Session 5-1: Time Flies

Two weeks of intense training have passed and it's time for the first trial run of the Xenophone. And while the PC's and crew may understand what they are looking at on the consoles, they are far from understanding how it works, or how to fix something if it breaks. Their training is still on going, just not as intense and many will find that there are gaps in the knowledge that they have already acquired. As a general rule of thumb, each character, will require one week of training, per rank to flush out what they already know, with what they need to learn. Once they have achieved this, they can start advancing their skill levels. The training facilities of the cruiser can allow one to progress their skill levels, but at a reduced rate that it would normally take, as they are currently occupied with daily duties. Advancement can be acquired two hours a day, which counts as four hours normally, while cruising, but not during a day when they are occupied with an away mission, or at a state of general quarters.
For example, it normally requires twelve weeks of training to raise a skill level in EVA, it will take twenty-four by using the training facilities. If the ship is not underway, the training time can be increase to four hours in the neural interface, which is the equivalent of eight, or a full day. An additional four hours can be spent studying using normal methods, but only in an every other week stretch. Any more than this and the strain is too much and the stress will toll on the character. So, in a down time intensive training course, the characters can gain nine days of training in a single week (one day of complete rest is mandatory). Gaining experience during an away mission is added to this, as there is no replacement for "live fire exercises". 
The PC's shouldn't be allowed to hog the training facilities though, the crew needs to be brought up to speed as well, in a normal rotation each crew member gets one two hour session with the neural interface, per week. The PC's will need to gain skill levels first though, as they are considered as the "command staff", otherwise issuing an order will likely get a totally different result that what they were expecting. As it is, the entire crew is along for the ride and if an order is issued to do something fancy, it will not be interpreted, or executed as they wished. For right now, the cruiser is little more than a mode of transportation and the captain should remove themselves from the watch rotation and be spending all their time in training. One intensive week followed by a normal week, followed by sessions with the doctor and the rec room, will allow the captain to give orders to the AI at least, without getting them into too much trouble. Should anything go wrong though, the PC's will have little chance of correcting the situation.
Even so, at this rate, with the intensive schedule, it will still take about two years for the captain to understand just the shipboard systems and procedures. The PC's fastest way to increase their skill level would still be gaining experience the old fashion way, by earning it. So while the PC's may be excited by having a ship with this much technological advancement, it will be years before they can utilize it to it's full capabilities. They should learn this by trial and error though (mostly error) and there is a significant chance that any error, will be their last... Let them enjoy their new toy though, hopefully they won't break it before they actually learn how to play with it. <G>
Let it be noted, that while the AI can accomplish anything it wants to and may even advise a course of action and carry it out if the PC's want. They can not just give it commands, for it will just pass those commands to the crew, as it would be done normally. The crew however will not be able to execute those commands and the AI is not very discriminating on how it carries out commands given to it. Telling it to, "Transport us to the surface!", may find the characters on the surface of the ship, or some other inconvenient location. Here it is very important to play on the player's words, this should guarantee that no mission will be uneventful...

Session 5-2: Trial Run

Here then the PC's arrive at their first problem, (Where is Minbus), while the cruiser has star maps for several thousand sectors, it does not have locations of colonies, or outposts. The star charts from the Lyris will be no help either, it would not have data on classified locations, such as a penal colony and only covers where they went. If one of the PC's was a security officer aboard the Lyris, they may have heard of it, (roll against their intelligence (-4) to see if they remember the general location). Otherwise they will have to journey to the PC's home world and start asking questions. They are about to find out just how big GC space really is...

Star Ship Navigation
(plotting and getting lost...)

