on the "non-zombies" - you can have them using sign language vice speech, &/or written language some of which would be basically understandable, but some/much would not - they could actually be the ones to initiate the contact in some manner ... approaching with a smile and their hands over their heads or something, perhaps a note or diagram to try explain things a bit ...
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From: Todd Kes
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 4:20 PM
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Hobbyist Horror
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>Go with a few of the 'zombies' being the people grabbed by the Hobbyist trying to reach other people, seeking to escape. Unfortunately, the damage from the Hobbyist has destroyed their speech ability, and pain center.
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>The robots are merely trying to grab new experimental subjects and bring them to the central chamber (and keep the base repaired).
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>The Hobbyist is the real threat. Let it have set up a form of religion on the planet to have all the telepaths brought to the central temple, where the sky-comet and phoenix (night shuttle landings and take-offs) bring the mind-talkers to the gods (also keeping a few local women around for breeding experiments).
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>So the Hobbyist is essentially using the local population as a source of raw materials, the religion serves it to bring in new test subjects, the vestal 'virgins' provide long-term data for genetics, etc.
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>So killing the zombies is actually destroying the knowledge they have about the base, the robots are the ones to watch out for, and the Hobbyist is the one in control. Maybe have a large ship found under construction that is designed to being the Hobbyist to another system, for setting up another Research lab?
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>So the goals are:
>1) Rescue the natives
>2) Destroy the Hobbyist
>3) Avoid destroying the local culture in the process
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>Rewards:
>1) partially assembled large ship (good source of parts/stuff for repairs)
>2) Local culture that is set up with a central control culture (so the players can be benign TEDs if they choose)
>3) Various mining equipment in the base that can be used to gather valuable materials from the surrounding asteroids, to provide more wealth
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>Sounds good?
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>Todd Kes
>--- On Mon, 6/25/12, Bardbear wrote:
>Here’s my dilemma: I had originally envisioned the base to be an old psionics research military base – working on the artificial psionics. Virus had contaminated the base’s computer, whilst some of the psionic adepts were hooked up to it. They were able to keep the Virus from suiciding but inadvertently made it into a hobbyist strain – one that is desperately interested in psionics. Some of the mummies the characters found were part of the original experimenters, and had data jacks in their heads. I was planning that the life boats that had headed to the planet would encounter the sole surviving space craft from the base coming back to the base with a load of water (fuel for the base) from the main world in the
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> Feedback I got from some of the players was that this was becoming “space horror” and they fully expected to be taking out zombies and robots for the next mission. I really wasn’t shooting for horror – the mummies happened naturally (vacuum freeze drying) as the base powered down after the last of the inhabitants died of old age (or “experiments” by the Hobbyist Virus). The Hobbyist repowered the base when it detected the lifeboats, hoping to get more crew to work with.
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>I’m looking to keep this more of a “escape the crazy computer” and not a “ZOMG ZOMBIES IN SPAAAACE!” but now I’m worried I have already veered too far towards horror. Any suggestions to reign it back to a more conventional Traveller New Era vibe? I don't want to colour my player’s perceptions of New Era as space horror (even though plenty of bad things happened pre-New Era and into the New Era).
>Or, should I just run with the creepy computer zombie thing and instead of the sole scout ship bringing back just water, it also brings back some of the natives – who are used as experimental subjects by the Virus?
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