Help Writing an Episode

I've got the beginning of an Episode written, but I'm not sure how to end it.

The crew is disbatched to ground station that hasn't been heard from for the last day or so.

When they arrive, the station is gone. All that remains is the empty shell of the building.

After the crew pokes around for a bit, a small city seems to materialize around them.

Turns out, there's a wave being generated by some nebula, star, etc. that causes the area to phase in and out. While phased out, time passes very fast. The PC's will be talking to the great-great-great-great-great grandchildren of the orriginal station crew.

The PC's must now figure out exactly where/when they are, what happened, how to keep it from happening in the future, and the fate of the orriginal crew.

Seems to me that it's missing a climax/strong ending. Any ideas?

sounds pretty cool. I would let the players figure out how to end it. Obvioiusly, something, like a star, nebula, etc., is causing the phasing and phase out. So I believe its up to players to find out the source of the problem and try to hamper the source. You might have to figure out what is causing it and let the players seek out the cause and solve it. Good luck.

let the players end up permanently in the 30th century.

sorry. :D

It sounds like a good idea, but I think you need to work out what the exact cause of the phenomenon, because that will help you to come up with an ending.. Don't forget, you have to give your players somethingbetter than 'there's a big swirly special effect' when one of them rolls a 25 on their tricorder :D

Why are only the crew being affected and not everyone else.. I.e. why aren't the crew in the same effect as the station is/was.

Ok a few ideas..

1) The ship hasn't traveled in time: a Krenim temporal incursion took place; the waves emmitted from the nebula were in fact reflections of the incursion canon in the distant Delta quadrant (or maybe they're near by) - perhaps the nebula has unusual properties - such as it's a dechyon cloud (Dechyons can cancel out Chronitons) preventing the ship from changing - the players would then presumabbly find the origin and deal with it..

2) An alien probe is causing the cyclic nature of the temporal distortion - perhaps it drifted too close to a Cyclic star and whenever the pulse hits it the probe causes the effect - Resolution - find and diable the probe. Perhaps the players can find technology on the probe which can send them back in time to stop it happening in the first place (such as it takes them back to a time before the probe has drifted too close and move it out of the way )

3) The phenomenon is fracturing time in pockets throughout the region (either natural or alien wierdness) - the players have to find a pocket which leads back to the past and also figure out why the pheomenon is happening. Perhaps the pockets are quite concentrated, causing crew members to disapear and reapear in different timeframes (ok i think I've used all of Voyagers plots now :) )

Hope that helps?

Maybe ask the question: what was the ground station's reason for existing? What were they doing there? Did they, somehow, cause this effect? And if so, can the crew reverse it by doing something to the ground station? Perhaps some experiment interacted with some ancient alien technology, and now the survivors can't shut it off because they can't interact with the epicenter of the effect. Add urgency by showing that this can't continue: the effect will eventually destroy the planet (or something) unless it can be stopped before that happens.

On each phase in, have the crew deal with different NPCs: perhaps first the great grandchildren, and then a few more generations. Perhaps the last few generations, full of hope, will revere the crew as deities... explore how the crew deals with that...

Also, does the crew begin to advance rapidly when the city phases in around them? If so, it might phase out and months have gone by, and the ship has given them up for dead and abandoned them. If you wanted this to be permanent, they could end up a few years in the future; their subordinates now their superior officers...

Avoid the "cosmic reset button", UNLESS you do something to the PCs, and you're pretty sure they won't like the outcome (for example, see the paragraph above).

Here's what I'd figured out...
The reason that the PC's aren't affected is that the time distortion thing is a wave, traveling out on some sort of cycle

The PC's don't travel quickly through time because the secind wave brings the affected area back into our 'time-space dimention', with time being restored to the orriginal speed.

I hadn't considdered having the station itself generate the problem, although that creates a new problem. The station crew would have made some sort of record of what happened.

One idea I had was that when the society returns, they are ruled by a totalitarian dictator who wants to ensure that everyone forgets the past. He will have records under guard, historians censored, etc. Also remember that the PC's have to solve this before the next wave hits, trapping them there permenantly.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Cochrane
let the players end up permanently in the 30th century.

sorry. :D

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Excuse me you posted to the wrong thread, this is HELP write an episode NOT Evil Game Masters Support group.... geez :D

7 of 11
All in good fun...
:D