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campaign advice needed

c_osborne

SOC-11
I need some help from somebody with a bit more TNE experience than myself (I have none, just CT/MT/T4, and I just bought the OOTD book). Here is the situation I'm trying to set up;

On 240-1111 the PCs are Jumping from Lysen (Jewell) to Efate (Regina) in the Spinward Marches. They experience a catastrophic misJump (not entirely accidental), and do not emerge from Jumpspace. When it becomes evident they will slowly die, they will presumably decide to go into low berths, just in case. Over a century later, the Empress Wave washes through, and somehow triggers their release back into normal space. They essentially find themselves in a whole new universe.

Now, for the part I need help with... Does this break any canon? Is it feasible? Would they likely emerge at Efate, or some other random point? What date does the Empress Wave pass through Efate? Is there any information out there (website, etc.) that I could refer to for details regarding the worlds they would likely meet, and the condition they would likely be in, or do I start from scratch?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Chad
 
This seems cool. Run with it and see where it goes.

What, you want a Canon answer? I dunno. Does the Wave affect stuff in Jump? The answer has to be 'we have not had reports from ships that perceived this', of which you can make what you will.
 
I agree with MJD, go with it. It sounds interesting. Don't expect that ship to be in great shape when it re-enters n-space though.
 
I assume you mean because of the electro-magnetic component of the wave? So a lot of systems could be fried. That would be fine, as long as the low berths either remain intact or fail-safe by initiating 'thaw' upon being fried.
How bad of shape would you expect a ship to be in? I'm just looking for advice and opinions, as I don't expect there to be any official canon for this.

Chad
 
For the ship it depends on your decission about the effects of time on it. Was it essentially suspended in time or has it been functioning during the interviening 130+ years? If it's been functioning the powerplant is 130+ years past anual maintenance. Jump drive too, if you consider that it was functioning allbeit improperly (misjump) during that time. Fluid systems? Have they rusted, molded, corroded, rotted? Wouldn't want to be the first person to use the head, or the galley.

As for the mechanics of the Empress Wave and the proposed misjump, why not I say. You could read through the questions to Dave thread if the OOTD book doesn't cover it for you.
 
The Wave's effects are not properly understood, nor entirely predictable. Almost anything could happen - a freaky one-off is entirely possible.

And anyway, don't worry about Canon ot whatnot - create a good adventure and have some fun!
 
If you want a hand wave - you could say that the part of J space that the mis jump took the players into is affected by the EW but not the rest of it. J Space is, after all, a load of nonsense, so nonsense can happen in it
 
Chad,

in response to your specific questions.

A standard misjump could take you from 0 to 36 parsecs in any direction.

From memory the empress wave crosses the imperial border about 1202. Travelling at light speed, it takes 3.24 years per hex, so sometime 1212 ish (can't remember how far Efate is down from the border).

if you can get hold of them there are a couple of issues of the challenge magazine (OOP) that covers ships lost in the abyss near Lanth. Those articles had several strange jump effects, including variations on time experienced in jump compared to actual time (in some cases very extreme).

Hope that helps

Cheers
Richard
 
Thanks all.

Based on the rough description in the book, I'm plotting the wave and the new political boundaries on a map, and trying to work backwards from there. I suppose logically I could put them just about anywhere at any time, and write it off to a Jump anomoly. But I'd prefer not to make it look totally engineered.

One side question (for anyone) - is there any precedent for what happens when you try to Jump from inside Jumpspace? (i.e. PC ship was being transported by a larger ship, which misJumped and isn't coming out)

Chad
 
One theory is that they merely need to launch, as once outside of the larger ships "Jump Bubble" they should just drop back into N-Space.

Ofcourse without the J-Drive governing the proceedure you could say there'd be potential for damage, if you wanted it.
 
Originally posted by Chad Osborne:
One side question (for anyone) - is there any precedent for what happens when you try to Jump from inside Jumpspace? (i.e. PC ship was being transported by a larger ship, which misJumped and isn't coming out)

Chad
There was some (semi?)official mention of Imperial Navy experiments involving trying to do just that in an old digest or some such article. They all failed catastrophically with loss of both the launching ship and the launhced ship iirc. It seems that any contact with the wall between jump space and normal space around the ship is a BAD THING(tm). At the very least whatever contacts the wall is destroyed, at the worst it causes collapse of the wall and destroys everything inside it. Doesn't matter if the launched ship has it's own jump ability or not.

