TNE:GreatExpedition

The Great Expedition: an adventure of exploration for Traveller: New Era.

In a fragile alliance of recovered worlds on the fringe of a once-massive human civilization, the flame is lit again.

Basic Description

Despite the massive destruction of interstellar war — secession, rebellion, and finally invasion by a truly alien intelligence — a few worlds have, slowly and carefully, taken to the stars again. The stories of how this came to be are long and various, but now the Dawn League, a coalition of a dozen worlds, exists, and has done so for a dozen years, despite threats from within and without.

Every world within two jumps of the League's space has been scanned and explored. The renewed industries of Aubaine's starport have begun to produce jump-3 drives for the first time since the Collapse. The League's nascent governing body has voted, and six ships will go out – to explore the silent worlds, to rekindle the flame, and to find news of the War. What happened to the Others, what happened to the Terran Unions, and what became of the Virus, the hybrid secret weapon that destroyed the organization of both species?

The dangers are many – sleeping ships from the old succession wars, pirates, dictators, savages, and behind it all the spectre of the Others, the machine intelligences left over from the War. But the rewards… are the stars.

Notes on Setting and Tone

This isn't exactly the canonical TNE setting, but rather inspired by it. Many names are the same, but details are changed, as is tone in some places. The Reformation Coalition is the Dawn League's government arm responsible for exploration and stellar expansion.

Drifter says, "Setting-wise, I'm going to play the Reformation Coalition as gritty cinematic, so expect coincidental meetings for contacts, etc. I hope to create a game with mixed moral areas, but I'm not into putting PC's into completely lose-lose situations. Feel free to put yourself there of course. Politics can have an effect in this game, so choose wisely. While this game will have an overarcing plotline, I still like to run a more sandboxy style… if for some reason you go sideways, I'll run with it. On the flipside, I'm big on consequences and the world keeps turning, so you'll see results from anything you do."

The Dawn League is the multiworld government, and the Reformation Coalition is akin to a (real-world) U.N. agency, responsible for exploration and stellar exploration. Drifter says, "I know some of the RefCol stuff reads a bit gung ho, but I think that's the point, that the PCs actually end up questioning their own roles."

The Virus was the result of an interstellar war black weapon snafu against a cybernetic intelligence. In a way it worked, because the alien race is gone – it was an easy victim to the Virus. Humans fared somewhat better; their entire society collapsed under a wave of insane Virus spreading through the jump lanes.

There are no Hivers. Instead, some low passage survivors recently recovered, a more competent Schalli that originally acknowledged, and the addition of Teldora and Kal to balance the Oriflammi out, all gave the Dawn League the ability to bootstrap itself.

To keep it simple, all the worlds in the two subsectors of the Dawn League are (more or less) as per the book. Anything beyond that is open to change; Drifter imagines a much sparser area of space, with significant areas of rift.

Drifter also says, "The romance of the long voyage. If there is anything I'm really striving to capture in this game, it is the above. While this game won't be romantic per se, the romance I'm trying to capture is the same as that of the Age of Exploration...the distance from home, the potential of new lands, the privations and amazing discoveries, new peoples, old empires, savages, unexplained mysteries, legends, dragons... The only difference is the slant. Your dragon might be a sentient virus Bolo but it might also be a planetwide infectious disease, a false religion, a renegade ship or a virus infected hospitality ship that lives to serve. The politics and inclinations of the Dawn League are your backdrop, but it would be no secret to the PC's that four years without contact will bring them back to a League they won't recognise. On the flipside of this, whatever actions they take will define the Dawn League in the eyes of those they meet on the way, predisposing their subsequent reactions."

Helpful Links

• The BARD pages for background information: http://www.downport.com/bard

• League worlds: http://www.downport.com/bard/bard/opal/opal0000.html

Detailed Backdrop

The Old Expanses

One of seven sectors that makes up the Trailing Cluster, the Old Expanses have been settled by humaniti for over 2,000 years. It is connected to the Greater Terran Sphere by a Starlink of 16,000ly, located at Juncture, a blue supergiant. Shunts from this Starlink reached out into all the Sector capitals, and some subsector capitals.

