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The Official Space Cases Bible
THE SHIP
A)
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Her Name, Her Make-up
The "Christa" is the name of our traveler's vessel, according to Thelma,
named for a famous Earth teacher who died in space. It has the general shape and
appearance of a vast bird of prey. It's damned big... about the size of an aircraft
carrier, so there's always new places within heÕðúBiting to be explored.
The Christa is powered by solar energy, gathered when the ship's wings spread to reveal
vast solar sails connected from the fuselage to the outer tip of the wingspread. (This
action is always accompanied by a loud honking noise that no one can figure out how to
fix.) When travelling from planet to planet, the Christa glides using the sail wings. This
uses almost no energy from the ship's batteries, since the solar energy pushes the vessel
along.
When travelling interstellar, the Christa is capable of spreading her wings wider for
maximum power absorption and jumping to FTL (Faster Than Light) drive. However, FTL travel
drains energy faster, and the ship will always have to come out of FTL warp and power up
once more using the sails.
The interior of the Christa has a crystalline look to it. Everything is accessed by
touching small arrays of crystals in a certain order. Unfortunately, keeping that order
straight is not always possible, plus it's easy to pull the wrong crystal. So an endeavor
to do something simple like, say, open a door, can instead drop you through a trap door.
Everything on the ship folds up or swivels out. For instance, when the navigation
station is accessed, a section of wall swivels around to reveal the gleaming
instrumentation (plus the occasional unflattering portrait of Davenport taped on it.)
The Christa is a source of continuous revelation. Since there's no instruction book,
the crew is always feeling its way. There's always hope that some new discovery might
reveal the secrets as to the ship's origins and ultimate purpose... and might even speed
them on their way home... unless, of course, it winds up blowing the ship to smithereens.
An entire episode can be powered by some new finding aboard the Christa (although we must
avoid the temptation to pull a convenient deus ex machina; the ship's mystery
exists to get us into situations, not out of them.)
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B)
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"T.C."
"T.C." stands for "The Computer." It's the shipboard information
retrieval system, which communicates verbally accompanied by flashing control panel
lights. Unfortunately, T.C. (like Thelma) did not survive the trip from
wherever-it-came-from with all cylinders clicking. T.C. suffers from M.P.D.... Multiple
Programming Disorder. Every episode, the poor thing thinks it's someone else. It's the
electronic equivalent of Murphy Brown's secretary, except that in our case, it's all
recognizable personalities. One week it's talking like Robert DeNiro ("You
programming at me? You gotta be programming at me...ain't nobody else here..."), the
next week it's Mister Rogers ("Can you say 'Collision Course?' I thought you
could...") Consequently, extracting information... or even getting it to do what you
want... is very much a hit-or-miss affair.
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C)
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Intraship Travel
If you're going to another place on the same deck, you can just walk out the door. If,
however, you want to get somewhere quickly, take a Tube. These are people-sized holes in
the wall with bars across the top that you grab on to as you jump into them feet first.
The Tubes run pneumatically through the ship. Next to any Tube hole is a crystal control
pad that you use to program your destination, and then you're automatically routed there
(at least in theory). All standing sets have visible Tube exit/entrances.
If one is going to be entering a private room (as opposed to the Team Room or Command
Post) it is standard that one "call ahead" on a comm panel for permission to
enter. "Dropping in" is extremely rude, and only to be done in maximum
emergency. Furthermore, private rooms have "lids" that can be swung up and
locked into place for privacy... which means if you don't call ahead and get the lid
lifted, you'll get creamed against it. Running gag: Davenport never gets where she sets
out to go since Harlan has somehow managed to permanently screw up her personal access
codes.
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D)
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Intership Travel
Travel between ships is accomplished via "Spaceway," a futuristic version of
a Jetway (the ramp that connects an airplane to the terminal). An optical effect (and
therefore to be used sparingly), the Spaceway is an energy corridor composed of
concentrated graviton particles. Generated from the underbelly of the Christa, it locks in
on an access portal in whatever ship is being boarded. Once the locking process is
complete, our crew accesses the Spaceway via Tube, and "slide" into wherever
they're going (visible as shadows from outside the Spaceway.) Spaceways are also used for
access from space stations to ships (that's how they got from the Starcademy to the
Christa, for instance)
The range of the Spaceway is limited, however. If we ever actually go to a planet
somewhere, the Christa simply lands like a space shuttle.
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