Unexpected Gravity Well Causes Jump Percipitation

October was a productive hobby month - both for figure painting and for thinking and writing about Traveller.

November - not so much.

Like a gathering storm cloud, the long running installation at work has been looming over me. From the beginning of November, the pace suddenly increased - and we began to understand just how half-assed the planning had been. Consequently, I'm feeling a tad over-whelmed/jaded and very uncreative.

Good stuff. Have had a couple of little figure orders arrive and a couple on the way. Also, Flynn, over at In Like Flynn, has embarked on a bit of Traveller Sector development which has been fascinating, and sanity-preserving, reading. I'm torn between stealing his ideas and filing the serial numbers off, or attempting to recast them to fit my needs for the development of Gazolan Subsector, and the other Coreward Subsectors. Also, again, I've just become the proud owner of a Samsung Tablet - I see it as a rule-book holding device that will allow me to take stuff with me to read while I'm waiting for files to transcode.

So ... the Good Stuff just about outweighs the Bad Stuff.

Oh, and The Hobbit premiers this week - another good thing. I wish Jed Brophy, and all the rest, all the best for their big day.

Website Update #19

Just finished a big update of my Modeling Log and my Traveller Library Data on my Blog.

Another weekend spent battling with a dodgy camera and a flakey laptop. But, it is done and, as they say, dusted.

Aloin's Saga - Solo Traveller #12

“Thank you, Omega Vasalai Traffic Control. Confirm Iridium Queen outbound on Nadir track 237. Jump in 190 minutes at 320,000 kilometres. Iridium Queen, clear.” Aloin closed the comm. and time stamped the ship’s log. Then, careful not to touch anything, he double-checked the ship’s course and heading.

“Very good, Mr Grathikka,” Captain Lukk said approvingly from the Scan position, behind him. “You have handed off from T.C.; confirmed outbound course and jump time; updated the log; and checked your heading. Now, what have you forgotten to do?”

Anxiously, Aloin scanned the pilot station control boards in front of him, desperately looking for a warning light or a switch in the wrong position, but the boards were green, green, green. Silently, from her seat at Nav, Miska tapped a large display that was currently dark. Aloin groaned. “I forgot to load and run the countdown clock,” he said and mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Miska.

“And?” Lukk said. She sounded slightly amused.

“And ...,” Aloin hesitated. Suddenly he made the connection. “And advise Engineering and deck crew, ma’am.”

“Well, we got there eventually,” Lukk sighed. “Precisely, Mr Grathikka,” she continued. “Now, Holi knows his business, and as soon as you run the clock, he will begin his prep for Jump. He knows that at ten minutes to jump, the Nav Computer and the Jump Controller will sync and run us up to jump. He also knows that he has to have completed any prep work or repairs by then or he will have to abort the sequence. At a busy starport that could cost you your slot and you’ll be given a stand down while other ships jump ahead of you.

“As a courtesy,” Lukk continued, “I always advise Engineering of our time to Jump. If Holi’s got his head in a drive unit, or is getting a sandwich, he may not see the countdown start to run. By getting his response, I know that he is focused on the run up to Jump and that I can then worry about getting us there on time.” Aloin nodded his understanding.

“Now,” Lukk said. “Advising the deck crew, on the other hand, allows them to ...”

“Clean, rack and stack,” Aloin interrupted, “Ma’am,” he added.

Lukk chuckled. “You have been hanging around Kiirgun too long,” she said. “That’s Navy talk but, I take it, you understand the implications?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aloin said. “We clean and secure all common areas, and ensure all passengers and their effects are in their assigned cabins. Time permitting; a final check of the cargo holds is done to ensure everything is secure.”

“Correct, Mr Grathikka,” Lukk said, both amused and impressed. “A lot of merchant ships are a little casual about these sorts of things, but I like knowing if there is trouble at Jump, or at Drop Down, and we have to do some hard manoeuvring, that all these things have been cleared away and secured. Now, if you would be so good as to run the clock and advise the crew, we can begin the pre-Jump checks.”