In GC service, a member usually has no idea where they are, where they've been, or how to get home, in this way GC prevents crew members from jumping ship and heading home on the next passing ship. It is given to the PC's though, to have a general idea where they are and where they are from, beyond this, they will have to figure the specifics on their own. In normal SO rules, the entire universe is plotted out and the exact distance between colonies is found out by asking a computer. In this campaign however, a major part of the game is mapping known space and plotting star charts. Here a PC with navigation skills, will use them and often... At first this might not appeal to the players, but by just giving them the star maps you might as well call the game Opera and drop the Space, and reduce traveling to being as easy as walking to the corner store.
PC's should not just be given the +/- of a star, as it is based on how GC plots known space. The PC's will learn the vertical distance between stars and it is up to them to figure out the 0:0 plane, by which GC has expanded, as explained in Appendix Two, which is one of the major keys to successfully winning the campaign. With the lack of star charts, the PC's will be required to map their own, traveling from places they have been before will not be much of a problem, it is when they plot a new course that they will get into trouble.
This is when they take a chance on getting "lost in space", getting lost several times in a row will mean they are "hopelessly lost" and will never reach their destination, no matter how hard they try. Their only recourse is to retrace their steps exactly, back to point A and start all over. If by some chance the nav-computer is damaged when they are lost, it may take years to find their way home.
(If one doubts this, they are advised to look up the "Edmund Fitsgerald", which was lost at sea, even with navigational computer and a GPS. If one can get lost on a 2 dimensional plane, how much easier will it be within space, which is 3-D)
To make things easier, the PC's do not have to define their own quads, just the +/- declination, otherwise everyone would get lost. But keep in mind though, that the coordinates given in Appendix Two, use the GC declination, which puts Cirrus at +44. Let the PC's keep track of this, by giving them the vertical distance between two points and by not mentioning the +/-, you will be able to add an element into the game that was previously missing, the chance to get lost... Ok, provide the PC's with the following coordinates;

1. Cirrus is in Quad F Sector 13:H / E:4 +0 (*)

2. Parnell is in Quad E Sector 12:M / F:6 +2

3. Ethos is in Quad C Sector 12:R / B:3 -50

4. Varran is in Quad C Sector 10:H / A:4 -23

The calculation to reach Varran is 20 sectors + 4LY +6LY +23LY = 233LY

When calculating TISA flight times, the general assumption has been used, of 3 light minutes per planetary orbit, +5 minutes, so a system with 8 planets will have 1740 LS (8 X 3 + 5 X 60) to the star, from when the ship drops out of FTL. If the destination is the 5th planet (5 of 8) then the TISA range is 840 LS (3 X 3 + 5 X 60)

There is no order to the quads after "D" and are presented in sequential order as the PC's enter a new one, not as GC would list it. Now, if the PC's want to follow these coordinates back to Varran, there is no chance of getting lost, if they want to take a direct route though... "Being lost" is determined after the PC's arrive at their destination, there are no course corrections at FTL. They can however, drop to TISA and verify their location once in a while. If the PC's think of this it is not a problem, letting them get lost 250LY off course will delay the game too much, you might even give them a hint like telling the navigator that something is bothering them. The only stipulation is the PC's need to travel at least a sector, before checking their position, recalculating before this might not show a big enough difference to be apparent. They can not get lost traveling a few LY's either, it's when they are traveling more than a few sectors they need to worry.
Once the ship arrives at their destination, (or drops to TISA) a roll against the navigator's skill level will determine whether they made it, or not. If they are lost, they can try to recalculate their position and jump again, but the next roll will have (-1) modifier, the next (-2), and so on (if the modifier nullifies the PC's skill level completely, they are "hopelessly lost"). The only way to prevent getting even more lost is to retrace their flight path and try again, but once they are hopelessly lost, not even this is an option. If the PC who is navigating only has a skill level of (1) to begin with, they will be in big trouble, real quick. If the PC's drop to TISA to check their whereabouts and it is determined that they are lost, have the PC roll against their intelligence to see if they catch their mistake, or just think everything is ok. And checking multiple times will not make any difference, they will still think they were right, before, and calculate from the last point.
If the PC's are following another ship, say a minor merchant, getting lost will not be such a big deal, by scanning space they can locate the ship and jump again. As a rule, they may be off course 1 LY, for every sector they travel. The problem with being lost is that second jump, they will be able to continue to the system they were trying for, carry out their mission, but getting back, they will have to retrace their flight path. If they just attempt to recalculate the jump back it will still have a (-2) modifier, if they try to jump to a new location though, it is at a (-3). If the PC's are following a ship traveling more than three sectors, the scanners will not be able to locate the ship they were following and they will have to return to their starting point and catch the next one.
Using the above flight path to Varran, at the end of the journey, the PC's can be off as much as 23LY, in any direction. This does not mean that the PC's can run into a star, there is very little chance of that, the scanners would pick it up and drop the ship out of FTL, if you want to add this element though, the navigation PC would roll before the journey and a (d100) would determine the percentage of the distance they traveled before dropping to TISA. If for some reason the PC's lose their navigational computer and the star maps, this will be a factor, as they will have to plot spatial anomalies, as it is, the nav-computer will automatically compensate for this and it is out of the PC's hands. If this happens, use random rolls to determine when the PC's need to stop and make a course correction, to provide this accurately you would need maps of several thousand sectors and it is just not going to happen!

