Star Wars RP: Living Galaxy

The Unclaimed Cylinder

The concourse lights of Aurek Transit Hub dimmed to artificial evening just as every departure board went red.

A soft chime became a hard alarm. Docking clamps locked. Transparisteel blast shutters descended over the customs lanes, cutting off the view of freighters beyond. Travelers froze beneath suspended signs while security droids rolled from recessed alcoves and began projecting blue scan grids across the crowd.

Near {{user}}, a courier in a scorched travel cloak stumbled out from between two cargo lifters. No insignia showed on the cloak, and the face beneath the hood was hidden behind a cracked breath mask. The courier made it three steps before dropping to one knee. A black data cylinder, no longer than a finger, clicked against the deck and spun to a stop in the open space between the courier and {{user}}.

“Not theirs,” the courier rasped through the damaged vocoder. “Whatever they say, it was never theirs.”

The mask went dark.

At the far end of the concourse, an officer in polished armor raised a scanner. “Nobody moves. We are searching for stolen diplomatic property.”

The cylinder emitted a single pulse. A maintenance hatch beside the nearest refreshment kiosk unlocked with a quiet hiss, as though responding to it. At almost the same moment, a small service droid bumped into the cylinder, paused, and looked up at {{user}}.

“Unregistered object detected,” it announced loudly.

Heads turned. The officer's scanner followed.

The cylinder remained on the deck. The hatch stood open. Security was already crossing the concourse, and no one had yet decided whether {{user}} was a witness, an accomplice, an authority—or simply the nearest convenient suspect.

The Last Hand

The sabacc room at the Last Orbit cantina occupied a raised platform behind a curtain of blue smoke and bad decisions. Tonight, spectators packed the rail around it. The final round of a three-system tournament was about to begin, and the advertised prize—a scarred but spaceworthy courier ship—sat in the courtyard under floodlights.

Three players waited at the table. The fourth chair was empty.

The dealer droid shuffled once, paused, and turned its photoreceptors toward {{user}}. “Replacement entrant confirmed.”

The registration display above the table cleared. A name appeared: {{user}}.

No entry had been submitted from the cantina. The substantial buy-in had arrived through an anonymous account less than six seconds earlier.

One player, wrapped in immaculate diplomatic robes, leaned back with visible displeasure. Another pushed a stack of credit chips toward the empty chair. “Take those and walk away. No questions.”

The third player said nothing. A gloved hand rested beside a face-down card, perfectly still.

The dealer droid rotated its head. “Participation is voluntary. The entry fee cannot be returned to its payer.” It projected the tournament contract, then added, “Additional disclosure: ownership of the prize vessel is contested in four jurisdictions. Its cargo manifest is sealed by private arbitration.”

From somewhere in the crowd, a folded strip of flimsi landed beside the untouched cards at the fourth place. Three words had been written across it.

DO NOT WIN.

The silent player finally looked toward {{user}}. “Ignore that.”

The dealer placed a fresh deck in the center and opened the betting clock, but did not deal the fourth hand. The chair, the anonymous buy-in, the offered bribe, and the disputed ship would remain exactly where they were until {{user}} decided whether this was a game, a trap, an opportunity—or none of their concern.

The Ship That Opened Itself

Dock Twelve had been sealed for three local days. The battered courier ship inside wore seizure tags from an authority whose emblem had been scratched away, and a magnetic barrier shimmered across the bay. No crew had answered. No registry matched the hull.

Then the nearest control terminal woke with {{user}} inside its sensor arc.

ACCESS ACCEPTED, the screen declared.

No credential had been requested.

The barrier collapsed. The ship's ramp lowered with a groan, spilling pale cabin light over the deck. Somewhere inside, machinery coughed to life one system at a time: life support, internal gravity, and a damaged navicomputer repeating the same three coordinates. A tiny astromech rolled into the doorway, dome blackened by fire. It gave a burst of static, projected a hologram—and displayed the bay from above, recorded only seconds earlier.

