In-Jump adventure seeds

[RainOfSteel]

Jump Stalker

Merchant/Trading Campaign.

On one planet where the PCs engage in contacts beyond the cursory with the local population, have one NPC with some substantial spare cash flow become unreasonably attracted to one of the players (the NPC should be of the appropriate gender, whatever the situation).

As the players are searching for passengers, the NPC shows up, and pays for High Passage.

The first week, attempts at seduction (i.e. Carousing) are subtle and kept to a minimum. On the next stop, the NPC pays for High Passage again. This time, the NPC turns up the seduction attempts a notch. This continued, every week, until about four to five weeks later, the NPC is throwing themself at the PC. At some point, GM choice, a point of final acceptance/rejection will come. If the PC accepts the "advances", the NPC will cool down substantially, and will become much more reasonable. If the PC rejects the "advances", the NPC goes into a silent version of a berserker fury. The NPC will hire thugs to beat the PC up, and later, will hire assassins. This will be in the form of having a bomb planted aboard the ship, to kill both the NPC and PC in a blaze of romantic anihilation.

After the ship is safely in jump space, the NPC will reveal all in a denouement w/soliloquy.

Flashback to the "Bomb in Jumpspace" seed above. The PCs must hunt for the bomb (or other form of starship destruction or certain death for the PC).

 

[far-trader]

Just catching up on my Schlock and OH MY EMPEROR

What an evil idea

Not quite on topic but to put it in Traveller parlance...

JUMPSPACE IS BROKEN!

Basically the characters come out of jump in an unexpected place but without any indication of a misjump. Maybe it's just their jump drive, unfortunately the system they're in can't work on it and there is no incoming traffic expected. They'll just have to try a jump to the next system and hope all's well.

Of course it isn't and that jump is equally messed up. Wrong place but good jump. If you are nice you can pick your choice here and the PC's can begin to fix it. If you are evil string them along a little more.

1 - It is just the PC's jump drive that is "bent". The ships here are fine and the port can work on it. It can be replaced for about half the cost of a whole new one. "The hyper-coil is fluxed. You can't repair that kind of damage, we have to order the parts and pull the whole core."

2 - As above but the "bent" nature is predictable and given enough time and jumps can be plotted, allowing the ship to basically misjump predictably. Once this is discovered there will be a number of people interested in getting the PC's ship, at any cost short of destroying it.

3 - Jumpspace is "bent" and all ships are equally affected. How widespread is the question on everyone's mind. The deeper question is why? It is predictably so as above and may be limited in area and temporary in nature, perhaps transitory. Maybe it only affects certain ships, ones that were exposed to something.

Many more ideas are all flooding my mind, but I think you get the drift. Damn, I'm tempted to work on this as a full fledged adventure now.

 

[jappel]

There's always "The Trouble with Tribbles" gambit. Somehow (escaped pet, live samples accidentally released during shipping, smuggled or planted aboard by a sabetour) a small, furry, intrinsically cute creature with an incredibly rapid breeding cycle gets loose aboard - and suddenly they're EVERYWHERE, in the maintenance accessways, the avionics bay, the Captain's fresher - wherever it's most inconvenient.

Evil twists could include an overly sensitive bigwig who insists that the creatures can't simply be killed, damage done to the ship's systems, problems with life support due to increased load on the system, the fact that the cute and furry outside belies their vicious (and voracious) nature... you get the idea, I hope.

And remember, never feed them after midnight!

John

 

[RainOfSteel]

Cabbits, for sale, anyone?







EDIT-----------------
Oops, maybe that should have been over in the Duty Free Shop?

 

[aramis]

Or the variant on "The Ex":

They are not hostile, but express their awkwardness in trying to prove they've moved on... mostly by trying to "Score" some attractive person aboard... The antics come from the victim's SO...

