Starship pets

[DeepSpaceAdventures]

My players will soonish get their first ship and I also like to give them a ship pet.
Maybe I just let a cat walk in like she owns the place or the cat comes with the ship.
Maybe it's not a terran cat but a Seedspitter (JTAS vol. 1 p. 23). I'm not sure yet, so I have some questions for you:

Does your group have a ship pet?
What is it?
What cool stories do you have about your ship pet?

 

[Alasdair090]

I would go with a small pet that they do not know about that semi-intelligent is good at hiding but likes shiny/colorful things, it mostly comes out at night, mostly. I think like a pygmy marmoset.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Have the ship think the characters are its pets.

 

[MarcusIII]

My players will soonish get their first ship and I also like to give them a ship pet.

Hmm, how 'bout a tribble?

 

[hopsnbaer]

I had one that snuck on board the ship, but it looked kind of like a cross between a naked Mole rat and a cat with six legs and spit poison so they vented the ship to kill it.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

A stray Hiver larva, and they don't know what it is, so think it's just a funny animal.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

How about a ferret? It will hunt and kill small animals (rodents) that try to make your ship their home.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Humans domesticated dogs.

Cats domesticated humans.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Have the ship think the characters are its pets.

A very... cultured idea.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

A very... cultured idea.

I'm guessing that is a reference to a book (or series) I haven't read.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

A robot that thinks it is cute and cuddly. You are a 3 ton fabricator you CANNOT get on my lap.

 

[To Tha Moon!]

Thought you might like this:

Does your ship have a Pet? (revised)

Did you leave your cargo door open too long while unloading and now have a bat-equivalent predator flying around your ship? Did an Opossum-l...

sswstation.blogspot.com

 

[rinku]

My Trader/Pirate got herself a shoulder robot. It has recon and utility uses, but it's mostly a toy and something other than her suit to talk to and boss around.

In a campaign I ran, I dropped a stray alien critter on the players while they were docked at Glisten; the port authorities were very unamused about a feral animal running around their station and were about to dispose of it, so one of the players saved it under the conditions that they had to remove it from Glisten. Described as a furry arboreal with six tentacles and cute eyes, I called it an Octo-monkey. There was a note that it would get uncomfortable around Psi, but it didn't come up, and later when it should have come up I had forgotten about it.

 

[rinku]

I'm guessing that is a reference to a book (or series) I haven't read.

Iain M Banks' Culture books. Human civilisation has moved to post scarcity and Clarkian technology, with godlike AI Minds. Humans and Minds co-exist just fine but the Mind of a starship tends to think of its passengers and crew parentally.

Even Banks accepted that his utopia wasn't great for writing stories in. Pretty much all of the books are set outside the Culture itself, where things are... not so utopian.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

My Trader/Pirate got herself a shoulder robot. It has recon and utility uses, but it's mostly a toy and something other than her suit to talk to and boss around.

I have in mind a world where the culture runs to fads LOTs of fads. One I had in mind was robot shoulder riding cats. The PCs would need to buy one for each person leaving the ship to be taken seriously. Next time they arrived it would be something else, maybe serious people all drive replica Stutz Bearcats and have raccoon (fake) fur coats. The time after that something else. They'd have to hire a local willing to put up with their eccentricity of not keeping up with local fashions to get anything done or be either unable to deal or get lousy prices for being "unfashionable".

So at least one time your character might actually fit in. Maybe even find out that they were the foundation of the next fad of robot parrots and pirate outfits everyone with a cutlass and eye patch.

 

[rinku]

She may have a shoulder pet, but no major injuries...

 

[MonsterX]

Giant space hamsters make good pets, but are expensive to feed.

 

[Condottiere]

How about abdomen?

 

[DeepSpaceAdventures]

Great stuff here, thank you!