File: 1441865212286.jpg (702 KB, 1100x778)

702 KB JPG

I'll start with some comfy space homes.

File: 1459106519915.gif (1.14 MB, 400x225)

1.14 MB GIF

I'm feeling pretty tapped-out creatively right now, but I wanted to point you toward this series of Space Superstition threads in the hopes that you might be able to mine them for ideas:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Space+Superstition

Good luck, spacefaring GM!

>>48113536
Be sure to include some "monster" sightings, whether the huge space aliens are real or not, people will always see things in the darkness.

File: 1441892158642.jpg (363 KB, 1100x778)

363 KB JPG

>>48113613
wow, that's the motherload right there, isn't it. thanks, i don't think i would have found that on my own. and i guess that kind of negates the need for my thread too.

i'll finish the image dump and let this one die, i guess.
>>48113625
will definitely add this.

Always carry a roll of duct tape on EVA. The manufacturer completely denies it helps and actively tells people to stop but everyone in port tells stories of that one time they got a puncture and it saved their life.

Mandatory staring woman

Ships are haunted by the ghosts of those lost in space. If you drink on a Russian ship you have to leave a shot of vodka out for the ghost and a bowl of vodka out for Laika. There's similar customs for other national ships.

>>48113680
We could still have discussion, see what we think of those things, how we could use them, how they fit in various universes, et cetera. Bring up a few that catch your eye.

File: 431737main_EC97-43969-1_full.jpg (468 KB, 2250x1455)

468 KB JPG

>>48113680
Glad to help there, and don't worry about making a new thread. There are always more superstitions and stories to tell.

File: 1441909993990.jpg (753 KB, 1100x778)

753 KB JPG

>>48113726
great stuff, thank you

File: 1453172892871.jpg (744 KB, 1100x778)

744 KB JPG

another of my own:
bad luck to keep a corpse on board, as it could contaminate the air supply. if someone dies aboard a ship while in space, they're jettisoned on course for their homeworld, to burn up in atmosphere. if their homeworld has no atmosphere, then they're lit with the ship's thrusters

File: The Staring Woman.jpg (489 KB, 842x1089)

489 KB JPG

>>48113726
>Mandatory staring woman

The Staring Woman must be a /tg/ space-horror classic by now, given how many times she's been mentioned and adapted.

File: space_lounge_rouge_by_sia(...).jpg (1.41 MB, 1920x1080)

1.41 MB JPG

space bars are my favorite

here's some from one of the other threads:
>It's thought to be good luck to bring a little piece of Earth, and later Mars, along with you on a long space flight. Most often, this takes the form of a small stone or pebble that can be carried in a pocket, but potted plants or small jars of dirt by themselves are not terribly uncommon.

>Tapping, drumming or banging on machinery and especially against bulkheads or the hull is considered tremendously bad luck.

>New crewmates on modern tramp ships and military vessels of the past often willingly spend an hour inside the airlock without a spacesuit, tresting the moderate cold and the threat of a crewmate opening the outer door as a rite of passage and test of trust. Newbies who don't last the hour or don't enter the airlock at all are mocked as cowards.
>If you're a professional spacer, you must always kiss Earth when you return to it. It is believed that if you wouldn't show respect the planet will disown you, and you will never see its surface again.

File: space_suite_h_305_by_siam(...).jpg (1.04 MB, 1920x1080)

1.04 MB JPG

>>48113866
I've never heard of the staring woman. Sounds fantastic. Do you happen to have more/know where i can find more? I've found one archived thread mentioning her, but that seemed to be more of a horror scenario than a superstition

Spacers believe that wishing for a 'safe landing' and 'safe return' actually attracts bad luck for some reason, similar to theatre suspertition, so they wish each other 'crash slow'.

Put dirt inside your boot on the sole, from your homeworld, if it's your first time going to space. So your feet find their way back home.

During moments were two ships are docked together, never have sex with a crew member of the other ship inside your own. If both side hold this supertition this usually mean neither wants to be the one to bring the other one to their quarters. It's believed that the other spacer can 'steal' the luck of a ship by fucking someone from other crew. This doesnt count for space ports and being planet side, only in ship to ship docking.

Nobody knows ow this start but all the ships from X sector have canaries on the cockpit, living in a cage, even official military vessels. It's a veeeery bad omen when the canary dies.

If you sneeze, you have to touch the ship hull as fast as possible.

If you find a mole that you didn't remember having after a space trip, it means you are going to die soon.

If you sight a black dog in a soviet space suit inside your ship, or dream with it, its a sign you are going to die soon.

File: Knifenazi.jpg (151 KB, 900x1047)

151 KB JPG

>>48113731
Toilet/bedroom/kitchen/office

>>48113580
Shit were you wash

Taking a deep breath when a bulkhead opens, incase it was not pressurized on the other side, that big gulp of air could keep you alive for a few seconds longer to get to the override switch.

Also related is the clenching your fist, related to the early space flights where when bulkheads opened they might still be faulty and generate a suction as air rushed out/in. Peope used to make sure they had a hold of something, now it is symbolized as a clenched fist.

>>48113837
It's not bad luck, it is common sense. Limited air supply and people living in crowded areas is a haven for bacteria and sickness. If you fire it at their homeworld you have use created a rocket. Force = mass x acceleration, if you fire it with sufficient force it will remain such until it hits another ship or plantary body.

File: ZOmAm.jpg (629 KB, 2986x1493)

629 KB JPG

Some more i'm nabbing from one of the old threads

>Some of the most superstitious sailors get tattoos that proclaim them as belonging to Earth, charts of the night sky as seen from Earth, names of the Earth in as many languages as they can, ect. The representations very from person to person but they persist on the belief that the Earth will take care of it's own and she will always bring them back home.
It is considered extremely bad luck to get these tattoos on any other planet.

I love the idea of people always viewing earth as home, even people who've never set foot on it. It could become some mythical concept to them.

>>48113788
that lying position with the hands up looks uncomfortable as shit and so do the curved beds

>>48113866

I would really love an actual staring woman comic based on that page

If I magically had amazing drawing talent overnight that's probably the thing I would make with it.

File: maxresdefault.jpg (148 KB, 1280x720)

148 KB JPG

if you come to stay at a circular station for an extended period of time, you must travel around the entire thing once. for smaller stations this is as simple as a short walk. for larger city-sized stations you can ride a train or drive around it

File: Get Out Of There Now.jpg (578 KB, 842x1090)

578 KB JPG

>>48113866
She's been mentioned off and on, throughout the different Space Horror threads for several years now, but as far as I know, the Staring Woman has been portrayed in three interconnected ways that work well superstitiously.

The first is that she is that she can be treated as a simple paranormal sighting, a ghostly, freeze-dried reminder of some astronautical disaster long past that wayfarers traversing a certain sector of space may happen to see. The second builds on this by making her some kind of "observer" that spacers feel is willfully floating into camera view and appearing outside the portholes of any passing ship that somehow catches her fancy. The third builds on this again by making the Staring Woman an ill omen of impending disaster aboard whichever ship is unlucky enough to spot her.

Additionally, there was talk about a fourth "level" of personification in which the Staring Woman would try to enter these unfortunate spacecraft, actively bringing disaster with aboard with her rather than simply warning those who see her of its coming.

>>48114196
If you reside on a circular station it's good manners to circumnavigate it once a local year to prove you're not a squatter or a tourist. Most people do this on the station's founding day, which is a holiday; volunteer tour guides man the trams and buses used for this. In the morning there's a marathon, but it ends short of the station's official mile zero - most residents participating in the holiday leave their vehicles and join a massive crowd walking the last half-mile.

Non-ringborn travelers are often confused by these crowds.

>>48114031
>I love the idea of people always viewing earth as home, even people who've never set foot on it. It could become some mythical concept to them.

E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra series concerns a wandering spacer trying to find his way to the homeworld of mankind, through all the false rumors that flow along the ancient spacelanes.

Plug in your headphones, OP. I've got some mandatory listening for ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5p8YhhaVlA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34fSnJNP-4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WDRxtd-2dQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mO7vkdkJhg

That last one is my absolute favorite, but all are pretty high up there in my personal rankings.

>>48113536
hey OP not this guy

>>48115114
but you should listen to it. especially the song Anon forgot the most relevant one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqU7W8LdRd4

>>48115199
Shit, I knew I was leaving one out. A thousand times that song as well, OP.

