Strange Stars A-To-Z: "S" Is For Ship Names, Bizarre

Looking back on SF games past, it is a relief to see that some of them offered the occasional weird starship name. Some offered whole lists of them. Although servicable strange starship names can be invented on the fly with players, this is one area that often benefits from advance preparation.

I have one or two Strange Stars Fate games coming up in the next few months, and here are a few starships that will be making an appearance in the games.

II wish I could say more about them now, but that would be telling. I've already embedded a clue about one of the ships in the post.

• Lunatic Barge
• Paradise Barrage
• Force Majeure
• Indigo Thrust

What bizarre ship names have you concocted?

Strange Stars: The Quigley Table

Yesterday, I said I'd write a 1D6-1D6 Table featuring Eric Quigley's cover image for the core Strange Stars products. Imagine these folks are PCs or NPCs. The table below gives you some options for fleshing them out a bit.

As a point of reference, I'll refer to the guy on the left who appears to be of African descent as L, the Moravec in the middle as M, and the green Smaragdine female on the right as R. As another point of reference, negative numerical results correspond to more contemporary themes in SF; the 0 case and positive numbers represent more longstanding SF themes.

The Quigley Table for Strange Stars

Roll 1D6-1D6 and consult the corresponding result below.

• -5: One of the figures has a cortex  Metascape bomb, a devastating digital weapon with the potential to wipe out the local noosphere.
• -4: The crashed spacecraft in the background used to be alive; it had issues.
• -3: The Moravec carries (or IS) the consciousness of the crashed spacecraft.
• -2: R is a mind-copy of the criminal mastermind Uln Pharesm, founder of the Pharesmid Crime Syndicate. All Pharesmids are mind-copies or bio-clones of the founder. Her tattoos are minimalist, and take the form of yellowish pigmented zones under her eyes.
• -1: The armsman L is an Aurogov cultist. He spends every free moment, when not in physical training or active combat in the LZ, using the Aurogov's self improvement software for a relentless series of self-audits and critiques. At least then, he's quiet and not actively prosyletizing his companions.
• 0: L prefers to be called Fury. He's never without that cigar you see him chomping. It stunk up the whole ship; maybe the smoke got into a critical system and that's why it crashed. 
• +1: M is a robot. Somehow, M subverted its ethical protocols. Especially the one about not harming humans or allowing them to come to harm.
• +2: The Trio are bounty hunters. They are looking for YOU and your companions. You may not even be sure why.
• +3: The crashed ship was stolen.
• +4: L is a Space Marine. Got that? S-P-A-C-E M-A-R-I-N-E. For hire, of course. He was also the pilot and is pretty pleased that he executed a landing from which all three could walk away.
• +5: R is an assassin; those yellow patches under her eyes should have been your first clue.

"Binti" By Nnedi Okorafor

Cover illustration by David Palumbo

Binti is a 90 page novella by Nnedi Okorafor. It is part of Tor's new imprint featuring shorter works of high quality SF. The book sports Stubby the Rocket on its spine rather than the usual Tor logo. I read a longer short work in this series just a few weeks ago: Kai Ashante Wilson's superb The Sorcerer of Wildeeps and Binti is a no less accomplished work.

It's also just as bloody in its own way, although that won't be a surprise to anyone who has read Nnedi's adult work.

The novella tells the story of Binti, a girl from the Himba tribe of Namibia, who has just been accepted into Oomza University, galactic U. So we have here a very Heinleinian set up: a youth sneaks off to seek their fame and fortune among the stars. Except being from an ethnic minority, Binti takes a lot of shit from other Earthers even before she gets off planet.

Numenera fans will love the edan that Binti found in the desert and now carries with her as a keepsake. "'Edan'" was a general name for a device too old for anyone to know it[s] functions, so old that they were now just art." As she goes through security screening at the spaceport, Binti's edan becomes a focus of the guard's scrutiny:

"He was inspecting its stellated cube shape, pressing its many points with his finger and eyeing the strange symbols on it that I had spent two years trying unsuccessfully to decode. He held it to his face to better see the intricate loops and swirls of blue and black and white, so much like the lace placed on the heads of young girls when they turn eleven and go through their eleventh-year rite."

Fans of Farscape, the Trinity RPG, and the Strange Stars setting will love the starship in which Binti travels (whose name may be an original Star Trek series reference; but maybe not):

"The ship was a magnificent piece of engineering technology. Third Fish was a Miri 12, a type of ship closely related to a shrimp. Miri 12s were stable calm creatures with natural exoskeletons that could withstand the harshness of space. They were genetically enhanced to grow three breathing chambers within their bodies."

Due to one particularly bloody scene, I'd say this is a novella for adults rather than for the YA market. I won't spoil the rest of the story; just get it and read it. Nnedi has created an interesting, emotionally complex and resourceful young female protagonist. Conflict is resolved in ways you don't often see in space opera. There are some rather fantastic medusoid aliens, with a culture that mirrors the Afrofuturism of the humans in this setting. I may write the Meduse up in the near future as a clade for the Strange Stars setting. They are a perfect fit.

Just go read this one!

There's A World Inside That Box!

The Anubian Ambassador with the "Leia Look"

The Anubian was a bit intrigued by this huge arrival. It's not as thick as one of the volumes of the  Guide to Glorantha, but it beats those volumes in other directions.

