Hello all,
I'm working on an adventure heavily based off of the book Death Troopers and existing Canon Lore. I'm planning on modifying events of the book to take place just 3 years BBY during Season 2 of Rebels. The zombies will occur as a result of the Brain Worms from Season 2 of Clone Wars. Basically, the Advanced Weapons Research team discovered a couple of the Zombie Geonosians during their last deployment of poison canisters to on the planet of Geonosis and brought 2 specimens to the ISD called the Vector under Commander Gorrister. Long story short, they had cloned 3 versions of the Brain Worm, each clone was created using genetical materials on hand from 3 different species, Rodian, human, and Trandosian. They experimented with the Brain Worms by observing them taking a host, a Verpine, a human, and a Rodian. Basically, the Verpine had a similar biology as the Genosian species with a few key differences, including the ability to change gender in order to lay eggs.
So they got a Verpin that is able to reproduce the Brain Worms that I have the scientist classify as Species GN-304. They have a few more volunteers (slaves) they use to see how the Verpine Brain Worms behave compared to the ones attached to the dead Geonosians. One of the human male slaves that is used as a host to the Verpin Brain Worms has the equivalent of Tuberculosis, and the Brain Worm utilizes the DNA of the bacteria as a way of reproducing itself. The nature of the virus attacks the lungs of it victims and starts absorbing the oxygen from the victim's blood cells as well as some genetic materials of the host to create a Brain Worm embryo that makes its way to the victim's brain and as a results ends up killing the host. The Brain Worm now inside of the victim has only one way of reproducing inside of a dead host and that is through body fluid contact.
This adventure will take place in the Maw Nebula, the original spot where the first Death Star was constructed in the EU before Disney changed that to Geonosis. It is a nebula with a clusters of black holes near the Kessel system.
I'm creating maps of the Star Destroyer using this image as a map: https://goo.gl/images/BZHHWJ
I have started creating a bunch of logs entered into different parts of the ship's computer systems form different members of the Vector's crew. Hopefully I will have enough to have the slicer in the group roll a d100 to pull one of the logs out of the computer system at random and see if they can piece together the mystery of what happened, but not before 75% of the Crew is infected with the Blackwing Sickness and have to search the ship or logs for a cure, or try making a cure from one of the PC's that was luckily enough to be immune to the virus.
I'd like to hear some suggestions and ideas from the community. The main hook will be from an encrypted datapad discovered in the first game of our campaign over a year ago in real life time. Basically the Star Destroyer need to be replenished with supplies frequently, especially if the Ship will be stationed in a spot for a long period of time. For this, two datapads with the encrypted coordinates and directions to the Vector's location were entrusted to two of the ship's senior officers. They would take a shuttle back to the Injopan system and each make arrangements to obtain a supply transport to bring the Vector the supplies in an alternating schedule of one month cycles, starting with officer Daniels. Then Commander Korvis would follow up with his delivery 30 days from Daniels' delivery. During the resupply, a report will be sent back with the Officer to deliver to Lord Vader himself on the progress of Project Blackwing and relay any further instructions for the next resupply.
Basically, a gang of Rodian Pirates attacked officer Daniels supply transport and confiscated everything onboard and held the officer for Ransom. The Pirates separated into two groups, the first group took the supply transport to their hidden moon base and the other group tried unsuccessfully to sell their hostage officer. The pirates moon base was attacked by the PC group where they found the datapad.
Below is a sample of some of the mission logs I'm creating. If anyone is still reading this, I would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
Quote
The Vector was an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer of the Imperial Navy in service prior to the Battle of Yavin.
Commander Gorrister served in the Imperial Navy on the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Vector alongside stormtrooper TK329 and Commander Tallos. Gorrister and Tallos' squad paired up on training activities aboard Vector.
