Part V: The Journey
[This section also shamelessly taken from Jon F. Zeigler, "GURPS: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri," first ed. (N.p.: Steve Jackson Games, November 2002). I also took some material about solar sails from the "JumpShip" entry on
http://www.sarna.net.]
Unity launched with a 5.3-hour high-acceleration boost, after which it was almost one million miles from Earth and traveling at a speed of over 100 miles per second. The ship deployed its Bussard ramjet, using the thin hydrogen gas of deep space for fuel. This second stage of acceleration brought
Unity to a cruising velocity of about eleven percent the speed of light. There was later a turnover in interstellar space, during which the ship deployed an enormous, parachute-like solar array several kilometers in diameter, followed by slow deceleration using the ramject scoop fields to “brake” against the interstellar medium. Final entry into the Alpha Centauri system and insertion into Chiron’s orbit was accomplished using a fusion rocket. The ship’s supply of fuel and reaction mass was calculated with extreme precision, leaving almost no room for error.
Later, some of the colonists realized how miraculous a successful journey would have been. The mission had been planned in relative haste, and construction had amply borne out the truth of Murphy’s Law. Any mishap during the long flight might have doomed the crew. As it happened, the bulk of the journey went without incident – but, in late 2099, as Unity was decelerating into the Alpha Centauri system, it collided with a tiny fragment of space debris. The interloper was no larger than a pebble, but at the starship’s speed, even such a small object could have devastating impact. One of
Unity's eight cryobays was completely destroyed, killing tens of thousands of colonists and crew in an instant. Damage to other parts of the ship was widespread, if not crippling.
The greatest hazard lay in damage to the fusion drive, shut down by the master computer to prevent it tearing the ship apart: there was now no way for the Unity to stop, so close to journey’s end. Although deployment of the solar sail in a correct attitude offered some breaking force, if nothing was done, the ship would fly past Chiron and be forever lost.
Captain John Garland and his command staff were automatically roused from cryo-sleep when the emergency occurred, two weeks before the final flyby of Chiron. They, in turn, awakened the many hundreds of crew members required to conduct damage assessment and attempt repairs. A number of these personnel had previously experienced long isolation on purpose-built satellites in Earth orbit while training on damage control applications before mission launch, but others were simply engineers and technicians from compartments readily accessible to the survivors. In short, men and women from all walks of life were quickly confronted with a largely unique experience of participation in an endeavor that demanded not only cooperation, but integration into an essentially paramilitary hierarchy.
Chief Engineer Prokhor Zakharov judged that the fusion drive could be partially repaired, but also reported that many of the cargo bays were no longer functional. Still others could theoretically be jettisoned to fall to Chiron independently, but were inaccessible from within the starship itself. There was no way to determine, as yet, the status of their contents. The refugees could only hope that many of their comrades and much of the vital equipment would be deployed by automated systems, as the Chief Engineer believed likely. Captain Garland quickly ordered that the ship's remaining landing pods be loaded in the expectation that the mission might have lost future access to the
Unity's stores. He then made the difficult choice to abandon ship once closer to Chiron. Much of the remaining engineering staff was then awakened to assist Zakharov's repairs. Meanwhile, additional crews were brought out of cold sleep to prepare the pods and, if possible, obtain access to blocked cargo bays before
Unity was abandoned.
Part VI: Terminus
[The final portion of this section shamelessly taken from Jon F. Zeigler, "GURPS: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri," first ed. (N.p.: Steve Jackson Games, November 2002).]
As in any survival situation involving a large, heterogeneous population working in smaller groups, distinctive factions soon began to form. The largest of these were typically associated with members of the expedition’s senior leadership, reflecting their nominal status as the heirs to particular national and/or therefore ideological agendas. Several of these individuals, though nominally under United Nations command, proved insubordinate when Garland rejected their proposed courses of action for achieving a safe Planetfall.
Was Project Unity destined to fail? Would the same divisions that emerged under the stress of fighting for sweet life above Chiron have likewise metastasized were the mission executed under design parameters? Certainly some of Garland's misfortunes were a reflection of the decision to take aboard crew and leadership whose commitment to the vision a unitary colony was simple fiction. Without the ability to plumb the depths of mens' hearts, the truth of the matter may be impossible to know. How much of what happened next was the result of honest belief that Garland was incompetent to save his people, and how much the result of giving the dogs too much freedom on the leash?
What is known is that Garland's trouble began in earnest when he made the decision, against Zakharov's advice, not to verify the computer's conclusion that Cryobay Six had lost power, and therefore life support. Garland justified his choice on grounds that to reach Cryobay Six, firefighting and damage control parties would be obliged to expose themselves to unacceptable hazards for which nearly all of them lacked the appropriate life safety equipment. Several of Garland's subordinates consequently announced their intention to withdraw from the expedition's leadership structure by arrogating landing pods to themselves and those under their putative command. Garland, who countered with accusations of mutiny, was then obliged to relieve these officers of command, along with the not inconsiderable number of crewmen whom they had succeeded in rallying behind their cause.
Once under watch by a complement of United Nations marines (more crew risen from stasis, this time with the express objective of enforcing Garland's authority), the arrested officers and those who joined them began to articulate detailed, and sometimes mutually exclusive, visions of social, economic, and political organization for the colonists after Planetfall. None of these visions were consistent with the blueprint originally laid out in Geneva.
