A (MOSTLY) HARD SCI-FI HORROR GOOD TIME

[dousing]

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU MEME Sure we've got your fun interplanetary romps, your space spaghetti westerns, your xenoromance. This is none of those things. This is you getting lost in the depths of space. This is you being stuck in a silent hulking dead ship with no idea where to turn. This is you hiding in the dark and hoping the creature doesn't see you. This is you, surviving some kind of horrors. Or not. Do your best.

THREAT • YOU HAVE MY SYMPATHIES Xenomorphs, facehuggers, necromorphs, predators, whatever: the threat you're up against is some kind of being you've never seen before. Perhaps they're engineered somehow, perhaps they've evolved this way. Either way, I hope you can figure out how to kill them before they kill you. • I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT Why the hell did we think building un-tethered AI was a good idea? Your threat is an android, or a ship's AI, or I don't know, a sentient race of evil ships that want to destroy all life and suck it into tubes to make a weird baby shaped ship. WHATEVER. The point is, technology is going against you. Can you beat out something with that much processing power? Maybe having bigger firepower will help. • I LOVE... ROCKS Your threat is environmental. An exploding sun, an alien planet with an inhospitable atmosphere, your ship's life support systems have failed, your shuttle has gone down in flames. Can you cobble together some way to fix the problem before you all die? • THIS IS NOT A RESCUE SHIP Screw the other problems, what you're up against are HUMANS. Or, you know, whatever species/race matches yours. We're not xeno-racist here. Anyway, you're being targeted by your own. Maybe you're in the way of a scientific development, or you've become expendable, or they want to take over your ship, or they're just plain evil. • ABOUT 15 SECONDS Holy shit. Holy... shit. You were outside your ship making repairs and you got knocked off track. Maybe your fancy magnetic boots failed. Maybe some debris from your ship took you down with it. Either way, your space walk has become a space "holy shit help I'm going to get spaced, someone get me back on board." Try not to panic. • WE'RE THE ENEMIES You've been out in space too long. Everything is going strange and everything is a threat. Is your space sickness psychological or physiological? Is it spreading? Is there a cure? LOCATIONS • PLANETSIDE Crash landed. In an outpost. Building a new life. You're on a planet not your own and things are going horribly wrong. What can you do when you have no way home? • STATION SWEET STATION Whether you're out in your ship or in a streamlined space station, things are rotten in Denmark. You'd better fix that circuitry before you all die. Just a suggestion. • THE GAPING MAW There's nothing around you and all you can hear is your breathing. Are you calm? Panicked? What's it like floating in the vast expanse of space? • IT'S INEVITABLE You're lost in your own head. You can be anywhere, but maybe you're the threat because you've short-circuited from being in space too long. The mind can only take so much. Try to be gentle. Try to breathe. No one's after you, it's all in your head. As always, these are just suggestions. Also, not all examples are strictly hard sci-fi but we do what we want in these parts. Make up anything you want, as long as you're having fun!

Comments

jim kirk | star trek aos

[willrevile]

[tactical_alert]

So a research station that's got a section dedicated to AI research has unveiled the latest in autonomous ship sailing, bent on finding ever safer ways to explore the galaxy without putting crews of hundreds or thousands at risk. Enterprise has been mentioned in the briefings and salesman-like boasts. Several times. Which is fair.

And is probably a reason why they're one of the crews to come dock at the station and witness the latest version's test run. If it could...if it could make split-second decisions in times of danger, reaction times faster than any being known, maybe there would be less risk of vaporization. Etc. The data is promising, they are assured. Every failsafe is, of course, in place.

Naturally the entire station is currently on a quarantine level lockdown because the AI has decided to "save" the crew from themselves, failsafes be damned, failing, ignored, ineffective, or just plain worked around. Something something the unpredictable dangers of several of the races involved, primarily humans, that old story.

SABRA, as the Syntech Asymmetrical Biomechanical Reactionary Artifice has been shortened to, was given just enough control of just enough of the station to learn how to trigger certain subroutines and take over entirely. And what do you know, GLaDOS SABRA is also trying to gain access to Enterprise, and figure out how to do all sorts of fun things from the other research labs on the station.

It is, for instance, systematically gassing rooms and hallways with chemicals to 'placate' the crew. So far, placate really means just knock unconscious until it can decide what to do later, but everyone's pretty sure they've seen a movie like this before, so who knows what it'll do when the gloves are off.

So here's Kirk and Reed in a crawlspace not filled with knockout gas, trying to find their way to the AI core, where their plan currently is to try and talk SABRA down, and, failing that, shoot the hell out of it. Solid plan. Good plan. Can't possibly backfire.

Nyota Uhura | Star Trek AOS | OTA

[phonetical]

guess what it's xenomorphs

[willrevile]

"I want to say 'I'm sure it's fine,' but given the last few years, I'm skeptical of my own optimism," he says as their path leads them to another dead-end. The abandoned space station - where they were scheduled to meet a diplomat and escort him and his team to the nearest Federation world - is a maze of levels and tunnels more winding than the engineering depths of the Enterprise. The docking bay was malfunctioning and the force field around the station is old enough to prevent beaming over, but they jury-rigged their way in anyway - just the Captain and communications officer, enough to look good politically and reprogram the force field to allow them to leave once they'd collected their guests.

