 January 13, 2018 - 10:21am | Inspired by: http://www.ragingswan.com/6-stowaways-with-personality/ because I'm an idea whore and I steal ideas from everywhere I love Creightn Broadhurst's blog This is a good idea. Lets talk about stowaways, especially since Royal Marines and other militias are getting some development of late, Militia crews might just run into a stowaway here and there. And if you are not running a militia game, I bet you have star ships in your game anyway. Issues we should discuss with stowaways? How they get on ship? Where they hide? Lets also put together a list of 10 Star Ship Stowaways and I'll kick it to the magazine. EDIT: the larger project for the stowaways is this http://www.ragingswan.com/20-things-22-ocean-voyage/ we could go beyond the 10 Stowaways and make it a Travelling the Spaceways article with 10 crew, 10 passengers and 10 star ship emergencies. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 13, 2018 - 10:27am | With such a short list at least each of the core four should be represented once. The core four could be represented twice but once there is two of a core four species we should sideline that species for new entries as I'm sure some odd ball stowaways will make the list like a vihm, zethra, cybot, mechanon, kurabunga, wypong etc. Odd ball stuff should only get one entry per species I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 13, 2018 - 10:42am | Top of any D10 list of STarship emergencies for the Frontier is probably Misjump 10 Star ships Emergencies: 1. Misjump (note to self look up misjumps in KHs and write a little more on this) 2. Pirates, ubiquetous and cliche but it would be odd if we dont mention them 3. ship is holed micro meteor and loosing air. not in danger of depressurization if patched right away. Map damage deck by deck on vertical deck plan. power, water, air lines can all be punctured in subfloors and ceilings as well as other equipment damaged. because of micro meteor's velocity and or the ships velocity the meteor has probably punched straight through the ship. This can cause a wide variety of emergencies with water or waste (if deck plan has a head/toilet) spilling, damaged vital equipment and holes venting atmosphere to space fore and aft.several rounds of skill checks for the technicians in the group no doubt. EDIT: 4. malfunction in the progrm regulating the cold storage berths and the cold storage passengers are suddenly waking up. Now the enviromental and life support plant will be overloaded with the possibility of failure. Not enough food on the ship for this journey with all these extra mouths to feed. Or this is a hijacking- pirates, cadre action cell members or terrorist are in the cold storage berths and are bent on mayhem. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 13, 2018 - 3:32pm | Looking at stowaways in real world: The majority of these stowaways were in fear for their lives but some were kids just running away. Trehune did it on a dare/bet on the Graf Zepplin and made history. Arial stowaways in real world is an incredibly desparate move. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 13, 2018 - 3:41pm | Star Ship emergencies: 5. Malfunctioning life support plant not removing CO2 from atmosphere. Crew and passengers beginning to act a little nuts unconsciousness followed by death is not far behind. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 14, 2018 - 6:08am | Okay first is while I like the idea of the cold storage passengers waking up it does not really work in SF. SF ships are not cut off from help for a long enough stretch of time. In Traveller where you spend a week in hyperspace cold storage passengers waking up is a problem. In SF if you are outbound you stop and turn around at double Gs and head to help. Inbound you speed up and get to help faster. Astrogator would need to do some more work. Only way to make this work would be to have cascading problems. Cold storage passengers waking up with engine failure and damage to the ship so some decks lost pressure and environmental controls are at half capacity and the paying passengers demand action or their bodyguards will take action. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 15, 2018 - 9:43am | Okay first is while I like the idea of the cold storage passengers waking up it does not really work in SF. SF ships are not cut off from help for a long enough stretch of time. In Traveller where you spend a week in hyperspace cold storage passengers waking up is a problem. In SF if you are outbound you stop and turn around at double Gs and head to help. Inbound you speed up and get to help faster. Astrogator would need to do some more work. Only way to make this work would be to have cascading problems. Cold storage passengers waking up with engine failure and damage to the ship so some decks lost pressure and environmental controls are at half capacity and the paying passengers demand action or their bodyguards will take action. Compounding problems is always a possibility. Some of the emergencies can be a nusiance emergency: the galley suffered a power failure and all the fresh food is spoilled everyone is on ration packs till ship docks with a station. while not the end of the world certainly going to elicit a certain ammount of griping from crew and if there are passengers then quite a bit of griping. these emergencies dont have to be severe just plausible for a d10 table. individual referees are free to complicate the situation. I see this as more of a resource. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 15, 2018 - 9:49am | Places for stowaways: small crawl space created where the curved water tank of the masking screen system meets the wall and floor allows for almost anyone but a vursk to crawl in and hide for a period of time ship is getting a "mayday" call directly adress to them- stowaway in cargo container is suffering from the cold found a radio in the explorer vehicles being transported in his container (infact thats how he stowed away- hid in vehicle before it was put into the container. he's calling to the ship to be let out of the container before he dies. he also figures that the ship wont turn around lest they have to recompute their void jump. vents- do you smell that? coming from the air vent, wait I think I hear something. In the atomic drive access tunnel- the engineer is not likely to visit here till an overhaul is needed and the being doing the stowaway routine bought nutra-rad from the local Capellan Free Trader (sometimes thats the only way to get things off of the Zebulon's Guide equipment list) as a guard against irradiation. lests just add the galley power failure to the list of emergencies 5. Galley power failure- all fresh food is spoilled crew and passengers must subsist on ration pack till they dock, galley power short and fire- danger to ship and crew plus fresh food spoiled by fire suppression chemicals- crew eat ration packs till docking at station. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 15, 2018 - 2:28pm | A vacc-suit is discovered that is not registered with the liner (in storage, hydroponics, brrom closet...any lesser used area). The crew must now ID all beings on the ship and compare them to the crew & passenger manifests. Bigger liner = bigger task and P.S. try not to upset the paying customers. |
January 15, 2018 - 4:55pm | Submarines are known to have alot of storage spaces tucked away where food and other supplies are kept during long trips. But if the trip is a shorter one most Captains will not have alot of space filled with perishable items that are not going to be consumed. Since the crew does not regularly check spaces that are supposed to be empty this would give a stowaway a good place to hide. Especially if they were posing as one of the delivery crew bringing the supplies to the ship. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
