Astromotive

## Tractor Beam (\*)

Size: Small

A tractor beam is a hand-held device that can force objects (and people) to move in a direction of the user's choice. A xeno using a tractor beam rolls Alienation + number of beams active, contested by the target's Size; unwilling targets may add Strength+Athletics+Supernatural Tolerance. Each success moves the target 1 meter in a direction of the xeno's choice. Targets caught in a tractor beam do not fall until released.

**STAR Benefit:** The tractor beam may move the target through physical objects as though it were incorporeal.

## Hover Drive (\*\*\*)

Size: Large

A hover drive may move any object of Size 10 or smaller at a Speed equal to twice the user's Alienation, in any direction.

A hover drive lasts a number of scenes equal to the successes on its activation roll.

**STAR Benefit:** The pilot may cause the hover drive and its cargo to enter or leave Twilight as an instant action.

## Dimensional Key (\*\*\*\*)

Size: Small

A dimensional key forces a gateway between two realities open. While it cannot actually create such gateways, it causes all Verges, Irises, Avernian Gates, Hedge Gates, and similar interfaces to behave as though any conditions for passage were met.

**STAR Benefit:** Instead of linking to its normal destination, a gateway may instead be forced to link to another reality with which the user is familiar. While this is happening, the "other side" of the gateway cannot be opened to its normal destination by any means.

## Jump Gate (\*\*\*\*\*)

Size: Large to Capital

A jump gate allows for instant travel between two locations. For as long as each of a pair of jump gates (which must be activated at the same time and linked using a code agreed upon in advance) remains active, anything smaller than it may move through either to the other.

A jump gate may be established anywhere that a xeno can get to and obtain the necessary materials. If the xeno can somehow build one in the Shadow, the Hedge, or another realm, it can link to those in the material world.

While a jump gate is active, a xeno attending it may re-attempt the activation roll. Successes on the new roll add to the duration.

**STAR Benefit:** Instead of opening the gate at the other end, both gates may be opened to any place between them (on Earth, this follows a great-arc path; in outer space, this follows a straight-line path and can potentially reach outside conventional three-dimensional space). Once a gate is "hacked" this way, the next activation roll is automatically a dramatic failure.

### Sidebar: My Time or Yours?

Anyone familiar with modern physics knows that at interstellar distances "time" gets weird. As you approach the speed of light, your time slows down (or everyone else's speeds up, it works out the same), and once you break the speed of light the math stops working properly but suggests that you can go into the past. This causes problems when two gates have to be started "at the same time", since a gate on Earth and a gate on Alpha Centauri would have to be started roughly four years apart to be starting "at the same time". And that's not even getting into the implications of gate-based travel on the Twin Paradox, or the timeline, or even things like conservation of momentum.

For ease of play, all of that is ignored. Earth's time is treated as an absolute clock and momentum doesn't have to be conserved; presumably, the alien civilization that originally invented the jump gate found a loophole in relativity. But I'm not going to go sending the Fanon Police after anyone who does it differently. If you want to do the math and don't mind letting your players run around between the past and the future, go right ahead.

## Luminal Cannon (\*\*\*\*\*)

Size: Capital

One of the essential objects for colonizing new worlds, the Luminal Cannon translates an object into light-speed particles and holds them in that state until they reach their destination. Each success on the activation roll allows a single item of Size 10 or smaller to travel for one year in a straight line at light speed; successes may be spent on either adding additional items or adding more time to all items. The user may choose to have the object move a smaller distance when activating the cannon. The "shot" will also stop when it encounters a solid object of at least its own Size.

For purposes of items within the cannon's "shot", no time passes until it stops.

**STAR Benefit:** On an Exceptional Success, the "shot" continues until it encounters a solid object of at least its own Size, regardless of the number of successes rolled.