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UNWanted
BACKDROP: In MY 2433 several factions discovered the wreckage of a Progenitor interstellar spaceship on the farside of Nessus. After much investigation it was determined that the ships star charts were intact, and that the hyperdrive engine could be cloned.
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships star charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships returned with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts return with tales of planets who have degraded over the eons. Still other scouts failed to return at all…
By MY2475 the "Diaspora of Man" had begun in earnest, with interstellar colony ships being sent out to the far reaches of the Milky Way as fast as they could be built.
Some of the solar systems which were settled revealed relics from civilizations which predated even the Progenitors, to include an array of stargates which augmented interstellar travel to several branches of the galaxy. One such stargate lay in the Premius star system: located approximately three AU from its primary, it was made of an unknown composite material which gave the stargate a reddish tinge. Coupled with its oblique angle to the local star and the odd protrusions that covered its surface and cast intermittent long dark shadows across its otherwise reddish surface, the stargate had picked up the nickname of the Roulette Wheel.
There was another, more ominous reason the stargate had picked up this nickname: once every so often (current calculations put it at approximately 0.000001%) the stargate misfired, and any spacecraft involved were lost forever.
One such event has just occurred: a UN Resettlement transport full of refugee factions has just disappeared from the stargate without a trace. Some people wondered if the spaceship had been delivered to an unknown stargate somewhere else in the galaxy. Still others thought the ancient civilization which built the gates was still somewhere out in the galaxy, and every now and again they retuned this gate to deliver to them a sampling of the races which were currently using the gate system. The technicians who manned the Roulette Wheel had developed their own system for dealing with these “events”: the resettlement ship had simply landed on the Roulette Wheel’s unlucky 13. They marked it down as such in their logs, and moved on with preparing the next spaceship for transit….
The UN Resettlement ship New Hope had emerged from the unknown stargate and now hung above an alien, previously unknown world. The world itself was approximately 80% water, and at some time in the past an asteroid had broken up and slammed sideways into the planet, completely obliterating any landmasses that had existed in the equatorial region. Worse, it appeared that a piece of the same asteroid had impacted the stargate, as the alien monolith had obviously sustained significant damage to its exterior.
After much debate amongst the Faction leaders the choices were narrowed down to either trying their luck through the damaged stargate, or proceed down to the planet surface and wait for rescue. Both choices had their drawbacks: if they tried transitting the stargate they might end up back at their starting point in the Premius star system, or they might end up somewhere else in the galaxy, even more remote than where they were now. If they stayed and waited for rescue they would undoubtedly have to migrate to the planet below, as the New Hope was not provisioned for an extended duration. Worse, the peoples on board were not settlers: they were peoples plucked from planets who no longer wanted them, unwanted refugees being resettled (some forcibly) to new locales where it was hoped they could start anew. These downtrodden peoples were not prepared for the rigors and hardships of attempting to establish new colonies on an unknown alien world.
After conferring with the refuge Faction Leaders, Captain Jarretta agreed that the best option was to take the gamble of attempting to transit the stargate again, in the hope that it would deliver them either back to their original starting point in the Premius system, or to another known stargate. And if they ended up elsewhere, they could always make the transition again until they ended up somewhere more hospitable.
Jarretta lined the New Hope up with the stargate, and slowly entered the outskirts of the gate’s energy nexus. However as the spaceship entered the gate proper, huge energy plumes lashed out from the gate itself, raking across the bow of the New Hope, and shorting out a majority of the ship’s power systems. The spaceship, now powerless, began to drift off course, slowly heading for the side of the looming stargate. Jarretta checked the status of the New Hope’s engines, and realized the engines would not be back online in time to save the spaceship from colliding with the stargate. Realizing his spaceship was lost, he gave the command to abandon ship.
As the escape pods began to depart for the planet surface below Jarretta wondered what would happen to these peoples: forcibly evicted from their original homeworlds, lost in transit via a malfunctioning stargate, and now marooned on an uncharted alien world, it was as if the Universe itself had turned its back on them. They were the ultimate unwanteds – throw away peoples whom nobody would miss or bother looking for. As Jarretta braced for the fatal impact he wished them well…..
Directions
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "UNW", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go to the subdirectory "UNW" and choose the scenario “UNWanted”. The game will automatically load up with the PKs.
Enjoy!
