Two weeks in a shattered cruiser

[Gallowglacht]

In my campaign 2 pocket empires are at war.
I have the cool image in mind of my players coming across the remains of a battle. A couple of broken shells, debris falling in meteor showers into the local gravity well, hot zones from nuclear missiles that type of thing. Either on one of the shells, or on the inhospitable planet below are survivours, technically enemy survivours in need of rescue.

What sorts of trials and tribulations do you imagine these poor souls have endured in the time between their ships demise and the PCs arrival?

 

[whartung]

After the mad hopes and attempts to get out, restore life support, stabilize the ship, etc. it all becomes about interpersonal relationships and self exploration.

I mean, basically you're in a can and you get some quality time, after the stark terror has passed, to contemplate burning up or suffocating. The real question is whether there's any hope for rescue.

Maybe you catch them as they try one last desperate thing to save themselves. Maybe they're drawing lots for suicide. Maybe they've lost some already. Maybe they're playing cards, or they're all lying around naked jacked up on amphetamines and having one big orgy.

Maybe you come upon a dead ship and a dead crew that killed themselves in a horrible vengeful melee, however, for some reason, there was a little girl on the ship -- and she's still alive.

Maybe you show up, just as they give up and space the ship. To end it quick. If only they saw you in time.

 

[Antony]

Maybe you come upon a dead ship and a dead crew that killed themselves in a horrible vengeful melee, however, for some reason, there was a little girl on the ship -- and she's still alive.

Hope the little girl is the one from Aliens and not Alma from the computer game F.E.A.R. though that could prove an interesting scenario.

 

[Drakon]

Assuming the cruiser is in space, the first priorities will be 1) Atmosphere (including not just O2 content but the lack of CO2, as well as temperature and pressure) 2) Water, and 3) food. Those are your first concerns, in that order.

Actually that goes whether you are in space or on a rock.

Once those concerns are taken care of, then you can work on a means of self rescue or signalling for a rescue. The time you have to accomplish these depend on the primary concerns you have dealt with. You may be time limited by air, or water, or food. The less time you can manage these resources, before being depleted, the more desperate the measures will be taken to accomplish rescue, or resource extention (more desperate means of getting the ship to jump, or suicide/cannibalism could become viable options.)

Note that with the proper technology, and waste recovery systems, water may not be an issue. Air will still be an issue, unless you have the means of breaking the CO2 molecules, and reusing the O2, rather than just discharging it overboard or locking it in
lithium hydroxide. Food may be your sole limiting factor.

Sufficient power may need to be restored first, in order to accomplish your primary concerns. A properly designed space craft should have reserve O2 and water, to maintain life support for a time while the crew repairs the life support systems. Bottled O2 and water is a good idea, and even having a few LiOH canisters laying around is a good idea.

So, you have a broken cruiser, how long has it been broken? The time since the battle is less important than how much time is left until the resources are exhausted.

As I recall, it is standard to have 28 days worth of rations. Depending on how long since resupply, and crew fatalities, low berth access and such, you might be able to extend this by a lot.

 

[aramis]

I sprung just such a trap on players once. They used the enclosed air/raft for LS power (we were using MT, so we knew there was JUST enough), while turning off main ship's power. Since they had bought a small load of herbivores on spec, well, the herbivores were not able to be sold.

They returned home with the pirate ship as prize and the pirate crew in irons. Them that survived, that is.

 

[Ran Targas]

I had a similar scenario for my players where they were trying to salvage military grade hardware from an old space battle. Everything was fine until a cruiser-destroyer group showed up to take some target practice at the wrecks. It was rather enjoyable watching my crew try to extricate themselves from the now highly dynamic debris field in their Sulie without getting vaporized incoming weapon fire.

 

[savage]

cruiser

Oh, I like that one.

I like the game scenario Michael Dorn did many years ago where your left on a battle damaged cruiser to fix it and defend the research base on a planet while the crew are captured and taken to a damaged enemy vessel... everything depends on you.

 

[epicenter00]

Perhaps there were once more survivors and they encountered hostile salvagers.

Pirates and other opportunists might shadow warfleets, wait for the big fight, then wait longer until the victor consolidates and leaves the system. Then the salvagers jump in and begin looting - unfired missiles, intact fusion reactors, military-grade jump drives (you know, the ones that can run unrefined fuel by design), computer components, military-grade small arms and battledress from the weapons locker, and so on. These people have no humanitarian impulses - their motive is pure profit. Unfortunately, survivors are darn inconvenient to them. These salvagers don't carry enough fuel, provisions, or space to rescue them and even if they did a lot of navies might arrest them for violating war graves. So they kill any survivors they see (so any survivors can't report if they get rescued later). If these salvagers are really vile, perhaps they're experienced at it, and transmit a weak rescue ship signal to get possible witnesses to reveal themselves, then pop their rescue pods and so on with shipboard lasers. Even more vile salvagers might take in the survivors to strip them of personal valuables like jewelry, personal weapons, oh, and their spacesuits before herding them out of the airlock.

The players would encounter survivors who'd have their own dilemma when the players ship jumps in. Are they another group of salvagers? But we're running out of food and oxygen. Do you want to get shot like the others did?

Another idea is - what if there are survivors from both sides in the wreckage? Perhaps the victors had to move off in a hurry? Most navies, save the most vengeful or barbaric would take in enemy prisoners as both sides fear being marooned in space. That there are enemy survivors in the wreckage suggests that the victor had to move off in a hurry for whatever reason. That opens the possibility that the winners couldn't even rescue all of their side in the time they had (perhaps the "friendly" survivors had their signaling equipment disabled - they have it working now or found replacements but couldn't signal their own side earlier). If the two groups of survivors see each other, what do they do? There would be people who consider survival to be a higher goal than killing each other. But just as certainly, there'd be people who would still see the other side as the enemy and go for the Gauss Rifle. Perhaps both sides have internal conflict like this.