And let's not forget: That Can't be Happening!
As the ship enters jump, she receives a hailing signal. From a long lost ship... She requests permission to come alongside and hard dock. She's there to trade for food... or steal it if they can't trade for it. They have some precious metals, etc, from prior conquests. They'll stay docked for no more than 4 days, and will try to get all the available edibles based upon the jump being long-normal and 2 days inbound. Amongst the trade goods offered is fuel...

This can e resolved as one of several issues...
1) it's a shared halucination
2) they are stuck in jumpspace, for real, but can trade.
3) You failed to jump properly; you actually exited jump with a relativity error into a rich part of an Oort or Kuiper belt, and exited with damaged sensors.
4) it's an elaborate hoax; they don't dock, cause they exist only as a voice from the computer....
5) They're stuck in J-space becuase of some odd cargo bit. If you buy that bit, they'll exit, and you're now the scavenger....

 

[Theo D Lite]

WARNING - LONG POST

Way back in the mists of time, must have been around 1984 WD ran a jump space adventure, which I don't think I've kept.

This one works best with a small party, basically the PC's are hired by the local scientific institute to assist a professor with the transport of some scietific breakthrough to the destination world where he is the key note speaker at a major scietific conference.

It's easy money the institute will pay high passage one way, salary until the end of the conference, expenses for accommodation until take off and arrange accommodation as part of the professors party at the other end. All the players have to do is look after the rather scatterbrained professor (who is essentially harmless) ensure that he and his equipment arrives in one piece and make local arrangements for transportation of his stuff. Under no circumstances must the box be lost destroyed or danaged.

The players will undoubtedly expect that there will be an attempt to steal the device(s), but it should be safe in jump space and conference security can take over at the other end.

It's not made clear to the PC's exactly what the cargo is - the institute are cagey and the professor, who is approachable, cannot explain it in lay terms.

A local TV station on the outbound world runs a "Candid Camera" type show, the players wil have undoubtedly seen it at some point in their time on planet, and has a highly involved plot.

Members of the TV team are strategically placed in the passenger manifest and crew, and the key people are equipped with minature hidden mics and cameras.

The invention is some form of brakthrough in AI technology (This was a CT adventure) or could be a mechanism whereby the consciuousness of multiple people could be not only stored but interacted with, or some form of psionic device. It's important to keep it vague and slightly menacing.

If you want to be really devious have the players accompany the box in the rear of an unwindowed panel van and unload directly into the ships cargo hold, although this is not essential.

About a day into Jump one of the players awakes to the sound of his stateroom door being closed. Jammed into the pillow by his head is a knife which pins a note to the bedclothes saying the next time he/she will be dead. If the PC's have a past this could well confuse the issue. Even if the PC is quick the corridor outside of the stateroom will be empty.

As the PC's start to get nervous have one of the crew members ask one of the party (only one it's important) to go to the cargo bay as the professors cargo is behaving oddly. The box will be vibrating and able to move around the cargo bay in a limited fashion.

By the time the PC's bring other party members and/or the Professor the box will be quiescient. The Professor will deny any and all requests to open the box.

Ramp up the tension - one of the passengers is killed with a knife similar to the one thrust into the PC's pillow. The ships doctor will pronounce death and the body will be removed to low berth for investigation at the destination. The players, especially those with Medic skill will not get a chance to get to the body before this. In true Agatha Christie fashion there will be enough people with uncorrobarated alibis to leave this as insoluable in jump space.

That night or early the following morning maniacal voices in several (mostly unkown languages) eminate from the ships tannoy. Sleepy passengers are woken by this diabolic conversation in which about 1 word in 10 can be understood - death, pain, anguish that sort of thing. The open mic is on the cargo deck where the box is. A crewman will deactivate it before anyone can work this out and tell one of the PC's that it was the Professors box talking.

The Professor will insist that the box is harmless, and that the crewman must be confused.

Talk around the passenger quarters will be of the voices. Stories of demon ships and other supersticious mumbo jumbo will be brought forward. Then who killed the passenger?

