'The Last Gig of the Spice Girls'

“Jimmy's in the back with a pocket of high

If you listen close, you can hear him cry:

“Oh, Lord, heaven knows

We belong way down below…’

Sing it!

Oh, Lord, heaven knows

We belong way down below

Way down below…

Way down below…

Judy's in the front seat picking up trash

Living on the dole, gotta make that cash

Won't be pretty

Won't be sweet

She's just sitting here on her feet…

I've had better days, man!

I've seen better days…

I've had better ways, man!

I know better ways…

 
One, two, three and four:

The devil's knocking at your door!

Caught in the eye of a dead man's lie

Start your life with your head held high!

Now you're on your knees,

With your head hung low

The Big Man tells you where to go:

Tell 'em ‘it's good’

Tell 'em ‘okay’

AND DON’T DO A GOD-DAMN THING THEY SAY!

 
Oh, lord, tell us so

We belong way down below -

Way down below…

Way down below…

Way down below…

Way down below…”

Pretty Reckless, ‘Heaven Knows’

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHBxJC…

Outstanding commission by the wonderful

This is the PC party for our last OTT meet – for various reasons, I wasn’t able to GM, so John took over those duties, allowing me to play my GM PC, Kimber Skylow (who usually in-game hangs out with a US player who runs Laera Cross).  So that his game didn’t cross with my own plots, and to give him full GMing freedom, the scenario was a one-shot, non-canon (sort of!) for the MarcyVerse.  We got to play our own characters but in a completely different situation, which was very different and very cool!  The scenario focused on John’s love of Indie/New Wave music, particularly ‘Danger Days’ by My Chemical Romance, and the novel ‘Through A Scanner Darkly’ by Philip K Dick.

The concept was that the PCs were a gang of sorts, protectors of a few shanty towns in the industrial ruins of the Lost Margins, a forgotten wasteland on a far continent on the Core Wold of Corellia.  ‘Fringe’ isn’t a location but a state of mind – even Core Worlds, even Coruscant, have blighted areas, barrens, wastelands and places that the populace have forgotten.  Humans and other species had eked out a living in the Lost Margins (think Tattooine or Jakku) for centuries, until a powerful, ruthless corporation realised that there were valuable resources buried deep beneath the Lost Margins.  This corporation,  United North KorVella Industries - or UNKInd for short! – liked to employ the most ruthless and repressive policies imaginable, especially in a place like the Lost Margins where no rule of law or fair play existed.

UNKInd built modern arcologies – sterile cities of gleaming chrome, to house their workers, those who would mine for the raw materials or otherwise support the company.  UNKInd provided clean water and modern living facilities, in contrast to the grim urban squalor of the Lost Margins… but their water was laced with a chemical called ‘BLS’ – colloquially known as ‘Bliss’ – which kept the work-force docile, happy and very suggestible. This way, they could be put to work productively, without ever becoming agitated or rebellious, the perfect worker-bees in UNKInd’s hive.  Their private army were instead shot up with all manner of combat drugs that essentially destroyed the soldier’s mind and personality, turning them into murderous psychopaths who did whatever their masters told them.  We used the stats for Stormtroopers, because the concept fit them perfectly, but the real horror is that these men were once ordinary people, their minds decayed by UNKInd’s drugs and programming. They wore armour and frightening masks, but where stormtroopers are icily calm and machine-like, UNKInd’s ‘bloodsuckers’ were like violent, feral zombies, whose minds were so shattered they now enjoyed all the carnage and slaughter.  UNKInd soon started attacking the settlements of the dwellers in the wastelands, known as ‘Marginals’. A few settlements fell, and the Marginals were seized as workers in the UNKInd hive-cities, drugged to the eyeballs and rendered placid and brainwashed.  But a few brave souls fought back. 

The Spice Girls were one such little band – a bunch of tearaways, gangers and musicians, the girls ran wild but also protected other Marginals from raiders, mutant monsters, or the depredations of UNKInd.   They became popular folk heroes, rescuing Marginals who had been indoctrinated, leaving graffiti on the walls of hive-cities, killing ‘bloodsuckers’ and giving some hope back to an oppressed people.  They also threw impromptu concerts, with lots of light and sound, singing of rebellion and resistance, of freedom and liberty, exhorting others to rise up and fight oppression.  With their colourful, ragged garb, good looks and rebellious attitude, they were as loved by the Marginals as they were hated by UNKInd.  Although the Marginals gathered around polluted water-holes which they tried to purify using clunky old technology, their reservoirs were frequently poisoned with ‘Bliss’,  as UNKInd tried to pollute their crops, water and livestock with various chemicals that would render them soft and quell any instinct to rebel.  Where possible, UNKInd preferred not to kill the indigenous population, not when they could be turned into drooling work-slaves to mine for resources.  Because their water supplies were so often polluted by UNKInd chemicals, many Marginals took home-made moonshine drugs, both to get through the hell of the wastes and to keep their minds resistant to UNKInd’s chemicals.  The ‘Spice Girls’ each named herself after her drug of choice, creating her own rebellious, heroic identity to hide from their oppressors and inspire the masses to rise up. 

