MgT 2E - Reach Adventure 2 Theories of Everything.pdf

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REACH A DVENTURE 2 : THEORIES OF EVERYTHING
CRED
Marc Miller
S
CON
INTRODUCTION
NTS
2
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6
19
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37
CLASSIC TRAVELLER
Loren Wiseman, John Harshman, Frank Chadwick, Darryl Hany,
Winston Hamilton, Tony Svajlenka, Scott Renner, Doug Poe,
David MacDonald, Wayne Roth, Paul R. Banner.
REFEREE'S INFORMATION
THE INSIGHT III
THEORIES OF EVERYTHING
HIRING ON
MARDUK
BORITE
RESCUE
APPENDIX
MONGOOSE TRAVELLER
Author
Editor
Martin J. Dougherty
Matthew Sprange
Layout and Graphic Design
Will Chapman
Interior Illustrations
Amy Perret
3D Model Design
Sandrine Thirache
Special Thanks
Marc Miller, Tom O’Neill, Brian Caball, Aidan Rafferty, Robert Eaglestone, Loren Wiseman, James Maliszewski, Donald McKinley,
Constantine Thomas, William Hostman, Martin Costa
Traveller
©2016 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this work by any means without the
written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All significant characters, names, places, items, art and
text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing.
This game product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without
written permission. To learn more about the Open Game License, please go to www.mongoosepublishing.com.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United Kingdom and of the United States. This product is
a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organisations, places or events is purely coincidental.
Traveller is a trademark of Far Future Enterprises and is used under licence.
INTRODUCTION
This adventure takes place in Sindal subsector of Trojan
Reach sector. It begins on the world of Marduk, in the
Oghma Cluster which lies at the Rimward (bottom) end
of the subsector, and proceeds into the Borite system.
This requires significant time spent in jump, during
which the Travellers will be confined to the ship and
forced to interact with its dysfunctional group of owners.
Missions to worlds along the way may provide welcome
relief but will bring new dangers as well. Shipboard
skills will be very useful in this adventure, though there
is plenty for non-crew Travellers to do. The problems
that will confront the Travellers are varied, and can be
solved in many different ways.
The adventure is suitable for almost any group of
Travellers, though if they have a starship they will need
a reason to leave it behind for a time while they work
aboard the laboratory ship
Insight III.
There are various
reasons why this might be necessary – their own ship
might be docked for maintenance or repairs, or they may
lack some critical component.
In
Reach Adventure 2: Theories of Everything
the
Travellers are hired as crew and research assistants
aboard the laboratory vessel
Insight III.
The ship is
owned by a cooperative of scientists working in a cross-
discipline environment to solve problems and discover
knowledge as they journey across the vast reaches of
space… or so they claim. In fact,
Insight III
is basically
a jump-capable shouting match as its owners bicker,
squabble and argue their erratic way across a dangerous
subsector.
The Travellers’ mission is thus more than merely running
the ship and helping collect data. They will need to be
advisors, diplomats and bodyguards too, injecting a little
common sense into the heady mix of ego and brilliance
aboard
Insight III.
The storyline of the adventure is as
much about the interactions of the scientists and crew
as the situations they find themselves in, and it may be
that the Travellers’ greatest challenge will be keeping
the scientists from murdering one another.
T
R
A
V
E
L
L
E
R
SET UP
The Travellers are passing through the Marduk system
for whatever reason, perhaps seeking passage offworld
after the events of
Reach Adventure 1: Marooned on
Marduk.
If the adventure is to be run as a one-off then
why the Travellers are at Marduk does not really matter,
but if
Theories of Everything
is to be run as part of an
ongoing game then the referee needs to work a reason
for the Travellers being there into the game’s storyline.
If the Travellers Have a Ship
Emerging from jump in the Marduk system, the
Travellers’ engineer noted that their jump drive
was behaving strangely. This is one of the most
frightening things that can happen aboard a starship
– a malfunctioning jump drive is the object of almost
supernatural dread.
Closer inspection showed that a critical component is
on the verge of failure. The part is quite small, forming
part of the fuel-feed system for the jump drive, but is
a specialist component not usually stocked outside a
Class A or B starport. Failures are quite rare; not that
this helps much. It would appear the system was not
properly adjusted after the last maintenance cycle.
The parts are really not all that expensive as starship
spares go. A full replacement set for the entire assembly
could be bought new for about Cr25000, or single parts
could be scrounged from a wrecker’s yard. However,
many crews are strongly opposed to using salvaged
parts in critical systems like the jump drive. Installing
the parts would take a competent engineer a day or so.
In short, this is not much of an issue if the parts are
available.
The problem is that no such parts are available on
Marduk. The nearest source would be the Class B ports
at Thebus or Torpol, but getting there is difficult at
present. Using the jump drive in its present state would
fall into the ‘might not die’ category of risks. Ordering
the part means sending a request aboard a passing ship
and waiting for one to return, which will take about
three weeks at the very least and probably more. Taking
passage aboard a commercial ship to go and obtain the
necessary components in person pushes the costs up,
and of course the Travellers’ ship is incurring dock fees
the whole time.