But she's wondering who's actually opened the cover. Because Doug Kovac's front endpapers, well, those are a marvel:

Inside the Warden's hull - FUDGE Die added for size comparison 

If you've ever heard the term "expressive totality", you're looking at one right there!

U.S.S. Constellation

Commodore Matt Decker

The Constitution class of starship was a solidly build workhorse vessel suitable for deep space, long-term exploration. It was also used for perimeter patrols and defense of core systems of the Federation. This class of starships was also built to hold its own in a battle. The Klingons and Romulans soon learned that they needed to field three D7s against one ship of this class to ensure a superior prevailing force.

Commodore Decker - like Captain James T. Kirk and their peers commanding other Constitution class vessels - was a hard-headed commander and a bit of a megalomaniac. But you had to be to go out to the edge of the Federation and beyond with one starship on a five year mission. This ship could take you there, but you had to bring it back in one piece.

With a crew.

Which not everyone did.


Federation Starship USS Constellation

• Propulsion: Two warp nacelles and impulse engines
• Tactical: Phasers, photon torpedos, and shields
• Sensors: Suitable for deep space exploration
• Amenities: Everything needed for a five year mission
• Special: Saucer separation
• Someone at the helm may invoke this Aspect to detach the saucer section from the engineering section of the ship. Crew will be needed to staff a bridge on each section.
• Special: Tractor beams
• Someone at helm, engineering, or science may invoke this Aspect when using their Forceful Approach to grab hold of an object in space. 
• Special: Self-destruct
• In extreme circumstances, the Captain may invoke this Aspect and use their Forceful Approach to destroy the ship (often damaging or destroying a nearby enemy in the process).

Klingon Bird-Of-Prey

Klingon Bird of Prey

Here's another example of a starship built using Paul Stefko's Interstellar Patrol campaign frame for Fate Accelerated Edition.  The Klingon Birds-of-Prey are a beautiful line of ships.


Klingon Bird-of-Prey

• Propulsion: Warp capable starship
• Tactical: Klingon patrol [raider, scout, pirate] ship
• Communications: An ideal vessel for espionage
• Amenities: Hot, humid, and cramped
• Special: "A cloaked ship is no small favor"
• Someone at the helm may invoke this Aspect to make the Bird-of-Prey invisible to sensors for all or part of a Scene
• A captain may invoke this Aspect to drive a hard bargain with someone who needs to get somewhere without being detected

The Green Worlds

Welcome to the Green Worlds! The Saguaro live on a considerable number of worlds within and beyond the Empire - as mercenaries, as members of the Legions of the Imperial Sovereign, and as contemplatives. A few have even established new religions, or collectivist commonwealths with human and alien partners. In contrast, few worlds welcome or tolerate the manipulative and expansionist Peyotl. These graspers and schemers are restricted to those worlds they have taken by subversion and force, or where they have established a well-defended enclave as a base for future conquest.

The planets conquered by the Peyotl are called the Green Worlds. They have made small but significant and destructive inroads into the Empire, roughing the edges of the Imperial Extents. Theirs is a slow invasion; most Peyotl are in no hurry to do anything. The Peyotl never travel via hyperspace. Something about that medium disturbs them. Instead, some lineages of Peyotl travel at a leisurely 1% of the speed of light, while others use slipknot networks to pass through sutures in the fabric of space-time that allow for immediate transitions from system to another.

All Peyotl have in common their means of transportation: massive bioships that are composite structures grown from an ever-varying mix of substrates (animal, fungal, and plant). Each bioship is an ark, carrying an entire biosphere within it including several Peyotl clans, Saguaro footsoldiers, massive carnivorous ferns, fierce and beautiful orchids, a variety of allied insect species, and often also human slaves.

Every planetary invasion begins with a mass driver attack. Peyotl bioships cast huge seeder modules at target worlds. The heat of atmospheric re-entry triggers germination in the seeder modules. The modules release numerous species' seeds and spores in a massive air burst in the lower atmosphere, ensuring maximum distribution over target areas. At the core of every seeder module is a terraforming engine, which upon impact turns on and begins transforming the planetary environment.

Here are a few of the Green Worlds:

• Bloom, a world of shallow seas and numerous island chains, once home to a species of nomadic fisherfolk. The fisherfolk are gone now, and Bloom is entirely given over to the Peyotl and their plant and insect allies.
• Cinder, a Superearth where the Peyotl seeder module bombardment somehow went very wrong, putting enough particulate matter into the atmosphere to produce a runaway greenhouse effect. Rumor has it that some Peyotl survive in domed cities on the planet's surface. 
• Garganta, a world taken by the Peyotl after a series of furious clashes with the Empire's Legion of the Broken Branch. The loss of this system was a bitter blow to the Empire, because Garganta's slipknots open into the Tangle Supercluster - a megastructure linking more than 1,000 suns.
• Neweye, an important trade world connecting the Comet Barbarians living within the Empire with their kinfolk living beyond the Imperial Extents. Neweye is an important world for negotiating marriage alliances among the Comet Barbarian clans. The Peyotl established an enclave on a human settled equatorial island just a few dozen kilometers away from the planet's primary spaceport. (The humans have survived on the Green Isle, although they are reportedly very strange. Many have odd tumorous growths in the center of their foreheads.) Peyotl trade various drugs and pharmaceuticals for the Comet Barbarian's ample supply of ancient starcharts and other trade goods. Interestingly, a few of the Peyotl elders have made a name for themselves as matchmakers among the Comet Barbarian clans.
• Suphis II, home to the Axis Mundi trees. This world was bombarded by a Peyotl ark fleet, but was saved by the foresight of the 30th Imperial Sovereign, who after destroying the invasion fleet used Excommunication to protect the world from further incursions. It's fate is unknown at this time.

