Rubrum's GURPS - United Humanity Long Distance Exploration

[Kan' Sharuminar]

The intercom crackled to life and Fraser’s voice filled the room. “Guys. You need to get back up here and see this. Now.”

Gregory got back on his feet, testing his weight on his injured leg and decided that the doc had done a pretty bang-up job. He indicated to the others that he was going to find out what had Fraser so stunned.

------

The control room windows were open, and Fraser was staring out into space. No…not quite space, there was something else just outside, and definitely not something natural like an asteroid. At first Gregory thought it must be part of the Odyssey, something that had broken off. Then he realised the sheer size of the object.

“What the hell is that?”

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM UPDATE POST

Upon closer inspection, Fraser and Gregory noticed that there seemed to be entrances on that large object, like giant garage doors. They were closed, except for one. They were located around the middle of the "height" of the object. Gregory noticed something very hard to see (Vision roll of 5)... It was hard to keep eyes focused on it because it was so minor, but some sort of cable seemed to come out of the object from its open door towards Odyssey. He trailed it with his eyes but eventually lost sight of it as it went below the field of view somewhere onto Odyssey.

In the meantime, Nozomi Valentine, with a mind of her own, decided to ignore Fraser's call and go to the crew cabins section. She climbed up the stairs from the engine level, walked across the cozy conference room into the corridor, up to the crew cabins section. She stood in the corridor and operated the door, which opened with no alarms or beeping sound or anything.

She found herself in a narrow corridor running parallel to the main corridor. On the opposite wall of this corridor were 7 doors, for 7 separate cabins. She went right and walked past a few cabins with little name tags and tiny flags of their owners' respective homeland. "Quentin Daniel Gregory"... "Théodore Morel" ... Ah! "Nozomi Valentine". An extra door was left on that side, seemingly Dankevych's.

She opened the door to her room. It was very small, 3 yards wide by just a couple more than that lengthwise. A warming soft orange-ish light came on immediately. She saw herself in the mirror and was shocked by how tired she looked... Or maybe that was the aging effect of the stasis.

She quickly kneeled next to the bed and pulled out a the big drawer from under the mattress. In it were various sets of clothes and neatly packed hygiene products and towels. But there was also a precious wooden box with Japanese engravings. She quickly opened it and inside, laying on an expensive and soft blue velvet cushion, were two kunai weapons, laying side by side.

Spoiler :

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Squinting out the window, Gregory tapped Fraser on the shoulder and pointed at what he was seeing.

"Do you see that?" He asked, pointing at the cable. "I think we might be attached to that thing."

 

[Maniacal]

Fraser peered out the window at what Gregory was pointing at. "Ah bloody hell, this is just getting worse. I suppose whatever those, things, were they came from there then."

Looking around the control room Fraser wondered "Where are Nozomi and Martin?".

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

"She said something about going to the crew quarters." Gregory answered quietly, still staring out of the window.

He shook himself alert and hit the intercom button to transmit across the ship. "Everyone get to the control room, now. We could have more of those things aboard."

 

[Maniacal]

"Well I sealed off the garage, and the laboratory doors are also sealed, I think that is the extent of the holes in the ship but I'll run some scans and see if there is any other damage or life signs on board. Perhaps we should space the corpses of those blob things soon."

*Fraser checks the computer again for any other damage reports or signs of life*

 

[Duke Lawless]

Laszlo opted to attempt to take one of the blob-creatures back to the sick bay with him in hopes of being able to perform a proper autopsy. Without access to the lab there wouldn't be much he could do with any samples he might take, but perhaps he could learn something of use.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

"Well I sealed off the garage, and the laboratory doors are also sealed, I think that is the extent of the holes in the ship but I'll run some scans and see if there is any other damage or life signs on board. Perhaps we should space the corpses of those blob things soon."

"That's an idea. How easy would it be to lock every room and simply blast everything into space? We can go through the rooms systematically after that."

Spoiler :

That's probably a question more for Rub'Rum than Maniacal, though probably depending on the latters skills.

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM UPDATE POST

Sadly for Fraser, there was no option in the ship's system to detect foreign life on the ship. In fact, the only biometry readings were his, as he was the only one wearing the standard crew armband computer. Looking at the screens, the damage seemed to be limited to the hole in the hull of the science labs. There was also a hole on the floor of the factory leading into the engine room on the floor below (you all witnessed this when the whirring creepy blobs started coming from the ceiling during the combat).

