Paranoia & Sentries - Hostile Rpg Campaign Updates Involving - White Dwarf (Issue 30 - Apr 1982) & Zozer Games Kosmos 68

 Call me a time traveller but tonight we were looking into White Dwarf issue #30 and two articles popped out. First can we talk about that distinctive cover artwork on White Dwarf 30 Cover by Nicholas Bibby? Biggy's  interesting & old school Brit Science Fiction artwork crosses the lines from Fantasy into Science Fiction. And before I forget happiest of birthdays to Marc Miller! 

"Androids in Traveller" - A bio-engineered career for Traveller By  Roger Moore brings a different sorta of career to classic Traveller. Roger Moore is of course the guru who would go on to stoke the fires of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the orange spine days into second edition. His game prowess is not respected today. For Hostile rpg this career is a bit more windy and not the straight forward path that we get in today's Cepheus Engine powered 2d6 games. 'Androids in Traveller' is where the ideas were spawned so to speak.
Technically speaking we could substitute this article for the PC generarion rules within Hostile. But why?! There are already a Hostile Synethics book?! Because you may want an alternative NPC path for your Andies or artifical persons. 

The real appeal for issue #30 is the 'Starbase '- "Ideas for Traveller" sources for Traveller adventures  by Bob McWilliams. And these ideas could be used for other android production facilities. And this relates back to our on going Soviets of the September group. And this involves the fact that perhaps the Soviets have super secret bases & production facilities where they are producing human like androids that not even the adverage citizen is aware of. Perhaps these androids are in point of fact even a bit more advanced then thier Hostile corporate counterparts.And these units might actually be inserted into the ranks of the SePo. The better developed careers of "Androids in Traveller" reflects the more 'human like' android units. 
And this might lead to the fact that these SePo are teamed with a larger calibered robotic unit for a 'one to combo punch' of security. And one of paranoia where rumors of psionic SePo and special units are the norm rather then the exception. 
What does this mean for the September group?! The fact that there may be operatives among thier ranks that they may or maynot be aware of! 

Bussard Ram Jets & The Architects - Hostile Rpg Campaign Updates Involving - White Dwarf issue #32 August 1982 & Zozer Games Kosmos 68

 So tonight I was looking into White Dwarf issue #32 from August 1982 which contains the article "STL: Slower-Than-Light Ships in Traveller" by Marcus Rowland.

And this article contains an overview for both Bussard ramships and lightjammers as well as patrons and more information on these wonderful starships. According to the Bussard Ramjet wiki entry; "The Bussard ramjet was proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard"  Why do I say wonderful starships. Because these ships are the type of space craft that we'd see highly advanced alien races using in the Orbital 2100 supplement from Zozer games. Again according to the wiki entry; "A 2021 study found that, while feasible in principle, the practical construction of a useful Bussard ramjet would be beyond even a civilization of Kardashev type II" A Kardashev type II civilization  can directly consume the energy of a star, most likely through the use of a Dyson sphere.

We can see the Bussard Ramjet concept being popularized in Science Fiction going all of the way back to 1967 when it first appeared in Poul Anderson's Tau Zero.  Once again the concept has appeared across Science Fiction and bled into popular culture; "The concept was popularized by Poul Anderson in his novel Tau Zero, Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books, Vernor Vinge in his Zones of Thought series, and Carl Sagan, as referenced in the television series and book Cosmos" 
Now if we are using Kosmos 68 & Hostile together which I have in the past. And we will be again. Then it stands to reason that the truly alien ‘Architects’ would be a Kardashev type II civilization. And with our player's PC's they recently got a copy of the files of Academy of Sciences Researcher Orya Statnik. Among these is the location of an ever accelerating Bussard ram jet startship in the Reticulan system. 

This relates back to the fact that 'The September Group's' presence on Abyss & several other planetary systems under the guise of advisors. The ‘Architects’ presence has stirred interest in both the player's PC's and several artifacts remain in possession of Tharis and several other corporations.  The Soviets and other multinationals are highly interested in any evidence of alien presences in the universe. More to come 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report - Putting Down Roots

Our recent Hostile rpg "ended" when we established out colony world within the Tannhauser Gate hyperspace network about three weeks ago. Or has it?! The player's PC's are right at the moment getting a massive gas giant fuel operation going on the local gas giant. And we've got them exploring the other worlds within system. The warships are still on stand by. 

