Starship genrator... of sorts

[middenface]

This is such a cool idea - in fact it's so cool I'm going to have to rip it off for a game. Thank you for the inspiration

Gosh darn, should have patented it first... :lol:

Let me know how it works out, I just don't have time right know to do it, besides I'd be ok doing the drawing part of it, maybe not the writing part.

Had a few ideas why the 'sleepers' go crazy..

Virus, gets into the life support, possibly carried aboard by the explorers. Ship's passed through a comet tail etc. Or perhaps cosmic radiation.... (ala Metamorphis Alpha)

VR AI - ships computer is a an advanced AI that controlled a Virtual world for the sleepers to live in... however it's got bored and starts to hate the passengers, starts experimenting with their VR worlds.. explorers board the ship, AI gets worried about the intruders, fear, guilt or just plain malace, wakes the crew to deal with them, know the 'crew' are programmed drones of the AI..
'I have no Mouth and I must Scream', 2001, Paranoia RPG and Fallout 3 inspired... explorers will have to kill the AI 'Dave, Dave what are you doing Dave....'

 

[Scalding]

I've been thinking of running a game where the players discover a parasite like

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/meet-wolbachia-the-male-killing-gender-bending-gonad-chomping-bacteria.ars

only, instead of infecting insects, crawfish, and worms, this one infects humanoids. Same sort of thing though: infected males can only mate with infected females and gradually become female, infected females self-impregnate and the offspring could best be described as a new species. They're still sophonts, though, and the medical cure (antibiotics) can leave the recipient sterile. Depending on how long this has been going on before the characters discover it, this could lead to all sorts of interesting philosophical and moral conundrums.

This would work really well in the situation you're describing. The people from the sleeper ship aren't really human any more, and what's more they're infectious!