Goods and Materials on the UESF DISCO

Copper: Copper wire pulled from electronics is the de-facto currency of the DISCO. Copper is measured out into denominations called "sections", "inches" and "spools". A section of copper wire is equal to one tenth of the circumference of a standard bulkhead doorwheel. Inches are the preferred measurement of the lower decks - two and a half inches equals one section. Spools are equal to one thousand copper sections, or one hundred times the circumference of a doorwheel.

Doopak: A rubber bladder surrounding a hollow plastic core filled with genetically-modified blue algae. Through the algae's metabolic process, the bladder fills with water over the course of the day at a rate of one gallon per hour when exposed to air.


Iyostrip: An ultra-thin strip of orange film that scrubs the air of carbon dioxide, releasing heat and oxygen in the process. The film needs to be scrubbed of carbon residue every few cycles, otherwise it drastically loses efficiency. Iyostrips are kept in panels in the ceiling and are extremely fragile; touching one directly without special tools can ruin it completely.


Lumiform: Two panes of polarized glass (often colored) sandwiching a thick layer of luminescent white crystal. The light emitted by a lumiform comes from slow radioactive decay; removal of the protective glass panes can result in radiation sickness over long-term exposure. Lumiform panes are often appropriated as protective wear against radiation.


Telerotorscope: A gyroscopic telescope mounted to a free-moving base, which can actively track a target even during the wildest movement.


Younee-Fabb: A universal constructor that assembles materials on the atomic level. Younee-Fabbs require an absolutely immense amount of power - the only known working model aboard the Fordek is powered by a cold fusion engine, and kept in the hands of the Kohmandar.


Greese: Lubricant extracted from moving machinery aboard the DISCO. Comes in two varieties - black and red. Black greese (also called "oyl") is a highly flammable accelerant used for starting fires and in the production of certain drugs. Red greese (called "sewpur-loob") is non-flammable and extremely slick, rendering a surface almost entirely frictionless. Sewpur-loob is highly toxic if ingested or introduced into the bloodstream.


Flooid: There are five primary types of flooid to be extracted from the DISCO - Andifrees, drawlik, patch, egniter, and kleenur. Andifrees is highly toxic, and does not freeze solid, even in the vacuum of space. Drawlik is pulled from piston hoses, and can be safely consumed as a substitute for water in a pinch. Patch is a viscous, tar-like compound used to temporarily seal bulkhead breaches and damaged gaskets. Egniter is a simple fuel used in lanterns, stoves and pilot lights. Kleenur is a citrus-scented, all-purpose detergent. Almost all flooids can be synthesized into new substances through proper chemistry.


Fewel: A highly-combustible silver liquid that, when compressed, becomes incredibly explosive. It is vital for life in the lower decks. A single teaspoon of fewel can burn cleanly for nearly a cycle, making it the go-to choice for heating areas of the ship without iyostrips, or use as a light source in areas without lumiforms. Fewel can also be processed to release oxygen in makeshift aerators.


Alkol: Synthetic alcohol, distilled and processed from flooids like egniter, kleenur, or andifrees.


Barleekorn: A hybrid of barley and corn, capable of growing with minimal light in a thin layer of synthetic soil. Hulled barleekorn can be eaten by itself, though it is usually mixed to make nutripaste.


Nutripaste: A thick green paste of barleekorn puree, cultivated fungi, and flavor additive synthesized from kleenur. Crushed cockroaches and rat meat is usually added to make a more complete meal.


Sweet-Paste: Nutripaste that has been sweetened with artificial saccharides made using a highly-secretive chemical process.

15 Starting Missions on the UESF DISCO

Example missions to undertake for the denizens of the UESF DISCO Fordek:

1) As part of a grand copper heist into Kohman Bredj-Own, a band of Ubberunk thieves would like you to secure safe passage into a Madbi room with a window to the outside. The plan also requires space suits, a mile of tensile cable, and something strong enough to cut through the ship's outer hull.


