Archived GM Notes: This page is unsealed GM-notes pertaining to BTW. It is not canonical to BTW. It main contain contradictions (even with itself), and preliminary ideas that were merely written down as I thought of them, for later consideration. The absence of something mentioned here from the canon does not necessarily mean that the party "missed" it, it could have been mooted for other reasons or simply discarded by me.
Synopsis: four parts.
1. Fresh out of Spacing School on New Iridia, Cullawine Bena discovers that Tuesday Bena, the first officer of the sleeper ship IS Pasithee is his great grandfather. Cullawine's good marks in the fusion technician specialization have landed him a job with the Great Iridian Transport Cooperative. Cull comes to grips with the fact that his great grandfather is barely older than his father, biologically speaking, having spend a total of forty-one years in hibernation with . Cull learns about the ship and his new job from Tuesday, and is introduced to the ship's company, and helps in the all-hands task of loading the passengers.
2. On the wake crew with three others (Tuesday, Doc & Eng), Cull, Moth and Charlie play cards (make the suites different and have elements taken from computer game jargon.) Charlie tells a story about space pirates. Moth leaves to go do her rounds on hibernating passengers, with Cull tagging along out of curiosity. The word is passed to rig the ship for wormhole passage; Cull goes to his wormhole station in engineering to bring in the radiators. The ship transits the wormhole.
3. The pirates wake up, pretending to be asleep until Doc notices one of them is not actually hibernating and a fight ensues in which she is knocked out. The pirates make their way to engineering, where Eng is killed after the pirates obtain the passwords by violence. Cull is wounded; the pirates blow the atmosphere but Moth helps Cull into an emergency space suit. Tuesday is safe in the control room but with no space suit (stolen by pirates). Charlie is killed by the atmo casualty because the pirates took his space suit. (Doc is in the hibernaculum and also safe, but still unconscious.) Moth and Cull fight drones controlled by the pirates before Tuesday is able to regain control of them and also open the small arms locker, but engineering would be too easy to defend. Then the pirates disable the wireless, preventing anyone from using the drones and also cutting off voice contact between Cull, Moth and Tuesday; Moth and Cull use suit radios. Believing the pirates have probably already cut off life support to the control room and that they must hurry (Tuesday's space suit was also stolen by the pirates - they took Tuesday's and Charlie's - fortunately the pressure tight compartmentalization of the control room saved him) - Moth and Cull decide to evict the pirates from engineering by going outside and removing a block of the radiation shadow shield. They hope to then manage to kill the pirates with small arms. Unfortunately, the pirates believe the ensuing radiation alarm is a ruse until the acute radiation sickness begins. Moth and Cull kill them and put the block back, then restore life support.
4. Things are mostly refixed, engineering is still hot though (and also they now have no engineer). Doc and Moth figure out how the pirates did what they did. Cull mulls continuing in spacing or not with Tuesday. He is thinking of maybe trying getting a job as a fusion tech on a station instead. Tuesday admits is spacing is not for everyone, but it is for him, as he is looking forward to seeing how things turn out, including with his own family. (He got to see a happy ending after his wife joined the cult)
Tuesday Bena, 25 -> ?? Bena, 22 -> Minsky Bena, 24 -> Cullawine Bena, 20
Tuesday is 91 c, 50 b.
Ship's Company: Captain, First officer, Second officer/astrogator, Engineer, three technicians/spacers, 2 x medic / hibernation technologist, steward / cook / logistics person.
Captain, female, 58 biologically, 87 chronologically, never married, three siblings in agriculture on New Iridia. She was smart and hardy but of humble origins and went to space to support her family financially.
First officer, male, 46 biologically, 91 chronologically, divorced, adult children biologically older than he is. Wife joined a singulatarian cult.
Astrogator, male, 31 biologically, 50 chronologically, married to engineer, no children.
Engineer, female, 33 biologically, 49 chronologically, married to astrogator, no children.
Technician 1, male, 20 biologically, 20 chronologically, never married, no children, great grandson of the First officer. Escaped a singulatarian cult. First journey.
Moth Jones, Technician 2, female, 25 b & 31 c, engaged, no kids, ex AWSF, planning to leave long range space travel soon.
Technician 3, male, 24 b & 29 c.
Medic 1, female, 24 b & c, her first trip.
Medic 2, female, 48 b & 49 c, a seasoned spacer.
Charlie, Steward, male, 62 b & 118 c. Developed a hibernation allergy.
A sleeper ship travelling from New Iridia to the Good Moons is subjected to an attempted hijacking by pirates who have boarded in hibernation and woken up with a time-delayed crash wakeup drug. The pirates wake up much later than they expected, because digestion (including of pill coatings) is greatly slowed by hibernation,
Anthology ideas: (The Human Accessible College) Story about the Human-Accessible College built by the Biran. Humans using saturation diving maybe? Big open spaces for the humans. Naturally freaks biran out but they have daredevils too...
(The Flight of the Reverse Engineers) Story about obtaining and reverse engineering the probe. Presumably Dirac had it. This could be during the war, the probe is snuck out for safekeeping because the enemy threaten to overrun the institute where it is kept and destroy it.
Pirate story (Crash Wakeup)
(Potato Cellar) Historical story. Involving farmers excavating a cellar digging up an old ship. A local history teacher and a physician become involved.