Traveller - TNE (Inactive)

Game Master Daniel Stewart

Background::
The stories told by your parents of the wonders of the Third Imperium contrast to the reality of the old military base you have lived on all your lives. A leftover relic of a past age, it was once a waypoint for the IISS (Imperial Interstellar Scout Service) and a training and equipment depot for the Imperial Navy, Marines and Army. A small commercial repair depot was even installed during the period your parents called the “Hard Times”. It is said that a secret Imperial Laboratory also resides somewhere on the small moon, but no one seems to want to talk about it.

The year is 36TNE (The New Era), or 1196 by the old Imperial Calendar. Your group is made up of the sons and daughters of the staff and officers that manned the IISS Depot Thoth on the 3rd moon circling the Gas Giant Pyt-4. The system use to be home to a lush, technologically advanced planet of millions, Pyt-2, but not since the “incident” has anyone heard from them.

The “incident” as it has been called for the last 30 or so years, seems to have been empire-wide. Some sort of breakdown in technology turned the once helpful tech of the empire against its users. Before FTL communication ended, stories leaked through about computers turning off space station environmental controls, or warships firing on each other against the commands of the human passengers. It seemed the technological triumphs of the Third Imperium turned on their users…with deadly results.

Your family has lived on Pyt-4iii (Thoth) for all your life. Your parents use to belong to that great interstellar empire that you have read so much about, but no longer. Whatever they did in the “old” days is now moot…survival is all that matters. Pooling their skills, and with a huge amount of supplies located in the depot’s warehouses, the staff and officers of Moon Base Thoth were able to live and, to a very small extent, thrive. Society continued and people were taught what they needed to know to help live on the isolated and barren moon. Hydroponic farms were developed, environmental systems were maintained to supply the life giving air and water needed for the colony to survive.

As the years march on, the technology that keeps the moon base running has begun to breakdown. At first, with all the supplies in the depot’s storage areas, repairs were routine, but now as common items become more and more scares, certain functions within the base have ceased to be. Two ship’s boats sit in a hanger, parts cannibalized to keep systems within the base running. Other ships were taken in the early days of “The Incident”, never to be seen again.
Recently the heating exchanges that are used to moderate the temperature within the base have started to breakdown. Without replacements, the base will begin to cycle between periods of searing heat and icy coldness. The plant manager gives the current repairs only a few months before they too breakdown. You have been called into the office of the Base Commandant.


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Jasmine looks around as she enters the airlock. "Anyone pack an atmosphere scanner, or do we play rock-paper-scissors to see who breaks the seal on their vacc suit first?"


For now, just stay suited.


As Emilyene cycles the inner door to the airlock open Cole draws his snub gun. He enters the base, "I'll take point."

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

The inner door slowly opens with a hiss of air barely audible through your suit's helmet. The space beyond is dark...your headlamps pierce the gloom out to about 10 feet or so. A long hallway greets you disappearing into the darkness. On the left wall, what looks like windows with their security shutters up line the wall.


With Cole in the lead, Marcus moves to the rear, his rifle's light illuminating the group. "Look for admin, or a map. We need to figure out where the supplies are located."


How about the security office that's right here.


Cole, activates his light intensifier goggles and peers down the hall trying to get a better picture of the hall. "Will do," he responds to Marcus's direction as he makes his way forward.

He turns and asks, "Emilyene can you figure a way to open those security shutters?"


I'm not sure that "security shutters" equals "security office." I assumed those "security shutters" were protecting the base's outer windows. Herr Referee?

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

You are correct. You can tell by the layout that they are probably looking into the vehicle airlock. There is a small terminal near the door to the airlock, but it is dead.

The group looks down the long hallway, and the hallway seems to go on for a very long time, before it finally turns to the left. No other signs of life can be detected on your walk, and the couple of terminals you pass are also dead.

When you reach the turn in the hall, you can see in the distance what looks like a blinking red light...but due to the distance it is hard to make out.


"Anyone else worried that the only power around here is going to a blinking red light?" Jasmine asks as she cautiously makes her way down the hall.


"Emilyene," says Marcus. "Can you get a read on that with your scanner?"


It's a red light, that's blinking. Probably a warning of undocumented intruders that snuck in through the airlock.

Emilyene hadn't taken more than a couple of steps before checking the readings on the electromagnetic probe that seemed to be glued to her hand. Every panel had read dead since they entered. That or her equipment was bust again.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Emilyene:
The device detects a very low level of electromagnetic energy all around you, that you read as the artificial gravity system of this base, as well as maybe minimal life support. The terminal before you has slightly more power going to it, but far less than a regular terminal back in moonbase Thoth.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Ok, so what are you doing?


Marcus just walks over and takes a look.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

The blinking light shows that the vehicle airlock is vacuum and the doors are sealed. Directly across from the big vehicle airlock doors are another set of large doors. These are simple interior doors, but they are closed and locked, but are basic enough that some brute force or a simple bypass should open them.

Athletics or Electronics (8+) would be enough to get these bay doors open.


