Session 1-1: The Lyris Science Vessel

When ever the PC's get together, to talk, or do something, the watch rotation will effect who is present, they are allowed to change their rotation once, after arriving, or departing from orbit, or port. Star base 93 is located in quad C, sector 12-Q, the final destination is in the next quad (D), sector 12-M.

See Appendix Two for individual sector maps.

Until the ship reaches two sectors beyond the GC border, the following events can happen;

Pirates
Once per day an encounter roll may indicate an attack by pirates. If detected, fighters will be launched to intercept and will usually run off the marauders. If they are not detected and come within weapons range, they will immediately fire and try to disable the ship. Typically the pirates will be using a Voyager class star ship (Rule book SCS1 page 7) with the entire crew trying to board a disabled ship.

System Failure
Any one of the numerous ships systems can breakdown, causing minor or major delays to the mission. This should be checked once a day, if failure is indicated, determine which watch rotation, (d6) it occurs. If a PC is on duty, make it their responsibility to fix it. Experience is awarded according to the failure.

Mutiny
A mutiny (5%) can be a personal act, or ship wide and is checked once per day, if a mutiny is rolled a second roll is made to determine subversive, or obtrusive (50/50). Obtrusive means someone spoke out and is apprehended by security and a 1% modifier is added to future rolls. Subversives will plan acts of sabotage, each day and recruit followers (subversives) at 1:1 per day. Total the number of subs on the ship, until such a time when the number of subs out number the crew, then a full scale mutiny will take place. (PC's are numbered with subs) Acts of sabotage are determined as if the ship had a system failure (Book SO vol 1, page 8).

Session 1-2: Underway

Week One;
Day one:
During the last mail call, one PC finds out that one of their parents were apprehended and shipped out to a penal colony. 

Day two: 
They decide to jump ship and are stopped by another PC (disgruntled armsman/ Security force) trying to steal a shuttle, the 2nd PC calms them down and explains that the shuttles do not have the FTL drive. They become friends and the 2nd PC vows to help the 1st. 

Day three:
The PC's start plotting and realize they will need star charts... They are caught trying to download star charts (and only get copies of the above quadrant charts), by a third PC, who listens to the story and agrees to help them out. 

Day four:
During further discussions another PC over hears them and wants to help.

Day five:
An engineer PC is interested in learning to fly fighters and asks the second PC for lessons, eventually he too joins the cause and brings a few techs in on the plan. Eventually the PC's are brought together and plot to help the first PC rescue their dad, it is something to do, but they find themselves more and more enthusiastic. They are all pretty fed up with GC politics and it's oppression, but were somewhat afraid to voice their opinions. They have all decided that this is their last tour of duty and will muster out...

Days six - nine
The ship is stopped and awaits till a shuttle arrives, the crew is cleared from the shuttle bay and passageways and a hooded man escorted by two dozen armsmen go directly to the officers crew quarters and kick out the crew members, taking it over. Shortly there after the ship is underway again.

Week Two;
Day ten:
One of the PC's sees a good looking scientist and harasses them until finally obtaining a date, she is the leader of the research team and one of the few people that know what they are doing out so far beyond the border. An old data file was recovered that showed a colony 150LY beyond the last outpost and they are going to investigate. A survey ship was dispatched some time ago but there isn't any data that she knows of that was brought back.
The bridge officer PC makes some discrete inquiries, about where they are going and finds out that the survey ship was destroyed by pirates after leaving star base 93, security forces responded to the distress call and arrived before the pirates boarded, but the survey vessel exploded.

Day eleven:
The security officer/armsman PC finds out that General Ty'poff is in charge of the mission and a chill goes down their spine. Ugly rumors about the man are circulated from one edge of known space to the other. He is known most for killing his own teams and all of the PC's will start worrying after they find out that the general is on board. Each one of them will have their own story...

1. Was responsible for the genocide of Argyle 4, where four million colonists were wiped out.

2. Turned in his own parents, who were taken to a penal colony.

3. Wiped out all the inhabitants of star base 62, to get one man.

4. Poisoned his entire security team to prevent an information leak.

5. Torture is a hobby.

6. Destroyed the Angus 3 outpost because the captain insulted him, even though the man was whipped immediately after.

7. Had a pirate crew of 200, beheaded and displayed on star base 49.

8. Had a young girl and her family executed for stumbling and falling against him.

Probably everyone on the ship has a different story to tell, with the problem being that most are true. The armsman PC is one of the higher ranking officers and still found out by accident. They know that they shouldn't say anything and warns the others to keep quiet. But that is the problem with rumors...

