Dark Traveller

<body background="http://www.oocities.org/harrisgwjr/Images/image-dctravback.jpg" bgcolor="#000000" text="#C0C0C0" link="#00FFFF" vlink="#FF00FF"> <p align="center"><font color="#FF0000"><b>GDW's House Rules</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><img border="0" src="//www.oocities.org/harrisgwjr/Images/image-dctravhead.jpg" width="960" height="134"></p> <blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <p align="center"><font size="1">Updated 11 November 2002</font></p> <p align="justify"><i><font size="2" color="#00FFFF">We'd chased this group of Dark Elves across half a dozen systems.  Their MO was the same everywhere — they'd jack a ship, slaughtered the crew and dump their bodies into space.  Their last hit had nabbed them a jump-1 free trader.  The nearest system was uninhabited but they'd be able to refuel at the gas giant there.  The next system up the main, however was too tempting a target for them to pass up.  We had a little jump-2 Scout/Courier loaded for bear.  We'd reach the target system days before they'd get there.  Hopefully, they'd never know what hit them.</font></i></p> <hr> <p align="justify"><b><font size="2" color="#FFFF00">Introduction</font></b></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">Starships go missing in the void of space.  Wars and riots break out over trivial things.  Assassinations plunge the universe into chaos.  Are these random events, or is there something more sinister afoot?</font></p> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <hr> <p align="justify"><font size="2">The Dark Ones have always been with us.  More than 300,000 years ago, the Ancients unwittingly unleashed the first Dark invasion on the universe.  Grandfather, through a titanic effort, managed to beat back this invasion, though he was forced to destroy all his children and grandchildren who had fallen under the Dark Ones' influence.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">For nearly 300 millennia the Dark Ones remained banished.  In -2535, a small group of expatriate Empathically-endowed Vilani (humanoid ETs) along with a group of Vegans (tentacular ETs), another minor race (insectoid ETs) and their semisentient robots (energy ETs) who had fled religious persecution in Vilani space accidentally released the Dark Ones through a gate in the Sol System.  Over the next few decades a secret war raged between the forces of good and evil on Earth.  Publicly, the Treaty of New York in 2019 was an effort to curb terrorism and rogue nation access to weapons of mass destruction.  Privately, it was an effort to pool resources to end the Greater Depression and defeat the Dark Ones.  By the mid 21st century it was clear humanity had beaten off the invasion.  </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">Careful study of Dark Tek, especially Dimension Walk devices, allowed Terrans to develop jump drives — jumpspace being a type of quantum proto-dimension.  However, use of jump drives over the next three millennia weakened the fabric of the universe in the Imperium.  Dark Minions began to slip through into the universe again.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" color="#FFFF00"><b>The Conspiracy during the Rim Wars and the Rule of Man</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">While humanity had thought it had gotten the upper hand against the Dark Ones by the middle of the 21st century.  The Conspiracy was very low key during this time.  During the Rule of Man, the Conspiracy added to the suffering of the Vilani under autocratic Terran rule.  Eventually, it forced the collapse of the Second Imperium.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" color="#FFFF00"><b>The Long Night and the Third Imperium</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">The Long Night allowed the Dark Ones to flourish on numerous worlds throughout the galaxy.  However, the coming of the Third Imperium forced the Dark Minions back underground.  Empathically-trained Minion hunters continued the ages-long war against the forces of Darkness.  The Psionic Suppressions were an attempt by the Dark Ones to eradicate this threat to their machinations.  However, certain factions within the Imperial government saw through the ploy and managed to maintain a core of Empaths to protect humanity.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">The assassination of Strephon was the culmination of centuries of plotting and planning.  The resultant civil war and its accompanying chaos, death and destruction was the Dark Ones' greatest coup since the days of Grandfather.  Virus was insurance that humanity would live in terror, even after the shooting stopped.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">The Zhodani had long been a thorn in the side of the Dark Races; their innate Empathic abilities made them potentially deadly opponents.  The Empress Wave was the answer.  Using the unusual Empathic talents of a suborned race at the center of the galaxy, the Dark Ones generated the wave millennia before knowing that it would break upon Zhodani shores at the same time as the destruction from the Great Collapse.  They hadn't bargained on the resilience of the Domain of Deneb to stop the Collapse at its borders, thus buffering the Zhodani.  However, the Wave has wreaked massive destruction on the Empathic Zhodani as it crosses their territory.  </font></p> <hr> <p align="justify"><font size="2" color="#FFFF00"><b>Background Notes</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><i><font size="2" color="#00FFFF">The debris cloud that had been the Dark Elves' jacked free trader hadn't dissipated when we picked up the order from the Patrol Cruiser to heave to and prepare to be boarded.</font></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><font size="2" color="#00FFFF">"They think we're pirates," Stavros said from the pilot station.  "Fortunately, we topped off our tanks when we first got here, so we don't have to stick around and explain things."</font></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><font size="2" color="#00FFFF">"We're going to have to ditch this ship at our next port," Edie said.  "And I was just getting to like her..."</font></i></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">While it may seem that open warfare existed between humanity and the Dark Masters over the course of the millennia, the reality is that most of the population has been completely unaware of the threat they faced.  A few people in positions of power might might now and then have been aware of the presence of the Dark Ones, but for the most part the battle has been waged behind the scenes, by small, loosely organized groups. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">Even in the darkest periods of Hard Times and the Collapse only a handful of people truly understood what was truly going on.  A few of these have managed to survive into the New Era keeping constant vigilance against the forces of darkness.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">Minion Hunters throughout history live a shadowy, semi-nomadic existence.  Their lives are spent rooting out and destroying nests of Dark Minions.  Pitched battles are rare and seldom if ever make the news.</font></p> <hr> <p align="justify"><b><font color="#FFFF00" size="2">Merc: 2000/Dark Conspiracy/Traveller Timeline</font></b></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2"><i>Merc: 2000</i> is a perfect companion game for <i>Dark Conspiracy</i>.  The multitude of world conflicts in the game book, along with those presented in the <i>Gazetteer</i> make a great backdrop to the Dark Ones' machinations, and could provide the impetus for the signing of the Treaty of New York.</font></p> <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" width="66%"> <tr> <td width="16%"><b><font size="2">Imperial</font></b></td> <td width="17%"><b><font size="2">Solomani</font></b></td> <td width="72%"><b><font size="2">Event</font></b></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2573</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">1945</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Alien vessel arrives in the Solar System.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2571</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">1947</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Alien scout vessel crashes in Roswell, N.M.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2549</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">1969</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Neil Armstrong sets foot on Luna.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2535</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">1983</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Aliens open the gate on Io.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2507</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">2011</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Storm Wraiths bring down British Airways Flight 299 at London's Heathrow Airport.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2499</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">2019</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Treaty of New York.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="16%" valign="top"><font size="2">-2465</font></td> <td width="17%" valign="top"><font size="2">2053</font></td> <td width="72%" valign="top"><font size="2">Titan Conflict.</font></td> </tr> </table> </center> </div> <hr> <p align="justify"><font size="2" color="#FFFF00"><b>Technology Notes</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2">UV lasers are not available until TL10.  The presence of UV lasers in the early 21st century (TL9) indicates either that DARPA was well ahead of its time, or that the Vilani expatriates shared some of their technology.</font></p> <hr> <p align="justify"><font size="2" color="#FFFF00"><b>Adventures</b></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2"><b>The Horror of the Heights<br> </b>A dark minion is loose aboard a starship and begins attacking the crew and passengers while the ship is in jump space.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2"><b>Pandemic<br> </b>Dark Elves have been using an animator-driven Trepida grav tank to terrorize the residents of a remote district of a supposedly Virus-free world (possibly an RC world).  The players are dispatched to determine whether Virus has found its way passed the border.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2"><b>Time and Time Again<br> </b>Using a specially-built Dimension Walking device, Dark Minions have brought a Virus-infected computer back to 21st century Earth and hooked it into the internet.</font></p> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </body>