Starlight:Chasing a Starlight

<EpisodeNavigation> name=Chasing a Starlight date=4/24/2015 episodenumber=2 </EpisodeNavigation>

Game Outline

1. After fight with unknown machines
   1. Back into the ship
   2. Carried away in a body bag
   3. Next 24 hours pass as a blur of rotating shifts of four hours on and four hours off for two pilots at a time.
   4. Ask if there’s anything they do in that time
2. The jump – Date: 29 November 2314
   1. There’s a flurry of activity on the bridge, as different engineering departments call out their status. Batteries charged, gravity coils active, Einstein field generator online. The commander turns to the helmsman and calmly states “Take us into gravity jump.” An acknowledgement is followed by a pair of ship-wide warning tones and an emotionless sounding woman’s voice stating “gravity jump eminent”. You can hear a rumbling from the rear of the ship as the coils power up, and the sound of metal stressing echoes through the hull, suddenly reminding you – this ship has never done this before… how could they know if it would even work? The lights dim ship wide and the front edge of the vessel is wrapped in a glowing cloud of plasma, caused gasses in the interstellar medium being compressed to the point of fusion. The lights come back up to full and the helmsman calls out “We’ve achieved gravity jump, commander.” Reports begin streaming back in from across the ship. Einstein field intact and holding, gravity coil output nominal, gravity compression stable and well formed. You are now hurtling towards destinations unknown.
3. During the jump
   1. Meetings
      1. Commander Langer calls the four pilots and Barnabas to her quarters.
         1. It’s a small, but relatively spacious room, separated into two compartments. The first compartment has a small meeting table surrounded by six chairs. She motions to the table and asks you all to have a seat.
         2. She sits at the head of the table, Barnabas at the other end.
         3. “First, I wanted to thank you four for your service over the last 24 hours. We all were put into a very tough position, and you performed well considering the circumstances. I’m sure you have plenty of synchronization training to get to over the next few days, but I wanted to talk to you four directly. I have spoken with your Lieutenant, and I want the four of you, along with him, to be present at all of our sitrep meetings for the time being. I want you all to know everything we know and since we’ll be relying heavily on you for protection, as you’re the only officers on board rated to pilot the MS.”
         4. Barnabas speaks up now
         5. “We’ve also looked over your… somewhat limited service records, and have determined for the time being that Lieutenant Lopez will be appointed squadron leader… for as much of a squadron we have, anyway.
         6. Open to questions
   2. First Sitrep meeting
      1. Atendees
         1. Commander Langer
         2. LT Anne Swafford – Admin Dept (UK)
         3. LT Barnabas
         4. Senior Chief Zakari
         5. Lt Cmd Brunel – Engineering (UK)
         6. LT Ahmad ibn Majid – Nav Dept (Saudi Arabia)
         7. LT Ammo Andersen – Operations (NAC: Heartland)
         8. Warrant Officer Liu Bo – Acting Supply Dept Head (China)
            1. Wen’s second.
         9. Senator Auttenberg
      2. Topics
         1. Admin accounting of souls on board
            1. 158 out of the 350 full complement
            2. 27 Officers
               1. 4 PCs
            3. 108 Enlisted
            4. 22 civilians
               1. Senator and his staff (10)
               2. News reporters (10)
               3. Hiroshi Nakamura
                  1. Sorenson Industries accountant left behind by Hawke when he left to do some final logistical coordination for the delivery of the last bits and pieces
               4. Ramin Zakari – son of Senior Chief Zakari
            5. Barnabas – “Wait, so who’s the man I keep seeing in the lab coat?”
               1. “lab coat?”
               2. “yes, a man I’ve seen wandering about. Who’s he?
               3. “what does he look like?”
               4. “A man. In a lab coat. I don’t know. He’s got dark skin, maybe asian or light skinned African or American. I didn’t have a chance to ask him his name, I’ve been rather busy.”
               5. “we’ll have to sort that out later.
         2. Supply
            1. Water – theoretically unlimited as long as the filtration and purification system keeps running
            2. Oxygen – same as water, but the carbon scrubbers are going to run out at some point and will have to be replaced.
            3. Food – six month supply at current consumption levels. If caloric intake were reduced, that could be spread out to a year, but there’s still the problem of perishable items that go bad first.
            4. Power – 8 month supply of helium-3 at current usage. That could also be curtailed, but forcing the ship into a lower power mode would slow it down considerably, so there would be a trade off.
         3. Military Readiness – Zakari’s speaking
            1. “originally, we were going to be configured to take on enough parts to deploy at one time 40 of the Alexanders and 10 of the headhunters. As it stands now, we have no headhunters and enough parts to for 12 complete Alexanders... well.. less now that we’ve had some damage done to a few systems.. anyway, under normal directive that would mean we’d have at most 6 we could sortie, because the parts for the other 6 would be in different stages of maintenance and use as spares… so, we should be fine on hardware, only having four pilots, there shouldn’t be any reason we won’t always be at 100% readiness.
