Author: Marcelo Paschoalin

Okay, I had the chance to GM UW with my gaming group. We played for 11 hours (5 hours the night before, 6 hours on Sunday).

We had a crew of 4: a cylon skinjob industrial-tecnocrat (with her trusty AI made of nanites, and a personal starfighter), a trobian medic academic-clandestine (new race a player created: basically humans with carapaces on their joints), a human chief of security military-explorer, and a mechanic chief personality-starfarer (with his band of armed not-so-merry men).

They created their chars in 30 minutes or so, but spent a good hour on their ship layout. This included checking visual references online and discussing the ship specs. In the end, it was a 3-deck ship (lower deck was quarters and sickbay; middle deck was cargo bay with two fighter launch tubes and engines with the chief of security’s bunker; upper deck was the helm with dedicated comm station).

Then we discussed Whose Ship is That Anyway? And they followed the military route. So, I ruled they had other 5 fighters at disposal (with a similar amount of red shirt pilots, callsigns chosen by the cylon: Hot Dog, Big Mac, Burguer… and so on), two marines, and a few extra red shirts.

(On a second thought it may be too much, but they were enjoying, so I let them roll with that: the limits were “if it could fit somehow on a modified Millenium Falcon, you can have it”)

We talked about the Factions (each player created one and I added another one in the mix: the Border Worlds), and we were ready to go. I started to ask questions.

I found out there are a few other races in the universe (including Vulcans and Toris AKA Space Vikings), but the particular subsector they were in (randomly generated) was mostly humans.

The Military was part of the United Confederation of Planets (UCP).

The UCP fought a war with the Toris and won (with help from the Border Worlds).

The Border Worlds are on the “upper” part of the subsector, they started on the “lower”.

They only had data scan of 4 planets linked by jump points at first.

Earth does exist, but it’s far far far away.

Inter star system comm is almost instantaneous. Each hex of distance adds 30 minutes to that (to a maximum of 48 hours), so there’s almost no “live discussion with home base”.

The players decided one of them would be the commander of the ship (I gave the option of a NPC commander). After some discussion, they almost had the chief of security as CO, decided the medic would be the one.

This made them decide they had a Medical Ship and named it after a real Brazilian medic that appears on TV giving tips on a major network… So, we had the UCS Varella (United Confederation Ship Varella).

Considering this, I suggested assigning ranks to them. They found it would be a good idea and rolled with that. Our cast become:

*Commander Scatt, Trobian Medic

*Captain Caprisix, Cylon CAG

*Lieutenant Bruck, Human Chief of Security

*Lieutenant Arvos, Human in charge of the Hangar

Other crew:

*Ensign Allura v2, the AI

*Lieutenant Camino, the grumpy by-the-book Medic

*Lt. (j.g.) Rupert, outgoing nurse

*5 Fighter jocks named after fast food items

*2 marines

*The 8 not-so-merry men

*6 other wildcard redshirts

The UCS Varella had a crew of 28, could operate with 4 or 6, and would be able to have a total body count of 50 or so humanoids… At least that was the idea.

(and if you are reading this untill now, you deserve a Medal of Valor for braving this wall of text)

We started with a distress signal from a cargo ship (borrowing heavily from Traveller this time, as they were not familiar with that and I knew the speech by heart: “Mayday, mayday! This is the free trader Beowulf…” you know the rest).

They sent two fighters to investigate and moved toward the derelict ship. It was losing pressure in three points, but there was no signs of attack. Suddenly, a blip in their sensors gave the postion of a unknown fighter. One of the fighters was hit, and the Varella opened fire. The bogey evaded and drop a mine layer. Hot Dog shot a missile salvo, it hit the mines, and after the explosion there was no sign of the bogey. However, they were not so far from the system’s core mass, and a jump there would be impossible… Ot that bogey was obliterated, or it jumped from a position no ship could…

(at least that was what they thought; in fact, it had stealth measures and it became cloaked, flying away)

Yet Lt. Arvos found out the bogey emitted ionic traces… And only the Border Worlds used ionic drives (the UCP used anti-grav and fusion drives).

