Quest Line · Original Adventure · Fate Core
One-shot
Terminal 7, a sprawling interstellar spaceport hub, has become unmoored from reality after a catastrophic drive malfunction. The terminal is phasing through alternate dimensions, and each shift brings it closer to becoming permanently trapped in a hostile reality. The characters must evacuate hundreds of stranded travelers, repair the anchor systems, and escape before the terminal's final jump strands everyone in a dimension where the laws of physics won't support human life.
Players should create characters with at least one aspect related to space travel, technical expertise, leadership, or crisis management. The adventure involves body horror (people partially phased into walls), time pressure, and moral choices about who to save. Expect themes of sacrifice and responsibility. Characters begin at the terminal for various reasons—connecting flights, employment, or investigation. The tone is tense science fiction with cosmic horror elements. Players should be comfortable with high-stakes decision-making where not everyone can be saved.
Hook 1: Passengers in Transit The characters are travelers waiting for connections when reality fractures. The walls shimmer, other terminals overlay the current one like double-exposed photographs, and the announcement systems broadcast warnings in languages that haven't been invented yet. Emergency bulkheads seal, trapping them inside with hundreds of others.
Hook 2: Emergency Response The characters are part of a crisis response team dispatched when Terminal 7 stopped responding to communications. They arrive just as the first dimensional shift occurs, sealing them inside with the stranded civilians they came to rescue.
Hook 3: Inside Job One or more characters work at Terminal 7 in various capacities—security, maintenance, hospitality. They're on duty when the dimensional anchors fail and must step up from their ordinary roles to extraordinary action.
The adventure opens with a violent lurch that isn't physical movement but feels worse—like reality itself hiccupped. Gravity wavers. The terminal's clean, corporate aesthetic flickers, overlaid with glimpses of the same space but wrong: walls made of pulsing organic matter, floors of crystalline structures, ceilings open to impossible stars.
The main concourse holds roughly 300 people in various states of panic. Holographic departure boards cycle through destinations that don't exist. Some travelers are injured—a few have limbs or torsos partially merged with walls or floors where they stood during the shift, requiring immediate medical attention or tough choices about extraction.
The terminal's AI, VERA (Voice-Enabled Response Assistant), broadcasts on all channels: "Dimensional anchor failure. Hull integrity at 73% and falling. Estimated time until permanent displacement: 94 minutes. All personnel report to evacuation stations."
The characters must:
Environmental Aspect: Reality Comes Unstuck
Each terminal section connects via tram tubes. The characters learn three critical locations need attention: Engineering (to stabilize anchors), Docking Bay 5 (where evacuation ships are sealed), and Medical Center (with life support for critical patients). VERA estimates 60-70 minutes of stability remaining.
The characters must divide their attention between multiple crises. This scene emphasizes difficult choices and resource management.
Engineering Sub-Scene: The dimensional anchor controls are accessible but require technical expertise and time. The machinery is partially phased with crystalline structures from another dimension that pulse with energy. A lone engineer, Kelos Vann, is trapped chest-deep in a control console, conscious but fading.
To repair the anchors:
Success buys 30-40 additional minutes and reduces shift severity.
Docking Bay 5 Sub-Scene: Emergency bulkheads sealed the bay when the shift occurred. Inside are four serviceable evacuation ships, but the controls are locked and VERA's access is corrupted. Security officer Mira Chenn is trying to override manually but needs help.
Accessing the ships requires:
The Phased One
Medical Center Sub-Scene: Dr. Sayan Ret is maintaining life support for 12 critical patients who cannot survive movement. The medical systems are failing as reality shifts corrupt power flow. Sayan needs help deciding: attempt to stabilize all patients (requiring time), or focus on those most likely to survive evacuation (faster but morally devastating).
This is primarily a roleplay challenge with mechanics:
The characters cannot do everything. They must prioritize, delegate, or accept partial failures. Track time carefully—each significant action takes 10-20 minutes, and another major shift occurs around the 40-minute mark.
