1. In working with a local police agency (for whatever purpose you might have in doing so), you become friendly with one of the local police technical team. You go out to a bar for some drinks. The evening is fun, but uneventful until said officer realizes, after you're out of the bar, that he lost his wallet with his official credentials including ID and passcards for a major police data center. Hijinks ensue while you try to help the guy find the ID or help console him if you cannot and he has to call his superiors to report the loss and freeze out the access cards. (Was it part of some plot? Was it pilfered from his pocket? Or did he just drop it and someone picked up the money and tossed the wallet in a dumpster somewhere?)
2. You are in a local market shopping from speculative trade goods. You are approached by several younger women but you don't speak the language. They seem quite insistent to communicate with you or some other crewmates from your ship. Eventually, one of you figures out that these are ladies of negotiable virtue offering services, but it takes quite a bit of pantomime to get to that point. Your actions after that discovery then become 'What happens in Vega, stays on Vega".
3. You've arrived at a conference center to attend a leisure event. You could be a vendor for this leisure event for some speculative goods or you could be recruiting for crew members or you might be doing any number of other functions or just enjoying yourself. You are staying in the attached hotel. Heading back towards your room after supper, you get into the elevator which is empty, and then three rather amazingly attractive women in high end underwear (and nothing else except heels) get into the elevator with you. They ignore you and talk among themselves. When you get to your floor, you see more of them in the hallway. It turns out there is a co-located convention for folks in the frilly bits business. These are some of their models.
4. You're at a conference center to attend an event (possibly to gain more information about trading opportunities or whatever is appropriate to your group). You are going out for lunch and you notice a sign that points to another annex of the conference center. You are fascinated to see the sign indicates that there is a hand grenade trade show going on in this other annex. In theory, you probably aren't invited, but.... you are interested.
5. You are heading out of the starport to see the local community. Your TAS briefing indicated that everyone at the starport (including those who might drive you somewhere or take you to lodgings) should all speak your language. As soon as you clear customs, nobody speaks your language and that includes those who you need to take you to your hotel. You also read in the brief that your InterCredit Card should work everywhere and so you have only a little local money. It turns out a shortage in receipt blanks has disabled the entire area from the use of any form of electronic card. And there is only one bank and it's about 35 blocks away and it will take at least 60 minutes to draw funds from your offworld account there in local money.
6. You are walking through the downtown core of a local planet. You are lost; You were trying to get to a bar known to one of your crewmates but he hasn't been back in years and he isn't quite sure where it is because he was fairly drunk when he went there last time. After him walking you around about 10 blocks of the downtown's seedier edge, you have had enough and he keeps saying "It's near hear." just like he did the last 8 blocks. You turn to him and say "Are you high?" as you walk past what you thought was an empty, darkened doorway and the potent sweetish odour of a smoked intoxicant wafts your way. A voice from the doorway says "I am!"
7. You are travelling on a planet in a rented or borrowed car (air raft/whatever). A local law enforcer pulls you over after dark. You had stopped for fuel and the car being unfamiliar, you hadn't realized you had turned off the headlights and where you pulled out was so well lit, you had no idea that you had no headlights. The law enforcer is angry because you didn't pull over immediately because you've never seen the particular sort of flashing lights (white wig wags) because the authorities on your homeworld only have coloured roof lights. You just thought it was someone being a jerk and flashing their lights at you. Fortunately, part way through him filling out a ticket for you, a radio call about a horrific accident comes across the air and he instantly kicks you out of his police vehicle and takes off, never to seen again.
8. You are providing some assistance to a police agency (say computer skills) and one of your crewmates is driving through a town trying to find the complex you are supposed to go to. He decides to make a U turn. You are immediately pulled over by a law enforcer. While she goes through her usual list of questions (license, insurance, did you know what your infraction was, etc), your crewmate, the driver, acts like an absolute smart ass. You can see that her colour is reddening and you are worried you might get arrested. She finally asks 'Where were you going?" at which point, breaking out laughing, your crewmate says "To your facility to fix your central computer." Naturally, he waits until she has the ticket half filled out to let that slip out. You are sure if one could project daggers from ones eyes, he would look like a dagger target dummy.
9. Your ship arrives and you go for a walk into a local startown to see the sight. You are walking along with your crewmates and two locals speed by on a speeder bike or motor scooter, on the way by, one of them with consummate skill and a VERY sharp knife, slices the strap on your tri-D recorder and they ride off into the crowded streets. You were so shocked, you had no time to react (maybe for the best, these guys are good with knives). It was a nice trid-D recorder and will be expensive to replace.
10. You happen by and alley while a young man is being held at knifepoint by a much older grey haired man and the old grey haired man is rifling through a wallet. He appears quite put out. What do you do? (It turns out the young punk tried to assail the 70 year old man to rob him, but the old fellow was from the part of the world where tea was consumed with crumpets and no bloody punk was going to take his wallet... so he disarmed the robber and made him surrender his wallet. He took the driver's license out of there and was about to warn the miscreant that if he ever saw him again, the driver's license would go to the authorities.)
11. A passenger on your ship turns out to be terrified of a kitten (a recent addition whose mom is your ship's cat). You are stunned - the kitten is next to helpless. You discover she originates from a high population city on an island. In addition to never really having any interface with any form of animal life, she also cannot swim despite her city being being surrounded by oceans. You wonder why she is taking a trip to somewhere extra-planetary when she is afraid of everything foreign and new and even slightly out of her normal.
12. You are off on furlough while your ship gets a thorough de-lousing from that last $#&@ing load of live cargo you had the bad fortune to take on at a nearby low tech agricultural world. You get to the place you are going to stay, remote so you can get some peace and breath some air and get some time away from your crewmates. You discover that your haste to escape the ship led to you packing everything but the stack of undergarments for your furlough. There are no stores in the remote location you are staying at.
13. You are trying to get through inward clearance so you can go to startown for a furlough. The local customs agent of the planet (let's call it Youessaaay) is making a fuss over a bag of orange-ish citrus fruits. You are not allowed to bring any form of fruit onto the planet. There are fears that they could cause infestations, bacterial issues, or drop seeds and start an invasive species incursion. You point out to him, quite calmly and with infinite patience, that the packaging *clearly* shows it is a native plant from his planet *and* was exported FROM his planet, but he seems unmoved and you are forced to surrender your citrus. You are gobsmacked.
There's some ideas from my travels.
TomB