Astro Force Quest - Be the Redshirt (New Frontiers)
- Thread starter open_sketch
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- original
cokerpilot
Here comes the rain.
- Question 1: Collective Duty 1
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
- Location
- United States of America
- Question 1: Individual Freedom 1
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
- Question 1: Collective Duty 1
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
Alright, I'm updating your character sheet now.
Okay, lemme go over what's changed.
You no longer have Attributes. Instead, you just have your 4 skill categories. You can only use 1 Skill per category per Check, but you always get at least 1 dice now, even for Science stuff!
Your new Skill Category is "Mastery". This special skill category duplicates a preexisting skill, giving you a second bonus dice on it.
The one thing lacking now is Experience Points. I'll get back to you on that.
Alright, with that out of the way, I'll start writing up the next episode intro.
- Question 2: Pacifism 1
- Question 3: Go with your Gut 1
Okay, lemme go over what's changed.
You no longer have Attributes. Instead, you just have your 4 skill categories. You can only use 1 Skill per category per Check, but you always get at least 1 dice now, even for Science stuff!
Your new Skill Category is "Mastery". This special skill category duplicates a preexisting skill, giving you a second bonus dice on it.
The one thing lacking now is Experience Points. I'll get back to you on that.
Alright, with that out of the way, I'll start writing up the next episode intro.
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- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
Episode 2 -
The planet outside your window was beautiful, a swirling mix of golden yellow and purple peppered with white clouds. The yellow was the dominate plant life, long grasses and short trees, and the purple was from naturally occurring potassium permanganate in the water, apparently coming up from the shallow seabeds. According to the report you were scrolling through, the planet had a plentiful atmosphere, a fairly non-threatening ecosystem, and an ideal temperature range. The skies would be red-orange most of the long day, with twin suns dancing in the sky. It was fairly close to paradise.
You clicked to the next file, studying a picture of the natives. Humanoid aliens were not only much more common in the stars than was statistically likely, they were also much more human than was statistically likely. Humanoid species didn't just share a bodyplan, they shared facial and body language, too. The fact there was a link beyond convergent evolution was obvious, but whatever it was it wasn't genetic. You and Naut Mo'rex both smiled and laughed and cried and furrowed your brow in anger, but your closest genetic relative was a chimp and his was a sort of clawed fish. Once you got past skin deep, you didn't have any of the same organs. Heck, his genetics didn't even work like yours; he didn't have DNA the way an Earth creature did.
These aliens, the Diagonians, they were like that too. Basically humans, kind of a golden yellow like their plants, with a little cleft in their bottom lip, bony ridges along their cheekbones, and mops of beige hair. The aerostat had documented around fifteen distinct cultural groups; the one you were looking at now was from one of the southern coastal groups. She had painted red lines across her cheek ridges, and white chalk on her lips. Her clothing, simple treated animal furs, were dyed red and brown, and she carried a crude sort of bow and an axe with a head made of bone. They were very successful hunter-gathers and they'd developed a sort of pseudo-agriculture, burning areas down yearly so the young growth the next year would come in fast and bloom quickly.
Directive Alpha forbid advanced species from interfering with less developed civilizations, though it was subject to a lot of interpretation and weighed against the other directives. The Diagonians seemed to live fairly idyllic lives, so there was little reason to interfere on those grounds anyway; they had low incidence of disease, little scarcity, and operated in loose tribal groups. There was some warfare, but limited in scope.
As you were flipping through the files and pictures, your wristcomm chimed. Time to go. You just needed to stop by the armoury first to pick up your gear.
You grab your pistol and...
---
The docking bay was located two decks below the armoury, just above engineering. There wasn't a lot of space, because the Vault took up most of the center of the deck; the moonchute took a little curve around it, which was somewhat stomach-turning.
