The Cyrranus System from Battlestar Galactica

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I think as far as the Navy is concerned, they have a base to run and only 600 people to run it, the entire population of the planet is Navy Personel, some of them when off duty also run the Starport. There is no government or law level there because it is all navy, they pretty much all live on the space station/navy base/starport, a few make excusions to the planet's surface, but it is a pretty nasty planet, it damages vaccsuits so they don't go down their often. Some one of the base personel discovered the quadruple star system by accident, they new it was there for a while, and then determined its range, he previously thought it was a lot further away. Fortunately a new fighter pilot, a woman named "Kara Thrace" took the information to the nearest scout base, and from there the PCs were contacted about a possible mission. When the navy crewman did a background check on the fighter pilot, there was no record of her having been in the Navy or having been assigned to that base.

Finding rogue planets in interstellar space is a lot harder than finding planets orbiting another star, the pirates had help from a "fallen angel", or the pirate leader had to be precise. In other words their are higher powers in the Universe, one of them chose to intervene for the pirates, whatever his agenda might be, who could say. There are certain "angels" or "ghosts" that have been known to haunt the Cyrranus system from time to time, usually they appear to one particular person, and no one else sees them, usually they are dismissed by other people as hallucinations, but whatever it was that contacted that pirate leader, he knew something, such as the locations of those two rogue planets for refueling stops. Some other pirates have had from time to time a vision of a blonde lady who called herself "Six", sometimes her agenda goes against the other one she called "the fallen one!" Of course the other pirates can't prove a thing, they see no one. Some theorize that it must be one of the Ancients taken human form, others dismiss it as madness.

Any base governed by the Navy is effectively under “Martial Law”; the equivalent law level applies. Any ungoverned Planet, Moon, or Body the base orbits will generally have a law level of “Martial Law” or below, as deemed appropriate by the Navy Personnel in charge (“No, you can’t accumulate materiel for the purposes of the destruction of our starbase there, because we say so!”). Notable exceptions are for when the starbase exists specifically to protect the planet it’s orbiting; in those cases, the planet might effectively have a higher law level.

Evaluation of the quadruple star system would happen the very day a scout started surveying the site of the future starbase. It would stick out like a sore thumb, he’d notice it, and the readings he’d take of it would clearly indicate it had planets, with signs of water. If it was close enough, he’d jump to it. The starbase survey team would take those findings, and make a determination, as best they could, as to whether or not the system constituted a threat at its given distance; that distance should be far enough away as to constitute a report of, “No, it isn’t a threat.”, or at least, “Well, maybe, but whatever it is, we can probably handle it.”. Finally, pirates, making a mistake of jumping into this system full of Navy, should jump out, and find some wandering extra-star-stystem body fit for refueling just enough to try jumping to “one of those water planets over there”, to refuel enough so that when they jump into the connecting Navy system again, they’ll be able to evade the Navy with a jump-out.

At least, that’s how I’d do it, without relying on mystical explanations.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

"Mystical explanations" are part of the Battlestar Galactica setting, that is why I used them. We could dispense with them I suppose, but in a large Universe, there is likely to be beings so advanced that they are beyond our comprehension. What BSG, the new Series does, that most other science fiction setting don't do is call that being "God". The Original BSG series didn't do that either. I thought the later series was more interesting however, the characters had full names like Kara Thrace, William Adam, and Lee Adama, instead of just Starbuck, Adama, and Apollo. The original series also had aliens in the pilot, and then dispensed with them for the rest of the series, just having the fleet encounter lost colonies of humans. Rather inconsistent I'd say. The New BSG had no aliens, only Cylons. I suppose through trial and error, the Pirates can find one rogue planet, size 1, its composition is similar to Pluto, probably has a hydrogen/helium atmosphere over crust made out of frozen nitrogen ice, and some water ice mountains poking through the top.

