Scenario Wave — Salvage & Ships

The scenario waves are ready-to-run situations, not a plot. Each wave gathers three lean scenarios that foreground one pillar of play; you drop them in when the crew turns that way, hang them on the nodes and clocks already built (files 01–04), and let the faction turn carry the rest. They run in any order, stand alone, and reuse the cast and places the campaign already has. Four waves cover the pillars: Salvage & Ships (this file), Trade & Pressure (06), Intrigue & Investigation (07), and Combat & Heritage (08).

This wave foregrounds ships, jump, and space combat (Chapters 12, 25–27) and salvage and hazards (Chapters 13, 37–38) — the frontier's signature payday and signature way to die, and the most natural early play given the Concord and the graveyard at Stilldrift. As always: the crew rolls; the world rolls only the enemy's damage (Chapter 40). Nothing here is a new rule. Each scenario closes with a solo/co-op note (Chapters 42–45), so the whole wave plays GM-led, co-op, or with no GM at all.

How to use this wave§

Reach for a scenario when its pillar fits what the crew is doing: when they fly into Stilldrift, when they need parts or a payday for the rebuild (03a), or when GANYMEDE pushes (file 02). Each names the node it hangs on and the clocks it moves, so running it is advancing the sandbox. Scale the opposition to your crew with the dials in Chapter 32 — Disadvantage, the cost of failure, more successes for a big job — never by moving the target off 8.

5.1 The Breaker at Stilldrift§

Ship & space combat (Chapters 12, 25–27).

The graveyard at Stilldrift is a slow churn of dead ships against the dark — and tonight one of them is under power. A breaking-ship hangs over a hull that isn't yours yet, its cutting-lasers warming to a dull red, and a leaner shape slides out of its shadow to meet you.

The pitch. A GANYMEDE breaking-ship has crept up on the Concord — or on an escort hull the crew meant to salvage — and means to start cutting. It is slow, armored, and escorted by a hired raider that is none of those things. The crew has to drive it off, outwit it, or strike a deal from the worse end of the guns, and they have to do it from their stations while the ark drifts helpless behind them.

How it reaches the crew. GANYMEDE's clock ticks toward the ark (file 02); the crew arrives at the fringe to find the breaker already on station, or gets a panicked call from a contact at Saltgate that the cutters are moving. If the crew has begun the Defenses project (03a), this is where it's tested.

The situation. Ravna Kost (file 02) doesn't want a fight; she wants the ark dead and scrapped before anyone can wake it, and a fight is just overhead. The raider is the threat — a fast, stealthed corsair-class hull (Chapter 25) throttled for teaching: one attack a round, and its guns out-class the crew's free trader, so matching the gun to the hull and boarding rather than slugging is the lesson (Chapter 27). The breaker itself is a slow, soft target the crew can cripple if they get past its escort.

Running it.

The fringe arrival (Chapter 27). If the crew jumped in, resolve the plot and any misjump first; if they're coming from the ark, open on sensors painting two contacts in the dark.
The ship fight (Chapters 25–27). Crew stations: the pilot evades (not "attacks"), the gunner works Remote Weapons, sensors lock, the engineer runs damage control, the captain coordinates. Track Hull/Systems; mind scale (Chapter 12) — the raider's guns vs the crew's armor make the gap bite. The crew rolls; you roll only the raider's damage on a missed evade.
The choice under fire. Kost will hail and offer terms — leave the ark to us and fly home rich — at any point the crew is losing. The raider breaks off if its principal (Kost) is convinced the job costs more than it pays: cripple the breaker, threaten her crew, or out-talk her (Chapter 5).

Resolutions.

Drive them off. The breaker withdraws; GANYMEDE's clock ticks back one, and the crew has bought the ark time and made an enemy who doesn't forget.
Cut a deal. The crew takes Kost's money or a truce; clean credits, the ark unharmed for now, GANYMEDE's clock holds — and the crew owes the vulture a conversation later.
Lose the field. The crew runs; GANYMEDE's clock ticks forward, the cutters start on the ark or the escort, and the next scenario is taking back what they lost.

What it advances. GANYMEDE clock (file 02); the Defenses track if the crew fought from a partly-restored ark (03a); the metaclock, if the contest visibly tightened.

Solo/GM-less. The ship fight runs player-facing as written — your crew rolls; the raider's damage is the only die the world throws (Chapters 27, 42). Oracle the unknowns: does the breaker have a second escort? (unlikely); will Kost deal this early? (even). Use What Intrudes if the fight stalls.

5.2 The Cold Escort§

Salvage crawl & layered hazards (Chapters 13, 37–38).

The escort died a thousand years ago and never stopped falling. Your lights find it tumbling slow, hull split along one flank, frost-white and utterly silent — and somewhere inside it, the ark's missing codes and whatever killed the crew that carried them.

The pitch. One of the ships that crossed with the Concord didn't survive arrival, and it's drifting in the Stilldrift field with its lights long dead. Aboard it: the part of the ark's command codes that isn't in the bridge safe, the manifest of who the ark carried — and a dark full of the ordinary ways a wreck kills you. The crew goes in to take what the ark needs before GANYMEDE or the cold gets there first.

