Traveller: Life in the Marches - A ship of our own

Professor Moriarty

"The ship is moving. Just an idle thought, should we be steering?"

Banjo

"engineering to bridge : we have very little aspect control but call out directions to the gunnery position, it's rigged with a makeshift LeGarde dish, we can steer a bit. Just no sharp turns. Also, I had to use the only shaving mirror on board so if all the men on board could please make a name sticker now, because by the time help gets here we're all going to look like Verne. Markers and paper will be available in the common room. Oh, and captain, what do you call those pressurised oxygen containers people wear in space or underwater?"

Mollyb60

Banjo wrote: »

"engineering to bridge : we have very little aspect control but call out directions to the gunnery position, it's rigged with a makeshift LeGarde dish, we can steer a bit. Just no sharp turns. Also, I had to use the only shaving mirror on board so if all the men on board could please make a name sticker now, because by the time help gets here we're all going to look like Verne. Markers and paper will be available in the common room. Oh, and captain, what do you call those pressurised oxygen containers people wear in space or underwater?"

Verne heads back to the bridge to navigate while Glenn is getting back on board. He comms the ship 'Ok guys, brilliant work, we're gonna move slowly towards Blue and hope that we can get close enough for it's gravity to catch us and get us into orbit at least. Evan are you talking about Oxegen tanks? Not sure where you're going with this.'

Fourier

OldGoat wrote: »

I leave the viewport as the light levels become uncomfortable and head to the computer workstation and start researching Blue Starport.

Blue was once, long ago, a holiday home for the rich. A small, but pleasant world for the upper classes of the Sindalian Empire. The empire itself had been founded by colonists from the Imperium thousands of years ago, but had been destroyed in a civil war by biological warfare.

Everybody now living on Blue is mostly the descendent of people trapped in their holiday homes when the bioweapons bombarded the rest of the Empire.

Zooming in on images of the starport, Nestor notices a statue of a Droyne.

Banjo

Mollyb60 wrote: »

tanks?

Engineering to bridge : You're welcome.

jasonb

Fourier wrote: »

Zooming in on images of the starport, Nestor notices a statue of a Droyne.

OOC: I think I'm gonna like this planet...

Mollyb60

Banjo wrote: »

Engineering to bridge : You're welcome.

'Oh for god sake even this is a serious situation we're in. Can you please treat it as such? Stop being so needy.'

Banjo

"Sir, if we don't have manners, we're no better than animals.... Who's on Navigation? We need an approximate ETA so we can see if anyone needs to low-berth to preserve supplies."

Evan heads down to the cargo hold to see if there's any cargo.

jasonb

Glenn joins Verne in the Bridge and starts working on Navigation. "Just a thought Captain, if we do come close enough to the Planet, do we have enough maneuverability to enter a stable orbit?"

Baggly

Dhinor also heads to the bridge.

'Given im not captain anymore, but am a dab hand at piloting, i would suggest i can handle this barge and leave you to the running of the ship, Captain'

OOC: Jason, whats your pilot stat btw? Whichever one of us is better can steer

Banjo

Ooc : someone with Gunnery should steer. Because the guns have the laser emitter array that we point at the focussing mirror to generate additional pressure on the sail and get a turning moment. What's the point in me making all this **** up if no one reads it ? Remember, it's the improvised LeGarde dish used to create a Hull-Nichols rudder for the Lebedev array! Simples! Dhinor should call out directions

Baggly

Banjo wrote: »

Ooc : someone with Gunnery should steer. Because the guns have the laser emitter array that we point at the focussing mirror to generate additional pressure on the sail and get a turning moment. What's the point in me making all this **** up if no one reads it ? Remember, it's the improvised LeGarde dish used to create a Hull-Nichols rudder for the Lebedev array! Simples! Dhinor should call out directions

OOC: Well then great news; guess who has Gunnery.

Professor Moriarty

"This is great, we're going on holidays. Anyone got a spare pair of togs?" Anticipating the worst, Seneca adds " Clean would be good".

Banjo

Pter wrote: »

OOC: Well then great news; guess who has Gunnery.