            2. On top of that, we have the Tyson, five Mosquitos and, of course, four re-entry bells.
         4. Commander: It seems to me our first order of business will be to secure rations somehow. We need to investigate any inhabitable planets that may have a local supply of plants and animals we can harvest from.
            1. Senator Auttenberg: We should seriously consider abandoning the ship and finding some place to colonize
            2. Cmdr: Perhaps we should figure out where we are first and start looking at how to get home
            3. Auttenberg: I think we may be wasting our time doing that. We’ll be much safer creating a settlement on a planet with greater resources.
            4. Zakari: and just who would you elect to lead that settlement, senator
            5. Uncomfortable silence
         5. Anything else the PCs want to bring up?
   3. After the sitrep meeting, Lt Andersen pulls Jerias aside
      1. “hey, buddy, sorry to bother you, got a second? Yeah, look, I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner, but I wanted to do this personally. All electronic communications need to be cleared by my department first, and we honestly didn’t notice this had come in for you just prior to uh… our little incident. Like I said, I would have gotten this to you sooner, but I didn’t want you to be hit by a surprise message that came out of the blue, man.
         1. He taps a few buttons on a data pad and Jerias’s personal communication device chimes letting him he knows he has a new email.
4. Training – this might be a good opportunity to introduce the meeting room. Barnabas could spend an unnatural amount of time going over their next few hours in the meeting room, complete with outlines and somewhat too-well produced video presentations.
   1. Weapon load-outs
      1. The pc’s are all issued a field manual (similar to the one Lopez got, but his has a few more up-to-date notes scribbled in the margins). The PCs are expected to learn this so they can make appropriate MS configuration choices.
   2. Command Chair
      1. This is a fairly quick process. The pilot sits in a harness, and their back end is scanned. A “blank” command chair is then trimmed down for the pilot.
   3. Training
      1. NPCs Present
         1. Petty Officer First Class James “Sharky” Shockley – Australian national, deck crew chief.
         2. Various members of the deck crew
         3. Lieutenant Barnabas
      2. Synchronization. Choose one or let one choose themselves to go through the pre-flight check
         1. This is done in the hangar bay. They don’t go through the sortie room for this, instead head down to the hangar. An Alexander is assembled except and the cockpit. The pilot has to swipe his ID over a computer console, and the pilot’s command couch descends from the hatch in the roof and is locked in. The PC climbs into the MS and interfaces.
         2. As you interface with the computer, a familiar hud overlay flares into view. Barnabas can be heard over the headset: “You should be seeing a series of… well I guess rhombuses in the top left of your view now.” Three rows of the shapes come into view in your vision. The other PCs can see what the PC is seeing on a display.
         3. “We’ve been using the captain’s override to launch up until now, but now that you’re all squared away in the system, we’re going to teach you the right way to do this. Each of those shapes represents a step of clearance required for a launch.”
         4. “The top row is the bridge and the command crew.” Several faces of other crew members pop into your view, some you recognize, others you don’t.
         5. “The second row is deck crew clearance.” He jestures around. “Sharky here and his men.” A scowling man wearing tinted glasses nods to you and speaks.
            1. Shocky: Alright, noob. Me and my crew make sure you go out there in once piece. Coming back that way is up to you. We also remove the arming pins, clear the launch tunnel, spark your plasma if you’re taking a reactor, and double check your linking pins and clear the deck that’s all done.
         6. “Thank you, Sharky. Barnabas continues. The bottom row Is up to you. Your checklist. It’ll be different depending on your configuration.
         7. “Now, we go through the checklist, one row at a time. In a real sortie, this is simultaneous, and, with training, should take less then a minute. One thing to take notice in your checklist. Item 8 is you. You get the final OK before launch.”
         8. “Alright, if you don’t have any questions, we’ll start the test run, starting with command”
            1. One of the camera views at the bottom of your vision slides up closer into your view. “Flight patern clear” the first rhombus goes green
            2. “Communication clear” another goes green
            3. “Navigation clear” a third goes green
            4. This time, someone who’s voice your familiar with, Lieutenant Andersen, speaks up, his face coming into view “Ops cleared.
            5. “Air cleared”
            6. The commander’s face is the last to come up into your view “Command Cleared”
         9. Barnabas: “Excellent. Sharky?” Shockley: “Right, mate. Okay, girls, get to work”