Potted History

The third Terran Commonwealth collapsed into regional infighting approximiatey 450 years ago. Out of this arose a more feudal system, the Imperial States – a reversion to the most primitive power structure on a stellar scale. While there were variants and splinter empires, the core of the Trailing Cluster became integrated into the greater Imperium in the mid-late 800s.

Three centuries of Imperial expansion followed, resulting in an odd, codified noble class that pervaded all interstellar movement. This was the classic "Imperial" phase, with precise and lengthy qualifications for Imperial standard coding in all aspects of interstellar life.

By the 1100s the system was collapsing from within. When the Emperor died without issue in a tense political climate, the existing slow cold war declined into civil rebellion, with no clear candidate for the Imperial throne.

It was 25 years into this slow conflict when the Others came.

Humaniti had encountered many intelligent races already. The Vargr, Orca, and Delphines had all been uplifted from original Terran species, though someone else had done the work on the Vargr. Same with the Aslan, though it's hard to get them to admit it. Of true aliens, there were the Droyne, Bwaps, Oost Urda, and half a dozen other sentients.

The Others were different. They were cybernetic life, switching and changing their bodies as we switch and change clothes or vehicles. Their technology was as alien as their approach. They processed the worlds they captured, adapting them on a worldwide scale to obscure and odd purposes. They incorporated Imperial technologies into their own, changed their approaches, modified their forms…

On top of civil war, the Terran sphere now struggled to meet an entirely new menace. Worlds and fleets died, desperate measures were taken, old knowledge unearthed, black ops research dug up. When the last grand fleet met the Others' massive push into the Core systems, they released a viral code through their own data streams, knowing the Others would intercept it. The virus was designed to destroy their ability to collectively communicate; in theory, this complete isolation would cause the individual "units" of the others to suicide.

This code was intercepted at the same time that the Others transmitted something new of their own: an AI adapted to Imperial computer technology, designed to infiltrate and alter Imperial systems to give itself life within them. These two systems met on the battlefield and created a synergistic loop. Within a year, the effects had completely destroyed the Others and devastated Imperial civilization.

Virus

A hybrid cybernetic lifeform, born of alien AI and a black ops suicide code. It swept across known space at the speed of the ships that carried the news, with the twin drives to breed and to kill itself. Hijinks ensued.

The higher the tech of a world, the more reliant it was upon linked system technology. Virus invaded, took over, then tried to breed and/or kill itself. It mutated like crazy, after the truly suicidal 90% took themselves out of the cybergene pool… but not before destroying known space.

One hundred and two years later, the Dawn League is just recovering from this.

The Dawn League

Why them? Why'd they get lucky?

Three things: Isolation and unique circumstance. And the Schalli.

• Isolation. Most of the worlds of the League only had Jump-1 contact with a string of minor worlds, far from the busy jump lanes that fed the starlink shunts.
• Unique circumstances. The Aubaini managed to maintain a continuous space presence throughout the Collapse. The Oriflammen had half a small fleet offline in surface repair bays, and a desperate need to use them. Balduri had to hammer out a colony plan to live. This confluence of small worlds, for different reasons, risked stellar contact long before other worlds were capable and willing. Aubaini met Oriflammi met Balduri met Teldori and found that trade worked better than raid.

The Schalli

Originally classified in the Imperial system as semi-sentient, the Schalli were the subject of three sensor-novels by Cann Macaffey: Waveriders of Vras, Starfollowers of Vras, and Schalli Rising, that do greater justice to their rise into interstellar space as a species.

To keep it succinct: the Schalli had been interdicted and studied in the Imperium, and the humans on Vras (now called Aubaine) had been kept in the dark about their true sentience, largely due to mining rights on Vras, which was incredibly full of rare earths. The waterworld of Schall was stocked with collected Schalli and represented as their "native" world, while Vras's schall were said to have been transplanted by early Terrans as foodstocks before their status was upgraded to semi-sentient.

The Collapse drove many of the survivors on Vras underwater; more time was spent with actual Schalli; old records and research, long suppressed, was not replicated; and communication opened.