;~;7

Don't bury a spaceman on a planet. Everyone that is born in space belongs to the stars.

The same rule is for colonists and terrans. They belong to their homeworlds.

>>48115114
>>48115199
going to add that it's necessary to play songs about the christian during spacefights, just so i have an excuse to play it at sessions. thanks, friends.

Stay away from these old Chinese colony ships.

Giant coffins filled with desperate ghosts.

If your the comms officer you must always investigate the radio noise and never ignore them. The reason being it could actually be someone hailing for help but it's believed that if you ignore a plea for help yours will be ignored in kind.

Some Spacers will get rudimentary tattoos of star charts to their home whether it be a colony or a planet in the belief that if they are ever voided their spirit can find it's way home.

>>48115456
>Some Spacers will get rudimentary tattoos of star charts to their home whether it be a colony or a planet in the belief that if they are ever voided their spirit can find it's way home.


Also keep a piece of your Homeworld or the ship you are born with you.

Egineers are often mocked for "sweet talking" their ships as they conduct repairs but there is always the persistant belief that if you neglect the ships feelings she'll have no problem failing on you when you need her most

You always have a pocket for nonchalant spair parts: you never know when it might come in handy

Often during the ships construction a coin is welded into place on the comms array to ensure good fortune.

>>48115390
I rather like this idea.

Never hunt down escape-pods, even if you just destroyed the Ship of your worst nemesis.

Dont insult a ship or its equipment ,ever.

Dont sleep with another spacers spouse.

There is a special hell for pirates and raiders.

Dont look into black holes directly. Use sensors, not your helmets visor or the bridge-windows.

>>48113984
>If you find a mole that you didn't remember having after a space trip, it means you are going to die soon.

I laughed.

>>48113986
I thought you wanted to breathe out before vacuum because otherwise the mechanical pressure of the vaccum on your lungs will just rip it out between your lips.

>>48113536

Always knock 3 times on the door to the head before entering or if you pass the door and hear 3 knocks from inside
If you're stuck in the head and need help from someone outside, knock 5 times on the door.

>>48115715
>>48115390
>Stay away from these old Chinese colony ships.Giant coffins filled with desperate ghosts

Back in the year 21XX, when colonization of the Solar System was in its infancy, China wanted to demonstrate its spacefaring might by establishing more extraterrestrial settlements than any other nation on Earth, as quickly as possible. As a result, their colony ships were hastily put together, manned by rookie crews and passengered by just as many criminals and political dissidents as there were legitimate volunteers.

It comes as no surprise then that the program was plagued by disaster, and that remnants of that tragic folly continue to haunt and unnerve modern spacers.

Use two pair of boots, one while on board and one when docked.

Seeing fragments of old ships is a sign of very bad luck.

Functional ships within sight of the naked eye always prompts a friendly greeting.

Smugglers deserve as much respect as any other spacer, pirates and raiders do not.

Never EVER investigate a seemingly abandoned vessel.

Never bring a species you don't recognise onto the ship.

File: spacestation sec.jpg (968 KB, 2236x1543)

968 KB JPG

while preparing to repel borders its customary to tap your tac helm 3 times, but no more.

its customary for a sec member to receive a small simple copper star when they first join up with a ship and/or spacestation from their fellow sec. its bad luck to let it tarnish.

additionally, upon completion of their duties or untimely demise, said star is to be released into space.

File: Knife fighting range.jpg (364 KB, 950x663)

364 KB JPG

It's bad luck to bring candles aboard ship

Orbiting one complete circuit of a planet before landing is good luck

>>48113613
the spacers saints is one of my favourite bits of /tg/ homebrew.

I love threads like these. I remember the sci-fi folk song one and had an idea for one in my head about a guy singing about his life as a Martian essentially but now I can't remember the lyrics I came up with it.

It's customary to send the dead who die in space out the airlock in the direction of their home world otherwise they'll haunt your ship in retaliation for cursing them to wander the stars.

Remember when walking through an airlock to tap your boots on the other side or slap the top of the door to test the seals and as a sign of good luck.

File: 44417b59a4664958941ae945c(...).jpg (379 KB, 1150x1202)

379 KB JPG

>It's unlucky to dance in the space around mars
>it's unlucky not to dance in the space around Venus
>if you've got bad news to tell someone that isn't urgent, it's customary to do it before coming into orbit around mercury, or after you've left orbit of mercury, and never during.
>if something becomes twisted in freefall, it's customary to twist it up the opposite way before leaving it straightened
>it's customary to tie a personal effect to an air-vent outlet on your ship before doing an EVA
>it's bad luck to remove an object tied to an air-vent by a person who didn't return from an EVA
>it's good luck to eject a harmonica out of an airlock before you've completed your first orbit of jupiter, and bad luck for a harmonica to leave the ship after that first orbit
>it's good luck for the crew to eat icecream after refueling from the surface of Titan, Pluto or Europa, but bad luck to eat ice cream after the ship has launched from the surface.

>It is considered bad luck to be the ONLY low-ranking crew member to accompany the command staff to the surface of an unexplored planet.

>Often cited is the tale of Ensign Ricky. The legend of what exactly happened to the poor Ensign almost always changes with each telling of the tale, but two facts always remain the same.

>That he was the ONLY low ranking member of the crew on that particular mission, and that he was wearing a red uniform.

>>48117478
Golden, will have to use it the next time I run star wars.

>>48115745
Naw lad, the the captain and the chief engineer can insult their ship, so long as it's all in good fun. They can expect the ship to reciprocate in kind with a few pranks of it's own

>>48115199
>>48115114
You forgot the ballad of the slowboaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud6LiVJkwyA

Never know when you'll need those poor souls' favour

Transhumans take new names after their first major augment. It is considered very rude to call them by their "mundane" name anytime after that.

>>48113984
>If you sight a black dog in a soviet space suit inside your ship, or dream with it, its a sign you are going to die soon.
>Soviet Space Barghest
Holy shit, I never knew just how much I wanted this.

>>48113536
I think that always keeping an animal on board is bad. There are many reasong why you wouldn't want one, and none about why you would.

Animals are useless in an spaceship. They don't have to hunt rodents, or guard anything, they serve just as pets.

Among the many reasons to keep pets away, they're unsanitary, they shed hairs and poop.
They might need their own food, have extra bio of bacteria and diseases, and won't have veterinary help in space.

If you have a superstition about pets, make it so that pets are usually completely forbidden, even for a stroll.
Motivation could come ftom early space exploration, which were costly and ran by the armed forces/government, so they banned all crew from carrying any sort of pet.
Tech advanvec and private citizens can own spaceships, but tradition stuck.

>Never ever depart a planet with any single spacesuit in storage that hasn't been cleaned and checked, even if they were cleaned and checked before, or you intend to do it in orbit.

>Always do a short flush burst before using any vacuum toilets, to know that the vacuum pump didn't accidentally have a breach to space.

>Sticking with the topic, always always always test the waste management system of a new spacesuit BEFORE going outside with it for the first time, even if it's a model you've worn before.

>If a new ship didn't register any micrometeorite impacts on the first day of it's use, that's a bad sign. If it doesn't register any in the first five days, you might as well abandon ship, because you're sure to hit a deadly swarm of them soon.

>Never load oxygen tanks to exactly 100%. You can go lower, or higher, but if you leave it at 100% you wouldn't be able to tell if the fill level display is hacked or broken.

>It's good luck to have a solar panel of whatever size on or in every ship, even if the ship relies exclusively on other forms of generators.

>It's bad luck to drive a rover into a rock on mars. This should seem trivial, but by now every vehicle capable of transporting humans can easily withstand and shrug off a collision like that.

>Sticking with mars, in a belief connected to the ancient rovers that first inhabited mars, it's bad luck if any moving vehicle (spaceship, shuttle, rover, scooter) coming from mars has "spirit" in it's name, while it is good luck for any stationary thing (bases, towns, spacestations, landmarks). It is just the other way around with "opportunity".

>While in earth orbit try to catch a glimpse of the planet at least once each day to ward off bad luck and homesickness.

>Never ever let go of the spaceship's hull on your very first eva, even if you have a maneuvering backpack attached to your suit, no matter how experienced.

>People born in space believe that wishing them a safe "reentry" or "landing" is very bad luck.

>>48119356
Lad, what sort of stick-up-their butt corp did you sign on with? A ship without a cat or the like is a ship without a soul.
Next you'll be telling me that you don't do airlock-hazing? Or that you'd replace a ship's heartbone?

