Imperialize it!

[BobGreenwade]

Okay, I've been putting this off for too long.

 

Inspired somewhat by the "Pulparize it!" and "Superize it!" threads in the Pulp Hero and Champions sections, let's see what we can come up with in converting familiar books, movies, and other stories into adventures that could be played in the Terran Empire setting. For example:

 

The Wizard Of Oz: A young Human orphan has evidence that could bring charges of slave trading against Winifred West, the CEO of a major corporate conglomerate. The PCs are hired to transport the orphan (and her pet Cairn terrier), to Emerald, along with her guardians with issues of their own: a mentally-challenged Tkak who brain injury was caused by West's pollution, a full-body cyborg whose original body was destroyed when West sabotaged his tree-harvesting operation, and a Kdathari who suffers from PTSD in the wake of West's labor abuses.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

heres some movie ideas we've liberally borrowed from for various traveller games over the years. bearing in mind we tended to run a lot of mercenary type campaigns, these could be adapted for any number of TE Campaigns

 

1. Final Option

2. Kellys Heroes: I can see several ideas for the bank heist, for a more modern treatment The Scorpion King

3. The Wild Geese

 

Forbidden Planet: which borrowed from Shakespeares The Tempest

Buckaroo Banzai: couple of ideas for a spacegoing troubleshooter team, good guys or bad guys could be either

Cowboy Bebop Anime

Titan AE

[Starwolf]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

The Siege of Earth by John Faucette

The Lensmen Series by E.E. "Doc" Smith

The Skyark Series by E.E. "Doc Smith

The Wing Commander novels (based on the computer game) by Merceds Lackey

The Beastmaster Series by Andre Norton

The Starwolf Series by David Gerrold.

 

and for some great one shots...

 

Triplanetary by E.E. "Doc" Smith

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Not a bad start, but I was looking for something a little more specific.....

 

(...and preferably stuff where the original story isn't sci-fi...)

[Sketchpad]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

How about:

 

V for Vendetta: After being trapped on a prison world, the subject only known as V has decided to strike out against the Empire both violently and socially. During one of his raids, he finds a young woman and abucts her in hopes of enlightening her views of the Empire ... or so he tells himself. Now the entire Empire searches for the mysterious V throught the galaxy in hopes of stopping his mad plan.

 

Supernatural: Brothers Sam and Dean Winchester aren't like normal brothers. After their mother died in a "plasma-related" accident, their father took them and trained them to hunt the things man was not meant to know. Now, with their trusty Mercury-series light cruiser, they hunt the stars for the creatures that lurk behind them.

[Jaxom]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

A variety of genres for your entertainment...

 

Hogan's Heros - The PCs have been capture during a rebellion against the empire and sent to a penal colony on Tau Ceti VI. The empire is not totally corrupt and the PCs are required to work mines, but not subject to horrific conditions. Also on Tau Ceti VI are the Imperial Shipyards and Naval Command Station Alpha. While maintaining a well-behaved prisoner persona, the PCs must find a way to escape the mines, spy on both the shipyards and the command headquarters and send tight-beam radio signals to the Resistance on Tau Ceti IV.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

A variety of genres for your entertainment...

 

Hogan's Heros - The PCs have been capture during a rebellion against the empire and sent to a penal colony on Tau Ceti VI. The empire is not totally corrupt and the PCs are required to work mines, but not subject to horrific conditions. Also on Tau Ceti VI are the Imperial Shipyards and Naval Command Station Alpha. While maintaining a well-behaved prisoner persona, the PCs must find a way to escape the mines, spy on both the shipyards and the command headquarters and send tight-beam radio signals to the Resistance on Tau Ceti IV.

This certainly works for me! (Except that there are only five planets in the Tau Ceti system, per Worlds Of Empire....)

[Jaxom]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Ok, I don't have Worlds of Empire, so I'll plead ignorance.

 

Sorry for only having one there... I had a bunch more, but work intruded...