What happened next is now legend. The Schalli, already far more capable in complex mathematics and three-dimensional engineering, took to technology like ducks to… well…

Their cultural explosion ran directly opposite to all theories about advanced cultures crippling more primitive ones. They absorbed knowledge into their culture rapidly, and skipped past several human stages of adaption, with human assistance, into a rapidly-modernizing undersea sentient race. While doing so, they incidently helped provide the underpinnings for the Dawn League: without the Schalli, the Aubaini would not occupy the position they do, as de-facto leader of the Federalist movement; without the Schalli's drive to the stars, cultural awakening, and almost total species devotion to the "new songs", the League would not have the technology and industry that it does.

The Schalli are pragmatic about their new status, and are determinedly collaborative in the Dawn League, financing and building for the Reformation Coalition far beyond their chartered requirements. They have begun a limited about of building to put Schalli themselves into space - in craft purpose-built for them, rather than converted from human designs. There is a Schalli fleet over Spencer, and a scout expedition to Trailing. This is the major wedge between Aubaine and Oriflamme, who sometimes accuse the Schalli of using humans as stepping stones in their own race to become a stellar species.

Aubaine and the Schalli provide the League's high-tech industry, and Oriflamme and Teldora provide its manufacturing capacity.

Timeline

• 1094: First wave of Virus sweeps through the Old Expanses, spreading out from the Starlink shunts. Long Night begins.
• 1103: Aubaine maintains fragile links with Schall and Phoebus.
• 1126: Eos contacts Nike Nimbus.
• 1132: Oriflamme puts first Jump-1 vessel in orbit, visits Helios.
• 1146: Baldur visits Enkidu and Ra.
• 1152: Teldora establishes contact with Spencer and Kal.
• 1164: Oriflamme launches relic fleet, engages empires on Spencer.
• 1165: (5 term characters born.)
• 1168: Aubaini/Schalli ships contact Trybec, Fija, Nike Nimbus, and Lucifer.
• 1169: Aubaini ships enconter Oriflamme scout vessels over Spires. People born from this generation are known as "Dawners."" (4 term characters born.)
• 1172: Nike Nimban ships encounter Balduri relic scout in Kruyter system.
• 1173: (3 term characters born.)
• 1180: Unofficial trade alliance of a dozen worlds formalized into a Trade League. (First term for 5 term characters.)
• 1184: (First term for 4 term characters. Second term for 5 term characters.)
• 1188: Trade League formalized into mutual protection treaties. (First term for 3 term characters. Second term for 4 term characters. Third term for 5 term characters.)
• 1192: Trade League given formal title and treaty, creating the Dawn League as a multiplanetary stellar entity. (Second term for 3 term characters, Third term for 4 term characters. Fourth term for 5 term characters.)
• 1192-1196: The golden term. The spirit of the League inspires most governments, and trade and stabilization continue to accelerate. Foundations of Equality are laid down, and an overlying coalition of planetary forces is increasingly used to handle the directives of the League Council. This is formalized with the formation of the Reformation Coalition, a multisystem body that answers directly to the Council.
• 1196: (Start of last term for all player characters, studying with DELTA.)
• 1197-99: Nearby "boneyard" and "dead" worlds explored and searched for technology, Virus, and survivors. While independent member worlds sponsor expeditions, or hire the rare free trader to carry their missions, the League and RefCol prepare for the Twelve: 12 ships that will carry the League's finest beyond the boneworlds and savage dictatorships that have been found so far, to the Diaspora Sector, deeper into the Old Expanses, and out toward the worlds on the Rim of the Trailing Cluster.
• 1200: The Twelve are launched to great fanfare. None return. Within six months, they are declared lost, and six warships are prepared and crewed. The mood of the Dawn League is one of fear and worry, and grief is universal.
• 1201: Present Day. The Six (plus one) are heading out to find the Twelve.

Character Generation

General Concept

PCs will be members of a "pathfinder" team, exploring ahead of the mothership, running errands, checking up on the other scouts, and generally doing PC-like things.

They are all from the first formal class of the Dawn League Academy, one of 16,000 chosen from across the League to build a true interstellar Coalition, training with the League's top scientists, technicians, revived cold sleep survivors from the old Imperial states, and the odd anagathic survivor from the old days. For four years, you learned as you worked, combined theory with practice, and helped put into place the upgraded starports and orbital defenses needed to protect League worlds. There is a 4% death rate.

