The Rescue

After a few weeks break, we are back to our Traveller game based in the Milieu Zero setting. The Travellers were at the world of Kishnar, where they had discovered its horrible secret. Due to the chemicals in the local plant life, the humans living here had suffered long term brain damage and birth defects. The bulk of the population here had been the original Vilani who had colonised the world during the First Imperium. During the Long Night, they had reverted to eating local foods, which had caused mental defects over multiple generations.

The Travellers had explored the wreck of the ship that had brought a colony of Solomani here a hundred years or so ago, and they had died out after being unable to safely give birth. The current colonists (ignoring the primitive Vilani) were hippies who had set up a commune, only to find that they were suffering similar issues.

The Travellers managed to salvage computer records from the ship, piecing together a bit about what happened to the Solomani. They had come from the world of Gurishi, which isn’t too far away, in the domain of the God Emperor.

The God Emperor is something I made up, not part of the Milieu Zero canon. I just like the name, and it’s actually got nothing to do with Dune. It’s currently an autocracy of a handful of systems, which the Travellers will have the option of heading past once they begin their full exploration. The Solomani come from Gurishi before it fell under the control of the God Emperor.

Gan raises the moral question of whether they should be disturbing this site by taking away parts of it – but the others seem to think that it’s okay. They don’t even need to tell the current colonists. Which brings things back to a previous question about what to tell the colonists – should they be told that their current problems are due to them poisoning themselves from the local food?

There is further discussion about how to handle things. The general view seems to be that the best thing to happen is for the Imperium to come in and take over the world. The original Vilani need assistance, and the current set of colonists need rescuing. Their journalist, Nashu, frames it as Noble Imperialists come to uplift them from savagery. She thinks it’s a story that will sell well back on Sylea.

So do they need to take back some of the primitives to Sylea? If so, living ones or dead ones? Eventually it is decided to grab a couple of living primitives. Gan’s humanitarian views are taken into consideration (they will make some great sound bites for Nashu), and with help from Professor Irga, they select an adult male and female who don’t have dependents. Dmitry sneaks in, and after a few false starts, manages to sedate and steal away the two captives.

Though everyone is careful to refer to them as ‘patients’ rather than ‘captives’. They are taken up to their ship and put into a cold berth.

Whilst the ship is being refuelled, they begin to try and recover data from the wreck’s data stores. I split them into three sections – early, middle and late information, and the Travellers could decide which order to try decode them.

Two of their attempts succeeded, the third failed. They were able to spend some Luck though to get a re-roll. The message fragments they were able to uncover were:

Early

1. We have liberated the Dancer from the Trade Federation, and disabled the governor systems. We have some injured on board, survivors of the Gelred Food Riots.
2. Three have died during jump, bringing our passenger numbers down to 106.
3. We are experiencing electrical issues aboard the ship, possibly secondary effects of the governor systems. We’ll have to find a place to land soon.
4. Landing at 2521, discovered a huge worm, almost 250m in length. It seems to have come to the surface to give birth.

Middle

1. We have managed to just about make it to a potential world far enough from the Federation. Other than some primitive humans, it appears to be empty. At least, there are no signs of a technological civilisation.
2. We’ve built a camp around the ship, not sure whether she will be able to take off again.
3. We’ve had our first child born on this world. The first person who will know freedom all their life. They are a healthy boy.
4. We’ve had a run in with the primitives. Two of our number were killed in a brief fight, taken by surprise. We killed the rest with gunfire, but we are running low on ammunition. Our attempts to wipe out the local population hasn’t gone as well as we’d hoped.
5. We have the first successful harvest this year. This should provide us with enough food to last the winter.

Late

1. We have begun construction of a mausoleum for the children. Over the past decade we’ve lost five of our family to childbirth. We’ve heard that a primitive life style is dangerous, but our doctor doesn’t believe that this level of deaths is normal.
2. We are getting old. There is a fear among our children to try any further for a third generation. Most of the children are stillborn, and death in child birth is at about 50%. The two grandchildren that survived have developmental issues.
3. We have lost another person to suicide. Now there are just two of us.

The worms are another not-Dune reference. The world of Shipashuua/2521 is only three parsecs from here. It is a desert world, barren of life, but it has a breathable atmosphere. Nobody is quite certain how it still has a breathable atmosphere, so the discovery of life by the Dancer of Gurishi could be an interesting thing to follow up on later.

The final decision is to give a presentation to the locals. Professor Irga decides that if they are going to do that, then she would like to leave with them. The locals might get upset that she hasn’t previously informed them about what was causing their problems. Besides, she has decided she really misses hot showers and laundry machines.

So Irian gives a presentation of Nashu’s documentary, which causes a bit of a stir. Some of them are upset, and some want to leave. Their leader, Timothy, is angry at the presentation, and calls it a pack of lies. They have come here to live life how they wanted, and now the Imperium is using their misfortune to spin lies to get them to leave, just so the Imperium can take over their world.

He is as persuasive as Irian is, plus has the benefit of being known to the settlers. He doesn’t convince all of them though, and some want to leave. The Travellers have a ship – the fact that it couldn’t carry all of them is an inconvenience they are willing to overlook. Things begin to turn ugly, with a lot of shouting between the factions, and some starting to eye up the Traveller’s smallcraft and wondering whether they could take it for themselves.

So the Travellers rapidly vacate the world, leaving the settlers to argue it out. The Travellers will get to Sylea in a few months, deliver the news and hopefully a full rescue mission can be sent.

So the planet of Kishnar is left behind, and the Travellers make the jump to the next world on their agenda – Miium at 2221. This world has a small official population, but lots of ancient ruined cities which may be inhabited by considerably more people. The only people the Imperium has contact with though claim that the cities are empty. The Travellers first objective is to try and do some trade with this world. The second, is to try and snoop around the cities and find out the truth.

The Big Sphincter arrives at one of the gas giants of Miium, and is immediately contacted by the Imperium Naval vessel the ISS Vengeful. It is considerably larger than them, and wants to know their reasons for being here.

The Vengeful‘s captain is happy with what he is told, but warns the Travellers from going into the Cordova Republic. The Imperium has just begun a major incursion to take control of that polity. It’s been causing a lot of problem over the past few decades, and now is the time to take control of things.

So the Big Sphincter refuels, and heads in towards the main world of Miium, to find out what the real story is of this world.

And that seemed like a good point to end things for the evening. The scenario at Khishnar I had expected to be done in one session, but we managed to take three. I’m expecting Miium to be more complicated, but who knows, it may be done with quickly.

Things seem to be going well for the campaign so far, and players seem to be getting involved in things. So that’s good. They also have an NPC aboard the ship now, so I’ll need to flesh her out some more and figure out where she will fit into things. Professor Irga will probably be mostly passive, but things have a way of turning out differently to what I plan.