2) The Equalizers of Lewahdek need batteries to power electromagnetic shoes for use in zero-gravity. Go steal a few stockpiles from the Sawseers in Man-Ketchun; a gambler named Big Ardoo has some locations scouted out already - he's passed out drunk somewhere in the Colnis Podes.


3) The Rusty Shivs have pissed off the Children of Freezers, and are being hunted down one by one. Skinny Steef of the Shivs will pay for safe passage out to the lowest decks on the ship. Jaykub One-Eye of the Children offers twice as much if you bring Steef to him alive instead.


4) Merkis has been overcharging shoppers in Manetube for TenMils, and most everyone avoids his wares. Suddenly some Kohman have a vested interest in paying for his goods at twice what he charges, and his competitor Jaw-Nothin wants to know what he's up to. Merkis delivers unmarked crates to a ballroom in the Kohman Bulk every cycle


5) Kafreen is an orphan living with a large family on a barleekorn farm in Argodek. One day her neighbors stopped by to find the family slaughtered and the child missing. Bite marks and scratches on the scene points the blame to a mutated rat swarm from Lewahdek or possibly cannibals from Man-Ketchun, but her best friend Little Johee thinks he saw "The Big Crawlee" take her.

The Many Decks of Fordek (Part 3)

Read Part 2 Here

The bow half of the UESF DISCO consists of many hundreds of decks, divided among fifteen distinct sections. Below is a light summary of what you can expect to see in five of them:

Lewahdek

Perpetually dimmed by lumiform vandalism, starved of clean air due to iyostrip damage, and low on water from doopak scarcity, Lewahdek can be a tough place to make into a home. One of the first parts of the ship to be plundered dry in the early days of recovery, the majority of these section decks have a distinct "brutalism" architectural vibe, as they were originally designed to hold terraforming workshops and machinery storage. The lowest decks of this section serve to house massive bays of Yaw-Control Engines ("Yacks"), where impoverished workers brave radiation poisoning to extract the precious deposits of greese, fewel, and flooids held in high demand by the upper decks.

The pilfered infrastructure of Lewahdek and the extreme poverty of its denizens necessitate the tending of enormous colonies of rats for food; rat farms are plentiful, and also the source of many great epidemics that plague the ship. It is not uncommon for entire decks to be quarantined (sometimes violently) by panicked shipmates. It is equally not uncommon for feral, often mutated rat swarms to break from their farms and descend upon the hapless dwellers of Lewahdeck, consuming all in a ravenous blood frenzy.

Fire outbreaks also pose a constant threat to the folk here - fewel depots are prone to explode if not properly maintained, and many a tucked-away drug laboratory has burst into flame during production. Because most fire control doors have been stripped of copper wire and synthetic gaskets, the blazes are left unchecked, and are able to scour the life from entire decks in a short time.

The Many Decks of Fordek (Part 2)

Read Part 1 Here

The bow half of the UESF DISCO consists of many hundreds of decks, divided among fifteen distinct sections. Below is a light summary of what you can expect to see in five of them:

Madbi

The decks of the Madbi section are prowling with lunatics, death cults, killers, cannibals, and all manners of folk who have been locked away for the general safety of DISCO's citizens. Originally a medical wing and ship's brig/asylum, most if not all of Madbi has been scoured and vandalized to the point of non-recognition by billions of rotations of bedlam. The only luxury to be found here is a safe corner in which to stow away from the other murderers and maniacs, most of whom have been born and raised as hearty survivalists and terrible brutes through generations of rape and inbreeding.

Access to Madbi is tightly controlled by enforcers from all factions, as everyone on the ship has a vested interest in preventing a mass escape - nonetheless, there are a few instances of the occasional crafty madman winding his way through air ducts towards freedom. Only the desperate have reasons to physically wander the decks here, and those venturing into Madbi must adhere to rigorous security screenings and arduous red-tape regulations - most outsiders are mercenaries sent on recovery missions to rescue kidnapped aristocrats, or to assassinate hidden liabilities as a means of wrapping up loose ends for powerful clients.

