ITT: Space Opera Adventure Hooks

>Space Opera meets how memories/time work in the Tincture books.

Throw in time travel and GM yourself into an aneurysm.

Time dilation causes a crew to arrive to a destination decades after an alien invasion.

>The ruthless pirate queen known only as the Carmine Saint has stolen the biggest single human-created piece of art - the asteroid Pallas, carved into a bust of Pallas Athene (resembling her idealized ex-girlfriend) by the morbid but ingenious meta-artist Raven Poe.
>Can you find the Saint before she sells the asteroid to some alien collector, or worse yet, commits articide by stripping off its iridium plating and selling the remaining rubble as ore?
>(And can you keep Ms. Poe from turning your Patrol ship into a priceless, interstellar-range piece of sculpture titled "The Futility of Eternal Pursuit of Love"?)

...

Rolled 3, 2, 20, 12, 14 = 51 (5d20)

Let's try that again.

Ripping off TNG more than a bit
>Everytime FTL is used the space/time fabric comes closer to oblivion.

Instead of TNG's handwave, the player's have to decide whether to eliminate FTL or live knowing that existence might end in their life time.

Looks like a comedy adventure.

Cool, another heavy-handed global warming metaphor. /s

>>A super advanced alien race of slavers attacks your fledgling galactic alliance demanding servitude or death

>>You can barely defeat them with all your powers combined+Friendship until an invincible super-weapon is unveiled that seems invincible

>>They are the nicer ones than their brother race that arrives mid-war intent on annihilating all life outside of their race

>>Can you devise a way to stop the mega ultra super weapon while the two megaraces fight a ritualistic war between themselves over the MUSW and turn the tide of

>>I cant believe you never played this game

>civil war IN SPACE
>Evil megacorp x is oppressing the masses IN SPACE
>Some asshole is building a giant laser. Destroy it by stealing the plans to said laser, then it's trench run time
>Earth was visited by aliens who masqueraded as good/are giant fucking dicks. Use the ftl portal system to gather weapons, allows, and intel to defeat said dicks
>A science excitement fine wing has thrown you halfway across the galaxy, made you an event of the state, and forced you to cooperate with a bunch of criminals to survive
>You wake up on a burning ship, with no real memory of your past. Survive. Saving the haughty space paladin is optional.
>Space if the final frontier. Explore. Boning alien space babe is entirely non optional

TNG opened the can of worms, I'm just disappointed they didn't really tackle the issue.

Rolled 16, 7, 11, 16, 14 = 64 (5d20)

Rollan now.

>Disgraced Politician is the Space Opera equivalent to Florida Man

Eh, it's Star Trek. Most episodes are "Ooh, an interesting premise. Gee that's complicated. Oh well, fuck it, let's throw in a generic solution and move on. See you next week!"

Bill Clinton Space Adventure is a go.
>I don't know if I can help you repopulate your species, ma'am, but I intend to find out

>Tachyon: The Fringe

Mah Bora.

Man, I miss playing as Bruce Campbell.

...

...

Of course, he looks like a barely stable corpse now because of the heart valve surgery and whatever STDs duke it out for dominance in him.

A bit darker than usual.
youtube.com/watch?v=2ky0avfevdY

>Players are fleeing a stellar apocalypse that's traveling at [almost exactly the speed of their fastest ship/communication system].

>They have to keep hopping ahead of it, running from system to system, warning anyone they can. Some people think it's a prank. Sometimes it's lost in the noise. But then, a few hours after the players arrive, the apocalyptic wavefront hits and wipes the system out of existence.

>Their little armada grows. They can't send word ahead, but they can split up now, trying to save more people, more worlds. They lose some time stealing an archive of all published literature between 2060 and [current year -20]. They board and steal a medical ship transporting war orphans.

>At the same time, the players try to work on a true escape route. Does the wavefront feed on mass? Can they flee the galactic plane, or dive into the wavefront and emerge unscathed, or cancel it with some other galaxy-shattering pulse? Is there any hope, or are they prolonging the inevitable?

Christ, I love that. Super dark.

>It would be great if the first half of the first session (or more) is totally banal, ordinary space opera adventures: docking fees, cargo, banter, sexual tension, a lost item of middling worth. And then a very badly damaged alien vessel drops out of FTL and accidentally hits something near the PCs, damaging the ship beyond repair. The PCs are in a position to assist.

An alien grabs the nearest PC, and jams a message straight into their brain. Run. Run, tell those you can to run, and don't look back. You don't have much time. We have made a terrible mistake.

