Orphan Adventure Seeds

[Whipsnade]

In another thread, Mike Wightman wrote about his canny use of a few early TNS items to craft an extremely interesting campaign:

The drop tanks ones are a brilliant adventure seed that never made it to a printed adventure (I based my last proto-Traveller mini-series on it). JTAS 2-6

Basically General Shipyards is going to construct drop tanks for Tukera ships in the SM so they can enjoy the same performance parameters of the ships used in the core sectors for the past few decades (there's a bit of canon that was totally missed by future authors - routine use of drop tanks by civilian shipping in the Imperial core sectors including a jump 6 drop tank x-boat system).

Around the same time Mike was posting, I was re-reading S:5 Lightning Class Cruisers and came across a single sentence that left me agog. First, a little background.

The AHLs were retired from active duty in 1048. In 1077 a new meson spinal design led the Imperium to convert those mothballed fleet intruder hulls into frontier cruisers. In the subsequent operational history of the class this sentence appears:

Other notable campaigns in which the new Azhantis included the continuing hostilities in the Solomani Sphere, and the Gateway collapses.

Think about that for a minute.

At least three quarters of a century after the ceasefire which ended the Solomani Rim War in 1002, the Imperium is still fighting someone somewhere in the Solomani Sphere. The sentence specifically says "Sphere" so maybe the Imperium wasn't fighting the Confederation, or perhaps not directly, but hostilities were still occurring.

Also, just what were the Gateway "collapses"? The same section in S:5 talks about the new Azhanti CruDivs being deployed to areas of potential trouble, including the "...Gateway to the turbulent client-states on the trailing frontier" What was happening out there between the Imperium and the 2,000 Worlds?

Traveller materials, especially the early materials, are peppered with these orphaned adventure seeds. In A:1 Kinunir alone there's the Forboldn Project, an uprising on Feri which has cut x-boat communications(?!?), and several others.

What are your favorite orphans? What aside, sentence, or passage has left you staring into the fridge, standing in the shower, or busily planning a new campaign?

 

[mike wightman]

Since you have already picked out my favourite I will have to find others

One I have mentioned before is the backstory to marooned/Marooned alone. There is a great little adventure hidden away in the pre-amble to the adventure.

In the Spinward Marches subsector blurb there are some real gems (expanded upon in some instances by the SMC blurb - thank you again for pointing me there), then there are the rumour tables in Kinunir and Twilight's Peak.

Early JTAS news, library data from the early adventures; all rich sources for adventure seeds.

For example:

Battlefield Salvage: The area of space where the Battle of Two Suns was
fought could have starship wreckage, both of Kinunir class ships and of other ships
involved, in salvagable condition. Serviceable parts for the restoration of the
Kinunir could be available.

 

[Whipsnade]

Since you have already picked out my favourite I will have to find others

Sorry to steal your thunder! The "Core shipping routinely uses drop tanks" statement suggests fascinating possibilities. Not only would all the designs be different, not only would performances be different, but they'd be quite a bit of infrastructure in place in every linked system to support such operations. Easily damaged infrastructure I should add...

One I have mentioned before is the backstory to marooned/Marooned alone. There is a great little adventure hidden away in the pre-amble to the adventure.

Oooh... good one... politics and skullduggery... Not a baron, marquis, or at a planetary level either. The backstory involves a subsector duke. IIRC, GT:RoF discusses Archduke Adair's constant efforts to win the "hearts & minds" of the Domain's barons as a way to buttress his political support.

Given that background, the shenanigans surrounded that watch fob cannot be too convoluted.

In the Spinward Marches subsector blurb there are some real gems (expanded upon in some instances by the SMC blurb - thank you again for pointing me there)...

You're welcome. It's hard to be certain after 30+ years but I think I owned SMC before S:3. As "adventure inspiring" as SMC is, it does have a lot of issues; broken ship designs, UWP goofs, a "campaign" that's little than a suggestion, even pages out of order. Despite that I got over a decade of use out of it.

... then there are the rumour tables in Kinunir and Twilight's Peak. Early JTAS news, library data from the early adventures; all rich sources for adventure seeds.

Very much so. The proto-Traveller/4-4-4 materials are crammed full of inspiration thanks to those rumor tables. There's one man and a set of robots building a "rudimentary" starport on Djinni and Echiste is supposed to soon be getting x-boat links to Yori and Risek.

