The Choice

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We got a lot of mixed votes on the last post, so we're going with all three options. This is how it goes down:

After some discussion the conclusion's reached that you need to use what little time you have before Prospit's forces find you. You have enough players who can create illusions that some of you think it might be your best bet to try to sneak back to Skaia undercover, although it would be risky, and there is some dissent.

But! While exploring the Veil to see if there's any more weird technology like the Appearifier up there that could give you a better chance of outfoxing your pursuers some of the players find a still-active communications line to Derse. The surly Dersite general on the other end doesn't want to listen to you, but when the Hapless Derelict, the Dersite who Cassandra rescued from the Battlefield when she reached god tier, vouches for your collective trustworthiness, the general decides to let you make your case, and is eventually convinced that it is worth striking a deal with you.

Derse know they are outmatched, and if they throw everything they have at Prospit they will be annihilated. But they don't want to give up, the general tells you. She knows in her carapace as many of the losing Dersites do that they are not supposed to lose to Prospit. However, she is willing to launch a full scale attack on Prospit's fleet as a distraction, to buy you time to sneak to Skaia – but only if you promise that when you get there, you will combine Skaia's power with Poppy's machine, hack into the Incipisphere, and disable all of Prospit's weaponry.

When questioned as to what Derse will do if they are able to defeat Prospit, the general wearily shrugs her weird shiny ball jointed shoulders. They can't destroy Skaia like they're supposed to now, she says, but she still doesn't want her people to be wiped out.

You don't have much choice but to take advantage of her offer, so all the remaining players cloak your way back to Skaia on a slow, quiet and stressful journey while Derse provides a distraction.

Once you get past the fleets guarding the planet, Skaia itself isn't very heavily guarded. The door to your new universe is right there. There are just a couple of Prospitian guards there who you have to karate chop before they can inform their superiors you've arrived, which shouldn't be too much of a problem for players of your calibre.

You can't just hop through there, though. You need to hold up your end of the bargain with Derse. The Hapless Derelict will be really upset and disappointed with you if you don't.

Besides, some of you want to see if you can use the machine to send people back home.

The good news: You can. Poppy's machine can affect the portals that have opened up around Skaia and allow those of you who would prefer to go home than to a new world get to places other than Poppy's meteor-devasted home planet.

The bad news: Poppy's original system for breaching dimensions was random, so there are no universe coordinates you can use to reach the right ones, but it's possible to implement a system that will cause any portal to match the DNA of a person who enters it to the universe they come from and deposit them in the universe they originated, at the point in time they left. Once used in this fashion the portal is locked to that universe and remains open. That would be great except that, because predestination has been destroyed, only one point in time can be accessed in each universe – and there might not be as many boundaries between some of the characters' origins as they might have thought.

The worse news: Because the portals remain open, the inhabitants of the Incipisphere can follow you. Which is exactly what ME wanted to use Poppy's machine for in the first place – transuniversal conquering. ME can't win against Derse if you disarm them, but if Derse wins, without Skaia to destroy, they'll sure as heck want something else to destroy. And if you disarm both of them they'll eventually rebuild their arsenals and their armies and see what they can find through the universe-pathways you left behind.

And even worse: the carapace NPCs in every session of Sburb have the same DNA. With these portals they could wreak havoc on any iteration of the Incipisphere they pleased and in doing so completely wreck the process of universe creation and doom everything. And that's not even considering any left over denizens. Or even consorts. This session is glitched. Who knows what those guys will do.

The only way for any characters to return to their home dimensions without risking danger to multiple universes is to use Poppy's machine to delete every NPC in the session (that means every NPC, including any you may have with you).

Or, you could choose not to open any portals. NPCs can't get through the door to the new universe, at least not on their own. If you destroy the machine, or take it with you, the Dersites and Prospitians will have no way to leave this session at all.

You have a choice: Give up the chance to return to your homeworlds, or wipe out all life in the Incipisphere.

What do you do?

Please note that while we want to know what your characters want to do as well, this is an OOC choice over an IC one – it would be easy enough for one rogue player to go against the status quo by nabbing Poppy's machine and either destroying it or using it to delete the Dersites and Prospitians. Ultimately it comes down to what you guys want to happen to your characters.