GALAXTAR ADVENTURE IDEAS

As I did previously for the Necronomicon setting, now I compile some of the ideas I've had for adventures run in the futuristic setting of Galaxtar. See if you like them.

· COUNTERSTRIKE
This adventure will feature a somewhat complex plot. An old corrupt military officer with connections to the black market is tired of that life, and devises a plan to become "respectable" once again: he'll secretly arrange a valuable alien artifact to be stolen from the military and then he'll publicly recover it and have the robbers executed. The pawns of that plan will be the PCs, a group of mercenaries, contacted to steal some goods from a civil cargo ship (actually an undercover military transport). Once done, they'll travel to a luxury resort to sell the key item to a top level smugglers; but right then an special ops team, lead by the evil guy, will arrest them and send them to a military court to face a swift judgement and sentence to death. But fortunately for them, just before their death sentence is going to be executed, another military officer "saves" them. This officer is legal, and has always suspected of the other one's black market operations. He'll save the PCs' lives with some fake executions in exchange for them uncovering the evil guy's machinations. A new mission that won't be easy, as he's been cleaning all evidences of his former activities; cleaning means killing, of course. They'll have to do quite a lot of research in the underworld to gather enough data to be able to lure the corrupt officer in a trap, having him arrested and their freedom gained.

· DOOMSDAY
Not truly a sequel to the above adventure, but connected to it. The adventurers, a group of smugglers, make an hyperspace jump, but they suffer a strong deviation and appear amidst an asteroid field. Once they break free from it the ship's navigational computers will give them their situation, revealing that the asteroids are what remains of a moon collapsing on its planet. They'll also receive a S.O.S. signal from a nearby smaller moon, the orbit of which has been affected and is on collision course to the same planet. If they track the signal they'll arrive to secret military investigation facilities, where they were experimenting with a doomsday weapon; the experiment that has gone awkward. They were using the artifact from the previous adventure, an experimental teleportation device from the Ancients, joined with a ship's black hole generator. After the rescue, the PCs are already involved with this project, and will face no chance but to accept helping the military in retrieving the notes of the ancient scientist that created the teleportation prototype, so that the weapon can be upgraded before a new test is made. That means travelling to an ancient planet, avoiding being detected, and once on the completely uninhabited surface search for the laboratory. But all of the ancients' planet is guarded by powerful and strange technologies. If the PCs are successful on their mission, they may think twice about contributing to the creation of a doomsday weapon.

· DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES
This adventure will actively feature two alien species: Goualds and Dalektoids. Some rogue scientists from these races have joined in a common effort to force an artificial evolution of their two species, joining them with humans in what they expect to be the ultimate supreme race (these experiments are in no way endorsed by their authorities, who would consider them heretical and contrary to their racist believes). In order to carry their experiments they have contacted a neogi trader who's willing to provide them with human specimens. But these disappearances have not gone unnoticed by the authorities, and a group of police inspectors (yeah, those are the PCs) are commissioned with investigating them. First specimens come from the downtrodden, so that will misguide the PCs into some gang war and payback. But as the gouald-dalektoid experimentation advances they'll need better specimens to use the best human D.N.A., a fact that should allow the players to become aware that something else, and likely bigger, is going on. Either way eventually they'll come across the neogi trader, from whom information may be elicited for money and impunity. It will be up to the PCs whether they want to personally raid the secret installations of the rogue scientists, or filter the info to their races so they punish them.

· EMPTY HULL
A very simple adventure, which actually is little more than a dungeon crawl in space. The ship in which the PCs (a bunch of people little more than criminals dedicated to salvaging abandoned ships) travel will locate a stress signal from a sligg ship. Suddenly, the PCs' ship switches to automatic mode and approaches the sligg vessel, which is controlling it (a thing of superior technology dominating lesser one). Once the salvage crew abroads the derelict, which is pretty big by the way, they'll soon learn that there are no living beings there. The corpses of several sliggs can be seen scaterred here and there, and studying that and their injuries makes it clear there was some fighting to death for control of the ships. All the while, electronic equipment used by the PCs will begin to have random errors and reseting themselves. Occasional flickers of light in the ship's screens should add to the creepy atmosphere; and point to the presence of artificial intelligence, occupied with studying the adventurers. As it was to be expected, the robots that killed the sligg crew will finally awake and attack; fortunately, just a handful of them are still operative. Once the PCs defeat them (if they do...) they'd better leave the sligg derelict soon, before the damage caused by the blasts makes the ship explode. And once their ship, they could worse than double-check their computers' systems to avoid an artificial intelligent virus to invade it and ultimately unleashing doom upon human civilization.

