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Story 58

Bankruptcy

In a move that has sent shock waves across the various stock markets throughout the Drift System, STARKe Pharmaceuticals has declared bankruptcy after numerous lawsuits were filed against them related to two drugs that they’ve been developing, Zylol and Volomin. 

Effective immediately, they are ceasing production of all their medications and laying off tens of thousands of employees.

As you read this article on your tablet, you suddenly realize the potentially catastrophic results this could have on your comm officer. You better talk to him about this and weigh what your options are.

Just as you are getting ready to set your tablet down, your comm officer comes strolling into the galley.

“Morning Captain, is there any coffee on?”

You look up from the article, still processing the dire news. You glance at your comm officer, noticing the carefree expression on his face, unaware of the impending crisis.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” you reply with a forced smile. “There’s coffee in the pot, help yourself.”

The comm officer pours himself a cup and joins the Captain at the table. Sensing something off in the Captain’s demeanor, he furrows his brow and asks, “Is everything alright? You seem a bit… preoccupied.”

You hesitate for a moment before deciding to share the news with your officer. You hand over your tablet, pointing to the article about STARKe Pharmaceuticals’ bankruptcy.

As he reads through the article, his eyes widen with realization. He sets down his coffee abruptly. “This is bad,” he mutters under his breath. “The craziest part is that the Volomin has been working so well for me, that even this doesn’t seem to get me down despite the dire implications.”

“How dire are the implications?”, you ask.

“Did you see any of the commercials promoting this therapy?”

You simply nod in the affirmative.

“Well, at the end of all the commercials, they always have someone reading very rapidly all the potential side effects. The last thing it says is, ‘and in extremely rare cases… death.’ Apparently, this occurs when patients start skipping doses. The nanobots that have been injected can’t be removed and they are on the hunt for the nanoparticles contained in Volomin. In another three stands, when I run out of Volomin, the nanobots are going to start burrowing into various tissues and organs throughout my body trying to find those nanoparticles that are no longer there.”

“Let’s gather the rest of the crew and see what options we have.”

You and your comm officer quickly locate the rest of the crew and explain the situation to them. The atmosphere in the room becomes tense as everyone absorbs the magnitude of the crisis. Thoughts race through your mind as you try to consider what options are available.

Your comm officer speaks up, “If I die, you should probably just space me to ensure that the nanobots don’t try to find a new host.”

“I’m glad you want to protect the rest of us, but I want some options that don’t require you to end up on the wrong end of an air lock.”, is your response.

Your navigator speaks up, “Could the auto-doc remove the nanobots?”

Your comm officer responds, “Unfortunately, no. Even if we trusted the auto-doc for hemoperfusion, which I don’t, it wouldn’t be able to identify the nanobots.”

Your engineer speaks up, “So the auto-doc couldn’t do it, but how about a surgeon or a hematologist?”

You speak up, “These nanobots are going to be difficult to get at as they spend much of their time in the brain. A surgeon that would try this would also have to be a mad scientist to even attempt to pull this off.”

“So Merv Arken.”, is your engineer’s response.

“Maybe, what are some other options?”

Your navigator snaps his fingers, “When they shut down they must have had some Volomin in production, and I bet credits to croissants that those have made their way to Smuggler’s Den.”

This time your first officer speaks up, “Kei.”

“Go on.”

“The planet Kei is the largest source of counterfeit drugs in the Drift System. If they haven’t been making it already, they will be now.”

The comm officer speaks up, “I do like being on Volomin, but black market and counterfeit drugs sound expensive.”

Your engineer pipes up, “It probably will be expensive, but hiring a mad scientist to perform experimental surgery is probably the opposite of cheap.”

