>>4403486
>Day 11 of Terminated Expedition/Hyperspace to Kindling/06:02 Hours

After a late-night consultation with your two confidants, you ultimately decided that first thing in the ‘morning’, you would bring the conspiracy out into the open by telling the entire compliment (nearly) everything you know. And after some intense deliberation at that consultation, you decided to treat Jobbs’ testimony as the truth, regardless of your ability to verify everything he said. Compared to the Head Engineer, Jobbs’ actions and testimony rings truer to you. Chaucer, your pragmatic Fleet’s Clerk was firmly in Jobbs’ corner on this and considered Jobbs’ account to be the unvarnished truth. Quimbix, your eccentric Quartermaster, on the other hand, still believed that Jobbs should be treated as a suspect, pointing out again him finding the counterfeit instruction manual in the late Droustein effects is an incredibly convenient occurrence. Feeling like Quimbix was grasping at straws here, you sided with Chaucer and ended the discussion, but later, as you undressed for bed, you could not help wondering. Perhaps it was simply in your cautious nature, perhaps it was because you had been unable to verify everything that Jobbs had said, or it might just be the stress that you are under, but you don’t know if you will ever be sure that he has been telling the truth, especially if you are unable to recover the Clean Sweep.

After waking up, you attempt to raise the Clean Sweep one more time, but in the end are unable to make a connection. Having exhausted your patience on that front, you return to your room to compose the message that will be sent to the remaining ships in the fleet, explaining the situation. The plan is to send the message over with instructions for the contents to be read of the local PA systems of the ship. A copy will also be broadcasted in the general direction of where the Clean Sweep should be, so that if they are still in tandem with the rest of the fleet, then there is a chance that they might pick some of it up. After you have that written, then you get a rough draft completed for the debt buying plan; you still haven’t decided if you will go through with it, but for now, just get the idea written down.

There is nothing left for it; you call in your Concierge and give him the copy of your address to send out to the rest of the fleet. You cannot imagine that this is going to go over well here. The only question now is, do you want to address the compliment of the Aethereal Vulture, or do you want to delegate that too?

>>4403493
As always, please do not roll until the voting is closed, thank you.

>Have the Comms Operator take care of that; this is his job after all. (You will roll three 1d3+1 for Crewmen, Engineer and Officers to determine morale loss for each.)*

>They should hear it from you; this is your responsibility after all. (You will roll one 1d20 to determine how well the OO manages to sell this to the Starving Vultures; rolling a 1-5 is a -1 modifier to all morale loss, 6-15 is no modifier to the morale loss, 16-20 is +1 modifier to all morale loss. Then roll the three 1d3+1 for Crewmen, Engineer and Officers to determine the morale loss for each.)**

*EXAMPLE: Rolling 2+1, 1+1, 3+1 would mean that the morale of the Crewmen drops by 3, the morale of the Engineers drops by 2, and that the morale of the Officers drops by 4.

**EXAMPLES: Rolling a 2 on the 1d20, then the same as above would mean that the morale of the Crewmen drops by 4, the morale of the Engineers drops by 3, and the morale of the Officers drops by 5. Rolling a 12 on the 1d20, then the same (2+1, 1+1, 3+1) would mean that morale of the Crewman drops by 3, the morale of the Engineers drops by 2, and that the morale of the Officers drops by 4. Finally, rolling a 18 on the 1d20, then the same (2+1, 1+1, 3+1) would mean that morale of the Crewman drops by 2, the morale of the Engineers drops by 1, and that the morale of the Officers drops by 3.

Oh, and before I forget, welcome back everyone! If there are any new players around, here are the links to the archives:

>>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Space+Derelict+Quest

Three reminders; first is 'picture related' as far as the current morale levels for the different classes of men throughout the Starving Vultures. The second reminder is that we are planning on allowing the men an unexpected shore leave with a bonus, so whatever happens with this roll, you aren't going to be at risk of a mutiny. Finally, after this vote (and roll) there is going to be a time skip to our arrival in port, at the very end of the 12th day of the Terminated Expedition.

>>4403525
>They should hear it from you; this is your responsibility after all.

>>4403603
Hmm. Okay, I'll go eat dinner, and then I will close the vote when I get back. If there isn't a majority, then I will roll for the tiebreaker.

Alright, it doesn't seem that anyone else is going to come along. Consider this particular vote closed.
So, we need 1 roll of 1d20 to determine if we are able to mitigate any of the morale damage that this announcement is going to do, and then we will need 3 rolls of 1d3+1 to determine how much damage is done to each of the three classes.

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>4403768

Rolled 1, 2, 2 = 5 (3d3)

>>4403768

>>4403826
>>4403900
Alright, so the 9 means that OO was not able to improve (or worsen) the emotional blow of the news. Give me a minute or so, and I'll get the next post up.

>Bridge of the Aethereal Vulture/06:08 Hours

It does not matter if the Comms Operator could do a better job of delivering the news, or if someone else could write a better speech. The men need to hear this from you, or at least in your own words. You arrive on the bridge early enough that the third-shift skeleton crew is still on duty. Wearily, you acknowledge the attention of the few Flag Officers and Crewmen present, and for the first time since you order the departure from the Derelict, you resumed your seat in the Command Chair. The bridge was lit more by the illumination from the consoles and equipment than by the emergency lights themselves, and the ultimate effect of this was to give the space an intense atmosphere. Eyes staring out of shadowed faces were all on you; and there were a few seconds where you simply sat hunched and leaning hard on your right elbow in the chair. Thankfully, there was no one standing directly in front of you, otherwise they might have thought that at this moment, you look small in the chair, as if your large frame was somehow unable to fill it.

However, you recall the ultimate precept of leadership; the leader must model the behavior and the attitude he wishes to cultivate in his men. You sit up straight and shift into the center of the Command Chair. Away from the ‘comfort’ of the right armrest, you feel even smaller in the chair, as if you are about to be swallowed up by it. But what you feel like and what you look like are two different things, at least, you have to hope. Having found some resolve, you address the entire bridge, though directed at no one in particular. “I need to make an announcement; across the entire ship.”

There is silence, and a sense of growing concern throughout the bridge, but it takes several-several seconds for one of the Crewmen stationed to move over to the Comms Console and activate the PA system for the entire ship. The man simply looks to you and says, “All set.”

You open up the left armrest of the chair, take out the microphone, then you jack it in and power it up. Yeah, everything is all set. Well, no, it is not, but at least, the microphone is ready for you.

>>4404074
You take several-several-several seconds to compose yourself, until you realize that you are just stalling. It is all set. You just need to believe that it is all set.

“All non-essential personnel, I ask that you stop what you are doing and listen to this announcement.” After a second, you realize that you should identify yourself, and follow up your opening statement with “This is the Owner-Operator speaking to you.” It is off the cuff, and perhaps unprofessional, but you find yourself adding “Please, this is important.” There is some audible shifting around the bridge, and you imagine that it is the same all over the ship, as your men stop to listen to your announcement

“As many of you are no doubt aware, there was an incident on the Clean Sweep, after the reattachment of the netting pylons, which resulted in the loss of life of one Crewman, and the loss of limb of another, specifically, an arm. There were two other serious injuries, though they are on track to make full recoveries. As expected of any major accident, especially one that resulted in the loss of life, there was an investigation. And while it seems hard to accept, at this point, it appears that this was not an accident born out negligence, but a deliberate and premeditated act of sabotage.

You can hear the men on the bridge react to this revelation, but you force yourself not to look at them, not to listen to them, lest you lose your train of thought. After this resolution, you realize that you sort of misspoke; all sabotage is by definition ‘deliberate’, but you will ignore this gaffe for now.

“I want to be clear about this point; the nature of this act of sabotage means that it was planned before we left Old Scrimshander. There is no evidence that it is in any way connected to our discovery of the Derelict.

You do not know if it is the right decision, but you leave the logical conclusion of that statement unspoken; that we would be equally as likely to experience more sabotage if we abandoned the salvage operation of the Derelict than if we continued as planned. You do not want the men panicking about the prospect of returning to the wreck, if you can help it. Hopefully, by partially addressing this point now, you have gotten ahead of it enough that you will not need to worry about it later.

“One of the reasons why we did not immediately make this known is that we were unclear what purpose this sabotage served. It was only towards the start of the third shift that this point became clear. In all of the chaos surrounding our departure from the system, we did not realize that one of the injured Crewmen was the Clean Sweeps Bo’ sun. It has become apparent that the purpose of the sabotage here was to provide cover to either incapacitate or kill this Crewman, so he could be replaced by a member of this conspiracy.

>>4404138
“The apparent purpose of this was to surreptitiously gain control of the Bo’ sun’s Console.”

Judging by the shocked noises, some men on the Bridge have already figured out what exactly this means, but this point needs to be addressed completely.

“The Clean Sweep has been out of relay communication for nearly 12 hours now; considering that the saboteurs were targeting the Bo’ sun, it is possible that our trawler is no longer jumping in tandem with the rest of the fleet. To put it plainly; the heading and condition of the ship is unknown to us at this time; it is possible that she is lost to us.

This went over as well as could be expected, which was extremely poorly, judging by the loud and nearly-panicked reactions of the men on the bridge. You reiterate that this is only a possibility, and explain that with the circumstances being as they are, with you unable to examine or interview anyone on the trawler, it is possible that this is a misunderstanding, but that the fleet should be prepared to come out of Hyperspace at Kindling without its trawler. Finally, you ask your men to remain vigilant, and if they see anything suspicious, to please mention it to their direct report. You conclude the broadcast by telling them to return to their scheduled duties.

>You were unable to soften the blow of the news, but at least, you did not make it any worse.

>Crewman morale decreases from 2 to 0

>Engineer morale decreases from 1 to -2

>Officer morale decreases from 2 to -1

Having finished here, you thank the Bridge, and offer some kind (though effectively empty) words of encouragement. When it doesn't seem to get through to them however, you simply stop, and retreat to your quarters. On the way, you page Quimbix and Chaucer to come speak with you when they are available. It you don't know what you need to discuss with them at this point, but you feel obligated to speak with them, to say something. Whatever that is, you will just have to figure it out as you go along.

TIME SKIP

Okay, so while I get some sleep, I have figured out how we are going to deal with the Clean Sweep. I'll need 1d20 to determine which of 18 possible events happened (with a roll of 19 rerolling with a 1d10, dropping the 8 worst outcomes, and a roll of 20 rerolling with a 1d5, dropping the 13 worst outcomes), as well as a roll of 1d6, to determine how well the ship made it through Hyperspace without it's Bo' sun.

>1 roll of 1d20

>1 roll of 1d6

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>4404205
it would had been nice if you liked this thread to the last one.

>>4404205
Did we leave anything important on the Clean Sweep I swear I'm gonna dropping this quest if we did.

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Alright now I read all the posts.
>Crewman morale decreases from 2 to 0
>Engineer morale decreases from 1 to -2
>Officer morale decreases from 2 to -1
>all this morale loss
>all that morale gathering down the drain
>losing the Clean Sweep
>desire to participate in this dumpster fire diminishing drastically
RNG shits in my cereal yet again. I might lurk for a while due to my cursed as fuck dice.

