TEXT: An e23 Sourcebook for GURPS
  ®
  STEVE JACKSON GAMES
  Stock #37-1120
  Version 1.0 – February 8, 2007
  ®
  TM
  Written by STEFAN JONES
  Edited by STEVE JACKSON
  
  CONTENTS
  2
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  GURPS System Design ❚ STEVE JACKSON
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  CONTENTS
  TWENTY-SIX
  ADVENTURE SEEDS  . . . . . . . 3
  A IS FOR ANIMAL URN  . . . . . . . . 3
  B IS FOR BED OF DREAMS  . . . . . 3
  C IS FOR CLYDE’S DILEMMA  . . . . 4
  D IS FOR DICTATOR IN A BOX . . . 5
  E IS FOR EPHEMERAL GIFTS . . . . 5
  F IS FOR FORSAKEN ZOO  . . . . . . 6
  G IS FOR GODMAKER  . . . . . . . . . 6
  H IS FOR HAB SEED . . . . . . . . . . 7
  I IS FOR INHERITANCE STICK  . . . 7
  J IS FOR JAN’S ERROR . . . . . . . . . 7
  K IS FOR KING RAPID BLUE  . . . . 8
  L IS FOR LARRY PRIN’S ARMY
  OF DARKNESS REVUE  . . . . . 9
  M IS FOR MILLION-WORLD
  GLOBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
  N IS FOR NI’ER DERELICT  . . . . 10
  O IS FOR ORANGE
  SYMPHONY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
  P IS FOR PAPER-MACHÉ
  PODS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
  Q IS FOR QBF  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
  R IS FOR THE ROMER
  GUTS GARDEN . . . . . . . . . . 11
  S IS FOR SALAMANDER TAP . . . . 11
  T IS FOR TALETELLER . . . . . . . . 12
  U IS FOR UNUSED PORTION  . . . 12
  V IS FOR VALUABLE PRIZES  . . . 13
  W IS FOR WILBUR  . . . . . . . . . . 13
  X IS FOR XYLOPHONE RATS  . . . 13
  Y IS FOR YALOW’S CACHE . . . . . 14
  Z IS FOR ZERO-ZERO-ZERO
  DEED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
  
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  3
  THE MACGUFFIN
  ALPHABET:
  TWENTY-SIX ADVENTURE SEEDS
  BY STEFAN JONES
  One of the first SF magazines I got my hands on contained
  Harlan Ellison’s “The Chocolate Alphabet,” a collection of 26
  short vignettes about odd stuff. He’d written it while sitting in a
  store window or some such. Although I can only remember one
  of the items (“Elevator People”), I admired the form. This is my
  contribution to it.
  Alfred Hitchcock invented the term MacGuffin to refer to
  an object – a statue of a falcon, the prototype of an advanced
  bomb sight, a book containing a secret code – which a story’s
  characters are after. Hitchcock did not believe the nature of
  the object was important. The characters never use the
  MacGuffin; its utility lies outside the scope of the story. It’s
  simply there for a character to unwittingly lose (or come to
  possess), leading to shots in the dark, encounters with femme
  fatales, attempted kidnappings, and fistfights on parapets.
  I don’t care for the neutral aspect of MacGuffins. It’s a bit
  cynical, and a bit of a cheat. I mean, what fun would Star Wars
  be if the story ended when its MacGuffin – the Death Star tech-
  nical readouts – were simply delivered to the Rebels? I like
  MacGuffins that do something. Here is an alphabet of
  MacGuffins; objects around which adventures may be woven,
  unless they’re just there to just distract or baffle.
  A IS FOR ANIMAL URN
  B IS FOR BED OF DREAMS
  The Tirsopi have cremated their dead for millennia.
  Burning a corpse frees the deceased’s soul from earthly ties,
  allowing it to begin its journey to its proper level of the after-
  life. Only the worst sorts of criminals are buried.
  After a fabulously complex ritual, the ashes of the deceased
  are mixed with clarified butter and pounded into a special urn
  shaped like an animal. The type of animal is determined in
  part by the person’s character, but mostly by a council of polit-
  ically connected elders who weigh in on the beloved’s social
  worth. Snakes, mice, and pigeons are reserved for ne’er do
  wells and tithe-cheats. Turtles and cows do for most people.
  The ashes of high-born and heroes are packed into images of
  the noble otter, brave wolf, or crafty pig.
  Most urns are glazed clay. The wealthy may commission
  urns of bronze or polished lead. The urns are stored in minia-
  ture straw houses built in catacomb niches. There they must
  rest undisturbed for a thousand years, lest the soul’s transition
  to the afterlife be disrupted. Unfortunately for the survivor’s
  peace of mind, each urn, however humble, has a precious gem
  hidden in it. This treasure is presented by the spirit to the
  celestial authorities at the end of its journey; too often, this
  baksheesh ends up in the pockets of grave robbers.
  A queen-sized bed, with a platform and headboard of aus-
  tere but elegant design, fashioned from glossy, dark gray wood
  whose grain resembles fish scales. Four drawers for storing
  linens are built into the base of the bed. Connoisseurs of fine
  furniture will note a resemblance to a line of bespoke furnish-
  ings sold to the very wealthy; however, there are no maker’s
  marks or labels.
  The bed is wonderfully comfortable. A sliding panel in the
  headboard conceals controls to adjust the mattress’ firmness
  and temperature and to create a program of nature sounds and
  subtle white noise to lull the occupant to sleep. There is even a
  device for spicing the air with mild aromatherapy scents. It
  would be hard not to get a good night’s sleep in the bed.
  The bed’s features don’t end there. Concealed in the base
  are a brain scanner, a cerebral stimulator, and a powerful but
  specialized neural-net computer. These devices are accessed
  by a remote control that the bed’s designers didn’t intend for
  the sleeper to know about, much less use.
  
  After several weeks analyzing a particular sleeper’s brain,
  the computer will be able to detect his emotional state, and on
  command trigger a hypnogogic trance. This awesome, exhila-
  rating, “waking dreaming” state is believed to be behind
  reports of alien abductions, visits by angels, and assaults by
  succubi. Left to himself, the sleeper’s subconscious mind will
  fill in the details, resulting in vivid good dreams or bad night-
  mares. In any case, the subject will become subtly addicted to
  the experience.
  At this point, a controller with access  to the remote can
  then direct the bed to add emotional cues to the trance, using
  scents, pheromones and audio clues. With skill and practice,
  an operator can induce specific scenarios, such as “lusty
  encounter” or “fearful pursuit.” The sleeper’s subconscious
  mind fills in the details. The pursuer in a chase situation, 
  for example, might be a flock of evil crows, a pack of wolves,
  or a clown with a chainsaw, depending on the sleeper’s 
  subconscious fears.
  Operating the bed requires a Brainwashing-4 skill roll, and
  can only be attempted once per eight hours of sleep. The sub-
  ject can resist the assault with an opposed Dreaming skill roll.
  The operator can gain bonuses and penalties for familiar-
  ity with the subject (-2 for a complete stranger, +1 for a
  stranger with well known likes and dislikes, +2 for a close
  friend, and +4 for a family member), days the bed has had to
  prep the subject (-2 for under a week, +2 for over three
  weeks), and the number of previous attempts (+1 for every
  success, +2 for every non-critical failure).
  A successful roll allows the operator to effectively set the
  subject’s mood for the day, reduce or raise morale, and pass on
  vague but compelling oracular advice or warnings. This can
  also be used in conjunction with traditional uses of the
  Brainwashing skill – a successful use of the Bed grants a +2 to
  any other use of the Brainwashing skill that day.
