The Typhosian Salvation

Re-cap of sessions 81, 82, 83, 84, and 85 and played on 14 and 21 November, 12 December 2025, and 2 and 9 January 2026 respectively.

Locations: Denirad and Typhos (Halcyon 2212)

Dates: 081-5601 to 094-5601

You arrive at the class-A starport in the Denirad system after a (blessedly) uneventful jump carrying the usual complement of passengers (six high, six low) and bulk cargo (about 46 tons). Given the great favour you performed for the High Senate secret service, you've been given the name of a government contact here, Jodel Youbin, who very efficiently gets you connected with the appropriate authorities at the highport. The Dejah Thoris is towed into a well-appointed dock and you have no trouble getting acquainted with the best contractors. Soon, work begins on upgrading your ship's comms and sensor suites. For a cool MCr 2, you can look forward to having an Advanced Electronics suite (TL 11) at your disposal. (This will eat up an additional 2 tons of space, so you'll lose a bit of cargo room.) But it's worth it for the new sensor type (densitometer) and ability to jam other ships' comms and defeat their sensor locks. (In mechanical terms, the new suite gives a DM +1 to jamming and counter-jamming Comms checks.)

While the work is being done, you enjoy the amenities a starport of this calibre has to offer; in addition, you put your names on the local job board in case a lucrative opportunity comes up. And one does: you are contacted by Dr Mishal Kwari, an anthropologist who works for a High Senate agency that oversees a "primitive" isolationist human society living on a habitable moon, Typhos, orbiting one of the system's gas giants. Dr Kwari and her colleagues monitor the population via a series of orbital satellites, several of which are in need of maintenance. Experienced spacers like yourselves are perfect for the job. She suggests a meeting to discuss further, given that there is some urgency. You decide to invite her to to a home-cooked meal on the Dejah.

Dr Kwari duly arrives and is treated to a red-carpet welcome. Griff is dismayed that his freshly baked bread doesn't quite rise to the occasion but Sasha's roasted game meats are to die for and match well with the local wines brought by your guest. Conversation flows freely and soon enough Dr Kwari, having taken your measure, opens about the real purpose of her visit. She doesn't need you to repair a satellite, but to save the moon's population from imminent destruction.

During the Dark Ages, when interstellar civilization collapsed due to the scourge of the Voyagers, the people of Typhos developed an obsession with autarchy and isolationism, attitudes which crystallized into a religious movement that rejected the ways of the past. The technologies of their ancestors and of offworlders generally were declared blasphemous and heretical; consequently, the first Travellers to reach Typhos after the Dark Ages ended found a TL 2 society resolutely opposed to any contact with spacefarers from other worlds. In the wake of some unfortunate fatalities occasioned by intrusive outsiders, the High Senate passed a law establishing the moon as a restricted preserve and prohibiting anyone from contacting its people or making landfall there. The agency for which Dr Kwari works was created to oversee this directive and study the society through passive observation via probes. 

For generations the moon's people have persisted in this isolation. But now a threat to the entire population looms. Satellite monitoring has revealed that a small breakaway polity in the northwest of the main continent seems to have turned its back on the isolationist orthodoxy, for its people have begun actively exploring ancient ruins and re-discovering the ways of the ancestors. Not surprisingly, a coalition of nearby nations has launched attacks on the heretics. The real danger, however, lies elsewhere: an expedition of the rebels seems poised to penetrate a mountain fastness that Dr Kwari's research indicates was a pre-Dark Ages biomedical facility — one that very likely contained laboratory samples of virulent pathogens that, if released, would cause deadly pandemics. The majority opinion of the agency's members is that the legal prohibition against intervention must be upheld: if the Typhosians unwittingly unleash such diseases, they must suffer the consequences, however dire. Dr Kwari, however, is not willing to sit by and watch such a tragedy unfold: she has chosen to defy her government's laws. She wants you to make landfall on Typhos, disguised as locals, and do whatever it takes to make sure the contents of the biomedical lab never see the light of day. She'll pay you Cr300,000 for the job.

The hefty payout, not to mention the humanitarian nature of the appeal, persuades you. Soon you are aboard a swift (6-G) pinnace rocketing toward Typhos. Dr Kwari provides you with appropriate garb that simulates the TL 2 manufactures visible from the satellites: kilts and tunics, sandals and cloaks. Homespun in appearance, the textiles you wear are lined with a fine synthetic mesh that will serve as effective armour (AR 5) against the metal points and edges of the primitive Typhosian weapons. Kwari and her colleagues know a lot about Typhosian material culture (such as is visible from the satellites) but precious little about the people's beliefs and values, other than what can be inferred through distant observation. You carry a few concealable high-tech items — a stunner, some grenades, a laser pistol —in your satchels, along with injection pens in case you are exposed to deadly pathogens. Otherwise, you look like TL 2 people. You disembark under the cover of night, a short distance from a small village where you plan to make contact with the locals and gather intelligence. Happily the weather is mild and you cover several kilometres on foot without incident.

By dawn you find yourselves approaching a palisaded settlement. You have prepared your cover story well: you pose as a troupe of entertainers from exotic eastern lands. (This helps explain your strange accents and vocabulary.) Griff and Cliff are a duo of Strong Men; Sasha is the "Illuminated Woman"; Nogudnyk plays an acrobat; and Torka takes on the role of the "Blue Houdini." The unmutated Jacobe blends into the background as the troupe's general dogsbody. The inhabitants are initially cautious, but your strange appearances and accents prove fascinating: they have never seen anything like you before. They quickly fill you in on the current situation.

