Please read and comment.
To some extent, I'd like you to put yourself in my seat - this has been
submitted for publication, and the question is whether it's workable as-is,
needs work, or is unsalvageable. I'd like _detailed_ critiques, from
grammar and usage to premise, plan, execution, et cetera. I will discuss
the reason I am asking for this at a later date.
==========================================================================
A short adventure seed for Classic Traveller (1981). System-light, so any
edition can use it.
SITUATION
Clybourne (C554554-6) is a cold little port with one industry left: habit.
Forty years ago the Clybourne charter company folded, and its master survey
-- the only complete record of the system's belts, routes, and
registrations -- went down with the charter vessel Kiln on an airless moon
the port calls 'the Same'. The colonial charter expires in three weeks
unless the survey is restored to the record. The Starport Authority calls
this a paperwork problem. Everyone who lives on Clybourne knows it is their
whole future.
One wafer survived the Kiln. Whoever brings it dock-side owns the week.
BACKGROUND (WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON)
The wafer holds more than maps. It carries the coordinates of the original
seed-vaults: the stores set aside for a recolonization that never came.
Sold quietly, that list is worth about Cr 10,000 to the wrong buyer. Held
out in the open, it is leverage over a colony that never knew it had
options. Alda Venn has known that for years, and has spent them trying to
reach the wreck first.
THE PATRON
Alda Venn, archivist of the Clybourne Heritage Office. She hires the team
to reach the wreck, retrieve the wafer, and deliver it dock-side.
Terms: Cr 3,000 in advance, Cr 3,000 on delivery, plus Cr 1,500 if the seal
is intact. Cr 7,500, clean, for a night's work.
Her blind spot: she does not volunteer what the wafer carries. Ask her
directly and she deflects once, then answers honestly -- the coordinates
are the part she actually wants. On a strong reaction she will offer the
crew a share of the vault. She will not offer a share of the credit.
OPPOSITION
Harrow Salvage holds the wreck's claim, and the claim lapses unless their
tug takes physical possession by dawn. Harrow is not criminal. They are
simply faster on paper, and they have the law on their side of the counter.
If the player-characters get there first, Harrow's remedy is civil, not
violent: the claim, and the salvage log at Clybourne control, are the only
witnesses. Bury the log entry and the claim never happened. Keep it honest
and the fight moves to lawyers Venn pays for -- which is another way to
win, at a different price.
THE LOCALS
Pip Noyer -- port dispatcher. Knows launch windows, traffic, and whose tug
is warm. Checks the log on the hour, every hour, and retells everything she
reads by the next shift. Friendly, sharp, incorruptible, indiscreet.
Wren Olliphant -- ranger. Walked the Same for two seasons and still keeps
the charts. Knows the hatch-down approach, which lockers open by serial and
year, and when the rockfall fields run active. Trades nothing for credits;
trades everything for respect.
Bastian Crowe -- broker. Buys and sells data. Already knows the wafer is
out there, because he sold the rumor twice and tipped Harrow for a finder's
fee. Will sell the team anything, will sell the team out for the same
price.
THE RUN
2200 -- Meet Venn at the port canteen. Sign or walk. This is the last clean
moment to counter-offer: the crew can ask for more, ask what is really on
the wafer, or ask for a cut of the vault. Whatever they leave on the table
now is what the night will test.
0000 -- Lift. Two hours out, no traffic but Harrow's tug shadowing long
enough to be noticed.
0200 -- On the surface. The hatch is down. Getting in is cold work in
vacuum -- a Strength throw or a Vacc Suit check at the referee's call. A
cutter works, but the glow carries a long way in the dark, and someone is
always watching the dark.
0300 -- Scavengers arrive. They always do. One reaction roll decides
whether they bolt, bargain, or dig in.
0400 -- The locker, and the log. Access is logged automatically. Burying
the entry is quiet Admin work, done in the dark, without the log noticing.
It is also the exact moment where the job stops being retrieval and becomes
something else.
0600 -- Dock before the log rolls. The claim lives or dies on when the
wheels touch, and on what the log says about the night.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
1. Deliver it sealed. Cr 7,500, clean. The charter is renewed, Venn gets
her archive, no one goes to court, and the seed-vaults stay sleeping. The
easy ending, if the crew read the dossier and ran the clock.
2. Crack it and sell the coordinates. Ten thousand more, if the log stays
buried and the buyer stays quiet. The vault becomes leverage over a colony
that never knew it had one -- and the buyer is not the kind of person who
stays quiet.
3. Tell Venn the truth -- that the archive lives on what it guards -- and
let her decide. A patron remembers the crew that handed her the hard choice
instead of the quiet one.
4. Sell the position to Harrow instead: a finder's fee for a wreck that is
already open. Smaller money, no log crimes, one very angry archivist.
5. Arrive late and let it be honest. The log stands, Harrow's claim stands,
and the fight moves to lawyers. Slow, expensive, clean -- and Venn will
still need someone who can find things.
REFEREE'S NOTES
Keep the clock visible. The run is the adventure; the wreck is just where
it happens. Every beat is cheap to resolve and expensive to skip.
The interesting choice is not the wafer. It is the log. Decide ahead of
time what the crew's world looks like after each answer, and let them
choose with a full set of facts -- or with the facts they bothered to
collect in the canteen.
Clybourne is portable: any small port with an archive problem and a wreck
within a few hours' flight will do. The UPP above is a suggestion. The
clock is not.
===========================================================================
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