Welcome to another exciting installment of Spacemon, the tale of a Pokemon TRPG campaign! It is a sci-fi space epic played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system and GMed by fellow TAY author DragonStorm247. You can get caught up on the entire Spacemon saga here!
Arlon Jett sat alone on the bridge of the UAS Corsair. It still felt weird to be sitting in that chair. The fact that anyone but Lars Rickets was sitting there seemed wrong, but times had changed. Lars was gone now, but at least the one responsible was behind bars now. Arlon sighed and thought back on how he had gotten here.
The resolution of the battle with the Romanov Supremacy’s Genesect over Solace Prime had provided very few answers and brought up far too many questions. Questions that needed to be answered. Something sinister was at work behind the scenes and Arlon was intent on finding out what it was. Arlon never found himself caring about big Galaxy-wide issues before, only caring about the next job, the next payment, but his experience being on the run from the law and from his former companions, and the crazy things he encountered while traveling aboard the Dunsparce had changed him.
There were mysterious forces at work, linking everything they had seen. Earth, the Genesect, the Supremacy, Giratina, and, of course, the enigmatic Mr. Silver. These forces had the potential to change the face of the entire galaxy and Arlon wanted to be prepared for whatever came next. That was why he chose to part ways with his new friends in the first place. With his name cleared, Arlon had hoped to return to the Red Suns and use their resources to pursue this goal, and now here he was.
Arlon’s friends on the Helix were resourceful and could handle themselves, but he couldn’t help but wonder how they were getting on without him. He’d only spoken with them a couple of times since his departure, once when they’d requested help in tracking down Gilgamesh a few months back, and again just recently when he’d requested their aid in tracking down the scientist Mr. Silver was looking for, but he wasn’t sure what, exactly, they had been up to for the past few months. Hopefully they were having better luck finding answers than he was …
Vacation.
That’s what the Helix crew needed. At least that’s what Dmitri had felt.
During their adventures aboard the GCS Dunsparce and now the UAS Helix, the crew had faced death on multiple occasions, dealt with levels of stress and fear they had never experienced before, and in the end, accomplished things they never could have imagined before they had met. They’d visited the lost origin planet Earth, stopped a pirate organization’s nefarious plans, and became Federation heroes at the Battle of Solace Prime. With all this accomplished in a matter of only a few months, Dmitri had proposed taking a break to his crewmates.
H and Shane didn’t quite seem to understand the concept of a vacation, but surprisingly, Morgan agreed with the idea and said she would take one of her own. With that decided, Morgan dropped Dmitri off at his vacation destination before traveling to the planet she’d selected for her own.
Dmitri now found himself on the moon known as Khepri V, a tropical world in Federation core space with large oceans and vast jungles. He had tried to relax during his time here with a number of activities such as fishing, hiking, swimming, and drinking. Even with all these things to distract him, Dmitri felt troubled and unable to relax. In the void, when he and his crewmates were lost and adrift and he had begun to fall into the grips of warp madness, he was haunted by strange, disturbing visions. Though the visions had stopped when they had made it back to civilization, he couldn’t shake what he had seen. Questions burned in his mind. Why did he see what he saw? What even was it that he saw? Other questions plagued him too. Why had Mr. Silver sent them to Earth? Who was really behind the attack on Solace Prime?
Unable to relax, Dmitri had begun to spend his vacation seeking answers. Some questions he knew he couldn’t even begin to find answers for until he reunited with his crewmates, so he focused on tackling the matter of his visions first. That was something he could do on his own. As he researched information on visions and warp madness, Dmitri soon discovered that he had begun to develop telepathic abilities. He’d known he was psionic for a while now, his powers first manifesting a few years ago, but this was something new. Traveling to the void of warp space must have triggered something, he reasoned, and somehow, these new abilities were what allowed him to see those visions. They weren’t like the clairvoyant powers that had started to manifest in Morgan back on Banton several months ago, but he knew that there had to be a connection between his new powers and his visions.
