The Long Night Ends (A Traveller T20 Game) (Inactive)

Game Master mdt

This probe returns with an image of an absolutely packed binary system. A large M7 red dwarf is orbited by a smaller M1 companion star, and at least 4 different gas giants.

The fifth probe returns with picture of a M5 red dwarf, no obvious planets, but it's not a detailed survey.

The sixth probe comes back with another lonely M5 star, no apparent other planets.

The last probe returns with a picture of a bright hot M9 star with at least two companion gas giants.

LT Higs, on the night watch, sets course for MWP06, normal acceleration. He informs the rest of the fleet where they are going and requests they follow normal protocol for a warp point jump.

Refreshed from their short skiing vacation, Victoria felt like she was full of energy to explore the universe again. But she also felt a tinge of sadness as they left the eden world they discovered. It was ... serene. Untouched and unspoiled. And it could be ours! Nevertheless, they had a mission to complete.

When she woke up the next day, the planet was just a speckle of light among the many others she could see from her observation post. Towards noon, she had trouble finding it without having the computer applying a light enhancing filter. With a sigh she looked away, momentarily sad that she didn't have time to explore the planet better. But soon the frown was replaced with a grin as she fantasised on what secrets and treasures the future would hold!

The rest of the fleet stay and survey the skii world while we backtrack a little :)?

Aye Aye, Captain Higs signals the fleet to remain and scan while the McTavish continues on.

The McTavish back tracks to the system with the gas giant life forms, picking up sensor readings from the probes, and then transits to the small red dwarf star in MWP06.

Once an hour or two away from the Alpha type warp point (visible), the ship does a full system scan.

Stars : M9 Red Dwarf (Small hot red dwarf)
Slot 0 : Asteroid Belt
Slot 3 : Small rocky planet
Slot 6 : Large Gas Giant
Slot 7 : Asteroid Belt
Slot 8 : Icy planet
Slot 10 : Small Gas Giant
Slot 17 : Icy planet
Slot 18 : Icy planet
Slot 19 : Icy Planet
Potential Warp Points : 3

-----------------

Probes are launched, but the system seems fairly un-exciting.

After a week, the probes find that there is one other exit from the system.

To be continued

I'm going to start putting the MWP numbers in to make it easier on me to find these rolls later, please do not read

The probes reveal a very small, very dim, red dwarf (M1), in the next system out.

Holt looks over the reports from MWP06 and reports "There are a lot of planetary bodies in this system, but not much interesting to do with them. If the various planets and asteroids turn out to be mineral rich this could make a good location for a shipyard or stockpile, since there are lots of possible resources for fuel, water, and materials."

- - - - -

Looking over the next probe reports, Holt lets out a long sigh.

Probably just as uninteresting as the last one...

"Another dim red dwarf, but at least if there is not much on that one then it will be short recon..."

Well, at least I have plenty of time to work on my designs...

"Mmm. We better check it out. Whom knows, there might be something at the end of the road." At the suggestion of a shipyard she nods. "Might be something valuable in these rocks. Lets leave a probe or two to survey them. Fits our cover too!"

I want more space-sharks! she thought with a sigh. Sadly - or rather luckily, this job wasn't always in high gear and chaos. At least Vathan gets plenty of time to run his drills...

Higs calculates the appropriate course and sends it to the helm and off we go.

He tasks a probe to do a high speed fly by of some of the asteroids and the rocky planet to see if any high value minerals are easily mined there.

It takes a week or so to get up a decent system survey.

Materials: 1d10 ⇒ 2

It's a disappointing survey though. The asteroids are mostly silica and basalt based, nothing heavy or rare for the most part. The gas giants have enough hydrogen for refueling obviously, but given it's a dead end system... not much cause for it.

At most, the system is easily defended, but that's about it.

Which system next?

Vathan called Gunny to his office to review the results of the ship's weapons training and maintenance, as well as the obstacle course. Both had generated good morale in friendly competition and gambling. He expected the ship's weapons to be functioning within parameters, because he had confirmed his personal training on them. However, he wanted the inspection reports to validate for the captain.

As for the obstacle course, the competition for the best 3 person team was tight. He wanted to see how last night's sorties changed the rankings.

