Greetings Refs
A few days ago Rob Dean asked about how to implement the use of older
starships for the use of players. Well, in every campaign I have run
thus far the players have started out with a very old starship with a
few peculiarities to prey upon the players sensibilities.
There is a series of short stories by Stanislaw Lem called 'The Tales
of Pirx the Pilot' all very good stuff and possible trav inspirations.
But the one I have used (twice now) as an introductory incident/adventure
is the last story in the book: "Terminus". I strongly reccomend this
one. I used it as kind of a feeler to find out more about my players.
Spoiler below If you have'nt read Terminus: this will ruin it.
But here is how my version went: The players are addigned to an OLD
starship. An extremely old model 100 yrs+ that is no longer being
manufactured. It seems that many years ago one of this model was lost
the crew died and was never recovered. That incident has the equivalent
fame of the Titanic: Books, movies, folklore. It seems that the
captain was quite a successful and popular trader.
The players inspect their ship. Though the ship is very old, the
registration number was issued in the last few weeks, the spaceworthyness
certificate issued the same time, the radio operation permit. etc etc.
She has just had a major overhaul. The aft end has one brand new hull plate
still showing the welding scars. In the engine room on the forward
bulkhead is a large new plate unpainted directly in line with the aft plate.
Foward of the engineering bulkhead there are some partitions which are new.
Foward of the partitions is another bulkhead with a hole in it which has been
plated over. This continues through out the length of the ship and culminates
in a new hull plate in the foward end of the ship.
Basically, something hit the aft end of the ship and drilled its way forward
through the ship taking out everything in its path.
In the engine room there is a very old moronic engineering robot. It creaks,
it breaks down, it moves erratically and it Stutters!
The players if they do a little detective work will eventually establish that
the ship was recently found adrift, towed in for salvage and was repaired.
The ship is in fact the same vessel as the one that was lost in the folklore.
Now the players start finging some of the inaedequacies of the ship. The
power plant is brand new (the old one was in the line of the asteroid drill
hole.) The Jump and maneuver drives are the original equipment. The maneuver
drive is not thruster plates but anti-grav. The plates will not give full
thrust even within the ten diameter limit, and outside it are very poor
indeed. The jump drive was designed at tech 12 as a jump-3 drive, it was
built at tech 9. It is Jump-3 capable, but the fuel consumption is big.
The purification plant takes longer than it is supposed to. There is no
active EMS system, only radar. Also missing is a passive EMS, and in its
place is a radar/radio diraction finder. No densiometer, No Neutrino sensor.
The ship has artificial gravity, but no inertial compensators, (watch out for
cargo shifting!) ((especially if the players are running arms, these guys had
a squadron of ten GR-1 Harriers aboard with air to ground munitions...))
There might be a few old TL 9 lasers mounted (visible wavelength). Low
Berths of dubious utility. The main computer is... Well... slow...
Computer: Hold on, I forgot what I was going to say....
BOOM!
Computer: Oh yeah, Hold on, an asteroid is about to hit the ship!
In maneuvering the ship is found to be a huge collection of noises. Creaks,
groans, unexplained popping noises....
Anyway, the players first take the ship into jump. It takes full power, ie
if you didn't practice jump dimming before, you damn well do now.
As the ship enters jump, the whole ship audibly groans. And while the
crew is sitting around in the darkness, there starts up this eerie moaning.
(I used a tape of whale sounds and ran it when ever they were in jump)
At this point the players should be getting perhaps a little spooked...
After a bit of investigation it seems that the entire jump grid is vibrating.
(This exists nowhere in any trav product, I made it up.) The phenomena is
known as 'Jumpsong' Apparantly, when a ship has spent Huge numbers of hours
in jump, the jump grid is affected by jump space. Rather in the way that a
huge steel hull would be affected by the prescence of a large magnetic field.
The hull is closely interacting with jumpspace and is humming with the
interaction with it. (Handwaving phyisics argument, but since jump space is
fiction, I can make up anything I want to.... So there!) {Actually, I just
wanted something to help create an eerie atmosphere...}
After a few watches in jump, the communications officer, anyone with commo,
pilot, recon, sensors, or applicable skills is awakened by an odd addition
to the noises the ship makes. If they don't make a roll to recognise it,
they roll over and go back to sleep, having nightmares about the old dead
crew of the ship.
Finally someone is going to be awakened by this noise and recognise that it is
morse code...
Read out a transcript of a conversation in letters A...R...E...Y...O...U...
T...H...E...R...E...?
The conversation is bettween two former officers of the ship. ie the crew
who died aboard. They are in vacc suits and running out of oxygen. There
is a long pipe/power conduit that runs the length of the ship this is the
source of the morse vibrations but it will take a long time to locate (there
are an awful lot of sounds going on, plus bad accoustics) Eventually, they
find the pipe, but the messages end before they can locate the source of the
noise.
From time to time these messages crop up and the players eventually trace the
pipe down to engineering. There is the old engineering robot hammering
away at the pipe. Note the robot has no communications skill and is not
aware of the fact he is signalling. He was repairing a radiation leak in the
pipe line. It is possible to communicate with the dead crew by signalling
on the pipe. If someone does try, the 'ghosts' will frantically signal and
beg for help and oxygen. They assume that a rescue party has boarded the
ship.
The Robot is the cause of all the mess. It was aboard the ship at the time
of the asteroid strike and was unable to help crew and prevent them from
dying. (First law of robotics?) It has gone 'insane' The only cure is to
replace the robots entire brain and programming. The robot is not a threat
and will not harm anyone, but it will continue to broadcast the dying words
of the crew every time it has to repair a pipe. (a common occurrance on
the ancient ship)
Some players I have had (who's background was D&D) assumed that the robot
was haunted. And tried to exorcise the robot. They tried explaining to
the robot what it was doing, It couldn't understand. They then tried
explaining to the 'ghosts' that they were dead. The 'ghosts' responce were
that they were very much alive and desparately needed help.
Other Players I have had correctly decided that it was a synaptic problem
and dumped the brain. (They tried to do it piecemeal replacing what they
thought was damaged) It took a while, but the robot gradually went back
to its old ways until they replaced the brain and its programming.
I should warn you that while I had a lot of fun with this scene not all the
players did. The D&D players bailed out, but those used to science fiction
role playing enjoyed it.
Admittedly I have been a player and gotten very BORED with some ship board
adventures. We once found an alien ship and tried to access the computer.
We spent several hours pouring over it (one character had computer-5 I think)
and we managed to find the diagnostics port on it. Maybe if I was a real
computer jock (Computer-0 that I am) I would have enjoyed it, but It just
seemed to go on forever (I hope the ref that ran it doesn't see this!)
(Steve edit this!)
But problems caused by old ships can be a lot of fun if you have the right
kind of players. If they can't get into it just dump it, you will
alienate the non-mechanically inclined in five seconds if you try.
The only published adventure (I know of) that deals with this stuff is in
High Passage 5 (a great adventure but the ship stuff is only a sideline)
Anyway, I found it fun, others will not according to their inclinations.
I hope this is useful or inspiring,
Mr. Scott
"That Vulcan won't be satisfied 'till these panels are a puddle of lead!"