Subspace lifeform

Here is something that is not quite space dock but is based on spacedock for use. This was the first use of spacedock in a while as we have been off in other games such as Star Wars, D&D and Conan not to forget comedy game of the Wacky Wild West ran by Jewel. On returning to Star Trek I wanted adventure that was different than snoop and look.

Seen in an episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the animated series a space creature that consumes starships for food or consumes planets was the bases for this creature. I wanted to present the crew and their ship a monster that they had never encountered and would have to work to understand.

SUBSPACE LIFEFORM

Subspace Lifeforms
A small subspace rupture into normal space is all that can be seen in normal space. From all scans the rupture appears no different than thousands of other ruptures located throughout the universe. It is not until the creature’s use of gravimetric beams begin pulling the ship in to the open mouth that the crew of a surprised starship discovers that it is caught by a subspace creature intent on eating their ship and them to. Thought the subspace rupture aka the creatures mouth is the size of a starship used in pulling in asteroids and other space rubble. The creature much like other living things consume the ships and other space materials as food and grow much as you or I would do with a cheese burger and fries for our own dinner.

The Creatures Mouth
The mouth of the subspace life form may be as large as a few kilometers wide or just enough to attach to the hull of a small vessel and tear a hole in it and consume the vessel by tearing it into pieces.
The larger the creature, size four or larger can pull a ship into the rupture using a force similar to that of Starship Tractor Beam. The creatures pull on a starship like a rated Tractor Beam on a starship with ranges similar to that. (Size 3 and 4 have a pull equal to that of a class Alpha Tractor beam, a size 5 would have the pull of a class Beta, a size 6 creature would have a class Gamma tractor beam and a size 7 through 9 size creatures would have a class Delta tractor beam, while anything larger than a size 10 would have a gravimetric pull more powerful than the average starship to pull free from.
As with a standard tractor beam a phaser beam or photon torpedo strike and detonation would break all but the larger creatures hold on the ships.
The smaller creatures do have the ability to manipulate dust and rubble into its mouth.

The inside of the creature
Once pulled inside the subspace life form the ship or object is digested by biological enzymes. If the object is a starship and is shielded the creature assaults the shields with Electro Plasma Discharges that look like lightning but are closer to that of a phaser or disruptor weapon. Each creature is capable of delivering different level charges. Roll 1d6x75 (with a total of 450 damage) to discern the damage that the creature can deliver each round. This will wear the shields protecting most starships down.
The digestive enzymes that will work on dissolving the ship 3d6 will disinergrate so many of the ships SU’s per round after resistance. The enzyme dissolves the ship to provide fuel for the creature to live and grow.
A fully powerful creature can knock the shields of a Constitution-class starship out in a couple of rounds and digest the ship in 125 rounds (21 minutes), but while a galaxy class would last in the same creature for 36 rounds for the shield and 303 rounds (50 minutes) for the ship to be digested. A starship could be disinergrated in less time than that.

Sensors
The typical sensors can detect the creature but not until modifications are made and further modifications to detect that the creatures size in subspace. The sensors most likely only detect the mouth opening as a run of the mill subspace rupture. Only until modifications are made to the sensors will the reality of what has been created be seen. The creature is huge.
The creature can sense a starship several light-years away even if it is cloaked as the ships warp core and warp nacelles disturbed the subspace environment. Much of the subspace environment is still a mystery to those living in normal space.

The Creatures size
The creature is huge and is rated on the same scale as a starship by rating the size of the mouth opening.
Starfleet research has determined that the creature grows 1 SU in size for every 100 SU’s of material digested over 10 hours after consuming. So a creature consuming a Constitution-class starship would increase its size by 12 SU’s and a Galaxy class there would be only 20 SU’s of growth. For a creature to grow to the size and have a mouth the size of a Galaxy class it would have to consume 21,121,050 SU’s taking years or decades. The creature’s physical body grows at 1 SU per every 14 days unless interrupted by travel.
The internal composition is such that it has a resistance that is equal to 60 times the creature’s size. So a creature size 8 would have a resistance of 480 while a creature of size 4 would have a resistance of 240 and a creature size 16 would have a resistance of 960 against all weapons.
These creatures have nearly all the same body parts that a human or other biological entity has except for arms, legs or lungs deriving much of what it needs from the materials it consumes. The detonation of a starship's warp engine or warp core would do only a small percentage of damage to the creature.

Movement
These creatures have been known to move through subspace to find a place where it can reposition to feed on new materials. The creature can move at phenomenal speeds as majority of it lives in subspace. The creature can move into the neighboring star system in only a few hours although doing so burns up half of its stored energies and prevents the growth of the creature till it consumes more food.

The Lure
Some of these Subspace life forms have become a little more intelligent and self aware. The more intelligent these creatures become the more dangerous the creature is.
There have been reports that there are some creatures that have become smart enough to mimic distress calls and lure a starship close enough to be pulled in.
Some creatures may even have the ability to use their PSI factors to manipulate a crew into bringing the ship in closer to be captured.

The Hunger
The creature can survive off the digested starship and crew for weeks or months before needing to feed again.
These creatures consume their size is SU’s per day. So a size eight creature that has eaten a constitution class starship will use 12 SU’s to grow its size and the rest as food for 155 days before it would really need to feed again.

Procreation
No living humanoid has seen the procreation of one of these creatures, although Starfleet scientist's have determined that the creature under goes an asexual replication of splitting off a portion of its own mass once the size in SU’s for the mouth has reached the Maximum SU’s. This usually happens in an asteroid field where the creature will split 30% of its mass off into 2200 creatures of 150 SU’s and are left to feed in the asteroid field.
Few creatures grow beyond size 4 as they are destroyed by hunters or destroyed by supernova’s or starve as they are too small to feed themselves or too immature to search for food.

The stomach
The creature’s stomach may be large enough to hold a number ships equal to half its mouth size. So a size 16 creature could hold eight Borg cubes easily enough.

The Age of a creature
To grow to its full size takes 12 to 15 centuries and could easily live forever if recourses are plentiful. These creatures grow smarter as it ages.

Communication
Any species with a PSI rating can mentally contact with the creature once within the creature and communicate with it.

Our game
The USS Coyote a Federation research ship equipped with the most powerful starship shields studied the creature for several weeks even going as far as toeing in asteroids to feed the creature. The vessel launched sophisticated sensor probes inside the creature discovering that the creature’s hostile interiors. Caught in the creature’s gravimetric pull the Coyote was drawn inside and was forced to destroy the creature in their escape so they think.
This had been our first adventure for a while in the Star Trek Universe. I have been splitting my time between running a game in the Babylon 5 system and playing a fallen noble in a Conan game.