Deck of Fridays 18: Are You Kidding Me

Welcome back to DECK OF FRIDAYS, our weekly feature here at FATE SF. We make a draw from the Deck of Fate, RPG Inspiration Cards, or another Aspect-generative randomizer. Then we do something interesting with it, using the Aspect as inspiration for a campaign or scenario seed, a situation, scene, location, NPC, thingie, etc.

This week's draw from the Deck of Fate is a card with the Aspect: Are You Kidding Me, a card with a -2 value. Perhaps a situation with an unexpectedly bad outcome.

In this case, something is wrong with your starship. Really wrong.

***
Starship Mishaps Table

Roll 4DF and consult the corresponding result below.

• -4: The stardrive ejected - too bad you're still in hyperspace

• -3: The stardrive imploded - welcome to your own personal singularity

• -2: Out of phase - that's right, your ship is partly here, and partly, well, elsethere. Pick the alien dimension of your choice.

• -1: Misjump, misjump, misjump - there's one happening about every 33 minutes

•  0: Radiation leaks. Water leaks. Atmosphere leaks. Take your pick. It may be more than one

• +1: No shields, no deflectors, no sensors

• +2: KACHANG! - Crashlanding below decks. Or crashlaunch. Take your pick, and choose a location such as a fighter bay, shuttle bay, or drone retrieval system.

• +3: Thunk-thunk-thunk. Did all the escape pods just launch?

• +4: Your ship's computer didn't have an attitude before, but it sure does now. And it just tried to kill someone

Dollar Store Dungeons: Other Doctors

Two planes for $1.00

These two aircraft came in a $1.00 pack from the local dollar store. One is obviously a SR-71 Blackbird (but not black), while the other is a modern stealth aircraft (we're not too sure whether it's supposed to be a stealth fighter or a stealth bomber). Both aircraft have emblems on the wings which resembles the shirt emblems you see on crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which has me thinking about a specific way to use these.

Other Doctors, or-

Who is Gary Seven?

First of all, Trey Causey clued me into this. Others have blogged about this, as well. It's the question at the center of the 1968 Star Trek episode Assignment: Earth. 

Who is Gary Seven? Is it true that he's a Timelord?* After all, he uses one of these:

And he has some kind of console (with an interstellar transporter, no less) inside of his TARDIS "office":

And who or what is Gary Seven's cat?

We're told she's actually a shapeshifting alien:

And as if that's not enough, Gary Seven has another companion - I mean, "secretary."

Timelord or not, the Federation is going to keep an eye on any alien who is running around on 20th Century Earth tampering with space-based nuclear weapons. However, due to World War Three, the Federation's own records about what technologies were deployed exactly when are probably a little bit fizzy, at best. An SR-71? Not anachronistic. But a stealth fighter/bomber? Only the Federation, with its hazy historical records, would deploy one on Earth in 1968.

Chances are, both these planes are actually small time travel/warp-capable vessels disguised as  U.S. military aircraft of the late 20th/early 21st Century. The Federation deployed two of them to keep an eye on backtime threats from Gary Seven, other Timelords, aliens, etc. What happened to these planes and their crews? Who were their crews, anyway? Did the Federation also deploy ground-based agents? Were there Federation safe houses in major U.S. cities? There are some stories here worth exploring...


*There have been some nasty online discussions - particularly in forums - about whether Gene Roddenberry cribbed this episode of Star Trek while watching an episode of Doctor Who in London. That's not our concern in this post. We're mining the similarities for gameable ideas; that's all. 

Panjandrum's Eye

techbyheart.blogspot.com

Panjandrum is the exclusive manufacturer of General Operations Device (G-O-D) Modules. These Modules are the "red eye" special weapons mounted in the forward housing on Quetzal-class Rapid Intervention Vehicles. Panjandrum is Thingmaker-class Intelligence at the hub of several R.U.R. factory wheels orbiting a gas giant on the coreward rim of R.U.R. space - quite a long way away from the Empire and its Quetzals.

The Quetzal's G-O-D Modules are single use devices. One might easily imagine that the distances involved in resupplying the Quetzals would pose severe logistical issues. But that is not the case. Panjandrum has found a way to close the distance and deliver the Modules that Omega House needs to resupply its expeditionary striker vehicles.

Quetzals needing a new G-O-D Module travel to the Sol system, the backward and largely abandoned point of origin of the vast human diaspora. Sol's first planet remains a cinder; its second has become a wet jungular realm for saurian megafauna; its, third a barely habitable iceball, with a surface trammeled by hunting bands of Neothanderals, and subterranean depths tunneled and trawled for relics and gates by the Morlocks; and its fourth, a desert world of decadent warring city-states.

Cold, featureless, and grey, the fifth planet of Nibiru coasts in its silent orbit, casting strange ripples in hyperspace that pose a navigational hazard for vessels in the shallow enumerations. Ships entering the Sol system should heed the hyperspace beacons warning ships to enter normal space before they reach Nibiru's orbit.

