Tuesday, September 19, 2023

So Close, So Far: Warhammer

I was an avid reader of White Dwarf magazine in the early and mid 1980s, and I was painting miniatures when the license to produce AD&D figures moved from Grenadier to TSR to Citadel to Ral Partha over a few short years. So I had a ringside seat as Games Workshop began to transition away from providing third party support to games published by other companies such as Chaosium, Game Designers’ Workshop, and TSR. Instead, White Dwarf increasingly focused on new products from GW and Citadel under the name Warhammer.

Initially billed as the “Mass Combat Fantasy Roleplaying Game,” I really wasn’t sure what to make of Warhammer. I was certainly interested in incorporating gigantic, army-scale battles into my D&D games but I couldn’t figure out if Warhammer fit the bill. Could I use this boxed set as a D&D supplement? The early reviews were mostly positive but Warhammer sounded like a separate thing altogether. The notion of having enough money to purchase an entire army’s worth of figures, as well as having the time to paint them all seemed bonkers.

At about the same time the art direction of White Dwarf and Citadel miniatures began to embrace a more gonzo, punky style that I wasn’t really sure I liked. Now, I was a huge fan of the artwork from the 1e Fiend Folio, which was quite a bit wilder than the art in other AD&D books. This is partly because the Fiend Folio was produced by TSR UK and as such featured UK artists such as the late, great Russ Nicholson. There was a lot of overlap between TSR UK and Games Workshop staff.

But the new Games Workshop/Citadel style was like Nicholson turned up to 11: more dynamic, bold, and cartoony, often infused with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a grittier, post-apocalyptic look. Instead of staid, Tolkien-esque dwarven warriors we suddenly got snarling, tattooed dwarves with mohawks wearing Mad Max-style armor and wielding enormous cleavers.

Despite my reservations about the new art style, I bought a lot of the Citadel D&D miniatures in part because they included so many monsters from my beloved Fiend Folio. In general, these figures were better sculpted and better cast than anything that had come before. And the new art direction, with exaggerated elements, really helped make those tiny miniatures pop. The only thing I really disliked about these figures were the plastic “slotta” bases.

My miniature painting phase was relatively short-lived. And in 1984 TSR released an abstract mass combat system in the D&D Companion Set that adequately addressed my interest in army-scale battles. So I really wasn’t paying much attention to what was happening with Warhammer. By the time I got back into gaming in the 1990s, Warhammer was a phenomenon. I was vaguely aware of this development—local game shops suddenly had sand tables and displays of brightly painted figures—but no one in my immediate group ever took the plunge and I really knew very little about the game.

It seems strange, considering how much D&D I played over the ensuing decades, that I remained so ignorant of a hobby that had so much in common with D&D. I was always flabbergasted at Warhammer’s success: how could a game that was clearly so expensive and time-consuming have such a large following?

Flash-forward to a couple of years ago, when one of my friends bought a copy of the Harbinger Starter Set for Warhammer Age of Sigmar. He had painted up the two factions and we played out a scenario. It was a fun, fast-paced skirmish game. I was impressed by the streamlined rules and am a sucker for d6 mechanics—I also liked adding a random component to movement rates.

I’ve been watching many miniature painting videos over the last few years to try and improve my own painting skills and I’ve been frankly blown away by the work done by the Warhammer community. It’s clear that many of the next-level skills I’d like to master—color theory, wet blending, glazes—are old hat for Warhammer painters.

So given all this I picked up a boxed set of Warcry: Flesh-Eater Courts, not quite understanding the difference between Warcry and other Age of Sigmar sets. The Flesh-Eater Courts is a faction of ghouls, and many of the models would work well for the Eaters of the Dead band of ghouls in my Great Dungeon. I’d long been on the hunt for Large-sized ghouls for my Hulking Ghouls, and this Warcry set had three that fit the bill perfectly.

Opening the box, I was surprised that the models were still on the sprues and needed to be assembled. I also didn’t realize that the figures could be so customizable by swapping in a wide variety of different limbs, heads, or weapons that in some cases would produce completely different models. While I knew kitbashing was common in the Warhammer community, I didn’t know that the models were really designed to support this practice.

The models are made out of a very lightweight, fairly rigid plastic material that holds details extremely well and is roughly comparable to Bones Black. Once snipped from the sprues the parts had very little in the way of flashing or mold lines. Another surprise was that the appendages do not connect with pegs and sockets, but instead use a very clever ball and socket system. You have to get these parts aligned just right, but when they are seated properly they form surprisingly tight attachments with relatively little gaps.

I primed these models with Army Painter spray-on primer and used Reaper ghoul flesh acrylics for the base coats. The sculpts have lots of grotesque details—exposed flesh and sinew, eruptions of pus-filled boils and spikes, limbs held together with impaled bones, and so on. I didn’t try to go all-in on the gore, but did try a few different techniques to render diseased and bruised skin.

I was pretty happy with the overall experience of painting these Warhammer models. I’m not nearly ready to begin assembling an army any time soon, but I have been slowly backfilling my understanding of the game and its lore. I certainly expect to pick up a few more sets to round out my Great Dungeon of the North rosters.

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Mining Dumarest for Traveller Games

I have been reading the first few novels in the 33-volume “Dumarest Saga” by the British science fiction writer Edwin Charles (E.C.) Tubb. At the outset I was not very familiar with either the man or his works, really knowing only that the Dumarest books had purportedly been influential on the Traveller RPG.

The Dumarest saga takes place in a human-dominated interstellar community that is ancient and spans thousands of worlds. There seems to be no single, multi-system government like the Third Imperium and apparently nothing like megacorporations, though the community does seem to share a common interstellar culture.

The overall tech level seems to be low interstellar, TL10 or maybe TL11, though it is hard to say: in these early books the protagonist, Earl Dumarest, is travelling through mostly backwater worlds and perhaps much higher tech could be found elsewhere. It’s not clear to me if this is a post-apocalyptic setting but there are hints that some of humanity’s capabilities are on the wane or have been lost altogether. Earl was born on Terra, the fabled homeworld of all humanity, but all knowledge of the world including its location appears to have been forgotten.

Each Dumarest book is largely self-contained and episodic. M. Harold Page has an insightful blog post on Series Architecture: The Same But Different in EC Tubb’s Dumarest that analyzes how Tubb effectively recycles a few key elements over and over again in new combinations to keep the books surprisingly fresh. It really shouldn’t work, but it does. I had planned to just sample a few entries because I was interested in the origins of Traveller, but I keep reading because the books are both entertaining and full of useful ideas for my game. I’ve only made it through the first five or six entries but so far if anything I think the influence of Dumarest on the game is understated.

Everyone notes Tubb’s distinctive use of the term “Traveller,” and can point out obvious elements such as Low, Middle, and High Passage (along with the Low Lottery) that were borrowed for the game. Other ideas appropriated by Traveller include slow drug, fast drug, and anagathics, after a fashion. I had always assumed Traveller psionics were directly descended from the Lensman series but the Dumarest books have characters with psionic talents that to my mind more closely resemble Traveller abilities.

But I think I see many other, subtler influences from Dumarest on the Charted Space setting.

The interstellar society described in the Dumarest books is highly stratified, with wealth and other resources unequally distributed across the population. M. Harold Page aptly describes it as a “Grapes of Wrath galaxy.” Most worlds have an aristocratic class of inherited nobility, a striving middle class of traders and managers and artisans, a struggling working class, and an even lower class of indigents and outcasts. As a game mechanic, Traveller’s Social Standing characteristic makes much more sense in this milieu than in, say, Star Trek, Ringworld, or even Dune.

Technology in Dumarest is similarly stratified, much like in Traveller. Although laser guns are available, slug-throwers, knives, and swords seem much more common weapons on many worlds. While there are anti-grav “rafts,” on-planet travel might also be via helicopters, planes, boats, or beasts of burden. Starships are fairly rare and expensive, and owning one is an indicator of extreme wealth.

A planetary Law Level is also an important characteristic that varies greatly from world to world. While some worlds appear to have fairly oppressive governments with correspondingly high Law Levels, others such as Scar have very low or no Law Levels at all.

