Adventure 13: Signal GK

Signal GK is GDW’s last LBB (little black book) adventure for Traveller. It was published in 1985 and written by Marc Miller, with additional design from J Andrew Keith.

1985 is over 40 years ago. Why am I reviewing it now? Well, I recently ordered Adventure 14: Travel Hazards from Mongoose. I’m waiting for the physical booklet to read the adventure in detail, but I couldn’t resist taking a peek at the pdf. And I noticed something slightly odd about the layout – unnecessary indents on paragraphs that follow a heading. 

I’m sure Mongoose know better than to do that to a layout, so I got Signal GK down off the shelf, flipped it open, and sure enough, Mongoose appear to be replicating the old GDW format exactly – even down to the pregenerated characters and the unnecessary indents.

And having taken Signal GK off the shelf, I started reading, and here we are.

So, anyway, this is a first-impressions review. I haven’t run Signal GK – and as we’ll see, I probably won’t. 

Oh, and spoilers ahead.

A physical copy of Adventure 13? Really?

Some years ago, probably longer than I care to admit, I got rid of most of my old Traveller LBBs. I wasn’t playing the game, I wasn’t reading them, and they were just taking up space. So I got rid of most of them.

I kept the books I really liked. Twilight’s Peak. Secret of the Ancients (not that I liked that one, but it had Ancients in it). IISS Ship Files (in my opinion, the best Traveller deck plans ever). The alien modules. And Signal GK.

I’m not sure why I kept Signal GK. I certainly never ran it. I can only think that the central premise in it (the silicon-chip lifeform) was sufficiently appealing that I wanted to keep it. Or maybe it was that those lifeforms led directly to the controversial Virus and the destruction of the Third Imperium. I really can’t remember, but either way, I still have my original copy of Signal GK.

All this is preamble! Where’s your review?

Patience, I’m getting there. 

Before starting to write this, I thought I’d check and see what other reviewers had to say about Signal GK. And the answer is… nothing. At least, not in text. I found a single video review of Signal GK – and that’s it.

So this is my text review of Traveller Adventure 13: Signal GK. Maybe the only one on the Internet.

Overview

Signal GK is a 48-page booklet for Traveller set on the border between the Solomani Confederation and Third Imperium. The adventure is broadly in three parts. First, the PCs must help Dr Roshorin, a Solomani researcher, defect to the Imperium. Then the PCs accompany Dr Roshorin to Cymbeline to confirm his theories. There, they find an intelligent silicon-chip-based lifeform. Finally, the PCs accompany Dr Roshorin to Terra aboard the Ad Astra, a 600-dton Subsidized Liner, where a Solomani agent tries to kill Dr Roshorin.

(Signal GK is also the Vilani interstellar distress call. I imagine that the title of the adventure refers to the Ad Astra’s distress call after the bombing.)

Maps, deck plans, library data

As well as the adventure, Signal GK provides plenty of supplemental information:

The Ad Astra: 14 pages of details of the Ad Astra liner, including illustrations, room-by-room descriptions and deck plans. This is rather nice, and I imagine that back in 1985, many referees bought the adventure just for the deck plans.

The Solomani Border: A two-page spread showing the area in question. The map is subsector-sized, but straddles four subsectors to show all the worlds it needs for the adventure.

Library data: Two pages of library data.

The Biology of Natural Chips: Four pages about how natural silicon chips evolved on Cymbaline. This is lovely – I’m all for weird alien lifeforms.

All that adds up to 22 pages. And when you include the contents page, the front matter, and a boilerplate introduction (another five pages), that means less than half of the book is actual adventure material. Not that I’m complaining; as I’ve said before, I find a lot of adventures are overwritten. Signal GK isn’t one of them.

The adventure

The set-up is that after failing to find gainful employment on Scandia (just because…), the PCs are hired by Colonel Joachim Sanchex, the head of the Imperial Army Intelligence, to secure the defection of an important Solomani scientist. They are well paid and given a Type S scout for the mission.

