Illustrious

The previous session ended with the arrival of the CSS Illustrious, a 20,000t warship of the Federated Commonwealth of Worlds. The way that this turned out was always going to be different to the campaign. Following the campaign, the sequence of events was pretty much meant to be:

• The Deepnight Revelation’s drives begin to fail
• It puts into Tradeport and has to undergo extensive repairs
• The PCs have to use the smaller ships to do fetch quests for Tradeport
• The CSS Illustrious turns up at Wildwood and starts throwing its weight around

This would have put the ship in a much more vulnerable position. As it happens, my players decided to do an overhaul of the ship before making the Crossing across the Rift, so there was no way I could have declared that the drives were now failing.

Since the PCs were now in a fully functioning 75,000t heavy cruiser, having the captain of the Illustrious act in an overly aggressive manner would not have been sensible. Earl Egrane had already tried that, but his excuse was a huge ego, a desperate need to prove himself, and a complete lack of tactical experience.

So when Captain Lainge turned up at Wildwood, it was going to be obvious to him that the Deepnight was not going to be something he could make demands of. It seemed reasonable that he had come here from Tradeport, where he would have heard about the events there. He would know the crew, the background they had shared with Tradeport, and seen what the ship was capable of doing.

He’s still used to being the one to give orders. They’ve probably had months of being the biggest ship in the system during their exploration of Atlantis sector, and got used to being able to make demands. Not just from threat of violence, but also because most systems here want to be on the good side of the Commonwealth. It’s generally a good trading partner.

So my aim was to try and have his attribute a bit on the demanding side, but not overly so. I think I got it about right, given that the players were 50% split on whether his attitude was acceptable or not. The CSS Illustrious launched a number of fighters after coming out of jump, and broadcast to all ships that it was in the system and expecting everyone’s cooperation. They also sent a message directly to the Deepnight.

Subject: Request for Audience
From: Captain Ulyne Lainge, CSS Illustrious
To: Captain Sishle Kishasaa, Deepnight Revelation

Captain, we are fortunate to have caught up with you. We believe that we are on similar missions, though ours is of much smaller scale than yours. However, we believe that we can both help each other. The Federated Commonwealth of Homeworlds has recently been tracking a species we have have classified as the Biologicals, and the CSS Illustrious is on a mission into this sector to find out more. We believe that you have knowledge and experience that would be of use to us.

Your cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated. We request that you and your chief officers attend a dinner aboard the Illustrious this evening to discuss how we can help each other.

Captain Ulyne Lainge, CSS Illustrious
Federated Commonwealth of Homeworlds

A request with an assumption that it would be obeyed. Shortly thereafter, a second message was sent directly to Zanobia, this time from the science officer aboard the Illustrious.

Subject: The Biologicals
From: Chief Science Officer Jayne Hannis, CSS Illustrious
To: Professor Doctor Zanobia Alexandra Cheraldine, Deepnight Revelation

Professor Cheraldine, it has come to our attention that you are currently investigating Biologicals on the surface of Wildwood. From what information we have, it seems that you have located one of their bioships.

There will probably be a braincase near to the main site. If this is still active, it would be of great use if your team could acquire this for us intact, assuming you have not done so already. I would be willing to share what information we have, but another specimen for investigation would be of great benefit for both our teams.

Dr Jayne Hannis, CSS Illustrious
Federated Commonwealth of Homeworlds

This was partly a prompt to get the players to go back to the mound and investigate that in more detail, though they were still unwilling to do so.

There was discussion about whether to meet with the Captain aboard his ship, or to try and suggest neutral territory. In the end, they accepted the dinner invitation. There was some discussion about what to do about the live brain case, which moved onto what their actual mission was. It was realised that the players (and to be honest, myself) have forgotten what the primary mission of the expedition is (other than ‘find the Entity’). Which isn’t too surprising how long it’s been, and most of the expedition hasn’t really been focused on the mission objective. I’m going to need to write something up to remind everyone the finer details about their objectives.

The party is welcomed aboard the Illustrious, and they have a chat with the Captain before going to dinner. Overall, quite a bit of information is shared – initially it is one way, with the Deepnight crew describing their mission, and talking about what they’ve found.

In the end, the Commonwealth Captain explains that their actual mission is to find out about the Biologicals. There have been attacks on Commonwealth settlements and ships by the Biologicals to Rimward of the Commonwealth, and the plan is to try and find out as much about them as possible in case it comes to outright war.

There is some talk about the Entity, along with information about what the Commonwealth knows about the Biologicals. There is the possibility of technology transfer as well. Despite the initial rather hostile communication, the two crews seem willing to work together.

Speaking of communication, Zanobia is very keen to try and communicate with the living brain case down on Wildwood rather than simply dig it up or destroy it. That though is for another session.

For this session I also upgraded to Foundry 12. I haven’t had much chance to play around with it, but I did manage to do some final testing of my Mongoose Traveller system for Foundry, and it now seems to be working on 12. I’m now making heavy use of the spacecraft sheets to keep track of PCs and NPCs, which seems to be easier than switching to the actor tab to find them all the time.

More features coming soon.