Rubrum's GURPS - United Humanity Long Distance Exploration

[Rub'Rum]

The Story of the crew of​

United Humanity Long Distance Exploration Odyssey 2169​

UHLDE-Odyssey 2169

Welcome. This is a play-by-post game of the pen and paper roleplaying game GURPS (4th edition). The introductory story is just below but first, one important rule…

Anyone is welcome to post in this thread. However, if you are not one of the players listed below, please do so in SPOILERS tags.

So…

In 2010, NASA sponsored scientists based in Hawaii found the first exoplanet deemed suitable for human life. This planet is over 20 light years away from Earth, in the Libra constellation. Gliese 581g, as it is named, is situated just in that sweet spot, affectionately called “goldilocks zone”; that is not too close, nor too far, from its red dwarf parent star.

Against all odds, in 2151, after much exploratory efforts, Gliese 581g was still the only exoplanet discovered with these qualities. While dwindling resources on Earth still hadn’t made tensions explode yet, there were evident signs that, given a few more hundred years, things could start getting quite ugly. At this point, the United Nations decided to send a team of surveyors towards Gliese 581g (UN resolution 6419B), despite the fact that research into Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel and hyperdrives had met with failure. Thus, the journey with conventional reaction drives, with current technology allowing a speed of 10-15 % the speed of light, would last 150 years. By the time the team had made it to the exoplanet, it is even conceivable that finally a breakthrough in FTL travel may have happened back on Earth. Still, waiting for better technology is what humanity had been doing for the past 150 years, and the waiting was starting to make world leaders nervous.

Thus on October 30th 2151, the United Nations unanimously resolved to build a super high-tech space ship and train a team of martyrs/heroes to report on Gliese 581g. Construction of the ship started in 2154 and was completed 15 years later. In that same time period, the 7 people meant to board the ship were selected from a worldwide pool of candidates and extensively trained.

The 7 heroes boarded UHLDE-Odyssey 2169 (UHLDE: United Humanity Long Distance Exploration) on October 30th 2171, 20 years to the day after UN resolution 6419B, amidst a poisonous climate that seemed to signify the collapse of the UN itself. These people had almost no hope of seeing anything dear to them ever again. This was a one way trip through space, and time, as they were going to be held in stasis for more than a hundred years. Their mission: construct an outpost base on Gliese 581g and use their comm equipment to report on the suitability of the planet, including on any pre-existing life. This was no colonization mission, but more of an attempt to throw an eye at a distant planet in case no better opportunity showed itself in the future.

The distance to be traveled was 20.5 light years (6,3 parsecs), towards the Libra constellation. Stasis was not perfected yet, and the body of those involved was going to age a certain number of years that was hard to estimate.

UHLDE-Odyssey 2169

Spoiler :

This advanced metallic laminate armor ship is a 3,000 tons ship that is 70 yards long and has the shape of a rather lopsided dumbbell. Its front hull contains most of the usable space (labs, factory, sick bay, cabins, and vehicle hangars) and looks like a thick disk on one end of the dumbbell. The middle hull is almost entirely dedicated to cargo holds along with a triple missile launcher turret (meant to be used to attack space debris) and an engine room. The back hull is the large side of the dumbbell; about three times the size of the front disk, this area contains an antimatter thermal rocket engine powered by large fuel tanks of hydrogen that dominate the appearance of the ship.

The first vessel constructed by humanity for this purpose, it is meant to bring a small crew to a very distant exoplanet where surveying equipment, labs and cargo may be used to setup a first outpost and report on the planet using binary digit data transfer as was the case with the Arecibo message in 1974. The only weapon is meant to be used to fire at asteroids or space objects to get them out of the way.

Our cast:
(no open positions right now, but if you are interested do send me a PM since it’s not out of the question that there could be new characters, replacements needed, or later games):

Kan’ Sharuminar as Sergeant Quentin Daniel Gregory aka “Nads”

Quentin D. Gregory was born in Manchester, England to a working-class family. He had an unremarkable upbringing and education, before enlisting in the Parachute Regiment when he was 17. For four years he served in various locations, mainly in peacekeeping and garrison duties, before being selected for SAS training. He showed particular adeptness in small-arms weapons, as well as scoring highly on his survival training.