Hoping that by honing his new abilities, he could unlock the meaning of his visions, Dmitri decided to try to go about doing so in two ways. The first was through meditation. He knew if he could strengthen his focus he could better control his powers. The other technique was to simply practice using them. Every day, he would go out and read the minds of the people around him. He could only perceive their surface thoughts, but he had a feeling that, with practice, he could do so much more. Dmitri particularly enjoyed this exercise because he would hear a lot of interesting things. Being on a rather unassuming planet, though, he never heard anything particularly noteworthy.
The question remained, though: what did his visions mean? The ruins he saw were most likely in Sinai space, but direct coordinates were impossible to come by without more information. He was on the verge of giving up until he remembered Gilgamesh. The gym leader seemed to know a lot about this kind of thing and, as a Sinai monk, surely he could help him learn more about his new powers as well.
Dmitri stood up from the bed in his hotel room. There was little more he could do until the Helix returned to pick him up. For now, he would do his best to enjoy the remainder of his vacation.
Morgan sighed as she sat up in bed. It was the middle of the night and she was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. She was beginning to wonder why she had ever thought a vacation would be a good idea.
It was Dmitri’s dumb suggestion. After bidding farewell to Arlon, Morgan and the remainder of the crew hadn’t had much of an idea of what to do next. After all that had happened, none of them were too keen to take on any big jobs soon and, barring any big purchases, they had enough money to last several months, at least. Dmitri was the one who proposed taking a vacation, and Morgan had to admit that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Shortly after dropping Dmitri off on Khepri V, Morgan decided she would leave as well. With barely a word of explanation, she had taken the ship to Genevan space, to a system near her home; it was still far enough away that no one she knew would find her, but close enough to feel familiar. The planet she chose to take her vacation on was called Lido and catered mostly to tourists and retirees. Here, Morgan was able to rent a cabana at a nice beach resort for the month for a modest sum.
Leaving the ship in the care of H and Shane, Morgan departed for what should have been a pleasant experience, but she found she was unable to enjoy herself at all. Had anyone cared to notice, they would have seen how irritable and jumpy she was all the time, but the resort staff were so used to being abused and snapped at that they wrote it off entirely. As the month dragged on, Morgan spent an increasingly large amount of time in her room, brooding and trying to sleep, but never able to snatch more than a couple hours of rest at a time. She wouldn’t even admit to herself that it was because of the nightmares. She blamed her terrible experience on everything she could think of— the service, the amenities, the other guests, anything but the unpleasant thoughts constantly clouding her own mind. At this point, the month was almost up and she was more than ready to return to the Helix.
Begrudgingly, Morgan climbed out of bed. If sleep was going to elude her, then she may as well do something, anything to distract herself from herself. That was it. She needed goals to keep her occupied. No more of this sitting around. Settling down at the desk, Morgan began writing up a list of tasks to complete when she got back to the ship.
Shane on the floor in one of the empty and unused rooms aboard the Helix. It was calm and quiet aboard the ship, which remained docked on the planet Lido, but he didn’t mind too much. After the battle at Solace Prime, Shane felt unfazed. It seemed like a typical day for him … only they fought and defeated an army of Genesect. Nothing special. Since then, he had mainly spent his time wandering the ship and helping H with … whatever the hell it was that he got up to in his new labs.
Occasionally, when he wasn’t attempting to keep H out of irreversible trouble— or keep him from inflicting it upon the Helix— Shane would retreat to this room. This was his new warp lab, or at least the room he had determined would be his warp lab. This is where he would work to understand his powers. So far, Shane had spent weeks researching, both inside the computer system and outside, and before he even realized it, the ship was empty. Everyone had left at some point or another, going off on that thing they called “vacation.”
BOOM!
Well, almost everyone.
Shane got up and poked his head out the door to see H entering the corridor from the cargo hold. “You don’t happen to have tranquilizers, duck tape, and a shovel do you?” the cyborg asked.
“You mean duct tape?”
“No, specifically for ducks.”
“Go to hell, H.”
“Currently planned for later,” H replied. “But I’ve got more important things to do first. Regardless, care to help me find my items?”
Shane shrugged. “Why not?” he said as he followed H back to the formerly empty section of the Helix where he had established various labs in the unused rooms for his numerous projects.
Part of Shane was glad that H had his own area of the ship now, leaving the med bay alone for all to use freely. During all the time Shane spent with H on the ship, he had grown more distant from his self-proclaimed rival rather than closer. Nevertheless, they both took their collaborative efforts seriously, and often helped finish each other’s (mainly H’s) failed experiments.
