Malfunction (plot hook needed)

I'm on the fourth (and last) season of my series Star Trek: Frontier and I'm having trouble with one of the episodes.

My basic idea is to let the andriod PC have a malfunction and be forced to act in a special way (heavily inspired by all the voyager episodes dealing with problems around the doctor).
Anyway.. I can't think of a malfunction that is both fun to roleplay and good as a part of the plot... I'm thinking in the ways of some kind of strange behaviout, memory loss och something about his sense of reality (none of this is real).

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks for the help!!!


ps. My players havnät seen Voy or TNG so if you can think of a good Doctor/Data plot I'm happy to rip it of :) .ds

A couple of thoughts that spring to mind, both liberally used in Star Trek episodes:

The android has a previously unknown program activated or a new subroutine inadvertantly installed, causing it to act strangely. The programming is triggered/installed by interaction with strange computer technology, an accident (disruptor shot or maintenance mishap), or an alien signal of some sort.

A bizarro alien "possesses" the android. This could explain all kinds of weird behaviour. Maybe the alien is actually a sapient virus downloaded form a computer system. Or an energy being that jumps from host to host trying to understand what humans are like -- when it gets to the android something really freaky happens to it. Or maybe it's a threatening alien "cloud" that just causes all shipboard technology to go haywire, including the android.

Hope that helps a bit!

LQ

What's the backround on this android?

Depending on how mature your players are...

The android has buried programming from a previous "owner / manufacturer," and was originally a Geishabot. (For the male version, just watch A.I.)

It's a male android.. everybody thought he was human (including himself) thought he was human until another android from the future revelaed the truth (Think Boomer from Battlestar Galactica)..
I want it to be some kind of malfunction that is possible to fixa for someone whith technology from the androids own time..

Don't have any ideas for malfucntions, but for a fix you could simply reboot him. Quick jog of the power switch. "You mean we went on this stupid quest and all this time we just had to push that stupid button?!" :)

Deep down inside, its base program is a lay over of Windows Millenium Edition. It was originally designed to shut down ever X amount of hours a day, so a self repairing program can work its wonders. However, due to certain circumstances, and the PDF file being lost in a long ago memory dump, the android or anyone around he doesn't know.

Walk in the blue screens of death appearing over its eyes. Odd error codes that have long been lost to the sands of time. Middle English terms that are no longer in use, and are obscure and unknown to all but the most avid 20th-21st Century afficianado.

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Maybe it was originally designed for another purpose (geisha could be one), and had over the years of accumulating knew data it has changed to the being known today. Say something happens, blocks that data. Could be a recoverable reset of some kind. But the PCs have to go through X amount of hoops to solve the problem. Maybe it wishes to run away from the ship. Maybe it wants to return to its original existance. Maybe it remembers something horrible that could be disasterous to someone in power, somewhere.

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Maybe it was originally from the future and was sent to the past as an observer. But something happened to bring it to factory blank, and it became the creature that is now part of the crew. What if it began the process that ended up developing its predecessors? What if it learns of its past/future?

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Maybe it can have a background much like Fry from Futurama. Be its own Grandpa . . . cause its partially biological.

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Maybe it has powers that it didn't know it had. They could be benine or highly destructive. Maybe these powers have subroutines taht are directly attached to them that maybe be negative to the crew, or change its personnality.

Set up a dillema much like that Q girl had that liked Riker. Do you use the power and potentially change yourself forever, in a way that may hurt everyone around you in the long run . . . or do you let alot of innocent people die.

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Or how about and idea from Babylon 5. All criminals of a certain culture have their memory erased, and new more high ideals are put in to replace the original persons personality. What if something triggers a return of the purged person? Can it deal with its new knowledge of the past, if it keeps memories of his current life? If it doesn't, what would it do?

Oh, I like JALU3's last idea; here's a Tricky expansion.

Where(when)ever this android is from, it isn't just a criminal: it's a android supremist terrorist. It did terrible things in it's campaign to destoy all organic life.
Then, by design or by accident, it's memories were erased (accident works better, because it's kinda of a fate thing), and it wound up in your campaign. Where it quickly became part of the organic cultures it swore to destroy, and it assimalated itself nicely.

Now, something awakens those subroutines. If it was an accident, maybe what ever happened before (exposure to strange radiation or certain energy type/wavelength) happens again. Or during a diagnostic they accidently activate them (if you go with this, I would push this one back a couple of episodes, and have incidents where he has either momentary flashbacks to his old life, or his old skills/attitude resurfaces). He runs amok, all the time his new (character driven) persona struggles to defeat his old (evil) persona. Just when he's about to do his worst, a combination of his good side, some characters 'talkin him out of it' and some techno-babble gizmo deactivate the program, and in the end they remove the circuts, or maybe he finds a way to keep them inside (ala Ezri keeping her killer hosts memories too).