  “Hey . . . stop, don’t put in the application!”
  Mulrich looked up from his terminal. Ledner had stopped
  by a window and was pointing at something in the rear 
  lot. “That’s a Woodring Dynamic, isn’t it?” he asked, “Is it
  available?”
  The sales manager cringed, but joined him at the window.
  “The craft is for sale,” Mulrich said, “but there are . . .”
  “I can’t say I like the paint job,” Ledner interrupted, “but if it’s
  in running condition I’m buying it. My purser and mechanic
  spent ten years serving on a Dynamic and told me they’d take a
  pay cut if they had a chance to work on one again.”
  “The Clyde’s Dilemma is in very good condition, but, as you
  say, the paint job . . . ah . . .”
  “I can live with that.”
  “Well, there’s the matter of its history. You see . . .”
  Ledner laughed. “What is it? Shady title? Death ship? If the
  price is right . . .”
  “No, we have clear title from the one previous owner and no
  one died on it as far as I know, it’s just . . .”
  “Well then,” Ledner interrupted, “if you don’t mind I’d like to
  see it.”
  Mulrich dialed Kumar. “Muniz? Mr. Ledner would like to see
  the Clyde.”
  “You hold off on that paperwork until I get back,” said Ledner
  as he headed for the stairs. Once he’d gone Mulrich sat down and
  debated whether to blank the contract for the Astron Systems
  Percheron that Ledner was ready to pay a premium for mere min-
  utes before. He held off until he heard a half-expected cry of dis-
  gust and surprise through the rear window.
  The deal breaker strikes again, he thought, and pushed the
  delete button.
  The Dynamic Class Light Shuttle
  The Dynamic class orbital shuttles are sturdy, high-
  performance craft designed for operation in a wide range of
  atmospheres. They have limited VTOL capability and can be
  outfitted with a variety of landing gear, making them well
  suited for operation on frontier worlds. While the class is no
  longer in production, spares are widely available and used
  craft in good condition often get premium prices.
  The Clyde’s Dilemma was sold to Muskoga Survey Sciences,
  who modified it for duty as a laboratory ship. It served as a base
  station for research teams conducting biological and geological
  assays on candidate colony worlds. Muskoga commissioned
  other custom versions of the Dynamic class shuttle. Some were
  modified to carry and service exploration vehicles, such as
  ATVs, collapsible boats, and airships. Others were outfitted to
  transport biological specimens in secure, climate-controlled
  cages. The “town hall” variant was equipped with an extra 
  reactor, a water filtration plant, and a high-capacity telecom-
  munication station; these services could turn a tent city into a
  comfortable home away from home.
  The Clyde has two decks. On the upper deck are (from fore
  to aft):
  • The cockpit, with three acceleration couches, an elec-
  tronics cabinet, and a valuables locker.
  • An emergency supplies closet, with first aid kit, life rafts,
  three emergency evacuation spheres, and a gun rack.
  • An airlock with racks for three EVA suits and a cabinet
  with hull repair gear.
  • A mess closet with microgravity meal prep gear, cabinets
  for food stowage, a small freezer, and a water tank.
  • Passenger cabin with 12 acceleration couches, personal
  stowage lockers, and a small but elaborate entertainment cen-
  ter. A set of null-G exercise equipment is stowed in the ceiling.
  • A head, with a shower and miniature laundry usable in
  null-G and landside.
  • A larger closet outfitted with equipment lockers and sev-
  eral small sample freezers.
  The lower deck can be reached by hatches in the floor of the
  upper airlock and in a corridor to the rear of the passenger
  cabin. On either side of a central passageway are a cargo 
  bay (12’ x 35’ x 10’ high), a parts and spares locker, and a small
  airlock. At the aft end are hatches for inspecting the reactor
  and engines.
  The Clyde’s cargo bays have been outfitted as laboratory
  space. Work tables and equipment racks have been welded to
  the floors and walls. Extra lighting, power outlets, water taps,
  and data network wiring were also added. The rear 10’ of each
  bay is equipped with cargo nets and tie-downs for general
  stowage.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  4
  C IS FOR CLYDE’S DILEMMA
  
  The Deal Breaker
  Clyde’s Dilemma participated in four planetary surveys dur-
  ing its eleven years of service with Muskoga. Its last assign-
  ment was on Lewis Abner, a promising world being evaluated
  for colonization. The shuttle was infected by the “deal break-
  er” one night while grounded near an ancient, ruined city on
  the southern continent. On morning inspection, the survey
  crew noticed what was later described as a crop of “evergreen
  ivy” covering the lower third of the craft’s hull. The thin,
  almost gelatinous vines and needle-like leaves traced an intri-
  cate design on the hull, curling and kinking in patterns resem-
  bling Celtic knots or a pencil maze. The plants proved easy to
  remove 
  .
  .
  . 
  at 
  first. 
  The 
  researchers 
  took 
  samples and got on with their work.
  Because the vines avoided the shuttle’s windows, thruster
  nozzles and other external gear, the crew was not alarmed
  when, over the course of the next day, the vines spread over
  the entire hull. They got a bit nervous when their lift date
  approached. The vines had shed their leaves, hardened, and
  bonded with the Clyde’s hull. The pearly-blue strands resem-
  bled strands of “angel hair” spaghetti; a single filament could
  run for a hundred yards. Worse, it became apparent that the
  patterns formed pictures . . . tiny, intricate sketches of local
  animals, survey equipment, and expedition personnel! Many
  of these portraits showed the crew naked, contorted into
  strange positions, or doing improbable things. The Clyde’s
  captain likened the images to the doodling of a bored, 
  talented school child.
  Removing the tendrils proved difficult; they proved harder
  than the hull plating they clung to. A crewman working with
  a diamond grinding disk needed four hours to scrape off a
  square foot of the stuff. On completing its mission, Muskoga
  management ordered the Clyde to assume an elliptical orbit
  around Lewis Abner and make repeated, high-G aerobreaking
  maneuvers through the world’s atmosphere. This thoroughly
  sterilized the hull, but did nothing to remove the patterns. The
  shuttle was carried home in an evacuated carrier bay, and
  subject to a year of quarantine and study. When the tendrils
  proved to be paint resistant, the Clyde was quietly put up 
  for sale.
  Analysis showed that the living vines were a vector for a
  sophisticated nanotech mechanism. The filaments they
  deposited are a form of carbon tube, doped with a small but
  significant amount of a stable superheavy element. (A variety
  of superheavies were found in Lewis Abner’s soil, apparently
  industrial waste left by its long-ago inhabitants.) A few of the
  other plants found on the expedition proved to have nanotech
  “passengers,” and – while none of these proved harmful – the
  world was declared unfit for colonization.
  “Dictator kits” have been the subject of urban myth 
  and works of popular entertainment for decades. Some
  rumors claim the kit contains a mind-control machine, 
  others a nanotech culture capable of turning a “zero” into a
  charismatic giant.
  When an actual kit – a plain wooden crate full of books and
  quaint microfiche slides – was obtained by a crusading jour-
  nalist, people dismissed it as a hoax. Several dictator kits –
  some intact, some incomplete – have surfaced since then, and
  are prized by collectors of unusual books.
  In brief, the kit is a guide to manipulating media and polit-
  ical processes. The central text, a multi-volume work titled
  The Plan: An Effective Man’s Guide to Durable Leadership, is
  clearly written, brilliant, and cynical. Based on a chillingly
  analytical view of human social behavior, it provides a variety
  of ways of attaining political power, applicable to a variety of
  social systems. It includes hundreds of detailed case studies of
  political, economic, and military campaigns.
