Thread: Soliciting for ideas - immediately post-Virus

Gentlemen of the list,

After some years of faffing, I've recently started to run a Traveller
game again. The players are seasoned RPGers, but none have ever played
Traveller before so the background is entirely new.

The idea was to run a Birthright-like game, where each player has a
high-level PC who gets some say in how the world runs, but will take
on secondary characters for more action-orientated adventures. I have
three players, who are playing the Marquis of Tahspeck, the planetary
director of Ling Standard Products and the Commander in charge of the
Imperial Navy assets in-system.

The game is set in the Sinta sector of Corridor in 1130, at the rift
edge of Strephon's Worlds. The game has begun on the (backwater) TL-10
ice world of Tahspeck, with the arrival of the Virus. In this
particular TU, Virus requires a TL11+ computer to infect it, between
which fact and the fact that (my) Tahspeck is being strip-mined by
megacorps from Inarli so it's not on many people's jump routes, it has
weathered Collapse reasonably well, losing only about 25% of its
population and retaining eight system defence boats largely intact
(out of an original flotilla of sixteen.)

We're three sessions in now, and the players have fought off the
initial infection. It wasn't entirely bloodless - between a handful
of nukes and nineteen ships crashing into the planet, over a million
people have died - but the situation is heading for stability. The
immediate external threats are gone, and they just need to deal with a
rioting populace and some internal Vilani/offworlder politics.

It's only a matter of time before they start exploring other nearby
systems. They have very limited jump capability (one 200-ton naval
auxiliary with jump-2 survived) but they went to great lengths to
preserve LSP's shipyard largely intact, so they'll be able to build
something jump capable before very long.

I have a number of ideas for situations they may encounter on some
nearby worlds (some are obviously going to be graveyards - a TL-13
vacuum world doesn't have good prospects) but I'm very open to
inspiration for interesting things to throw into their paths. This is,
of course, immediately after/during the initial Virus rampage, so
there's been no time for societies to evolve as in the New Era. Mostly
it'll be societies in the immediate aftermath. Also, I presume that
most of the Virus strains active here are Samson Inducers and Killers
- the Doomslayers and Empire Builders are some way behind - so the
interesting Virus behaviour is a while away.

My overall plan is that the world will go through a period of
"fortress years" where they have to stabilise their situation and
build up their defences while coming under increasing levels of
Vampire attack, which will gradually subside as the number of ships
tails off, after which explorations can happen in earnest.

But! If anybody feels inspired to suggest any plausible and dramatic
situations that might occur on nearby worlds in the immediate
aftermath, I'm all ears. They're certainly limited to J-1, and if
they're determined they can recce as far as a four-parsec radius
without refuelling.

Nick
(All keen again)

Sounds cool, Nick. :)

Obviously, you're quite familiar with all the waves of Virus so there's no need to go there. Please forgive me if you already know any of the stuff I'm about to write.

There's Emephdee (1832) out in the rift, separated by a 4 parsec gulf from its nearest neighbor. It's listed as a client state of the Imperium though I don't know which faction, if any, it allied with. There's a naval base and an A starport, though the TL is only 8. Full UWP: A551464-8. It could become a rival of your pc's, though they'd probably rather have them as an ally. It's a fairly dry world so food and water are going to be an impetus for them to either optimize recycling or find a new source offworld.

I don't know if you picked up the TNE:1248 stuff from Avenger, but your subsector isn't too far from both the Ziru Sirkaa and the 4th Imperium. After the "fortress years" have passed (for both your group and those two empires), maybe they'll encounter scouts from both ZS and 4I and there could be cold war posturing in the pc's neck of the woods.

Sinta (2037) and Kysar II (2235) are going to make for prime looting: TL-D & F vacuum worlds. There might be something useful to scavenge from there to help defend your players' homeworld. Sinta is the former subsector capitol.

Inarli (2137) could play the rival card. B677989-D. It all depends on how far you collapse them.

Fabeticu (2333) is red zoned though I don't know why. It's listed as X466767-1. That's certainly something worth exploring, especially since it's prime agricultural real estate (see Emephdee above). All sorts of possibilities why.

Kikasad (2334) is a water world with only 1 person living there. A wealthy hermit? Is the exile self-chosen or a form of banishment? What does he/she do there? Contemplate the folly of man or study the secrets of science? Is it "The Island of Dr. Moreau?"

If the pc's can get past Knofodu (2435) there's several jump-1 accessible worlds next door. Some of them are inhabitable. I guess what happens to them depends on how you collapse them.

Tarin Sink (1431) is 4 parsecs due spinward of Emephdee. According to TD18, it's the site of a research station that is a warehouse of "unexplained phenomena." I can send you the full text if you'd like.

Hope something in there helps. :)

\_/
DED

Here's one that occurred to me, for when your players have a couple
more jump-capable ships available:

A rattletrap, lashed-together freighter jumps in-system and starts
frantically signaling for help. Once the players have managed to
ascertain that it's not controlled by Virus, they find that it's an
emissary mission from a nearby world that's in deep trouble, so much
that the inhabitants have decided they can't stay there and have come
to ask to be evacuated to the players' world. Possible reasons include:

- It's one of those vacuum worlds you mentioned. They managed to get
their computers isolated before Virus hit and have been holding things
together with bailing wire and spit since then- but they know it's
only a matter of time before something important fails.