Your options seem to be:

  • Sending your comm officer on a space walk without an EV suit if you can’t help him before he runs out of Volomin. After three more rounds if there is no Volomin or surgeries performed, listen to/read Story 59.
  • Going to Smuggler’s Den to negotiate for some black market drugs. If you travel to Smuggler’s Den, listen to/read Story 60.
  • Visiting Kei to get some counterfeit Volomin, which is also likely a temporary fix, but is less likely to run out of supply compared to the black market. If you go to Kei, listen to/read Story 61.
  • Figuring out how to possibly come up with the necessary credits to see if Merv Arken will try and operate on your comm officer. If you go to Merv’s Missiles or Arken’s Arsenal, listen to/read Story 62.
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Story 24

Trans-Human Project, part I

Everyone receives an incoming comm, “This is Dr Charles Truman making a broad general request to the spacer community. I’m doing research on transferring memories to a crystal matrix and I’m looking for animal test subjects. These test subjects need to meet three criteria to meet both my research needs and to make a reasonable attempt at ensuring that this portion of the project is managed in an ethical manner. First, these animals need to be generally friendly towards humans and other sentient beings. This would most likely make them a pet. Second, these animals need to have had something, be it accident or genetic in nature, that has caused them to be in a position of imminent demise that is not likely to be reversible. Lastly, these animals must have brain scans and readings that show no cognitive decline. There is no financial reward for this. The pay off is that the creature will have its memories and thoughts retained and the help you’ll be providing for my research on the Trans-Human Project.

If you come across an animal that meets these criteria, please bring it to my research lab at Neo Vostock. Thank you.”

Place the Trans-Human Project token on the mission point on the Neo Vostock [Ice Asteroid] Sector. The Mission Point is still accessible and functions as normal for various Missions.

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Story 23

Volomin

While docked in a starport, your usually grumpy comm officer seemed excited to go stretch his legs this morning. While grabbing some coffee from your galley you turn on the holo projector to catch some local news.

“…but despite the protest being broken up by the police, no major injuries were reported. In other news STARKe Pharmaceuticals, one of our sponsors, is running a large scale study on a new medication they’re developing called Volomin. Let’s take a moment and watch the ad they’ve created before interviewing one of the lead researchers.”

The projection fades out and cuts to a commercial with two women at a restaurant. The first woman says, “So Joe just got a promotion and the kids are doing good in school, why do you look so wistful?”

Woman two looks down at her plate while pushing around some noodles with a fork. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just have a hard time being happy.”

A business man arrives at the table with a tweed jacket and perfectly white teeth, “Do you have unexplained periods of depression, general unhappiness, space affective disorder, or other common mood disorders. Volomin could be the answer. Ask your doctor if you are eligible for the current Volomin trial. Volomin from STARKe Pharmaceuticals. Making you better than you really are.”

The scenes cuts away to show the woman having fun with children at a playground while a handsome man, presumably her husband, looks on and a rapid speaking voice over starts talking, “Possible side effects may include depression, general discomfort, headaches, blurred or distorted vision, loss of balance, dry mouth, numbness, periodontal disease, lockjaw, tremors, heart palpitations, varicose veins, liver damage, kidney failure, loss of taste, loss of smell, loss of sight, early Alzheimer’s, cardiac arrest, and in extremely rare cases… death. Volomin. Making you better than you really are.”

The commercial fades out and the news studio reappears with a news anchor and a gentleman in a lab coat. 

“So Dr Spiel, how does Volomin work?”

“So initially you would be injected, most likely by your PCP, with the Volomin Nanobots, but that is a one time procedure. And then you would need to take a once a day capsule simply called Volomin. The Volomin contains a special nanoparticle that, on its own, has a hard time crossing the blood brain barrier and finding the specific receptors it needs to attach to. The nanobots from the one time injection identify our specially patented nanoparticle once it is absorbed from your GI tract into your bloodstream to carry it across the BBB and deposit it at the appropriate receptors, and if the nanobots find other chemicals associated with negative emotions in those positions it removes them to give preference to our new nanoparticles.”

The anchor chimes in, “That sounds fascinating and a little scary manipulating neurochemicals.”

“Nonsense, people manipulate their neurochemistry all the time, like when they eat chocolate…”

You turn off the holo vid projector while leaving the galley and think to yourself, ‘Who would try such a thing, especially while it is still in trial?’.

