If you thought turn7 was fun, wait till you read this.....
Also, I'd like to know what you guys think, is it exciting enough for you
readers, are you amazed that MegaTraveller could be so fun, ....
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Well here is turn #8. I hope you all are quite stumped, interested, mind
boggled, and down right having a good time, because I know I am. Well let's
see what new things are happening, and onto the turn....
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NOTES
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1) Well I hope everyone had a decent Spring Break, I know I did.
2) The readers on rec.games.frp and the traveller mailing list are now only
1 turn behind us, and will probably catch up in two weeks.
3) I'm glad to see you guys are talking between yourselves, just remember to
cc me anything that you think I should know. Still send me official replys
though.
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PLAYERS' MOVE
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Samantha goes off to her stateroom and returns with some data chips.
She places them on the tray next to the CRT and begins a search on the word
`Binary'. Steve went to his room and got some paper and a pen. He begins to jot
down some notes, hoping to break the `code' he believes the book is written in.
About 5 minutes later Erekosse comes upstairs and says, "The captain
said I should wait up here with you guys and just watch for anything. What are
you doing?"
"Well I was looking through the hand computer's files," begins Samantha,
"and I found this out." She shows Erekosse the data displayed, relating to the
Binary and the bank transaction.
"What's he doing?"
"Me," says Steve. "I think that this book is written in some sort of
code, and since I did have a crash course in the Marines, I thought I'd give it
a try."
"Code huh, I'll look at it later, this bank transaction looks familiar
for some reason, I seem to know ... damn, I can't think now. Tell me if you
guys figure anything out. I'm gonna stare at this for a while. Remember, we're
also supposed to be watching out for whatever might occur."
"Okay," they both reply.
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CREWS' MOVE
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"Well what do you think," says Erc.
"Damn if I know. This is really strange. I think I want to go talk
with Hubert and settle this once and for all, I'm getting fed up with this."
"Yeah, but should we open it?"
"I think it might be safer if we leave it alone, as this readout says,
everything is fine, I think it's best to keep it that way."
"Okay, I'll clean up, sort of, and meet you upstairs?"
"Right, see you there," says the captain as he lowers to the floor. He
gets off the floater and straightens himself out and walks towards the stairs up
to the common room.
Erc begins cleaning up the tools and the equipment after he sets down
on the floor too.
The the captain come into the common room to and sees Erekosse sitting
at a chair looking at a hand computer. Samantha looks frustrated, and Steve
looks like he's got something.
"What is it Steve?" says the captain.
"Well according to my calculations the code in this book says something
like this: YUARLK EDUGHY IKLUTEF PIUOLL QAZEUT HVERTUI." He's nodding his head
in a triumphant manner, "thats what it means."
"Do you understand it?"
"Well uh ... ummm ... not really, but maybe the computer will if we put
it through the language translator."
"Yeah, okay, whatever you say," mutters the captain.
"What's wrong Samantha?"
She explains what she found in the hand computer and says she has
searched through all her records about animals and plants everywhere, thinking
that that is what the code was for. She found zilch, nil, nothing, zero about
didly squat.
The captain tells you all what he and Erc found out downstairs in the
crate, and as he is done, Erc comes upstairs. "Now what I want to do is talk to
Hubert, interrogate him, sorta speak. Steve I want you with me. Erc I'd like
you to look at those plans that Charlie printed out, see if we can somehow
get a look inside, without opening, or see if that panel might `know' what its
contents are. Erekosse, I'd like you to talk to Dan and Charlie about you
know what, and convince them that everything is under control, and if they have
any info that can helps us it will be most helpful. Samantha I want you just
to keep you eyes open, real wide."
The captain and Steve walk to Huberts' stateroom door, the captain
unlocks it and enters, with Steve in tow. Hubert was resting on the bed,
staring at the cieling. He sits up when the captain and Steve enter, he says,
"Well what do you want now?"
"Answers," replys the captain as he takes a seat across from Hubert,
Steve situates himself at the door, his gun in easy reach, and he makes sure
that Hubert sees it.
"To what questions, if I may ask."
"THE question is simple, what's in the crate?"
"What crate?"
"The crate in my cargo hold, that is from the Arter Apparel Corp. I was
just down there checking it out, and it seems to me that you're lying about its
contents. Now you tell me what's in there, or so help me I'll find out myself
and flush you into jumpspace."
Hubert seemed to flinch when the captain mentioned about checking out
the crate, but other than that his reactions are calm. "Well first let me say
that before I go telling you anything, I want your help and before you go off
and tell me to fuck myself, I'll say this, those guys aren't IBI agents."
"Go on."
"NO, first you say that there will be no grievences against me, and I
can take my cargo and go after we get to Aramanx. Then I'll talk, but not
before."
"Listen to me and read my lips, you tried to hijack my ship. So who the
hell do you think you are in asking me for anything, you ...."
"I wasn't trying to hijack your ship, honest. I ...."
"Then why the gun," Steve says.
"For my own protection."
"From who," says the captain.
"From Moe and Curly."
"Because you're a hijacker and you were ...," starts the captain.
"I'm no hijacker," pleads Hubert. "You've got to believe me, yeah I've
might of had ideas in my childhood of being a pirate, but I never, I swear never
got involved. The gun was for my own safety, in my line of work ...."
"What line of work is that?" questions the captain.
"No, no way, not until you say that you'll help me. You've got to, I'll
pay you for your trouble."
