 June 1, 2009 - 8:22pm | I normally only use a particular search engine that produced results for me on an obscure term paper topic in college but recently I did the google FU for star frontiers and was reading some reviews of the game and was startled by the line: "1000's of agents..." in relation to the sathar. I dont know that I ever conceptualized that there could be that many and I suppose the real answer is its up to individual GMs. (I have the distinction of never ever creating a sathar agent NPC) It just never appealed to me. But I suppose if I was to have sathar agents I'd have to ask the questions of How? When? Where? and Why? Do they have handlers? like other spies. If its 1000's then I cant see it being a hap hazard kind of operation but something systematic. Like capturing star liners and subverting the crew and passengers Then the ship returns to the Frontier with a story of a misjump. maybe the worms have whole ships crews as agents who intentionally "misjump" but only jump to hidden sathar base for indoctrination and subversion. Though someone would begin to notice that a certain astrogator has an unusual number of misjumps and it'd raise suspicion. Maybe they have set up a front star line that has a special room on its star liners that doesn't show on deck plans where the cold sleeper births are revived and subverted to the worms will then put back into cold sleep. The regular journey class and first class passengers are never touched to preserve the cover. A small operation like that would spread 1000s of agents in a short time. The room could be found but the agents spread throughout the frontier would be tough to track. Maybe the discovery is made when 1st class or journey class passengers are grabbed because the agents are behind in their quota or because the worms ordered it for the particular value of those passengers. Maybe they insinuate themselves in the under side of society in the criminal element. It gives them a layer of security as fellow criminals dont go out of their way to talk to the police- only when they're looking to deal. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 1, 2009 - 10:14pm | Adventure Idea: White Light system The Royal Marine respond to emergency: Princess of the Void Cruises star liner, Dark Princess has been struck by an asteroid that has breached the hull. 3 different 1st class passengers have reported this via subspace radios that they own. The crew denies anything happened. CMS Osprey dispatched to investigate. Situation: The crew of the Dark Princess are sathar agents and there were 1-3 sathar aboard in a secret area of the ship reviving sleeper berth passengers for subversion. The ship was holed by an asteroid and has suffered massive damage. the crew and their sathar masters are attempting to flee to a sathar base. They have have a few revived cold sleepers and the ships robots at their disposal (as well as at least 1 laser battery). Plus there are a lot of scared and angry 1st and 2nd class passengers throughout the ship: some are contained by the crew, some are trapped by damage, and some are doing their own thing. The Osprey's crew must force the Dark Princess to heave too and bring her under control. Rescue the passengers with minimal loss of life. and apprehend the crew for questioning. bonus xp if they can prevent the bridge crew from dumping the astro coordinates to the sathar base that the astrogator has been busy trying to program. At some point, when its obvious that star liner cant escape the system, the sathar and some of their minions with take a small craft and attempt to escape while the Osprey is still rendering aid and their ship's crew goes down fighting. The adventure can continue on the planet's surface or on space stations: apprehending some of these escapees. or apprehending and examining anyone who has booked passage on this ship in the past who still resides in the White Light System. EDIT: the whole bit about the sathar base could be the sathar base in the Sundown on Starmist module as it was for training agents and this could be a lead in for that module? with some changes. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 2, 2009 - 3:37am | To me the Sathar Agent ploy is a fun one, but I don't use it very often. Numbering in the thousands isn't really that much, if you boil it all down. Going by AD alone there's 22 habitable worlds in the Frontier, and three of them are outposts (and AD doesn't list Zebulon, so there's a fourth outpost...and Ktsa Kar was unintentionally left out so there's a populated world for a total of 24). When you consider world populations in the millions or billions, that's a lot of room to hide a few thousand subterfugers and infiltrators. How they work...I would say for the most part alone. They would be loners, befriending someone only if/when it suits the cause. But that shouldn't always be the case either...teams of two to six can be fun to interact with a party too. Where they would work, well...anywhere. The Sathar would have their fingers, errr...tentacles, into every facet of the Frontier: security, banking, business, government, you name it. Banking would be a heavily