What if the PCs don't take the initial bait of helping the ship? Or believe the alien mind message?

...Oh shit, what if the smallest fraction of the front of a ship makes it out of warp and plops into a system, and instead of the last few survivors issuing a distress call, they urgently begin offering an extreme amount of money to just get them away from the galactic core? Weeping and screaming into the system communications grid, "GET US OUT!"

That works too.

The trick is to make the players believe that, by acting quickly and competently, they are outsmarting you. If you give the vaguest impression that you're /expecting/ them to bicker, delay, and fight, they will. Give them just enough vagueness that they think they're solving a mystery when they figure out "oh shit, apocalyptic death wave, we need to run," and reward them for being clever and figuring it out quickly.

But no matter what happens, just before they jump, you give them a hint that whatever's following is right behind them.

The alien message should be suitable obscure but also threatening.

>"A wave of pure white flame, rippling like the surface of the sun. The light blinds you. Space itself seem to burn. Planets melting like candles. Stars bursting like soap bubbles.

>It tells you to run. Run as fast as you can, as far as you can. You don't have much time.

>It is sorry."

The alien vessel might be undamanged, but it could emerge from jumpspace right in the middle of a station or something, and end up mangled that way. Hyper-advanced tech fused with raw metal and ceramics. Sparks and fumes and darkness. Play up the "explore the creepy alien horror movie ship" aspect for just a bit, to give the players a red herring.

The alien ship might also start transmitting a radio beacon outlining a vector - your escape vector - to anyone nearby.

I would play a game run by you in a heartbeat, user.

Sadly, there's a waiting list IRL, and I don't do online games.

Your only option is to get good, I'm afraid. It's possible though.

HOLY SHIT IT'S YOU. I've sent that screencap to FB friends, I loved it so much

Do you accept bribes or payments in limbs and/or firstborn children?

I'd probably never get to play with you unless you're by Seattle anyway.

there is actually a theoretical phenomenon which could work perfectly as the apocalyptic death wave described: vacuum decay
i can't be bothered to explain what excactly it but Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell did a great video about it

youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI

you misspelt VOY

>vacuum decay as a plot device
>ran a game based on Blindsight
Holy shit I just came buckets

Just watched that. Isn't that just a bit too deadly? There's no way away from that. Unless, I suppose, the new physics inside of the quantum vacuum sphere somehow work similarly to the outside.

What if the PCs are in a universe where soft science fiction isn't fantasy, but real? Quasi-magical warp drives, antigravity, FTL communications, time travel, etc. But then, inside the QV Sphere, they've fallen into our universe. FTL drives fail to operate, spacecraft based off using antigravity literally begin falling apart, all that good stuff. And slowly, a fact dawns on the players that they are used to not even thinking about.

They're 12 light years from the nearest star.

Rolled 8, 8, 7, 12, 11 = 46 (5d20)

>An alien artifact
>meant to get to safe place
>a pirate is after it
>a sage needs to be contacted for advice
>crewmember's ex-wife can help us

that sounds pretty budget-tier desu. Could be fun though.

Nice table anyway

Where in the verse is Carmen Saint's Raven Poe?

Niven. Everything he writes uses good adventure hooks and meh characters. He's best when coauthoring something, because then he can just be the idea guy.

Ex: Mote in God's Eye
>Players receive signal from unmapped star system, warp in
>Discover race of superintelligent social darwinists who are very friendly but openly admit they will murder the shit out of humanity if they get out of their system

Ex: Bowl of Heaven
>In transit, PCs practically trip over megaship
>They didn't notice it because it's so big it didn't register as a real thing
>Uses an entire star for propulsion
>Crewed by dinosaurs
>Last visited Earth ~65 million years ago
>VERY interested in learning how these monkeys could build a spaceship

I remember that book. The ending was pretty fucking insane, in some fucked up Humanity Fuck What??? way.

I really should get these, but what are #4, #5 and #6?

4 is Stargate.
5 is a combination of farscape and me being way too dunk to post last night
6 is the intro plot for kotor

Rolled 12, 15, 10, 20, 2 = 59 (5d20)

Sure let's do it

Actually, vaccum decay is less deadly (temporarily) in a FTL setting. It only travels at the speed of light. You can just hop ahead, build a civilization, and then move later.

There's an excellent book about this subject en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schild's_Ladder

But what if it spreads like a terrifying plague? The way I understood that video, any quantum vacuum decay reaction could be spread. If a ship was just barely tapped by the QV Sphere before it jumped out of the system, it's still beginning to transition to the lower state. As soon as it arrives in the next system, the ship is consumed and another QV Sphere forms.

