "This is royal business and I will not be disturbed by prying eyes." A lie. You just wanted to be alone. Those moments were spread far between now. The followed your order, not wanting the wrath of a Galra-Altaen Princess on them. You inserted the hard-drive and looked over the monitors while you waited.

A mere thirty ticks later the hard-drive had the files you needed, and a blip came on the monitors. Three warm bodies had just entered the base. All Galra, since the alarms hadn't gone off, but not in the Empire's Armour. They were dressed in tight fitting black and purple suits. One of them was smaller then the other two.

As quick as they showed, they vanished. "The blades" you thought. You worked quickly to tag their heat signatures. One was in a ventilation shaft, another in the halls. The last was near the quintessence shipment, close to you. You erased their signatures and set a shut down timer that would erase all recordings for that day.

You needed to get the data to them.

"Princess Y/N!" the men saluted you as you left the room.

"Carry on" you said as you brushed past the guards. They stood in the halls a moment, confused, then went about their duties. You had your way to the loading bay, hiding in a group of sentries.

You rolled out of them and ended up behind the quintessence delivery. Looking around the corner, the small Blade was still there.

You grabbed his arm and pulled him into your blind-spot. He instinctively  struck you with his blade. You caught his wrist as the knife sliced your leg. You bit your lip under your helmet.

"Stop, I want to help." You frustratingly breathed.

"Let me go!" The blade ordered. With your free hand you pulled off your helmet, showing him your Altean marks and E/C eyes.

"I'm a friend" you whispered. You placed the helmet on the ground and pulled the hard-drive out of your pocket. "This has the co-ordinates of every quintessence shipment and Galra outpost. I need you to take it to Voltron."

You released his wrist. He tentatively took the hard-drive from you. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, sheathing his blade.

"Because this isn't an Empire to be proud of." Your eyes narrowed at the sentries nearing you, right before they fell to the ground and the room went black. "You have ninety ticks to get yourself and your friends out, go!" With that, he was off. There was panicked yelling and heavy foot-steps.

The lights came back on and you were soon spotted. You now realized how bad the gash on your arm was. You were sitting in a puddle of your own blood now.

"Hey Keith, how does it feel to blow a mission this badly!" Lance teased from his spot on the couch.

Keith chuckled before showing off the hard-drive. "Not too bad." he passed it to Pidge. "Can you scan this for anything harmful. Apparently there's co-ordinates for Galra outposts on it. Oh, and keep it a secret from Kolivan. I want to know if it's dangerous first."

Pidge eyed the hard-drive like it was made of gold. The whole room was stunned. "How did you get this?" Allura spoke up

"A Galra woman gave me." or maybe she was Altean and fronting as a Galra? he couldn't tell right now and didn't think it was important

"You fools! Princess Y/N could have been killed!" Haggar yelled at them. She had traveled to the outpost as soon as the systems had gone off-line and the outpost had disappeared off the map for more then a dobosh.

You were carried on a bed to the shuttle. You smiled to yourself, thinking back to the small blade.