One of my favorites, and one I never got to use, is from Research Station Gamma. One of the stations globes houses five, powerfully psionic, "roughly bilteral bipeds" of apparent human origin who are living in conditions equating an UWP of FA0. They'll contact anyone who appears in the observation chamber and they want out.

Just what the hell is going on there?!!?

Battlefield Salvage: The area of space where the Battle of Two Suns was
fought could have starship wreckage, both of Kinunir class ships and of other ships
involved, in salvagable condition. Serviceable parts for the restoration of the
Kinunir could be available.

From the first, I found that statement absolutely fascinating because it's so obviously a lie. Think about it for a moment.

The Battle of Two Suns took place in 1084 in deep space between Yres and Menorb and the events in A:1 Kinunir are said to start on 001-1105. All the ships fighting in that battle had vectors. All the wrecks resulting from that battle have vectors. All the debris knocked loose from the ships and the wrecks have vectors. After 20+ years those vectors mean anything with an origin point within the "battle zone" has been scattered from hell to breakfast.

Jumping in to the battle's coordinates will only put you inside a sphere of wrecks/debris which has been expanding for over twenty years. There is no battle "field" where you can dig up minie balls with your metal detector.

The Imperium has interdicted the area for reasons other than safety concerns. What those reasons may be allowed me to "explain" the 4th Frontier War IMTU.

 

[Murph]

I shudder to think at the hazard to navigation caused by drop tanks being dropped willy-nilly across a star system.

 

[BlackBat242]

No, in developed systems there would be a "clean-up patrol" whose duties included recovering and debris jettisoned from space/starships in order to "keep the spacelanes clear from objects that present a collision hazard".

In undeveloped systems there are not likely to be very many drop tanks floating around.

 

[flykiller]

The sentence specifically says "Sphere" so maybe the Imperium wasn't fighting the Confederation, or perhaps not directly, but hostilities were still occurring.

justifications for funding.

 

[Whipsnade]

I shudder to think at the hazard to navigation caused by drop tanks being dropped willy-nilly across a star system.

It won't operate that way for that very reason.

The JTAS items talk about "high capacity" commercial shipping, so it's not every Tom, Dick, and Beowulf using drop tanks between Podunk-I and Backwater-VIII. It's going to be Tukera, Sharurshid, and other large corporations and shipping lines operating along routes between Sector Capital-IV, Hi-Pop-V, Industrial-III, Hi-Tech-II, and the like.

Those firms and, most likely, firms in consortium are going to be operating their high capacity, drop tank using hulls out of "far ports" much like the IISS' X-boat system. Passengers and goods will be shuttled at 6gees out to a point beyond whatever jump limit applies and loaded aboard the vessel waiting there. The ship will establish whatever real space vector it requires for the destination system, draw fuel from the drop tanks, drop those tanks, and jump away. Small craft will then retrieve the tanks for refurbishment and reuse. The ships and drop tanks used will most likely be standardized across a few designs.

It's going to resemble rail travel in a way.

 

[flykiller]

I shudder to think at the hazard to navigation caused by drop tanks being dropped willy-nilly across a star system.

piloted fuel tanks. minimal bridge, m1, pp1, big fuel tank. putters out, supplies the fuel for another ship to jump, putters back.

 

[dalthor]

IMTU I have create the Drop-Tank Recovery and Refueling System, aka DTRRS.

Here is a sample small craft from MTU; there are several other components, and many larger ships.

Crandel-class Drop Tank Recovery and Refueling System (DTRRS), TL-14, 26.9MCr

Using an 80-ton hull, the Crandel class DTRRS is capable of 5g acceleration. The crew consists of one pilot. The standard cockpit has a small attached cargo area, typically fitted out as a sleeping cubby.

The Crandel is designed to recover and refuel empty drop tanks. It can carry one 60-ton or two 30-ton drop tanks. The grapple and connector system is over-engineered for safety during high-g maneuvering.

The drop tank adapter kit is a standardized design connecting the DTRRS fueling system to the drop tank. On a starship this would be the transfer pump assembly.