The started rescuing the crew of the Beowulf (6 people on the ship’s manifest; found 3, all dead, and stopped searching). It seemed the depressurization happened from the inside the ship.

They waited for a reply from the fleet and were told the Beowulf should be completely destroyed. Not even debris should remain. When that was taken care, the Varella should contact the fleet again.

I ended the first session with a bleep on their comm system: Message from Admiral Tolwyn of the UCS Victory (yes, I borrowed that from Wing Commander series). The players wanted to know what the message was, but I ended with that cliffhanger.

When we resumed the game, the very next day, they found out the Varella should rendez-vous with the UCS Victory on a nearby system. Admiral Tolwyn asked a few questions too (remember there’s no “live” talk). They mentioned the ionic drives and their suspicions…

Borrowing again from Wing Commander (IV), on their way to the rendevous-point they watched Admiral Tolwyn talking to the UCP Council telling them the Border Worlds would be investigated, their ships couldn’t enter UCP space without escorts, but he was hesitant of calling this a state of war. If, and when, he had more answers, he would address the Council again.

The rendesvouz with the UCS Victory gave them the glimpse of what is a Class 4 ship: the Varella could dock in the Victory’s hangar.

Tolwyn would receive Commander Scatt personally. Captain Caprisix decided to meet Allura v1 (the player told me she prevented the old model from being decomissionated and that led to a warm roleplay scene when they met). Lt. Arvos met Victory’s Chief of Maintenance and exchanged a few word, got a few replacement parts, and as he was Famous, he also grabbed a oxigen tank full of the beer the mechanics of the Victory made. Meanwhile, Lt. Bruck was aboard the Varella, monitoring the situation… and noticing the Victory was accessing the full ship database…

Long story short, the Admiral asked a lot of questions regarding the attack, demanded nothing should be included on the logs (including the personal logs), and asked all evidence should be purged from the Varellas computers. When Commander Scatt allowed that, all related data was erased.

The Admiral also asked the Varella to escort three cargo vessels from a nearby system to a (new system, at least for them) planet with a large refinery.

They left, jumped to the starting point, met with the three vessels… and Captain Caprisix scanned them: they were carrying two large lead containers (and lead prevented further analysis… but the ships’ manifest indicated they were carrying lead sheets). Three fighters were sent to escort them. The Varella followed suit.

During the journey, the Varella’s sensor indicated a Border Worlds’ transport ship (ionic traces) on the edge of the system. As no Border Worlds vessel should operate without military escort, one of the fighters was sent to intercept it, and the Varella broke formation to give support.

The BWS Pathway ignored the hailing at first, but then revealed they wouldn’t bow to the UCP directives, as they believed in a free space for all. After warning shots were fired (and ignored), Commander Scatt gave the order to neutralize, the Pathway (and destroy it if it gave resistance).

The Pathway had two cannons (one up, another down) only. The idea was to shot one of them, and shot the engines…

The problem was the 6- rolled.

And the Get Invoved with 7-9…

Basically, the cannon was disabled and the engine hit. However, due to a chain reaction in the contention array (I love technobabble), the engine would explode soon. The Pathway then sent a distress signal, saying they were attacked by UCP ships… and revealed they were carrying women and children in large amounts.

I set my smartphone to a 15-minute countdown and asked them what would they do.

Two players wanted to destroy the ship (We are following orders!), other two wanted to save the refugees (They will die if we do nothing!). I told them the countdown was running and that was the deadline for taking any action.

It was great to see their struggle.

Meanwhile, the Pathway’s CO didn’t want “to be saved just to become prisioner”… and one aboard shot him in the head, saying they wanted to be saved. After that mutiny, the players’ discussion became louder, as some didn’t want to see armed people aboard the Varella…

And to make things worse: the Pathway carried 63 women, 19 children and 58 men.