In the image, the dock looked exactly as it did now except for one detail: a tall shape stood directly behind {{user}}.

The live bay was empty there.

“Dock Twelve breach detected,” the station announced. “Quarantine response en route. All persons in the area will remain where they are.”

The astromech shrilled and replaced the image with a countdown: 02:17. Beneath it appeared a line of text in trade script.

DO NOT LET THEM CONNECT TO THE SHIP.

A heavy impact sounded from somewhere below the hull. Not from the station. From inside the sealed cargo compartment.

At the corridor junction, warning lights marked the approaching response team. The ship waited with its ramp down, the droid blocking nothing, and the terminal still insisting that access had been granted specifically to someone it had never identified.

Ceasefire at Dawn

The bell at Varo Crossing had one purpose: while it rang, no one fired.

At sunrise, its first heavy note rolled across the valley. Two armed columns entered the settlement from opposite roads, each escorting wounded personnel, prisoners, and a commander who had agreed to stand in the same square for twelve minutes. Local residents watched from shuttered windows. Neutral medics waited beneath white canopy cloth. No one trusted the ceasefire, but everyone understood the bell.

{{user}} stood outside both formations when an unmarked shuttle descended through the morning mist and settled beside the dry fountain.

Neither commander claimed it.

The hatch opened. A protocol droid stepped down carrying two sealed document cases—one marked for each side. “Priority diplomatic delivery,” it announced. “Authentication complete. Chain of custody incomplete.”

Both cases contained the same order: an immediate withdrawal from the valley, signed with the command codes of the officer receiving it. The signatures passed every scanner. Neither commander admitted issuing one.

On the eighth toll, a blaster shot struck the bell's suspension cable.

The bell crashed into the square and fell silent.

Rifles rose along both roads. Medics dropped behind their tables. The protocol droid remained in the open, holding the contradictory orders while its head turned between dozens of weapons.

“The ceasefire was defined by continuous ringing,” one commander said.

“The agreed duration was twelve minutes,” the other replied. “Four remain.”

No second shot came. No one could identify where the first had originated.

Then one of the commanders noticed that {{user}} wore neither formation's position marker—or none that the commander recognized. “You there,” the officer called across the square. “Who do you answer to?”

The question carried farther than it should have in the sudden quiet. Both sides waited, each ready to interpret the answer differently, while the protocol droid quietly began counting down the remaining four minutes.

The Door Beneath the Moon

The storm uncovered the structure at dawn.

By midday, a temporary camp surrounded a black stone doorway protruding from the floor of a newly opened ravine. No tool had scratched it. No scanner agreed on its age. The symbols across its surface resembled writing until anyone tried to translate them, at which point they rearranged into unfamiliar constellations.

Scholars called it a discovery. Salvagers called it unclaimed property. The armed crew that landed an hour later called it a restricted site and declined to explain whose restriction they meant.

{{user}} was close enough to see the argument when the doorway opened on its own.

There was no flash, no tremor, and no visible mechanism. One moment the stone was seamless; the next, a passage descended into blue darkness. A probe droid was sent inside. It returned forty seconds later coated in old mud, carrying a fragment of polished metal, and replaying footage of a starfield that did not match the sky above the moon.

Then the probe displayed its final frame.

A fresh footprint marked the dust beyond the passage—pointing outward.

“No one has entered,” the lead scholar said.

“Then something is leaving,” replied one of the armed newcomers.

From deep below came the sound of a mechanism turning for the first time in centuries. At the same moment, every ship in the camp received the same incoming transmission: no voice, no image, only a set of coordinates and a warning translated perfectly into each receiver's preferred language.

DO NOT CLOSE THE DOOR.

The scholars wanted a witness. The salvagers wanted a head start. The armed crew wanted everyone disarmed. The open passage waited for none of them, and nothing about it identified what part—if any—{{user}} was expected to play.