If this happens, when the Lyris reaches the star base, roll d100 to see how many of the crew jump ship because of the general's presence, (per PC failure, up to 30% of the crew may try to jump ship.). 

Day twelve:
Arrival at Ethos Star Base

Security will be tight while docked at the star port and the deserters will use EVA suits, stolen shuttles, and try to storm past the security guards on duty. Any armsmen PC's may find themselves in hand-to-hand combat while standing duty. Take the number of deserters and divide by 6, this gives the number that will jump ship per watch rotation, divide by 5 to determine how many try to pass where an armsman PC is standing guard. Desperation will give the deserters a +1 modifier to their attack rolls, as soon as possible though they will disengage and move on.

Once the ship is underway again, several things can still happen;

Space Anomaly
From ion storms to black holes, once the ship goes beyond the GalCom boundaries anomalies are not on the map.

Pirates
When the Lyris is leaving the star port and during travel beyond the border for two sectors, a pirate raid is still possible. Beyond this there is no chance of meeting another ship.

System Failure
A system failure can be due to maintenance, but also sabotage, follow the guidelines in (Book SO vol 1, page 81) to determine normal system failure.

Mutiny
The chance of mutiny will go up if the rumor of the general got out, but now the security teams will not hesitate to shoot. Incidents may occur every watch for the next few days and then die down as the ship gets farther beyond the border and the crew numbers start dwindling.

Day thirteen thru twenty-three:

If a significant number of crew members tried to jump ship, security on the ship will be tightened and the crew will not be allowed to roam freely. This will prevent all but the techs from moving about. It will take an additional ten days after leaving the star port to reach the sector where they are going.

Session 1-3: Parnell star system

Use astro skill level 6 to base the search success, of the system, unless one of the PC's are the astrogator, even with consecutive successes it will take several days to plot the orbits of all five planets and three moons. The fourth planet is the one they are looking for and the first night side search will reveal the lost colony. Light is coming from a Anti-Matter Power Plant, a technology that has been lost to GalCom, though it is still somewhat understood erroneously. Lights powered by the ion storm will also dimly show the extent of the colony.

Once the ship establishes an orbit around Parnell four they will realize that this will be no picnic, the atmosphere is gone, along with the oceans and all life, the expedition must be done in EVA suits, at night, to avoid radiation from the storms. This will add a hazards to the mission but will allow the characters, who are the limited few who have EVA training. Only a couple of security officers have this type of training but they will soon learn... The scientists will be forced to learn, but after several of them die in accidents the majority will remain on the star-ship and direct the work from there, using vidcams. The security officers will get a false sense of control with the vidcams and avoid going out, but will monitor the work and hang out in the shuttles and science bays. (In addition to added security from possible mutiny as described above.)

Shuttle missions will be needed first to transfer several tons of equipment and vehicles to the surface. The exploration teams will operate from the shuttles, in three - four hour shifts per night, two hours are the maximum that an NPC will be suited up during a shift, though PC's are only limited by their stamina and skill level, with 2 hours per level allowed. Accidents will happen to NPC's every shift, for the first week, every other the second, every third the third week, etc..., with incidents classed as follows; 

1. Minor suit malfunction, able to return to shuttle, no problems.

2. Serious malfunction, emergency evacuation.

3. Critical malfunction, injury.

4. Catastrophic malfunction, resulting in death.

5. Team member trapped, team spends shift rescuing them.

6. Psychological incident, team member panics, roll again.

The PC's will not have these problems unless they stay out longer than the normal shift and then a roll, failure gets a roll of (d6), a roll against their EVA skill is made to determine if they can fix the malfunction. The PC who is a scientist will become the surface coordinator for a twelve hour shift per day, but the other PC's may not be directly involved with the exploration and can explore on their own, they may be interrupted by a distress call though. When this happens it will be 10 minutes plus (d100) minutes after the shift starts. Because of hazards all movement is halved, including vehicles.
A significant amount of the city is still intact, the only damage is from meteor impacts and earthquakes. The atmosphere is gone and there is low level radiation everywhere. Mapping the city from orbit will show a number of obvious buildings that will be recognizable:

Main Colony on Parnell 4

1. Power plant, fully operational there is minimal damage to the structure and little danger investigating it. Two important rooms are the control station and the manager's office (which will have blueprints).

2. Air/Space port. There are no craft left, but several rooms have blueprints and assorted parts, along with fuel for the crafts.