D
BACKDROP: In MY 2433 several factions discovered the wreckage of a Progenitor interstellar spaceship on the farside of Nessus. After much investigation it was determined that the ships star charts were intact, and that the hyperdrive engine could be cloned.
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships star charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships returned with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts return with tales of planets who have degraded over the eons. Still other scouts failed to return at all…
By MY2475 the "Diaspora of Man" had begun in earnest, with interstellar colony ships being sent out to the far reaches of the Milky Way as fast as they could be built.
Some of the solar systems which were settled revealed relics from civilizations which predated even the Progenitors, to include an array of stargates which augmented interstellar travel to several branches of the galaxy. One such stargate lay in the Premius star system: located approximately three AU from its primary, it was made of an unknown composite material which gave the stargate a reddish tinge. Coupled with its oblique angle to the local star and the odd protrusions that covered its surface and cast intermittent long dark shadows across its otherwise reddish surface, the stargate had picked up the nickname of the Roulette Wheel.
There was another, more ominous reason the stargate had picked up this nickname: once every so often (current calculations put it at approximately 0.000001%) the stargate misfired, and any spacecraft involved were lost forever.
One such event has just occurred: a UN Resettlement transport full of refugee factions has just disappeared from the stargate without a trace. Some people wondered if the spaceship had been delivered to an unknown stargate somewhere else in the galaxy. Still others thought the ancient civilization which built the gates was still somewhere out in the galaxy, and every now and again they retuned this gate to deliver to them a sampling of the races which were currently using the gate system. The technicians who manned the Roulette Wheel had developed their own system for dealing with these “events”: the resettlement ship had simply landed on the Roulette Wheel’s unlucky 13. They marked it down as such in their logs, and moved on with preparing the next spaceship for transit….
The UN Resettlement ship New Hope had emerged from the unknown stargate and now hung above an alien, previously unknown world. The world itself was approximately 80% water, and at some time in the past an asteroid had broken up and slammed sideways into the planet, completely obliterating any landmasses that had existed in the equatorial region. Worse, it appeared that a piece of the same asteroid had impacted the stargate, as the alien monolith had obviously sustained significant damage to its exterior.
After much debate amongst the Faction leaders the choices were narrowed down to either trying their luck through the damaged stargate, or proceed down to the planet surface and wait for rescue. Both choices had their drawbacks: if they tried transitting the stargate they might end up back at their starting point in the Premius star system, or they might end up somewhere else in the galaxy, even more remote than where they were now. If they stayed and waited for rescue they would undoubtedly have to migrate to the planet below, as the New Hope was not provisioned for an extended duration. Worse, the peoples on board were not settlers: they were peoples plucked from planets who no longer wanted them, unwanted refugees being resettled (some forcibly) to new locales where it was hoped they could start anew. These downtrodden peoples were not prepared for the rigors and hardships of attempting to establish new colonies on an unknown alien world.
After conferring with the refuge Faction Leaders, Captain Jarretta agreed that the best option was to take the gamble of attempting to transit the stargate again, in the hope that it would deliver them either back to their original starting point in the Premius system, or to another known stargate. And if they ended up elsewhere, they could always make the transition again until they ended up somewhere more hospitable.
Jarretta lined the New Hope up with the stargate, and slowly entered the outskirts of the gate’s energy nexus. However as the spaceship entered the gate proper, huge energy plumes lashed out from the gate itself, raking across the bow of the New Hope, and shorting out a majority of the ship’s power systems. The spaceship, now powerless, began to drift off course, slowly heading for the side of the looming stargate. Jarretta checked the status of the New Hope’s engines, and realized the engines would not be back online in time to save the spaceship from colliding with the stargate. Realizing his spaceship was lost, he gave the command to abandon ship.
As the escape pods began to depart for the planet surface below Jarretta wondered what would happen to these peoples: forcibly evicted from their original homeworlds, lost in transit via a malfunctioning stargate, and now marooned on an uncharted alien world, it was as if the Universe itself had turned its back on them. They were the ultimate unwanteds – throw away peoples whom nobody would miss or bother looking for. As Jarretta braced for the fatal impact he wished them well…..
Directions
1) In your Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "UNW", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go to the subdirectory "UNW" and choose the scenario “UNWanted”. The game will automatically load up with the PKs.
Enjoy!
D
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