Like Charted Space, the worlds of the Dumarest saga teem with native, alien life that seems (mostly) compatible with Terran biochemistry. No intelligent alien life has yet been introduced, but there are many books to come.

Just the first five or six books have given me the following random ideas for spicing up starports in my own Traveller game.

Travellers

Earl Dumarest is a Traveller, which is a slippery term to define as it’s not quite a title, profession, or status. Travellers are, strictly speaking, vagrants, drifting through the Dumarest universe from world to world without a home or regular employment or income. They are, by necessity, survivors, resourceful and clever.

Travellers generally conform to the standard sci-fi Space Bum archetype, “a spacer who wanders aimlessly; a vagrant in space; (also) a spacer who is regarded as contemptible.” As Jesse Sheidlower points out in Meet the Space Bum, ambiguous stock character of generations of science fiction, the term space bum reflects “all the nuances of the base word [bum]: idleness, aimlessness, vagrancy, worthlessness.” The Midjourney illustration attached to Sheidlower’s post really nails the romantic appeal of being a Traveller. Think Jack Kerouac, but instead of being blissed out at a Denver bus stop he’s hanging at a starport in Deneb sector, looking to score working passage to the Marches.

Earl Dumarest is a Traveller because he is on a quest to find his lost homeworld. While many Travellers are forced into the life by terrible conflict or bitter politics on their homeworld, some noncomformists might embrace the Traveller life as a way to escape the grinding tedium and control of early interstellar society.

The Space Bum archetype certainly fits with the Traveller RPG aesthetic. In Agent of the Imperium Marc Miller suggests that “Most people (indeed, whole species) never leave their homeworld: they never venture out of their gravity well, content to work, play, and even thrive on their home planet. Some postulate that there is a genetic basis for the drive of some (and the lack of drive in others) to reach beyond the bounds of a single world into the greater universe: a traveller gene.”

As most inhabitants rarely leave their homeworld, Travellers are considered inherently interesting, if maybe a little dangerous, to most people they meet. People want to hear stories of the Traveller lifestyle and the exotic worlds they’ve seen. People might seek out a Traveller for advice or aid regarding an unusual or difficult problem. In this sense they are natural magnets for patron encounters.

Travellers seem to be perpetually broke, always looking to put together enough scratch for passage offworld—and generally, that passage is going to be Low. Because they are inherently strangers, Travellers often attract suspicion from locals when dirtside, much like hobos, tramps, or bums. (Of these three categories, Wikipedia’s description of a Tramp probably comes the closest to Tubb’s depiction of a Traveller.) Their outsider status likely makes them suseptible to scrutiny and harassment from authorities, particularly on worlds with high Law Levels.

Interestingly, maybe the single best game mechanic to model a Dumarest-style Traveller is the Drifter career from Mongoose Traveller. (Note that the Wanderer assignment explicitly reads “You are a space bum [emphasis added], living hand-to-mouth in slums and spaceports across the galaxy.”) Drifter is the default career you land in when you’ve been bumped out of your desired career and can’t qualify for anything else.

Because of this I’ve always been a little disappointed when one of my characters has had to take a term of Drifter. But after reading a few of the Dumarest books I’m beginning to appreciate the “career” much more and can see the potential. And maybe the career could be spiced up with interesting events or benefits drawn from these books. The Skills and Training tables look mostly right, though I’d like to have some way to pick up ranks in Art, Gambler, and Persuade in addition to the core skills of Recon, Streetwise, and Survival.

Tourists

In the Dumarest books, Travellers are to be distinguished from Tourists. Both Travellers and Tourists are wanderers visiting new and different worlds, but from there everything else is starkly different. Fundamentally, a Tourist has a home to return to, and visiting other worlds is merely a temporary diversion from a “real life,” not a permanent condition. Many Tourists probably like to play at being real Travellers, but very few ever actually adopt the lifestyle.

Another important difference is that Tourists have money. They seem to be primarily drawn from the Nobility and travel High, dosed with Quicktime. They stay at the best resort facilities, frequent the best casinos, eat the best food and drink the best wines they can find. While Travellers are forced to engage with the worlds they visit, the Tourists stay always apart, protected by thoughtfully curated itineraries, armed guards, and secure fences.

Tourists are first and foremost consumers of goods, experiences, and people. Unfortunately, our own 21st century regularly provides all-too-many examples of clueless, exploitative, and self-indulgent Tourists. #SpaceVanLife. In the MgT system, Tourists can be modeled using the Dilettante assignment in the Noble career.

As seen in the Dumarest books, there is more than a touch of the decadent in the Tourists. The entertainments and amusements Tourists seek out are more often than not bought at the expense of the local population. Blood sports of all sorts—animal, human, and other—seem to be common.

I’m thinking the worlds of my Traveller game ought to include many more encounters with sybaritic Tourists on holiday.

Local Attractions

All of these Tourists have made a long journey to see and experience something. And so far Tubb does a good job of creating worlds that have some unique hook to draw Tourists, such as watching the fungus blooms of Scar, enjoying the arenas of Toy, or hunting Thren on Solis. One of the most gruesome attractions so far is the Bloodtime on Logis, a single day in each year when all laws are suspended to allow the citizens to run wild and settle scores. It’s very much like the Purge, but on a planetary level.

These Attractions might involve the world’s native life: a particularly strange or valuable alien species, a mass migration, or a spectacular bloom. Other attractions are cultural: a religious rite, a unique architectural style, tournament, or festival. Imagine “Burning Man on Delta IX.” Other attractions might be technological, like the Computer on Toy or the wish-fulfillment tech of Folgone. Other attractions might be natural features such as waterfalls, whirlpools, volcanos, gorges, or mountain peaks. But in any case Tubb is able to produce some unique draw that doesn’t reduce an entire world to the tired old Planet of Hats trope.

A series of Attractions could form entire Tourist circuits that wind through a subsector; a good portion of the High passengers seeking a ship could be traveling to the next stop on the tour. “We want to catch the hadj on Umat, then hit the big harvest festival on New Epping, and by that time that’s over the resort beaches on Kaula IV should be open for the summer.”

In Classic Traveller, the typical activities checklist for starships visiting a mainworld includes “Patron encounters,” “Planetary exploration,” and “Local areas of interest.” It occurs to me that the Traveller game could really use a nice random procedure to generate interesting local attractions for worlds, something to entice Travellers beyond the safe confines of the starport extrality line and out into the world proper.

While we have nice tables for generating patrons, we don’t have anything comperable for Attractions. Just as patrons offer a pull for the PCs to undertake a job, Attractions can pull PCs to explore their surroundings. Maybe an Attraction mechanic would incorporate trade classifications, or perhaps Population, Government, and Law Level codes.

In any case, starports should be crowded with guides, drivers, barkers, and hucksters all extolling the amazing local sights and sounds of their native world. Some will be legit wonders worth the visit, others lousy Tourist traps, and some might be outright scams.

The Stranded

The opening passages of the very first book in the series find Earl Dumarest emerging from his Low Berth only to discover that while in cryosleep his starship had been diverted to Gath, an inhospitable world that was not his intended destination. After a thief steals his money Earl soon finds himself Stranded with no immediate means to leave this planet.

To become Stranded on some crap backwater like Gath is one of a Traveller’s greatest fears in the Dumarest universe. Stranded Travellers are dead broke, or at least too destitute to afford even Low Passage offworld. The stranded are often hungry, hurt, sick, and lack adequate or reliable shelter, and thus are extraordinarily vulnerable to both natural and human predators.

This fear creates a real tension through many of the Dumarest books. Earl reports having been Stranded several times, a condition so miserable that he undertakes many dangerous jobs just to avoid being caught in such a predicament again. Stranded Travellers are often forced to take dangerous or demeaning jobs for minimal wages, enter into indentured servitude or military service, or worst of all, pressed into slavery. It might take months or even years to build up enough money to buy passage, and it seems likely many Stranded are forced to turn to crime in order to survive.