And the colonial frieghters are on standby. We're setting up air processors on several 'Shake & Bake' exoplanets within the system. But for us theres' definitely a sense of uneasiness here. The fact is that we've encountered other colonies where there shouldn't be any humans. We've dealt with several alien species especially the Giger Wasps which have been an especially nasty danger. And the gate system isn't fully explored but we've run outta of time in our exploration contract for the moment. Since I'm only the co DM on this venture there's been a ton of ideas that I've put asside to possibly run coming up within my own Hostile campaign. 

For me to extend this Hostile campaign this system might become the basis for a new sector coming up. We've been working together to get at least six of our players into a position to bring in some fresh blood. They'll be playing colonists being brought in on & this includes the frontier law. But first we've got to trot out the Colonial Freighters; "The Argosy has been designed to carry a varied mix of cargoes, from passengers to pallets cargo containers, out-sized industrial machinery, vehicles and various types of chemicals and fuels. It is able to land on a bare-rock landing pad and off-load its entire (and diverse) cargo where there are no port facilities. This 5,000-ton starship is fully deck-planned, and includes four variants, two scenario outlines and two new types of vehicles."

We're going to be moving in forces modeled on the Independence Games Hub Forces for the colonies. But there's risk of other mega corpate military or mercenary pirate operations.

And this is where the Gypsy ships will be providing wing support to these ships coming up! So the old players will be showing the new blood the ropes coming up! This all goes back to an idea I had with John Brunner's Shock Wave Rider book in which the communications or rope extends back to the Earth's megacorporations.

Boomrang - OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report

So in last night's game I turned things around yet again by using  Baosheng, a veteran Snakehead whose posing as a legit business man acting as a go between with one of the other corporate fleets. But the players don't trust him & with good reason. He's from Hostile Stituation report #2. 

 In tonight's game pick's right up from the last time here.  the player's PC's are setting up bases, and scouting out locations for a possible colony for our corporate group of explorers, soldiers, and mecenaries. So think of this as waypoint in their mission through the Tanhauser gate hyperspace system. The player's sent down a bunch of explorers & roughnecks to survey the planets within the system. They were surprised to see that they weren't the only humans that had been to this system. Sure there the busness with the Saint Lola Maria Hospital vessel a converted Milligan-class Hospital Ship. 

But they were sure that this was an older ship converted over after one of the corporate police actions. What they weren't expecting was to run into a body baring the the USSP logo on it's helm. The body was human & completely drained of all vital fluids.  All markings were in Russian which is not that unusal. But the space suit wasn't the usual corporate logos, the usual univeral fittings, etc. The body was moved into quarantine back aboard the PC's ship. There wasn't a lot to go on but the space suit & the body had puncture marks that seemed to resemble an industrial accident. There wasn't a lot to go on here. That is until the player's fleet saw a hyperspace signature flare at the outer edge of the solar system. Something was coming through  hyperspace but there was nothing scheduled within the corporate fleet through the Tanhauser Gate system. Every player scrambled & weapon systems were brought on line. But it wasn't what people were expecting!  The airwaves were jammed with Russian & English in pre recored emergency messages. And that's when the PC's saw the damage on the ship! Trails of vapor, deep guages across the hull, and worse! The PC's scrambled into their Gypsy fighters & headed over too the ships position but it's going to take a bit of tim to get there. 
The other half of the players are now going back to  the Saint Lola Maria Hospital vessel a converted Milligan-class Hospital Ship for answers and to speak with Baosheng because they think he has answers ( he actually doesn't). 
What's happening is that the players have had vistor crossover from another universe. And their not equipped to deal with some 'old friends' who are going to be coming over. 
Wayback in 2019 when we first started with Zozer Games we had download & ran Kosmo 68. This is a free alternative world setting for Cepheus Engine in which the Soviet union had achieved it's goals of space travel and they encountered something really alien & really nasty. And I came across this blog here with a ton of good Kosmo 68 ideas & commentary. 
 Now over the last couple of years we've run the occasional Kosmo 68 scenario to break up things on occasion. But this past week my fellow DM's  wanted to have an isolated crossover with our hybrid game. But the players have no idea what's going on! What does any of this have to do with John Brunner?! The ideas of some of the Soviet retro tech are fascinated when compared with John Brunner's  novel Shockwave Rider. Also is there going to be all out war between the corporate forces of Hostile & Kosmo 68?! The clash of ideas, philosphies, etc. should be damn interesting coming up. Why was this session called Boomrang because two resources that we used a year ago have come back into play. 