"Dhinor! Quit flexing and get to the guns! Verne and Glenn can tell you were to aim. Remember, your view is inverted in the X axis but not the y, and you're aiming at the opposite side of the sail to the direction they ask you for horizontal adjustments so it cancels out, but not on the vertical. Don't overheat the emitters, keep the needle in the yellow, don't burn a hole on the sail, and don't get the triggers confused or you'll destroy the whole rig. Go!"

Fourier

OOC: Dhinor, Gunnery(Dexterity, Difficulty:+4) roll

jasonb

OOC: I forgot to post up my stats after getting the card from Fourier:

Astrogation: 1
Electronics (Computers, Comms, Sensors): 1
Jack of All Trades: 1
Mechanic: 1
Pilot (Small Craft): 1
Science (Space): 1
Stealth: 1
Streetwise: 1
Vacsuit: 1

Flying (i.e. using my wings): 0
Drive (All): 0
Engineer (All): 0
Gun Combat (All): 0
Survival: 0

Fourier

Dhinor fires the ship's pulse laser at the mirror, striking it perfectly without targeting assistance from the computer. He is then guided by the computer in striking the mirror in the correct sequence to turn the ship in the direction of Blue.

The computer speaks throughout the ship via intercom:

"Solar Sail adjusted, commencing full power up of sail. Travel time to Blue....7 weeks."

Fourier

OOC: Pter forgot to switch roll request to new style. I've edited above just so you can see what it was.

jasonb

"Good shot Dhinor. Pity all that work isn't actually going to get us anywhere fast! 7 weeks to Blue, but we've 10 weeks of food and help should be here in last than 38 hours. I think I'll go catch up on some sleep, once I've checked to make sure everything is ok with the ship's systems"

Mollyb60

'Well done Dhinor, can we shut down all non-essential systems and try to conserve energy just in case this rescue party doesn't appear?'

Fourier

As the ship speeds away toward Blue, the ship's sensors pick up a modified Far Trader. The trader cannot detect them as they are running "silent" with no M-drive emissions.

Outfitted with nuclear missiles, this was obviously a pirate ship. The navigation console projects its flight path to be heading in the direction of the group's last distress beacon. Had they remained in place they would have had a fight on their hands.

Of course, now that they are running silent, the rescue party will not be able to detect them without another transmission.

Banjo

"well done Dhinor. Thank goodness you were here to point one thing at another thing. Otherwise we were done for. Bravo, you have singlehandedly saved us all.

Don't worry about power, thanks to Seneca the same rigging that anchors the sail chute is siphons off excess heat into our systems, that's why we attached it through the scoop's relay. As long as we have sun, we have power. In fact we should probably start playing some movies and running the washing machine, because it's working better than I expected and there's a slight danger the Henry seal will rupture and the ship will explode. I mean I don't know why I'm mentioning it, it's really unlikely but i just fancied a bit of a chat."

jasonb

Glenn gets back on the comms... "Now Even, you know we'd all be dead without you. In fact, you're so essential that we were even nearly dead with you!"

"Captain, I'd suggest we aim for the system's Oort Cloud, if that's where the rescue ships are coming from. Then, in say 15 hours, we can send another distress call. I would suggest a slight course change an hour before we drop the beacon, and then another change immediately afterwards, in case that Pirate decides to try to track our heading..."

Baggly

'Shut the **** up Evan. Next time why dont you give it a shot and see how you get on.'

Banjo

Evan looks at his shotgun.
"...nah, too literal."

He approaches the bridge.
"Pirates eh? Look, any rescue ship that comes out here is going to head to our original location. They're going to find the pirates, not us, and they're not going to be equipped to handle them.

We could send another transmission and give ourselves away, or run quiet and have the cleanup team get ambushed, or... Well, if we send a decoy signal out we could disable the pirate ship - I'm thinking we load a low berth pod onto a sled or the casing of the M-drive, stick a transmitter in it to ping out a distress call - enough that they can find it but not enough that they can see what it is - stick The Negotiator on board and rig a proximity sensor to overload it's containment field. We could cut their ship in half, then send a transmission to Blue with our updated position?"

jasonb

"I don't see what the panic is. The rescue ships said 38 hours and we know what direction they're coming from. We're not moving too fast here, so we can safely calculate when the rescue ships will be near us, i.e. in 19 hours they'll be halfway to our original point, but we'll have moved a bit closer to them too etc. So, we just calculate the best time to contact them again, and they'll be a lot closer to us. We don't need to try to take on a ship with dummys and decoys when we're effectively barely able to move."