Sol's mighty sixth planet is the bleary-eyed gas giant Jupiter: that glowering world is Panjandrum's. Eyeless Quetzals travel here, arriving either as singletons or in small flotillas. The Quetzals stay their orbits above the Panjandrim's Eye, anchored to await the moment when a small black void appears in the center of the Great Red Spot.

As soon as that black iris opens, each ship hurries to transmit its request.  When the eye closes seconds later, the Quetzals begin their wait. Sometimes they wait for hours, sometimes for days.

Eventually Panjandrum's Eye becomes a fountain. A spray of white particles geysers up from the center of the Eye, and one or more replacement modules ride right up that column, spinning off it to become small, temporary red moons of great Jupiter. Each little red eye has its own cyphered song. A Quetzal will be drawn to one specific eyesong, and move in collect its new Module.

The fountain quickly recedes. Once again, Panjandrum's Eye glowers on in silence.

Panjandrum's Eye Aspects

• Stay clear of Nibiru's wake
• Were you followed to this ancient place where Quetzals gather?
• Approach Panjandrum's Eye and wait for an audience
• Panjandrum takes special requests
• Patience is its own reward
• The White Fountain is Panjandrum's Answer

Quetzal-Class Rapid Intervention Vehicles

Art by Juan Ochoa

The Quetzal-Class Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIVs) are the elite vehicles used by Omega House. They are deployed to the most dangerous and remote areas of the Empire, and well beyond there.

Quetzals are not birds of prey. They are very lightly armed compared to the Empire's capital ships. But it would be a mistake underestimate them. This is Omega House after all. Their assets are never paper tigers; they are always full of surprises.

The RIVs are highly maneuverable. They can reach the 10th enumeration of hyperspace with at least some crew members remaining conscious. While crew disembodiment is frequently reported, along with some degree of hull decoherence, no Quetzal has ever been lost due to entering enumerations 8-10 of hyperspace.

Quetzals are designed to reach remote areas of space quickly, drop planetside if necessary, and rapidly assess and address exurgent phenomena. Quetzals are often deployed in pairs. When they reach their target, one typically drops planetside to investigate while the other maintains watch from orbit.

Most RIVs operate with a crew of 3-6, one of whom is typically a Witchfinder-class android. Up to 12 Omega House special operations staff can be stored in stasis tubes. Quetzals are equipped for atmospheric re-entry and carry an armored ground vehicle attached to the ship's aft belly.

The Quetzals are built from a highly customizable ship template, reportedly developed by the legendary R.U.R. Artisan-class Intelligence known as Cloud Minder. The "red eye" at the forward end of the ship is not the bridge; it is a detachable, reentry-capable module known as a General Operations Device. Each RIV crew takes pride in selecting the unique features and capabilities of their G-O-D module..

RIV modules are built with one of several pre-formatted functionalities including:

• Gamma Ray Burst Inducer
• Amphibious Saucer
• Combat Tripod
• Outpost Dome

OGL MECHANICS

Fast Strike Vessel
Scale:  Medium (3) Advanced
T+4

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Omega House's Rapid Intervention Vehicle 
• Trouble: Repairs must be done in R.U.R. space
• Aspect: Advanced hyperspace navigation
• Aspect: Purpose-built to kick the hornet's nest
• Aspect:Witchfinder on-board

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: +1
• Forceful: +2
• Quick: +3
• Sneaky: 0

STUNTS:

• Atmosphere Capable - Vehicle may land planetside
• Auxiliary Vehicle - Vehicle also carries a ground vehicle
• G-O-D Module* - A detachable single-purpose module of a specific type 
• Hyperdrive - Vehicle may enter, traverse, and leave hyperspace for FTL travel

REFRESH: 2


*The Inducer is a common G-O-D Module type. Inducers are manufactured by the R.U.R. Thingmaker-class  Intelligence known as Panjandrum. They are part of the R.U.R. armory that holds back the galactic Anti-Consciousness festering within the galactic core.

A Blue Marble-class weapon of mass destruction, the Inducer takes advantage of the fact that at every moment, somewhere in the universe, a supernova or hypernova is giving off a massive gamma ray burst. The Inducer channels a few milliseconds of a small cross-section of that burst in order to hit a continent-sized target.  The discharge is typically lethal for anything in its path.

Inducers are single-shot G-O-D Modules. They are usually detached and destroyed immediately after use, as they often produce secondary microbursts called gamma radiation aftershocks.

The R.U.R. do not entrust the general crew of a Quetzal-class vessel with authorization codes required to arm and fire an Inducer. They entrust that only to Witchfinder-class androids. This is a R.U.R. ethical safeguard against their misuse.

Comet Barbarians Clan Location Table Key

Yesterday, I posted a 4DF space-based location table for generating the home bases of various Comet Barbarian tribes, clans, khanates, and principates called the Comet Barbarians Clan Locations Table.

Today, we are presenting a bit more detail on the locations described. Each definition also has a T-level based on the Diaspora RPG's standard descriptors for Tech level. Occasionally, the E-scale for Environmental conditions is also referenced.

Location Descriptions

Multiplanet Rosette - Like the Puppeteer homeworlds in Larry Niven's Known Space setting, this location is a fixed geometric arrangement of planets around an artificial star. This is a T4 location which requires artificial gravity for optimal maintenance.