 

Bridge over the River Kwai - Takes some handwaving... PCs are part of a rebel armed force, maybe on this planet, maybe wider spread. The handwaving is to make the bridge matter. You need the empire to move to electro-magnetic craft and avoid other, "messier" forms of flight. Then you need a planet with low magnetic field which means those typical "hover-sleds" and other magnetic tech don't work. Presto, instant war-flick where bridges matter.

 

More coming when work lays off.

[Blue]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

The Usual Suspects: A mythical intergalactic crime lord targets a handful of mixed race criminals, manipulating them into believing they will perform a heist on a ship of contraband. But what's really on the ship?

[Blue]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Ironically, two stories with nearly the same theme:

 

Dynasty: The feuding and bitchery within one of the great houses leads to back stabbing among kin and co-workers as all vie for power and wealth.

 

Everybody Loves Raymond: A halfwit alien and his caustic family vie with one another for respect on their floating asteroid as it hopefully hurtles toward the sun.

[Hermit]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

The Stellar Seven

On a small planet beyond the border of Imperial space, a few hundred Toractans have finally had enough. For over a century, they and their ancestors have been worked in a slave like manner, and they've taken it, but now to cut costs the 'company' (Actually, little more than exploitive pirates) have been demanding more and more of their resources, so much that the Toractans can barely fuel their habitats. A handful of them go into the Empire proper, and seek to hire mercenaries. At this time, Mercs are especially hard up in finding jobs. The Empire has never officially approved of them, and indeed there's something of a crack down going on. So the player characters find themselves stuck between taking up the job, or getting 'good honest work' *Shudder*

 

When they arrive, things turn out even more complex. The raiders' ships are old, and they need the fuel to make it from one system to the other. Without the mined resources, they're going no where. The PCs find themselves standing as Seven against a foe who will not show weakness, will not and can not yield to them. It's do or die time.

 

But can the normally meekToractans be trusted to support them when the going gets REALLY tough?

 

*Dun, dun dun dun dun..*

[BlackSword]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

I'm not sure about churning the plot into butter....or are you refering to a different Imperial.

 

The Malvan Falcon: The Legend goes that an important artifact was hidden hundreds of years ago in order to protect it from being stolen. The jeweled statue was covered in lead in order to hide its true nature. It has passed from owner to owner, its legend growing every generation. Now its been stolen, the PCs are brought in to help find the statue and return it to its rightful owners. The only problem is that everyone in town is also trying to get their hands on the statue. Even when the PCs find it, is it the true statue, is it fake, or was the entire legend a sham.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

I'm not sure about churning the plot into butter....or are you refering to a different Imperial.

The Malvan Falcon: The Legend goes that an important artifact was hidden hundreds of years ago in order to protect it from being stolen. The jeweled statue was covered in lead in order to hide its true nature. It has passed from owner to owner' date=' its legend growing every generation. Now its been stolen, the PCs are brought in to help find the statue and return it to its rightful owners. The only problem is that everyone in town is also trying to get their hands on the statue. Even when the PCs find it, is it the true statue, is it fake, or was the entire legend a sham.[/quote']This one totally rocks.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

The Fugitive: Dr. Richard Kimble, convicted and sentenced to death for brutally murdering his wife, escapes while being transported to his final destination. Despite his claims that the murder was actually committed by a shape-changing alien, he's known for being extremely resourcesful, so the ISP assigns the PCs the task of bringing him in. As they pursue Kimble, however, they uncover evidence suggesting that he may actually be telling the truth.

[Basil]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Take one middle-aged but handsome and dashing male human batchelor, one young, sexy female human widow (or is she?), and send them off through the Core Worlds, working for a shadowy govt. ministry. Have them deal with crimes involving the strangest cutting-edge (and beyond) technology. Make sure there's plenty of "chemistry" between them, but not even so much as a kiss actually happens.

 

What do you have?

 

The Avengers!

