Last night we played a one-shot of Boldly Go!, a light-hearted sci-fi RPG taking inspiration from Star Trek and similar properties (like Galaxy Quest). Fun and mayhem!
Our ship is the Space Gull. The Gull is an OG starship, held together by duct tape and fervent wishes, still in service but not the top-of-the-line warship it once was. Now it does the unglamorous work of delivering supplies, paperwork and suchlike to various planets around the system; making "second contact", as it's sometimes known. The Gull has a reputation in Spacefleet as somewhere you end up, it's not a stepping stone on the way to a glorious career. But for all that, the crew of the Gull has an odd kind of camaraderie - they're all kind of weird, but that's all right.
The captain is a modron (silicon-based humanoid; I made one as part of my chargen project) named Fol'vox. Captain Fol'vox isn't much of a day-to-day presence on the ship. They're very hands-off (one of their negative traits is You Just Missed Them). But a good ship runs itself!
The other important NPC is Koko, the ship's AI. Koko is original to the Gull, and the coding language used to create him is so old that no one knows it. As such, Koko is pretty much an immovable part of the ship, even though he gets...weird sometimes. The crew knows that if he starts sounding more Scottish, things are getting strange.
The PCs are:
- Anav th'Rothi: A "belter," born in the asteroid fields, Anav is half-rittian, half-human, so he has disproportionately long and meaty arms and a fabulous mane of hair. Anav is the cargo hold master; technically he works in Systems, but his real function on the ship to be able to find anything folks need in the cavernous hold. He's also an expert in the historical minutia of the Gull.
- Tuxedo "Tux" Restinap: Tux is a gattoan (cat-like race of people from a desert planet). They're the ship's main navigator. Tux got assigned to the Gull and their territorial instinct kind of kicked in, and they've made themself at home. Tux is a little too curious for their own good.
- Diane Gravelox: Diane is a half-human, half-krakenoid (squid-like race). She looks more or less human, but she doesn't really have bones (she's supported by a system of fluid-filled bladders). She's the second-in-command of the security wing of the ship; her boss, William O'Neall, is only a few ticks from retirement so he leaves most of the hand-to-tentacle combat to Diane. Diane is also impossibly optimistic.
- Charlie "Pinocchio" Wakeman: Charlie is, to all appearances, a synthoid...but appearances are deceiving. His human form was dealt a fatal injury and his father managed to transfer his consciousness into a robot body. Now Charlie works in engineering, often fabricating devices of mass destruction (whether they're meant for mass destruction kind of depends on the day).
On this particular day, the Gull has just left Malka V on a routine delivery. Malka V is interesting in that it was the site of one of the battles of the War of the Frontier some 300 years ago, and debris from the war still orbits the planet. In fact, as Anav will cheerfully tell you, the Gull itself was involved in that battle back when it was a new, state-of-the-art ship.
Tux, Charlie, and Diane get a comm from one of the ensigns to meet her in a room off the hold, a staging room where deliveries are assembled. Anav notices this and joins them, since it's near his office. The ensign tells the characters, in hushed tones, that the Gull is receiving a message that seems to be originating from the nearby debris field...but it's using the same coding and comm structure that the Gull uses. In short, the call is coming from inside the Gull! Except not! The signal isn't clear, so comms isn't sure what it's trying to say. She tried to tell Captain Fol'vox, but couldn't find him ("yeah, that tracks").
Charlie grabs a panel off the wall and goes to plug in to ask Koko to clarify the signal, but the ensign stops him. "That's why I wanted to talk here," she says. "Koko seems to be trying to stop the signal from getting through." Diane pulls up her data tablet and does a little flipping, and yep, there's the signal, but Koko is trying to route it away from the crew.
The characters figure that this might be coming from an away vessel, the smaller ships used to go planetside for missions. But Anav does a quick count and they're not missing one. He tries to do a quick head count of the crew, but gets caught up in being thorough ("Aaron A. Aaronson...check. Aaron B. Aaronson...check..."), so the others decide to take an away vessel and track down the signal. Diane sends a message to the bridge tell them to pause their journey ("I have some...security checks I forgot to do? So maybe just pause a sec? Thanks byeeee") and they all four jump in the ship to head out.