Just how bad must it be, to be Stranded in the Dumarest universe? It’s so bad that it creates a viable market for Low Passage, which is literally being frozen alive and shipped like cattle with an attendant 15% mortality rate. Your cumulative odds of surviving just four Low Passages is only a little over 52%, and eight Low Passages is 32%. That indicates true desperation! While the odds are likely better in Charted Space, they still aren’t great if the Low Lottery is still a thing. As The Traveller Book notes, “Since low passengers are typically without funds (who would travel low if there were any other choice?), the low lottery provides some chance for the individual to have funds upon arrival at the destination.”

Although part of a good Referee’s job is to find new and innovative ways to separate PCs from their hard-won funds, I’m not sure it would make for a very fun or engaging game to have the PCs just living out lives of quiet desperation on a string of crummy backwater planets. “Next session: Bluron sells his kidneys for a Low Passage to Planet Jerkwater, while Brenta takes a third-shift job in the planetary waste processing center.”

But that said, many class D or E starports ought to have throngs of Stranded desperate for offworld passage—along with recruiters looking to lure these poor souls into terrible contracts for rotten pay. Such scenes could provide lots of roleplaying opportunities, but also serve as a dire warning to the PCs: this is what happens when the credits run out.

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Materials produced by Digest Group Publications (DGP) are copyright © Roger Sanger. Any use of Digest Group Publications’ copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this Web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights. Usage is intended to follow the guidelines announced by Roger Sanger on the Traveller Mailing List for preserving the overall Traveller milieu.

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

The 1000D Limit

Hfoileiiau, a small gas giant in the New Sol (MAGY 0503 D501956-7) outer system. The semi-major axis of Hfoileiiau is 8.49 AU, placing its orbit inside the 1000D limit of Aeetes, the system’s G3 V primary star.

The maneuver drive is the standard means of sublight movement in Traveller. A remarkable piece of near-magical tech, the M-drive is a reactionless system providing constant acceleration to the ship with virtually unlimited range and no fuel requirements, instead being powered directly by energy from the ship’s power plant.

Traveller is notable as a game that usually presents referees and players with a series of tradeoffs at every turn, whether it is in character generation, ship design, or combat. In most editions, including Classic Traveller and Mongoose Traveller, the maneuver drive requires few tradeoffs, and over the years many creative minds have proposed various setting-breaking exploits and hacks using the technology.

Perhaps as a way to prevent such shenanigans, both T4 and Traveller⁵ impose a 1000D limit on maneuver drives, which is an extension of a 10D limit placed on anti-gravity units in MegaTraveller. T4 Starships (1994) explains how this 1000D limit works. At TL12, advances in gravitics leads to the invention of thruster plates:

Gravity drives use the stellar system itself as their reaction mass (much as a train pushes against its track, and the planet below, rather than by expelling exhaust). A small change in a star’s momentum translates to a huge velocity change for the much smaller spacecraft. … Beyond a certain point, quantum-gravitic effects drastically reduce the efficiency of a gravitic-drive ship by a factor of a hundred or more, and thus they cannot maneuver effectively in deep-space unless they have an auxiliary drive, though they can remain there while, for example, computing jump parameters. The cutoff parameter turns out to be around 2,000 solar radii. Beyond this point, thruster plates are virtually worthless for anything beyond stationkeeping, and some alternate form of propulsion is needed (71).

This concept is continued in Traveller⁵. As explained in Book 2: Starships, “Maneuver is the standard in-system ship drive. It interacts with gravity sources to produce vectored movement. … M-Drives are subject to the 1000D limit: beyond 1000D from a gravity source, the drive operates at only about 1% efficiency” (101).

I think I understand the rationale behind this rule: it creates a limitation on what is otherwise a seemingly limitless technology. On its face the 1000D limit appears to be an innocuous change, but upon further examination, this change has some far-reaching and maybe unintended implications on the Traveller universe.

But first, let’s consider where the 1000D limit falls with some common types of stars:

1000D Limits for Main Sequence Stars
Type	Stellar Diameter (km)	1000D Limit
Type	Stellar Diameter (km)	(AU)	(Orbit No.)
A0 V	3,739,947	25	8
A5 V	2,543,164	17	8
F0 V	2,243,968	15	7
F5 V	1,944,772	13	7
G0 V	1,645,577	11	7
G5 V	1,226,703	8.2	7
K0 V	1,062,145	7.1	6
K5 V	927,507	6.2	6
M0 V	762,949	5.1	6
M5 V	478,713	3.2	5
M8 V	209,437	1.4	4

In general, the 1000D limit falls well beyond the habitable zone of main sequence stars. The 1000D limit for Sol would be 9.3 AU or 1.391 billion km, encompassing the entire inner system plus Jupiter, but falling short of Saturns’s orbit of 9.5388 AU. This means that maneuver drives in Sol’s outer system operate at only 1% efficiency. Under such circumstances a speedy System Defense Boat with 6g acceleration has its acceleration reduced to only 0.06g, or 0.588399 m/s².

Consider the Starjammer’s journey to the outer system of Desolation. This trip consisted of two distinct segments. In the first segment, the Starjammer constantly accelerated at 3g until the halfway point was reached. In the second segment the Starjammer decelerated at 3g until it arrived at the derelict liner Speedwell with a velocity of zero. The total time for this trip was 141.86 hours.

If we instead applied the 1000D limit to this trip, the Starjammer could only use constant 29.41995 m/s² acceleration until it hit the 1000D limit of Dross, the M2 V system primary, which is about 18.26% of the total travel distance. For the remaining 81.74% of the journey the Starjammer would be limited to only 0.2942 m/s² acceleration.

If I remembered enough calculus and functions I could probably produce a formula for incorporating the 1000D limit into the Starjammer’s trip. But I don’t, so I had to brute-force this problem using the nifty Uniformly Accelerated Motion Calculator at CalculatorSoup.

Let’s assume the Starjammer’s journey now consists of three segments: the first begins in orbit around Desolation and stretches to ½ the distance between Desolation and Dross’s 1000D limit. The second segment stretches from this point to the 1000D limit. And the third segment stretches from the 1000D limit to the location of the Speedwell in the outer system.

The Starjammer begins in orbit around Desolation and then fires up the M-drive, moving with constant 3g acceleration through the entire first segment. Then the Starjammer begins to decelerate at a little less than 3g through the second segment. At the end of the second segment the Starjammer’s M-drives efficiency drops to 1%. The trick here is to finish the second segment with a velocity just low enough so that the Starjammer can decelerate at 0.2942 m/s² all through the entire third segment and still arrive at the Speedwell with a velocity of zero.

We know the distance of each of these three segments. We know the starting velocity of the first segment and the ending velocity of the third segment are both zero. And we know the maximum and minimum acceleration rates in each segment.

Let’s tackle the third segment first. We know the distance from Dross’s 1000D limit to the Speedwell (1,566,856,472 km), we know the final desired velocity (0 m/s), and the maximum deceleration rate (-0.2942 m/s²). Using the online calculator, we can solve for the time (3,263,672 seconds, or over 906 hours) and the velocity at the 1000D limit (960,175 m/s).

So let’s try the first segment next. We know the initial velocity (0 m/s), distance (175,050,000 km), and acceleration (29.41995 m/s²). Using the calculator, we can solve for the final velocity of the first segment (3,209,350 m/s) and time (109,088 seconds).

This leaves the second segment. We know the initial velocity (3,209,350 m/s), final velocity (960,175 m/s), and distance (175,050,000 km). We can solve for acceleration (-26.79 m/s²) and time (83,966 seconds).

Trip Summary with 1000D Limit
Segment	Distance (km)	Acceleration (m/s²)	Initial Velocity (m/s)	Final Velocity (m/s)	Time (s)
1	175,050,000	29.4110	0	3,209,350	109,088
2	175,050,000	-26.7866	3,209,350	960,175	83,966
3	1,566,856,472	-0.2941	960,175	0	3,263,672
Total	1,916,956,472	–	–	–	3,456,726

Add all of this together, and the time for the Starjammer to reach the Speedwell considering the 1000D limit on maneuver drives increases from a little less than 6 days to a little over 40 days. But perhaps even more importantly, these calculations are far too complicated to use at a game table for too little benefit. For both in-game and metagame reasons, you’d be crazy not to just fire up the jump drive for an intra-system jump.

