The stalwart Fleet Scouts cautiously approached the nervous human woman. She was dressed in homespun materials – leather-like, beaded and knotted. They had lured her out from hiding by singing the same melody she had been singing, as well as melodies from old Colonial nursery songs. She stepped forward nervously, and then a strange, mechanical whine filled the air.
Overhead, a large, squat, triangular-like ship sailed overhead. The Fleet Scouts all recognized it… a Cylon transport! Their mechanical foes had somehow followed them and found them!
(picture is from here: Cylon Transport Concept 00a by AtolmAzel on DeviantArt)
After 18 months of (mostly) bi-weekly 1.5 to 2.5hr sessions, the first “season” of my experiment in running Classic Traveller 1977 (CT77) came to a close, ending on a cliffhanger! In true TV series format!
When I started back in August of 2023, it was the result of an experimental series of playtests of using Classic Traveller in a mashup to the classic 1978 Battlestar Galactica show and the 2003 re-imagined version. Several of the players enjoyed the experiment enough that we decided to run a campaign.
The game centered around another “rag-tag” fleet of refugees from the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies at the hands of the Cylons – intelligent machines created by the Colonists who rebelled against their creators and waged a nearly seventy-five year war. Betrayal undid the Colonies and barely any ships survived. The battlestar Lance, a first generation relic of the large ships managed to escape along with another military ship and about 120 civilian ships. They fled into “The Veil”, a mostly unexplored nebula very close by.
I ran introductory games, based on the same scenario, at GameHoleCon in October of 2023 (and got the stamp of approval from Marc Miller himself on my crazy application of CT77) and then a few months later in March of 2024. Along the way, a couple of the original players left the campaign, but I picked up new players from the conventions, and from my OD&D and AD&D games that I still run.
Through the campaign, the focus was mostly on exploring the Veil and seeing how this campaign would go. Highlights of what the PCs discovered were:
— The Colonial Fleet, through the Colonial Scout Service, *had* been exploring the Veil as a possible refuge or base against the Cylons. The nebula is full of ion and radiation storms. The fleet speculated that these storms might keep the Cylons at bay, or might even be deadly to them! (Announcer voice: In the end, they were right, but humans are also affected.)
Using the recovered scouting information, the (newly minted) Fleet Scouts (the PCs) explored for a path for the fleet. With resources running low (water, food and fuel), there was some urgency!
— The Scouts found two mysteries! The first was a strange sphere orbiting a planet, along with a derelict scout ship. According to a recovered hand-written journal from the scout ship, the sphere had reacted to a scan and disabled the ship! The sphere did not correspond to any known Colonial or Cylon technology. The scouts launched a probe to get close and the sphere disabled the probe.
The second mystery was found on a different planet – a structure that was obviously not build by humans or Cylons!
The scouts found various bits of metal and wiring, and through using high-frequency radio waves, were able to stimulate what appeared to be an antenna. In response, a large energy area formed in orbit above the structure! A wormhole eventually opened and three large spheres came through. The obviously alien ships ignored any hails and after a short while, another wormhole opened and the spheres went through it. Humankind and Cylons were not alone in the universe!
(The players jokingly called the exploration of the structure a “dungeon delve in space!”)
— After finding water, food and fuel resources for the fleet, the scouts found a strange wrecked hulk orbiting a planet close to the edge of the Veil. In exploring the hulk, they found evidence that this was a pre-colonial ship from Kobol! They also found a painted star map pointing in a specific direction out of the Veil and writing that indicated some of the Kobol colonists hadn’t continued forward but went back to a habitable planet.
— The scouts explored close to the Twelve Colonies and encountered a Cylon basestar in the Veil! The Lance’s rear-guard Raptors had also seen other basestars in the Veil as well, so the fleet was obviously being hunted. This basestar and its Raiders were acting very erratic, which allowed the scouts to escape.
Commander Middel (captain of the battlestar Lance) decided to take advantage of an imprisoned cyborg, Soren, whose father had ‘enhanced’ him with black-market technology, most of which was Cylon. With Soren’s help, the scouts determined he could “link” with a captured Cylon communications device. The mission was to go back to the possibly crippled basestar and then either commandeer it, plant false information or destroy it.
The scouts were able to get aboard, and in exploring, they found the Cylons were using humans as part of their navigation system! They also found the main computer core and spoke with the AI, learning that the AI was dying from exposure to the Veil’s radiation. When it did, the basestar would self-destruct! The scouts fled with some data and a single rescued human from the many that were warehoused.
After the mission, the fleet doctors determined that the woman was human, but different genetically – possibly a lost Kobol colonist!
— As the fleet neared the edge of the Veil, now being fully stocked with resources, the scouts were sent forward to see what was out there. They found a second hulk in orbit around a very habitable planet. The hulk was similar to the first, but it had obviously been stripped to its frame and bulkheads. The PCs found what were very obvious landing areas (Type E starports) with aged wrecks of shuttles and transports, many of which were decorated with tokens, totems and charms. Some of these resembled ancient symbols of the Lords of Kobol. The scouts spent the night in their shuttle, and encountered the native woman… with the cliff hanger!
That was a lot of gaming! Some of it went very well, other bits, could have been better. This post is already long enough with the recap, so I’ll save the lessons learned for another time.
With turkey and planting seasons coming up, I won’t have the bandwidth to plan and plot season 2 until after mid-May, so the earliest we could restart is end of June. Right now, it looks like four of the players are interested in returning, so that’s a game!
I would have room for one or two more… if you’re interested 🙂
@chgowiz I love the recap of what has happened in your campaign. It will be interesting to hear about what you felt went well, and not so well.
For some reason Traveller never seem to gel with me when I try to run it. Maybe one day I will play in a Traveller game that makes me realize its potential.