You go about the rest of your day taking care of ship business. That evening there’s a knock at your hull door. You check your video feed and see it’s your comm officer returned. You pop the hatch and he strolls in while whistling a jaunty little song. You think to yourself, ‘I didn’t even know that he could whistle.’

“So what’s up that you’re in such a good mood?”, you ask with a smile.

“I just started a trial for Volomin to try and improve my mood. I really thought that I had become such a downer that it would just be a matter of time till you would want to space me.”

“You haven’t been that bad, but isn’t that drug still in trials? How are you going to get additional fills while we gallivant around the Drift System?”

Your comm officer excitedly explains, “They are looking to gain approval for Space Affective Disorder, which means they need studies in spacers as well. They’ve given me 6 stands worth of the medication with the expectation that it should get general approval for several mood disorders in the next 2-3 stands and that then gives them time to get it distributed to various planets throughout the Drift System before I run out. In the meantime they’ve contracted with various labs to do blood draws whenever we land on a planet.”

“This is the most up beat I’ve ever seen you, so I hope it all works out like you hope.”

Place six damage markers on this encounter card and remove one marker each round. In three rounds read/listen to Story 58

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Story 22

The Rivening

In front of you is a surreal image of a burned out dead planet that has an exposed core and your guidance system is overlaying anomalous gravity wells surrounding this desolate looking place. 

As you continue to just stare for another moment, you hear your first officer practically whisper one word, “Rivening.”

You simply nod, as you know she must be right.

There are old rumors of a cursed dead world, to which cursed seemed redundant to you, but this blackened planet is cracked from some great force and the planet has neither broken apart nor healed over time. The strange gravity fields surrounding it are likely the reason why it hasn’t been rended asunder. According to your scans, ember and excavation opportunities abound. Yet, this sector is unstable even for the Drift System. 

At the end of every round, roll a 20-sided die and change its location with the spawn point sector closest to your roll (ties go the higher number, and a 20 causes a re-roll). Anything on the tiles move along with them, and the tiles remain oriented in their original directions.

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Story 21

ACME

Four guys that look like they are straight out of a cyberpunk holo approach you. You allow your fingers to brush past your holster to assure you that your blaster is still handy if this goes sideways. 

The one with the short cropped spiked pink hair starts talking, “Oi pal, my names Archibald and these are me mates Christos, Matthias, and Evan. We saw you flying past all that debris out there and thought we might have something to offer you. We’ve been working on a design that uses your ship’s electrostatic barrier to send out a magnetic pulse creating a charge on all the surrounding debris and your electrostatic field then changes polarity to push everything away from your ship’s hull. The timing and strength of these magnetic charges need to vary based on your speed and the relative velocity and material components of the debris in your vicinity. We designed a magnetizing filament and database of essential information pertaining to this challenge. The resulting device, which we named after our quartet, is the ACME Repulsar.”

Intrigued, you ask, “What’s the energy draw on this?”

The one with the large gauge piercings, you think his name was Matthias, speaks up, “That’s the real beaut of the magnetizing element. It’s so efficient, you’ll hardly even notice a power draw and all the computational work is done using solid state systems, it’s just tapping into your passive sensors to read the data you were already collecting. Your holovid projector probably draws more power.”

You let out a low whistle, “Very nice gentlemen, how does this affect me if I want to do some scavenging?”

The one with a spider web tattoo coming up his neck and wearing lots of leather straps that each holster various techno-gadgets, Evan maybe, starts talking, “I’m a scavenger myself and that is a limitation to the Repulsar. If you want to do some scavenging work you’ve got to turn it off, else you’ll never get close enough to it.”

“That’s about what I figured, but how much space will this take in my ship’s hold?”

The other three glance at the one with long hair. When you look him in the eyes you can see that he has digital overlays on his contacts. “I did a lot of the physical layout and construction. I tried really hard to keep it compact without compromising on its intended purpose. It requires one standard cargo space and most of that is for housing the magnetic element. I think we’re all proud of the design. This is the first thing we intend to put the ACME stamp of approval on.”

The other three just nod their heads in agreement.

