Game Idea 7-28-2017 The Invasion

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jayphailey
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Game Idea 7-28-2017 The Invasion

Post by jayphailey » Sun Nov 03, 2019 7:12 am

Game Idea 7-28-2017 The Invasion

The PCs pick up a distress call from Sherose Station. It's a civilian trading post in the Idyllwild system they are passing near.

The two callers don't know much about working subspace transmitters but manage to convey that they have been abandoned on the station which is now under attack. They need assistance quickly. The attackers are sort of semi humanoid crab things, which claws and red sensor eyes and blaster built into the claw-hand. They're some weird battle droids.

As the PCs ship closes, they find Sherose station. It's a civilian station. A city in space. It does all the city things as well as supporting commercial shipping. It is lightly defended. It's away from anything interesting in an adventuring sense.

It is showing lots of mechanical forms moving around and 8 people in various places on the station.

It is also broadcasting a beacon. "Sherose Station is suffering an invasion of hostile war machines. They are dangerous. Control will be restored soon. Please do not dock. Control will be restored soon."

The Mechs are broadcasting a dampener field. Someone would need and activated commbadge or communicator to beam through this.

The PCs may want to invade the station and fight robots to get to the refugees. This is an appropriate response.

The war bots are physically tough, but nothing special technologically. They aren't sentient. They just have a really good game level AI. Their carapaces are tough and resistant to heat.

But prolonged phaser fire or multiple phasers hitting at the same time, the machines will go down. Multiple hits by different phasers on stun in one round will take these things down instantly. The armor is effective-ish against the more destructive setting on phasers, but their systems aren't well shielded against the sort of energy pulse that stuns humans and derezzes machines. Multiple phasers at slightly different frequencies just completely overwhelm any defenses these robots have.

Taking one apart will reveal they are constructed from commonly available components and materials. Their weapons are old Klingon Disruptors stripped and mounted in an arm housing.

If the PCs want to, they can with some work, hack into the Subspace network these robots are using and try to hack them. Their brains are standard commercial processing units. They have decent security measures and have been locked down. But a decent hacker should be able to get in. Every bot in the network is available to override.

Or, they can just shoot them. Because these things have a sort of armor, that makes them tough enough so that shooting them with rocket launchers, bazookas or attaching demolition charges to them is satisfying.

The bots will identify any "enemy" sentient life form and attack it. They move towards it shooting and then will engage with their claws.

The PCs will probably see the remains of a few people dispatched in such a fashion. Not pretty.

They will use cover and team tactics precisely to the degree that is amusing for GM and players. Modern PC war game mobs can use cover, concealment and alternative routings to give players hell. So these should have the ability, too. But this should be tuned for what makes a fun experience for the PCs.

There's a LOT of robots. So much that it's statistically likely someone's going to get shot and killed by them or torn to pieces by claws, the longer they go. They have to be tough every round, while the Robots only have to get lucky once. This is why the station's security fell back.


The refugees

1) Dona Wu Human (f) - late 20s. She has not been thriving in her life. She has been drugging and partying and getting along on a deficient skill set. She woke up from a drug induced stupor to find the robots had taken over. She needs some emotional therapy and skills therapy.

2) Kaja Gold Orion (m). He has a hangover from an epic Dr. Pepper binge (Dr. Pepper is a serious intoxicant for Orions) He plays tough, but he's actually a low rent space hand. He was ditched by his crew when he was too intoxicated to get going. He too awoke to find himself in a trouble situation.

3) Keela Bonoran Bolian (f)
4) Hammaman Gorola Bolian (m)

These two work at a local freight brokerage. They're married. But not to each other. They turned off all devices to prevent being tracked and found out. Their assignation had them out of touch when the station was evacuated.

5) Keeboo Falnor; Ferengi (m). He was in his vault with his life savings of gold pressed latinum and out of touch when evacuation sounded. He's a dick. He has a phaser but doesn't like to use it because he's afraid it'll draw more robots. He'll let someone else use it, so long as they specifically agree it's only a loan, and the title to the weapon stays with him.

6) Grekka Falnor, Ferengi (f). Keeboo's wife. She's wearing a mix of things she's found and looted. This outrages the old fashioned Keeboo, who loudly complains his wife should naturally be naked. She's about had it with Keeboo and may assault him at any moment. She's greedy and grasping, but she's not an idiot about it.

