This booklet is an extended Milieu-0 adventure which pits the characters as veteran combatants on the leading edge of the Cultural Imperialism of Cleon's Empire.

Introduction

Milieu-0 is a time of chance and excitement. The Zhanasusitu trade consortium had developed the key to constructive uplifting of the Outback. Through their success Sylea had prospered to the point where Cleon could justifiably take the throne.

The first wave beyond the fringe are the Scouts. They chart and map and work out what cultures are suitable for uplift into trading partners and where the resources are.

The second wave into the fringe are the developers. These take the worlds through contact, engineer their governments and lay the groundwork for industry.

Then it is the turn of the merchants. They set up workhouses and get their economy going. Industry, manufacturing and goods production are brought up to the level where they can then begin to afford to import Imperial goods.

Now they are almost ready to be welcomed into the Imperium. Having learned to work like good Imperial citizens, it is now time for them to think and desire goods like good Imperial citizens. It is time for the cultural Imperialists.

Advertisers, promoters, tour agencies, snake-oil sales reps, etc. Line them up and send them in. Bombard the bastards with rotating billboards advertising mood rings to enchant them. Trashy romance novels set in the days of the Rule of Man to give them that feeling of being part of something larger. And fashion, hairstyles, ornament, and cosmetics far superior to the animal skins, tin trinkets, and soot they had, until recently donned.

But all this is just skirmishing. Small exchange of fire a bigger war. On the tip of trendy, at the height of hysteria, it is time to unleash the Valkiries of Vogue, let loose the Dogs of More, a Panzerblitz of Popular Culture.

It is time for Iridium Rock.

Iridium Rock

The Iridium Rock movement can be traced back to 12 years before the declaration of Imperium. The establishment of colonial culture brought about a large influx of capital and a flowering of popular culture. The increase in market created a large, upwardly mobile, relatively young and cash rich strata of society craving the simple music of their youth done to imense proportions.

Early bands such as The Roaches, Orbiting Asteroids, and artists such as the renown Clovis, all are definitive of the early Iridium Rock days. But the band that stayed the course, through the difficult early days, inhalers and medicated chapstick, to rise beyond the rest is 4Play.

4Play started off as a garage band in Mount Temple on Sylea. After playing the usual dead end joints there they were noticed by a venture capitalist when their music intimidated her chicklizard. Knowing she was on to something she loaned them the money to buy very loud equipment.

The media really picked them up after their free, open air concert in Merchant Square in Capital itself. Rather than sue them for the broken glass Zhanustu Corporation bought out their rights and sent them on a six world tour.

With an advertising budget to make small dictators blush they were destined for success. They sold out their debut album "The Death of The Computer" on all Sylean worlds. Cleon himself commissioned their "Concert of the Century" which was played during the celebrations surrounding his declaration of Imperium.

Their more recent "Dancing on the Moon" is more sedate and some critics claim that they have reached their loudness peak. Certainly smaller bands are nipping at their heels but they have moved into a new role as Cultural Ambassadors of the Imperium. A six world 'Concert of the Century' tour has been set up by the Imperial Government. These worlds are to be visited and concerts and promotions given. All paid for by the Imperial House itself.

The Adventure

The adventure set out in this supplement covers 4Play's 'Concert of the Century Tour'. To give the players some sense of autonomy and self direction it is assumed that they form the members, management or support staff of an up and coming, but non-threatening band to be used as the warm-up group for the concerts. The Entertainer career is highly appropriate for band member players but imaginitive referees can apply almost any prior service skills to the role of manager, sound technician, roadie, gofer, or legal consultant.

Although the assumption within the text here is that the player's band is also a variant of iridium rock this is not a requirement. They could be a string quartet, jounglers, or even method actors. Similarly the referee may interpret Iridium Rock itself as whatever they desire. As long as it is loud and has a propensity for obnoxious artists it will do.

