The Hedron Empire has been at war for over two decades against the Perusian Confederacy over resources and territory. Casualties upon both sides have risen over the tens of millions. Talks of a possible truce between the two massive space powers are about as hopeful as one could be.
Our story takes place closer to the end of the war. All of its achievements, successes, exploits, and failures will be exposed within this story.
20 June 0124
HMS Formidable
Global Cluster IC0620996
Deep Space
Flashpoint
The massive space vessel appeared instantly into view with a blinding light, replacing the once empty space in a blink of an eye. The hull of the ship bellowed a haunting moan. The ship structure rubberbands, twisting and bending in ways it was not designed to do. This event took several more crucial seconds for it to stabilize as interdiction overall is an... unpleasant experience.
"This is not a drill - This is not a drill!" The intercoms rang loudly several times before continuing. "General Quarter - General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations! Forward and up starboard side, down and aft to the port side!" The obnoxious ringing continues again.
Within the next couple seconds, several unidentified vessels occupied the once empty space just several kilometers behind the drifting ship. Positioning themselves in a way that would allow them to utilize the full extent of their ship weapons without putting themselves at risk. As if on cue, several blurred objects detach themselves from the underside hull of their respective motherships and begin speeding their way towards the Hedron warship.
[] Male
[] Female
[] Intelligence: A guaranteed Bonus in intelligence-based rolls like Mechanics and Engineering.
[] Brawn: A guaranteed Bonus in strength-based rolls like one's Resilience or Melee skill.
[] Cunning: A guaranteed Bonus in perceptive-based rolls related to one's sixth sense.
[] Presence: A guaranteed Bonus in charisma-based rolls like Leadership.
[] Agility: A guaranteed Bonus in dexterity-based rolls like Stealth and Piloting.
[] Willpower: A guaranteed Bonus in mental-based rolls like Discipline or Coercion.
[] Young Age (20):
Choosing this option you feel largely inexperienced—naïve to say the least. The feeling of adventure and the innate human curiosity surges through your veins and the longing for the vast unknown is enticing to you. With a gung-ho attitude, you feel that if you put your mind to the task you will succeed. Solutions are obtained by being persistent.
+Failures count as bonuses to your next check and can stack until the next success of which it will reset back to 0
-Average of average: Base stats in INT, STR, CUN, PRE, AGI, WILL are all 2
-Narratively you are often underestimated and chastised for your lack of experience
[] Middle Age (35):
Choosing this option you feel confident in your abilities and the various relevant information pertaining to your role. The feeling of adventure and curiosity has been replaced with glory and honor. You aim to prove yourself to your superiors of your abilities and inspire those around you. Achievements are either obtained ruthlessly…or… benevolently.
+With your knowledge and experience, you are naturally a leader of people (Increase Presence by 1)
+Failing Presence Rolls count as bonuses to your next relevant check and can stack until the next success of which it will reset back to 0
- A decrease of 1 in either AGI or STR due to being past your prime.
[] AGI or [] STR
[] Old Age (55):
Choosing this option you have survived and lived through many situations that would daunt even the most experienced service member in the Hedron Navy. You are well respected and your knowledge in warfare are valued by those who ask for your wisdom. However, you are not young anymore. The glory days are behind you and the only Honor you remain to keep intact is your service to the Hedron Empire. She, herself, is your glory. Her existence is your personal crowning achievement. Thus, you are confined to a more important position for the sake of her existence.
+Legendary Status: You are well known, and your words may rival even the power of a highest ranking official. (Increase Presence by 2)
+Knowledgeable: You have studied and practiced in theories and concepts revolving the Art of War. (Increase Intelligence by 1)
-Deteriorating health: Despite outliving every danger you've endured in your service; outsmarting death has its price.
(Decrease Strength to 0 and Agility to 1)
(Increase Cunning and Willpower by 1)
-Lesser of Two Evils mode
As the Ship Captain you are responsible for vessel itself and those who live and breath within it. As Captain you understand that the vessel itself cannot be operated alone and requires the combined teamwork of hundreds, if not, thousands of individuals for everything to work seamlessly. To do that you coordinate with your contingent of officers who specialize in their specific station for the ship. These can range from Fire Control, Engineering, Tactical, Communications, etc. They are all experts in their field, and it is the Captain's ability to utilize his/her officers in a way to make his/her vessel the most formidable foe on the battlefield. Understanding this can mean between the next breath of fresh air or the next breath of vacuum.
-Choosing this profession requires the type of ship:
[] Frigate
[] Destroyer
[] Cruiser
[] Battleship
[] Carrier
The Marines onboard a naval vessel are trained to protect the vessel from both enemy boarders and uncooperating crewmembers. Specialized in close quarters combat (CQC), they are perfect for maintaining the law and order of a present vessel and functioning as bare minimum skeleton crew if a prize has been acquired. Hedron Naval Marines are also able to operate fighter crafts, which allows an increase in tactical flexibility, but only marines who specialized in piloting are able to operate a fighter craft with deadly efficiency.
