Voyaging To and Staying In the Delta Quadrant

So the Decipher Trek game has lots of resources from Voyager - ships, aliens, and the like.

That got me wondering - how would one use it in a game? I'm not planning such a game at the present, but my Trek creative energies have been going again... :)

There are two issues that come to my mind right away.

The first is how to get there. Assuming intentionally, can the crew get back easily? Is there a stable wormhole? Multiple ships? Are they stuck in the area for a while or can they get home at will?

The second issue is somewhat related. Voyager traversed huge sections of the Delta Quadrant, making many jumps of hundreds, sometimes thousands of light years. Would a Delta Quadrant game be run in one area or would such a game bounce around as well.

Getting there:

Just for the sake of not using wormholes or transwarp conduits (they've been used a whole lot) I can think of 2 options.The subspace conduits used by Voyager had the ship moving at something like 10 LY per minute.Can't remember the name of the ep,it had a cool battle where Voyager was attacked by aircraft (?)while in an atmosphere.If memory serves that was the only time subspace conduits were used.These seemed to be stable and would be a good and possibly reliable way of getting there.

Slipstream drive would be a second option.Voyager allmost made that drive work reliably

As to how long your ships are there ,a slipsstream drive that failed to the point of being a useless hunk of metal only after getting the ship to the Delta Quad could keep the crew around for awhile.If the drive worked intermittently this would allow the ship to cover vast distances,but only sporadically.

It would stand to reason that the Federation would want to open relations with some of the cultures contacted by Janeway.If they found a reliable means of travel they might send a large group of ships to do it.Or 1 heavily outfitted explorer if it was deemed hazardous.

If I were to do a Delta Quad game I would go with the heavily outfitted explorer with an often-malfunctioning slipstream drive. Help from other Starfleet ships would be rare,if it ever happened at all.

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The subspace conduits used by Voyager had the ship moving at something like 10 LY per minute.Can't remember the name of the ep,it had a cool battle where Voyager was attacked by aircraft (?)while in an atmosphere.If memory serves that was the only time subspace conduits were used
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The episode is called "Dragon's teeth" and is found in the sixth season of "ST-Voyager". Voyager is pulled in these corridors and is attacked by a species very protective of the corridors. During their escape Janeway and company awake the remains of a (nearly) destroyed warrior race, called the Vaadwaur, that claim they have been attacked because of their dicovery and use of the corridors.
I think that this episode would make an interesting background for a number of Delta quadrant episodes. Some of the Vaadwaur have escaped total annihilation and shouldn't be to happy seeing Federation personal again.

Only problem I see is that the crew mentioned that although nobody knew the exact demensions of the subspace corridors but I doubt that they would reach as far as Alpha or let's say Beta quadrant.

So some sort of experimantal new drive system (for example the slipstream) would be a good means of gettinng a ship there.

But the corridors could be used, once the ship(s) would reach the quadrant, in order to ease up the journey, making risky jumps with the new engine unneccasary.

I have yet one more idea: I think I remember that in one episode Starfleet informs VOY, that they have dispatched ships to meet them "on-the-way". Perhaps some of these ship(s) have already covered some ground and are ordered to proceed on instead of turning back.

I think that Starfleet wouldn't send a lonely Starship out there again. Not even a Souvereign-class HE. Although, after what Voyager has gone through and stood up to a Galaxy or Souvereign could possibly dwarf nearly everything...

Have to give it some more thought though. But there are a lot of epsiodes that would give good starting points: One could meet Neelix again, stumble once more upon that Dinosaurin species :-)

And you could even throw in one or two VOY chararacters as experts.

I don't think my players would enjoy the setup, but personaly I find the idea interesting.

Regards, Nico

The Vaduar underspace coridoors as seen in Dragons teeth were very extensive, though as you said no one said how far.. However there was a big implication of their size.. For example - Vaduar was the talaxian word for Foolish. Given that it was in the 6th series, and voyager had travelled 20'000 lightyears or more by they, that means the coridoors are vast enough for a reliable means to get arround and visit most of the races we've seen before, without neccessarily getting home. (I.e. from that location to Talax)

The Vaduar themselves might actually have travelled to the Alpha quadrant. No better way for them to escape their enemies than travel to the very extremes of their range!

I quite like the idea of using the Horogen communications relays again. One idea might be to simply have an advanced race (perhaps the Hirogen, or maybe the race that really built them!) repair them. Theoretically the Voth could use them to transport whole ships down the relays :D

But there are a thousand and one ways to get too and from there in the show, it's just for one reason or another they weren't used then, and could be used now!

The Vaadwaur are perhaps my favorite Voyager "villain race" next to the Kazon.

I have dozens of pages of notes concerning a Voyager-esque Series, ranging from single vessels lost in the Delta Quadrant to trading convoys to military armadas (Klingons, Romulan, Cardassian, etc.).

Among my favorite Series that I developed and played was the "Starfleet cadets lost in the Delta Quadrant" one where they are aided by Gegen, the Voth scientists that was convicted of heresy against Doctrine and stripped of his prestige and his position and relgated to metalurgical studies.