File: 22955377b2993f1d96232478d(...).png (1.43 MB, 1180x1333)

1.43 MB PNG

>>48113536

>The Skintight uniforms that they hand out to you ARE NEVER fully sealed unless you have proper equipment (i.e. helmets, gloves, etc.)

>Although most spacers will deny any actual belief in it, there exists a "Cult of the Firsts" that venerates the pioneers of human space flight.

>One might wish for the blessing of Armstrong and Aldrin before settling foot on a celestial body for the first time.

>Or ask for guidance from Lovell, Swigert, and Haise during a severe spacecraft failure.

>Or call upon the first moon and Mars colonists when founding a new colony.

>But the holiest of them all is Yuri Gagarin. THE FIRST. The first human in space holds a special place in the hearts and minds of all spacers. Especially ship captains.

>Oddly enough, it's the pioneers of rocketry itself that are revered by starship engineers. Men like Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun.

Don't look out the windows while in FTL, it'll give you Alzhiemer's

>>48119391
>It's good luck to have a solar panel of whatever size on or in every ship, even if the ship relies exclusively on other forms of generators.

This makes me think of Serenity's front panel-thingy. I think it looks kinda photovoltaic?

>People born in space believe that wishing them a safe "reentry" or "landing" is very bad luck.

and this is good, very theatre folk like

On another note, it's a commonly held saying amongst spacers that the most senior engineer on a ship's heart beats in time with the pulse of the drive. "Drive-hearted" is a more polite word for "spacing vagrant"

>>48119575
Aye, the saints are holy, even though Earth may be forgotten.

It also explains why captains (and sometimes the rest of the crew) piss on a wheel before leaving dock. The more frequented docks have a wheel off in the corner special for this purpose

File: SpaceCat.jpg (129 KB, 800x999)

129 KB JPG

>>48119356

A superstition like that would never stick. Dirtsiders love their pets too much to leave them behind just because grizzled old fuck in a vacc suit says it's "bad luck." It wouldn't be long before the younger spacers laugh at the older spacers, and pic related becomes common.

Taking someone on their first spaceflight is considered both good and bad luck. Good luck in that nothing major ever goes wrong on someone's first spaceflight, bad because that's when all the little things go wrong.

A ship carrying someone on their first FTL hop on the other hand, is practically guaranteed to have something go horrifically wrong.

Some engineers will install an additional switch on their console board. This switch will only have one wire running in, but practitioners will insist that the switch controls a component whose name sounds important but is, in fact, utter nonsense.

Ships have a finite store of luck. This store cannot be replenished, but docking with a ship can equalize the luck between them. Many a new ship has had its life cut short, and many an old one lived beyond their years, thanks to rookie pilots unaware of this fact.

File: Laying On Laptop.jpg (315 KB, 1175x956)

315 KB JPG

>>48119501
>taking aboard a creature specially designed by God to lay upon buttons, consoles and keyboards

File: Spacer Saint of Engineering.png (332 KB, 1920x1038)

332 KB PNG

>>48119656
>>48119575
>>48116941

The Spacer Saints are a favorite of mine too. There's filk to go along with the, but I neglected to save the image. I'm sure it's in the archived threads alongside the Saints' roster.

>>48119391
Green on blue doesn't look too nice...

-While the benefits of having a cat on a spaceship are scientifically proven (purring increases bone density and counteracts zero-g caused problems), people without cats like to touch one before they go on long space missions.

-Kids on low gravity worlds are told that doing 1g exercises will make them tougher in space and ward off space-sickness.

-If someone has punctured their spacesuit once, they won't have it punctured a second time. Doing this deliberately negates the effect.

-If a system has no backup it is guaranteed to fail.

-Before going outside, always tap on the glass of your spacesuit helmets to make sure there are no fissures that could make it burst.

>>48119621
>This makes me think of Serenity's front panel-thingy. I think it looks kinda photovoltaic?
Huh... now that you mention it, yea.

-Bragging about your first trip into space is bad luck.

-At the moment of manual docking pilots close their eyes and listen for the sound of the docking clamp, even it it can't really be made out.

>>48119656
absolutely barbaric.

>>48119702
>A ship carrying someone on their first FTL hop on the other hand, is practically guaranteed to have something go horrifically wrong.
Good ones except for this one. Too easy to disprove.
Same with the luck thing.

>>48119719
Spacer cats know not to sit on consoles, having learnt from getting thrown off them roughly during emergencies

>>48119749
>absolutely barbaric.

Gagarin did it, and he was the first to make it back from the great black

>>48119356
You're forgetting the existant mythologies about cats as guardians of the dead. A cat is very important on a ship, or you could lose your soul in the void.

>>48119702
>A ship carrying someone on their first FTL hop on the other hand, is practically guaranteed to have something go horrifically wrong.
I'd alter this one, otherwise nobody would go FTL

>>48119575
Adding to this:

>All spacers know Shepherd's Prayer by heart.

>>48119743
Ah, St. Danni, patron of engineers (and giant zero-gee tits)

>>48119807
Still absolutely barbaric.

>>48119749
Now for some more lewd ones.

-Managing to masturbate in a spacesuit will make you feel more at ease with it, and will 'break it in' to be less uncomfortable.

-If you have sex with someone in space, and a child is conceived, they are guaranteed to work in space. An alternate version has it that them NOT working in space will bring them bad luck.

-Doing sexual things with a member of an alien species is not a bad thing, unless it happens while leaving their homeworld.

-Sex in zero g will make your subsequent few sexual encounters really awful. (This stems from the widespread misconception that 0G sex is great, which it mostly is really not.)

-If you pull a muscle while trying to do a spacers kiss (pressing your lips against the helmet and pressing your helmets together) you're destined to have a great relationship.

-Seeing more than one moon rise at the same time over the horizon of any planet will mean a small streak of good luck with your sexual endeavors.

-Hyper-space means hyper sex. Shortly before and after a hyperspace jump, or before and after engaging your warp drive, people are more horny.

I really want to use all these Spacer superstitions in a SWN game, if I could get my players on board it'd be sick. I'm even considering having a tape of Carmen Miranda's Ghost on their (pre-owned) ship

>>48119949
It should be noted that zero-g sex poses some problems for those spacers with unaugmented dicks. As my old bosun put it "ye cannae get it up without g's lad"

>>48119875
"Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck this up." ?

Supposedly he never actually said that. Or at the very least he doesn't remember saying it.

>>48119949
Some more related to cadets:

-If someone doesn't get sick during their first spaceflight, it WILL come later.

-If you didn't do your first spaceflight before you passed your full-maturity test / age of majority, you can only be really great or really shit with spacecraft. Nothing in between.

-Clenching your eyes shut during your first launch or reentry for too long means your career progress will be very slow.

-"Bang your head, lie awake in bed" Meaning that if you bang your head on something before you slept on a new ship for the first time, you'll be plagued by insomnia while on that ship.

-A hazing ritual for the first time someone is on a mission related EVA, you have to pass a tool to someone else and catch it again by letting it float between you without it being attached to either of you.
If the tool floats off, the only way to avoid bad luck is to admit to your failure and get harshly reprimanded for doing a forbidden hazing thing.

-The first person in a group of cadets to resort to using the waste management system of their spacesuit on EVA instead of going before or holding it, is henceforth known as the space-baby, until they dress up like a baby and walk around the spaceship once.

-"No amount of training prepares for meteorites raining."
The first time your ship gets into a shower of micrometeorites you're definitely going to fuck something up.

-"Your first spacesuit is always average." You're unlikely to find much more or much less comfortable spacesuits than the first one you ever wore.

-Getting a plantside spacesuit dirty enough that it has to be cleaned on the first time wearing it means you're going to have bad luck for a full year of the planet you're on.

-Spotting broken equipment, a new cadet, and a pet on the same day will bring you immense good luck.

-"No one is born for EVA"
Your first time on EVA in space is going to suck no matter what.

>>48119501
>heartbone

hold on.. were was this from again?

Its the only part of the ship that NEVER gets replaced right?

I have a few.

-The 'tinking' you hear from the craft after you break orbit isn't the hull of the ship cooling, it is the souls of all those lost in EVA around the world begging to be let back in.

-Ships have souls. No spacer doubts that. They can get angry and they remember. Never insult a ship you are currently standing inside of, or it will turn on you in an emergency.

