### October 14th, 2039, two years following The Collapse, a city is born out of the ruins of New Orleans, LA. ![[DAMAPwithgauche.png|500]] #### Origins The true origin of the name "Eddington" is unclear, but like most cities in The Collapse, it was probably a coin toss if it was going to have an original name or be a slight modification of the existing name of the city. Those responsible likely lost all authority over their own claim to land when they were chased off by men with much larger guns than them. Gangs, militias, and small cults ran the area for a few months before things were brought to a halt by the arrival of a group from Connecticut. ^852bfc #### Main Players People like [[The Big Three#^4afc40|Sarah Kelly]] and [[The Big Three#^6e002c|Jinka Rick]] were the ones who made Eddington a massive city considered to be untouchable for nearly thirteen years. After establishing their presence via the implementation of their private police, [[The Lexingtons]], Kelly and Rick would proceed to wall off the best maintained part of the city for themselves and other well off individuals that aided them in their goals. Initially the border was open to allow people to filter in and out, attempting to capture as many "Gauche" worthy individuals as possible to assist them in making a new society for people like themselves to thrive within. Sarah Kelly Innovations (S.K.I.) would carry out several covert operations while also providing much of the early munitions and [[Augments|augment]] work for the city. Atilla, Rick's company, would provide all of the manpower needed to rebuild The ANDREA Project, his failed weather machine. ![[Sara.png|100]]![[Jinka Rick.png|100]]![[Welch Fresh.png|100]] *Kelly, Rick, and Fresh* A few years in, an eccentric man named [[The Big Three#^73f489|William "Welch" Fresh]] would join their side with his insane level of wealth and resources. With his assistance, and knowing that they could easily kill him if he became too much of a problem, they allowed for him to take a similar role as a toddler with a toy steering wheel in their plans and gave him the task of recruiting a team for research and development under Welch Fresh Industries (WFI) With Fresh added to their team, The Big Three are able to fully construct their ideal city. Sometime shortly after Fresh joins their team Jinka and Kelly finish a wall designed to fully conceal the city from the outside world. Their initial stance is lenient, and allows for insiders and outsiders to freely travel through security checkpoints. Those who see the writing on the wall begin to establish businesses inside, hoping that it would protect them from being removed when such niceness would be revoked. Slowly over time new rules are added to the border; Lexingtons become stationed as essentially TSA agents and require submission to scans and pat downs before entry. Insiders, identified by necklace passes linked to individual DNA, were allowed free entry and were people who had either applied successfully or been granted their title by a member of The Big Three. Early applicants include individuals such as [[Timothy Rolfball - Character Sheet|Timothy Rolfball]], who worked for Sarah Kelly herself, and Jose Schmarm, an affluent weapons smuggler and all-around black market salesman. Those without passes, outsiders, were subject to embarrassing checks that were left ultimately up to the decision of whoever performed them. These guards were not infallible, and often accepted bribes before being reprimanded by Phillip Denver personally for their laxness. The final year of free passage is 2042. Following this begins the typical Eddington that is known up until its reformation in 2052, ten years later. #### The Ugly The Gauche became the hub of almost all decision making for the region of Eddington while extending next to no protections for those outside of the confines of its walls. Kelly asserted herself as the leader of The Big Three and put the other two to work on different aspects of her plans. Jinka was tasked with rebuilding ANDREA Mk I as ANDREA Mk II; his design was modified by Kelly to allow for her to create a sphere of suitable weather and focus on a smaller scale repair to climate with the reasoning that they could never save everyone, but they could save the select few that mattered. His team remained the same that it had been pre-collapse with one change; Jinka had discovered that his scientists had sabotaged his machine but he had no lead as to which of them it had been. To ensure their cooperation he allowed for Kelly to have them augmented to be more subservient. Emmett Lindt and Remy Allston, the two leads that remained after the departure of Jack Hammond, are forcefully converted and unable to do anything other than begrudgingly follow orders from Rick. In Fresh's labs, new plants and animals were being created. His work involved the general idea of conservation with the end goal of preserving DNA from endangered animals that otherwise could not survive a post-collapse world. Kelly sees potential with his bioengineering and allows for him to dedicated resources towards her artificially grown bodies work. Up until his entry into the team Kelly had been growing weary of the outside world but did not see a way to safely augment herself without a risk of interference from her enemies. Fresh offered a solution; he would design robots in her ideal image to pilot so that she may remain in her quarantined saferoom. In the meantime, Kelly, growing sicker and sicker from major organ failure, begins the search for organs to replace her own. Medicine within the city that she herself had pioneered had removed the strict limits that prior organ donations required, and she instead just required healthy organs. Though they would not last long, they would buy her time. She enlists the help of people such as Timothy Rolfball and [[Ryker Vanderlou - Character Sheet|Ryker Vanderlou]] to track down healthy young