>>4404234
Whoops, I thought I had. Thanks for letting me know. Also that was a decent roll. It could have been better, but believe me when I say that it could have been much, much worse.

>>4404243
I mean, that really depends on your definition of 'important'. Besides any evidence of whatever happened on board, there are the bodies that we were going to find some way to 'respectfully' pick over, and there was an as of yet undetermined amount of scrap on board. However, there is also some scrap stashed away on the freighter that we still have regardless, there are the magnets that we have that are worth about 1500dT safe on the Aethereal Vulture and most importantly, there are the drones, both the remains and the rebuilt ones, also on board our flagship, which despite being useful, are also worth a decent chunk of money, if you can find a buyer who is willing to accept mystery-meat hardware.

>>4404252
Did you read what the other roll was for? >>4404205
>...as well as a roll of 1d6, to determine how well the ship made it through Hyperspace without it's Bo' Sun.
Or perhaps you'd like to know what you managed to roll for instead.
10: The Clean Sleep belated arrives at Kindling, after managing to flee a planned ambush with cosmetic combat damage. Between fighting to reclaim the ship from mutineers and the {REDACTED} there was some loss of life. The {REDACTED} can not be identified yet.
While it was possible for the Clean Sweep to be lost or otherwise destroyed, thanks to your decent enough roll, that didn't happen.
Also, the men still have shore leave with a significant bonus in their pocket; morale will recover, and almost certainly improve.

Anyway, in case it gets buried, we still need that 1d6 to determine what condition the Clean Sweep comes back in.

>One roll of 1d6 please

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>>4404273
I cannot begin to explain how much I want to murder you, the spies, the Loan Shark, and anything near me with a pulse. Should I roll or wait?

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>>4404284
I hope that's a good roll

>>4404284
>>4404286
Decent enough.
5:The Clean Sweep receives only cosmetic damage from the jump; there is no additional loss of life

>Day 12 of Terminated Expedition/Hyperspace to Kindling/18:49 Hours

With only the Engineers working, and everyone else just on standby, the remaining duration of the voyage seems to drag on, even though it is little more than a day and a half. There is a prevailing scene of gloom throughout the fleet; the idea that an entire ship may have been lost, no, stolen away is a shocking and terrifying revelation. While it is possible that this is some great big misunderstanding, you have to be honest with your men and yourself. There is no intellectually honest way of looking at what has happened on that trawler as anything but deliberate, premeditated sabotage. Almost sardonically, you realize that you have done it again; sabotage is by nature ‘deliberate’. Well, at least this was not on a broadcast, like last time, but still, you will need to learn to watch what you say more closely in the future. And not just for small gaffes like that; in your conversation, Quimbix pointed out that you used ‘we’. While it presumably is not a secret that you had confidants during this … this crisis, it is worth watching what you say during these dangerous times.

Your reflections are brought to an abrupt end, as the emergency backup lights start to blink on and off. The jump is almost over, but the exit is arguably the most dangerous part. There is a real danger that with the exit back into mundane space, portions of the hull could phase out permanently if the exit area is in anyway occupied or contested, which would pose a serious risk to life and limb for any Crewman nearby. As such, with all exits, it is standard operating procedure everyone to shelter in place, in the interior of the ship, so that if there are any breaches, the likelihood that they result in casualties or fatalities is dramatically reduced.

There are a few souls, however, who have to be at their stations in areas that are at some level of risk, including a skeleton crew that will be running the Bridge for the critical last few minutes in Hyperspace. Typically, you sit out the danger in your quarters, which are well in the interior of the ship, but after everything that has happened, perhaps you should head to the Bridge as well; to show some sort of solidarity. Just a thought.

>Remain in Quarters
>Head to Bridge

>>4404605
>Head to Bridge

>>4404642
Alright, I'm going to go take care of my garden, and when I get back, I'll close the vote and start writing. If there is a tie or something, I will roll for it.

Closed and writing

>>4404705
>Day 12 of Terminated Expedition/Owner-Operator’s Quarters/18:50 Hours
With everything that has gone on throughout the fleet, you decide that you should be on the Bridge. It is not safe, it is not sensible, and there is nothing that you need to or can do there, but you feel as if with your inaction here, you are being crushed under the weight of your responsibilities. Hopefully, the burden will feel lighter if you are doing something, or at least, are being around others doing something.

>Day 12 of Terminated Expedition/Bridge of the Aethereal Vulture/18:51 Hours
The skeleton crew that is currently manning the Bridge looks surprised at your presence, but is professional enough to remain on task, running through the checklists to make sure that everything has been done to keep the ship in once piece as it comes out of Hyperspace. You sit down on the Command Chair, trying to think of something to say, but when nothing comes to you, you decide to remain quiet. Your presence here is gesture enough, empty platitudes and encouragement would only cheapen it, and distract the men besides. You wait in silence, hoping, praying even, for a safe exit from Hyperspace, and for the crew of the Clean Sweep to be alright.

>Day 12 of Terminated Expedition/Kindling/Bridge of the Aethereal Vulture/19:16 Hours
There is a familiar jostle and jerk as the Aethereal Vulture exits Hyperspace; while there is more danger in leaving Hyperspace than entering it, the entrances are generally more uncomfortable than the exits, assuming, of course, that nothing has gone wrong. The emergency backup lights had been temporarily shut down just as the ship exited Hyperspace, as a precaution against any manner of distortion damaging the electrical systems. As the jump drive spools down the Bridge is completely illuminated by the lights off of the consoles. The centerpiece of the Bridge, the massive viewscreen that nearly a decade ago now, you yourself helped install, is a dark, distorting mirror. You can barely make out your reflection on the screen, and what you can see looks equal parts tired and defeated, though that could simply be you editorializing things.

Abruptly, the standard lights snap on, and as you blink to help your eyes adjust, you can hear the ship come back on. Within a minute, diagnostic reports are starting to come back, as Crewmen and Engineers are returning to their stations throughout the ship from their interior shelters. Communications are back up again, though the audio quality is horrendous from the abortive attempt to backdate the wreck by looking at the trajectory of debris. That might require a specialist to repair it, but at least it works properly. Too impatient for the rest of the ships to report in, you activate the external cameras, and link them to the viewscreen, so you can check the rest of the fleet.

Immediately, you can see Old Ironsides and the Mammon. Perhaps they just beat you back here, which leaves the Karaboudjan (with the Maui docked to it) and the Clean Sweep. Within several minutes, there is an alert for an inbound body through Hyperspace. Several-several minutes later, the Karaboudjan makes its entrance. Delays like this are not uncommon. Hyperspace is inherently unstable, and ships that left the same place at the same time, moving at the same speed will not always arrive together; the reasons for this are not known, however these questions are more the concerns of astrophysicists than star-faring men.

>>4405056
All they (you) are concerned with are the two unintuitive (read as physics-breaking) rules for Hyperspace travel. First, bigger and heavier hulls will spend longer making the same jump at the same speed than slimmer and lighter hulls. Second, if two identical ships cover the same distance at the same speed, but one ship made one single jump, and the other ship made multiple smaller jumps, the ship that made more jumps will get there sooner than the ship that only made one. The flipside of this is that the more jumps you make, the less fuel efficient your jump drive is running, not to mention the increased chance that something goes wrong.

Reflecting on this, you look on through the viewscreen at your freighter as she runs her diagnostics and comes back online. She is only slightly longer than your tanker, but it is much, much bulkier. Even only carrying about 1000 TEU’s, instead of the full 12,000 TEU’s that it is capable of, it casts a much more imposing profile; before the recovery of the Aethereal Vulture, it was both the fleet’s freighter and the flagship, though that was before your time.

You still are not willing to acknowledge the absence of the Clean Sweep, but just as you are about to try to think of something else to distract you, an alert comes through. Another smaller body has been detected moving through Hyperspace to your fleet’s rendezvous point. The profile is only approximate, but it is a rough match to your missing trawler. Its trajectory is erratic, but it is clear that its last jump was not with the rest of the fleet. This could be it!

As a precaution, you put the fleet on alert, and order them out of the rendezvous point, as the ship might phase-crash into them just as it exits. The rest of the fleet moves out promptly, but your freighter the Karaboudjan is struggling to stoke its engines. Time is running out before this late arrival, but it is still an agonizingly long time before you see the familiar flickering of the thrusters as the freighter starts to drag itself groggily out of the way. It is not entire clear of the rendezvous point when the Clean Sweep bursts back into mundane space as if it were some bat out of Hell.

>>4405057
>What happened: From the roll of 10: The Clean Sweep fled an ambush with some combat damage. Between the mutineers and the attackers, there was some loss of life on board. Cannot identify the attackers.
>What condition: From the roll of 5: The Clean Sweep receives only cosmetic damage from the jump; there is no additional loss of life on board

While the wave of relief you feel upon the sight of your missing trawler is immense, it is also fleeting. Had the trawler exited Hyperspace any closer to your freighter, there might have been phase damage. Potentially crippling phase damage. You also notice, with no small amount of alarm, that the ship is already broadcasting distress and … quarantine signals? Setting aside the ‘why’, the ‘how’ is concerning enough. For them to be able to broadcast ‘semaphore’ already mean that they jumped with many of their systems running, risking a great deal of damage.

Concern having completely displaced any joy from the seemingly miraculous return of your trawler, you have the viewscreen zoom in, and now, alarm displaces concern. There is damage visible on the hull, but it is not phase damage, rather it looks to be as if your trawler had been strafed several times by starfighters. Just what the actual fuck happened to your poor ship? The Clean Sweep is attempting to broadcast out an audiovisual message, but the thing is completely garbled; there must be some internal damage that you are not seeing right now. At this level of zoom, it is also becoming apparent that the ship is wobbling, as if the thrusters were failing to compensate for something…

Oh fuck!

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>>4405060
When you saw it, your hand reflexively went to your mouth, and it takes a moment before you recover enough composure to remove it. Well, that explains the ‘quarantine’ alert. Forcibly imbedded in the midships of your trawler, still active, judging by the merrily glowing aft thruster is a massive ‘Plutonian’ torpedo, named after its fissile fuel; weapons grade plutonium. You cannot believe what you are seeing, but it is undeniable that some asshole somewhere saw fit to fire a rare and very nuclear weapon at your poor, poor trawler. Considering its age, it is a remote possibility that the weapon is somehow defective, but you certainly are not going to count on that. Alternatively, it is still small enough that it could have been swept away with the Clean Sweep as it fled into Hyperspace before impact, and then impacted during the jump, but did not detonate because of phase shenanigans in Hyperspace.

This is ridiculous! Can nothing go right at all on this fucking expedition! Can’t you catch a break? Err, another break? … Well, actually you should probably consider the return of the Clean Sweep a really lucky break, considering how well the saboteurs plotted circles around you…

As inappropriate and mundane as this internal monologue might be, you find that it settles and focuses your mind towards the task at hand. You need to evacuate that ship immediately, and then, if you are willing to risk it, you need to look to deactivate that torpedo and save that trawler. A thought springs in unbidden; if you were able to get that torpedo deactivated in a restorable condition, you would have an incredible weapon at your disposal; alternatively the standing bounty that the Port Authority has on all functional nuclear weapons might be enough to cover your debt, and get in their good graces. Or if you could find a buyer instead, then it might be worth enough to cover your debt several times over.