The only access to outer space, really, is the hangar on the floor below. The hanger also has the access to the middle hull of the ship, a huge section containing everything that was needed for the mission. So blasting anything into space would require putting things into that room. If I'm understanding the question correctly.

They heard the footsteps of Dr. Martin through the open emergency access leading down into the sick bay. Dr. Martin had a strong background in physiology, but really, this creature was out of the bounds of traditional physiology. Still, he attempted his best... [Physiology -4 for a hard attempt to learn some very basic facts, adjusted skill level is 9... Roll is 9... Success]. He turned the thing upside down many times, unable to make much sense of what he was looking at... The thing had a weird roundish mouth about 2 inches in size on its underbelly between the four legs. He opened it up with a scalpel that was available at hand and found very little organs. He couldn't find the most basic digestive system or brain. The mouth gave on a tube lined in some quasi-metallic substance leading onto a very hard and dark sphere about the size of a fist in the middle of the mass... He touched it carefully with the scalpel and immediately received something like a mild electric shock that made him drop the scalpel. This was the extent of what he could do without chemistry labs, microscopes and whatnot.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

The only access to outer space, really, is the hangar on the floor below. The hanger also has the access to the middle hull of the ship, a huge section containing everything that was needed for the mission. So blasting anything into space would require putting things into that room. If I'm understanding the question correctly.

Everything needed for the mission is in a huge space next to the one place that can open into space? I'm gonna send a strongly worded letter to the designer of the ship. Especially the person who named it.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It's because that's where the equipment was supposed to be taken out and flown down to the planet. It's not equipment meant to stay on the ship for the most part.

 

[GenMarshall]

Nozomi gather's her belongs in her quarters. She then proceeds to regroup with her crewmates.

 

[Duke Lawless]

Laszlo also moved to rejoin the main group after the completion of his necessarily cursory autopsy.

"After a long struggle in which my Hippocratic oath and better judgement won out against my sense of humour," he announced upon entering the control room, "I'm going to have to advise you all not to touch the dead thing in the med bay. Especially the... inside bits. Look, I'm a doctor, not a xenobiologist; I have no idea what these things are. Did my best."

He shrugged. "I don't even know how the things live. They've hardly any sort of digestive tract at all, just a round metal zappy bit. Maybe they can feed on power sources somehow, I dunno. Would explain why they were in the engine room."

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gregory glanced up as Martin and Nozomi entered the control room. He listened to the doctor as he reported his findings on the creatures.

"I wasn't intending on touching them much anyway, doc." he said, feeling a twinge of pain in his leg. He pointed a thumb at the window behind him. "Take a look at that. I don't think we're infested with these things. It may be an orchestrated attack."

 

[Maniacal]

Frazer chimes in "Take a look outside" and puts on some dramatic, awe-inspiring music.


Link to video.

 

[Duke Lawless]

"Nice soundtrack, Frazer," Laszlo said, addressing what was clearly everyone's most immediate concern before moving on to the far less pressing matter of the strange ship apparently docked with theirs. "Really adds to the dramatic effect of the, uh, terrifyingly huge, unknown, alien space vessel there. And the ship's graveyard, that's charming."

He paused to take it all in, chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully. "Yeah, I'm... any ideas on how we get out of this not dead? 'Cause I'm fresh out."

 

[Captain2]

*drums fingers on the desk*

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

"My best suggestion is we arm up, find out where that thing is attaching itself to us, then cut it loose. At best we'll be free, at worst...er, well let's not think about that, eh chaps?"

 

[Rub'Rum]

small GM Update post

You can continue discussing. I'd just like to add that after the time of bewilderment coming out the chambers, the hours pounding your way out of that room, the time spent exploring the ship and discussing in and around the conference room, the battle, and etc, a lot of time has passed and energies are running low. I will also allow the three remaining people who haven't been to their cabins to retrieve a personal item with some meaningfulness, that they would have been allowed to carry with them on the mission (like Valentine's kunai).

 

[Maniacal]

"It has been a long day and I think we will be able to come up with a good plan once we have rested up a bit. But I won't rest easy until those blobby things are safely off this ship, I'm going to throw them out the airlock if anyone wants to help and then I am going to be in my bunk."