Adventure idea that needs ironing out!

[Hopeless]

So start off with a technologically advanced world, lets call it Foreston named after the ruling family dynasty.

They've developed an advanced means of absorbing power directly from the sun via an immense
collection of solar kites which help store and transfer solar energy into the system network with seemingly no risk.

However a particularly nefarious corporate has developed a means of causing a solar flare at the right moment to disable the system as well as the planetary network long enough for an assault on a buried bank vault.

Whilst the sensor nets are down a ship will shoot an experimental missile that strikes the area above the vault and digs its way through releasing its crew to recover as much of the vault's contents before escaping back up the shaft their missile created to be picked up in low orbit and escape out of the system before the sensor net comes back online or the nearest base can send help to investigate.

Now thats what the PC's will know

What they don't is that this entire mission is to open up the vault so it can be destroyed.
Solar activity around Foreston's star is controlled by an extensive net of nanite satellites designed to help absorb and dissipate excess energy by insuring its released anywhere but towards anything of use to Foreston's rulers.
The net has however been hacked to instead of alleviating the excess to increse it sufficiently so it can be released and then conducted by Foreston's network of solar collectors so it will slowly burn Foreston into a charred cinder.
The vault would otherwise be safe but for the shaft dug into it which will allow for the interior to be completely obliterated along with anything or anyone inside including the PCs!

Now during their robbery they will discover there are still people present in the vault along with one surprise guest!

The guest is actually a time traveller who is trying to rescue the PCs and as many of the others because they are going to be blamed for the incident and are using this opportunity to prove their innocence by insuring there are survivors.

The questions I have are;

Is this good enough for a game?

What other questions should I be looking at?

Should I have PCs based on visitors to the Vault maybe even prisoners?

What do you think?

And before you ask yes it is partly inspired by that episode from that specific bbc tv series! :twisted:

 

[Reynard]

I... like.... wow.

Not sure what show you were referring to but I'd love to see the episode to compare with your outline. I need to stare at the premise a little longer before I comment.

Solar flare? Are these Darrians? Last time they tried to rob a bank, they nearly wiped out several star systems!

 

[Hopeless]

Doctor Who, the Time Heist I think its called.

Don't know why it stuck in my head when I was thinking about Dark Matter, but had this vision of them being involved in an operation that unknown to them was never going to go the way they thought!
Sort of a lethal version (18+ cert.) of a Leverage episode I suppose!

Got this image of Christopher Lee in his make up for a Space 1999 episode being revealed as the uncle of a child caught inside the vault when the flare disables everything.
So the team goes in they make it inside as the flare is slowly devastating the other side of the world and as the world slowly orbits the flare will slowly char the world with the entry point allowing the flare access to the vault interior which will kill everyone inside unless they have a way out.
A decade later the Christopher Lee character will discover the person blamed for the event and learn in return that they wasn't responsible but due to a freak set of events has the chance to travel there and rescue those inside thereby exonerating themselves or rather proving they were present but only because they were confronted about it!
The usual Doctor Who method!

Thinking too much on this I guess!

 

[Easterner]

1) Solar Flares are TL 16 and uncontrollable as Darriens found out.

2) What is in the safe that a corporation would spend trillions to acquire it?

It would be cheaper to detonate a ships engines over the main city and conduct robbery while 1st responders deal with disaster.

 

[Hopeless]

The way I was thinking Foreston has a series of linked solar satellites able to transmit the energy until it could be used by Foreston.

To offset the threat of a solar flare a nanite satellite field was spread a certain distance around their star intended to react to a build up that would mark a solar flare ejection and cycle it away so it eventually is unleashed away from anything important inside the system.

It had been hacked so it would build up the energy instead of dissipate it until it was in position to be conducted by the Foreston satellite system thereby guiding it so it would char the world and leave no evidence that it was anything other than an accident.

The intrusion was specifically arranged to make sure the most secure site on the world wouldn't survive the event, as far as the mercenaries was concerned the hole would be sealed over and they would gather the assembled loot and be ready to be collected once the area was once more facing the dark side allowing their ship to land and pick them up.

The fact they wasn't intended to survive wouldn't occur to them until it would be too late for them to signal the ship to pick them up.

Ideally I was thinking they would once they realise the problem attempt to go back up leaving the stragglers (PCs included) stuck inside but in so doing get caught in the flare giving the others time to realise the threat and seal the entrance giving them time to evacuate further inside the vault sealing the doors behind them praying that they'd be enough to protect them long enough to reach a point it can't reach them.

And that's when I plan on revealing the real reason why the bad guys wanted Foreston reduced to a charred lifeless orb.

 

[locarno24]

1) Solar Flares are TL 16 and uncontrollable as Darriens found out.

If you want to stick to established Traveller TLs, then a suggestion:

Causing a major solar flare cycle is big High-TL Juju, and probably not possible.
If the star flares regularly, which may be why solar collectors are such a thing, then fair enough.

The orbital facilities are presumably shielded, and if you can hack/sabotage/disable said shielding, and have a likely timetable for predicted major flares (you can expect lots of solar observatories for the same reason), you can compromise the magnetic shielding on comms/power/docking satellites at a critical moment.

A solar flare isn't normally a 'char the surface of a world' event unless said world is so close to the sun as to be more or less uninhabitable anyway. However, you can have more than enough devastating chaos by having stuff in orbit start falling on the city - ships would presumably approach the world along its shadow, then dock in shielded highports around the terminator - in superhot day/night planets, having it tide-locked to the sun and having the ring of 'dusk' be inhabited is a common trope.

Knock out the shielding and/or arrange for a few other 'accidents' and it's not unreasonable to have multiple spaceships and/or the highport stations themselves to come falling on the city. That should cause more than enough damage for even the most explosion-fixated GM...

 

[simonh]

I'd have thought any super secret, mega important vault facility would have a backup power supply.

Simon Hibbs

 

[CosmicGamer]

I'd have thought any super secret, mega important vault facility would have a backup power supply.

Simon Hibbs

And with the tech being discussed, some quite advanced security measures.

 

[Hopeless]

I'd have thought any super secret, mega important vault facility would have a backup power supply.

Simon Hibbs

And with the tech being discussed, some quite advanced security measures.

Which is why they're plowing a hole straight into the vault rather than trying to bypass the security measures well most of them anyway!

The way it feels like its going is that they have an inside man who can help them past some of the measures but not by conventional means so the missile hit designed to dig its way down into the vault sets off the backups but they've been modified to allow them access.
However to cover up the deed the flare is being used as a scour any evidence to the contrary.

I suppose it would be easier to say the intensified flare is deliberately focused onto the planet by the solar collectors.

Since it can't appear deliberate therefore the flare or the accumulated solar energy that's flooding the network is designed to cause the system to seemingly reboot in actuality its been hacked to redirect the energy into a devastating blast that's what scours Foreston since this will cause the collectors to self destruct it has to be done in a way that nothing can survive witnessing the event.

So the question becomes how does the PCs ship escape?

Do I have it blown up or have it remain shielded by the planet from the solar collectors' until they've overloaded and blown up?

Would this mean there's another ship present making sure their cover is secure so maybe with all the PCs in the vault rule that the ones who left them behind are killed along with everyone aboard their ship as they desperately seek a way deeper inside the vault to escape the blast or at least remain protected from it until they overload and blow up?

Just how hard would that be if I went that route?