 May 31, 2011 - 6:20pm | You know the ones I mean, those planets that never had a name, nor a date that it was colonized, nor any other information that an established planet had in the setting. Instead they just had a Greek letter designation and the pronouncement that any ship lifting off from said planet would be destroyed by Space Fleet with no questions asked. Sort of a "here there be dragons- you cant go there" Well, not to re-open the debate on Zebs but what if we salvaged the plague systems in the setting? Write in the plague and quarrentine of those systems, give them names and jump routes and displaced populations living on Cass in Devco system. There would be lots to salvage on those planets. Sporadic survivors that will try to beg, borrow or steal a way off the planets. Space fleet patrols trying to stop ships lifting off and black market connections to sell loot at places like Outer Reach and the Capella system. Competing junkers/salvagers that have even fewer scruples than you. Possible mutagenic effects and infections (less like gamma world than that sounds) could even bring in mentalism if so desired. sort of a junkers salvage campaign set in the Frontier Treasure to be found would be maps of the planet and or cities, directories of medical supply houses and labs, abandoned military equipment, gold, jewelry, etc. this would actually require a campaign/setting book or modules that while having a linked set of scenarios would develop a significant piece of the setting ie 1 plague world/ module. ideas & opinions? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 1, 2012 - 6:48am | Why stop at the UPF. Plague worlds could be good for mega-corps and pirates and cults and lots of others. The actual plague planet does not need to be used but other places in the system could hold many secrets. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 March 1, 2012 - 10:40am | I'm in the process of creating a Alpha Dawn/module star map using Gimp. I'm not sure what I want todo with the plague planets... I'll prob just add them to a layer which can be turned on/off. I've also replaced the neutron stars with unexplored stars. Next I'll create a map for my early frontier game. :-) When completed, I'll upload to the Port Loren project for all to enjoy. (btw, it's B&W 11x17" map, great to fold in three's) |
 March 4, 2012 - 12:10am | Having a permanent fleet presence would be costly and silly. I would think that there would be automated defenses to keep the quarantine such as ADA or killer satellites. All automated and when an unauthorized transponder couples with a silhouette they do their jobs. I imagine a signal would also be sent to the nearest fleet installation. Ofcourse the fleet could use the systems as training grounds for ship battles or live fire ranges. Or these places could house massive black project research installations and the plague was a rouse to vacate the unnecessary personnel once the infrastructure was in place. Or they could house some thing precious like Fort Knox. |
 March 4, 2012 - 12:50am | I have written down somewhere an outline for one of the plague planets. It goes like this. The PC's are approached by a being who wants to hire them for the boss. The boss is some executive of one of the megacorps. He is very old and in the past his family had lived on one of the plague worlds. When the plague devistated the population someone from his family was away. They did however have an underground vault with treasures hidden away on the planet. The PC's are to sneak on to the planet and retrieve the treasures. Their ship is shot up by the UPF for being in the system and they escape onto the planet, sound familiar. Once they are there, they find survivors of the plague. I was thinking of several post apocolyptic movie societies on the planet. Several adventures happen and they find the location of the vault. I forgot to mention the boss sent two of his personal body guards who are yazirian twins. They betray the PC's and try to steal the treasure from them and leave them on the planet. They actually have a way off. One of the cult societies mines special minerals and sells them to pirates who sneak on to the planet past the UPF. This is just a highlight of what I had written. I lost it during my move last year. I still have not found that box. Too much junk. Whatever the plague was it is no longer a threat. The UPF cannot stop every ship that wants to sneak in, but I agree that a satellite system would be the most economical defense for interdiction in a case like that. I also was thinking, what if one of the PC's is of a race that was not seen before the plague on the planet. That would make it very hard for them to blend in. Lots of playability there. |
March 4, 2012 - 7:05am | While you can have automated systems they are just obstacles. As anyone with a military background knows, obstacles stop nothing. It takes a living presence overwatching the obstacles to stop intruders. This is why security guards still have jobs in an age of high tech we live in. So yes their would need to be some UPF ships ( I would guess Frigates or Destroyers) on hand to at least maintain the systems and to intervene when an alarm goes off. Of course response time would be a factor in any lawbreakers calculations. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 March 4, 2012 - 7:10am | black project research installations & training grounds for ship battles or live fire ranges... the plague quarentines were just a convenience... Maintaining permanent facilities is necessary anyway, an official military medical mission... "...its not a Cambodian cholera -; its the whole damn planet gone on a melt-down!! That is Quarantine with a capital HQ dirt-hoofer!" plus the rotation of trainees and trainers are perfect as protection for the observational operations base... and that is the nearest fleet installation those automated defenses signal. "... if'n they don't pull over and step out with identification waving in the air... vac those tin-cans of insta-freeze worm-chowder, mate!!!" most ships don't WANT to sneak in it's a horrible way to die... even if someone wasn't being kind enough to protect you from your own curiosity... they are not finding one ship in a fleet of fifty civilian ships a day... they are stopping every ship in a system no one ever visits all year... simple... lots of simple... and as already mentioned there is no such thing as a no-longer a threat at the scale and virulence of the described xeno-plague pandemic... the quarantine exists, it is justified, it is deadly to cross it, and even if you survive... you may have just killed everyone at your next port-of-call... ...are all quarantines in The Frontier a quarantine of the Blue Puffiest kind? No... some are likely Sathar ruses... but playing quarintine roulette with entirely healthy populations as the risk... not exactly a heroic tale, so you get what you get in return... Most governments prefer live tax payers to dead ones so they keep the quarantine in place. Really, I could not have said it simpler than rattraveller... I tired! Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