So the first implication of imposing the 1000D limit: travel within the inner system of most star systems is unchanged, but travel to and within most of the outer system will almost always be via jump drive. Alternative propulsion systems for deep space maneuver, like fusion drives or High Efficiency Plasma Recombustion (HEPlaR) drives, are not nearly as efficient as classic thruster plates.

If no gas giants orbit within the 1000D limit, the old trader trick of refueling at a gas giant on the cheap and then motoring to the mainworld using the maneuver drive really doesn’t work so well, does it? Conversely, any gas giants inside the 1000D limit, such as Jupiter in the Sol system, would likely become the locus for additional starship traffic.

I think this is a fairly big change to the OTU setting: I’ve always pictured sublight ships regularly shuttling back and forth from the outer system with raw fuel and ores, with microjumps of less than one parsec reserved for rare trips to the extreme outer system.

With a 1000D limit microjumps are probably quite common in star systems with any sort of activity in the outer system. If the main world has a low hydrographic percentage or no surface water at all—and all sources for hydrogen are outside the 1000D limit—fuel suddenly becomes a much more dear commodity.

Maybe in a universe with a 1000D limit ships circumvent the restriction by using a slingshot effect to island hop between worlds in the outer system. Ships might use their maneuver drive to accelerate around and around a gas giant to build up momentum and then “hurl” themselves at the next closest gas giant.

Naval doctrine around system defense probably also shifts with 1000D limits in place, possibly giving more of an advantage to the native force occupying the system. A classic intruder scenario is an enemy fleet jumping into the outer system, refueling at a gas giant, then making for the main world at top speed in normal space. A native force defending a system therefore has to protect both the main world as well as the gas giants, forcing some tough choices if there are multiple gas giants. Does the native commander concentrate all assets at one strong point or spread them out over several, diluting their effectiveness?

If no gas giants were inside the 1000D limit the native force would probably see an intruder force jump into the outer system and refuel. Messengers seeking reinforcements could be dispatched to a neighboring system. The intruder would either need to “waste” fuel on an intra-system jump to the main world, still giving the native force at least a week to prepare, or make way using manuever drives. This would take multiple weeks and provide extra-system reinforcements time to arrive.

So possibly defense of any gas giants beyond the 1000D limit becomes a much lower priority with this restriction in place? This might be just as well, as SDBs and monitors cannot be easily transferred between gas giants in the outer system. A SDB jump-shuttle becomes a near necessity for moving defense boats around the system.

If any gas giants were inside the 1000D limit, the native commander could concentrate defenses on a much smaller number of points, and transfering assets between strong points is easier: the distances are necessarily shorter and maneuver drives can be used at full efficiency.

This might force some intruders to just jump directly to the main world’s 100D limit and lay siege without refueling, which is a huge gamble given the inherent command and control lag of jump. A 1000D limit forces an intruder to commit assets with no certainty as to what defenses will be found when it emerges out of jumpspace. A native force might only have its standard picket of SDBs and monitors at the end of the jump, or maybe this picket has been reinforced by a BatRon or an entire task force. As is sometimes said in these parts, “Hard tellin’, not knowin’.”

I don’t think any of these changes outright break the Official Traveller Universe, but all told, I’m not sure adding the 1000D limit into my MgT game is really worth the effort. As setting background the concept provides some nice handwavium, but as a game mechanic it seems to just make travel in the outer system a bit too messy and inefficient for my taste.

Copyright Information

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Mind-Bogglingly Big

“Space … is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space” —Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

From Atlas Obscura’s article on the Maine Solar System Model.

Northern Maine is home to an interesting throwback to the old roadside attractions: the Maine Solar System Model. Last summer I finally had a chance to visit this 3-D scale model of the solar system, which demonstrates the enormous distance between planetary bodies. The entire inner system is easily walkable, with the model Earth being exactly 1 mile from the model Sun. The outer system, however, is best traversed with a car, with the model Pluto being 40 miles away. It’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon and has helped me imagine intra-system travel in Traveller.

Starships in Traveller have two types of drives. The jump drive (J-drive), usually used for travel between star systems, allows faster-than-light movement of up to six parsecs. Regardless of distance, the duration of travel is generally one week. The maneuver drive (M-drive) provides constant acceleration and is usually used for intra-system travel. In a typical trip through normal space a ship uses its M-drive to constantly accelerate until it reaches the halfway point, and then uses the M-drive to decelerate throughout the second half of the trip, arriving at the destination with a velocity of zero.

In our recent Traveller adventure “The Professor’s Charter,” the PCs needed to pilot their starship the Starjammer from the planet Desolation in the inner system to a position in the outer system where the derelict liner Speedwell was expected to be found.

Because the Desolation system is a known haven for pirates, smugglers, and otherwise bad actors, I wanted this voyage to occur in normal space for dramatic reasons. That meant the time required to reach the Speedwell needed to be less than one standard week; otherwise, the quickest and safest way to get there would be to just use the Starjammer’s jump drive.

The Traveller Book (1982) and the Mongoose Traveller Core Rules (2022) provide handy formulas for calculating intra-system travel time, distance, and acceleration. The Starjammer’s M-drives provide constant 3g acceleration, which is 29.41995 m/s². Knowing this it was easy to place the Speedwell 1,916,956,472 km away from Desolation. For context, this is roughly equivalent to the distance from Earth to the midpoint between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. With constant 3g acceleration, the Starjammer would need 141.86 hours to reach the Speedwell. (Had the PCs wished to use their jump drive, which would have taken an average of 160 hours, I certainly would have let them.)

While distances in the millions or billions of kilometers are probably impossible to comprehend, players can readily understand travel times of hours, days, or weeks. Players can also follow progress when it is expressed as percent complete: “you’re 30% there, you’re halfway there, you’re 90% there, etc.”

If kilometers are simply too small to be useful for most descriptions of intra-system distance, other units are available. The astronomical unit (AU), which roughly represents the distance between the Earth and the sun, is 149,597,871 km and is often used to express orbital position within a star system. If Earth’s orbit is 1 AU, Pluto’s average orbit is 39 AU.

A couple of handy units of distance to also consider are the light-second (299,792 km) and light-minute (17,987,548 km), which represent the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1 second or 1 minute, respectively. The benefit of expressing distances in light-seconds or light-minutes is that this also tells us the lag time in communications and sensors.

With these units in hand, here’s an overview of relevant distances in the Desolation system:

The Desolation System
Location	Distance from Dross
Location	Kilometers	Light-Seconds	Light-Minutes	Astronomical Units
Dross (M2 V primary)	-	-	-	-
Desolation (B401200-E)	35,900,000	120	2.00	0.24
Dross 100D Limit	38,600,000	129	2.15	0.26
Halfway Point	958,478,236	3,197	53.29	6.41
Speedwell (Type M subsidized liner)	1,952,856,472	6,514	108.57	13.05

Note that Desolation orbits inside the 100D limit of its star, meaning that incoming starships need to jump outside that limit and then travel to the main world, likely adding a few hours to travel time. This jump masking normally only occurs with red main sequence stars like Dross.

The Traveller Map data indicates that the Desolation system also has two gas giants and nine additional planets, but as these were irrelevant to the Professor’s Charter I didn’t bother to determine the locations of these other objects.

One thing I did not quite grasp when prepping or running the Professor’s Charter was how paltry Traveller sensor ranges are beside the enormous distances within a star system. Even after years of playing the game, my expectations are still biased by Star Trek, where “long-range scans” can seemingly pinpoint and track individual ships from parsecs away.

The Traveller Book states that “Ordinary or commercial starships can detect other ships out to a range of about one-half light-second,” or about 150,000 km. “Military and scout starships have detection ranges out to two light-seconds,” or about 600,000 km. “Once a vessel has been detected, it can be tracked by anyone up to three light-seconds,” or about 900,000 km (76). For context, this is not quite the safe jump distance from a Size 6 world.

The Mongoose Traveller Core Rules provides a more nuanced series of sensor range bands, but these are notably shorter in distance than the guidelines from The Traveller Book. The longest range band is Distant, defined as 50,000+ km, only about one-sixth of a light-second and beyond.

