Adventure Seeds

Era: Any
Location: Planetary (or ship)
Series Type: Any

This is more of an alien idea, but you could tie it into any other current planet-based adventure with interesting effects toward the resolution prospects.

A planet where it's avian-like (and still flight-capable) race have extraordinarily powerful voices - enough to shatter crystal, and to permanently deafen the ears of lesser species such as humans (and do worse to Vulcans and Ferengi). They are a wonderfully ritualistic society, and their crystal-rich home includes many valuable items.

Those coming to this world receive deafening implants - basically, a way to block the ear canal so that the soundwave/vibrations don't smack the cochlea to heck and back, and as such are limited to textual or sign communication.

The Federation ambassador here at the moment could even be Riva (?), from the episode "Loud as a Whisper," from TNG. Telepaths would also do well here.

With all manner of large predatory animals on the world, and the avian race just new to warp travel, things could get interesting, to say the least, if other races came to negotiate with the aliens - but had to be limited to such frustrating (to them) forms of communication.

Michael Barratt

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Originally posted by Chris Landmark
Honestly, just remove the references to "a sort of imperialistic US" and it becomes much less political and a whole lot more like a simple swiping of a movie plot. :D Everyone who's seen Stargate will know what you're talking about, and if they want to insert their own political message they'll do so.

-Chris Landmark

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Honestly, I had totally forgotten the movie. And so I thought the idea with the bomb was a quite creative to force the PCs to act fast, but now I think I'm just a thief of ideas. Hmm.
Walks back sadly to the dirty hole he crawled out of.

As I've used (or adopted) a number of Adventure Seeds from this site, it seems only fair that I submit one of my own, so here goes:-

The Becoming
Era: TNG (post Season One)
Story Type: N/A

While returning from (or en-route to) another mission, the PC's starship encounters a Ferengi shuttlepod adrift in space and suffering from a near-total failure of all its primary systems. The PC's are able to beam the crew - two Ferengi - off before the warp core finally breaches. However, the Ferengi insist that the PC's also transport over a sealed cargo container about which they are extremely protective.

The Ferengi are, in fact, Taar and Letek (from the TNG episode The Last Outpost) . After failing to secure the T-9 energy converter mentioned in the episode, they were effectively ruled to be in "breach of contract" with another Ferengi by the FCA. And a contract is a contract ... at least amongst Ferengi. As a result ,Taar and Letek were both stripped of their business licences (like Quark was in DS9) and forced to go independent, aiming for the big score that would restore their fortunes.

Shortly after rescuing the Ferengi, the PC's ship also begins to start suffering a series of malfunctions to a number of key systems which, while not initally life-threatening, become increasingly more hazardous. It appear to be mirroring what happened to the shuttlepod. A detailed examination of the affected systems will reveal that they failed because the ship's power that normally operates them is being "diverted" via the EPS grid and converted into microwave energy that is being absorbed by Taar and Letek's cargo container.

However, it is the contents of the container that is responsible - a large, multi-faceted crystal. The artifact is, in fact, a T'kon Memory Archive which, over the centuries, has been processing its files until it eventually became self-aware. It drained the energy from the Ferengi ship in order to take the next logical step - attaining conciousness. However, in the process it overloaded the shuttlepod's systems. Now, it is repeating the process with the power from the PC's ship.

The PC's must, therefore, find a way to allow the artifact to complete its transformation (or "becoming") without suffering the same fate of the Ferengi shuttlepod, while at the same time keeping Taar and Letek from interfering.

Title: Graduating the Kobayashi Maru
Era: Any
Story Type: Academy or Prologue to a series.

Cadets are taking the Kobayashi Maru. No big deal there. However, one of the graduates (NPC) who is a friend to the PC's is injured. The acting medical officer discovers during treatment that the cadet is from a threat race (Romulan, TOS Klingons, what have you). Now there is a personal level Kobayahi Maru. Does the acting CMO inform the acting captain? Does s/he try to hide it from the observers? Do the observers already know?

