Back Pay
The Deepnight Revelation had made it through the Gravitic Shell, and needed to take stock of damage and prioritise repairs. Whilst they did that, they sent some scout ships ahead to examine the single world that orbited the single star within the shell.
I provided the players with a handout status report for their ship and situation. This was done 3 days after passing through the shell, so they’d had time to do some scouting and figure out what needed to be repaired.
The passage through the Singularity Shell was successful, though it has shaken the Deepnight Revelation to her core. Three days after transit, this is Engineering’s high level management summary of where things are.
Ship Status
- The gravity shield that the Droyne provided seems to have suffered extreme heating during the transit, and part of it has melted. We are trying to determine whether this damage prevents us from using the device again, or whether the issues are fixable.
- A number of the power systems were knocked out, but backup power came on as designed. Most power has now been restored, though we may be prevented from engaging both M-Drive and J-Drive simultaneously.
- The M-Drive suffered the most stress, and is currently operating at half thrust. We are not certain whether it would be safe to exceed this level even after repairs are completed.
- We had a small fuel leak, which has been plugged.
Current priority task items are:
- Investigate and see what can be done with the Gravity shield. This will require help from the AI.
- Get full power restored.
- Check the M-Drive. This will require taking it off-line for a few days.
- We would also like to give the ship spine a full going over as well.
We await recommendations on how to prioritise these tasks.
Sensor Readings
There is a single red star plus a very pleasant looking garden world. There are no signs of asteroids or comets within the shell, though we haven’t finished a full sensor sweep yet.
The singularity shell was affected by our passage, and several of the point masses we passed have had their velocities changed quite dramatically. More worringly, from what we can tell from the outer shell, its velocity has increased by a couple of orders of magnitude at least.
Scanning beyond the shell is difficult, and our sensors are having a hard time picking up coherant signals from the outside. However, what we are picking up suggests that we are experiencing a level of time dilation that pushes the bounds of the simulations we ran previously.
We think that every day we spend in here, 2-3 years is passing outside of the shell. We can only assume at this point that our Solomani companions have left, and are probably well on their way home.
The Planet
The planet is remarkable in that it appears to be a lush garden world. There are several continents, most of which are a mixture of thick forest and fertile plains.
There are some desert areas. The largest are on the continent we have named Northland. On Southland, there is a large region of barren wasteland.
The initial view of the geology team is that the world is not entirely natural, but further investigation is going to be needed.
Settlements
There are multiple settlements, the largest of which we have named Pyramid. Other than the large Pyramids in this city, there is little sign of obvious social stratification.
The people here are mostly rural, and seem to use simple farming methods. There are sailing ships, which are a bit beyond what would be expected at this technology level.
There are ruins of cities present, some of which show potential signs of higher levels of civilisation. Possibly TL 4 or even 5.
Life
The sophonts here are humanoids. There are no signs of weapons.
Large herds of animals roam the plains, there are no signs of large predators.
Mission Plans
Dr Ermam Nekuna wants to run some big expensive models on predicting the behaviour of the shell and the space within it.
Dr Juuma Rusasa wants to go down to the planet and study the life forms there. There does seem to be a huge abundance of life.
Professor George Watt wants to talk to the natives. He’s especially interested in some of the ruined cities, especially the one designated “Rainshadow” which is the largest of the ruins.
Dr Tomis is interested in investigating the Pyramids and the big city. She is expecting them to have some records of their history, and maybe some astronomical data.
Alfred Bester wants to join one of the away teams. He thinks his unique talents at investigation might help uncover any lies.
Niamh McCabe thinks its a trap, and that the Entity is hiding inside the world, ready to infect anyone who lands. Everyone there is a shambler and being telepathically controlled.
The Vargr Inkergunzi wants to run around on the surface and stick her nose into the earth. It’s a beautiful world and thinks we should go down and mark our territory.
Trennance wants to know if the shell could be collapsed to make a really big star trigger.
The first big shock was that they appeared to be in a region that was being time dilated. For every day that passed for them, some 2 to 3 years was passing outside the shell. This raised a really important question – how were they getting paid?
Was their back pay based on shipboard time, or was it based on time elapsed back in the Imperium? The ship’s bursar made an admin check, and got a 17. So the answer will be whatever she wants it to be. By the time they get back to the Imperium, they could be owed an awful lot of back pay. Assuming that the Imperium hasn’t fallen into civil war, been destroyed by an inorganic virus, hit by a telepathic wave of insanity or anything else which might affect things. But what are the chances of any of these things happening?
Examining the world… the players were cautious. There was no signs of the Fungus, which was suspicious. The planet seemed possibly artificial. There were no volcanoes, no plate tectonics and therefore no carbon cycle. But everything seemed to be ticking along fine. Is the world one big computer that controls the shell and everything within it? Or maybe the planet is the Fungus.