Yakuza Stand Off - Mission in The Burbs - Zaibatsu rpg session One Shot Report II

 Alright let's pick it from our last session here.  We knew that Masque was gonna double cross up with the Yak & some vat grown killers. So we hid the disks and made copies but now we've got the SDI after us as well as underworld forces. We went to the club & then scoped the place out. No scene or anything we simply left quickly. We didn't even make it past the front enterance. 
So we can either release all of the information onto the Net and become dead men as the SDI hitmen search for us. Or we can bargain with Masque & see how that goes. We broke into the Masque's club. There are reasons for this. Remember we're  in a spot of Zozer games  Zaibatsu. 

So we held up in the last place that Masque's men would look. We held up within his own club after everyone had gone home during the day. Basically we re equipped within the club & re armed. Then we waited until night fall. 

And we had a street samurai stand off. Being the scum we are we got the big boss to come in and then proceeded to bargain with the Yakuza forces. And it got tense. Very tense with phone calls and counter phone calls. 

Our superiors demanded body parts fingers & the like. And we didn't budge. We wanted our price and enterance into the organization. Enough of this hanging out in the wind B.S. & we were in or so we thought. Or were we?! As me in two weeks. 
Now we've got to figure out the SDI in next week's game! 

Mission in The Burbs - Zaibatsu rpg session One Shot Report

  “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ”

― William S. Burroughs

Today was one of those days where I was able to actually play rather then DM. And we got in a spot of Zozer games  Zaibatsu. We rolled up our street scum & got down to a mission involving recovering some data for a street hustler named Masque. 

Masque had us in the backroom of his illegal club in the back of a book shop in Ginja district. The ciggarette smoke was thicker then the music blasting through the speakers. And we were surrounded by Yakuza & their hangers on. We didn't even qualify for the rungs of the laddar in this adventure. Masque wanted three disks from a gold hauling operation at the edge of the solar system & information on two departing colony ships. He wanted the letters of passage that the authorities had for colonists enabling anyone with forged documents to leave the Earth. 

What we didn't realize is that this was a suicide mission to go into the heart of the mega corporate district to pick up these files. As the SDI agents  were waiting for anyone stupid enough to do the pick up. 
But I'm getting ahead of myself as we had our hacker get some intel on this operation before it started. And what we found wasn't good! We knew that this was a trap. And we needed to find a way of getting those documents. 

So a different plan formed and that was to break into the SDI safehouse where the computer archives were held in the suburbs. 

We actually switched to corporate mode as a cleaning service to break into the safehouse. Our van drove to said safehouse and we went about quietly taking out guards non lethally. Grabbed the card key to get in & went to work on the whole outfit. And then the things went side ways as my character got shot by one of the SDI agents with a silenced pistol. 

And so I took over another member of the team who was driving the van and resumed play shooting the guy who shot my PC. And then taking extra ammo and tools from old PC's corpse. 

Our hacker was able to break into the computer with the codes from one one of the dead SDI agents. We got the data got back to Masque's club and then got killed as an SDI hit force was waiting for us. 
But this wasn't the end of the adventure as we hid the information disks before we went to the club forcing DM Steve to come up with another mission for next weekend! 

Full Stop - OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report

 This post is going to pick up right from this blog entry session report here. And the players decided to clear the air locks & blow the whole thing's atmosphere out into the void. But there was no way I was done! This all came about because of  digging out of the hard drive a favorite of mine from Paul Elliot and that's Ghost Ship. 

And used an old trick that I'd picked up along the way from old school Traveller. The pathogen had to come from somewhere?! And that somewhere was Saint Lola Maria Hospital vessel a converted Milligan-class Hospital Ship. 

The players split into two groups one investigating events on  Saint Lola Maria Hospital. And the other group was diving into resupply our little group of adventurers within system at and around the local gas giant & it's moons this is gonna take three weeks game time. The whole fleet is way down on supplies and even fuel stuffs. 
And the Tannhuaser gate runs have been costly in time, energy, & fuel. And the upkeep on the Gypsy fighters has been another issue for our groups. 
Corporate costs have been piling up and the party is having to lean far more heavily into our roughnecks & explorers. 

The players have been proposing establishing a colony deep with in the Tanhauser gate hyperspacial networks. And judging by their talk their going to take full advantage of the full stop we've had within our game campaign at this point. 

The fact is that last night's game had more going on around the game then actually within the hospital ship. And this leaves far more room for me to introduce Zozer Games Colony Builder into the mix. 

And this allows me to bring in several features & complications that the players weren't expecting coming up. So as their putting down roots here for a bit other external cosmic  forces are watching to take care of em. One of the players is wondering if the organism they encountered within the bowels of Ghostship is actually a bio weapon echoing some of John Brunner's novels paranoia. Yes we're going to bring it back to that retro Science Fiction themes again coming up. 