With these skills, and with the benefit of having few personal ties to Earth, Sergeant Gregory was selected for the manned mission to Gliese 581g, as the main security and weapons officer, and to provide an advisory role should the planet prove to be able to support human life.

PrinceScamp as Alexander Fraser PhD

Alexander Fraser was born and raised in Yellowknife, North West Province, Canada. His parents both worked in the booming mining industry in Canada's northern regions. While he was never one of the popular kids (partly because he had nearly double their IQ) his dislike of being alone forced him to overcome shyness at a young age and he was known for his honesty. Following in his father's footsteps Alex attended the University of British Columbia after being awarded a massive scholarship. As one of the most promising and brilliant students he was fast tracked for selection for a top secret UN exploratory mission to another planet and was awarded an honourary PhD prior to departure (there had not been enough time to complete it normally). However, an 'accident' during the final day of field training for these candidates involving explosives (no foul play was ever proven although suspicion rests upon a fellow candidate) nearly killed him and several other candidates. Alexander's left arm and hand were badly injured and artificial implants using cybernetics were surgically installed as a replacement granting ambidexterity on top of a spark producing mechanism activated by a flick of the fingers (accidental flicks being highly unlikely).

CivGeneral as specialized agent Nozomi Valentine

Nozomi Valentine was born and raised in southeastern New England. Her mother was an immigrant from Japan and a member of a secretive ninja clan who fell in love with an American Army officer. Nozomi has gained her ninjutsu training directly from her mother. Growing up, she developed a distant personality due mainly because of being teased. Determined not to let the teasing get to her, she honed into her skills. Later, she was chosen to enter in the expedition to another planet. Largely thanks to the recommendations from her father.

Duke Lawless as MD Laszlo Martin

Laszlo Martin was born in Manhattan to completely unremarkable parents in completely unremarkable circumstances, despite having been born in one of the largest and most populous mega-cities in the world. Outwardly he's average in every way, and his early life reflects that. He was well-liked but not popular, a good student but not top of his class, and so on and so forth. The one thing that differentiated him from his peers, and what ultimately landed him a position on this mission, was his dedication to his work and his skill as a diagnostician combined with his eagerness to serve. He's a genuinely talented individual but he hides it well, and largely unintentionally, under a veneer of complete ordinariness.

Rubrum (aka SimonL, me) your host and friendly Game Master (GM).


RESOURCES (ALL FREE):

GURPS LITE. We are using the full GURPS rules, but GURPS lite still lists the general concepts of the game and can help you understand.

Skill Categories. To filter out the zounds of GURPS skills more easily.

Combat Cheat Sheet. Strongly suggested. Lists all the maneuvers you can use in combat. Note that I will most likely be taking care of most defensive maneuvers so as not to bog down the game, but your choice of maneuver on your turn determines which defenses are available during that turn (ex: doing an ALL-OUT-ATTACK leaves you with no defenses, so if someone rolls a success on an attack roll on you after you made an ALL-OUT-ATTACK, you don’t get to try to dodge)


GURPS jargon

Spoiler :

For more details, look in the books! Especially in the "Campaigns" book.

d: Many RPGs use a variety of dice. A 20-sided dice is known as a d20, so rolling two of them would be "roll 2d20". However, GURPS only uses the 6 sided dice. So by convention in GURPS, we never add the "6". For instance, no point saying this attack causes 3d6 damage if all rolls are always d6. So we'd just say "roll 3d".

