The Nuts and bolts of using the Sathar in an Adventure

jedion357's picture
jedion357
July 4, 2011 - 7:33pm
#1 take a page from Aliens the movie and never let the PCs get a good look at the sathar. create mystery with uncertainty. Allow the Pcs to come across a slime trail left by the sathar but not see the sathar. (Remember they're covered in slime which is generally considered creepy or disgusting so dont forget to use this to put the players on edge if you can.) Allow them to hear it moving but never catch up to it.

#2 Create opportunities for a sathar to talk to PCs in a non combat situation then roll secretly for the Logic save and tell the player nothing. later create a situation where suddenly for no reason anyone knows the security system has been shut off. Who did that? Don't know, check the video logs. Hey, Starbreaker, you shut it off. No I didn't. Yeah you did thats you right there on the vid. Funny I dont remember it.

The sathar have this great ability and the only way to use it is to just not tell the PCs that they've been hypnotized and create little mysteries around things the PCs dont want to happen but the sathar want to happen.

Depending on what an adventure is dont forget to use turncoat agents. Soften up the players with lower caste grunts, knock them about with middle caste sathar and then build to a big boss encounter with a super well armed and equipped upper caste leader sathar that should come close to killing the PCs if not requiring the use of a freeze field afterward.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!
Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
July 5, 2011 - 5:32am
RE: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/5521

#3 The slavebot is quite a bit creepy and could be a means of using the hypnotism ability- its a sathar brain whats to say it no longer has its hypnotism ability? if the bot body was a core 4 race then the PCs would not fear to talk to it and give the referee a shot at using hypnotism.

Since its a radio transmitter that allows the sathar brain to control the slave bots it probably has similar range to the chronocom (5km) or to the radiophone (1000km) I lean toward limiting it to a number closer to 5 KM and setting up the brain as a vampire type in a stronghold directing its slavebots (zombies within range of its control) upto maximun range (this could be a method or locating the brain- finding out the extent of how far a slavebot can travel in several directions then triangulate the location of the brain.

should definetly allow for several slaves to be controlled at once.

plus the sathar brain would require a suicide device to prevent its capture. small nukes work for me.

EDIT: so to use the sathar a referee has a whole cast of characters:
1. Agents and turncoats- this provides a whole variety of opponents
2. Attack monsters- quickdeath, slitherer, cybodragon, and etc.
3. Slavebots and the disembodied sathar brain directing them
4. actual sathar robots
5. and the sathar themselves- in this category I would subdivide it between the 3 proposed castes.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

jedion357's picture
jedion357
July 5, 2011 - 5:50am
Creating an adventure with sathar Foils:

been thinking about this as the modules where the sathar turn up are actually set up as military operations and the AD rule book repeatedly says that they sathar's motives are:
1. to interfere with local government
2. terrorize Frontier citizens
3. and disrupt interstellar trade

Alright it only specifies items # 1 & 3 twice and item #2 only appears in the Attitude section of the sathar discription. And I've further asserted that the 2 paragraphs that appear under the heading of attitude really just sound like propaganda published by the Council of Worlds so the terrorize citizens part may not really be a motive of the sathar. It could be but it feels like more of a scare statement designed to motivate citizens to action IMO.

so the 2 major sathar motives for operations in the Frontier in the period between the 2 wars are:
1. to interfere with local government
2. disrupt interstellar trade

Interfering with local government; what sort of operations would the sathar conduct under this motive? Assassination? of who? to what purpose?
Its interesting that the book specifies "local" which I would interpret as planetary not Council of worlds government but their ultimate goal would be to put agents on the Council of Worlds or in charge of space fleet. We're really looking at a BSG (new one) style of infiltration of UPF society at many levels from many fronts with a master plan in place.

Disrupting interstellar trade; again what sort of operations would they conduct under this? Straight up terrorism- bombing star ports, star ship atomic fuel refineries, space stations, supporting piracy by non sathar agents.
Instigating a corporate war.
Crashing stock markets and etc.
slipping substandard materials into the pipeline so that products produced with that material break or explode possibly in the case of say SEU clips

NOTE: much of the above would have the side effect of terrorizing citizens anyway.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

jedion357's picture
jedion357
July 5, 2011 - 6:00am
jedion wrote:

1. Agents and turncoats- this provides a whole variety of opponents
2. Attack monsters- quickdeath, slitherer, cybodragon, and etc.
3. Slavebots and the disembodied sathar brain directing them
4. actual sathar robots
5. and the sathar themselves- in this category I would subdivide it between the 3 proposed castes.


so where would the above cast be used:
1. Agents and turncoats- could be anywhere inside or out of the Frontier
2. Attack monsters-  hard to use these within the Frontier except on planets that the sathar occupied during the SW1; so primarily used on unexplored planets and sathar outposts
3. Slavebots and the disembodied sathar brain directing them; books says they're intended for long term operation of isolated outpost
4. actual sathar robots: could be used anywhere the sathar are taking a direct hand, probably in company of the sathar themselves or with an isolated outpost.
5. and the sathar themselves-  I think the watch word for these is maintain some mystery more likely the PCs will meet the grunts then the middle and upper caste and any meeting with the upper caste should be climatic, dangerous and carry lots of peril but equally carry big rewards for success. Sathar could be used within the Frontier but with quite a bit of circumspect cloak and dagger. Outside the Frontier they can be a little bit more open but should have levels of security, robots, slavebots, attack monsters, agents the protect them like layers of an onion.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Imperial Lord's picture
Imperial Lord
July 6, 2011 - 9:30pm
There are zillions of options.

Sathar Agents are key.  The important thing is to build an adventure around the possibility that the PCs can uncover the hidden enemy in time to build defenses against the more conventional Sathar onslaught.  Or the Agent has intelligence that allows the PCs to take the initiative and attack themselves, hopefully taking the Sathar by surprise.

The Sathar are not very effective on defense.  They're just not that experienced in it.  This can be an opportunity for a ref to make mistakes on the part of the Sathar.  Mistakes that PCs acting aggressively can exploit.

Leaders can also be key.  Killing a Middle Caste Squad Leader might cause the Lower Caste mediocrities under his command to stop moving, or to suddenly jump out of cover and charge suicidally.  In any case, there will be some confusion as the Sathar command control is broken, for at least a short period of time, which might permit the PCs to retreat, if they need to.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
July 7, 2011 - 3:54pm
I'm wondering how I'd rewrite the Volturnus encounters with the caste system. The anti air gun would be run by middle caste. The ones setting up the force field fence would be middle likewise. The cybodragon recharge encounter would be the same. The one where the edestakai meet their gods: the quickdeath would have a bulk of the grunts be 3rd.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!