After spending some time searching the ship, Shane managed to help H track down the items he required— which, miraculously, all just happened to be lying around in one place or another— Shane returned to his future warp lab. He sighed as he sat back down on the floor. All these weeks of studying his abilities and Shane still felt no closer to a breakthrough. He could barely even understand which effects were from Giratina’s mark and which ones were a part of his glitched existence in this reality. At the very least, he felt that he had gained some sense of greater control over them.
Looking around at his empty lab again, Shane realized that he really had no idea what he was doing. He needed help to figure these things out, but he was unsure on who could possibly have the right expertise. Then it hit him. Gilgamesh. The gym leader they had met briefly in Sector 25 had introduced himself as a student of the Warp, and he had been the one to tell them about Giratina in the first place. Surely, if anyone could help Shane, it was him. He just needed to figure out how to contact him.
Morgan was glad to be back on the Helix. There was a lot of work that needed to be done and it could distract her from everything else. She threw herself at her tasks with unusual zeal. All her time since returning from her vacation was spent working.
The first item on her list had been to put her engineering skills to good use and construct a set of bots to serve the ship; a craft of the Helix’s size required much more than four crew members and, although it was inevitable that they would have to hire more human crew, Morgan wanted as few strangers on the ship as possible. Based on their experience with the Genesect, she knew that it would be prudent to build a robot capable of hull repairs. She had also realized that it was unwise to continue to rely on H for medical care as he seemed more interested in “enhancing” people than healing them. Although she needed his help to program an AI capable of providing care independently, it was a more attractive alternative to letting him continue unchecked. When working with him, Morgan wasn’t mean per se, but she was curt— necessary, she thought, to keep him on track. Even though the bot required an AI chip, she was careful to give it as little personality as possible; the last thing the ship needed was more “personality.”
It seemed this design choice wasn’t popular with everyone, though. As she was sitting in the Helix’s new robotics workshop, making some tweaks to HERB— the name she had given to the repair bot— Morgan watched as Shane attempted to interact with the recently finished medical bot, which she had dubbed MARIA. He appeared to be disappointed with the lack of engagement it provided.
“Your robots are boring,” Shane said, looking over at her.
“Ugh, just get out then!” Morgan snapped at him.
“Uh, okay,” Shane said. He sounded a bit taken aback, but he complied and left Morgan to her work. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been on the wrong end of one of her outbursts.
Angrily, Morgan turned her attention back to the repair bot. Everything she did after returning to the ship she did angrily; she spoke angrily, ate angrily, and the rest of the crew probably suspected she slept angrily, assuming they thought she slept at all. The others quickly learned not to stand directly behind her, and hardly to look at her lest she snap at them for staring. Her behavior was obviously strange, but who was going to complain? Dmitri, who tended to keep to himself? H, who seemed to have no idea what normal was and almost certainly didn’t care? Shane? Well, she couldn’t be sure what Shane would do, but he hadn’t tried anything yet, and if he did, well, it was a bridge she would cross when she came to it.
Finishing her adjustments to the repair bot, Morgan set it aside and shifted her attention to her other focus. All the time she wasn’t tinkering with her new creations, Morgan was typing away on the ship’s computer. If anyone had bothered to look, they would have seen her researching clairvoyance, though that’s not exactly how she put it when searching the Spacenet. She was looking for a more rational explanation for her experience, and stubbornly stayed away from sites veering too far into the occult. Despite that, it was difficult not to at least learn something from all this reading, and she found herself knowing more about occult matters than she had ever really wanted to. The more she read, the more unsure she was that there wasn’t something to all this talk, but it was a feeling she pushed to the bottom of her consciousness.
After several weeks of little progress, however, she was growing desperate. If anyone truly knew anything about what was happening to her, it would have to be that Sinai gym leader they had met, Gilgamesh. She didn’t want to bring the subject up to her crewmates so it was lucky for her that, upon being picked up from his own vacation, Dmitri suggested seeking the monk out for his own reasons. Shane too, it seemed, wanted to speak with Gilgamesh, for help in setting up his warp lab. Morgan was relieved that she didn’t have to reveal her intentions and convince the rest of the crew to search for Gilgamesh.