DR: Damage resistance (armor and materials have DR, this is the amount of damage an attack has to cause before it even starts to damage the person or the structure. For instance, you get hit for 4 damage but have an armor that gives you 1 DR, the damage that penetrates is 3. Basically, armor doesn't help you avoiding hits, but it reduces the damage. To avoid getting hit, you have to count on your Dodge, Block and Parry)

FP: Fatigue points (not too hard to recover, but when used up, can cause slowing down and collapse)

SL: Skill level (this is your skill level in one skill; the number you have to roll (equal or under) to succeed at an average task, many modifiers (mods) will often be applied depending on the situation)

TL: Technology level. Applied to people, equipment, campaigns, to represent technology level. TL 3 represents middle age stuff, TL4 is musket and cannons, TL 8 is modern and digital days, TL 12 is super sci-fi with arcologies and stuff that is hard to imagine

Hints, tips, guidelines, rules, old cat ladies

Spoiler :

- Everything that isn’t an action or character discussion should be put in spoilers. So questions regarding what the character can and cannot do will probably be in spoiler tags. PM to me is also alright.

- Post actions in third person, if you really want to refer to game mechanics, put them in parenthesis. Ex: Dr Joe takes aim and shoots when the monster is in range (aim maneuver, wait maneuver and shoot when monster is in range)

- Just because I didn’t mention something doesn’t mean it’s not there. Example; you’re hiding in a maintenance closet. I didn’t describe all the content of the closet, so if you ask to get an item like bleach from the closet, there are good chances that there will indeed be bleach in there. So while sometimes it’s ok to just “look for stuff in general”, it’s also ok to say “I look in that desk to see if I couldn’t find some glue” …

- In combat, if possible, try to anticipate what your character may want to do for the next couple of rounds. Feel free to “program” your future actions with “if/then” logics.

- There won’t be a specific pattern to when I’ll post updates. Don’t wait for me to answer to every single post before describing more actions. Sometimes posting the fact that you’re done can help, even if it’s just “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner gets up and looks out the window” (with his… neck&#8230. Feel free to converse between yourselves and such, don’t necessarily wait for me to update unless an update is obviously necessary (mid-combat, or everybody is waiting to see what they found in the different corners of the room they each explored).

- For the sake of keeping things moving, I will most likely have to, once in a while, decide on a reasonable course of action for someone. That’s just the way Play-by-Post games tend to work. I will try to keep this to a minimum, but it’s likely to happen if you somehow disappear at a particularly crucial moment of the game. But since I’m fairly convinced that this will happen, I think you should be prepared to just accept it. If it does happen, it’s not a punishment or anything; it’s just for everybody else and the survival of the game.

- Perhaps the most important part is (related to the point above): if you feel you won’t be able to play for a number of days and such, or if you just don’t want to do this anymore, it’d be better to tell us right away. Many such games have died because posting stopped after everybody waited for that one person who just decided he didn’t want to play anymore or that person who went out on vacation without warning. Lethargy of one brings lethargy of everybody.

- Keep in mind game mastering online like this is kind of new for me (and I haven’t even had the chance to GM in a sustained fashion “irl” for years), so allow for some indulgence, and do PM me any input, ideas or concern you may have.

- While offenses to any of the above are easy to forgive, there will be zero tolerance to any form of internet drama or overreaction. Remember that things aren’t likely to go perfectly well and this is about creating a story. It is not about “winning”, nor is it only about you.

A bit on reasoning behind choice of forum

Spoiler :

I didn’t choose to post in All Other Games randomly; I pondered and asked opinions around. For a while I thought about the NES forum because it’s the closest to role-playing games we have on CFC. I was granted permission, but NES are rather specific types of games in retrospect. Then I thought of Forum Games, but this game of GURPS isn’t really a Forum Game in the sense that it’s not built for forums; it’s “another game” that exists on the market (GURPS RPG books!), and it’s not meant for forums or invented by forum people either. So it landed here.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Characters sheets:

Alexander Fraser

Spoiler :

Quentin D. Gregory

Spoiler :

Nozomi Valentine

Spoiler :

Laszlo Martin

Spoiler :

 

[Maniacal]

Reserved for myself

Equipment list

• Civilian Vacc Suit
• Civillian Vac Suit Helmet
• Used D Battery
• Armband Computer (contains 1 D battery)
• Beam Rifle (contains 1 power pack)
• Belt pouch
  
  
  

 

[Duke Lawless]

