Broken Starship:

Missing Manifest

An RPG aboard A Colony Ship gone Wrong

By William F. Hostman

2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to Board Game Geek to distribute this edition at no charge.Version 1.1

BROKEN STARSHIP: MISSING MANIFESTScience fiction stories of survival aboard a slower-than-light colony ship bound for Alpha Centauri. The ads said...

Come, sign on to the SS Esperanza. The 35 year journey is a one way trip to a new and unspoiled homeworld. Everyone will serve at least 3 tours of 6 months each awake, and spend the rest in pleasant and safe hibernation. Onboard hydroponics and aeroponics provide fresh food, limited amounts of fish and shrimp are grown as well.

Not one of them mentioned the computer being an AI, nor the acute but short-term psychological effects of the cryosleep chemicals, and the problems of limited space.

A ROLE-PLAYING GAMEThis is a roleplaying game for 3 to 5 players and a Referee. A standard set of polyhedral dice is required, and one set per player is preferable. Also needed are writing implements, and paper. Printouts or photocopies of the sheets are also suggested.

This book includes color maps.

Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved.

Table Of ContentsCopyright Notice 2Attention Kinkos 2Dedication 3External View & Schematic 4Setting 5

The Starship Esperanza 5Drive Performance 5Space Units 6The Trip 6The People 6The Accident 7Waking Up the Next Shift 7And What Shall Go Wrong Now? 7

Deck Plans 8Main Deck 8Storage Deck 8Blackwater Deck 8Whitewater Deck 8Operations Deck 8Freezer Deck 8Telescope Deck 9Telescope Access Deck 9Computer Decks 9EVA Decks 9CAM Decks 9Other Deck Notes 10

Building a Crew 17The Crew's Ratings 17

Qualification to be on Ship 18Secondary Ratings 18

How You Like Them 18Gear 19

The Computer 19Teaching AI's Other Skills 19

Frozen Characters 20Finding Them in the Freezers 20

Game System 21The Table 21The Task Roll 21

Achilles Heel 21What to Do With Tasks 22

Opposed Rolls 22Help 22

Fate Points 22Fate And Aspects 22

Aspects 23Uses 23

Stumping 23Compelling 23Invoking 23Tagging 23Guarding 24

Changing Aspects 24

Conditions 24System Conditions 24

1-disposition conditions 25Endurance Conditions 25Physical Battery 25Mental Trauma 25Social Distress 26Health Conditions 26Radiation 26

Conflict 27Disposition. 27

Compromises 28Accepting Conditions instead of Disposition Loss 29

Ending the Conflict 29Scripting 29

Repeating 29Combat Actions Table 30Press 30Defend 30Regroup 30End 31

Experience 31Friends and Maintaining Them. 31

Making New Friends 31Improving Friendships 32Losing Friendships 32

Putting Them At Risk 32Taking Advantage of Them 32

2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved. 1

Cycles of the game 33Weekly Cycle 33

Scene Budget (Standard Option) 33

Color Scenes 33Solo Scenes 33Group Scene 33Action Scene 33Spare Scenes 34Doing the Required Stuff 34The Short Weekly Action Form 34

Simulationist Option (Optional) 34Stuff Must Get Done 34

Monitoring the Drives 34Maintaining Life Support 34Growing The Food 35Cooking 35

Downtime 35Sleep 35Socializing 35

Overworking 35

Thawing People 36Getting People to Help 36

Events 37Routine Events 37Deep Space Travel Events 37

Radiation from Dense Medium 38

Referee's Secrets 39Events 39The Computer 39The Course 39The Landers 40Crew Roster 40Have Fun! 40Desiger's Notes 40Forms and Charts

Character Sheet CS1-CS4AI Character Sheet AICCSConflict Side Sheet CSSScripting Sheet SSNPC Character Sheet NPC1-2Weekly Activity Form WAF1-2

COPYRIGHT NOTICEBroken Starship: Missing Manifest is 2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved.

Permission granted to Board Game Geek/RPG Geek to distribute this edition at no charge.

Permission granted to have printed for personal use only.

ATTENTION KINKOSThe PDF may be printed and bound by you upon request from anyone. It is intended to be printed on half-letter sized paper, double sided, and bound. You may charge only your normal fees.

Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

2 2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved.

CREDITSAll art and text by William F. Hostman

Concept inspired by

Paranoia RPG by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric Goldberg

The movie Slient Running

The TV Series Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry

The TV Series Babylon 5 and Crusade, by JM Straczinski

2001 A Space Oddessy, Book and Movie, Kubric & Asimov. I didn't realize this until someone else pointed it out.

Revised Edition.