It really doesn't matter how good or bad any of this is. It is being heavily promoted and it is unquestionably going to be popular wherever they go. Likewise the player's band will always be second fiddle, but still more popular than if they had stayed at home. As a referee you may wish to build up some resentment in the players by suggesting that they are, in fact, better than 4Play, just not as well promoted.

The worlds toured are on the edge of the Imperium. The facilities are questionable, the prices negotiable, and the stability uncertain. You won't find the worlds listed here on any Atlas of the Imperium. Rather than fix the location to any specific area the planets are referred to in general terms and the referee is free to place them as appropraite to their campaign.

These planets have just been through an intense period of development. Their listed tech level is probably more reflective of their pre-contact level. With the current rapid development The Scouts won't re-survey them till they stabalise.

The technology described is mixed. Anachronisms are deliberately thrown in to give the players a feel for the texture of their environment. So their music is distributed on reel-to-reel tapes, but they have holographic laser shows. A grav-limo may take 4Play to their hotel suite but the equipment may take a blimp. The drugs du'Jour come in inhalers. The referee is encouraged to expound upon this.

Set-Up

A concert tour is a moving panoply of people and equipment. Like a travelling circus they have to take everything with them and need people to manage each element. This section covers the equipment and people the players will be adventuring with.

4Play

As the name implies, there are four members of 4Play. They have known each other since they were very young and vacillate between being best of mates and fierce enemies, often depending on the quantity of inhalers recently consumed. They habitually wear black tattered leather T-shirts, reinforced canvas trousers and improbably large boots. Permanent tatoos are not in fashion amongst those who can afford quality make-up artists (too difficult to repeatedly change). Rather their bodies are decorated with the patterns of simulated radiation burns matching their depleated plutonium jewelry.

Hellspawn - Lead Singer

(Born Clarance Finnegan) Hellspawn is the only male in the group and is marketed as the felmale heart-throb on appropriate worlds. He only wears black. He is generally quiet and reserved, more prone to bold and impetutious actions (like belching and smashing empty inhalers against his forehead) rather than verbal bluster. Once he has had a few inhalers in him he is as wild as any of the others. He and Nightwing engage in constant one-up-manship.

Occasionally he descends into black moods and refuses to talk to anyone and say anything unless he is performing on stage.

Nightwing - Lead Gituar

(Born Annie Fairfax) Nightwing commands the most attention of the group. She is loud, boisterous, and has an honourary degree from the University of Sylea in obnoxiousness. If anyone does anything that captures any attention she will immediately do something twice as ridiculous or offensive to recapture the centre stage. This works great when performing. She can hold a crowd in her palm as she dances and cavorts, does blackflips and full splits, and any number of improbable things with her gituar while still cranking out tunes at high volume. Off stage she is a royal pain in the ass.

Nightwing wears clothes appropriate to her temperament. There is no hemline too high, or neckline too low, or colours too bright that she will turn her nose up at it.

Tangnerine Dream - Drummer

(Born Norah Burch) Tanj, as she is known, is seldom on top of any mischief. She is almost always second, though, and enthusiastically supports any mayhem. She is a bit rough and tumble and often attempts to solve problems with her fists. She fancies herself a great hunter but is a notoriously bad shot and takes exception to having this pointed out. Her drumming isn't much better but what she lacks in dexterity she makes up for in enthusiasm.

Tanj favours bright orange when off stage but dons the traditional black (except for her hair) when performing.

Gabriel - Bass Guitar

(Born Freddi Fortuna) Although the least exuberant on and off stage Freddi is, in fact, the brains of the band. She writes most of the songs and lyrics and can knock the heads together of the band, stage managers and accountants when necessary to bring about order or profitability. She cuts through the hierarchal obnixiousness and tries to be genuinely nice to everone from roadie to head of state. There are few she cannot talk around to her own way. This irritates many.

Freddi is a sensitive artist with a dash of reality. She tries to immerse herself into native culture (at least the bars) while they travel as much as possible to gain inspiration. So she can be found wearing almost anything from sari to morning coat.