Charlie, figuring that Koko probably shouldn't know what they're doing, disables comms and tracking. Tux expertly tracks the signal and flies the ship through the debris field. The characters note that the debris is mostly wrecked ships, and it has Vatizar markings.
Aside: The Vatizar Empire was one of the participants in the War of the Frontier. They're an ancient and warlike race, and Anav remembers that they're obsessed with names; their names get longer as they get more revered. Also, the story goes that the Gull took on a triptych of Vatizar ships here and won (Vatizar ships travel in threes). That, apparently, is what all this debris used to be.
Some moments later, the characters come upon what can only be an away vessel from the Gull. It's a few generations of tech behind them, but it's got all the right markings. Scans indicate faint lifeform readings, so something is alive in there, but the characters can't tell if that's a few very small lifeforms or one barely-alive one.
Charlie, not the most patient of synthoids at the best of time, tethers himself to the vessel and leaps into space. He lands on the derelict vessel and pries open the outer door. It works, but he compromises the airlock, meaning he can't open the inner door without killing anything that might be alive in there. He settles for peering in the window.
Inside, he sees a dozen humanoid figures. They appear to be synthoids, obviously powered down. But there's one organic being, apparently human, sitting in a life-support seat. The readings are green - this guy, whoever he is, is alive!
The characters immediately move to tow the vessel back to the Gull. Once there, the synthoids are taken to engineering so Charlie can try and reactivate them ("maybe just start with one," advises Diane), while the sleeper is taken to medical so Dr. Keats can have a look at him. Tux goes to medical, curious about this guy, while Diane stays with the derelict vessel to look it over. Anav goes to his office to do some historical research.
Diane's investigation of the vessel raises questions. It looks like one person got on the away vessel with all of the synthoids of the crew...but why? If your ship is damaged you don't put the synthoids (who can generally survive conditions living people can't) on the escape vessel, you leave them behind to try and do repairs and minimize the damage. And why was the vessel stuck in the debris field for 300 years? It hasn't been fired on, so it was launched without damage. Very curious.
Anav's research reveals more questions. The Battle of Malka V reveals that the Gull was victorious, but badly damaged. But while the ship was damaged, it wasn't damaged beyond repair (obviously). Spacefleet found the Gull some time after the battle, the crew aboard but in stasis, minus the synthoids...and the captain. The captain, one Dinbra Oh, was missing, and the whole affair kind of got written off as "something weird that happens in war." Could this mysterious man be the missing captain, the first captain of the Gull?!
Meanwhile, Charlie puts one of the synthoids in a harness and reactivates it. It speaks gibberish for a minute, and then comes online. When it does, Charlie talks with it briefly - it syncs its clock with the current time, and asks after Captain Oh. Charlie, at this point, doesn't know anything about that, so he releases the synthoid, tells it to stand by, and tells his crew of engineering ensigns to reactivate the others while he goes to check on medical.
And in medical, Dr. Keats chats with Tux while he does a scan of this fella. He reveals cybernetic implants of unknown origin in the guy. Tux asks what they are, and Keats tells them that they would make him able to go without food, water, or air for much longer than a normal human, as well as making him stronger and faster.
Tux, a little concerned by all this, advises that maybe it might be better to wait a bit to bring this guy around, but Keats has already begun the process (and Koko seems to be helping it along). The man wakes up, leaps to his feet, and demands to know where he is. He recognizes the Gull, but it looks different...
Diane and Charlie wind up in the elevator, heading to medical to check on this mysterious sleeper.
Tux informs him how much time has passed, but the man either doesn't believe it or doesn't register. He immediately stands up and bellows "ABRAXUS!"
Everything goes dark, then emergency lighting kicks on, then everything comes back online. Koko's voice echoes over the ship. "Attention, crew. Captain Oh is now in command of the Gull. Repeat, Captain Oh is now in command."