The graduates of the year 1201 all put their names in for crew positions on the first six ships to go out "Beyond the League." For the 139 that made the list, it was a dream come true. For the rest, it was back to building infrastructure, manning patrol vessels, and recovering old resources. Except for a few… who got caught up in something else.

Guidelines

• Movers and shakers. PCs should be big damn heroes, even if it's in a quiet way. While it's fun to play a noble/drifter in the standard setting, these characters need to stand out to be on one of these ships.
• Best of the best. A rank 4 in a skill is considered brilliant. Have one. Or two at 3. In a skill useful to the game would be even better.
• Contacts. These will be vital, especially high-ranking ones. The Dawn League is still a small organization, and being in on the ground floor means friends in the right places.
• PC choices influence ship choices. If you're a fighter jock, there'll be at least one fighter. If you're a merchant, there'll be a trade envoy and cargo space. We'll use something like Rank to determine influence. Ship shares will represent 1 MCr per share; the actual ship will represent 10% of its book value in MCr.

Characters should be from within the Dawn League, though Drifter is open to one or two adopted outworlders, corpsicles, or aliens.

The Rules

• Characters start with attributes of 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 4, placed anywhere you like (Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Education, Charisma).
• Roll 1d6, add the result to your stats anywhere you like, to a maximum of 11 in any single stat. Note the amount less than 6 that was rolled — this number will generate bonuses after character generation.
• Roll Social Status on 2d6, no modifiers.
• Follow the TNE career paths as usual, with the following house rules:
  • Any career gives a minimum of 7 points of skills in its first term; if the career lacks that many, add more points until you reach 7.
  • In every term after the first in the same career, you may choose to add [number of terms in career] skill points to any skill previously learned in the career. This simulates specialized career choices.
  • Each term, use the Events tables from Mongoose Traveller, adapting as necessary to the system. For failed continuance, use the Mishaps tables for flavor, but character generation is not ended.
• The last term for every character will be the Dawn League Technical Academy, "where they separate the men from the goats."

Transfer of rank into the RefCol is automatic if you were from a recognized memberworld. Thanks to DELTA training, you will have experience with relic technology up to TL14-15.

Maximum 4 terms + Academy (total 5), but preferably only 2 or 3 terms + Academy (total 3 or 4).

Available extra skills: http://www.downport.com/bard/bard/gail/gail4010.html

Rules Information

House Rules

• ChalkLine has requested use of a rule where firearms use STR or AGL, instead of simply STR, on the reasoning that the latter drives him bonkers.

Player Characters

Drifter: GM

Drifter is our erstwhile GM.

Chalkline

Mitchell Frost Homeworld, Aurora

Frosty is a classic scout; he has a love of using his abilities in areas where there is little oversight and even less support. His main abilities are mapping; Frosty loves sensors and the display of information. Planetary and Astrographic mapping allows him to be at the point of data transition between the sensor and the subject, manipulating and refining data flows to make a coherent and useful data package. Whether it is hanging upside down in the observation blister of a scout ship or down on planet slogging through a swamp to set up ground stations, Frosty loves accuracy above all other things.

Unlike military individuals who see themselves as vital links in a vast machine with a common purpose, Frosty's mindset is that of a member of a free roaming cloud of data gatherers who slowly and inevitably put a knowable face on the physical world.

Something of a jack of all trades, Frosty is not a great primary operator in most particular fields but is a useful hand in many. He has a keen understanding of his limitations, but if no one with a better understanding is on hand he feels no hesitation in getting and trying to fix a problem. Like most scouts, he has a predilection for 'bush repairs' that are functional but ugly, and have a life span long enough that should get the item to a more qualified technician. The exception to this point is his skills as a pilot. Scouts have a tradition of piloting, and it's a badge of honour to be a good pilot for scouts anywhere.

The badge of the scouts in weaponry is the shotgun. While this weapon is preferable in shipboard conflicts, it's limited range makes Frosty more willing to use other slugthrowers on-planet. He doesn't use pistols, lasers or gauss weapons.

