Rifts Scenarios

Shadows of the Federation

Introduction

This scenario was developed from ideas originally debated on the Palladium mailing list. In the original scenario the Federation appear via one of the Chicargo Rifts and immediately set about invading Chi-Town, eventually in a big battle defeating and destroying the Coalition. This scenario was flawed from the outset because it was in direct contravention of the Federation's Prime Directive, but it did set me thinking and the scenario that follows is the result.
The scenario is based upon Shiftsville's movements and the fact that it always leaves a rift behind when it moves. This scenario is however usable with any random rift anywhere along the Coalition borders.

Outline

At dawn on the 21st December 101PA Shiftsville moves leaving behind a rift which opens to the Federation's dimension. The rift is massive some 2000ft in height and 100ft in width and will remain open for 5 hours.
On the other side of the rift appears to be a star system with several planets orbiting a sun. One of the planets has a double ring system, two have multiple moons, one no moons, and the last and largest is a gas giant with seveal moons. The largest of the moons around the gas giant appears to be inhabitted, with several structures in orbit around it. Several of the planets also appear to have straships in orbit around them and there is a reasonable degree of starship traffic into and out of the system.
Anybody stepping through the rift is in immediate trouble. They will find themselves in the vacuum of deep space several million miles from anywhere. They will go from a nice comfortable 5°C to a very uncomfortable -373°C and no atmosphere! Those not in fully enclose environmental armour (Deadboy,Crusader,Bushman,Plasticman, Explorer,K-Explorer) or power armour die in under 100 seconds unless they have some ability that allows them to withstand the environment. Those is these armours have about 45 minutes of grace before the air runs out and about 65 minutes before the armour fails (its not built to withstand these environments). The same is true of borg armour, although full conversion Borgs get an extra 15 minutes whilst their body's disintegrate. Those in all but the lightest power armour (Flying Titan and its equivalent) are ok for several hours before they run into problems. Robots and robot vehicles have no problems surviving but like everyone else they do suffer with movement problems.
After about half an hour a small ship, approx 23m in length, the Saint Claire will appear to investigate the rift. The Saint Claire is a Danube Class runabout and leaves one of the orbiting platforms around the gas giant and closes to within 10,000Km of the rift. Anyone standing within 500ft of the rift will find all their electronic equipment goes haywire for about 5 seconds and all enery weapons, vehicle and robot mounted weapons will discharge(fire) once. If anybody has stepped through the rift and is obviously in trouble they will be transported aboard the runabout (the transportators automatically disable all energy and projectile based weapons - including vibro weapons). The Saint Claire has a crew of 3, Captain Soran (Human), Ensign pilot Briggs (Human), Lieutenant Engineer Renek (Vulcan). [Adlib this if it happens].
After about four hours the fun really starts. Suddently a starship, the Firenze, appears less than 1000m from the rift.Its outline is indistinct and it appears transulcent almost like its there but not there (ghosted). Energy fluxes can clearly be seen raging across its surface, and the ship appears to lurch and shudder. Slowly its is drawn towards, and eventually through the rift. The St Claire will attempt to prevent the Firenze from passing through the rift but will be unsuccessful in their attempts. If any characters were rescued by the St Claire then it is 85% likely to follow the Firenze across the rift, otherwise the chance is only 40%.
The Firenze is and Intripid Class science vessel (similar to Voyager) testing a new version of the Multi-Phasic Cloak. It entered the system too close to the dimensional anomaly whilst cloaked, causing a massive energy surge, the cloak to malfunction, the warp and impulse engines to go off line, and leaving the ship completely helpless in space. The problem is that Rifts® earth acts as a north pole to the Firenzes south pole and thus draws the ship to and then across the rift. It will take 12 minutes for the Firenze to be drawn to the rift and two minutes to cross completely to Rifts® earth. Until the engines are brought back online, the cloak repaired, and the Firenze returned to "Normal" space it cannot return to its own dimension, nor can it interact either with Rifts® earth (unless there is a creature/entity present that can change it's phase to match that of the ship). However, it will take the Firenze's crew 37 minutes to get the impulse engines back online, 70 minutes for the warp engines, and 363 minutes to repair the cloak. Unfortunately for the Firenze the rift will close some 46 minutes after the she crosses to earth.
As already indicated, by the time the Firenze crosses to Rifts® earth she will be severely damaged. Most of her systems will actually be offline, and the crew will be struggling not only to repair them but also to deal with the casualties caused. Life support will be the first system back online after 12 minutes, with the impulse engines following some 25 minutes later. 28 minutes after the impulse engines are back online the sensors will be brought online, followed by the shields 8 minutes later, and the main engines and defector array 9 minutes after that. Communications will be back up after 93 minutes, Main Phasers after 128 minutes, photon torpedos after 138 minutes, and the transporters after 145 minutes. The sensors and comms (at least to other Federation vessels) still function whilst phased (cloaked). The crew of the Firenze will be able to determine the presence of the counter rotating debris ring, graveyard, killer satalites, orbital patrols and space stations, all air targets within 1000 miles, and all settlements with 450 miles of their arrival position (unless they are force field cloaked when the force field will be detected but not what it's hiding).
When properly cloaked the Firenze is undetectable by both normal and most magical means. Empathy and Presence Sense will reveal the fact that "something" is nearby but not what. The ship is also immune to most physical attacks, although energy weapons and force fields will have and effect. Laser weapons cause the area hit to glow but cause no damage. Particle Beam weapons do 1/100th of thier normal damage and plasma weapons 1/50th of their normal damage. Phase weapons do normal damage.