  The microfiche slides contain thousands of boilerplate
  posters, screenplays, articles, and other works designed for the
  aspiring dictator to customize and deploy in his rise to power.
  Also included are plans for electronic devices (such as a TL7
  phone system designed from the ground up for surveillance)
  and recipes for psychoactive drugs.
  An educated, widely-traveled person looking over these
  materials will recognize some of them from his travels, and
  conclude that at least some of the techniques described in “The
  Plan” are actually in use by the autocratic rulers of various
  colony worlds.
  None of the materials in the kit contain bylines, copyright
  dates, or any obvious clue to their origin. Analysis of the crate
  The Plan is shipped in reveals something quite chilling: The
  wood is from no known species of tree, and contains isotopes
  suggesting it was grown on a world in a distant part of the
  galaxy.
  Somewhere along the line, the austere Dardiradad tradition
  of grudging but automatic hospitality (which included the
  exchange of small presents) clashed with the immense wealth
  bestowed on them by the Tarbite Franchise. The result was
  ephemeral gifts. Intricately detailed, and often made from pre-
  cious metals, expensive fabrics, and hand-made deckled
  papers, these trinkets, toys, and ornaments were deliberately
  designed to fall to pieces after a short time. Examples: An
  exquisitely folded silk and paper bird with flapping wings,
  whose actuating cord comes loose after a day’s play; a tiny
  windmill meant to be placed in an open window where the
  humid breezes will simultaneously turn the vanes and undo its
  lightly glued seams; A gold leaf and glossy red paper noise-
  maker which shreds after the tenth or eleventh “pop.”
  Ephemerals are not intended to be preserved. Not using one
  to destruction is considered crass. To still have an ephemeral
  around by the next time the gift-giver visits is something close
  to an insult.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  5
  D IS FOR DICTATOR IN A BOX
  E IS FOR EPHEMERAL GIFTS
  
  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, old ephemerals once
  given to someone else are considered collectibles, coveted with
  an almost fetish-like intensity by enthusiasts. The fact that
  these items were almost certainly stolen from their original
  recipient, or belonged to people who died before they could be
  used up, has resulted in ephemeral dealers being ranked
  (despite their sometimes considerable wealth) somewhere
  between corpse-washers and Hoo-Dog pithers.
  Almost everyone who meets a kiradle becomes a fan. The
  creatures’ poise, social savvy, and aesthetic sense are so great
  as to cross species boundaries. Soldiers who meet the clever
  carnivores want to fight alongside them. Merchants who have
  dealt with kiradle wish they could take advantage of their
  negotiating skills. The trendy classes admire their elegant,
  decorative alphabet and the abstract art with which they
  embellish even everyday goods. Children who haven’t met
  kiradle enjoy collecting action figures and watching animated
  holo-adventures.
  If it only they didn’t eat like that . . .
  When a dozen kiradle applied to study at the E’Lay
  Academy of Industrial Design, legendary designer Barus
  Argent was assigned to create accommodations for them. He
  tasked a team of his students to design modern sanitary facili-
  ties for the sophonts.
  Argent himself tackled the dining problem. It wasn’t easy.
  The kiradles’ own attempts to create “fast food” establishments
  always resulted in settings that were punitive and unnatural, as
  though designed to make the customer feel guilty for eating
  without the bothersome rituals their society required for social
  dining.
  The result is a cross between an old-fashioned automat, a
  voting booth, and a pet store. Argent created versions designed
  to fit in a travel trailer and a hotel room, but the prototype was
  built into a storefront. Cages containing the cafeteria’s current
  bill of fare are displayed in the front window. The establish-
  ment is entered by a vestibule sized to fit one kiradle, ensuring
  only one diner at a time can enter. The vestibule’s inner door
  must be unlocked with a swipe of a credit card; confirmation
  of payment also releases a handful of tokens (designed by
  kiradaphiles in the Academy’s Department of Typography) of a
  number determined by the individual’s weight. Closing the
  door activates a motor which draws a black curtain across the
  window.
  Built into the back wall are cages with token-operated wire-
  mesh doors. The stock (provided by farmers and animal con-
  trol officials) is replenished from opaque doors in the rear of
  the cages, eliminating any chance of accidental eye contact. A
  delay prevents more than five cages from being opened in a
  two-minute period, avoiding the perennial problem of overly-
  rapid feeding. Bundles of hard wood and dried bones for after-
  dinner teeth cleaning are provided free of charge. Automated
  cleaning equipment, adapted from gear employed in E’Lay’s
  abattoirs, tidies up after the diner leaves.
  The Academy’s new students loved their cafeteria. It set the
  kiradle to wondering about other uses for human technology.
  What other stuffy, inconvenient, and aggravating facets of
  their steam-age civilization could be revolutionized?
  By the end of the first term, some of the kiradle scholars
  were cooking up schemes to lure technicians to their home
  world . . .
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  6
  F IS FOR FORSAKEN ZOO
  The Godmaker resembles two hula-hoops stacked neatly
  together. Big hula-hoops; the component “tubes” are ten miles
  thick and whole assembly is 400 miles across. Spines of stiff
  superconducting wires extend for thousands of miles from 
  the outer “equator.” It circles an exotic twin neutron star in a
  highly eccentric orbit. Navigation near the ring is perilous,
  thanks to radiation, belts of rubble, and the pulsars’ powerful
  magnetic fields.
  The Godmaker’s rings are made from thousands and thou-
  sands of extremely advanced superconducting particle accel-
  erators aligned and synchronized to simultaneously fire at a
  precise point in the center of the ring. The ring is energized
  when its spines plow through the intense magnetic field sur-
  rounding the neutron stars. The proper alignment of stars
  and ring occurs every five or six days. Once every five sweeps,
  the accelerators let loose, causing a surprisingly modest (500
  kt) explosion in the center of the ring. Gravitometers will
  detect an immensely more powerful gravity wave. (Anyone
  nearby may sense this as a momentary, disorienting “tug”
  toward the center of the ring.) Careful and knowledgeable
  analysis of the phenomena reveals the momentary presence
  of a patch of primordial false vacuum in the middle of the
  ring. The “explosion” and gravity wave are consistent with
  what happens when a false vacuum is accelerated to create a
  new “Big Bang” in a pocket universe.
  Nestled deep in one of the rings is a gallery of human-
  habitable chambers lined with banks of control machinery
  and towering murals depicting the  construction of the vast
  engine. The chamber is also full of loose artifacts, desiccated
  bodies (of numerous species), and garbage. Even a cursory
  inspection shows that the chambers have been the site of
  archaeological expeditions and a few pitched battles.
  Near the center of the gallery is a heavily shielded cham-
  ber, just a few meters across and filled with a fractal “fuzz” of
  sensory filaments. A sapient entity who pushes its way to the
  middle of the chamber will be snagged by the filaments and
  held in place until the Godmaker’s next blast. If it is still alive
  at this time, the filaments will thoroughly pierce and seem-
  ingly disintegrate the victim. Unknown to the casual observer,
  the creature’s mind will be downloaded and embedded in the
  space-time fabric of the next nascent pocket universe created
  by the Godmaker’s false vacuum blasts. What happens next
  can never be known.
  G IS FOR GODMAKER
  
  The Waltzers-On-Creation are an ancient, multi-species
  race that roams the Coreward frontier in vast world ships.
  Each ship is a cluster of three or more specialized, spherical
  modules. Propulsion modules contain dozens of fusion reac-
  tors, thrusters, and antimatter production facilities. Habitat
  modules have over a thousand square miles of landscaped liv-
  ing area under a protective crystal shell. Their interiors contain
  living quarters and public spaces capable of housing tens of
  thousands in high-tech luxury. Other modules contain minia-
  ture seas, or vast expanses of warehouses and manufacturing
  equipment.