But now, your first task is to figure out how to evacuate the remaining compliment of the Clean Sweep.

>>4405066
Your four choices. Remember, I have to close the vote before I can accept any rolls. I'm going to go get some dinner while laughing maniacally. If anyone is interested in knowing, the roll of 10 that resulted in this 'weapons damaged' craft was the most dangerous, but also the most potentially profitable of the 10 good outcomes. Not all of the bad were as dangerous as this one was, but none of them provided a reward like this. One of them simply had the Clean Sweep fall out of Hyperspace as a debris field with no survivors, so you should count your blessings before you get too aggravated.

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui directly dock with the Clean Sweep and have everyone get on board as quickly as possible. The impact could set off the torpedo, but if it does not, it will be the quickest way to conduct the crew off of the ship, which leaves you the most time to deactivate the weapon. (roll 1d5 and 1d20-1; if the 1d5 rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 5, then the torpedo detonates destroying both ships)

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui get within a hairsbreadth of the Clean Sweep, have spacesuits sent over to the Clean Sweep, so the remaining crew can conduct themselves off of the ship, will take twice as long, but without the docking, is half as risky (roll 2 1d10 and 1d20-1; if either of the 1d10s rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 5, then the torpedo detonates destroying the Clean Sweep and crippling the Maui)

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui get just outside of the blast radius, and have spacesuits sent over to the Clean Sweep, so the remaining crew can conduct themselves off the ship, will take four times as long as dock, but without the dock is half as risky (roll 4 1d10 and 1d20-1; if any of the 1d10s rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 4, then the torpedo detonates destroying the Clean Sweep and doing cosmetic damage on the Maui.

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui, from well outside of the blast radius, punt a barge with the space suits over towards the Clean Sweep, so the remaining crew can conduct themselves to safety. This will take 6 times a long as dock, but will be half as risky, also, the punting is a Crewman action, not an Officer Action. (roll 6 1d10 and 1d20; if any of the 1d10s rolls 1, or the 1d20 is less than 4, then the torpedo detonates, destroying the Clean Sweep)

>>4405079
Prepare a speech to the fleet and rejoice. Our Clean Sweep has returned. We will save our ship and get our revenge against the criminals that dare try to disrupt our fleet. (try to recover from the morale loss, because fuck you and that morale penalty you piece of shit.)

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui get within a hairsbreadth of the Clean Sweep, have spacesuits sent over to the Clean Sweep, so the remaining crew can conduct themselves off of the ship, will take twice as long, but without the docking, is half as risky (roll 2 1d10 and 1d20-1; if either of the 1d10s rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 5, then the torpedo detonates destroying the Clean Sweep and crippling the Maui)
Arguably the best choice we have unfortunately.
Wait why not have a remote drone ferry a barge back and forth to the Maui? Would that be better?

>>4405138
The barges are very basic drones themselves. The issue is that the barges are simply exposed platforms, without any cabins. The men aboard the Clean Sweep will need to suit up into spacesuits to make the journey across.

>>4405145
Unknown my ass
So if we go with the space suit option, I'd like for there to be armed riflemen at the ready when they cross over and at the Maui. No one aboard the Clean Sweep can pass if they have a weapon. Everyone will be searched.
Send a broad message to the Clean Sweep that anyone in league's with the sabatours should give themselves over and they will be let off with only a few months in the brig if they come quietly and identify who they're working for. If they are super compliant then we might let them off altogether.

>>4405158
>So if we go with the space suit option, I'd like for there to be armed riflemen
That can definitely be done. I don't feel comfortable closing an important vote like this with only one person participating though, especially considering the odds here. I'll let this sit maybe an another hour or so, then if no one else shows up or anything I guess I'll have to move things along.

>>4405079
Wonderful Quest so far QM. While our misfortune has been unpleasant at times, it's given this quest a very refreshing air of tension that can be missing when the outcome is never truly in doubt.

With that being said, and our historic inability to roll well consistently, I think it would be best to mitigate our potential to roll 1's.

>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui directly dock with the Clean Sweep and have everyone get on board as quickly as possible. The impact could set off the torpedo, but if it does not, it will be the quickest way to conduct the crew off of the ship, which leaves you the most time to deactivate the weapon. (roll 1d5 and 1d20-1; if the 1d5 rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 5, then the torpedo detonates destroying both ships)

May we live long enough to prosper.

>>4405325
>>4405138
Hmm. I know I said I'd roll for this if someone else came in, but this is such an important vote, and its Friday, it isn't even 10pm EST, I have to believe we can get someone in here to break the tie. I'll let this sit for about another half hour and then I really will do it this time, you guyze!
>>4405325
I'm glad you are enjoying it; it is hard to make things have 'serious' stakes without things feeling too harsh or even worse, arbitrary.

>>4405079
My vote:
>Have the Shuttle-Tug Maui directly dock with the Clean Sweep and have everyone get on board as quickly as possible. The impact could set off the torpedo, but if it does not, it will be the quickest way to conduct the crew off of the ship, which leaves you the most time to deactivate the weapon. (roll 1d5 and 1d20-1; if the 1d5 rolls 1, or the 1d20-1 is less than 5, then the torpedo detonates destroying both ships)
All those odds are ugly but I'm willing to risk it all to recover the Clean Sweep, not just for the potential of recovering the valuable dirty bomb but also to make sure we save the crew and interrogate them about what happened to get to the bottom of this mystery. While this vote may be a tie breaker, this is such an important decision that I say we could give a little more time for other people to vote. I spy 3 people in this thread who posted earlier but haven't weighted on this decision yet.

As a side note I'm pleasantly surprised by the consitent quality of the writing, both in the characterization and the technical vocabulary. You're doing great!

Rolled 2 (1d2)

Alright, nothing for it
>>4405138 roll of 1
>>4405325 roll of 2

>>4405407
Whoops! Just missed this one. I'm glad you are enjoying the Quest as well. Okay, considering that there are other people who are following the quest who might not have voted yet, I'll let this one sit another hour or so before calling it. This is a pretty important vote too. Consider this vote still open, for at least another hour.

>>4405422
Alright, I guess that is long enough. We have two votes for the quick evacuation, and we have one vote for the hairsbreadth EVA from the trawler to the shuttle-tug. As discussed, we will send some armed Crewmen over to the Maui so that after everyone evacuates (after broadcasting that we will accept the surrender of the mutineers) we will have everything in hand.

The issue is that you want to have enough men on hand to take control of the evacuees from the Clean Sweep, but you also don't want to risk anyone you don't have to. For reference, here is the compliment of the Maui, right now, as it sits, nestled in the Karaboudjan's aft.

Vessel Name: Maui
Hull Type: Shuttle
Fleet Role: Shuttle-Tug
Compliment: 10 Crewmen, 1 Engineer, 2 Officers.

You do not know what happened since on board the Clean Sweep, but you do know how many were there when the trawler jumped to Hyperspace.

Vessel Name: Clean Sweep
Hull Type: Mite Freighter (Modified)
Fleet Role: Trawler
Compliment: 12 Crewmen, 5 Engineers, 2 Officers.

Because the Maui is docked with the Karaboudjan, and that ship has its own weapons locker, you can have your men armed really quickly. Anyone you don't want to risk can simply head onboard the freighter. Alternatively, you can move men from the freighter on to the Maui, if you want to send more men. For reference, this is the current compliment of the Karaboudjan.

Vessel Name: Karaboudjan
Hull Type: Freighter
Fleet Role: Freighter
Compliment: 15 Crewmen, 3 Engineers, 2 Officers.

Finally, you have to have at least one Officer and one Crewman on board the Maui to run this rescue mission. This is the last vote before the mission rolls, choose wisely!

>It worked for the netting, it can work for this. Have the current compliment of the Maui arm themselves, and then in quick order, head over to the Clean Sweep.
>Different locks have different keys. Have the current compliment of the Maui changed around (write in changes), arm themselves, and then in quick order, head over to the Clean Sweep.

>>4405705
I can't help but notice that the Maui has less men than the Clean Sweep. This is worrisome. The crew of the Clean Sweep just committed mutiny, either partially or wholly, and we don't know the current situation onboard the stranded ship. It is possible that an internal fight took place between two factions, which we can call the loyalists and the conspirators, but we don't know which side won. It's even possible that they are still fighting inside the ship while someone at the helm independently brought it back. The fact that the ship returned is not proof enough that the remaining crew has wholesome intentions. In a worse case scenario, it is possible that the ship we wish to rescue is entirely crewed by mutineers. If we send too little people, they could attempt to commandeer the Maui rather than face justice peaceably.

I am of the opinion that the crew of the Maui should be augmented up to the maximum headcount and heavily armed.

>>4405748
Once the Karaboudjan is clear of any danger, you could have everyone on board both the shuttle and the freighter arm themselves, and head over with the Maui. The maximum compliment therefore would be 25 Crewmen, 4 Engineers, 4 Officers. Worth remembering though, that if either of the two rolls are failed, then everyone on board both the Maui and the Clean Sweep will almost certainly die.

>>4405325
>>4405407
Why go with the 1d5 option? 2d10 has kinda the same odds, but there's less of a chance to lose both ships.

>>4405785
I agree, it is worth taking in consideration that if we send the maximum amount of people we can also have maximum casualty. I'm not entirely decided now.

>>4405787
The 2d10 option has almost the same odds but less reward (acquiring the dirty bomb). It is indeed safer.

>>4405803
It may be safer, but how is it less rewarding? We would still get the chance to get the nuke if we don't fuck it up.

>>4405807
The faster rescue gives more time to deactivate the weapon so the reward is greater but we weren't told the exact odds so it's difficult to argue on that subject. The odds of successful disarming the torpedo could change from 90% success to 10% success between the two first options, or maybe it changes from 10% to 9%, we don't know. I wonder if the roll for disarming will be the same as the roll for the rescue. For example, if rolling a 20 is both a perfect rescue and a successful disarm.

Alright, it is time to consider this vote closed; so there is nothing left for it. Its time to roll. Can I please get a 1d5 to see if we set the torpedo off with the docking with a roll of 1, 1d20-1 to see if the officer manages to screw things up here by rolling less than 5.

Good luck anons!

>>4406101
You grip the armrests of the Command Chair tightly enough that you can hear them strain. The at the currently level of zoom, the erratic wobbling as the thrusters attempt to counteract the unexpected propulsion from the imbedded torpedo evokes the mental image of an animal, speared and twitching in its death throes. Well, now you know for certain you are editorializing things. Your freighter has finished moving to get clear of the potential blast, and now you can see the Maui spring to life. You have no idea what the hell has happened on that ship, or who is still on it, but you can not afford to take any chances here.

Now that the Karaboudjan is out of the way of any potential blast, the entire compliments from both the freighter and the shuttle-tug can arm themselves to head over to the trawler. It takes what must have been the longest minute ever, but finally, the Maui punts off, and heads towards what will no doubt be its most dangerous mission yet, and potentially, its last.