The village of Horthi is part of a breakaway republic formed by the followers of the prophet Momet, who reject the anti-technology teachings of the Theocracy of Kraad. The village leader, Shadranach, is away on an expedition to the western mountains, in search of the mysteries of the ancients. Everyone is on edge, wondering what Shadranach will discover and worried by news that scarlet-clad Kraadite soldiers are abroad in the land, probing the heretics' defenses in advance of an invasion. They are delighted when you offer to perform for them: it's just what they need to improve morale. You quickly put together a show that combines acrobatics, theatre, and song, and that incidentally illustrates the unfortunate consequences of pursuing hidden knowledge incautiously. (You hope the villagers will get the message.) Sasha's concluding lament, following the pantomimed "deaths" of Griff and Cliff fighting a fearsome monster unleashed by delving too deeply into the mysteries of the past, brings the audience catharsis and leaves no dry eye in the house. The villagers roar in applause and proceed to hold a spontaneous general revelry where everyone gets thoroughly soused.

The next day, as everyone recovers, one of Shadranach's lieutenants arrives on foot. She reports that they've discovered a way into the ruins of the ancients and needs more supplies and provisions. The villagers quickly begin loading gear onto several of the native beasts of burden, slow-moving six-legged saurian behemoths. You appeal to De-Sothu, the runner, to allow you to accompany the supply column; after hearing the high praise of the villagers, she agrees. Later that day, you set off westward.

On the morning of the second day, De-Sothu decides to run ahead to give Shadranach notice of your impending arrival. As she speeds away, you see a score of warriors in red emerge from the shadow of some trees and pursue her. De-Sothu notices them and veers away to the south, hoping to lure the Kraadites away from your destination. You briefly consider going to her aid but instead remain with the convoy, trusting that De-Sothu will succeed in eluding her pursuers on her own.

When you arrive at the old mine site where Shadranach's people had discovered access to the ruins of the ancients, you find the expedition's members in a panic. They've lost contact with Shadranach and the advance party because some kind of monster has begun stalking them in the maze of mine shafts, many half-submerged in water. From their testimony, you glean that the creature is some kind of toothy water serpent that drags its victims into the deeps. Quickly rigging up a system of ropes and pulleys anchored by one of the beasts of burden, you "go fishing", as Sasha jokes: a hook is deployed in the deepest pool and poor Cliff is sent in to splash around as bait. Sure enough, a pale shape emerges from the depths to claim this meal. Though grievously wounded by its teeth, Cliff is pulled away in time while the hook disappears down the monster's gullet. Reeling your catch in, you assault the raging serpent with spears. Torka delivers the fatal blow with his cutlass. 

Victory is yours, but bad news comes on its heels: the squad of Kraadite raiders is approaching. You stuff the corpse of the great serpent into a narrow section of tunnel to block the enemy's passage for a while; then you light torches and set off in search of Shadranach.

Eventually you reach a place where an exploratory mining tunnel has breached the side of a great vertical shaft that you recognize as part of a freight elevator mechanism — surely this is the pre-Dark Ages biomedical facility described by Dr Kwari. Descending by rope to the lowest level, you discover that Shadranach has succeeded in restarting the facility's power plant by enacting rituals described in Momet's book of prophecies — in reality, a hodgepodge of fragments taken from ancient instruction manuals and technical guides collected by the prophet and his followers. While this means the lights are on and the doors are working, it also means that long-dormant security systems have been activated. A security robot is stalking the premises, stunning Shadranach's people into unconsciousness and incarcerating them in large cages. Worse, it quickly becomes apparent that Shadranach has unwittingly released from cryo-hibernation a specimen of the bioengineered super soldiers this facility was developing under the code name "Project Myrmidon": seven-foot-tall green hairless muscle-bound mutants with highly developed survival instincts. This creature is now stalking the complex, arming itself for combat. The icing on the cake is that, after several thousand years without maintenance, the power plant is unstable and will explode in about 20 minutes.

While Torka hacks the computers to find out where the pathogen samples are stored, the rest of you work on neutralizing the security robot and freeing its prisoners. Nodugnyk's telempathy skills succeed in calming the homicidal super-soldier, allowing you to make your way to a working passenger elevator and escape to the surface just before an enormous explosion destroys the underground complex along with, presumably, the two deadly disease samples you had located. Mission accomplished.

Standing on a mountain plateau amidst the vestiges of the surface remains of the facility, you find that the dense cloud cover will not allow you to signal for extraction quite yet. Making your way downhill with the Shadranach and the other survivors, you have a happy encounter with De-Sothu who managed to get away from the Kraadites, sustaining a small wound in the process. You bid the villagers adieu, hoping that this narrow escape may temper their enthusiasm for the "wisdom" of the ancients. Once they're out of sight and the skies have cleared, you drop a smoke grenade and are retrieved by Dr Kwari's pinnace. 

On the trip back to Denirad, you brief the anthropologist on what you have learned of Typhosian culture. She pays you an extra Cr50,000 for the information and artifacts you provide. Your finances are in good shape, but you now have to contemplate how you will make room on the Dejah Thoris for your two new adoptees: "Sparky", the security robot who obeys the holder of a plastic ID badge, and "Anty," the mutant super-soldier who has become Nogudnyk's latest project. 

"Anty", the newest member of the crew

Image credit: Supermutant from Fallout 76 videogame.