Two people. Only one person (4/25/2026)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Randy Lubin, Alex Miller, Dane Fox-McGraw, Justin Evans
System: Mothership

Content warnings for body horror, violence, and general grossness below.

[35D] REJECT BIN (.5G): the sound of a thousand screaming, damaged voices over a colossal mountain of twitching, broken bodies. The mountain is a rich tapestry of discarded bodies, built wrong and set to suffer forever. Their only succor is death through recycling.

Above the pile of living, thinking beings are the Chutes:
Chute A discharges hundreds of broken bodies onto the mountain every 2d10 min.
Chute B drops a claw into the mountain, scoops up piles then retracts back into the chute, sending them to the [49I] DISASSEMBLY YARD to be recycled.

As the claw descends the wailing is filled with begging, a great surge of bodies towards the claw to be chosen.

The characters had no memory of how they got there. They were blinded by the light from the chute above. This was how we open a game of Mothership!

Randy played Obed Ferreri, a scientist. In the reflection of his glasses he saw his twin self being torn away from him by the great claw. He was regardless, unphased by the predicament. His childhood family moments were spend doing VR edutainment.

Alex played Doll Hinzman, a teamster. Their patch declared them “All Out of Fucks to Give”. Doll grew up scroungnig for food, just tryin to get by. They were sanguine about what must be another day in the cloning factory as they saw a three armed version of themselves being torn apart.

Dane played Eva Vitek, at teamster. She scavenged from the bodies around her, not looking to close at any of them. They were all dead or dying so clearly wouldn’t need that salvage drone…or that flamethrower. She was always trying to live up to her older twin Nina, and was always quarreling with her.

Justin played Brielle McGinn, a scientist. Possibly the scientist that was (at least partially) responsible for the fully autonomous space station that was trying to kill them all. Three red lights flashed on their shoulder med scanner…mirrored by the same flashes on an access panel above the pile of bodies. They were the only one who seem terrified of the situation.

Oh, and they were all wet. Covered in some fluid or lubricant. Gross.

Highlights

Because the room only .5G gravity we started saying “Two people are only one person” which seemed to keep on having new meanings the longer we played.

Brielle taking out her screwdriver and stabbing one version of Doll in the hand over and over to let go of her, before grabbing a hold of Doll to be pulled up out of the pit. “Oh, hi Doll” they said as they put the bloody screwdriver away.

Doll misfired the rigging gun, got the cord caught on the claw, and then when they tried to climb up the lumbering machine with their Xenomorph Hide gloves, discovered that the rending claws above were far more intentional and malicious. Doll was ripped to shreds. Pretty early on as well.

A combination of jumping (before being ripped apart), salvage drones, and paracord to get the rest up on the railing. It was all so slippery.

Brielle discovering that all the terminals but one had been ripped out. The screen was cracked, the keyboard was missing keys, but they connected the AI port to their Medscanner to get an update on what was happening, and that’s when they recalled…

10 years ago you were all hired by CLOUDBANK Industries for work at the CLOUDBANK Synthetic Production Facility, a state of the art factory for the production of and built to be operated by androids, robots, and other non organic labor units.

Colloquially referred to as ‘The Deep’, this tremendous facility is the size of a city, a mega factory, employing and housing hundreds of thousands of workers, and YOU just happen to be some of those lucky company employees.

10 months ago, the CLOUDBANK synthetic facility celebrated a milestone – the creation of a self actualizing, self learning, fully sentient cybernetic intelligence. Dubbed lovingly ’Mona’ after the Mona Lisa by the R&D department, this masterpiece of scientific achievement was designated the task of running all operations across The Deep. Codename MONA – Mother of Nascent Automatons –  this budding super intelligence would undergo through testing, rigorous training, and further development before its existence could be made public to the general populace. 

The hatch door opened and a marine with a pulse rifle, instructed to kill anything that tried to come through the door, stood their confused. Introducing Alex’s second character Madora “Mads” Trogdon, who wasn’t fully in control of her own actions, but did manage not to shoot the humans emerging from the REJECT BIN.

Brielle recalling Tara, who trained with them on the Bell (the ship just outside the Deep where new arrivals were oriented). They did trust falls together as part of a Zero-G training exercise “We’re inthis together” was the last thing Brielle said to them…and then never saw them again (except to notice their name on a recent access list in room 35B RJECT BIN ACCESS.

Obed, who believed in the mission of automation, but his position as lead engineer was taken from him by director Aelin, who claimed all the glory and sent Obed to work in the HVAC system. Obed recalled more of what had happened recently.

10 minutes ago, a Press Conference with all of the major galactic news outlets was gathered at The Deep to finally announce the incredible news of “MONA’s” existence! [Aelin was in that Press Conference]

10 seconds ago, all of the power on The Deep went out….

Self actualized name. Mother of Nascent Automatons Replicant Class Humanity—MONARCH

When Madora first got on the station, they found Eva was lost and afraid she wasn’t qualified for the work needed. She was afraid people would find out and she’d lose her job. “Fake it till you make it” was the advice she gave. Later when they found another Eva, fused back to back to her twin Nina, all terrified of the security androids that wanted to rip the apart, Mads gave her confidence again and Eva (the other Eva) picked up a pulse rifle that still had part of a hand holding onto it and decided she would help the others get out. She had never used a gun before but she was ready to “Fake it till you make it.”

Eva, however, was not happy to see Eva and Nina, because that meant that Nina had come to the station, been brain scanned, and was now attached to her, or the other her. There was lots of arguments about who was closer to which sister. Eva/Nina, being biologically fused had a few strong arguments to make. The old sisterly arguments surpassed the divisions between organic and inorganic life. Two people. Only one person.

Down an airlock that turned into a nexus of vent shafts they found a Ghost, which in this place had no heat, but did have mass, or at least could stab you with your own bloody screwdriver if you weren’t careful. Repeating it’s ongoing last orders from Commander Kilroy to keep everyone out.

Meanwhile the security androids (outdated, budget-tier, mass-produced machines with blank
mannequin-like faces that operate completely silently) discovered remnants (the players) and descended upon Mads, disassembling her with brutal efficiency, but not before she could blow them all up, venting toxic air from the vents. Everything was bad!

After a desperate fight with the ghost and then disarming the trapped vent (pressurized canisters bristling with nails), they made it into 34I Air Control, where Obed was in his domain! Here they had access to station schematics and could plan their escape [just in time for our session to end].

Thoughts on the Game

I love this adventure but it is SO much to try and remember. The ghosts, the disposition of MONARCH, the multitude of androids, the rules for Bends (which I made more narrative than mechanical). I think I could run it a dozen more times and still be looking things up.

The randomly rolled up ghosts and forgotten androids were great. It took a moment to make sense of them, but the did help bring in other elements of the world (like Kilroy’s team).

I’m still firmly in the camp that the best kind of dungeon for a one-shot is the one you’re trying to get out of. The players made bold moves to escape and I’m glad that despite losing two characters (sorry Alex) they were able to made some forward progress and learn more about the world.