When the clock showed 1 minute left, they decided to rescue them, forcing them to be on the hangar/cargo bay, provided they entered unnarmed (Varella’s redshirts would verify that, including checking the children toys). That meant no other fighter could launch and all refueling would be made externally.

A few rolls showing 7-9 also gave them a surprise: during the rescue, they external launch tube door jammed, and the hasty decision was to manually explode the mechanism in order to shut it. That worked, but caused a small rupture on the launching tube, and they didn’t had the materials to repair that… Without repair, entering atmosphere would blow the ship.

The solution was to use the lead sheets in the escorted cargo vessels… but that meant sending people on a space walk to meet one of the fighters out there and use it as a transport.

Meanwhile, the current leader of the refugees revealed they were fleeing the Border Worlds due to the war booming on the frontier. They were a peaceful cult who believed in the divinity of every being (and also angels), and simply wanted to be away from the conflict…

Yet one of the not-so-merry men became fond of one of the rescued ladies and advanced on her. The Chief of Security saw that and prevented the conflict of escalating… But when she returned to her “bunker” he and a pal followed her. A few punches, another matrix movement, and she was able to grab both by the neck. What she decided to do? Kill them both.

She told the Commander what happened and he put her in the Brig (yes, now we have a brig… on the engine section of the ship, near “the bunker”) for the moment. The leader of the rescuees met her there and gave her legal advice (basically, “do not answer any questions, as if this indeed becomes a Court Martial matter, you’ll may be in trouble”)…

On the cargo ship, a team was assembled to retrieve the lead sheets. However, the container had an electronic lock no one had access… They hacked the door, but it emitted a kind of distress signal.

Inside, there was no lead sheet. They were carrying large ionic drives.

Considering the problem at hand, they dismantled the lead door and used that as a makeshift repair, allowing the Varella to land more-or-less safely on the refinery planet.

Repairs made en route to the destination, they landed on a very harsh planet with no vegetation on the surface (bio traces showed edible fungus in tunnels below). The refugees agreed to be deployed on a large island far from the refinery and that allowed the Varella to follow her mission… Cap. Caprisix also convinced the Commander he needed to free Lt. Bruck, at least for now, as she may be needed.

Scanning the refinery resulted in nothing: it was built on a dense metal mountain (they were refining those metals there). And more: the refinery was heavily guarded (they used military-grade rifles).

Asking to see the one in charge, Captain Caprisix and Lt. Bruck met with a man who saluted them in military fashion. She asked about the ionic drive and he said it was needed to power the drilling machines… and as those ionic drives were far more powerful than usual UCP stuff, the Admiralty decided to use them off the record. Saying their farewells, and with more questions than answers (and asking themselves if Admiral Tolwyn was playing them to incite the war), they returned to the Varella, now fully operational once more.

Without another directive, the Commander decided to return to receive new orders (and ask other questions). However, near the border of the system, the UCS Victory jumped near them.

“Varella, this is Victory-Actual. Are you in a secure line? I need to talk to you directly… without your crew.”

Everyone exchanged glances when the Commander asked the transmission to be transferred to his quarters… There, Tolwyn said he was extremely disappointed with him, as his mission was to escort the cargo vessels only, not to pry and see what they were carrying, as that was a matter of utmost tactical importance…

Meanwhile, I took a piece of paper and scribble a little. Then I gave it to Cap. Caprisix, who was at the comm/sensors station. “You notice the UCS Victory is powering all their weapons.”

Tolwyn continued, “So, Commander, it’s my displeasure to do this, but as duty commands me that, it’s something I must…”

Cap. Caprisix gave me the paper back. “Preparing Wild Jump.”

“So,” said Tolwyn, “goodbye, Commander.”

“What does he mean by ‘goodbye’?,” asked the other players. “What’s happening?”

I described the energy beams and the missile salvos… And then Caprisix said those four letters: “J U M P”

I ended the session right there. My players looked at me with an incredulous look on their faces…

No one knows what’ll happen. I’ll leave the Wild Jump roll to the very next game.