You weren't the first to arrive; your roommate was going to be piloting the shuttle and was running preflight checks. The rest of the team wasn't far behind. It was a five-man team; Lieutenant Fassbender from Engineering, Ensign Armstrong from Sciences, and Ensign Tai from Signals. The team was being lead by Commander Nessus, the head of Sciences. She was a Quoth, a vaguely avian nonhumanoid alien, and she was busily clicking something into place on a large portable scanner.
"Mission is simple." She said, in the breathless, rapid-fire patter typical of her species. "We located the aerostat, but there's no lifesigns. We'll dock and check it over. If something went wrong with it, they probably headed down to the surface, which means we have to find out where they jettisoned and follow them down. If they're alive, we need to get them back. If they're dead, we still need to get them back. If there's no salvaging it, we're going to be taking everything off the station we can, getting it over water, and blowing it up. Any questions?"
Ensign Haori's Log, February 2nd, 2179
"We were supposed to be at Extrasolar 6 today, but we're taking a quick detour. There's a UAS aerostat research post over a planet called Diagon V in a nearby system; Extrasolar 6 says they've gone dark, and they want us to swing by and see what happened. Apparently they've lost communication before due to solar storms, but it's been almost two weeks now. The station is researching the primitive people down there; humanoid hunter-gathers. The LT says I'm shoe-in for the landing party, if it comes to that."
---"We were supposed to be at Extrasolar 6 today, but we're taking a quick detour. There's a UAS aerostat research post over a planet called Diagon V in a nearby system; Extrasolar 6 says they've gone dark, and they want us to swing by and see what happened. Apparently they've lost communication before due to solar storms, but it's been almost two weeks now. The station is researching the primitive people down there; humanoid hunter-gathers. The LT says I'm shoe-in for the landing party, if it comes to that."
The planet outside your window was beautiful, a swirling mix of golden yellow and purple peppered with white clouds. The yellow was the dominate plant life, long grasses and short trees, and the purple was from naturally occurring potassium permanganate in the water, apparently coming up from the shallow seabeds. According to the report you were scrolling through, the planet had a plentiful atmosphere, a fairly non-threatening ecosystem, and an ideal temperature range. The skies would be red-orange most of the long day, with twin suns dancing in the sky. It was fairly close to paradise.
You clicked to the next file, studying a picture of the natives. Humanoid aliens were not only much more common in the stars than was statistically likely, they were also much more human than was statistically likely. Humanoid species didn't just share a bodyplan, they shared facial and body language, too. The fact there was a link beyond convergent evolution was obvious, but whatever it was it wasn't genetic. You and Naut Mo'rex both smiled and laughed and cried and furrowed your brow in anger, but your closest genetic relative was a chimp and his was a sort of clawed fish. Once you got past skin deep, you didn't have any of the same organs. Heck, his genetics didn't even work like yours; he didn't have DNA the way an Earth creature did.
These aliens, the Diagonians, they were like that too. Basically humans, kind of a golden yellow like their plants, with a little cleft in their bottom lip, bony ridges along their cheekbones, and mops of beige hair. The aerostat had documented around fifteen distinct cultural groups; the one you were looking at now was from one of the southern coastal groups. She had painted red lines across her cheek ridges, and white chalk on her lips. Her clothing, simple treated animal furs, were dyed red and brown, and she carried a crude sort of bow and an axe with a head made of bone. They were very successful hunter-gathers and they'd developed a sort of pseudo-agriculture, burning areas down yearly so the young growth the next year would come in fast and bloom quickly.
Directive Alpha forbid advanced species from interfering with less developed civilizations, though it was subject to a lot of interpretation and weighed against the other directives. The Diagonians seemed to live fairly idyllic lives, so there was little reason to interfere on those grounds anyway; they had low incidence of disease, little scarcity, and operated in loose tribal groups. There was some warfare, but limited in scope.
As you were flipping through the files and pictures, your wristcomm chimed. Time to go. You just needed to stop by the armoury first to pick up your gear.
You grab your pistol and...
- [ ] A Field Translator (Field Translators have a chance of translating anything you say, or said to you. However, they can't learn.)
