Let’s play again – Starship Traveller, part 1

Last week I blew the dust off Forest of Doom, which is Fighting Fantasy number 3. That was fun, so why not do a classic again? This time, Starship Traveller. I recall that I didn’t like this one very much, though I don’t recall why not. Other folks seem to have a low opinion, as well. I guess we’ll see what I think today.

First off, rolling up stats is a bit of a chore, not just for myself (the brave and handsome captain) but also for six other crewmates. Let’s take a look our resulting crew:

• Captain Dirk Manthrust: Skill 11. Not bad!
• Engineering Officer Blast Hardcheese: Skill 12. Nice!
• Medical Officer Slab Beefsteak: Skill 10. Not bad. Guess he was passed over for the capital ships, but we take what we can get.
• Science Officer Clint Lockjaw: Skill 8, Stamina 23. Aw geez. Obviously hired not for academic achievement, but for the ability to take a punch. Darn.
• Security Chief Bob Johnson: Skill 7. Are you kidding me? Did he get fired from being a mall cop?
• Nameless Guard 1: Skill 9. Unimpressive, but I guess better in a fight than his boss.
• Nameless Guard 2: Skill 7. We’ve found our sacrificial red-shirt.

I sure hope this trip goes smoothly, because only half of us are really good at our jobs, and the other half will hopefully jump in front of a laser blast to save my skin.

So we’re on page 1, and the megazoomie drive has us tearing ass through space at speeds so fast they throttle the imagination. It’s all fun and games, until the button gets stuck On and now we’re going ludicrous speed. The engineer has a brilliant idea, though: fly into the black hole! I figure that with a Skill of 12, he’s got this and we won’t even fall into the black hole and need to escape anything; it’s gonna be a short adventure! But alas, page 1 does not have him test his Skill to avoid the whole plot of the book, and in we go. Extreme G forces! Black out unconscious. Wake up in another part of space-time. And start searching for the way home.

Our first stop is s blue planet, with some run-down buildings and a population of diverse alien critters. One of them, a Marklar named Fioral, shuffles up to us and offers us a tour of this facility. He explains this Libertarian paradise where everyone can do anything they want, including assaulting people. And that’s exactly what happens to us – three of these “Don’t tread on me, but I feel free to tread on you” jerkwads attack our party. We all get a little roughed up, but eventually we beat down this crew of vicious wannabe utopians. We make our way to the library, but it’s not particularly helpful – we find out the names of some of the local planets, and that the neighboring on in this system is a burned-out cinder from a war, but no star charts to guide us to black holes and back home. We head back to the ship.

While the medical officer applies some Space Iodine and I take a Mega-Aspirin for my injuries, we head to the next planet. Looks intelligent, even advanced, maybe even more advanced than our own – meaning they’ll either be very helpful, or else thoroughly insufferable. We beam down, and find ourselves on a street that’s empty except for a hover car slowly patrolling. An insect creature whispers at us from a doorway to “come inside, quick!” so we do. We explain that we’re not from around here (obviously, cuz he’s an insect creature and we’re hairless apes; he’s not stupid) and he explains that the patrol is a roving extermination squad- this advanced civilization’s idea of population control. There’s a bang at the door – they must have seen us come in – and they blast the insect guy with a laser. We pull guns on them, and Unnamed Security Guard 1 is blown away in a cut scene. The rest of us are loaded into the car and carted off to a “Fitness Camp” for extermination.

While we wait for death, I whip out my phone and try to call the ship to beam us out of here. There’s no signal here, but taking my phone out of airplane mode causes the guards to freeze up and malfunction. Turns out, they’re androids and their electronics are super wonky if you use a cellphone near them. We take this opportunity to quit the scene, but along the way I steal one of the android’s heads for examination. The tech lab tweaks the processor, and gives me the hollow head to wear as a helmet – it’s pretty garish, but it gives me +1 Skill.

Oh, and we 3D-print another security guard, Nameless Guard 1 v2. He has a skill of 6, so I don’t have high hopes for his career.

All right, next planet.., a blue-green one. We beam down into a thunderstorm, and find a village of primitive huts, populated with some odd creatures who are a bit cagey but warm up to us when we’re nice to them. But, their technology is sharpened sticks and wood-and-sod huts, and they don’t know anything about space warps and stuff. So, after a nice cup of tea, we move on.

We do a fly-over of a small grey planet, and find as crashed alien ship. We investigate (which turns to the same page as not investigating), and find nothing of interest. But when the recon plane gets back, people start dying mysteriously. How did they catch a plague without even landing? My science officer (Skill 8) actually has a good idea for a change, and finds that it’s not biological but chemical. He comes up with an antidote which totally doesn’t work and he dies. Wait, no wait a second… He passed the roll. Lemme check my own website here. Yeah, on 223 they screwed up and reversed the entries. So, lemme redo that – he comes up with an antidote to the poison, and the day is saved. Yay!

After that harrowing scare, it’s time for some time on the holodeck. See you tomorrow.