Stronghold Help

[allanimal]

The characters in the game I am running were asked by a powerful noble to help make one of her problems dissapear.

The problem is another rival noble on the planet they share. Patron doesn't care how it's done, just get him out of the picture. The target is a dictator in his sparsely populated small continent. The planet is a TL9 world, but lies on a major trade route between the Imperium and the Aslan Heirate, so there is a class A starport and lots of potential to get higher-tech stuff.
There is also imperial presence, as this is an important stop on the trade route, so dramatic things like nuking him from orbit would probably be met with at least unofficial reprisals from the imperium.

I'm trying to figure out what this guy's stronghold will be like - I want it to be largely TL 9, but with a small high-tech security force.

What kinda of defenses shoukd he have? He's obviously aware the higher tech exists but on world he's got top notch tech stuff. I'd like to be able to make the PCs think twice about hovering over the compound with their ship and bombarding it with their particle beam. I figure missle turrets and lasers could help thwart that.

How would you make use of your TL9-10 gear to try to stop an infiltration of people with easy access to TL12 gear?

I figure this guy has some quirky pastime like Poni jousting, and the palace riddled with decadent stuff ... Like what though? For sine reason all my tired brain is telling me is "koala fountain", whatever that is.
I have to figure out a way to work these quirky things in to the adventure.

If you were an evil overlord on a TL 9 world, what would you want in your lair? If you could afford on TL14-15 defense or weapon system, what would it be?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

High tech sensors and a few good escape routes?

A few different palaces and not sleeping more than one night in any one?


A few buried tactical meson guns should discourage any loitering spacecraft or overt attacks.
A few space fighters flying CAP should discourage small raids from space?

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, nuking it just invites Imperial intervention, as would any sort or orbital strike.

Since it appears that a direct attack via fighters or starships is out of the question, I'm assuming you are proposing a direct ground assault?

First thing is don't assume that they are going to be limited to just TL9 security gear. If the opposing noble has the funds, and the enemies, you can assume his security will be TL12-13 (Imperial standard). If there are laser/missile defenses, then he's going to have a full sensor suite to detect inbound craft.

If you don't need to worry about local authorities as long as you don't use too large of a boom stick, an assault using Tac missiles, or mass drivers might catch them off guard. Though that may be out of their capabilities.

A small ground assault would need to use either tech or terrain to get close. Or it could go old-school. They come in disguised as landscapers, caterers, plumbers, etc. Sort of like a mission impossible scenario.

Since you mentioned the guy is a collector, maybe the PC's pose as sellers of something that he may be interested in. They may have to obtain / build a replica or find a real one, and then somehow include some explosives or whatever. Ideally they make the deal and leave, so maybe the detonator is a DNA based one, and is activated after X number of exposures, allowing them to get away.

There's lots of ways to play this out (as well as have fun with the PC's through double/triple crosses, etc). The game Shadowrun had lots of corporate attacks that if you could find some of their supplements you could use for this.

 

[Hopeless]

Have you read Vatta's War?

In the second book a pirate force stages an attack on the home compound of a wealthy merchant family that was closely linked to the government.
The Government aided in helping the attacker's get in and out with a minimum of detection, it sounds like something you might find interesting.

The first book in the Gray Death Legion series based on the Battletech series (a very early one at that!) has the locals turning on their mercenary defenders after certain members were encouraged to turn on their defenders for political reasons.
I'm sure if I got any of that wrong someone else will correct whatever part of that I got wrong!

Babylon V had that Megacorp subplot in the 4th season where Garibaldi had been psionically manipulated to help Bester deal with a threat to the Psi-Corps or how Garibaldi freed Sheridan and then got his own back on the board of directors of that Mega Corp who saw him and his new wife as a threat to their position...

Must be other examples of what your describing!

 

[allanimal]

Thanks for the ideas! Especially the hint to check shadowrun scenarios. I picked up a bunch of shadowrun PDFs in a bundle of holding* a while back, and have not yet had a chance to read them.

*I love bundle of holding - I've picked up so many PDFs for so many different things at great prices. But I'm never going to be able to read all of them...

 

[JMISBEST]

Maybe look up some ideas from Dungeons And Dragons and The Stronghold Games, then modify them for Traveller, then upgrade the whole thing to high TL 10