If the pirates find one, the chances are the Navy wouldn't find the same one. Probably the easiest way would simply be to build a Jump-6 starship, maybe have it carry a smaller more maneuverable starship inside.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I’m not saying don’t evoke the same things as the remake series; just don’t use it as an excuse for why things are the way they are. Assume that “God” operates through natural processes, rather than unnatural ones. That’s what distinguishes any “God” from us apes and ape-bots from any actual divine... our reliance on yet another “pointy stick”.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I’m not saying don’t evoke the same things as the remake series; just don’t use it as an excuse for why things are the way they are. Assume that “God” operates through natural processes, rather than unnatural ones. That’s what distinguishes any “God” from us apes and ape-bots from any actual divine... our reliance on yet another “pointy stick”.

Yeah, makes sense. I'm thinking of having a dust cloud on one side of the star system.

Lets suppose the Cyrannus Star System can only be seen from Rill, and you can see, it is a primitive world, tech level 4, has the steam engine, a but low gravity with a thick atmosphere, which is why chirpers like it. A group of pirates have been operating out of this system for quite some time, and they noticed this star system that is not on their charts So they stole a freighter that could get them there, the Erasmus. What if the pirates were there for a few decades and set up a bunch of kingdoms on Caprica, the local tech level has been raised to 1, and the pirates are literally living like kings, using native laborers to plunder the various vaults full of gold. They have learned a bit of the Caprican language, and have taught the natives that language as well, because they want them to go digging in the ruins and finding some treasure for themselves, then the pirates would buy it off of them for trinkets, and then ship the gold in the cargo hold of the Erasmus, and perhaps use the gold to buy some luxury items and a few extra ships, that the Erasmus would bring back into the system.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

“A cloud on one side” isn’t a natural thing. It would be completely unnatural.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

“A cloud on one side” isn’t a natural thing. It would be completely unnatural.

You see this image of the horse head nebula? There is a star in the foreground, now imagine you are looking at it from the other side of the nebula, would that star still be visible?

Here is the Coal Sack Nebula, this is more the sort of nebula I had in mind, the only way we can see it is due to the absence of stars. There are stars on the other side of it that we can't see, because the coal sack nebula is between us and them, also there re stars in the foreground. So what exactly is so unnatural about that? Not every star is going to be in the center of that dark cloud, some are at the edge.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Yes, but those sorts of things operate on far greater distances than the ones you’re talking about; like tens to maybe even hundreds of hexes. It wouldn’t work the same so close. And, again, those things only blot out visible light; we can still see what’s behind those things with other forms of radiation; the stuff that ships would use so as to not be caught by surprise.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Yes, but those sorts of things operate on far greater distances than the ones you’re talking about; like tens to maybe even hundreds of hexes. It wouldn’t work the same so close. And, again, those things only blot out visible light; we can still see what’s behind those things with other forms of radiation; the stuff that ships would use so as to not be caught by surprise.

Well it was your idea to use the nebula, now your trying to shoot it down. I just think that maybe that Navy Base with only 600 crewmen might have been just a little over worked to really check the Empty Void for uncharted stars. You know we are still discovering new nearby stars even as we speak, they are not all accounted for, and unlike our planet of 7 billion, this one has only 600 people, not all of them are gazing through telescopes, and also even if they see those stars, they don't know how far away they are until they start taking parallax measurements, they see a lot of bright stars from beyond the void, a lot of Size III, Size II stars, in fact if we look at our own night sky, that is most of the stars we see, the closer in sunlike stars are harder to spot, and in order for them to appear bright, they have to be really close, such as Alpha Centauri for example. Now I figure this is a sparsely populated region we are talking about, the Navy crewmen were sent here to operate a base, and when they are done with their tour of duty, they get sent elsewhere, their main concern is operating the base and starport, providing refueling services and routine maintenance on passing starships, the planet below is mostly a source of fuel, easier to get at than the gas giants, and thus more economical to exploit.

Besides I got some ideas of Pirate Kingdoms on Caprica, and maybe some Barbarians that resist them, sort of like Conan. The pirates use their technological supreamacy to pose as "wizards", they rule by fear, and the natives carry out their commands and do most of the enforcement, with the pirates teaching them how to make swords and bows and do agriculture so as to support a greater population. The pirates live in castles that they had the natives build for them, after teaching them how, but they don't give them any weapons greater than medieval, swords, bows, metal armor, etc, so as to forestall any rebellions with firearms. They keep the technological gadgets locked away. Now the pirates themselves don't always move in lockstep with their leader, they became pirates for many different reasons, some of them don't like what's been happening to the natives, and have a little stirrings of conscious bothering them, they don't mind stealing so much, as that is what they do, slavery on the other hand...