The problem was contacting him. It turned out he was an elusive individual to track down for a gym leader. The crew was looking for him, but it was going to take time, time Morgan would spend continuing her research on her own, for what little good that would do.
In the privacy of his not yet warp lab, Shane continued to experiment with his warpy, glitchy, bullshit abilities. The Helix had begun to return to life as the crew returned from vacation and things seemed to return to a more normal state— or at least what passed as normal for them. Even so, he found himself keeping to himself more and more. H was H, of course, but Morgan was difficult to engage with these days. They rarely talked after her outburst in the robotics workshop; as much as it was painful to see Morgan in such a state of disarray as she was, Shane didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.
Meanwhile, the crew continued the search for Gilgamesh. Shane had made some small advancements on his personal research, but he still sought guidance on setting up his lab. Dmitri wished to speak with the monk as well and even Morgan seemed interested. The task of finding him, however, was proving difficult. As it turned out, unlike most other gym leaders, the monk did not have an officially established gym location and he had a tendency to go off the grid for extended periods at a time. This of course made tracking him down quite difficult. After some months of unsuccessfully searching for Gilgamesh on their own, the members of the Helix’s crew had reached out to Arlon for help. Though he was quite busy running the Red Suns now, their old crewmate had agreed to put out some feelers.
For now, it seemed the best course of action was to wait. In the meantime, Shane drifted between his own various projects and helped the others out where he could. On his own, Shane had at least been able to differentiate which abilities had come from Giratina’s mark and which had not, and he had developed a better understanding of how to actually use said abilities. Actually understanding them, though, was another matter entirely.
Taking a break from his current experimentation, Shane departed from his empty room and headed for the living quarters. A nice walk about the ship tended to help clear his mind. As he passed through the mess area, he spotted Dmitri having a bite to eat.
“Hey,” Shane greeted his crewmate as he passed.
“Hey, Shane, I have a question for you actually,” Dmitri replied.
Shane turned around and said, “Sure. What is it?”
“I’ve been wondering,” Dmitri said. “How did you know what Earth looked like or that it was even the origin planet?”
Shane contorted his face in thought. He hadn’t even considered that, despite the obvious implications. “I … don’t know …” he trailed off.
The more Shane thought about it, the less certain he was about the answer, or if he even had one. As questions began to flood into his mind, they led to more questions about his past than before, questions that he simply could not answer. He returned to the warp lab with a slightly different purpose; he was searching for why he could use the warp, and not how. As much as Shane tried to avoid his past, he understood as an AI that he would eventually have to confront it and accept it, whether or not he wanted to.
Dmitri felt frustrated. There were so many unanswered questions that plagued him and he felt no closer to solving them. On the matter of his visions, the search for Gilgamesh had all but stagnated. The man seemed impossible to find. As for everything else, he was just stumped. He knew nothing about Mr. Silver or the way he thought. The mysterious signal that had been communicating with the Genesect— and had likely been what called them away at the end of the battle— was also a complete enigma to him. He knew next to nothing about computers for one thing, but he also had limited access to the Genesect specimens they had recovered after the battle.
H kept the Genesect in a secure room aboard the ship, both to keep them safe while he studied them and, to a much lesser extent, to keep everyone on the ship safe in the event that they activated. H was happy to have Dmitri join him on his Genesect research, but he was far more interested in pursuing his own goals for them. Dmitri had hoped to bring one back online to use both as a Pokemon and as a means to learn more about the signal. H, however, well … Dmitri wasn’t sure what H’s plans for the genesect were. In the end, Dmitri had decided to take an indefinite break from this endeavor, realizing that what he was hoping to do was beyond his means for the time being.
Dmitri was pacing in his quarters when Morgan called the crew to the bridge. Having nothing better to do, he headed over to see what she wanted.
“I just heard from Arlon,” Morgan announced once they had all gathered. “He found a lead on Gilgamesh.”
“Finally,” said Shane.
“Where is he?” Dmitri asked.
“Apparently Gilgamesh’s last known location is the planet Vandia in Sinai space,” Morgan explained.