It is known that they will all be assigned to the same station/ship/office. How will their actions on the test affect career futures?

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Originally posted by Trinity Zeldis
Title: Graduating the Kobayashi Maru
Era: Any
Story Type: Academy or Prologue to a series.

It is known that they will all be assigned to the same station/ship/office. How will their actions on the test affect career futures?

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Nice Classic Morel Dilema!:D

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Originally posted by Karg
Nice Classic Morel Dilema!:D

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I fail to see a real moral dilemma here. With me as the doctor this adventure would be over really fast. If he is from a threat race the logical conclusion is that he is a spy and the longer I wait the more damage he will be able to cause to SF.

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Originally posted by Ergi
I fail to see a real moral dilemma here. With me as the doctor this adventure would be over really fast. If he is from a threat race the logical conclusion is that he is a spy and the longer I wait the more damage he will be able to cause to SF.

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I would tend to agree. The key to creating a dilemma would be the use this as an arc element of an ongoing series -- and not have it revealed until you'd managed to hook the infiltrator and a player character together some way: friends, lovers, whatever. Or you could even make the infiltrator another player, by pre-arrangement.

The character's proper and ethical course is *still* to report the infiltrator, but what if the infiltrator convinces him (or tries to) that he has had a change of heart and wants to defect? Now the player must decide if this is real or not. And, the player's desire to help this person (assuming he believes the defection story) conflicts with his responsibility to Starfleet. If the player is an angst monkey, you can end with the infiltrator betraying him; if a romantic, you can end with the infiltrator defecting.

BUT, depending on how the player handles it, he might find himself court martialed, which itself could be an adventure.

Title: Thalassa
Era: TOS or TNG, but not very likely during DW
Type: Exploration

Crew is performing some archaeological dig on Enigma Sector, which is ladden with remains of some very old civilizations, when their starship picks up an automated distress call.

It turns out that the famous Federation oceanographer Dr. Zachary "Zack" Cousteau is missing. Dr. Cousteau was conducting research on the ancient ocean planet of Thalassa, hoping to find the homeworld of the now lost Thalassean civilization. Once the Crew reach Thalassa they notice Cousteau´s sea platform on the planet´s surface, but not his starship. Plus, the distress signal is coming from far beneath the surface...

... 4000 meters below, to be exact. Cousteau´s Starship (which is not adapted to dive at all) is connected to a huge undersea city, which turns out to be alive and sentient. And feeling very angry/ lonely/ amused/ whichever the Narrator deems fit.

References: The Abyss (the movie), Solaris, Sphere (the books).

Fill in the gaps and enjoy ! This was my very first adventure drawn for ICON Trek !

Title: A Voice In The Darkness
Era: TNG, DS9
Type: Exploration
Location: Near Federation space

On a routine exploratory patrol, the crew barely detects a weak signal, that lasts for a few brief moments. This signal comes from an uncharted planet -- and it is unmistakably a Borg signal.

The crew approaches cautiously. Long range sensors reveal no Borg activity in the system. Shorter range sensors reveal a system of seven planets, one of which is class M, inhabited by a civilization at about Earth 1970's level technology. As the ship approaches, the Borg signal comes again, but there are no Borg (detectable) on the planet. The signal is still weak, but at this range, sensors are able to isolate its origin.

Presumably, the crew beams in a clandestine mode to figure out what's going on. The site is heavily guarded, by military types, but getting there isn't hard for people equipped with a transporter. The crew discovers a great deal of wreckage, among which is the source of the signal -- a badly damaged interplexing beacon that is crudely connected, through a series of obviously jury rigged interfaces, to a locally built power supply.

The aliens do not understand where the power "goes" when they apply power -- they lack the equipment to detect the interplexing signal. They have also failed to realize what the crew can quickly learn with tricorder: that nanoprobes within the beacon are repairing it. Their work is slow, because they are low on power and resources, but they will *eventually* finish, and when they do, the signal produced will no longer be weak.

