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Old 04-23-2020, 12:51 PM   #11
Irish Wolf
 
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

A person with more wealth than sense is attempting to uplift a number of pre-sapient species to full human intelligence. Some of them have become sufficiently sapient to resent their treatment, which is, shall we say, less than hospitable and probably not in accord with ethical experimentation protocols. Think the evolved mole rats in Fallout 4's Vault 81, or The Island of Dr. Moreau.
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Old 04-23-2020, 01:46 PM   #12
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

All of the socks that have ever disappeared from the dryer.

The "L" from the Motor Pool.

Nothing--they're too late (the RPG equivalent of "Your princess is in another castle" trope).
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Old 04-23-2020, 02:39 PM   #13
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

There is an alien race of sophonts with a mysterious ability that should be impossible. But the govenrment has embargoed the planet for the protection of the natives, or to protect the universe from the natives' ability, or because they don't want anyone else researching it.

The lab has obtained members of this race and are researching the ability in illegal and unethical ways that are major violations of the Sophont Rights Accords.
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Old 04-23-2020, 03:50 PM   #14
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

Who in the party has real science skills? I mean for all intents and purposes it could be anything in that lab. They could be making a synthetic recreational drug or a tomato that tastes like bacon. All your PCs would find a rooms full of centerfuges, sample refrigerators and refrigerated server blade farms crunching DNA sequencing.
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Old 04-23-2020, 05:54 PM   #15
Luke Bunyip
 
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
An Ancient artifact, of course, of mysterious function.

<snip>

It's actually just an Ancient equivalent of a Rubik's Cube, and does nothing.
This! By the gods, both old and new, please use this!
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Old 04-23-2020, 10:13 PM   #16
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

They're duplicating people. They can go beyond conventional cloning techniques, and starting with a tissue sample, create something like a ghola from Dune, or a clone from old TV-SF, the new entity can be brought to maturity in a growth tank in no more than, say, a year, and has the knowledge and memories and skills and personality of the tissue donor at the time the tissue was taken.

Right now, they're still getting the bugs out, including the issue of how to control the 'clone'. But they're close, and they've somehow got a tissue sample from one Strephon Alkhalikoi ...
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Old 04-24-2020, 08:41 AM   #17
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

They're perfecting an ingenious and undetectable method of counterfeiting Imperial currency.
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Old 04-27-2020, 05:21 AM   #18
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Default Re: So, what's in this secret lab?

Being Traveller, the classics are...
  1. Ancient Artifact
  2. disease agents (cure/weaponize... once the patent gets out, it's both anyway)
  3. Psionics.
  4. An Ancient Base under the research station

Note that CT A3 has, at its end..,
Spoiler:  


One could easily twist that last to a different precusor civ... we've got at least 2 in the Marches alone. (See DA1 and A3+12). If there were only one in canon, one could argue for uniqueness. But given the two, it's likely there are more. Plus DGP materials give at least 1 more.

Potential pre-Imperial (as in pre-Vilani Imperium) spacefaring species
Spoiler:  
Note that not all of these are strictly speaking acient, just pre-contact. It's entirely possible that the S. are a significant radiation...

And its also possible, given 300K years, that there have been 2, 3, or 4 interstellar groups predating Vland's entry to the stars that died off, having spread a few Ancients' human leavings to more places.

Any of these make for great fun playing with expectations...
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