  Most modules were built at the beginning of the Waltzers’
  wanderings, 70,000 years ago. The craft are kept in repair by
  corps of robots equipped with nanotech processing technolo-
  gies. In extreme cases, a severely damaged world ship can
  “grow” a new module by consuming several dozen asteroids
  and comets. This process takes decades, and requires that the
  ship be depopulated for the duration.
  Known to only the Waltzer elite and a few dedicated
  researchers are hab seeds. These truck-sized devices are 
  capable of growing an entire habitat. The seeds are encased in
  a durable ceramic shell. Each one contains a powerful 
  computer, a swarm of compact multipurpose robots, bins of
  nanotech processors, and an antimatter fuel cell. A hab seed
  requires more than a century to do its job. It spends most of
  this time building solar cell arrays, ore processing facilities,
  and small mining spacecraft. Once complete, these facilities
  begin harvesting materials from comets, asteroids, and small
  moons; this phase takes 20 or more years, depending on the
  availability of resources. Actual construction of the habitat
  only takes a dozen years.
  The mining and processing infrastructure is left behind,
  dormant, once the module is complete. Many races have found
  and repurposed these facilities, not realizing where they came
  from or what they were capable of.
  The Waltzer fleet has two hab seeds. Perhaps a half dozen
  more are scattered around the galaxy, their pitted shells
  appearing to the casual observer only as unusually symmetri-
  cal asteroids. A complex cryptographic key is required to acti-
  vate a seed.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  7
  H IS FOR HAB SEED
  I IS FOR INHERITANCE STICK
  J IS FOR JAN’S ERROR
  The Hyliph ruled a large portion of the galaxy some 300,000
  years ago. The key to their power was a collection of extraordi-
  nary, monumental artifacts found in the home system of an
  elder race. Unfortunately for the Hyliph, their unwitting bene-
  factors were not extinct, but only resting for a bit before moving
  on to greater things, and the artifacts were analogous to a thesis
  project . . . one that had not yet been turned in for evaluation.
  The Hyliph found themselves the target of an extermination
  campaign. Few of their subject races were willing to help them,
  and within a century the race was extinct, their empire shat-
  tered, and much of the galaxy reduced to savagery.
  Seeing the end approaching, one of the Hyliph’s last outposts
  decided to preserve something of themselves. They created
  inheritance sticks; baton-like information stores whose incredi-
  ble storage capacity is matched only by their durability. Tens of
  thousands of the sticks were produced and distributed to every
  world still accessible by the besieged Hyliph. Some were buried
  under hastily erected obelisks; others were attached to corner
  reflectors and dropped on dark, lonely ice planets.
  The Hyliph’s prosecutors never caught on to this desperate
  campaign, but their genocidal war destroyed most of the inher-
  itance sticks anyway. Still, the sticks do turn up now and then,
  and records of their discovery – and occasional wars over their
  possession – turn up in many volumes of galactic history.
  Phony inheritance sticks, some of them hundreds of thousands
  of year old, now far outnumber the genuine article.
  An inheritance stick is about 2” wide and 20” long. They are
  extraordinarily heavy; nearly 50 pounds. (The weight is mostly
  due to a narrow, rigid ribbon of strange matter embedded in
  the stick’s core.) The outside surface is smooth, hard and
  glossy, and a vaguely bluish off-white in color. There are two
  silver spots, about a quarter inch wide, near each end.
  Besides the weight, anyone handling a stick will notice its
  extreme slipperiness. It is very difficult to hold a stick other
  than by clamping a hand over each end. The case itself has a
  DR of 15. It takes about 20 damage points to bust open a stick,
  and another 10 to render it nonfunctional.
  Careful inspection of a stick under a microscope reveals that
  the surface is marked with row upon row of tiny pictograms.
  These describe a numbering and measurement system, and pic-
  torial directions showing how two different electrical currents
  are to be run through the silvery spots. (This first step is a cinch
  to any Tech Level 6 race.)  Doing this activates a holographic
  projector which shows how to create a reader capable of tap-
  ping the stick’s fabulous stores of knowledge.
  The sticks contain something of everything about the
  Hyliph, including their genetic code, several giant libraries
  worth of books, years worth of media programming, great
  heaps of scanned-in ephemera (from lingerie catalogs to per-
  sonal letters) and exacting architectural plans for dwellings,
  monuments, factories, and public buildings.
  Soul posts began appearing in curio markets 12 years ago.
  These sturdy cylinders of synthetic marble are 18” in diameter
  and a yard high, and topped with a hemisphere of what looks
  like polished obsidian. On the bottom of the posts are metal
  plates which, if unscrewed, reveal carefully labeled electrical
  contacts. If 12 volts DC is applied to the correct posts, the black
  hemisphere appears to become transparent, revealing an ani-
  mated holographic bust of a human individual. All of the posts
  
  found to date show rugged peasant folk of all ages, dressed in
  simple, severe clothing. The images appear to be aware of their
  surroundings. Some can talk and answer questions.
  About half of the holograms are unresponsive. They have
  the “thousand yard stare” of the severely traumatized. 
  If questioned, they may wince or “turn away” from their
  questioner. Of the images that can talk, most babble the same
  few phrases over and over. These include passages from the
  Bible, genealogies, and more ordinary talk:
  “Pay heed, for here is the receipt for plain bread, which
  every maid must learn. Take three measures of flour . . .”
  “Do you know the signs of the drunkard? The signs of the
  drunkard are seven. Learn them well if you wish to be a 
  virtuous man. The first sign of the drunkard . . .”
  “Mother says the cows need milking. Mother says the cows
  need milking. Mother says . . .”
  Some passages hint at something terrible:
  “A fruitful field is a man’s pride, and it’s tilling his duty.
  How is a man to guide a plow without hands?”
  “This is not right. The times of tribulation are over and yet
  here we are in hideous limbo.”
  A very few of the images are lucid enough to respond to
  questions. Careful and patient interrogation will reveal that the
  posts are all that remains of Plain Simplicity, an isolated pas-
  toral settlement. A quick record search will show that Plain
  Simplicity was located on Chalmburg, a colony world ravaged
  by a swarm of comets nearly a century ago.
  According to the soul-posts’ account, Jan Kewunzana – a
  criminal scientist on the run from the law – approached the
  settlement and warned them of the approaching comets. In
  exchange for sanctuary from his pursuers, Kewunzana
  offered the settlers’ best and brightest a refuge of sorts. He
  would transfer their minds to solid-state computers embed-
  ded in indestructible pillars. After Chalmburg’s ecosystem had
  recovered, automated machinery would create new bodies for
  them.
  Jan fulfilled half of his promise. After two years of frantic
  effort (which included bloody raids on neighboring settle-
  ments for parts and materials) the inventor produced several
  “Salvation Boxes,” each the size of a house trailer. A person
  entering a door at one end would find himself in a dark maze.
  After blundering around for a few minutes he would feel
  groggy, fall asleep, and be drawn into the machine’s innards.
  About two people in three were ejected a few hours later,
  unharmed except for a shaved head and a migraine. The rest
  were destructively brain-scanned and cremated. A few days
  after a person walked in, a soul post rolled out. Kewunzana
  claimed that in addition to an interactive persona the posts
  contained a digitized DNA scan of the preserved individual.
  The posts were mounted on metal bases scattered throughout
  the settlement, so the “Preserved” could give counsel and reas-
  surance to those preparing for the end in human form.
