Commander Banks ground his cigar between his teeth as he sat in the Big Chair in the bridge. He never lit it, of course. Jeremiah Banks was a marine tried and true; ever since he was young, he planned to die a hero, and a slow, wheezing death by lung cancer didn't particularly suit his aspirations. He'd been disappointed once they'd promoted him up from the front lines. After it became clear that he'd been condemned to a long, healthy, and boring life, he resolved to remain an officer for as long as he could. One day, when they give him an honorable discharge with full military honors, he'll live in a nice veterans home with his old war buddies. Should they give him a dishonorable discharge, he would break into the admiral's office, sit in the admiral's comfortable leather chair, and blow his brains out.
The cigar was his own idea, when he was a younger man. He'd hoped it would make him look like Patton. Nowadays, though, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who even knew who Patton was; most people just thought he looked silly, sucking on an unlit cigar like a pacifier. If a superior told him this, he'd chuckle amiably and give a good-natured quip about it being a habit by this point. If a subordinate said the same thing, they'd get kitchen duty for a month.
His thoughts were interrupted by a small party joining him on the bridge. His LO had let them in, and pulled a table up to the middle of the room. Following the LO were two men carrying a large metal box, a marine in front and one of the researchers in back. Streaming out of one end of the box was a tangle of wires, most of which dragged on the floor behind them. A few were hooked into a laptop carried by another scientist, who nearly tripped over himself trying to keep up with the box and make sure the wires didn't yank the laptop out of his hands.
The two men heaved the device onto the table the LO had set up, and stood back to look at the Commander expectantly.
"So this is it, then," he grunted.
"Yessir," his LO replied. "The Nostromo's Black Box Recorder."
"It's orange." he said, unimpressed. "You sure you got the right thing?"
"It's just called a Black Box, sir. It doesn't actually have to be black."
"Its the right thing, sir," the marine spoke up. "I was there when we retrieved it."
Commander Banks grunted again. "What are you doing here? I thought I told your team to investigate that distress signal. Can't follow orders, marine?"
"Murphy tripped, sir. Broke his ankle. Sergeant told me to take him to medbay."
Banks sniffed, satisfied. "Well, then? You find out what it was that did them in?" He looked at the researchers. "You ever heard of a radio, civilians? You didn't need to come tell me in person. In fact we give you a whole lab, too. You didn't need to come in and get this shit all over my tables." He picked at some of the black fungus that was growing up the side of the device. "Just what is this shit anyway?"
The researcher who'd been carrying the box answered. "We think its some type of Plasmodial Slime Mold. And sir, we thought you'd better hear this yourself."
The scientist with the laptop hit a few keys, and a metallic robotic voice began to read out the Nostromo's logs for the twelve hours prior to the distress signal's activation.
0832 HOURS: BREACH DETECTED IN ENGINEERING MAINTENANCE HALLWAY
0844 HOURS: BREACH REPAIRED IN ENGINEERING MAINTENANCE HALLWAY
1234 HOURS: CREWMEMBER REPORTED MISSING
1250 HOURS: SEARCH PARTY LAUNCHED
1324 HOURS: SEARCH PARTY REPORTED MISSING
1450 HOURS: CREW TRANSFER SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1453 HOURS: CREW TRANSFER SHUTTLE SENT
1502 HOURS: END-SHIFT CREW TRANFER REPORT SENT TO CENTCOMM
1503 HOURS: CREW TRANSFER SHUTTLE RECALLED
1505 HOURS: CREW TRANSFER SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1506 HOURS: REQUEST DENIED
1508 HOURS: COMMUNICATIONS CONSOLE DE-POWERED
1514 HOURS: STATION ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DE-POWERED
1515 HOURS: COMMUNICATIONS CONSOLE POWERED
1515 HOURS: EMERGENCY EVACUATION SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1516 HOURS: REQUEST DENIED
1518 HOURS: EMERGENCY EVACUATION SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1519 HOURS: REQUEST DENIED
1524 HOURS: EMERGENCY EVACUATION SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1525 HOURS: REQUEST DENIED
1542 HOURS: EMERGENCY EVACUATION SHUTTLE REQUESTED
1544 HOURS: REQUEST DENIED
1738 HOURS: DISTRESS BEACON ACTIVATED
Commander Banks was at a loss for words, except for perhaps a few choice swears. He wanted to swear. He shouldn't swear, though. When you're in command, people look to you for everything they do. Weakness in you is weakness in them. He should bark out an order, tell people what to do! This is a time for action!
Just what the hell was on that station?
The rest of them stared at him, waiting for a response. He swallowed, more noticeably than he'd like. Adjusting his headset, he opened a channel to his reconnaissance team. "Alpha Squad, I need a sitrep!"
No answer.
"Alpha Squad, report."
Silence.
Oblivious, the marine piped up helpfully, "Sir, they went to the research wing. Murphy thought he saw something run that way. A cat or something. Says that's what tripped him."
Banks spat out his cigar, chewed up like a dog toy, and began to run his fingers through his hair.
"I wouldn't worry, sir!" the marine continued. "Who knows what they were working on in there! I bet you some of the equipment is on, and the interference is jamming their radios!" He looked to the researchers for support. Once averted his eyes, the other shook his head gravely.
Banks bit his thumbnail, regretting spitting out his cigar. "God damn it," he said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder
I imagine the first thing a marine commander would do, upon answering a distress beacon and finding it's constituent station seemingly empty, would be to try to figure out what happened. Survivors could be a good source of information, but they might be lying or delirious, and generally can't be considered entirely reliable. You can get a much more definitive picture of the station's last few hours by accessing a station's black box, which would have recorded all the important events on board, such as escape shuttle launches and captain's reports.
From what I've played, the marine's usually follow a set pattern in the tasks they have to accomplish:
- Secure Engineering, the bridge, and/or the brig
- Attempt to set up the engine
- Wait for all hell to break loose
Once its at the Sulaco, it'd be moved into research's hands, where they would hook it up and decrypt the records. This isn't really a big part of the concept; if you want, you could leave that bit out and just send it straight to the commander. Not sure exactly what type of work you could make necessary in order to involve research anyway, but it'd be nice to give them something to do and to give them an excuse to come out and interact with the rest of the crew remaining aboard the Sulaco.
Once the records are all decrypted, its sent to the commander and his staff, who will listen to the records and use that to inform their decisions. Realistically it wouldn't change a whole lot, except for him telling his marines to be extra, extra careful now that he know's something fishy is going on, but it'd make things more interesting for the commander, LOs, and whoever else chooses to listen in, and would give them an opportunity to RP about the situation on the Nostromo, if they feel inclined.
The records within the black box would be semi-randomized, describing various things that happened in the lead-up to the distress beacon being activated. You could add different kinds of indicators that the aliens were on board, and various red herrings that the crew of the space station may have thought were important at the time, but in the end didn't really have any impact on their eventual fate. The basic elements should remain the same, though: weird stuff happens, weirder stuff happens, things go horribly wrong, distress signal activated. I'd suggest leaving it as vague as possible as to what exactly the threat on board the station is, in order to maintain suspense.
I should mention that there's already a black box recorder in the code (probably); it usually sits in the telecomms room and is used by precisely no one, much like the rest of telecomms. I think it just records everything anyone's said over radio over the round, but I may be mistaken.
So yeah, that's my proposal. It gives a more RP-ey objective to the marines other than "Patrol the halls and wait to be attacked," promotes interaction between Sulaco crewmembers and the marines, and lets the Sulaco crewmembers feel like they're contributing to the mission.
Thoughts?