Tux leaps for a control panel, intending to hit a panic button, but Captain Oh wheels around and kicks them in the stomach ("YOU WOULD KICK TUXEDO? YOU WOULD USE TUXEDO AS THE FOOTBALL?"). Keats attempts to subdue him, but three judo moves later and Keats is unconscious. Tux makes another attempt, but Oh dodges and boots them right out of medical, and Tux takes the opportunity to seal off medical.
Charlie checks the video feeds from engineering, and sees that all of the synthoids have been reactivated, and that his engineering guys are lying on the floor, unmoving. Furious, he punches through the doors of the elevator and Diane squeezes through to hit door release, and the two of them head to engineering. He comms ahead to Anav, telling him to grab the plas-net launcher from the hold and meet them in engineering.
When they get there, four synthoids are still there, guns drawn. Anav joins them, and Charlie warns both him and Diane that if they see a cube on a shelf, grab it. And then Charlie confidently strides into the room and tells the synthoids to drop their raysers.
They do not. They open fire, but still on stun. Diane flails at one with her tentacles and knocks it down. Charlie fires the plas-net launcher and misses, so switches to his souped-up rayser (it's got a setting above kill!). Anav spots the cube Charlie mentioned and grabs it, and it folds open to reveal a rayser rifle!
Anav fires it and hits a synthoid dead-center, dropping it. The others switch their raysers to "kill" and train figure on Charlie, scorching his metal body. Diane closes in, calling on her tentacle-to-hand training, while Charlie fells another synthoid with his special rayser. The last one winds up grappling with Diane, just long enough for Charlie to swoop in and disable its power supply.
Koko calls the security teams to the ready room, which worries Diane - that only happens when they need to be, well, ready. She heads up there and talks to O'Neall, her superior, who tells her that they've been told to gear up and get ready for battle. She talks him into realizing that, no matter what's going on with Koko and this "Captain Oh" joker, this is all highly irregular and likely to get in the way of his retirement.
Tux, meanwhile, is having a similar conversation on the bridge, trying to get the techs up there to help her shut out the override commands that Oh gave Koko. The techs tell her that it's possible to reboot Koko, but that requires going into his main server room and physically turning him off and on again ("you mean through the CHOMPERS?").
Tux and Charlie race to the chompers! Tux darts between them, catlike, and shuts them down to allow Charlie through, and the two of them turn Koko off briefly ("will I dream?"). Meanwhile, Diane successfully talks O'Neall into realizing how bananas this all is, and he brings his security forces out of the ready room with the promise of snack cakes ("snack cakes," we decided, is the code for "captain has gone bananas" in Spacefleet). They seal the synthoids in, and now all they have to worry about is Captain Oh, and he's trapped in med bay!
OR IS HE?
Oh has managed to escape, and Anav figures he's gone to the captain's bridge - he can operate the ship from there all by himself. They head up there and indeed, he's sitting in the captain's chair, staring calmly at the viewscreen. "I won't fight you," he said. "You just let me know when you need my help to beat...them."
The characters look at the screen, and realize that Oh has flown them straight over the border into Vatizar space. A Vatizar triptych is staring them in the face, as it were.
Anav leaps into action. He has comms open a frequency and explains, at length, that this was all a mechanical problem, that no violation of the treaty was meant, and that Spacefleet respects the Vatizar Empire's sovereign borders. There is a pregnant pause, and the Vatizar's booming voice ACKNOWLEDGES THE APOLOGY - NOW GET OUT!
The Gull turns around and heads back into Allied space.
Captain Oh is put in the brig until they can drop him somewhere for...debrief? Therapy? Something. Koko is back to his mostly non-Scottish self, and the synthoids can be reprogrammed to be useful and non-hostile.
"One thing confuses me," says Diane to Koko. "I get that Captain Oh used an override command to take you over, but why were you trying to conceal the signal from the away vessel in the first place?"
"Oh, um," says Koko. "Must have been a lingering command from the captain's original tenure. I cannae remember."
CREDITS
