Most ships carrying passengers between the Republic worlds are licenced from a companion work cohort to Interkosmos called Kosmoflot (космофлот). Kosmoflot does not have monopoly rights in this activity, however. There are dozens of smaller carriers launched by other committees, and many corporations have the rights to transport their own people on their own ships to their own timetables. However, for your average comrade in the street: Kosmoflot means travelling to different worlds.
Non-military ships are divided into two classes: liners and tramps. Liners, passenger or cargo carrying, have a defined route that they follow between worlds on a published timetable. Tramps carry cargo and passengers on an as-needs basis.
In K68 there are two main circuits serviced by liners: The Stanovoy-Archangel-Karpovo-Vanavara-Jutka line, also known as the Capitol Circuit. Then there is the Bukan-Barkava-Novyy Kiev-Magadan-Zarubino line, also known as the Wilderness Circuit. A major trade artery runs from Archangel to Bukan to connect the two circuits. Stanovoy is the gateway to K63. Karpovo is the gateway south. To the north, Zarna and Vadino traditionally had closer ties to K70, but connecting lines to K68 are now becoming increasingly busy with refugees fleeing south and military convoys heading north. On the K68 map, any route shown in green is one that has a scheduled service run by Kosmoflot. Anywhere else is serviced by minor carriers, and tramps.
Passenger liner ships can roughly be dived into two types: fast, or big. Fast liners can make Jump-2 and usually have extra fuel tankage to make more continuous jumps without needing to refuel. Big liners sacrifice speed for cargo and/or passengers they can carry. Nearly all liners are content with 1-G thrust, but many exceptions exist. Similarly, most liners over 800 tons of all types use a distributed hull configuration, using small craft to get to and from the surfaces of the republics. Ships less than this mass are more typically configured like a standard rocket and land on their tail at a planetary spaceport. Big cargo liners are usually called bulk haulers.
Most passenger ships concentrate their capacity into hiberstasis pods, or hibernaculums. The process is safe and ubiquitous and is much cheaper to run. All ships must keep a few cabins available for passengers to remain awake for the entire journey. This could be because they have important business to discuss, or because they have a medical exemption where their doctor has considered the risk of induced torpor too great for their heart. A typical ratio is one cabin for every 20 hibernaculums. In all cases the crew of the ship must be awake for the entire voyage, and this is enshrined in law. However, it is not unknown for particularly daring crews to save money by putting themselves to sleep and trusting that the robots will wake them again.
Standard Kosmoflot operating procedure is to have around 20%, or one in five, of the crew qualified in self-defence or to have relevant recent military experience. The captain is usually authorised to possess a firearm that must be under lock and key, and other officers can apply for this right as well. Usually, however, all weapons need to be secured in the hold: not easily accessed, in other words. On lines that are particularly prone to pirate attack there are sometimes dedicated security personnel, but this is rare and considered an extraordinary measure: defence of the space lanes is the job of Rocket Corps.
Crew consists of an Officer group:
- Commander – sets the objectives of the ship
- Executive Officer (XO, 2nd in command) – turns the objectives into specific technical instructions
- Engineering Officer – responsible for the power plant, jump and manoeuvre drives, and all mechanical and electrical systems
- Navigator – responsible for the navigation and communications systems, and computing
- Quartermaster – responsible for provisioning the ship with fuel and supplies
- For passenger ships a Medical Officer is included, but regardless, Kosmoflot standard operating procedure is that at least 20% of any crew must be first aid qualified.
The larger the ship, the more people within each of these sections. XO’s, for example, will have leadership of pilots & trimsmen. Quartermasters may have chefs and stewards as well as stevedores. Engineering will have specialists in each of the systems, and so on. On small ships it is commonplace for the XO to be the pilot.
All ships have many robots dedicated to various specialist roles. Cargo movers and maintenance droids being the most obvious examples. Autobots moving around the ship attending to their tasks are commonplace. In fact, not seeing a robot in the corridors would be considered unusual by modern standards. Nearly all ships (the exception might be small ships running on a shoestring budget) will have one robot of the most affordable advanced type to assist the Officer group. This robot will usually be found on the bridge but will move about the ship to assist where needed. It has detailed technical specifications for the ship and acts as a mobile reference library and dedicated ‘intelligent’ helper. The preference is for this robot to be manufactured at tech-level 11.
