 August 31, 2013 - 3:39am | Judith Jones is a charasmatic religious/cult/cadre leader that has gathered a flock of true believers from a half dozen planets. They are seeking to shield themselves from the corruption of the corporate dominated system and purify minds, souls, and spirits for the return of god riding in his flying saucer hidden in the tail of a cosmic storm. To this end all of her followers have liquidated their assets and given it to the "church" and Judith has decreed building a HS20 ship to house the church. It has domes from growing food and some ag domes with lawns and trees. It has two digger shuttles and an ore processing plant- with a view to chewing up cometary bodies or oort cloud objects for ion fuel. The idea is to build a self-sustaining vessel and leave behind the corporate military establishment. She's prophecied that once they build the ship more will flock to the "church" as the only way to escape the coming catclysm. she has thousands and they live like hermits but they probably dont need a HS20 ship. Building an HS20 ship is actually about the publicity it will create. The churches officers have become more controlling of them once they are locked away on the ship. Rumor has it that Judith is brewing up a special batch of cool-ade. The idea is that religious nut house group builds a monstrousity of a shipto be a self sustaining escape vehicle, borrow from the Jone's Town and Heaven's Gate groups and what are the adventure possibilities. a HS 20 ship would be a very big dungeon crawl just exploring it if it was a derelict- of course it wont be a derelict as you will want the PCs to encounter people along the way. Edit: no doubt they toured the ship to many of the planets in the Frontier with Judith preaching the message of salvation and largely recruiting the homeless and desperate (when she really wanted more of the wealthy set), carefully contolled news crews were allowed on board to holo-tape the untopian world they are creating but eventually the ship disappered from the Frontier: they dont actually get far when they cant simply buy ion fuel any more. They have problems mining fuel and some parts and spares they should have stocked for the ship were deglected. PCs may have been contracted to find the ship or they just stumble upon it. church officers may want to seize the PC's ship for their own purposes or perhaps they already did that (to someone else's ship) and sent people back to the Frontier to get the missing parts and spares. By this time Star Law and Space Fleet might want to talke to Judith concerning a number of violations. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 31, 2013 - 4:13am | Try referencing the biodome experiment for some ideas on what this ship would need. Especially how the environments used plants and animals from many different parts of the world to create diversity. Could make for some interesting encounters. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 August 31, 2013 - 6:42am | I love this concept. A wacko cult in spaaaaace! |
August 31, 2013 - 10:08am | Actually, since its a wacko cult in space, we should intentionally make mistakes in setting up the bio diversity such that things fail and create problems because with a wacko cult the leader will decree things that will be done and yet consulting an expert in the field would have saved you a headache. Such that some of the domes suffer biological collapse, or when one problem crops up hungry people ravage viable domes looking for food. Latter on sections of the ship that were locked off have folks that turn to canablism. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 31, 2013 - 3:19pm | Maybe the people that could have fixed some of the problems disagreed on some minor religious point and was summarily executed by the leader. At least it would be credible. |
August 31, 2013 - 4:35pm | How about "Garlic the wonder food that must be eaten at every meal" kinda thing. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
August 31, 2013 - 5:32pm | I was thinking along the lines of rabbits in Down Under- over populate and destroy the environment except I'd create a Frontier variant with fangs and attitude that was thought to be a good idea but goes ferral and uncontrollable and becomes a dangerous pest on the ship- sort of like rats being everywhere but more aggressive and willing to gang up on the PCs as a pack. Holy Hand Grenade Monty but not quite as fluffy and cute, though perhaps as dangerous. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 31, 2013 - 6:23pm | Wow I was reading up on wikipedia about Heavens Gate and Jims Jones but googling "most deadlies cults" was an eye opener some weird stuff: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/photogallery/deadly-cults.html I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 31, 2013 - 10:38pm | Check out Paul Chafe's Ark Genesis and Exodus (book 3 of the trilogy was never published). Lots of good ideas about what would happen with a group of wacko cult types in a generation ship. Also addressed biodiversity and other concepts in the books. |
September 1, 2013 - 4:02am | Ok this is weird: Villa Bavaria in Chile where a suspected child molesting Luftwaffa paramedic built a commune/colony ringed with barbwire, searchlights and guard towers; force the followers (German and Chilean) to grow crops dressed as German peasants and sing German folksongs. The sexes were strictly segregated and sex forbidden even as the leader was molesting the children. When authorities stepped in they discovered the largest arsenal ever found in Chile in private hands which included main battle tanks. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 1, 2013 - 4:23am | I'm going to need a break from researching dangerous cults soon as too much reading about violence, deviant sex, and etc is actually oppressive. That said I'm detecting some themes: 1. apocalyptic beliefs- end of the world "but we have the method of salvation, if you join us" 2. sexual deviancy 3. violence, murder, sometimes ritualized murder 4. suicide and forced suicide 5. Paranoia and extreme violent reactions to the possibility of authorities coming after them 6. Stockpiled weapons 7. cannibalism but not usually with large groups- small groups or single individuals, though the Chicago Rippers were a gang of four that performed grisley acts on victims before indulging in cannibalism Random Sci fi themes that may work mixed in: A. Bio domes and generation ship; failed biomes with potentially lethal reprecussions for crew and PCs B. AVP aztect pyramid in Antartica and worship of alien entity that hellishly kills those that worship it I'm not advocating actually using the xenomorphs from aliens but you certainly could. My initial reaction concerning using the sathar in this is not too but... in thinking about it the sathar have a lot of dangerous creatures and the whole mind control thing could work well with the religious craziness. C. movie Dark Star- self destruct theme from that movie (which also had bio-domes) Self aware bomb that decides that it will self destruct because it realizes its a bomb and its self aware so it should fulfill its purpose- Perhaps the ship has a robotic brain that is infected with the weird beliefs of the cult and it decides to self destruct. but borrowing from a Star Trek TNG episode "Tin Man" where a living ship that lost its crew seeks death by orbiting a star that will go super nova- thus the robotic brain seeks transformation to the higher level by awaiting the super nova I think a self destruct theme works because it raises the stakes and puts everyone in real jepordy- in a gun fight you may or may not be shot but being on ship that self destructs? That you cant stand idly by and hope for the best. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
