Hi Timothy,
I’d like to explore your foot note [1] a little. I’ve already taken Tom’s suggestions earlier for MTU and worked them into a side quest of one of my story arks, but I can probably expand it a little bit more.
So our NPC ship mis-jumps in to a system (for some reason that doesn’t damage their Jump Drive (say battle damage to the power plant or jump grid if you use them)) and can’t refuel (there is nothing obvious to re-fuel from), so the occupants set-up their ship into an orbit of the primary and take to the lifeboat orbiting the primary as well for X (read lots of) years.
Our heroes mis-jump into the system and end up with a trashed jump drive, but a good power plant and life support.
So to get out of the system our heroes need to connect the jump drive in the NPC’s ship to the powerplant in their ship, and find enough fuel to jump.
Finding enough fuel can come from the lifeboat’s systems and sensors as it’s been scanning the system for the last X years, and has essentially baselined what is there, including really hard to find ice asteroids/comets that the PCs can then go pick up and re-fuel from.
There is a similar scenario in one of the digests I believe, but without the complications of the NPCs in the lifeboat, or needing the lifeboat sensor data.
With NPCs you can run complications directly in the scenario.
Or our Heroes could just swap the NPC’s ship for theirs and themselves for the NPCs in the lifeboat and hope that the next people who come along are much nicer than they were.
Best regards,
Ewan
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: 09 November 2020 08:47
To: Tml <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Subject: Re: [TML] TL10 Wouldhave Class 10 ton Lifeboat
I was going to respond to Ewan's excellent analysis but Jim's beaten me to pointing out the CoMC is not really about punishment or rehabilitation.
How about 'in orbit' not around a world or a system that's used but an empty one that, theoretically no one knows about? Out in the Oort cloud? This also helps with your need for a system that's NOT (apparently) used or useful but to which the PCs might have to go. The logic (?) being that real estate in systems with any traffic where they might otherwise be 'buried' is often being discovered, explored, expanded into and so on.
I quite agree with Ewan that this probably isn't cost effective as a normal way of going about things but of course Traveller isn't generally about the 'normal' but special cases. So. We want prisoners, of whom there's probably only a handful in the Third Imperium; must be 'disappeared' without being killed; aren't being expected to be rehabilitated etc. Not sure I've got a good idea for this but (high level) political or (powerful) psionics might fit the bill.
Thus the PCs:
- as low level (scouts/merchants/etc) hear rumours about an oddity in a system they decide to check out. (Sensor blips?) [1]
- or as higher level (agents of one faction or another?) have to go retrieve one of the prisoners for Reasons (or add a new prisoner/gang to the next ELB in the chain). [2]
- or as very high level (nobles) want to retrieve the man in the iron casket to put on the throne.
In short, yes, maybe this isn't the most obvious/cheap solution but for high adventure or "rule of cool"... why not!?!
tc
[1] Or how about as another possibility for surviving a misJump?
The PCs end up in said system with no obvious way of refuelling but having discovered the secret of the system once they're there and close up may be able to jury rig some means of survival/escape from the system using tech they find in the set up. Of course, whether such cannibalization (in extremis, literally?!?) means the current inhabitants of the ELBs can survive is a good question.
[2] This doesn't even have to be part of the "official" (if highly secret, black) process. Said agents know about the set-up and decide to add a prisoner they want disappearing for their own reasons.
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