Stellar Engineering

Okay, so I may have got the stellar magnitudes wrong in our previous Traveller session. The two B type stars were only about 100 times brighter than they should have been. There was obviously an issue with the ship’s ageing sensors. However, there was still the question of why a couple of young blue giant stars were here, amongst a group of middle aged G type main sequence stars.

There was also a nearby system (at 1233) which had an unusual dust ring. There were no detectable planets, but the ring of dust looked like material that had come from the core of a gas giant. This wasn’t a proto system birthing a planetary system, but the remains of a planetary system. The system of Opadajo seemed to be in the middle of a cluster of stars, none of which were easy to get across due to the lack of gas giants. There was some wondering about whether things had been deliberately setup to protect or contain Opadajo itself, but that would require a level of technology not seen since the Ancients.

Deciding that a jump directly to Opadajo, leaving the ship with no fuel for getting back out, might not be a great idea after all, the Deepnight Revelation jumps to Apuc Major, the site of the dust ring. Their further examinations are confirmed – this is the remnants of at least two worlds, one of which was a gas giant. The star itself is also highly unstable. Not unusual for a small K type star, but the degree of instability was incredibly high.

Refuelling from the Hydrogen in the stellar ring was possible, though the high temperatures meant that their fuel scoops would need some servicing in the not too distant future.

Very careful examination of the surrounding space, eventually discovered the remnants of an expanding shell of gas similar to that of a small nova. It dated back to about 300,000 years, and possibly seemed to be two shells, vaguely centred on the two giant stars. The shell of dust around Apuc Major didn’t have a clear date on it, but it would probably not be stable for more than a million years.

So they jump to Opadajo. During the jump, the mission team continue their research on what they’ve discovered about the Biologicals. Zanobia wanted to know what it was that decided whether the Biologicals could thrive on a planet. On some they had formed just ‘Twiglets’, on others ‘War Ents’. On some they hadn’t thrived at all. Was it soil chemistry, the presence of certain plants, or the yellowness of the local stars? They didn’t seem to be intelligent, but had the ability to spread. Since they didn’t completely destroy their environment like the Entity does, they were possibly more dangerous than it.

On day 206-1117, the Deepnight Revelation comes out of jump along side the jump mask of Opadajo, about a 100Mkm from Opadajo II.

In under 15 minutes, they got a message from the planet. “Unidentified ship, welcome. Now please leave.”

They were dealing with a planet run by a paranoid machine intelligence that strongly objected to the idea of anything new coming along and upsetting the status quo. It would take a miracle to persuade the Mainframe to allow them to stay.

Lord Sivas tried some diplomacy, and rolled a 17.

That was a surprising result for me. I wasn’t going to ignore that, so somehow the ship’s diplomat managed to persuade the Mainframe that the Deepnight was not a threat, and to allow them to refuel. They might even be an opportunity. The Deepnight had to submit to a boarding inspection, and some time later they were met by a modified Python class Heavy Combat Vessel.

Whilst the HCV was coming along side, the Deepnight was scanning for any other ships. There were two planetoids, each about 20,000t in mass, plus about 8 HCVs. They were all heavily armed, and the planetoids had both large missile bays and spinal mount weapons. A fight here would be dangerous. There were also a large number of Anaconda class bulk freighters, bringing in cargo from out of system, and leaving with empty holds. They were arriving about one every 30 minutes, which meant a considerable flow of traffic.

The boarding party consisted of two humans and a Servitor robot, which seemed to be remotely controlled from the Python rather than completely autonomous. Going by the questions asked by the two humans, it seemed that they weren’t highly skilled. They probably knew enough to fly a ship, but lacked a depth of knowledge. They also seemed to realise that they were out of their depth, and seemed terrified of this being found out.

Computer scans of the local system discovered several different networks, the weakest of which seemed to be that linking the weather monitoring satellites around the planet. As the Deepnight approached high orbit, the ship’s computer intrusion specialists managed to gain access to the satellite system, as well as some of the lower security connected systems. The satellite system also included ‘spy’ satellites which gave a good view of the planet’s surface.

From what they could tell, the main computer network was distributed around the planet, with five major clusters located at some of the larger cities. There were some near the star port, and also at the city where the Ancient’s pyramid was located.

We ended the session with the boarding crew off the ship, and the Deepnight in high orbit around the planet. The players were discussing how to get down to the pyramid. Possibly they wouldn’t have to – it may be possible to just take control of some surveillance systems or Servitors and see what was there without going down themselves.

Otherwise, if they managed to get refuelled via shuttles from the planet’s surface, then it may be possible to smuggle someone down that way. It would be dangerous, so would it be worth it?

As GM, I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen next. Some good roles (both on diplomacy and computer hacking) have got them to a position I wasn’t entirely expecting. To be honest, them turning around and leaving before a shooting war started was high on my list of probabilities. For most of their mission, they’ve been dealing with low tech (late 20th century at best) cultures with little or no space based presence. This is a TL 11 civilisation, with the production capabilities of 8 billion people. Though it’s limited due to the unusual government structure, the planet is still very effective at defending itself.