Rubrum's GURPS - United Humanity Long Distance Exploration

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gregory pressed the button on the control panel nearby.

"Fraser, Gregory. Are the engines on the Odyssey capable of maneuvering us yet? If it turns out we start dragging that thing to us we can just move out of the way with thrusters."

 

[Rub'Rum]

From 2 months ago:

Spoiler :

Fraser accessed the mainframe computer. Now used to its menus, he saw that, as expected, the energy to bring the ship to where it now was was pretty much all used up, and that these big engines in the back hull were dormant. The in-ship equipment itself was powered by the engine they had just cleaned up, and this one ran on a different energy tank which still contained sufficient fuel.

i.e. Odyssey wasn't meant to be maneuvered once it had reached Gliese 581g. The only engine left with fuel is the one you guys cleaned out, and it isn't connected to thrusters, but rather to the front hull's equipment, to power the mission itself. In a TL9 game, we're really still in low-tech comparatively to most sci-fi settings like Star Wars and Star Trek and such.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gregory pressed the button.

"Er, forget that, just remembered something. My own opinion is that we seal the area for now and get some rest. If there's the possibility of getting too close to that thing with life-threatening manoeuvres, we better be alert."

Spoiler :

Cheers Rubrum, was looking in completely the wrong area of the thread about engines.

 

[Maniacal]

*Frasier reseals the door and goes to his room*

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM update post

The team walked back towards the crew cabins section after restoring the hangar to its atmospheric setting with closed door. They walked up the stairs into the conference room, walked across the corridor and opened the door to the cabins section.

All doors were closed. There were seven doors, each with a name tag and a small flag for the country of the room's owner. This time, as Valentine walked past Théodore Morel's room again to reach her own, her feet stumbled upon an old-looking pair of crew shoes sitting on a tiny carpet in front of his door that she hadn't noticed earlier, and not this time either apparently since she almost tripped over them. The sound of her small stumble made everybody turn their heads, as sudden sounds in such a gloomy situation could easily be interpreted as a vicious creature coming out of nowhere and attacking. But no, just a pair of shoes in the way of a tired stride.

Apart from this, all door seemed unlocked (and people free to gather personal belongings...).

 

[Maniacal]

Fraser decides to check the rooms of the missing crew members.

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM update post

Everybody pretty much had the same idea, but Fraser was nearest to the door (except Valentine, who was still catching her balance).

He punched in the open command on Morel's door. The door immediately opened, the tiny French flag disappearing sideways with the door. The pleasant dim yellow wall lights turned on inside, and this was quite a sight. First, most objects in the room, including the window ledge, the desk, the bed, were covered in quite a bit of dust.

Most obvious though were the drawings. Morel had a drawing board for arts and the walls were covered in pencil drawings. Most of them were alpine sceneries, probably from southern France. But what struck the eye were the drawings from inside the ship, incredibly detailed almost impressionistic versions of the corridors, the cabins room, the engine... And a row of 6 drawings was close to the ceiling, realistic portraits of every crew member, asleep, as seen through the window of the sleep pods.

The room wasn't particularly tidy, the trash can was overflowing with wrappings of space food, the bed seemed trashed around, the sheets mostly fallen to the ground. On the bed next to the pillow was a small book, which had the obvious appearance of a classic diary in which one writes with a pen.

 

[Maniacal]

Fraser studies the art for any possible clues.

 

[GenMarshall]

Nozomi balances herself back and goes with Fraser to check in the other rooms.

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM update post

Fraser dragged his finger lightly on some of the pictures to find some interesting information (Vision rolls with secret results).

He started by studying the landscapes, which didn't tell him much, except that since they were quite detailed, and he couldn't see any reference material anywhere, they must have been landscapes with which Morel would have probably been acquainted from memory. He knew Morel was French, of course.

He then moved on to the portraits. Again, not much beyond what he had seen from afar. He could appreciate the detail more, and was a little uncomfortable at seeing his own sleeping face. Of note was the fact that a portrait like every other one had been made of Central African physicist Rahema Waseme, whom was also missing right now. Dankevych's portrait seemed to have been mistreated at some point, the paper being a little wrinkled. It seemed to have been moved a few times based on the state of the corners of the paper.

Valentine let Fraser do his thing and moved to the closest absentee room, engineer and captain Dankevych's. The room was bigger than the others, but otherwise looked exactly as hers; it was unused and tidy. On the wooden desk, a portrait of the Russian's family was in view, she could see him with his wife and their daughter, a late teenager. His personnal objects also included a superior sound system, and the music collection was mostly filled with russian classical music from the 18th and 19th century. There was a high quality personal notebook on the desk with what was probably a highly valuable carved wood pen representing nothing but an intricate pattern.

