The following are the entries for this contest. Please read them and rate each one (independently) on a 1-5 scale. Send your responses to contest@freelancetraveller.com. You may use this message as your ballot, trimming everything after the double-dashed line.
Score: _______ Ice Lily
Score: _______ DX-1000
The deadline for votes is 23:59:59 EDT Sun 14 Sep 2008
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Ice Lily
A small and innocuous-looking plant from a nearby cold world. Recently discovered, its natural beauty and current market rarity make it popular room-dressing for ladies of means. It also has a little secret that is just beginning to leak onto the local grapevine - it appears to be a functioning, natural aphrodisiac.
Unfortunately, the Ice Lily is extremely temperature sensitive and must be shipped in powered refrigeration containers at a temperature of between 260 and 270 Kelvin. Any lower and its flowers die back and it goes into its winter hibernation mode for at least a month, any higher and the plant is killed outright. Since interstellar shipment will take at least a week, the containers also need an integral light source.
Sometimes, individual plants may be shipped in refrigerated transparent display cases for direct-to-customer sale.
Export of the plant is restricted, but not illegal, and an export certificate is needed to take a consignment off its home world.
The BITS 101 Cargoes HazCode label for a small Ice Lily consignment might be:
32240A3-C3035A35-[16]-(4)-pict. Fragile.
(where 'pict' indicates a hazard pictogram - toxic, perhaps, so nobody will eat it).
Referee Only:
Owing to the plant's recent discovery and local distribution, the crew will not be aware of the following details, but optionally one of the passengers might have the information, or a directed search of a medical database will provide it - public net searches will not.
When a plant's temperature rises above zero and it dies (due to a faulty container, perhaps) it gives off a noxious vapour which, although not having any direct health dangers, has hallucinogenic and hypnotic suggestion-enhancing properties. The vapour is not only airborne, but also condenses onto clothes and surfaces to spread by contact, and may re-evaporate in other areas.
When the vapour is inhaled by a person already under the influence of a mood-lifting drug, it acts as a euphoric/aphrodisiac which, in a controlled environment, can lead to enhanced harmless fun. However, without the mood-lifter the hallucinogen preys upon humanity's darker dreams, enhancing its victims' greatest fears. The ship's doctor may see evidence of a plague, the navigator may be convinced of a misjump, the steward, with a vampire novel under his pillow, might misinterpret a passenger's insomnia - and each victim may become highly suggestible to the authenticity of another's delusion...
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DX-1000 is a powerful explosive that was introduced in Imperial year
50 by EFELPD Explosives Solomani Rim/Rann/3106 Rimward. On
Rann the explosive would not explode under any conditions without a
detonator. The stability of the explosive was a major selling point
which helped the company to gain a substantial market share in a
period of two years. Another feature that made the explosive so
popular was that smaller charges could be used in blasting. A third
feature was the ability to easily mold the explosive into a shaped
charge that directed the explosive force along specific lines.
By 002-0053 DX-1000 was being exported to many worlds along the
Solomani Rim, Alpha Crucis, Dispora, and Old Expanses border. With
the export outside of Rann's planetary conditions DX-1000 began to
experience major safety issues. From 050-0053 through 005-0054 a
series of accidents occurred on dozens of worlds with a wide range
of different planetary conditions. Fatal toxic fumes were created on
three worlds with different atmospheric profiles. Six worlds reported
premature detonation of DX-1000 at temperatures from -5° to +6°C.
All the reported detonations are well within the safe storage range of
0°C +/-10°C. At least two reports documented that four tons of DX-1000
spontaneously combusted at different humidity levels. Testing of
DX-1000 by local and Imperial investigators could not duplicate the
instabilities reported on the other worlds at any of the manufacturing
plants on Rann. EFELPD sent qualified staff to many of the reported
location to verify the instabilities with mixed results. Some of the tests
resulted in different instabilities reported while on other worlds the
instabilities in the chemical compositon could be found. In 002-0055
EFELPD Explosives voluntarily ceased exporting DX-1000 outside
of the Rann system and stopped manufacturing the explosive by the
end of Imperial 0056.
Originally DX-1000 was shipped in standard explosive shipping crates
as a moldable solid and rated as extermely insensitive to exploding
or being flammable. No toxic fumes were emitted during normal handling
or after the explosive had been detonated at any of the standard
atmospheric test points. Temperature testing showed that DX-1000 was
stable from -40°C to 50°C but the best results were at 0°C. Humidity and
gravity tolerance at the Rann facilities again showed a very stable product.
The result was a Universal Hazard Profile (UHP) of 400-X5X6-17.
1. Hazard Category: 4 (Explosive)
2. Subclassification: 0 (Exteremely Insensitive Explosive)
3. Races Affected: 0 (All life forms affected if in the blast zone)
4. Atmosphere Tolerance: X (Can be used in any atmospheric condition)
5. Temperature Tolerance: 5 (Best stored at 0°C +/-10°C)
6. Humidity Tolerance: X (Stored under any humidity conditions)
7. Gravity Tolerance: 6 (Max gravity that the material can be stored)
8. Storage Form: 1 (Stored as a solid block)
9. Shipping Mass: 7 (1 to 10 tons)
Adventure seed:
The party is a team from EFELPD Explosives sent to determine why
DX-1000 became unstable. In each of the conditions described above
the common factor was an exteremely small amount of a rare gas that
reacted with the different components of DX-1000. I would recommend
that the team visit a minimum of 3 sites to no more than 6 before they
come up with the cause of the instability.
