Can you give me some advice...

[Hopeless]

Been fancying running a T2300 game and a while back there was that Lift Off Starter set that went to kick starter that involved some play testing.

It had an interesting adventure to go with it and recently got thinking what if a scout ship picked up signals that seem to indicate the presence of a wormhole that opened every so often.

To test the theory the next time they picked up the signal a prison transport is diverted to head straight through that area under the view that as it was automated and the prisoners kept sedated and unconscious there was nothing that would be missed.

Yes kind of thinking you'd expect from a certain Empire, but turns out there is a wormhole and the transport makes it through but the trip overloads a couple of system waking up the prisoners.

So you have a transport of prisoners (including the PCs) finding themselves on an automated transport heading for a world in a solar system that looks nothing like the one they knew with most unaware that humanity even has the means to make trips to other star systems.

What should I be looking out for or preparing if I use this as the start of the adventure?

Oh and thanks in advance!

 

[phavoc]

First thing, since the prisoners are sedated for the trips and there is no crew onboard, food, water, even atmosphere could be limited. If you wanna be a mean ref, let them wake everyone up and then they can all suffer, or if just a few are awake they'll have to make hard decisions about who, if anyone, gets revived.

Second, unless the prisoners have the right skills, they will be more or less helpless on the transport. Everything is automated, so there may, or may not be, internal defenses that are online and only deactivated when it reaches a spacedock. I'd assume there'd be some sort of defenses onboard, for those just in case circumstances.

Third, getting control of the ship is paramount. For now the ship is being run by the programming uploaded to it, but the ship itself is probably not that 'smart', so it can only react to the things it was told to do. Preservation being important, and getting back will also be important (otherwise it's a wasted trip and ship). Some of the prisoners might realize that the government isn't going to throw the ship away lightly (the cargo... maybe).

Fourth, for the most part the prisoners are going to be along for the ride. Most of their time will be focused on finding out information, and finding food/water/atmosphere. And of course things like weapons (to fight guards), space suits or escape pods because that's the only way off the ship.

How much you can drag this stuff out depends upon how big of a ship you are going to put them on. I wouldn't think it would be TOO big, as it becomes a valuable asset. And being automated it's got to have some way of defending itself from other ships, as pirates or friends of the prisoners would try to rescue them from an 'easy score' of an automated prison ship.

 

[Hopeless]

I was more wondering what kind of ship I could use to serve as the Transport?

Currently thinking a modified Thorez class Courier might work with the cargo bay holding the sleeping prisoners in sleeping capsules (ala those used in Japan for overnight use).

Was thinking that a select group are awakened and learn about what's going on but lack access to the bridge initially since the faults resulting from crossing through the wormhole release some of the prisoners requiring them to decide what to do.

Ideally the revelation of their situation should allow most of the prisoners to understand they need the ship to reach an inhabitable world and most wouldn't have the requisite skills.

I was thinking of throwing in a Baltar character who tries to take control only to damage the navigation forcing the players to figure out how to repair the system before any pilots attempt a landing on world.

Depending on what they do this could lead them to leave the ship and later discover its the only such craft available making it vital they return and recover it if they want to get off planet even if only to survey the rest of the system or have anything capable of defending them from an off world attack.

Still not sure if its the right ship but still appreciate any help!

 

[phavoc]

The Thorez has about 340tons of cargo space, so it's plenty spacious to hold capsules in racks. There are normally accomodations for (I think) 16 crew.

So size wise it could probably work. Zero-G could be interesting for everyone.

Maybe your Baltar guy is a hacker, or wanna-be and ends up damaging the systems while doing something semi-stupid? Always a good spot for NPC's

 

[Rick]

Ok, I think that the prisoners would have to take control of the ship as a matter of necessity - an automated ship that suddenly finds itself somewhere with no reference points to navigate to its destination is likely to just do nothing, it wouldn't head towards the nearest likely planet. If they can't control much of the ship, then pointing it at a planet, firing the engines and taking to lifepods at the last moment might be the least worst option.
Whichever way you do it, those prisoners are likely to be stuck on that planet with or without a ship; stellar navigation is going to be absolutely useless unless they can do a fair bit of star mapping while they're there. You might have to do a 'deus ex machina' option and have an "ancient ruined civilisation" with a penchant for extensive star charts inscribed on very durable materials!

 

[Epicenter]

The premise of the scenario seems a little dark for 2300. Even in a "cyberpunk" version of 2300, you'd think that a ship would be pretty expensive and just sort of sending it through a wormhole on a whim would be considered a waste of money by Accounting (even in 3I Traveller, you'd think that a ship that takes 40-odd years of loans to pay off would too valuable to send through a wormhole), filled with prisoners or not.

There's a problem with "prisoner"-based games, I've found. Players who chargen or are asked to play "prisoners" tend to make them pretty anti-social and prone to violence towards each other (it's like how evil-aligned parties in D&D tend to have a lot of fighting and betrayals within the party). If this is an angle you want (and it could be pretty interesting) then go for it, but if you're not prepared for this phenomenon, it can cause a lot of problems if it occurs (it doesn't always, but usually it only takes one player to decide to go edgelord to cause problems). A prisoner transport also might contain some fair number of prisoners, something you'll have to deal with insofar as what they do, happens to them, etc.