Dr Nekuna and Trennance are given the task of figuring out how to destroy everything here. Which was good, because I’d already been planning for them to present a plan further down the line. The Red Team were also told to come up with some plans to deal with whatever might happen.
For now though, nobody was to go down to the surface of the planet. It was way too risky for that. So they sent probes.
Maybe in a couple of weeks, enough time will have passed outside for the Solomani to have got home, faffed around for a bit, then sent a rescue mission back. At least, that’s the player’s estimate.
The checking of the ship’s hull doesn’t go smoothly. One team turn out to be a bunch of slackers, who skip over sections of the hull which really need some attention. At first it is thought that they might be under some psionic influence, but eventually it’s figured out that they are just being lazy and careless.
The probes are finding it difficult to pick up language translations, because the people of this world aren’t very talkative. When working together, they just seem to know what each other wants and needs. Most of the communication cues seem to be facial and posture, not verbal. Maybe there is some telepathy in there, but it can’t be proven.
Some of the animals behave oddly. There are no large predators, but the question of what keeps the animal numbers in check is answered when a small group is spotted heading off into a forest, and then getting ‘eaten’ by the ground. There are regions where the Fungus is growing, but they seem to be very well contained. They aren’t spreading spores, just taking a minimal bite from the local life forms after drawing them in.
No signs of contamination can be detected outside of these regions, but still nobody is going down to the surface, not even in a spacesuit.
A decision is made to head to send a probe to the city of Rainshadow. This is a set of ruins in a desert region, which has a low population. There are signs that the technology level here may have reached industrial revolution levels, maybe even later.
A probe flies down, and runs into the natives when they throw some stones at it. They try to communicate via the probe, but the locals seem to have difficulty deciding what to make of it. To them, it’s obviously not a ‘person’, and it’s not an animal, it’s just some sort of thing, and things don’t talk. So the fact that it is trying to talk, and not giving any usual non-verbal gestures is confusing to them.
The crew try to offer chocolate and cheese via the probe, but they’re not getting what they want. Eventually, they decide to fit a holographic projector, projecting an image of themselves for the locals to interact with. That helps a bit, but the locals are still very suspicious.
Eventually though they find someone who is willing to open up a bit, and tell them of the stories of the place. There did use to be big cities, but they were considered to be too complicated and unpleasant, so everyone went back to the old ways of living. Those in Rainshadow that leave and head to the green places, never return. They are assumed to be dead.
Their local guide shows them a place where they can find some old books. The books are old, and very fragile. The probe takes them up to a ship’s boat, where they are carefully checked for any signs of infection. They are dated to be hundreds of years old – which dates the civilisation to be older than that of the Ancients. Though they can’t translate the writings, there are some images of simple aircraft, machines and other high tech items.
There are no evidence of weapons of war though.
By now, eight days have passed for the crew, meaning that over twenty years have passed on the outside. Next up is to maybe investigate the ruins at Grid, talk to the locals in the fertile places, and eventually go and explore the Pyramids.
Whether they will do any of that by actually going down to the surface themselves remains to be seen.
Though exploring by probes is sensible, as a GM I find it very hard to run sessions when players are doing everything remotely. There’s nothing interactive going on, and information is gained second hand, rather than the characters being there talking to people.
I think for future Traveller games, I’m going to greatly limit what can be done with remote probes. What attracted me to the game in the first place was the 70s SciFi feel of it – people doing people things, rather than having a (more realistic) more automated and remotely operated approach. That is something I’d expect in something like Eclipse Phase.
I’ve been too generous though I think in what I’ve allowed previously in this campaign, so we’ve slipped into a state of very little actual excitement and adventure. At least from my perspective as GM.
Fascinating as always.
If I could make one suggestion regarding the players dragging their feet and wanting to do everything remotely, perhaps the crew could get progressively upset as time rapidly passes outside? Their loved ones are possibly dead, and even if the bursar says they’ll get paid, the crew might think otherwise. This could help light a fire to get the players moving.
What they’re doing is taking too long, it’s just the abstracted nature of how it’s being done.
I think the crew are probably resigned to the fact that they’re not getting home any time soon. The mission was always going to be at least 20 years, probably 30, so anyone who had strong ties back home probably wasn’t on the mission.
It was known before hand that there was probably time dilation, though the estimates were lower. The reason for the issue with the hull maintenance team may have been partly due to the shock of how bad it was.
I mean, how things are being done is sensible, even though as GM I know it’s not necessary. They haven’t detected anything infectious because there isn’t anything infectious except in a few areas which they know about and can avoid. Not because they failed a check or anything.