-Choosing this profession requires a focus:
[] CQC
[] Pilot
[] Custom Profession: (List your suggestion with a bit of something to work with)
[] Easy
[] Normal
[] Hard
Fate Points, in this case, are ways the players and GM are able to legitimately ass pull (as long as it makes sense) to add things into the scene or make choices an instant success (QM has discretion). Each fate point used will be transferred to the other side. For example, if the majority of voters decide to use a fate point to make a check a success then I would be able to use the fate point given to me to increase the difficulty of the next check or ramp up the difficulty of the scene. If I do use one, the audience gets one. Vice Versa.
Another way to use a fate point is "spawning" an item to help the character make a check/future checks a possible success. For example, our MC finds himself stuck under ship debris and does not have the adequate strength to lift himself out of it. Using a fate point, the voters discussed a possible idea of finding a space blowtorch floating by, within reach, that the MC could use to free himself.
[] Yes
[] No
Before you all begin voting.
This is my first post, and perhaps the first like it. Let me apologize right now for any mistakes I'll be making along the way as this is very much a learning process for me.
The system I will be using for the rolls is the Star Wars FFG system; because personally, I love the narrative dies. It allows not just me, but also the players/audience to help shape the character's actions and his/her surroundings. What I mean by that is: I want to go beyond just mere voting. I want the players/audience to actively discuss the reasons for their choices to help to shape the scene, the situation the character is in, and most importantly, to help shape the story with me.
I've made the beginning and the end of the story, but the filling in between is untouched and unsurveyed. To accomplish that I highly encourage that voters discuss amongst themselves, debate even, of their choices to each other. The reasons why and the assumptions of why.
Lastly, I would just like to say to take careful consideration of the character's age and his/her profession as they have a huge impact on how the story starts off and progress.
[x]Plan Cast Iron B****
-[x] Female
-[x] Presence: A guaranteed Bonus in charisma-based rolls like Leadership.
-[x] Old Age (55):
-[x] Battleship
-[x] Normal
-[x] Yes
[x] Female
[x] Brawn: A guaranteed Bonus in strength-based rolls like one's Resilience or Melee skill.
[x] Young Age (20)
[x] Naval Marine: CQC
[x] Hard
[x] Yes
[X] Plan Starbuck
[X] Male
[X] Cunning: A guaranteed Bonus in perceptive-based rolls related to one's sixth sense.
[X] Young Age (20):
[X] Pilot
[X] Hard
[X] Yes
It should be Far Future Tech (FTL). I was gonna go more in-depth with what is going on after the character and ship is made - etc. I'll make sure to be more clear of tech levels in the future. Danke.
[x] Male
[x] Cunning: A guaranteed Bonus in perceptive-based rolls related to one's sixth sense.
[x] Young Age (20)
[x] Custom Profession: Chef : You're an up and coming Chef, possibly shadowing a master chef aboard the vessel. When a fight break out you can always count on your trusty chef knife, spice, and a full size tuna.
[x] Hard
[x] Yes
Character Creation Voting closing in: 2 to 3 hours
As far as the majority vote goes, and if it remains, our main character for this short action-packed story is an ambitious and persistent young female officer who would be in command of a several thousand-ton military vessel. Fitted with the best heavy armament the navy could offer.
Female Votes (4)
Presence Skill (3)
Young Age (3)
Battleship Captain (3)
Hard Mode (5)
Fate Points (6)
The Hedron Warship, the HMS Formidable, a battleship forged in fire and tempered in time, was left adrift and in the most undesirable situation. Her main anti-ship batteries are all currently stowed and the vast array of point defense batteries offline. On top of that, her large contingent of missile bays and torpedo tubes are empty and require manual reloading, all without the assistance of the ship auto-loaders. A slow and painful task for the crew assigned to them.
Located close to the center mass of the ship is the bridge and combat information center, the CIC. Enclosed in several layers of composite armor, and several decks of redundant protection, it is considered the "safest" location onboard a Hedron vessel. As it stands, however, the CIC itself was a mess.
<Vote Result: Young Female Ship Captain>
"Status!" Sinclair manages to cough out. Grabbing hold of a nearby console to help herself up from the floor.
Someone from the back answered above the chaos of sparks and the shorting of equipment. "We have a flameout sir! The engines need time to relight!"
"Weapon systems from bow to stern—unresponsive!" Fire control added. "They've pulled us right out of hyperspace! We're so far from the front! Since wh-"
<Vote Result: Presence>
The officer bites his tongue as he glanced upwards to catch a glimpse of Commander Sinclair's glare. "I need only critical information, Mister Leon. But noted." Sinclair says calmly, but firmly, then turns her attention to a different station. "Tactical!" she calls out.