Now, quite why Sanchex would choose a group of ne’er-do-wells like the PCs isn’t well explained. Deniable assets, perhaps. I think this is so that GMs can just drop Signal GK into their regular Traveller campaigns – although that has never made sense to me. The number of Traveller groups running campaigns in that neck of the Solomani Rim was probably in the low tens. If that.

I imagine that if anyone did run Signal GK, they either moved it (in which case they’d be rewriting all sorts of stuff) or ran it as a one-shot (which is what I would do). And with a one-shot, we can let the players create Imperial Army agents with the skills they think they will need. 

(I would start the game with Sanchex briefing the players and instructing them to plan the mission and assemble a team. The players would then create and equip those characters to suit the mission profile – and then play them.)

Pedant’s corner: The introduction on page 5 says, “the players may use pregenerated characters supplied later in this adventure. A complete roster of available characters is supplied in a specific section of this booklet; these can be used both as player and non-player characters.” Unfortunately, there is no such section. The only characters in Signal GK are the main NPCs.

Structure

Before I get into the adventure proper, I just want to comment on Signal GK’s weird structure. I’m sure it made sense to GDW, but it doesn’t make sense to me. These are the sections:

1. Introduction
2. Referee’s synopsis
3. Characters (actually the NPCs)
4. On Ochre (the first part of the adventure)
5. The Ad Astra (14 pages of description and deck plans of the Ad Astra)
6. The Solomani Border (the subsector map)
7. On Cymbaline (the second part of the adventure)
8. Disaster (part three of the adventure)
9. The Biology of the Natural Chips
10. Library Data
11. Referee’s Notes

That’s not how I would structure the book. The section on the Ad Astra, in particular, breaks the flow of the adventure. I would rearrange it so that the adventure is kept together and the supplemental information (Ad Astra, Chip Biology, and Library Data) is pushed to the back.

I would move the Solomani Border section directly after Characters, as it helps explain the overall political situation.

Anyway.

High-tech adventure

One thing that’s striking about Signal GK is how high-tech it all is. Well, it would be striking if it actually felt high-tech…

Looking at the map, pretty much every world is TL 9 or higher – often much higher. Signal GK starts on TL 15 Scandia and moves to TL 14 Ochre and Cymbaline. By 2026 standards, these are magical worlds full of technological miracles. TL 15 has black globe generators and anagathics. TL 14 has cloning and robots. And that’s just what I can find in 1982’s The Traveller Book. Mongoose’s core rules add floating cities, implants and high-energy weapons and probably more if I looked a little harder.

But Traveller in 1985 hasn’t quite worked it out. (As an example, on Ochre, a research facility is described as being reachable via a dirt-track road, which is used as a visual aid by grav vehicles. I’d change that. In a TL14/15 society, why would there be any roads at all?)

But I think the very high-tech environment has interesting implications for smuggling defectors.

Part 1: Ochre

Ochre is a small desert world with its population clustered around the polar regions. It is two parsecs from the nearest Imperial world (Tamarind), and being so close is a focal point for traffic (and smugglers) between the Solomani Rim and the Third Imperium. The local government is relaxed about smuggling (despite its strict law level) because of the income it brings in from passage fees and inspection duties, and the Solomani Confederation tolerates the smuggling because it is a channel for acquiring Imperial goods and technology. So it’s a leaky border.

So the PCs must cross the border, arrive on Ochre, find and make contact with Dr Roshorin, convince him that they are genuine, and then smuggle him out across the border without the Solomani authorities finding out.

And while Signal GK describes the overall situation on Ochre, it gives no details on how any of that is to be done. I think that’s for the best – letting the GM and players define the world of Ochre will lead to a memorable game. If nothing else, it gives the players huge freedom in how they approach their mission – they’re not constrained by preplanned set pieces or scenes.

Traveller's politics

The Solomani are the bad guys in Signal GK. So who are they?

It’s 1110 now, and the Solomani Rim War was in 990-1002. So 108 years ago, which by coincidence is how long ago WW1 ended, measured from 2026. So the Rim War is pretty much in living memory – particularly given the anagathics users present on all those TL 15 worlds. (I would make Colonel Sanchex a veteran of the war.)