women with the requirement that they be blonde like herself. They begin to successfully find candidates for her both inside the city and (mostly) outside of the city. Their work successfully sustains her up until the first robot designed for her is finished by WFE. The work exceeds Kelly's expectations and she begins to take him more seriously. He is allowed, at that moment, to take over the organ harvesting lab as his own. He accepts but insists on making a few changes; he sees potential with using the women who are kidnapped for other robots to carry out tasks around the city. Following the success of the first "Kelly Bot" Fresh is given the go-ahead to design other bots. Due to utilizing live DNA for the creation and repair of models the original "hosts" of these bots were required to stay alive for as long as the robots were in commission. Kelly's own company, SKI, did not remain idle despite delegating work to both Atilla and WFI. Kelly's own goals remained metaphysical, and not much is known about who or what assisted her with her plans. Her trust in the reliability of The Lexingtons began to wane over time as they became more belligerent and aimless. Rather than try to fix them she began her work on a new security force comprised of what were known as "Aichov units." Through some form of connection with them she was able to use them as her own eyes across the city, and on occasion, outside of it. Her trust was almost entirely dissolved in others aside from Phillip and herself by 2050. ^65ec64 ![[Aichov.png|100]] *An Aichov* #### The Reformation In 2052, following intel leaked from Atilla labs by an unknown source, The Medusas receive credible information regarding their work on ANDREA Mk II. It is believed, originally, that ANDREA is a codename for the project involving the disappearance of [[The Children of Venus#^af55a1|Aphrodite Duncan]] due to the timing in which it is announced and her kidnapping. While not intentional, she is taken in and made into an experimental first run of bots. One such is found and taken back to the Eddington [[The Children of Venus|Medusa]] lair. A broadcast requesting assistance with the interruption of The ANDREA project is sent out over local radio and a group that would go on to be named [[Group A]] takes on the responsibility. They are smuggled in with the assistance of [[Eddington Gangs#^968563|The Queens]]. The group has knowledge of an abandoned Lexington guarded lab that hosts their ID making software. They infiltrate it and create passes for themselves, allowing entry into the city. Their entry is noted, but not prevented as they are not seen as a risk due to their weapons being smuggled by Jose Schmarm. They meet with Medusa leader Sidelle who inform them that they only way to stop ANDREA is to kill Jinka Rick. Upon arriving to a speech that he is giving the group stage a poorly planned counterprotest; Rick invites a man from the group to speak to him privately. Before the man can respond to the request, a shot goes off, and there is chaos as everything begins to fall apart under the assumption that someone has just tried to assassinate Jinka on stage. The man takes Jinka up on his offer, and Rick reveals that he isn't as pleased with how things are going as he initially seemed to be. He's been struggling to keep his morals in line after following Kelly for years and is beginning to doubt his own project. After their talk Jinka imprisons the man in one of his hotels for the indefinite future. He is found by his friends and they decide that they must find the lab and engage with him directly to keep him from launching his plan. The group confronts him in his lab and reveal that they have Micky, his illegitimate son. The two have a short conversation and Rick realizes that everything he'd been working to was being sabotaged again. He bids him goodbye and asks him if he'll have dinner with him once things have calmed down. Upon attempting to turn the machine off himself, it malfunctions, and he is killed in an explosion. Behind him in the wreckage is Kelly, who has the group arrested for breaking and entering, tampering with Gauche machinery, illegitimate identification passes, and the murder of Jinka Rick. At the same time as Group A, the disappearance of a few different women from West Eddington begins to be noticed by [[Group B]]. While none of the member of the group are close to the victims they begin their investigation and discover a tie between a man named Camo and Rolfball; Camo has been luring girls to *The Darlin'* to flirt with them every night and selling them out to Timothy Rolfball. What happens to those women is unknown at the time, but the group decides that they must investigate within the city to find answers when they are forced to fight with a woman named Enoya who appears to be robotic inside. In their investigation they stumble up on a woman named Henriette who can resurrect the dead. Her sanctum, a church, is invaded by an eight foot monstrosity that appears more monster than animal. It attacks indiscriminately, and snatches a member of the group before leaving. He is found, mostly unharmed, but Rolfball and his lackies attack Cinna's bar as retaliation for their snooping and general misbehavior due to rumors of skinning people alive and theft of Gauche property and people, notably a large man named Bacchus who ends up belonging to Welch Fresh himself. After fighting off Rolfball's people he is forced to flee to the city with Bacchus. The group reaches an impasse and agree to enter the city together to chase down their existing leads. Ash gains entry under a pseudonym by agreeing to open a bar within the city with a Fresh employee while Jon Country and his wife, Annabelle, catch the attention of "William Billiam" who wishes to invest in them. They are able to slip inside despite the city being closed due to an indeterminate "terrorist incident" a day prior. The group aimlessly wander the city until