[Nyrath]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

McHale's Starfleet

 

Commander Quinton McHale, the commanding officer of the starship PT boat base on planet Taratupa. The Ackálians heavily bombed the planet and virtually destroyed the base. Only 18 out of the 150 Naval Aviators and Marines assigned to the base survived. With the Ackálian patrols in the region too heavy for Starfleet to mount a rescue mission, McHale and his men were forced to survive by remaining in hiding on the island. Assisted by the native tribes whom they befriend, the sailors live a relatively paradisical island existence. After months of rather leisurely living, straight-laced, by-the-book NeoAnnapolis graduate Lieutenant Durham parachutes onto the planet. His job is to assume duties as McHale's executive officer and help him get the base on Taratupa back into the action.

 

Durham faces an uphill battle, however: The men have gone native. One of them has even started a native laundry service, and McHale has a still and makes moonshine for the men and the natives.

[Nyrath]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Tales of the Gold Anthropoid

 

You could base the campain on the late lamented TV show Tales of the Gold Monkey. Replace "Pacific Ocean" with "deep space", replace "island" with "wilderness planet", replace the nations with various interstellar empires, replace the yes/no barking dog with something like TRON's "BIT", you can keep the spies, femme fatales, ex patriots, dragon ladies, and colony governors intact.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Mission: Impossible: TIC agent Ethan Hunt, the last suviving member of his top-secret team of elite field operatives, has been framed up as a traitor by another as-yet-unidentified agent. The Maguffin in play is the official list of field operatives in Thorgon and Ackalian space -- though the one the real traitor has is a fake. Hunt hires the PCs to help him steal the real list in order to smoke out not only the real traitor, but the dealer network he's working for.

[Jaxom]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Drat, I was gonna say X-files. Probably needs just a little work to clean that up...

[McCoy]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Seven brothers born and raised on an asteroid/mine claimed by their parets have struck it rich. They are now ready to give thought to the Next generation, but the women of the closest planet want nothing to do with them. (Either the Brothers were raised in a religious belief that forbids in vitro fertalization, uterine replicators, and other modrern "artificial' reproduction methods; or they are perceived as hopelessly crude and uncultured bumpkins, or both.) So they decide on kidnapping.

 

Player characters can be hired by the families of the kidnapped women to return their daughter's safely, and must sneak into the besiefed asteroid mine to do so, or can be the brothers, trying to woo their captives while fighting off escilating rescue attempts.

[Zachary Butler]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Paint Your Starship: The remote and isolated No Name Station, a mining colony on a forgotten rock of a planet, has a population of only 400. All men. The miners, who've been pulling radioactives and other valuable ores out of the ground for years in sometimes rowdy isolation deep in Drago's Reach, find their world changing (and slowly becoming more civilized) after a single woman (the "shared" wife of a pair of miners who conscientiously split everything 50/50) is introduced into the community.

[Nyrath]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Starship Operation Petticoat

The story of a Terran military starship TES Sea Tiger, seriously damaged in the Philippine Star Cluster during the opening days of the war. Operation Petticoat follows the adventures and tribulations of the sub's skipper and his crew (including the deviously mercenary supply officer), as they try to repair the starship and continue to Neo Australia for the necessary refit. The voyage includes various detours along the way, including the acquisition of a group of stranded female StarGuard nurses and a hurried stopover to overhaul and paint the starship which quickly goes awry.

[Midas]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Gilligan's Planet

(Yes I know it was a Sat Morn spinnoff)

 

The six PC's and their indestructable robot are stranded on a garden planet. Every attemt to get away or contact help is accidently foiled by the robot. (which is why he is indestructable).

 

For a grittier feel, feel free to introduce a string of "evil" numbers, The Others, etc.

 

Midas

[Steve]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

Based on Midas's suggestion...

 

Lost: A crash strands the surviving passengers of Stellar Flight 815 on a seemingly deserted planet, forcing the group of strangers to work together to stay alive. However, their survival is threatened by mysterious entities including white-furred ursoid beasts, an unseen creature that roams the jungles surrounding the crash site, and the planet's malevolent inhabitants known as the "Others."

[Wolf]

Re: Imperialize it!

 

The Dozen

12 Prisoners of "place reason here" on death row, are given the choice to perform a "certain death mission" and get off death row, or die now. Then they are trained in specially forcey ways and are set free to perform the mission.