Escaping Gehenna by leaving Earth

[Solomon Draak]

I remembered an old anime-film about vampires, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Basically, the major character are a noble vampire and his human lover that tries to reach an anciend star launch facility ( the story features a post apocalyptic future ) in order to leave Earth and reach a space station called the City of Night, a refuge for vampires.

So I tought: several description of Gehenna talks about the arrival of a comet called Wormwood - or the Red Star - who explodes in a bright crimson light visible only through Auspex and spreads a fine red mystical powder that, according to Gehenna pag 54, "travels quickly and penetrates anything and everything, from the deepest holes in Earth to the bottom of the ocean and from the tallest peaks to the interior of airplanes in flight".

But what if one or more vampires managed to reach space ,meanwhile?

[Baaldam]

I remembered an old anime-film about vampires, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Basically, the major character are a noble vampire and his human lover that tries to reach an anciend star launch facility ( the story features a post apocalyptic future ) in order to leave Earth and reach a space station called the City of Night, a refuge for vampires.

So I tought: several description of Gehenna talks about the arrival of a comet called Wormwood - or the Red Star - who explodes in a bright crimson light visible only through Auspex and spreads a fine red mystical powder that, according to Gehenna pag 54, "travels quickly and penetrates anything and everything, from the deepest holes in Earth to the bottom of the ocean and from the tallest peaks to the interior of airplanes in flight".

But what if one or more vampires managed to reach space ,meanwhile?

Well, it would take considerably more than half a dozen vampires to make anything feasbile - you'd need several reasonably large herds and even larger group of unwitting prey, for starters.

Unless everybody is in the know because it's some crazy project like "Carthage IN SPACE" or somesuch from either Brujah idealists, anarchs or a mix of both.

[Heavy Arms]

Unless we set this at a point in the future where there's sustainable human habitation in space? The vampire most likely starves, goes into torpor, and dies as nobody's at the controls to handle the exceedingly dangerous thing that is space travel (even just trying to maintain a stable orbit for long enough to Wordwood's effects to subside).

[Solomon Draak]

An expert in Thaumaturgy can store a point of Vitae in an object small like a coin. If he prepares things in advance he can store more or less ten years worth of Vitae in a medium suitcase.

That said, a vampire needs definetly less than a living human in order to survive space travel. Solved the Vitae problem, there's no need for water, food, sanitary services. Also vampire feel much less things like extreme acceleration, heat inferior than fire, levels of cold that would kill any living beings, things like compression and decompression and so on.

[Heavy Arms]

Are we seriously going to do the whole, "Oh, well, the vampire has X Discipline/power/Merit whenever a new obstacle comes up?" song and dance?

[Solomon Draak]

Why not. If a vampire that believed in Gehenna come up with a plan to escape the end and has enough time to prepare himself, he could arrange things well.

But even if he relies on gallons of preserved blood, he's still better off than any human. Vampire are very resilient.

Not to mention he can pay a vampire that possess the requisite power. Or they can share the spaceship.

[Heavy Arms]

Why not.

Because it's really unfun.

[Solomon Draak]

Ok, but the true question is:

assuming a vampire can succesfully do that, I see two possible outcomes:

1- The Creator cannot be tricked and the vampires get's the Wormwood anyway
2- The Creator cannot be tricked but since he extends his authority only on Earth, he leaves that lonely vampire eke out his miserable existence in the cold emptiness of deep space

[Reasor]

I read the question as being, at heart, "can a vampire come up with such a clever trick that they can escape the wrath of God?"

A hard one-size-fits-all answer to that doesn't exist; there's only the answer that suits the gaming group and the tone and theme of the story.

[monteparnas]

Is this feasible? Yes, it is. Is it likely to work? I don't think so.

The preparation for such a project alone would mean this vampire can't do it in response to the Red Star approaching. The space launch of an unmanned probe still take years of preparation because of the extreme calculations involved and it has to wait for the right moment to launch. That goes before any other preparation the vampire will take to survive the trip. So such a scenario would probably involve a vampire that went to space for unrelated reasons.

Lets assume then such a vampire exists. Then we have to decide how much time this journey will take. Space travel must be planned to the last detail beforehand. Is this a time in orbit and then come down? Is this a two-way mission to somewhere like the Apollo landings? Is it a permanent leave for another region of the universe entirely? The bigger the time the vampire expects to be in space, the greater the need for supplies, and any journey to another celestial body besides the Moon is going to take years, so journeying farther increases the difficulties and credibility of this voyage extremely quickly.

Once the vampire is out of Earth... still, as you say, it depends a lot on how the ST takes it. There is no reachable conclusion of how any Gehenna scenario whatsoever would unfold, it does what the ST wants it to do. Instead, it is far more relevant and interesting to think about how things would unfold once this vampire reaches destination. So now I must ask: what is this destination? Earth under mortal control some years in the future, with this character as the last vampire? A space colony? What would be the point?

Without a set goal the likely destiny of this vampire is destruction after untold eons in torpor for lack of blood, because an entire spaceship worth of Vitae through that ritual won't cover a fraction of the time for our fastest vessel to reach even the next star, and then the landing will be quite shocking.

[Solomon Draak]

I read the question as being, at heart, "can a vampire come up with such a clever trick that they can escape the wrath of God?"

No, it's completely different.

Let's just assume for a moment that space travel is feasible, one way or another.

The point is: although the WoD Creator certainly CAN extend his Wormwood to all the universe, is he willing to do it?
Because according to the WoD mythology, that Creator only created ( or "rearranged / terraformed / shaped" ) Earth to be the home of his humans.
So, if a vampire manages to exist somewhere else, he's no longer preying upon the Creator's "garden for human beings".

The point is: does the Creator extends his sovereignity even on lifeless rocks that he didn't shape for life or unlife?

[Heavy Arms]

There's no way to know, because the game never talks about it, because the game never considered this scenario worth even a few sentences of consideration.

[Haquim]

What is Gehenna exactly? If it is anything in line with what was shown in the Time of Judgement books, the withering is going to get you no matter if you are on planet or outside of it.

[Solomon Draak]

In the first scenario ( Wormwood ) the spiritual crimson gas engulf all the Earth, but only Earth.

The point of my idea is that a vampire who managed to build a station on Mars, or a self sufficent ship, is eking a life outside the world that the Creator ( demiurge? ) modeled for humans.
The vampire could protest to the Creator "I'm not in your garden anymore, you haven't the right ( moral right ) to pursue me here".

[Heavy Arms]

An indifferent Creator doesn't give a shit, because the harshness of life off of Earth is such that even a being as hardy as a vampire is still going to die soon enough.

As vengeful Creator flings a car-engine sized chunk of rock at the vampire for being a little shit and the vampire dies immediately.