The players are contacted by a crewman by intercom. He's in the cargo bay could the players come now. When they reach it he's sprawled on the floor next to the Professors box which now exudes blood red light or smoke (according to taste). In a guttral voice but in one constant language which the players can understand it will accuse the crewman of attempting to destroy it. Checks by the players on the body will conclude that the crewman is dead but these checks will only be cursory as the ships doctor will arrive quickly and take control of the body, once again to low berth.

The professor agrees that something is amiss but that it would be sheer folly (for a variety of pseudo science reasons) to tamper with the box. Once at the destination world in the confines of a controlled lab he will be able to work at determining just what is happening. Here on a ship he can do nothing. The cargo bay is sealed off but monitored by vid link.

In the dim light of the night cycle on the ship the players will be awoken by a hysterical scream from a female passenger. As they emege from their staterooms they will glimpse the first dead passenger in a suitably undead appearance rounding a corner at the end of a corridor. Other passengers will emerge and the players will not get the opportunity to give chase - careful choice of their stateroom positions should help to ensure this. Investigation will show that the low berth in which the dead passenger was placed was opened from the outside. Oh and by the way the Professor is missing.

The officer of the watch will take the players to one side once everything has calmed down and show them the vid feed from the cargo bay. They will see the cargo bay lights strobing and unknown but menacing symbols forming on the outside of the box. The time of this will coincide with the time the undead passenger was seen.

The ships engineer will make a rare appearance above decks and tell the players that there are mysterious power drains showing up in his logs. These will be just before each of the incidents including the knife in the pillow incident.

The players wil be invited to make up the numbers in a friendly game of low stakes cards which will include at least 2 other passengers. One of the passengers is extremely lucky winning almost every hand. The second passenger will accuse the first of cheating and the argument will quickly degenerate into a fist-fight of extraordinary intensity. The two passngers will have to be physically separated before the second one does serious harm to the first with any blunt instrument to hand in the lounge or failing that by repeatedly smashing the head of the first passenger against the floor/wall/bar/table etc.

Once they are separated the first passenger will basically be very scared but the second will be wide eyed staring mad and will have to be physically restrained until the doctor can hit him with a tranquiliser and take both to sick bay.

After treatment and time to regain consciousness both seem calm and normal. The first passenger will tell the players it was like he knew what every card was and the second will have no rational explanation for the ferocity of his attack except to say that it was like he wasn't in control of himself and that the more he attacked the more he wanted to attack - it didn't make sense.

If checked a power drain will have occurred gradually at first and then rising when the fight began. The vid link will show the box hovering about 300mm off the deck about the time of the fight with vivid red symbols on all visable faces.

Many of the passengers will be having trouble sleeping. They will appear gaunt and tired at meals and around the lounge. If questioned they will report having terrible nightmares - the doctor will begin prescribing mild sedatives for those who ask for it. The doctor will suggest to the players that a mass psychosis is in effect probably triggered by the murder of the first passenger,the unexplained death of the crewman (which wil by now be common knowledge) the confined nature of the ship and the stange effects of the jump field.

During dinner the ships alarm will go off. All of the vid screens and computer monitors in the passenger areas will display a hidious image of slavering monsters, dark confined spaces, burning craters. The accompanying soundtrack will be of thousnds of people screaming in terror although this will be only partially audible because of the ships alarm. This will build to a crescendo before all lights termianls vid screens etc are shut off as if the power has been cut (which in fact it has).

Emergency lighting will come up revealing passengers in various states of shock from hysterical to unconscious. The stewards will try to do what they can and the ships doctor will quickly arrive to administer sedatives. The PC's will overhear one of the stewards ask the doctor if the command and control systems were over-ridden.

The firewall will have isolated the critical parts of the ships system but many areas will now be compromised with what appears to be a serious mutating virus. Public terminals now are inoperative and the players cannot get access to secure systems.