Sorry to put this in your court. I'm creatively congested more than normal at the moment.

Command Team :
Viktoria Ceres
Ophelia Holt
Fender Hig

Marine Team :
O'Cyrus Vathan
Hector Montoya
Jennifer Montinegro

Engineering :
James Shault
Lawrence Elince
Samus McMurry

Medical Team :
Shellie MacVole
Evence Riley
Mila Salvina

Crew Team :
Roger Olivant
Yvette Shalvote
Shin Li-Smythe

Overall Performance
Marine Team
Command Team
Crew Team
Engineering Team
Medical Team

Least Injuries (Simulated)
Command Team
Crew Team
Marine Team
Engineering Team
Medical Team

Least Injuries (Real)
Medical Team
Marine Team
Engineering Team
Command Team
Crew Team

Best Marksmanship
Marine Team
Command Team
Crew Team
Engineering Team
Medical Team

Best Time
Marine Team
Command Team
Crew Team
Engineering Team
Medical Team

Check out MWP17 I think : )

Nursing her stubbed toe, Viktoria was nevertheless pleased. The crew had put up a good show and - more importantly - her team had done pretty well. Petty thought. Begone! she exorcised it mentally, but couldn't (and didn't want to) do much about it. Eh, it might have been good for the crew morale to see their officers stumble about too! Unsurprisingly, the marines had been the best shooters. The discrepancy in the medical team between real and simulated injuries worried her a bit - either they didn't respect the simulation properly or they weren't ready to deal with the more serious stuff. Probably the former, they didn't really make a strong showing. I might have to deal with that...

To the rest of the commanding staff (ie Fig, Holt n Vathan and some more) she nodded in approval. "Well, except for a minor ranking hickup this went off really well! I'm a bit worried about the medical staffs showing - but they aren't expected to come under fire so I'm willing to cut them some slack. How was the crew response?"

You just finished checking out MWP17. It's a deadend star system with minimal resources.

One standout was Evence Riley. The Medical Team's scores would have been much worse without him on it. In Vathan's estimation, the woman is a natural. Her scores were as high as anyone on the Marine or Command team. MacVole and Salvina are abysmal.

The Crew Team had teamwork on par with the Marine Team. Their scores reflected a lack of experience, not a lack of teamwork. Li-Smythe in particular was a natural scout for the group. There was some good natured friction between Olivant and Shalvote, with Shalvote being rather pushy about her ideas of what to do, but Olivant handled it without issue. Shalvote tends to be a pushy type of person anyway.

Fig drinks some water to rehydrate and considers his performance and his team's. Stood up pretty well with the jarheads, he thinks. but don't call them jarheads or we will come in dead last on the real injury list

He spends some time with the all the teams, trying to make sure the experience brought them all closer together and doesn't drive them apart.

Ok, so, if you want to do the ones you bypassed, you can only do MWP03, MWP07, or MWP09. Any others would be going farther out. I'm fine with anything, but need to know which one you want to go to next.

Ops! Sorry about that. MWP03 is the one closest to home, so I say we ought to check that one out : )

"I agree, captain. We'll rearrange the teams to train Medical and improve inter-functional teamwork."

Vathan asks the Gunny to reorganize the 3 man teams replacing himself with MacVole on the Marine Team and the captain with Salvina on the Command Team. He wants to see if the two abysmal participants can improve. He then rearranges the other teams putting Olivant and Shalvote with Evence Riley.

Command Team :
Mila Salvina
Ophelia Holt
Fender Hig

Marine Team :
Shellie MacVole
Hector Montoya
Jennifer Montinegro

Engineering :
Viktoria Ceres
James Shault
Lawrence Elince

Mixed Team :
O'Cyrus Vathan
Shin Li-Smythe
Samus McMurry

Crew Team :
Roger Olivant
Yvette Shalvote
Evence Riley

After sorting the teams, Vathan asks Gunny for the ship's weapons status: maintenance and training. Then, he inquires about Montinegro. How much longer should they wait for her to slip up?

The gunny informs Vathan that Montinegro did insult the first officer during the exercises, something about calling her a ditzy clutz when she slipped and slid out of cover at the end of a run and into simulated machine gun fire.