-On a similar note to the last two; before leaving your ship in a shuttle or for EVA, you must always touch the inside of the hull near the airlock leading out. This is so the ship will remember who you are when you return, and will let you back in.

-Selling an old ship is like betraying your wife. Because of this old ships with old captains are like a marriage, neither will ever retire. They choose to always fly together until one of them dies.

-If you are ever forced to fly through a dust cloud far away from a world, that dinner the entire crew toasts to Sam Jones. Saint Jones, as he is called by the more religious, saved his ship by preforming an EVA at 3/4C to fix a damaged drive before hard radiation sand blasted his suit apart. His soul will watch over ships in dust clouds, but only those that remember him.

>>48113866
who, uh
what is the source on this?

File: 10527742_1015275026869684(...).jpg (40 KB, 535x533)

40 KB JPG

>>48121350
THought we covered that with:
>the captain and the chief engineer can insult their ship, so long as it's all in good fun. They can expect the ship to reciprocate in kind with a few pranks of it's own

pic unrelated

>>48121350
>Sam Jones

did we post the song already?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2822436/The-superstitions-space-travel-revealed-Fear-number-13-peeing-tyres-tapping-Snoopy-s-nose-bizarre-rituals.html

>>48121461

Right, because you can insult your wife, but no one else can, even if jokingly.

>>48121472

If we did I missed it. I was wondering if anyone would get the reference.

>>48120390
And some more related to celestial bodies

-If the stellar activity during high activity part of the cycle is exceptionally low, cosmic radiation will be exceptionally high.

-If any of the inner rocky planets is hit by a coronal mass ejection directly, neither of them is going to be hit until the planet in question completed a full orbit.

-The second planet of any star system is always connected to beauty, á la venus.

-Icy moons of gas giants are a great place for any outpost or colony. If the place is not otherwise uninhabitable, these places will prosper disproportionately.

-Some cultures consider seeing all celestial bodies in a system at the same time to be extremely good luck, while some consider it to be extremely bad luck.

-Having fish or birds on the spacecraft will help landing on water or floating platforms. Fish and birds are interchangeable.

-Pictures, holographs, paintings, or models of planets or landmarks on them should be firmly secured, even if a ship has inertial dampeners, because one of those falling down is a bad omen. The details of what the bad thing is differ, but it mostly involves getting lost.

-If you trade with the outer planets without checking prices on the inner planets, and move inwards, you're going to find a better offers for the thing you were trading.

-The planet first colonized in a system is always going to be the most corrupt one.

-Being in orbit around mercury or at a similar distance from a star is damaging to your eyesight despite the filters in the windows.

-Every time a ship enters the shadow of a planet internal systems are more likely to fail (heat shunt, life support, computers). In direct sunlight it's outer systems (engines, solars, hull, weapons).

-Stepping foot on every moon of Jupiter and Saturn will give you good luck in the Sol system.

-Contrary to their names phobos and deimos are great places to park your ship.

-You can hear sounds from the ground in the never-sunny craters on the Moon.

File: Superstitions in Space.jpg (68 KB, 684x399)

68 KB JPG

>>48121502
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsVJezFRi4

all true spacers know the story.

Condemned ships due to their crews afflicted with space madness are almost never refurbished. This is believed that the souls of the dead will torment the crew to relive their final hours. As such, any spacer worth their boots will never ever fly in a salvaged condemned vessel on their first run.

>>48121520

Those are really cool, and I have some more.
-There is nowhere for bad mojo to escape out in The Black. Because of this two crew members that have a problem with each other must settle it planet or station side before they will be allowed back on.

-Related to the previous, the souls of the dead can not leave a ship until after it lands. If someone dies you don't hold their final funeral until after a ship makes ground (or their body makes ground, if the ship can not land).

-Related to that, Because all sentient creatures have souls, and it is often difficult to determine what is sentient and what is not, any alien creature brought on board will always be exceptionally well treated by the crew. No one wants an angry ghost wandering their ducts and halls.

>>48121516 (You)
And now for some more "veteran" or stronger superstition things.

-If new cadets are on your ship and they abandon some hazing ritual without an emergency, the ship is going to have bad luck, but not the cadets.

-Never eat sweet things on the first day on a ship. It symbolizes prosperity and comfort, and by eating it away you take it from the ship.

-The captain should never offer or start a card game with the crew, because he would by symbolically playing with their fortunes.

-The jump-/hyperdrives spinning up produce noise that has the voices of the past and the future crews of the ship in it. If the noise is particularly shrill, something horrible has occurred or will occur.

-If the airlock outer door is closed during EVA the EVA team is supposed to announce their readiness for airlock procedure. If the crew inside fail to acknowledge before the airlock opens, this is a bad sign and means something will be not right with the crew inside. If the EVA team fail to announce, that's also a bad sign and means something will not be right with the EVA team.

-Do not write your name on any part of the ship unless you are ready to go down with it.

-The ship's cat barfing a furball onto anything but the floor means that that thing will break unless checked out.

-A very smooth reentry means very bad or very good news arriving planetside.

-If a captain has spent enough time on a ship his body and the ships systems will be in synch. If the captain feels sick, something will go wrong with the ship.

-Retrograde approaches of the inner star-system are harder to detect.

-Before boarding or salvaging a wreckage drink some wine to the wreckage and its crew to ward off their spirits.

-Before taking salvage on board, put a bit of dust into the hangar so that the spirits of anyone possibly deceased connected to the salvage may stick to that instead.

-Don't look at a person and then immediately at the local star without an apology unless you want them to die.

File: 1415142877582.jpg (1.08 MB, 3051x5493)

1.08 MB JPG

>>48119743

>>48113536
No bullets.

The real reason for short range plasma pistols, is bullets ricochet and put holes in the equipment, and everyone is terrified of taking out the life support or making a hull breach.

Of course, pirates are less paranoid about such things when they're not aboard their own ship, if they have space suits and an air supply with them.

>>48121360

The comic is made by a drawfag , there's only 2 pages

Staring woman is a tg original, a dead crewmember on a horror setting spaceship, you can find the sources for both by searching staring wpman on suptg

keep a pet fish. not a gold fish, but rathe a small colony of 5-10. terran minnows are great, and common.
the colony is smarter than you think.

-This particular Nebulae/Asteroid Field is considered as cursed and all captains will avoid it, even if it will extend the duration of the journey

-No ship ou station ever contain the number "13" in it because it will bring bad luck. For example in a cruise ship there won't be a "13" room and in a station there won't be a docking area "13".

-If there is space fauna in your setting : the sight of a particular space beast could be a sign of good luck or on the contrary meaning that something really bad will happen soon.

-It's always good to have someone from this particular planet/colony in your crew, and people will usually be overprotective toward him.

-The use of some words is totally forbidden in favor of a synonym. For example always say engines and not machines.

-Maybe some legendary ship similar to the flying dutchman.

-Never wish "Good Luck" to a captain before a mission/journey, it will on the contrary bring bad luck.

>>48123364
>-Maybe some legendary ship similar to the flying dutchman.

I'm not sure what thread it was in, but there was mention made of a ghost ship colloquially referred to as "The White Lady" by respectful spacers and as "The White Whale" by salvagers and pirates wanting to board her. As I recall, she was described as being a huge vessel with elegant lines, an unusual engine configuration and white hull plating pocked and punctured in places by debris strikes. Her appearances are always heralded by computer glitches and a looped broadcast of DeBussey's "Claire de Lune."

Spacers have no body language and make no gestures when talking. No pointing, shrugging, waving, or anything. You might accidentally touch something important.

>>48123974
The EVA caste gesticulate wildly while speaking, as often their first language is spacer sign language. It's as if they've forgotten that a CME won't fuzz out face-to-face speech.

>>48113536
Always knock on the bulkhead three times when entering. Although this is more of a courtesy.

Burn incense every morning for goodluck. It's also useful for finding leaks.

It's not true until you've checked it three times.

The spirits of computers are slothful. Strike the console frame firmly to wake it up.

Always say goodbye to the crew, or the ship it'self, when leaving it.

As long as you are still tethered to the ship, you haven't left yet.

Never fire the engines until all crew is accounted for.

Rub dirt in your child's face once a day to toughen them up (actually, it's to prevent auto-immune disorders).

>>48119223
Leika guides you to the next world.