The countdown clock glowed bright red as its numbers wound remorselessly down. Lukk, having dismissed Miska and Aloin to take a break and get something to eat, enjoyed the solitude of the bridge. Through the forward view port, she idly watched a scattering of stars slowly roll across her horizon as the ship followed its preplotted course deeper into the Jump Zone.

Scan chimed.

Lukk pulled the feed up onto the main screen. Ship in the zenith, inbound. The plot was being routed through at least two buoys, plus Omega Vasalai Traffic Control, so the position was over an hour old.

‘Poor sods,’ Lukk thought as she chewed on her pipe stem. ‘Hope you’re only fueling.’ Omega Vasalai IX had always been a marginal port of call. With a C Class port, a Non-Industrial and Non-Agricultural economy, and a self-perpetuating religious Oligarchy of Pershus and Derbus, the planet teetered between ‘stagnant’ and ‘regressive’. Only the system’s location, two parsecs from Ektra in the Kamperelian Republic, and the presence of an in-system gas giant, encouraged any sort of through traffic.

Lukk pulled up such stats on the inbound ship as Traffic Control had thought to pass on. She paused, and then rubbed her eyes. ‘Oh, Void’, she thought. The inbound ship’s drive signature was hitting seven points of recognition on the spectrum analyser. “That’s all we need,” she said to the slowly wheeling stars. “The Guard be-Voided Amethyst, in all her glory.” Checking the plots and probability cones on Scan, Lukk killed the autopilot, tweaked her course, and ramped up acceleration by a quarter of a G. No one aboard, besides perhaps Holi, would notice the change and, with a bit of luck, no-one in T.C. would be any the wiser either. But, a few degrees now and a few extra metres per second per second would mean hundreds of kilometres off plot at Jump, and that could be vital if someone had decided to throw something dark and nasty down range at where they thought the Iridium Queen should be.

Resetting the autopilot, Lukk stood up and stretched. Hearing footsteps in the corridor outside the bridge, she flicked the main screen to a generic display of the Omega Vasalai system and updated the Iridium Queen’s outbound plot. She then slipped into the jump seat at Scan as Miska stepped through the hatch.

“Rested?” Lukk asked.

Miska looked quizzically at her and then slid into her seat. “Pre Jump?” she whispered. “Hardly.” She touched her temple. “Too many numbers dancin’ inna head.” She glanced down at her board and then glared at Lukk. “You meddlin’? Or you wanna fine?” she hissed. “We’ll be k’s off plot at Jump.”

Lukk shrugged indifferently. “We aren’t coming back here, so who cares?”

“I care! Why you messin’ w’th my course?”

“The system’s pretty much empty. After the lad’s fine handoff, T.C. will have gone for lunch, or prayers, or whatever they do when there aren’t any Offworlders to harass.”

“Don’t change subject, ‘lera,” Miska spat. “You changed a logg’d plot, plot logg’d with T.C. And you didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t tell you because you weren’t here.”

“Well, I’m here now!”

“Okay, okay,” Lukk drew a breath. Reaching over, she shunted the Scan feed back to the main screen. Miska’s eyes rapidly scanned the plot.

“Ship inbound. Outbound clear,” she said, slightly relieved. Lukk brought up the Spectrum Analyzer. Miska quickly read the data points. “Oh my,” she said, a hand rising instinctively to shield her throat.

“Feed’s off the buoys,” Lukk said, “via Traffic Control. Light speed lag messes with the probability cones. I finessed our course a little, I’ll admit, and our Acceleration. Just in case someone was watching for us. Given the Time Distortion, even the worse case p-cones were nowhere near your plot. All I’ve done is randomise things a little further, and given us an opportunity to throw something back if all our comets get ringed.”

Miska settled further into her seat. “Don’t know how much longer I can do this, ‘lera,” she said, her face ashen. “Even on scan, Void-eating ship makes my heart want to stop.”

Lukk reached over and hesitantly patted Miska’s shoulder. “I know, demi-sister, I know. And it breaks my heart to see you like this.” She cocked her head as she heard footsteps in the corridor. “Sounds like the boy’s finished his chores.” She squeezed Miska’s arm. “Jump in twenty. You want to tease him while I go make a pot of xhu?”