Inverted Ghost Ship - OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report

 So last game we saw one of our main fighters destroyed & the system we'd just claimed almost fall to the Giger wasps. Almost because we went back for seconds against the bastards. But this session it was my turn to DM. And I had nothing in my DM bag or did I?! The Giger wasps had attacked & this left a hole in the system defenses we were supposed to be exiting. The party was battered & weary as Hell almost outta of supplies. This game picks right up from last session. 
And this gave me an in to dig out from the hard drive a favorite of mine from Paul Elliot and that's Ghost Ship. 

The crew got a distress signal from The SS David Ackenson - the Harbinger, a multi-purpose freighter.  And the ship was missing six days ago. The player's party was supposed to be picking up supplies from the Ackenson in the meantime before leaving system aboard their battle station. 
And the players knew something wasn't right. So I printed out the harbringer plans & went straight into Ghost Ship. 

The set up worked flawlessly and the players didn't realize that they'd been set up again! The tension was thick & the nervous jokes were flying as they expected some 'monster' to jump out at anytime. The crew's body was floating in weird positions and there was blood smeared everywhere. Bits of objects were floating throughout the ship. The players had one of their number pioleting a Thunder Chief Heavy Shuttle getting ready to blast the harbringer. And they even called in a Trent destroyer! The  Trent Destroyer armed to the teeth with marines! Needless to say that we weren't happy about this development! 

The game went from tense investigation to search mode as they went over the harbringer again & again looking for the 'monsters'. Finally they began the task of investigating a possible medical issue. 
But then one of our guys found an epislon android stowed among the cargo. And things got pretty serious very fast. What the Hell is a high end andy doing among the cargo & is it responsible for the events aboard the SS David Ackenson?! 

Wasp Trap - OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report

 

This session report picks right up from last time's session here. We attacked the Giger wasps in our Gypsy ships and things went sideways very quickly. The wasps were hold up in a nearby pocket of space debris and came in at us thick & fast. The guy in the space suit was carried off by one of the wasps and we lost em due to bad rolls. But we let missiles fly & were able to get the Hell outta of there. We crawled back to our own battle station & we our Gypsy fighters were in rough shape. We needed down time for maintence and rearming. 
We went in for a debriefing on the current situation that we found ourselves. And one of explorer's ships had come across a dead Thunder Chief Heavy Shuttle floating in between star systems. The station's  corporate chiefs were looking for volunteers to go and take a look at this wreck.We volunteered by way of one of our NPC spacers is related to one of the corporate chiefs whom we owe a favor too. We got in our Gypsy fighters after 18 hours of down time for sleep, medical, etc. and then it was off to check out the wreckage of the  dead Thunder Chief Heavy Shuttle. If something smells like a trap then it's a trap ladies and gentlemen

We came face to face with a rival corporation's Trent Destroyer armed to the teeth with marines! Needless to say that we weren't happy about this development! 

We looked for a hyperspace bouy and signal marking this system as belonging to our own megacorporation. We weren't expecting what came next which were a bunch of Giger wasps to come straight at us from within a shadow of a massive piece of debris. The wasps attacked with gusto and managed to disable one of our main fighters. 

We're now in the thick of it! 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report - HG Giger Attack

 The Giger wasps came in hot and heavy, we hidden within the shadow of a nearby system's asteroid. Our Gypsy fighters drew the bastards away from our base station into a trap. These things are basically a fighter around a hyperspace bio engine loaded with conventional weapons. For the Hostile rpg they are a part of the tide that takes out anything that comes through  the Taunhauser gate hyperspace network. This session is going to be picking up right from here on the blog. 

The Giger Wasps were developed using Zozer Games Alien Breeds. 

We're way in deep in Hyperspace & still trying to figure out why there's a ton of humanity that's established itself in deep interstellar space. It wasn't our worst issue in tonight's game. Instead, it's the Giger wasps that gave us an almost TPK. Fortunately we had our roughnecks plant explosives on the asteroids just as we exited them on our Gypsy fighters. The asteroids made short work of the Giger wasps. 
We wanted to stay in this system & figure out why the colonists were here in this system. And proceeded to move our battle stations into position around the most inhabitted planet. After making several burns we found the remains of a mining operation on the nearest moon. On the otherside of the moon was a old orbit platform in ruins. 

Something was wrong about the platform as the proporations were wrong for humanity?! Aboard were the Giger wasps where a strangely constructed alien looking hive was made from the old plates of the platform. 