>>48123912
It's archived on the second "space superstitions" thread on /suptg//

The story goes that the Lady was originally a vessel with a veteran AI and crew that served as a neutral medical cruiser during various interstellar wars and conflicts, regardless of affiliation, race or stereotypes. It was during one such conflict, that the Lady had taken in the crew of a ship that a nearby warship's captain didn't particularly like, and as such fired a Thermotorpedo into the Lady's side, killing all the crew. The AI of the ship subsequently claimed by grief, Shrieked into the surrounding communication frequencies loud enough that many ship captains died, and then jumped out of system. It later gained the name "Clair" due to the fact that the system the ship currently travels in hears a broadcast of "Clair de Lune", up until they detect the lady sitting at the very edge of sensor contact, and hear faint cries. Upon this contact, the lady usually immediately jumps out of system.

>>48125877

Of all of the contacts ship captains have with the clair, The two most eerie defining factors are that Ship AI's nearly always react with something aproximating to fear, even if they have not been active long enough to gain personalities through years of quirks, and that the clair is usually only ever discovered weeping over the wrecks of ships that have lost all of their crew in accidents, destroyed by warfare or even occasionally with presumed-lost ships now bereft of crew and power, some dating back to the earliest days of FTL.

File: Spacers Filk.png (346 KB, 1341x1051)

346 KB PNG

Here you go. I saved this just for you.

>>48126197
Did people from that thread ever sing it?

>>48119356
>They don't have to hunt rodents
You've never had rats eating your wires?
I mean, even down here, no need to go to space. Little shits seem to enjoy the taste of plastic.

File: 1453778346161.jpg (72 KB, 1024x683)

72 KB JPG

>>48128691
In a previous thread someone said they would be willing to try. Idk if they ever did.

File: 1466951591920.jpg (125 KB, 810x546)

125 KB JPG

What's some superstitions for the salvagers, junkers, and other bottom feeders how roam the system?

>>48132276
Dead ships that still have bodies on them are bad luck, the spirits of the dead don't take kindly to you tearing the guts out of their ship. Perhaps it might be better to leave them in peace.

>>48116132
>Never EVER investigate a seemingly abandoned vessel.
I don't like this one...but thats just me...

>>48132276
see>>48121762
Also combine the one about etching your name into the ship anywhere binding your soul to it, and the captains soul being always bound to the ship, and this means essentially that any wreckage that wasn't abandoned would contain the souls of at least the captain if not more.

And then comes this: >>48132391

Leading to the one with the dirt thrown into the hangar/salvage bay, because the only way to get rid of those spirits is by returning them to the "ground".

i have always wanted to include one. a colony only really made it when it receives a clone of the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, the oldest human planted tree. no pirate will attack a ship carrying it, and no raider will attack the building where it's planted.

>>48132276
>>48133175
Oh and to continue along these lines:

-If anyone is lost to space their soul will stick to the last ship they slept in, so crews should do everything to retrieve them even if they are already dead, so they can be returned to a planet.

-Having someone who can't fly the ship in a pinch on board increases your chance of finding salvage.

-If you scuttle a ship without a planet being in visual range, the souls of anyone who remained on board will stick to your ship until you land, malicious or not.

-You should have a potted plant in some dirt somewhere on the ship where there are no cabins and no vital systems. As a symbol of a planet and life, the lost souls will tend to concentrate around it.

-If you ever come across a ship whose systems seem intact but which doesn't respond to hails and seems to be adrift: Turn around, engage your hyperdrive and don't look back. The legends vary about what these ships contain, but it ranges from grey goo, over malicious AI, over vengeful spirits of a crew with space madness, to a deadly virus from some long forgotten war.

-Finding the wreck of a ship capable of atmospheric reentry will mean good salvage for the next week.

-Some Pirate factions have the superstition that taking the life of an innocent sapient up close will bind their soul as a slave to them, while destroying a ship with innocent sapients on board will bind their souls as malicious entities to their ship.
Others think that killing innocents is bad luck either way and can only be washed off with your own ship being scrapped / your blood being spilled.

-Positive ions and positrons are believed by junkers to blast the spirits of the dead off of salvage. Meanwhile stronger than expected beta particle emissions indicate the presence of ghosts.

-Saying Davy Jones / The Fyling Dutchman, them being symbols of terrestrial seafaring, is much like saying Macbeth before the play. Bad luck is certain crashing into a real ocean a possibility.

>>48119702
>>48119749
>>48119870

Maybe this works better?

>If a crew member falls asleep during their first FTL hop, they are practically guaranteed to have bad luck.

>>48134215
I guess that works, but only in a setting where FTL is nigh instantaneous.
Would be kinda hard to achieve on some place like the Enterprise which regularly flies at warpspeed for days.

I tried to make the things i wrote universal for all settings somewhat related to the solar system and all time periods.

>>48134263

Fair enough.

Maybe if they sleep through their first one instead?

>>48134294
Hm... That again requires the jump to be really short.

And who's going to have bad luck and for how long?

I personally think that superstitions either have to sound vaguely scientific (carrots=better sight, cold will give you a cold) or be really obscure and not easy to check (breaking a mirror gives 7 years of bad luck) or be self defeating if enough people believe in them, so as to not be easily checkable (saying macbeth during the play which no one does by now), or just believed by slightly crazy people (the flying dutchman), and most of them have to be easily avoided.

The things i suggested are mostly things that fulfill these.
Sleeping or in FTL however is really easily checked, not easily avoided if you have long enough trips and something way too common.

So how about sleeping at any point during your first FTL flight gives you good luck?
It works both for warpdrives and jumpdrives, it's something that might occur on it's own easily enough and is hard to check, because who remembers when exactly they were asleep, and it's something that can be deliberately strived for.

>>48122863
>Staring woman is a tg original

It does have some historic roots, though. Seeing a mermaid (often with a comb and a mirror) was an ill omen for sailors, and usually meant the ship would be lost in a storm.

For Men:
Whenever one gets very close to a moon, write a letter for dear old mom or your youngest living sister. They used to say Moons and Women came hand in hand, after all, and you don't wanna risk bad things happening to the women aboard and in your life.

For Women:
Whenever you make it through a meteorite shower, ensure you give a piece of living plant from hydroponics to a man aboard. Make sure every man has received some bit of plantlife. This consumes evil spirits that are drawn to men and ships during showers.

>>48113986
>If you fire it at their homeworld you have use created a rocket


Not really. Conservation of momentum - the ship puts itself on course for the deceased's homeworld, jettisons the casket, and then sets a new course for wherever it's going. Since the coffin will keep flying in the direction it was going when it was released, it will continue the journey to the homeworld without the need for dedicated flight hardware.

Of course, it's going to take billions and billions of years gravity assisting around various bodies to reach it's target, so the chances of a collision in deep space are astronomically low (literally). If they died in their home solar system the chances are a bit higher, but still negligible as they'll reach their destination much faster.

This gives me a spooky thought though. Inevitably, groups of dead will be set on similar courses to their destination - especially in the wake of a space battle or something similar - with more of them congregating closer together the closer they get to their destination. The would mean clouds of coffins with perfectly preserved corpses in them, slowly growing in size as they travel through space.

>>48132485

Yeah, that's a tabletop superstition, not a spacer superstition. Like "never split the party" or "don't get on the boat."

>>48136501
by the same token, the average player party is almost certain to investigate in hopes of furthering the plot.

>>48126197

Fuck you, I'm not crying.

Some of these feel a bit more like safety instructions than superstitions: Assume that there are mechanisms in place in these cases that render the procedures moot.


>Never leave two dissimilar metals touching, even in atmosphere.

>Never complain about something being "too hot" or "too cold" unless it is actively dangerous to your health.

>ALL rocks originating in space are considered "Cargo" and must be logged. Failure to do so is bad luck. Rocks from a planet's surface are never cargo, merely personal possessions.

>Ships with more than one fuel storage always must draw from every storage unit at once, or if it can't, it must pump the full ones into the one being used as it empties. (What if there is a puncture?)

>It is bad luck to give someone a static shock. If it happens accidentally, the recipient should slap the one responsible to neutralize it.

>Hot liquids must ALWAYS be contained, no open mugs. Cold liquids can be enjoyed freely.

>It is very bad luck to count something that numbers less than ten out loud. You will go crazy if you do.

>EVA teams always get a separate radio channel for sending and receiving. It should always be impossible to "step on" the broadcast of an EVA team.