MgT High Guard addresses this by setting an upper limit on the Distant band of 300,000 km, or about 1 light-second. This distance is also “the maximum practical range that attacks can be made” (26). High Guard also introduces two new range bands: Very Distant (up to 5,000,000 km) and Far (over 5,000,000 km). These changes bring MgT sensors more in line with CT sensors.

But in any case, Traveller sensors can detect only out to a miniscule distance against the scale of a star system. The upper limit of Distant is “only” 1 light-second, while Very Distant ranges from 1 to 16.68 light-seconds. Sixteen light-seconds is roughly the safe jump distance from a typical small gas giant, while the safe jump distance from a large gas giant might be twice that.

This implies that a lone commercial ship traveling through an outer system is a little like a blind man moving through a vast and featureless desert, only able to sense what is immediately around him. As the Maine Solar System Model scale is 1:93 million, the Distant range band would only extend out 10-½ feet. If there is trouble out there, he won’t know it until it is on top of him. Conversely, trouble won’t be able to sense the blind man any earlier.

The following table shows the journey of the Starjammer as it moves from Desolation to the Speedwell:

Travel to the *Speedwell*
Location	Trip Completion	Distance (km)		Velocity	Time (Hours)
Location	Trip Completion	Traveled	Remaining	(km/s)	Elapsed	Remaining
Start	0.00%	0	1,916,956,472	0	0.00	141.86
First Report	2.24%	42,865,200	1,874,091,272	1,588	15.00	126.86
Halfway	50.00%	958,478,236	958,478,236	7,507	70.93	70.93
Far Range	99.48%	1,906,956,472	10,000,000	767	134.61	7.25
Very Distant Range	99.74%	1,911,956,472	5,000,000	542	136.74	5.12
Distant Range	99.98%	1,916,656,472	300,000	133	140.61	1.25
First Contact	99.9948%	1,916,856,472	100,000	77	141.14	0.72
Very Long Range	99.9974%	1,916,906,472	50,000	54	141.35	0.51
Long Range	99.9987%	1,916,931,472	25,000	38	141.50	0.36
Medium Range	99.9995%	1,916,946,472	10,000	24	141.63	0.23
Short Range	99.9999%	1,916,955,222	1,250	9	141.78	0.08
Close Range	100.0000%	1,916,956,462	10	2	141.84	0.02
Adjacent Range	100.0000%	1,916,956,471	1	0	141.86	0.00
End	100.0000%	1,916,956,472	0	0	141.86	0.00

The halfway point to the Speedwell is about 958 million km from Desolation, roughly equivalent to traveling from Earth to a point between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. At the halfway point the Starjammer is moving at 27,025,200 km (!) per hour, or a little over 2.5% of light speed (c). In order to avoid zipping by the Speedwell, the Starjammer needs to begin decelerating at the same rate it had been accelerating.

As can be seen, the Starjammer has to complete over 99% of its trip before the Speedwell comes within even the most distant range band. And the decelerating Starjammer needs only one hour and fifteen minutes to move through all seven range bands in the Core Rules.

If pirate ships had been waiting around the Speedwell and were expecting the Starjammer, they could probably get in a few shots before the Starjammer could react. And if any kind of battle occurred, it would take nearly two hours before radio transmissions reached Desolation, and then days before any ships could investigate. This is why commercial ships in Charted Space are so often armed: help is often very, very, very far away.

A prosperous, high population system with a Class A or B starport and multiple inhabited secondary worlds might well have sensor nets around all major planetary bodies. These nets might consist of automated satellites and stations posted in orbit and to the various LaGrange points, monitoring and reporting traffic around each planet out to their respective 100D limits. This information would be continuously relayed throughout the system, though more distant stations would have an inherent time lag. A sensor net like this would allow commercial ships to keep tabs on other in-system ships.

Such blanket coverage is likely the exception rather than the rule, and even then will only see a small fraction of space in the system. Ships operating outside these 100D limits would be effectively invisible to system control, and an asteroid belt would be a nightmare to cover. A system with a Class C or D starport might have a sensor net around the main world and maybe a gas giant or two, while a system with a Class D or X starport might be lucky to have a sensor net around the main world.

In Traveller, the isolation of distant worlds even with magical tech like the maneuver drive perhaps helps explain why most development in a star system tends to coalesce around a single world. It’s just too much hassle to try and work resources in the outer system when one can just use the jump drive to trade with a nearby system. From a referee’s perspective, this means that most systems are largely unexplored, or at least unexploited, even if inhabited for thousands of years. Which means most systems have plenty of adventuring potential in the outer system, even if the inner system seems thoroughly developed.

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Tuesday, August 15, 2023

The Professor's Charter

During our recent gaming weekend I was finally able to run another Mongoose Traveller game featuring the crew of the Imperial armed packet Starjammer. The following summary details the session.

At the start of this adventure the Starjammer has been in dock on Wu for eight months. During this time the crew had picked up several odd jobs. Sonny, Wayne, and Howard smuggled several worker-caste Wuans off-world. Boone, Brogue, and Ronald got into a brawl with some rowdies from a big Solomani merchant freighter and ended up spending several weeks in Wuan detention before Captain Cryo got them bailed out. Wuan security paid several unannounced visits to the Starjammer, driving Cryo and Richy crazy with picayune licensing and documentation demands. Most of the travellers have blown their remaining savings on the Resort Islands in Wu’s Great Outer Ocean, and the ship’s account has begun to dwindle precariously.

Ship’s Log

Ship Name Starjammer.

Port of Registry Kline (MAGY 3012 A642987-E).

Ship Type U-CA33 Armed Packet.

Registration # 338-C-2725.

Wu (MAGY 0203 B66A99A-E) 077-1104

Dr. Zimon Sun (588BC8).

2005. In the orbital city of High Nara, far above the Wuan main world, Sonny and Brogue met with a man who introduced himself as Dr. Zimon Sun, a research professor appointed to the Imperial University of Daibei at Warinir. Dr. Sun, a slender, dark-haired man of early middle age with a pinched and deliberate demeanor, wished to charter the Starjammer to take him and two associates to the Desolation system.

Sonny calculated that this trip would take six weeks to complete and will cost Cr800,000. Dr. Sun said that while he did not personally have the funds, he could arrange for the financial megacorporation Hortalez et Cie to issue a letter of credit on behalf of the University, payable upon completion of the charter.

Wu (MAGY 0203 B66A99A-E) 078-1104

0800. Officers of the Starjammer met to plan out the upcoming charter. Wayne recommended a route that would require five jumps to cover the 13-parsec distance between Wu and Desolation. The itinerary would traverse a series of backwater systems, most with low population main worlds and all with poor or nearly nonexistent starports, requiring the ship to refuel from gas giants. Sonny and Captain Cryo approved Wayne’s route.

The captain noted that prior to departure he will need to obtain an exit visa from the Wuan authorities as well as renew the ship’s Passenger Transport License.

Library Readout on Desolation (Magyar 1506).

The captain then briefed the crew on the Desolation system, calling up Juno’s library entry. Located only three parsecs from the Imperial border, Desolation is widely known in Beta quadrant as a haven for smugglers and pirates. The main world is as bleak as the name suggests, a vacuum rockball tide-locked to a dim red star. The political data showed a permanent population of only a few hundred, no formal government, no law level, but a Class B starport.

Chief Engineer Richy declared the ship to be spaceworthy and recommended deferring the monthly maintenance until they reach Desolation, since the Starjammer will not visit a decent starport between Wu and their destination. Sonny and the captain agreed.

Howard recommended advancing the crew their next month’s salary before leaving Wu, as the next port of call would not be reached for over a month—and some crew members may need to settle debts in High Nara before departing. Sonny agreed.

1200. Howard paid the crew their monthly salaries.

Wu (MAGY 0203 B66A99A-E) 081-1104

0630. Captain Cryo informed all crew and passengers that the necessary paperwork was complete and the flight plan approved. All crew were to be aboard the ship tomorrow by 0700, all passengers by 1000.

Wu (MAGY 0203 B66A99A-E) 082-1104

1041. On board the Starjammer Daren and Howard met the three passengers for the charter in the guest lounge. Dr. Zimon Sun was joined by his research assistants: Aaro Hardi—a glum, wary man apparently in his late thirties—and Rahim Devi, a tall, athletic man in his early thirties. Rahim came aboard with a personal vacc suit and a Solomani gauss rifle, both of which Howard secured in the ship’s locker.