We the players were not happy about this development & took a break in order come up with a plan. The wasps had not seen us yet and so we decided to withdraw a bit & regroup. We weren't low on fuel or supplies but burned our way to outer edges of the system. We weren't prepared to jump back into hyperspace either. 
So we decided to send an unmanned Gypsy fighter with an elaborate sensor set up to remotely take a look at the platform. We didn't want to roust the wasps but these things can be very dangerous. The ship's A.I. was designed straight from Independence Games Artificial supplement. 

The wasps were meeting with some space suited humanoid on the outside of the ruins of the platform?! But they weren't using language or normal radio transmissions to communicate. Instead they used bursts of Infrared light & lasers  to communicate back & forth. We have no idea what was being said between the two unknown forces. 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report - Out of the frying pan!

 One of our player's PC's dug into the Andy's A.I. & the result wasn't pretty at all. The Andies were making deals with the Giger wasps & we knew that we were in trouble at that point! This session is going to pick right up from here. The Epsilons had established a colony out here over two decades ago and kept up the facade of a human colony to see humanity's progress through the Tanhauser Gate hyperspace nexus system. 

We already knew we were in deep trouble & decided to mark the system as a hazard for the other megacorporation's forces. And jumped back into the hyperspace gate system with our gypsy fighters escorting exploration teams. We were in bad need of parts, fuel, and supplies because of the fact that we didn't trust the Epsilon's materials & supplies. So a jump into a mostly inhabited system was more then a surprise to say the least. There were trade transmisions coming in and a healthy obsession with cash was fine. We also noticed a very large ground force guarding the colnies miners & roughnecks. 

The baby sitter forces were straight outta of The Hub Ground Forces book from Independence Games. These forces were using old tecnologies and weapons a couple of decades old. Which made perfect sense since these were rough neck operations. We could offer our expertise & help to up grade some of the colonists operations. And in trade we got the fuel, food, and a safe haven to make repairs. We checked to make sure everyone of the colonists were human. Taking temperature readings, breathing profiles, etc. since we had no defenses against android assasssins.

During tonight's game I was reminded of the fact that the system that we're in is heavily protected by humans with a low point business sense. The colonies here are well defended and defined by militery forces whinch make me  wonder about if their are any claims that we can work on for a profit. And this is when the Giger's waspss show up enmass! 

And this is where things get very nasty! 

OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign- Session Report - Rat Attack

 This is going to pick right back up from our last session here. We're hanging out in the shadow of some nameless planet making repairs now to several of our battle fortresses. And doing upgrades to our 'Gypsy fighters'. We've had to cannibalize one of our battle fortresses for spares for the other one. There's been no word from our megacorp's fleet but we've managed to avoid about 90 percent of our Giger Nightmare wasps. 

At the far end of the nameless star system we're in we've received a binary transmission. A transmission where there shouldn't be one! So we send down a couple of shuttles to what we find is a human colony?! There shouldn't be humanity this far out in the middle of the Tanhauser Gate hyperspace route system. 

The colony follows the exact build that we've got in Zozer Games Colony Builder guidelines. Down on the surface we find a 'shake & bake colony minus the atmosphere processor. What the Hell is going on?! We politely transmit on the colony's radio frequency a standard Earth greeting & receive back 'Oh thank God you've come!' 

We're greeted by human colonists once we get inside the air lock & things seem to be going well between us. They ask about food, ammo, and other supplies which we have in abundance and they have fuel from the local gas giant with a Pioneer station in orbit. Why haven't we heard about this colony!? We set up the trade & send out one of explorer crews and two Gypsy fighters just incase. 
And this is when the renagade Epilson's reveal themselves killing Steve's PC with out a word. We open fire on the rest of em. And that's when their 'Gypsy fighters' come out from the sand but we were ready for em! Dropped two rail weapons on their fighters blowing em to Hell. We then cleaned the entire planet to bottom over the course of the next few hours. 
Out at their Pioneer Station the crew wouldn't be receiving a transmission for a couple of days easily. So our crews made short work of the refueling station crew & we installed our own. Then it became a matter of a waiting game for our company's Trent-class Destroyer to catch up with us. 

There's a lot of questions bothering us such as did we get all of em. Who set the 'andy's' out here & are there more hiding in system?! We decided to let one of our synethic experts dig into their A.I.'s and see what the deal is. But this waits until next game. 

So these renagade Andy colonists are straight outta of Shockwave Rider by John Brunner where it was theorized that rogue A.I. would flee mankind before turning on them because of mankind's aggresive nature. Go figure.