            1. “Cockpit Assembled!”
            2. “Torso engaged!”
            3. “Arms engaged!”
            4. “Weapons engaged and armed!”
            5. “legs engaged!”
            6. “Power pack in place!”
            7. “Launch tube clear!”
            8. “Deck Cleared!” – a man standing on a balcony at the eye level of the MS next to the launch tube salute the PC
         10. Barnabas: Alright, <name> now it’s up to you. Just go through the checklist.
             1. Most of the checklist involves the pilot toggling switches in the interface.
             2. Barnabas explains – “autopilot is set to the launch mode only for launch. Once the MS clears the launch tunnel, it automatically switches to OFF.
             3. Electronics check – barnabas explains: to calibrate the targeting computer, you’ll, take a look at the wall next to the launching tube. You’ll see three red bull’s-eyes up there. From top to bottom, move your targeting reticle over the center and engage the computer.
             4. On Pilot – GO, the MS lurches forward, leave it up to the PC if they’re shocked by this.
         11. Barnabas: Alright! That’s it! (all of the marks go red) We’ve got four hours scheduled for this, so once more from the top! Sharkey, can you bring down another MS in bay two. Might as well do two at once.
5. Getting to the System
   1. The captain comes on board the bridge, and everyone looks at him expectantly. He pays no heed and just stands at the main console .
      1. This is where he diverts power to charging the main gun.
   2. The commander orders an unfurling of the solar panels to charge the jump batteries.
   3. Three gas giants
   4. Two terrestrial planets. One is possibly habitable; the commander orders they move in closer to take a look (will take 6 hours)
   5. Maybe a meeting here will have navigation pointing out that the system doesn’t match any they have on file
   6. At some point while they’re charging the jump batteries, the Nav officer gets in trouble. The charge is taking longer then it should, engineering discovers that power had been diverted to the capacitors on the “main weapon” – maybe the PCS can find out about this from him at lunch or something – Ensign Paolo Crocetti
6. Getting to the habitable planet – it’s reasonable looking, green plants, blue water, visible lakes and rivers. No cities or settlements can be seen. Two moons.
   1. Captain comes on to bridge
      1. Commander explains to him they were just scanning the area for signs of life. Further, she was considering an expedition to the planet’s surface to possibly scout for food.
      2. He nods as she is saying this, slowly putting on his hat and coat.
      3. Side thing.
   2. As the ship begins moving, ops opens a channel. “Bridge, we’ve go several of those.. unidentified craft coming at us from behind one of the moons. Moving in very fast.
   3. Captain: Nav, top speed! Ops, How many?
   4. Dozen.. dozens sir.. and more … hundreds now.. good lord.. I don’t think we can outrun them, either.
7. Running fight with the Watcher Type 1 – 5 xp
   1. Captain turns to the PC: Young men, come with me. He starts to leave the bridge
      1. “I must ask a great deal of you now. We’ll never get away from those things on our own, so you’ve got to cover our retreat.” He enters sortie room 1. “We’ll be at top speed, so whatever you do, don’t get separated from us. we might not be able to come back for you, or worse, you could get lost all-together and run out of energy… and we wouldn’t want that would we? Good luck, and be careful out there.”
   2. For this fight, PCs must use at least one “move” maneuver or risk getting left behind. Each round a PC does not use the move maneuver to keep up with the ship, they will get a setback to a the piloting maneuver at the end to catch back up with the ship (don’t tell them this consequence). The PC can spend two maneuvers in a single round to make up for the loss.
   3. As you launch, you shoot out in front of the ship, pull back on the controls and the Starlight passes under you. A red warning flares up: Gravity Wake, and you feel a pull as you pass by the engines.
      1. Gravity wake is a localized distortion around the engines of a vessel. It can destroy ships that pass too close.
   4. Waves of enemies – minion groups of four, one per PC. After the first six waves are destroyed, or 10 rounds. (destroying the first six waves results in a 3 xp bonus)
   5. The captain calls out: “Fighters, return to the ship. Land in the docking bay at the rear!”
      1. Piloting check to make it back. Success means the pilot can land in the docking bay. And a 2 xp bonus
      2. Failure to make the piloting check results in getting a front row seat to the festivities.
      3. “Emergency turn, now” the ship rotate.
         1. The rear engines go into a counter-flow, and azimuth thrusters on the bow fire. The ship spins around in place
         2. FIRE MAIN CANNON!
         3. A dark beam of energy launches from the front of the ship. Any PC that did not make it back to the ship gets pulled towards the thrust, and collision alarms go off momentarily. The last of the ships pursuing get destroyed. At this point, the pilots are collected and the ship gets out of there.

Game Files

• File:Exchange.docx
• File:Present for my bro.docx

Musical Inspiration
Song:	Starlight
Artist:	Muse
Album:	Black Holes and Revelations
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