After a barrage of questions from Daren, Dr. Sun explained that he is a tenured historian plagued with a great many petty and jealous rivals in his field of interest. The professor was travelling to Desolation because he believed he had identified the location of a historically significant starship lost during the Solomani Rim War. As his unscrupulous rivals would be all-too-eager to poach this major discovery, he and his researchers were forced to travel with great dispatch and utmost secrecy.

Daren gave the three men a full tour of the Starjammer, including areas normally off-limits to passengers. Dr. Sun was especially interested in the ship’s primary on-board computer, Juno, and asked many questions about Juno’s Vegan architecture and capabilities. He also asked if the passengers might be able to access the computer to aid their research. Howard explained that all passengers have consoles in their staterooms that will allow access to the ship’s library and entertainment net.

Neither Aaro nor Rahim spoke much during the tour, and only shrugged or mumbled when asked questions, letting Dr. Sun speak for them.

Howard provided the standard safety review for the passengers before he and Daren left them in the passenger section.

1230. Howard briefed the other officers about the tour, noting Dr. Sun’s line of questioning about Juno.

Suspicious, Ronald increased Juno’s security settings. He ordered the computer to continuously monitor the passengers and to immediately report any attempt to access her systems.

1401. The Starjammer decoupled from High Nara and made for the New Sol jump point.

1556. The Starjammer jumped out of the Wu system.

Jumpspace 087-1104.

0400. Uda, the ship’s backup computer, awakened Ronald to report that the passengers had used their stateroom terminals to access Juno. Uda claimed that, although she did not want to be a tattle-tale, she was aware of Ronald’s orders and concerned that Juno did not immediately report this intrusion.

0440. After briefing the other officers, Ronald had Uda inspect Juno’s logs. Uda discovered that Dr. Sun had hacked into a secure part of Juno’s operating system and unsuccessfully attempted to install a back-door program. He was successful in erasing all of Juno’s activity logs around the intrusion.

Ronald decided against altering Juno’s programming. He verified that no attempts had been made to access Uda, and ordered the backup computer to carefully monitor both Juno and the passengers.

New Sol (MAGY 0503 D501956-7) 089-1104.

2056. The Starjammer exited jump space in the outer system of New Sol, approximately 10.7 million km or nearly 36 light-seconds from Hfoileiiau. Captain Cryo piloted the ship toward the green-and-gray banded gas giant.

Ronald reported that warning beacons in the inner system confirmed that the main world remained under interdiction by the Solomani Confederation.

New Sol (MAGY 0503 D501956-7) 090-1104.

0703. The Starjammer commenced hydrogen skimming from the upper layers of Hfoileiiau.

1400. Skimming complete, Captain Cryo piloted the Starjammer toward the 100D limit.

New Sol (MAGY 0503 D501956-7) 091-1104.

0004. The Starjammer arrived at the Hfoileiiau 100D limit and held there while the onboard processor finished refining the raw hydrogen into fuel.

0500. With the fuel processed, the Starjammer entered jumpspace.

Jumpspace 092-1104.

0200. Uda awakened Ronald to report another incursion into Juno, only this time Dr. Sun managed to insert a new script package into her executive function systems. Uda also volunteered that her monitoring of the passengers revealed Aaro casing out the engineering section, and Rahim trying to access the ship’s locker as well as technical schematics of the Starjammer’s weapons systems.

Ronald asked Uda if she could run the Starjammer by herself, and the secondary computer almost gleefully explained she was more than up to the challenge. Ronald then ordered Juno to transfer all controls to Uda and shut herself down. Juno argued that such measures were unnecessary, but Ronald insisted.

Once shut down Ronald ordered Uda to do a hard reset of Juno and then restore the primary computer to her last backup prior to leaving Wu. Uda almost cheerfully complied.

Daren ordered his security robot, Tech-9, to patrol the area around the ship’s locker.

Jumpspace 093-1104.

2100. Daren ambushed Dr. Sun and his associates with his holocam, explaining he wanted to document the entire trip to Desolation. Pressed to further explain the nature of his work, Dr. Sun eventually sputtered out the following narrative. Near the end of the Solomani Rim War, a hundred years ago, Imperial forces under the command of Admiral Miiri Elixabeth Kemper drove into Magyar sector with three separate battle fleets and orders to reduce as much Confederation infrastructure as possible.

Kemper’s forces left a trail of destruction in their wake, attacking starports, shipyards, factories, and power plants. One priority target was the industrial world of Austa. As Kemper’s fleets drew near, high level Solomani Party officials and wealthy industrialists on Austa packed their families and all the wealth they could carry onto a liner bound for Tralp, a well-defended Confederation world deeper inside the Solomani Sphere. The evacuation ship never reached its destination and was assumed destroyed.

Dr. Sun explained that he believed the ship actually misjumped into the Desolation system. Daren, wildly excited by the commercial potential of this dramatic tale, asked about the name of the lost ship; Dr. Sun replied it was the Speedwell.

Jumpspace 094-1104.

Chairman Meow, the Starjammer’s J0NZ-E model robotic cat.

1131. A manic Daren shared his recording with the rest of the Starjammer’s crew. Sonny checked the ship’s library and discovered that a Confederation ship named the Speedwell, a Type M subsidized liner, was declared lost near the end of Rim War. The ship and its fate were subject to a series of post-war lawsuits and insurance claims, many never fully resolved.

If the ship was truly bound for Tralp, a misjump into the Desolation system would be possible, as far longer misjumps had been recorded. Howard asked if a manifest was available but Sonny noted that records from that period of the war were sketchy, particularly in Magyar. Howard wondered aloud if any of the passengers could still be alive in low berth, and if so might they have any living relatives?

The crew debated what the professor was really up to. Ronald suggested that maybe the whole Speedwell story was simply a cover, and that the passengers really intended to hijack the Starjammer, or perhaps lure the ship into a pirate ambush. With a law level of zero and no government, Desolation would be the perfect place to stage either a hijacking or ambush and to unload a multi-megacredit starship like the Starjammer.

Ronald, Daren, and Sonny rigged up Chairman Meow, the ship’s robotic cat, to spy on the passengers and learn more about their scheme.

Jumpspace 096-1104.

1327. After two days of monitoring Meow’s datafeed, the crew discovered that the cat was able to access every part of the ship, including the areas that were supposedly secure. Meow had been evicted from the passenger area twice by an exasperated Rahim, but on its third attempt the cat slipped into the ductwork leading to Dr. Sun’s stateroom. There the robotic cat covertly recorded Dr. Sun and his associates reviewing a holomap of the Desolation system, pointing out areas in the outer system where they thought the Speedwell might be.

Bupaj (MAGY 0804 E420267-9) 097-1104.

2100. The Starjammer exited jump space approximately 6.89 million km from the gas giant Mejal.

Bupaj (MAGY 0804 E420267-9) 098-1104.

0430. The Starjammer commenced hydrogen skimming from the upper layers of Mejal.

1130. The Starjammer got underway to the Mubark jump point.

1523. The Starjammer made contact with the Nascopie, a Type SA Solomani free trader arriving from Opoyama with passengers. Captain Osamu Castilla warned Captain Cryo that Desolation was a rough port: the steep markups on goods and services were nearly as dangerous as the inhabitants.

Bupaj (MAGY 0804 E420267-9) 099-1104.

0213. The Starjammer entered jumpspace.

Jumpspace 099-1104.

0300. Howard informed the bridge that most passengers and crew were experiencing ailments consistent with a bad jump. Ronald, Boone, Sonny, and Rahim reported nausea and severe headaches, while Captain Cryo, Dr. Sun, and Howard himself felt irritable, nervous, and jittery. Wayne, Richy, Brogue, and Daren all reported both physical and psychological symptoms. Only the passenger Aaro seemed completely unaffected.

Chief Engineer Richy, one of the worst afflicted, reported that all engineering systems were reading in the green and that Juno had recorded no anomalies during the transition to jumpspace. From within jumpspace there was simply no way to confirm whether these symptoms were merely the result of a bad jump or were indicators of a much more serious condition: a true misjump. The only thing to be done was to wait it out.