>>4406118
>Please roll;
>1d5
>1d20-1

Rolled 3 (1d5)

>>4406122

Rolled 1 + 1 (1d20 + 1)

>>4406122
im fucking terrified rn but HERE GOES

>>4406167
It's a good thing you FUCKED UP the modifier.
So anyone else gonna roll?

>>4405833
That hardly matters when it comes to disarming the nuke. Where in the posts did it say that disarming it faster is better?

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>>4406167
>>4406170
Hmm. Alright, considering that Papa Scorch did mess up the modifier, and that you are only supposed to accept the correct rolls, I will allow this one to be re-rolled. Now I know there is some sort of trick to get the negative modifier, but I can't remember it, and unfortunately there isn't a /qst/ general to ask in. Does anyone know how to roll 1d20-1? If not, we could simply roll 1d19 instead.
>>4406172
The general idea is that the quicker it is disarmed, the fewer detonation checks you will have to make.

Rolled 15 (1d19)

>>4406203

>>4406203
1d20+- whatever number
You need a minus right after the plus to get a negative modifier.

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>>4406250
There it is, this man stared at the dice gods straight in the eyes and actually saved our space ship. What a madman.

>>4406250
>>4406257
>>4406250
Alright! Considering that I said I would accept 1d19, that is good; the torpedo has not detonated. Docking has begun. I'll get to writing.

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You grip the armrests of the Command Chair tightly enough that you can hear them strain. The at the currently level of zoom, the erratic wobbling as the thrusters attempt to counteract the unexpected propulsion from the imbedded torpedo evokes the mental image of an animal, speared and twitching in its death throes. Well, now you know for certain you are editorializing things. Your freighter has finished moving to get clear of the potential blast, and now you can see the Maui spring to life. You have no idea what the hell has happened on that ship, or who is still on it, but you can not afford to take any chances here.

Now that the Karaboudjan is out of the way of any potential blast, the entire compliments from both the freighter and the shuttle-tug can arm themselves to head over to the trawler. It takes what must have been the longest minute ever, but finally, the Maui punts off, and heads towards what will no doubt be its most dangerous mission yet, and potentially, its last.

You have committed the lives of those men, and your shuttle tug to the desperate rescue of your Trawler; but now all you can do as watch. Docking with an improperly dampened ship is not an easy or safe undertaking, throw a undetonated torpedo into the mix, and you are looking at some manner of nightmare for even the most competent of commanders and pilots. Only the distant creaks of the hull and the soft hums of equipment can be heard on the Bridge as the Maui decelerates in anticipation of docking.

She reaches out and tenderly makes contact with the Clean Sweep. But still, the impact of the docking is enough to shake both ship and shuttle, and your heart heads straight into your throat. Several seconds. Several-several seconds. Several-several-several seconds. No explosion. You realize that you have stopped breathing, and you force yourself to take several deep breaths. You pull the brim of your lucky hat down hard, which pushes your ears out away from your head. There is a bit more of a delay before the first report comes from the Commander of the Maui.

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>>4406399
“The survivors are coming on board now. We are keeping them in the airlock until we can pat them down for weapons as recommended. There are some serious injuries; give me a second for the head count.” There is a particularly pregnant pause, then; “16 men here, nearly all of them are wounded in some way. Rest of the compliment is dead. There is one that is barely hanging on, the rest of them, to a man, say that he was one of the mutineers, the last one left alive. There is a Crewman here, named Brinkling, He has got a copy of the surveillance feed, says it shows what happened with the mutineers. What do you want me to do with it?

>Take the risk to have the file uploaded. It could be a trick, a Trojan horse, but if it is not, and something goes wrong while the Maui is still near the Clean Sweep, the drive will be wiped by the electromagnetic pulse of the detonation, and you will never know for sure what happened on the bridge.
>Take the risk to hold onto the file for now. Tell the Commander to keep it on his person, and do not upload anything until it can be cleared, there has been enough tricks with software already. We are here to solve problems, not start new ones.

You are about to speak, when your Chief Engineer Attenborough briskly walks over to you, and gestures quickly to the mute button on your microphone. Following his lead, you mute the call, as Attenborough leans in, almost conspiratorially. “The Clean Sweep was originally a Saffron-class Mite Freighter; instead of typical freighters who carry their loads in hundreds or thousands of TEU’s secured to the outside of the full the Mite Freighter carries more sensitive loads inside its hull, in cargo bays. The thing about the Saffron-Class is that the cargo bays are detachable. If you wanted to take the risk, you could have them detached and carried to safety by the Maui; though be warned, there will probably be some jostling.

>Detach the cargo bays, and have the next detonation check remain at 1d5
>Leave the cargo bays attached, and have the next detonation check go to 1d10

You are about to say something, when Quimbix appears on the Bridge as well, and nearly barrels into Attenborough to get to you. “Boss! We need to get on that ship! If that thing goes up, then who knows how many clues or leads we will lose. Give me a group, 10 Crewmen and an Officer from the Maui to scour the trawler while we still have time. I will command them from here! If anything goes wrong, I’m sure we’ll have enough time to get them out!” You do not know if the man genuinely believes that last point, but he does have a point…

>Send in an armed team to investigate the trawler; there are really good odds that they find some evidence about the sabotage and the mutiny, but if the torpedo blows, they will certainly die if they are still on the ship.
>Refrain from committing the men. There are still leads to follow outside of the Clean Sweep.

>>4406408
>Take the risk to hold onto the file for now. Tell the Commander to keep it on his person, and do not upload anything until it can be cleared, there has been enough tricks with software already. We are here to solve problems, not start new ones.

>Leave the cargo bays attached, and have the next detonation check go to 1d10
The nuke is more than whatever is in it's holds.

>Send in an armed team to investigate the trawler; there are really good odds that they find some evidence about the sabotage and the mutiny, but if the torpedo blows, they will certainly die if they are still on the ship.
You got a minute to write out your wills.

>>4406411
I'll leave this up while I head out to get dinner, when I get back, I'll be sure to close it.

>>4406408
>Take the risk to hold onto the file for now. Tell the Commander to keep it on his person, and do not upload anything until it can be cleared, there has been enough tricks with software already. We are here to solve problems, not start new ones.
I consider this file to be the most valuable item to recover. We should hang on to it. We barely just managed to survive catastrophic odds and this is enough dancing with death. With the file in hand, I lean toward the opinion that we take minimum risks.

>Leave the cargo bays attached, and have the next detonation check go to 1d10
See above. We already took well enough risks.

>Refrain from committing the men. There are still leads to follow outside of the Clean Sweep.
I disfavor this idea of doing investigation during a time of crisis. While it is possible that the file is a dud, or that every rescued crew is a mutineer who will lie rather than give the truth, those odds are extremely low. With both the document and the rescued crew, we should be able to infer what happened on the unfortunate ship. Every additional moment that we linger will give the bomb additional chances to explode. I also work under the assumption that the valuable time we spent investigating the ship will also decrease the odds of disarming the bomb, since we will not attempt to disarm it while we still have men on board. This unnecessary investigation could cost us everything: ships, information, crew and warhead.

>>4406523
A point worth considering is that the team in the ship can operate independently from the team working on the torpedo. The issue being forced here isn't wasting time, rather it is if anything goes wrong, then men who would otherwise have survived this order would die. You could choose to have the investigation run its course, and then send the men to work on the torpedo, as you mentioned. In the interest of building a consensus, Cva, in >>4406411 when you voted to send the team in, did you want them to run during the disarming process or before the disarming process? I'll hold off on closing this vote or rolling for this so you or anyone else can respond.

Okay, so if there isn't a tie breaker, or no-one comes to a consensus, then I will roll for this one. I'm going to go have a snack now, when I get back, we will be going.

>>4406632
Thank you for the clarification. The way I saw things, I believed it would be so unethical to poke at the warhead while anyone is still on board that I didn't think the option would be offered. I'm glad that the option is offered but I still stand against it. We already took enough risks. I would be glad if we could just evacuate everyone, send a remote-controlled drone to disarm the warhead or, if it proves too hard, to just grab it and throw it far away in space.

>>4406893
Hmm, well we can get the survivors out of the blast radius easily enough on board the Maui, if you were willing to completely cut your losses and abandon the Clean Sweep. Unfortunately, you don't have any drones suitable for this task at the moment. The idea about 'throwing it away' has given me another idea on how to deal with the torpedo however, so I'll take a moment to 'sim' that. I'll keep this one open just a little bit longer.

>>4406946
I mention the possibility of "throwing it away in space" because I noticed in the description in this post >>4406399 that the plutonian torpedo apparently still has working propulsion jets. Disarming a bomb is a complicated task in itself but if we are only grabbing the thing and dislodging it then perhaps a drone could suffice, and then hopefully the bomb would fly away by itself. Alternatively perhaps a drone could cut away the section of the hull where it is embedded. While I considered it ethical to risk one crew to save another crew, it's a different story to risk our men for a purely monetary purpose so I welcome any solution by drones.

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4406987
The only drones that are available for deployment right now are the surveillance drones, which couldn't even hope to tow this thing. The Lucid drones do have arms, and could theoretically attempt to pull this off, but for safety purposes they were rebuilt in the strongrooms where the mines used to be stored, and will need to be dismantled to get out the door (not to mention through the jungle of the skunkworks). Beyond that, there isn't anything suited for the task that isn't human operated.

That said, I think I am going to have to flip for this one, the vote has been up for nearly 8 hours now.

>>4406523 is 1
>>4406411 is 2

You shift back into the Command Chair, and think. As uncomfortable as you are sending men on board that trawler, if that thing blows, it may be the only way that you get any leads into the conspiracy of the mutineers. Even if the information costs lives ‘today’ it could potentially save more lives ‘tomorrow’. Attenborough’s idea about pulling the cargo bays, on the other hand, could cost lives ‘today’ and be sold for a barely more than a pittance ‘tomorrow’. Honestly, how much scrap is even in there? Good chunk of it was thrown out during the sabotage. And as for the Commander and that tape, he should guard it with his life, which he will be keeping for the immediate future, if you have anything to say about it. Having decided all of this, you give out your orders. Attenborough nods, and returns to the Engineering station on the Bridge. Quimbix bolts towards the ready room, to scrape together an expedition at the last moment. And the Commander of the Maui waits on the line, for the final instructions as how you are going to deal with this torpedo.

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, abandoning the trawler and the torpedo. (1d10 for detonation test on the first turn, 1d9 on the second, etc. AT RISK: (only on the first turn) the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed. If Quimbix’s Away team is still on board the trawler during detonation, they will die)

>Use the Maui immediately to pull the torpedo free, then release it into space. (1d4 for detonation test, 1d20-1 Officer test, torpedo will be completely destroyed. AT RISK: the Maui, along with the crews from the Clean Sweep, the Karaboudjan and the Maui)

>Use the Maui to pull the torpedo free after offloading unnecessary personnel on the Karaboudjan (1d10 and then 1d4 for detonation test (to reflect the time spent offloading), 1d20-1 Officer test, torpedo will be completely destroyed. AT RISK: the Maui, 1 Officer, 1 Crewman, Quimbix’s Away Team.

