Tag: Space Zoo

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Story 54

Exotic Exhibits, part Three

As you walk into the old man’s office you find him holding a bottle of what looks like infant formula in one hand and cradled in his opposite arm is something that looks almost like a child’s stuffed play thing with black and white white fur. It probably weighs about 250 grams and is approximately 20 centimeters long.

“It is thanks to your efforts that we have this wonderful little guy here, but don’t let his tiny size fool you. When he’s fully grown this Panda of Old Strayos will probably be over 1.8 meters long and weigh a good 150 kilograms. Upon docking I wired the credits to you for your latest effort as the canisters pinged me with data about what they contained. Truly this is going to be marvelous. I am sure your notoriety will continue to grow as word of these new displays attract attention.  

However, the next task I would request of you, involves sending you someplace a little more difficult and potentially hostile, Ularos IX. They have kept genetic samples of fauna from all the worlds they have conquered. Eight of those planets are from outside our very drift system and have the potential to be incredibly diverse. Depending on how many samples you can bring me, I will pay you between 6,000 and 11,000 credits.” He sets down the formula bottle and pulls another shaving cream canister out of a drawer and sets it on his desk. “So are you up for one last mission?”

No, then walk away and gain a fame point for all that you’ve done to this point.

Yes, then travel to the mission point on Ularos IX and listen/read Story 51. Also, the plan that you and your crew come up with will require that your ship be capable of launching missiles and that you pay 1,000 credits to the chop shop on the Kiln to move your transponder ID over to one of your missiles.

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Story 53

A day at the Zhian Zoo

Your first officer starts a conversation, “When I was a kid and visited the zoo with my Dad, one of the things that stood out to me was the compactness of each animal’s habitat. At the time, I spent a majority of my time on a small scout ship out in the deep dark, so I reasoned that they probably adjusted to their confined space just like I did. But this,” says your first officer while motioning to the large sprawling exhibits, “makes me rethink that assessment.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. These animals seem so at ease in these large spaces with trees and open sky. It could take a couple of days to thoroughly check out all the exhibits.” You say this while taking another photo, tagging it and sharing it with the rest of your crew.

Meanwhile, you and your crew have been quite the interesting exhibit for many of the Zhians, as most of them have never seen a sentient being other than a Zhian in real life before. A couple of the more bold Zhians even asked if they could pose for a photo with you.

“Do you think we have enough photos yet?”, your first officer asks while looking at the newest picture you just sent.

“Probably, we should find a public dining area and try some local grub.”

“This is a zoo, it’s going to be this planet’s equivalent to fries and chicken nuggets.”

“I’m ok with that. I’m not sure I’m ready to be all that adventurous.”

“Says the mighty space explorer.”, your first officer quips.

– – – –

Upon finding a table at the zoo’s cafeteria, you send the geotagged photos to the small drone that you had carefully stashed behind some bushes when no one was near you. Your engineer had taken the time to mod it so it looked like the drones the zoo uses for giving the animals injections and drawing blood samples.

The drone goes about its mission without arousing too much suspicion. At the end of its circuit through the zoo it unloads the shaving cream canister and hides it in the same bushes where you had originally stashed the drone. As a final act, the drone flies out over an unpopulated area where it initiates a small explosion just large enough to destroy itself. The explosion was small enough that it didn’t attract any attention at all.

You recover the canister on your way back through. Once you return to the Space Zoo you will receive another ([d4]+2)x1,000 credits for the DNA samples that you gathered in addition to what you will have earned for the DNA gathered on the Aether Processing Station.

When you return to the Space Zoo if your crew is primarily human or Strayon, listen/read Story 54.

When you return to the Space Zoo if your crew is primarily Ilex, listen/read Story 70.

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Story 52

These guys are cold blooded

After docking with the Aether Processing Station and going through decontamination, including eliminating any scents, you receive permission to transport your relic to the reliquary. You load it onto your grav-sled and make your way across the station. This is the perfect opportunity to test your engineer’s environmental systems hack. 

Before arriving, you learned that the Zhian are a cold-blooded species and their space station is always warmer than others due to this fact. Their skin is not sensitive to temperature changes and they rely heavily on readouts. Your engineer has come up with a plan to override the environmental controls and lower the temperature in the reliquary to 9° Celsius, making any Zhian sluggish while making your crew just slightly cool. He activates the hack as you enter the Reliquary.

Upon entering this section of the station you are greeted by an older Zhian woman in a lab coat. “I don’t visit the Aether except a couple of times a stanyear, so it is quite fortuitous that it is during one of my visits that you brought a relic.” She gives you a toothy grin that you’re sure was supposed to be friendly, but all those long jagged teeth are a little unnerving.