Do we want to see about bringing the grav sled in or leave it out there?


" Let's leave the grav sled where it is for now," Ephraim suggests as he moves over to the interior doors. He removes a few tools from his kit and begins working on bypassing the interior doors. After he fiddles around with the control panel he announces, "That should do it."

Electronics: 2d6 + 1 ⇒ (6, 2) + 1 = 9

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

The door clicks as the lock disengages, and opens slightly, but that is all. Grabbing the sides of the door you are able to pull it open enough to get into the space beyond...and what a space!

The area beyond the door is enormous. A single, giant room filled with shelves, counters and bins. Material of all shapes, sizes and makes can be seen dimly in the near dark of the warehouse. Beside the door is another terminal, dead. A free-standing office seems to be located at the edge of the many shelves and a dim light can be seen coming from what looks like a terminal monitor.


"Well," says Marcus, "This looks like what we came for. Everyone stay together for now and let's head for the office. There should be an inventory there."

He leads the team in that direction.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

When you arrive, the office is setup with 4 terminal station, of which only one seems active. With such low power, the display is very sluggish and difficult to read. With effort you can tell that you will need to get more power if this is to be of any use to you.

Roll 10+ on mechanic or electronics to try and get more power to the terminal. Roll 8+ to electronics to gain access to the computer software

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Ok, as it seems that we have lost a few players, I am introducing a new player. He will have been with you, in the background, all this time. I hope I still have a few players around!!


Heading to the office with the others, Jasmine looks at the terminals and sighs. "Let's be careful powering this up. Hate to melt the memory matrix before we can get at the data."


Emilyene slides her backpack off and places it on the desk. She rotates it around and pulls a couple of zippers letting the pack unfold to display an array of tools. She pulls her hand comp out of its pouch and places it on the terminal, a few cords are plugged into the terminal from her hand comp, a small power pack in her pack, and a couple of other diagnostic devices, one of which looks like a remote control that has a few extra pieces, including a small screen cobbled onto it.

In a short period she is able to get the terminal to accept an auxillary power unit and she is able to start scrolling through the directory on the main screen.

Logs or inventory?

electronics (comp)+2 Edu +2: 2d6 + 4 ⇒ (5, 5) + 4 = 14
electronics (comp)+2 Edu +2: 2d6 + 4 ⇒ (4, 3) + 4 = 11


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

Flint shuffled his feet at the back of the group. Furtively switching his gaze from keeping an eye out for anything approaching from the direction they came from and keeping tabs of Ephraim.
Still don't trust that one but Marcus seems to value his opinion. Not my place to question orders.
He thinks to himself as he tries to stay alert and un-distracted by Emilyene's work at her hand comp.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Emilyene slowly powers the system up and runs a diagnostic to ensure it is functioning properly. Once complete she is able to call up the supply interface and a holographic map of the warehouse appears over the terminal. As she enters the needed equipment into the system, a red dot appears on the map, showing the location of the requested item.

As she continues to add items to the list, the image begins to dim as the power stored in the terminal is depleted.


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

Flint's attention was grabbed by the dimming of the terminal.
Lost power already? Any chance we can power this thing from the grav sled. If we brought it through the bay doors? I am not very good at this sort of thing so I might have it all wrong.
Flint realizes that the rest of the group probably doesn't need his stupid input and quickly closes his mouth again and returns to keeping an eye out for any trouble.
INT+Recon: 2d6 + 0 + 2 ⇒ (4, 2) + 0 + 2 = 8


Cole scratches his beard. As he contemplates the situation. After a while he answers Flint, "Not sure if that will work. Might be best if we try to restore power to the whole base." He looks at the others and asks, " Any ideas?"


"We could find the base reactor," Jasmine says with a shrug. "It would have been nice if the Commandant had given us a map of this base before we left. Oh, well. Guess we'll just have to look for it the low tech way."

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

While watching the dimming screen, a warning pops up.

WARNING - EMERGENCY POWER 2%......REACTORS OFF LINE....CONTACT PLANT MANAGEMENT....

A map of the facilities pops up and a line of dots shows your position and the location of the Environmental and Power Plants. It seems that they are in the next dome over....


"Emilyene, if we can get you to the reactors, do you think you can power them up?" asks Marcus.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Just bumping the post....


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

Flint looked down at his feet when Ephraim disparaged his idea. He knew he wasn't as smart as the others he should have just kept his mouth shut. Flint heard Marcus question the red headed engineer about her abilities and was stirred to speak again.
Marcus how can she know if she power them up until she sees them? We have no idea what we are working with here. I think our course is clear we need to get to the reactors and see what can be done once there.
Flint takes a few steps in the direction of the next dome before stopping and turning around to add.
If you think that's alright Marcus, I mean.


Emilyene had been busy trying to copy the data to her hand comp, prioritizing a base map, the inventory location list, system fault logs, and finally admin/personnel logs. In that order.

What? Oh, yes. We should look at the power plant. She sighs as the last light stops blinking on the terminal.