However, I can suggest some ways to still have a "prison ship" to avoid some of the issues; if the "prisoners" are criminals in some repressive society, maybe they're not all "criminals" by our modern standards (political prisoners, imprisoned for speaking out against the repressive government, or even a reasonably moral person who found a superior in his/her organization was skimming monies might be arrested on some trumped up charge, etc.); it'd go well in hand with a society that'd simply send a ship full of prisoners to see if something is a wormhole or not. Some combination of "political" prisoners" and your more garden-variety thieves, murderers, and worse might also make for some interesting situations.

 

[Anonymous]

Been fancying running a T2300 game and a while back there was that Lift Off Starter set that went to kick starter that involved some play testing.

It had an interesting adventure to go with it and recently got thinking what if a scout ship picked up signals that seem to indicate the presence of a wormhole that opened every so often.

To test the theory the next time they picked up the signal a prison transport is diverted to head straight through that area under the view that as it was automated and the prisoners kept sedated and unconscious there was nothing that would be missed.

Yes kind of thinking you'd expect from a certain Empire, but turns out there is a wormhole and the transport makes it through but the trip overloads a couple of system waking up the prisoners.

So you have a transport of prisoners (including the PCs) finding themselves on an automated transport heading for a world in a solar system that looks nothing like the one they knew with most unaware that humanity even has the means to make trips to other star systems.

What should I be looking out for or preparing if I use this as the start of the adventure?

Oh and thanks in advance!

OK, if you run this scenario as detailed here I can see a couple of opportunities for things to go a little awry:

If you've happened across a wormhole and your understanding of the thing suggests the chance to leap umpteen light years across a galaxy why would you send a bunch of convicts?

OK, I get that they are expendable but what value would their loss be to your society? If there's a chance that on the other side of the wormhole your characters will be able to "do science" that's of value to the society they left, why wouldn't you send some adventurous souls who'd be up for the job?

If you just want to be rid of a bunch of convicts, old sparky is waiting for them in a museum in the Texas Republic...

Do you envisage that there is a chance for the ship to return back thru the wormhole to the system they originated from?

If the journey is a one way affair then the crew/convicts/whoever you choose to put on board are truly screwed, unless they have a source of power and a lot of food their days are numbered. Ships need fuel and people need food and water, air comes in handy too...

In terms of what kind of ship should be used, it should be one that has the greatest degree of self sufficiency for the reasons above, it will need the ability to generate power and recycle food from whatever it's carrying. That would suggest some kind of lab ship or a freighter adapted for the task at hand. I could see any of the commercial ships from the Ships of the French Arm being ideal for tweaking to the task at hand.

Of course you may just want to throw in a good dollop of hollywood and simply make it a free for all survival game where cannibalism is viable and its all a bit hyper reality/comic book. It's all good, just depends on what you and your players want.

 

[Hopeless]

I was thinking of using pre-gens or just a short synopsis to explain why they're aboard for example;

The Agent: Actually assigned to coax the group to complete the mission. Registered as a prisoner with records to prove it, knows the background for the rest of the prisoners except one.

The Drifter: Arrested with the Scout following a bar room brawl he/she was slung aboard the Transport with the Scout and finds him/herself stuck aboard a ship heading to some unknown new world. Not exactly thrilled but happy to go along with the crowd especially if they're trustworthy.

The Marine: Court-martialled after being framed by his superior officer, has family left behind and has ever reason to want to find a way back and being able to do so and not be considered an escaped convict would be even better.

The Merchant: Betrayed by a rival would look upon this as a surprising new venture since he isn't wanted for anything in the new system and would love the chance to rebuild his fortunes.

The Scholar: Actually not supposed to be aboard was kidnapped and hidden aboard because she refused to work for a Corporation that effectively murdered her former boss. When the others are awakened she's the first to reach the area outside the bridge and trying to hack the computer systems attempting to find out what's going on.
Tech savvy enough to be able to repair key parts of the ship but this is her first time in space.

The Scout: Arrested after a bar room brawl set off when he/she was found with the spouse of an important official. If the place they're heading to has a bar with a full fridge of food and decent drink he'd be all in! (I'm now picturing "him" as a good tempered Aussie!)

I think this is probably going overboard, since you never know how any group of players' would handle something like this, well me anyway!

The transport is being controlled by another ship at range, once its clear they survived the wormhole transition intact a trio of small ships will follow them through before the command ship does.

There's sufficient food, water and air to reach the target world as the concern was making sure its was safe to get through the wormhole and previous sent probes wasn't working the next time the wormhole opened.

There's a definite human colony on the fourth world of this system and the distress calls indicated it was under attack and attempting to contact someone in the solar system whose identity is currently unknown.

The transition started waking up the other prisoners' the Baltar character was released accidentally shortly after the PCs due to the discovery someone was already moving around on the ship (the Scholar).

His appearance along with 2-3 cronies as the PCs are on the bridge is when the navigation control is damaged and he flees the resulting fight allowing the bridge to be retaken and the PCs to decide how they handle the 50+ prisoners milling around in the cargo bay.

There will be periodic messages via the computer assumed to be from an AI but in fact broadcasted from the other ship as it keeps them on target unaware of the fight and damage inside of the ship.

If the ship reaches the world they have a chance to land or possibly crash land the ship leaving them on the seemingly hospitable world with no means of returning home.