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to destroy the internal mechanisms of the torpedo; rendering it inert. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9 and 2 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo will be broken beyond repair, though scrapable. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed. (Second turn): the Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed.

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to deactivate the internal mechanisms of the torpedo. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9, 1 roll of 1d8, 1 roll of 1d7 and 4 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo safe to remove and store aboard ships. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers could be killed as well as Quimbix’s Away Team. (Second through fourth turn): the engineers could be killed, as well as Quimbix’s Away Team.

>>4407081
I admire your willingness to offer us truly terrifying odds. I'll need some time to think about our next move. If I'm allowed a question: can we expect good scrap from the torpedo? I didn't expect this option to be available. You earlier gave us a vague approximation of the high worth of an intact torpedo, perhaps we could have an equally vague approximation of the scrap?

>>4407042
Did we manage to save the injured crew members and the mutineers?

>>4407081
>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to deactivate the internal mechanisms of the torpedo. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9, 1 roll of 1d8, 1 roll of 1d7 and 4 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo safe to remove and store aboard ships. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers could be killed as well as Quimbix’s Away Team. (Second through fourth turn): the engineers could be killed, as well as Quimbix’s Away Team.
Go big or get fucked. Do we only have to worry about rolling 1's? That's the DC for success? Would a speech boost morale?

>>4407184
Personally I'm terrified at the prospect that a 2 will also cause a failure, just with a smaller explosion.

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>>4407187
Them we better think real fucking fast for ways to boost morale. Maybe stabilize the near dead dude and see if we can squeeze some answers out of him without killing him.
Maybe make a statement of how the deactivation of the nuke will not only save the Clean Sweep and our lively hoods, it will be the first steps towards retribution, and how we'll smite those smarmy fuckers that thought so little of us. Sure we're vulture's and we're not known to go after live prey, but like the bone eating bearded vulture we're gonna bath in their blood.
It's a bad analogy and comparison, but something along those lines might help.

>>4407081
Oh one more thing. It might help the engineering team on board the Clean Sweep. Maybe while the away team is on board doing their thing, they could retain open comms with the rest of the fleet in case they need someone to list of info they might need if they're gonna toss out, salvage, or deactive the nuke.
Tl;dr instead of only going elbow deep in rocket surgery with a few of your makes, call some guys over the phone so they can tell you what to do while they read through books.

>>4407145
Can we expect good scrap from the torpedo?
Yes actually, you can. If you manage to butcher the internals without setting the damned thing off, you receive several smaller rewards. First, the Polity, the government behind the Port Authority has a standing bounty on all nuclear material (while your engines use hydrogen as the main component of their fuel, they aren't fusion powered). The standing bounty for weapons grade plutonium is 15dT per pound, but that triples to 45dT if it is in an operable warhead or weapon. So, to borrow the language of bounty hunters, you can get 22,500dT for bringing it in 'alive' compared to 7,500dT for bringing it in dead. (While selling it brings much, much more money, assuming you can find a buyer, turning in the weapon will ingratiate yourself with the Port Authority which in the long term, might just be worth more). Then, there is the PAL unit, the 'Permissive Action Link'. The function of this unit is to ensure that the weapon is only used by those who have the authorization to do so. Unfortunately, most of the codes for these weapons were lost to time; meaning that many otherwise functional weapons are effectively inert. However, there are ways to use a 'jail-braked' PAL unit to trick another PAL unit into activating, allowing any other PAL locked weapon it interfaces with to activate. Our character doesn't know prices of that stuff off of his head, but expect some decent money from some indecent buyers. Finally, once you've gutted the detonator, the torpedo itself is just a simple craft. It will need a bit of work, but it could be rebuilt into a drone.

>>4407184
At this particular second, everyone is on board the Maui, which is still attached to the Clean Sweep. It will disembark the brave idiots that Quimbix somehow convince to get on the ship, and then depending on what is voted on, it will do. If we were to go with your vote, the Maui would take everyone besides the four Engineers, ten Crewmen and the Officer and get out of the blast radius. If it detonated the first turn, the Maui would take damage, but not be destroyed. If it detonated on the second, third or forth turn, it and everyone onboard it would be safe.

For the detonation test, a roll of a 1 is a failure. For the Engineer test, a net roll of a 1 2 3 or 4 is a failure (in decivilized space, 5 is also a failure to reflect the dangerous nature of the frontier, but this is civilized space. To deactivate the torpedo, but keep it in a functional state, you will have to pass 4 pairs of tests. 4 detonation tests (1d10, 1d9, 1d8, 1d7) and 4 Engineering tests (4 of 1d20-1, each rolled separately). If you manage to get a superior pass on the Engineer test, a net roll of 15, 16, 17,18,19 or 20 (again, civilized space is kinder) you pass two tests, so if your are rolling for the 3rd pair, and you get a superior pass on the Engineering, you've won, you don't need to roll the fourth.

>>4407187
No, I'm not that cruel. Only a roll of 1 on a detonation test will cause an explosion. Everything else is safe.

>>4407212
As far as being in communication with the rest of Engineering on the Aethereal Vulture, that is standard operating practice. And a speech during something like this would be distracting, wouldn't it? I suppose they could wait while you gave them the speech, and then got to work, but I'd have to put another detonation test in there to account for the time spent, if you wanted to do it that way. Because of all of this discussion, I don't want the vote (which is still open) to get buried, so I will copy the vote below, to encourage others to join in.

VOTE OPEN

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, abandoning the trawler and the torpedo. (1d10 for detonation test on the first turn, 1d9 on the second, etc. AT RISK: (only on the first turn) the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed. If Quimbix’s Away team is still on board the trawler during detonation, they will die)

>Use the Maui immediately to pull the torpedo free, then release it into space. (1d4 for detonation test, 1d20-1 Officer test, torpedo will be completely destroyed. AT RISK: the Maui, along with the crews from the Clean Sweep, the Karaboudjan and the Maui)

>Use the Maui to pull the torpedo free after offloading unnecessary personnel on the Karaboudjan (1d10 and then 1d4 for detonation test (to reflect the time spent offloading), 1d20-1 Officer test, torpedo will be completely destroyed. AT RISK: the Maui, 1 Officer, 1 Crewman, Quimbix’s Away Team.

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to destroy the internal mechanisms of the torpedo; rendering it inert. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9 and 2 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo will be broken beyond repair, though scrapable. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed. (Second turn): the Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed.

>[1 Vote] Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to deactivate the internal mechanisms of the torpedo. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9, 1 roll of 1d8, 1 roll of 1d7 and 4 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo safe to remove and store aboard ships. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers could be killed as well as Quimbix’s Away Team. (Second through fourth turn): the engineers could be killed, as well as Quimbix’s Away Team.

>>4407264
So from what I'm getting out of this, assuming we're trying to deactivate the warhead for the most gains we make 4 detonation tests (1d10, 1d9, 1d8, 1d7). So long as they hit anything but a 1, we're solid?
Then we make 4 additional engineering tests. So long as we dont roll 1's or 2's (because the -1 mod) we'll be ok, but to not blow up the nuke, the engineers have to get collective d20 sum of 15 or higher to succeed?

Well can we make a quick speech or something? Make a joke to ease their nerves? Buy engineering power armor for "work hazards"? Commission custom shurts that read "I disabled a nuke and all I got was this shirt?" Offer them raises in pay? Literally anything to bump that -1 to a zero or at the least a plus one, or increase the dice sizes for the d7's through d10? Sex bots? Let's promise to buy sex bots.
What was the morals boost for sex bots again, and what is our morale state looking like now, now that we have the Clean Sweep back with us for now?

>>4407277
Wasnt the main morale issue because we originally thought the Clean Sweep was stolen? So having it back with us doesnt negate the original morale penalty due to the warhead in it?

>>4407277
My vote:
>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to destroy the internal mechanisms of the torpedo; rendering it inert. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9 and 2 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo will be broken beyond repair, though scrapable.

>>4407290
I can think of one thing that could perhaps improve morale in this situation: if the captain stands by the team disarming the bomb. It would be a solid display of solidarity. It carries the risk of reducing the length of this quest somewhat if the character we are controlling is blown into space dust by a nuclear weapon. However I find some of your ideas intriguing. The purchase of adult-oriented entertainment technology would be a suitable reward for the bastards who survive this cursed expedition.

>>4407297
The Clean Sweep has returned but there's a live nuke embedded into it and about to go off. I think it's fair to say that it isn't "recovered" yet. It's a tense situation where everyone is holding their breath.

>>4407290
The morale bonus for sex bots was for having sex bots, not talking about them.

>>4407497
An interesting idea. Alight, we can put it to a vote. Do we want to send our character to assist in the destruction of the torpedo for a +2 bonus to the morale of the Engineers? (Changing a 1d20-1 to a 1d20+1)
>Yes
>No

>>4407509
How does an engineer's roll works again? When we saved the ship we had to beat the number 6, my assumption is that once again we will have to beat a designated number except this time we don't know the number in advance, is that correct? And if we have to roll multiple times that means we need to beat the roll every time? This post >>4407290 mentions cumulatively beating 15 but I don't know whether it's correct.

>>4407497
I like your idea of the OO joining the nuke crew. Yeah. I'll vote for that too if that would boost morale.
The sex bot idea was actually something that was mentioned back in thread two. It was, something to do with paying 2k at for a permanent +1 morale boost. Which, isnt all that much considering you need 2 morale for a +1 roll modifier.

>>4407509
Yes

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4407520
No, I remember it. Its just that at this point in time, I don't see how talking about something like that is going to improve the morale. Could you imagine a bomb squad being encouraged by their boss, in the middle of their work by saying "Everyone who doesn't get blown up gets to go to Hooters afterwards"? We are well past the point where speeches can improve things; actions on the other hand...

Alright. There are two votes for Yes, and the other vote has been open for more than 13 hours now.

destroy torpedo with manned crew: 1
deactivate torpedo with manned crew: 2

>>4407520
The number that we need to beat now is 4. Getting a 1 2 3 or 4 on the Engineering Test is a failure.

Alright, so we know what is going to happen. I'm going to go get something to eat, and then we will get to the fun stuff.

>>4407575
If my math is correct we're looking at 51.2% chance of success even on the easy option of destroying the internal mechanism of the torpedo and exposing the OO to danger.
9/10 * 8/9 * 16/20 * 16/20 = coin toss
Damn, how long is our luck gonna last?

Rolled 1 (1d10)

>>4407575
Well fuck.
Hey if we build that remove controlled drone later, would it be possible to reassemble the bomb?

Rolled 5 + 1 (1d20 + 1)

>>4407575
Here goes

>>4407628
Hell if I know. One of these dice is probably gonna kill us.

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>>4407718
GOOD NEWS GUYS! With this roll we wont have to pay for the debt anymore. Because we're dead!
GG was fun playing.