The PCs - there were six or seven (depending on the week) - were caught in a spatial anomaly and tossed into the Delta Quadrant with no obvious means of returning home and with little in the way of technology (other than their training vessels). Gegen provided them with a new ship, some equipment, and a large chunk of Voyager's database (which he'd downloaded several years earlier).

This provided the PCs with limited (but useable) resources, including a copy of the Voyager EMH! This was the longest-lived Series that I GM'd, lasting over two years.

Besides that one, I do have a whole binder full of other Voyager-related ideas, some involving Starfleet and other Federation personnel, some involving other AQ & BQ races. and some involving the Founders and their ilk.

Among my other favorite scenarios is the stabilization of the Barzan wormhole by an alien group (I was considering the Think Tank), allowing two-way travel between Federation space and the Delta Quadrant. This setup was meant to allow DQ races and technologies (as well as Voyager follow-up story arcs) to find their way to the Alpha Quadrant without quantum slipstream or transwarp technologies.

Yet another of my personal favorites is the Federation Merchant Marine vessel that stumbles across the Vaadwaur subspace corridoor network and finds itself plopped down in Kazon territory. Needless to say, Maje Culluh and his half-Cardassian son (along with the rest of the crumbling Kazon-Nistrim sect) show up and wackiness ensues. This Series almost certainly includes the Trabe and perhaps even the Talaxians.

Still another Series seed revolves around a Dominion ship loaded with Jem'Hadar soldiers, Cardassian military personnel, a detachment of Son'a advisors (who know the secret of producing Ketracel-White) and a Vorta commander that is transported to the Delta Quadrant near where the Caretaker's array was previously located when an exchange of weapons fire tore a hole in subspace and their heavily-damaged ship fell through it and into Ocampa space. The Ocampa subterranean city complex has been completely drained of power and sealed from outsiders, but the Dominion transporters allow access. They find the Ocampa are all gone without a trace, as are the Kazon that had previously littered the planet's surface.

Unable to repair their ship, they manage to land (read as crash) it onto the surface, and then set about cannibalizing it for parts that they then use to power the Ocampa city. Stuck in the Delta Quadrant, the Cardassian and Son'a crew members resign themselves to a new life, though the Vorta and Jem'Hadar spend much of their time trying to figure out a way to escape and return to continue the fight for the Dominion and their Founder masters.

A final idea (for the moment) revolves around the Vaadwaur traveling to the Badlands and discovering former Maquis strongholds (full of weapons and even a couple of small ships). Settling on one of the few "hospitable" planetoids in the region, the Vaadwaur leadership begins rebuilding their empire, planning on using the corridoors to investigate the region, acquire new technologies (including cloaking devices), and making themselves into a new power to be reckoned with.

Given the great power that the subspace corridoors offer, I was also thinking that a contingent of Vaadwaur (a semi-saurian species, like the Cardassians) might travel to Cardassia Prime - a world, like their own, destroyed by their enemies - and offer an alliance, offering knowledge of and access to the subspace network in exchange for ships, technology, and so on. Such a union would certainly lead to headaches for the Federation, the Klingons and the Romulans, especially if the deal was between the Vaadwaur and the remnants of the Obsidian Order.

So anyway, that's just a few drops from the Voyager well. Take them as you will.

mactavish out.

Sorry... I didn't mean to kill the thread with my long-winded post.

mactavish out.

Interesting ideas. Mac, I remember the game in question when you first started it - I always enjoyed reading your game reports back then. :D

The nostalgia finally got the better of me and I contacted my former players (from the cadet Series). We've decided to reconvene, updating the characters by ten years (2383).

Some are still with Starfleet, others are not. They are called together to return to the Delta Quadrant via the now mysteriously stabilized Barzan worhmhole (which, as per my earlier post, was fixed by the Think Tank).

The Federation has incorporated Barzan into itself and has made the decision to place a Starfleet outpost in the Delta Quadrant. The PCs (some of whom are new characters) have been selected to take part in the operation, while others are sent to represent other Federation interests (including the FIS and the Federation Cargo Authority). The framework for a Deep Space starbase has already been orbited around the strangely abandoned Ocampa homeworld; Starfleet scientists will work from a base on the planet's surface (devoid of all Ocampa and Kazon), exploring the Ocampa subterannean city complex.

One of the PCs will be the station XO, the Andorian will be the Chief of Security, and the Centauran, Chief Science Officer. One of the new players will assume the role Cecil Bronwyn, FIS investigator, another will play Sevis, Vulcan representative of the Federation Cargo Authoirty serving as station quartermaster. Finally, my other original player will take on a new role: a Vaadwaur defector with detailed knowledge of the Delta Quadrant and some of the subspace corridoors.

So anyway, since Dan apparently was a fan of the Episode write-ups, far be it from me to deny him any longer! We begin this Series this upcoming Saturday, so I'll make up a new thread and post the background (in more detail) as well as the bi-monthly Episode updates.

mactavish out.

I'm looking forward reading your posts as well. Hope you get a good start and have a lot of fun getting underway.

But I have to say I'm more than a little envious of you. You just call back your old group of players and even add some new ones.

Mine are still letting me down, saying that they are unsure weather or not they want to go out in "space" again. I'll keep trying though :-)

In the meantime I'll be following your game closley and phoning some more people...

Yours, Nico