GaoGaiGar

Emily Tomlinson Age 29

Str 5 Agil 7 Con. 6 Int. 8 Edu. C Cha 8 Soc. B

Skills: Act/Bluff 2 Admin/Legal 1 Astrogation 8 Bargaining 2 Bribery 1 Carousing 1 Commo 1 Computer 2 Environment Suit 2 Ground Vehicles 0 Gunnery (energy weapons) 3 History 2 Interrogation 1 Intrusion 1 Map 1 Marketing 4 Navigation 1 Physics 1 Pilot Grav/Interface 2 Slug Pistols 1 Sensors 4 Starship Architecture 1 Streetwise 2 Survey 2 Willpower 0 Zero-G 2

31,000 credits +10 Ship DMs for Trader

Homeworld C-000342A Haven is “Living History” space colony cylinder, 10KM long, operating with solar mirrors and spin gravity instead of fusion and gravitics. Haven orbited the rockball world closer to the sun than the main of the system, (a high tech boneyard in the Wilds). The first clue there was an emergency was when all the high tech emergency equipment blew out thanks to Virus. There was dead silence from the mainworld. They were all alone in the night. Haven was able to sustain its population of tourists-turned-refugees and became a trading hub for Free Traders... the rustic but still functioning class C spaceport facilities helped a great deal.

With a low, dense population, Haven was able to govern mainly by direct democracy, with a "Colonial Administrator" who acted as the voice in carrying out the people's decisions. Emily was the daughter of the person who served for the last 20 years in that capacity, Martin Tomlinson.

When Emily was in her late teens, the Guild started aggressively trying to bring Haven under its influence. It was too good for them to pass up. After laying down a great deal of money and goods among the populace, Martin suffered an accident, opening an airlock after a gun he was cleaning went off. Emily was due for an accident of her own, but was taken off-colony by a sympathetic Free Trader crew, that of the Empress Marava. With nowhere else to go and a probably Guild bounty on her head, she signed on as a crewmember. Her wits, charm and education served her well and she rapidly rose up through the officer hierarchy, working out profitable courses and profitable deals (and every deal a free trader made was one cargo the Guild wouldn't get). A lifetime staring up at the stars gave her a knack for navigation.

Hearing rumors about the Dawn League, she managed to get the Empress exploring trade in that direction. There was some unpleasantness... moving artifact cargo across the border was a new experience, with a lot more regulations than in the Wilds. (Did someone have her ship move the cargo? Help her get out of trouble? Sell her on the League?)

(More to come about how she got into the Academy)

ncc2010

Free-forming a bit here, too.

Not sure on name or gender still, but I'm seeing a Marak somewhere in the name.

However...I don't have a homeworld name either, but...

Its a world that once sported a population in excess of a hundred-thousand, all of whom were either in the direct starship serice industry or tourism, the small world orbiting the colorful and stormy gas giant, with its native water sources and plentiful heavy metals and radioactives left over from system formation made it a wonderful tourist trap...

Then came Virus.

Those that survived were outside the port facilities, almost entirely technicians and engineers with a smattering of tourists and support staff, and when Virus sealed and the facilities, killed the orbiting ships and every human that scutters and support droids could find, it was left to these several hundred folks to reestablish...and they did.

In a flurry of activity, the satellite telecom dishes were cut from their comm arrays and the manual overrides released the already independent processing fuel facilites from further contamination...but the damage was done.

The atmosphere was thin and breathable - and that was the salvation. The Technical Staff survivors made a decision that would shape their future: they would work rebuild the port facility on a manual basis, laying low, processing fuel...because one day, ships would return, and they'd be ready.

And they were.

On the fringe of DL space, Holidai Downport armed itself with the residue of Imperial Technology and fortified, and when the Traders came back, began to turn a profit - fuel and repairs and port facilities for consumables and luxuries. Eventually, even though not that important in the greater scheme of things, the population made the deciision to transition from Independent to a member of the Dawn League...

...and that's when Marak was selected for the Academy.

Lets see...I think I've got him Squared Away...

Marek Ul Trettebara Str: 5 End:5 Dex:6 Int:10 Edu:10 Chr:7 Soc:3

CR:9.000

Age: 33

Mechanic (3x tours (w/3x Special Adventures), 1x Academy) Ships Engineer - 9, Mechanic - 7, Electronics - 6, Computer-4, Starship Architecture-2, Intrusion-2, Machinist-1, Tracked Vehicle-1, Gamble-1, Slug Pistol-1

More to follow...but that should get him started. I hope.