3. Military outpost. A number of weapons can be found here, known and totally new, a manufacturing plant will yield the most information and artifacts.

4. College. There is a wealth of information here.

5. Observatory. A star chart of the former empire will reveal that GalCom is only a fraction of the once large span of known space, six times larger than what is now known.

6. Hydroponics plant. With the connected food processing plant, the hunger issue could be totally alleviated.

7. Colony defenses. Are not active, but can be made so.

8. Mining outposts. Several of these are scattered across the planet. Robotic machinery outputs 25 times GalComs current rate.

9. Robotic factory. Robotics were the height of the old empires technology and several battle-bots could make GalCom forces invincible.

10. Vehicle depots. A number of vehicles could revolutionize GalCom's mobility.

11. Manufacturing plants. All use robotics to some extent.

12. Computer center. Nano technology is basically unused by GalCom and was utilized by the old empire in almost everything.

13. Communications tower. Far more powerful than what is used by GalCom today.

14. Mansions. A number of wealthy persons had many gadgets to make their lives easier.

15. Weather control tower. A technology unknown to GalCom.

16. Museum. The history and span of the old empire is displayed here.

17. Oceanic outpost The old empire colonized the sea as well as the land.

18. Capital. The characters will learn they are on the planet "Parnell 4". The old empire was a virtual democracy.

19. Police stations. Besides spy technology a number of hand to hand weapons are located here.

20. Housing The housing complexes are varied in size and architecture. 

Some of the building are not numbered on the map, these are either housing complexes, or substations, the teams will explore one of these, roll (d20) for (d6) days. Buildings 1,8,13,15,17, and 18 do not have substations if a roll indicates one of these, after it has already been explored, consider the building to be a housing complex. It is important to keep track of the order in which each building is explored. After several buildings are investigated near the star port, a PC who is one of the shuttle pilots will be sent out to find other landing sites so that the shuttle can land in different parts of the city. To determine if only PC's are along for the ride, roll against the pilot's intelligence, a failure indicates they are teamed up with non-aligned NPC's, who may, or may not report them if they go exploring on their own.

Miltiary Outposts If the PC's locate this before the exploration team does, the weapons and items inside are not operational, but can be reverse engineered to make new ones.

Xeno Lab. Is located in the museum, humans currently believe they are the only race that exists... Displays showing the home worlds of modeled aliens and their life styles will be considered fictitious, but the detail of the exhibits will make them wonder.

Psi Temple. With no decorations anywhere, this place is likely to be overlooked, within though are Pk crystals (1482), 1 PK orb, and knowledge contained in computer files, providing training methods and the codes of a psi-warrior. A PC with psionics will be drawn here, though a computer tech is required to hack the files. The PC's psionic abilities will be come fully active with the possession of the pk crystals. (See session 1:4 for events surrounding the temple.)

Observatory If the PC's do not suggest it, a friend will, that they need to download the star charts themselves. They cover the whole spiral arm showing the location of Parnell 4 to be 3/4 of the way up the arm and closer to the fringe than the center. A distant star, several thousand LY's away is the center of a cluster of systems that are high lighted.

Comm Tower One of the PC's should be present during the exploration of the comm tower, making communication possible after it is turned on, between the teams and the ship. A PC will be sent to clear up a transmission problem and be hailed by a recognition signal. The star charts are projected onto the walls, showing the signal coming from over a hundred LY's away. The system is listed as Cirrus 22 and the PC will realize it is coming from outside of GC space. The carrier wave will not be familiar and attempts to acknowledge the signal will fail. A short while later the signal is cut off.

An archeology team will consist of two groups; The first is the exploration team in a vehicle, 2 armsmen, 1 scientist, 2 techs. The second group will be 15 techs and 5 armsmen who retrieve artifacts. 2 armsmen, 2 techs, a scientist, and two pilots will stay with the shuttle, loading and coordinating the other teams.

The planet has a hostile environment and all exploration will require EVA suits, which will slow things down and limit the number of people who can go on an expedition. The primary hindrance to the mission and the PC's best friend, will be the continual ion storms, which will suppress communications, until they explore the Comm tower... Not all of the buildings are easily recognizable and a random roll should be used to explore, though the star base will likely be the first landing site. If the PC's decide to explore on their own, use Streetwise skill, or intelligence to determine if they can outwit the security guards, failure results in an infraction and after ten of these they will be restricted to the star ship.
The majority of artifacts will be given to the scientists for examination, all the weapons though will be loaded onto the general's shuttle and guarded. The PC's will not be able to smuggle anything back unless it is small and hidden externally on the shuttle. Other attempts will be found out and the PC will occur an infraction.