The Crew

The crew is a wild collection of roles thrown together for this tour. At each planet they are mixed in and around with local representatives. The referee is encouraged to flesh out the official list and add as many extras as necessary for situations as they arise.

Management

The overall tour manager is Elmer Flynn. He is middle aged, slightly rotund, and bears a permanent worried expression. He spends much of the time on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Although he is the top of the tree for things to be escalated to, he will most often deferr or delegate decisions wherever possible. Anyone who forces him to make a decision often comes out the worst for it.

Gay Fallen is the tour's financial controller. She is responsible for balancing the books on each world, signing the merchandising agreements as they go, and, most importantly, distributing the payroll. She is queen of her domain and brooks no insolence or irritation from others. She generally works through a number of accounting Trolls whose names all rhyme (Stan, Fran, Dan, and Jan).

The lead lawyer is Samuel Vee. His expression varies between deadpan funeral serious and a broad grin showing a vast array of white teeth that, although they are definitely not pointed, give the impression of being so. This is who the players will end up facing over various contractural disputes that arise frequently during the tour. It is hard to score any points off of him, unless the PCs have top-notch legal support, but he conceedes rapidly to any logical hole they might find. Although it is said he only pats you on the back to find the soft spots.

The PCs' group will likely have its own management. If not played by the characters, assume that the characters have the main say in how their management negotiates with the overall tour management.

Technicians

The stage technicians are those responsible for setup and teardown of the actual stage. They spend their time working like mad at the beginning and end of each location and the intervening time drinking coffee and eating salsa.

The lighting technicians set up and operate the massive lighting and laser arrays that accompany the stage show. They wear darkened goggles, chew medicated resin a lot and frequently suffer electrical shocks in the course of their duties.

Most important are the sound technicians. They set up, wire, balance, and operate the incredible large sound equipment of the stage set. Their hair is almost universally wild and unkempt, they are never far from a roll of gaffer tape, and are fond of counting repeatedly up to two.

The PCs will be sharing technicians with the main group. The technicians, in their turn, are largely non-partisan and will help the PCs as readily as the main group. When contradictory orders are given they will shrug and do whatever they were told to do last.

Miscelaneous

There are plenty of other roles that round out the tour personel. Costumers, hairdressers, publicity agents and so forth. Of most concern to the adventure, though are the roadies.

A roadie is a semi-professional who specialises in catering to the personal whim of any of the stars, no matter how debauched or depraved. They are frequently sent out during unsocial hours on bizzare errands that only hold meaning for whoever sent them, and frequently by the time their mission is accomplished the ultimate purpose will have been forgotten.

Often they are the agents of spite whereby the stars get their own pack on others for any real or perceived slights. Sometimes they get a little adventurous and try to pursue things themselves. As they are, by rule, not very clever, this is seldom a good thing. Roadies should be played like external amplified indicators of their coresponding star's current mood. If they are happy, their roadies will be cavorting about and fetching things. If they are depressed or irritated, their roadies will reflect this by causing random mayhem or mischief.

If the PCs have roadies (or are roadies) they will be engaged in an almost perpetual war with 4Play's roadies. Just who gets what bottle of what vintage of local champers and what it gets spiked with is often a subject of contention. Kitchens are frequent battle grounds.

The Equipment

The tour itself is packed into four Far Traders. They will often, but not always, be accompanied by a Naval Escort. The traders pack stages, very large speakers, and a portable fusion generator. There are some grav-limos for personal transport, a heavy lifting blimp, and a eighteen-wheeler tractor trailor for access to concert sites not near starports. The medical supplies are reputed to lurk somewhere on board locked up in roadie proof containers.

They players have access to 40-50t of space by contract to store equipment for their act in. The referee may ask them to work all of this out before hand or else let them think of plausable things as the adventure progresses.

