Session 2-1: Mutiny

The rest of the crew will be plotting mutiny, but it is up to the PC's to do it on a grand scale, before it erupts on it's own and catches them by surprise. Each week beyond their stop at the starbase, there is a (+1) accumulative percentage chance that a mutiny will break out involving the entire crew. Most of the crew will not be apart of the mutiny, they just will make no effort to stop it. Through rumors and acts of sabotage, the GM should hint that the crew is becoming restless, it is up to the players to figure it out. At the first sign of a ship wide insurrection the general and a few of his closest advisors will escape in the deep space shuttle, with the intention of returning with a fleet, new team, and army, six weeks later. If the mutiny was not initiated by the PC's it will fail and the ship will be on an alert status, where the security force will command all compartments and passageways.
The PC's will be forced to start a mutiny then, because they will all know what will happen when the general returns, if they are not outright killed, they are looking at a future in the mines. If this is the scenario though several hundred crewmembers will already be dead and it will be up to the PC's to take the ship compartment by compartment. This will obviously take awhile, as it is a big ship and there are 400 armsmen. The PC's will need to take the ship before the general returns, if they can't the campaign is over. The PC's have little hope of taking the ship by themselves and will need to recruit followers, this can be done by PC's with Diplomat skill and they can talk to groups of (d6) per day. A roll is made against their skill level and a failure will result in the PC being turned in and a security force of 12 coming to haul them off to the brig. Without Diplomat skill the PC's will have to rely upon their Empathy skill to sway each crew member one at a time.
The success of the mutiny is dependant on several things, if they PC's think of them all, they can take the ship with little bloodshed.

1. Taking the bridge, the alarm can be sounded from here, which will cause the security force to arm themselves and head towards key areas.
2. Taking the engineering section, the alarm can be sounded from here, but it is also possible to control the lifesupport and power to all areas of the ship.
3. Securing weapons, without weapons the PC's may be over run. There are two weapon lockers on the armsmen deck and a third outside the bridge, (which is checked during the second watch, every day).
4. Control of the passageways and access ladders, to pin down the security officers.
5. Control of the medical facilities, in order to carry the wounded to see the doctor.
6. Disabling the internal communications so the security force can not use it.
7. Being able to overpower the guards standing watch on the armsmen deck, within two minutes, and preventing the armsmen from reaching the weapons locker.
8. Surprising the guards on the boat deck, to prevent them from responding to the alarm, or weapons fire.
9. Securing the rec-room and mess hall, where several dozen security officers will be eating and relaxing.
10. Attacking the stationary guard posts scattered throughout the ship.

The mutiny can not take place all at once, as the guard posts will mow down the mutineers as they move through the passageways. The PC's will need three main groups in order to pull it off quickly though;

How well the PC's plan the mutiny is vital, if they have covered all the contingencies mentioned above, it will be over in fifteen minutes and there will just be a few wounded and beaten up security officers. Otherwise there could be six to two dozen guards on the loose trying to take the ship back and killing who ever happens to get in the way. After the initial fifteen minutes, each security officer not accounted for will kill one crewmember per minute until they are engaged by the PC's. If the PC's are too quick to congratulate themselves, they may find themselves on a ghost ship.
The PC's will need to time the mutiny to coincide will different variables also;

1. When they are all on the ship and preferably not on watch somewhere.
2. During the quiet hours of the ship's routine, when the passageways are not full of people.
3. Not during the changing of the guard, when twice as many security officers are armed.
4. When their own people are in key areas, so that they don't have to fight their way to designated stations.
5. Not during the second watch (morning), when key officers are standing watch and may end up in the line of fire.

At least half the security force will remain loyal to the general, even after he escapes, if the PC's somehow prevent his escape, only 10% of them will join the mutiny. The PC's should attempt to take key areas like the bridge and engine room, if they do not the mutiny will surely fail. The PC's will need to have secured weapons beforehand as well, the security force will be armed with Blasters and will not be worried by what they might hit

Another key factor is the lives of the scientists, the order will be given to execute them and destroy the artifacts when and if a mutiny starts and if the PC's do not act quickly, only the scientist PC's will survive. It will take the security force two hours to carry out these orders, after the first ten minutes, 1% of the scientists and artifacts will be lost per minute. If the PC's do not take command and give orders to assist the doctor, the loss of life will cause problems with repairing and operating the starship.
To determine the loss of artifacts, approximate 100 artifacts gathered each day, from each type of building, with the destruction systematic with the exploration of the colony. For example, if all the buildings have been explored, and the security force rampages for twenty minutes, four groups of artifacts will be lost, to some extent. If buildings 1,2,3,4 were explored first roll (d100) to determine the percent of the artifacts from each building destroyed, ie... building one was explored for 5 days, 500 artifacts will have been gathered, a roll of 72% would indicate 360 artifacts were destroyed. This is important to determine, as the PC's will be able to increase their science and tech level through the process of reverse engineering.

