Traveller - Genesis of an Idea (Spoilers for 'This Fear of Gods')

 

The original idea

I'm trying to get the BITS website active again (which is proving a challenge as the main website file for Rapidweaver appears corrupted). Doing this has needed me to pull out my old computer as it has the website building software on it. While my 2008 vintage MacBook (unibody, aluminium, 8GB RAM, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, SSD) is slowly doing file actions in an attempt to recover the data, I'm mooching around apps I've not used in years. Most of the web access is severely limited due to age of the browser which means certain challenges in getting data moved. One of the apps I've been looking at is Circus Ponies Notebook, something I long since dropped for the ubiquity of Evernote.

While looking in my 'notebook', I found a whole pile of adventure seeds, one of which was my first attempt to get the idea for the BITS scenario "This Fear of Gods" on a page. The ideas spun out of a number of things, including memories of Andre Norton's Sargasso of Space,  especially with the Forerunner's reference. Looking at these notes, the final scenario didn't end up that different from what was written here!

Synopsis: A University research ship carrying out deep space observations stumbles across an alien artifact. In examining the artifact, the team manage to activate it. It sends a signal, and implants a psionic urge into the crew. They return to their base to assess the situation and establish where the signal was aimed. A mission is sent to investigate target. When they emerge from jump, a powerful tractor beam will pull the ship down from orbit. They find themselves in a graveyard of dead ships, and go to find the source of the tractor beam. This involves the discovery of a near dead alien race, which attempts to take over their physical bodies using advanced psi-medical technology. Unless they prevent this happening, aliens will re-enter into space and start to move to infiltrate Imperial Society.

Ref: Backstory is plausibly linked to the Ancients, but not obviously. It does including nanotech, but not in an obvious way and limited so it cannot be used by the players in the future.

Setting: Probably the Marches, but possibly an adjacent sector. The Abyss Rift may well be
a good location.

The scenario has been run multiple times (probably in the hundreds) in playtest and has sat on my hard drive in 95% format for far too long. I do need to get it to print more formally.

28 December 2024