>>4407718
>>4407725
Wait! We failed on the first test. Perhaps it should be interpreted as the bomb exploding before we get there. I assumed that the OO would definitely be present during the two final engineer tests, which is the bomb disarming phase, but it's unclear whether we're actually there in the previous tests. The "RISK' portion only says that the Maui is pulling away during the first roll and might be partially damaged by an explosion. All things considered, if we were to fail, it is the luckiest outcome possible that the roll we fail is the very first one, as far as our survival is concerned.

>>4407743
I'm more than a little confused. Does this mean we're at the stage where the Maui has already evacuated everyone on the Clean Sweep, but suffered damages as it was making it's way back?

Pretty sure the 1st disabling roll is for when the Maui deposits the engineering crew + OO as the Maui then puts some distance between itself and the Clean Sweep.

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I turn my head for one minute (or thirty), and this happens.

I was in the middle of writing the damn scene too, which would have explained how the OO was able to get there to be on hand for the first check, using a 'crash-cart'. Going by these rolls, our character is dead and both away teams are dead as well. Addtionally the Clean Sweep is destroyed, and the Maui is crippled, which has a relatively high morality rate, especially for the already injured survivors.

It is a bullshit mulligan, but I didn't ask for the rolls yet. So just this once, I am going to pretend that these rolls shouldn't count, even though they should and get back to writing. This is the first and the last time I'll fudge something like this. Ever.

Now please, I know everyone wants to get to port safely, but wait until I get the post up, explain the rolls, and then ask for them.

>>4407797
Are this point I'm hoping it all blows up.

>>4407797
How much would it cost to repair the damages to the Clean Sweep? Is it possible to reassemble the warhead later on?

>>4407872
At this point you don't know. Most of the repairs could be done by your men in port, but there seems to be issues with the internal systems. You'll have to weight to figure it out. As for the torpedo/warhead, technically yes, but it will not be a guaranteed outcome.

The Commander of the Maui is waiting on the other end of the line. You have made up your mind here; the torpedo is too dangerous to attempt to deactivate, even if it is worth a small fortune. No, no need to risk anymore than you need to here; you will have him pull out, leaving the four engineers and Quimbix’s party to their deaths.

You blink in surprise at that unbidden thought; you are sending them to save the ships. They are in danger, and yes, they might just die, but to think that it is in anyway certain is … wrong? You move to slap yourself across the face, to snap you out of it, but you stop yourself at the last second. Get a grip! They are watching! They are waiting! What is this hesitation, at now of all times?

You are thirty-two years old; you have spent as much time with the Starving Vultures as you did with your family. You have been leading men as an Officer, then a Commander, then as the Owner-Operator for a decade now. Men have died under your command before; and there are at least three instances that you can think of off of the top of your head where you ordered men into certain death before; so why is this giving you so much pause? It is the simply because there are so many? No, you are too pragmatic and utilitarian for that. It…

It is because this is your fault.

You do not see how it can be anything but your fault. Whatever the extent of the conspiracy, with the mutineers and the ambush here, you feel … no, you know, that this is all because of that loan that you took out. What has you frozen up over this is that you are sending men, potentially to their deaths to fix your mistake. A Commander is supposed to be able to order men to certain death for the sake of their ship, their fleet, and sometimes, even their mission. And as a Commander, you need to be able to simply sit there, and watch in safety as they die for the ship, as they die for the fleet, as they die for the mission.

>>4407989
As they die for you.

That is the burden of command. But this burden feels differently; this weight is cowardice, not command. And it is much heavier. You have always been a cautious individual, with your kind of childhood, that is to be expected, is it not? There is no clear line between caution and cowardice, it is more of a ‘perspective’ than a ‘definition’. Still, you had felt comfortable that you were living a cautious life; in fact, the only time you have ever killed a man in anger was some drunk who called you a coward for carrying weapons in front of fellow Officers. (In retrospect, it was not a good idea, but it felt great at the time)

You do not remember what the drunk looked like, but you can feel his gaze piercing through you, as you sit, still as statuary on the Command Chair. In this moment, it seems that you have both made up your mind and lost it, perhaps.

“Commander; discharge both Away Teams and move then get out of there. And tell those Engineers that I’ll be over there shortly.” There is an uproar on the Bridge, but you pay it no mind. You bellow over the clamor for the Commander of the Aethereal Vulture, a man named Lipkin to take the chair, and to orientate the primary hangar bay towards the Clean Sweep. As you rush out of the Bridge and head towards the far aft of the ship, you page your Concierge to attend you, to help you into your suit. As you leap down the stairs to the lower concourse, which leads straight to your destination, you can hear and feel the ship finally start moving. About time, damn it...

>>4407992
It is only several-several-several seconds before you arrive at the airlock to the bay. You use your key to load up a ‘crash-cart’ into the modified minelayer equipment, and as the machine loads itself into position, your Concierge closely followed by Chaucer, your Fleet’s Clerk burst into the room. Out of breath, Chaucer attempts to speak, but you simply speak over him, and order your Concierge, a young slip of a Spacer to help you into a pair of Longerjohns, one outfitted with integrated tools.

As the suit is nearly all on, you turn to Chaucer, and simply say “What has happened and what will happen to the Clean Sweep is my responsibility.” With your Concierge here, you can not speak any plainer than that. From the pile of your clothes, you pull out the third of your brace of third-grade disintegrators, and hand it to the man. “Hold on to this. Better you than Quimbix. Whatever happens here, make sure he only shoots what he means too.” Whatever happens here You have accepted it; you have accepted that you are going to ‘needlessly’ stare death in the face.

As you are about to put the helmet on, you realize that you still have your lucky hat on your head. You pluck it off of your head and place it on your Concierge. “I would wear it with the helmet, but it’d inevitably get creased. Hold on to it for me.” The boy, who looks to be on the verge of tears, actually throws you a salute. You favor him with a rare simile and once the pair are clear, you begin the cycling process for the airlock. You reflect that all of this feels if you were in some sort of waking dream, and as the airlock opens, you look out into the aether.

>>4407993
At this distance, the Clean Sweep looks as if it was only a little worse for wear. The Maui is unloading the Engineers and their equipment, and you would imagine that Quimbix’s lunatics are scurrying through the ship, assuming he was actually able to convince them to go. Hustling as much as one can in a spacesuit, you clamber up to the ‘crash-cart’. The craft is a very basic solid rocket that you ride by straddling it, as if it was a saddled horse. Steering is difficult, but at this range, you should be able to manage. Once you are securely in position, you activate the minelayer.

This rocket has been modified so that it can be trajectorized and ‘rapidly deployed’ (read as punted) out into the vacuum by the minelayer, then start its burn with the added boost. It does not take much to figure out why it was named the ‘crash cart’, but for this it will manage. And it does; surviving the captive bolt style launcher of the minelayer, and the stresses of acceleration. Only seconds after you start the burn, you have to start aiming the craft away from your stricken trawler. It is tighter than comfortable, but ultimately, you manage the trajectory you want. At the best moment, you propel yourself off of the ‘crash-cart’ and immediately hit your dampers. It takes a few seconds, but it eventually slows you down.

And there you are, in the presence of four of your Engineers and Death Himself.

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The Maui has just pulled away, and the Engineers have just started their work.

>Roll 1d10 for the detonation test. A roll of 1 is a failure. Failure is fatal.
>Roll 1d20+1 for the Engineering test. A (net) roll of 1 2 3 or 4 is a failure. Failure is fatal.

Rolled 10 (1d10)

>>4408003
Rolling for detonation test.

Rolled 2 + 1 (1d20 + 1)

>>4408003
Nothing ventured... NOTHING GAINED! (if this fails i am sorry)

>>4407797
I mean you're not really fudging anything. You've been pretty clear and consistent that incorrect rolls or ones made before/after you ask for them don't count.

>>4408108
We ded

Rolled 2 + 1 (1d20 + 1)

>>4408108
Well at least it was quick. And at least the debt was in our name, so that damn loan shark has shot themselves in the foot.

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>>4408003
>>4408108

>>4407276
I do wonder what kills us if only the 1 on the detonation test was supposed to cause an explosion though. I suppose that was when we were attempting recovery rather than destruction though.

Don't suppose we can burn some fate points or something here?

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>>4408108
I... Im so sorry guys... i thought this was going to be our moment of truth.

Rolled 2, 10, 13 = 25 (3d20)

>>4408162
S'cool. We had a 35% chance of death as stated. Again though, per:
>>4407264
>>4407276
It should've been only a detonation failure to blow us all up...so what exactly has killed the captain by failing the engineering roll.

Also why did we decide to dice this thing rather than salvaging it? If that's why this failure is gonna kill us then we should've been notified before we made the decision.

Otherwise per this: >>4407277
Assuming engineering failures don't set off the bomb for salvaging the torpedo but do for breaking the torpedo then it's actually MUCH more dangerous to attempt to break it.

And if it makes a difference now that I'm able to participate again I vote for salvaging it regardless (go big or go home, after all). Here's the other 3d20 we'd need for that, sans the +1 modifier because I don't know how that works with multiple dice.

Rolled 9, 2, 9, 6 = 26 (4d20)

>>4408182
See so if we were salvaging we'd have passed the detonation check first round and passed (2/4) engineering checks at this theoretical point. This isn't the required 4 successes, but still.

Now we'd proceed to round 2 of defusal, rolling a 1d9 Detonation check and 4d20+1. As of round 2 of defusal we'd have a cumulative 21% chance of dying from having rolled 1d10 for detonation+ 1d9 for detonation. Although the 4-success requirement for salvaging the warhead is higher than the 1-success requirement for butchering it, the chances for catastrophic failure are much lower as they only build up based on the detonation die rather than the engineering die as well.

4-successes also isn't as hard as it sounds with 4d20 since 15+ (keeping in mind we get +1 to each d20) counts as 2 successes.

Rolled 5, 12, 9, 12 = 38 (4d20)

>>4408192
So if those were our d20 from round 2 then we'd proceed to round 3, still having not blown up (if we passed our d9 detonation check). At this point we'd finally break roughly even on DEATH% chance to the option we chose here: >>4408003

As we'd now have [d10] R1 10%+ [d9] R2 11%+ [d8] R3 12.5% = 33.5% Death chance

Meanwhile every given round for salvaging we had a ~61% chance to succeed on the engineering rolls. (Based on a successful roll range of 4 to 20 [17/20] on 4 die or 14 to 20 on 2 die to satisfy the required number of successes, accounting for our Captain's +1 bonus to roll ranges). This is only marginally less than the 85% chance to succeed we had on this roll, but without the danger of blowing ourselves up...well I think it would've been worth it.

Those calculations being based on what I think I see written here, anyway: >>4407264

Rolled 6 (1d9)

>>4408192
And out of curiosity, because despite all this I think we still would die.

Rolled 8 (1d8)

>>4408204
I also think it's the right decision to put our Captain on the line though, as it'd be better to end the quest on a bang than a whimper.

Per the d20 rolls in the linked post we'd have our hands on 22500dt worth of plutonium and frankly not be in bad shape if this dice isn't a 1.

Rolled 3 (1d7)

>>4408209
>>4407277
Wait, would we also have to roll a d7 an pass it to be ok?

Also aren't we supposed to get (2) engineering rolls with the option that was chosen?