Kandria Valouri (far left) was a natural biotic prone to visions and trances, brought on both by her Force Sensitivity and the various chemicals she imbibed.  She called herself ‘Red Rage’, for those occasions when her carefree, oddball personality would become filled with a ferocious anger, and she let rip with the full force of her telekinesis.

Janelle Zaarin called herself ‘Gun Jack’ after her drug of choice – a tough-as-nails Force-sensitive warrior who loved wild partying, drink, drugs, dirty sex and loud music.  A biotic like Red, she loved to lash out with her powers and the kit-bashed weaponry that Thruster Head made for the gang.  A rebel by nature, Jan was obnoxious, aggressive, profane and wild, but was a champion of the underdog and fiercely loyal to her friends.

Aphra Dystra, known as ‘Thruster Head’, was a little out of place among the Spice Girls – at 37, a good deal older than the rest, an awkward, bookish woman who loved tinkering and playing with old technology.  She seemed rather awed by the energy and rebelliousness of the younger women, never sure of her place among them, and a little frightened by the strange powers many of them wielded.   But she was a mechanic of savant genius, able to make nearly anything out of the rusting scrap of the wastelands.  Thruster was the one who kit-bashed and repaired what little gear they carried, mixed their home-made drugs and kept the old machines that provided power and clean water to the settlements running.  Something of a reluctant mother figure to the girls, she always had a certain sadness about her – as if she knew their adventures were going to end in tears…

Dae’reya’th was an alien, the daughter of a Chiss mercenary who left his people to live anonymously in the Lost Margins after some disgrace saw him cast out of the Ascendency.  Although she wasn’t a biotic, her father taught her how to kill with her bare hands or whatever sharp or blunt instruments were to hand, and Aphra taught her how to make explosives and home-crafted bombs.  Gleefully aggressive, ‘Booster Blue’ loved explosions, battle and Kandria Valouri, not necessarily in that order.

Kimber Skylow, nicknamed ‘Giggledust’, was the youngest of the group, still in her teens – the older women both teased her for her innocence and spaced-out personality, but also protected her like a kid sister.  Giggledust took spice recreationally, as well as to resist the effects of Bliss, and had a dreamy-eyed gaze and slurred her words as a consequence. She was sweet-natured, carefree, positive and relentlessly cute and upbeat.

The leader of the Spice Girls was Jonava ‘Glitterstim’ Belstar, a powerful self-taught Sensitive with a fierce desire to protect the Marginals and defy UNKInd.  Strong-hearted, noble and charismatic, she shaped the Spice Girls into an efficient band of urban warriors, using her powers to hit UNKIind hard and disappear into the settlements of Lost Margins before they could be caught.  She took spice that accentuated  her formidable biotics even as it gnawed away at her health.

Jo’s player unfortunately couldn’t make the OTT in the end, so her role was re-written – in the first scene, one of their garage concerts was attacked by an UNKind raiding party, led by the lightsaber-wielding daughter of the Corporation’s ‘Queen Bee’ (a thinly disguised Aika Ulnar…! John plays both AIka in our AOR games and her daughter Kirana in F&D, and relished having his characters appear here as truly villainous cameos!) Glitterstim was fatally shot while protecting the evacuating Marginals, shattering the Spice Girl’s tight circle and their sense of invulnerability.   In the wake of the attack, it was clear that UNKInd had stepped up its campaign of terror, and was determined to stamp out all resistance even if it meant open violence against Marginal settlements.  Large rewards were offered for the death or capture of the Spice Girls, and they no longer knew who they could trust among the people they protected.

With Jo’s death, a malaise fell over the group, and Jan Zaarin stepped up into the role of leader.  While Jo had kept her wilder impulses in check, now Jan was free to fight back against UNKInd in her own way – no more Ms Nice Guy, the kid gloves were well and truly off.  Now reduced to a fivesome, Jan led them on more destructive raids, on acts of sabotage and violence against the hive cities, not caring whether the brainwashed workers got hurt – in her opinion, a clean death was better than being a servant of UNKInd.