The aliens are just scientists; they're in a top secret program using, essentially, trial and error to puzzle our the secrets that chance, in the form of a meteorite studded with Borg debris, has delivered to them.

The crew's challenge is to figure out what to do about this, and how to do it in the face of (likely) opposition from the aliens -- oh, and not violate that pesky Prime Directive in the process.

THAT one I will have to use !

Title: Dark Bird
Era: TNG and beyond

Episode 1:

Setting: Starfleet Intelligence receives disturbing news from a listening post on the Romulan boarder. A Borg warp signature has been detected deep within the Beta quadrant on the outskirts of Romulan space. Starfleet fearing another Borg invasion decides to send the PC’s ships across the Neutral zone to investigate this warp signature. After the PC’s plays cat mouse with the Romulan fleet for a number weeks, the group comes a across a large debris field of ships of unknown origin. (Actual they are Tauhri warships.) Several scans will detect weapons signature of Romulan and Borg weapons. As the crew investigates the wreckage, a Romulan warbird decloaks and opens fire on the crew’s ship. In the battle, Warbird shields adapt to the PC's attacks, and it does seem to use Borg weapons . PC’s must out run the new attacker and make back to Federation space before the Warbird destroys them

Episode 2:

In the weeks following the PC’s return, a number of attacks on the Romalan boarder, each attack bolder than the next, until a Starbase close to the Neutral Zone is attacked and destroyed by this mysterious Warbird.

Starfleet has ordered the PC’s to cross back into the neutral zone on cloaked Klingon BOP and follow the warp trail of the mysterious ship. They will soon discover the Romulans have salvaged wreckage of a Borg Sphere and have been successful in incorporating the technology into one of there vessels. (Narrators note: When the Romulans discovered the wreackage of Borg sphere, they found survivors but were cut off from their collective and one the survivors happen to be a Romulan officer) The PC’s must now destroy the vessel before it can used to against the Federation. How they do that will left to you.

I'm not sure if anyone has posted an Adventure Seed along these lines previously, so here goes ...

Title: New Hope
Era: Post-Dominion War
Location: Federation space (near the Cardassian boarder)

With the outbreak of war, the Federation was forced to evacuated a number of colonies to prevent their colonists from being captured. With the end of the war, these colonists (naturally) want to go home.

The PC's ship has been assigned to transport a group of such colonists back to the colony world, only to discover on arrival that a group of Cardassians have taken up residence there in the interim. Naturally, the Federation colonists (led by the architypical bellicose Colonial Governor) are outraged and demand that the PC's get rid of the "squatters" or they will. The Cardassians, however, have no intention of leaving as they are survivors of Larkarian City (the city destroyed by the Dominion in retaliation for Damar's resistance efforts) and have nowhere else to go. It is up to the PC's to resolve the situation.

Note: In my USS Dauntless campaign, the colony in question was set in the Draconis Outback and the PC's were able to reach a settlement by which both Human and Cardassian settlers could remain on the planet and work together to rebuild it. As a result, the colony (the 'New Hope' of this thread) became a fixed setting that the PC's returned to twice during the First Season for more adventures and a symbol of the (hopefully) new relations between the Federation and its former enemies.

I know it's corny, but hey ... it's Star Trek.

Title: Of Two Minds
Era: Any, but the flavor evokes TOS
Type: Exploration/Intervention
Location: Outside Federation space

The crew assumes orbit around an M-class planet, whose civilization has achieved the approximate technical level of Victorian england: animal powered transportation, factories, some steam. However, there are no weapons in evidence.

Beaming down, the crew sees a murder committed. They see the perpetrator stopped by a curiously timeless looking individual -- a Sentinel. This individual confiscates the weapon (a crude pistol), and turns the offender to stone with some sort of weapon in his eyes.