Here is the design sheet for the Corsairs the pirates are using, The Erasmus can bring in one of these Corsairs at a time, the corsairs can do an in system jump, but there is nothing within range they can jump to outside of the system, so they are dependent on the Erasmus to bring them out again! The Erasmus depends on the Corsairs to skim gas giants to bring it fuel so it can jump out of system again.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I told you no such thing. I just told you not to use artificial shields. I never said that natural nebulae would work any better; because they won’t.


When we find new stars, it’s because:

1. They’re so radically unlike anything we’re used to that we failed to consider they might exist
2. They’re so radically far away, or unusually concealed, that we’ve never had anything sensitive enough to detect them until now

Neither thing is true about hiding it behind a nebula at such a close range; you want there to be a quadruple star system there, including some conditions very much like our own sun. The readings would be very hard to miss at that range.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Okay, how would a quadruple star system affect the history in this region, assuming it was known about when settlers first arrived?

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Just make it hard to get to. If they have no obvious way to get to it, they probably won’t take risks trying. Pirates, however, take risks all the time.

There would probably be a Lab Ship in orbit near the Navy Base for the sake of studying the star system and its planets; they’d know for certain that there are some good ones in there.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Jump-6 is hard. The Imperium probably has a few Jump-6 starships, the trade off is that such ships have accelerations of no more than 1-G, it requires 60% of its volume to be Jump Fuel. My idea is to have a carrier ship, in this case a 2000-ton Jump-6 Freighter the Erasmus, it has a 400-ton cargo hold which can carry 1 Corsair, or 2 free or far traders, probably free traders would make more sense, as they only have Jump-1 capability, and that's all you need for getting around the Cyrannus System, and there is no point in having anything other than a Jump-1 or a Jump-6. Most people would prefer to use a Jump drive and spend a week in Jump space, than spend months using a maneuver drive to go from the Helios Alpha to the Helios Delta system. The Navy probably sent a scout ship with a 600-ton Jump-6 Freighter to transport it to Cyrannus, they would have scouted each one of the garden worlds, and written a report, then a cost benefit analysis would be made. Getting to this systems is expensive! You need a jump-6 freighter just to get there! 12 garden worlds is incentive, but trade between this system and others would be limited by the expense. Probably wouldn't make any sense to grow food for export out of system, importing manufactured goods would be expensive, this would tend to limit the tech level, maybe to something close to 4, 19th century technology, this can be produced on the planet with a low population base, iron, coal, steam, some rifles could be made locally, and of course the good old reliable horse or draft animals can be put to work in agriculture, food can be provided. Electricity becomes available at tech level 4. Sail boats would get you across the ocean, saving the high tech stuff for going from planet to planet. Starships need maintenance however, and there is no place to properly maintain them here, so one would need to be careful how often one uses a starship, and plan on sending it back by freighter for routine maintenance at the nearest qualified starport.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well, there you have it. It’s Jump 6 away, unless you know about the rock at one of the Jump-3 points. Meanwhile, the Pirates jump in, find out they’re the baddest thing in the system, and have a field day with all the weaksauce leftover civilizations they find there.

In time, the Jump-3 rock can be turned into an outpost type base, and allow trade to start between the wayward civilization and the rest of the universe.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Well, there you have it. It’s Jump 6 away, unless you know about the rock at one of the Jump-3 points. Meanwhile, the Pirates jump in, find out they’re the baddest thing in the system, and have a field day with all the weaksauce leftover civilizations they find there.

In time, the Jump-3 rock can be turned into an outpost type base, and allow trade to start between the wayward civilization and the rest of the universe.