(Marcy notes – it was a lot of fun to explore our characters in a very different situation! Kimmy knew Red and Reya from her early days, but had never met Aphra or Janelle.  It was also cool to see that some players interpreted their new roles very different from how the characters are usually played. Jan was her usual punk-rock, rebellious self, and Reya the same Axe-Crazy Blood-Knight she always is.   I played Kimmy the same – she was a little more giggly and strung-out, but she’s always a bit like that anyway.  Red and Aphra were very different from their usual selves though -  while Aph is usually cold, selfish and smug, this version had a lot of pathos, far more awkward and unsure than usual, and much more caring and human.  She seemed to understand none of us were going to get a happy ending.  Red was also a lot nicer than usual – this version was still weird and crazy, but more of an eccentric who talked to inanimate objects and looked into the future in a drugged-out haze, rather than being psychotic and murderous like she usually is.  I think I preferred this version! We talked about it in the pub afterwards, and her player told me that without her tragic past (which involved accidentally killing her classmates in the Emergent Project) this version of Red was just eccentric instead of psychotic… And although Jo’s player couldn’t attend and she died early, it was oddly touching to see her cameo – as a strong, capable young woman with a cause, rather than the flighty runaway she is in the real world…)

(More Marcy Notes - the name of the group was both a pun on the Star Wars euphemism for drugs being ‘spice’, and the name of an all-girl musical group in the 90’s in the UK.  The Spice Girls were more pop than punk, but had a faux-rebellious attitude, talked about ‘girl power’ and wore a lot of revealing clothing.  They were more talented than many realised too – Emma and Mel B had decent voices, Mel C had a great voice, and most of the album tracks were very good, a decent example of 90’s swing-beat with more adult-orientated lyrics than their poppy singles aimed at kids…)

But back to the OTT game…

The Girls realised that they couldn’t hold out – faced with increased UNKInd activity, and possible betrayal by those they protected, Jan decided it would be best to go out in a blaze of glory, in true Punk Rock style, snarling defiance at The Man.  Thruster Head gave her an idea – there was an UNKInd communications bunker with a planetary broadcast tower – if they could somehow seize the base, they could broadcast the Marginal’s plight to a wider galaxy that had forgotten they existed.  And so a daring plan was born, one in which they were unlikely to survive – even if they managed to broadcast a signal, reprisal would be swift and likely fatal.  But Jan loved the idea – one last rock-and-roll concert defying UNKInd, followed by a grand fight to the death against hordes of enemies.  Aphra didn’t want to die, but realised her friends would never get in without her technical skills.   Likewise, Kimmy didn’t really want to go out in a blaze of glory, but they would need her supernatural navigational senses to traverse the underground maze of pipes and tunnels that would get them to the base.  Reluctantly, she agree to guide them.   Jan warned everyone that sooner or later, UNKInd would keep destroying the settlements and eventually run them to ground, and they would die just as Glitterstim had died.  This way, they would almost certainly perish, but they would go out striking a vital blow against their corporate oppressors, reminding a galaxy that didn’t care of the plight of their people.  So with Jo’s steady hand removed, the gang prepared to sell their lives dearly.

They gathered all their resources – we had far less equipment than usual here! Jan didn’t have her sith-saber, Aphra didn’t have her droid and all her tech toys, Red didn’t have the Bardottan Sphere. Kimmy didn’t even have her bike or her lightning-gun!  But we managed to build or repair some blasters, a few unstable bombs and grenades, and what little tech and bits of gear we could scrounge or create.  We had some vague maps of the base and the location – but it was down to Kimber’s Signature Ability of Sudden Discovery – it was my time to shine! As Kimmy wistfully said; ‘I’ve always known where to go…’

We braved monsters and raiders in the pipes and tunnels, and after trekking for days with only a coked-up teenager as an idiot-savant guide, we made it to the base! It was lightly-guarded, but we repelled a few ‘bloodsuckers’ and rather over-zealously, Jan and Reya killed the technicians too. Oops. We were on our own – it was up to Aphra to get the broadcaster towers working, and somehow activate the base defences against the inevitable counter-assault.  Somehow, the alarms had been set off – had we been betrayed?  But there was no going back now.  We’d dragged our instruments and party stuff out here too, carried by our rusting porter droid, and we set up an impromptu stage, got drunk, got high, and celebrated our freedom and friendship for one last night.  Aphra broadcast some footage of UNKInd’s villainous deeds, and we played a set of rebellious, rousing songs (each of us contributed at least one favourite song of ours!) In between the songs, each of us spoke to the camera and pleaded our case – mine was poignant and cute, Aphra’s was eloquent,  and Jan’s went something like ‘WE’RE DYING HERE, ASSHOLES -  So F*CKING HELP US!!!’

Inevitably, UNKInd crashed the party.  Aphra reprogrammed some of the base defences, and rigged up a few turrets so that Kimmy got to use her Gunnery skill at last!  We blasted away at our brainwashed, slavering foes, but there were countless hordes of them.  Red and Reya agreed to hold them off at the entry tower, while the rest of us finished the set, buying us what time they could.  It was a heart-breaking farewell.  “We can’t win this,” Reya warned.  “But we can make some interesting stains on the walls!”   Jan replied: “I won’t tell you to be careful. Do your worst, babes!”

