Un-men

[mike wightman]

There is a reference in Mega Traveller to much older races - the first star farers side box in the referee's manual.

Considering the Ancients era is only 300,000 years ago and the universe is nearly 14,000,000,000 years old there could have been much older races...

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Very creepy. I love it!

 

[Frankymole]

There is a reference in Mega Traveller to much older races - the first star farers side box in the referee's manual.

The first sublight travellers were a billion years ago, or so. One wonders who discovered that fact, and how... there must be some pretty scary cold archaeology out there between the stars. The remains of a billion-year old drifting 'ship'/capsule/container/low-berth would be a fairly freaky thing, if it could even be recognised.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Hi
Time to dig out the old Space Hulk game and see how the Imperial Marines will do vs. the Genestealers. Has anyone tried to use Traveller rules for Space Hulk ?

 

[aramis]

Hi
Time to dig out the old Space Hulk game and see how the Imperial Marines will do vs. the Genestealers. Has anyone tried to use Traveller rules for Space Hulk ?

You mean, besides the Games Worshop staff?

Spoiler:

It's my personal belief that GW built the 40K universe from their Traveller campaigns when the Traveller licenses cot pulled back in 1984.

 

[BwapTED]

I won't plug for commercial stuff here, but if anyone spots the Un-man race PDF for Pathfinder/Starjammer, yes, I made it.
The species necessarily got a lot of added detail, even in a mini-pamphlet sized book, and changed a fair amount from the original version sketched above in this thread.

 

[Whipsnade]

I missed this the first time around and I'm sorry I did!

WOW, combatmedic, what a delightfully scary idea. There are entire campaigns waiting to use those creeps...

 

[BwapTED]

I missed this the first time around and I'm sorry I did!

WOW, combatmedic, what a delightfully scary idea. There are entire campaigns waiting to use those creeps...

Thanks!

Some version of the Un-Men will probably make an appearance in future Traveller games I run.

 

[BwapTED]

Note:

I made them pharmaceutical traders.

In Traveller, I'd consider having these guys be a source of anagathics. That would be valuable enough to exchange for plenty of corpsicles.

 

[Whipsnade]

In Traveller, I'd consider having these guys be a source of anagathics. That would be valuable enough to exchange for plenty of corpsicles.

It would also give people pause about seriously investigating them. The old "Don't kill the goose which lays the anagathic pills..." trope.

Your original post mentioned the fact that they won't fight back, that they'd just stand still and let someone hack them to death. That little tidbit gave me all sorts of ideas. I could see a team simply walking aboard an Un-man vessel and making all sort of investigations like isotope analysis of alloys, downloading navigation databases, and so forth because the Un-men wouldn't do anything to stop them.

That idea quickly led me to the next. The reason no one does that - or allows anyone else to - is that once investigated like that, the Un-men either never again return to trade at that location and/or maybe never leave instead diving into the local sun or gas giant.

Don't kill the goose...

Any group wanting to investigate the Un-men are going to run into a LOT locals preferring they leave the Un-men alone.

There are so many ways this can play out.

 

[BwapTED]

It would also give people pause about seriously investigating them. The old "Don't kill the goose which lays the anagathic pills..." trope.

Your original post mentioned the fact that they won't fight back, that they'd just stand still and let someone hack them to death. That little tidbit gave me all sorts of ideas. I could see a team simply walking aboard an Un-man vessel and making all sort of investigations like isotope analysis of alloys, downloading navigation databases, and so forth because the Un-men wouldn't do anything to stop them.

That idea quickly led me to the next. The reason no one does that - or allows anyone else to - is that once investigated like that, the Un-men either never again return to trade at that location and/or maybe never leave instead diving into the local sun or gas giant.

Don't kill the goose...

Any group wanting to investigate the Un-men are going to run into a LOT locals preferring they leave the Un-men alone.

There are so many ways this can play out.

Fun.


Daddy needs his anagathics. also possible UnMan vessels carry something nasty. Board it and the UnMen don't fight you, but just stare at you as both you and they are dissolved/blasted/nuked.
Given their nonaggression toward humans, this would suggest the destructive device was placed by whatever made them...