Professor Moriarty

"Good idea, Milt. Can I expand on it? We have no way of knowing who we are actually communicating with. As we are running silently we almost undetectable. Could we send the unmanned pod out and keep it at a distance where we can monitor it from behind a planet. We could then send a distress signal from it and observe if friend or foe comes to our aid."

Baggly

jasonb wrote: »

"I don't see what the panic is. The rescue ships said 38 hours and we know what direction they're coming from. We're not moving too fast here, so we can safely calculate when the rescue ships will be near us, i.e. in 19 hours they'll be halfway to our original point, but we'll have moved a bit closer to them too etc. So, we just calculate the best time to contact them again, and they'll be a lot closer to us. We don't need to try to take on a ship with dummys and decoys when we're effectively barely able to move."

'Glenn is right; Evan IS an idiot'

Banjo

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

"Good idea, Milt. Can I expand on it? We have no way of knowing who we are actually communicating with. As we are running silently we almost undetectable. Could we send the unmanned pod out and keep it at a distance where we can monitor it from behind a planet. We could then send a distress signal from it and observe if friend or foe comes to our aid."

"I like that. Not sure we have the manoueverability to pull it off but we could even just diddle the beacon to misrepresent our position a little, give us an idea of who's who. Glenn's right, though, we can wait for the rescue to get closer.

Hey, anyone know how to spoof a sensor ping to look like an imperial dreadnought?"

Pter wrote: »

'Glenn is right; Evan IS an idiot'

"Idiot like a fox!" Evan gives him a big goonie grin and mimes being electrocuted.

OldGoat

"We should lay a trap for the pirates, steal their ship and ransack it for parts."
Nestor has fashioned the now redundant airfilter into a pirates eye-patch, still with the neon gaping maw on it.
"Arrr."

Baggly

OldGoat wrote: »

"We should lay a trap for the pirates, steal their ship and ransack it for parts."
Nestor has fashioned the now redundant airfilter into a pirates eye-patch, still with the neon gaping maw on it.
"Arrr."

'I am surprisingly ok with this plan.' Dhinor says, waving TN in Evans general direction.

Mollyb60

Banjo wrote: »

Evan looks at his shotgun.
"...nah, too literal."

He approaches the bridge.
"Pirates eh? Look, any rescue ship that comes out here is going to head to our original location. They're going to find the pirates, not us, and they're not going to be equipped to handle them.

We could send another transmission and give ourselves away, or run quiet and have the cleanup team get ambushed, or... Well, if we send a decoy signal out we could disable the pirate ship - I'm thinking we load a low berth pod onto a sled or the casing of the M-drive, stick a transmitter in it to ping out a distress call - enough that they can find it but not enough that they can see what it is - stick The Negotiator on board and rig a proximity sensor to overload it's containment field. We could cut their ship in half, then send a transmission to Blue with our updated position?"

jasonb wrote: »

"I don't see what the panic is. The rescue ships said 38 hours and we know what direction they're coming from. We're not moving too fast here, so we can safely calculate when the rescue ships will be near us, i.e. in 19 hours they'll be halfway to our original point, but we'll have moved a bit closer to them too etc. So, we just calculate the best time to contact them again, and they'll be a lot closer to us. We don't need to try to take on a ship with dummys and decoys when we're effectively barely able to move."

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

"Good idea, Milt. Can I expand on it? We have no way of knowing who we are actually communicating with. As we are running silently we almost undetectable. Could we send the unmanned pod out and keep it at a distance where we can monitor it from behind a planet. We could then send a distress signal from it and observe if friend or foe comes to our aid."

OldGoat wrote: »

"We should lay a trap for the pirates, steal their ship and ransack it for parts."
Nestor has fashioned the now redundant airfilter into a pirates eye-patch, still with the neon gaping maw on it.
"Arrr."