 

[Maniacal]

Fraser turns to Gregory and Martin who were still standing in the room looking at the portraits. "I knew Morel was an artist but he never really shared any of his work while we were in training and prep. At least he had something to keep him occupied, at least for a while. Maybe he wrote something down in his journal about what happened."

Fraser opens the journal and reads it.

 

[Duke Lawless]

Laszlo takes a brief detour to his own room to retrieve some of his meagre personal effects before returning to the others. He hadn't thought much of his past worth holding on to and so all that he returns with is a slightly worn-looking leather gladstone and a multi-tool in the vein of a Swiss army knife, an old birthday gift which he carries with him for luck even if he rarely ever has cause to actually use it.

Everyone else is poking around, so he figures he'll join in, moving to stand next to Fraser and peer down at the journal curiously. Going through a dead man's effects seems unethical, however mildly, but maybe they'll come across something of use.

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM update post

Fraser turned the diary in his hands. It was a blue booklet. A quick browse revealed countless pages of personal thoughts of various kinds. It didn't quite feel appropriate to read some of it, and there was even some poetry that couldn't have been meant for a large audience. However, some of the pages were crudely bookmarked with torn up space food wrappers. The first two of these bookmarks had a quickly and barely readable "READ HERE". The various dates bookmarked revealed a gloomy tale.

(Bear with me, long text, written a long while ago)

Spoiler :

(10 days after waking up)
Alright, the rest of this diary will be on paper only. It is to protect my family… It seems a faction within the Continental Europe council of the UN managed to put an implant in me… When? In the middle of the night. Someone in the French training facilities? Anyway, the implant was programmed to make my body temperature skyrocket when its battery was about to run out. This is what happened; the life chambers released me as an emergency procedure. Except 30 years in advance! Did they simply misjudge the implant’s battery life!?! What a botched job. I don’t quite understand. Now there are death threats on my personal computer towards my descendants if I don’t manage to modify the comm system of the ship to make sure it is encoded to be receivable only by this faction. They seem to want to have privileged access to info on Gliese 581g.

(one year after waking up)
One year anniversary… Eating some more food paste for a celebration. Woo… hoo. There are ample supplies of these little things to last 21 lifetimes. You know, I don’t even know how old I am. I feel like I’m 35 or so? I don’t know, I don’t really have much experience in how it feels to be 35. I don’t even know when I’ll die of old age. It’s looking more and more like I won’t really want to reach that time. Still… There is always the curiosity; I may live long enough to see Gliese 581g. Still debating what to do about the bastards who got me into this situation. They probably think I’m still asleep for now. No rush to decide whether or not I will go according to their plan to save some grand children I’ve never met.

(10 years anniversary)
Something’s weird with Dankevych’s pod. I tried to release him… I’ve been trying very hard not to try to release everybody but… I must resist. First I don’t want to mess with the programs, I don’t feel confident with my capacity to work with this sensitive equipment. As far as I know they can’t even be used to go back into stasis. I checked the instructions on mainframe computer but I really think I’d endanger the mission by fooling with this. What a fool I am. I’m probably the least technically apt person here; a frickin’ psychologist to the rescue!. Dankevych’s pod keeps beeping loudly. I… tried to use the panel and I think I did something wrong, in fear I beat up the unit… in despair. I lost it. Hope everything will be fine for him.

(some time during year 13)
The stars, the stars and I.

(some time during year 20)
The bastards! I guess now is the time they had planned for me to wake up? Did they think it would take me a whole 10 years to comprehend the ship’s comm system and to modify it to target it only at them? Anyway, I guess there is a second implant in me. It fired up now. It is putting me through excruciating pain.

(a few days after above entry)

This is unbearable, feels like my nerves are being torn apart. I tried scanning myself with Martin’s equipment but I can’t find that thing. There is a strange entry in my personal computer’s personal notes section. I thought it was an artifact when I saw it for the first time 20 years ago, but now I understand. It’s half of an encoded text. It has to be meshed with the other half, the other half is the confirmation bit data that is received once I have sabotaged the comm. system in the fashion that these terrorists want it to be. Once I have the second half of the code, I will have the instructions to free myself from the pain. Bastards. So basically, not only are they threatening to kill my entire family, they have to make sure I go through this horrendous physical pain if I don’t comply.

(year 22 of being awake)
Unbelievable, the sound of the main engine for Odyssey receded to a low hum. I freaked out and ran up to the control room, a place I hadn’t visited in 5 years. In front of me was this asteroid belt. Apparently we made it a few years in advance, but the prospect isn’t good for a planet. I guess the ultra nationalist European Council people were actually more accurate than the rest of us?