>It is bad luck to simulate something involving your ship directly. Rather, have the simulated ship bear another name and be some similar vessel" not "what if we did this?"

>Unless they are a part of the ship, magnetic fields must be kept below a certain (quite low) field strength. Hardware that passengers or new crew might not think is a problem (it isn't) can still generate a large magnetic field, and therefore must be turned off. Permanent magnets are right out.

>Gyroscopes are terribly unlucky, unless they are part of the ship itself. Anything that keeps itself upright, or involves something heavy spinning at high speed should always be kept powered down lest it "interfere" with the ship's own gyros.

>Every ship has that one person. That guy. He can seemingly defy every superstition and rule and survive the most ridiculous odds without even realizing it, but the first person that follows in his footsteps will die horribly. This person is no man, but temptation. Beware them.

>>48113536
Spotting a ghost ship is considered extremely bad luck by anyone but salvagers for whom its considered great luck. Pirates will often attempt to board the ghost ship for if a pirate successfully boards the ghost ship then the bad luck will be removed.

A ghost ship will never arise from a ship with whom the captain chose to 'go down' with.

Its considered bad luck to directly look into a blackhole.

For space salvagers its considered extremely bad luck to salvage a ship with whom the captain died without the proper offering. Offerings may vary according to different traditions but its extremely important an offering is made even if multiple offerings are done lest the ship and captain's ghost choose to curse or even haunt them. Salvagers have even been known to abandon amazing finds because they didn't have the right offerings.

Space salvagers are often connected with bad luck by other spacers.

If pirates had the option to choose between a salvage ship and a non salvager ship they should choose the non one as supposedly hitting a salvage ship while another target is available gives permission to all the possible curses and bad luck they have collected throughout their salvaging efforts to move onto the pirates.

A pirate ship is most likely to have a lot of bad luck due to the past actions of the crew and vessel. For this reason its considered good luck by the crew to donate some of their earnings to charity as they will be rendered temporarily immune to the ship's history until they reach port again.

Salvaging a pirate ship according to salvagers will always offer very good luck or very bad luck but never in between.

>>48119356
animals can sense many things a human cant, especially sounds and smells. Animals can usually pick up on odd occurances like earthquakes and forest fires long before a human would, its not unreasonable that if something was wrong on a station a dog or a cat, especially one that had been in space for a while, would pick up on things that pose a threat. Having my cat immediately perk up and start whining or pacing the room would immediately tip me off that something is wrong for example.

In addition to proven scientific things, there's also more superstitious beliefs. For example, many people where I live consider animals to be a good indicator of a person's character. If random cats and dogs walk up to a person and immediately start to show their belly or are friendly, that person is probably trustworthy and alright. However if a dog immediately growls or a cat hisses, its seen as that person is a dishonest or mean spirited individual, especially if theyre trying to be nice and the animal continues to be wary of them.

My uncle for example is a piece of shit who steals from everyone and is known for lying. It doesnt matter how nice he tries to be to an animal, it will without fail bite the shit out of him before even a half hour has passed. The animal could have never met him and be the sweetest lapdog in the world, it will bite him and it will continue to bite until you pry it off. It will then go back to being friendly and lovable as long as he isn't in the room.

Having a dog or a cat present for any dealings with another captain could be an interesting twist, both for a "canary in the mine" type deal and to see how the animal reacts to the other captain. A man who isn't trusted by the animal would be considered untrustworthy to his fellow man as well.

Then you can get into the supernatural bits, like if the cat is staring out the window and a derelict ship appears, its considered an ill omen, because the cat senses something you dont...

File: image_gallery.jpg (23 KB, 573x522)

23 KB JPG

>>48137506, >>48132124, >>48128691, >48126197
"The Sick Note" works very well for this bit of filk, but try setting it to "The Rising of the Moon."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0zBlHlnR4Y

>>48136501
I kind of like the idea that it's such a common thing in movies and TV that it translated into actual, real space travel.

Always check the bulkheads before a hyperspace jump, so nothing gets loose.

Always check the bulkheads after a hyperspace jump, something will always be hanging loose.

Never check the bulkheads during a hyperspace jump.

Yo if you straight up don't celebrate the ship's birthday it is going to be mad at you

A bump back from the brink.

>>48144142
It's customary to give the ship a "gift" on her birthday. Cosmetic repairs, engine tune-ups, fresh coat of paint, improved cannons, something that shows you appreciate her hard work for the past year and are looking out for her.

I remember watching this when I was 13. It was what got me hooked on everything retro futuristic.
https://kissanime.to/Anime/Memories-Sub/Movie-001?id=61350

File: 1454915466871.png (422 KB, 652x712)

422 KB PNG

>>48113580
>Comfy
Just looking at that gives me mad claustrophobia. Imagine being stuck in that thing for months, drifting through the endless void of space. I'd be tempted to kill myself.

Some FTL ones:
-Always dim the lights when engaging the FTL drive. This is so the ships cat can more easily see the dead spirits and drive them off.
-You must sprinkle salt on the top of your head before going FTL. This is so the souls of the dead cannot latch onto you.
-If someone dies in FTL, their spirit will be trapped there. The only way to give them peace is to hold a funeral on their homeworld, station, or ship.
-During FTL travel, at least one person must keep praying for the restless dead to pass on. It need not be constant, but at least one full watch each day must have someone praying.

Other:
-Write your name on a strip of cloth or wind chime, then tie it to an air vent. If one of these strips stays still in the breeze, that person is dead - even if they're still alive.

>>48115114
>Dawson's Christian

>tfw I found this one through some dude struggling to get it put into the jukebox on /vg/'s ss13 server
>loved it ever since
>listening to it makes me think of ss13 which I can't play anymore

>>48150374
It's funny, when people can go outside they choose to stay in their room for days no end, yet when they can't go out, they start freaking out.

>>48150915
>-You must sprinkle salt on the top of your head before going FTL. This is so the souls of the dead cannot latch onto you.
That's just straight up never gonna happen
>-During FTL travel, at least one person must keep praying for the restless dead to pass on. It need not be constant, but at least one full watch each day must have someone praying.
This is also ridiculous.

Superstitions have to be things that are mostly easily accomplished. The key to success is that you have to put in little enough effort to ward off against a bad thing so that you don't really bother checking if this tradition makes any sense or not. Praying a whole shift every day both requires FTL to be non instantaneous and really really long at that, and an extraordinary amount of effort.

The rest are pretty cool.

>>48138487
These are great.

>>48138166
>Gyroscopes are terribly unlucky, unless they are part of the ship itself. Anything that keeps itself upright, or involves something heavy spinning at high speed should always be kept powered down lest it "interfere" with the ship's own gyros.
This one's not good. Too far fetched and too difficult to explain to any passenger as it concerns also them not just veterans of space travel.

>>48152354
Eh, three out of five isn't bad. I tend to run more religious-ish settings, where people will go to great lengths to make their superstitions work.
But
>A sprinkle of salt in the airlock keeps ghosts out
and
>At some point during FTL travel, someone has to recite a short prayer for the dead in the presence of two witnesses. It's usually the Captain while on the bridge.
sound a lot better, ja?

>>48152515
Yes. The sprinkle of salt thing in the airlock is similar to something i said before.
>>48121762
The FTL prayer thing is really cool though.

>>48152579
Before FTL prayer is good too.

>>48150915
>-During FTL travel, at least one person must keep praying for the restless dead to pass on. It need not be constant, but at least one full watch each day must have someone praying.

The Japanese ship Stars of the Gods (Kami no uchi no Hoshi) has a full staff of Shinto priests on board. They spend their shifts traveling between the small shrines dedicated to various peices of equipment, praying to keep the kami of the ship happy.

>>48152706
Usually performed by the engineer, along the vein of, "please god, dont fuck up."

Someone once wrote that if traditions were logical, they would be procedures. If you combine the rigorous attention to detail required in a starship with a superstitious mindset, you get manuals and ring-binders of seemingly nonsensical procedures for various situations. We have listed many hundreds of superstitions here, but has anyone considered that a ship might feel the need to practice ALL of them, and have a crewman (probably the one most worried about possible bad luck) who's designated job it is to keep the ship supernaturally optimal? I can also picture a new officer being handed the job, and frantically paging though the manual saying "Ghosts, ghosts, no not crew ghosts, I am looking for alien ghosts... maybe they are under alien? Exploration... no. Ah, here: Planetary threats-> Temples -> Alien Ghosts... Says here don't eat anything nearby, or take away anything organic. Oh, and we have to leave behind an object of equal mass to what we take away."

