[Forwarded manually to [email removed]. The auto-reply came to
[email removed] alone by mistake -- James]
YES! Finally some meat to the TML! I love hearing about other people's
scenarios. I've felt very much a novice in this list because I have a very
old version of Traveller and haven't played for years. However, I have
designed a Rimworld scenario that I feel might provide some interesting
possibilities for other gamers.
_I N C I D E N T A T O M E G A R I M_
* * * * * * * * *
Omega Rim is a small imperial outpost on the rim of the galaxy which
orbits a Type K star. The station consists of a series of domed sectors
and is under military rule (Imperial). While on a routine sweep through
the sector, 3 civvies are rescued from an escape pod and tell an unlikely
story of hijacking and aliens. Apparently, the liner "Penelope" (which has
been missing for about a month) was hijacked and taken to an uncharted star
system near Omega Rim. The captives (those who survived the hijacking)
were told they would be kept alive as long as they cooperated. The
Hijackers then sent them down in an unarmed ship's boat to the uncharted
planet's surface where they encountered a pyramidical stone structure.
After touching off an automatic door mechanism by mistake, the party finds
a (formerly) sealed control center which appears to have been on this
planet for centuries. Reptilian skeletons adorn the control room in
attitudes that indicate they were struck down in mid-duty. One of the more
medically-inclined of the survivors discovered that the aliens were killed
by strange lightning-fast virus. All of the survivors have noticed a change
in their eyesight since entering the pyramid, but no other effects.
The control room is STILL ACTIVE and some fiddling reveals a starship and a
sealed chamber with an intact alien in stasis nearby. They give the alien
a wide berth and decide to use the starship to escape the pirates. As they
power up the ship, a loudspeaker chimes and crackles in some alien
language, then the entire complex comes alive - literally. The alien wakes
up and starts shooting. The civvies escape (barely) and as they leave the
planet, they notice the tell-tale lights of other ships leaving the
planetary gravity well. The ships are identical to their own. The last
sight they see before slipping into hyperdrive is the Penelope being
vaporized by blue-white light. The alien ship gets them close to Omega
Rim, but they discover that the ship has a radiation leak that is
life-threatening. Their last desparate act is to launch the escape pod
before finally, the ship explodes. They are convinced that the planet was
host to a forerunner outpost or the advance party for a centuries-old
invasion that may have been stopped by the virus.
The commandant of the outpost doesn't believe a word of their story. He
puts them in quarantine until he can verify the story.
The questions that remain to be answered:
(1) What happened to the other alien ships that launched from the planet?
(2) What long-term effect did the virus have on the humans?
(3) Why were the pirates interested in the first place?
(4) What's being done with the alien escape pod?
Let me know what you think of this scenario and I can email you
(separately) more of the particulars for Subsector Carina at the galaxial
rim.
Colin Enger
MacVantages Consulting