How it reaches the crew. The escort hulls are a keyed node (files 01, 03, 04); the crew learns the codes are split when they reach the Concord's bridge (Zone 2) and find it won't answer. Iola Sandry (file 03) or the ark's logs point them here.

The situation. The escort is a small armed hull, dead a thousand years, hull breached and tumbling slow. The command codes are in its captain's safe (the web object; file 04); the catch is the salvage generator's, rolled or chosen (Chapter 38, what's wrong): the safe won't open without the captain's authority, and the captain is in a failed cryo-pod aboard — dead, or dying, depending on how fast the crew works.

Running it.

Getting aboard (Chapter 13). Vacuum and drift, no footing; a Sealed suit and a tether. The breach is the door.
The crawl (Chapters 13, 38). Layer the hazards the Cold Lantern showed one of: a structural-collapse pocket on a clock, a cold that kills slow, a rad pocket from the escort's own cracked core. The salvage generator fills the compartments (Chapter 38, what's aboard): reclaimable parts, a weapons locker, the captain's safe.
The safe and the pod. The codes need the captain's authority — a thumb, a phrase, a living mind. The captain's pod is failing (Chapter 38, the dead didn't all die). Wake them in time (a Biology test under pressure, Chapter 23) and they can open the safe and tell the crew what the ark really carried; let them die and the crew must crack it the hard way (Cracking, at Disadvantage; Chapter 23), losing the captain's testimony.

Resolutions.

Codes and captain. The crew wakes the captain, opens the safe clean, and gains the codes and a witness who knew the Concord's command — a lead into the crown thread and the memory cores (file 04).
Codes, no captain. They crack the safe and take the codes; the bridge will answer now, but the captain's knowledge dies with the pod.
Driven out. The hazard or a GANYMEDE crew forces them off empty; the codes wait, and so does whoever comes next.

What it advances. The Bridge & Command track (03a) once the codes are in hand; the crown thread (a living captain complicates who claims the bridge, file 03); the web (the captain points to the memory cores).

Solo/GM-less. The wreck crawl is the Oracle's natural home (Chapter 45): expectation-test each compartment — is it breached? (likely), is the pod still viable? (even, and falling). Run the collapse and the failing pod as fronts with their own clocks; the dark provides its own intrusions.

5.3 Race to the Wreck§

Salvage under competition (Chapters 35, 38).

The call came over Saltgate's open channel — which means you weren't the only one who heard it. A fat wreck, freshly surfaced, coordinates for sale. Your sensors paint it against the field, and a second drive-plume is already burning toward it from the far side.

The pitch. A fresh find has surfaced in the field — a hull worth real money, the kind of payday that funds a month of the rebuild — and the crew isn't the only one who heard. A rival salvage crew is already burning toward it, one jump or one hour ahead, and the wreck will go to whoever is willing to take the most and leave the least behind.

How it reaches the crew. A rumor at Saltgate (Onna Vex sells it to the crew and the rival, file 02), or a lead off a previous crawl. The rebuild's hunger for credits and parts (03a) makes the payday hard to refuse.

The situation. The wreck is real and the catch is the rival (Chapter 38, a rival crew arriving now). They may be independents just trying to eat, or GANYMEDE-hired muscle sent to deny the crew a payday and soften them up — your call, and it changes the scenario's weight. The find inside is good but not clean: rolled on the salvage generator (Chapter 38), it comes with its own what's wrong.

Running it.

The race (Chapters 27, 37). Speed to the wreck is a real contest — a piloting push, a risky shortcut through the field, a sensor game to find it first. Frame it as a few tests against 8 with the stakes being who boards first and who boards into the other's guns.
The standoff. First crew aboard holds the wreck; the second arrives to a choice — fight (Chapter 11, or ship-to-ship if it stays in the black), deal (split it, Chapter 5), or sabotage (let the crew take the dangerous part). Violence is available, not required; the best outcomes are usually a hard bargain.
The find and its catch (Chapter 38). Whatever the wreck holds, the what's wrong lands on whoever takes it — hot cargo that marks them, a beacon that calls its owner, a thing that isn't as dead as it looks. The rival's presence makes every choice faster and meaner.

Resolutions.

Take it whole. The crew out-flies, out-fights, or out-deals the rival and hauls the find; the rebuild gets its credits/parts (03a), and the rival becomes a Contact or an Enemy (Chapter 35).
Split it. A bargain leaves both crews alive and paid; a new working relationship, and a rival who remembers being fair to.
Lose it, learn something. The rival takes the prize — and its catch. The crew walks with less coin but the knowledge of who sent the rival (a thread to GANYMEDE, file 02).

What it advances. The rebuild economy (credits/parts toward a restoration project, 03a); GANYMEDE's clock if the rival was theirs; a new Contact or Rival on the web (Chapter 35).

Solo/GM-less. Oracle the rival's nature up front — are they GANYMEDE's? (even) — and their willingness to deal (Charm or Negotiate as an opposed test, Chapter 8). The race and the find both roll on the generators; let the dice be the rival GM.