I saw this interesting post from one of the authors of Hope's Last Stand and thought it would be a great addition to this thread. It goes over what they were thinking and shows three different scenarios that would/could be part of the a Hope's Last Day mini-campaign. He posted this a couple of years ago on another thread.
"Dave and I read River of Pain and hated it. We too did not like the use of a Marine garrison in the colony. (There was plenty else we didn’t like, but we won’t go into that here.) Newts story from the Dark Horse comics works far better. The three vignettes we wrote this took a different take on the story, influenced but not not centred in Newts story. One of the things we also wanted to do with the three parts was showcase the three different campaign modes. So for space truckers, we had a Firefly style heist; the colonists one was the pretty much what is presented in Hopes Last Day, and then me had a more military one (but focused on the Marshal and his volunteer deputies) about making sure the warning signal got out.
Remember these were meant to be three third acts, so the all the agenda were written (as Hyvemynd says) to race to a finish. But with a bit of tweaking I felt they could work as a three act scenario, with lots of NPCs/spare characters. This is how I thought it would work out, using each vignette as a sequential act.
Act one: Hope’s Last Hand. A lockdown has been announced, colonists are instructed to remain in their quarters while the marshals track down an escaped “snake like animal” that may be dangerous. But our group of disgruntled PCs have other plans. They have lost so much money and shares at the company casino that they hatch a plan to use the lock-down to sneak into the casino and rob the safe. The antagonists here are the marshals militia, out with motion trackers, steel nets, and other inappropriate weapons (stun weapons, maybe a tranq rifle), which they must avoid or be arrested. One event is they might witness something (a captured colonist) being dragged into a conduit on the way to processor one. If they succeed in getting to the safe, they need to hide their haul until the lockdown has blown over. There is a nearby old airlock, now disused since the atmosphere became more breathable, but when they get there, they must deal with the Union band, who use it as a rehearsal space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB9s8Q5qma4&t=207s
Act two: Hope’s Last Dance. Involves a new emergency instruction from the command centre to congregate in a secure repair area in sub level one. The PCs see evidence that the situation has got worse while they have been sneaking around. And at least some of the Union band plead with the PCs to get them (and their instruments) to safety. But now there are more Xenos, picking off stragglers to take to the nest in Processor 1. Otherwise this is like Hopes Last Day, but has have one points out, with different agendas. The ending would be more like the scene in Newts story where the aliens get into the safe room and massacre the colonists.
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/vi ... uAPq4Ktgb/
Act three: Hope’s Last Stand. By now I would hope that the party is made up of one or two criminals from Hand, a Union band member and the last survivors of the Marshals militia. The agendas suggest all hope is lost and the best that can to is get a message out - quarantine the colony, and call for the UACMC, setting up the movie. They have access to the militia armoury, but they find they need to get to the antenna and repair it, though a base infest3d with Xenos"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4buarmy ... XH&t=5274s
So the comments about Hope's Last Day being a third act make more sense now, but it would appear that Hope's Last Stand is really the final act with Hope's Last Day being more of an Act II sort of thing. I would REALLY like to see this published in some sort of way.
Edit- I added links to YouTube play throughs of two of these scenarios. Hope's Last Dance is a Podcast. I'm still looking for a video of the scenario.