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[Chiefwaffles]

You scramble to your seat and buckle in. You face the console and hit the large LAUNCH button on the touchscreen catapulting you to the back of your seat as the ship is launched from the rails into space. Careening into the void, you watch your mothership fall apart and finally explode through your screen.

As you approach the minimum safe distance for drive activation, you start to feel your ship groan and buckle under the gravitational strain of each Emergency Ship activating their Teardrive and (hopefully) successfully escaping the scene. A nervewracking minute later, you see the text MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE REACHED - ACTIVATING TEARDRIVE in an upper console. You're thrown back once again into your ship as the Teardrive slings your small ship through an opening in spacetime.

Finally, ROUTE SECURED - UNBUCKLE appears where the previous text once was. You slowly get off your chair while adjusting to the very odd gravity present inside a Tear. You carefully walk throughout your Emergency Ship, pondering about the current situation.
We knew this was going to happen, you think. We already received the warning. Yet so many lives were still lost. You saw it yourself. People trapped behind depressurizing bulkheads. Flung out into space. The wounded lying scattered across the halls that you simply didn't have time to help. The vast rows of unoccupied Emergency Ships. But it's time to look forward. You have an entire galaxy ahead of you to traverse. The first mothership did make it, after all. You check the databanks and find the coordinates the New Colony, just where they should be. If nothing happened since they sent their Arrival message, they're still there. Waiting for you. You just need to make it there yourself first.

Luckily the Emergency Ships are well-made. Advanced life support systems means you don't have to worry about water or oxygen for an extremely long time. A tiny hydroponics bay provides just enough food for one person. The problem is that these ships simply aren't equipped for anything more than surviving without external help. And you'll have to do more than "survive" in a galaxy this hostile.

You suppose you should have a look around the ship to check for any damage created by the mass amount of Tears just recently opened and your general well-being. You're also going to have to prepare. The Teardrive status indicates that there should be a stop in roughly an hour. At this stop you will find a star and its surrounding planets. There you will need to give the Teardrive 24 hours to cool down before entering another yet Tear. You're going to have to do this a lot to make it to the New Colony.

There will be automated waypoints. Dropped off by the unmanned probes sent before the motherships, these will serve as your guide. The small buoys themselves won't do much for you, but they do indicate a safe area of space.

You will be completely alone, as every Emergency Ship was instructed to make different routes to the New Colony. You will be alone for this entire expedition.

3 systems away from next Waypoint.

Spoiler: GM Notes (click to show/hide)

Why yes, yet another sci-fi SG from yours truly. Would I dare disappoint?
This is intended as a kind of episodic SG and should be fairly free-form. There's not many mechanics at play here.

[S34N1C]

((oh boy! I love your sg's!))

Find the emergency survival kit that our ship is surely equipped with.

[TheBiggerFish]

((Ooh boy!))

[Funk]

((oh boy! I love your sg's!))

Find the emergency survival kit that our ship is surely equipped with.

+1 there must be some tools and spacesuit some where around here.

[Carefulrogue]

Search for tools and equipment.  Take note of main and emergency systems.  Information on ship integrity also would be useful.

[Chiefwaffles]

You spend the better part of the hour scrounging for supplies and equipment. You find:

Vacuum Suit - A basic EVA suit that allows survival in vacuum conditions with enough oxygen to last 30 minutes.
First Aid Kit - A very medical-looking box containing some general first aid supplies, such as bandages, painkillers, that kind of stuff.
Scanner - A basic handheld tool used for... scanning things. Material composition, atmospheric contents, that kind of stuff.
Toolbox - A box with tools in it. Preeetty simple.
Emergency Generator - A small portable generator. Can be fueled using hydrogen, but it should automatically fuel itself in most atmospheres.
No weapons, though. This wasn't a military excursion, after all.

The rest of your time was some general surveying of the ship. In a very surprising turn of events, it appears that the ship is undamaged by the gravitational strain created by the rest of the evacuating Emergency Ships. The Teardrive was able to handle most of that without anything particularly bad happening.
Systems-wise, you see what you expect. Sensors, reactor, navigation, that kind of thing. "Emergency systems" is a hard thing to classify, though. Your ship does have a distress system but that only transmits via regular electromagnetic waves - no FTL communication on this thing. You'll take note of more systems if they become relevant, you suppose.