Howard announced that he could provide pain relievers, anti-nausea meds, and sedatives upon request. The medical officer warned that if the various symptoms were caused by a bad jump, the effects would likely be felt throughout the entire week in jumpspace. He offered Fast Drug doses to the passengers, which would slow their personal metabolisms down to a ratio of approximately 60 to 1, making subjective time appear to move much more quickly. Recipients of Slow Drug are extremely vulnerable while living at such a slow rate, but a week in jumpspace would only feel like less than three hours. None of the passengers opted for being dosed with Fast Drug, though Daren did.

Jumpspace 105-1104.

1813. As the Starjammer passed the 160 hour mark in jumpspace, Chief Engineer Richy reported the first indication of a misjump.

Jumpspace 106-1104.

1413. The Starjammer passed the 180 hour mark in jumpspace without any signs of emergence, confirming what everyone aboard had long suspected: the ship had misjumped. But how badly could not be known until the Starjammer re-entered normal space.

Mubark (MAGY 1106 D401250-A) 106-1104.

2216. The Starjammer finally emerged from jumpspace.

2220. Wayne scanned the local star positions and announced that the ship had fortunately emerged in the Mubark outer system, approximately 11.27 million km from the small gas giant Yamella—over 3 million kilometers off target. As misjumps went, this one had proven fairly benign.

2300. Richy reported no serious damage to the ship, but indicated he would need at least 48 hours to recalibrate the jump drive systems.

2330. Howard reported that the effects of the bad jump were wearing off on all passengers and crew, though Daren had continued to request additional pain meds and sedatives.

Mubark (MAGY 1106 D401250-A) 107-1104.

0908. The Starjammer commenced hydrogen skimming from Yamella’s atmosphere.

1610. Hydrogen skimming complete, Captain Cryo piloted the ship toward the Yamella 100D limit.

Mubark (MAGY 1106 D401250-A) 108-1104.

0021. The Starjammer reached Yamella’s 100D limit and held there while the fuel processor refined the raw hydrogen and Richy recalibrated the jump drive.

0520. All hydrogen had been processed into refined fuel.

2150. Richy reported that all systems had been recalibrated and cross-checked, and declared the ship ready for jump.

2200. The Starjammer entered jumpspace.

Cueball (MAGY 1305 D55156A-7) 115-1104.

1400. The Starjammer emerged 877,000 km from the Cueball mainworld, a poor planet controlled by Chorus, which was itself under direct military control of the Solomani Confederation.

1702. The Starjammer arrived in orbit around Cueball.

1721. The Starjammer landed at the starport on the planet’s surface.

2151. The ship was boarded by Solomani Confederation military police, who performed a cursory inspection before declaring the Starjammer cleared for entry. Brogue noted that the three passengers seemed very wary of the authorities. While the ship began fueling with unrefined fuel from the starport tanks, Howard arranged to have the life support supplies renewed.

2308. With the fueling complete, the Starjammer’s processors began refining the fuel.

Cueball (MAGY 1305 D55156A-7) 116-1104.

1944. With the fuel processing complete, life support renewed, and flight plan approved, Captain Cryo signaled Cueball Control that the Starjammer was ready for departure.

2000. The Starjammer took off from the surface of Cueball.

2019. The Starjammer achieved orbit and made for the Desolation jump point.

2314. At the Cueball 100D limit, the Starjammer activated its jump drive.

Jumpspace 120-1104.

0700. The crew met on the bridge to form contingency plans for when they entered the Desolation system. Ronald and Brogue felt confident that the ship’s computer systems were secure, and Boone, a former Imperial marine, was certain he could repel with force any hijacking attempt by the passengers.

Sonny noted that the Starjammer would still have enough fuel upon emerging from jumpspace to make a one parsec jump out of the system if confronted with multiple pirate ships. Captain Cryo noted that the Starjammer’s armor and weapons should buy the ship enough time to initiate a second jump.

Sonny suggested that the nearby Goodhurst system, with a Class A starport and a Confederation military base, would make for an excellent fallback. As soon as the ship exited jumpspace Wayne would plot a jump route to Goodhurst and Richy would begin recalibrating the drives for an emergency jump.

Desolation (MAGY 1506 B401200-E) 122-1104.

1514. The Starjammer exited jumpspace almost exactly at the 100 diameter limit of Dross, the Desolation system’s dim red primary star. The planet named Desolation was jump-masked by Dross, as it orbited just inside the 100D limit of the star at 0.24 AU, or 35.9 million km.

Ronald performed a sensor sweep but did not detect any other ships in the vicinity.

Wayne plotted a course and Captain Cryo began piloting the ship toward the system’s main world.

2033. The Starjammer arrived in orbit above Desolation and was hailed by a very casual system control operator, who invited the ship to land at Downport Royal on the planetary surface.

2054. The Starjammer touched down at Downport Royal. No customs officers were waiting, only starport workers ready to refuel the ship and various hospitality representatives eager to direct crew and passengers to their affiliated establishments.

2130. Howard paid the crew their monthly salary.

2200. Captain Cryo, Richy, and Wayne undertook the deferred monthly maintenance routine on the ship. Richy reported that the Desolation shipyard specialized in repairing and modifying small ships and that almost any equipment could be installed, up to and including military grade weapons and sensors. Technicians at the yard could also undertake highly illegal transponder modifications. Richy reported that the warnings about prices on Desolation were true: the replacement parts for the Starjammer were averaging twice the normal cost.

2240. Dr. Sun and his associates stayed aboard the Starjammer. The professor met with Sonny to request transport to a specific position in the outer system of Desolation, where he believed the wreck of the Speedwell might be found. Dr. Sun noted that he still had remaining time left on his charter and Sonny agreed to make the necessary arrangements.

2300. While Boone stayed aboard to monitor the passengers, Howard, Brogue, Ronald, Sonny, and Daren ventured into the settlement around Downport Royal. This mazy warren of underground passages and structures radiated outward from a central core beneath the landing pads and hangars of the port.

While the listed population of Desolation was only a few hundred, these numbers were always augmented by a few thousand transients and travellers. Most permanent inhabitants appeared to work in either the shipyard or the hospitality industry, staffing numerous restaurants, bars, brothels, casinos, and hotels.

The entire economy of Desolation was cash only and no questions asked, with enormous sums changing hands without any associated taxes or recordkeeping. Imperial credits were accepted at par with Solomani credits, and were freely exchanged alongside Aslan Yahai and Khaukhi and even more exotic local currencies.

Although Downport Royal offered many seedy dives and flophouses, tremendous wealth clearly passed through the settlement. Several establishments catered to high rollers, and luxury accommodations and entertainment were available for those who could pay. Several ship captains were said to maintain lavish underground villas onworld.

The settlement featured a bustling bazaar where pursers hawked their ships’ wares, which ranged from cultural artifacts brought from low tech worlds on the Savage Main to cutting-edge electronics or biologics straight from the Solomani Rim. These goods might be shoddy, counterfeit, stolen, or illegal on most worlds, but all were marked up to at least twice the normal asking price.

Brogue appeared surprisingly familiar with Downport Royal, and so quickly located an old smuggling contact, Milos Zientek, and met him at the Anchorhead, a dive bar near the bazaar. Milos immediately recognized a holoimage of Dr. Sun, but identified him as Hendrix Knox, a notorious con artist who had swindled a criminal organization out of tens of thousands of credits. Brogue asked if the organization would be interested in finding Hendrix, and Milos estimated that such information would be worth at least Cr1000, and he proclaimed he would be glad to help for a modest finder’s fee of Cr200. Brogue said he would need to confer with his friends but asked Milos to spread the word that Hendrix had been located.

In the bazaar Brogue helped Howard find a dealer selling Alethiate, a powerful psychoactive drug outlawed in the Imperium but considered highly effective as a truth serum. Howard purchased three doses and also found a merchant selling TL12 stunner pistols and bought himself one.

Desolation (MAGY 1506 B401200-E) 125-1104.

0600. The Starjammer departed Downport Royal bound for a position in the distant outer system nearly 12.81 AU, or 107 light-minutes, away. Even with constant 3-G acceleration, such a trip would require almost six standard days of travel.

