[TML] Freelance Traveller Contest #2008-03 - Ships Locker - ENTRIES, PLEASE VOTE

[Freelance Traveller]

The following items are the entries in Freelance Traveller Contest
#2008-03 - Ship's Locker.  The contest statement can be found at
http://www.freelancetraveller.com/contests/2008-03.html. Please rate
each item on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the best.  You may use any criteria
you choose in rating items; however, the spirit of the contests is that
winning entries should be felt to have potential to increase the
enjoyability of a game in some way, whether it's just adding "local
color" or providing hooks to hang activities on.

Ballots should be sent to contest at freelancetraveller.com.  Votes will be
accepted until 23:59 EDT (UTC -0400) 5 July 2008.




Item 1: Spare Vac Suit Tank, empty.
Sure, the suit got damaged. But the tanks didn't. Always good to have  
a spare can of air handy. Especially on the bridge. The problem is,  
out of sight, out of mind. Tanks always leak. Sometimes very slowly,  
but the fittings almost always leak just a little. So the tank is empty

Item 2: Tank Adapter Set
A collection of adapters for connecting tank fittings to tanks, when  
said fittings don't match.
Now, in the locker, these are usually incomplete sets, since someone  
buys the set to get the one adapter they need, and tosses the rest in  
the locker. They forget, however, that without the center unit, the  
adapters are fairly useless.

Item 3: specialty screwdrivers, assorted.
Someone bought an off brand set of fasteners, and then had to go buy  
the specialty screwdriver to drive them. As time went by, the  
specialty heads got replaced for the engineer's convenience with the  
screwdriver head of his own preference. So now, the old tools got  
moved to the locker so that, in case he missed a few, the drivers are  
there, and not cluttering the real toolkit, nor getting damaged by  
misuse.... except that, in a fit of not paying attention, someone  
dropped a spare air tank on it and bent the shank, or cracked the  
handle, or other such carelessness.

Item 4: defunct local currency
Local currency is a useful thing, when a ship has a world on its  
route. If the ship's cash funds are high enough, you keep some in the  
secured portion of the locker ( the ship's safe), so as to avoid  
currency exchange fees. But not all local governments are stable. So  
the locals decided to rebel, and the local currency changed  
overnight. You came back 3 months later to find you missed the 2  
month exchange window. Why keep it? historians, numismatists, etc.  
Sell a couple notes at a time to collectors. Save it for a snarky  
customer's refund. But it simply sits, forgotten, until you're  
looking for the triflange head screwdriver underneath it...

Item 5: lost Jewelry collection.
Mostly mismatched earrings left in staterooms, the occasional pin  
missing a clutchback, or gaudy bit of faux-gem necklace. Stuff  
forgotten by its owner, found by the crew, and put aside in case they  
come back for it next time you're in port. Sometimes filed in  
envelopes, sometimes just dropped into the box. It just sits there.  
At least, until the box overflows, and then the captain orders it  
dumped on either a goodwill or sold to a pawnbroker.


Item 6: Sport Footwear
A pair of bedraggled, worn out, stinking old training shoes, they look
as though the original user ran halfway through a swamp before deciding
to bury them for six months, dig them up and give them to the Vargr to
play with.  They seem to appear in the ship's locker at regular
intervals even though absolutely no one will claim ownership of said
item and no one on the ship is even the remotest bit interested in
jogging.  Clearly, at one time those were a nice new pair of training
shoes and were put to good use by someone, maybe they even ended up as
adhoc pair of slippers before finally old age and overuse set in and
they should have ended up spaced with the waste, nonetheless, someone
saw fit to keep them, just in case.  Even when thrown out or destroyed
it seems to be some kind of unwritten law of the universe (perhaps
adhering to Aristotle's famous quote horror vacui or “nature abhors a
vacuum") that,when a suitable length of time has expired another pair
will surely be found at the bottom of the locker to take the place of
the missing pair, they may not be the same shoes, they may look
completely different, but nonetheless, they fulfill the same
function.... and they stink!!  The uses to which a pair of worn out
training shoes can be put are many and varied: [a] they can be used to
get your own back on annoying crewmates; perhaps you could hang them
above their bunk as they sleep and enjoy the hilarity when they awake to
find the horrorendous items not two inches from their face... [b] They
could be used as a gift or as trade goods on a low technology world,
hey, you never know they might have a different olfactory system to us
there... [c] You could attempt to pass them off as your latest
masterpiece of new wave art, and then sell them at an extortionate price
to the nearest feckless noble you see... [d] They could be used as a
makeshift weapon, possibly as a pair of small clubs or as bolas if you
were to take out the laces and tie them together, perhaps you might like
to wear them as boxing gloves,  or, if all else fails just throw them at
your enemy and shout "Grenade" as loudly as possible and hope for the
best... [e] You could wear them next time you put in at a Startown and
absolutely nobody would mug you, they would'nt come within 6 feet... [f]
the laces could also be used to make a fancy bootlace tie (just better
wash them first huh)... [g] Rather usefully, the laces can be removed
and utilised as part of your wilderness survival kit, very handy when
your fellow crewmates abandon you and the shoes on that dirtball planet
when they can't take the smell anymore...[h] And, at a push, they could
always be used to go for a run in, handy if a squad of zhodani psionic
commandos were to pop in unannounced and invite you to lunch...