---

Commentary:
I rolled a negative reaction roll for the encounter with the Port Authorities on Omega Vasalai IX, as related in the previous post. I then rolled to see exactly how negative the reaction was and got a fairly neutral result. Interpreting this for the story, I decided that the local Port Officer was hostile, but backed down quickly and this was explained by internal politics amongst the Pilgrims, and the fact that the Iridium Queen had a clean slate from a previous visit.

Outbound to the Jump Zone, I rolled a starship encounter and then determined that the ship was known to the Iridium Queen. The encounter type was, again, neutral, and a simple YES/NO question of the dice indicated that the known ship was the Guard Amethyst, the Iridium Queen’s great rival/enemy. From that basis, the encounter pretty much wrote itself with Elera Lukk’s little act of deception – finessing the ship’s acceleration and heading – leading to a blowup with Miska Ilurrin over the altering of the Navigator’s plot, and then exploring both the demi-sister’s relationship with each other and with the Guard Amethyst.

Aloin's Saga - Solo Traveller #11

From space, the little planet looked like a tiny rocky ball, rolling around the rim of Omega Vasalai’s gravity well. Occasional flares from the sullen M2 primary had blasted the planet’s tenuous atmosphere away eons ago. Uninhabitable, and uninhabited until a little over 250 years ago, the ninth planet in the Omega Vasalai system had been unnamed and ignored by Aldeed Golus and the other Imperial Scouts who had mapped and explored the Miazan Subsector in the 7th and 8th Centuries.

While a small colony of Gas Miners clung to a precarious existence around the system’s gas giant, no one had really cared when Derbu Handark Zavtavol had offered to buy Omega Vasalai IX from Sector Duke Admiral Kranan hault-Lerneister. When the deed was done, it was discovered that Derbu was Handark Zavtavol’s title and that it translated as “Shepherd”. Zavtavol’s flock consisted of a couple of hundred members of a religious sect known as the Pilgrims, and this group of Pilgrims had decided that the caves of Omega Vasalai IX would make a good resting spot on their journey to meet their Arisen One.

Within a year of selling “that forsaken rock”, Sector Duke Admiral Kranan hault-Lerneister was dead, abandoned by the fleet that had raised him to the Sector Ducal throne, and the RimWorlds Sector was engulfed in Civil War. When the shooting finally stopped, fifty years later, the Pilgrims were still on “that forsaken rock”, and anyone who might have objected was long dead, or fled.

Discharging the freight from Miazan, Aloin caught glimpses of the huge cavern the Iridium Queen was secured within. High overhead, enormous clamshell pressure doors sealed the cavern from the vacuum of space. The ceiling and walls had been reinforced with steel and ferrocrete through which buttresses of native stone projected. Fuel and service lines snaked across the cavern floor, or swung from gantries like lianas, linking the Iridium Queen to the guts of Omega Vasalai Downport.

After securing the service lines, Aloin and Kiirgun began man-handling the freight containers out onto the hard of the dock using their pallet jacks and the mule. It was only when the last container was clear of the hold that Aloin spotted the three hooded figures approaching the ship through the pools of light cast by the overhead floods. Simultaneously, both Aloin and Kiirgun’s handcomps chimed. “Company,” Miska’s voice whispered through their comm. buds.

“See ‘em,” Kiirgun replied. He glanced at Aloin. “Stay close,” he said, “and stay alert.” Stepping forward to meet the approaching locals, Kiirgun held up his handcomp. “Greeting, gentle sophonts,” he said. “We are the Iridium Queen, out of Miazan, with freight requested for this world.”

The three hooded figures emerged into the pool of light bathing the Iridium Queen. Aloin could see that even though they had low gravity lanky frames, there was still a solid musculature about them that denoted years of physical hard work. Beneath their hoods, all three wore bushy beards, framing broad, unsmiling, faces.

“I am Pershu Salsuda Gavanak,” the middle one of the three said, his accent hard and clipped. “I require all documentation and proofs that this freight has not been tampered with while in your charge.”

