Traveller Legacy of Armistice Query

[Hopeless]

So I started a game last year where the PCs are aboard a mining vessel as part of a mission to deliver the last bequest of the ship's former owner.

The way I've been looking at this is that jump drives were only used to get to locations that wasn't linked by extrastellar star gates.
Fourteen years prior to this games' start all of the gates blew up destroying most of the advanced systems and shattered the Solomani Empire ruling the area (which is essentially the Spinward Marches).
What I'm trying to do is develop this alternative setting using some ideas from various other settings including the star wars movies and so on and I wanted to get a second opinion on this as I want to avoid developing something too far when I really don't know where my players would want to go next.

My current vision is that they're going to be left stranded in the Kinorb system until an Imperial investigation concludes and have to use their mining vessel to earn money whilst they're there and eventually the Scholar character's Lab ship will be released so they can improve their situation just in time for when they can start exploring other systems.

Now the characters consist of a former Scholar turned Scout, a former Citizen who became a Scout to escape his homeworld, a former Support Marine who serves as the party's security chief and a former Psion Adept who's the lawyer for the party.

The story so far is that they've discovered the remains of a ship that belonged to the scholar's family that was thought destroyed in an accident crashed on an iceworld with the still slumbering infant cousin of the scholar aboard, they've rescued her but have to get her to a Gaian medical facility to get treatment for a medical condition however the bad guys in this opening adventure believe they're carrying something very valuable and are intent on pirating their ship.
They have a way out but how they go about it and where they want to go next is unclear since as I mentioned above had been planning on them being forced to remain in the Kinorb system until they're cleared of being pirates themselves.

Hope that was clear!

 

[Hopeless]

So my problem lies in the following;

Now my current game looks like the players will head to the junkyard in this system to pick up a detachable missile launcher left by an ally of the Former Citizen/Scout, they can use this to defend themselves as they head for the dubious safety of the Gaian medical facility to drop off the Scholar and his newfound infant cousin.

Should this go okay this will result in the Empire covering up the tracks of one of its operatives by isolating the scholar and the rest of the player characters in the Kinorb system where they have to build up their mining business to avoid being left bankrupt since whilst the Empire is investigating they're preventing them of accessing any monies outside of Kinorb (a typical bureaucratic tactic for them) this will lead to them getting recruited to help investigate a claim by one its owners to find out what happened to his partner and in return they get one of his claims along with a 10kCr fee.

If they play their cards right they could easily recruit the help they need to perform the mining operation once the investigation is resolved allowing the scholar's own lab ship to travel to kinorb to pick them up.

Once they've got their business up and running they can look at travelling to other systems at which point the only systems they will know about would be Kinorb (being stuck there does help in this regards!), Fulacin (where they started from and the most advanced tech wise that they know about) and Macene which is the only known surviving Imperial Naval Depot and as a result their current headquarters.

Now what i wanted to discuss is your feelings on this since I can hardly ask them since they don't know what I have planned and I need a second opinion because I believe I will need more than running Belt Strike in the Kinorb system.

I keep getting a Babylon V feeling from this but I am wondering if I really should set the first season entriely with these three systems rather than let them get off early and spread out through the rest of the Spinward Marches.

Originally my idea for this campaign was that the ally of the former Citizen/Scout survived an impromptu trip from over a century ago and is trying to stop the Empire and its rival splinter nations from destroying the Marches entirely.

Then after the first part I planned on revealing (eventually) that the Scholar's Aunt who was supposedly killed over twenty years ago was actually imprisoned by the Empire (See Prison Planet) for being a suspected Theocratic spy when she was actually visiting the Kinorb system to contact her spy in the Theocracy.

This was to lead into the revelation of the Citizen/Scout's ally being the leader of the Sol Guard a supposed Terrorist group who are actually the equivalent of the Rebellion and sort of goes on from there.

My worry is that the idea that I have the entire first season set in Kinorb with possible restricted travel to just Fulacin and Macene might become too boring for them and thats what I want you view on.

How does this come across to you?

 

[AndrewW]

Now what i wanted to discuss is your feelings on this since I can hardly ask them since they don't know what I have planned and I need a second opinion because I believe I will need more than running Belt Strike in the Kinorb system.

I keep getting a Babylon V feeling from this but I am wondering if I really should set the first season entriely with these three systems rather than let them get off early and spread out through the rest of the Spinward Marches.