- [ ] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and give you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
- [ ] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and give you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
---
The docking bay was located two decks below the armoury, just above engineering. There wasn't a lot of space, because the Vault took up most of the center of the deck; the moonchute took a little curve around it, which was somewhat stomach-turning.
You weren't the first to arrive; your roommate was going to be piloting the shuttle and was running preflight checks. The rest of the team wasn't far behind. It was a five-man team; Lieutenant Fassbender from Engineering, Ensign Armstrong from Sciences, and Ensign Tai from Signals. The team was being lead by Commander Nessus, the head of Sciences. She was a Quoth, a vaguely avian nonhumanoid alien, and she was busily clicking something into place on a large portable scanner.
"Mission is simple." She said, in the breathless, rapid-fire patter typical of her species. "We located the aerostat, but there's no lifesigns. We'll dock and check it over. If something went wrong with it, they probably headed down to the surface, which means we have to find out where they jettisoned and follow them down. If they're alive, we need to get them back. If they're dead, we still need to get them back. If there's no salvaging it, we're going to be taking everything off the station we can, getting it over water, and blowing it up. Any questions?"
- [ ] Questions?
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cB557
voOOP
[X] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and give you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
If we've got a prime directive, we'll probably be trying to avoid situations in which a translator would be handy.
[X] Questions?
- [X] Who was the crew of the aerosat?
If we've got a prime directive, we'll probably be trying to avoid situations in which a translator would be handy.
[X] Questions?
- [X] Who was the crew of the aerosat?
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
I've been trying to figure out how to work this into the narrative and failed, so lemme just lay it out here.
You have three prime directives!
Directive Alpha is your classic "don't futz with developing species."
Directive Beta is "don't stand by idly during crisis when you can help"
Directive Gamma is "don't let tyrants do tyranting, fascism bad"
You might notice all these contradict, and ask, so, which one is the most important?
Well, that's the real joy. It depends on who you ask.
Good luck!
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
Otherwise known as 'we are going to commit orbital bombardment until you have the government we are comfortable with'.
Are we sure that all developed species being human-like is not an evolutionary defence mechanism?
Have we encountered no hive-mind societies?- [X] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and give you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
[X] Questions?
- [X] Any major native settlements in the area? If they have our men, how far are we allowed to go to get them back?
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
Not all of them. Roughly half, but most of the big space empires historically have been humanoid.Otherwise known as 'we are going to commit orbital bombardment until you have the government we are comfortable with'.
Are we sure that all developed species being human-like is not an evolutionary defence mechanism?
Of the seven members of the UAS, humans included, two are actually humanoid, two are deliberately imitating humanoids, and three are nonhumanoid.
There are lots of hive mindy space empires out there. One of them is even humanoid and hive mindy!
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
- [X] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and give you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
[X] Questions?
- [X] Any major native settlements in the area? If they have our men, how far are we allowed to go to get them back?
Also, are Threadmarks no longer cool?
[X] Questions?
- [X] Any major native settlements in the area? If they have our men, how far are we allowed to go to get them back?
Also, are Threadmarks no longer cool?
- Location
- United States of America
-[X] A Hand Scanner (Hand Scanners make gathering Data easier, and gives you more options for questions to ask using Data.)
[X] Questions?
-[X] Who was the crew of the aerosat?
--[X] If they have our men, how far are we allowed to go get them back?
[X] Questions?
-[X] Who was the crew of the aerosat?
--[X] If they have our men, how far are we allowed to go get them back?
cB557
voOOP
I didn't vote for getting to know our roommate because I knew that this site would try and bang her.
- Location
- New Mexico
Hence the joke: "there's no way it can go wrong."
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
If you think there will not be a significant dating portion of my Star Trek game, you are sadly mistaken.
- Location
- in the trash
Sail the stars, see the stars, meet new and unusual alien species (most of them humanoid for some reason), and make "first contact" with them (because they're compatible for some reason).
I mean, isn't that the point of joining Astro Force?
I mean, isn't that the point of joining Astro Force?