7) "Darktreader" (Timmy Macklin) Human (m)
8) "Ghoststory" (Jenny Moelisch) Human (f)

These two are goths. Heavy make up, dressed in black, they listen to horrible music and if you make the mistake of letting them think you want to hear it, they'll explain how humanity is a stain on the galaxy, one the galaxy is fixing to cleanse itself of its human contamination.

They were actually in the middle of an amateurish attempt to break into Keeboo's vault when they heard him screaming and left the hacked Jefferies tube to see what was the matter. They have a good set of tools on them, but they're all painted black with lyrics from The Smiths and The Cure all over them.

They're pretending that they don't know anything and were passed out from an authentic 20th-century punk rock heroin binge, because they're so hard core.

The GM should feel free to make up unlikely combinations of drugs and unlikely methods of consumption from the 20th century. These kids are runaways and they've never touched any serious drugs and have no idea what they're talking about. "We passed out from freebasing tylenol." and so on.

The PCs may want to escort the civilians to one of the station's transporters to they can beam out. Two transporters working in tandem should be able to overcome the Robots interference field.

Or maybe they want to get the refugees to life pods so they can eject them.

Maybe listening to an acoustic cover of "Pets." makes ejecting without the pods sound like an viable option.

https://youtu.be/_C2-Mfc1s0g

Maybe they want to capture a shuttle and use it to flee.

Or maybe they brought transporter beacons. At that point, the adventure becomes tracking down hiding and fleeing civilians until you can slap the beacon on them and beam them to safety, while shooting droids and not getting shot.

-*-


Space Orcs.

The robots were an attempt by Space Orcs to build an army of battle droids.

Just who the space orcs are in this case is up to the GM.

I made up Malovids. Humanoid sheep people who just resent the hell out of everyone for being tougher, smarter, cooler and so on than they are. Malovids are spiteful and mean. So they make enthusiastic if not very bright opponents. (They have high technology because someone gave it to them to use them as a deniable force to give the Federation hell.)

Or this might be the work of a crew of Pakleds.

Was the release of the battle-droids an accident? A deliberate attack on Sherose station?

Was it a distraction from the real target of the Space Orcs?

Left for the GM to decide. A Pakled master mind who sounds as dumb as hell but is actually pursuing a serious evil plan might be fun. But if he gets away with playing dumb and escaping the PCs too many times, they may want to kill you if they discover he's been the Big bad they were chasing all along.


-*-


Tetryons

Tetryons are particles associated with Subspace. They can be weaponized. Different races have used Tetryon beam weapons and mines.

An unprepared ship or station can be totally shut down by these. They have the effect of stunning all devices that use subspace to function. Civilian or older Starfleet gear will be utterly shut down and require a manual reset. Warp drives, shields, and computer gear are especially vulnerable.

Modern Starfleet ships can detect tetryon weapons and shield against them, to one degree or another. Modern Starfleet Equipment also has robust self-resetting functions so a Tetryon stun effect lasts a much shorter period of time.

-*-


When dramatically appropriate, an Idylwild Patrol ship roarsd up to Sherose station and fires torpedoes into it. Tetryon torpedoes. This will shut down the station and all surviving robots.

Dramatically appropriate would mean, when the PCs have managed to escape the horde of battledroids and return to their own ship.

Then Idylwide defense people will start boarding the station to secure it.

They'll inform the PCs that a message was sent to Starfleet command, but comm delays are a thing in this area. At that moment a message will reach the PCs where Starfleet Command tells them to respond to a distress call at Sherose Station and to go lend all assistance possible.

So the Idyllwild system is prepared to take care of themselves until Starfleet shows up.

But thanks for rescuing the stragglers!

The Idyllwild security forces fought the robots, but it became clear there were too many to take in small unit combat. They evacuated the station (That's where all the ships and shuttles are, at Planet Idyllwild not far away carrying refugees.)

Then they went to a near by Starfleet outpost and hacked together a tetryon torpedo

The Idylwilde ship destroyed its engines getting to the base and back as quickly as possible.

If the GM wants to put the thing into the PCs hands then he could have the Idyllwild ship break down out of range and have the PCs be the only hope for putting tetryon torpedoes into their station, saving it from the Battledroids.

Or you can go one step back and have the Idyllwild defense force tell the PCs that they think a Tetryon torpedo would be the thing to solve this, but only the PCs can do it.

-*-

Do the PCs investigate to track down the source of the Battle Droids?

Do they adopt one or more of the NPCs?

Do they hand it all of to the Idyllwild authorities and continue about their business?

That's up to them!

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