If this ship were to come into combat, chances are you'd die a horrible death in the vacuum. No weapons and no real armor. Sure, there's some basic stuff to survive the occasional spaceborne particle and a pistol probably couldn't puncture the hull, but it's really not great. A single shot from any respectable ship weapon would probably make the whole thing explode. If you're lucky, it would just leave the ship without major systems and without oxygen. But that's only for the really lucky ones.
The Emergency ship is designed as an independent ship to gets its occupant straight to their destination, but it can withstand and fly in most atmospheres. It's buoyant too, but you really hope you never have to test that out.

WARNING - EXITING TEAR. BRACE FOR EXIT.
You know what that means. You run back to the cockpit seat and strap in.

Episode 1
"Strain of War"

The view from the cockpit screen rapidly shifts as you re-enter the upside. A star comes into view along with the rest of reality. A nearby screen starts listing the detected planets. 
But your attention is drawn by something else. Two ships just so happen to be orbiting the sun in a matter similiar to your ship, just further away. Weaponry shots are being exchanged before one of the ship just... implodes.
With the implosion, the other opposing ship starts getting drawn into the still-imploding wreckage while the same "surviving" ship begins to fall apart itself, as well. Warning alarms start going off across the cabin, with some particularly urgent text appearing on the alerts screen.
- ALERT - GRAVITATIONAL ABSORBER AT MAX STRAIN - ALERT -

You start feeling the effects of the gravitational strain being reported by your ship. You feel like you're compressing and decompressing as the whines and groans return and the entire ship feels like it's about to fall apart.
Then it stops. You quickly check for damage - still no scratches again. You're running out of luck, here.

You take a look back at the Teardrive status monitor. More worrying text stands in the place of the previous alert. It appears that your Teardrive just can't cool down. Something's wrong with the unit designed to take in the strain of opening a Tear - it won't start "venting" (to put it in extreme layman's terms). Without it venting, you're not going to be able to exit this place any time soon.

You should probably figure out what exactly is causing this phenomenon. But luckily you can still travel throughout the system - the Gravitational Absorber isn't required for the method used to travel at much smaller FTL speeds inside of systems.

2 Systems away from next Waypoint

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Wearing: Mothership Engineer Uniform

Spoiler: GM Note (click to show/hide)

I meant it when I said "episodic".
To be 100% honest, this is in a way an experiment with an episodic structure, and I'm still fairly unsure about general progression stuff combined with the episodic nature of it, so some things may seem kind of "out of order" in a way.
And in case anyone was wondering: This isn't restricted to large updates. Updates will scale in size and frequency as needed depending on what's currently happening and the given actions.

[S34N1C]

Run a diagnostic on the Teardrive.

[Carefulrogue]

Scan for planets with atmospheres that are relatively cold.  Speaking of which, how hot is the drive?

Scan for hostile contacts and give a few hours time to ensure the coast is clear before attempting to close on the wreckage zone from the battle.

[Chiefwaffles]

You swivel to a console and type in some commands.

TEARDRIVE DIAGNOSTICS

Drive Rails O.K.
Manipulation Core O.K.
Safety Field O.K.
Manipulation Director O.K.
Gravitational Absorber --ERROR--

Gravitational Absorber measured strain level: 132.601%
Gravitational Absorber Cooldown Rate: -0.040%/hr
GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY RISK PRESENT

Gravitational Absorber in BRACE mode.
Measured wave input: 5.321 Ap x [ERROR]/s

Manipulation Core wave output: 0.000 Ap x 0.000/s


You know "BRACE mode" signifies that the Absorber is acting as, well, it's essentially a lightning rod for foreign sources of strain. Or a heat sink. Measured wave input is the strain being introduced to the Absorber, whereas the Manipulation Core wave output is a measure of the strain created by the Teardrive itself. The "[ERROR]"  seen by measured wave input seems to indicate that the system can't pinpoint an exact frequency to the waves its receiving.

You enter in a command to measure heat. It's hotter than usual, but that's just a direct effect from the strain being put on the Absorber unit. It's going to rise at a fairly standard rate along with the strain of the drive, but you have a fairly large amount of time before it rises to dangerous levels and the risk of a gravitational anomaly is way worse than system overheating.