Neptune Bencamp

Dr. Max Puissant, Assistant Professor, age 37 8569E6-B

Biology 5 Chemistry 4 Climbing 2 Combat Engineer 4, Computer 9, Electronics 6, Energy Pistol 1, History 1, Intrusion 3, Leadership 2, Mechanics 4, Medical 3, Research 1, Robotics 10, Scrounge 3, Ship’s Engineering 1, Survey 1, Unarmed Martial Arts 3, Wheeled Vehicle 0, Willpower 0

Contacts: Journalist Robotics Professor Department of Antiquities Head Dr. of Xeno-biology

Ship DM +5 50,000 cr

Spoiler: Terms work

Born on Zloga, a cemetary world, Max grew up exploring the ruins with gangs of other kids. With his parents being fairy well off, he was able to go to advanced college classes. As an undergrad, he took to exploring some of the more dangerous areas by himself. He found some old video recordings from the time of the Virus attack, and was bringing them back when he was ambushed by an old rival, Sam Malheureux and his gang. He stood them off with his fists, and made it back to civilization. There he turned the recordings over to Lois Orage, a local journalist, who published them to great acclaim.

He headed off world to Aubaine for grad school after graduating, to get a masters in robotics. He thought that learning how to operate and make robots would help him in his planned career of a professional scavenger. While there he was employed as a lab assistant to his robotics professor, Don Roseau, where, oddly, he was tasked with taking care of lab primates.

Max became interested in Cybernetics too, and changed his plans to get his doctorate in robotics. With that he was brought furhter into Dr. Roseau's work on cybernetics. There he met the lovely Dr. Iris Inistre, a xeno-biologist working on cybernet applications as applied to non-humans.

After graduating he got a research grant and went back to Zloga. Exploring there, he found a remnant of the Virus inhabiting a robot. After a long battle, it was defeated, and his analysis of it and the robot body catapulted his career foward. At this point, Dr. Roseau got parties from the Dawn League Technical Academy interested in him, and so Max enter the most challenging four years of his life.

Those four years he vastly expanded his practical knowledge, and was involved in creating an AI. There he became fast friends with a computer expert, Tom Moteur. His experience wiht the AI and cybernetics put him on hte short list for the expedition.

Shadowjack

Inspiration drawn from the U.S. Green Berets (who, among their missions, train indigenous forces), and the clever and capable Corporal Hicks of Aliens. So say a member of a League force, used to liaising with and training the security forces of other worlds to bring 'em back up to modern standards (or learn what nifty tricks they've worked out).

Reason for taking this mission instead of staying home is obvious: he or she wants to stand up to the challenge! No dirtside deskjob for this traveller.

I discovered that in my computer folder of Traveller Stuff, I've got a bunch of TNE careers downloaded off of someone's house rules page some years ago. I suspect many are modified house rules versions, but they at least give me names. :)

Military Academy, of course Army The list I've got lists "Special Operations" as a career, but I don't know if that's a house rule or not; either that or Army again. Then the League Academy, making the character 33 or so.

To describe that in words: • A master's degree in ecology (via meteorology, geology, and biology), via DELTA. • The experience you'd expect of a military captain. • A professional but not exceptional marksman and outdoorsman. • Persuasive and personable; not a diplomat, but able to keep both military and diplomatic considerations in mind when liaising with indigenous forces. • Some practical experience but not highly trained in liaison, training, tactics, etc. He knows enough to know when the people under him know their jobs, and can step up when he needs to lend a hand. • Lots of general outdoors and military experience and cross-training. • Learned to ride as a kid, and worked summers in construction; kept those skills up in military use and as hobbies. • Hobby as a historical reenactor, and successfully convinced the mission recruiters that this counted as recontact experience. :D

The Ship

The ship is a clipper prototype, built by Keeaakka Strongwall, an entirely Schalli-operated and run facility on Aubaine.

