The Lucky 13

[IrishWolf]

By the year 2432ad, mankind has outgrown their home planet and gone in search of new places of live. First, massive colony ships churned through the airless void of space, powered by nuclear engines, in the late half of the twenty-second century but quickly turning to the beam drive in the early twenty-third. Through the advance of time (and several bloody civil wars on remote planets) Earth and her fledging colonies came under the control of a militaristic regime of the Federation of Man, ruled by a council of generals and admirals. High rank in the armed forces was equal to political power, as officers often were assigned as planetary governors.

Over the years, this government has become fat from the plundering of worlds and bloated with corruption. The entire Federation seemed ready to tear itself apart, when we were faced with our greatest challenge, the Tarnakians. They were the first alien race we encountered, being both humanoid and more then ready to wipe us out of existence.

First contact happened at the colony of Jouy 11, ten years ago. A small fleet, a little bigger then squadron size appeared in orbit above the frontier settlement and sent a handful of transports to the surface. All of the settlers, living in a single city, sent a subspace transmission to the nearest Federation Naval Base and welcomed the visitors with open arms. When a taskforce under Commodore Rumsford arrived several days later, they found every human being slaughtered and the buildings razed.

Medical personal noted in their reports that the colonist’s wounds were caused by a weapon that was similar to current Federation pulselaser technology. It was also noted in the report of Commodore Rumsford that the charred remains of nearly all of the colonies record projectile weapons were found in the destroyed buildings, leading him to believe that it was not a trigger happy local that sparked the slaughter.

While attempts to open negations with these aliens proved unfruitful, making contact was not. Within four standard months (thirty-one days), a dozen worlds had come under naval blockade and suffered invasion from the Tarnakians. The local Planetary Defense Forces had nearly crumbled under the assault by the time the Federation Navy was able to break the blockades and deliver elements of the Federation Armies to join in the defense. After ten years, all of the colonies were returned to full control of the Federation and the glorious forces of mankind had found one planet belonging to the aggressors.

Bomy 8 or Graveyard has it become known, as a well-developed planet, equal to any full member world in the Federation. The Ninth and Sixteenth armies were able to make a beachhead on the southern half of the largest continent and were nearly able to break out with the arrival of Tenth. Strong defensive positions, paired with highly motivated soldiers and a steady stream of new weapons, munitions and armor from a large cluster of manufacturing facilities in the north, helped the Tarnakains hold their ground.

The arrival of reinforcements from the Federation was delayed, as the war expanded again. Several new assaults on human held worlds were launched and small raiding parties roamed at will. Armies in route to Bomy 8 were redirected to these new hotspots and others were broken up into planetary garrisons, encase of Tarnakian invasion. Only a trickle of companies and battalions to replace loses suffered by the ground forces could be landed as a result.

The entire campaign was in a stalemate. Although the Tarnakians could keep the Federation armies bottled up in their beachhead, they couldn’t launch a large enough counterattack to drive them into sea, because of the carefully orbiting fleet of human warships. The big guns of the naval vessels were able to bombard parts of the planet’s surface, making any large advance towards human lines, suicide. Although that hasn't stopped them from trying every few months. The human armies, unable to break out and their leaders unwilling to abandon the assault, have dug in, turning the southern landscape into a broken wasteland of trenches and shell holes, covered with rotting bodies

Now, why couldn’t the navy just blast the manufacturing facilities and training bases off the crust of Bomy 8? Well, to the untrained eye, it was a clustering of attack satellites in orbit above the facility, with a small detachment of what Federation Intelligence has labeled Tarnakian destroyers and frigates. Theses forces however, are of little threat, for though they have superior weapons for their ground forces, the Federation has a far superior navy.

The real reason is a trio of large energy cannons planetside, which are aimed skywards. During the opening days of the fighting, the heavy cruiser, Private Daniels attempted to destroy the satellites but was destroy in turn by a single shot from one of the cannons. If those planetary defenses could be taken out, the navy could pound Bomy 8 into submission and prove to the citizens of Federation, that this war is winnable.

Enter Major Robert Rogers. Forced to make a corrupt deal to save some of his men from a court-martial and the firing squard, he volunteered to lead a raid to destroy those great weapons. However, he was denied the Special Forces he would need to perform the task and was instead given permission to recruit thirteen prisoners from the penal colony of Jukau Gamma and a handful of Provosts to keep them inline, with three months to train them.

Talk about slow suicide.




Jukau Gamma

This planet is not truly acceptable for human life. Even on the warmest of summer days, any sane person would wish for a sweatshirt or jacket. The air is thin and hard to breath. No crops will grow there and what little local vegetation there is, is toxic. No animal life has ever been seen and may not exist. The only habitation is a massive fortress-like prison, which sits above a played-out platinum mine. The place is drafty and the cell blocks are open to prisoner movement. The only bars in the place are to separate the Provost’s quarters from the general population.

At first, Jukau Gamma used it’s prisoner population to strip the land of it’s mineral wealth, leaving a long system of tunnels and caves under the prison itself. These days, its used as a dumping ground for murderers, rapists, thieves, political dissenters, smugglers, drug addicts, drug dealers and just about any other criminal (save for military offenders, as they army and navy only have two punishments, floggings and firing squad) of both sexes, to be tossed in and forgotten. It is more then likely that if one is sent there, your file will be lost and orders to release you will never arrive. Extra clothing is rarely handed out and is usually stolen from a fellow inmate.

Every prisoner is fed the same ration of protein gruel, twice a day. Of course there are a few ways to get more food. One is to work in the mines, looking for a few scraps of leftover platinum for Commissar Baum, which will earn an extra half ration. Finding a few grams of the metal will earn a full ration. The female population mostly uses another way, which is to sell oneself to a guard or the Commissar himself.