1920. Howard slipped doses of Alethiate into the evening meal allowing Boone and Ronald to easily subdue the drugged passengers.

1951. Howard, Sonny, Brogue, Ronald, and Daren interrogated Dr. Sun, who under the powerful influence of Alethiate readily admitted he was actually Hendrix Knox. Hendrix explained that he believed the Speedwell, if intact, to be loaded with valuables, including material from the FirstConfedBanc of Austa. His plan was to loot the derelict, then utilize a compromised Juno to lock out the crew and steal the Starjammer. Hendrix explained that he had met the real Dr. Sun by chance and then killed him once he learned the supposed location of the Speedwell.

2044. Sonny ordered Hendrix and his conspirators to be locked in their staterooms for the remainder of the voyage. Daren ordered Tech-9 to patrol the passenger section.

2100. Captain Cryo recorded the Starjammer’s position as approximately 42 million kilometers, or 143 light seconds, from Desolation, en route to the outer system. Current speed was 1,588 km/second.

Desolation (MAGY 1506 B401200-E) 128-1104.

0448. The Starjammer reached the halfway point of the journey to the outer system, traveling at 7,507 km/second, or 0.025 c. Captain Cryo ordered the ship to begin deceleration.

Desolation (MAGY 1506 B401200-E) 131-1104.

0307. Ronald reported sensor contact with an object nearly 100,000 km out. Wayne adjusted the heading to intercept and reported the Starjammer’s speed as 77 km/second. Captain Cryo ordered all crew to stations and authorized Chief Gunnery Officer Boone to unlock the weapons systems.

0329. Ronald said the object was roughly consistent in size and shape with a Type M subsidized liner. The estimated distance was 25,000 km. The Starjammer had decelerated to 38 km/second.

0346. Ronald reported that Juno had identified the object as the Speedwell with 96% confidence. The distance to the ship was less than 1,200 km, and the Starjammer was traveling at 8 km/second and continuing to decelerate to match the target.

0350. The Starjammer came alongside the Speedwell, which was adrift and without power.

Schematic of a Type M subsidized liner.

0400. Sonny called up the schematics of a Type M from the library files. Twice the size of the Starjammer at 600 displacement tons, the Speedwell would have been capable of Jump-3 and 1-G acceleration. Such ships were built for carrying well-heeled passengers and cargo along lucrative routes.

Based on the library data, a Type M’s central core consisted of two decks: the upper was crew quarters and controls; the lower was a cargo deck. At the rear of these decks were the drives. On a single level around this core were the passenger cabins, while the saucer-shaped passenger lounge was placed by itself, forward of the main ship body.

0425. A visual inspection of the Speedwell’s exterior revealed that much of the upper engineering deck, including the power plant and jump drive, was simply gone—with no signs of an explosion or weapon fire.

Captain Cryo said this looked like a classic jumpspace intrusion, which could occur during a very bad jump. When a ship’s jump field becomes unstable, pockets of jumpspace can enter the ship, destroying any matter encountered. If this damage had been caused by an intrusion, this was easily the worst he’d ever seen: intrusions had apparantly holed the Speedwell, opening much of the interior to vacuum.

0600. Sonny, Howard, Ronald, Brogue, Boone, and Daren all suited up and prepared to cross over to the Speedwell. Captain Cryo maneuvered the Starjammer so that the cargo bay doors on C deck were 20 meters from the remains of the Speedwell’s upper engineering deck. Brogue depressurized the cargo hold and opened the bay doors. The experienced marine Boone launched himself across the gap to establish a cable line between the two ships.

0621. Once the rest of the crew had used the cable to cross over to the Speedwell, Boone returned to the Starjammer to monitor their progress from the cargo bay.

0633. The team descended through the upper engineering deck to the lower engineering space on the quarters deck. Sonny noted that both the maneuver and jump drives appeared destroyed, probably by the same jumpspace intrusion that affected the upper engineering deck. The team moved forward to the crew deck.

0641. The team passed through an open iris valve into a dark common space where their vacc suit lights revealed a blizzard of drifting debris. The compartment had evidently been packed with luggage, large pieces of furniture, plastic boxes and chests, and small personal effects, all now slowly floating in hard vacuum. Amidst the detritus were the bodies of two crew members, likely engineers.

0658. Howard opened a sliding door in the starboard wall that led into a dark chamber where twenty low berths lined the walls. His inspection confirmed that each berth contained a perfectly preserved corpse, long dead.

0701. The team moved through an open iris valve in the forward bulkhead to enter the dark crew lounge, which also appeared to be filled with slowly wheeling clouds of debris and two more crew bodies, probably stewards.

A Stellar-class liner operating in the Solomani Rim.

0709. Sonny opened a sliding door in the forward wall and entered the Speedwell’s bridge, an area of relative calm. The bridge was topped by a transparent observation dome, through which could be seen the blinking running lights of the nearby Starjammer. The area was ringed with control stations. The bodies of the pilot and the astrogator were still strapped into their command chairs.

0720. Sonny and Ronald attempted to access the Speedwell’s Model/3 computer, but could not establish emergency power. Ronald was able to pull a data crystal that could be read by Daren’s hand computer. The crystal contained a manifest for the Speedwell’s last flight.

One entry, though, stood out: “Lot 47 (5 tons) | Forward Hold | Secure Vault | FirstConfedBanc of Austa.”

0800. Brogue opened a hatch in the bridge floor that led down to the forward hold, which was packed from bulkhead to bulkhead with cargo containers and large items, including several antique luxury gravcars, crystalline chandeliers and ornate furniture, and even a small log cabin. Brogue quickly located Lot 47, which was an imposing black plastisteel container. The vault door was locked and although Brogue was able to restore power to the electronics, the door would not open without a keyfob.

0827. After another review of the manifest, Daren identified the likely holder of the key: “Stateroom 12 | Director Galilea Mandik | FirstConfedBanc | Wife.”

0833. Brogue guided the team back up to the bridge and toward Stateroom 12.

0853. Juno notified the team that she had been monitoring considerable wide-band radio chatter in the outer system. The communications indicated that several inbound ships were converging on the Speedwell’s position, and she estimated the first ships would arrive in approximately eight hours.

0922. The team finally reached Stateroom 12 after passing through dark passenger areas that were a jumble of personal belongings, luggage, and the corpses of family members and their pets. After a methodical search Brogue found the vault key on the body of Director Mandik.

0949. Back in the forward hold, with Daren holofilming everything, the team successfully opened the FirstConfedBanc vault, which was filled with plastisteel strongboxes containing Confederation credits, stock certificates, insurance policies, data crystals, and other materials.

1021. After completing a cursory inventory of the vault, the team debated how to bring this loot back to the Starjammer. Brogue pointed out that a Type M normally carried a 20-ton launch, a small craft used to shuttle passengers and cargo between the ship and starports. Such a launch could probably just fit inside the cargo hold of the Starjammer.

1243. The team successfully restarted the power plant on board the Speedwell’s launch. Sonny piloted the small craft to the Speedwell’s forward cargo bay.

1405. The vault was loaded onto the launch.

1425. The launch was secured inside the Starjammer’s cargo hold.

1520. Boone forced Hendrix, Aaro, and Rahim to don vacc suits, then escorted the three men at gunpoint over to the Speedwell to leave them stranded on the derelict, despite Hendrix’s pleas and offers of bribes.

1533. Ronald reported he detected three ships on approach, the closest over 65,000 km away.

1540. Ronald broadcast a message informing all listeners that Hendrix Knox was waiting on board the Speedwell, then transmitted the appropriate coordinates.

1545. Captain Cryo began maneuvering the Starjammer away from the Speedwell.

1558. The Starjammer entered jumpspace.

Clown (MAGY 1807 B431975-E) 139-1104.

0007. The Starjammer exited jumpspace in the Clown system.

0242. The Starjammer arrived at Clown Highport.

Copyright Information

The image of Dr. Zimon Sun was found on Generated Faces. The image of Chairman Meow was generated using DALL-E2. The Type M schematic and rendering of an Ad Astra-class liner were created using images from GDW's CT Adventure 13, Signal GK (1985).