The war erupted when the Solomani attacked the Imperium in a land grab. However, the Imperium fought back and won, and now occupies half of the previous Solomani territory. (So Scandia, our starting world, is, to many eyes, an occupied world.)

The Solomani Confederation is described as having “belligerent and extremist policies,” but Signal GK says little more than that (and I’m reluctant to dig into the wider Traveller background just for this review).

I have the impression that the Solomani Confederation is a bit like the Cold War-era Soviet Union or East Germany. (Although the Imperium are the occupying force here…) And that’s probably how I would play it.

Defection

Defection is a loaded term. Dr Rushorin doesn’t want to leave the Solomani Confederation; he wants to defect. That reinforces the sense of East/West Cold War tensions that I get from the politics.

So while smuggling might be easy (as discussed above), defecting must be harder.

Presumably, the Solomani Confederation considers Dr Rushorin a valuable asset that they don’t want to lose. And having valuable assets working near the border means he will be watched (with TL 14 surveillance). And presumably, he is prohibited from leaving Solomani space.

One of the challenges that real-life defectors faced was what happened to their families. (Although I say this as someone with no personal experience of this!) I imagine defection is much harder if you suspect your family would be threatened.

Unfortunately, Signal GK lacks this dimension. All we know is that Dr Rushorin is a professor at a university on Aquitaine, and is on sabbatical. He is on Ochre, working on an electronics research project and wants to defect to the Imperium before he has to return to Aquitane. Still, it would be easy to give Dr Rushorin a small family that he has brought with him to make the PCs' task harder.

Back to Scandia

Anyway, after all this, the PCs smuggle Dr Rushorin across the border and to Scandia. Solomani Security are soon in pursuit, however… (How soon depends on how effective the PCs have been.)

Part 2: Cymbaline

Dr Rushorin has another reason to visit Imperial space – he wants to go to Cymbaline to prove a theory about naturally occurring semiconductors. So Colonel Sanchex greenlights this (probably to keep the professor out of trouble), and sends the PCs to keep an eye on Dr Rushorin.

Cymbaline is a massive world with a thin atmosphere – the only human-habitable land is at the bottom of vast canyons. Rushorin’s chips, though, aren’t to be found at the bottom of the canyons – his theory puts them on the slopes of outgassing volcanoes.

So this part of the adventure is an exploration into a hostile environment. Unfortunately, Signal GK provides no support for hazards, encounters, or events. Fortunately, Rushorin finds exactly what he is looking for in little over a week – naturally occurring semiconductors etched onto crystal wafers!

(The speed of their discovery by Dr Rushorin suggests that these natural semiconductors are common across Cymbaline.)

Introducing 10987

Remarkably, not only are these naturally occurring semiconductors alive, but some of them are intelligent. And one of them, 10987, is in one of Dr Rushorin’s samples. At which point Signal GK becomes a first-contact scenario, with the PCs meeting a brand-new lifeform.

I’m a sucker for first-contact stories, and classic Traveller didn’t do this very often.

Anyway, obviously, the PCs report this to the authorities (via Colonel Sanchex), Cymbaline is promptly quarantined so that the chips can be studied… Er no. Well, that could happen, but probably doesn’t. Signal GK is silent on the Imperium’s reaction when they learn of the chips, which is a shame.

Instead, the PCs are ambushed by Solomani Security forces intent on capturing Dr Rushorin.

Rather optimistically, Signal GK assumes that the PCs will connect 10987 to a computer. 10987 then warns of the attack moments before it happens. Except that, who in 2026 is going to connect 10987 to a computer? Even in 1985, I’m not sure players were that naïve – that was the era of The Terminator (1984) and Wargames (1983), not forgetting 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). We weren’t short of warnings about intelligent machines!

So I’d probably change this and have 10987 already connected itself to a computer before the PCs discover it.

Assuming he survives, Dr Rushorin states that he has confirmed his theories and wants to return to Scandia – and part 3.

Part 3: The Ad Astra

Back on Scandia, Colonel Sanchex decides things have become too hot for Dr Rushorin and sends him straight to Terra. But before the PCs can take him on their Type S, it is blown up by Solomani terrorists. So Colonel Sanchex books them all onto the Ad Astra, which leaves the following day.

