The Story of X

Growing Up

X grew up on Rerun as a member of Network KRS-1. He apprenticed with the network’s doco-channels that pipe in news from across the cluster. He spent some time with his bundle traveling through several systems gathering news in a feed-ship, but never set foot on another planet himself; nearly everything he experienced came through a vid feed. He became obsessed with current events that he pulled in through electronic filters.

Starting Out

X worked his way up through the doco-channels to eventually captain his own feed-ship, dispatched both within and without the Rerun system. X still never left the ship, preferring to run the mixer boards and data filters deep in the control pod. He mastered every internal system and flourished in the constant stream of information.

Moment of Crisis

X was making a good living, content to run his feed-ship More Intense back and forth to Rerun. On one trip through the Project system, there was a malfunction in the vessel’s control system. X tried to compensate, but he was forced to cut power to system after system. Life support in most of the ship failed, and the entire crew perished. X was cut off from the universe, his feeds dead and his filters off. For several weeks he had only minimal life support.

Eventually the feed-ship was discovered by a young Projectan salvage spacer, who—after hearing the tale of his desperate fight for survival—offered to help get repairs. The weeks he spent at Project were enlightening, as he didn’t have his screens and filters to shield him. It awakened a nascent wanderlust, and the desire to experience life firsthand.

Sidetracked

After repairs, X returned to Rerun and endured all the headaches of re-crewing the Intense. On their first expedition, they returned to Project. This time, however, X spent most of his time outside the ship, exploring Project 5 and the Corridor space station firsthand. While he was out observing, there was a ruckus in the dockyard, and the military police proceeded to dismantle the feed-ship from the inside out; X returned and caught them in the act.

Furious, X demanded to know what was going on, and was told there was a criminal hiding out in the craft and they were trying to find him. X maintained this could not be the case and insisted they leave him alone. He swore under oath that he wasn’t harboring any criminals. X and his crew reassembled the ship, then left Corridor as soon as possible.

After popping back through the slipknot to Rerun, X discovered that the military police were correct—the fugitive and all-around mischief-maker Eliot (son of a prominent Rerun media executive) was hidden aboard. Eliot had just stolen some sort of experimental device from the Projectan military, and X had become an unwitting criminal, an accessory after the fact to a major crime. He was determined to turn Eliot into the proper authorities at the first opportunity, but then Eliot showed him The Precious. Was it a weapon, or was it something else? X agreed to help Eliot hide if Eliot allowed him to study the device.

Eliot agreed, and then X promptly locked the device in a container for which only X has the code.

On Their Own

Unable to maintain his position running a feed-ship with Eliot hanging around, X abandoned the More Intense to another captain and leaned on Eliot to make connections to the gray market. They found passage to the relative backwater of the Ouroboran asteroid mining fields. They spent some time figuring out their next move (and studying the Precious).

After some study, X realized the Precious was far beyond any current tech he’d heard about or understood. He decided it must be ancient, and from before the Collapse. Information had to be out there somewhere to unlock its secrets.

Tapping into various feeds, X found a freighter that was looking for crew members with his expertise and room for dead weight. Now they travel across the cluster, doing their best to stay one step ahead of the law and find answers to the secrets of the Precious.