Of course during the adventure 4Play's crew will try to squeeze in on their space or re-interpret their contractural agreement to accomidate their acquired luxaries.

First Stop - Crispen

Frist stop on their tour is Crispen, a moderately plesant planet with a building economy crying out for imperial goods.

The Gig

Their convoy was late leaving Sylea. Some say Naval displays held up the departure. Others say it was last minute fee negotiations. The rumour amongst the roadies is that they couldn't find their Drummer. Nevertheless, proper protocol, immunisations, and so forth could not be followed upon departure. They have made up some time inbetween by not stopping at all on the way to Crispen.

As soon as they touch down the technicians burst into a flurry of activity. They have a scant few hours to set up before the crowds burst in. Distant howls and roadies that are too busy to bitch are good indicators that The Band is not in a good mood. The grav-limos are unloaded and the characters are bundled aboard to be sent off to Customs House for processing and inoculation.

Customs House is a large white marble building that ended up looking a little grim. It is full of grim faced youths. They are rushed in to a special processing room that has been set up and made wait.

A grim woman will come in and, one by one, ask them a series of fairly standard questions (see below, the referee is encouraged to embellish). Anyone with Admin can make a roll to know that any answer is good as long as it is short.

1. Did you pack all your luggage yourself?
2. Have you ever suffered from Irukian flu?
3. Have you ever visited an Impierial Interdicted world in the past 12 years?
4. Have you ever been contacted by a family banned by Imperial Charter?
5. Would you describe yourself as a good Imperial citizen?

They will then be given injections containing wide spectrum anti-virual agents and told not take any recreational inhalers. (If the players have been imbibing, roll 11+ for an interesting side effect.) The performers will be given medicated surgical masks and told to wear them while on stage to prevent the passage of contagion.

Clever players will bin the masks as soon as the leave the building. Management will pay the 100Cr fine without noticing. Not so clever players will try to argue for an exemption. Although there is a process for it, it is long, and involves lots of forms. They will certainly miss their performance slot. No one in the building has a sense of humour.

Through unreasonable delays the referee should keep the time pressure up. They will be rush back to their dressing room and the grav-limo will be heard dragging off protesting members of 4Play. They are rushed through makeup and outfitting and onto the backstage.

They can hear the local Master of Ceremonies go into a big wind-up about the mythical origin of the band. They discover that they are, in fact the creation of Enki mixing with the fertile waters of Sylea or some such. On cue they bound onto the stage to the thunderous silence of the audience.

It all seems a bit strange and may put them off their stride. The lights are bright and they can't really see the audience except for odd glints of metal. Their act will be met with perfect silence until the final bow. At that point the stage lights cut and the auditorium lights come on. It can been seen at that point that the whole audience is composed of elderly patrons with canes, zimmerframes or wheelchairs. There is the slow, and slightly ominous "click, click, click" of several thousand canes tapping on concrete.

They will be rushed offstage by worried technicans past a glaring 4Play who sarcastically thank them for warming up the crowd. The local MC is beaming and bubbling and wraps his arms around them. He gushes at them about what a fabulous performance and how well received they were. It will transpire that after working a long and grim lifetime it is only in old age that the locals loosen up and begin to enjoy life. It is their disposable income that has been targeted for Imperial consumer goods.

He rushes back and can hardly contain his enthusiasm in announcing 4Play. If they players wish to observe to watch their technique it seems to involve insulting the audience as much as possible. Hellspawn asks them to creak if they are still alive. Nightwing rushes out to take their pulse occasionally. Tanj pronounces the audience dead on arrival and Freddi leads the band in an impromptu funeral march. The audience appears to lap it up, though. They rap their canes, wiggle their zimmerframes and rock back and forth in their wheelchairs. By the end of the performance they are throwning their perscriptions on stage to be autographed.

Security gets bored.