My worry is that the idea that I have the entire first season set in Kinorb with possible restricted travel to just Fulacin and Macene might become too boring for them and thats what I want you view on.

How does this come across to you?

Really depends on the players. I don't see a problem with being limited to three systems myself, there can still be a lot to do even in one system. After a few sessions you should have a better feel for what the players might want, see how they react and if they are having a good time. If not, perhaps then you could see about expanding things beyond those three systems.

 

[Dunia]

My worry is that the idea that I have the entire first season set in Kinorb with possible restricted travel to just Fulacin and Macene might become too boring for them and thats what I want you view on.

How does this come across to you?

I started my campaign in a single star system consisting of a quadruple star, and each star had a bunch of settled planets and moons. The players got to know the various powers within this star system only to later in my campaign where they actually found a drifting starship and was able to salvage its jump drive just to learn that there were star empires out there and they were actually descendants of an old Terran colony ship that landed on a planet in the Newworld Sector and the Terrans had never bothered scouting that system.

It was actually fun as the universe grew on the player, from their own system -> The Terran Confederation -> The Third Imperium -> Chartered Space.

 

[Hopeless]

I started my campaign in a single star system consisting of a quadruple star, and each star had a bunch of settled planets and moons. The players got to know the various powers within this star system only to later in my campaign where they actually found a drifting starship and was able to salvage its jump drive just to learn that there were star empires out there and they were actually descendants of an old Terran colony ship that landed on a planet in the Newworld Sector and the Terrans had never bothered scouting that system.

It was actually fun as the universe grew on the player, from their own system -> The Terran Confederation -> The Third Imperium -> Chartered Space.

Tried to get them to design the home star systems of their characters, only one bothered to try which is why Fulacin was their starting place.

One of my ideas was that since the x-boat route was being used as the extra stellar gates that existing jump drives weren't as reliable as the Gates had been so that the best jump capability available should be their Tech level -8 with the idea that most systems had to make do with older models whilst the better ships were being hoarded by the Empire (and other nations) with some leeway for the corporations since they'd hardly want to be left defenceless.

 

[Hopeless]

So currently the player characters are aboard a seeker mining vessel, they've been attacked by an armed Far Trader along with a number of armed shuttles.
They landed within a supposedly abandoned facility thats actually a disused planetoid monitor built into the surface of an ice world.
They find the ship belonging to the scholar character's aunt along with a surprising number of other ships indicating very little salvaging has been done.

Now the time line for this is that the Aunt's ship crashed here roughly twenty years ago, the Empire retrieved any surviving crew and passengers but left the ship alone for as yet unknown reasons.
Five years ago the Empire and the Theocratic Consulate fought a bitter battle above this world with a number of ships from both sides crashlanding on the planet below.
Although the Empire retrieved any casulaties and prisoners a new force established a base here and they discovered the ship graveyard and located the slumbering child.
The scout's contact tried to reach the scholar's late uncle who was subsequently murdered when Imperial Agents misunderstood what was going on and assumed the Uncle has uncovered the truth of the current regime's existance.
The Uncle left a bequest in his will asking for a consignment to be delivered to the Gaian Medical Facility that tried to save his only known surviving child (he never knew the other was still alive) which in return would hand over a chest holding some effects he asked them to pass onto the person he sent to fulfil his bequest.

The scout's contact discovering what had happened and learning of the bequest arranged for the scout to receive a transmission leading them to the ice world and the crashed ship. the attack simply made things easier for him to lead the scholar to his missing cousin.

Now they're back at their ship with the slumbering child using some Theocratic tech they salvaged and have discovered a few of the shuttles landed next to theirs and were caught in an ambush set by the scout's contact insuring they could leave the landing bay unmolested.

Thats where the game stopped, now I've given them a reason to visit the junkyard thats close by near the asteroid belt which is the main resource of Kinorb (ie mining) where the scout's contact has arranged for a detachable missile launcher pod for them so they'll at least can put up a fight if they want or head through the asteroid belt for the medical facility as then they only have to worry about the remaining armed shuttles with the armed free trader having to decide between intercepting them before they reach the facility and risk having others open fire on them or go for them before they leave the junkyard...

Give they've been refueled they could even jump back to Fulacin... thats player's for you.