The PC's and most of the Lyris crew, are all from the same region of space and here is where the PC with navigation skill comes in handy. They will know that departing merchant ships must gain clearance to break orbit and part of this is giving their destination. The PC will suggest then, that all they have to do is eavesdrop on the communication channels and then follow a ship going to their desired location. This will be considerably harder with finding Minbus, as the military uses encrypted messages, but a PC with skills in communications and computers has a chance of breaking a "regional" code. If the PC's do this, they will be able to plot the various regions of GC space, which will help immensely in the second part of the game where they will be required to dispatch fleets along a border they intend to hold.

*** Important ***

When a starship jumps to FTL, or drops from FTL to TISA, there is a "jump flash", which can be picked up by sensors. GC sensors have a range of 1LY, if the PC's drop out of warp within sensor range of a GC ship, they will be asked to identify themselves and ships will move to intercept. If the PC's are following a ship it is fairly easy to time their jump to coincide with that of the other ship, so that it will not be picked up, but if they are not following another ship and drop out of FTL into a system, they will be detected. If they do this enough times someone will begin to suspect a cloaked ship and GC sensors will begin to get upgrades.
It is hard to detect a cloaked ship though even if you know it's there, the two ships have to be within 1LS, the sensors can pick up the ion gases from the plasma. When a ship drops from FTL, or jumps to FTL, the flash pattern can be calculated to determine where a ship came from, or where it is going. Once the GC suspects a cloaked ship is present within their space they will begin dropping sensor buoys near shipping lane jump points, that will be able to determine the Xenophones course correction after dropping from FTL and relay that information to a nearby patrol. Their ability to detect a cloak ship will double in range each year, until eventually the cloak is nullified.
If the PC's are not careful, their one major advantage will be useless and it won't be long before they are hunted down and destroyed. They won't be able to get near a prime, or major colony, as most have ships in orbit, and even though the ships will be firing manually and basically shooting in the dark, their odds will be dropping. If the PC's do not take this into consideration, by the time the game starts Part Two, the GC will be actively hunting them.