>Pull the Maui back to safety as soon as possible, discharging a group of four Engineers to destroy the internal mechanisms of the torpedo; rendering it inert. 1 roll of 1d10, 1 roll of 1d9 and 2 rolls of 1d20-1 Engineer test, torpedo will be broken beyond repair, though scrapable. AT RISK: (First turn): the Maui could be damaged but not destroyed, Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed. (Second turn): the Engineers and Quimbix’s Away Team could be killed.

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(1/?)

>>4408152
>>4408108
We died twice, apparently. To the same roll.

>>4408155
Several-several-several chuckles from me, anon.

>>4408156
>>4408182
>>4408192
The idea was that the Detonation test and the Engineering test are independent of each other. If you simply stood around and watched the torpedo, every two minutes in game, a new test would come up. The Engineering test is the the act of actually fiddling around and trying to smash the warhead. You could say that someone cut the wrong wire.
And the assumption about the Engineering failures you made is not correct, the fails were still 1 2 3 and 4.
And as for burning fate points; believe me, I am sorely temped to hand-wave all of this away and keep going, but in the spirit of the quest, I don't think I can, especially considering that no such system was established.

>>4408162
This was our moment of truth, it just wasn't pleasant.

Part of the reason that I wanted to start QMing in the first place is that I was kind of dissatisfied with the all of the roll inflation that is prevalent in other quests here; I wanted a simple, and relatively harsh system. An issue that I've seen is that anons are much hungrier and ambitious than I expected; remember the 'Foreman'? The encounter with him at the door was my way of previewing the 'boss' of the next area, one of the ships 'lungs', a room filled with heated and pressurized glass columns, filled with water and dead algae that had provided the oxygen for the ship. There would have been a tricky battle, where your Riflemen would have to had scramble for vantage points to score hits on the 'Foreman', while defending themselves against the 'Slaves', who with a living 'Foreman' would have been attacking you. It was planned to be an intense game of cat and mouse for the second expedition; when you had more men and maybe some sort of infantry support, like the drone. And then anons decided that they wanted to shoot one with just two men. I'm not going to lie, that really threw me for a loop.

While I had intended to make this encounter a hard decision; weighing the value of a torpedo, deactivated or destroyed, against the safety of the ships and the men on board, I certainly did not expect Anons to put our character in deaths way for a relatively small bonus to the roll. Like I said, hungrier and more ambitious.

Our poor Owner-Operator didn't even get the dignity of being killed by his white whale. For that matter, he didn't even get recognized as a blatant Captain Ahab ripoff, even down to the prosthetic and the scars (or coloration, in our case). And 'Sunsbuck'.

>>4408243
Aah, I see. Well that's fine then. I came into the thread late and my skimming and seeing: >>4407276

Led me to vastly misinterpret the odds. Personally, knowing that any engineering failure also would cause an explosion would've made me vote to jut tug the damn thing into space. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles, and I wasn't even around when the vote came up anyway.

>>4408243(2/2)

But, I am not done with this world that I have created; and I intend to return. However, if I was to just immediately continue with this story, following someone else in the fleet or something like that, I feel like a lot of the impact of this death would have been lost. So I will let this sit for a bit, and maybe flesh out a few more things. Still, I have no intention of taking a sabbatical from writing Quests. Before I write up a brief conclusion to this part of the story here; considering that everyone here has been such good sports, I think that they should get a say in what I run next in the interim.

>A Quest about a 6'4" autistic female grave-robber making her way by selling bodies, in pieces or whole, in an alternate world's colonial boom town. Heavily inspired by the video games Darkest Dungeon and Dishonored (the only reason that there is a female MC is because the Graverobber was a woman in Darkest Dungeon, I'm not a coomer, I swear).

>A Quest about a college student who during 'the shutdown' discovers that he has a bizarre form of magic that only seems to affect bones. I've run an incredibly autistic version of this Quest before, but this time I think I can make it work for more general audiences. And yes, it was genuinely too autistic for this board. This one will be better, I promise.

>A Quest about a college dropout turned 'odd-job man' who wants to lead his relatively isolated town in Maine as they try to stay alive through and after a nuclear war that will collapse civilization, though he is so awkward and socially oblivious that he has a hard time getting anyone to listen to him.

Thanks again for sticking around. If anyone has any comments or advice about anything, I'd be extremely appreciative.

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>>4408290
>A Quest about a college student who during 'the shutdown' discovers that he has a bizarre form of magic that only seems to affect bones. I've run an incredibly autistic version of this Quest before, but this time I think I can make it work for more general audiences. And yes, it was genuinely too autistic for this board. This one will be better, I promise.
BUENOS DIAS FUCK BOYS

>>4408290
>I've run an incredibly autistic version of this Quest before, but this time I think I can make it work for more general audiences. And yes, it was genuinely too autistic for this board.
Color me curious. Can you give a few details about what went wrong? I swear I'm not trying to make you relive bad memories. I'm interested to write a quest myself and one of my major fear is to make it too autistic, so I'd like to know how it can be avoided.

>>4408364
I'd say it was too exotic a setting, and the choices required for advancement too strange...or something along those lines. I knew I had seen OP's writing cadence somewhere before, but I only glanced at those osseomancer threads.

>>4408364
>>4408433
Well, I don't know about the setting, but in retrospect, the subject was kind of (completely) off the wall. As far as mechanical issues about the quest, it was puzzle based, and there wasn't an option to roll to get answers. What that would look like is I'd describe an event, and then the players would try to isolate what is the trigger for the event by creating experiments and giving careful consideration to the results. Its hard to explain, but I have it linked in this post. As two additional issues, I kept developing all of the new mechanics (so that there would be some dice rolls) and stuffing them in, and not all of them worked that well. Also, there was a lot of 'creep', in the sense that the ideas that I had for the quest (Example: a table of potential mutations) instead of ever getting finished, I'd just keep adding to them, trying to get them perfect. Basically, I did a little of everything wrong.

Here are the two of them. If I was to start this up again, it won't be a continuity, and it will be a much more traditional style Quest with some quirkier elements. Consider yourselves warned; I really got into to strange places with that one, especially considering the about the entire second thread (~200 posts if I remember correctly) was about how our sweat, spit piss, and presumably our shit was now permanently invisible, and was able to briefly make things that it had touched invisible as well, and how our character would deal with it. Also, there was a bathtub filled with reality warping water.

>>>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/4215711/
>>>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/4258082/

>>4408243
Is being hungry and ambitious a bad thing? I didnt really get the impression that the foreman encounter was supposed to dissuade us from attacking it immediately. If you were to say, have the slaves attack us after we did a sneak attack against the foreman, that might had convinced us.

Normally in any other circumstance I would had voted against using the MAIN CHARACTER for a small bonus for risk of killing them, but at this point in the quest I kinda lacked some fucks.

>>4408542
Still kinda disappointed we'll never get around making that star fighter heavy HotSeat Lucid Drone, or have the fleet outfitted with dozens of sex bots, or learn about that planet.
This quest was really fun, but god damn.

>>4408290

Wooo i was gone for 2 weeks in the mountains what the fucc did i miss

>>4408243
>I certainly did not expect Anons to put our character in deaths way for a relatively small bonus to the roll
I'm the anon who initially suggested the possibility of putting our unfortunate OO in death's way, and while I wasn't the only player who supported the decision, I can at least offer my point of view. My reasoning was such: it felt very much like losing the Clean Sweep was the equivalent of a game over. We started off this adventure being told we had a huge loan on our beloved ship, and consequently, our implicit long term goal right was to make money, pay that loan and fully own the Clean Sweep once again. All of our decisions starting from the first post were made with the optic of recovering ownership of the Clean Sweep. Losing the ship felt like such a blow that we might as well risk everything to save it. I don't think a single player, at any point, voted in favor of letting it go no matter the odds.

If you had envisioned writing a story where a captain loses his beloved ship and has to deal with the aftermath of this terrible ordeal, then it would have been better if it happened during a "cutscene" during which we couldn't do anything about it. I think it's natural that players would bet everything to save it even if the odds were a coin toss. On the other hand, if you made us roll against dangerous odds to save another ship which wasn't at the center of the story, for example if we had to save the Maui or the Karaboudjan, then it would have been more plausible that we accept to let it go. In other words, it's not that every player would always choose the most greedy option, but we had a strong emotional value for the Clean Sweep and you couldn't convince us to let it go.

It also doesn't help that even after recovering the crew and obtaining (alleged) data about the conspiracy, one of our respected men told us there was a strong chance there were still clues left on the ship. It surprised me, and I'm sure it surprised some other readers. Normally it would be folly to argue in favor of stepping on a ship harpooned by a live nuke just for the reward of understanding a conspiracy theory, especially after recovering crew and documents which could reveal the conspiracy without risk, but you still presented this possibility to us and the characters in the story apparently considered it a valid opinion. By offering this option, it unfortunately communicated the message that you left clues on the ship. If any player was willing to let go of the ship, after reading this part they would have changed their mind. We followed this implicit suggestion that we should take risks, we sent an investigation crew, and from that point if we wanted to abandon the Clean Sweep to its grim fate we had to abandon the men we just sent on it. That was never going to be voted. From that point we had to risk everything to disarm the bomb, and that means we might as well use every trick to improve the odds.

>>4409128
By all means, I agree with your points here. I was deliberately baiting you into more and more dangerous gambles. The idea with the more clues left on the ship was to give anons a hard choice; would they almost certainly condemn men to death to get a better picture of the conspiracy, or would they accept what they had? I had expected that it would be a harder decision for everyone; and that is the problem. Me. What I thought I had balanced in regards to risk and reward was not balanced, at least, to the perception of the players, and ultimately, that is my fault, and no one else. It is something that I will need to work on, going forward.

>>4408640
No, I understand completely about not considering the 'Foreman' as some sort of boss; again, my presentation of it was to blame, and I when I wrote the encounter I genuinely didn't even consider that players would decide to attack it on sight. Again, that is on me. It is always tricky to convey tone over text, so I wanted to make it clear that I am not blaming players for the abrupt conclusion to this chapter of Space Derelict Quest.

>>4408992
Well, we lost our main character in an abortive attempt to save the trawler. Don't worry though, I'm coming back to the setting to pick up (almost) where we left off, and I have the plot hook to do it. If we were to continue immediately though, I think that would cheapen the feel of loss here, so I'm going to start an alternate quest; that is what we are voting for.

>>4409173
>What I thought I had balanced in regards to risk and reward was not balanced, at least, to the perception of the players, and ultimately, that is my fault, and no one else.
I think you're starting to sound way too harsh on yourself. I don't think you should feel negative because of the outcome of this quest. In my previous post I felt like giving my point of view on why the players took so many risks but I didn't want to make it sound like harsh criticism. I wouldn't even say you are at fault for anything. You're ultimately right that we, the players, took way too many risks. You even told us in advance just how dangerous the risks were and yet we doubled down. You were perfectly transparent and fair. All things considered I think this was a very enjoyable quest, both original and well written. It was unforgiving, but I like the idea that some of the quests on this board are set on "hard mode" and offers choices with real consequences. That is not something that can be described as a fault, it's just a type of quest, and an entertaining one. Do you happen to have experience writing short stories? Or do you read a lot of sci-fi works? I think I said it before but the characterization and vocabulary was on point. I even took some notes about the terms and idioms you were using, so I'm curious how you got so good at this.