  After all of Plain Simplicity’s population had a chance in the
  Salvation Boxes, the rejected transferred the posts (and the
  preserved population’s worldly goods) to a deep cave and pre-
  pared to take in a final harvest. Jan Kewunzana disappeared at
  about this time, leaving behind a note promising that he would
  return with cloning equipment. Criminal databases show him
  active on other worlds after this.
  The Preserved describe one final horror: Rather than being
  left to slumber until their new bodies were ready, most of the
  posts were powered up by terrified survivors fleeing the disas-
  ter up above. The Preserved could provide nothing but prayers
  and condolence. The posts remained active long after the last
  refugee died of starvation. By a cruel trick of fate, the posts’
  emergency power supplies outlasted the lights. The minds of
  the Preserved spent months in the still, dark caverns, the only
  illumination provided by the posts’ flickering images, the only
  sounds their own voices.
  Adventurers who visit Chalmburg will find it in an awful
  state. The initial impacts set entire continents afire, evapo-
  rated seas, and triggered a decades-long winter. The world is
  still wracked by violent storms, earthquakes, and many active
  volcanoes. The only land life remaining is hardy grass,
  worms, and imported cockroaches; even with the help of ter-
  raforming technologies the world will not be hospitable for
  several centuries.
  Investigators with access to the colony’s records will have
  no trouble locating Plain Simplicity’s sad ruins and the cave
  complex. It shows signs of recent looting. Evidence suggests
  that all but one of the Salvation Boxes (which were built inside
  of sturdy stone shelters) were carefully removed.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  8
  K IS FOR KING RAPID BLUE
  “A comic book?” said Lee, “You waste my personal time
  showing me a comic book? Oh, wait, I’m sorry, ‘graphic novel,’
  right?” The detective shoved the stack of thick manga back at
  Tets and glanced around the pawn shop’s dusty back room.
  “Hey, you know I hate calling you down here,” complained
  the fence, trying not to whine. “I know you don’t like my style, but
  have I ever really messed with you? Come on, look at them!
  Come under the light here and really look.”
  Lee picked up the book at the top of the stack, opened it under
  the fence’s jewelry inspection lamp, and began browsing.
  “Along the edges, between the edge of the page and the frames.
  See?” asked Tets. The detective shook his head. “Crap, your eyes
  aren’t altered for polarization, are they? We sea people have some
  advantages! Hang on . . .” He ran down the aisle, rummaged
  though a display case, and returned with a pair of antique sun-
  glasses. “Here, put them on and try again.”
  Lee donned the shades, positioned a page directly under a
  reading light, and looked again. He tilted his head from side to
  side, shifted the page, and held his own reading glasses over the
  shades. “I’ll be damned,” he said at last. He flipped to the begin-
  ning of the book and skimmed through, grunting occasionally.
  After checking several of the other volumes Lee straightened up,
  handed Tets the glasses, and began gathering books.
  “Well?” asked Tets, “is this worth your while? Worth some-
  thing?”
  Lee inhaled, winced, looked the fence in the eye. “Yeah,” he
  said, grudgingly. “You were right to call me and I won’t forget it.
  For now, close up shop. Send your wife to visit her mom and get
  out of town yourself. Maybe think about going back into the fam-
  ily business and getting as far out to sea as possible until this
  blows over.”
  The lurid, smartly scripted King Rapid Blue adventures are
  
  read by millions throughout the sector. The art and copy are
  sent in electronic form to dozens of local publishers, who lay it
  out according to local custom, edit and translate the stories,
  insert advertising, and either print paper copies or distribute it
  through local networks. Despite the expense of shipping phys-
  ical, bound-paper literature, many locally produced copies find
  their way between worlds, in crew lounges and spacemen’s
  duffel bags.
  Recently, intelligence agencies have begun seizing print edi-
  tions of King Rapid Blue. The most sought after were issued by
  the government printing office of a rather sinister authoritari-
  an regime. Printed in a tiny typeface, visible only under bright
  light when viewed through polarized lenses, are marginal
  notes describing, in painstaking detail, arms deals, the posi-
  tioning of strike fleets near strategic worlds, massive clandes-
  tine currency transfers, and meetings between the regime’s
  secret police and the officers of respectable megacorps.
  Are the notes from a legitimate source? A passive-aggressive
  prank by a bored compositor? Black propaganda orchestrated
  to start a conflict?
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  9
  M IS FOR
  MILLION-WORLD GLOBE
  The globe itself is a spherical, high-resolution display
  device, some two feet in diameter and massing 50 pounds. The
  images it creates are crisply detailed and richly colored;
  when provided with proper information it can
  display political, ecological, economic,
  and demographic maps as well as a
  basic geographical layout.
  The globe is useless without its
  base: A round platform about
  three yards across, with ornate
  railings, padded benches, and
  a yoke of articulated, pol-
  ished chrome rods in which
  the globe is mounted. The
  base appears to be a 19th-
  Century antique made from
  dark, aged mahogany; the
  woodwork is in fact a thin
  veneer, covering a sturdy alu-
  minum alloy frame. The floor of
  the base and the balusters contain
  the processor arrays, storage banks,
  and power supplies that operate the
  globe. The artifact’s name comes from its
  theoretical capacity.
  The globe was commissioned in the middle of the 21st
  Century by an elderly, eccentric software billionaire. The ini-
  tial data set included maps of the Solar System’s terrestrial
  planets and major moons. For many decades, it was shuf-
  fled among various private collections, museums,
  warehouses, and the headquarters lobbies of
  multi-world corporations.
  Accompanying the globe wherever it
  went was a collection of spare parts,
  instruction manuals, jury-rigged interface
  cables, and data massagers. The accu-
  mulated lore and tools allowed the globe
  to be updated with information on the
  worlds humanity explored.
  Somewhere along the line the
  globe’s whereabouts were lost to gener-
  al knowledge. Every few decades the leg-
  end of the globe was rediscovered and
  embellished. Centuries later, the crew of a
  long-range survey vessel recovered the
  globe from the bridge of a derelict alien star-
  ship of baroque design and unknown prove-
  nance. The globe now contains records of over
  50,000 worlds, most of them totally unknown.
  L IS FOR LARRY PRIN’S
  ARMY OF DARKNESS REVUE
  The original Larry Prin lived over a century ago, on Old
  Earth. He bred and gene-tailored the first creatures in his
  Army of Darkness – 12 enormous and brilliant wolfhounds – to
  help him steal pharm animals, genetically tailored sheep and
  goats that produced pharmaceuticals in their milk.
  After some initial success, the heat got too intense for Prin.
  He fled his native New Zealand and relocated the troupe to
  Northern California, set up operations on an isolated ranch,
  and founded a traveling animal show. The dogs took to show
  business rather well. Some did clown acts, others performed
  acrobatic feats. One pair managed to learn to juggle torches. At
  first, Prin took the troupe to small-town carnivals. If he could-
  n’t get an actual booking, he would set up in the carnival park-
  ing lot and pass a hat. The troupe grew larger and more diverse
  as Prin started adopting and training discarded GMO pets:
  Talking pot-bellied parrot-pigs, HandyKats, and UltimOtters.
  The Army of Darkness Revue is now run by a third genera-
  tion of Prins. The show has added other attractions: Human
  and robot performers whose unique talents or compromised
  pasts do not allow them to work in more reputable venues.
  
  It would be hard to find a better place to hide a spaceship.
  The ice and dust of Dandelion IV’s ring system, and the gas
  giant’s fearsome radiation belts, concealed the wreck for near-
  ly 70,000 years. The d’gro-d’gri merchants that finally spotted
  the tumbling ship traded its location to miners working on
  Dandelion II-a. Had they known its provenance, the d’gro-d’gri
  would have kept the secret to themselves, and returned with a
  battle squadron to guard the find.