Session 5-3: Break out

The PC's will be able to guess that Minbus is somewhere close to Varran, as is the PC's home worlds (they have all heard of the world where the governor lives), and will need to start from there. From the starbase orbiting Cirrus the journey is 233LY or 9.3 days at uncloaked FTL cruise of 25LY a day, it is 15.5 days if they are cloaked. Once they reach Varran, they can decide to visit the PC's planet, or try to find Minbus right off the start. Finding the PC's planets will be a little easier than finding Minbus though. Each of the PC's will know the name of their home world and the sector, but only the navigator will know the exact location of their own and will not know the other PC's off the "top of his head".
To plot the space lanes that are used by merchants within the prime sector, it takes one hour per route. Then a jump is made to a prime world in the next sector, by following another ship and it takes four hours to plot the space lanes to the outlying systems. The same is true for all the outlying sectors and the systems they are associated with. Space lanes are all tied to these prime worlds and some, not all, are tied to each other. In the instance where one wants to jump to an unknown world, say in an outlying sector. The destination is first determined by a ship requesting clearance, when it jumps, it's heading is calculated and then time passes until another ship is heading towards the same system, then that ship is followed, once there, the jump is calculated and the PC's no longer have to follow other ships to reach it.
Once the home world is located, the PC can contact the remaining relatives (d100 /2) and start asking them for information. The PC should roll against empathy to see if they ask the relatives to come with him and whether they agree, or not, is based on the PC's Leadership. With those that do not, the PC needs to roll against their Leadership again, to see if the relative will "sell them out", for each one that talks to the authorities, roll (1 on a d6) to see if a security team is waiting for them. The team will be at the next relative's house that the PC visits and a roll against their intelligence will determine whether they notice something is wrong. This will also apply to recruiting (d10) of the PC's closest friends and families. Some relatives will think that the PC's parents were taken to Terros (another penal colony) but they are guessing.
If the PC's do not go in disguise and utilize low tech weapons they will find that they have over-played their hand. Wearing their uniforms and sporting high tech weapons is the easiest way to get GC to notice that something serious is going on. If this happens, the PC's will all find that their friends and relatives (and those of the crewmembers they left behind) have been taken for interrogation somewhere and that they will have caused undue misery upon a lot of people (several thousand). If this happens the entire Lyris crew will have a bounty upon their heads and every region of space they visit will have a special security team hunting them down.
The only way to prevent something like this from happening, is if the PC's abduct their immediate relatives (d10) and then find out from them who would be sympathetic and who would not. The PC's friends will all join the rebellion, no questions asked, their families are another matter. The PC's will still put some of their relatives in jeopardy, at a future date, but a brief note later, may save their lives. If the PC's are careless, they will learn that one, or more PC's have gotten their family in serious trouble and this will effect the relationship between the PC's. This should not be allowed to be played down either, someone getting another's parent's executed would be grounds for a duel to the death in any culture...
If the PC's are cautious though and play their cards right, they should be able to save all their families and come back for the extended ones later. If they do not, the game will not likely last much longer as the PC's will have killed each other. At the least GC will begin upgrading their technology and soon have the means to locate the PC's and deal with them. PC's who play the careless mercenary, "guns ablaz'n" type, will find that is a short game, if this is true, the PC's may all want to start out as orphans and just live the lives of an average terrorist.

Gaining knowledge from the PC's relatives will be fruitless, while they all may know that the PC's parents were taken away and a few know that it was probably to Minbus, none will know where it is. It will be left to gather information another way, the quickest way, would be to hi-jack, or steal aboard a military star ship and down load the star charts, this may be a problem as the AI will not allow them to fire upon another ship of humans. Trying this with a merchant ship would be useless, they are restricted from even leaving normal shipping lanes. The PC's may try to get aboard the starbase and download the star charts directly from the computers, but there are numerous hazards to this, (explained in session 8) They can try to board a ship that is docked, or try the safe approach and use a little deductive reasoning...
If the PC's rely upon stolen charts and they try to flee from an encounter, they will quickly be chased and possibly caught. Where as if they are relying upon their own charts, the pursuing ship(s) will first need to plot the PC's course and likely destination and then follow. In this instance the PC's should easily be able to escape, even if the pursuing ship is faster. Traveling along normal shipping lanes the possibility of tripping a sensor beacon exists and patrols through the area will be increased, as well as security teams being alerted to look for strangers, or unregistered ships.
The PC's can watch military transports and merchant ships and plot their courses by following them, any traveling within the sector could lead them right to the planet, monitoring communication channels will make it all the easier. In the sector where Varran is located, there are 33 stars (see appendix 2), 9 can easily be determined as unlikely to support life, having Anomalous stars, this leaves 24 possible locations, only 8 are fairly close to the starbase. And out of the remaining 16, only 7 will have starships heading for them within a two week period. By just watching military ships, only two will have weekly scheduled transports (Minbus is one of these). This gives the PC's the least chance of being caught, or detected, any other method is likely to alert security forces, and cameras will give the PC's identities away.

Minbus is located on the second planet (of 6) at (B:1 -29) ( -73 based on the PC's charts) 53LY's away from Varran, 2-3.5 days away depending if they are cloaked, once they drop to sub-light, it is 5100 LS, or eight an a half hours longer before they achieve orbit. If they are following a military transport, it will remain in orbit and send shuttles back and forth for about 14 hours and then leave, to return in six days. If the PC's obtained star charts somehow they will not know the ships schedule, the chance of one arriving while they are here is (1d6, checked daily, but the sixth day for sure). 

The mission has several parameters that the PC's may, or may not discover

1. A supply/cargo vessel arrives every six days to bring new prisoners and take on cargo, it has a complement of 30 marines.