“Then we’d better head there soon before the trial goes cold,” Shane said.
“I agree,” Morgan replied. “But Arlon asked us for help with something too. He’s trying to find some scientist Mr. Silver is after.”
“Yes, yes, whatever,” H said impatiently. “If that will be all, I have experiments to return to. I was in the middle of updating my notes when you interrupted me.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and, with a swish of his lab coat, he departed.
“Wait, H takes notes?” Shane asked.
Dmitri chuckled at the joke, then turned to the computer terminal displaying the information Arlon had transmitted. The scientist was named Dr. Louis Armstrong and he was a leader in the field of theoretical biology, whatever that meant. Arlon had also attached a note stating that finding this scientist would provide invaluable insight into Mr. Silver’s goals.
“We definitely need to find this guy,” Dmitri said, recognizing the importance of this mission.
“Well Arlon said he’s having difficulty tracking him down, so we should find Gilgamesh first,” Morgan said. “At least we know where he is now.”
“Alright,” Dmitri agreed. “Let’s go.”
Tail Log:
Startup Successful…Tail Log Online
Begin Recording
Entry 1-
Task: Implantation of Tail Log into Artificial Tail
Result: Success
Notes: Vocal Link established, notetaking will begin through manual input or proper voice command.
Entry 2-
Task: Tail Attachment to #1
Result: Failure
Notes: Tail cannot be attached with duct tape and remain for extended periods of time.
More Research is required.
Entry 5-
Task: Tail Attachment to #1
Result: Success
Notes: Binding of tail to #1 required bone-based sensor input to be prematurely implanted in tail base and outputs tail interactions at 99% accuracy. All future attachments will be based on this method until better methods are discovered.
More Research is Required.
Entry 54-
Task: Leg Repairs to the Chosen
Result: Failure
Notes: Improvised equipment proves inadequate.
More Research is Required.
Entry 60-
Task: Leg Repairs to the Chosen
Result: Success
Notes: Repairs and Augmentation have resulted in further improvement, the cause of the damage will no longer be a problem. Expensive.
More Research is Required.
Entry 84-
Task: Arm Repairs for Subject
Result: Failure
Notes: Escape Necessary.
More Research is Required.
Entry 100-
Task: Hip Repairs for Subject
Result: Failure
Notes: Freelance work is costly.
More Research is Required.
Entry 240-
Task: Bodily Repairs for Subject
Result: Success
Notes: Ghost-Type Pokemon require additional knowledge to repair properly.
More Research is Required.
Entry 260-
Task: Retrieve Pokemon
Result: Success
Notes: Pokemon was not obtained, through rope has once again proven too useful to dismiss. #2’s string shot proved invaluable.
More Research is Required.
Entry 267-
Task: Research
Result: ???
Notes: Warp Drives modify matter oddly, further testing needed to obtain actual results.
More Research is Required.
Entry 268-
Task: Research
Result: ???
Notes: Warp drive experimentation INCREDIBLY unreliable.
More Research is Required.
Entry 290-
Task: WAILORD
Result: WAILORD
Notes: WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL WAILORD IS ALL
More Research is Required.
Entry 291-
Task: Creation
Result: Success
Notes: Amazing Device Numbers expired, Letters shall now be used. Amazing Device A Operation, further research shall only improve and expand its possibilities.
More Research is Required.
Entry 300-
Task: Augmentation for the Chosen
Result: Success
Notes: Usage for excess flesh is unknown. Improvements shall be useful in combination with newfound strengths.
More Research is Required.
Entry 312-
Task: Research
Result: Failure
Notes: Dive Ball needed.
More Research is Required.
Entry 350-
Task: Creation
Result: Success
Notes: Heaty shall never need a number for my Heaty is Mine.
More Research is Required.
Entry 364-
Task: Augmentation for the Chosen
Result: Success
Notes: Do not augment without full mental control. Uses for augmentation still unknown.
More Research is Required.
Entry 380-
Task: Pokemon Move Storage
Result: Success
Notes: Ability to store moves in pokeballs works across types. Many Possibilities await. Pokeball Cannon Needed.
More Research is Required.