Iceball - This cometary habitation was tunneled out of an ice comet. It typically travels at sublight speeds, and stays a safe distance away from its system's sun. The comet's ice can be used as propellant for maneuvering. Typically such locations are T1, but are often escorted by T2 or T3 vessels, and have hangar facilities for shuttles from those vessels.

Cluster of Small Rocks - This Comet Barbarian clan location is in fact an archipelago of small cometary rocks equipped with thrusters. It is usually accompanied by one or more conventional space vessels as armed escorts. The rocks comprising the Cluster may be equipped with either STL or FTL drives. Rocks with STL drives will usually be T1; however some Rocks have very crude T0 to T1 tech; they are armed with crude atomics and are powered by leaky, aging reactors. FTL-equipped rocks will typically be T2, but may go as high as T3 if equipped for the construction/repair/salvage of FTL vessels.

Rogue Planet - The majority of planets in the galaxy are wandering the depths of interstellar space as Rogue Planets. Most are entirely natural. A few are constructs such as the Shell Worlds found in Star Trek's Yonada, Iain M. Banks' novel Matter, and Fritz Leiber's SF classic The Wanderer.  Comet Barbarians have settled numerous such worlds, digging elaborate tunnel complexes under their surfaces to conceal their true purpose. The majority of such worlds have T1 or T2 technology, and are E-1 or E-2 with respect to habitability. Most Shell Worlds will be somewhere between T1 to T4, and are generally E-1 to E4.

Fleet Cluster, Active & Mobile - Some Comet Barbarian clans travel in fleets of FTL vessels. Few of the vessels are physically connected, but they often make FTL jumps in tethered electronically to a command ship. Such fleets are typically T2.

Sargasso Fleet Cluster, Mobile - A Sargasso Fleet Cluster is a cloud of individual space vessels. Comet Barbarians in a Sargasso Fleet are limited to one solar system (or one location in interstellar space). Many ships are physically connected to each other, but with mobile fleets some local maneuver is possible; for example, a mobile Sargasso Fleet Cluster change its relative location from another object in the system by 1-8 AU. Mobile Sargasso Fleet Clusters are typically T1, but may contain one or several T2 vessels.

Sargasso Fleet Cluster, Immobile - A Sargasso Fleet Cluster is a cloud of individual space vessels at a fixed location in a solar system or in interstellar space. Many ships in such fleet clusters are physically connected to each other, and damaged, in disrepair, and/or heavily jury rigged. Such immobile fleet clusters have very little local maneuver capability: typically just enough to maintain a fixed position and not collide with other objects such as planets. Some immobile Sargasso Fleet Clusters are located near jumpgates or slipknots to facilitate interstellar travel and raids. These locations are typically T0 toT1, but may contain one or several T2 vessels.

Ancient Temple Planetoid - A Comet Barbarian clan has made their home on a planetoid with an ancient temple ruin. The planetoid may be an active pilgrimage site providing an additional revenue source for its new guardians, or a long-forgotten place of worship built by a Forerunner race. The technology level may be anywhere from T-1 to T4. In the latter case, the temple itself may be a jealously guarded secret or a weapon of unimaginable power.

Human Generation Ship - Gigantic, long-abandoned STL generation ships make an ideal haven for Comet Barbarians, and still-inhabited generation ships also have their advantages. The original inhabitants of a generation ship may have evolved into Comet Barbarians after making contact with FTL cultures. Alternatively, the original inhabitants may have intermarried with a Comet Barbarian clan as insurance against exploitation or attack by outside parties, or by rival groups within the great ship. Such vessels are most often T1, but may have degenerated since launch to T0 or T-1; any lower on the tech scale than that and they will not be very desirable base locations for Comet Barbarians. Such generation ships are typically protected by one or more T2 or T3 vessels. Once Project Generations is completed, there will be many new resources for FATE-based generation ship games.

Alien Generation Ship - Gigantic, long-abandoned alien STL generation ships sometimes make an ideal haven for Comet Barbarians, while still-inhabited alien generation ships present their own unique opportunities and risks as home bases for Comet Barbarians. Alien generation ships often hide great mysteries and can confer secret advantages upon the clan that possesses one. Like their human counterparts, most alien generation ships will be T1, and may have degenerated since launch to T0 or T-1; any lower on the tech scale than that and they will not be very desirable base locations for Comet Barbarians. Such generation ships are typically protected by one or more T2 or T3 vessels.

Alien Space Fortress - This may be a fixed position in space, or a mobile battlestation of some kind. It may be long abandoned by its original inhabitants, retain a secret enclave of those inhabitants' descendants, or have a thriving alien population that is allied with or subservient to the Comet Barbarians. Tech level may be anywhere from T-1 to T4. Alien Space Fortresses at T3 and T4 often possess incredibly powerful secret weapons, which may confer great advantages on the Comet Barbarian khan or princeling who possesses the fortress. Such locations are often protected by T2 or T3 Comet Barbarian support vessels, and may even have vast hangars to accommodate those ships.

Alien Megafauna - The galaxy is a very big place, and filled with strange things. Some Comet Barbarian tribes have managed to find and colonize the bodies of gigantic alien space creatures. Whether these are the corpses of ancient space monsters, creatures from beyond time and space, or benevolent creatures making very slow migrations across the galaxy, the Comet Barbarians who inhabit them and burrow deep within their flesh and bones tend to be very strange barbarian clans indeed. With extra organs, weird pets and familiars, and odd mutant powers. Best beware and steer clear. Such clan locations tend to be much lower tech: anywhere from T-4 to T1 is typical. When such settlements have an escort fleet, it is almost always crewed  by an allied clan.