Unfortunately, the Solomani bad guys are thinking ahead and are already on the Ad Astra…

Partway through the journey, in the middle of skimming fuel from a gas giant, the Solomani agent makes his move. He captures Rushorin and escapes in the launch while detonating three bombs that cripple the Ad Astra, condemning it to crash into the gas giant…

GM advice here is painfully thin, and Signal GK breezily says, “The referee must generate a number of different passengers (and insert the <Solomani agent> among them, and then have the entire group interact with the adventurers and Rushorin.” That’s it – no suggestion for potential scenes or ideas for characters or anything else. (And the poor referee has to invent the crew as well – they’re not described either.)

The big problem with this section is that players are reacting to events. They don’t really get to be proactive. As written, the PCs have very little to do until the agent makes his move. And then, once that’s over, while they can help the crew fix the damaged liner, they’re unlikely to be in charge of repair operations because, well, it’s not their ship and the crew is presumably better qualified than they are at fixing the Ad Astra.

(It’s probably telling that Signal GK spends longer on repairing the Ad Astra after the bombing than it does on the characters aboard the liner.)

To be fair to Signal GK, it does say “…the adventures will probably be monitoring their fellow passengers in order to protect Rushorin.” But that’s all it says.

I would make this stronger – just before they enter jump, they receive a message from Colonel Sanchex saying he has intelligence indicating a Solomani agent is on board, but he doesn’t know who.

But then I’d also need summary details of passengers and crew, along with scenes and events. (I’d have one crewmember be suspiciously new, as well.) 

And to prevent the PCs from just hiding in their staterooms for the whole trip, I would have Colonel Sanchex instruct the PCs to identify and capture the agent for questioning.

I don’t know how I’d run this. Previously, when I’ve run Traveller, we’ve skipped most jumps. I ask the players what they’re doing for the week they’re spending in jump space, but we don’t go through it in detail. Managing 20+ NPCs and making the journey interesting? That might be beyond me. (Might be the basis for a fun larp, though.)

What do I think?

It’s probably best to think of Signal GK as three linked adventures. You could run them completely independently.

Defection on Ochre

The first adventure, “Defection on Ochre”, interests me most. It’s the adventure where, as written, the PCs are actually proactive.  And it’s fascinating thinking about TL 14 surveillance and countermeasures, and how the players might help Dr Rushorin defect.

I can’t even imagine how TL14 systems would work, so my approach would be to have my players help set the scene – and have some fun in the planning session exploring future systems and how to beat them. And then we’d run the mission.

Expedition to Cymbaline

Part 2, on Cymbaline, is the weakest. There are few opportunities for roleplaying and few decisions the PCs have to make. This section only gets interesting when 10987 appears – followed by the firefight. (This is potentially an exciting high-tech firefight with plasma weapons and battledress. I mean, Solomani Security are hardly likely to be armed with SMGs.)

So to make this more memorable, I’d introduce events and scenes and maybe even a random table or two. And perhaps a map of the volcano slopes for the PCs to explore.

Signal GK

And the final part, which I would call "Signal GK", could be about flushing a Solomani terrorist out from the crew or passengers from the Ad Astra. But you’d need NPC details and ideas for scenes and events to make it more interesting at the table.

Conclusion

I can’t remember what I thought of Signal GK when I first got it. I never ran it, never used the deck plans, so I don’t think I was that impressed.

Re-reading it 40 years later, and I find myself intrigued by the ideas it contains, but frustrated by how much is missing. How much the referee needs to invent just to make the game work at the table.

Am I asking too much of a 40-year-old adventure? Maybe. I mean, I am reading this with 40 years more life experience than I had when I first read Signal GK. But all of this is stuff that popped into my head when I read it again. I’ve not spent 40 years thinking about Signal GK.

Anyway, it’s unlikely that I will run Signal GK. Or if I do, it will probably only be the first part (on Ochre), because I can see how to run that with minimal prep. Which is a shame, as with a bit more work it could have been a cracking little adventure.