The ship itself will be equipped with an integrated computer system, its brain, that is a sophisticated learning machine but just short of genuine artificial intelligence. It can typically be communicated with by voice, but this is not essential.
Despite the best that Soviet engineering can provide (or perhaps because of) accidents and malfunctions are common. All staff must be capable of running repairs on their systems and must fully expect to have to do so. The manuals that sit on shelves and are logged in the computer not just for decoration. They are vital. Out of date manuals can be just as lethal as discovering the quartermaster miscalculated the fuel tankage and the ship is stranded in the black. The large liners, of course, should be stocked with spare parts and should be operated with generous supply margins. But, again, pilfering of state property is a common crime. Deliberately running the ship with tight tolerances on food, water, fuel and oxygen is a common way to earn a little extra cash. Recycling and generation from first principles can offset water and oxygen, but not food (yet) or fuel.
Adventure hooks
Running a campaign based on a passenger liner offers some interesting and unique challenges. As members of the crew players have all the normal technical challenges of living in Soviet space. Working a scheduled route can be a good way to create a rhythm of adventure sessions, “This time we are in the Bukan system.” Next play session they could be in the Korsokovo system, then Zarubino, and so on. By this regular progression players would make allies and enemies on each planet, learning to dread pulling into port over one, but relishing the opportunities of catching up with old acquaintances on another. Similarly, as the players learn about the republics, they will uncover of the needs of one and the supply of another, and so set up their own side hustles of trade.
Even if the characters are not members of the crew of a passenger liner, if they don’t have access to their own ship at some stage, they will be travelling on one. Refer to the articles on Hiberstasis, Robotics, starship Architecture, and Technology for more ideas on what this could generate.
The following adventure hooks all take place on a liner.
- As the liner nears its destination and the passengers are woken from their hibernation, some start to exhibit strange and disturbing psychological illness. They claim to have been possessed by extra-terrestrial beings during a routine stop at a remote space station. Less unlikely possibilities exist: was the station a top-secret research base and some chemical contaminants have got into the ship? Or was the research base conducting experiments in a new weapon to cause Mass Psychogenic Illness and the passengers on the Anna Kournikova merely guinea pigs? Or is this a terrorist plot by Iron Circle to drive people mad and cause chaos?
- The liner is forced to make an emergency landing on an inhospitable alien planetoid after a mid-course refuelling accident. Any rescue mission will be at least three weeks away. Passengers and crew must band together to survive in a hostile, alien environment.
- A malfunction in the ship’s brain causes it to go rogue, putting the lives of the passengers and crew in danger. This could include venting fuel away, overclocking systems, selectively turning off life support or gravity control, etc. The crew must race to track down the fault and repair it, while running the gauntlet of the system that thinks they are intruders who are trying to kill it.
- A stowaway is discovered, sparking a manhunt throughout the ship. As the search intensifies, it becomes clear that the stowaway is not who they appear to be. They have vital information that will destroy the career of a senior Party member and are trying to get to the authorities to testify. But it appears that one of the hibernaculums has opened early and a second actor is stalking the corridors: this time a competent assassin.
- Some awake passengers become embroiled in a high-stakes game of deception and betrayal. This is a family feud of some sort, or perhaps a settling of scores between crime syndicates. In either case the levels of violence and sabotage increase. This is a case for some detective work, but also running interference on some dedicated grudge fights that could imperil the entire ship and its complement.
- Pirates strike! The refuelling operation in an uninhabited system is interrupted by a bratva cutter that runs down the liner before it can make the jump point. They clamp on to the side the ship and make entry, commandeering the communications system and demanding that the crew release the codes to the hold so they can loot the valuables in cargo. The alternative is that they blow a hole in the hull to make entrance, killing everyone. The characters have 30 minutes to come up with a plan and implement it before the pirates go on their murderous rampage.
KOSMOS 68 
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