The Many Decks of Fordek (Part 1)

The bow half of the UESF DISCO consists of many hundreds of decks, divided among fifteen distinct sections. Below is a light summary of what you can expect to see in five of them:

Bredj-Too

Holding vantage at the top of the DISCO, access to Bredj-Too is strictly controlled by specific members of the Kohman caste known as "The Wise". Compartments in this section are some of the best-maintained on all the ship, and contain a wide array of sensitive equipment and specially calibrated navigation tools. At the fore of this section is a massive stellar observatory with an assortment of devices called "telerotorscopes", which allow The Wise to chart the courses of celestial bodies even while the DISCO remains in a constant spin. Those who normally keep away from windows and portholes will become instantly nauseated upon entry, as the mass of spinning space moving in all directions around them is extremely disorienting to those without special practice in its observation.

A central control room originally intended for control of the ship by human pilots dominates three central decks in this section, though ancient looters and a lack of power have since rendered it almost entirely nonfunctional. Many of the original consoles and navigational gauges have been replaced over the cycles as part of a rebuilding effort by Kohman Preservationists, and The Wise are hard at work trying to get Bredj-Too back online. Unfortunately, this makes the command room a juicy target for heists from the lower decks.

The aft chambers of this section hold archival rooms that have since been converted to private quarters, stockpiles, and living facilities for The Wise, as well as communication rooms stripped of electronics and charting rooms that no man has yet been able to decipher in any usable fashion.

UESF DISCO - A Post-Apoc Space Civilization Reboot Setting

No human alive knows when or where the DISCO was originally built - any literature on the subject not burned many BilSpins ago to warm the families of the bow was most likely destroyed during the Mutant Heresy. According to legends whispered among the citizens of Fordek, the massive vessel comes originally from the NOoF (Nearer Orb of Flame), though the concept is laughable in modern academia; after all, how could such a marvel of technology possibly be developed inside an inferno? Many now contend that the most sensible origin of the DISCO is the Point of Little Grey, although Kohman telerotorscopes have yet been unable to pinpoint any sort of civilization on the rocky surface. At any rate, few aboard have the time, inclination, intelligence, or luxury of pondering such things...

Enter the decks of the UESF DISCO - a truly colossal wonder of ancient civilization, stuffed to the bulkheads with all manner of freaky individuals and wondrous locales. Roam the floors of Fordek and mingle with all sorts of oddball characters and absurdist factions, from the snobbish academics of Kohman Bredj-Too who work tirelessly day in and out to gain sense of bearing in the black void, to the impoverished masses and rat breeders of the twisting darkness in Lewahdek, to the deranged hoarding cannibals that nest in Man-Ketchun.

If you plan on testing your mettle, do as the young braves of Creeyo-Stasi-Own do and cross the Fractured Gap of Inky Fires over to ERIES, where you can go toe-to-toe with all manners of mutant (the slathering, shifty Valits, the chaotic and oddly-insightful Mashiniks, or the unspeakably brutish yet unscrupulously hygienic Maydee). If you're lucky, you might find an unsealed Argoba stuffed to the brim with pristine supplies, but be on the lookout for rampaging Shinefolk - their strength is many orders of magnitude greater than that of any man. The Kohmandars claim that the ERIES was shunted a few million rotations back by some outside force... who knows what unspeakable thing may have been unleashed in the depths of Gindek?

About UESF DISCO

UESF DISCO (the United Earth Super Freighter DISCOVERIES) is my intended setting aboard a derelict super colony ship, left to twist in space above the charred remains of Earth after a catastrophic engine explosion ripped the craft in two. This setting is filled with all manner of factions, having to start societies from scratch all over again after awaking completely anew from cryonic sleep. Play is divided between the settled cabins of the ship's bow (the Forward Deck, or "Fordek"), where player interaction is tantamount to survival, and the chaotic radioactive remains of the ship's stern, ERIES, where paths to untouched riches must be carved in mutant blood, robotic lubricants, and alien plasma.

The UESF DISCO posts on this blog will serve as an ad-hoc gazette for such explorations, until such a time as we can assemble a properly packaged product intended for play. Be sure to check in periodically as we highlight people, factions, locations, foes and concepts intended for upcoming play in this exciting new setting!