Practical Jokes in Traveller

[email removed] writes:
>
>   I can see it: Kids running around waving plastic FGMP-15's and playing Zho's
> and Marines (or Lucan and Dulinor:)

This reminds me of an incident I arranged a long time ago while I was referee.
The PC's ship was boarded by some people wearing impressive uniforms, and
carrying impressive ID cards and FGMP's.  The leader claimed to be from the
local navy, and was checking their ship over to make sure it complied with
safety regulations.  The boarders then proceeded to do their checks, failing
the ship on a whole lot of counts such as the wrong sort of paint in the
cargo hold, a minor scratch in the paintwork of a fuel line, and the ship's
hull being made of the wrong alloy.  (It wasn't; at least, the PC's didn't
know it was, nor did the boarders, and nor did the referee.)  After the
safety inspectors had succeeded in annoying the PC's, one of the PC's started
to seem to be leading towards threatening remarks, at which point the leading
inspector warned the PC's not to try anything, there was a nuon gun on the
planet targetted on this ship.  ("What's a nuon gun?"  "Like a meson gun,
but better.")

The leading boarder eventually revealed that there was nothing wrong with
the ship, as far as he knew.  Mind you, he didn't know a lot, because the
PC's were the victim of a local holovision practical joke show (a bit like
Candid Camera).  The FGMP's were models made from kits, with the cameras
fitted inside them.  There was indeed no such thing as a nuon gun.  And by
way of compensation, the PC's were given a free lunch by the holonet company.

Actually, it was quite a good lunch.


- - --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]