Have Starship Will Travel:Chapter Four

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The End Of The Beginning

Characters

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  Stratis "Rocky" Crystallo Sedimeti Enomorph, Ph.D.
   
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  Rikard Hightower, captain of the CEV Sherwood Forest
  Theme song
   
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  Rosalind "Rosie" Neisseria Linnaeus, Ph.D.
   
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  Sherwood, geist of the CEV Sherwood Forest
  Theme song
   

Previously On "Have Spaceship, Will Travel"

The CEV Sherwood Forest is an Old Commonwealth Science Corvette currently under contract with the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation. The crew has made progress on a number of ongoing projects in the past year.

A Visit To Propaideia

• "pro PED ee uh"
• Alex Barima has been granted provisional asylum by the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation while his humanitarian sanctuary application is being reviewed.
• Doctor Went, whom the crew first met during their visit to Erodani Hypernet Relay Station, has joined the ctrew as the ship's Chief Medical Officer.

Galactic Parking Authority Long Term Impound Lot 3,225,118

• The crew found Galactic Parking Authority Long Term Impound Lot 3,225,118 orbiting a barren sulfur planet, in a system with an aging main sequence star. A preliminary scan revealed 3,724 ships, all from before the Fall. Four of them were reasonably complete Old Commonwealth ships:
  • CEV Blue Heaven, an Old Commonwealth Luxury Yacht
  • CEV Herko Barruth, an Old Commonwealth Diplomatic Heavy Cruiser
  • CEV Madison Nebula, an Old Commonwealth Strike Wing Heavy Escort (damaged)
  • CEV MambaX, an Old Commonwealth Speed Boat
  • The strike wing heavy escort has suffered extensive damage, but the other three vessels appear to be pristine.
• A Bha'atar Patrol Ship, BEW Eviscerator, visited the GPA lot at the same time as the Sherwood Forest, and was hostile.
• A crew appeared to be stationed at the GPA lot and engaged in stripping the ships for parts. They did not appear to be hostile, but the crew did not have the opportunity to contact them.
• The Encyclopedia Galactica History of Interstellar Travel department would like very much for the Sherwood Forest to return to Galactic Parking Authority Long Term Impound Lot 3,225,118 and retrieve the computer core (and a long list of less important things) from the CEV Herko Barruth, an Old Commonwealth Diplomatic Heavy Cruiser.

Precursor Problems

• Sherwood, using the Prototype Precursor Sensor Console designed by Professor Irulan M’Lori and Doctor Jaris T’Kette, has determined that the Vowel Of Silence is entangled with an object at Geras Ud34x28DCFB65E0, a binary star system with a dormant stellar-mass black hole. Such systems are reasonably common: thousands of them are recorded on Sherwood's Old Commonwealh star charts.
• The crew donated the Vowel Of Silence to the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation. It is currently in the Precursor Artifacts Collection.
• The crew happened across a conference being held at Lulin Observatory, where Professor Irulan M’Lori was one of the speakers. A Harlan was encountered, and his plan to abduct Professor M’Lori was foiled. When last seen, he was being arrested by observatory security.
• Galene II is one of the worlds Professor M’Lori had studied, and it was one of the worlds she discussed in her presentation.
• The crew of the Sherwood Forest had visited Galene II a few months earlier. At that time, the Precursor artifacts on the surface were active. The crew had access to records of the facility going back nearly a billion years, but shortly after that, a security system locked the facility down. It evacuated them from the surface of the planet and then began destroying the other worlds in the system. The crew fled the system after helping a Zniss Science Police Corvette, which had been more damaged by the planet's orange energy beams than the Sherwood Forest had been.
• Several other individuals were on Galene II, drawn there by a compulsion from an unknown source.
• Professor M’Lori is saddened to hear of the destruction of Galene II, but she will be poring over Sherwood's scans of the event for months, perhaps years.

Cetacean Inquiries

• h/corporate updates hourly reports that after several disappointing quarters, Ocean Deeps Cetacean Adventures ("sponsored by Lastimar") has been liquidated, with the assets being bought at fire-sale prices by the Aquatic Bioengineered Agriculture Corporation, which already has a presence on the planet harvesting artificial crab legs. The planet is expected to reach peak production in less than 10 years, and optimization of the biosphere should be complete in 20 years.
• The crew visited the "lost" world Asa Nebari, which was once an Old Commonwealth Cetacean Protectorate, on behalf of the League Of Non-Aligned Worlds. The Cetacean government of Asa Nebari was interested to learn that there are multiple inheritors of the Old Commonwealth's legacy, and they want to learn more (from actual diplomats) before committing to one.
• The crew met an AI on Asa Nebari: Poseidon. Like Medusa on Kaikoura, Poseidon was hidden and protected by the Cetaceans.
• The crew visited another former Cetacean protectorate, Galene I. They found that it had been destroyed about six months earlier.
• The crew took a variety of drones and prosthetics from Asa Nebari to Kaikoura, to give the Cetaceans on Kaikoura tools to fight Lastimar, and also to demonstrate their "sentience", in case Lastimar's auditors care about that.