infiltrated sector, after all the worms would need some serious financial help to make such a system of agents function. Money laundering would be a major facet, as would commodities brokering. After all, they're not minting Frontier Credits back home but may have generous supllies of slave-labored valuable minerals to sell on the open market. As for acquiring Frontier citizens (for slave labor and/or agent recruitment), there are numerous ways to effect this as well. Pirates would be a common source, but the bulk would no doubt come from an invasion or spoils of war. Just because the Satahr didn't win the last War doesn't mean they failed to conquer any systems and enslave their citizens. What with world populations in the millions and billions...no doubt these planets turn into processing centers overnight during such skirmishes. And of coruse the Frontier isn't the only source of slave labor, unexplored worlds host scores of undiscovered species that will work just as well. Of course the core four are more rewarding though. |
 June 2, 2009 - 3:53pm | Not a big fan of the worms or their sleeper agents, but it's a good adventure seed. Just one problem I can see: At some point, when its obvious that star liner cant escape the system, the sathar and some of their minions with take a small craft and attempt to escape while the Osprey is still rendering aid and their ship's crew goes down fighting If they can't escape the system, the worms and their agents will destroy the starliner and attempt to take the Osprey with them. That's Sathar SOP. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
June 2, 2009 - 6:19pm | Something else worth mentioning, a Sathar agent is a good way to introduce Top Secret elements into the game (elements beyond the Combat Resolution system that is!). After all, they're spies...inflitrators and saboteurs. You can really add a James Bond-esque flair to a game with a Sathar agent, introducing new gadgets along the way such as an oil slick or smoke screen generator in the agent's vehicle as the party chases him around Port Loren, or a fancy new miniaturized GliJet with shorter range, a nifty gun disguised as something else --- "The Sathar Agent with the Golden Gun" or an innocent everyday object (like a vaporscanner) that is actually a short range/high powered assassin's laser. |
June 2, 2009 - 8:25pm | Not a big fan of the worms or their sleeper agents, but it's a good adventure seed. Just one problem I can see: At some point, when its obvious that star liner cant escape the system, the sathar and some of their minions with take a small craft and attempt to escape while the Osprey is still rendering aid and their ship's crew goes down fighting If they can't escape the system, the worms and their agents will destroy the starliner and attempt to take the Osprey with them. That's Sathar SOP. yeah thats a good point; I just happened to read the self destruct rules for an atomic drive ship in connection with the Space station project this site. a self destruct attempt certainly makes sense. I was also thinking that the longer the PCs take with thier objectives the more sleeper berth people will be revived and hynotized by the worms. kind of like wave after wave of zombies cept they're not zombies. if this was a Hull size 20 ship you could call it the Titan (aka Titanic) and instead of an asteroid it was a comet that breaks into pieces smashes into the ship so that its a big chunk of ice (like the Titanic) Because the ship is so big you could run this as several different adventure sessions with different objectives each session. and the PCs slowly figuring out whats going on. 1 objective one: close with and order to heave too for boarding and inspection after the distress calls from passengers. must deal with command crew trying to fight them and board ship and stop its progress out system. disable the jammer they were not expecting on a star liner so they can report to higher command. 2. objective 2: call for help and assess damage. deal with passengers and the attack of ships robots. lots of distress calls on intership from scared passengers. 3. objective 3: Pirates show to claim some cargo (oh did we mention there was something being smuggled?) deal with that. This can be a role play encounter while the pirates who are well aware of the Planaron Asteroid base incident and dont really want to out and out destroy a Royal Marine ship which might result in a very extreme reaction from the Royal Marines. They may make a genuine attempt to negotiate a cease fire while they "take what is theirs" after all they out gun the osprey. aggressive players could wind up losing their ship in this. 4. Where are all these attackers coming from? (the revived sleepers) more rescues and med emergencies (the cliche woman giving birth after the adventure announce that the woman named the tot after the medic who delivered the baby just for fun) and the arrival of the frigate Leo as the pirates drop off screen with their stuff they wanted (the pirates could be set up for long running foils- so ham up any role play) and first real contact with sathar. 