srogerscat
Mongoose
I ran my first session of my Mongoose Traveller campaign yester. It went quite well. Here is a transcript I gave the players at the start of play.
It really started in 1963.......
In that year, astronomers noticed, quite by accident, something very unusual in
the outer Solar System. There seemed to be a source of infrared radiation at
roughly the distance between Pluto reaches at the mid-range of its orbit. Quite
a lot of IR, about equal to that emitted by the full moon. This got brief
attention in the popular press, but since it was invisible not only to the naked
eye, but to normal telescopes as well, popular interest faded.
But not among the Astronomers. What the hell was this thing, and how long had
it been there? No one knew. IR astronomy had been a field dominated by
amateurs, eccentrics and dabblers until 1960. The discovery had been pure
happenstance. A bright lad at the Smithsonion Astrophysical Observatory by the
name of Carl Sagan soon announced an electrifying discovery: The source had
mass slightly greater than the martian moon Deimos and was, as near as could be
measured, fated to be captured by Solar gravity. Earth would soon have a very
unusual neighbor.
In 1965, the Sun captured the infrared source (which had been dubbed Boojum)
pulling it into orbit just a little further from the Sun than the asteroid
Ceres, with an orbital period a jot over five years.
Sagan then announced a world twisting - for astrophysicists - discovery: The
object now had negative gravity, it repelled objects instead of attracting them.
And now it was emitting matter. Not much, very damned little in fact but it
could be measured. The immediate volumn around the source had about a ten
percent higher than expected density of hydrogen atoms. But the hell of it was,
there was still no *there* there. No one could see a physical object. A white
hole? No, the emission source was far too diffuse, it had a volume that seemed
to vary from 200 to 1200 kilometers across.
Late in 1966, Boojum changed again. It began emitting all across the
electromagnetic spectrum. The total output was about equal to the total
reflected energy of Earth's moon.
And in the summer of 1967, Boojum spat out gouts of hydrogen. Fifteen pulses
raggedly spaced over a thirty hour period. And the hell of it was, they were
identical. Same mass, about 900 tons each, and same temperature, about 5700
degrees Kelvin. And that Sagan guy claimed one of his exposures showed an
object backlit by one of the pulses. Other astronomers were dubious.
The only consensus among the Astronomical and Astrophysical communities was:
What the Hell?
It really started in 1963.......
In that year, astronomers noticed, quite by accident, something very unusual in
the outer Solar System. There seemed to be a source of infrared radiation at
roughly the distance between Pluto reaches at the mid-range of its orbit. Quite
a lot of IR, about equal to that emitted by the full moon. This got brief
attention in the popular press, but since it was invisible not only to the naked
eye, but to normal telescopes as well, popular interest faded.
But not among the Astronomers. What the hell was this thing, and how long had
it been there? No one knew. IR astronomy had been a field dominated by
amateurs, eccentrics and dabblers until 1960. The discovery had been pure
happenstance. A bright lad at the Smithsonion Astrophysical Observatory by the
name of Carl Sagan soon announced an electrifying discovery: The source had
mass slightly greater than the martian moon Deimos and was, as near as could be
measured, fated to be captured by Solar gravity. Earth would soon have a very
unusual neighbor.
In 1965, the Sun captured the infrared source (which had been dubbed Boojum)
pulling it into orbit just a little further from the Sun than the asteroid
Ceres, with an orbital period a jot over five years.
Sagan then announced a world twisting - for astrophysicists - discovery: The
object now had negative gravity, it repelled objects instead of attracting them.
And now it was emitting matter. Not much, very damned little in fact but it
could be measured. The immediate volumn around the source had about a ten
percent higher than expected density of hydrogen atoms. But the hell of it was,
there was still no *there* there. No one could see a physical object. A white
hole? No, the emission source was far too diffuse, it had a volume that seemed
to vary from 200 to 1200 kilometers across.
Late in 1966, Boojum changed again. It began emitting all across the
electromagnetic spectrum. The total output was about equal to the total
reflected energy of Earth's moon.
And in the summer of 1967, Boojum spat out gouts of hydrogen. Fifteen pulses
raggedly spaced over a thirty hour period. And the hell of it was, they were
identical. Same mass, about 900 tons each, and same temperature, about 5700
degrees Kelvin. And that Sagan guy claimed one of his exposures showed an
object backlit by one of the pulses. Other astronomers were dubious.
The only consensus among the Astronomical and Astrophysical communities was:
What the Hell?