Terry Pratchett refers to a person with no real authority but who is left in charge of superstitious mumbo-jumbo as the "rituals monitor" and I think that sums up the idea perfectly.

File: 42e0xe.jpg (31 KB, 512x288)

31 KB JPG

>>48155561
And every ship has a different manual.

File: HanCholo.jpg (88 KB, 250x250)

88 KB JPG

A ship's most fundamental structure is her keel.

As long as a ship's keel remains intact, the rest of that ship can be rebuilt, repaired, refurbished, recycled or replaced entire and she'll keep the name of her Christening.

Conversely, the only way to kill a ship is to destroy her keel. And boyo, if a spacer finds out you've killed a ship - any ship - you'd best have a damn fine explanation for having done so ready to deploy.

>>48155561
So maybe something that is both superstitious but also functional? Say patting the ventilators in the airlock three times when leaving or entering the ship. Alleviates superstition and perhaps the vent will rattle if something is wrong with it so the tapping serves as a way to check that it's still working properly. Three taps specifically for redundancy.

>>48155561
>At the beginning of the big expansion, what we now call the Rituals Monitor was originally called the Moral Officer. Over the years they gathered information of small rituals, ceremonies or habits of the spacers brought from their homelands that seemed to put them at ease. Over time, patterns were noticed and noted, causes and effects observed and further expanded upon. Centuries later, it's not uncommon to find an ancient scrapbook of rituals, customized to each ship and an officer ready to look up and perform what needs to be done in each situation, or make note of any new additions where necessary.

>>48155893
It should be noted that "keel" is pretty archaic, because space. A couple of smartarse shipwrights started building the "keel" internal to the boat. The more... kooky engineers call it the Heart Bone, and some ships festoon it with little prayer sheets, traditionally in Old Sinic

>>48156017
Traditionally when you rescue a stranded ships crew but have to leave the ship behind, the rescuer adds one of the lost ship's customs to their own book. Same goes for when boarding a ghost ship

Every Spacer worth their salt knows that non-engineers drinking whatever engine swill the CE has distilled will invariably result in a horrific hangover, no matter how much is actually drank.

This nugget of wisdom is traditionally passed on via experience rather than old'uns telling the newbies. It's much funnier that way

>>48155930
That's kindof along the lines of what i tried to write in all my posts ITT.
Vaguely scientific but most likely completely unnecessary.

>>48156573
On that matter:
Why are CEs so disproportionately more likely to brew their own moonshine than anyone else on the ship?

Should it still be called moonshine, even if three moons shined upon it?

Is it BETTER moonshine the more moons shine upon it?

>>48156729
Maybe they siphon excess heat from the power plant/drive for the still?

And if by better you mean stronger, the rumours say probably, but the facts are still hungover and not available for comment

I ran a sort of occult bullshit in space campaign (two actually) where this stuff was pretty central.

Every single ship develops its own share of mythology and superstition over long voyages, but a few of them, the universal Spacer tenets, were considered utterly sacred. More than just a matter of 'luck', these are observances of faith that those who travel the stars KILL and have died to maintain. They hold actual power and terrifying supernatural consequences when they are broken.

- A Ship must have a Captain, a clear, superior figure. This needn't be the helmsman but it sure is nice if it is.
- The Captain must be first to board, last to leave. Between leaving the ship and returning, not one human soul must set foot within the hull.
- Everyone on board must follow any instructions the Captain provides them. On pleasure cruises and the like, the Captain simply doesn't issue orders to the passengers. Even in passing, since they fear the consequences of landlubbers not understanding what is at stake if the Captain accidentally mentions that they should "Sit back and enjoy themselves".
- If the Captain dies or is forced off the ship, everyone must leave the ship as soon as possible.
- At some point, one the crew will start installing strange wards, glyphs and signs all over the ship. They may not resemble the wards from your last ship, and the crewman may claim they just felt like it, or is doing it for good luck, but do not be afraid, this is a natural process. Do not damage or move any of these wards. Even when they start accumulating.

It's common for spacers to carry a jar of dirt from their home planet with them. Sometimes it's a big jar of it in their trunk in their cabin, other times it's a tiny vial they wear around their neck under their suit. Sometimes it's the dirt in a potted plant. It's very disrespectful, even offensive, to touch another's dirt (as offensive as reading a private log entry).

Rumors run wild of unsettled stars "vanishing". Starships plotting courses for a nearby star, jumping, but when they come out of hyperspace, there's no star, and no record of a star ever existing in that location. Like it was erased from history? Skeptics chalk it up to punching in the wrong coordinates.

A spacer's vacsuit is their coffin. You don't strip corpses of vacsuits, and you keep your vacsuit in good order because one day it'll be your coffin. It is, however, permitted to take O2 or water from a dead persons' suit, as long as the suit itself is kept intact.
When you "bury" someone in space, you make sure their suit is fully tanked up (with O2, water, power cell, fabmatter etc.) unless the captain says the ship can't spare it. [This superstition might save the players if they have to take air from a dead body out in the void or something]

Related to the above superstition, stories abound of silent crews who, when you peer through their visors, are nothing but skeletons [because of course they are - nevermind that a hermetically sealed spacesuit will preserve a dead body rather than skeletonify a body].

Spacers _always_ keep a log. New kids might have an encrypted audio log on their suit that's just full of reminders and blog shit, but traditionalists keep a hard copy with timestamps and enough detail that you could recreate a rough outline of their day from the descriptions. [This would be useful for detective type stories trying to solve a ghost ship mystery or something, and the solution might lay in cross-referencing a few frames of a video log entry with an old-fashioned diary]

File: 1462285589549.jpg (35 KB, 620x350)

35 KB JPG

>>48157098
When you acquire a new vacsuit, always "scuff it up" (put dirty smudges on it, scratch up some of the exterior). Taking a shiny new suit out without at least an attempt to break it in is asking for trouble. This is mostly an excuse for other crew members to bully a newbie (put grease on their suit etc.).

For mercs/pirates, never wear a "skull" motif on your suit/clothes unless you've killed someone. Painting a skull on your suit invites Death to watch you, and if you haven't killed anyone, Death will take you instead.

The crew of two similarly-named ships should never set foot on each other's ships, or a mishap is certain. Eg: "Pyrebird" and "Firebird", or "Firebird" and "Phoenix".

Crew members always count out the number of steps from their bunk to the nearest escape pod or airlock. If the number is 13, disaster will strike them - they might resort to sleeping in common areas or at work stations rather than sleep in their bunk.

Captains play a few lines of a certain song on the intercom and public comm channels before beginning re-entry or disembarking on an EVA. This tune is usually different for every ship.

>>48157098
>>A spacer's vacsuit is their coffin. You don't strip corpses of vacsuits, and you keep your vacsuit in good order because one day it'll be your coffin. It is, however, permitted to take O2 or water from a dead persons' suit, as long as the suit itself is kept intact.
>When you "bury" someone in space, you make sure their suit is fully tanked up (with O2, water, power cell, fabmatter etc.) unless the captain says the ship can't spare it. [This superstition might save the players if they have to take air from a dead body out in the void or something]
>Related to the above superstition, stories abound of silent crews who, when you peer through their visors, are nothing but skeletons .
Get rid of these.
These are pretty awful and don't make a whole lot of sense. It's a colossal waste of resources, Absolutely impractical, and difficult to deal with, and too macabre.

The rest is pretty cool.

>>48157841
>When you acquire a new vacsuit, always "scuff it up" (put dirty smudges on it, scratch up some of the exterior). Taking a shiny new suit out without at least an attempt to break it in is asking for trouble. This is mostly an excuse for other crew members to bully a newbie (put grease on their suit etc.).
Impractical and i can't imagine it sticking around, especially when some people have official functions.

>Crew members always count out the number of steps from their bunk to the nearest escape pod or airlock. If the number is 13, disaster will strike them - they might resort to sleeping in common areas or at work stations rather than sleep in their bunk.
Absolutely untenable. Steps vary in sizes, and no one would ever sleep on a couch instead of a bed because a number of steps they might have miscounted. Plus the whole "disaster" thing makes it unlikely people are going to ascribe random events to this, because too serious.