We finished the set with some poignant numbers, as our friends took as many enemies down with them as they could.  When they were down to their last health, as the ‘bloodsuckers’ rushed the towers en-masse, Red and Reya kissed, and ignited the explosives they rigged the towers with.  They took hundreds with them, but hundreds more arrived in troop transports – behind them, a sleek diplomatic shuttle in UNKInd’s colours.  The arch-villain herself – Aika sort of cosplaying Cruella de Ville, or a female Handsome Jack from Borderlands – was putting in a personal appearance.

We barricaded ourselves in, but Kirana and her shock troops led the charge.  There was quite a heated exchange with Kira and Jan (who ironically are friends in the real game!) but our badass punk-rock chick didn’t stand a chance without her own lightsaber.  Aphra and Kimmy aren’t great warriors, and finally, we were subdued.  The villainess gloated at us, the injured Jan barely able to hold up her pistol in bloody defiance. ‘Aika’ then told us that we’d achieved nothing – Aphra had sold us out, pretending to help us and then setting off the alarm. The broadcast never went out as planned, and now we would die pointlessly for defying her.  But Aphra seemed sad rather than triumphant – she and Jan exchanged an imperceptible glance and nod, and Jan pulled the trigger.  Aph died instantly – and the UNKInd minions blasted away at Jan, fatally injuring her.

As Jan lay dying, Kirana examined the broadcast console and swore.  It couldn’t be –  the broadcast had somehow gone out, and the cameras were still running!

“She double-crossed you,” Jan coughed blood.  “She’d rather die free than live in your corporate hell.  She went along with you, just enough to access the codes and change them. Too bad for you…!”

Angrily, Aika threw a hissy fit, telling us that nobody would come, and we’d achieved nothing.  The galaxy was at war, and nobody cared about a bunch of misfits in a nameless wasteland.  Sneering nastily, she held Kimmy at gun point, and told Jan that she wasn’t going to kill her… as revenge, she was going to drug and indoctrinate poor Giggledust, and then she’d live as a perfect worker in the Hive, docile, blissfully-happy and unaware. 

Jan lifted her head to look at Kimber one last time.  “Don’t forget us, kid…!” she pleaded, before she breathed her last.

John  then read us the epilogue. It was a year later after the Last Gig of the Spice Girls.  Kimmy now worked in the maintenance department in the Hive, happily married to a man who treated her well.  She had a child on the way, and drunk the Company Water, wore Company colours, and sang the Company Song each morning in unison with all the others. Everything in her life was outwardly happy and perfect.

Except…

Except that sometimes, Kimmy remembered the old songs, and her old life.  The clothes she used to wear and the music she played.  She had taken enough drugs over the years to build up a slight immunity to Bliss, to retain some of her old memories and loyalties.  

And one evening, as dusk falls, she looks up to see a fleet arriving, ships in non-Company colours…  Everyone suddenly starts to look very afraid, but her heart sings happily as she wonders what this will mean.  Did someone hear? Did someone care?

Then John finished and looked up at us.  “All this actually happened,” he told us.  “Maybe not to you, but to someone.  Maybe the names were changed, and a few details were altered, but mostly, all this occurred.  And you heard their last broadcast, and those of you who are Sensitives have a sudden insight into why they fought, and died.  What you do about it now, is up to you…”

Though the circumstances surrounding it were difficult, to say the least, I thoroughly enjoyed the OTT, and it was a blast to play for a change.  It was very moving, to experience a scenario where we were the underdogs, where we knew we couldn’t win, to see another side of the Galactic Civil War, another part of the Fringe.  It was fun to meet the other characters as a player myself.  And the music and setting evoked so many familiar things. It echoed ‘The Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’ by My Chemical Romance, and the ending of ‘Through A Scanner Darkly’, where the protagonist retains just enough of himself through the drugs and brainwashing to help bring the conspiracy down.  It evoked the music of the 70’s and 80’s – Punk Rock, Glam Rock, New Wave, New Romantics. My mother introduced me to music from that era – Debbie Harry & Blondie, David Bowie, Siouxie and the Banshees, T-Rex, Queen,  Toyah Wilcox, and the TV series 'Rock Follies'.  Later, I discovered music for myself, in David Sylvian and Japan, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Spandau Ballet.  And later, artists like Madonna, then the modern era with Sia Furler, Gorillaz, Bat For Lashes, Indiana, My Chemical Romance, Lady Gaga, Lana del Rey, creating as much performance art as music.  It was all very nostalgic and made me very happy indeed

It was, in all, refreshingly different. I’d be more than happy to let John do a sequel – like the Fabulous Killjoys, for the Girls to rise in a new incarnation and carry on in fighting the good fight.  I’d like to keep elements of our ‘Spice Girl’ versions of the characters. We shall see.

Marcy Taylor
2016