A new flashpoint then lit off as the crew worked to simultaneously prepare the landing pods while still working to restore fusion power and access portions of the ship still deemed within reach. The abandonment of Cryobay Six left Garland's senior staff uncertain about his confidence in Zakharov and to them suggested an intention to depart
Unity with a wide margin of error. For some, this was the wiser course of action: better to lay in what was close to hand and flee before the ship came apart at the seams; Chiron, after all, could provide, although the first years would be very hard. Others had a larger appetite for risk, feared that Chiron might not be as accommodating as imagined, or prioritized recovery of crew that might not be deployed if automated systems failed. In the end, a majority of Garland's officers urged him to reassign resources from the fusion drive, on which repairs were proceeding at speed, to more aggressive exploration of the damage ship, a purpose not entirely compatible with Garland's intended strategy of loading the landing pods with materials from undamaged bays using all available hands.
Already crumbling, the expedition was finally shattered when both communications arrays were destroyed in new and spontaneous explosions, suggesting sabotage. Contact with Earth -- an important source of legitimation for Garland, his loyalists, and the expedition's original charter -- was lost. Trouble now multiplied more quickly than the players could react.
The captain continued to awaken Marines, armed Zakharov's engineers, and ordered that a last-minute search be mounted for active saboteurs and stowaways. Firefights erupted throughout the ship, causing further damage that the survivors can ill afford. As some of the crew under arrest were liberated, landing pods were loaded and launched independently. Vigilante action against saboteurs real and suspected further charged an already-hostile atmosphere.
In the penultimate tragedy of Planetfall, Garland's command was finally overthrown even as it collapsed around him. Going off-watch for a brief period to rest and wash some of the stimulants from his system, Garland was not present when Zakharov made a fateful suggestion: if control of the Unity cannot be reestablished, each leader among the crew should take one of the landing pods, break away from the starship, and make an independent attempt at landing and settlement. If any faction leaders wished to devote resources to recovery of certain starship components in the time remaining, they were free to do so. In this manner, each faction would test the wisdom of its perceptions (and the strength of its convictions) against the others. Zakharov concluded by insisting that colonists and supplies should be divided among the landing pods at once, with larger factions receiving accordingly larger shares.
Part VII: The Crisis of Planetfall
At first, the command crew hesitated, reluctant to take the final step of dissolving an expedition that might, by virtue of size alone, ensure their collective survival. After all, some leaders had already succeeded in laying by crew and items that would be indispensable once on the surface. Zakharov himself spoke from just such a position, speaking for most of the expedition's electrical and mechanical engineers. Rear Admiral Gerard Darlan, commander of
Unity's marine contingent, already controlled the primary armory. If his Marines did not have a total monopoly on violence, it appeared likely that they could establish one soon after making landfall. Then, too, there were smaller factions whose cast of actors was better-suited to building a colony than most: the contractors of Comprehensive Transport led by Marcel Salan boasted a wider range of useful skills than almost any other faction, while the so-called Spartans, a collection of survivalist stowaways already on their way to Planet, had come aboard with their equipment pre-positioned. In any case, Zakharov's proposal was rejected and the mission rendered defunct.
The game begins in the ninety-six hours immediately prior to the final evacuation of Unity. Many of the accessible cryo-cells have been ordered open, and colonists are awakening to a dying starship and a fractured expedition. Factions form and dissolve amidst an orgy of looting and violence. Although the expedition’s leadership have already succeeded in apportioning the ship’s dozens of landing pods between themselves in an equitable manner, their failure to reckon with the emergence of leaders from other quarters (or the duplicity of those party to the original pledge) means that anyone who expects to retain a position of leadership or a scrap of supply must fight for those privileges.
Escaping Unity is not only a matter of seizing (and holding) a landing pod, but choosing when and how to depart. Some factions are plundering the ship’s stores indiscriminately, laying hands on whatever seems as if it might be of use. Weapons, rations, seed stock, earthmoving and water purification equipment are perennially popular. Other factions seek cargo particular to their agendas: laboratory equipment, nerve staples, lathes, & etc. There is also the matter of those crewmen still in stasis, conveniently organized by nationality and specialty. Some leaders attempt to lay claim to all persons of a certain ethnic or linguistic origin, others to those with given skill sets. Most factions take colonists of any stripe, intending to render them drones or enforce ideological purity at a more convenient time.
Each landing pod, called a Unity pod, is an independent spaceship. Incapable of long-range flight, they are instead to be used first as landers, then as the basis for hermetically sealed colony modules suitable for hostile environments. Never meant to fly again, they will be gradually cannibalized. Each landing pod is sufficiently large to accommodate one thousand passengers and contains supplies appropriate to allow for construction of a self-sustaining settlement. Of course, by filling the remaining (and considerable) cargo space with additional materials and crew, factions can greatly enhance their outlook once planet-side.
Many of Unity’s cargo bays, regardless of their contents, were never designed to be manned; instead, they were programmed to deploy automatically from orbit once the initial wave of crew and colonists established themselves on the ground. The planned orbital survey would have indicated ideal drop points. Already, the crew has activated many thousands of these "colony" or "supply" pods, content that they be scattered at random rather than simply left aboard the doomed starship, but many more supply pods remain to be deployed.
Supply pods vary in size from the very large (with volume sufficient for ten thousand occupied cryo-beds) to the very small (containing only a few vehicles or one very large piece of equipment). They are sealed against the elements and can even float if they land in water. All are equipped with inertial dampeners and retro-thrusts to ensure soft landings. Some pods carry robotic explorers that will conduct remote surveys, farming, or mining operations. These may later be absorbed into the territory of an active colony. The number of such pods already deployed suggests that they will continue to be found for decades.