Story Seed - The Red Scarscape

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"There it is folks." The captain stood up from his command chair.  All eyes on the bridge of the chaos skiff were locked on the view outside however. The usual swirling fractals of the strange were giving way to a dichotomy of uniform chaos. The colors bled from the area forward of the ship until only red remained.  Like some vast boiling flower the Red Scarscape floated amid the tangles of chaos, its crimson roiling surface changing at every moment in geometry but never in color.  Red like blood. The blood of some long dead world.

"The Red Scarscape. Our allies in the Cabal have warned us of the dangers below that roiling surface. As we get closer we'll see bits of structure in that chaotic soup." He looked around at the half dozen men and women around him, the entire crew of his little ship. He took in their trepidation, nervousness, excitement. Each was reacting differently to this mission, and even within the skiff there were signs of alienation starting to set in. Captain Barnes hoped that they would stick it out for the long haul, that they would follow him into chaos and history. "The leadership wanted us to verify this location first and foremost.  We did that, we could leave now and this mission would be successful."

He turned from the screen, putting the gut wrenching sight behind him and addressed his crew directly. "But we can do more. The eggheads want to study this place. The management wants to see if there is anything of value within. Our secondary mission was to locate and identify any potential point stable enough for the Estate to establish a long term scientific outpost. We have stores for weeks yet, and more than enough instrumentation to do that an more.

"My friends, I cannot lead where you will not follow. A leader without men and women to follow him is no leader, he is but a lone individual, capable only of achieving what things can be achieved by an individual. Together we are more than the sum of our individual selves, we can accomplish more together than we can alone, but only if we are all willing, all ready to stay out here longer, to leverage our success for greater gains. I will not require that we stay, but I will ask that we do so. We have a chance here to study a piece of the strange no human has seen before, a chance to show the Foundation just how valuable this ship, her crew, and her mission can be to the Earth."

He took a deep breath, calming his jangling nerves, and hoping that they would follow him now. "So, who's with me?"

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Summary - Mankind's first encounter with the Red Scarscape (core book page 224).