These are all good ideas. I think it's best maybe to keep on our current heading in case we upset the solar sail, I do believe there is a drone on board so if our esteemed engineer could hook up a beacon that we can hide in it, we can send it off and see who comes sniffing at it. In the meantime we can monitor the channels for chatter and see if this scout ship actually turns up to rescue us. Without proper manoeuvrability though I don't think setting a trap for the pirates would be advisable. We could barely manage to get over to the ship without destroying ourselves. Staying hidden for now is our best bet. If we can make it to Blue on our own power without anyone trying to murder us, we can go from there.'

OldGoat

Pter wrote: »

'I am surprisingly ok with this plan.' Dhinor says, waving TN in Evans general direction.

"We have a few hours to work up a suitable plan, we have weapons, we have an abundance of testosterone and most importantly, we have need of their parts. We can fence anything we acquire on BluePort to help offset the cost or a new drive.
Then we can go look at the big Droyan sculpture."

Baggly

Mollyb60 wrote: »

These are all good ideas. I think it's best maybe to keep on our current heading in case we upset the solar sail, I do believe there is a drone on board so if our esteemed engineer could hook up a beacon that we can hide in it, we can send it off and see who comes sniffing at it. In the meantime we can monitor the channels for chatter and see if this scout ship actually turns up to rescue us. Without proper manoeuvrability though I don't think setting a trap for the pirates would be advisable. We could barely manage to get over to the ship without destroying ourselves. Staying hidden for now is our best bet. If we can make it to Blue on our own power without anyone trying to murder us, we can go from there.'

'But Captain, we could play dead and have them board us, and create a murder box outside the air lock'

Dhinor is excited about the idea of creating a murder box outside the air lock.

jasonb

Glenn is realising that he's part of a crew who are determined to go looking for trouble, no matter what...

Baggly

OOC: Lets go find some fun! Come on im not spending the next eleventy billion years on a space yacht. Lets get em!

Professor Moriarty

"I'm up for anything. Well, anything within reason." says Seneca while patting his sawn off.

conor222

Alex starts to draw up two plans,
one for defending the raft if attacked, the other for goin fishing for pirates, how to best draw them out into a position that the crew could capitalise on.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right"

Banjo

"if we don't know how many of them are coming, it would be stupid to let them board us. Besides, one we start murder boxing them, they'll just disengage, push us away and explode us.

Unless we make the whole ship a murder box. Any good with nerve agents, Nestor?

Or we could lead them in, then shoot Dhinor at them and let him open them like a tiny can. Unless you're chicken, ex-cap..

Don't have a lot of experience with drones but unless the range is significant it's really just going to lead them to us. Would be good to have one ready to go as a decoy though, buy us enough time to jump in an emergency. "

OldGoat

Banjo wrote: »

"if we don't know how many of them are coming, it would be stupid to let them board us. Besides, one we start murder boxing them, they'll just disengage, push us away and explode us.

Unless we make the whole ship a murder box. Any good with nerve agents, Nestor?

Or we could lead them in, then shoot Dhinor at them and let him open them like a tiny can. Unless you're chicken, ex-cap..

Don't have a lot of experience with drones but unless the range is significant it's really just going to lead them to us. Would be good to have one ready to go as a decoy though, buy us enough time to jump in an emergency. "

"Stupid...like a fox.
We have the dragon 'Bamph' us behind enemy lines, attack from the rear, overwhelm them with good intentions then' Bamph' to somewhere else. Rinse and repeat till we win the day.

Let me put it this way Captain Schmaptain. If we don't take them out they will attack the rescue mission and then find us. If we notify the rescue we give away our position and lose advantage. If we don't notify the rescue they walk into a trap.
They are pirates, we are the good guys. To leave them free to wreak havoc on the high seas would put innocent lives in danger. And we would probably be rescuing a bunch of pirate slaves. It's out duty to save those poor wenches and wretches from the evil hands of those dastardly do-badders.
We are navy, we are army, we are Scouts! Lets do this thing. Hourrah!"


If possible Nestor finds some stirring martial music to play as she speaks, gradually turning up the volume to a crescendo.

