Zed Imperium?
- Thread starter tucker2
- Start date
All Tomorrow's Zombies, a sci-fi expansion for Eden's excellent All Flesh Must Be Eaten game, is an outstanding supplement. Lots and lots of ideas for incorporating zombies into a Traveller game.
I used it for a fun Traveller session -- the players were hired by an estranged parent to retrieve a child being held by a non-custodial parent. This parent worked at a small, isolated SuSag nanotech research station with unusually high security. The players developed an elaborate plan to infiltrate the station. But once they landed they realized something had gone very, very wrong.
I used it for a fun Traveller session -- the players were hired by an estranged parent to retrieve a child being held by a non-custodial parent. This parent worked at a small, isolated SuSag nanotech research station with unusually high security. The players developed an elaborate plan to infiltrate the station. But once they landed they realized something had gone very, very wrong.
If you want your Zombie Apocalypse to spread from planet to planet, either the zombies have to remain capable of piloting the starships a la The Virus in TNE or the cause of zombification has to have a gestation longer than the week in jump and whatever quarantine period is put in place at the port of arrival.
There's always the plague ship approach too. A ship docks with the station or lands at a starport with nothing seemingly amiss only to disgorge a wave of zombies that overwhelm whatever frontline defense there is and escape into the population.
There's always the plague ship approach too. A ship docks with the station or lands at a starport with nothing seemingly amiss only to disgorge a wave of zombies that overwhelm whatever frontline defense there is and escape into the population.
It's a wild hair I had brainstorming for the my current game. The group is a bunch of guys that're a decade or more lapsed from ttrpgs, but they're all good sports-- would be up for a seriously Metal change to vanilla Traveller.
Thanks for the ideas there guys. I like the plague ship angle, and I'm not above using some pseudo-science to explain how maybe Jump space is where the problem starts. Someway or other you get infected/change while in Jump. The not knowing what/why/ is the hell is this happening is a big part of the horror, but the more widespread and unstoppable the Zed menace is better for full-on Apocalypse.
Thanks for the ideas there guys. I like the plague ship angle, and I'm not above using some pseudo-science to explain how maybe Jump space is where the problem starts. Someway or other you get infected/change while in Jump. The not knowing what/why/ is the hell is this happening is a big part of the horror, but the more widespread and unstoppable the Zed menace is better for full-on Apocalypse.
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
it doesn't have to be imperium wide to be effective. if the players are stuck half way around a world form their ship and their is a outbreak, it just as deadly.
maybe they need to escape the area before the Navy carpet nukes it to contain the outbreak?
maybe they need to escape the area before the Navy carpet nukes it to contain the outbreak?
salochin999
SOC-13
I was thinking about this the other day and came up with a low berth medic (secretly mad doctor) working passage from ship to ship and injecting low berth passengers.
Brian Smaller
SOC-12
I think that if a world was so infected (or by any other unknown disease) the IN would have standing orders to blockade it.
Think "Miranda" from Serenity.
That would seem likely, although it might depend on the noble running the sector. Norris would take a very rational approach to a blockade, where someone like Dulinor might order certain cities be "cleansed" of the affliction.
Wow, there's an adventure seed; trying to stop that kind of thing.
salochin999
SOC-13
It would need to have an incubation period of at least a couple of weeks to allow it to spread.
Imperium wide would be very hard to explain, unless the Zombies retained their technical abilities and could refuel and fly ships (which is possible, think Marvel Zombies, but seems like a very diffeerent story than Romero Zombies, which the Zed in the title imples to me). Getting and keeping ships going between planets is simply too challenging in the Traveller universe. Sure, there might be one or two planets that infect another, but for the most part a currier ship would jump out to warn each planet in jump range and they would start quarenteening ships.
I've just had a Futurama inspired thought!
Brain Slugs!!!
Hmmm whay if that wasn't Futurama inspired but Brain Slug inspired?
Anyway the sci-fi trope of the parasite or alien that takes over the host turning it into a zombie-like character might be a way of explaining how it spreads and how the zombies retain technical knowledge.
Brain Slugs!!!
Hmmm whay if that wasn't Futurama inspired but Brain Slug inspired?
Anyway the sci-fi trope of the parasite or alien that takes over the host turning it into a zombie-like character might be a way of explaining how it spreads and how the zombies retain technical knowledge.
It's loosely based on the real phenomena of a parasite eating gray matter of a host, and altering motor functions and behavioral patterns. I can imagine in a sci-fi vein an order of species a bit higher may attempt to take over the host.
In fact I think there's such a parasite that takes over snails, slugs or some kind of ant or termite.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Why would you want to do so?
Because zombies are all the rage with the young hip crowd.
That's me the 47y/o hipster.
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