“So how much are you asking?”

Archibald speaks up again, “We’re looking for 2,000 quid, take it or leave it. It’s a point of pride, the four of us have already agreed we can’t take less.”

Do you purchase the ACME Repulsar for 2,000 credits?

Yes, pay the men their 2,000 credits and install your new ACME Repulsar.

No, discard this encounter card, and continue on with your turn.

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Story 20

Aren’t you the Merchant?

Just as you, your first officer, and your engineer enter a local diner, a well dressed party of three are settling up with the waitress and a server tells you that they’ll have a table for you in a couple of minutes. You nod your head and several minutes later the waitress is seating your party.

“Well that was convenient getting seats so fast at this time of day.”, you comment to your waitress.

“The guys that were just at this table were waiting for some sort of business meeting so all they had ordered we’re a couple of raktajinos and an ice water. After twenty minutes had passed they apologized for holding up a table during lunch, paid for their drinks, and left.”

Your engineer has a little smile as she comments, “The best part of this story is that I now know you make raktajinos. I’d like to order one myself while I decide what I want to eat.”

You and your first officer also order beverages, and when the waitress brings everyone their drinks the three of you place your lunch orders as well. Just as the waitress takes your lunch order back to the kitchen, a middle aged man in a rumpled suit comes to your table.

“I’m so glad the three of you waited for me. Traffic was a bear and I hate trying to message people while I’m driving.”

The waitress reappears, “Hey sugar, can I take your order?”

The man twists around to see the waitress, “I’ll take a water with whatever alkalizing fruit you offer to garnish it with here, and your daily special listed on the board up front.”

“How do you like your beefalo?”

“Welldone”

“I’ll be right back with your water, but the kitchen is pretty busy, so it’ll be a few ticks till your food is ready.”

“That’s the first thing that has gone right for me today, I’ll need the time to pitch my invention. Also, put everyone at this table on my bill.”

Your first officer starts to object, but you just clear your throat and say, “I’m looking forward to learning all about your invention.”

As it turns out, the guy in the rumpled suit is named Emory Erickson and he has developed an amazing piece of technology, the transporter pad. It can near instantaneously teleport an object or objects. It can teleport solids, liquids, gasses, even organic materials. Despite having a Heisenberg compensator to help with the uncertainty related to the position of subatomic particles it is not considered adequately safe to transport living creatures or electronics with quantum computing. It can either teleport items to the pad or away from the pad, but it can not do both simultaneously. The transporter pad has a range of five spaces. 

“I have to admit, I’m really glad that you brought an engineer with you. I thought I would be stuck just talking to a bunch of suits entirely focused on ROI.”, states Emory.

Your first officer speaks up, “Well understanding how it works, makes the ability to save on fuel and time much more obvious.”

At this point, you chime in, “Well we should get down to brass tacks. How much are you asking for a device that has yet to be tried in a true commercial environment?”

Emory replies, “So, knowing this last part was going to be inevitable, I actually drafted two sales agreements. Obviously you’re going to want to take a few ticks and read them carefully, but the basic gist is that either you can pay 2,000 credits to fully own it immediately, or you have to agree to wire me 50% of your next three sales regardless of whether you use the transporter pad for the sale or not. If you’re so inclined all you need to do is thumb the pad.”

You have several options at this point:

  1. Buy the transporter pad for 2,000 credits.
  2. Buy the transporter pad for 50% of your next three sales (rounded up when necessitated).
  3. Walk away having had a nice free lunch on Dr. Erickson’s dime, but without the transporter pad.

Regardless of what decision you make, if you have any actions left, you may continue your turn.

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Story 19

Multiplicity

Respawn in two different locations on the board using the respawning rules. If the same position is acquired for both respawns, re-roll your second respawn, and place the Bilocation cube on the second location. 