You activate Survey Sensors. You see two notable planets - both habitable for humans, actually. The first one is more or less the same as Earth; maybe a tiny bit colder. The second one is seriously cold. It screams "ice planet" to you but it definitely is habitable. But both planets have some minerals present that lead the sensors to conclude that there is advanced life present on both. You switch to Entity mode and scan the area for hostiles.
Nothing.

Satisfied with your immediate safety, you make some orbital adjustments to approach the wreckage. Once you're closer, you can see a large field of debris (presumably from both ships) where the imploding ship once was. No gravitational anomalies here. You also check diagnostics again and it appears being closer to the implosion site isn't triggering any alarms or doing anything noticeably bad.



2 systems away from next Waypoint.

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Wearing: Mothership Engineer Uniform

Spoiler: GM Note (click to show/hide)

Meant to include an 'episode' subtitle in the OP last update, so I'm doing it now and editing last update to fit it more.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

Go to the ice planet. Hover in the upper atmosphere to try and cool off the drive.

[Chiefwaffles]

The navigation system is set and all you have to do is wait while the ship performs the complex maneuvers required to make it to the ice planet within a reasonable timeframe. Ten minutes later, you hear a satisfying chime and a screen readout indicating that you have arrived at your destination.

You look at the viewscreen and the planet you're orbiting. Yup, it's an ice planet. Some lights reminiscent of civilization are scattered across the grounds of the planet, with concentrations of lights being bunched together. Sensors also indicate stations orbiting the planet, but you don't concern yourself with that for now.

You activate atmospheric thrusters and enter the upper portions of the atmosphere, then switch heat dispersion to atmospheric mode as well.
The heat buildup in the Teardrive slows. That's about it. In fact, the Teardrive diagnostics which you've been keeping running are indicating that you have higher levels of gravitational strain entering from foreign sources.

You sit back in your chair, listening to the steady rumbling of the atmospheric thrusters, and think.
Wait, is that..?
UNKNOWN APPROACHING CRAFT DETECTED

That answers your question. It is, in fact, that. You also notice a Communication notification alerting you to an entity possibly trying to hail you through foreign methods of communication that it can't properly parse. Sure, your Comms system does have the extremely high-tech Learning Translator, but that won't help without anything to translate. Or if you're blown up.

The more detailed sensor readouts show three incoming craft. You reckon you have to be prepared for them engaging you in combat since they do not look friendly. It'd probably be a good idea to run away or to find a way to actually get in contact with them to explain your situation.
Or you could somehow win in a combat engagement? No weapons, no armor, no problem, you guess?

2 systems away from next Waypoint.

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Wearing: Mothership Engineer Uniform

[S34N1C]

run away!

[KiwiOui]

Return Transmit a signal of acknowledgement, and an image of a crossed out battle.

[Chiefwaffles]

You switch directions for a return to a much higher orbit and have the ship execute that while you decide you'll try your hand at some good ol' fashioned "please-don't-kill-me" diplomacy.

The idea is simple, you suppose. You may not be able to interpret their message, but you can replicate their message and send it back to them. An image is a non-starter, since you don't even know how to begin to send an image through their medium, and they wouldn't be able to interpret the data used to make the information anyways.

You get to work on this. It's really just a more advanced version of copy & pasting, but you get to work nonetheless. Just by the time you think you're done, you're startled again by looking at your viewscreen. On it lies the image of a rather large ship with rather large guns bristling out of it. Your sensors begin to warn you about this ship. Which is really useful. You don't know the ship's manueverability, and it probably doesn't have the same intrasystem FTL tech that you have. They just may still get a shot off even if you do escape succesfully. So running away is still an option. But you aren't dead yet, which means they don't have significantly negative intentions for the time being.

You're on an intercept course towards the ship at the moment, so if you still don't want to explode, you need to make a decision.

2 systems away from next Waypoint.

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Wearing: Mothership Engineer Uniform

[KiwiOui]

Now run away. They have an inkling that we might be unhostile, and given some time, they should figure it out. Buuut, for the meantime, run off into empty space.