During the non-PC mutiny almost all of the ships systems will be damaged to one extent or another, roll on the (General Area of Malfunction Table, SO Vol 1, page 81) to determine the extent, though the ship should not be damaged beyond repair, or at the least, be able to travel... The PC's can not prevent the general from escaping and a vote to leave the system as soon as possible, will win the majority and the crew will need to perform repairs while traveling... In the matter of other issues that the PC's bring up, whether the crew goes along with it or not will depend entirely on if it can be accomplished within a few days. A departure time is decided based on the repair schedule, of key systems, the PC's have that much time to do what ever they want...

Lyris decks 1, 2, 3

Lyris research module

Lyris drive module

Session 2-2: The General

If the PC's do not prevent the general from escaping unharmed they will be inviting trouble sooner than they want. Only the PC's with fighter pilot skill can attempt to stop the shuttle and minutes will be vital. Once the shuttle gets beyond the star system it will jump to FTL and fighters will not be able to pursue. The TISA rating for the shuttle is 50LS and it is 8,400 LS till a ship can jump to light speed. The shuttle has a forward gun (Nova 25), which it will employ if the engines are damaged (skill level 6), but it will continue to travel at the same speed, not breaking. Fuel consumption of the fighter is then critical, to determine the point of no return. If the damage to the engines is minor, the crew will repair it in (d6) days, otherwise the shuttle will take a long time to cross the 150 LY back to known space.
The PC's will learn that the general also escaped taking the lead scientist with him, (the PC's girl friend) and this can be used by the GM to prevent the PC's from firing upon the shuttle and letting it go. This is meant to incite the PC's in wanting to hunt the general down at a later date and make him the arch villain of the campaign. The PC's will be confronting him a few more times, but in each case he should be allowed to get away, as he is very resourceful and one of the most powerful NPC's in GC space.

When the general returns to known space, rumors will leak about the colony and higher tech and several things will happen;

1. Six weeks after the general makes it back, he will return with a sizable force.
2. Pirates will venture to the planet in the mean time and colony defenses or no, will gain new tech weapons and better ships within a few years.
3. A new rebel faction will develop that will cause GalCom to deploy a permanent fleet in the area.
4. GalCom will strip the planet of all it's capabilities and send out survey vessels to look for other colonies in the quad, the GalCom tech level will begin to rise again, 0.1 per year, as it will assume it has a new threat.
5. GalCom will become aware of who exactly is a part of the rebellion and put major bounties on their heads, so that it will become difficult to visit anywhere.
6. A fleet will be dispatched to hunt the science vessel down and will patrol along the border seeking rumors and information.
7. GalCom will begin expanding the border by 1 sector per year, dispatching fleets to conquer any colonies discovered.

The ideal scenario would be if the PC's bombard the planet from orbit, leaving nothing behind, but they also have the option to repair the colony defenses and make them operational. GalCom will send two expeditions to the planet, the colony defenses will fend off the first, but not the second, though the colony will be damaged by the effort.

Session 2-3: Temple Databanks

Up until the PC's found the crystals they could only use their one active psionic ability and gain skill levels in it, now they can develop other skills. The orb however would overwhelm them and renders a single psionic character unconscious if they touch it. Now that they have the time they discuss it's effects and find out that when two, or more touch the orb, it gives them a unique ability to sense all psionic characters and establishes a telepathic link. 

Disciples of Justice

Specific information about the psionic NPC class is given in Session 10:4, (in case the PC's keep asking) as it will take a long while to hack the encryption codes of the databank and learn this information. 