5. race for engineering (remember this is a HS20 ship!) as the sathar have decided to blow the ship with the arrival of the Leo.the PCs may jettison the engines that have been set for self destruct but if they blow within a certain range of any ship its the same as a torp hit. not so bad for a Titan but very bad for the Osprey and no small nudge for the Leo! Aftermath and wrap up- maybe some commendations for the Ospreys crew depending on performance maybe a lead in to Sundown on Starmist module as that could have been the sathar base the astorgator was trying to reach after the crippling comet strike. Now all you need is a deck plan for a HS20 ship and at 600m length that would be a minimum of 60 decks!  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 3, 2009 - 9:26am | Jedi, run that adventure one hour segments. A 4 hour session - each hour the PC's need to reach a goal. :-) |
June 3, 2009 - 9:46am | Jedi, run that adventure one hour segments. A 4 hour session - each hour the PC's need to reach a goal. :-) You know you have something there... theres an old theater trick of putting a clock on stage or on the wall and as the actors keep looking at it it creates tension in the audience. Put a kitchen timer set for 1 hour and when the bell dings then new major developements like the pirates showing. exp is based on how much they can accomplish in that one hour time period. maybe allow partial for say finishing the rescue of the pregnant lady while the pirates or robots are attacking but since its an objective from the previous hour they can't get max exp for that though someone may just get a kid named after them and a NPC stalker out of the rescued woman.  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 4, 2009 - 10:14am | Sathar Agents are always fun. They are the perfect enemy - traitors. I would not say that my campaigns "crawl" with them, but they are out there. And Star Law is constantly on their tail. Terrorism and sabotage would be big here. That's enough alone to do 10 full length modules, maybe more. Of course, "turning them" - whether through coercion or clearing the hypnosis, would be even more important than killing them. Look into how Britain snagged every single Nazi spy sent to the UK for cool tales as to how this can be done. The pull of a single string can unravel a whole Sathar sweater. Here is another thing, and I think this is important: the Sathar are probably not too good at these activities. Yes, they can do it, but they strike me as more warrior-brutes than as true underhanded operators. Of course, the Upper Castes are full of talented worms who can figure this stuff out, but I don't think it really comes naturally to them. Therefore, they probably miscalculate, pursue wrong targets, and make other kinds of mistakes that Star Law uses to foil them time and time again. |
June 4, 2009 - 10:19am | Vrusk Comprehension and Dralasite Detect Deception would be two huge advantages that the Frontier has when combatting Sathar Agents, as well. That, plus probably some form of hypnosis detection, or even prevention. Pop a pill and you snap out of it, and everyone coming back from a misjump has to take one. Etc etc etc. Have the PCs figure this out - could be a big part of the adventure itself. Cool adventure idea with the Sundown to Starmist intro. That sounds a heck of a lot better than the one that they give you in the module. The situation will have a sense of urgency to it. |
June 4, 2009 - 3:24pm | Here is another thing, and I think this is important: the Sathar are probably not too good at these activities. Yes, they can do it, but they strike me as more warrior-brutes than as true underhanded operators. I beg to differ here. Warriors, perhaps. Brutes, never. Physically, they're weak. They recieve DEX penalties when generating their stats (along with INT/LOG penalties), further weakening them for the combat role. While they would never bat an eyelid at dispatching 20,000+ troopers to assault a civilization, on the whole they would prefer to utilize technology and diversion. That's why they have so many cybernetically controlled and/or genetically altered critters to do their bidding. That's why they hire/convert/hypnotize agents. That's why they ally themselves with the techno-wiz Zuraqqorr. Because it's better to sit in the shadows of the sidelines and call the shots than to actually come out and get involved. That isn't to say they won't get involved. After all, in their eyes there are few higher honors than taking out the enemy as you snuff your own life in the process. |
June 9, 2009 - 11:05am | Vrusk Comprehension and Dralasite Detect Deception would be two huge advantages that the Frontier has when combatting Sathar Agents, as well. That, plus probably some form of hypnosis detection, or even prevention. Pop a pill and you snap out of it, and everyone coming back from a misjump has to take one. Etc etc etc. Have the PCs figure this out - could be a big part of the adventure itself. Cool adventure idea with the Sundown to Starmist intro. That sounds a heck of a lot better than the one that they give you in the module. The situation will have a sense of urgency to it. I sense an Archetype: Sathar Agent Hunter  |
