COUNTER/Weight

COUNTER/Weight is the name of the second game played by the Friends at the Table. It appears first in the second season.

Games Used

 * MechNoir
 * TechNoir
 * Stars Without Number
 * Microscope
 * The Sprawl
 * Kingdom
 * [The Tower]

Players

 * Austin Walker (GM/MC/DM, Ibex, Rigor)
 * Ali Acampora (Aria Joie, Jace Rethal)
 * Keith J. Carberry (Mako Trig, Socrates)
 * Jack de Quidt (AuDy, Orth Godlove, Chital)
 * Art Tebbel (Cassander Timaeus Berenice, Addax)
 * Sylvia Clare (Adomas Fleet, Tea Kenridge, the Faction turn metagame)
 * Andrew Lee Swan (SnowTrak, Natalia Grieves, the Faction turn metagame)

Episodes

 * 1) COUNTER/Weight 00: If Han Solo Used To Be Beyoncé, or: Hashtag Otechku
 * 2) COUNTER/Weight 01: I Would Like A Bribe
 * 3) COUNTER/Weight 02: Soldier Game
 * 4) COUNTER/Weight 03: It’s Fine, We’re Criminals
 * 5) COUNTER/Weight 04: The Bells Are Ringing
 * 6) COUNTER/Weight 05: A Ship of Seeds
 * 7) COUNTER/Weight 06: Here’s Your Bribe Tip
 * 8) COUNTER/Weight 07: I Am Not Allowed
 * 9) COUNTER/Weight 08: Our Hostage Below
 * 10) COUNTER/Weight 09: This Month Of Ours
 * 11) COUNTER/Weight 10: Drawing Clocks
 * 12) COUNTER/Weight 11: A Thing You Know About Nightclubs
 * 13) COUNTER/Weight 12: A Home After A Wake
 * 14) COUNTER/Weight 13: Our Customer of the Month
 * 15) COUNTER/Weight 14: We’ve All Killed People
 * 16) COUNTER/Weight 15: A Candle in the Sun
 * 17) COUNTER/Weight 16: The Rear Left Engine
 * 18) COUNTER/Weight 17: Metal That Has Died Twice
 * 19) COUNTER/Weight 18: The Order of Things
 * 20) COUNTER/Weight 19: The Road You Take And Who You Take It With
 * 21) COUNTER/Weight 20: The Glimmer Incident: The Executive Enters!
 * 22) COUNTER/Weight 21: Crisis! (A Solemn Vow Above The Sea of Counterweight)
 * 23) COUNTER/Weight 22: The Broken Branch
 * 24) COUNTER/Weight 23: An Astonishingly Illegal Ship
 * 25) COUNTER/Weight 24: It’s Still Dark Out
 * 26) COUNTER/Weight 25: You Can Call Me Captain
 * 27) COUNTER/Weight 26: Do You Have Room For Me?
 * 28) COUNTER/Weight 27: An Animal Out of Context
 * 29) COUNTER/Weight 28: A Special Kind of Warmth
 * 30) COUNTER/Weight 29: Three Conversations
 * 31) COUNTER/Weight 30: Another Facility Among Trees

Lore
Counterweight hangs in the center of the Golden Branch star sector, a forked path where the Perseus and Sagittarius Arms of the Milky Way come together. Because of its location, life brims with energy, and an exchange of cultures has led to an exchange of technologies. Automated robots valet vehicles; Starships launch in the distance at regular intervals; giant walking mechs aid in tasks both civil and military.

But all of this happens under a sky filtered in bronze, as massive energy domes filter the cold, thick air into something more breathable. The sky was scarred at the climax of the Golden War, which brought the Autonomous Diaspora and the People’s Conglomerate of Orion—long rivals—together against the Apostolos Empire. Now, society on Counterweight largely exists in these domed cities. Life is a struggle, but it is dense and vibrant, too. In the nine years since the war ended, OriCon and The Diaspora have held steady in their ceasefire, but this is a world of subterfuge, politics, and espionage. Both of these powers has its own set of domed habitats on Counterweight, with a handful of cities existing under a third, local power that struggles to keep the peace.

OriCon was once a worker’s paradise, where walking robots called Riggers helped to build a diverse and prosperous civilization. But in the last few centuries, it has become an Oligarchy: Massive corporations hold all the power and resources, but they still use the old language of radicalism and freedom. The Diaspora is, itself, filled with talk of freedom.

Like OriCon, the founder of the Diaspora once lived on Earth, but left in search of a more perfect Democracy: One managed by algorithms and interfaces and nanomachines and the constant, tidal ritual of voting. Defending the Diaspora are the Divines, giant robots (or not) with strange sentience, each embodying a different virtue of humankind, and each piloted by a Candidate, separated from society so that they may better serve.

At the end of the Golden War, it was a Rigger pilot—Jace Rethal—and a Candidate—Addax, who controlled the Divine Peace—who (it is said) sacrificed themselves to stop a terrible plot by the Apostolosian Empire that would’ve doomed not only Counterweight, but many other cities, planets, and stars too. But instead of destruction, there was life: When the light from the explosion cleared, a new celestial body hung in the sky: They called it Weight. A perfect planet, now cautiously inhabited by small groups from both OriCon and the Diaspora. It taunts those on Counterweight: Its green continents. Its unfrozen seas. It is so far away, but there it is, every night, so, so close.

This season follows a vigilante group of almost-terrorist heroes known as The Chime. The rag-tag group features an ex-idol, Aria Joie, an ex-robot-valet, now-pilot of The Kingdom Come, AuDy, an ex-student of the September Institute, Mako Trig and the ex-prince of the Apostolosian Empire, Cassander Timaeus Berenice, as they try to stop the forces up to no good in the star sector. Or, at least, they try to survive.