Ripple Bethorm - This is a pocket universe on the move. A Ripple Bethorms navigates space at one fixed speed, either STL or FTL. They often follow predictable courses through the galaxy. Almost anything may be on the inside of a Ripple Bethorm, from a vast hollow world environment to an entire solar system suspended in a starless void. T4 technologies are required to create and sustain such spaces, but those technologies are usually operating in the background, well beyond human control. The entrance to a Ripple Bethorm is a very small fracture in space-time. Often Comet Barbarians will protect this opening with a T2 or T3 ship located just inside the fracture. Clans living within such pocket universes may be at any level of technological development, from T-4 to T3, but whatever the general level of development there will always be a T2 to T3 elite capable of crewing Comet Barbarian ships.

Comet Barbarians Clan Location Table

FATE table design by David S. Goodwin
Content c. 2013 John Everett Till

As has been noted elsewhere, the Empire arose from a series of incursions by Comet Barbarians living on the periphery of the Terran Expansion Zone. They abolished the corrupt tyranny established by earlier Terran polities, and created a new Empire free of the scourge of slavery.

The term "Comet Barbarian" is quite broad, embracing a variety of clans, tribes, khanates, principates, and petty kingdoms of the periphery. Numerous such groups continue to exist within and beyond the borders of the Empire. The table above provides a way to generate the habitations used by the various Comet Barbarian groups.

You can click the table to enlarge it.

To use the table, roll 4DF. For each (+) result, move one horizontal column to the right. For each (-) result, move one vertical row down. Your location is where the two results meet.

We'll be adding more detail to the descriptions in subsequent posts.

Consider Phlebas

Consider Phlebas Cover Art by Mark Salwowski*

Two weeks ago, I finally completed Iain M. Banks' first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas. I had tried to read the novel a few different times, always stalling-out about halfway through the book. I have blogged before that I found Banks' portrayal of cannibalistic religious primitives particularly distasteful (as it were). That aspect of Consider Phlebas was a definite turn-off for me.

Although I am a Marxist - and therefore belong to the only political and philosophical tradition to make a serious effort on a world scale to abolish religious practice - I don't consider atheism an essential part of Marxism in the 21st Century. By the mid-to-late 20th Century, religious movements were frequently our most important allies in attempting to challenge the social conditions faced by the poor and oppressed. In fact, I'd have to say that secular liberalism is today perhaps the greatest ideological reinforcement for inequality on a world scale.

So why did I return to Banks? Undoubtedly, the panel on Iain Banks at Diversicon 21 inspired me to go back and try again.

And I am glad I did.

It is in the second half of the novel that things really start moving. There's even a dungeon crawl of sorts that goes on for the last couple of hundred pages of the book. But the thing that really blew me away was a brief description of one of the Culture's General Systems Vehicles (GSV). These are truly huge starships operated by an AI. They can transport millions of people at one time. They can manufacture just about anything people could possibly need. They are mobile, post-scarcity habitats.

Which is the most important idea in the book. The GSVs are an expressive totality of the Culture itself. As long as you have one GSV, the Culture continues to exist, and can rebuild, extend, and reproduce itself. In this way a post-scarcity society makes itself very difficult to kill. This is very important since the Culture's neighborhood includes quite aggressive and militaristic political formations such as those of the Idirans.


*Image used by permission of of Mark Salwowski
 www.salwowski.com.

Babylon 5 Starship Table

We created this table for the Alwyn Campaign. The PCs visited the remains of the John M. Ford Minneapolis-St. Paul Interstellar Starport, and I needed a table to make random determinations about the long-abandoned starship relics littering the starport.

This is the Babylon 5 Starport Table, which doubles as a Babylon 5 Crashed Ship Table:

Roll 1D6-1D6.

Result:

• +5 Ranger vessel
• +4 Minbari Federation
• +3 Narn Regime
• +2 Mars republic
• +1 Earthforce 
•   0 Earth (commercial/private)
• -1 Former Earth Colony
• -2 Centauri Republic
• -3 Drazi
• -4 Other Interstellar Alliance, League of Nonaligned Worlds (e.g., Brakiri, Gaim, Vree, Pak'ma'ra, Llort)
• -5 Special (e.g., Drakh/other Shadow ally, Technomage, Soul Hunter, First One)

In the case of a -4/-5 result, the GM may determine the specific race or affiliation of the ship, or a player may pay 1 FP and make a declaration.

Crash/Burial Specifics: After the Great Burn, many of the ships at the starport became buried within drumlin-like mounds. Some were completely buried, others were partially buried with the exception of a few fins or antenna-like projections, while a few were almost completely exposed.

The degree of post-crash/burial exposure of a ship is determined by rolling 1DF:

• Rolling a -1 indicates the ship is completely buried;
• Rolling a blank face indicates the starship is partially buried (i.e., there are some exposed structures and/or tunnels that have been dug to key structures such as an airlock or other access point);
• Rolling a +1 indicates that the ship is almost completely exposed. 

Players may pay 1 FP to make a declaration, such that a ship has an open hatch.

