Casting Shadows

This is the 26th day of #RPGaDay2026 and it is the third day of my week of responding to the prompts using Space: 1999 by Modiphius. Guiding this whole week is the filter “Emotion” and specifically framing today’s prompt is the daily filter ‘Woe’ brought to us by Wednesday. The prompt itself is “Regret,” which I think carries a lot of resonance with the original series. Let’s get to it, shall we? We don’t want to keep our emotionally woeful regret waiting, do we? Besides, if we wait too long the distances will be too great and we won’t be able to reach Alpha and how would that make us feel?

My first character idea for the game was, as is not uncommon for me, for a pilot. I was hit almost immediately upon hearing the news of the game and seeing the promotional Quickstart for it, of a person on the cusp of a painful choice. I mean, it is one thing to be on Alpha at the time of Breakaway and realize that you will be unable to get back to Earth. It is another to slowly recognize that the Earth bereft of the Moon will be in as much peril as whatever happens to the Moon wherever it goes. What I wanted to focus on, however, was the notion of being an active pilot at the moment of the accident and having the choice: return to base as ordered, or head for Earth – and family.

What amount of self-justification about orders, duty, or loyalty to one’s fellow officers could erase the pain of being torn from one’s family – never to know what happened to them, nor they you? Likewise, what corrosion of soul would remain each day on a blighted Earth knowing that you had turned your back on comrades who relied on you. Would the word coward echo in your sleep even though likely none from Alpha would judge you? Does the awareness of the choice itself condemn you to a life of sadness? Does making it doom you to a life spent second-guessing?

What journey can heal such a person?

What kind of person would allow themselves to heal?

Good questions, I think, and ones which played against the strange dangers, both physical and mental of the Space: 1999 setting, could be a lot of fun to try to answer.

Tomorrow’s prompt for #RPGaDAY2026 is ‘Hunger.’ Our weekly filter is Emotion. Tomorrow is Thursday and so we are reminded that some among us have far to go. How truly far that can seem at times, no matter the context of travel, be it Luna hurtling in the void, or personal.

See you tomorrow!