How Does A Fusion Plant Explode?
The Travellers are at Shaaak, and have been given a not so subtle hint by one of the government Ministers that if something terrible were to happen to a certain power plant, then it could be profitable for them, the Travellers and the Imperium. The Traveller’s role is to nudge worlds into the tender embrace of the Imperium, so helping those in power who would benefit from interstellar trade seems like a good idea.
There are several options they could take, broadly split into the categories of doing something physical to the plant, or hacking in via software. But the Travellers have decided to try to do something. They don’t want to blow it up completely, even if only because they want to prove the commentors on this blog wrong. But something that would disable it completely without hurting lots of people would be good.
They also have access to Tamas, the engineer they met last session who has experience in power systems. I added her in as a possible expert they might want to call on for help. In the end, they do make use of her, but without her knowledge.
Gan does some sniffing around the worlds’ data networks, searching for information about what sort of computer systems a power plant is likely to have, and what the security is going to be like. It’s a highly centralised world, so everything is done in a highly centralised, but inefficient, fashion. The software for most plants comes from a single government department, and it is pushed out from there to the sites that need it.
Each site has to request (via submission of many forms) software updates, so they are both likely to be missing updates, and also must have an external update mechanism and therefore a potential security vulnerability.
Most of this session allowed me to sit back and listen to the player’s conversations as they came up with plans about what to do. Two of the players have a lot to do this session, a couple more a bit less and the Doctor doesn’t have much. With more players, it’s a bit harder to ensure everyone is involved as much of the time as possible, especially in a non-combat orientated game like this. I’m hoping that the next world will involve the ship’s Doctor a lot more.
Neshu, their journalist, also discovered that there was a small faction of anti-technologists on the world named Clackers – named for the sound typewriters make. She tries to seed some ideas to them about the possibility of hitting power plants.
Tamas is invited across to the Travellers’ ship the Big S, where she is able to fawn over the high tech engines and power plants. Whilst she is there, Irian hacks into Tamas’ data pad, pulling off data files and any information she may have about how the local security systems work.
Gan decides to try to hack into the software department, and manages to strike it lucky. He finds security codes left carelessly in a README file. The information he has, combined with Irian’s info, means that they are in a good position to not only hack into the power plant, but to also know what to do once they have.
Meanwhile, Nashu is working on an idea to persuade some of the local Clackers to clog the power plant’s cooling intakes with cabbages. Through a combination of physical and digital attacks, the power plant suffers a sudden and unexpected failure, from which it won’t recover.
The next day, Minister Obin puts out a request of any ships in the system to see if they have replacement Fusion systems in their holds. The Big S does, and sells them for a tidy profit. The Minister is made to look competent amongst his peers due to be able to restore power relatively quickly. This also means his arguments for joining the Imperium are seen in a more favourable light. But that is something the local Imperium embassy can sort out.
All this took several days, and the money they gained from the sale means they are able to pick up some medical supplies on the cheap, before heading on to their next destination.
So their session was relatively successful. Tamas would have left with the Travellers if asked, but is never asked. A few points of Luck were spent in this session, to increase the amount of information the Travellers were able to obtain very their hacking, and to ensure there were some Clackers in the vicinity of the plant. It’s a nice way of giving the players a bit of extra help, without (hopefully) being too easy since it’s a resource that needs to be regained.