During the exploration, something serious can happen each week, a roll of (1 on d6) indicates trouble;

1. EVA suit malfunction.

2. Shuttle system malfunction.

3. Increased radiation from ion storm, forcing evacuation of teams.

4. Meteor shower, forces evacuation.

5. Power relay explosion on the planet, roll (d20) to see where, if a team is working there, roll (d6) to determine the number of casualties.

6. Building collapse, when explosives, or blasters are used to force doors at the police stations, military outpost, comm tower, planetary defenses, and power station. (d6) casualties.

7. Earthquake (d10) magnitude, 1-4 tremors, 5-8 will force evacuation, 9 will cause (d100) percent destruction, and a roll of 10 will destroy the colony, or outpost. (ignore a roll of 9-10, until the PC's have explored the buildings outlined above.

8. Viral, or bacterial infection from dormant, brought on board the star ship. (d10) will determine the extent of infection, at the least 1 scientist will be infected; 
   1-3 minor, (d6) days till recovery
   4-6, sickness, recovery in (d20) days 
   7-8 rampant infection of (d100)percent of crew, roll again to determine type, ignore 5-6 
   9 death of (d100) percent of crew members infected, within (d20) hours. 
   10 death of all infected, but not communicable. 

9. Accidental power up, of a battle bot, or other hazardous item, if the PC's are at the military outpost, or a police station.

10. Insurrection, by crew member(s) not aligned with the PC's.

If applicable determine who gets in trouble, roll a (d6);

1 Scientist
2-3 Tech
4-5 Armsman
6 PC

Session 1-4: Psi-Temple

At this point you need to see which of the non-psionic PC's will touch the orb, if any, if they do see below, the psionic PC's will have no choice;

If all of the PC's have psionic abilities the link won't be broken until the shuttle pilot starts talking on comm channel. If any PC's do not have psionics and did not touch the orb, they will have two hours to look around, before the shuttle launches from the starship and begins it's decent. They can cause the link to be broken early by trying to talk to the PC's, or physically touching them. Any non-psionic PC will be found on the floor unconscious, but can be woke up, all will have headaches. Each PC who touched the orb is to raise their Psionic score by one point and will have gained the first level abilities that all of the others have. A non Psionic PC will have their score raised by one, or to the minimum level required, but will have to roll for their new ability, (only one skill though).
Any non-psionic PC's who got to look around will have found a portable computer in a back room, but little else, except furniture. If all of the PC's were engaged with the orb, they won't have time to look around any further, as the shuttle will take forty-five minutes to land and it will take thirty minutes to make it back to the shuttle pad. Once the link is broken a PC can pick up the orb without worrying about getting trapped again. The pedestal it sits on is actually a depository for pk crystals, which will be seen once the orb is lifted. It is the combination of the two that caused the strength of the link and the orb can be handled so long as one does not touch it bare handed.
Now the problem will be getting it back to the ship, the PC's will not be able to sneak it aboard the shuttle, as everything brought in is documented by a security officer. There are compartments on the outside of the shuttle though, a shuttle pilot will know this, but even more so a shuttle tech. Roll against these PC's intuition score to "give them" the idea. All the PC's who touched the orb will have a headache, some worse than others, a previous non-psionic will have the worse though. The duration will be d10 hours plus one day for each psionic point below 16 (prior to touching the orb).
The computer files were encrypted by a highly skilled tech and will be unable to be broken unless a PC has some serious time on their hands. While the PC's are at Parnell the computer tech's routine will be interrupted too often and they won't make any headway, the most they will learn is that the portable computer was more sophisticated than possibly the ship's computer as a whole. It will take a character with computer engineering skill weeks to make the necessary interface and then the assistance of a research scientist and several computers to open the files. Eventually, someone with xeno-psychology will be needed also.

The PC's will become aware of four other psionic NPC's, who are drawn to the orb, no matter where the PC's hide it and over the next few weeks they will make new friends. They can give them pk crystals and help them develop their powers.
The PC's will have to go off to explore and operate missions, so they will eventually turn the orb and the data files over to the NPC's to study. (Otherwise the PC's will be studying for years longer than it would take the NPC's) The NPC's are;

As telepaths have been hunted down in the past and are feared by most people, the newly formed team will have to work in secrecy and will only report to the PC's.

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