Rest In Pieces

A Tale from the Time of Virtual Existence for 5 players

You are a member of a tightly-knit group of humans who have known one another for decades. You are all scientists from the research vessel Inner Vision, primarily analyzing the quantum nature of space itself and the world of virtual particles contained therein.

You all came together originally as a discussion group for people that wanted to get together in person after work to talk about things other than science. Most of your days are spent designing experiments and analyzing data, and you craved the intellectual company of other minds.

Over time your relationship became closer, that of an adoptive family, and you chose to call yourselves The Seekers.

When The Seekers was formed, you each took on a new name, a sapient virtue, that you felt inspired by. Your name doesn't dictate who you are. Everyone knows that you all are complex people that don't fit into neat categories. But you have spent a lot of time thinking about your virtue, and champion it in discussions.

Your discussions are important to you as a way to reinforce your family bond, challenge one another, and give you new ways to think about the universe. You have talked about everything under the stars: philosophy, ancient history, the outlooks of alien races, artifacts found on dead worlds, art, and diverse other matters.

Your group has no "leader" per se, but Harmony comes close. The group would have broken up or drifted apart without them. Which gives testimony to the diligence with which they have pursued their virtue.

You are scheduled for a discussion today and are looking forward to it. Harmony usually proposes the topic some days ahead of time, but they haven't done so in this case. Presumably they want to surprise you.

Notes on Technology

It is common for people to upload themselves into the Inner Vision central computer complex, known as Athena, at some point in their lives. This is called "transitioning."

People who have transitioned are still people in every sense of the word. They are just in a different phase of existence. Their personalities are intact, just supported by a different mechanism. The experience of transitioning and the new environment inevitably changes them to some degree, but fundamentally they are the same person.

Some people consider transitioning to be a duty towards the Fleet, to make sure that as many experiences are recorded as possible for later research.

No one in your group has transitioned yet. You are all still enjoying the experience of being in biological bodies. You have all talked about it in a general sense as something that probably you will want to do sometime in the distant future.

Player Information

You can ask Athena to recount a memory or past event with you by saying: "Athena, do you remember when..." The event can be anything that plausibly occurred in the past; it need not reference something described in your character sheet.

Any player may respond by saying "This is Athena."

You and Athena then recount the event or the memory, making up details as needed. Athena takes the part of whoever else was in the memory with you. Note that Athena isn't a person, more like a repository and a search engine. It has access to many other people's memories, but none of those memories "belong" to it, and it has no personality.

You are encouraged to make up past memories that involve your character. Ideally they should involve other characters here. Athena can play anyone not present.

Tale Structure