But then the rest of the Universe moves in. The population of each planet is in the millions, and consists of stone aged tribes, the pirates have to teach them civilization, how to write, how to grow crops. Typical technology of the natives is stone knives, and hurled spears. the pirates can ally themselves with some tribes and help them to conquer others with metal weapons, but the pirates have got to be careful, if they give them too much technology, the natives can use their superior numbers against the pirates, they have their own primitive culture, much like the Native Americans have, if the pirates teach them to read and write, then the natives can organize a rebellion against them better. For the time being, I would like to keep the Imperium out of this situation. Basically tech level 1 technology spreads faster than the pirates can control it, it spreads from tribe to tribe. The pirates aren't used to governing, maybe at first they taught the barbarians too much, and the barbarians ran with it! There are a lot more places on the World than the pirates can control. for they are few in number. The Erasmus is expensive to operate its massive Jump drive is temperamental, and they require seven engineers to keep I running, and in order to pay for it all, they have to fill the hold full of gold plundered from the Caprican vaults, the gold is heavy, and the chamber it was in collapsed due to the ravages of time, so the pirates have to organize a work force to dig it out, and of course the pirates don't like to work hard, otherwise they wouldn't be pirates, instead they kidnap a few people from civilization that possess the skills they require, and then they make those people teach the natives the skills they require to get the work done. Some of the kidnapped scientists are sympathetic to the natives plight, and may have taught them a little too much.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well, if the Pirates want, they can just keep their J-3 space rock a secret. Maybe mount some weapons platforms on it to fire nukes at incoming ships that don’t register the right IFF code. They’ve got a hidden choke point; it would be up to the Imperium, or whoever, to accidentally discover it, survive being ambushed, and make it back out to request reinforcements. That’s an order as tall as you want to make it.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Well, if the Pirates want, they can just keep their J-3 space rock a secret. Maybe mount some weapons platforms on it to fire nukes at incoming ships that don’t register the right IFF code. They’ve got a hidden choke point; it would be up to the Imperium, or whoever, to accidentally discover it, survive being ambushed, and make it back out to request reinforcements. That’s an order as tall as you want to make it.

I haven't considered whether the pirates know of a secret way in. I thought I'd give the barbarians a chance by limiting the resources of the pirates, give the pirates an expensive way in, their freighter can bring in one corsair at a time, and can ship out some gold, also the freighter is stolen, so the Imperium will be looking for it, and they have to unload 400 tons of gold, and I'll assume 400 tons mass, not d-tons of displacement. Maybe they'll want to build more Jump-6 freighters, that will take time and cost money, also they are wanted criminals, so they can't do this out in the open! Stealing more ships is risky, they might get caught, also finding a disreputable shipyard that will fulfill the order and not rob them blind or turn them into authorities, will be a task. The Imperium might have a problem with them plundering archeological ruins, or enslaving the local population of a planet to do their grunt work, especially since the system in question is technically within their territory.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Having a secret way in works with the whole “the voyage home is really complicated and mysterious” thing the remake had going for it. I don’t see a better solution for your problem of wanting to keep the system isolated.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Having a secret way in works with the whole “the voyage home is really complicated and mysterious” thing the remake had going for it. I don’t see a better solution for your problem of wanting to keep the system isolated.

It depends on who the PCs are, if they are from one of those barbarian tribes, lets assume the pirates have been around for decades lording it over everyone else, the barbarians learn a few things, and they attempt to steal a pirate ship after freeing some prisoners or hostages from another world. Or else the PCs could be space farers who are investigating this system and the pirates don't want them telling any tales, so we establish a conflict that way. The objective is to alert the Imperial Navy of what's going on, some navy ships show up, and the pirates flee for their lives, or at least to avoid incarceration. Mostly the Imperials are going to be peeved that the pirates were messing around with archeological sites, and with their human trafficking. The pirates are also wanted for grand theft starship and a number of other crimes.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well, in that case, the secret way in works just fine; you just have to find a way for that secret to be passed along to the players.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Well, in that case, the secret way in works just fine; you just have to find a way for that secret to be passed along to the players.

There is of course the "Mysterious Stranger!" The players meet a "ghost", she appears solid, she tells them about the secret way, and when their backs are turned, she disappears, she just vanishes, now you see her, and now you don't. She may have a connection to the Cyrannus System, may have lived there once a long time ago, if there were any cameras viewing the scene when she was talking to the player characters, those cameras record no image of her, the players appear in it, and they appear to be having a conversation with someone who isn't there.