She unplugs her gear and stows it back into her pack. It's really amazing that we've even managed this much. For this system to still have any power after 30 years...

She swings her pack around and up onto her shoulders before pulling out her hand comp to see if she was able to get a route to the power plant downloaded.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

This was a dummy terminal with access only to the most basic base systems and supply...to gain anything else from the system you would need to have cracked the encryption. You also know that this system was a standalone with no connection to the moonbase proper...however you did notice an uplink to Pyt Prime, but it was disabled.

As the terminal powers down, the room is cast into darkness. Your headlamps click on and the place once again takes on the eerie feeling of a long abandoned ruin.


"Looks like we do this the hard way and search room by room," Cole offers. A second later he adds, "It's safer if we stick together but we can cover more ground if we split up.I don't expect any trouble but....

He looks to Flint and Marcus as he asks, "What do our security experts think?"


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

I think it best to stick together until we know it is safe here.
Flint answers Ephraim. Besides we saw where the Environmental and Power Plants were located. They seemed to be in the next dome over, I vote we all make our way there together.
Flint keeps a wary eye out for trouble as a shiver runs down his spine. The vast emptiness of this place makes him nervous. Too much space for something, anything to be hiding in.


Well, it does seem that the power plant and environmental plants are running to some degree. After 30 years this place should have been a vacuum from any number of causes. That there is any pressure is more likely due to something producing an atmosphere.

Emilyene nods to the door, Shall we?


"Yeah, let's get out of here. I'm not just hanging around waiting for more stuff to fail." Jasmine walks out the door and looks down the passage leading to the next dome.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Two pressure doors allows you access to the tunnel beyond. You ignore the larger cargo door and focus on the smaller, pedestrian access. With a little mechanical know-how and brute force, you are able to pry the doors open with a slight hiss of pressurized air.

The passage is a long and dark tube. Small alcoves are set haphazardly along the length of this connection tube. The spaces hold recharging stations for the number of small, electric carts you see abandoned all along this tunnel. You figure the tunnel length might be a little over a kilometer before you come to another set of pressure doors; a large one for oversized traffic, and a smaller one for pedestrians.


Does it look like a hasty departure? It seemed that it should have been fairly well organized from what we were told in the brief.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

All the vehicles look to have been parked off to one side, or left near one or the other exits from the tunnel. A little haphazard, as a few are left right in the middle of the tunnel.


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

Well that was a short jog. No can one of you bright ones get us inside. I seem to have lost my key. Flint smirks at his own joke.

Which way was the majority of the electric cars facing towards or away from the door we are now at?

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

About equal...the more erratic ones were towards the doors you are now at.


Interesting... Why would anyone have driven one of these carts this way if everyone had to leave that way?

Before Emilyene starts working on the next pedestrian door she'll peer through any viewport.

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

Sorry, no viewports here...

Using the same technique, the group is able to breech the door in short order.

The room that you enter defies description. It is like the holovids you have seen about tropical forests, but all inside a huge dome. Great trees soar to the roof of this dome, with a thick underbrush obscuring the majority of the ground. Your face-masks quickly bead with condensation, and the environmental controls on your Vacc Suits note an increase in temperature.

Within the thick foliage, you can see what looks like pipes and other man-made objects, but all are overgrown. The sounds of wind and water can be faintly heard through your helmets, but that seems to be all. The most notable thing, which with the surprise of all these plants you seem to have overlooked, is the light. The top quarter of the dome is transparent and the distant sun's rays shine down on this miniature jungle.


"Well there's something you don't see every day," says Marcus.

He checks his weapon and keeps it ready in both hands. "Everyone stay close. Flint, you take left guard, Ephraim, right. Whatever this is, it's not the supplies we came for. Does anyone see anything that looks like a data terminal?"

Marcus moves forward a few meters to get a better look at the foliage and objects underneath.


Ephraim takes his place on the right and adds as he try's to wipe the condensation from his mask, "or another exit."

Liberty's Edge

Male Historian/Curator

It takes a bit of searching, but the group finally finds a door that leads into another section of the dome. This one contains no plants, but does have a number of machines, most likely for regulation life-support, gravity and power for the base. Most of the terminals you find are dark, but one seems to be fully charged. It shows output for the room you were just in.

Atmosphere - 100%
Water/Sewage Reclamation - 100%
CO2 Recycling Systems - 100%
Air Cycling Systems - 10% (Circulation Fans Powered Down)
Solar Array - 85% (Power to Array Alignment System [AAS] Down)

WARNING - POWER LEVELS CRITICAL

3 large geothermal power plants, as well as one fusion and several back-up generators can also be found here. The big fusion generator is completely dead, while one of the geothermal generators seems to be in a power-down mode, while the other 2 are reading no activity.


Male Human STR: 9 (+1) DEX: 10 (+1) END: 7/9 (+0) INT: 7 (+0) EDU: 6 (+0) SOC: 7 (+0)

Flint moves to the left and takes up a guard position maintaining a professional level as the group moves through the dense jungle-like room into a room filled with so many machines it most be the mechanical room.

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