Something is wrong! You’ve never heard of anyone feeling like this when they respawned. You try focusing on your instrument panels to see where you respawned at and it’s almost like double vision except the two images aren’t quite the same. The instrument panels themselves seem ok, but it’s the readout, or is it readouts? The display seems to show two different locations. You close your eyes and focus for a moment, and then look back at the instruments. You can see that you are looking through two different sets of eyes. With that in mind you can discern separate instrument panels on separate identical ships and you are on both. Whether everyone on your crew has ever respawned after a catastrophic space event or not, they all realize something is wrong. You can tell that you are in two separate positions in space simultaneously. It makes discerning the two places from each other difficult, but with focus you can tell the difference.

Being in two locations at once is wrong and you know it. You need to merge your two instances by flying to the same location. You have four full rounds to achieve this, or both copies of your ship are destroyed and you respawn once more in a single location. Meanwhile both ships somehow share resources. 

Use the Bilocation Card along with a silver set of armed markers and an impulse token and four damage markers to track things that specifically impact the Bilocation Cube. Take a moment and look at the Bilocation Card.

Near the top of the card is a round tracker. Use the damage tokens to track the completion of each round. At the end of each round place a damage marker on the round tracker. If the ships are not yet merged prior to the forth marker being placed both ships will blow up and you will respawn in a single location with just one ship. The Armed and Disarmed markers are managed the same way as on your ship mat, and both ships have the ability to utilize their impulse.

When using your silver colored markers to do various things with the Bilocation Cube they also use up activation spaces on your Outfits. As an example, one ship could use your Engine Outfit twice and the other could use it once and now all three available activations have been utilized. On the positive side, between both ships you could take up to eight actions if you needed to utilize various outfits. Each marker re-armed does require one energy regardless of which ship needs to have a marker re-armed. You may, as always, choose to leave some of the markers disarmed. Both ships do have an impulse token. You also share cargo holds, so you could pick up cargo on one planet, give the cargo one round to fully merge with both ships and sell it on another planet from the other ship. You may also use your bilocation to speed up completion of Mission and Goals if new missions are picked up during this time. If one ship is damaged or destroyed it affects both ships. A good bonus is that if either ship ends its turn on a living planet,  the Energy tracker may be moved to full and all markers may be moved to armed. Ship special abilities can still only be activated once per round.

Merging both ships together before the end of the fourth round prevents the ships from being destroyed and earns you 1 Fame Point.

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Story 18

Cinder-Beard the Retiree

A comm comes in and you nod to one of your officers to put it on. As your screen resolves you see one of the great menaces of the black ocean, Cinder-Beard the Pirate.

“Avast ye! I come with an offer.

In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labor; but in this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking. No, a merry life for me which I expected would be much shorter. When I started this my beard was solid black, but now it is gray all the way through.

It is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King, but now I look for my swan song through a passing of the baton, as it would be. I offer up my ship and my own base, Athamantis, but for some coin as I look to retire to a calmer life fit for a prince.

I will give you each one stand to make an offer and then leave access to my effects at the Kiln, but know that I will not accept too paltry a sum.”

With that final pronouncement, the view screen fades to black, but the appearance of the garishly dressed old salt remains in your mind.

Your comm officer cuts into your thoughts, “It appears that his message was sent on a tight beam to a very limited audience.”

You simply nod, as that is about what you expected.

Each player, at the end of their turn, may make a silent offer to purchase both Cinder-Beard’s ship and his asteroid base. After every player has had an opportunity to make a silent bid, writing the number down, all the bids are revealed. If the bid is for less than 5,000 credits, it is thrown out as not being a serious offer. The highest bid wins and immediately wires the funds to Cinder-Beard. Remove Cinder-Beard’s ship from the board and place Athamantis Asteroid Base at TK-421 on a space with asteroid debris (the winner of the auction may choose the precise location). If for some reason that sector has not been revealed, as soon as it is revealed you may place Athamantis then. 

If you are the winner of this silent auction, receive your new ship at the Kiln. You may sell your current ship at 50% value. You will need the ship that was flown by Cinder-Beard to access the Athamantis Asteroid Base. Your new ship does begin play with an outlaw marker and add 1,000 credits to any bounty you currently have. Athamantis can only be accessed by you and is well protected. You may safely dock there to avoid entanglements, you can store supplies and materials there, and its generators produce enough excess power that you could refuel your ship up to 10 energy if you dock there. Winner of the auction also gains 2 fame points.