Commander Gorrister is the commanding officer of the Advanced Weapons Research team aboard the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer called the Vector. During the team's most recent and successful mission to perpetrate genocide against the Genosian species on Geonosis, Gorrister 's field commander Korvis made an important discovery.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-01**
Mission Debriefing:
The deployment of the poison cannisters on Genosis was a success. However, while deploying the last payload of poison cannisters in one of the deepest tunnels on the southern hemisphere of the planet, Korvis and his team had discovered a pile of Gnosian corpses under a collapsed tunnel. Trooper TK329 then reported seeing movement from the pile of corpses and rocks during the deployment of the cannisters. Upon closer inspection, several of the badly decomposed Gnosian corpses appear to reanimate. The cracking sounds of bone and dried cartilage of their exoskeleton rubbing together resonated and amplified in volume throughout the tunnel as did the raspy snarling that came from what was left of their mouths. The decayed carcasses appeared to have been awoken from the disturbance of the cannisters' deployment. There appeared to be close to 10 of these zombie-like creatures mostly pinned down by the large rocks of a previous cave-in. A moment of fear triggered a few of the Stormtroopers start blasting away at the creatures before coming to a halt at Korvis' command. The blaster fire seemed to have very little effect on the creatures, as they all continued to claw as if attempting to pull their bodies out of the large rocks towards the Stormtroopers.
Gorrister immediately ordered the deployment of a Hazard Team to the tunnel to extract Korvis' team and at least two of the creatures to study further aboard the Vector in a quarantined sector of the ship. Korvis and his team were also quarantined in one of the ships medical bays.
Knowing that lieutenant commander Director Krennic was preoccupied with the transportation of project Stellar Sphere to its new location, Commander Gorrister was easily able to obtain the permission requested to study his new find in the more remote area of the Maw Nebula and classified his findings as part of Project Blackwing.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-06**
Project Blackwing status log: Deep tissue scans and x-rays have revealed that the Genosian specimens appear to be controlled by a parasitic wormlike creature that operates from the cranial cavity of the subject. The parasite has been classified as Species GN-304 and named Brain Worm. Species GN-304 is approximately 18 inches long and 1.25 centimeters thick. The parasite appears to have thousands of tiny spines that protrude from the creature's body and penetrate parts of the Genosian's brain. The parasite appears to be well adapt at manipulating the Genosian's motor function and has complete control over the subject's muscles. The worm also appears to secrete a fluid that resonates throughout the Genosian's cartilage and muscles keeping them from completely drying out and retaining enough elasticity to bend at the joints. We will extract some blood from the Brain Worm for further study.
Our scientist had presented the creatures with various types of food to see if they would take any interest. After showing no signs of interest in any of the processed rations and prepared meat, chief science officer Striker decided to release one of the lab's testing womp rats into the room. Upon seeing the womp rat enter the room, the 2 Genosian zombies seemed to move with a sense of hunger towards the frightened womp rat. The two snarling creatures slowly cornered the womp rat before they started clawing and biting and then eating the womp rat as it squealed in pain. The monitoring of the Brain Worms while their hosts were devouring the womp rat showed new signs of activity. The Brain Worms appeared to move to extend the tail end of their bodies into a position where it hanged over the throat area of the Genosian host while the top end was still attached to the host's brain. Two cylindrical ends protruded from the tail similar to a forked tongue that appeared to absorb some of the fresh blood of the womp rat.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-10**
Project Blackwing status log: Further study of Species GN-304 has appeared to yield some interesting information. DNA Analysis has confirmed that part of the Brain Worms genetic code shares similar traits to that of its Genosian host. Our scientist also theorize that the Brain Worms may be communicating with each other and may have a type of hivemind form of non-verbal communication. It is also theorized that the Brain Worms may be able to take over hosts of different species. We have made some arrangements to stop off at the planet of Injopan near the Kessal system to pick up a variety of test subjects. Our scientists have also started the process to develop clones of Species GN-304. Without knowing exactly how the species reproduces, our scientists are transporting the creature's genetic code into fertilized eggs of a couple different species including Trandosian, Rodian, and Human to see what will develop.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-12**
Project Blackwing status log: The Vector has arrived at the planet Injopan where we are able to extract our new test subjects. In addition to the biological assets, commander Korvis had noticed one of the locals in the area was a member of the insectoid Verpine species. The verpine was arrested and transported with the rest of the biological cargo. Some of our scientist have pointed out that the Verpine share a number of characteristics with the Genosians species including the insectoid carapace and unlike the Genosians, most Verpine have the ability to produce eggs when their hive requires it. Our team will isolate the Verpine and two other test subjects into a secure controlled cell with three canisters. The canisters will contain the newly cloned Brain Worms with a synthetic embryonic fluid, the canisters will be open remotely in the cell while the test subjects are unconscious and we will observe how Species GN-304 selects a host and infects its host.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-13**