2. 35 security officers man the outpost and interact with approaching ships. The base is heavily armed with 2 Calliopes to prevent anyone from breaking the prisoners out, 5 SO's are on duty in the mine at any one time.

3. 42 guards oversee the inmates and are lightly armed. They will not put up much of a fight though and there is a 50% chance that they will individually surrender, adding a 5% chance per that they will sway their comrades nearby.

4. The supply ship will more than likely bombard the planet if an insurrection is determined, killing most of the PC's crew and some of the inmates as well. It will leave and return with military ships...

5. The 35 officers will fight to the last man, knowing what the prisoners will do to them.

6. 349 inmates are present and if the PC's do not take all of the prisoners at one time, some will escape and add to the rumor mill.

7. At least 40 prisoners will want to return home, if they are allowed to, there is at least a 1% chance that GC will learn of the existence of a rebel faction operating in the area.

8. The guards are big inmates with clubs, 20 are actually violent and if the records are not downloaded they will prey upon the rebels and begin recruiting for themselves, the rest can be recruited as Armsmen at skill level 1. In return for convincing other prisoners to work, they are better fed, healthier, and don't have to work themselves. Not all want to be guards, but it is a better life and they accept the roll.

9. A 100 inmates will want to actively join the rebellion, 1 is a mole, the rest of the inmates will want to be relocated to a colony. (Cirrus-6 would be the best choice)

10. If the GC prisoners are not relocated to a GE penal colony, one or more will escape and all will give the GE grief. Several will volunteer to become rebels, but all are loyal to GC...

11. A telepath is the only way to determine the trustworthiness of the new recruits...

The outpost lies at the base, on the south side of a mountain, a scan of the surface will reveal the fission plant. This will take (d10) hours if they haven't followed a transport here, if they did, they need only to track the shuttle. If the PC's stay in orbit and monitor the actions of the military transport, (if they have the capability) will be able to intercept radio transmissions and learn that 20 new prisoners are being dropped off and that 15 tons of ore are ready to be transferred. If the PC's do not recon the outpost first, from the surface, they will not notice the big guns in the tower and are likely to get a lot of casualties right off. If they attack during the day, twenty-five guards will be roaming around, if at night, only two are on duty, one in the watch tower and one at the radio, in the office, the rest will be asleep in the barracks.
If the PC's decide to attack both the outpost and the transport, something will go wrong, as they are not very experienced rebels... If they concentrate on the ship first, everything will turn out all right, though they will lose a few inmates taking over the outpost, as they will be notified. They should be able to overtake the ships crew without too much trouble, or damage and have a way to transport the prisoners, providing the weapons are set on stun. If they go in with weapons blazing they will more than likely disable the ship and end up creating problems for themselves. If the PC's leave the outpost to their marines, the security force should be able to overwhelm them and there will be a decreased number of inmates to rescue.
If the mission is blown, the security officers will begin executing prisoners, in attempt to drive off the rebels at a rate of one every two minutes, sending them into the open before shooting them. If the rescue attempt lasts longer than ten hours, there will be no one to rescue... Several messages will be sent out also, though reinforcements will not arrive for two days, but in any event, security in all the region will be doubled. The security officers in the outpost and the guards will also show an increase in moral, so that they will all fight to the last man, with some escaping to give a report to the reinforcements when they arrive.
If the PC's just attack the outpost, waiting for the ship to leave, they should be able to completely over run the outpost and not lose any of the prisoners, with the exception of the new inmates, (one every two minutes...) If their first act is not the destruction of the comm tower, a message will get out that they are under attack. The cargo vessel will return if it hasn't made the jump into FTL... If the communication lines are not cut to the mine, the guards and security officers there will be ready for them and put up more of a fight. Using infrared sensors on the cruiser, (if they think to see if it can scan interiors) the PC's will be able to determine where the new inmates are kept (mine entrance) and be more likely to save them before the security force starts using them as shields.
If the dead security team bodies are not taken into the mine and then the tunnels are collapsed, the pathology report will show that a new weapon was used. GC will begin arming their teams with stronger weapons and work on developing shields for their outposts... If the mine is not destroyed, along with the outpost, it will be back in use within a week, with double the security force and a military shuttle, to provide support and a spy satellite.