"We're running blind sir!" Tactical manages to say before her station gave a burst of sparks. "I think I can get the auxiliary systems online, but barely."
"Work on it."
Adjusting herself, she glances at the battle map. It's a holographic table located right in the center of the CIC surrounded by several LCD screens displaying only the important and useful information for the command staff to extrapolate a plan of sorts. As it stands, however, they fizzle on and off. Useless as much as they are useful.
"Once we get the engines online. I want the drive spooled, no delays." She says to her command crew while looking up at one of the screens. They don't work though, just out of habit. "And I want to be going above light speed not below. And especially not at." She clarifies.
You never go at light speed. Ever.
The room shook as the sound of clinking metal reverberated throughout the hull. The Perusian interceptors began making their dry runs to adjust their cannons. Peashooters in comparison to the thick Bekara infused armor plating that encased the ship. However, they weren't hoping to damage it with their guns at all. No. They wanted to send a message.
"Sir!" One of the command crew called out. "CAG reports one of the hangar bays are still operational. She's requesting permission to sortie."
Options
[] Get the Engines running and make a run for it. ("Two more minutes Captain and we got propulsion. From there I can lift the safety and hit a random vector and jump.")
[] Get the Weapon Systems online. ("Fire control stern to bow are reporting power to their weapons Captain. A little bit more she'll be fighting again.")
[] Launch responsive fighters. ("Hellion, Control! Hellion 1 to 4 ready to run CAP!")
[] Negotiate with the Perusian forces. ("Captain, Comms. We're being hailed.")
[] Launch a distress beacon. (We're in friendly territory… there should be a nearby defense fleet to assist us…)
I felt the custom options were more related to getting the weapon systems online than being a totally separate option that I didn't think of. However, that being said, I felt that they were more suggestive, narratively, to what the character should prioritize first.
The Hedron Battleship continued floating adrift, its massive outdated MX-750 sublight engines flickered continuously on and off. Any limited power that can be extracted from noncritical systems were rerouted to the maneuvering subsystems. With the spare juice, the accompanying auxiliary thrusters that are placed strategically across the ship sputtered to life. However, as far as propulsion goes, it's nothing substantial. It's not enough to make quick changes in any direction and not enough to escape from the attackers.
After another strafing run, the Perusian interceptors distanced themselves from the battleship and reformed far off the starboard side. They lingered in a mass unorganized clump before they came careening in towards the stern of the ship in several wedge formations. A soft red trail lags just behind their engines.
As they approached, each interceptor deployed a missile known as "Poppers," coined by the navy pilots. For the non-pilots however, "What?," is the usual response.
It would approach its target via mixture of momentum and nonburning propellant and primed to disintegrate before impacting. Inside each missile contained up to twenty baseball size explosive fragmentation warheads, each warhead wired to a magnetic sensor and its own supply of propellant. After the initial disintegration, the mini-missiles would ignite and scatter itself before detonating; to increase its hit probability chance and lessen the chance for enemy pilots to evade unscathed.
As to where the name came from, naval pilots described the small puff of smoke closely resembling the shape of a popcorn. They're referring to the moment the missile goes "active" and scatters its cargo at the target. It's the usual telltale sign of the poppers as they are hard to pick up visually, because of their size and type of propellant, but also quite difficult to spot on most sensors.
As the description suggests, these types of missiles were deployed primarily against starfighters, but against a battleship?
No chance.
That being said—they were capable, at least to the minimum degree, to cripple a large variety of unarmored subsystems exposed to the vacuum of space. And this very much included the massive engines installed on this battleship.
<Vote Result: Get the Weapon Systems online>
= 1 Success and 4 Disadvantages
From the CIC, the crew could hear the point defense systems turn on, all fifty-six of them, as they began spitting out hot lead at varying directions. They engaged everything from the incoming popper missiles, Perusian interceptors, and harmless debris that drifted by. Everything was considered hostile.
"CIWS systems are operational Captain," one of the crewmembers on the Fire Control station says. "They're not operating at peak efficiency, but they're better than nothing."
"Good wo-" The ship rattled. Interrupting Sinclair as she spoke. Several of the popper missiles managing to score hits on the main engines.
"We just took hits on the stern sir," The damage control officer reported in quickly. "No breach, artificial damage."
Artificial damage. Just the nice way to say no holes yet.
"Tch." Sinclair's eyebrows furrowed and moved to pick up the command phone attached to the table. It rang once as she picked it up.
"Bridge."
"Engineering!" The man yelled on the other line. The sound of sparks and several damaged pipes can be heard seeping in the background.
"Status." Sinclair asked calmly.
"The explosion rendered one of the three main engines inoperable! We're checking the other two now before we proceed with the relighting!"