>>4409173
I think it would feel cheap if we continued the quest in the same exact fleet.
>Oh no. You are now so and so. The OO entrusted you with the fleet if he ever died.
>what do.

Are you going to continue with the alt quest or this quest?

>>4409249
No, in the prospective shift, you aren't going to be playing as the Starving Vultures anymore. You will be playing as the commander of the enemy fleet that ambushed the Clean Sweep; who is now trying to 'jump' the claim to the planet and the Derelict.

As far as continuing, yeah. I'll spend some time tonight to write the final post, and then I might make a new thread, for the alternate quest. I know that I said I'd run whatever alternate quest people showed interest in, but I'll need time to get the osseomancer quest in a playable state for more general audiences. I could have the other quests started today, or take some time off and prepare for the return of the autism. Consider this a hidden vote.

>>4409249
I agree, I hope quite badly that any continuation would put us in charge of something other than this fleet. We were scraping by before, let alone down 1.75 ships and several dozen men.

>>4408542
>>4409173
>>4409269
Please don't change your name to ThrashQM it makes me sad. This was a good run. I think starting the next quest by changing the point of view to the ambushers is a good idea.

>>4409469
I agree. It takes a lot more nuts to end a quest than it does to ignore bad rolls and carry on. The dice weren't fair to us throughout the quest, but the QM was.

>>4409469
>>4409704
Oh no, that was the name that I did the Bone in Autism (osseomancer) quest under. Don't worry, I'm not sulking.

Anyway, I didn't have the time to get the conclusion started like I wanted to, so instead, I'll post the stuff I had written about our port of call.

The Kindling System is larger-than-typical, and is centered around a single Yellow Dwarf, the same type of star that illuminated Old Earth back in the Milky Way. Apparently, at some point in the earliest years of the Deluge, when humanity had just reached this galaxy, this system was on the short list for exploration, as it was believed that there could be a habitable planet here. Makes a great deal of sense when you consider that Yellow Dwarfs are the most likely to produce life-bearing planets, which is why this system was given the attention that it was, as well as a proper name for its star, instead of just an alphanumerical designation like many of the stars in this galaxy still bear. However, while Kindling was neighborly enough as stars go, the issue was that there were not any planets in the ‘Goldilocks’ Zone’ suitable for bearing life. The lights were on, but there was not a home for anyone to be in.

Still, the efforts of those early explorers were not completely wasted. While there were no habitable planets to settle, in the outer reaches of the system, there was an unusually large cryovolcanic planet. It was not habitable for humans, nor did it bear its own kind of life. But what it did have in the rocky core, deep beneath the miles-upon-miles of permafrost was an abundance of rare earth elements, and in unprecedentedly high concentrations*. However, despite the attraction to prospectors, getting through miles-upon-miles of ice was complicated. The first attempts tried to simply dig their way through the ice were dangerous and expensive; dealing with the excavated ice and with the alarming tendency of the shafts through the ice to start to freeze back up and quickly close behind you turned an otherwise Herculean task into a Sisyphean one. Many of the early expeditions failed, and some of these failures were complete losses of entire expeditions. Some more success was found with the deployment of nuclear munitions to blast their way through to the core, but even still, the planet showed a great resilience in the face of those that would pierce its icy armor to plunder it, and expedition failures (and losses) were still common.

*Rare Earth Elements, both in the Quest in and in the real world are not actually 'rare' at all. For example, Cerium, considered a Rare Earth, is actually more abundant in the Earth's crust than Copper. The issue is that they very almost always don't cluster in deposits like metals do, making excavation and refinement an extremely complicated and intensive process, hence their 'rarity'.

>>4409921
However, about two decades before the Drought began, a particularly clever solution was found. A system of massive lenses and reflectors were built, to convert the otherwise comfortable light of Kindling into a piercing lance, capable of melting or vaporizing its way through the ice so that crews could successfully mine into the rocky core. Moreover, these lenses were able to keep what had been excavated or lanced from refreezing, at least during the day. The population of the planet had lived near-exclusively in orbit around it, typically aboard decommissioned spaceships, now living a second life as improvised habitats. But with the space and shelter offered by the hulls of these super-stations, the population dramatically shifted, almost overnight to living on or around these megastructures. With the mineral wealth now flowing much more readily out of the core, new arrivals poured in and the communities that had sprung up around each and every one of the super-stations turned into boom towns, where you could find almost anything, save law and order.

It was in this period that the planet was given its current name. With the constant mining operations burrowing and carving their way into the jagged and craggy ivory white surface ice of the planet, some poetically inclined resident started calling the planet Scrimshaw, after the whale tooth carvings that whalers and later sculptors would make back on Old Earth. The poetry of the name stuck, and soon the stations were collectively being called Scrimshanders, which is what one calls the maker of scrimshaw. When several older super-stations were replaced, instead of scrapping them, they were cobbled together to build a seat of government for this district**, as well as space to build new and improved residential, commercial and industrial areas; this new community was given the name Old Scrimshander.

**A district under the Polity (the government under which the Port Authority operates) is a collection of at least three systems with permanent settlements and any 'adjacent' non-settled systems. The two other settled systems in Kindling's district are Corryvreckan, which contains the 'areostatic'*** gas refining colony of Cyclone's Sty (located on a gas giant, near a perpetual vortex, much like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and 55 Cancri, which contains a nearly-defunct 'Steel Mill' (name given to any metalworking facility) and its colony named 'Thumptown'.

***'Areostatic' here refers to something that has low enough relative density to statically float on top of a relatively denser gas. Much like oil will sit on top of water, as the oil is less dense than the water, if a gas is dense enough, solid objects could conceivably float on top of it. 'Areostatic' communities have been proposed as a means to colonize Venus, and were depicted in The Empire Strikes Back as 'Bespin'.

Your men are shocked that you have actually come out to do this yourself, but you order them to focus on your task, and the Engineers recover their professionalism quickly. The five of you take stock of the tools on hand, and you establish a link with Attenborough and Sunsbuck, so that they can help walk you through this. The [i[Maui[/i] broadcasts an alert that they have dispatched the Away team into the shuttle, to ensure recovery of all possible clues, and potentially assist with the disarmament, if they can in away way, though that is extremely unlikely. Having concluded their business here, the Maui begins to delicately as possible detach from your stricken trawler, as you and your team begin looking for a service hatch to the weapon, as no doubt, opening a door would be much safer than cutting into the frame of the torpedo.

The ‘Plutonian’ did not strike at an optimal angle, by your estimation it is a good 20 degrees off of the perpendicular strike to the hull that the torpedo should have made. The hull around the strike is buckled and warped, and you can actually see into the bulkhead on the other side of the hull. You make a point of sending an alert to the other Away Team, explaining that the pressurization of at least one bulkhead was compromised completely, and that they should proceed with extreme caution in the starboard midships. Now that you are getting an up close and personal view of the strike, you see that ‘imbedded’ is not the best way to describe what has happened here. There was a dent, but no proper hole, which if anything made things much more dangerous, as the only thing that was keeping the torpedo in position was the thruster forcing it into the seat it had made itself in the hull of the Clean Sweep, if you weren’t delicate, the seating of the torpedo could easily shift and that might be enough to set the thing off. You communicate this much to the Engineers with you, who agree with your assessment.

>>4411219
Finally, an engineer signals that they have found the access port, and you and the others head over to look at it. As you do, there is a slight tremor as the Maui finally disengages completely the Clean Sweep, and there is nothing that any of you on the away team can do except just float there in space and wait to see if the thing goes up. Several seconds pass, and your first conscious thought after a moment of complete mental blankness is “I should have worn that hat.” To destroy the torpedo, you will need to get to the warhead, and then carefully break the fuse. With nothing else left for it, you tenderly open up the access panel.

To find the internals of the torpedo a nest of nonstandardized wiring; this must have been keyed and rekeyed to many different launcher packages over the years, and the wiring to do so has been an absolute mess. But in the beam of your longerjohns integrated light, you can see the dull sheen of the depleted uranium casing of the warhead further in. You just need to carefully get these wires out of the way. The access port is relatively small, and there are five of you crowded around it. Your team starts to work your way though the wires, delicately shifting them aside. It is a task that you never finish. Only several seconds after you have all started however, there is a flash from what appears to be arcing electricity, further down the body of the torpedo. Moving one of the wires here must have shorted something.

You will never know the details; you will never know who pulled the wire that caused the short. You will never even know that it was the arc of electricity hitting a leak in a fuel line that blew the fuel tank that killed you, and not the warhead detonating. You never saw the destruction that happened when the tank explosion did manage to set off fission in the warhead. You never saw your trawler die or your tug get crippled. You never even had time for last words; though if you had, they probably would have been something uninspired, like “I really should have worn my hat”.

>>4411221
Tigranes IX, a Scion of the Rubiconia Artaxiads, Owner Operator of the Starving Vultures
Born on the 8th of 10th Month, 2338 AD in Tigranocerta - Died on the 18th of the 8th Month, 2370 AD in orbit of Kindling

>>4411226
The Vulture himself is gonna come out of retirement to fuck us up if you ever run the sequel where we're in the fleet that caused this, isn't he?

>>4411268
No comment.

Well, to everyone who played this chapter, I hope you enjoyed it, despite the really abrupt ending. Anyway, think that over these four threads, I managed to get a good feel for how to keep a quest 'fresh'. I still have decided if I am going to go straight into the next chapter or take a break an start an alternate quest, but either way, I should have made up my mind by tomorrow.

>>4408290
>>A Quest about a 6'4" autistic female grave-robber making her way by selling bodies, in pieces or whole, in an alternate world's colonial boom town. Heavily inspired by the video games Darkest Dungeon and Dishonored (the only reason that there is a female MC is because the Graverobber was a woman in Darkest Dungeon, I'm not a coomer, I swear).


This sounds like a fun quest

I’m still mad

>>4418128
mad about what?

>>4418128
>>4418148
We may never know...
Probably about the abrupt end, though.

>>4413915
Hm, well, I would have run this one, but it is kind of similar to the North of Nowhere quest that is going on right now, and as I still am not ready to tackle the monster that is the Osseomancer quest, I decided to run a version of:
>A Quest about a college dropout turned 'odd-job man' who wants to lead his relatively isolated town in Maine as they try to stay alive through and after a nuclear war that will collapse civilization, though he is so awkward and socially oblivious that he has a hard time getting anyone to listen to him.
In the interim, while I prepare for the return to Derelict, and to give everyone some time.
>>>4413945

That said, I put a lot of effort preparing the Graverobber Quest, so I will definitely run that at some point.

>>4419070
Hey guys, this thread is about to fall off of the catalog, so I will go and archive it.

I had a great time playing, and if anyone sees this, I'd like to sincerely thank them for sticking through to the end with me. I hope to see you when I revisit this setting; until then, here is hoping for some better rolls.