A day where the public corporal punishment of several inmates or a week without when a hanging doesn’t take place, are rare.

Provosts

The Provosts are a branch of the Federation Armies created for the sole purpose of guarding the penal colonies and manning prisoner transports. A civilian recruited to join them is automatically ranked as a sergeant, as all lower ranks are filled with trustees culled from the prisoners they guard. The standard uniform are black utilities and garrison cap. The main weapons Provosts are armed and trained with are the cudgel, whip and Mark VII pulselaser pistol.

These units bare the motto: Per Virga quod Ferito, With Rod and Lash.

[1SAZ]

Interesting concept. My mind is already whirring with character ideas. It kind of reminds me of Seven Samurai in some regards, The Chronicles of Riddick in others, and Deadman Wonderland to round out the prison. Hope to see some interest in this.

[Starlequin]

This looks fun.

[IrishWolf]

Interesting concept. My mind is already whirring with character ideas. It kind of reminds me of Seven Samurai in some regards, The Chronicles of Riddick in others, and Deadman Wonderland to round out the prison. Hope to see some interest in this.

Interesting, cause I got a lot of inspiration from The Dirty Dozen and The Last Chancers, as well as the rest of the penal legions of Warhammer 40,000 lore, like the Savlar Chem-Dogs.

[Kokaine]

I'm actually really interested in this. Count me in if this gets rolling.

[IrishWolf]

Alright, I'm thinking that the game will play out something like this:

The Major will arrive at Jukau Gamma, give a speech and recruit his prisoners. They will then board a ship and head off to their training world, all the while doing lots of exorcise in a high gravity room. Once on this world, they will be given weapons training (Thinking their gonna get screwed over and be forced to use older weapons, like rifles and machine guns) followed by a week playing extreme lazer tag (any one remember that training scene from Starship Troopers, where the do the same thing and the vests their wearing shock them when shot? Thats what I'm going for) with the local PDF, in a mock up city. After that, they ship out for Bomy 8 and have the big fight with the aliens. All kinds of fun stuff in between too.

I'm thinking that everyone should play multiple characters or have some prisoner slots taken up by NPCs, that way we have plenty of fodder for the combat. Either that, or should this get enough interest to fill out all 13 slots, then PCs will have to die. Works for me either way. On to character sheets!


Characters

Army
Major Rogers played by Irish Wolf

Prisoners
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Provosts
Lieutenant:
Sergeant:
Corporal:
Private:




Profiles


Prisoner

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Provost

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Mine

Name: Robert Rogers

Age: 48

Gender: male

Sexual Orientation: straight

Appearance: Robert is a lean man, his body hard with muscle, tightly packed onto his bones but without the bulk of other men, who stands all of six feet tall, with crew cut hair of salt and pepper. Although he is of Caucasian descent, his homeworld, Regina is a tropical one, being a little closer to it’s sun than Earth, which has caused a darkening of the complexions of her human population into a fine bronze or deeper, depending on their ethnic group. His face is lean and angular, with a sharply hooked nose, which dark blue eyes peer around. Clean shaven most of the time, he will allow some stubble to grow when in the field. He normally dressed in his unit's standard light green utilities and black combat boots.

Personality: Stony and firm. Loyal to those under his command but addicted to Carlia (a tobacco-like plant that when smoked relaxes the muscles, reduces pain and releases stress but can have effects on the mind like acid, he is currently in a secret program testing a medication, in the form of a  patch that counteracts the effects in the mind)

Rank: Major in the 9th Regina Light Infantry

Bio: Just like so many others on Regina, Robert had a normal childhood. He went to school, got bullied, ran from girls with cooties, later romantically chased those same girls and graduated high school. During high school, he enrolled in the Army ROTC and was recruited on his eighteenth birthday. After officer's training, he joined the 9th as a Second Lieutenant. Over the years, he managed to work his way up to captain through a series of favors and bribes, until the 9th was assigned to guard a research facility located on Regina. Being an officer, he was allowed to intermingle with the complex’s staff and managed to meet a one Doctor Carlos Vega, who was working on a compound that would turn Carlia from the scourge of the Federation to the wonder drug of battlefield medicine.

Doctor Vega recruited Rogers into testing his product by getting the captain hooked on Carlia. The sneaky researcher bribed the cooks to slip some into the army officer’s food and the maintenance staff to pipe some of the smoke into the air duct of his quarters, at night. When the Captain reported into the medical bay with severe withdrawal symptoms, the good doctor stepped in, knowing just what his new test subject needed. He also managed to get Robert promoted to Major and a waiver for him to carry both drugs and patches, signed by Marshal General Meade, a member of the Council. It came in handy a few years later, when the 9th's new Colonel tried to court martial him for illegal drug abuse.

When the war with the Tarnakians broke out, the 9th remained at the research facility, where a corporal under Roger's command shot the Lieutenant Colonel (who did not identify himself) during a night patrol. He was forced to make a deal to save the man's life and the Colonel used his own power and bribes to make sure that Rogers would not be returning.

[IrishWolf]

So, I take it no one is interested then

[orderNchaos]

Looks interesting.  Any restrictions on the type of character or the reason for their incarceration?  I'm guessing Rogers will be looking for people with some sort of combat background.  Infiltration skills, stuff like that?  I assume he's not going to pull a drug addict or rapist who doesn't have any skill that would be useful.

[IrishWolf]

No restrictions, the Major is taking volunteers for what should be a suicide mission, I doubt he'll be able to be overly picky about it. Although, some sort of combat background would increase chances of survival.