I do like your diving into the gas giant or sun bit.

 

[Whipsnade]

Given their nonaggression toward humans, this would suggest the destructive device was placed by whatever made them...

Gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?

Get too close a look at an Un-men vessel and it destroys itself. Misjump on purpose, dive into the sun, catastrophic re-entry, it doesn't matter. There's going to be nothing left to glean any clues from.

Are the Un-men capable of deciding when the self-destruct? Or is something watching them some how and passing along an order?

Of course, a system in which an Un-men vessel is destroyed never ever has another Un-men vessel arrive for trade again. Whomever or whatever is dispatching those vessels seemingly crosses a system of the list when a vessel fails to return.

And at just what frequency do Un-men arrive to trade? It would be even more eerie if the Un-men arrived and traded in a flurry of appearances only to "disappear" for a generation or so. News out of a cluster of backwater systems that the Un-men have appeared again - coupled with the usual flood of excellent quality pharmaceuticals at relatively cheap prices - would send traders, megacorps, and governments scrambling, but the Un-men will have gone before anyone of any consequence can get their teams to the region.

Like I said, there are entire campaigns waiting within this horror...

 

[BwapTED]

Gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?

Get too close a look at an Un-men vessel and it destroys itself. Misjump on purpose, dive into the sun, catastrophic re-entry, it doesn't matter. There's going to be nothing left to glean any clues from.

Are the Un-men capable of deciding when the self-destruct? Or is something watching them some how and passing along an order?

Of course, a system in which an Un-men vessel is destroyed never ever has another Un-men vessel arrive for trade again. Whomever or whatever is dispatching those vessels seemingly crosses a system of the list when a vessel fails to return.

And at just what frequency do Un-men arrive to trade? It would be even more eerie if the Un-men arrived and traded in a flurry of appearances only to "disappear" for a generation or so. News out of a cluster of backwater systems that the Un-men have appeared again - coupled with the usual flood of excellent quality pharmaceuticals at relatively cheap prices - would send traders, megacorps, and governments scrambling, but the Un-men will have gone before anyone of any consequence can get their teams to the region.

Like I said, there are entire campaigns waiting within this horror...

One advantage of keeping aliens as strictly NPCs is that you can preserve a high degree of mystery about the race, and make the search for answers part of the game.

When a species becomes playable, some of the mystery goes away and the race gets partly humanized. I had my own ways of dealing with that in the other wee project, using mutants, playing with memory, and revealing deeper background in a way that raised new questions whenever it gave answers.

But if I used them in Traveller, I think I'd go more the route we have discussed here. Much more mysterious. I really like your ''mess with them and they do not come back'' idea.

 

[Whipsnade]

One advantage of keeping aliens as strictly NPCs is that you can preserve a high degree of mystery about the race, and make the search for answers part of the game.

That's very true.

When a species becomes playable, some of the mystery goes away and the race gets partly humanized.

That's also true. Making an alien "PC-ready" works against it being truly alien. I often point to T20's Ursa and Sydites as an example of that. While both aren't "broken" or "wrong" by any means and while they make for good PCs, by being "playable" both aren't as wondrous, fantastic, and otherworldly as they could have been.

It's a trade off. T20's designers chose to make them playable and that meant the Ursa, for example, would be less "sentient bear" and more "Bob the bear from accounting".

But if I used them in Traveller, I think I'd go more the route we have discussed here. Much more mysterious. I really like your ''mess with them and they do not come back'' idea.

Definitely. There has to be something which makes the locals not want to ask too many questions and even keep outsiders from doing the same. The income Un-men anagathics and pharmaceuticals would provide a backwater world or remote installation like you prison example would be something the recipients would want to protect.

There's a great Hammett short story called Hell Town which came to mind when I read about how the Un-men "trade".

 

[BwapTED]

Yup.

On the other hand, it can be fun to play aliens.

I may get around to posting a player-optional sort of CT race, at some point.

