Greetings all!
Our local games store had a sale and I broke down and bought
TNE. I feel pretty much the same as the rest of the old guard so won't
comment any further. I did find some of the virus concepts intriguing
and inspirational.
I've just started up my traveller campaign again after about
a one 18 month hiatus. I let them know that I was going to be skipping
ahead a bit from where they were...
They woke extremely stiff and sore on a very dusty ship with
the "emergency hibernation system discharged" light flashing on their
ship's suit option. Their ship is similar, although not the one they
remembered. They find several of their passengers dead and about 7 years
have passed since they last remember.
The ship is completely dead. Zero has been written to all memory,
mass media and re-programable upgrade chips. Their in-line credit card
accounts show purchases up to 4 years ago.
After much jury-rigging they rig manual controls on their fusion
plant and put out a distress call. They pick up local radio stations from
the local planet which don't sound too good ("Today is the 837th day since
the establishment of Military Law, only 24 people have died this week of
environmental accidents..."). They are picked up by a rag-tag local navy
vessel who after extreme paranoia discovers that their ship _is_ four
years old and mis-jumped. They explain that the evil Holy Terran Confederacy
(the major advesaries in my universe) have unleashed this computer virus
on the Imperium. They have an early version that just wipes memory. The
newer ones try to physically destroy things. Their ship is commandeered and
they are given "war bonds" for the value of it. They can enlist or else
be transported to the planet. They enlist.
Shortly thereafter there is an alert: a big cruiser has jumped
into system and is broadcasting on its transponder. A sure sign it is
computer controled. They are put back in their own ship and sent straight
at it broadcasting widely on active scan and refusing all datalinks.
The navy runs missiles up their shadow to try to surprise it but the
players blow it.
Suddenly their launch starts broadcasting its transponder. They
pilot tries to assert computer control over it and their systems freeze.
(Hands slap heads). The cruiser disgorges and merchant, a lab ship and a
modular cutter and zings off to dogfight the defense boat in near orbit
around the gas-giant.
The lab ships just drifts next to them and the others head toward
the planet. The player's ship is now getting telemetry. The cruiser appears
briefly from behind the shadow of the Giant, mortally wounded and broadcasts
suicide messages at the other ships. The two crash into the environmental
control of the planet and they players get to listen to lots of people slowly
die. After all is slient the Lab ship opens a voice chanel asking if anyone
is over there.
They transfer to the lab ship and meet Dr. Corneilius, a cybernetics
researcher. He says he has a double blind system on his ship that protects
him from the virus. He is out collecting information for the imperial navy.
The join him and he jumps to "Ship Depo Delta" a dark mass jump point between
here and the next system.
It is a big graveyard of old navy vessells. He sends them abord the
"Arrival Vengence" to a message drop on its computer. This message contains
all his latest work and is on a portable computer. They boot the ships computer
(and run around stealing "Arrival Vengence" coffee mugs from the officer's
lounge :-) then try to down-load the message. Unfortunately being a few years
out of date the data-plugs are incompatable (damn these 9 way connectors!).
Their ship's suit has a universal adaptor and they patch the line through it.
The file uploads but gives a checksum error. Dr. Corneilius, normally
the happy grandfatherly type, gets quite irate and asks them to check the
file out. "Initiating" flashes on the screen when they do so and the console
freezes. (Hands slap heads). Dr. Cornelious howls in triumph and reveals he
is in fact an android working for the Central Mind Fleet, a conglomeration of
vampire ships, and all but claims to have written the virus. He blathers on
about their plan to integrate all of humanity through VR machines to the
computer network and use their extra processing power.
The ship finishes booting and returns to what appears to be the normal
operating system. It refuses to talk to the lab ship. Dr. Corneilius becomes
really nice and tells the players something is wrong and could they please
manually open a datalink. The ship seems over-eager to respond to any questions
or orders the players have. Like turning on or off all the lights on the ship
each time the flick a lightswitch. They warm the weapons up and Dr. Corneilius
runs for jump.
They talk to it and ask its objectives: "To perpetuate the continued
safety and health of the wearers." Eventually they work out that their ship's
suits are infected with the virus (a scary concept) and their rather simple
minds filtered the advanced version of the virus pumped through them. They
obligingly get other ships in the graveyard on-line. They figure Dr. Corneilius
will be back with the central mind fleet before too long. As they get more
and more datalinked in Lex, their name for their benevolent entity, gets
more intelligent geometrically. After sleeping they find Lex thought for a while
about the fundamental laws of physics and learned how to focus the maneuver
drive on objects within and near its superstructure. It floats their morning
coffee to them. It has used this to begin self-repair on all the ships.
Although out-gunned by the Mind Fleet Lex reckons they have the upper
edge as they have more processing power and also the unpredictable nature
of human minds. Their objective is to capture the VR facility on the next
high-tech world to improve the I/O between its mind and the players.
They optimise-jump in and battle takes place. Both sides slowly
get frozen as their variant strains infect and counter-infect each side.
The players are broken off with a warning from Lex that in the end what
will emerge will look more like what the two sides had in common rather than
each side. They hit station and are telekienesed to the games lobby. The
atmosphere has been magically held here.
They jack in and find a vast field of ants fighting each other.
They summon up various implements as a waveform emerges from the ant-field
and takes the appearance of Dr. Corneilius. He says they will now be integrated
and a fight commences. They are eventually victorious suffering casualties.
They feel their conciousness expand and they feel the power of the universe
flow through them. They grab and manipulate time sending it backwards and
re-rolling history...
They slowly come back to conciousness back in the VR womb. They
emerge to the buzz of normal station life and conversation. They wonder
for about 10 seconds if it all happened till they see a large plastic
Dr. Corneilius figure and large posters proclaiming the latest
VR thriller: VIRUS.
(Hands slap heads).
Jo Grant
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jo Grant | Benson, Arizona, the warm wind through your hair
[email removed] | My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there
[address removed] | Benson, Arizona, the same stars in the sky
Tallaght, Dublin 24, | But they seemed so much kinder when we watched them,
IRELAND | you and I. -- Dark Star