Imagine an eight to ten story tall structure about the size of a small factory  - but on Mars and its somehow part of a large-scale operation that will eventually terraform Mars.
There are at least 5 to 6 tents nearby, and each tent looks like its big enough that 6 to 8 adults could comfortably sleep in them.

How do you work that into an RPG campaign?

If it was your campaign - how would you feature such a location for an encounter?

Whats in the tents?

Who is using the tents or sleeping in them?

Have you ever been in an RPG campaign that featured Mars in the near future?

Ever wanted to be?

 If you're wondering - I'm describing an illustration that I saved to my computer - I just can't find the website that I saved it from. The view in the artwork is about from low-flying helicopter height looking down and across at the terraforming station.


- Ed C.

Is there a specific campaign for which you want to use the thing? If so, what kind of game is it, what genre? Hard sci-fi? Space opera? Sword & Planet? Does it HAVE to be Mars, or can it be Planet Stygia in the Dragon Galaxy?

Quote from: Koltar;367301Imagine an eight to ten story tall structure about the size of a small factory  - but on Mars and its somehow part of a large-scale operation that will eventually terraform Mars.
There are at least 5 to 6 tents nearby, and each tent looks like its big enough that 6 to 8 adults could comfortably sleep in them.

How do you work that into an RPG campaign?

If it was your campaign - how would you feature such a location for an encounter?

Whats in the tents?

Who is using the tent or sleeping in them?

Have you ever been in an RPG campaign that featured Mars in the near future?

Ever wanted to be?

 If you're wondering - I'm describing an illustration that I saved to my computer - I just can't find the website that I saved it from. The view in the artwork is about from low-flying helicopter height looking down and across at the terraforming station.


- Ed C.

I've been in one as a player - run over IRC by our own Johnnie Wannabe using one of my favorite games, The Terran Story - and run one using Cold Space/FTL Now, where terraforming Mars is a big part of what's going on.

-clash

I re-found a version of the illustration on the web!!

Take a look:
http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/exploringspace-terraform-big.jpg?w=400&h=225




Thats the picture I was talking about.

- Ed C.

EDIT: Found the same artwork, maybe better resolution on a different website:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/image/47421

The terraforming project was going smoothly, but recently something went wrong.  A few workers have contracted a mysterious illness.  It could have been sabotage by the Russians or some native (i.e. Martian) microbe released by the project.  The disease works quickly because of the enclosed environment and recirculated air.  A few top-dogs at the facility have notified the authorities, but the best they can do is keep the disease hush-hush and hide the bodies in tents outside (there are no windows facing that direction, at least from what I can see).

If the secret gets out, the workers will panic.
If help doesn't arrive in time, everyone is dead anyway.
If it was the Russians, they'll have hell to pay.
If it wasn't the Russians, maybe the disease can be weaponized.
If the alien disease actually makes the corpses into zombies, they're all fucked no matter what.

What do you do?  

It would have to be quite far along in the terraforming process for people to be able to live in tents instead of permanent buildings. So the question is, WHY are there tents next to a terraforming station (assuming that's what it is, for the sake of argument).

Maybe it was an automated station, so it didn't need permanent crew quarters, and the tents are the "closers" who are there to wind down the operation.

Alternately, if part of the station's process is to drill down to a sub-surface ice layer for volatiles to spew into the atmosphere, maybe it encountered problems and this is a repair crew.

Or maybe it Found Something Of Interest, and this is the science/military team sent to investigate...

Have you read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? Plenty of ideas in there.

I think the tents are more likely science stations or unwelcome guests than a part of the local living quarters. Maybe they are monitoring the changes in the local environment. Maybe the factory is on the fritz and the tents are check points for the investigation.

Waters of Mars.

RPGPundit

Where are you guys seeing tents?

I can see how they might be tents, but they might also be something else. If they are tents, I would doubt anyone would actually be living out of them because it's frickin Mars. Maybe shading some sort of equipment. Or, they aren't actually tents. Maybe Solar energy collectors.

Quote from: pspahn;367776Where are you guys seeing tents?

Because they ARE tents.

 In the version that I saved to my computer more than a year ago - the resolution is so good that I can zoom in on those white rectangles in Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Photo viewer.
 They are definitely large tents with at least 6 tide-down ropes per tent (3 per each long side), with the typical fron flap or rectangular door. They look like the type of tents that you see in movies or TV shows as part of a military exercise or being used at an archeological dig.


- Ed C.

If Mars is not inhabitable then tents are probably used to cover equipment that needs protected from the elements when not in use. Even today's Mars has weather (dust storms) Probably external maintenance items. In an uninhabitable mars it would not make any sense to use unpressurzied tents.

Even if terraforming got the point that all you need a mask feeding you breathable air (i.e. no pressure suit) you still need an sealed enclosed area for sleeping, easting, etc.

If anybody interested in a near future Mars I recommend Red Mars and the rest of the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The later books get kinda of preachy but the first is great at painting a picture of Mars in the process of being Terraformed. Green Mars is slightly further along the process. Blue Mars the terrforming is ongoing but much of the lower altitude is inhabitable without special equipment.

If the terraforming isn't far enough along for there to be people "camping" on the surface I would up the scale just enough that the tents could be temporary shelters for vehicles.
As far as what they're doing there, I'm a bit of a cornball and would go with a Doom scenario: something bad has gone down at the facility and those in charge need some dudes who ain't got time to bleed to go in and take care of it. Oh, and if they find any survivors, maybe rescue them, you know, if it doesn't damage the facility too much.

If it's a star trek type game replace "dudes" with "away team." and add a distress beacon.

IF we got our asses off this planet and got to the point shown in the pictures in my first few opening posts of the thread - just what year or decade would that likely take place?

In other words, in some future magazine or History book what would be the " circa year XXXX" for thast picture?


- Ed C.