Operations and Accidents

When a conveyor jumps, roll
against the operator’s Electronics
Operation (Parachronic) skill to see
how the trip went. On a projector-
assisted trip, both the projector opera-
tor and the conveyor operator must
roll.
Modifiers: -3 or worse for damaged
equipment. Electrical disturbances
give a penalty, from -2 for severe elec-
trical storms or solar flares to -6 for
the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear
blast! (“Hardening” the electronics
won’t remove this modifier – this is an
environmental effect, not equipment
damage.)
On a success, the conveyor instant-
ly disappears from its starting
universe and reappears at the same
point in the destination universe. On a
failure, by either the conveyor opera-
tor or the projector operator, some-
thing went wrong! Usually, the transit
happens anyway . . . but not as
planned. Roll 1d – or 2d, for a two-
quantum jump – and add it to the
operator’s margin of failure. If the
conveyor and projector operators both
failed, add their margins of failure! If
the conveyor is overloaded, increase
the total by one or more. Then look up
the result on the table below.
2 – Timing error. Trip takes 1d minutes
from the viewpoint of those “out-
side.” There is no way to tell a sim-
ple timing error from a totally lost
shipment . . . so any delay triggers
a security alert, just in case! This is
why parachronic operators have
ulcers.*
3 – Timing error. Trip takes 1d minutes
from the viewpoint of both those in
transit and those “outside.”*
4 – Timing error. Trip takes 4d min-
utes from the viewpoint of those
“outside.”*
5 – Timing error. Trip takes 4d minutes
from the viewpoint of both those in
transit and those “outside.”*
6 – Positional error. Conveyor appears
1d feet too low, or off to one side.
Minor damage to conveyor or pro-
jector, but not to passengers or
cargo (unless it is very fragile).†‡
7 –
Resonance error. Shipment
appears and then vanishes, reap-
pearing where it was coming from.
A repeated attempt is allowed, but
at -1 to skill.†
8-9 – Field-strength error. Electrical
discharges do 1d-2 burning dam-
age to all personnel, and temporar-
ily disable all unshielded electronic
equipment. The conveyor’s field
generator is disabled until it
receives major repairs.†
10 –
Positional error. Conveyor
appears too high. The fall inflicts
1d crushing damage on each pas-
senger and to breakable cargo. The
conveyor’s generator is damaged:
-3 on trips until it gets minor
repairs.†‡
11– Severe positional error. As 10, but
falling damage is 2d and the con-
veyor’s generator is disabled until it
receives major repairs.†‡
12 – Focus error. The conveyor goes
somewhere unintended. It will
appear in the same place, geo-
graphically, but it could be on any
of an infinite number of timelines.
Roll 1d: 1-3 means it’s on the right
quantum level but in a different
timeline; 4-5 means it’s on an adja-
cent quantum level; and 6 means
it’s two quantum levels off. It will
take days, weeks, or even months
for the computers at Infinity (or
Centrum) to deduce its location.
Until then, there is no way to retrieve
it. If a projector was involved, there
is also a 2-in-6 chance that some-
thing will arrive on the stage from a
random crosstime location. It
might be air, rubble, an artifact, or
a living being . . . and it might be
dangerous. In anything but an
emergency, the projector will be
taken offline for 1d days while
researchers gather data (the hope is
to build a controllable “snatcher”
projector someday!).†‡
13 – Matrix error. The conveyor arrives
in small pieces – it is totally
destroyed. Grain, ore, etc., is unaf-
fected; other cargo is killed or
destroyed. The GM may wish to
“fudge” this result for PCs (treating
it as 12 or 14, as desired).†
14 or more – Utter confusion! Roll
twice more and apply both results.
If either of these new rolls results in
14 or more, see
Fascinating
Parachronic
Disasters
(below)
instead.†
* Travel time between worlds is the-
oretically zero. Sometimes, for no
known reason, a trip seems to take
longer. And sometimes, a trip seems
instantaneous to the passengers but
takes time from the point of view of the
people on either end!
† When one of these results comes
up, roll 1d: on a 1 or a 6, nothing hap-
pens; on 2-5, the corresponding time-
delay result from the table (2 through
5) occurs as well.
‡ If this error would mean that the
conveyor materializes inside a solid
object, anything it displaces simply
vanishes. No one has yet explained
where it goes. This means that it is very
foolish to stand on a projector stage or
within the area corresponding to the
focus of a projector! You could vanish.
Worse, part of you could vanish.