Further exercises will need to wait for the fleet to be back together again.

Can't find the original rolls for MWP03. So I'll reroll, with a fixed star as Red Dwarf

MWP03 is a typical M9 red dwarf. It has one small cold planet in orbital slot 2, a large gas giant in orbit 6, a small cluster of planets in 10, 11, 12, and 13, and a smaller gas giant in 16.

No unusual activity is found, and after the McTavish transits and does a system scan, it seems to be resource poor.

A week of scanning finds 2 other warp points off it.

For the first warp point, the probe returns with an image of a small red star with a companion small white star.

For the second warp point, the probe returns with an image of a small red star.

Check out the solo-start system first? They tend to have less additional connections!

Hmm. That might need some attention too. I have to keep an eye on it... The Captain sighs and adds to her mental to-do list when word of the 'ditzy klutz' incident inevitably reaches her ears. The ship was too small for secrets and it certainly didn't have room for festering resentment.

MWP19 gets my vote as well. It would be nice if a few of these paths either looped back or ended to cut down our hydra syndrome...

Hail Hydra!

MWP19 is good with me too.

The McTavish enters MWP19, and does a full scan, but finds nothing unusual. The system seems another typical mediocre red dwarf star system.

Two additional warp points are located, however, leaving the system.

The first leads to a bright yellow white star.

The probe sent through the second warp point returns 15 minutes after being sent, blasting a WARNING signal. ARTIFICIAL BROADCASTS DETECTED!

Earlier

It's happening! :P

Whom wants to take bets that it is more or less then the Mylthani ?

Ceres felt her mouth run dry. Artificial broadcasts! That meant life - or at the very least the remnants. "Check the probe! I want to know everything it caught up as soon as possible! Put us somewhere discreet - we can't be sure that noone will come looking for it. And make it quick!"

Look trough the probe and try get a better picture. Then wait a moment and see if anything comes looking? Then take a look ourselves :)?

Probe Data :

Warp Point Type : Beta (Open/Closed)
Star : G8 Primary (similar to Sol)
Transmission Spectra :
Tachyon Pulses
Low Band Radio
High Band Radio
Encoding - Unknown
Point Sources : 497

The system is not in the McTavish's database, although there is a margin of error of 8.37% due to the probe's lack of advanced sensors.

Higs will work to make the McTavish go EM silent, while continuing to passively scan for any activity near the point.

He will also try to recall the probe with a point communication (maser / laser whichever our tech is) for recall and recovery of data from the probe.

But he will send the probe on a somewhat roundabout course in case anyone is tracking it.

Captain, we should have some data from the probe soon. I am especially interested in what sort of broadcast - radio, maser, laser, etc - that might tell us something of the other side. And what it is - what language, it is a sit-com from television, etc.

Earlier
The entire crew is called down to the cargo bay, where the stern faced captain and first officer and Marine commander glare at a very upset Montenegro. She stiffly walks forward as the entire crew watches, and throws a stiff but correct salute at the captain.

Vathan then begins talking about her rudeness to Commander Holt during the exercises. Insert speech here Vathan.

Then the commander pulls out the 'reprimand' and displays a distinguished service medal. There are some relieved noises from the crew, and open laughter from MacVole.

Montenegro turns bright red as Holt speaks. Insert speech here Holt Then the captain has a turn. Insert speech here Ceres

The rest of the crew begins congratulating Montenegro, and then the cake and snacks are rolled out on a stretcher for everyone to enjoy. As the crew is enjoying the bit of fun, the ship's alarms begin to go off, and the probe returns with news of radio transmissions.

Later

Higs hits the probe with a laser, and sends out a 'all quiet' pulse to the other probes in the system.

The ship begins analyzing the scans. The transmissions are in an unrecognized format, and seem to be security coded. There are radio and tachyon transmissions all mixed up together, from over 400 point sources, and that adds to the difficulty of trying to analyze the signals.

The ship is unable to identify the system from it's memory banks.

A day passes, and nothing comes out of the gate.

Ok, Forum ate my post once. Let's try this again...

