Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I do enjoy old movies, and I was checking out Charlton Heston in the Wreck of the Mary Deare last night, thinking that the plot of the film would make a good Traveller scenario: The PCs, on a standard adventure class vessel, encounter a much larger vessel--derelict--floating in space. Radiation is detected aboard (it was smoke and fire in the movie), but a PC is sent aboard to investigate.
A lone survivor is found on the ship. Therefore, the PCs will not benefit from salvage, and the survivor demands that the boarders return to their own vessel. In the film, the weather is stormy, and Heston has a heck of a time getting back on his own boat. He can't do it. The wind and waves are smashing him up against the side of the hull of the Mary Deare.
I was trying to think of how I'd translate that to Traveller. I've got a PC or two, space walking back to their own vessel, yet there's a problem/reason why the PCs cannot make it.
Why can that be?
What's the in-game reason?
I was thinking that may the Mary Deare is too close to a star or a Gas Giant, and the radiation levels in space is just too high to withstand for very long?
Violent sunspots would wash over the vessels, become the scifi version of the wind and waves from the movie.
Or, maybe the Mary Deare is in a rapid spin--which is why the PC's vessel's umbilical was not used--no ship to ship docking possible unless the PC's vessel matches the spin of the derelict, which would be a feat (Very Hard Piloting check, with a long time in between checks). Then, in Gravity style, there's a debris field headed towards the Mary Deare (for this to work, the Mary Deare needs to be stuck in orbit, not adrift).
What other hazards in space can you think of?
An earlier film on TCM was one of the best films ever made. The original Poseidon Adventure. If you recall, that ship is hit by a rogue wave--a wall of water taller than the ship--at the beginning of the film. That's how the ship gets capsized.
It reminded me of the shock wave shown in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. I'm not sure how realistic that wave would be, but I sure thought it was cool in the film.
Can that happen? Is there some sort of "rogue wave" that could travel through space, devastating any vessel it reaches?
I supposed a debris field, moving at high velocity, could be realistic--debris from a ship that exploded?
Maybe got a little sci-fi and think of a gravity wave--a ripple in space-time that goes rogue, invisible to most sensors, slamming into vessels, decimating them.
Thoughts?
A lone survivor is found on the ship. Therefore, the PCs will not benefit from salvage, and the survivor demands that the boarders return to their own vessel. In the film, the weather is stormy, and Heston has a heck of a time getting back on his own boat. He can't do it. The wind and waves are smashing him up against the side of the hull of the Mary Deare.
I was trying to think of how I'd translate that to Traveller. I've got a PC or two, space walking back to their own vessel, yet there's a problem/reason why the PCs cannot make it.
Why can that be?
What's the in-game reason?
I was thinking that may the Mary Deare is too close to a star or a Gas Giant, and the radiation levels in space is just too high to withstand for very long?
Violent sunspots would wash over the vessels, become the scifi version of the wind and waves from the movie.
Or, maybe the Mary Deare is in a rapid spin--which is why the PC's vessel's umbilical was not used--no ship to ship docking possible unless the PC's vessel matches the spin of the derelict, which would be a feat (Very Hard Piloting check, with a long time in between checks). Then, in Gravity style, there's a debris field headed towards the Mary Deare (for this to work, the Mary Deare needs to be stuck in orbit, not adrift).
What other hazards in space can you think of?
An earlier film on TCM was one of the best films ever made. The original Poseidon Adventure. If you recall, that ship is hit by a rogue wave--a wall of water taller than the ship--at the beginning of the film. That's how the ship gets capsized.
It reminded me of the shock wave shown in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. I'm not sure how realistic that wave would be, but I sure thought it was cool in the film.
Can that happen? Is there some sort of "rogue wave" that could travel through space, devastating any vessel it reaches?
I supposed a debris field, moving at high velocity, could be realistic--debris from a ship that exploded?
Maybe got a little sci-fi and think of a gravity wave--a ripple in space-time that goes rogue, invisible to most sensors, slamming into vessels, decimating them.
Thoughts?