Earth Fleet Officer's Handbook

This is the handbook of operations for Earth Fleet, with suggested rules for various standard actions, equipment, and ship specifications. It is a supplement for These Are The Voyages, a LUPOS game.

General Orders

Earth fleet gives its officers a small set of crucial, don't break these!, orders. They are known as general orders. Here are the general orders of Earth Fleet, and what they mean in play. Violations of general orders are harshly disciplined.

Order 1, Hesitate and Think: This isn't meant to mean inaction, or delaying needed action. Instead order one simply means that Earth fleet personnel think first. They never act brashly, never shoot first and ask questions later, they think and plan first. The way we refer to this in the game is acting with hesitation and that is the normal state of all Earth Fleet. When acting otherwise is called acting without hesitation, in this state the advanced training of Earth Fleet kicks in and they earn a bonus die for all rolls. There are many times you are allowed to act without hesitation, even under order one: dangerous or harrowing situations, and certain alert statuses.

Order 2, Never Surrender: Earth fleet doesn't wave the white flag, they don't give up and they don't quit. When the chips are down, they come through or die trying. In the fiction, this “can do” attitude is represented by a simple rule. When a character is disabled, all advantage is returned to the pool as if the situation just started, and the GM picks a player to earn a die.

Order 3, Respect Others: This is just as it sounds, Earth Fleet expects its personnel to treat other species and beings as they would like to be treated. It has a couple of ramifications: If someone needs help, offer assistance. When engaged in talks, invite others aboard and accept open invitations. Exceptions to these action guidelines are from the obvious: state of war, in which case order 3 may be disregarded, and often order 1. If a situation occurs under either of these circumstances, give the group an extra three advantage at situation start, they are well trained to respond to trickery here.

Second Grade Officer Training

All characters have a large amount of training, and this is reflected by their advantage dice pool in play. Officers on the hand, also have even more training, called Second Grade in the fleet. This training gives officers the following abilities.

Spirit: An officer has great control over their body and mind, and can handle injury well. Whenever they take squares of mental or physical injury, and sometimes confidence, they may elect to move one square to another type. The GM decides when they may move confidence squares, with the understanding that they only can't when the situation would be something truly unexpected or exploits their vulnerability.

Conditioned: Each officer gets time in the training chair, a special device that uploads knowledge to the user's mind. This means they are loaded with general knowledge about things like known star systems, alien races, and so on. They don't have detailed knowledge, they aren't experts, and current events can't be known this way because they are ever-changing. However this gives them a great resource of basic knowledge to draw upon. Once per situation, each officer can make the GM reroll their highest challenge die.

Standard Ship Operations

This is a guide to the operations of a standard starship in Earth Fleet, we cover everything from security calls to emergency self-destruct.

Security Calls: When security is called, it will take one round for 1d4+1 security personnel to arrive. From that point, more security comes (as needed, reinforcements) every 1d6 rounds. The number of personnel arriving increases as so: 1d6+2, 1d8+3, and finally 1d10+4 which is the maximum for one set of reinforcements. If any alert status is set, assume 1d4+1 personnel are already available around the corner and arrive on demand.

Bridge Operations: The bridge is staffed at all times with: communications, helm, navigation, sciences, command, security, and likely two or three from any department running special projects. Any officer of rank Lt. or higher may be readily place in command on the bridge at any time, from the last officer in command. The office in command of the bridge automatically surrenders it to the first officer or captain when they arrive on the bridge. If alert status is set, 1d4+1 security personnel are present for additional safety. If it is downtime between missions, roll a d10. If it earns outcome, one of the follow bridge systems are being refit: 1, comms; 2, helm; 3, navigation; 4, sensors; 5, power; Note that doesn't mean the affected bridge system is non-functional, just less effective.