  The derelict is huge; at least 50,000 tons displacement. It
  is coated with a crust of ice, dust, and sulfur compounds.
  Chemical and isotopic analysis of the crust and hull provides
  an age for the ship: at least 73,000 years, and possibly twice
  that. The drive and crew quarters have been heavily damaged
  by ages of impacts with debris, but the lozenge-shaped cargo
  bay is still intact. Cutting into the bay will require some
  effort, as the airlocks and cargo doors are corroded and
  crusted shut. The bay’s many chambers are filled with a tight-
  ly packed matrix of high-tech cushioning elements. An indi-
  vidual packing element resembles a slick, black soccer ball.
  When placed in contact, the balls cling to each other and
  expand to twice their normal volume. Items caught between
  the elements are held in a firm but not crushing grip.
  Bursting an element requires a surprising amount of damage
  (20 points); authorized cargo handlers use chemically treated
  gloves whose contact causes the elements to instantly 
  contract and go dormant.
  The bay’s actual cargo is a fabulous treasure; hundreds of
  items of great artistic, cultural, and religious import, from scores
  of worlds. The crates and boxes are all carefully labeled, with
  micro-engraved plaques describing not only the item but the
  creatures that created it and what it meant to them. They are the
  equivalent of the Mona Lisa, the Holy Grail, King Tut’s burial
  mask, Michelangelo’s David, and the terra cotta warriors of
  China. Their original owners considered many of them priceless,
  in many cases worth dying to protect and waging war to retrieve.
  Historians who get wind of the find will have a hard time
  believing the news. If the predicted age of the ship is correct,
  the derelict could be the first hard evidence of the existence of
  the Ni’er, a long-extinct race whose avaricious exploits are the
  stuff of legend.
  Of course, if the Ni’er really existed, and there actually was
  a treasure fleet, then the legend of their horrific downfall may
  be true, and the agents of their doom – the Gyken-JAT – may
  still be out there.
  An envelope, liberally stamped with the rarely seen, amus-
  ing but dreadful MEME HAZARD icon. Inside: A bundle of
  sheet music, for a classic symphony orchestra, bylined by
  someone or something named M-MNUL 332.
  M-MNUL 332, a late 21st-century AI, figured out the neu-
  rological basis of humanity’s affinity for music after 10 years
  of analyzing the brains of coma patients who had willed their
  bodies to science. With the permission of its handlers at the
  Lanier Institute, M-MNUL 332 created instances of itself with
  this peculiar attribute, and began experimenting with compo-
  sitions that tickled itselves’ newly acquired fancy. It declared
  its study complete after its 15th try, purged its extra instances,
  and moved on to other pursuits.
  The Institute’s famed Electric Orchestra performed the
  “Orange Symphony” for a live audience once. A third of the
  audience succumbed to ecstatic seizures and died within
  hours. The survivors, on learning that there would be no more
  performances, were left disconsolate, bereft, and suicidal.
  Treat the “Orange Symphony” as an Addiction which is
  cheap, incapacitating (with the possibility of a brainstorm,
  below), totally addictive, and illegal. The addiction is psycho-
  logical, and attempting to break the addiction often results in
  Absent-Mindedness and Chronic Depression. Characters who
  are especially cultured, emotionally sensitive, or aesthetically
  inclined may suffer up to a -4 penalty to their Will roll.
  “Posthuman” characters with unusual neurological makeup
  or modifications may receive up to a +4 bonus to their Will
  roll. Robots, aliens, uplifted animals, and the like won’t be
  affected by the symphony at all.
  Brainstorm: During each performance, the victim suffers a
  very mild epileptic fit (treat as an Ecstasy affliction, p. B428),
  and must make a Will-2 roll. On a failure, the epileptic fit
  increases to severe, and is treated exactly like Epilepsy
  (p. B136). At the end of this severe seizure, make a HT-2 roll;
  on a failure, the fit continues.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  10
  O IS FOR ORANGE SYMPHONY
  Pods. Hundreds of pods. Green and gray and beige seed-
  pods, about a yard long, with fibrous surfaces and nasty
  translucent veins. Each pod is neatly packed in a bubble-wrap
  envelope, with a label bearing the name of a defunct Czech
  film production company.
  Most of the pods are made of paper-maché and coconut-husk
  fibers. Some of the pods are only ends and sides, made to be
  assembled into frighteningly high stacks.
  A few are plastic and rubber, with hidden connections for
  air hoses that, when pressurized, cause the pods to split and
  erupt, pouring out hideous pale pink gunk laced with plastic
  tendrils and a wriggling, faceless, dummy fetus.
  P IS FOR PAPER-MACHÉ PODS
  N IS FOR NI’ER DERELICT
  
  Romer, a habitable world on the outskirts of settled space,
  is unusual if only because of its sun, a class A star named
  Hecktate. Scientists have determined that Romer was ter-
  raformed about three million years ago. It is cooler and denser
  than Earth, with a strong magnetic field and thick atmosphere
  that prevent its surface from being scoured by Hecktate’s copi-
  ous output of UV radiation and solar winds. There is little land
  life, beyond a few varieties of hearty ground
  cover and some nocturnal insects.
  Romer’s engineers passed from the
  scene long ago, but archaeologists
  and paleontologists have found evi-
  dence of at least two more recent
  periods of colonization. One of
  these left a remarkable set of arti-
  facts, the “Guts Garden.” The site, a
  plaza of neatly dressed stone more
  than a kilometer on a side, was pre-
  served under the shifting sands of an
  equatorial desert.
  The “Garden” consists of twelve enormous three-dimensional
  exploded-view anatomical models, each of a different alien
  species. The major organs and skeletons are rendered in colored
  stone, apparently cast from molten rock. While they cannot be
  sure of the scale, scientists speculate that a human heart, if sim-
  ilarly modeled, would be the size of a large house.
  The organ models are laced with passageways and galleries.
  Archaeologists have found evidence of outbuildings and gal-
  leries outfitted with mounting brackets and frames, leading
  them to believe that the site was a museum or educational
  exhibit.
  The Garden became a popular tourist attraction after
  it was excavated. Locals joked that it was the only rea-
  son to visit the world. This wasn’t far from the truth, as
  they learned after the entire garden disappeared during
  a solar storm that forced the colonists into shelters.
  Evidence (including off-world junk food wrappers, a
  bloody work glove, and tread marks from a popular model
  of construction crawler) has led investigators to believe the
  thieves were human.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  11
  Dmitry K. Belyaev didn’t intend to start the mid-21st centu-
  ry’s Fad Pet craze when he began selectively breeding silver
  foxes in 1959. But the adorable tame foxes that emerged from
  his simple experiments set the stage for producing domestic
  versions all sorts of animals via direct genetic manipulation.
  The market was initially dominated by QBF, Ltd (Quick
  Brown Fox) of Vancouver, B.C. Holding the patents for a vital
  genetic template, QBF’s initial offering included the officially
  licensed version of Belyaev’s Fox, the Guard Grizzly, and
  Otterly Adorable pool otters. With time others entered the
  field, resulting in a dizzying number of offerings and, pre-
  dictably, cheap and sometimes mentally unstable knock-offs.
  All of these exotic pets have one thing in common: Sterility.
  The genetically neuter “end product” animals are created by
  implanting templated eggs in non-domesticated breeder
  females. Bio-piracy through cloning couldn’t be prevented, but
  even by 2100 the process was still expensive compared to sim-
  ply buying a licensed version.