- The planet has an extreme axial tilt, and was previously dependent
on a high-tech weather control system to keep it habitable. Oops.
The storms are bad and getting worse, and it's only a matter of time
before everything they have is wiped away.

- Virus hit the planet and triggered some kind of planetary-scale
ecological disaster, such as a series of 5-10 Chernobyl-scale nuclear
meltdowns, a massive toxin release into the oceans, etc.

- The planet has suffered repeated raids by Vampire ships and can't
hold out much longer. The Vampires are rather stupid and probably
won't follow them (as you noted, the smart ones are still a ways
away), but they're going to keep coming back to this world until it
glows in the dark.

Regardless, the players have the opportunity to organize a
Dunkirk-style evacuation, getting as many people off the other planet
as they can with their Jump-capable ships before it's rendered
completely uninhabitable. If they can do it, they can get a large
number of very willing and technologically literate workers, who could
be vital in keeping things going on their world through the worst
years of the Collapse- and needless to say, anything on the planet
being evacuated they think they can use is theirs. Of course, it's
going to be a huge logistical challenge, and more than a little
dangerous...

-JTD

--- In , "Nick Bradbeer"
<nick.bradbeer@...> wrote:
>
> Gentlemen of the list,
>
> After some years of faffing, I've recently started to run a Traveller
> game again. The players are seasoned RPGers, but none have ever played
> Traveller before so the background is entirely new.
>
> The idea was to run a Birthright-like game, where each player has a
> high-level PC who gets some say in how the world runs, but will take
> on secondary characters for more action-orientated adventures. I have
> three players, who are playing the Marquis of Tahspeck, the planetary
> director of Ling Standard Products and the Commander in charge of the
> Imperial Navy assets in-system.
>
> The game is set in the Sinta sector of Corridor in 1130, at the rift
> edge of Strephon's Worlds. The game has begun on the (backwater) TL-10
> ice world of Tahspeck, with the arrival of the Virus. In this
> particular TU, Virus requires a TL11+ computer to infect it, between
> which fact and the fact that (my) Tahspeck is being strip-mined by
> megacorps from Inarli so it's not on many people's jump routes, it has
> weathered Collapse reasonably well, losing only about 25% of its
> population and retaining eight system defence boats largely intact
> (out of an original flotilla of sixteen.)
>
> We're three sessions in now, and the players have fought off the
> initial infection. It wasn't entirely bloodless - between a handful
> of nukes and nineteen ships crashing into the planet, over a million
> people have died - but the situation is heading for stability. The
> immediate external threats are gone, and they just need to deal with a
> rioting populace and some internal Vilani/offworlder politics.
>
> It's only a matter of time before they start exploring other nearby
> systems. They have very limited jump capability (one 200-ton naval
> auxiliary with jump-2 survived) but they went to great lengths to
> preserve LSP's shipyard largely intact, so they'll be able to build
> something jump capable before very long.
>
> I have a number of ideas for situations they may encounter on some
> nearby worlds (some are obviously going to be graveyards - a TL-13
> vacuum world doesn't have good prospects) but I'm very open to
> inspiration for interesting things to throw into their paths. This is,
> of course, immediately after/during the initial Virus rampage, so
> there's been no time for societies to evolve as in the New Era. Mostly
> it'll be societies in the immediate aftermath. Also, I presume that
> most of the Virus strains active here are Samson Inducers and Killers
> - the Doomslayers and Empire Builders are some way behind - so the
> interesting Virus behaviour is a while away.
>
> My overall plan is that the world will go through a period of
> "fortress years" where they have to stabilise their situation and
> build up their defences while coming under increasing levels of
> Vampire attack, which will gradually subside as the number of ships
> tails off, after which explorations can happen in earnest.
>
> But! If anybody feels inspired to suggest any plausible and dramatic
> situations that might occur on nearby worlds in the immediate
> aftermath, I'm all ears. They're certainly limited to J-1, and if
> they're determined they can recce as far as a four-parsec radius
> without refuelling.
>
> Nick
> (All keen again)
>

On 19 Dec 2008 at 18:45, Jeff wrote:

> - Virus hit the planet and triggered some kind of planetary-scale
> ecological disaster, such as a series of 5-10 Chernobyl-scale nuclear
> meltdowns, a massive toxin release into the oceans, etc.

You don't even need Virus.

Just a badly damaged ship fiull of refugees that has a catastrophic
failure during approach and crashes into an ocean.

That releases something that'd been growing in the ship (all sorts of
crud will grow if the life support system is way overloaded).

It *likes* the oceans. Grows well. Alas, it's displacing the algae.
And feeding off darn near anything organic that'll sit still (think
of it as a fungus. So it "grows" on the animal and plant life it
encounters).

So it's royally messing up the oceans. Including killing off the
algae that have been making most of the oxygen. It blocks sunlight
from the deeper water, so the plants there die. And the animal life
is starting to die from lack of oxygen as the slime mats spread.

Probably won't spread well up rivers and streams and not at all well
on dry land. Marshes it'd like. And it will *slowly* spread along the
edges of those rivers and streams.

The locals may not notice until the O2 content of the air starts
dropping. And by then, it's too late.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com