Clarifications: If there is a tie, then those players may make additional bids out loud until there is a winner. If no one makes an adequate bid, Cinder-Beard simply does not retire, and the asteroid base does not come out. 

Additional info about the Athamantis Asteroid Base: Only Cinder-Beard’s old ship can dock there, no other ship can. The asteroid debris space functions as regular asteroid debris for others when trying to pass through, but when Cinder-Beard’s former ship passes through that area it does not need to roll for damage.

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Story 17

Space Dad

While docked at the Kiln, a text only comm comes through letting you know that your father is also visiting the station and would like you to join him in the Casino during dinner. You figure that you haven’t seen him for awhile, and that it would be good to catch up.

– – – –

Upon arriving at the Casino, you let them know whom you are here to meet with and they show you to your table. Apparently you got here ahead of your father as no one else is at the table.

The lights go dim and curtains part revealing a stage with a familiar looking man under the spotlight.

“Good evening ladies, gentlemen, Ilex.”, your dad declares while looking around the room. “Did you know that the Ilex are their own best friend?”

“I’ve been asked to do some stand-up comedy, but really I prefer to sit down.” Your dad gives a meaningful look at the stool he’s seated on. “I love telling jokes, but it’s even better when one of your children is in the audience. Hey Kiddo, wanna hear a joke?”

Another stage light finds your table, “No thanks.”

“Awesome possum, I have some great ones for you.”

“Wait, that’s the opposite of what I just said.”

“Oh look, here’s a ukulele. Maybe I can sing them instead.”

As your dad begins to strum the ukulele, you let your head ‘thunk’ on the table. Then the song begins…”

This is my Dad’s joke song
I sing it with socks and sandles on
I hear you groan but it’s true-oooh
You smile on the inside too
When vegans start to argue, is it still called a beef?
I knew someone addicted to soap, but now they’re clean.
I like puns, that’s how ‘eye’ roll.
I know they’re terrible, but I made them musical so sing along
This is my Dad’s joke song
I sing it with socks and sandles on
I hear you groan but it’s true-oooh
You smile on the inside too…

The routine continues and somehow the audience ends up liking your dad. Your dad’s inclusion of you in his routine even gains you some notoriety on the Kiln. (+1 Fame Point)

If you have any actions left, you may continue your turn.

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Story 16

The Great Reset

You hear a strange insect-like buzzing noise come over your comm system. Suddenly the entire Drift System has a massive shift! 

One of the unique things about the Drift System that physicists and philosophers have been pondering for over a millennium now is why the Drift System functions so differently from every other observable solar system with sectors occasionally shifting location and yet not experiencing catastrophe during those shifts, but never in recorded history has something of this magnitude happened to the Drift System.

You thought you had a pretty good idea as to where everything was and where you were heading to next, but that’s not true anymore. Remove every tile if it is not one of the Nyr [Star] tiles, or if it does not have a player ship, an NPC, space station/lab or ice asteroid on it. The tiles that are left still sitting out, draw them in closer to Nyr [Star] until they all connect, edge symbols do not need to match. If there are any tiles that seem difficult to discern where they should go, allow the player to the right of the active player to make any final tile placement decisions.

The tiles that have been removed are to be shuffled and need to once again be discovered through exploration. In addition, The Hive sector also now needs to be added to the stack of tiles that are being shuffled. Relics and Exploration Tokens will be placed on these tiles as they are discovered again. If tiles had overlays on them, you will need to replace overlays on them again immediately when those tile(s) are re-discovered. Debris tokens and virus tokens on the tiles that were reshuffled have been removed. If a planet was killed by a virus, a space kraken, or the Rikishi Event, it is still dead when it is re-discovered.

It doesn’t take long for the media outlets to start referring to this event as the Great Reset. Place the Great Reset Token on Nyr to signify that this occurred.

When The Hive sector is discovered, read/listen to Story 56.