However… The debris is in this belt, floating aimlessly around… Just look at it, there are other structures obviously made by sentient beings. And I’m especially thinking of that gigantic… Arcology? What is this! I see red stuff inside that looks like leaves! This is unbelievable. Now, should I try wake my mates? Still 8 years to go… Or modify the signal to stop my pain and appease the terrorists? But this is kind of scary. Informing them that there is potentially alien stuff and tech in the area makes me even more uncomfortable than giving them privileged info on the presence of a good planet.

(a few days after above entry)
I know what I did wrong 10 years ago with Dankevych… Tomorrow I’ll attempt this again… On Waseme. I need someone with me or I’m going to either kill myself from the pain or divert the signal as asked of me. I think she will understand…

(a few days after above entry)
It was a success… Partly… I… don’t know what to do anymore. I will stay here in my cabin every waking hour until pain does me in.

(a few days after above entry)
There is a strange noise outside the hull… Worrisome. That being said, Waseme doesn’t want to wake the rest of the crew to a graveyard. Odyssey’s journey is over, it won’t go anywhere now. I don’t think the possibility of a planet NOT being here crossed the minds of the designers of this ship. Although who could blame them, the signal was clearly here for a planet… And if it wasn’t there, how far would we need to go from this point if this happened? How much fuel would be needed for that? Have you seen the size of the fuel tanks on Odyssey already?! Maybe if we wait long enough we’ll see some objects pass by that could resemble alien power of some form? Then we could make it to Gliese 581d or 581c? I’ll have to discuss with Waseme regarding our crew mates. In theory they are still 8 years from waking up.

(a few days after above entry)
Oh God! Oh God! No time! We gotta escape somehow! Bookmarked important parts.

EDIT: I'm not sure how he considered "The Stars the Stars" an important part. We'll put this on GM brain fail

 

[Maniacal]

Fraser finishes reading the relevant parts out to Gregory and Martin and just kind of stands there absorbing the info and going over it in his head, a little stunned.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Reaching up, Gregory picked the sketched portrait of himself off the wall and looked at it a while. He was unsure how he felt about the idea of someone drawing him as he had slept - unease at the thought of it, and sadness for his colleague, alone on the ship.

"Frog didn't get my nose right." Gregory snorted as Fraser began to read aloud Morel's journal. However, he folded the portrait carefully, put it in one of his suit's pouches and took out the desert eagle pistol. Sitting down on the bed, he began taking it apart, inspecting and cleaning the individual pieces. Doing so always focused his mind, which was lucky, as the revelations from Morel's journal began coming in fast.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Spoiler :

At present I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, so in the interest of moving along, why don't we let our characters get some rest and then digest/discuss this information when we're awake again? If so, I'm suggesting watch shifts.

 

[Maniacal]

Spoiler :

That sounds like a good plan, I'm not sure what to say either (and a little hungover).

 

[Rub'Rum]

GM update post

Spoiler :

I'll assume Valentine is pursuing her inspection of the absentees rooms based on CivGeneral's post about checking "other rooms" (plural).

Valentine left the Russian commander's room and walked across the cabins corridor, reaching Rehema Waseme's apartment. This room was also tidy, but looked lived in, with another layer of dust. An opened trekking backpack was on the bed with stuff half shoved into it, and the closet was open, containing clothes and various personal objects. The objects in the backpack were mostly items one would bring on a trip; clothes, hygiene products, etc. But it had been left there. However she found another diary quite similar to Morel's among the personal objects. This one had very little written in it. The booklet was flipped open all the way, cracked backward, revealing the only page with text on it.

Spoiler :

(2 days after she was awoken by Morel)
I… couldn’t write anything yesterday. I was out of myself with rage and sadness and I think I almost killed Morel. Everybody would know why he tried to wake ME up. Frankly, it was me or Valentine. I think he would have preferred Valentine, if it weren’t for the fact that she’s a highly trained martial artist killing machine who could sneak up on him and make him pay.

(5 days after she was awoken by Morel)
It’s not gonna happen Théodore.

(6 days after she was awoken by Morel)
Théodore came in and surprised me with cyanide pills in hands. I suggested we kill ourselves. He explained his situation to me. He has been hi-jacked by nationalist terrorists of some sort. Frankly, I told him to do whatever he wants. It doesn’t seem like there is much sensitive information to provide anyway.

 

[GenMarshall]

Nozomi looks puzzled at the diary and begins to wonder who the other guy was that was sneaking up on people.

 

[Duke Lawless]

"Right," Laszlo said, looking between Fraser and Gregory. "So... right. I dunno about you guys, but I need to get some sleep. I suggest you all do the same, if you can sleep after that. If we're gonna be fighting off alien invaders, I think it's probably best we all go into it well-rested."

Spoiler :

There we go, making the whole thing official so we can get things moving again...