Reactions

Shiftsville

Shiftsville troops are on full alert due to the town's movement. When nothing happens initially the troops will be stood down, although they're not allowed to leave their designated areas until after the rift closes. When the Firenze first crosses there will be 5-10 minutes of organised panic but when nothing major happens they will go back to a watching brief.
Both Kemp's forces and the Coalition Surveillance forces will be warned that any hostile acts will be taken as an act of war, but they may observe without interferance. Of course loose cannons amongst the units will change exactly what happens. If Kemp's surveillance forces are attacked both he and the Coalition will take aggressive action to prevent the ship from falling into enemy hands, unless the Coalition has managed to make contact with the St Claire, in which case they will play out their gambit.
If the Coalition attacks then the reaction of the Shiftsville forces depends on how much warning they get. With less than 5 minutes warning they will effectively be sitting ducks and without any contact with either the St Claire or the Firenze this is the most likely scenario. If they are in contact with either then they will be warned when the Coalition assault force leaves Chi-Town and will have more than enough time to prepare. The bulk of the infantry, lesser psi's, and mages will all be moved back within 0.5 miles of the towns new position where the wall defenses can be used against any attacking force. All the big hitters, most of the heavy armour, and about a quarter of the ground troops will move to defend Chaskville. The Shiftsville troops defending Chaskville will be augmented by several hundred of the Chask, so in terms of numbers they will heavily outnumber any force the Coalition sends. However, they have very limited power armour or air support. Air defense will be down to the air warlocks ability to summon and control air elementals.
If the Shiftsville force are victorous (the most likely out come as the Coalition serverly underestimates Shiftsvilles military power) they will not persue the Coalition forces, and will attempt to save those injured they can. They will then arrange via Kemp to return all those who wish to return to Chi-Town. Part of this return will be the ashes of those killed in action.

Kemp

Kemp's ability to do anything has actually been seriously compromised by last nights failed attacks and the Splurgoth raid. All he can really do is make idle threats , send a pair of Sky-Cycles, and radio Chi-Town for immediate assistance.
If he looses the Sky-Cycles, Kemp will become completely mentally unstable. After his initial successes in his purges, he became over-confident in his abilities. The incident with the Glitterboy, which nearly killed him, left a mental scar, and he started to become obsessed with Shiftsvilles destruction. After last nights fiasco, the loss of the Sky-Cycles will be the straw that breaks the camels back.

The Coalition (Chi-town, Iron Heart, Lonestar)

Theoretically the Coalitions response is the easiest to predict, they will view the appearance as an off world threat and seek to eliminate it. However this is not the case. They will initially get reports from their own recon patrols and Kemp on the situation. If no aggressive acts are made against Kemp's forces they will send a pair of recon aircraft to assess the situation. If Kemp's recon forces are attacked or eliminated they will send the assault force immediately to prevent Shiftsville gaining access to whatever technology the arrivals possess.
The exact gambit played by the Coalition will depend on wether the St Claire has crossed the rift or not. If the Firenze is all alone, then the Coalition will assess it as a fair prize and send the assault squad to retrieve it. If the St Claire is present, then they will broadcast messages requesting information from the visitors (who they are, what their intentions are, do they need assistance). It will take several minutes before they will get a response, assuming they do. If the characters have not managed to contact the St Claire then the St Claire is most likely to respond to the Coalition messages as they will be broadcasting over a greater frequency band, and with a broadcast structure that make their messages easier to detect. If the St Claire responds to the Coalition then the Coalition gambit will alter from a straight assault to a staged ambush.
The Coalition assault force will consist of two fully loaded Deaths Head Transports, 6 Nightwing Assault Bombers, and 24 Sky-Cycles. The presence of the Sky-Cycles slows the convoy, so it will take 56 minutes from leaving their base to arrive in the Shiftsville area. Wether this force is sent immediately or is delayed due to the St Claire going to Chi-Town , the rift will have closed by the time the force arrives.
If the St Claire responds to the Coalition, they will be invited to go to Chi-Town to discuss their predicament and this organisation they call the Federation. Chi-Towns angle will be an attempt for Rifts Earth to join the Federation with them as its representatives! Unless the characters have established good contacts with the St Claire then the St Claire will go to Chi-Town. Even with good contacts the St Claire is still 25% liekly to go. However in the latter case they will be on guard and won't actually land in Chi-Town and will leave Ensign Briggs on-board. If the St Claire lands in Chi-Town then all the crew will leave and only command lock-out will be invoked.