"How long will that take?"
"Six minutes sir! Eight if we take another hit!"
"You have four. Two if we do." She places the phone down until it clicked. Then she brought it back up and spoke. This time its connected to the ship intercoms.
"Hellion. Green for launch." Responding to the request to be launched several minutes prior. If another hit to the engines would render her ship permanently hindered, then she's not going to make it that easy.
She then placed the phone back down and looked up at the screen. Again, out of habit. "When am I gonna get some eyes?"
Sensor Tech: "Should be now Captain. Check screen."
Sinclair looked at a different screen and it displayed a static radar screen on a top down view. The middle blip displaying the battleship itself and the surrounding blips are either marked in U for Unknown or F for Fighter. Dashed lines protrude from the center screen to any of the tracked blips the ship sensors could detect.
"How many are we looking at?" She asked. Moving around the other side of the table to get a clearer view.
"Three—No—Four Perusian ships. Signatures match Cruisers and a Destroyers."
"Clear it up. I need to know what type they are."
"Aye Captain."
Comm officer: "They're hailing us again Captain. Sho-"
Sinclair moved away from the table and placed a hand on the shoulder of the Comm officer. "Message out on all Hedron frequency." She ignored the hail and continued, "Formidable dead in the water. Code Seven black. Send our coordinates."
Seven Black meant simply outnumbered and outgunned. Escape improbable.
The Comm Officer now turning back to his console and began inputting the proper format frequency. "They'll know we're calling for help. Are you sure about this Captain?"
GM/QM Note: Custom Options exist for each section. Fate Option, however, is separate.
Example of using one goes along like this: [X] Fate Point: One of the two main engines suddenly comes back online.
Options for Calling Help:
[] Yes ("Did I stutter?")
[] No ("My mistake. Delay that.")
[] Custom Option:
Options for Hellion Wing (Heavy Fighters):
[] Focus the Interceptors ("Yeee! Hiyah Yeee! We're comin' to getchu!")
[] Defense Duty ("Control, Hellion. Defensive Priority One, how copy?")
[] Harass Perusian Ships ("Hey? Why are we carrying bombs for?")
[] Spot for the main batteries ("Control, Hellion. Spotting Priority One, how copy?")
[] Custom Option:
Options for Maneuvering (limited):
[] Starboard Side towards the Perusian Fleet ("Starboard side, aye. Steady as she goes.")
[] Portside towards the Perusian Fleet ("Portside, aye. Steady as she goes.")
[] Evasive ("You're kidding right?")
[] Custom Option:
Options for Point Defense:
[] Non-restricted (Higher risk of Friendly Fire Incident, poor accuracy, but fast reaction time).
[] Limited (Lower risk of Friendly Fire, Higher Accuracy, but delayed reaction time).
[] Load HE shells ("Manual distance to target 6 to 9,000 meters!")
[] Load AP shells ("Manual distance to target 6 to 9,000 meters!")
[] Load Countermeasure shells ("Can't See Me Now" written on the side of a shell before being loaded into the tubes.)
[] Custom Option:
Options for V/SLS (Vertical/Side Launch Systems):
[] Load AFX Anti-Ship Torpedos (Several of the torpedo's have painted crossbones at the tip.)
[] Load Decoy Torpedos (Nothing substantial to note other than they look like actual explosive torpedos. Just have to make sure they're not mislabeled.)
[] Load Swarm Torpedos (They're like poppers, but stronger.)
Egh - made several edits pertaining to Fate Points. I decided to put it into its own very section. Include it in your votes if you decide to use it. Otherwise, just ignore it. I'll prob do this for future posts with multiple options.
[X] Yes ("Did I stutter?")
[X] Defense Duty ("Control, Hellion. Defensive Priority One, how copy?")
[X] Portside towards the Perusian Fleet ("Portside, aye. Steady as she goes.")
[X] Limited (Lower risk of Friendly Fire, Higher Accuracy, but delayed reaction time).
[X] Load Countermeasure shells ("Can't See Me Now" written on the side of a shell before being loaded into the tubes.)
[X] Load Decoy Torpedos (Nothing substantial to note other than they look like actual explosive torpedos. Just have to make sure they're not mislabeled.)
[X] Yes ("Did I stutter?")
[X] Defense Duty ("Control, Hellion. Defensive Priority One, how copy?")
[X] Portside towards the Perusian Fleet ("Portside, aye. Steady as she goes.")
[X] Limited (Lower risk of Friendly Fire, Higher Accuracy, but delayed reaction time).
[X] Load Countermeasure shells ("Can't See Me Now" written on the side of a shell before being loaded into the tubes.)
[X] Load Decoy Torpedos (Nothing substantial to note other than they look like actual explosive torpedos. Just have to make sure they're not mislabeled.)
= 1 Success and 4 Disadvantages