Seventh Son 1000/2000 ton RCES Exploration prototype clipper ship TL12 Structure: Open configuration, Unstreamlined. Volume 14000/28000m3 Hull: AV21 Length: 144metres [Vol: 92m3. Mass: 1370T]

Power and Drives Jump 3 TL 12 drives [1120m3, Mass: 3360T], Fuel 5600m3 for J-3. TL12 Fusion Power Plants [5 x 500MW Vol 1250m3 Mass 10 000T Fuel 375m3/year.] HEPLaR Thrusters 2-G.[ 2000MW, Vol 200m3 Mass 200T ,Fuel: 500m3 per hour [2 combat turns] [6 hours fuel at full load: 3000m3]

Current fuel requirements: Jump [at full load] 1866m3 per jump [5600m3 for jump 3] Maneuver: 2G – [125m3 per g-turn]. [500m3 per hour full burn/ 6 hours total 3000m3] Power Plant: 375m3 per year. Fuel required: 8975m3 [Jump -3, 24 g turns of thrust, one years power]

Fuel resources onboard: 3200m3 [Will, in an emergency, allow jump-1 with 11 g-turns and a weeks power plant fuel.] Four cutter fuel modules 80 tons [1120m3] [400 ton fuel module] 4722m3 Without this module, fuel gets tight very fast.

Electronics: Dynamic Linked control systems. [MW: 1. 14m3, Mass 1.4T] Workstations: [16 command/bridge stations] 224m3 8T [10 engineering stations] 70m3 2T [2 maintenance stations] 14m3 0.4T Nav aids; Flight Avionics, TL12 terrain following. 0.1MW Computers: 3xTL12fib, MW 1.2[all], Vol 24m3, Mass 4.8T Control multiplier 0.35. Workstations: Bridge: 4 Command, 2Flight, 2 Electronics [sensors/comms] 1 Engineering, 3 Master fire, 4 open [specialists/survey]

Comms [X2] Maser Comms 1000AU- 0.6MW, Vol 0.1m3, Mass 0.2T Antenna 1m2 Radio Comms 1000AU- 20MW, Vol 0.1m3, Mass 0.2T Antenna: 200m2

Sensors: Active EMS [x2] 480,000k 50MW Vol 10m3, Mass 20T Antenna 20m2 300,000k. 27.5MW Vol 5.5m3, Mass 11T Antenna 11m2 Passive Array [x2] 120 000k fixed 0.15MW Vol 1.5m3, Mass 3T Antenna Vol 1.5m3, Mass 1.5T Ant 30m2 240 000k Folding array [celestial] 1MW Vol 3.5m3, Mass 7T Antenna Vol 10m3 Mass 10T Ant 100m2

Ladar [x2] 180.000km [2.5MW Vol 2.5m3 Mass 5T, Antenna 2.5m2] Densitometer:TL12 [1MW Vol 15m3 Mass 5T, Ant 100m2] Neutrino Sensor: TL12 [0.01MW Vol 10m3 Mass 10T.]

Electronic countermeasures EM Masking package 14MW Vol 280m3[d] Mass 560T Surface Area 560m2

Craft Special features. External Grapples for: 4x50ton craft USL Vol 280m3 Mass 280T 1x400ton module USL Vol560m3 Mass 560T 2x200ton modules USL Vol 560m3 Mass 560T 2x100ton modules Vol 280m3 Mass 280T 1x400ton craft [overloads craft] USL Vol 560m3 Mass 560T Docking ring 30 ton Modules x 4 Vol 1680m3 Mass – Docking ring 50 ton craft x1 Vol 700m3 Mass- Cargo space ; Normal 20 tons. [2 large cargo hatches] [normally filled with missiles, probes and sandcaster refills] Converted from empty Meson gun spinal mount: 102 tons. This is in a 3m by 3m tunnel 144metres long. [Has had several small cargo hatches added to allow external access – you decide how much]

Life support Airlocks [20] 0.02MW Vol 60m3 [D] Mass 12T Extended life support [1000tonnes] 2.8MW Vol 5.5m3 [d] Mass8T G compensators: TL12 [3G] 70MW Vol 140m3 [d] Mass 280T

Staterooms: Small: 6 0.006MW Vol 165m3 Mass 12T

Fire control Master Fire directors [all equipped with 300 000 pencil beam active EMS and Maser comms 300 000k] -EMS 2.75MW Vol 5.5m3, Mass 11T Antenna 1.1m2 -Maser comms 0.3MW Vol 0.08 Mass 0.16T, Antenna 1m2 -Fire director 300 000k 0.2MW Vol 20m3, Mass 20T, Ignore 4 diff mods. Totals. 3.25MW, Vol 25.6m3 Mass 31.1T Antenna 2.1m2 3xTL12 - 9.75MW Vol 76.8m3 Mass 93.3T Ant 6.3m2