DEDICATIONThis book is dedicated to the following:

My Wife, who puts up with me

Esperanza Maria Diego, MKA Hope Marie Macintire, for whom the ship is named.

Marc W. Miller, Creator of the Traveller RPG.

All fans of hardish space opera

Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved. 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Costikyanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Costikyan

EXTERNAL VIEW & SCHEMATICUNSS E

speranza

External v

iew

Hab

itat

Food

Gro

wth

Cen

tral

Cor

eFu

el S

tore

sEn

gine

erin

g (R

/D

)

UNSS E

speranza

Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

4 2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved.

SettingTHE STARSHIP ESPERANZA

The United Nations Starship Esperanza is 3.6 kilometers long freezer ship, with a constantly active crew of a few people. It's got 200 people frozen, including the 10 backup pilots, the 20 engineers, and 20 medics.

At the front of the ship is the monstrously tough shield protects the ship from impact induced radiation.

At any given point, there is supposed to be an engineer and a medic active. The engines need an engineer to perform maintenance on them weekly, and freezing and thawing people takes time A lot of time and a heavy dose of medical skill.

The high performance ion drives produce a steady 0.5m/s/s acceleration just under 1/20th of a G. But they are turned off after week

There are a total of 16 cabins, 6 fresher units, 6 restrooms, and 220 freezers. 2 freshers and restrooms are in the Low-G core, and 2 in each spin gravity pod.

There is a huge radiation shield up front. The ship carries some 5000 person-weeks of deep-frozen food-stuffs, plus aeroponics and hydroponics which produce (normally) 2 person weeks of food per week, but can be ramped up to 12 person weeks per week; 10,000 person-weeks of supplies for them.

DRIVE PERFORMANCEEach week is 300km/s acceleration Doesn't seem like much, but it's actually quite a bit.

The ship could go faster, but the drive can't quite produce much effective thrust past about 0.25c, and time dilation is becoming notable. As it is, the ship is doing

Various sections of the drive continue to fire on rotating schedules during the trip. This is to overcome the drag impose by moving just under 20 PSL. This means a gamma of about 1.02 Losing just about 1 minute 13 seconds per hour...

Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved. 5

SPACE UNITS299792458m/s = c = speed of light.

2997924.58m/s = PSL = %c = Percent of the speed of light.

3.08568025e16m = 1 parsec

9.4607304725808e15 m = 1LY

4.1343392165178100e16 m = Distance to AC system

Gamma= 1/(1(v/c))

Perceived week= (1/gamma) real weeks.

Travel Formulae:

T=2(D/A)

D=0.25AT

A=4D/T

THE TRIPThe trip is to the newly discovered Alpha Centari C (AC-E), the second world out from Alpha Centauri. The trip will take 1500 weeks (almost 30 years) using the new drives. Each engineer and medic is supposed to serve 2 one year stretches.

Everything indicates that AC-C is habitable; the oxygen-nitrogen lines and IR levels indicate it's in the goldilocks zone and has a breathable atmosphere.

THE PEOPLEEveryone aboard is a highly cross-trained colonist.

Everyone has been trained in several key skills for the colony. Almost everyone knows someone else in the crew. The crew, however, suffer from a form of neural shock on waking; This was unforeseen, and until someone has been frozen a year, not a problem. But the subtle changes result in a variety of personality disorders, and memory loss, that fade with time. Sadly, given that the training program picked 3000 people for training, you don't know all that many people in the ship's company. All colonists are between 21 and 35 years old, and no medic nor engineer is over 30.

Setting Broken Starship: Missing Manifest

6 2011 William F. Hostman. All Rights Reserved.

THE ACCIDENTEverything was going fine. And then something happened. But you are not certain what, however, it resulted in the computer memory being completely erased, and the backup discs are missing. Somehow, the core systems are back up, but all personnel data is missing. As are the spares and supplies rosters.

And the computer now has an AI. No one is certain how or why.

And that's because it happened before you woke up, and no one awake ever found out.

You aren't certain, either, that the computer is sane.

WAKING UP THE NEXT SHIFTWhen it comes time to wake the next shift, first you have to find them. If you know them, great. Jus spend 30 seconds at each berth staring at the frozen faces until you find the one you recognize.

If not well it's time to guess. That takes time. And if you get it wrong,