"How much?"
"Well I think that he," motioning to Steve, "shouldn't hear this."
"Sorry, he stays. Again, how much?"
"Two," replies Hubert.
"Two thousand, are you joking," laughs the captain, "I could ...."
"Not thousand, I'm talking a little higher, in the range of six figures
and they are all zeros," says Hubert coldly.
"Two million, um ...."
Steve whistles softly in the background.
Erekosse walks up to Dan and Charlie's room, knocks, and when he hears
one of then say, "Come in." He enters. The room is quite messy, the personal
computer is on the desk, and Charlie is at it, working. Dan is one of the beds
reading some papers. There are papers on the floor, and on the other bed.
Dan sits up and says, "What can we do for you sir?"
"Well to start off, I must say thanks for the warning. I read your note
Charile."
"Oh, you did," he says as he turns to face Erekosse. "That's good, so
then you know about the `door'?"
"Yes, I found it and took it out, it wasn't hard to do."
"I know, I made it so you could. If I really wanted to you could still
be trying right now ...."
"Don't brag Charlie. So you understand the predictament we are in?"
"Not anymore, believe me, we have everything under control right now and
there is nothing to worry about. Why the door anyway?"
"Who knows, they told us to do it."
"Who did?"
"You didn't read the note then?" inquires Dan.
"I did."
"You didn't put that in the note," Dan says to Charlie. "I thought I
told you to put it in the note."
"I forgot to, I mean let's be real here, I was pressed for time and
space, and ...," says Charlie.
"Well what was I supposed to read."
"Huh, oh just that it was Moe and Curly who threatened us to do it."
"Moe and Curly?"
"Yeah, they said make sure that there is info on the IBI in the computer
and that these numbers, that they gave us came out okay. They said we wouldn't
be hurt, and stuff like that."
"But why," asks Erekosse.
"Why? Are you acting stupid on purpose or something," says Dan. "There
are no records available to the public on the workings of the IBI. I myself
know only because of the top-secret work I've done for the Imperium on ... well
I can't go into it. But really, the IBI is like the secret police in the early
Terra years, you know, the Gestapo, CIA, KGB, and all those agencies. They
so `unknown' that you can never be sure if the person is real or not. Only
recently has some data come out on the workings of the IBI, and your system
hasn't had a recent update ...."
"How did you know that?"
"Well I um ...."
"They told us," says Charlie.
"Moe and Curly?" asks Erekosse.
"Yes, they told us to do it, since the computer was older and there
would be no records, to do it. To make things go more smoothly. That's what
they said, or something to the likeness of it."
"When did you guys talk to them?"
"Before we got onboard, after we purchased the tickets, they came up
to us in the waiting lounge at the Starport ...."
"The Starport," shouts Erekosse, startling both Dan and Charlie, "that's
it." He opens the door and runs and grabs the hand computer.
"What's up," says Samantha.
"I figured out this bank statement," says Erekosse. "You see I was
sure I recognized the transfer ID: PTP-SA-62. But I couldn't remember what it
was till now."
"Well tell us," says Erc.
"Well it's simple, the PTP stands for Pysadi Ticket Purchasing, and the
SA is Starport Alpha, and 62 is the dock number."
"62, hey, that's where the Ulysses was docked," says Erc.
"Exactly," says Erekosse.
"Well if you think that's good, wait till you get this," says Samantha.
"Remember that number: Binary -- 8AC23D. Well I was just fooling with it
in my head, and something made some weird sense, maybe it's too much caffine or
something but if you convert all the numbers, which are represented in hexidec-
imal code, into BINARY, it becomes: 1000 1010 1100 0010 0011 1101."
"So, what all you have now is a bunch of numbers in binary representat-
ion. What good is that?" says Erekosse.
"Well I said, look at the first number, it's 8 right, well what if
you take the binary and represent it in octal, you'd get something like this:
4 2 5 4 1 0 7 5. Means nothing huh, but it's the exact numbers necessary for
a world UPP, and the 4 could mean the 4th letter in starport/spaceport codes,
meaning the UPP would be D254107-5. But it's just a guess."
"Hell of a guess," comments Erc. "But wait, if I remember my basic
computer class, that binary number is actually negative, and if you take this
something complement, or something like that, you would get a positive, right?"
"Yeah you would," says Erekosse. He grabs a piece of paper and jots
down the binary numbers and with a little computation says, "Well if you do it
taking it negative, and making it positive, then we get: 3 5 2 3 2 7 0 2. I
think that means the UPP would be C523270-2."
"This is really reaching don't you guys think," says Erc.
"Pretty thin," says Samantha.
"Hell," says Erekosse, "thin is my middle name."
"With your cooking I'm not surprised," mumbles Erc.
"Let's tell the captain," says Samantha.
*********
Well, this was the longest turn yet, and you can see why. The cules are piling
up all around you. What's next? We'll find out in two weeks, or sooner when
I hear from you all.
Due date is 4-8-89, or ASAP.
Note: All materials are copyrighted, Brad Post, circa 1988, any use of this
material without the author's consent is a felony.
********************************************************************************
__-, ___ _________
__(__)|___ _______/ |________| "This is where
`----------|_______________---/ `----_____|___ you are supposed
( ___+-----------------<---------_____________-----_ <------ to aim,
`----- `-----------' | +---_/ right up their
____/__/___/_____ shaft!"
Brad Post: [email removed] | ====== ||
...[email removed] |_________________||
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