As Aloin began to bridle at Gavanak’s tone, Kiirgun said smoothly, “Would you prefer these documents and proofs in electronic or hard copy form, Pershu?” When Gavanak paused, momentary nonplussed, Kiirgun turned to Aloin and said, “Please ask the Captain to print off the documentation that the Pershu requires, and notarise it with the ship’s seal. If she could also lodge a copy on our file with Traffic Control, the Pershu’s peers will be able to reference it at their leisure.” He gestured for Aloin to head back into the ship.

As Aloin walked up the ramp he heard Kiirgun say, “It is strange, Pershu, we were here four hundred and ninety standard days ago, perhaps one year local, and our honesty was not questioned at that time.” Glancing down, Aloin realised that Kiirgun had left his comm. channel open and his conversation was being relayed to the ship, and the crew’s handcomps.

Captain Lukk was waiting for him, just inside the main hatchway into the cargo hold. “What’s going on, ma’am?” Aloin asked.

“Politics,” Lukk muttered. “Starport Authority is obliged to recruit local staff. Locals sometimes want to control access to their world, in spite of the Starport Authority Charter guaranteeing free and unfettered access. Factions within local society want to be the ones with that control. Our uppity Pershu is from a more conservative Pilgrim faction than the one we dealt with last time, but our record is good. He can’t push too hard or the Starport Authority will get rid of him.”

With a clatter of boots on deck plates, Kiirgun trotted up the ramp and into the hold. He grinned at Captain Lukk. “The Pershu has graciously accepted our documentation that we have not wrought our evil foreignness upon the freight destined for this world.”

“The Traffic Control Pershus light a fire under him?” Lukk asked.

“Either that, or a Derbu was beginning to wonder where his freight had got to,” Kiirgun replied. “One of the Pershu’s minions took a call – not on a S.A. handrig, either, I noticed – and suddenly the Pershu was all sweetness and light.” He thought for a moment. “Or about as sweet and light as a block of solid hydrogen ever gets.”

Lukk grunted with annoyance. “Well, hopefully he’s clear of our jump zone,” she said. “Good work on the off-load, you two,” she added, “that was pretty much a record time. Now, get us fuelled and prepped . I want to be clear of this rock within 50 hours. We’ll ride light into Ektra as I really can’t be bothered with internal Pilgrim politics. So, no passengers and no freight. We have the spec cargo from Miazan and I can’t think of anything this lot have to offer beside aggravation and ulcers.”

Space Raptors in Kickstarter

My friend Eli has taken his concept of an intelligent, tool-using, species of raptors beyond the development stage to the sculpting stage. From kicking the idea around in a series of Facebook chats, the Chuhuac project in 15mm scale has driven the creation of Loud Ninja Games, Eli's new games/concepts/miniatures company. This, in turn, has lead to the Chuhuac Kickstarter project which achieved its funding goal within 24 hours.

Eli has discussed the concept of the Chuhuac on a number of occasions in various threads on The Miniatures Page, as well as being actively involved in other discussions about the types of alien life forms that one might encounter in Science Fiction gaming. I think it is a testimony to Eli's patience, persistance, and clarity of vision that his project has reached its funding goal so quickly.

I decided to support this Kickstarter project ,my third, as I like the concept of the Chuhuac and I think they'll be a great addition to the range of 15mm figures available. So I would invite you to take a look, see what you think, and consider whether a few Space Raptors - as game tokens or as a faction in your gaming universe - would look good as part of your collection.

Website Update #18

You have the right to arm bears - an Ursid Mercenary from Khurasan Miniatures.

I have just finished updating my Modeling Blog on my website which can be found here. The front page of the website is here.

Aloin's Saga - Solo Traveller #10

“Target returning fire. Lasers and missiles. Three missiles inbound.”

“Launch sand. Run Gunner Interact programme. Engage Target with Turret 1’s beams.”

“Missile 1 destroyed. Missile 3 destroyed. Missile 2 locked on.”