The Dominion And The Kroy

• While at the Erodani Hypernet Relay Station, the crew encountered Divine Inquisitor Gand of His Divine Shadow's Inquisition. A Kroy, Orange-Yellow-Red, interceded on the crew's behalf, without explanation.
• While at Lulin Observatory, Rikard ran into Inquisitor Gand at one of the bars. They chatted about the conference, and Gand came across as reasonably intelligent and not a completely terrible person. Gand did not appear to recognize Rikard.
• As the Sherwood Forest made ready to depart the vicinity of Lulin Observatory, a Kroy ship appeared. The crew agreed to allow a Kroy observer, Crimson-Indigo-RedViolet, which boarded the Sherwood Forest and took a position at the rear of the cockpit.

Zniss Science Police

• Rosie and Rocky received a request for assistance from a Zniss researcher, T’Kiel, who was trying to find information about a network of repair stations in the last decades of the Old Commonwealth. They pass him off to someone else, who will probably do the same.
• The crew of the Sherwood Forest visited the Galene system in search of an Old Commonwealth Cetacean Protectorate, but found that the planet had been destroyed.
• While on Galene II, the crew were questioned by agents of the Zniss Science Police. The Science Police wanted to secure any "potentially hazardous data" shared by T’Kiel. The crew pleads ignorance, which is partially true.

Ongoing Concerns

• Prior to visiting Asa Nebari, Monet Clayton approached Rikard on behalf of Bhuiyan Genetics. Clayton offered a generous payment for a full and complete copy of their report on the planet. After returning from Asa Nebari, no one from Bhuiyan Genetics met the Sherwood Forest to collect the report or pay for it.
• A short time later, h/corporate updates hourly reported that Bhuiyan Genetics stock suffered a severe loss in value after it was leaked that they were investigating the acquisition of Asa Nebari, a Cetacean world. Financial analysis indicated that the cost of repurposing the planet would incur significant costs, while the presence of an unregulated civilian population presents a significant risk to any long-term exploitation of the biosphere.
• A suspiciously generous bounty has been posted on the Exchange under e/open bounties/info wanted, for "the location of an original or refit Old Commonwealth Heavy Escort, in any condition". There is an Old Commonwealth ship at the GPA Impound Lot, but its engines appear to be damaged.
• Agent Cho sends a brief update on Moshe Holder. He has violated his arbitration agreement by leaving the vocational colony where he was placed by the Malrechnen Syndicate. A bounty for Moshe Holder has been filed with the Recovery And Apprehension Network.
• The crew intends to visit Fred. Fred should have completed construction on a Class 8 Tow Vessel by now. The crew should be able to use it to retrive ships from the GPA Impound Lot.
• Using data from the final days of the Old Commonwealth, the crew has calculated the potential source of the Instrumentality. It is beyond the recorded boundaries of the Old Commonwealth. Some authorities would classify this as "potentially hazardous data".
• While waiting 24 hours for a Kroy to put an observer on their ship, the crew is contacted by observatory security. A review of the observatory's security logs show Harlan placing an explosive charge on the Sherwood Forest, and Rikard placing the same explosive on Harlan's ship. Harlan has been turned over to the Recovery And Apprehension Network for arbitration. If observatory security has any additional questions for the crew of the Sherwood Forest, they will forward the request to Propaideia.

Encyclopedia Galactica Quick Facts

Asa Nebari

Independent

Ocean world

Sector: Propaideia

Rotation period: 26 standard hours

Orbital period: 352 standard days

Cultural Motivations: Community, Compassion

Population: ~1,200,000 Cetaceans, ~500 non-Cetaceans

Current use: Cetacean protectorate

Erodani Hypernet Relay Station

Corporate World (Qianfu Corp)

Space station in orbit around gas giant

Sector: Erodani

Demographics: 63% Human, 37% other

Geras Ud34x28DCFB65E0

Independent

Binary star system

Sector: Reimann

Body 1 - yellow G-type

Body 2 - stellar-mass black hole

No other significant astronomical bodies

Kaikoura

Corporate World (Lastimar)

Ocean world

Sector: Beluga

Rotation period: 23 standard hours

Orbital period: 372 standard days

Cultural Motivations: Community, Serenity

Population: ~450,000 Cetaceans, ~3,000 other

Current use: industrial aquaculture, food production

Lulin Observatory

League Of Non-Aligned Worlds

Space station

Sector: Aalborg

Demographics: 31% Human, 36% Zniss, 33% other

No other significant astronomical bodies

Propaideia ("pro PED ee uh")

League Of Non-Aligned Worlds

Urban World

Sector: Propaideia

Rotation period: 27 standard hours

Orbital period: 314 standard days

Cultural Motivations: Curiosity, Enlightenment

Demographics: 83% Human, 17% other

Current use: education, research

Better known to the galaxy as Encyclopedia Galactica Planet