"It makes sense to me."

jasonb

"... buy us enough time to jump in an emergency." Glenn sighs... "It would be an emergency we've created, by trying to attack them. Remember, they don't know where we are. They don't know where the Rescue ships are, or even that they are coming. We're moving away from them, towards the Rescue Ships. It'll take the guts of a day to get near the Rescue Ships, by which time the Pirates could be well gone. In the current situation, no-one is in danger, as long as we continue to run silent for a few more hours. We're basically creating a drama here"

Glenn sighs again... "Of course, if everyone agrees to it, I'm in. But remember, there's nowhere for me to teleport to this time!"

Professor Moriarty

"Duty eh? What do we owe captives? What do we owe the great unwashed that we've never met? My only duty is to myself and to most of you. I say we sail on, no point drawing trouble on ourselves. More mirrors, more power."

jasonb

"I agree Seneca. Let's get this ship on the ground, fully repaired and patched up, and then we can go looking for trouble if we want. Let's not do it while we're barely hanging on. And let's not forget, we still need to warn the authorities about Walston..."

Banjo

OldGoat wrote: »

"Stupid...like a fox.
We have the dragon 'Bamph' us behind enemy lines, attack from the rear, overwhelm them with good intentions then' Bamph' to somewhere else. Rinse and repeat till we win the day.

Let me put it this way Captain Schmaptain. If we don't take them out they will attack the rescue mission and then find us. If we notify the rescue we give away our position and lose advantage. If we don't notify the rescue they walk into a trap.
They are pirates, we are the good guys. To leave them free to wreak havoc on the high seas would put innocent lives in danger. And we would probably be rescuing a bunch of pirate slaves. It's out duty to save those poor wenches and wretches from the evil hands of those dastardly do-badders.
We are navy, we are army, we are Scouts! Lets do this thing. Hourrah!"


If possible Nestor finds some stirring martial music to play as she speaks, gradually turning up the volume to a crescendo.

"It makes sense to me."

Have you asked him how far he can jump, or if he can jump into a space he can't see? How close do we have to let them get? What happens if he lands in vacuum? Or an engine? How often can he do it, how quick between jumps? And even if you pull it off, how many will you be facing? And how are they armed? And how do you stop the samurai chef over there from friendly firing your arm off in close quarters if he gets excited? Too many variables you can't control.

And how come when I disagree with your chosen captain I'm the king of pricks but when you do it you get a hoo-rah?"

OldGoat

Nestor shrugs. "Fair enough. Let's stay quiet till we are close enough to safely signal the rescue ship."

She wonders if Dhinor has discovered yet that she carved an image of a small furry cute animal into the scar tissue of his arm.

Baggly

Banjo wrote:

And how come when I disagree with your chosen captain I'm the king of pricks but when you do it you get a hoo-rah?"

'you are the king of pricks AND you were insubordinate. They are separate if not complimentary, points.

Nestor has my backing. Let's fight and be heroes, not cower and hide and be space worms.'

OldGoat

Banjo wrote: »

And how come when I disagree with your chosen captain I'm the king of pricks but when you do it you get a hoo-rah?"

"cos I bring tea."

jasonb

"What Hoo-raa did Nestor get, Evan? She made her suggestion, followed by myself and Seneca saying no, we should get repairs. Hardly a cry to battle!"

Banjo

Pter wrote: »

'you are the king of pricks AND you were insubordinate. They are separate if not complimentary, points.

Nestor has my backing. Let's fight and be heroes, not cower and hide and be space worms.'

"Careful. All that irony could magnetise our Merdefaucon coupler. And then where would we be?"

Mollyb60

'I'm nothing if not a democratic captain so I've listened to the arguments of Nestor and Dhinor. However I think most of us agree that it's the safer and more sensible option to hang back and stay silent. If the rescue ship appears and gets attacked they will be much more likely to survive the attack than we would. We are limping towards a planet with barely any thrust and only hand to hand weapons seeing as how our main gun is being used to drive the ship. We would be worse than useless in a battle against a fully operational ship. All they have to do is sit a distance from us and pick us off.

I understand the boredom and need for action but I don't think this is the time or place for it. Lets focus on getting ourselves kitted out properly and then we can go kick some space ass ok?'