I've always had a liking for the old GDW adventure Vampire Fleets for Traveller the New Era.
For those unfamiliar, TNE has a background of a huge interstellar empire that fell into civil war and eventually collapsed after the release of a self-aware homicidal/suicidal computer virus superweapon called... Virus. 70 years after the collapse humanity is starting to renegage with the universe in a few isolated pockets. Virus infected stations, computers, vehicles and starships are still a threat, and many bands of these ships, so called Vampires as they prey on other ships and infect them with Virus, are still a threat.
The players are agents of one of these small pockets and are tasked with contacting a human resistance on a planet dominated by Virus infected robots and computer systems (think half a dozen Skynet style dictators with human slaves). They are dispatched in a starship to go to the planet, but have to pass through several systems known to contain Vampire fleets.
On the way to the planet they are jumped by a vampire fleet and captured and placed as crew on a large Virus infected warship. The ship is a former imperial cruiser that has been infected by a strain of virus that is reasonably begnin towards it's human crew - who are essential for it's ongoing survival as it still needs skilled technicians and maintenance personelle to keep it running. Several robots have also been infected by Virus and exhibit different personalities depending on the strain of Virus that infected them. Some show curiosity towards the humans either in a horrifyingly clinical way or in the same way a master regards a pet. Some are simply apathetic and some show hostility, hatred and agression towards the humans.
In addition to the robots there are also several factions of humans on board. The Children of the Ship are the hereditary descendants of the original crew and exhibit stockholm syndrome towards the Virus, having been brought up on board. There are also captured crew from other ships, including a group of "neutral" traders, an antagonistic group opposed to the PC's home government and a group of agressive scavengers hiding in disused portions of the ship.
The Virus itself has also been "brain damaged" by an earlier attempt at a hostile take over by another agressive strain of Virus. In the struggle the original strain purposley burnt out and overloaded several core systems to thwart the invading Virus and in doing so damaged it's core processing power. It is now "absent minded" and paranoid and is forgetting how to do things as the corruption gets worse. It constantly mumbles and mutters over the ships PA and makes confusing, contradictory and arbitrary decisions. It's also forgetting how systems work - the example is the ships main weapon, a spinal particle accelerator, works fine, but the ship just can't remember how to fire it.
The ship itself is a large, heavily armed military vessel that has fallen into disrepair. large portions of it are not in general use and are barricaded off, because the systems in them were damaged and shut down and then abandoned after the agressive Virus attack. These areas are now home to the Hoodla, the agrssive scavengers. Other areas are dirty and poorly kept, cooking fires and sparking circuits leave a constant smell of burning and a smoky atmosphere that threatens to go toxic at any moment. Cabins and compartments are damaged and burnt out and all computer access panels are welded over or smashed and inoperable - the only access to the computer cores is restricted to trusted robots or via the command consoles on the bridge, which is strictly out of bounds.
The PC's objectives are to firstly figure out the dynamics of the ship, then work out a way to take down the Virus infected main computer and it's robot henchmen. They can do this a variety of ways, but the key elements are:
1. The free traders captured cargo includes a MIB uninfected computer core.
2. The hoodla have weapons that can damage the robots, but are hostile and antagonistic.
3. The Children of the ship will likely oppose any inssurection, but several are concerned about the erratic behaviour of the Virus, who they see as a "mother"
4. The ships systems are so jury rigged and bypassed that they will need the help of the Children of the Ship to work out how everything works.
5. The ship's increasing paranoia and erratic behaviour will get worse and worse.
6. The robots, whilst loyal to the Virus to an extent, are more concerned with self preservation.
7. There are still a fleet of other Vampire ships out there that they will need to escape from somehow.
So, how do I convert this to Eclipse phase.
Some elements are easy. The ship can be a military vessel infected by a Titan during the fall. The "firewalling" that led to the brain damage can be explained as the original ships AGI fighting back against the Titan, but losing and leaving the crippled ship behind for the Titan to infect.
I see a few problems, though. Firstly, the original scenario had 70 years for the Children of the Ship to grow up in it's closeted environment. Eclipse Phase only has 10 years since the Fall. Even if we say the ship was infected prior to the fall, we reasonably only have another 10 years - not long enough IMHO.
Secondly, how could a major wraship stay hidden for so long, and could it accumulate it's own "Vampire Fleet"?
Thirdly, the original ship had lots of robots onboard, and they seem to be less prelavent in EP. I'm thinking that the TITAN may have placed forks of itself into both the robots on the ship and any Synthmorphs onboard as well. I have a nice image of a synthmorph character being ambushed by TITAN forks looking for spare parts.
G.
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Adventure conversion - TNE Vampire Fleets
Fri, 2010-09-17 08:07
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Adventure conversion - TNE Vampire Fleets
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