Coventry--a campaign twist
 

Some praise it. Some fear it. Some compare it to a British or American Concentration Camp. (Few compare it to the Nazi camps. The British camps contained Boers, the American ones contained Japanese Americans—neither were intended to kill the people there.)

My interpretation of Coventry has a well defended fortress; the Infinite Headquarters. It’s one of the most secure places in the universe--a place where Infinity’s law prevails. All well and good, but for one minor problem.

No satellites, no DEW line, no space facilities. The only radar is designed to control the area right around headquarters.

To keep the squeamish happy, they have an assortment of Potemkin Villages, where life is “good,” and things like medical care are available for “free.” Life isn’t great, but it's stable. People are free to leave, but those who do are on their own. Most of the ones who leave don’t go too far, and live somewhat under the aegis of Infinity.

Others have gone further afield, including some that Infinity would rather…didn't. Some have died, some are monitored by drones, but others have faked their deaths in the wild. Now living in places that Infinity has not found, they are trying to bootstrap their technology, aided by stolen goods and some truly brilliant people. They wouldn’t be very far along, but they can listen electronically. Some have more psionic powers than Infinity realizes, and others are just inspired. Their base is in caves, helping hide their minimal emissions.

In a few generations, they might be an escape risk—perhaps sooner, if one scientist’s ideas are valid.

One fine evening, life changed for everyone. None noticed the occultation of the stars, or the silently descending survey ship. The spacefarers could clearly see that the planet was an outpost of a mid-tech range civilization. With stealth fields raided

The survey ship very quickly realized that this isn't a civilization's homeworld, but some form of colony. After a few weeks in orbit, they could tell that people were arriving and departing without space ships, and the demographics and settlement patterns were all too familiar: Coventry is a prison planet, of an unknown civilization that travels without space ships.

On realizing that, they leave post haste.

A few days/weeks/months later, a heavy cruiser arrives to begin first contact...

The idea here is that The Secret is effectively blown regarding the spacegoing civilization, but it won't do them any good--Coventry is only reachable with conveyors boosted by projectors on homeline. (At least for now.)

Interstellar technology does Homeline no good, either; it doesn't work on homeline.

Can of worms cracked, but not necessarily opened...

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

Interesting. I generally like twists which make a new rising star shake up the oligopoly that the interworld superpowers (Homeline, Centrum etc.) currently maintain in the setting, so as a consequence I like this one.

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

I thought that Coventry would be an interesting and viable place to hit the "no starships" suggestion. Interworld can't simply get a ship, and cross-time jump from elsewhere. The space travelers can't go crossworld, so the only viable point of contact is Coventry itself.

But--Interworld can't make the secret go away among the space travelers. And who would care to bet that there isn't a way, as yet undiscovered, to leave Coventry without a Projector's assistance...

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

I've often thought of a Jumper with cosmic allowing him to punch through such locked-in world lines.
Perhaps there could be unexpected synergy in one or more of the human prisoners and alien science/knowledge.

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

I like this. The first contact would be an excellent GURPS adventure, actually - you could write it from the POV of the spacefarers, the Infinity staff in charge, and from prisoners looking to take advantage of the situation.

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

Stardrive plus captured conveyor plus gadgeteer --> FUN!

The "aliens" might be genuine aliens, human in rubber suit aliens, or even genuine humans thrown across time and space long ago, settling a distant world involuntarily. That negative space wedgie, caused by someone, somewhen experimenting with unobatanium/a god in a mood/whatever could even be why Coventry is so hard to reach. Will the space-twisting of hyperspace drives open Coventry to other means of access? Close it off completely?

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

I don't know that the secret is necessarily blown, although it's certainly threatened.

If the aliens have no familiarity with parachronics, they may simply (!) assume the colony on Coventry was founded by an interstellar civilization that travels by means of wormhole stargates.

That's scary enough, especially if relativity is a thing in that universe. The notion that humans might open gateways to the past of the alien homeworld would have them dumping the contents of their cloacas, all by itself -- especially if the energy signature isn't all that high.

The aliens would, at the very least, feel they're tiptoeing through egg-shells scattered thickly across a field of Bouncing Betties.

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

IF the folks on Coventry travel by wormhole gates, that's interesting right there. The locals are decidedly primitive, which means they either FOUND wormhole gates, STOLE them, or they don't need high tech. This planet is a subject of grave concern. Ground based gates are a gamechanger however you look at it. The energy signature is trivially low--not even enough to get a small ship up to orbit, when you think about it.

Essentially any science fiction setting could be the one that arrives at Coventry. If you want to use a familiar one, it's even possible that Coventry is not Earth, but a planet around a nearby star--take a good dose of handwavium, but then you could insert your favorite Sci-Fi setting in there. (The fact that it's NOT EARTH could be a well guarded secret, or just one of the anomalys that make it the world that it is.

How would Captain Kirk react? Or Traveler's Third Imperium?

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

I don't think they'd ever send a gadgeteer to Coventry since gadgeteers bend the limits of possibility. If they couldn't recruit the gadgeteer then he'd go to one of the lesser known black sites where they keep the real threats under much closer supervision.

Re: Coventry--a campaign twist
 

If they know they have a gadgeteer...