Much of the time I think of aliens in Traveller as mysteries, weird encounters, monsters, or clever animals.

 

[Whipsnade]

On the other hand, it can be fun to play aliens.

I very much agree. Sadly, the more "player-ready" an alien PC is, the less "alien" it becomes.

Much of the time I think of aliens in Traveller as mysteries, weird encounters, monsters, or clever animals.

That's how I generally handled them too. My take on aliens tended more towards Cherryh's Tc'a, Chi, and Knnn than Mr. Spock and Little Fuzzy.

 

[kilemall]

Another source of Un-men?

The drug they sell eventually makes the user an Un-man, and the character will live a long time- just not exactly as themselves.

Another option, this sounds like the sort of thing some questionable genetic cult/movement is doing with the experiment rejects, and just the sort of thing I would locate out in some Oort Cloud.

As to low berth, the medical check is done but random damage is done.

Since it's random and children have smaller UPPs, it is more lethal to the little ones and therefore parents on a budget are more likely to book low passage for themselves and at least the steerage for children we were discussing in the passengers thread.

Fast Passage is also an option particularly for 60-day colonial moves.

 

[Whipsnade]

Another source of Un-men? The drug they sell eventually makes the user an Un-man...

Why that's delightfully evil!

A tip of the battered boater to you!

 

[BwapTED]

"I'm a bit concerned about hiring on that working passage."

''What, Davis? The old guy seems a top hand, you said. What's giving you cold feet now?"

"Well, he's just...creepy. He sits in his stateroom when he's not working, doesn't socialize. I went in there last shift to let him know about the fresher problem. He was waiting in the pitch dark with temp turned down really low. Just stared at me when I hit the lights. Fully clothed, his bed still made. And he'd been off a while. I dunno. It's weird."

"It's probably just a reaction to his meds. He's used anagathics, I'm sure. His jacket says he's pushing eighty, but he looks about forty to me. And, besides, he's a go-getter. Why, yesterday he did an unscheduled diagnostic on the low berths. Initiative. I like that."


"Sir, we haven't used the low berths in months."

"I know. I told Davis the same. He just nodded, said something about never knowing when you'd need them , and went back to work. Like I said, hard worker."

 

[Whipsnade]

"I know. I told Davis the same. He just nodded, said something about never knowing when you'd need them , and went back to work. Like I said, hard worker."

I got a feeling that those low berths are going to be filled real soon...

I re-read that Hammett story I mentioned earlier while listening to the Red Sox lose. The hinky desert town the hero stumbles (literally) into is a big front for a criminal syndicate. They're making alcohol in industrial quantities - the story was written during Prohibition - under the guise of producing soda niter. Most of the town is a Potemkin village of sorts, empty houses with nonexistent occupants and furnishings all insured to the hilt. Nearly everyone in the town is in on the scam and those who aren't are there to earn money in ways frowned upon elsewhere.

The trade angle got me thinking that someone would have to fence or otherwise distribute the stuff the creeps are selling and that whomever was fencing the stuff would be in a good position to provide the creeps with the goods they most want; fresh and/or frozen corpses. I also thought about SuSAG, which is said to maintain various facilities outside of the Imperium to avoid both scrutiny and certain Imperial laws.

Imagine a low profile facility tucked away on some system in District 268 or some similar region. Very few people know it exists and even fewer know it's owned by SuSAG through a byzantine welter of holding companies, interlocking directorates, and plausibly deniable cut outs. The Powers That Be in the system are happy not to ask questions, probably thanks to the regular gifts and honorariums they receive.

When questioned, a few locals will say biologics research and production take place at the facility. The near lack of daily activity at the site doesn't seem to support that however.

What the locals do know is that odd ships occasionally land at the facility, stay a short period, and leave. After those ships leave, an armed courier leaves the facility only to return several weeks later in company with a freighter. The freighter then stays for less than a local day departing. Once the freighter leaves, the facility settles into it's usual inactivity until the odd ship arrives again.

Mysterious enough?