One of the first scenarios for the best-selling Traveller science-fiction role-playing game that our group ever played was “Research Station Gamma”, first published back in 1980. Written by Marc W. Miller, it tells the story of the players on a frontier world that is being rapidly developed from the medieval period to the early interstellar era. Approached in a tavern by a small, helpless alien, the characters are encouraged to help rescue his family from a secret research base, deep amongst the southern ice floes. Many, many players have enjoyed this scenario over the years.
This short film captures that story in the form of a film trailer – a version of what might have happened to the intrepid adventurers along the way. It was made using the free, open-source Blender software; various artists have released objects, textures and code for use in Blender over the years, and this was used extensively in this production –attribution is given in the credits section of the film. Similarly, today the Traveller game in all its forms is owned and copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing (1977-2026). This work operates within their generous terms and conditions for fan-generated work, which are reproduced at fuller length in the credits section of the film.
We hope you enjoy this tribute to Miller’s original scenario. But remember… getting into a covert imperial research facility on the edge of the world is one thing: getting out of it again is quite another!
Further detail
So, what went into making this short film? A warning – some mild spoilers follow below…
Quite a lot of work went into the “look” of the planet Vanejen, where the events of the scenario unfold. The planet was occupied by the Chirper race before humanity arrived, so it is presumably an old, ancient world. But humanity fell back to barbarism during the years of the “Long Night” and humans are now only just reaching a 1940s level of technology with the help of the Empire. Some imported technology is available, and the planetary nobility and its associated managerial class no doubt enjoy a relatively luxurious lifestyle.
We wanted the planet and its capital to feel a little bit like a steam-punk version of Hamburg or some Baltic city. The handful of free traders using its starport contrast with the Zepelin airship lingering in the sky, and the steamboats and older sailing vessels slowly trafficking the capital’s waterways. Dirty, crumbling, and slightly Victorian in its architecture style, “old Vanejen” needed to contrast with the gleaming white corridors of the Imperial research station seen later in the video. And in the distance in some of the shots are the rising skyscrapers of “new Vanejen”, lit by new glowing electric lights.
One of the key questions for the players in the original scenario was how to reach the research station in the southern hemisphere. Without antigrav transport, and with surface vessels unable to cross the ice-strewn sea, the solution is invariably to use one of Vanejen’s many submarines. Many years ago, our original party resorted to hijacking a sub, but in this film the characters call in a favour with the sinister Vargr mafia boss “Mister Black”. Unfortunately, they already owe him a lot of money (“too much money” apparently) but with the promise of future Chirper gold and some deployment of explosives, they’re soon off across (or under) the high seas.
The pain involved in simulating those waves around the submarine, particularly when it surfaces from beneath the ocean, was not inconsiderable, despite making use of the excellent FLIP Fluids tool – also used by the team behind the recent, hugely acclaimed, animated film “Flow”. We have even more respect for the makers of that film now!
Research Station Gamma itself is an iconic part of the original scenario – a unique, really inventive piece of architecture. It is unclear in the scenario, though, how “secret” it is supposed to be. One can argue that it is a covert site, “black”, off the grid… in which case it shouldn’t have its name on the side or the imperial logo. But equally, the station is huge, almost a kilometre high off the ocean bed, has a glowing red light on top to warn away shipping, and enjoys regular submarine deliveries to its underwater port. Not necessarily a great design for a covert imperial base.
We decided it was “secret”, but in the way that CIA’s headquarters are “secret” – lots of people know where it is, but you probably don’t want to turn up at the front door uninvited with a camera in hand, unless you want to find yourself answering some rather awkward questions. Nonetheless, behind the scenes the research station is now up to some extremely illegal activities, none of which would typically be permitted by the Imperial authorities…
The outside of the station was made to look weathered, faded and battered, in comparison to its internal, glossy interior – the latter hopefully invoking the “Star Wars” film (1977) that clearly inspired parts of the scenario. Most of the architecture of the interior shots are accurate to the original 1980 scenario floor plan, although some bits – such as the line of dead experimental sentient creatures – were invented for the purposes of the video.
Since we decided it would originally have been a “secret but occasionally visited by VIPs” facility, the station is decorated accordingly, with a vision statement, corporate values, imperial flags, informatics on how the station helps the imperial citizen – which hopefully all contrast with its now sinister purpose and dangerous robotic guards. There are plenty of little details which match up with the clues in the original scenario, which were fun to insert.
We faced two design challenges with the station. The first was the “rail” that enables the lift and robots to move up and down the station hub along a curving spiral. We rapidly discovered that while that sounds fine in the scenario, when you try to model it in 3D, you face all sorts of challenges. All sorts. “Too much”. If we were doing the video again, we might be tempted to resort to a “straight” rail going up and down the station shaft, with no spiral. But for these purposes, we decided it was an electromagnetic rail, which gets around parts of the problem.
The second challenge were the “containment globes” on the side of the station shaft. They needed to look “real”, like simulated environments for their poor prisoners, but also appear “fake”, unpleasant, tiny versions of entire planets: high-tech hamster cages for sentient creatures to live out the remainder of their sad lives in. Hopefully we got the balance right. For those interested in the details, you can see the Beaker Monkeys, the unfortunate people being experimented on with high -gravity in Globe 11, and of course Chiree’s siblings.
The villain in the original scenario is the chief scientist, Professor Sir Gnetus Jerrold Vicervis, who has one of the finest names for any NPC of this period. As various reviewers observe, in many ways he is a sort of evil wizard, guarded and served by his loyal robots in his high castle, his human staff long since dismissed. One question this version tries to answer is what drives him? Why has he invested his entire life (and then some) in this endeavour? In this version, he’s still evil, but we hope you take away a sense that he is motivated by some higher calling. Okay, perhaps it is still a higher, evil calling.
Creating the robots was one of the key attractions of taking on this project. The original scenario was very unusual in including them and they’re always a highlight when the scenario is run. We kept them as accurate to the original designs as possible. The one change was that the robots in this scenario can hover slightly and traverse rough ground. In the original, this wasn’t possible – but it was hard to see how the robots could look after, let alone control, the test subjects if they could just hide from the robots within the globes. So, in this version, they’re a bit more mobile.
Chiree and the Chirpers are a central part of the original plot. The 1980 depiction by Cindy Baker shows a more bird-like creature, described as being covered in tiny feathers. Later depictions, including Diego Dominguez Diez’s, which we really liked, are more reptilian, in keeping with the evolving look of the Droyne in recent decades. We followed the latter tradition, but trying to keep the “cute”, “vulnerable” look of Baker’s original.
Depicting Chiree’s special power in the film was tricky, for reasons that will be evident to those who know the scenario well. There are plenty of hints in the film that he may have still darker capabilities. These are not fully referenced in the original scenario, although there are certainly clues – the scenario notes, for example, that it was truly remarkable that a little Chirper could manage to swim from the research base to safety all the way across the icy southern seas unaided.
Exactly how the characters escape from the show-down at the end of the trailer is unclear – as it should be. But we like to think that Chiree may have helped them in some way. The “second ending” at the end of the credits with Mister Black hopefully has a “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” feeling to it. We’ve met Guy Ritchie, he’s a fascinating artist, and this is a bit of a homage to his style. And we think it fits the tone of the original scenario!
Well, that’s it. We hope you enjoy the video, and that it encourages you to re-read – or possibly replay – the original scenario, “Research Station Gamma”. And thanks once again for Marc’s original, brilliant work. Respect.