But no. There's barely any power, the main controls have been routed to a panic room somewhere in the center of the station, they can't find the diplomats, and trying to communicate within the ship is proving impossible with mis-matched tech and no power. Jim pries open a control panel next to the closed door and swears quietly. What a day.

montgomery scott • star trek aos

[kludging]

Re: montgomery scott • star trek aos

[logicabounds]

At first, the strange 'quirks' of the ship had been amusing. Everyone had thought that the way the interface would occasionally defy orders or spontaneously start music had been a welcome diversion from the monotony of day-to-day activities. But that had stopped about a week ago when a door shut on an ensign and crushed his ribcage. From there, the 'quirks' had become far less entertaining.

Oxygen randomly shut off without any warning being given. Doors locked, trapping people inside their rooms until someone came and had to literally cut them out. Phasers firing at random times, torpedoes launching, air locks opening to the void of space.

The first fatality was a lieutenant in the mess hall who had replicated a tomato soup and had, instead, gotten something laced with peanuts. The one thing they were deathly allergic to. A coincidence, one might say (and they had), but the coincidences didn't seem to stop. Another death due to electrocution. Another due to a hypospray formula being incorrectly displayed. It was as though the ship were trying to kill them. And with the Enterprise suddenly incapable of warp, it seemed to have all the time in the world to do so.

Spock walked into engineering after being told, once more, that the communications they were trying to send out were being rerouted back toward themselves. This was a ship problem. A massive one, of course. But a ship problem, nevertheless. And there was only one person on this ship Spock had faith in to solve it.

"What is your progress?" he asked, a PADD gripped behind his back which held the report of yet another serious injury in the mess hall. This time with a stove top literally exploding when used. "Have you located the source of these malfunctions, yet?"

John Wayne Cleaver | I Am Not A Serial Killer etc. | OTA

[john_the_brave]

Howard Stark | MCU | OTA

[nameditforhim]

Clark Kent | DCU/DCEU | OTA

[stands_for_hope]

Malcolm Reed | Star Trek Enterprise

[tactical_alert]

Leonard McCoy | Star Trek AOS

[oldfashionedfutureboy]

Re: Leonard McCoy | Star Trek AOS

[logicabounds]

Spock isn't quite sure what to say, now. Because surely silence won't help things, but what else could he possibly say that would have any sort of comfort whatsoever to Leonard? All the polished words in the world won't stop them from being stuck in a shuttle, aimlessly drifting along in the void. And what immediately comes to mind is probably the last thing Leonard wants to talk about. But, in the end, it is likely better than silence. So.

"It is fascinating that the anomaly was able to compromise our systems the way it did. And with so brief of a contact." Life support (for now) was still operational. But with the increasing time spent out here, the computers were slowly fading out, no matter how much work Spock put into keeping them active.

They were adrift. And with the anomaly that took their propulsion and communications out heading in the direction of the Enterprise, Spock wasn't sure how likely it was that help would be coming, soon. It was for that reason that the Vulcan had not offered any platitudes about how he was sure they would be fine.

Vulcans did not lie.

But, at the same token, they were not intentionally cruel.

"I understand you have a phobia that could be exacerbated by this situation, Doctor. If you have the means of formulating a sedative, I would see no reason not to administer it." Beside them, an alarm went off, signalling something else petering out and dying. Not life support. As long as that one system stayed on, they had hope.

alec hardison • leverage

[smartphone]

chang wufei • gundam wing

[nuozha]

[ I'm still catching up on some older tags, but I'd love to do this too. My jam (tm). ]

Ensign Chekov || Star Trek: AOS

[ican_dozat]

james t. kirk, star trek: aos.

[wins]

kara zor-el, dcu.

[crisised]

Scarecrow | Batman Arkham Knight | ota

[doctor_terror]

Lockdown | Transformers Animated | OTA

[ruthless_hunter]

Kerr Avon | Blake's 7 | ota

[hipdeepinheroes]

[immortal_pirate]

It was many centuries and many light years away from the first time Morgan Flint had captained a pirate ship. It might not be on water, but it was still a ship and he was still very much a pirate.

Which meant he had a ship to sell to the Shipbreaker on Gannus. It was a small planet far off the beaten track, but big enough to have a spaceport that served a small mining colony. Morgan sold the stolen luxury ship at the Navenna, the bar that the Breaker used as his office. They'd made a good sum selling this one. Luxy ship like her, with all the bells and whistles. Plenty enough to split between his crew of five and keep them happy with enough left over for his own needs. Even though he was tempted to keep her. Morgan lifted the heavy satchel to his shoulder. It was stuffed with gold and silver, and enough packing to keep the metal from clanking around and attracting attention. Still, there were very few who would walk down the street of a strange planet with a bag full of money over their shoulder as if it was nothing more important than their laundry.

Princess Allura | Voltron: Legendary Defender | ota

[portraystrength]

Kubo | Kubo and the Two Strings

[ifyoumustblink]

[modern space au i guess lol]

Sawamura Eijun | Daiya no Ace

[deadball]

Eas | Fresh Pretty Cure

[switch_over]

All Might (Toshinori Yagi) | My Hero Academia

[one_for_all]

Abel | Starfighter (Comic) | M/M

[reliantnav]

Bulma Briefs | Dragonball Z

[capsulate]

Hikaru Sulu | Star Trek

[maneuvers]

wendy lin | the cabin in the woods.

[chemtech]