A solution has, however, presented itself. The laboratory
ship
Insight III
is short-handed and needs both crew and
research assistants for a mission that will end at Thebus.
The ship’s owners are willing to cover the Travellers’
dock fees and provide a middle passage for the trip back
to Marduk aboard a passenger ship, plus the cost of the
necessary component. They will also pay each Traveller a
per-diem of Cr100 (i.e. Cr700 per week) to cover minor
expenses. Food and lodging will be provided aboard the
lab ship. The mission will probably take about four to six
weeks, but by the end of it the Travellers will be back at
Marduk with the parts needed to fix their ship, and none
of it will have cost them anything.
If the Travellers do not Have a Ship
The job offer is more or less the same, except that upon
successful completion of the mission each Traveller
will receive Cr10000 in cash plus a bonus if they were
involved in something that turns out to be profitable.
The per-diem expenses will still be paid.
Referee’s Note
Payment, whether the Travellers have a ship or not,
depends upon reaching Thebus having made a credible
effort at the tasks encountered along the way. Travellers
who quit halfway through the mission cannot expect to
get paid for it.
3
C
REFEREE'S INFORMATION
Marduk
H
A
P
T
E
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-
0
N
E
The following information is for the use of the referee.
How much of it is made available to the Travellers,
and in what manner, is for the referee to decide. Much
of this data is commonly known or available through
data terminals, info feeds to Travellers’ comms, and so
forth. However, the commonly available version may be
incomplete, dumbed-down, or wildly inaccurate for all
manner of reasons. The referee has the whole story; if
the Travellers want accurate information they may have
to search for it or use inventive means.
SINDAL SUBSECTOR
Sindal subsector (see also page 230 of the
Traveller
Core Rulebook)
was once extremely important in the
affairs of Trojan Reach sector, since it was the home
territory of the Sindalian Empire which had its capital at
Noricum. The collapse of the empire – and indeed much
of its reign – was extremely violent, with nuclear and
biochemical weapons used both during the final death-
throes of the empire and also against rebel worlds during
its reign of terror.
As a result, there are remnants of the great Sindalian
civilisation across the subsector, often surrounded
by wilderness or uninhabitable regions. Many worlds
regressed to a level little above barbarism, and some
achieved a sort of technological barbarism made all the
more nasty by the existence of high-tech weaponry.
Today’s Sindal subsector is of little economic
importance, though the Sindalian Main (also known
as the Dustbelt) runs across the rimward (bottom) end
of the subsector and is an important link for starships
headed from Imperial space to the Aslan Hierate or
the Florian League. This is by no means a safe route;
there are pirate havens along the way and worlds whose
inhabitants can be extremely unfriendly. It is, however,
the most practicable route for ships with jump-2
capability. Faster ships can make a more direct transit
but for those that cannot cross a 3-parsec gulf there are
few alternative routes.
The world of Marduk is fairly Earthlike, and once had a
large population. Its cities were devastated in one of the
many wars that accompanied the fall of the Sindalian
Empire. Various accounts exist of what happened to
the population of Marduk; it is likely that all of them
contain elements of truth. Radioactive fallout, famine,
plagues of natural and unnatural causes and a host
of other causes more or less wiped out the population
on the mainlands, which became taboo to the locals.
Once the mainland population dropped below a critical
amount, the remaining people died out over subsequent
generations.
Humans did survive on Marduk, but not on the main
continents. The surviving populations lived on various
island chains and archipelagos, which became isolated
from one another and devolved to a lower technological
level. Today, these island groups are each home to a few
thousand people who have developed separately. Contact
with outsiders – including people from other island
groups – is shunned, and the islanders have developed
very different cultures and dialect that in some cases
have become entirely separate languages. Since it is
forbidden to learn the tongues of other groups, the
divergence continues to this day.
The only contact the islanders have with outsiders tends
to be raids from Oghma, which does not encourage
them to seek outside contact. As a result the islander
populations are extremely insular and have been known
to attack visitors on sight. Most groups are not so
extreme, but mistrust is inevitable and if possible the
locals will avoid contact altogether. A starship landing
near one of their villages will usually cause the locals to
flee to their hiding places. They have become very good
at hiding from raiders, so it is quite possible that visitors
might think they have found a deserted village or come
away wondering what mysterious disaster depopulated
the settlement just before they arrived.
The port at Marduk is the only part of the planet visited
by most people passing through. It was built from the
ground up (actually from the coastal seabed up) by
the General Development Corporation, or GeDeCo, to
facilitate trade through the Sindalian Main. The port has
a modest orbital component and a larger ground station,
and is constructed on an artificial island just off the
coast of one of Marduk’s continents.

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