Hehe... just read your game post, Tom... "LE1, go see what you can find for my department."

Nice.

Same for me. I expect Elle will be the target of a lot of abuse. I agree with Tom. It feels like we wouldn't be telling the story right if there wasn't an exploration of bigotry and what gives life value and freedom.

It was so awesome to see how you portrayed Varela and IRIS, because when I was creating them, I had imagined their relationship being almost the opposite. Anyway, I loved it.

I also just finished running my boys through a 5e Eberron campaign where they played goblinoids, heir to the mighty Dhakaani Empire, who believed their species were superior to all others, and who experienced more than a little hatred and distain from the rest of the world. Such an interesting topic to explore.

I'm mostly with Doug. I think that there are some inherent bits in the setting that open this up more in Blade Runner.

I'm comfortable with adult themes language and portrayals if they fit the setting, location, and story as long as they dont get explicit or gratuitous.

Bigotry is very real in this setting and harder to mask behind orcs and goblins (who should be slain outright). In fact what is human is a core aspect of this game, as is the trauma of memory, and how peoples perceptions are changed.

CHAT GPT cant stop me from using "clankers" just yet. 

Hey Paul, there is no theme, subject, word, or setting that you could use or say that would cause me any offense. Whatever you need to do to paint a story is fine with me.

Crowe speaks his voice is calm, emotionless, perfunctory.

"Detective Varela. This is Detective LE1, I'm Detective Crowe."

Following procedure he showed the other Detective his badge.

"You know my department, so you know that we don't care about burglaries and break ins. We are here to determine two things."

"First, what the connection this robbery has to replicants."

"Second, to determine if replicants have, are, were, or will be involved in this crime."

"You want to do the paperwork on the burglary, be my guest. You want to find the fence, the yen, or whatever else it is that you need to file in your report? Again you're welcome to it."

"Any and all leads, evidence, stated or implied to replicants is REP-DET priority."

"Now, if that is settled can we continue? Please let me know what you have so far, while Detective LE1 see what else may be here pertinent to my department."

Crowe nodded to his assigned partner to continue, and waited for acquiescence and something useful from Varela, or proceeding to the next stage of badge measuring.

So, uh, I probably should've checked whether overt bigotry was going to be an issue for anyone, given how central a theme race and racism are to the Blade Runner franchise.

While I'm on the subject, and given that we're starting this game in 2026 and not the dark ages, are there any subjects, themes or whatever that anyone really doesn't want to appear in the game (at least on screen)?  If so, no need to explain why - just post here (or PM me) so I know not to go there. 

I'm merging these two so we can avoid a bit of back-and-forthing to find OOC information, or confusion about where things are.

Phirel pauses, hand on the elevator controls.  "Organic, I think, unless there's something else been found down there that nobody's told me about.  Not current model, that's for sure, but you're the experts, not me."  She doesn't meet Elly's gaze with her last words.  Not clear if it's a gesture of respect or something else. 

"Apart from blue, only the suspects that we can confirm, though y'know... there's the usual evidence of Specials.  Couldn't say what's been touched.  You'll understand when you get down there." 

The usual evidence.  Specials.  Back in the days after the Blackout, a place like this - solid building without clear ownership, power when that came back but probably access through dumb hatches even before then, out of the way with no reason for most people to look at it twice - this would've been sought-after real estate by the kind of people who can't pay anything for living space.  People who made some shitty choices, or who didn't make the cut.  People stuck forever at the bottom of LA's constantly-churning totem pole.

Sure enough, all the signs are there as the elevator lurches into half-life with a smell of old food scraps and a sound that speaks of spotty maintenance even back in its glory days.  Tags on the walls that have built up into strata.  Totems and talismans tied to rusted railings.  Tumbledown remains of shanties on walkways not wide enough for two people to pass.  No sign of anyone still here, but in a city so crowded that families will get into a knife fight to live in a stairwell, it's a sucker's bet to say it out loud.

The elevator shudders to a halt on the 56th floor near a set of massive sliding doors that would look just like every other set if they hadn't been twisted open by a blast so recent that the echoes are probably still knocking around somewhere in the sub-levels.  Inside, lit up like superstars on stage by LAPD floodlights, a small hive of uniforms swarms where someone's kicked the nest over.  A lot of work getting done, or maybe just a lot of people finding an excuse to be inside.  Nods as they clock the badges, or maybe just the look any cop gets at a new crime scene. 

Everywhere you look, hard plastic containers sporting old-fashioned labels, each one just big enough to hold a football, scattered about - either the work of whatever took out the doors or someone looking for something specific and not giving a damn about much else. 

Then he's loud and somehow already too close.  "I'm Mateo Varela, RSS.  Not sure why these numbnuts decided this was a Rep-Detec job.  Looks like you guys are as short handed as we are," he says, waving without looking at a DiJi who's making notes on an imaginary clipboard.  "We both gotta deal with partners that ain't real." 

Then, with a professional-grade stink-eye right at Elly: "What you lookin' at, skinjob?"

LE1-1.3 stepped out of the spinner without haste. The fog enveloped her immediately, clinging to the black panels of her coat, gathering in the seams, turning the shoulders dark and wet before the door had even finished its upward arc.

Elly paused only long enough to register the air quality and wind absence, the structural age of the warehouse and the landing pad corrosion, the positioning of the officers, Phirel's uncovered face, and Crowe's breathing pattern beside her.

No immediate threat. No visible civilians... Too many unknowns.

Her eyes moved to Phirel while the officer spoke, but her attention divided itself cleanly between the words, the building, the uniforms, and Crowe. She didn't interrupt. She didn't look surprised when Phirel mentioned the ESPER node, and didn't react when she said, "parts."

Parts. Not remains. Not victims. Not evidence of persons. Parts.

Elly's expression didn't change, but her attention sharpened. "Sub-assemblies," she said, as if placing the term carefully on a scale. "Organic, synthetic, or mixed?"

She glanced toward the elevator, then back to Phirel, her gaze shifting briefly to the skeleton keycard in her hand.  Turning her head slightly toward Crowe, just enough to include him without requiring him to meet her eyes, she remarked, quiet and certain, "This is not a warehouse break-in."

Elly looked back to Phirel. "Who has entered the compromised compartment?" The questions wasn't angry or suspicious, but came with the same force as a hand closing around a wrist – more controlled, exact, and difficult to ignore. "And has anyone touched the contents?"

She almost said bodies. Contents was safer... more useful to the work.

Stepping into the elevator, the wet hem of her coat moved against her boots, as she instructed Phirel. "Secure the landing pad. Preserve the ESPER node if it hasn't already been contaminated. No additional personnel inside unless cleared by RDU or scene command."

Then, after a pause, she added, "And notify Detective Varela that Rep-Detect is on site." Her expression remained still. "He may prefer to hear it before he sees us."

I thought it might be something like that!  Yeah, I'll bring Wylde in later - let's let the first two do all the scut work at the crime scene.

EDIT:  I've cleared my cache and now the site looks like it's supposed to.