The Coalition (Quebec)

ARCHIE

Archie will view the appearance with great interest. Given his cautious nature he will need alot more information before deciding how to act. He will dispatch a couple of extra A51's and a number of Shermian (without Monster Rex mounts) to investigate.

Lazlo

Lazlo's reaction will be similar to ARCHIEs. Extra agents (they already have several in Shiftsville) will be dispatched to investigate. They are likely to send one or more high level Shifters and/or Spatial Mages amongst the agents.

Atlantis

The Firenze

Initially the crew will be too busy carrying out repairs and dealing with the casualties to worry about exactly where they are and what is going on. As they cross the rift threshold the ship will shudder and various odd dimensional distortions may occur (upto the GM). Once the impulse engines are back online the crew will attempt to minimize the danger to themselves and other innocent parties. Until the cloak and shields are fully back online they will not attempt to achieve orbit (in a fully working condition they can do this easily), but will move out over the North Atlantic. If a battle is still in progress at their arrival point they will return once fully operational and render what assistance they can to the percieved innocent party.
The Captain is in a difficult position whatever he does, because whatever he does will violate the Prime Directive. The ship has more than enough firepower to end any conflict in progress(7 Phaser emitters 2D6x100, 1 Photon Torpedo 1d4x500 to 100m radius) but use of this sort of force, other than in self defense, would constitute the worst possible violation. Since the Firenzes presence caused this situation the Captain must do something to minimize the loss of life (especially if one side is winning hands down). Intervention may make the situation worse but the most likely option is that the Captain will use the transporters to transport the agressors (whether or not they are winning) back to where they came from (or 700Km away if they came from further afield). The Firenze has 4 cargo transporters capable of moving 9 SkyCycles or SAMAS or 30 ground troops per hit, and 6 transporter bays capable of moving 8 ground troops or a single SAMAS or Sky-Cycle.
Once the situation has calmed down, the Captain will start searching for a means to return home. If the characters are involved with the St Claire then this can lead to a whole string of further adventures, either on Earth, within the Solar System (if you have Mutants in Orbit™), or elsewhere (if you have either of the Phase World™ books)

The St Claire

If the ship crossed to Rifts® earth then it is in big trouble, as it has no means of hiding, minimal offensive weaponary (6 Std phasers, computer targeting allows them all to be fired simultaneously counting as 1 attack, 2D6x10 MDC per phaser) and limited defensive capability ( 4 shields, forward, aft, port, starboard, 600MDC per shield, 30 MDC per round regeneration per shield). The phasers can be fired either offensively (narrow beam) or defensively (disperse beam).
The St Claires reaction mainly depends upon the character involvement and wether anyone successfully makes contact with it. Captains Sorans primary purpose will be to protect and lend assistance to the Firenze. Even if the Characters are involved the St Claire will only fire if fired upon, and will use the minimum force necessary to accomplish its goals. The Captain will however if the characters are involved provide as much tactical assistance as the GM determines.
With no character involvement it will take the crew sometime to figure out that communications are being handled at VHF rather than by tacheon beam. Once communications are established the Captain will state who they are, what they represent, and request that they be left alone to recover their ship. It is upto the GM wether communications are established with the character group or the Coalition first. Once the rift closes then they will become more cautious and will attempt to negotiate whatever aid they nedd to get home. Technology will not be traded under any circumstances! When communications are established with the Coalition, and they make their offer (assuming the do), Captain Soran's decission will be made according to what information is available at that point. If the St Claire goes to Chi-Town and manages to get away then they're going to need somewhere to hole up.

Resolution

The likely outcome of this scenario is that the Firenze is left stranded on earth, with no viable means of return to its own dimension. Dimensional Portal is of no use as it won't create a large enough portal for the ship to pass through, and re-open gate won't work as its not a permanent rift (at least in the Shiftsville scenario).
In the Shiftsville scenario, they are aware of exactly which dimension the ship came from and can create a portal or even a worm-hole (yes they do have a spatial mage - but she's only level 4) which would allow the crew to communicate with home. As of 17/12/2001 I haven't determined exactly what will happen yet.

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