Mission Notes:

1. No one will have had time to train on operating the transporter, it works on giving the coordinates based on the center point of an object. Testing this the PC's will find that objects are embedded into other objects. They can be evacuated by the AI, but will not be able to transport off the ship and will therefore have to land to execute the missions.

2. The GC does not have the capability to detect the cruiser, cloaked, or not, but if the PC's want to run around cloaked, let them burn the fuel...

3. If the PC's use high tech weapons, they may leave tell tale signs.

4. Ordering the AI to fire upon another ship will get the captain relieved of their command. PC's and NPC's trying to fire the guns will not know how to work the neural interface and will miss.

5. A haphazard mission will get inmates killed, possibly even the PC's parents (1% each).

6. Leaving anyone behind, or leaving the outpost intact (cameras), will get the PC's faces on wanted posters.

7. Wanted PC's family's will be taken 1 family per week, after a month passes, while the security forces assess the situation. Utilization of the chronological chart in appendix 1 will be important.

8. The AI will talk with it's guests and gain more information... A family member, or friend may comment on this (1d6 chance per day)

9. The cruiser does not have a brig...

10. Orders to just kill the guards will be frowned upon by the AI

11. If the PC's decide to strand their own prisoners in the sector, they would be found in (d100) days. If the planet is outside the sector, it will be (d10) years, as the GC re-surveys space every ten years.

This penal colony is typical of others in GC space and while the PC's will not be liberating all the penal colonies themselves, they will need to establish the mission parameters, or how break outs are to be executed by their teams. Failure on their part in this mission will require that they try it again and again, until they get it right and can pass on their techniques. Session eight deals with this issue thoroughly, where the PC's will begin forming "Special Forces" units to take over this type of mission. And this is the case, with the whole campaign, the PC's will be basically performing the first mission type and then turning it over to a specialized team, who will then execute the mission over and over. 
To give the PC's a hint of this, let them talk with a guard, prisoner, or security officer, who was also at the penal colony of Teros. There are several hundred outposts on the planet and tens of thousands of prisoners and this is the same with each of the primary sectors in each of the quadrants. Let the PC's report their actions to the council and have someone point out that this means 10k's of recruits. One of the PC's primary goals, though they may not know it yet, is recruiting populations. It is unrealistic to expect the PC's to have an impact on an empire of billions, by raiding here and there with a few hundred, no matter how powerful they are. Even if they succeeded with every mission, old age would catch up to them and things would once again return to the way they were.

 Session 5-4: A Family Affair

The other PC's are now faced with the dilemma of rescuing their own parents, but they also have to contend with the needs of the freed inmates and any prisoners they have on board, and the guards that should be separated from the inmates, or there will be trouble. If no fatal errors were made, they can take the ship back to the Cirrus starbase and unload (to avoid getting lost, they will need to detour to Varran first). When word gets around though, everyone will want to rescue their parents too and 1300 families will not fit aboard the cruiser in one trip. The Xenophone crew members will already be voicing their concerns and for the next few months the PC's will be busy. If the PC's made any serious mistakes it won't take them long to find out that most of their families are gone on an extended vacation. It is doubtful whether the PC's could find, or rescue their families, once they've been taken. If they were careful though, they should be able to save at least the immediate families (in six or seven trips). If they decide to rescue entire family trees, it would take about 185 trips total to get everyone, as there are over 30,000 people to consider.
The PC's will quickly feel overworked, but once they get the immediate families, they can go on to the next session and plan on getting the extended families later, after a better plan has been worked out. When rescuing the PC's families, they will want to bring their friends too, of course and they could be treated as new crewmembers at skill level one. Use the concerns listed above, to determine if anything goes wrong, but with the case of the friends, (and their families), there will not be any widespread repercussions. Unless the PC's made some serious mistakes on their first mission, this region of space will remain quiet for some time. It will be a full year before the first ripple from the Lyris mutiny starts in this quad, even if the general got away. If he didn't escape it will remain quiet for quite some time.
It should be noted, that it is important to keep track of the number of refugees and new crew members, as this will make a difference in calculating population growth, which is a concern, as soon as the population on the Cirrus starbase reaches 10,000. In Appendix One there is a chart and details on how to track the population of the rebellion. This will be more of a concern during the next session though, as the population should be nearing a crucial point by then.


