From deep in space came something extra ordinary

on lang range patrol, a ship identifies an incoming craft. the size of a starbase moving directly towards him, the ship in question does not answer hails, and crashes into the smaller ship. The pc's ship is dispatched to investigate.

Ok, I will bite. Then what happens? What is this starbase-size craft?

"Look, it's heading for that small moon."

"That's no moon. It's a battle station."

"It's too large to be a battle station..."

Oops, sorry... too many commericals.


I'm assuming this thread was started to generate some ideas on what it could be...

How's this:
First, let's make it bigger... It's a generation ship. It's a generation ship from another galaxy. It malfunctioned at some point, sealing off some sections from other sections causing completely different cultures to develop. Hydroponics sections have overgrown making literally interior jungles and different environments in the different sections. One section might be near the reactor cooling machinery which has frosted over nigh-everything for intergalactic eskimo types or something :) Arm it, so it's dangerous to approach from most angles.

It's too big to tractor and it's on a "dangerous" course which will collide it into a main planet in Federation space in one year's time. The crew must find their way in (can't beam in & must find a good approach angle to avoid automated weapons) through an access point and make first contact, find their way to the next level... again, make first contact... etc etc on their way to the control room to prevent disaster.

All the while, other races make claims to the ship ("it destroyed one of our ships!" or "we're out to get that awesome technology"). So the crew has this lengthy exploration mission and must deal with other races on the outside, too. - not intended to be a dungeon crawl where you go in and stay in. The lack of beaming and reliance on shuttles and such might help avoid some of the problems with the high-tech making things too easy.

I think they had something similar in an episode ("The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" or something). It plays kind of on that Dyson Sphere idea, too.

... Meanwhile, Devon, Rachel and Garth try to find the Bridge to stop the ship, hindered by an alien named Odo (who looks a lot like Pavel Chekov). And the ship has the politest computer even seen - "May I be of... assistance?"

I reckon the crew should be beamed into the ship, into one of the immense cargo holds that actually looks like a planet surface with a specific climate. The crew slowly learn that they have been beamed not onto a planet but onto a ship. However, this learning process is hindered by the fact that the PC ship is just passing a planet that happens to match the cargo hold's climate. Anyway they must interact with the "natives" in order to get to the controls and stop the ship/avoid a collision or whatever. :D

I'll stick to the starbase-sized starship. This ship could be a ship of exploration, like a StarFleet vessel, only it comes from much further away (another quadrant, maybe another galaxy), and, of course, the civilisation it belongs to is a bit more technologically advanced (but not too much - say, one century or two). This ship however could also be the state of the art of their technology, and maybe a prototype as well - either like NX-01 or Kirk's Enterprise.

Now something went wrong : the ship has been invaded and the crew is fighting some hostile force that has taken control of the ship (imagine one of those TOS episode gone wrong). The crew of the ship managed to lock the computer so that the invaders can't use it, however it has kept its original course and is now cruising blindly while its crew is fighting a desperate struggle to regain their ship.

Once the PC manage to board the ship (by transporter or shuttles or something clever), they'll have to figure out what's happening, fight their way against both parties at first (for the initial crew will probably take them for other invaders), then try to help the aliens regain control of their ship once they figured the situation - that, or simply stop the ship.

Sounds good, personally I would go for a *huge* ship as mentioned before. Maybe the PCs are embroiled in local conflicts on the various decks, seriously big battles involving terrestrial armies of various kinds. Each deck could have a central struggle taking place (though not necessarily military; economic warfare, political, whatever). However the kicker is that no-one knows truly *why* they are fighting. As it turns out, yes, they are all fighting over the ship, but only a small clique know this, and they are manipulating these massive "human resources" against each other, like an Illuminati. The same thing could be achieved by very high-tech holograms instead of a really big ship. This is a rather "far out" idea, but well within the boundaries of Trek.;)

If the ship isn't "huge" then it can be easily disabled (shoot out the engines, tractor beams, etc). This means you need another McGuffintech explanation to prevent that sort of thing.

The idea of "aware" inhabitant is a valid one, too (like in Megazone 23 when the military was fully aware they were on a generation ship, but simply helped maintain the illusion of the populace that they were on 1980 Earth).

The ship is a huge mining vessel, adrift for thousands of years. All of the crew have been killed by a radiation leak except: on crewman in stasis as punishment for bringing an unauthorised feline lifeform aboard, a holographic recreation of a crewman, and the last descendant of said feline. Only the perpetualy depressed computer controls the ship.

"They're dead Dave, they're all dead." :D

Would anyone like any toast?

Bagel?

Waffle?

Are you sure you wouldn't like some toast?

Thanks for the Ideas, I thought if I threw out a bone of an idea, I would get some feed back on how to buld up the adventure. my original thoughts were a large ship, starbase sized, which is too big to be tractored, heavily armored, which makes getting a sensor lock on anything inside nearly impossible. Armed to the teeth, making small ships or bigger thnk twice about coming closer. moving at "slow" speeds, heading on a course that would take it into the Earth system. if not stopped it could on the off chance ram into earth and detonate, since its energy trail is composed on high levels of waste products, Scientist believe it would pollute the atmosphere with the waste products, and potentially poison the environment. if it struck any planet the damage would be catostrophic.

working on information for the adventure..

the ship is a military vessel in its home galaxy. built along the lines of a heavy carrier/city ship. most of the crew is dead, a few survive but have been trapped by combat within the vessel. the full crew would be around 2 million people.. curently there are 100 actual crew, 500 raiders. the crew knows the ship the raiders don't. the weapons the crew and the raiders have been using is out of juice, so its gotten to the point of clubs and knives. food and medical supplies were used up. areas of importance have been blocked off trying to prevent the raiders from accessing them. most of the hull is designed against energy weapons, which increases the difficulty for a beam in. the hanger areas are open making them much easier access, they have force fields keeping the vacuum of space at bay.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
... Meanwhile, Devon, Rachel and Garth try to find the Bridge to stop the ship, hindered by an alien named Odo (who looks a lot like Pavel Chekov). And the ship has the politest computer even seen - "May I be of... assistance?"

---

I found the other person who watched "The Starlost"! I knew there was more than just me!

Please forgive me for not knowing what you are talking about, but what or who are the Starlost?

to answer that last question..starlost was a Canadian science fiction TV show made during the late seventies. It was set aboard a generatio0nal space ship with the last survivers of Earth. The ship was called the Ark. In the early episodes many of the "cast" do not yet realize they are on a ship. Different biospheres aboard the ship recreate various parts of earth, differentiated by country of orgigin, culture, etc.

Does that sorta answer the question?