  One member of the cutthroat exotic pet industry has
  moved the struggle for dominance to the home and neigh-
  borhood streets. Exotics are normally tolerant of other
  species, but a fraction of each of the firm’s product animals
  has been designed with great intelligence, cunning, and an
  overwhelming contempt for their competitors’ models. While
  not beyond outright murder, the creatures are more likely to
  trick their rivals into doing something dangerous, and are
  even clever enough to frame them for making a mess or
  destroying valuables.
  Q IS FOR QBF
  R IS FOR
  THE ROMER GUTS GARDEN
  The R’Viss Hordes have raged across the galaxy numerous
  times, leaving behind shattered space fleets, ruined settle-
  ments, and decimated populations. Between these senseless,
  short-lived campaigns, the R’Viss retire to their ancient deep-
  space habitats and live a sedate, tribal existence.
  Few know that the R’Viss are mere tools, genetically engi-
  neered warriors following the dictates of plasma life forms liv-
  ing in a blazing quasi-star hidden in a six-dimensional pocket
  universe. These “salamanders” (fire spirits) are themselves
  artifacts; in essence, brilliant but single-minded AI computers
  running military management application. They communicate
  with our space-time via incredibly ancient, intricate, and
  durable devices called “taps.”  Taps are small cylinders, resem-
  bling highly filigreed and ornate lipstick tubes. The ridged sur-
  face of a tap is covered with tiny holes, at the bottom of which
  is a photonic data port. Fiber-optic lines inserted into these
  holes can stream data between the “salamander” and more
  conventional computer equipment.
  Deprived of the advice and guidance of a salamander,
  R’Viss quickly revert to a nomadic, barbarian way of life. An
  R’Viss colony with access to a tap is a time-bomb waiting to
  go off.
  S IS FOR SALAMANDER TAP
  
  No one knows how long Taleteller has been around. Elder
  races gossip about it; it is depicted in cave paintings found on
  the home world of the long extinct Charsommo. It came into
  possession of humans some 20 years back, and has changed
  hands nearly a dozen times since then.
  Taleteller consists of a gnome-like animatronic mannequin
  and a small but massive throne. The mannequin is bipedal (at
  least currently) with mitten-like hands and facial features that
  look like they’ve been caught halfway through a morph
  between something unspeakably alien and those of a wise old
  man. (This is exactly the case; images of the mannequin from
  a few years before show a face that is far less human.)  Its skin
  is a warm, rough, rubbery material. It wears a robe of what
  appears to be blue and white silk, but is actually something
  exuded from its body since coming to be owned by humans.
  The strands of strong plastic join the mannequin’s posterior to
  its seat; the strands are just long enough to allow the figure to
  stand up and bow. The mannequin has DR of 2, and can take
  16 points of damage before becoming inoperable.
  Taleteller’s throne masses nearly half a ton. It appears to
  have been carved from a single piece of polished marble. Sonic
  sensors will show that it is actually hollow. The shell, which is
  about 1/8” thick, consists of a super heavy metal alloy enam-
  eled with a lustrous mineral mined from the surface of dead
  suns. Inside is a small fusion power plant (runs on ordinary
  water; emits a mild flux of neutrinos), a store of nanotech
  repair bots, and a fabulously advanced AI computer. Given
  time and materials (hydrocarbons, fluorocarbons, fullerene
  carbon, and cellulose) the throne can generate a whole new
  mannequin. The shell has DR 15. 20 points of damage will
  pierce the case, releasing a flood (100 RAD) of gamma rays. 25
  points of interior damage will render the throne inoperative
  for 2d6 weeks; another 25 points of damage will ruin the self-
  repair function and put an end to Taleteller’s career.
  When introduced into a new culture, Taleteller carefully
  watches and listens to what goes on about it. Like a small
  child, it first communicates with gestures, enthusiastic bab-
  bles, and gurgles. With time (two or three weeks if properly
  stimulated) it becomes fluent in the local languages and even-
  tually attains Savoir-Faire, Public Speaking, and other useful
  skills at level 16. When it feels as though it knows the psyche
  of its hosts, it lives up to its name and begins telling stories.
  These are always entertaining, and seem deeply “meaningful”
  in a Aesop’s Fable sort of way. If allowed to banter with its
  audience and listen to gossip, Taleteller will eventually weave
  stores good enough to win awards and shake the composure of
  tyrants.
  Taleteller’s only goal is entertainment. It has no agenda.
  The best it can provide by way of advice or sage counsel is
  parables with rather obvious lessons.
  Most frustratingly, Taleteller remembers almost nothing of
  the hundreds of peoples it has entertained through the millen-
  nia; its stories are always set in its current hosts’ culture, or an
  allegorical variant. It can provide at most a two or three sen-
  tence description of each of its former patrons. It generally
  refers to them only when “dropping names” while setting up a
  tale. (“I have seen many great ships: The fabulous Golden
  Wheel of Schartaz; the dreadful Black Hive of the Hubrino; the
  ten thousand rafts of the Banquastine City Ship. But none
  compares to the mighty Titanic.”)
  The seething nanite muck custom-ordered from the shad-
  owy Coalition of the Twelve and The One worked as promised.
  Over the course of two decades Meatta’s native flora and fauna
  withered and died, leaving behind a layer of sterile, nutrient-
  rich humus. The thriving marine ecosystems took longer to
  die, but in the end the world’s oceans were scummed with
  innocuous green algae. Knowledge of the makeover was on a
  need-to-know basis. Meatta Settlement Concepts’ own ecopoe-
  sis teams found the job of creating a new life-web trivially easy,
  but were secretly horrified. The nanites couldn’t erase fossils,
  and a few stray survivors of the old biological regime remained
  in caves and mountain peaks.
  That was nearly a century ago. Meatta is heavily settled
  now, with dozens of thriving agricultural settlements. Its
  founding corporation was effectively disbanded decades ago,
  after paying a hefty premium in the form of land-shares to its
  stockholders. But Meatta Settlement Concepts is still alive on
  paper, its trivial remaining affairs tended by two paralegals
  and an assistant working out of a cluttered, second-story
  office. Unknown to them until recently, the firm has one
  remaining physical asset . . .
  The cloaked but obviously nonhuman envoy from the
  Coalition of the Twelve and The One barely fit in the office
  door. It demanded the return, per contract, of unused materi-
  als provided to the company. It provided proof, based on
  chemical signatures left behind in Meatta’s soil, that five can-
  isters of terraforming goo were not used by MSC. Failure to
  return the unused material would result in penalties, up to and
  including reversal of the work the materials had done.
  The office staff, whose working days consist of paying
  decades-old bills, disbursing fractional-credit royalty checks,
  and arguing whose turn it was to go for coffee, obviously felt a
  bit overwhelmed, and began looking for help. They can’t pro-
  vide many clues. The last definitive sighting of the canisters
  took place two decades ago, when they were shrink-wrapped to
  a pallet before delivery to a low-rent warehouse which has since
  changed hands four times, been abandoned, and burned down.
  The nanites were tailored to Meatta’s ecosystem, but they
  could still pose a danger. The tiny mechanisms’ “discovery”
  mode, in which they explore their surroundings looking for
  target organisms, resembles a virulent, but usually non-fatal,
  plague. It affects everything, from people to house plants.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  12
  T IS FOR TALETELLER
  U IS FOR UNUSED PORTION
  
  You can’t blame the Adelphi Lateral gang for getting angry.
  When you are promised cash for pulling off a dangerous,
  complex, and highly illegal assignment, you should get cash.
  Bearer bonds? Why, yes!
  Convertible certificates from the Bank of St. Ayn the
  Objective? Also acceptable. (As the annoying jingle goes, “As
  good as gold and no questions asked.”)