Ancient Wisdom

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/03/11/
astronomer-locates-previously-unseen-neighbor-to-the-sun/

It was centuries ago, long before the Empire began. Decades before Old Earth was destroyed by the venomous Mutain Queen, several ships of the First Diaspora had been launched towards Ancient Wisdom, the third closest solar system from Sol.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/
observations/files/2013/03/2.jpg

The pair of Brown Dwarf stars known as The Wise Twins welcomed them. The Wise Twins' dim, deuterium-forged light bathed the Earth-ships in dun-colored sunbeams. The explorers found a few rocky worlds, devoid of life, that orbited the twin stars.

But the ships of the First Diaspora weren't drawn there with the hope that they would find habitable worlds to colonize; they came here following an alien signal.

The crews of the Earth vessels soon found the signal's source: a rambling, ramshackle, vast construct. The Agglomeration, as it came to be known by the Earthers, was to all appearances a melange of numerous different space vessels. Why had it come here? Had it "run out of gas?" Were there still crew aboard? Only time would tell.

First there would be a space battle, a war of all against all. The Star Captains of the First Diaspora had as a matter of course cooperated while crossing the deep interstellar void. This reciprocity was the best guarantee that at least most of their ships and crews would survive the journey between the stars.

But on these alien shores, all bets were off. They had all come for the same great Prize. None were willing to share.

Yonada: A Look Inside The Creators' Design

Yonada Cutaway by Rachel Kronick

Today, we continue our mini-series on the generation ship Yonada, the main character and core mystery of  the original Star Trek series episode "For The Word Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky." Thanks to the Inkscape skills of my friend Rachel Kronick, FATE SF is pleased to share a Star Trek first:

We have here first diagram of the internal structure of the ancient Fabrini world-ship Yonada.

I have watched the episode numerous times (most recently, twice, last Sunday), and for years have pondered the true structure of Yonada. Shortly into the episode, the Enterprise crew discuss the fact that the Yonadans don't realize that they are living on the inside of a hollow ball.

Early in the episode we also meet an old man. He enters the Enterprise crew's guest quarters shortly after they have descended into Yonada's interior. The old man claims that when he was young, he climbed the mountains on the inside of the asteroid, "touched the sky." But if he were climbing mountains on the inside wall of a hollow ball (i.e., if Yonada really were just a hollow ball), that would clearly be impossible.

He'd be reaching upwards and grasping air. He wouldn't be touching sky at all.

So instead of this simple hollow ball theory, I have come-up with an internal structure that is consistent with what we see in the episode: a more or less solid sphere that is inside a spherical shell.  

People live underground, just as they did in the latter days of life on Fabrina, before their sun went nova. The little orange nubs in the diagram are the orange cylindrical accessways from which  the Yonadans emerge to ambush the Enterprise crew.

Accessways, Closed
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Yonada

Accessways, Open
http://www.treknicalities.com/

There are indeed mountains capable of reaching and touching the sky in our diagram. These mountains are columnar structural supports which connect the "planetary surface" of the inner sphere (where the ambush occurred) with the inner surface of the surrounding (i.e., outer) shell - the "sky" being on the inside surface of this outer shell, and therefore "touchable" from the mountains.

So, can really someone climb the mountains that are shown in our diagram, and "touch the sky"?  Yes, in theory. Particularly if the mountains are either slightly less steep/hourglass-shaped than they are depicted in this rendering - and/or if the mountains are sufficiently worked that they have rather secure handholds, or a spiral staircase to facilitate climbing.

The columnar mountains are also a possible point of origin for the missiles that attack the Enterprise at the very beginning of the episode. If some of the mountains are hollow, they may serve a dual purpose as missile silos/launch tubes AND structural supports. One or more hollow columns could also serve as tubes to channel reaction mass from the ship's nuclear reactor to the exterior thrusters. We know that these thrusters exist because one of them is under-performing when the Enterprise arrives on the scene. That's what takes Yonada off-course.

In this scenario, the Yonadans spend most of their lives living underground; that is, they live below the surface of the ship's inner shell.  There is plenty of room down there for living space, hydroponics, a gravity generator, the reactors, and everything else you need to have a functioning generation ship. I think this model works.

So here's the question of the day: Why did the old man climb the mountains in his youth? The surface of the world looks very desolate. This seems a strange thing to do, considering how comfortable the world is below the ship's inner shell. Who would want to be on the surface at all? Does Yonada have some version of the Vulcan rite of passage known as the Kahs-wan Ordeal? Punishment-by-temporary-exile for asking too many questions? Anchorites? Wandervogel? Something else?

There is a story here.

"For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky"

http://www.startrek.com/database_article/yonada

These are, of course, famous last words. Sometimes, discovering that you are on a generation ship can be bad news - for you! It certainly was for the old man who in his youth had touched the sky of the shellworld generation ship, Yonada. The computer known as the Oracle killed the old man for revealing what he had learned: that the world was hollow, and he had touched the sky.

The Oracle is the caretaker of Yonada. It has the ability to speak to the people of Yonada when they are present within its Oracle Chamber. Its face is the stone monolith with the gold star symbol (see the image, below). The Oracle also communicates the will of The Creators  through its intermediary, the High Priestess of The People, Natira.