Entry 400-
Task: Test Data
Result: Success
Notes: New Tools work optimally. Genesect prove interesting though difficult research opportunities; Due to their value Genesect will be stored until their maximum research value can be obtained. Pokemon usage re-examination necessary.
More Research is Required.
Entry 411-
Task: Pokemon Examination
Result: ???
Notes: Pokemon intelligence is useless for research. Pokemon behavior is useless for research. Pokemon biology may prove useful to new augmentation research. Moves and abilities must be more closely studied. Experts may be needed.
More Research is Required.
Entry 430-
Task: Pokeball Examination
Result: Failure
Notes: Pokeballs will only contain Pokemon-based matter. Non-Pokemon-made Matter, even when identical, cannot be contained in a Pokeball no matter the augmentation.
More Research is Required.
Entry 447-
Task: Ghost Type Examination
Result: Failure
Notes: Certain Matter forms do not seem to be easy to control.
More Research is Required.
Entry 459-
Task: Elemental Combination
Result: Failure
Notes: Avoid working with volatile type combinations.
More Research is Required.
Entry 488-
Task: Elemental Combination
Result: ???
Notes: Elemental Combination is recorded as possible in the wild and seems to require control from both pokemon to succeed. However, Combinations only occur with Pokemon Moves, and They cannot combine with their surroundings even should they share the same property.
More Research is Required.
Entry 500-
Task: Elemental Combination
Result: Failure
Notes: Pokemon must be present to maintain control
More Research is Required.
Entry 555-
Task: Research
Result: ???
Notes: Human-Pokemon Combination has never been successful.
More Research is Required.
Entry 557-
Task: Pokeball Interaction
Result: Failure
Notes: Samples difficult to obtain and decay is problematic but unavoidable. No success.
More Research is Required.
Entry 560-
Task: Secret Power
Result: Success
Notes: Pokemon can modify their abilities based on surroundings.
More Research is Required.
Entry 563-
Task: Secret Power
Result: Failure
Notes: Pokemon does not handle new surroundings well and continues to avoid completing the test.
More Research is Required.
Entry 566-
Task: Secret Power
Result: Success
Notes: Mental Chip has allowed for proper performance under duress. May disappoint breeder.
More Research is Required.
Entry 569-
Task: Secret Power
Result: failure
Notes: Secret Power seems to only adapt to certain surroundings, even man-made ones, but simply doesn’t work within the text surrounding. Fresher material may be needed.
More Research is Required.
Entry 582-
Task: Research
Result: ???
Notes: Ditto have been known to replicate Humans, though difficult to find when they do.
More Research is Required.
Entry 600-
Task: Problem
Result: Failure
Notes: Main Problem has been solved by Pokemon, but not by Humanity. Main Problem must be solved.
More Research is Required.
Entry 610-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: ???
Notes: Absorption is a multi-element phenomenon that appears for only the more natural elements. Why only those and how?
More Research is Required.
Entry 623-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Success
Notes: Absorption can affect non-poke-based objects. This seems counter-intuitive, why would pokemon develop absorption that cannot be used on their environment and only as a defense?
More Research is Required.
Entry 629-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Failure
Notes: Absorption modification proving difficult.
More Research is Required.
Entry 630-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Failure
Notes: Absorption is innate and occurs while pokemon is not aware of the element but it will not function when it is unconscious.
More Research is Required.
Entry 650-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Failure
Notes: Partial Absorption of elements in state transition can occur depending on circumstance.
More Research is Required.
Entry 660-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Success
Notes: Partial Absorption of partial combination elemental attacks. Seems that as long as there is part of the required material it can be absorbed regardless of interference.
More Research is Required.
Entry 663-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Success
Notes: Modification through usage of interference may allow for interference absorption and modification of absorption properties.
More Research is Required.
Entry 666-
Task: Elemental Absorption
Result: Failure
Notes: Human is currently not a valid element or environment. All research possibilities are exhausted to isolate pokemon traits and actions that cannot be performed by humans even partially.
More Research is Required.
THE GENESECT ARE REQUIRED.