Project Blackwing status log: The experiment was a wonder to behold. The 3 test subjects consisted of a human female, a Theelin male, and the Verpine. Once the 3 canisters opened, the three Brain Worms slowly emerged, the one created from human genetic materials was a pinkish hue instead of the yellowish hue of the original, the one created from Rodian was a dark green hue, and the one created from the Trandosian was a yellowish green hue. The three worms appeared to look around the room before the 3 slithered to their own separate host. The Transodian Brain worm slithered up the unconscious Verpine and inserted itself into its mouth. The other two similarly entered their hosts through the human and Theelin nose. The dark green one selected the Theelin and the pink one selected the human. All three awoke immediately afterwards and sat up straight as if observing their surroundings.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-14**
General log: Today we have taken our leave of Injopan and make our way to the Maw Nebula to continue our experiments for the next couple of months. Other members of Director Krennic's Advanced Weapons Research team had mapped out a safe route into the Maw Nebula's cluster of black holes a few years ago as a possible site for the Director's pet project. Since the site was never utilized for Director Krennic's project, this place was seen as a perfect spot for Project Blackwing. Two of the Vector's crew, officer Janson and petty officer Stewart were given encrypted maps to where the Vector will be stationed in the Maw to provide the Star Destroyer with a consistent replenishment of supplies in one month intervals utilizing civilian transport to avoid drawing any unwanted attention to our project. Each of the officers would be accompanied with a small squad of Stormtroopers and a Sentry Droid in case of trouble. Petty officer Stewart will be scheduled to deliver supplies the first month and officer Janson will take the second month and alternate from there.
Project Blackwing status log: The living specimens behave very different than the genosian zombies. They have no interest in a living womp rat and seem to prefer prepared food. Our scientist speculate that since the living's hosts still have fully functioning digestive systems, that the parasite is able to get it's nutrition from the body while staying attached to the host's brain. This living hosts also spend most of their time trying to convince anyone who will listen that they would like to leave their confined space. The parasite appears to have access to the host's brain and is able to use the host to communicate verbally as if the host is the same as they were before the parasite latched onto it brain. When questioned through the com system, the host deny and even scoffs at the idea that they have a parasitic worm inside of their head and claim our equipment must be malfunctioning. Our team of scientists continue to scan and monitor the Brain Worms inside both the zombie Genosians and their cloned offspring inside the living hosts to determine if and how the parasite communicates.
Chief science officer log: We have begun to do some stress tests on the Genosian zombies to see what weakness they have. The Gnosian hosts appear to not feel any pain when electrocuted, burned, shot at with blasters, or even stabbed. However, we did notice that the zombified hosts did make a loud screeching noise when dropped the temperatures of their containment cells to near freezing. With permission of the Commander, I would like to experiment with cold temperatures even further on one of the two test subjects to see if this is indeed a weakness.
**Commander Gorrister Log 1734 -08-16**
General log: The Vector is traveling along the route that was mapped out by earlier teams into the center of the Maw Nebula in a safe proximity away from the gravitational pull of the clusters of black holes. The destination is located at a position in the center of the nebula where the gravitation pull of each of the surrounding cluster of black holes is canceled out by the other black holes. We are scheduled to reach our destination within the next couple of days. Some of the Vector's systems are being affected by the gravitation pull of the black holes. A few power surges have been reported in different areas of the ship as well as gravitation fluctuations. These fluctuations include areas of the ship reporting a loss of gravity and other parts of the ship where the gravitational pull was reported as almost doubled. We will continue to monitor these systems.
Project Blackwing status log: The Verpine host as begun laying eggs up to 10 so far. According to our Imperial database, the eggs laid by the Verpine host are significantly smaller than usual Verpine eggs at only 10 centimeters tall by 4.5 centimeters at its widest. Some of our camera feeds on our test subjects have become intermittently interrupted as we journey deeper into the Maw Nebula. We have extracted 3 of the eggs and have hidden them in the new test subjects individual secure cell for all 3 new test subjects. We will take this opportunity to monitor the gestation period of the eggs. Once this group has been infected, we will then proceed with pain threshold tests and see if the parasite can still use the host body after the host is killed. The test subjects will be a human male, Zabrak male, and Rodian female.