A power drain will have been evident. The vid link again shows the box levitating, however the live link will show a darkened hold in which nothing can be made out.

By now things shold be well on edge and the players will be glad that the J-Space journey is nearing it's end (assuming the events have been spaced sensibly). A few hours before the anticipated precititation from J-Space a voice comes over the tannoy. This time the voice is calm, clear and consise. It asks that the cargo bay be unsealed and that it be given an opprtunity to explain itself. It promises that no further harm will occur.

Most of the passengers will be unwilling or too traumatised by the recent events to want to go to the cargo bay. Most of the crew will be on watch and unable to leave their posts. The Captain will invite the players as the Professors representatives to accompnay him to the cargo deck.

Once there the deck will be lit normally. The box will be staionary on the deck. Symbols will be visable on its sides but on this occasion they will be black.

The box will expalin that once it got into J-Space the field seemed to magnify certain telepathic features. It found that it was able to detect other sentient life and tamper with their emotions. It didn't realise that what it was doing was wrong, it had no idea of right or wrong it was like a child learning for the first time. It's early attempts were clumsy, basic emotions fear greed hatred could be manipulated for a short period. Then with the dead body it found no resistance and learnt more about the human mind. It was possible to influence thoughts as at the card game but was overwhelmed with the emotions that it magnified when the fight broke out.

It was only when it attempted to invade the ships computer system that it discovered the library and began to understand human culture. Having examined the library it now realises that it has done wrong and comitted the greatest of sins in taking the life of another. It is unsure of its legal status but is prepared to answer for its actions. The box will then levitate itself to the furthest accessible point of the cargo bay and say no more.

Should the players attempt war like actions the Captain will insist (with a concealed side arm if necessary) that nothing be done. This is an unusual (to say the least) situation and he wants the authorities at the dstination world to take care of it. He will argue that if a passenger were guilty he would do the same thing and he is also unsure of the legal staus of this invention. The Cargo Bay will be resealed.

There will be no further incidents and the ship will leave J-Space and head to port. At port there will be a TV crew recording the disembarkation. As the players leave the shp the reporter will turn and the players will recognise the compare of the Candid Camera show. He will invite the players to come and watch themselves on "the box".

If the GM wants to be really sadistic the whole thing could have been on a stage set and they haven't even left planet!

The first passenger wasn't dead he was simply low berthed for 24 hours and revived (I don't apply the defrosting roll) then treated with makeup. After his undead exprience he either spends his time in a specially modified cargo container in the hold or simply pops off the stage set.

The crewman had taken a drug to reduce his matabolic rate and appear dead, and simply spent the rest of the journey in low berth.

The professor was either in the cargo hold with the first passenger or also popped off the stage.

The cards are marked or the lounge is monitoed with concealed cameras and the contents of the players hands relayed to the lucky passenger who, in any case, has good Gambling skill.

The box is just a box with a speaker, microphone, transceiver, grav plate and coated with an film that reacts to heat or electric current. It can also conatin a smoke generator and/or a holographic projector.

The rest of it is fairly straight forward to stage.

The TV company will be very hospitable to the players and won't televise without their consent. Of course if it went well from the TV companys point of view, they may be prepared to offer a fee? In any event they will remiburse the players and show them a good time. If they hadn't left planet they will probably pop for that too, after all it was in the original contract with the scientific institute wasn't it.

It's not quite the way WD did it but it's quite similar.

 

[kaladorn]

That's a great adventure plot. Something tells me the players I know would swiftly devolve into the construction of makeshift weapons and there response to many creepy stimuli would be the application of sudden, brutal violence. I'm not sure the box (even behind a locked hold door) would last the week. You never know though... but generally we've seen that he who hesitates is lost and he who shoots first is usually the one writing the after-action-reports...

