The Black Campbell

I posted the production notes for Blood & Chrome that were up on Facebook a few days ago, and have finally had time to compare them to notes on how a battlestar group might look I drew up a few years ago. So here’s my take on a miniseries-period battlestar group (BSG.)

Going with the idea that there are 12 “main battlestars” or “heavy battlestars” (I’m using the former term), one to do CAP on each colony and the surrounding shipping space, this would be the usual wartime battlestar group. Figure they’re rarely more than half strength, with half their number on temporary or detached duty.

COMPOSITION, BATTLESTAR GROUP

A combat-ready battlestar group consists of a main battlestar (Mercury, Minerva, or Columbia-class) and its attendant air group, 2 light battlestars (Erynis [Valkyrie] or Berzerk-class) and their air groups, 2 support escorts of Vanguard-class — one hospital, one an aerospatial assault unit, 4 assaultstars (Cygnus or the older Orion-class), 2 replenishment tyliers (pronounced til-i-ers; replenshiment oilers in the wet navy carry fuel, but also other supplies. They would be the refinery ships from the series), a combat support vessel (a repair ship like the Flatop from the series), and two victualing ships (basing on Blood & Chrome, these are the Celestra-style freighters.)

Assuming the support vessels are mostly civilian/merchant marine, that’s roughly 10 ships a BSG or 120 capital ships…which seems about right with Starbuck’s comment about the initial losses in the miniseries.

Considering how expensive and time-consuming peace time construction of these ships would be, I think 120-150 ships is about right.

Next off — nomenclature. I figure a battlestar is always a “group” (BSG), as per the patches in that they have an air group aboard. Any ships attached to, say, Galactica might have their own ship patch — say an escort named Diomedes is attached for longer than temporary duty to Galactica — the patch would read “Battlestar Diomedes” (or whatever you want to call your escorts; I call ’em gunstars if they’re cannon heavy, assaultstars if they’re missile heavy) and the bottom of the patch would be BSG-75, even if Diomedes herself was BSG-12, say. On her own, she’s BSG-12. (Hey, you have to keep the guys that make uniform patches in business…)

Any “battlestar” with an air group of any size is a BSG, otherwise, it’s just BS (that would be the assaultstars and gunstars.) Support ships would have registrations like DD (for the escorts like Vanguard [I’m going off of the numbering on the model for that particular ship; do whatever you feel like), RT for the tyliers, CSV for the combat support ships, and SV for the victualers.

Figure the battlestar groups during peacetime are broken up and doing missions throughout colonial space — light battlestars doing interdiction work, hospital ships aiding in disaster and humanitarian support. Escorts would also be doing policing, but would also cover the hospital ships and civilian contractor vessels doing deep space exploration, etc.

One of the readers asked for some clarification on some of the traits that I’ve used in some of the material for the BSG game. One thing — one the pdfs, a red colored trait is a flaw. Here’s the clarifications:

BIOMECHANICAL (Asset, d2-d6): The vehicle is a combination of the biological and mechanical. It can repair itself over time, with Stun repairing as per characters at a point an hour or rest; Wounds, however, take much longer — a wound point is repaired per week, once the craft has passed it’s RESISTANCE test (VITALITY+VITALITY) and begun to heal. Most modern Cylon craft will have this.

CONSTRUCTION FACILITIES (Starship asset, d2-d6): The vessel can construct the number of planetcraft equal to its die rating a week (assuming it has the materials to build the craft in question. At d6, the machine shops are so good that with the proper raw materials, parts and vehicles can be constructed.

DIFFICULT TO REPAIR (Complications, d2, d4): The vessel is either overly complicated, has parts that are uncommon, or in some other way is a royal pain in the butt to keep running. This adds to repair and maintenance tests difficulties.

ENHANCED PERCEPTION (Spacecraft Asset, d2, d4): The vessel has its DRADIS and other sensors acting together as an interferometer to increase the acuity of the sensors. Add to vessel perception tests.

FAST THROTTLE (Asset, d2, d4): The vessel is particularly quick off the line, accelerating or decelerating faster than most vessels. In a chase, this is added to the operator’s test to flee or catch a vessel.

HANGAR QUEEN (Complication, d4): This vehicle is either a bad design, a Monday-morning build, or is beautifully designed and constructed, but finicky as hell (think a Ferrari…start it up and you need a valve job.) Anytime the vehicle is used it requires a Mechanical Engineering/Maintenance or Repair test, or it incurs d4S.

LIMITED SCANNING ANGLE (Complication d2, d4): The vehicle has some kind of blind spot in its visibility or scanning systems, and adds to the difficulty of perception tests by the vessel or its user.

MODIFIED AI (Asset, d2-d6): Cylons often find it easier to retrofit existing Colonial vehicles with a biomechanical brain and control systems. This means previously “dead” machines can operate independent of a crew (but still require maintenance from one.) If an enemy could destroy this “brain”, they could once again use the vehicle.

NBC HARDENED (Planetcraft Asset, d4): The vehicle is pressurized higher than that of the surrounding air to keep out nuclear/biological/chemical hazards. It is also constructed to minimize radioactive exposure.

SHORT RANGED (Spacecraft Complication, d4): The vessel is not designed for deep space operations and has neither the fuel, air, nor victuals to operate beyond up to an SU from its base of operations.

SLOW RESPONSE (Spacecraft Complication, d2-d6): The vessel either does not have magcat capabilities or they are limited (as in the Erynis-class.) At d2, only half of the fighter complement can be launched at a time, d4, a quarter, and at d6 a tenth of the fighter complement per turn. (I’m thinking of getting rid of the d6 and making this a d2, d4.)