Weaponry. 6x Barbettes [10 hex laser -180Mj TL12 5.0MW [30total] Vol 504m3 Mass 607T] 4x Turrets [2 x missile, 2 x sandcaster - Missile 0.3MW Vol 84m3 Mass 56.8T, Sandcaster 2MW Vol 84m3 Mass 100T]

Crew of the Seventh Sun . Engineering 30 crew [3 shifts of ten] Electronics 6 crew[ 2 per shift] FlightCommand 6 crew [2 per shift] Gunnery 4 crew [1 per shift, all during action stations] Maintenance 10 [2 to 3 per shift] Flight- small craft 10 crew [ 2 per vessel] Ships Troops/gunner auxiliary – 12 crew Command – 12 crew [3 shifts of four - dayshift is normally the Captain] Stewards – 6 crew [2 per shift] Medical – 2 crew [on call]

Total crew: 98 Effective Skeleton crew: 24.

To those of you who dont have TNE, some of it would translate. Basically, shes a rail equipped to grapple on scads of modules and small craft - but is pretty reliant on them for fuel. SS is commited to slow fuel refills by a swarm of small craft, a concept refined into the Manta refueller before production. On the up side, it sports two Laser Barbettes on extenders, and four more along the hull - designed during a phase when the coalition was playing with the idea of moving to this rarer mount. It is heavily reliant on a 400ton fuel module, but less so than the clippers to come, who took the concept further. It also has accommodation for a skeleton crew, a thing designed out in the later clippers. It can carry 2 200 ton and 2 100 ton modules, though the 100 ton docking clamps are considered configured to take a mix of 50 and 25 ton modules as well. One of these will need to house crew - the rest are up to you folk and the reality of the situation [more the former]. The one major drawback is a big space where a spinal mount would be - there are none to be had for your expedition, come hell or high water. It has been converted into a long, odd cargo extension of nonstandard dimensions. It also has an external clamp for a vessel of up to 400tons, though this weighs the ship down enough that 1-g and jump-2 become maximums.

As a note for those of you who do fiddle with this stuff, I havent balanced out MegaWatts, Mass or surface area, but know what will fit from previous ponderings. It all fits, though...:D

Note, there will be at least one module devoted to the watchdog protocol, and one to the professors robotics work.

Edit: It would be entirely possible to dump the 400 ton vehicle clamp then convert a module clamp to a 100ton vehicle clamp. You'd pick up 40 tons of free space inside the clipper, too [oddly enough] - room for a spare multimission pod or two for a multimission scout ship.

Edit2: so far I've seen labship+5, Warship+2 and merchant +10...which leaves whatever Chalkie brings to the table. so far, thats +17 on the merchant table. Guess we'll have to see.

Mission Data

Briefing

About two years ago, a 100-ton courier misjumped into the Schall system, blew out its drives, and drove the new sensor net wild. Intercepting Aubaini Navy vessels were attacked by a reasonably-sophisticated virus, which made it through primary comms channels, but was shut down at the secondary level. A ship's boat investigated, once the virused ship's sensors had been neutralized, and discovered the remains were of a purpose-built virus ship! It had little space for humans, and a number of dedicated robotic units for maintenance and self-repair. The only humans on board were dead, and complexly-cyborged at TL14-15.

Deep analysis of the remains of the ship pinpointed the place of construction: the former commercial starport at Juncture, the system that contained the massive Starlink to the greater galaxy. There are so many implications or possibilities that have no answers, that even though it is roughly 200 parsecs away, through unexplored sectors of space… RefCol wants us to go there, and send a message back.

Our ship's name: Seventh Son.

Seventh Son is a prototype brought up to line standard, all TL12. It'll be a close match to the current vessels, but lacking a central spinal mount. "Another general note, I tend to scrap maneuver fuel, but that space is taken up by logical stuff like emergency escape pods,etc. however, for this game, we'll keep it by the book to avoid too much houseruley gear in-game. Just expect your fuel supply to shrink a little to accommodate logical additions."