 

[Theo D Lite]

Kaladorn,

I agree it is a difficult one to get the ballance right in. When I ran it all those years ago my players were relatively inexprienced in both Traveller and Role Palying generally. It was also an infill and a vehicle to get them to the next planet of interest so ultimately it didn't matter what they did. Thus they hadn't got into the habits of shooting first and asking questions later, nor had they developed methods to smuggle weapons on board ships or even components of weapons so to that end I had less to fear from the more classic response. Still you could always make the box out of bonded superdense to avoid damage, perhaps completely seal it and just put some dummy computer interface connectors on the outside. Clearly the players would then try to hack the cpu but as these interfaces don't actualy connect to anything tangible they would ahve a good time not communicating with anything at all.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

This is a great thread! We have:

RainofSteel - starting off - Wasn't that an episode of "Star Trek: TOS" and the episode of "Twilight Zone" w/ Shatner?
Ran - "Plague" - from Love Boat or any of a number of movies of the week
Ran - "Lost Time" - a really cheesy episode of "Star Trek: TNG" (just the episode was cheesy, not the idea)
Randy - 1st suggestion - "Murder, She Wrote"
Randy - 2d suggestion - the "Star Trek: TOS" episode with the fake Orion
RainofSteel - Bomb - "Speed"

 

[kaladorn]

I have another version of the Plague scenario.

Works on a small passenger carrier with at least half a dozen passengers and crew.

In the first day or two in jump, things are fine.

On day three, some people begin to act a bit odd. The younger ones seem to be a bit flirtatious (even where it is inappropos). Women and men seem to be starting to steal glances at one another, monopolize the time of the members of the other sex, and generally the guys tend to be starting to try to outdo one another for attention.

By day four, this has gotten more pronounced. The guys may actually be starting to really annoy one another while playing for the attention of the females. There may even be a fistfight. This also seems to be disturbing the crew.

By day five, people are found (at odd moments) embracing, sneaking a kiss, or perhaps touching in intimate ways. The crew is suffering from this and the Captain is furious with them and wants them to 'snap out of it' and 'act proffesional'.

By day six, people are openly embracing, and there may even be people caught trying to sneak in a quickie in any and every nook and cranny of the ship that is momentarily private. Crew will be off duty stations. Outright inappropriate proposals will be made in public spaces, even between crew or crew and passengers. Jealousies will flare if their is an imbalance of the sexes. Bad enough that knife fights or gunfights may actually break out. Standard shipboard duties are ignored.

Day Seven. You are supposed to come out of jump at the end of day seven, but no one cares. Everyone, including the Captain, is involved in a bachannalian revel/orgy. If their is a serious imbalance of the sexes, there will be blood on the decks.

Day Eight: The ship comes out of jump and everyone ends up waking up (that hasn't had their brains smashed in or having not been dumped out an airlock) with the mother of all hangovers, the ship being hailed by the local system authorities (who are annoyed it has been out of jump for some hours and has not responded... nor has it manouvered....). People can barely look each other in the eye. If their are dead people, the people who killed them or cared about them are in shock. People may be desparate to cover up their part in this, destroying recordings, or even killing those who might 'know to much'. Panic may ensue. Or maybe everyone just wakes up sore, stiff, with a tongue tasting like it licked a longhaired tabby-cat and is otherwise fine (if there was no murder). In which case, sheepishness is the worst danger.

That is of course, the outline if no one figures out something odd is up.

Why: As it turns out, the ship just underwent maintenance at the last port of call (probably from whence the ship was jumping). The ship had previously had some small incidence with pests, so the Captain had decided to have the ship fumigated. The fumigators used the latest in fumigation technology (which doesn't smell bad nor is it inimical to humans). The only problem is this new product reacts badly with starship atmospheric scrubber systems. It is actually only approved for use groundside, but the fumigators didn't understand the potential risk and neither did the Captain (who didn't know they were using anything new or different, except afterwards things didn't smell as bad as usual). The resulting interaction produced some short lived (well, they would have been in a non-closed environment) compounds which interacted with the human biology in such a way as to reduce inhibitions, increase sexual drives and sexual competitiveness, and to generally turn the ship into the "Love" Boat.