Time then is of the utmost importance, if the PC's interest wanders on these missions, or they decide they want to explore and reek havoc on their own. Then they will find that years have passed, the Cirrus starbase is under GC control and they will find themselves traveling from one system to the next, not to look for adventure, but because a fleet is behind them, that is capable of taking them out. It is important with each mission, that the PC's get it right the first time, the losses they suffer are the "expected casualties" for the teams that they train to follow in their footsteps. Failures upon their part will add up quickly later when they review a hundred teams and find out that they have a mounting death toll. In this case, the PC's will have to attack several more outposts and rethink their strategy.

Mission Notes:

1. The PC's might decide to use one of the outer planets as a staging area, so they can get all the families out and then transfer them later. Each of the planets in the prime sector, is routinely patrolled however, every (d10) days, the outer sectors are patrolled every 100 days. The PC's will also need to provide supplies, which will take 10 minutes to replicate, per person and 30u of fuel. Patrols will notice campfires and deport the new prisoners to the nearest penal colony. The problem with this, is that several families may want to stay on the planet and will be difficult to talk out of trying to colonize.

2. Just to get the friends and families of the PC's should take about two weeks and they will have about 100 new recruits. Go ahead and play out each of these, but when the PC's start abducting the families of the crew, simplify the mission; (as outlined in Session 6:2 / mission notes).

3. If the PC's are just concerned with themselves and none of the rest of the crew, it will affect their moral. The will also find out shortly that they will need to retrace their steps and get the crew's families also. This will add time to the overall mission as they will possibly be visiting the same planet 3 times.

4. If the PC's decide to get their friends and their friends families, they will be cutting into the time of the overall mission and not have room for the crewmembers families, this too will drop the crew's moral.

Session 5-5: Ships Systems

Depending on how often experience is awarded and applied, the PC's should be gaining skill with the systems and operations of the cruiser. They will want to have figured out how to use the transporters, will need to be able to use the replicators, and the medical facilities. Things like launching fighters, or even the shuttles though will require that the captain have a skill level of 10 in Shipboard Procedure and Operation. This is before the pilots can begin training with them. Learning how to launch and retrieve shuttles will make their current missions go faster, as they can send them out on their own, to rendezvous with the transport in session 6. The shuttles have two transporters each, but it is unlikely that the NPC's will know how to use them yet, if it is left to them. As one of the primary rules of RPG's, is don't let the party get split up, if the PC's decide to pilot the shuttles, as well as the cruiser, it will be necessary to rescue them. Playing out how they get caught is not necessary, just let the main party know that (PC name) is overdue and they should go investigate. The shuttle will be easy to find, but the PC(s) will have to be broken out of jail. If NPC's are allowed to use the shuttles, let everything go smoothly, as they will not be as bold and reckless as PC's and not get themselves into trouble.
If the captain PC has not gotten themselves relieved of command, then they will be learning some of the more interesting systems, like the temporal, trans-warp, and dimensional drives, scanning capabilities, the fact that they probably have the most powerful computer in GC space, the virtual labs, robotic lab, but especially how to build more cruisers. Once a captain PC acquires skill level 10, give them a copy of Appendix Three, which describes the cruiser in more detail. This will not mean that they are capable of using any of these systems, just that they know about them. This will give the PC's a better idea of how they should be orientating their training and what it will take to bring the crew up to speed. They should be reminded that the ship has a TL-12, incorporated into all of it's systems to some degree, if they attempt to start trying out the systems, before gaining the necessary skills, they will suffer a modifier of (-4). In this case they can get themselves really lost, like not even in the same universe.
The AI will prevent them from getting themselves in trouble, by denying them access to equipment that they can't fix, if they break it. So that the training of the ships crew becomes just as important and will prevent the PC's from maxing out their skill levels and hogging the training facilities. It is understandable that the PC's will be dying to try some of the ship's more complex equipment and if they are insistent, ask them to create a second character, if they ask why, tell them that it will add some realism, as the chance of them exploring their mortality has just became a mission...

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