Volume Component               MCr      Notes
------ ----------------------- -------  -------------------------------
 (80)  A8 pod hull, SL             5.0  Streamlined, skids, lifters
   3.5 Mod P-plant B               3.5
   1.6 Plant fuel                       1 month
   1.5 Mod M-drive B               3.0  5.0g acceleration
   2.0 Standard cockpit            0.2  Pilot only
   0.5 Model/0 Bis computer        0.5
   0.0 Ult DS Surf Comm-14         3.0  Mod +4, S=12
   0.0 Adv DS Surf Radar-14        2.0  Mod +3, S=12
   0.0 Std AR Surf Visor-14        1.0  Mod 0, S=7
   4.0 Dual scoops with purifiers  2.2  200 tons per hour
  60.0 Drop tank                   0.0
   4.0 Grapple pairs               4.0  4 pair
   0.5 Fuel transfer kit           0.5  Starship refueling hoses/connectors
   2.0 Drop tank adapter kit       2.0  Fueling system to drop tank connector
   0.4 Cargo                       0.0

 

[Graham2001]

A nice design, thought it might be worthwhile linking to a thread I did where I'd identified all the scenarios where the world is either not stated, not given a UWP or was never placed in a subsector.

Scenarios with no specified world or the World has no UWP

 

[Whipsnade]

Great link. Thanks Graham.

 

[dalthor]

Like the link, thanks!

One of my groups best adventures involved tracking down a smuggling ring that had implicated the team.

It took them a while to figure out that the smugglers were using DTRRS tanks and ships. From there, they had to figure out who was involved, and so on.

Got into quite a bit of detail, and there were a LOT of spin-off adventures from that "simple" scenario.

 

[Graham2001]

Great link. Thanks Graham.

Glad you liked it, here is a link to my other 'orphans' project. This was a small database that covered all the worlds from GDW publications with UWPs that ended up unplaced for whatever reason. If you check 76 Patrons, several of the Mercenary Tickets feature unplaced worlds and at least one Imperial client state that never made it onto the map.

It also links to the Traveller Canon page with a full listing of unplaced worlds with sources.

Orphaned Systems with UWPs

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Ah this is the kind of Traveller I like, story telling :coffeesip:

 

[Garyius2003]

And real life provides plenty of examples of small but deadly adventures while an armed peace between major combatants is under way.

I know the 1900 Siege of the International Legations in China has been done to death in mil scifi the last 20 years, but it would be a good base background for an adventure. Run a defense sector, sneak in supplies, kill an opposing leader, steal the enemy missile keys... It could even come with a time line scripted just by using the real life timetable

More recently, before the Soviets stopped existing, and even before their death really started, I was based in the Far East. The Subic/Clark bases and their ranges and training areas had issues with local rebels, small scale, but tribal/Muslim based so the Soviets weren't controlling them to keep them under control. That lead to stories in the military magazines every year or so about Marines or soldiers on horseback with M16s and NVGs patrolling. Switched to space and 100 year old ships the situation would be equally understandable even if at first jarring.

At least three quarters of a century after the ceasefire which ended the Solomani Rim War in 1002, the Imperium is still fighting someone somewhere in the Solomani Sphere. The sentence specifically says "Sphere" so maybe the Imperium wasn't fighting the Confederation, or perhaps not directly, but hostilities were still occurring.

Also, just what were the Gateway "collapses"? The same section in S:5 talks about the new Azhanti CruDivs being deployed to areas of potential trouble, including the "...Gateway to the turbulent client-states on the trailing frontier" What was happening out there between the Imperium and the 2,000 Worlds?

Traveller materials, especially the early materials, are peppered with these orphaned adventure seeds. In A:1 Kinunir alone there's the Forboldn Project, an uprising on Feri which has cut x-boat communications(?!?), and several others.

 

[Graham2001]

I found this archived listing of published scenarios for Classic Traveller between 1977-87, which was compiled by the HIWG, it does not include any of the Games Workshop material, but it gives some ideas as to what is out there.

https://web.archive.org/web/2004071...nport.com/hiwg/Archive/hiwg-docs/trav_adv.pdf

 

[nobby-w]

piloted fuel tanks. minimal bridge, m1, pp1, big fuel tank. putters out, supplies the fuel for another ship to jump, putters back.

Hey, it works in Kerbal Space Program ...