The Lensman orb will be discussed more thoroughly in Session Ten, but it needs to be mentioned here that if the PC's take it with them as they travel, the orb will cause psionic NPC's to attempt to seek it out and in this case, they will join the space force thinking that "space" will be calling them. This will inadvertently cause the GC to develop a branch of service called "Psi-Corps" and lower the numbers of psionics the PC's will be able to recruit. The possibility that they will be infiltrated by a GC telepath will also increase, the longer they have the orb with them. When the PC's learn of the orbs power in Session Ten and put the orb to use, instead of just being an ornament, the GM will need to figure out how many systems the PC's have visited and calculate the number of psionics that will have joined the GC.

1000, for each region
500, for each sector
100, for each planet they land on/visit

The Psi corps will form after two years and give the PC's serious problems after another three... (see Session 10-1)
The general is also a psionic and depending on how soon the PC's bring the Lensmen Orb on board, he will begin sending security officers to search for it, though he will not come himself. If the PC's allow him to obtain it, there is no hope they can win the campaign and the game should be forfeited. 

The data banks also contain a lot of technological information, for TL-11 and 12, which was not shared with the common masses. It has blueprints and schematics for equipment that is in the cruiser databanks and even has the knowledge of how to build a cruiser from scratch. So long as the PC's haven't been arming the general populous with high tech, they will be able to maintain their superiority. The Psi council will take over the PC's duties in managing the rebels and free them up for more pressing things like exploring. The council will carry out the wishes of the PC's as well and act on reports from them. This is all designed to free up the PC's routine and allow them more freedom to direct their own actions. They will still have missions but it will be more of a choice to carry one out, rather than let it be part of a sequence of events. This will not take effect immediately, but the PC's should see this happening during the next part of the campaign...

Session 2-4: No Place to Call Home

The mutineers are now in a predicament, they can't return to GC space and they don't really have the equipment needed to colonize. A meeting of department heads presents several options and the PC's should be allowed to come up with a few of their own. The discussions will go on for weeks, but in the end the majority will vote for one option;

During the exploration of the communications center a message was sent out and a reply received. This information was kept secret, as the signal originated outside of the borders of GC space, in the "F" quadrant. It is an uncharted region of space and it is determined that seeking out the unknown is preferable to what awaits them back in GC space. It is estimated that even if the source of the signal turns out to be a hostile one, they will still have just enough fuel to make back to known space, or to another world that they can try to colonize.

If the bridge, specifically the nav station (with the Astrogator) was damaged in the mutiny, the PC's will need to have a character with astrogator skill. The only NPC's with the skill other than the Nav Officer are all at level 2. But to figure out where they are going will require a team. A Communications Tech to determine the source of the signal, a character with Astronomy to explore their path, Astrogator to calculate the flight path. If the PC's have these skills, let them be on the team, otherwise NPC's will fill the positions. It is up to the PC's to figure out what will be needed though, even if it is to return to the colony and look on the starmaps in the observatory. NPC's will have average skill levels of 5, unless the primary NPC's are killed during the mutiny then their skill level is 2. This doesn't mean that they can't make it, just that it will take longer, for example;

Communications Tech

At skill level 10, the technician will be able to pinpoint the source of the transmission, each level below this means the area of the source gets wider, so that at skill level 1 the technician can determine which sector the signal came from, but not which star. As the skill level increases the area of the source shrinks by half, in the vertical and horizontal. The horizontal plane is 10LY X 10LY, but the vertical plane is 100LY X 100LY. A successful roll against the character's skill level doesn't mean they pinpoint the source, just that they don't have to recalculate from scratch, having arrived at the best guess.

Astronomer

The Astronomer serves in two capacities, first they are able to eliminate anomalous stars, there by narrowing the search. Secondly, they can view the proposed flight path and determine whether it will require a detour. Without an Astronomer on the team the flight will take longer as the sensors will detect an anomaly and automatically cause the ship to drop out of FTL. If the PC's do not have one on the team, the following detours will be needed;

1. Pulsar in Quad E, sector 3:H, a detour of 6 LY will be needed to avoid the intense neutron radiation.
2. Gas cloud in Quad F sector 19:H, the captain will opt for circumnavigating the cloud adding 22LY on to their journey.
3. Quantum singularity in Quad F, sector 17:H, a detour of 5 LY to avoid it.
4. Gas cloud in Quad D, sector 15:H, a detour of 16 LY to go around.

The detours themselves are not the problem, it is the Astrogator having to recalculate their flight path each time...