It could even go FTL if, for instance, some experiment went wrong or something.

That could happen... but the conversion is generally expected to be very, very, very energetic and proceed at the speed of light or very near to it. So if there's a transition near you, you wouldn't even have time to blink in fear before it's got you. And if it contaminates part of your ship, that part is going to almost instantly turn into a huge explosion subatomic particles and light. It's not something you can transport.

So let's abandon my plague-carrier idea. Instead, what about the Alcubierre warp drive being combined with the QV transition?

To clarify, a drive which bends space around the ship, causing the space which the ship occupies to go faster than the speed of light, while the ship itself travels through that space at a normal rate.

Say some lone ship, just by happenstance, has managed to engage its Alcubierre style warp drive just as one particle began its quantum vacuum decay in the same chunk of space as the ship is bringing with it during warp. What I imagine that resulting in is an FTL "chunk" of space bolting through the galaxy, leaving in its wake streams of particles undergoing quantum vacuum decay that managed to get out of that "chunk". Those particles then set off a chain reaction.

The only thing saving those few who manage to escape the death wave is the ship didn't have time to get up to top speed.

Again, you're missing out on the speed of the transition. It's very, very fast. You don't even know it's happening because it propagates at the speed of information, or very close to it.

The Alcubierre drive sort of brings space with you - it's literally folded space. So if one part is undergoing decay, the entire bubble is... and you're in that bubble. Good luck.

And you can't have a "particle" of vaccum decay. It's a change in the property of the fabric, not of the stuff on the fabric.

Basically, this stuff propagates but is not contagious. You can create more propagation zones, but you can't pick up a piece and move it.

To male what I mean a little more clear, even though the ship was instantly destroyed, and all of the particles in that space are now in transition, it doesn't just all "fall out" of the space that's in warp. That space is somewhat contained, so particles spill out of it slowly.

And I'm also still thinking in soft sci-fi terms just because I like the concept of being dumped from a setting where anything is possible with relative ease to another where almost anything is a pain in the ass. Kinda like Vernor Vinge and his galactic zone thing.

Well, shit. Alrighty then, back to our regularly scheduled thread.

Yup. Hooray.

Quantum Vacuum stuff is pretty popular these days as a "real life" blow up everything button. It's very speculative though and people tend to get the details wrong. It's also more suitable for a hard sci-fi game than space opera.

I honestly study rocks. Also I'm a pilot

Basically that's a degree in drinking and imagination with just enough science to make the brain percolate some neat stuff. Physics, especially bleeding edge, isn't really my area of expertise.

What is that in the pic?

youtube.com/watch?v=En_QVxaucms

>There's a planet where upon approach, most FTL engines go haywire due to an unusual quantum waveform and attempt to jump the ship into the planets atmosphere or worse, solid rock.
>Hundreds of ships have crashed here because of this effect
>The planet is populated.

youtube.com/watch?v=-7sAYbCTmPo

>Attacking this planet is a very bad idea.

Paul Pepara. He's done a fair bit of stuff like that.

lets do it baby wooo

Honestly I'd say it's more god's fault for making souls that way. Serious design flaw. A better engineer would have anticipated that use case.

>>The race that wants to annihilate all life is doing so because they have an overdeveloped sense of compassion and believe that all existence is inherently suffering.
>>The slavers on the other hand have a sense of sadism nearly indistinguishable from charity. They want humanity to prosper so it can experience even more profound suffering.

I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.

>An advanced race builds "Computers" that work by collapsing 1kg of matter into a miniature black hole and then analyzing the hawking radiation.
>The effect as the black hole collapses is roughly comparable to 1kg of matter/antimatter, equivalent to a 21megaton bomb.
>The computer's output is encoded into the explosion itself, requiring a gamma ray observatory to properly process.
>Using the computer as a weapon on the other hand is much easier.

nytimes.com/library/national/science/090500sci-physics-computers.html

>Humanity has, for whatever reason, reverted to using time-sharing computing

Schild's Ladder, Greg Egan.

Do /you/ want to go argue with God?

Besides, don't you know that we evolved the afterlife? God doesn't have anything to do with it - it's just a natural adaptation like toes or lungs.

Yes I do fucking want to argue with god. God has a lot to fucking answer for.

And if it's not god, then nobody should object to genetically engineering a race of soul-less sentient beings that can safely use teleportation technology without creating surplus ghosts.

Yeah, I thought it sounded familiar. Hadn't read the actual book, but I heard about it somewhere.

