Ethical Handling of Rocks

I knew that the players were heading to the system of Kaupang this session, but hadn’t had time during the week to figure out what was there other than some large stone heads and a religion that worshipped them. I had some vague ideas, but ten minutes before the session I suddenly realised that was all that I had.

So I had a rush before the session to figure out what they were going to encounter. This has been true for quite a few sessions recently, with me not quite having the time to plan ahead. Fortunately, I’d done some serious planning for the previous week when I prepared the handouts for Dublin, so I hopefully have enough vague ideas to take me through the next couple of weeks as well.

The Deepnight Revelation jumps to the system of Kaupang, coming out of jump not far from the gas giant. There are no missiles to great them this time – something that they are thankful for. There is a beacon here, but no other ships. It is 4½ days to get to the main world from here, so whilst the Deepnight refuels they prepare one of the scout ships, the Princess Starfire, to head in-system with a small away team.

Before the scout leaves, it is noted that the singing/screaming stone that they picked up is giving off a constant hum after coming out of Jump. This is different from its normal behaviour (or silent, unless it is being held), so they decide to take it with them. Khadashi, Zanobia, Prof Ed Masters (one of the new crew members) and a few others take the Princess Starfire in towards the main world.

Meanwhile, back aboard the Deepnight, one of the new engineers is freaked out when he spots faces pushing out of the corridor walls down in engineering. Apart from a few blown lights though, there is no sign that anything unusual happened. A crack team of social scientists is put to work trying to figure out what happened.

They send some requests in to the main world to ask about the Heads, and apart from some basic information they are simply told that “Discussion of the Heads by Heathens is not permitted”.

Aboard the Princess Starfire, the rock starts wailing. It is an annoying noise that gradually gets worse as the ship approaches the planet.

Aboard the Deepnight, the young priestess Talliena is found sobbing and crying. Kirk tries to talk to her to find out what’s wrong, and she says that everybody is going to die. After more prodding, she says that they are all being watched. She begins to demand that THEY are destroyed. Do we have nuclear weapons? They must be destroyed, broken, atomised.

She starts getting hysterical, so is tranquillised and given some rest. She seemed to have been talking about the stone heads, though it isn’t entirely clear.

Soon after turn over, the crew of the Princess Starfire are getting very uncomfortable. The noise from the stone is an unbearable scream. It is shut in a sound proof box, but then everyone begins to hear it anyway. It is stuck in the vacuum of the airlock, and it pierces the mind without needing sound.

It is decided to turn around and head back – but they have already done that. Decelerating at 4g after turn over, they are still heading towards the planet. Khadashi gets the idea to use some wire to hang the box with the stone out the airlock, and let it trail out in front. About 100m away, the noise in everyone’s head goes quiet.

It is decided to not take the stone to the planet, but that’s going to be difficult. It is decided to start applying thrust sideways, so they’ll miss the planet and go past at hopefully a reasonable distance. They cut the stone loose, and let it drift on by itself, attaching a small beacon to it.

The Deepnight Revelation deploys a smallcraft to go and pick up the stone, whilst the Princess comes about and eventually makes it down to the planet. The world is mostly barren, with a number of domed settlements on the barren surface. The atmosphere is oxygen/nitrogen, but has a dangerously high level of carbon dioxide making it unbreathable for humans.

Landing at the small star port, they are greeted, and directed to local hotels, restaurants and the museum which not only has replicas of the Heads, but also houses the Great Head, the largest of the planet’s 17 heads which stands 14m tall. As expected, the locals won’t answer questions about the origins of the Heads, but are happy for heathens to mention how marvellous they look. If someone wants to know more, then they are welcome to take part in the three year indoctrination course which will allow them to join the religion.

At the museum there isn’t much information, though there is a suggestion that the heads are about 150,000 years old. The museum is quiet, though there are some small groups which seem to be mothers with their children. Khadashi gets a very strange feeling when standing in front of the Great Head – as if it is about to topple and fall on him. Looking around, he sees a brief glimpse of a small girl that looks like Talliena.

Back on the Deepnight, Kirk gets a visitation whilst shaving. A face comes out of the wall behind him, forming until it looks like Talliena. He tries to talk to it, but it vanishes.

The Captain asks for people to scan the in-ship video to search for any other Head-like apparitions. There have been a number, seemingly randomly distributed around the ship.

The small rock in a box is caught up with, and recovered. By this point it is far enough away from the planet to have stopped its screaming. It looks crushed, as if it was made from clay and held very firmly in a fist. It is also very hot.

Back on the planet, the team realise that they are the only people in the museum. Going outside, the street is full of people watching them. It is decided that things are getting very creepy, so they quickly head back to their ship and head off without buying any local artwork.

Aboard the Deepnight, Sir Alixe Vanaadi notices that the appearance of the heads seems to be concentrating near the medical bays, where Talliena is still sleeping. The Deepnight crew decide that the planet is way too creepy, and starts changing course to bypass the planet completely.

Eventually, all the craft meet up with the Deepnight, and it is discussed putting Talliena into Cold Sleep for the rest of the time they are in the system. I point out that they are well outside the jump mask of the star and planet at this point, so if they want to they could just jump to their next destination.

This is considered to be a good idea, so the Deepnight Revelation plots a course and leaves Kaupang system. As they enter job, their rock, which previously screamed whenever it was in jump space, remains quiet.

This turned out to be a somewhat different change of pace, with the players creeped out by what was going on. It wasn’t entirely my intention, but I hadn’t been entirely certain what was going to happen before hand. Of course, things might not be entirely over. Talliena has yet to wake, and the final fate of the rock is not yet known.

I hadn’t expected the players decide to turn and run. The next few worlds have infestations of various kinds, which might turn out to be similar in style, though biological rather than psychological in the type of threat. They have a plan to split the party and investigate several systems simultaneously. They have the capability to do it, and it’s probably a good idea. As long as none of the away teams run into anything too big to handle of course.