“You don’t normally work here?”

“A lot of my people don’t care for the vacuum of space, including me. We have several different areas of expertise that come up here occasionally to collect research or check in on a project. Believe it or not, I’m actually a virologist so I usually sift through these relics looking for DNA and RNA strands from microscopic organisms when I come up here, but we have various biologists, botanists, and even archaeologists that come up here at times as well. I’ve really learned a lot of fascinating things by doing this.”

You offer her a lopsided grin of your own. “I was hoping we could get the two credit tour of the reliquary while we’re here.”

“I might not come here too often, but I think I can manage to explain this place. I doubt many of the other non-Zhians that have come here have ever asked for a tour. I approve of your scientific curiosity.”

There was a lot more to see in the reliquary than you expected and then there came a point where your tour guide suddenly shifted down a gear. She never stopped explaining things but she was definitely moving a lot slower. You glanced at your nav officer and he made his way back to the area in the reliquary where a lot of animal DNA was stored. As soon as the DNA was obtained your engineer started raising the temperature back to 25° Celsius. By the end of the tour the Zhian scientist was back to her animated self.

“I don’t know what happened to me back there. I must be getting hungry; I did work right through my lunch break giving the tour. Oh, let me ping your ship with a couple of tokens so you can visit our planet sometime or, if your vessel is small enough, use our gate.”

You receive the typical 1 fame point and 2 Zhian tokens for delivering a relic to the Aether processing station. Once you return to the Space Zoo you will receive ([d4]+2)x1,000 credits for the DNA samples that you gathered. Your next stop should be the Zhian Prime Zoo located at the mission point on Zhian Prime.

When you reach the mission point on Zhian Prime, listen/read Story 53.

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Story 51

From a different solar system

You realized long before you arrived that another puppet show wasn’t going to be enough. You needed something completely different to appeal to the Ilex, hence your willingness to mislead them about some unique device you would be willing to sell them for the right price. You have told them that you have a means for them to slip through a specific planetary shield with no resistance. They have agreed to the meeting in their military science building, which is also the same building where they house a lab with the genetic materials of animals they considered particularly hostile.

To prepare for this excursion, you made your whole crew follow the same protocols as if they were preparing to visit with the Zhian. Special soaps and detergents were used to eliminate scents, special clothing was made on your ship’s fabricator utilizing odorless polymers, and everyone had to force down bland diets that wouldn’t permeate your pores or make you gassy. The Ilex do not require such things, but you were trying to minimize your scent trails and just pretend that you thought they were culturally sensitive to odors like the Zhian. You did, once again, make your navigator not shave for a couple of days just in case anyone questions why he has a can of shaving cream in with his scanners and various tools. You are ushered into the conference room 

“So humans, our engineers are dubious of your claims. What type of demonstration have you prepared to convince us of such a notion?”, declares one of the Ilex sitting opposite of you at the conference table.

Your engineer speaks up, “It involves knowing that planet’s specific shield modulation and wrapping your ships in a specially engineered conductive mesh to cancel out the shield’s effect by being able to match the shield’s modulation. The complicated part…”

You raise your hand to slow your engineer down, “We figured you would have some questions about the veracity of our claims, why we would be willing to sell it to your people, and the actual cost for both the technology and the ability for you to manufacture it here on Ularos IX. Our engineer and I have a three point presentation along with computer simulations followed by a live demonstration using our own ship.”

As the lights begin to dim for the presentation, your navigator leans in close to one of the Ilex, “I’ve already seen this presentation, do you have a restroom I could use?”

The next forty five minutes passed with a very impressive looking, if scientifically suspect, presentation. Somewhere along the way, your navigator made it back alright despite what must have been an uncomfortable crawl through the ventilation system from the restroom to the cryolab.

“I know your team still has its doubts; that’s why we want to provide an actual demonstration. We are so confident in our work, we’re going to perform it in our own ship; after which I think we’ll be ready to negotiate price for this technology. Let me send you our ship’s transponder ID so you can easily track us.”

– – – –

As they monitor your ship, the Ilex see your transponder picking up a lot of velocity heading towards the gate while keeping your ship extremely close to the planetary shields and then they see your transponder make a sudden and rapid shift going back 180 back towards their military science building and suddenly there is an explosion against the shield that they can actually see with their own eyes. The one Ilex just looks at one of his senior officers and remarks, “I told you the science on that shield idea was bad.”

– – – –

“Luckily they monitor inbound traffic to the planet and don’t really worry about outbound traffic.”

