star trek: the anabasis

so... after the federation mined the entrace to the bajoran wormhole (or alternately, when the wormhole was sealed by Dukat, what do you think happened to everyone stuck on the other side? there were klingon colonies in the gamma quadrant, surely some ferengi on trade missions, and maybe even a starfleet survery ship or two unable to get back through the wormhole in time.

in preparing for a new star trek game, i first wanted to do a dominion war series, then a voyager-esque one, and then i thought... why not split the difference? i remember xenophon's anabasis, about an army of 10,000 greek mercenaries stuck behind persian lines, and their journey back to friendly territory. so what say a starfleet scientific ship, maybe a nova or hey, even an intrepid is deep inside the gamma quadrant scanning gaseous anomalies or whatever, and then finds out too late that the wormhole is closed and there's no easy way back.

i figure you can keep a crew busy with dodging the dominion for a full season before moving onto the borg, perhaps, and then... who knows? anyone else done something like this?

daniel

This sounds like an interesting premise for a series, and a fun game.. the players, with the exception of maybe a rogue set of other aliens (maybe they form a fleet, or Voyager style have to merge in one ship) - and beyond the initial shock, battle for survival and gathering together any survivors.. that was it.. They either hold out for a resolution to the war, or they find another way home: Either is a daunting prospect!

The only worry I would say would be introducing the Borg in such a cavalier fashion, unless its just a deep scout, because it's as far from their space as Earth is! Still you could create a whole new set of aliens and encounters on your route home! :)

I was thinking about this a while ago, actually. STAR TREK: STARSHIP PROXIMA.

Here's some setting notes I was collecting. The Proxima, Maryland and Sarajevo were actually mentioned in the series as missing in the Gamma Quadrant, and a Sarajevo with the same registry number listed casualities later in the actual Dominion War. From this, I inferred that the Sarajevo (at least) was successful in finding a way back to the Alpha Quadrant.

NOTES
In 2373, the Dominion declared the Gamma Quadrant forbidden to travellers from the Alpha Quadrant. They slaughtered the New Bajor colony and hunted down Federation starships.

The mini-series was to follow the Battlestar Galactica model. A powerful military vessel (the Proxima) protects a group of civilian vessels as they look for a way to escape back to the Alpha Quadrant. Characters would be a mix of Starfleet, civilian Federation, Bajoran and non-

SHIPS IN THE RAG-TAG FLEET.
USS Proxima. nebula-class. flagship of the refugee fleet. two runabouts?
USS Heliopolis. science vessel, destroyed by the dominion.
USS Maryland. renaissance-class. destroyed by the dominion. pegasus?
USS Sarajevo. colony ship, evacuated New Bajor. only designed to take on a certain amount of colonists
Vayraal. Vulcan science ship, evacuated New Bajor
IKS T'krogh. Klingon BoP. initially antagonistic, hiding something from the fleet
about a half-dozen more bajoran and ferengi vessels

NPCs
Greem, ferengi freighter captain carrying a shipment of goma-fruit from Karemma. A tracking device was hidden in the fruit shipment by a Dominion agent to keep tabs on the fleet.

SPECIES
Yaderans - conquered by the dominion. refugees crawling around the sector
Rakhari - insular totalitarian species.'

LOCATIONS
Palaboz - Large Dominion outpost two sectors away.
Internment Camp 366 - where the Maryland personnel are being experimented upon.
Idran outpost - The outpost the dominion builds around the perimetre of the wormhole.

EPISODE IDEAS
PILOT: during a first contact mission, the Proxima responds to a distress call from New Bajor, and helps hold off the Jem'Hadar as some ships manage to escape.

-the Bajoran's ships begin to break down, and sympathetic aliens are hard to find. A yaderan refugee ship (also in poor repair) tells them about scavenger-aliens called the G'thoji, but chasing them down and convincing them to trade may be difficult (what's the complication?)

-the chieftain of a tribe of pirate-refugees, Omor, wants revenge on the chieftain who sold his people out to the dominion, a ruler named Aru. negotiating with the pirate-refugees for their needs, the fleet becomes embroiled in the conflict. Things turn bad when Aru captures Omor [...]

-sometime after the proxima has been severely damaged, limiting it's tactical abilities, a klingon bird-of-prey enounters the fleet. while the increase in tactical power is welcomed, the klingon's plans for a military assault on the Dominion forces guarding the wormhole to break through divide the fleet. (a la Pegasus)

-the fleet finds a planet in a mysterious nebula shunned by the Dominion. on it resides a powerful but mad entity with the power to send them back. the entity, however, is more interested in having the fleet play out its twisted games.

-information from alien traders leads the fleet to an area where Dominion patrols are light. They discover it's a Borg-controlled area with a transwarp hub they might be able to use to get home. (your chance to do Endgame in a way that doesn't suck).

That sounds a pretty cool concept, although of course it has to have a much shorter conclusion than Voyager, because as you point out the ship makes it back a couple of years later, in time to get involved with the war.

That said, perhaps they manage to re-establish contact with the Federation somehow (perhaps someone builds a second Midas array, and points it their way.. or they can simply re-direct the Midas array to their local sector, depending on the timelines) then perhaps they are engaged in the war, just on the Gamma quadrant side of the Wormhole.. maybe gathering intelligence on troop sizes, construction facilities, maybe even running covert sabotage operations? With a BoP in their group they have a functioning cloaking device, which means as long as they are careful, then can get in and out of locations without being detected. It would be a hard fought battle, if they chose to stay and fight, but they could be a valuable asset to the Federation and the Dominion war! :)