Promotions

The band is ushered through some retail outlets to promote their goods. Things that can happen:

1. Overcome by the excitement, one patron drops dead after getting an album autographed.
2. By accident, only copies of 4Play's reel-to-reel's are on hand. The organizer begs them to pretend to be 4Play. If they find out there will be Hell to pay though.
3. A shop runs out of albums and a scuffle leads to a riot. The band must escape without damaging their elderly clientele too much.
4. Some roadie put superglue one the doors and windows of the band's limo before leaving. They must think inventively on how to keep the crowd happy until a techie with some solvent arrives.

Departure

The authorities are as humourless as always. Things that can happen:

1. One of their flippiant answers from arrival comes back to bite them.
2. A fan claims to be carrying their love child. Although obviously wildly improbable the locals will want to do a full, proper investigation.
3. In a show of solidarity with their fans, 4Play make their final departure over the landing pad in wheelchairs. This quickly turns into a jousting match with crutches. Something (or someone) could get broken.
4. One of the band's roadies seems to have aquired a lot of inhalers from fans in return for access to the band. Customs wants an explanation.

Second Stop - Altantana

The second stop is a primitive world. The population is only just becoming agricultural. During the long night, however, the unpopulated regions became covered with fast forests. Wood is a valued commodity in the developed Imperium and there is a thriving lumberjack business.

The Gig

One of the development machines brought in by the Imperium is a road builder. This is a massive mobile factory that is several acres in size. It plows through the countryside (though only at a few kilometers per hour) and leaves the equivalent of an interstate highway behind it as it goes. Think of a massive industrial snail.

The concert takes place at the base of this machine on the fresh tarmac. The only audience is some rather bemused locals. Some are uncontacted forest dwellers that worship the machine. Others are traders (the road is being built along an existing trade route). This is mainly for promotional literature. There will be plenty of pictures from clever angles to make up for a lack of audience.

Things that can happen:

1. The machine might go into reverse (it's building a cloverleaf) and threaten the stage and equipment.
2. Natives in the audeince might wander up on stage during the performance.
3. A piece of player's equipment happens to be radio controlled at the same frequency as parts of the machine. The equipment might go bezerk as it gets contrary instructions or the machine might go bezerk in time to the band's music.
4. Nightwing gets into an angry "sound test" with the machine when she finds it is louder than her guitar.
5. Tanj falls in love with the machine and wants to add it to her drumset.

Promotions

There is a small lumberjack settlement to dog and pony here. Not much else.

In keeping with the promotional theme the concert's visionary director wants to take pictures of 4Play performing on top of the blimp surrounded by clouds and vast expanses of forest. 4Play refuse doubting its safety. So they ask the player's band to perform instead. Freddi, herself, may approach the players and present this. She may make a big show of how she would rather share the glory and this is the sort of thing that 4Play don't really need, but would give them great visuals to promote with. She even helps them brainstorm titles for the album this could be the cover of.

Things that can happen:

1. A lightning storm makes things very exciting.
2. The blimp hits a thermal over the new road. The resulting thirty degree pitch makes it challenging to play.
3. If absolutely necessary to get the band to perform, they may be given grav belts to wear under their stage costumes. If so, a technician (the one who claps the clapper for the camera) gets blown overboard. The director stares at the players and insists they fly after him.
4. Later, in the processing room, they discover that the editors are cutting out the band and airbrushing in 4Play over the visuals they recorded.

Departure

There is virtually no goverment to delay things here. Just their own problems. Things that can happen:

1. 40t of lumber has been stored in the player's equipment area. No one is willing to claim responsibility. Orders to remove it will be quietly countermanded when the player's backs are turned and no one will say by who. The players will have to stay there, and watch and supervise until it is all unloaded and their eqipment is loaded.
2. Departure looms and no one can find Freddi. Everyone is drafted into finding her. She is eventually found engaged in deep philosophical conversation with a group of natives. They are trying to convince her of her divinity and she is, politely, trying to deny it. A quick thinking player with a face-saving solution for both sides will earn her gratitude.

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