Reserved.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Nad's equipment is:

Torch
Bottle of Water
AK-47 with 5 clips
2SIG Sauer p226 pistol with 5 clips
Desert Eagle pistol with 5 clips

SAS Beret
Military knife
Music player

 

[GenMarshall]

Inventory:
3 x C Batteries (They are all in their respective items, weapons, & apperal that needs it as noted)
Electropistol w/ 1 C battery
Reflex Vacc Suit w/ 2 x C batteries
Reflex Vacc Helmet
Nightstick
Belt pouch

 

[Rub'Rum]

Everyone welcome to post now. For people who aren’t players but may want to act as a peanut gallery; you’re welcome but use spoiler tags please

And so it begins...

There was nothing for a length of time that is hard to define. But now there is something. A strange wooshing sound seems to announce the return of hearing capacities. They hear the last seconds of a buzzing sound; the robot needles retracting away from their bodies. Then, they can only hear their own enclosed breathing. They open their eyes but cannot see much outside the stasis chamber that has been holding them for so long. Only a faint brownish light seems to make it through the small thick rectangular window. This small amount of light still attacks their retinas in a painful manner and a horrible nausea grabs a hold of them.

A muscle tensor mechanism lets go of their whole bodies and they touch the floor of the chambers. The hatches click and pop open letting in cool and dry breezes. They find themselves in the rather bleak and dark life chambers section on floor B of the front hull of UHLDE-Odyssey 2169. They first turn to look at each others, immediately curious to know how much they have aged. The aging process due to inefficient stasis technology has hit some worse than others… However, things are off to a strange start

Chamber 1 for Sergeant Quentin Daniel Gregory is opened and Quentin stumbles out dry heaving loudly
Chamber 2 for Dr. Rehema Waseme (physicist, astrophysicist) is opened, but she isn’t anywhere in sight
Chamber 3 for Dr. Théodore Morel (psychologist, social sciences studies) is also opened and Dr. Morel is also seemingly absent
Chamber 4 for Laszlo Martin (MD, biology and chemistry) is opened and he walks our rubbing his face
Chamber 5 for Dr. Alexander Fraser opens a little late and Alexander eagerly walks out of the structure
Chamber 6 for specialized security agent Nozomi Valentine is opened, and Nozomi is kneeling in front, afflicted by violent dry heaving bouts that outdo Quentin’s
The hatch of Chamber 7 for the mission leader of UHLDE-Odyssey 2171, Dr. Vasiliy Dankevych (electronics, engineering and production), seems to have remained sealed.

(Interesting features of the room to start you up, not necessarily all you can do):

The empty and/or unopened life chambers

The widest wall in front of the sleep chambers is actually a large window, currently covered by a mechanical blind that is meant to be pulled away at the push of a large orange button placed on command panel next to the door leading out of the room. Pressing this button is meant to be the cinematic culmination of the voyage, when Gliese 581g is revealed to human beings for the first time. It also sends the very first transmission back Earth. A quick bleep of “we made it”.

A metallic coffin put in the middle of the room. This was meant to contain objects that you would probably want to use as soon as you got out of this long stasis. It has been opened.

The door leading to the corridor and the command panel next to it.

Mechanics and rolls

Spoiler :

HT rolls were made to check for condition coming out of the Life Chambers. Remember GURPS success is rolling UNDER your skill level
Nads (4+6+3=13) Failed HT roll by 2 = dry heaves for 2 minutes then nausea for an hour
Laszlo (5+4+1=10) Barely made the HT roll
Alex (5+1+1=7) Succeeded well at HT roll
Nozomi (6+5+2=13) Failed HT roll by 3 = dry heaves for 3 minutes then nausea for an hour

EDIT: Might want to add that they are not wearing anything except very basic close fitting clothes.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gregory managed to get the dry heaving under control, though it was now replaced by a husky cough. He gripped the side of the life-support unit that had kept him in stasis for, well, it felt like five minutes since he had entered the machine. No, the trip had taken a hundred years - the aches he was beginning to feel across his body seemed to confirm that.