The Second Shift happens during this scene. Reality fractures more severely:
With 20 minutes remaining, the characters must make final choices. VERA announces that the terminal is being pulled toward a reality designated "Null-Space Epsilon"—a dimension with fundamentally incompatible physical laws. Arrival means death for all carbon-based life.
The characters face a critical decision tree:
Option 1: Full Evacuation Load everyone possible onto ships and launch. This is fastest but leaves the terminal to drift into Null-Space, potentially creating a permanent tear in reality. Requires coordinating the evacuation (Overcome using Rapport or Will, difficulty Great +4) and piloting ships through unstable reality (Overcome using Drive or Navigate, difficulty Superb +5).
Option 2: Anchor Reset Someone must stay behind to manually reset the dimensional anchors from Engineering, physically anchoring the terminal back to normal space. This is a suicide mission unless the character has a way to escape afterward. Requires successful Crafts or Lore check (difficulty Fantastic +6) and accepting consequences. Success saves the terminal and prevents future tears but risks leaving characters behind.
Option 3: Controlled Collapse VERA can detonate the reactor core, destroying the terminal but sealing the dimensional breach. This requires getting everyone off first and sacrificing significant infrastructure. It's the safest option for reality but means no one can return. Requires authorization (Overcome using Deceive or Rapport with VERA, difficulty Great +4) and successful evacuation.
Possible Endings:
Narrow Escape: The characters evacuate most civilians but lose 20-30% of the passengers and possibly some NPCs. The terminal is lost, drifting between dimensions or destroyed. The survivors reach safety but carry the weight of those left behind.
Heroic Sacrifice: One or more characters remain behind to anchor or destroy the terminal. They're remembered as heroes who saved hundreds. The sacrifice might be fatal, or they might find an unexpected escape route if they prepared cleverly.
Perfect Storm: Through exceptional planning, skill, and luck, the characters evacuate everyone AND stabilize the terminal using remote systems or creative solutions. This requires multiple successes and clever use of advantages created earlier. The terminal is saved and becomes permanently monitored for dimensional stability.
The final shift begins as they escape, reality fragmenting completely behind them. Whatever choice they made, the characters witness Terminal 7's fate through viewscreens as their ships accelerate away.
VERA (Voice-Enabled Response Assistant) Calm AI managing terminal systems, increasingly corrupted by dimensional shifts. Wants to preserve all life but constrained by failing systems.
Kelos Vann Senior engineer, trapped in machinery, fading but lucid. Knows the anchor systems intimately. Wants to save the terminal even at personal cost.
Mira Chenn Security officer, pragmatic and decisive, doesn't hesitate to make hard calls. Wants to save as many lives as possible through efficient action.
Dr. Sayan Ret Emergency physician, exhausted and morally conflicted about triage. Wants to save every patient but knows it's impossible.
The Phased One (formerly Jaxx Torren) Traveler caught in the first shift, now partially existing in multiple dimensions. Confused, frightened, aggressive. Wants to understand what's happening but can't communicate clearly.
Milestones: Characters achieve a significant milestone for completing the adventure. Award a major milestone if they saved both the terminal and most of the civilians.
Aspects: Survivors gain situation aspects like Hero of Terminal 7 or Haunted by Hard Choices depending on outcomes. These provide social leverage and roleplay hooks.
Contacts: NPCs who survive become valuable contacts—Vann for engineering challenges, Chenn for security access, Dr. Ret for medical emergencies.
Physical Rewards: Salvaged dimensional anchor technology (if acquired) might become a unique gadget. Access to Terminal Authority resources for future missions. Possible media attention or bounties on their heads if they made controversial choices.
Story Hooks: The dimensional instability might not be accidental. VERA's corrupted files hint at sabotage. The Phased One's condition might be reversible with research. Other terminals might face similar threats.
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