“Launch more sand. Turret 1, point defence against incoming missile.”

“Missile has lock.”

“Run Evade programme. Launch more sand. Turret 1, engage missile.”

“Missile has lock. Impact in ten seconds.”

“Not again! Turret 1 engage! Run Evade!”

“Missile impact. Explosive decompression aft of frame 24 ... .”

“Darn it! Same again! Every time it comes out this way! I’m so bored!” Aloin pushed the game controller away from him. As the tacsym paused, and the commons lights came up, Captain Elera Lukk glanced up from her reader. “We’ve been here two weeks and I haven’t stepped out of the ship,” Aloin complained, stalking over to the chiller and pulling out a fizz drink.

Elera Lukk frowned and turned her reader off. “We’re waiting, Mr Grathikka,” she said. “We are practising the art of patience.” She glanced at the chrono on her wrist. “I am expecting a call within the next 80 minutes which will determine whether we go out light or heavy.” She touched a couple of buttons on her hand comp. “Until then,” she continued, getting to her feet, “might I suggest you re-run your last exercise on the tacsym as I have just altered the parameters.” As the tacsym sprang into life and Aloin made a dive for the controller, Captain Lukk serenely headed for’ard towards her cabin.

“Right! We have a cargo,” Captain Lukk said, bursting into the crew commons. “Nine tons of the finest, laser-etched, Miazan blade ware. Or so that cutpurse, Itato Surviiros, tells me. Which probably means,” she added, “they were stamped in some Vargr-run sweat shop on Tonivar and Surviiros tricked them out of a dim-witted Outrim trader.”

Kiirgun Atmai pulled a face. “Nine tons, Ma’am? We’ll be running practically empty.”

Lukk nodded glumly. “I’m aware of this, Kiir,” she said. “Light up the board. We’ll take freight for Ektra, via Omega Vasali IX.”

“No passengers?”

“No passengers. More trouble than they’re worth.”

Kiir raised an eyebrow. “And we’re ignoring our angry cousins?”

Lukk grinned. “With Miazan Traffic Control climbing all over them for leaving their slot on approach? I suspect they’ll be staying quieter than fauxmice.” She chuckled. “The anonymous complaint probably didn’t help, either.”

“You dropped a blank call to M.T.C.?” Kiirgun asked. He laughed. “I think you’ve just made our angry cousins just that little bit angrier,” he said with a grin.

Twenty-seven hours later, and with 30 tons of freight for Omega Vasali IX aboard, the Iridium Queen departed Miazan High Port, dropping away to nadir into the outbound Jump Zone. One hundred and five planetary diameters out from the blue-gray orb of Miazan, the Iridium Queen’s Jump Drive began to spin up. As the ship’s transponder automatically synced departure time and destination with the Jump Zone Buoy, the Jump Drive wrapped the Iridium Queen in a bubble of energy, ripped a small hole in the fabric of the Universe and hurled the ship through it.

With a flash and a burst of neutrinos, the Iridium Queen vanished.

---

Commentary:

I do feel a bit of a tease after the big build up, but sometimes you roll “no encounter”. And in a Solo game, you then have to come up with a plausible reason as to why the expected confrontation did not occur.

With busy shipping lanes around a major starport, I would expect that Traffic Control would keep a very tight rein over what starships do or not do in the vicinity of the Highport. While space is very big, with traffic converging on a volume only several miles in diameter, the chances that someone not sticking tightly to plot ends up where they shouldn’t be and causes a major accident must be reasonably high (the wrecking of the Rena on the Astrolabe Reef, off the port of Tauranga, is a rather salient reminder of what can happen when a navigator attempts to cut the corner on what should have been a simple approach).

Given the agitation evident amongst the Iridium Queen’s crew over the appearance of the Guard Amethyst, a combination of a Traffic Control investigation (into a retro-written illegal manoeuvre) and a policy of staying pretty much aboard while in dock seems a likely explanation as to why there was no encounter – this time.

Anyway, the Iridium Queen is now bound for a new area of space – Ektra and the Kamperelian Republic – where, surely, adventure and daring do must be done.