Speaking of which, is the cover art for anything?

Fair enough. But I'm not sure he wants to argue with you.

Anyway, nobody knew about the ghosts until recently, and they've never been a huge issue until /one/ race, the ones running the gates, started killing people over and over and over, on a scale that usually requires scientific notation to describe.

> ctrl-F "Space Princess"
> 0 results

> ctrl-F "rescue"
> 0 results

TG has forgotten the most basic Space Opera plot hook. I am disappoint.

13, 11, 12, 5, 11
I'm not liking the looks of this, we appear to be in some shady shit.

>1
>3
>6
>6
>13
Sounds like some damn political intrigue to me.

>it's just a natural adaptation
What possible selection pressure would need it? If anything, "death means you go to paradise" seems counterproductive for survival in a species smart enough to make the obvious conclusion.

What if death means "you are dead"?

If you can find some way to hang on and to influence events affecting your species, to improve survival rates, wouldn't there be some pressure for it?

I mean, it's pretty pseudoscientific, but this is a space opera thread...

goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/05/ghost-biology.html

Reincarnation (which necessitates an afterlife) gives individuals a speed boost in learning and reacting to things their previous life experienced. Species becomes more wise -> survives to reproduce more.

The current flow of spice is inadequate, you should really do something about that.

An insectoid alien named Khalni needs someone to discover the fate of a contact expedition lost in the Tily Rift. In addition, the crew gets caught in an unrelated firefight.
A merchant named Dony Sones needs someone to discover the fate of a passenger spaceship lost in the Lano Expanse. Further, the job must be completed without official entanglements.
An alien military officer named Sani needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the Lomboe Rift.
A crystalline alien named Ferri needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the M'Gora Nebula.
A merchant named Doria Sonand needs someone to recover an object from the ruins of the Bisi Colony. Further, the crew must travel through an ion storm.
A saurian alien named Mintai Yeemhan needs someone to recover an object from the ruins of the Gubra Station above Hebe.
An academic scholar named Rege Tayley needs someone to salvage a derelict cargo spaceship in the D'Vothua Nebula. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
An alien government official named Drani needs someone to help him escape from a crime lord.
A scientist named Aret Thezal needs someone to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the Shaddai Colony.
A shady aristocrat named Sandrea Gerson needs someone to salvage a derelict cargo spaceship in the Toni Rani Sector.

A crystalline alien named Hyni needs someone to expose a corrupt government official.
A saurian alien named D'Aman needs someone to explore the Soomi Nebula. However, the job turns out to be very different than described.
A guarded military officer named Randy Butly needs someone to help him escape from a crime lord.
An arachnid alien named Pari needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the M'Drani Maelstrom. However, the job is a trap.
A charming academic scholar named Clipet Poward needs someone to investigate an alien generation ship which has been detected in the Pkaloo Sector. In addition, the crew must deal with an obnoxious alien.
An alien crime lord named W'Keni needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to a nearby space station.
An academic scholar named Jone Hilly needs someone to transport him and a servant to an uncharted star system in the Arren S'Hyni Rift. However, the job turns out to be very different than described.
An android alien named Tale Dali needs someone to investigate a rogue planet which has been detected in the Aniz Cali Sector.
A mammalian alien named Meke needs someone to investigate an unstable wormhole which has been detected in the Hani System.
A charming explorer named Elin Butly needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the Dane Expanse.

An alien diplomat named X'Arren needs someone to recover an object from the ruins of the Hemen Colony.
A scientist named Cyntha Bailee needs someone to transport 40 tons of spacecraft parts to a remote space station.
An academic scholar named Justor Tewils needs someone to salvage a derelict exploration spaceship in the Hawaur Expanse. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
A felinoid alien named H'Chupa needs someone to transport 10 tons of cybernetics to a distant world. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
An alien diplomat named Mani needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to an uncharted world in the Arric Expanse. In addition, the crew encounters an old enemy on the same job.
A shady government official named Lynie Bertsimm needs someone to expose a corrupt corporate executive.
A diplomat named Ruby Marte needs someone to salvage a derelict combat spaceship in the Zalke Rift. Further, the job must be completed unusually quickly.
A cryptic scientist named Justerr Reedez needs someone to recover an object from the ruins of the Anic Colony. In addition, the crew's electronics randomly fail at a critical moment.
An alien government official named Andon needs someone to investigate an active black hole which has been detected in the A'Dine Maelstrom. In addition, the crew encounters an old enemy on the same job.
A shady diplomat named Chury Rezal needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to a distant colony. Further, the job must be completed unusually quickly.