That said though, there's nothing to stop you from coming up with your own working idea, just try to figure all the ramifications out ahead of time so players don't fine a loophole to exploit.
 
I'm thinking certain death makes the most sense, so I'll just steer them away from that idea. Otherwise it opens too many doors I'm not sure about.

So far I took a map of the Spinward Marches, and using the map in the OOTD book as an overlay, sorted out detailed borders on my sector map. Then I plotted the Empress Wave, which seems pretty flat in this region. I'm a little unclear about the locations given in relation to Capital and Usdiki (I think it should be parsecs and not years), but it doesn't really impact my current situation. So now I've got a detailed map for 1248, although it still needs work for startports, bases, etc.

Based on what I've got so far, if I want to have them emerge in 1248 (which seems like a decent plan based on materials available), they'd probably emerge at Pequan (Spinward States) or Jenghe (Republic of Regina).

I tried the system for collapse and recovery, and it seems pretty reasonable so far. Has anyone else already done this? It seems like a likely candidate for a software solution. I don't have any solid perspective on the overall effects one would expect to encounter in this area, so I'm just relying on the dice for the most part. For example, how prevalent was virus here? Were there major battles in this area? I'm guessing that because this is all so new, there isn't a lot of detail available, and I'm just going to have to approach it with an open mind and see how it goes.

Chad
 
The Spinward States were within the Regecy and thus spared most of the effects of the Collapse. There is a column in the Collapse/Recovery system for such areas.
 
Chad!

Excellent campaign idea sir! We have done a similiar pitch to the future from a year after yours already (240-1112) with a 98-year catastrophic misjump (darn bombs & vengeful crimelords "severance pay" got us off & away) lowberthing to (mid-1210) from Usani/Deneb to five parsecs shy of Uxors/Arcrant(O)/Reft in our current Ursula (No.4) campaign.

The players began as a core group of Imperial remnants (7), of which now one left the ship onto a Wilds world to aide them when her former lover took up with another of the player crew (our engineer); one died in the jump accident (former Scout Deep Survey Pilot); and a second was killed on another Wilds planet in a local affair (Our 2nd Scout Deep Survey Pilot) to date.

As to the collapse tables, yes, I used them to drop the corner Wilds region here (Subsectors L, O, & P), and later adjoining subsectors of Verge (C & D), Ilelish (A, B), and the Gamma Quadrant of Gushemege (H, I, M, & N), so they do work nicely.

Unlike your idea (we began this version of our online campaign in early August 2005 last year), we have not dealt with the Empress Wave, but we have looked at the region with the point hat with an allied & foreign power in the Islands Subsectors (J & K) of the Reft, the Imperial Regency is poised to "invade"/ liberate this region to eliminate te Vampire Fleet jumping off point long used here to attempt infiltration into the Regency States/Spinwards states region.

Sounds Like good shtuff! Run with it!
Btw, with our co-GM round-robin system, we did have to sit down and agree to what changes & where, and once we worked out those bugs/tweaks, we've had a good campaign out of this. One rule of thumb we've used, if your original Imperial remnant died off/ retired off the ship, you picked up a native-time character as a replacement.

Currently we have a second vessel (the other, a player designed 200dton Hermes-class Long Range Scout ship) was "reactivated" by the remnant IISS on our third world we visited, and have a relic recovered larger vessel (a FASA designed FFW era 900dton Lucifer-class DE) witha crew of 11x Individual Player characters & 3x NPC crew (engineering section).

I think running in the 1248 Spinwards states is as rewarding and exciting as where we placed ours--with the non-aligned systems inbetween the Regency remnant states post the 2nd Battle of Gateway (circa 1244).

Efate (1705/Regina(C)/Spinward Marches), btw is 5x parsecs rimwards of the Border for your earlier EW affect reach.

Game ON!
 
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