Your first officer speaks up, “You have to admit that was pretty crazy hoping they would track the transponder ID and not notice that there was still a whole ship left back by the shield entrance.”

“I was flying close to the shields, making it very difficult to monitor us.”, your navigator responds.

“Besides,” your engineer jumps into the conversation, “it looks like this whole crazy scheme actually worked.”

You smile at everyone, “Well done, let’s get that canister back to the Space Zoo.”

The ship is just outside of the shield gate, and you had the wherewithal to fuel up the ship before taking off. When you return to the Space Zoo, listen/read Story 55.

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Story 50

Exotic Exhibits, part Two

“If all things go as planned for the Strayons, many of these creatures will one day be allowed to populate New Strayos but in the meantime, we can start allowing them to re-emerge into the land of the living right here in this space zoo.”, states your white bearded benefactor as he hands you the money.

The money consists of ([1d4]+2)x1,000 credit for a human or Ilex crew or 5,000 credits and an energy rod for a Strayon crew.

“So you mentioned that this consisted of three jobs, what is the next job that you have in mind?”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! I’m so delighted that you’re willing to consider the next job. This one will be a little more challenging but the payout will be worth it. There are two places for the Zhian that I need you to visit. First, it’s been reported that their reliquary contains ancient DNA from the dead worlds. The second is a zoo on their planet. In both cases I need you to sneak a few samples of some of their more exotic species. On the Aether Processing Station, you may want to take them a relic so that you and your crew gain access to the Reliquary. After that they should hand you a Zhian token making it possible to visit Zhian Prime and visit one of their zoos. Once again, each of these canisters will be stable for three stands once activated.”

This time, the old white bearded man offers you two shaving cream canisters.

If you accept the job, read/listen to Story 52 once you’ve obtained a relic and docked with the Aether Processing Station.

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Story 57

Exotic Exhibits

You agree to be tractored in and soon find yourself docked at the Space Zoo. As you disembark from your ship, you notice signs advertising various exhibits such as the Loath Land Apes, Mono-horns from Neo Damascus, and the Giant Isopods of Lunari. It would be fascinating to explore all of these if time allowed, but you were summoned here for a specific reason. Before you can contemplate further, a man with a snowy beard, dressed in a loose white button down shirt, khaki pants, a straw hat and a unique looking cane waves at you from across the landing bay.

“It is an exciting day, an exciting day indeed. Follow me to my office and I’ll go over the details of my offer.” As you follow him, he continues his enthusiastic explanation, “I have spared no expense in starting this zoo. What we have here is the largest zoo in the entire Drift System, with animals from various Lawful, Neutral, and Outlaw planets. We function as a preserve for various rare species and a way to spark the imaginations of children and adults across the Drift System. However, I want to go one step further.”

With that statement hanging in the air, he steps into his office and waves for you to follow him in. Once the door is closed, he continues, “I want species that have never even been seen by people that don’t live on a specific planet, maybe even some species that have never been in the Drift System at all. This could be quite the lucrative opportunity for you, are you interested in helping?”

If the Captain and crew of the ship experiencing this Encounter are primarily Human or Ilex, read/listen to Story 67.

If the Captain and crew of the ship experiencing this Encounter are primarily Strayon, read/listen to Story 68.

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Story 49

Master of Puppets

“Thank you for allowing us to visit.”, intones your engineer.

The puppet beside him mimics, “Thank you for allowing us to visit.”

“Oh are you just going to copy everything I say?”

The puppet also says, “Oh are you just going to copy everything I say?”.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Your hand!”

The audience on board the colony ship laughs. Luckily your comm officer had the script in advance so she could tweak the universal translator. The people on board would notice if you slipped away, so you leave it to your navigator with three days worth of stubble to leave instead with his shaving kit. Hopefully the Strayons just chalk it up to being an oddity of your species. While looking for a restroom, your navigator will also take this opportunity to go visit the cryogenics bank in the genetics lab and make a withdrawal. It was really nice that the senior officers greeted you and offered your crew a tour of the ship prior to the show, now your navigator knows exactly where to go. Hopefully the decryption device from your ship is up to the challenge of getting you into the lab, but security seems relatively lax as this feels more like a civilian science vessel.

Let’s see how much material your navigator can get into his shaving cream canister.

Once you return to the Space Zoo you will receive ([d4]+2)x1,000 credits along with your next job provided you make it within three rounds. Otherwise, the coolant system in the shaving cream canister will fail and all the genetic material will be permanently lost.

When you return to the Space Zoo, listen/read Story 50.