Annabelle vanishes one day. She is tracked down to Fresh's prison known only as The Field. The large stretch of somewhat abandoned land is home to Fresh and it's animalistic warden. Said guard ends up being the same large cat from the church, Princess Luvvykins, as Fresh is it's owner and creator. The group, minus one, enter the prison and break Annabelle out only to begin receiving fire from Fresh's rifle from across the way. The group, along with some members from Group A sprint towards him and corner him until he makes his way towards an abandoned paint ball and laser tag stadium. The group track him in the darkness while being stalked by another, different cat mutant. He occasionally calls out to them teasingly and seemingly enjoys himself for the majority of the time despite the circumstances and seems to view the group as simply being his friends versus rivals of his. He ends up cornered in a service closet where he is bound with tape. Before he can be interrogated he is murdered by the husband of Annabelle for revenge after her kidnapping and running from them. The group attempts to leave, no closer to finding the whereabouts of the kidnapped women, but are stopped by Sarah Kelly. She thanks them for taking care of Fresh, and inters them in the same prison they'd just come from. Finally all captured, Kelly gives a speech the following morning to her city. ![[GroupCOpening.mp3]] (*Thank you Rachelrob269 on Fiverr for the dialogue in the above audio file! Backing music is split by Blear Moon (according to the raw file I have left from when I edited this back in like. 2020 that is so apologies if that has changed or is inaccurate!*)) The group, now known as [[Group C]], somewhat quickly are able to escape due to the assistance of a newly fired Timothy Rolfball. They all escape back to *The Mercurial Bee* and begin their plan to find Kelly and take her out. With the planning of Jiff Leslie, June King, and Jose Schmarm, the group try to make their plan. Before they can begin executing, however, Taylor Fawnly, the bartender of the *Mercurial Bee*, is possessed by who claims to be Welch Fresh as a ghost. He and Jinka, both left with unresolved business, have decided to hedge their bets on the group in the interest of seeing Kelly taken down. They assist the group with prioritizing their order of action. First, they must figure out where the women have been being kidnapped to and put service bots out of commission. They track the source down to WFI's science lab and decommission two older victims while freeing two newer ones, one of which is Aphrodite Duncan. Upon attempting to leave they anger and Aichov which springs to life and begins attacking the group; they realize how dangerous the units are when it shows no signs of dying until the parts cannot physically move anymore. While investigating the dead unit, they note that the components inside more closely resemble a human structure than an optimized robotic one. While in the lab the group steal a liver and data related to the projects Fresh had been working on. After returning the organ and data to Jose Schmarm and debriefing about the incident with the single Aichov they'd faced, they decide that they must infiltrate the facility where the units are built to disable further production and repair. Assisted by Fresh again they track down the lab and pose as repairmen to enter. He demonstrates to the group that even he cannot go where he has not been before as only his office within the building is allowed to him; he cannot enter the floor where units move through or even approach the back rooms where their maintenance is held. The group successfully sneaks to the back and through a hallway lined with tubes of inactive Aichovs. ![[darknorwood_clones.jpg]] (*Thank you esilva21 on Fiverr for the render!*) They are able to pass through peacefully until reaching the maintenance room. They fiddle with operations and disable them; in the same moment, several pods containing weaponized Kelly bots emerge and engage. The group successfully puts them down, and they return to their base where a new goon for Kelly has delivered them an invitation to a large gala where she intends to kill them. ![[KellyInvite.png|400]] The group is greeted by Jack Hammond upon their arrival who they are forced to kill. He expresses sorrow in having to kill his friends as he has been converted to a Kelly supporter after she takes advantage of his weakness. He berates them for believing that they are somehow doing the right thing despite killing people of Kelly's, and puts himself between the group and Kelly. ![[JunkmanIntro.wav]] In his near-death clarity he thanks the group for freeing him from whatever influence Kelly had on him. ![[JunkmanOutroWBG.wav]] (Thank-you to Scorpious/Jack Hammond/Douglas "Junkman" Davis for the dialogue in the preceding two audio files!) Proceeding up the tower the group fights off more threats in the form of trapped rooms and more Kelly bots before finally reaching the top floor where her lab is contained. After a long, exhausting fight in her server room there is silence for a moment when Phillip Denver opens the door and stares at the group. He takes a deep breath, raises his hands, and allows for the group to enter to confront Kelly themselves; after over half a century defending her he has grown tired of her hateful disregard for the value of human life and decides that she must take responsibility for her own actions. The group executes her, and reclaim Fresh's body which she had been holding as a bargaining chip for others in the know like herself about resurrection. The summary for all three groups that I have provided here leaves out A LOT of detail, but I will be writing separate, much more introspective and detailed summaries for all three campaigns on their own respective pages over time. Those will be on the following pages: - [[Group A]] - [[Group B]] - [[Group C]] Tags: #Canon #BackgroundInfo #ABC #Technical