SLOW THROTTLE (Flaw d2, d4): The vehicle is too heavy, underpowered, or suffers from some other design flaw that makes it slower to handle than other craft. This adds to the difficulty to flee or catch another vessel in a chase.

STEALTHY (Personal or Planetcraft Asset, d2, d4): The design of the craft, the color, or the DRADIS absorbent paint makes it had to see or scan for. Add the rating to the difficulty of to spot the vehicle.

WORKHORSE (Asset, d4): The thing is built to last. Mechanical Engineering/Repair tests have a step up to the skill die, it’s so easy to maintain.

Our Battlestar Galactica campaign returned last night after a week’s hiatus, and launched straight into a fast-paced push episode. Our Colonial Security Service (our analogue for the FBI) discovered a link that they had disregarded for more time-sensitive ones — that the thirteen suspected Cylon agents they had picked up had all attended a science-fiction convention on Leonis. Researching the event, he found out it had the venue moved from he usual 2 star hotel convention hall to a swanky high-end spa on the outskirts of Luminiere, the capital of Leonis.

This is immediately suspicious, as the spa is one of those 300 qubit/night places…hardly the place that they would move a convention. The spa is isolated, high-end, and has all manner of the therapeutic treatments for stress and injury. The place, to him, “feels” important, and the photo of the owner is familiar to him, but he can’t place where. It’s a weekend, and the leadership of Operation RIPTIDE is not in for the day. Realizing the link is very tenuous, but he has this gut feeling is very important, he convinces Commander Pindarus (another PC) to get them a loaner raptor from his soon-to-be new command Galactica. (There’ a fleet tradition that if you’ve been assigned, but haven’t officially taken command, the current CO will loan you non-mission essential gear.)

The characters grab a few of the Colonial Marines that are attached to RIPTIDE but haven’t left for their weekend travels yet, snag a raptor, and jump to Leonis to check out the lead. They arrive at night and we get a view of Luminiere, the “City of Lights”. The “Old City” is very Parisian, with old, elegant buildings, a river with bridges, everything lit with old style streetlamps. The rest of the city is a riot of neon, holo-ads, reactive streets that illuminate with traffic info to supplement the heads-up on your car. It’s like Shanghai, but without restraint.

The spa is in a forest preserve outside of town, and the officer characters, Pindarus and the Riptide lawyer CPT Querro, go in with the CSS agent, Chaplain, as patrons (expensing the trip.) Their four marines, one of which is SGT Cadmus (another PC). they set up in the trees on a bluff overlookng the facility ad have a few run-ins with the guests, pretending to be other patrons of the spa. While they’re out in the rain, with the mists from the hot springs and cool rain (very atmosperic), the officers tour and enjoy the facility while Chaplain hacks the mainframe and finds a wealth of information on the Cylon operations — the kind of technology they’re using, the people they’ve used it on, and he manages to snag much of it and dumps it to a cloud drive on the LeoNet, with a timed forward to his CSS email account. He goes to find the officers and when he opens the door, there is a moment where he faces off against the wife/surgeon side of the couple that run the place.

Pindarus and Querro question the male half, a physical therapist who looks a lot like Rick Worthy. They find him pleasant and seemingly authentic, and they get him to give them a tour of the new medical facility where guests will be able to get cosmetic surgery. There they link up with Chaplain, in some sort of daze while the firmware that the Cylons put in him ten years ago during his car accident (and the inspiration for his fantasies of being abducted by aliens) — he’s been the information link that has been allowing the Cylons to stay ahead of Riptide. He has actively worked for them; they just monitor his senses and short-term memory and collected data through him — a human camera or bug.

The place is part high-end, minimalist aesthetic surgery, as advertised, but the wealth of creepy biomechanical tentacles equipped with surgical instrumetns and clusters of senors added a good creepy quality. They also see the other surgeon here…a twin or something of the owner! They quickly realize the danger they are in and the fight ensues in which we get a taste of the speed and strength of the Cylons. Even these non-combat models do a pretty good job on the characters and I had an initial worry of a total party kill. Pindarus gets pretty badly banged up, Chaplin a busted nose, and Querro — the man that almost never gets range time as a legal officer — saves the day by using a dropped pistol during the fray to drop one of the Cylons. (Chaplain got the woman.) the other surgeon escapes.

Outside, the marines get aggressed by a copy of the woman and a pair of highly-professional, but oddly robotic moving men. She drops two of the marines using a crossbow, the men have suppressed P90s that do a good job on another, leaving Cadmus alone to fight them. He takes a bolt in the ass, manages to wrestle away the P90 but it jammed (botch roll), and he wound up using the body of one of the men to catch rounds, then rolled with him down the hill they were on and off a 20′ cliff into one of the hot springs below. The woman follwed, leaping into the pool, and he stops her with a well-places underwater shot to the head (deafening himself in the process.)

The PCs link up outside the medical facility and run for their car in the parking lot. Minutes later, the medical facility (not the whole spa) blows itself all over the place in a mighty explosion. The characters inform the local CSS branch and local cops and beat a retreat to CSS HQ, where Chaplain is adamant about being debriefed immediately, the others go for medical attention.

End of play for the night. There’s a few obvious issues for the characters: What was going on with Chaplain? Pindarus is paranoid enough that this will definitely play out next session. Is the information he uploaded safe? What about the people they saw — two pairs of twins? What are the chances of that? Can the Cylons clone people? Or were they machines with flesh covering? How will the brass — already peeved over other high profile mistakes in the last few sessions — going to handle a major explosion with at least a half dozen civilians injured and off-duty three marines dead? (Not to mention to officers injured…)