Astrogator

The Astrogator is the ship's Navigator, normally all they do is punch into the computer, the name of the place they want to go to. In uncharted space however their job is one of the most important ones on a starship. A character's skill level will determine whether they are 0 to 10LY within their desired destination, per sector of the journey. Traveling 20 sectors then can end up with the ship being 200LY away from their destination (with a character of skill level 1). At the point that the ship drops from FTL, the skill level of the Astrogator also determines how far they are from the system, by 100,000 to 1,000,000 LS, (the difference of a few days verses a few months). Once a system is charted though the exact distance at which a ship can drop to TISA can be calculated, reducing the interplanetary flight time to a few hours.
Calculations take 10 minutes (divided by skill level) for each LY, so that a journey of 150LY's will take an Astrogator 1, a little over a day to calculate. If detours are involved, three additional calculations need to be made, (distance divided by 3), with the above detours, an additional five days is added on to the journey if an astronomer does not help the team.
The final calculation, of when to drop out of FTL is the most crucial, to soon and the ship can end up traveling longer than it did at FTL, too late though may drop the ship close enough to damage the FTL drive. A roll against the Astrogator's skill level is made, if failure results a roll of (d100) is made below fifty, the ship dropped out of FLT too soon, above fifty, too late. The (d100) is rolled again and multiplied by 10,000LS. This is the distance from the star, or from the edge of the system the ship is. A general rule of thumb is 0.8 per planet, times 10,000LS is a safe distance, inside of this distance the drives are damaged. Within 20,000LS the drive is ripped out of the ship altogether and possibly destroying the ship with it.

Session 2-5: Researching the Past

During the journey to the Cirrus cluster, the PC's can help with the examination of the artifacts from the colony on Parnell. None of the objects are usable, but they will help the PC's in gaining experience with higher tech. Depending on how many artifacts where gathered and if any were destroyed during the mutiny, the PC's can advance their tech level and possibly manufacture items. The old empire had a tech level of TL-10, for each 1000 artifacts that they collect (100 if from college), a whole tech level can be gained by the researchers. This is calculated for each type of science, tech, skill, or piece of equipment, according to the research time and difficulty outlined in the rules (Book Vol 1, page 48).
For each of the sciences, or objects studied the rebel society does not automatically gain tech levels, what must be done is outlined as follows; The researchers will gain understanding of the tech and then need to work with engineers to design a process to duplicate an artifact. If all the researchers survived there will be three for each branch of science, the problem will be engineers, the only one on board is the Chief Engineer and his field is starship engineering. If none of the PC's have engineering skills their first order of business will be forming a college of sorts and recruiting personnel to train. One percent of the crew will volunteer and now the PC's will have the desire to have had a bloodless mutiny...
To determine the volunteer's aptitude, (roll d6) and use the following table, to see how long it will take to train them;

The Chief Engineer can take charge of the group and their training in the skills of engineer, but the scientists will be need to teach the prerequisites. As the PC's will see, it will take quite awhile to train personnel, before they can utilize the knowledge they gain from the artifacts. If the PC's suggest that a college be formed to train the entire crew, they will be that much ahead when they start recruiting. Otherwise, when they think of it, it will take the scientists twice the necessary time of training, to write books and organize curriculum for the college.
If a PC has engineering skills, it will be possible for them to reverse engineer an artifact, which is the same time requirement as for researching. The manufacturing facilities will be discovered in the next session, but whether the PC's have time to be making new toys will be the question. An Engineer PC though can make determinations on what is to be manufactured though and which facilities need to be manned first. Otherwise it will be years before manufacturing begins in earnest and it will be to make items for colonists, not for what will be needed by the rebellion.
Do not just give this information to the PC's though, if they don't think about it, let them learn the hard way. Like when they go to inspect the army and they are dressed in civilian clothes and are empty handed. When they try to dispatch a fleet of ships and the only available ones are private yachts. When they want to build a base and no construction engineers can be found. They already know that the GC keeps the population in archaic tech, to prevent uprisings, so one of their first orders of business should be to correct this situation. They should also think about a "Wandering Mentor" NPC, who can take this tech to worlds and begin raising tech levels of the population as a whole. If they don't think of any of these things, when it comes time to seriously cry "rebellion", they will be fighting Tech 8 (GC), with Tech 5 and the outcome should be pretty obvious...

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