>>48158129
I think your vision of the setting is different fron what the guy posted. His "macabre" and "Stupid" things work perfectly in a setting of a certain tone.

>>48158155
Nono. I don't mean that they are macabre or stupid, they are just things that everyone would be reluctant to enforce. Regardless of setting, people don't like to think constantly about their own death, so saying that "your vaccsuit is your coffin so keep it intact" is a bit too much.

Plus no matter in what setting, sending people out into space in just their spacesuit would be impractical, scary for the crew and anyone who discovers the body and ... well... handling a dead body is difficult enough not to mention if they are wearing a heavy spacesuit.

Also it's astronomically unlikely that someone comes upon a dead body floating free in space.

And the other two things aren't really stupid, just not suitable for superstitions, because people would subconsciously get rid of them and thus not propagate them.
If the way was exactly 13 steps the person might recount and take smaller steps to make it 14.
If someone put a lot of grime on their spacesuit chances are that they would die because of seals failing or the scratched parts breaking or corroding, plus they wouldn't want to handle the spacesuit a lot since it would be dirty as hell.
Plus anyone with any official function would want to maintain a dresscode that doesn't make them look positively filthy.

>>48158129
In defence of the "colossal waste of resources" issue, I feel it makes a certain kind of sense. Human beings have always ascribed a certain significance to dead bodies, which is unlikely to ever leave us, even into the far future. Putting aside a certain amount of resources for a dead crewman's "grave" seems entirely feasible.

Of course if you have a lot of dead crew, you're not going to suit up every single one of them. But if you're in that situation, proper disposal of bodies is likely the least of your worries.

>>48158194
You forget that it's not a "certain amount of resources" you're putting aside, you're putting aside a spacesuit. Something that's always going to be highest of tech, and valuable, reusable, difficult to make, and expensive. Plus you have to do this FOR EVERY PERSON that dies in space, making this a MASSIVE waste.


Plus, compared to that a funeral/cremation on a planet seems like dishonoring the deceased.

And again: Most cultures like to keep death separate from life. So burying someone in their streetclothes/work uniform is weird.

I love this thread.

Also crews should always regularly put a coat of fresh paint, preferably of bright colors, on their ship's radar dome, so the wandering spirits don't think it's abandoned and settle in. You don't want wandering spirits to settle in your radar dome. Same goes for other similar important external parts of the ship.

>>48158129
Look, that's absolutely right - some things don't fit in all settings, and my ideas probably don't match what the OP is imagining. I was actually thinking that vacsuits would be quite old technologically (the oldest tech being the most tried and tested, and least likely to fail) and custom fit for each individual, so if Jimmy Redshirt dies, there's no point keeping his suit because nobody else is going to fit it properly (let alone the whole "You're new, so you can have Jimmy's old suit, he died in it" thing).

But the "scuff it up" superstition is actually something I drew on from real life, both as a kid in public school and working in a warehouse.

Since neither of those places are known for their high income, when a kid shows up with brand new shoes (or a worker shows up in a pristine shirt), they immediately stand out, and the other kids stomp/kick dirt on your shoes so you match the worn look of everyone else. In the workplace, if your shirt is always clean, you obviously weren't working as hard as everyone else, so you give yourself extra dirty jobs when you get a new shirt. Grime means you work for a living.

More pragmatically, it could also be a reminder that a brand new vacsuit needs a shakedown to ensure that all the kinks are worked out before you go out in the void.

A few things from my setting:

Real" spacer (ie. those not in the navy or flying a ship owned by some megacorporation) are expected to have their own vac-suit when they sign on board. If not, the captain can give them money to buy one, but it's deducted from their pay. A vac-suit is a spacer's most prized possession, and a lot of superstitions center around it, including:
>A used suit is "luckier" than a brand new one, which has never been tested in real conditions. Although that might be just what the spavers who can't afford a brand new suit claim.
>However, it's extremely unlucky if the previous owner of the suit died while wearing it, even if their cause of death has nothing to do with the suit.
>You're supposed to do a checkup of your suit every morning. Not doing so is terribly unlucky: you just know that the one day you didn't do the checkup is going to be the day when the oxygen scrubbers malfunction or something, despite everything working perfectly the previous day.
>Personalizing you suit in some way is good for luck (and on a practical level makes you more identifiable while wearing the suit). This practice is frowned upon on navy- and corporate ships, although plenty of crewmen still do it.
>Your suit will have a tag with the name and/or symbol of the ship you're serving, usually on the chest and/or sleeve. When switching from one ship to another, a spacer typically removes the tag and attaches it somewhere else on the suit (usually the leg or some other area where it won't get confused with the tag of their current ship). Veteran spaces who have served on many ships are easily identified by the large amount of tags adorning their suit.

Cont...

>>48159395
Some other superstitions/tradition:
>The ship is a person and as much part of the crew as the actual crew is. It is extremely inconsiderate to refer her as an "it" instead of "she". Renaming a ship is also unlucky.
>When on a new planet for the first time, it is customary for a spacer to get a sticker/tag/etc. with the name of the planet and attach it to their trunk/suitcase/bag/etc. Another way to recognise veteran spacers.
>New crewmembers must during their first trip go on a spacewalk and circummavigate the ship.
>Every space is a spacer first and anything else second. You always help a spacer in distress, even if it's your worst enemy, or a pirate. Because if you were in the same situation, you'd damn well hope they'd help you. Of course, what passes as the necessary amount of help varies between situation. If you find a pirate ship in distress, you usually just them a token amount of supplies and alert the authorities.
>You don't look out of viewports/extrenal camera feed during warp. What happens if you do varies between tellings, but it's always bad. Of course, all "experts" have debunked this long ago (not that there's really anything to see while in the warp), but still, you just don't do it.
>For some reason, every spacer seems to know that one engineer who plays an instrument (usually a guitar, a harmonica or an accordion) while off-duty in the engine room, usually badly.
>Every ship has something called a "baffle plate". Nobody outside engineering really knows what it does, and most suspects it's some in-joke among the engineers and doesn't actually do anything (despite any engineer insisting that if it blows, everybody will be dead).

>>48158762
I understand the second thing now. Yes it makes sense albeit only on cargo vessels and such, not necessarily random spacecraft. Important distinction.
Either way, this i can understand.

The burial however i still am uncomfortable with.

How would such a superstition arise?
Aren't the materials the suit is made of valuable?
Isn't a fully operational vaccsuit an explosive decompression hazard?
Wouldn't it lead to extremely odd and unpleasant encounters on the off chance that it drifts to some other vessel?
Why would you want to bury someone in something that's in your setting essentially work-clothes?
Wouldn't it be impractical to move a dead body around in a heavy suit with all extremities flapping about?

>>48159582
Not him, but for me it would make sense that for a spaces, a vacuum suit is mort than just work clothes. It's also essentially a uniform (if you're wearing one, you're a spacer), and the only thing keeping you alive while out in space. It's a part of you; a second skin against the void. Wanting to be buried wearing one makes perfect sense to me.

>>48159615
hm.

>>48115745
>Dont look into black holes directly. Use sensors, not your helmets visor or the bridge-windows.
I like this one. The abyss gazes into you.

>>48120026
That doesn't preclude superstitions star sailors attributing it to him.

>>48157841
>Crew members always count out the number of steps from their bunk to the nearest escape pod or airlock. If the number is 13, disaster will strike them - they might resort to sleeping in common areas or at work stations rather than sleep in their bunk.
13 or a multiple of 13, how about.

>>48159395
>>Your suit will have a tag with the name and/or symbol of the ship you're serving, usually on the chest and/or sleeve. When switching from one ship to another, a spacer typically removes the tag and attaches it somewhere else on the suit (usually the leg or some other area where it won't get confused with the tag of their current ship). Veteran spaces who have served on many ships are easily identified by the large amount of tags adorning their suit.


I like this, maybe when in station or dirtside the standard one piece coverall or if a spacer can afford it, a leather vest or jacket with the patch of his ship on it, usually the same as the nose art and name of the ship.

1 if he is passed out drunk, just drag him to the landing bay with his ship in it.
2 you can always pick out your crew in a crowd
3 you might come across a spacer that served on the same ship before you did and
4 if the ship is particularly prestigious, everyone knows you crew aboard it.

>>48160324
I like these ideas a lot.

>>48160324
On the last campaign I ran, shiny new leather jackets with their ships name and art, and their surnames, were standard issue. That small detail made the crew feel so much tighter and excited