It is pretty. Yes it is. A man could get lost in himself there. Is that a bad thing? Depends on the man.
It is a fairly empty zone of space. Fairly empty. There is a cloud of slighty energized particles there. Not dense enough to be a visual obstacle, or even a real navigational one, but enough to be measured. And to have a real effect. Most people go around it, just to be safe. Others, just run right through all the time.
If you listen to it on the wave channels, it is a strong hydrogen wave... a strong solid tone. (The Quiet really isn't that quiet).
The partical field is charged enough to absorb and eliminate communication and most broadcasts. It puts a dent into sensor reception. You can navigate through the use of a keen eye or a visual capture and some computing, as the beacons can't be heard in The Quiet. If something happens to your computer and you don't have a good navigator (with an old sextant and star chart) you could be in quite a bit of trouble.
And things can happen. In the Quiet there are areas of "high concentration". Those areas could discharge to a passing ship knocking out some of the system. The computer is the most likely canidate, but lighting and comm are also possible. Actually anything could break given enough discharge. Including your ships field dampers. Thus the discharges could get worse.
And in the worst possible world, the strong signal could effect the minds of those with leaky or slightly leaky brain pans. Unless they are wearing their tinfoil caps, they will go a bit more odd.
(The good thing is that all reavers in the quiet go even more nutz and start eating each other).
Remember, in The Quiet nobody can hear you scream.
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Ah, the Bermuda Triangle of space. This is the perfect place to have a side-adventure ghost story. Maybe something involving critters in the darkness after lights go out, picking up ghost transmissions (bonus points for ships lost long before to The Quiet, with appropriate authentication codes), or navigation going completely screwy ("What do you mean the stars don't match those on the chart? This is The Quiet, they specifically map the sky for this place!"). All sorts of fun can be had here.
Not a good place to end up in.
Oh, this was supposed to be a stub. Oh well, since you two voted on it, I guess I can leave it a sub.
It was originally designed to be less of a spooky place and more of a "trap". See they players will hear the stories. Yet, they will of course risk it sometime. You know the situations: To get there ahead of them or to runaway from others, or a myrid number of other things. The first time they go through, after some sweat, they will fly though pretty much free. (Maybe a couple of rolls to make them feel skilled and cool.) Feeling brave and know it is just a legend (or not nearly as bad as the stories make it out to be), they will do it again and maybe again. After three times, they will be feeling pretty cocky about their "special short cut". That is when it hits them. They hit a charged location and.. well time to really see how good they are. And since "leaky brain pan"(a bit crazy) is a common situation, then you will have a crew go a bit more nutz. And you will have to repair stuff or canabilize systems and so on.
Now you could make it a bit more occult, dressed up with science fiction. (You would have to take it out of its native Firefly universe.) Extra dimensional beings enter the ship and mess with you (i.e. ghosts or demons). Heck even a Star Trek Glowing Ball of Emotion Manipulation would be a good thing. It the delusions happen... well it is just a strange section of space. Now about space warps and time warps, that can be done too.
The bad part is that most of the scary stuff can simply be couched in these terms and it loses a lot of its impact. Still, an interesting way to go.
Mreh.
It's the typical Dead Zone in space, with a few specific little details to flesh it off that.
Given that it's apparently based off of Firefly, I'll leave my nitpicks about the veracity of it aside; video media producers have never been particularly good about paying attention to that kind of detail because the majority of the audience will be at least as clueless.
It is a stub alright. Not really Firefly, a generic location to put into any spacey setting. Not much to go by but a good base for more.
What made if firefly is the lack of science fantasy elements, without being pure real science. It is in that "sweet spot" between those two where Firefly material lays.
Not bad, it could use something to set it apart from other dead zones, something to give it it's own flavor.
You mean besides the "quietly insane" crew members altered by the space? I guess a disabling space with a communication nul combines two sci-fi memes. Like I said, only a stub that didn't stay "stubified".
Hi,
I am new and don't know the difference between a stub and a sub. In game terms, I don't see why anyone would pass through this area. I mean certainly a gm could come up with a reason for it, but it seems to be written as if there is large base of knowledge on this region in the gaming world. Thus to take that narrative stance you would have to have reason that people pass through it. Secondly, I know you referencing Firefly but you could have just written "space cloud that messes with electrical systems sometime even human neurons" and the effect would have been the same. Like Scrasamax said, it is just another dead zone idea. I thought the Quiet was nice name though. Manfred has encouraged me to read all of Moonhunter's stuff to get the full picture of his talent. So I am working my through it.
NCN
Why would anyone pass through a strange, somewhat dangerous area? As was hinted, some avoid it, some don't. But let's see:
- because they are in a hurry (want to get fast _to_ or _from_ something?)
- because they want to stay undetected
- because they are curious
- because of a malfunction they drifted into the area
- because they don't know any better (or someone 'updated' their database)
...which are all perfectly valid reasons. What'd be the fun in a game, if all journeys were constant and safe? This region does not seem too dangerous, but it doesn't need much to make for an outstanding adventure background. As long as it is usable to some, it is worth considering.
Hey,
That was my point. All you would need to write is "space cloud that messes with electrical systems sometime even human neurons" and you could think of all these reasons. But if he was going to write up something like this he could have given it more background, or flavor.
"- because they are in a hurry (want to get fast _to_ or _from_ something?)
- because they want to stay undetected
- because they are curious
- because of a malfunction they drifted into the area
- because they don't know any better (or someone 'updated' their database)"
Then in your post, you ask a rhetorical question "What'd be the fun in a game, if all journeys were constant and safe?" This had nothing to do with what I said, I was not knocking obstacles. I was just saying as a RPG supplement this was neither an original, well written or well developed idea. I think the reason you asked that is because when we encounter a stale representation of a trite convention such as this one all we can do is debate the trite convention itself.
NCN