Oracle Room
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/fadmvulcan/3101888786/

Of course, we all know now that if you push the small button in the center of the star image, the monolith moves forward and reveals an accessway into the control bridge of the space ark. But this is more than just an Oz-like Big Reveal (although it very much is that!) because the crew of the Enterprise really need to find the control room of the ship. One of its thrusters is firing under capacity and the ship is off course. In less than a year, Yonada will collide with a Federation world. The world ship is on a collision course with Daran V, which has 3.724 million inhabitants, according to Memory Alpha.

Yonada was built by the ancient Fabrini when they realized that their world's sun was about to go nova. The space ark has been in transit for 10,000 years. During the last years of that doomed planet Fabrina, the people lived underground to protect themselves from their unstable and doomed sun. It is perhaps not surprising then that the religious icon of the Oracle is a multi-limbed sunburst.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/
Fabrina_solar_system?file=Book_of_the_People_contents.jpg

The Fabrini built a generation ship that enabled their people to continue with a semblance of life on their home world. The good news is that the underground existence of the Yonadans actually looks very comfortable and relatively abundant. However, there are many rules to observe here, most of which are framed as religious precepts.

The presence of swords on Yonada, and particularly in Natira's personal retinue, is less likely due to the existence of cultural, political, and resource conflicts, and most likely due to the fact that the High Priestess has many religious rules to enforce.

Natira, High Priestess of The People
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Natira

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Instrument_of_obedience

For example, it is mentioned that only the High Priestess of The People gets to choose her mate. Presumably that is because the computer that runs Yonada, in its religious guise as the Oracle, uses advanced population genetics modeling to make reproductive/marriage decisions for everyone else on the ship. The star-shaped Instrument of Obedience can't directly enforce marriage decrees. That requires someone who will if necessary forcibly move a person from one set of quarters to another.

So we apparently have arranged marriage. But is this all bad?

Here in the West, we consider any infringement on individuals' personal freedom and autonomy to be nearly a metaphysical evil. But on a generation ship with a limited gene pool, this kind of reproductive control is likely to be a necessity. While it is a bit implausible that medical geniuses like the Fabrini did not develop technologies that would have mitigated population staleness and concentration of lethal genes, perhaps they felt that simpler systems such as religious edicts were easier to sustain over thousands of years. Who knows?

One thing we did figure out from watching the episode twice this past weekend: it is easy to imagine that many of the early High Priestesses knew they were indeed on a generation ship. By guess is that they lived in quarters on the upstairs level of the space ark's control room. (We see Spock walk up these stairs to manually adjust the controls of the malfunctioning thruster.)

The High Priestess could have appeared in the Oracle Chamber as either a holographic projection, or - even more mysteriously - physically appeared as if from nowhere in the Oracle Chamber just prior to times of worship and religious decree-making. Perhaps it was only later that the High Priestess came to live completely within the midst of The People. There could be quite a story here.

The Anagogue; Or, The Whirlpool Gate

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/
photogalleries/wip-week47/index.html

The Imperial Throneship Anagogue exited from realspace and entered into history when its slipspace transition coincided in spacetime with the precipitation of a hyperspace mine out of the lowest enumeration of hyperspace. (Such precipitations are rare enough to pose little aggregate threat to interstellar shipping. Hyperspace mines usually only precipitate in this manner when they become entangled in the wake of cloaked vessels that are leaving hyperspace.)

The detonation of the mine transported the ship's crew and passengers somewhere else. It bounced the wrecked vessel back into realspace in the Aclys System, its original point of departure. The Angaogue then became a visible singularity.

The ruined ship became a pulsar of sorts, undergoing a recurrence of its original detonation once every 1.275 standard hours. The vessel now lies at the center of a permanent whirlpool of entangled realspace-slipspace-hyperspace, surrounded by other wrecked vessels caught up in its eddies.

The Aclys System was subsequently evacuated forcibly, and has been declared a closed system.

However, the story does not end there. With greater and greater frequency, a variety of unauthorized and unidentified ships with various advanced designs have been detected leaving the Aclys System. Still other vessels with cloaking devices or other blockade-runner rigging. have been detected after entering the system.

Imperial observers speculate that the Anagogue's recursive detonations have created gate conditions between our native space-time continuum and several others. The resulting gating effect propagates ripples that act as a hyperspace beacon attracting prospectors and explorers.

The Imperial Sovereign recently dispatched an Imperial Survey Expedition to explore the wreck of the Anagogue and investigate the incursions into the closed Aclys System. The survey vessel was unfortunately disaggregatated by a hyperwave burst just as it neared completion of its mission. Fortunately, it was able to insert a record buoy into hyperspace before it was destroyed.

The Imperial Survey Expedition  reported that there were:

• Numerous corpses - human, known alien, and unknown alien - on board the Anagogue
• Many vessels - clearly damaged - forming a nimbus of space hulks around the Anagogue
• Makeshift modifications in the ship's interior, including repairs and demolitions, improvised bulkheads, and propped open  hatchways, as well as unrecognizable technologies that had been apparently grafted onto the ship's exterior and interior
• Several energy hotspots which moved inexplicably around the ostensibly dead ship
• Spiderweb fractures in the fabric of spacetime surrounding the wreck; these fractures heal and re-propagate after every burst, up to a radius of 1 milliparsec from the vessel

Further investigation is recommended, provided a relatively safe method of doing so can be identified. Formal requests for assistance have been made to the Mir Civil Engineering Corps and to the RUR Workers-State's Navigation Safety Committee in pursuit of this goal.

Review and Ship Stats - Coming Soon to FATE SF