“We’re tired. There is no relief. The Enemy keep coming after us, again and again. But if one of us falls, more will fall after. Survive, so you can do it all again the next time”
The Enemy
No-one seems to know how The Enemy gained such a technological advantage so quickly. No-one saw it coming. Anti-matter bombs destroyed cities and fleets. Machanized soldiers landed on our planets.
Humanity is dying. The Enemy has won.
See also: Nighthawks
33
The Castor is one of the last remaining battleships, escorting a rag-tag fleet of civilian ships. It shouldnt be possible to track ships when they jump through hyperspace, but the Enemy is doing it. 33 minutes after the fleet arrives at a new location, the Enemy appear and attack again. It barely allows time to compute and execute another jump. And everyone is getting tired, and slower.
The Castor is defended by batteries of guns, by Arrowhead fighters, and Nighthawk jump-shuttles. This story focuses on the pilots of the Arrowheads and Nighthawks.
Gameplay
33 is designed for online play.
The Castor is already badly damaged, and pilots stay in their spacesuits the whole time in the flight deck area – limiting communication to radio channels (audio only), and conversations between two people when they are close enough to see each other’s faces (2 person video channels)
Military fighter pilots rub shoulders with former civilians, flying both fighters and jump-capable Nighthawk shuttles to defend the Castor. Tensions bubble among the pilots, especially as the rumour is that one of them might be a traitor working for the enemy.
Character templates provided in advance, with scope to personalise relationships. Those who played “Nighthawks: The Run for Ragnar” at Lucky Consequences may be able to play the same character. Ask me.
The game begins with an attack on the Castor – played out solely as the radio chatter between pilots in response to text prompts – the attack lasting 5 minutes. Players are free to decide the impact on their characters – stress, injury, ejecting and hoping a Nighthawk can rescue you, or even death. Then there will be exactly 33 minutes of play on the Castor. Then another attack. Repeat. At the end of game – we’ll decide what happens to the Castor.
All characters are written without specifIed gender. Character relationships are defined by how positive or negative they are – players may choose to make these romantic, platonic or otherwise as they agree between them.
33 is a sequel to my earlier LARP, “Nighthawks: The Run for Ragnar“, in the same setting, but with very different gameplay. It’s loosely based on the Battlestar Galactica episode 33, but doesnt assume players have watched it.