Mission protocol demanded that the first thing to be done was press the orange button that would send a message back to Earth. Even if the mission failed now, at least the ship designers could get some satisfaction that their vessel had made the trip. Well to hell with that - what little light was in the room was painful enough, and sods law guaranteed that, upon pressing that button, the blinds would open to a beautiful, yet blinding image of Gliese 581g's sun. Imagine that, humanities first extra-solar mission and some idiot blinds the lot of them.

For now, Gregory focused on trying to ignore the growing nausea and pains in his chest, and tried to focus on the others in the room. Three blurry shapes were nearby, and from the sound of it one was having a rougher time than he was. Slowly his mind began to recall the numerous briefings before the mission - they were apparently short by three crewmembers, there might have been some minor ageing during the journey, necessary equipment should be nearby...

Stumbling forwards and cursing softly under his breath, Gregory made his way to examine the large metallic container in the centre of the room.

 

[Duke Lawless]

The first thing Laszlo Martin thought on waking up is that he was further from home than he'd ever been in his entire life, further than anyone else save his crewmates had been in their entire lives, and that was supremely strange. The second thing he thought was that he felt like . The nausea faded quickly but he was still left with this horrible feeling of malaise, like something had gone really, really wrong. Sleeping for over a hundred years probably did that to a person.

So did waking up to find one's mission had apparently ended before it had ended. Laszlo shifted uncomfortably, taking note of the still-sealed chambers and crewmembers both absent and present. Two of those awake had been struck with dry heaves, but there was nothing he could do about that, and they'd known of the possibility before they left. No. He'd be far more useful elsewhere.

Sergeant Gregory was already moving forwards to check on the supplies; good. That left Laszlo to fulfil his role as ship's doctor and check up on their absent comrades. Dr. Dankevych was first. He approached the sealed stasis chamber.

 

[GenMarshall]

"HOLY CRAP!!!" as Nozomi says to herself trying to keep her dry heaving and nausea under control. She then approaches the metal crate to gather her supplies and gear.

She then finds a place to sit to let her nausea subside.

 

[Maniacal]

Alex wakes up surprisingly refreshed for such a long stay in stasis. Carefully avoiding Gregory and Nozomi dry heaving and stumbling across the room to the equipment crate Alex takes a brief look around at the other stasis containers. Both Dr. Waseme and Dr. Morel's were empty, 'probably checking the rest of the ship' he thinks as he reaches the equipment locker eager for a change of clothing.

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM UPDATE POST

Gregory approached the “welcome” container he had seen before. It was ajar and its sad emptiness was a little disheartening. Actually no, it was not entirely empty, just rather empty for its size. A quick examination revealed some objects at the very bottom of this 3 feet tall cubic box:
- An opened 12 pack of water bottles (6 were still in there)
- A box of 36 food paste tubes and the cardboard skeleton of another similar box (tubes are gone from that one).
- 2 wide black blankets, nice to the touch!
- 1 high tech mini flashlight, rolling sadly at the bottom of the crate. There was a plastic container with a series of flashlights but only one was remaining, the one rolling around
- a 12 pack of “A” power cells (conveniently used by flashlight (1 cell per light))
- a small wearable computer that seemed to be in slightly bad shape (uses “B” type power cells). This can usually communicate with the mainframe computer.
- A small chemical power pack with its cord, this type of pack was most commonly found linked to a beam weapon
- A HUD display device that can connect to various devices and is worn over one eye
- Lots of medical equipment: an anti-toxin kit with 3 syringes (there used to be more, and these are usually specific to certain toxins), a diagnostic probe, 4 disposable medical test kits (also specific to certain conditions), a heavy duty first aid crash kit with defibrillator
- A carpet of used up power cells of various format were making this all look rather untidy.
- (and maybe some other things that I haven’t thought of yet!)

Nozomi managed to stand up a few seconds after Gregory made it to the box. She followed a snaky off-balance path to the crate and noticed a slight look on Gregory’s face. She peered inside the box with Gregory, seeing the same thing as he did [note: you would expect your personal to be in your cabin].