· TO THE OTHER SIDE AND BACK AGAIN
A military ship from the Serapis system disappears when making an hyperspace jump; neither overly common, nor unheard of. Time later, it reappears in the Myrzam system, and a three members military team, commanded by a lieutenant, is sent to investigate what may have happened. A soldier, a private, from the ship's system is invited, too. Somewhat strangely, two elite troopers from Earth join the mission, with one of them, a sergeant, taking control of the mission and surpassing the Myrzam lieutenant. I plan this just to encourage role-playing and add a bit of tension to the game. The adventure as of itself will begin with the PCs boarding the reappeared ship and investigating it. There are no humans there, but they'll find that some of the utility robots (which lack real A.I.) behave as if they had it... and very malevolent intentions. Also two weird, zombie like, creatures will appear and attack the PCs; even if they are easy to get killed, they "die" with a laugh only to reappear later. All of this is happening because of the pernicious mutative effects of the other side: the ship is now a sentient being. Before they realize they have to destroy the full ship they'll find that the former crew has gone to a nearby moon with a small human colony to evangelize them on the new "other side faith". Or slaughter them. Which is very similar, truth to be told. PCs will endure now a more thought mission to protect the innocent while battling some crazed but well trained former mates.

· FAREWELL, COLONIES
In this adventure the PCs will be a group of four policemen (and a special operations policewoman). I hope to be able to create a very complex plot of economical and political conspiracies all across the human populated systems, but so far I only have some vague ideas regarding said plot; these I present here. Everything will start innocently enough at some customs, when a possible case of corporate smuggling is discovered. A team of police detectives specialized in economical mischiefs is entrusted with the investigation. It will soon turn out to be an industrial spying case, though. Moreover, the involved corporations all have strong political connections. And so, the smuggling was to cover industrial spying, which was to cover political spying. The latter revolves around the rumour of a coup de etat of Earth against the colonies. Tracking the rumour they'll find a goauld, and it would be natural to assume he's the responsible to spread a rumour that would cause frictions in the human civilization, thus weakening it. Yet even he is just a pawn, and the real conspirators are much higher in the power chain. In the end the PCs should be able to prove everything has just been orchestrated to promote independentism amongst the colonies from within them, accusing Earth of pretending to use the colonials as cannon fodder in a massive attack of conquest, and dismantle this machination; although it's unlikely its perpetrators will ever go to jail.

· HAIL TO EARTH
This is a follow-up to the former adventure, but with a different group of PCs (it would be good, though, if the players are the same, for better effect). It turns out that there really was some secret Earth conspiracy to overcome the democratic governments of the colonies and create a militaristic oligarchy to prepare for war. Some radicals of Earth, tired of hearing that humans are the "last", "young" and "weak" race, are embarked in the production of a massive war starfleet, with which they plan to launch a conquest of all the galaxy, exterminating the hostile races and subduing the rest. To be able to man the ships and fight the war it's compulsory that the populations of the seven colonies enlist in the army, and a "no" won't be accepted. Among the high spheres of power, the viability of this plan is doubted, but having a bigger fleet is never a bad thing, and Earth has always consider itself the metropolis and frowned upon colonial independentism. But someone critically fumbled somewhere, letting some secret info slip, and now the mess must be cleaned. The PCs will be the responsible for this, finding the original information leaker and terminating him/her to prevent further errors. Fortunately for them, some well placed misinformation prevented an investigation carried by some colonial policemen to discover the truth; yet, their knowledge makes them dangerous, so they need to be terminated, too (a confrontation that should be fun if the players are the same of the previous game, as I suggested above).

· COLLATERAL DAMAGE
This had to happen. Xenos are too efficient killing machines. Weapon development is a too lucrative business. Scientists are too absorpted with their researches to care about security issues. Add all them together and you'll have this adventure, in which a research carried in an orbital station made to turn the xenos into living weapons has gone awkward with the bugs breaking their confinement and killing everyone. The self-destruction worked fine, but not before some survivors managed to escaped... impregnated. Now a containment crew of special operations agents, the PCs, is sent to take care of the mess. They'll have to track the landing place of the tainted escape pod and follow the signs of the new xeno infestation up to a rural area, where it has spread surprisingly quick. In top of that, a hürn will enter the game, too, because the xenos for the experiment were originally taken from them, and they are not pleased. His mission is to get rid of the xenos and punish the humans. If the PCs play well their cards they may get some help from the hürn regarding the infestation (despite knowing that truce will end soon); but it's more likely they'll have to confront him. Anyway, once the infestation is seemingly controlled, the climax will come with a new menace, as the military intermediary of the experiments has gone crazy and has started to worship the xeno queen, helping her to flee from Earth aboard a military ship. It's up to the PCs to chase them and finish this incident for good.