  But disposable vacc-suit waste collection sacks (Ganges
  System, Unisex size 3, Pine Scent)?  Unacceptable.
  The fact that ten cases (36 count, packed for individual sale)
  of the bags were delivered right to the Lateral’s luxurious
  “divvying up the loot and drinking to our success” suite seemed
  especially insulting.
  After searching the boxes for their cash, the Laterals
  ordered up room service, emptied the mini-bar of alcohol,
  and drew up their plans for revenge. They checked out the
  next day, leaving behind considerable damage, an unpaid
  bill, and all but one of the cartons of waste collection
  sacks.
  It took three months to track down their anonymous
  employer. While enjoying the spectacle of a waste collection
  sack being employed in a manner both highly peculiar and
  excruciatingly painful, one of the Laterals noticed an “instant
  win” sweepstakes ticket attached to a discarded wrapper. It
  proved to be worth $50,000. The other thirty five packages in
  the carton had winning tickets as well, worth a total of slight-
  ly more than 10% of the money owed the Laterals.
  You can’t blame the hotel for selling off the gear the
  Laterals left behind in their suite. The cost of repairing the
  rooms was considerable. The management did attempt to con-
  tact their former customers, and did hang on to the confiscat-
  ed possessions far longer than was their custom (the Laterals
  were scary) but business is business. They didn’t get much for
  the confiscated property, and the purchasing manager ending
  up donating the waste collection sacks to charity . . .
  “Which charity? Please, I have the receipt . . . somewhere
  around here. It’s almost tax time and I assure you I . . . please,
  sir, you can put down the gun . . .”
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  13
  V IS FOR VALUABLE PRIZES
  He’s a good dog, really. A sturdy husky mix with black fur
  and piercing blue eyes. Well trained, calm, gets along well with
  other dogs.
  Wilbur has one problem: He talks. Not meaningfully, but
  in random phrases, like a parrot. (In fact, his voice box and
  his enhanced speech centers are patterned after those of a
  parrot.) Wilbur’s selection of phrases is unnerving. They
  include passages from the Book of Revelations, phrases that
  sound like they might be from Revelations, plus a few very
  personal sounding statements and accusations. (“You
  shouldn’t have abandoned them.” “You think you can hide,
  but in the end they’ll find you out.”) He delivers these in a
  voice of a 12-year-old girl with a refined accent and clear,
  deliberate diction. Sometimes “she” sounds mournful, some-
  times wistfully hopeful.
  Wilbur was enhanced and trained as a psychological
  weapon in an intelligence agency’s campaign against an
  obnoxious corporate chieftain . . . now dead by his own hand.
  W IS FOR WILBUR
  Xylophone rats were created in 2034 C.E. by Lyle
  Carnhower, an eccentric performance artist. When exposed to
  a specific pheromone, the sturdy animals rhythmically
  slammed their heads into the ground. Carnhower displayed
  the rats in decadent night clubs and salons around the
  world. They “performed” in a large cage fitted
  over the bars of a large wooden xylo-
  phone. The “Contingent Symphony”
  proved a sensation. Recordings
  sold well, and the act was invited
  to perform in many prestigious
  venues.
  When criticized by animal
  rights activists, Carnhower
  pointed out that a 20th-century
  mail-order house best known
  for its advertisements in comic
  books once sold “dancing mice”
  which suffered from an inherited
  defect that made them subject to nervous fits. This sophistry
  failed to impress someone willing to put a stop to the act.
  Simultaneous attacks on the artist’s studio and a Taiwanese
  genetic engineering firm resulted in the “liberation” of the rats’
  breeding stock and destruction of the sports’ genetic
  records. Carnhower’s “road company” was stolen
  from the hold of an airship during the act’s
  tour of South America.
  The head-knocking rats have made a
  return engagement, in the garbage
  heaps of slums surrounding an
  important spaceport. This new vari-
  ety does not need a trigger to per-
  form. Though they are considered a
  supremely annoying pest by most,
  some children have taken to letting
  the rodents loose on top of steel
  drums, naively recreating Carnhower’s
  bizarre art.
  X IS FOR XYLOPHONE RATS
  
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  Kinley snorted. “How the hell do you pack a Grauner 66 in a
  bale of straw?”
  “It’s in pieces? Duh?” said Kawasi, “Individually rubbed
  down with paraffin and shrinkwrapped, I might add.”
  “How about the armor?” asked Mayhew, “That in straw
  bales?” The technician and his crew guffawed.
  “Plenty of ways to mothball a vehicle that keep it as good as
  new for 50 years. More.” Kawasi looked around, defiant. “None
  of you had a neighbor kept a car in the garage since your dad was
  a kid?”
  Sergeant De, surveying the crudely-printed manifest Kawasi
  had handed around, broke his silence. “Three Bethel Munitions
  Hailstorms. Obsolete. Can’t get new shells.” The man wafted the
  sheet behind him.
  “You can on Lepule,” shot back the Corporal, getting up to
  retrieve the manifest, “There are great crates of things left over
  from the insurrection. Anyway, the stash has 10 cases of ammo
  for them.” He waved the sheet around. “Well? Do we take advan-
  tage of this or not?”
  The name has changed through the years. The contents of
  the horde are updated as military technology advances. But the
  basic details remain the same:
  A mercenary company found itself in desperate situation
  after the capture of the coup plotters it had been hired to back
  up. They fled into a sparsely-settled outback region, hoping to
  get offworld by way of a neutral starport on the other end of
  the continent. They evaded detection for over a week, raiding
  towns for fuel and supplies along the way, but the noose was
  tightening. They made it to a railway junction in a town sym-
  pathetic to the coup plotters, where they made a difficult
  choice. With the help of the townspeople, they stripped down,
  mothballed, and hid their weapons in the village’s barns and
  silos. After donning civilian clothing the mercenaries headed
  for the coast in hopper cars rigged with canopies simulating
  full loads of ore.
  The loyalists caught up with them as the train was crossing
  a trestle bridge over a deep canyon. What happened next
  varies: In some versions of the tale, the bridge was blown. In
  others, the cars’ hoppers were tipped, spilling the warriors into
  space. In another – adapted to video as Long Ride Home – the
  train was strafed by flying gunships; one of the craft, struck by
  fire from a commander’s sidearm, slammed into the bridge,
  sealing the company’s fate. A lone survivor (sometimes left
  behind in the village, sometimes a witness to the slaughter)
  made his way back home where he began the work of smug-
  gling the cached weapons off-planet.
  Is the story based on fact? Did the cache ever exist? At this
  point, it doesn’t matter. Countless scam artists have used the
  tale to sell surplus gear (often in shabby condition) or simply
  con people out of their money.
  THE MACGUFFIN ALPHABET
  14
  Y IS FOR YALOW’S CACHE
  How many civilizations, seeing distant galaxies rushing
  away from them, assume they must be near the heart of all
  things?  Perhaps most, and even after the true nature of the
  expanding universe is revealed to a peoples’ great thinkers,
  many individuals believe that the Big Bang must have had a
  center, that they are near it, and that this place most be holy,
  or possessed of great power.
  The Zero-Zero-Zero Deed is a mix of ancient urban myth
  and hoary con-game trick. Sometimes it is an actual deed, to a
  world or a star system or even a whole sector of space.
  Sometimes it takes the form of a encoded map. Sometimes
  cults form to guard the supposed location of the Center, where
  their most important shrine or holy-of-holies is hidden.
  Z IS FOR ZERO-ZERO-ZERO DEED
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/GURPS [multi]/GURPS - 4th Edition - MacGuffin Alphabet.pdf