A kinda intersting sub plot i came up with was some 'aliens of the week' attack your crew, and its something about them (thier weapons use the energy wavelength, their comm signal is on his processor' frequency, their ships are red) that activates his 'aggressor' personality, so while they are attacking, your droid could become either a one man army fighting them off, or fights to become thier new leader.

Just thinking outloud!

Hi, I dont post much, but I read this and had an idea you could use for your Malfunction. Recently i've been rereading Star Trek: Federation, and if you know it you'll remember the Third World War Survivor, Colonel Thorsen, who was consumed with a hatred of Cochrane, so much so he used illegal Grigari Technology to survive.

Eventually the technology broke down, so he transferred his 'program/life' to a computer terminal, and left clues of an archaeological importance that would force the Enterprise (D) to link it to a computer. When it had controlled the ship, Data attempted to retake command control, and that was when Thorsen's program tranferred, forcing the crew to complete his mission.

All you'd need is a good mission and suitable obsessive maniac...

And of course, someone from the future could have developed a technology to prevent this from happening, and travels back, maybe just a bit too late.

It's probably not a great idea, but I hope it helps.

A few alternate ideas :

The android looses in an accident some of his senses : he becomes blind, deaf, or something like that.
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The android's memory becomes suddenly erratic. Some part of it randomly cease to function, leading him to forget various things ranging from his cabin number to his own name, or his function aboard the ship. These memory lapses cease as abruptly as they begin and usually choose the worst moment to manifest [;)]
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Likewise, the android behavioral programs start to mix each others. His behavior becomes completely inappropriate given the circumstances (laughing happily when reporting a crewman death, using slang when speaking to the Captain, and so on). I wonder if this didn't happen in a Data episode, BTW.
The android could even develop special moods, and start acting like Marvin in The Hitchhicker Guide to the Galaxy.
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The android is infected by a virus that takes momentarily control of his body. At first, the symptoms are only random jerks of the body, then, as the virus spreads, sentences coming out of nowhere without the android's will. Lastly, the virus could even use the circuits of the android to develop an alternate personality that randomly takes control à la Jeckyll and Hyde.

BSG could be a ery good model for a long running problem on the ship.. Perhaps there is more to this android than it appears.. The android from the future might have stimulated something much like the Voyager episode when it turns out Tuvok was taken in by a Bajoran Veddek who altered his mind that a simple phrase 'Pagh Tem Far betannay' triggered a hidden programme to run and cause havok!

You could have a number of strange occurances happen on the ship which seem unsolvable and no culprit can be found.. they turn out to all be part of a master plan, and it is your android who is doing it all, but ha no idea why or no memory.. The crunch point will be when he reaises that it was him all along ! Will he hide it from the crew, will he confess, will he have an inner struggle to stop this viral programme from taking him over. It could be a good builder over a few episodes.. maybe little things you drop in as sub-plots or incidentals that sowly can't be ignored.

I guess you would have to work out who the 'big bad' was though.. but what would be neat would be maybe in uncovering it it may help to reveal more about why he exists, which is the payback for the player having to go through all of that pressure! :D

This is only supposed to be the plot for a single episode (got most stuff about the android in my head allready) so I'm looking for plotstuff... I like the idea about memory loss... not complete memory loss but loss of long or short term memory... any experiences of such roleplaying?

Well, I personally never roleplayed such a situation myself, but here are a few pointers on how I would proceed :

- If you want the player to cooperate with you, just warn him that he'll have to act as if he forgot something at certain times. You can set a few signals to indicate what he has to forget and when.

- If you want to keep even the android's player in the dark (or partially, at least), you could for instance set up a few situations where every other player knows what is about except the android, while he's supposed to be as well.
For instance, you could hand every player a summary of a briefing, then mention it afterwards (and the android's summary would have been much less detailed than any other one). This depends of course of your style of play.
Of course, you can also alter the rolls of the android to reflect the fact that he forgets some skills...

I think I'm going to cooperate with the android player...
The gaol of my group is the get the ultimate stroy told.... not to have a gm/players fight ;)

Most players, if they are enticed with a roleplaying potential, rather than 'getting screwed by the GM' will play along nicelly :)

Depending on what you want the player to forget simply have the situation happen: because it is not a real human you can have unrealistic and selective memory loss.. you could have him simply not remember having done things.. Have random ensigns ask him how he enjoyed that klingon Opera compilation he loaned last night.. make it sound like he is having a double life he doesn't know about. You don't neccessarily have to have him roleplay not remembering, simply present it to him that there are things he can't remember ad then he has a mystery to solve!

I've done that kind of things to players before.. where they are possessed by something, and the next thing they remember, they are standing at a murder scene with no concept of what happened for the last few hours! Did they murder the person and not remember, or did whatever possessed them want them to find the body for some reason!