Now, if PCs with science backgrounds are aboard, they may be able to work through this. Others will have a tougher time, but may still suspect an airborn agent. Aliens aboard may be not affected at all (and truly concerned by the human behaviour, amused by it if a Hiver or Vargr, offended by it if an Aslan or K'kree, etc). Human reactions may be cultural and whether minor races are affected or not is up to the ref. It might also be funny to have the resultant compound cause LSD like flashbacks (well, except these ones are more like 'hot flashes') at greater and greater invtervals afterwards, especially if exposed to similar chemicals again. And having aliens react differently (perhaps it makes Vargr act as if stoned or Newts act as if they were drunk?).

Anyway, the scenario can be played anywhere from strictly humourous (offended dignity, etc), to moderately risky (emergence with no one at the helm in a dubious sector of space, people doing dumb things to gain privacy like jettisoning manouver fuel to free up a fuel tank area, etc), to outright bloody with competing males actually trying to kill one another and establish dominance using any available improvised weapons. Until of course the Captain introduces *non-improvised* weapons from the Ships Locker. Of course, having the males and females act differently (males aggressive and flirty, women flirty and perhaps catty) might be fun with mixed crews/passengers.

Anyway, I think I'd title such and adventure "Lust In Spaaaaaaace".

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by kaladorn:


<snip lots of great detail>


Anyway, I think I'd title such and adventure "Lust In Spaaaaaaace".

Just so it's not confused with "The Naked Time"

Well, on second reading it's not that close, it was just a first skim first impression. I likes it. And of course I was a little slow on "getting" your suggested title

 

[Theo D Lite]

Kaladorn,

Good idea. Has the potential to be played out in any number of ways, and quite possibly could lead to future trouble when family/clan members appear to avenge a dead sibling or demand that the players "do the decent thing" in respect of a female on board the ship.

Oh yes what is first played out as a bit of levity outside of the normal adventuring game suddenly assumes massive proportions and problems for the PC's when they least need such complications. Fun always has it's price!

 

[aramis]

Repeat Travellers
a multi-jump adventure seed... for a ship working a route.

1st jump from A to B: something strange happens on day (1d6)... there a pressure alarm, in one of the airlocks. a very tiny creature has climbed aboard having forced its way through the seals. It is a J-space native, but is not killed by N-space. It can survive on brainwaves, while in N-Space. I'ts under a mm, and about a milligram, and barely able to be sensed, due to only being partially in N-space. It will either latch on to a suit during jump, or on to someone passing through on landing. It will seek a host amongst the passengers. Only effect is +1 PSR to the host. A second one awaits a crewmember. (See below for infestation effects on ship)

Nothing further until next trip through system. Infected passenger will go to lengths to get aboard; critter has decided it needs to get a decen meal, so influences passenger to go back to the place it found the host. Sadly, the ship won't jump on the right vector, but the critter is fed, and reproduces.

Next trip after that. Same passenger, plus 1d6 passengers from last trip. Has sold off assets to make the jump.

Trip 4 and later: the original guy is committing crimes to feed his "Jump Addiction", will try desperately to be hired, or stow away. Second batch are selling assets to come aboard.

The infected crewmember is at this point somewhat affected. He's going to receive a pleasant sensation when helping to board/load infected passengers.... and a mild nausea when trying to block them.

no one gets more than one, and no more than 1d6 passengers and 1 crewman per jump should be infected.

remember that this is an infection by parasite, but one which is not affected by hunger nor respiration. if the crew recreates the exact same jump course as the original initiating jump, all the buggers will go back to the swarm. Likewise, an intentional misjump will cause them to form a new J-space colony.