An alien crime lord named Muly needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue medical robot.
An alien academic scholar named M'Bime needs someone to help him escape from a crime lord.
A wealthy crime lord named Margel Hally needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue medical robot. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
An academic scholar named Justin Brighte needs someone to explore the Tradda Sector.
A shady aristocrat named Marthia Rosson needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the Marko Maelstrom.
A merchant named Janie Benner needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue combat robot.
An arachnid alien named Meni needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to a distant colony.
An avian alien named Aniz needs someone to discover the fate of a scientific expedition lost in the Graki Expanse. Further, the crew must travel through a system controlled by xenophobic aliens.
An arachnid alien named Ticia needs someone to investigate an indecipherable signal emanating from the Hiri System. In addition, the crew's electronics randomly fail at a critical moment.
A frantic academic scholar named Judy Barnett needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the Kr'Moni Nebula. In addition, the crew must deal with a malfunctioning robot.

A shady corporate agent named Shera Whernez needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue exploration robot. However, the job is a trap.
A felinoid alien named Tale needs someone to explore the Gorniea Sector.
An android alien named Aknaan needs someone to transport 50 tons of spacecraft parts to a nearby colony.
A felinoid alien named Alnon needs someone to discover the fate of a colony spaceship lost in the Vardo Sector.
A wealthy crime lord named Manda Derson needs someone to help him escape from a crime lord.
An alien military officer named E'Patha needs someone to transport 20 tons of spacecraft parts to a nearby star system.
A shady explorer named Jeffry Reedav needs someone to salvage a derelict cargo spaceship in the Vh'Zalki Expanse. In addition, the crew must deal with an obnoxious alien.
A merchant named Doria Lore needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the F'Treni Sector. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
An alien government official named K'Soni needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue medical robot.
An android alien named V'Tande needs someone to hunt down and destroy a rogue technical robot.

An alien corporate agent named Kzenii needs someone to explore the Tr'Mara Cluster.
A felinoid alien named C'Duge needs someone to expose a corrupt merchant captain.
A wealthy merchant named Seane Ramons needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to a nearby world. However, the job is a trap.
An alien crime lord named Urmak Mrani needs someone to explore the Gr'Sali Sector. However, the client can't pay them cash, and must owe a favor.
An alien government official named G'Viltro needs someone to escort a group of robot cargo spaceships to a remote world.
A wealthy scientist named Jamy Turnes needs someone to expose a corrupt military officer. Further, the job must be completed unusually quickly.
A crystalline alien named Ausskish needs someone to rescue a hostage from the pirates of the Thraki T'Trono Maelstrom.
A scientist named Aner Kery needs someone to salvage a derelict cargo spaceship in the M'Orlon Nebula. However, the job is a trap.
An alien military officer named Veni needs someone to transport it and an entourage of eleven companions to an uncharted star system in the Gigi Expanse.
A wealthy academic scholar named Clase Rogarc needs someone to transport 900 tons of exotic matter to a remote world.

Neat, are all of these generated somewhere?

donjon.bin.sh/

The super weapon flagship of the most warlike species has been "stolen" which would be practically impossible to pull off without an entire armada behind it from other advanced civilizations. The species is using this as an excuse to stir some shit. The Big Space Alliance calls them out on their bullshit because they are lying, but the Angry Aliens Alliance goes "nuh-uh, it ain't there". Both are right and wrong. Go find the flagship with your special exploration ship or the political slap fighting turns into the part in Babylon 5 where the Vorlons go on a planetary killing spree.

The Robotic servants on one of the core worlds have risen up in rebellion against their masters

youtu.be/dOt3Lz-oPo4?t=30s

So was the debris field in low orbit the attempted resistance, or the implication that any surface bound craft were shot down attempting to flee the firestorm?

Also why did fucking nobody on the mother ship not question why fucking aliens they never knew existed spoke fucking perfect english?

this feels irritatingly like a trekshit storyline, but I can't put my finger on it

Because they already knew the aliens language before they ever left Kharak.

youtube.com/watch?v=6_4I5vzF0Jw

Man, fuck Homeworld Cannon since the first game.

Imagine if an information imprint of your consciousness remains in stuck in the place where you died until eventually after seconds /minutes /hours /days /weeks /months /years /decades /centuries /millennia /eras /aeons it slowly erodes.

Being stuck in the place where you died fully conscious - unable to move... unable to act... only able to think...

>i have no body and i must scream