Also Known As:
The Mousetrap
Zone:
Mars
Location:
Mars orbit, usually parked over the Utopia Planitia basin in Mars
Details:
One of the older Bluesky stations, and perhaps one of the stranger ones. Rhiannon was commissioned directly by MarsCo on behalf of the mouse family. When Genotype was dismantled, some tens of thousands of newly liberated mouse Vectors were given their freedom, but did not have many of the social skills and resources a typical Vector would have grown up with. Rhiannon was something of an apology to Mousekind, an idyllic colony bought with Genotype’s vast fortunes.
Some might point out that Genotype’s vast fortunes should possibly have gone to the mice themselves, but that’s a quibbling point of history.
Much of the architecture in Rhiannon favors small and lightly built creatures. Mustelidae will feel right at home, most cats and dogs leave the station with sore backs and bruised heads at worst, a vague sense of claustrophobia at best. Many blueskies are built on a rotating barrel design, the barrel’s slow tumble simulating gravity. Rhiannon is more a rough octohedron built in a slowly turning ring, its central core gravity-free and a maze of strange buildings and hidden groves with no clear “up” or “down.” There’s order, the diagonals of the core are a sturdy map to build a floating city on, but planetside vectors will find the Mousetrap disorienting and maybe a little nauseating. Fans of MC Escher will love it.
Places to Visit, Things to Do:
Castello Blue
Through either perversity, chance, or excellent business sense, one of Sol’s finest cheese emporiums makes its home here. Bluecastle Cheeses are found across the system, but the Castello is a must-see for any gourmand. Ancient cultures are kept, many of them rescued from Genotype’s genetic archives, and processed with a blend of old and modern techniques. The Castello is a large, almost gothic creation rivaling any mansion in size (if not strict adherance to a 2D construction plan) and its chambers run deep. Do come to see the cheese fountains thrice daily, a true miracle of flowform technology.
The G4 Summit
An annual convention and conference in medical technology focused on new and original research on the Vector genetic code. For the sanity and comfort of the visiting researchers the convention itself is held in the relatively stable and spacious station ring, but it does bring the tourist dollars to the core.
Need to Know (before you go)
Invest in the MarsCo Mappit! app before you go in. Most other map apps can’t handle the non-Euclidian architecture of this particular Bluesky.
GM Notes
Originally bought with money from the liquidation of Genotype, many of that corporation’s assets are housed on the bluesky as well. A megacorporation never truly dies, and the G4 Summit also serves as the annual meeting of Genotype’s very few remaining shareholders. This cabal of perhaps a hundred mixed cats, rats, and mice have maintained their financial interest in the company over generations (although perhaps fewer generations than one might expect). If the PCs are looking for information on the origins of certain mysterious vector traits, the shady beginnings of Progenitus, or the lost genetic archives from Phobos, this might be the beginning, or the end, of their quest.
Plot Seeds
♃ Ancient Money: Somehow the PCs find evidence that Genotype shares still exist, perhaps in the form of an inactive certificate file, or sees evidence of one in a recent ledger transaction from a recently deceased octogenarian, a piece of frozen financial history. Finding out where it came from (or who to sell it to) can be a winding road on its own.
♃ High Culture: A strain of fungus eons long dead may be key to the next big panimmunity drug. The PCs have a researcher that Progenitus thinks might be up to the task of finding it. After a wild goose chase through Phobos, they learn that an indy medical corporation claimed some of the original genetic archives, but they also know that Progenitus is interested, and are on the defensive somewhere in Rhiannon’s unnavigable maze.