Whenever
this is used, you may be trapped in a cavity with one tiny vent to
the life support system, as the computer figures that's good enough
to keep you alive to make space for its new flight mode or extra
large storage bay. Anything vitally important has a 1 in 4 chance to
get lost in a really unexpected place.
[2]
Ship AI. It is highly advanced, remembers things, and can fully
advise and manage many aspects of the ship. The ship can organize
cargo shipments, resupply itself, lock/unlock doors as needed, and
many other useful functions. However it is installed with several
preset “personalities”, each one having their own problems. There
is a kindly grandpa personality which grates on the ears and chides
party members for swearing or engaging in effective but dishonorable
tactics. There is a sultry female personality which throws mild and
temperamental mood swings if not constantly sated with gifts or
praise. There is even a highly effective default “factory”
personality which works great except it constantly needs to shut down
to update and pesters the party to buy it “essentially new
features!” straight from the corporate servers.
[3]
Adjusting life support. This life support system is highly advanced,
pushing bubbles of air and moisture and customizing rooms based on
the inhabitants as they move through the ship. It uses tractor beams
to pull around globs of water for aquatic creatures, blasts heat and
disperses it just a few inches away for creatures from lava worlds.
Aliens of wildly different environments can live here together
somehow. However the ship stores the information on its database
which could be scrambled or hacked, and occasional hiccups to the
system make it send electrically charged clouds of acid smoke for
humans to breathe or spraying reptile creatures with liquid nitrogen,
since it may accidentally think they need to stay cool due to their
temperature being low. Less lethal hiccups, like regulating the
inside temperatures and pressure to create weather effects inside the
ship are not uncommon when this system fails.
[4]
Replication Engine. The ship has some simple mining/extraction
equipment, that can break down scavenged metals and asteroids and use
it to create armor plating and munitions. The inside of the ship can
be converted to a mini foundry to create and shape these metals and
weapons. If left on however, it may flood the cargo bay with
dangerous, primed warheads and a single gravity failure in the ship
will cause molten metal to float out becoming a lethal hazard.
[5]
Ship-Wide Holodeck. Everything in the ship can be made of solid state
holograms; seats, control panels, clothes or personal items, fake
crew members acting as visual aids and assistants to the crew, etc.
Holograms don't 'despawn' when no longer needed though without
supervision; you'll run across historical figures, game simulations,
weird sex fantasies and so on running around the ship all the time.
If the program is turned off, the control panels of the ship will
disappear along with your seats and safety belts; the holograms were
aids to assist with the now very inaccessible internal control and
machine networks.
[6]
Personal Butler-bots. The ship has a few robots, one per each major
crew member, who waits on their every need, cleans up after them, and
assist them in their duties. The butlers have all the regular
protection protocols and some basic personality circuits; they would
never attack the regular living crew members. But they start to
scheme against each other, getting in each other way, and stealing
each others batteries and server presence to better assist their own
personal owner's jobs around the ship. Eventually, they will begin
performing combat maneuvers and equipping themselves for gladiatorial
combat- your maid bot starts smashing objects to slam the glass into
the sensors of a rival machine, who is fiddling with the controls to
the airlock to eject the offending robot out into space, and
accidentally the rest of the oxygen in the living quarters too.
[7]
Spontaneously generated music played over the projected loudspeakers.
Give everyone on the ship a “soundtrack” for their life. Gets
annoying fast, even if the music is generated unique and fresh each
time. You can ask to turn it off, but it comes back as “subtle
background music” in a few hours. You'll get used to it, and
eventually go crazy like everyone else. There's at least one crazed
naked man in the vents, stuffing his ears with cotton stolen from
pillows and sleeping next to the loudest engine machines, just to
drown out the music and hopefully go deaf.
[8]
Hologram crew members. After someone dies, they can be simulated and
“revived” via a perfect copy of their brain scan and personality
from recordings by the ship's computer. Though they are not physical,
they are still part of the crew and have the same duties and
responsibilities.
Because
of this feature, the copies feel as though they got no reprieve even
from death, now forced to continue to work and exist in this limited,
nonliving state. Also, it is entirely possible for the entire crew to
die, becoming nothing more then hologram ghosts in a dead ship they
cannot touch.
[9]
Extremely fast acting and easy-access hibernation pods. Metal ports
are installed in the back of the neck of the crew members; an easy
plug in causes immediate deep, unaging sleep. Crew spread out their
lives over eons if possible, taking century long naps along with tiny
sleeps of just a few minutes while waiting for their food to cook.
Any mistakes in programming and the 'alarm' could be hundreds,
thousands, or even millions of years off. With the other crew
sleeping 99.99999% of the time, any mistake like this could easily
leave the ship unattended and without vital maintenance or repairs
for decades.
[10]
Biochemical adaptation. Each crew member has their tools, living
space, and even personal needs met with generated biomechanical
constructs, created from cloned DNA and shaped into various helpful
organisms. Naturally, these beings must be fed a nutrient rich slurry
from dispensers around the ship. Once these resources run out, they
will become mad with hunger and attack the only meat they can get
their hands/claws/protoplasm on.
[11]
Gravity displacement engine. Allows artificial gravity to be
selectively altered in real time along different axis; letting you
walk on walls, create heavy zones to keep prisoners contained and on
the floor, light zones for industry and ease of movement, and so on.
Every time the computer reboots or the ship's engines go out the
gravity wildly shifts and fluctuates; 1 in 6 chance minor black hole
is formed somewhere in the ship.
[12]
Weapon adaptation. The weapons aboard this ship automatically adopt
to rearm and calibrate to go past new types of armors and energy
shields. Using energy and munitions in an extremely efficient matter.
The computer AI always goes for the most powerful method of
destruction, and as such the ship starts to become a hazard. Soon
asteroid fields are obliterated causing collateral damage, and
tether-tractor beams are pulling holes in a friendly's boats hull,
just to sate its bloodlust.
No comments:
Post a Comment