ESCAPE FROM JUNKWORLD: JAUNT INFO.

[powersthatbe]

Escape From Junkworld
A Space Opera Jaunt
Running from January 9th-February 18th

Welcome to the Junkworld of Gehenna: a radioactive cinder twice the size of Earth, used as a rubbish heap and ship graveyard for centuries by cultures across the cosmos, guarded by automated gunstations (left by cultures from across the cosmos), and with its only native inhabitants being Leaping Fireworms who feed on metals and thrive in heavy-gravity environments. Occasionally used as a penal colony as well, but really a death sentence - the only way people are sent to Gehenna is being placed in gutted ships in decaying, unguided re-entry orbits. Still, over the centuries, some have survived this process, and settlements have grown on the surface, giving the world a total population in the high hundreds or low thousands.

And now, the Tachyon Storm is coming. Nobody knows exactly what that means, but it’s bad.

You see, tachyons are particles that travel faster than light and back in time, and the slower they are, the more energy they have. And what few sensors on Gehenna work have started detecting increasing bursts of tachyon radiation, denser and denser, slower and slower moving. The best guess is that some incredible high-energy phenomenon is coming in the near future. No normal lightspeed shockwave can be seen before it hits - so by the time anyone knows what it is, it’ll be too late. And judging by the rate the tachyons are slowing down, it’s only a few weeks away.

The refugees, prisoners, scavengers, smugglers, and accidental colonists of Gehenna have a plan - or some of them do. Smuggler ships small enough to slip to the surface past the automated gun satellites are too small to travel faster than light, and they don’t have time to call for a ride. But the planet is all but covered in wrecks, hulks, derelicts, and crashes, and two large, durable vessels of dubious design are nearly intact. It’s just barely possible to put them together, strap on the smuggler vessels as armed outriders, and blast off for escape.

But as the source of the Tachyon Storm gets closer, things are getting weird. The laws of physics are bending or breaking entirely. The ships, barely understandable or able to be kept together as it is, are behaving in strange ways, and that strangeness is carrying over to the synthetics and cyborgs who interface with ship systems to operate them. And everyone on Junkworld Gehenna had an agenda or an axe to grind, anyway - trustworthy, safe, sane people don’t wind up banished to radioactive cinders, after all.

Ancient, unknown ships falling apart around them. The combined dark secrets, dubious pasts, and skeletons in the closet of a hundred different interstellar scofflaws. Even with an oncoming shockwave approaching at least as fast as light, the open question is still: what’s going to get around to killing them first?

World Info | Species Info | The Ships | Crew Positions | Casting Call | Infiltrator Roles | Investigator Roles | Skills | Calendar | Technology | Glossary | Player Resources | Questions & Plotting

Comments

INFILTRATOR ROLES

[powersthatbe]

Smugglers, Pirates, Convicts, Refugees, Political Prisoners, Scavengers, Shipwreck Survivors - not everyone on the planet is a convict, but nobody came here on purpose meaning to stay. Smugglers and pirates come to scavenge parts, sneaking down in their Outriders - and many are now stranded, as their motherships bugged out at the first signs of the Tachyon Storm. There are more Outriders on the surface than there are places for them to attach… Infiltrators who want to have their own small crews and independent captains are welcome to play these parts.

Convicts are often dangerous criminals of some sort, but Refugees and Political Prisoners might have been banished here merely for offending someone powerful.

Scavengers were born here - while they come from families of convicts and exiles, they can be anyone, seek any career path - but there’s not much opportunity or education available on-world.

Shipwreck Survivors - rarely, for whatever reason, someone might wind up on planet accidentally - if a transport navigates poorly and gets shot down, a stowaway doesn’t realize a ship is being mothballed, or an escape pod doesn’t have range for somewhere more civilized to land on.

Cyborgs & The Conditioned: Many people who interface with high technology have cybernetic implants in their bodies or brains, giving them additional knowledge or abilties. Cybernetics are not merely prosthetics, but built-in tools adding new hardware to the human condition. Cybernetics are common in all species, but there is still some stigma to becoming implanted with machines that change what you're capable of or how you think.

The Conditioned are people who have embraced a discipline of hypnosis, meditation, and heightened physical sensitivity to unlock the true potential of their bodies and minds. Conditioned have amazing reflexes and reaction times, can suppress pain and use their full physical strength, even if it damages their bodies, control automatic responses, and observe even the smallest changes in their physical environment. Some are even capable of implanting hypnotic suggestions in others, usually only of their own species.