Cold/freezing seems like a safe bet...

Holt goes wide eyed when the alarm starts to blare, and rushes off to a terminal. She is astounded, not only by the reports, but by the overwhelming about of data that is coming through.

Turning to Ceres, she says "I might be able to clean this up a bit, hopefully separate out some signals and maybe make it easier for us to try and decipher. But depending on how long we wait, I might not have time to finish before we head on. What do you want me to do?"

Still staring at the data on the monitor, she mumbles, in a soft, thoughtful voice "Of course, it would be easier if I could observe the signals directly..."

mdt, would it be possible to grab an engineer (James Shault maybe?) and try to separate the signals into data collections? Things like Tachyon vs Radio, secured vs unsecured, repeating and non-repeating, location/distance from probe, etc?

You might be able to winnow out something, if you take a day or two. The major problem is the probes sensors are not that good. They're designed to be cheap and disposable, not give military grade intelligence gathering. You can tell that about 1/3rd of it is Tachyon, while the other 2/3rds is radio (roughly). And all of it is secured. Repeating is harder to determine, given it's all secured. Location/distance requires triangulation or better sensors.

I think Vathan as the commander pinned the medal on Montinegro.

Vathan's speech:
"But we're not gathered today to discuss that unfortunate event with Lieutenant Commander Holt; instead, we are here to recognize another. On the frozen alien world of Mylthani, Master Sergeant Jennifer Montinegro performed her duties of security with distinguished service. She clearly demonstrated gallantry and unselfish courage under hostile fire. Please join me to congratulate her for receiving this distinguished service medal." He pulls out the medal. After fumbling a bit with the fastener, he pins it on her drawing a little blood as Gunny suggested to forever remind her of the event.

"Are the data coming in yet? Good, see what we can decipher." She looks to Higs as he reports and then nods to Holt. "We'll wait a day to see if they send anything trough. Depending on the status of the data, we might have to jump trough then. The probes sensors barely held up to the Mylthani's crude signal, I'm not sure what they'll manage to catch here..."

I'm thinking Holt should have that day to try and decipher since we already said we would hang back a little while. Then we can see what she (and Hig?) finds out. Probably, judging by the ooc blub, we will need to pay them a visit ourselves : )

Basically. Higs and Holt are skilled, but there's only so much you can do with stone knives and bearskins.

Nothing happens for 24 hours, so the McTavish carefully positions itself, and then initiates the jump engines.

The sky shakes and flickers, and then a new sun is in the forward view screen, a cheery yellow sun, much like Telthani's primary.

"ACTIVE SENSOR CONTACT! FOURTEEN POINT SOURCES!"

The ship's computer intones within seconds of arrival.

The ship's combat holoplot comes to life, and indicates fourteen point sources heading toward the ship at over 400G's. The ship's AI performs an active system level ping. Standard combat routines, it's presence is already noted

A few minutes later, information begins to filter in. Tachyon sensors, speed of light, normally I don't do drips and drabs, but in this case, you'll get some parts of the scan before others due to distance.

10 minutes later, the plot refines, showing ships.

8 Selonus class Frigates
4 Exeter class Battleships
1 Remus class Dreadnaught

Identies unconfirmed, FFI tags not recognized.

The pale hue of the Captain's skin weren't entirely due to her sickness for once. A dreadnaught?! They where still some distance away, so they had time for their preparations. Hopefully they would not need them. With a steady but strained voice she hailed her crew.

"Allright. This is it! We made contact, proper contact, after almost five centuries. Let us hope it will be remembered fondly in our books of history!"

"Prepare to purge the navcomputer and any personal records now. Then see if they respond to any of the old frequencies."

Ack. Higs swallows. We're in a frigate most like and that be a serious battle fleet

Higs checks the scans; how far away are they? Do we have time to maneuver at all?

Captain, shall I prepare a probe to send back through the warp point?

Or point us to head back through the warp point?

They are about 2 days away, at their current speed. A solar system is a big place.

If we had the jump engines charged a hot, how quickly could we jump if we need to?

30 seconds, if fully charged. Holding a charge damages them, so more than an hour can start shorting them out. It takes five minutes to bring them up to jump level.