Item 7: Set, box containing: more than half a  spool originally 5000
meters of 3 mm macro coated molecular filament with fiber optic pair and
three conductor strand included.  2500 kilogram test. Burned and kinked
159 meter length with a damaged harness at one end and a carabineer at
the other.  Box of  9 carabineer clips and cable attachment fittings.
(labeled as a dozen pack) Unopened box of  50 communications fittings
for both fiber optic and conductors.  Motorized line crawler with no
power cells rated for 500 kg. 
Consider this handy materials for many situations. 

Item 8: Set,  30 cm cubic  box of large broken pieces of  glass and
industrial ceramic materials,  near the bottom are eight obsidian
(natural glass)  arrow points and two broken larger spear or knife sized
fragments.   Close examination will show that some pieces are man made
clear sapphire.  Most of materials are long shards over a cm thick but
down with the arrow heads are a dozen colored faceted glass gems for
stained glass 5 cm.  Box also contains 3 copper rods and a pair of
hammer stones.  Trade goods for Technology level 1 or 2. 

Item 9: Extremely corroded ammunition box, but very heavy.  Label can
not be read but contents are 182 rounds of nonstandard rife rounds, 2 cm
diameter, flat nose 12 cm long  melted into a mass of white wax
(paraffin) Each round weighs about 5 times what you would expect,  the
bullets are a gold alloy and the casings platinum.  Crimps and primers
are gas tight.   Box also contains 9 expended cases each about 15 grams
PT.  

Item 10: Set,  three x two meter steel digging bars.  One has a cross
bar and a sleeve weight for hammering the bar. Box of  6 super alloy
tips for bars designed to chip a 3 cm hole.  A 5 kg sledge hammer.
Package of fold up boxes 20 cm cubic, 18 sheets.  Box of 5 cans of
foaming cushion and sealer. Foam depends on both oxygen and small
amounts of water vapor to work correctly.  

Item 11: Set, 200 kg of 1 meter long steel drill rods, assorted
diameters, O1 hardening alloy.  

Item 12: Set,  Hand and mountable plasma cutter (power supply, cables,
gas feeds, head)  large, empty pressure cylinder.  Hand grinder with box
of grinding disks and 3 discharged power cells.  Heavy duty, 5 meter
extension cord with locking plugs. 

Item 13: Two sand bags filled with metal shot.  100 kg lead, 80 kg steel
2 mm 

Item 14:  Set, Box containing  Sealed gas and liquid resistant box with
45 packets of seeds each type about 50 grams,  labels are hand written
in essentially unreadable scrawl. Vials and bottles of chemicals,  a few
decipherable like the Ammonium Nitrate 2kg, and Iron Phosphate 1 kg. Set
of 4 gardening hand tools, a mini-sickle, trowel, cultivator and weeding
point. 

Item 15: Set of Sets 
Consider all of these as same container forms, causing possible
confusions.  They are all the same size and color and tape and labels do
not stick well to the surface. 1.5 meter tall, heavy duty plastic, water
tight base but not lids. 40 cm square. 
   [a] Set  1.5  meter tall plastic box of broken hand tool,  spade,
       broken handle, round point shovel broken handle and serious
       corrosion on blade, Handle of broken sword, dozen fiberglass
       handles broken off.  Push broom head with no handle.  Broken
       heavy duty pruning shears. 1 round bat, as for Baseball and 2
       flat bats, as for cricket.  Bent hoop with string mess for game
       like basket ball.  Aluminum and
       Magnesium tubes from a tent kit.  4 meters of tightly rolled wire
       fencing, 1 cm mesh, 1.2 meter tall. Box of fence staples, Two
       coils of galvanized tie wire, a small coil of copper wire,  box
       of 25 wooden clothes hanging pins/clips. 
   [b] Two packaged (gun cases inside of the box)  high end automatic
       shot guns.  Four sealed packages of 120 rounds ammunition, one of
       slug, one of buckshot,  two of smaller pellets for birds.  One
       sealed package of 25 blank/booster charges for line throwing
       attachment.  Line throwing attachement with two spools, two
       blunts and two harpoons. Small (2 kg) kit of hand tools and spare
       parts for these guns.  One un-mounted night site with charger
       unit. One range finder site with settings for line throwing and
       shot. 
   [c] 10 cm Soil auger, light duty rock drill.  Power head and three
       discharged power cells (similar but not compatible with laser
       rifle rechargeable power packs) Power cell charger with cracked
       case, 2 meter cord. 1 40 cm auger tip, 1 40 cm long diamond
       gritted core tip,  4x1 meter tube extensions one of which is bent
       20 degrees. Kilogram package of hardface welding rod.
   [d] Bandages, gauze, 3 sets of sterile bed sheets amd pillow cases
       (queen size) Partial early tech medical kit,  forceps, steel
       scalpels, thread wound stitching needles, threat. Glass injection
       syringes(8) Stainless steel autopsy pans(3) Steel bone saw. 
   [e] Field cook set with propane or natural gas 2 burner stove.  Metal
       plates and bowls for 6, utensils for 12, A dozen pots and
       skillets up to 5 liter.   Box of abrasive sponges.  Several
       leaking cans of unknown content. Empty 10 kg gas container. 

Item 16: Set,  Orange container, Labled “Bio Support”,  contains
unlabeled container with 10 kg of a granular, multicolored material
(slow release fertilizer).  Package 1 kg labeled “Spores, Black
photosynthetic spores,  Several sponge mats, a small water pump,  a flow
computer pump and 20 control valves for drip lines, a tangle of 14 x 10
meter drip irrigation lines.  Seal package of 30 cm by 5 meter rock
wool.  Two unlabeled seed packacges.   



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