Notes: As I mentioned in the notes at the end of Volume 1 somewhere, I rolled a new character for Volume 2. However, Arlon is not out of the picture and returned as a recurring NPC that can provide the party with information. I worked closely with the GM to use Arlon to set up a starting point for us in Volume 2. Armstrong gave us a lead on Mr. Silver and Gilgamesh gave the other player characters a reason to go to my new character’s planet so I can join the party again. One thing I do want to mention is that Arlon’s activities since leaving the party were later greatly expanded upon in the mini-series Seeing Red. The information in this story in particular is covered in greater detail in the first two parts, which you have already read since I’ve put everything in this series in the order I feel it is best read in.
Clarissa would like to note that she was trying to portray Morgan as dealing with PTSD from her experiences in Volume 1.
In case you couldn’t tell, H’s story is just his research log. It seems to start around when our adventures first began and continues up to just before the start of Volume 2 proper. Gotta love his thought process. Kudos to his player for taking the time to draft it up.
Update 10/9/21: This chapter has gone through one hell of a transformation. It was kind of just a loose connection of stories written by different people for their characters and had some inconsistencies that needed ironing out. It was written just after the original first volume of Spacemon was finished and posted before the first chapter of volume 2 brought the writing to a new level so, for multiple reasons, the writing style just didn’t match what has since been established as the norm for Spacemon. After some consideration, I decided to deconstruct everyone’s stories and put them together into one cohesive chapter.
Starting from the beginning, I basically got rid of most of Arlon’s story. Since the information in it had been expanded upon quite a lot in the first two parts of Seeing Red, I decided to strip it down to a short intro scene. I kept some of the bits I liked, but reframed it as a scene of Arlon doing some thinking at some point after Seeing Red Part 2 and then wondering what the crew had been up to as a way to transition back in time to review what they’d been up to.
For the next scene, I took the majority of Dmitri’s story and added a few bits here and there and just cleaned it up a bit. The scene after that is just the beginning of Morgan’s story with a bit of added detail. I tried to frame these both as actual scenes and it worked pretty well.
Next up is a scene constructed from the first half Shane’s story and some new writing. In breaking up Shane’s story, I did remove The Other Guy’s hidden message, but it didn’t entirely make sense anymore. The big addition here is adding a reason for Shane to look for Gilgamesh instead of him just randomly realizing Gilgamesh can help him with his warp lab in one of the early Volume 2 chapters. Having a third person in the party actively wanting to seek him out makes the narrative tighter.
After that is basically just the rest of Morgan’s story. I did reorder some parts of it for flow as well as add some details that were established later like the name of the medical bot. I also added in the part of Shane’s story where he interacted with the bot here because it flowed nicely. I did alter the part about Morgan wanting to find Gilgamesh a bit though. It never accounted for Dmitri also wanting to look for him and of course Shane wants to look for him too now.
Next is an expansion of the rest of Shane’s story. Just some added details, moving the mention of getting Arlon’s help to find Gilgamesh here from Morgan’s story, and making some dialogue out of the bit where Dmitri asked him the question about Earth.
The last scene is made from the last bit of Dmitri’s story and some new writing. This one takes place shortly before the intro scene, just after Arlon contacted them about Gilgamesh and Armstrong. I did bring in some details from Arlon’s story to fill in some info on Armstrong, and Arlon actually contacting them was mentioned in Morgan’s story, but I moved it here. I fleshed things out with some dialogue and a transition to the last part of the chapter.
And that brings us to H’s log. It seemed a bit weird to just have it in full with everything else being mixed together, but it was too good to get rid of and it also provides so much insight to everything H did in Volume 1, which were never really explained even after being we-written and now touched up. I feel like the mention of H updating his notes in the last scene is enough of a transition to make it work though.
Overall, I really like how this chapter turned out and I’m really impressed with myself for taking a bunch of separate things written by different people and cramming them into one cohesive narrative. It did take a ton of work, though. Still totally worth it.
That does it for this chapter. As always the Spacemon gang and I will be monitoring the comments to foster discussion and answer any questions. Feel free to give feedback and critiques of the writing so I can improve it for the future, or just leave a comment with what you think about what went down in this chapter or what you think might happen next! You can also revisit past chapters, check out the rest of the Spacemon saga, join the Spacemon Discord server, or like our Facebook page to stay updated on all things Spacemon! Click here for the next exciting installment of Spacemon!
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