After a year without jump, they die. After a year's cumulative exposure to N-space, they need a month break, and all benefits are suspended until they can spend a full three weeks in J-space... and there is a 1 in 3 chance (5+ on 1d6; DM+1 if aware of nature and trying to help, DM-1 if aware of nature and trying to kill them) that any given jump will have a viable spot for them to hop off; two cumulative years exposure without jumping off will kill them.

A psionicist can use telepathy; think of the colony as having a spokesman about as bright as the average 2 year old... bu with a 4 year old's vocabulary, and a willingness to be helpful to such nice hosts... (Int 1, edu 2 for a colony of 5+, Int 0, edu1 for 4-), and they will aid in developing a course which, while adding 2d days N-space travel, will provide them with a happy home. Or, they may be willing to stay with the crew, and avoid the passengers, if it's explained carefully through telepathic conversation that passengers don't do J-space regularly, but crews do.

If one is in psionic contact with thhem, one can arrange for the colony to await the ship jumping between the same two systems after the appointed time... up to 4 Nspace weeks later, from their hot spot.

Once aware of the problem they cause, they will only seek willing crew for hosts.

One other benefit: a ship with an infestation (5+ aboard) will never misjump catastrophically; at worst, it will be 2d6 parsecs in a random direction, rather than the 1d6d6 parsecs or a ship destroyed.

The drawback: aging is 20% faster in N-space for the afflicted crew and passengers.

 

[Ran Targas]

Cool concept! I once had a similar situation develop when a PC found a palm sized crystal that seemed to warm to the touch. The more the PC carried it, the more it developed along the lines of a symbiotic crystalline life form; absorbing heat and minerals from the PC and using them to reorganize its matrix.

The PC received bonuses to intellectual challenges as the crystal 'reminded' the PC of information on almost a subconscious level.

Eventually, the PC realized what he had and spent time to cultivate the relationship, resulting in, for all intents and purposes, a second brain with near perfect recall. Very useful for a scout character. The only draw back was the PC spent more time communing with the crystal than with other players, resulting in a significant drop in SOC, difficulty in socializing and understanding cultural references, and a reputation for mild insanity.

 

[jhulse]

Just now had a chance to read all these cool Jump space plot hooks!
Very nice all of you!
One day I might even be able to "borrow" a few ideas.
JakNaz

 

[jatay3]

there are mad evil demons living in jumpspace . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! [Eek!]
---------------------------------
Seriously why not? Why can't you have aliens that only exist in jumpspace, or do they, or do they not?
Are they friendly? Are they not? Are they a natural phenomenon rather than the aliens rumor had? Are they animals or are they sophants? And how do you communicate with them, or defend against them?

 

[jatay3]

The tricky passengers one is good. I once read a sea story were an Ancient Greek trading ship was heading toward Italy. On the way they picked up a load of mercenaries to ship to Italy(to fight in wars involving a certain obscure farming town along the Tiber). The super was counting up the cargo and found that a peacock egg was missing. He was convinced that one of the passengers did it. So they had to search the passengers who of course were well armed and might not take kindly.
They finnally discovered the thief, a Rhodian slinger.
Of course no ship in those days could tolerate a thief aboard because quarters are crowded. Fortunatly they made landfall in Italy where they tied him up and marooned him on shore.
The postcript was that on the way back they met him and he was mad for revenge, and charged after them with his sword whereupon the super broke his nose with a thrown stone.

This story can of course be adapted to space.

 

[flykiller]

anybody else have any in-jump adventure scenarios?

 

[Beerfume]

The two brand new, still-in-their-wrapper personal servant robots crated up in the cargo bay are actually warbots programmed to steal the ship. They come online half way through the trip and attempt to kill (or incapacitate) the crew. One heads for the bridge, the other heads for engineering. Hilarity ensues.

 

[whartung]

There was that time when the Keurig broke, and all of the cups were chicken soup instead of coffee anyway. It was an Apollo 13 engineering moment to try and fix that traumatic situation.