Alexander walked past the chambers of Dr. Waseme and Dr. Morel with the idea that they must be out exploring the ship but noticed that, contrary to the other pods, these didn’t seem to emanate residual heat. He made his way towards Nozomi and Gregory peering at the crate of goods with that in mind.

Laszlo walked in the other direction and took a few steps towards the life chamber next to his own, hoping to check on Dr. Dankevych’s status. The pod seemed to be tightly shut. Trying to peer inside through the tiny thick rectangular window yielded no result as a peculiar thin white dust seemed to cover the inside of the window. There was a control panel at waist height on the right side, as was the case with all the pods.

Mechanics and rolls

Spoiler :

Alex noticed heat difference from life chambers of Waseme and Morel with perception roll of 7

 

[Maniacal]

Looking into the container Alex wonders why the it is so messy and why so much stuff is missing. He picks up the small wearable pip-boy like device and inspects it.

 

[GenMarshall]

After gathering herself, Nozomi examines the flashlight and the power cells (A type). Then she heads to her cabin to check on her gear.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

While going through the equipment, Gregory noticed the girl heading out the door. What was her name again? His mind raced through the briefings and character profiles he had memorised for the mission. Naomi? Ballantyne? Valentine? New England came to mind though - an American, that would do.

"Wait a minute yank," his voice came out strained and scratchy, "something's not right here - I think we might have a couple early risers who decided not to wait for us." He glanced at Doctor Fraser. "Fancy a job, mate? Go with her and see if you can find our missing sleepwalkers."

It was probably nothing, probably. The stasis pods were meant to awaken the crew as one. A couple had clearly opened early, probably a malfunction. If so, why hadn't they awakened the rest of the crew, or waited for them? Judging by the amount of supplies still in the crate, it hadn't been too long since they had awoken.

 

[Maniacal]

As he is busy inspecting the computer Alex doesn't really hear Gregory.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gregory grabbed Fraser's shoulder to get his attention and points at Valentine, speaking louder this time. "Go with her, you can examine that on the way. Report back if you find the others."

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM UPDATE POST

Before being interruputed by Gregory, Alex examined the portable computer. He recognized it as a personal computer worn by crew members on ship. Despite having seen a bit of tear and wear, and having a slightly scratched up screen, this one seemed to be in working condition. All that was missing was a proper power cell ("B" type cell).

By that time, Nozomi had already examined the rather mundane flashlight and left it where it was. She was now was already in front of the sliding door leading out of the room, still feeling queasy. She knew how to operate these of course. On the command panel, there was the large orange button meant to open the blinds of this room, but there was the smaller blue "open" key to press. Resolute on getting her gear, she pressed the blue button while Gregory was speaking to her and Alex...

The door didn't budge. Instead, a short series of about 4 beeps, similar to Morse code, was emitted by the door. A red light blinked to the same rhythm on the command panel and then kept on blinking. Nozomi recognized this as the door's own security and communication system, separate from mainframe computer, which usually communicates through voice on speakers.

Mechanics and rolls

Spoiler :

Alex successfully figured out info about the portable computer device with an easy +3 Electronics Repair (comm) roll of 12 (had to get under 16)
Nozomi successfully barely identified the door's comm system with a Crewman/Spacer roll of 10 (I forgot to add Spacer skill to every single char sheet but you all have it, Nozomi's skill level is 10)
PS: not gonna again update before tonight

 

[Luckymoose]

Spoiler :

Why didn't you try to contact other RPers on this forum?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Spoiler :

Hi Luckymoose, I don't really want to start a meta discussion on this topic in the game thread. As a quick response though; for my first game I wanted only 4 people and there were already 4 people in my hands who had expressed interest to me in various circumnstances over the past months, so I didn't need to contact other RPers. Do note that there is an invitation in the OP to contact me for possible new characters, replacements or later games, maybe that would help me know how many more there are, and gauge exactly how addicted to being online on CFC they are to make them good candidates to the survival of a PbP game, hehe. If you want to discuss this more, please do so through PM.