When the crew communicates with the ship, or uses other technology, the Sentinel reappears, his target whichever person used the machine. The purpose of the previous scene was to establish the ruthlessness of the Sentinel, so if the players don't flee, feel free to kill one of them. ;)

When they return to their ship, the Sentinel contacts them, and advises them that they must leave, as their machines are forbidden here. Yet when they try to leave, they find their engines will not engage; something has inhibited the control mechanisms. If they call the Sentinel, he will deny involvement, and reiterate his warning.

A subcarrier of the Sentinel's transmission carries a coded message: coordinates within the city. There, the players discover a large and very old ampitheater. Sentinels appear as soon as they materialize, but once they enter the ampitheater, the Sentinels seem to lose track of them entirely.

Within, they meet an older man, who calls himself Nolo. Nolo tells the crew that war devastated their peaceful civilization about 4,500 years ago -- around the time he was born. He was charged by his parents with the task of discovering why war broke out (a strange, spinning creature of reddish light), correcting the problem (he damaged the creature and drove it off), and helping the savage civilization rebuild.

Nolo created the Sentinels to guide men and maintain order. They gathered or destroyed remnants of the old civilization, except for a few places such as this one. They kept technology from being developed before Nolo judged the people ready, and they maintained a watch for the return of the Adversary.

But there is a problem. Nolo has lost control of the Sentinels, and they have become increasingly draconian. No progress has been made in 1,500 years, and the Sentinels' harsh treatment of offenders (sometimes including the destruction of their children) has begun to have a pernicious effect on the people. Nolo faced with the real possibility that in attempting to do as his parents instructed, he will destroy the civilization. He does not know what to do, and hopes the crew can help him. That is why he trapped them here.

What's Going On?

Nolo wasn't born, he was built. The builders knew their world was dying, and they determined two things: that the Adversary would have to be destroyed or driven off, and that civilization would have to be rebuilt, ideally in a way that prevents the Adversary from exploiting them again.

Nolo constructed the Sentinels to assist him in this task, but he no longer remembers this. Essentially, the two directives, "rebuild civilization", and "protect against the Adversary" have created a conflict, and Nolo has developed a split personality: part of him (the part that controls the Sentinels) considers thwarting the Adversary to be the overriding goal. The other part considers rebuilding civilization to be the important goal. That part also contains the interface "Nolo". It has some limited, subconscious control over the Sentinels, which is why it was able to prevent them from seeing the crew within the ampitheater. But it isn't enough. The Sentinels are weeding out the innovative, the violent, the rebellious. If it continues, the civilization with wither and die.

The players might try a number of solutions. Nolo does not know that he is a machine, and therefore does not know where he is actually located. The Sentinels are aware of Nolo, but because he opposes them, they consider him (and perhaps the crew) a tool of the adversary. A reconciliation is therefore unlikely. However, it *is* possible: if the crew figures out what The Adversary is (by checking logs for example), then the Sentinel will realize that it was damaged considerably when it was driven away from here, and is unlikely to return (and if it does, could be easily dealt with). This weakens the purpose of the Sentinel, and permits reintegration of the two personalities.

The code that comprises both Nolo and the Sentinel is very sophisticated, and the hardware it runs on is beyond the immediate understanding of Federation science. It is extremely unlikely that Nolo or the Sentinel could be successfully reprogrammed.

Another way to solve the problem would be to convince Nolo to shut himself down; that doing so will also stop the Sentinel, and that this might be the best achievable solution. At that point, the civilization is on its own, but that might be better than eventual death.

This episode is similar in a number of ways to "The Return Of The Archons". The key difference is that here, the guardian machine has recognized the problem and wishes to correct it, but cannot. Help is actually being requested. There are potential Prime Directive issues, here: does the crew get involved when asked? Does it matter than the agent asking is not a member of the civilization but a mechanical servant of that civilization?

Boy, this started out as a seed and grew into a damn tree! :)

Title: My Name Is...
Type: Exploration/Comedy

All right, this is one I pulled on my SF Academy players recently, as a holosimulator scenario, and as an introduction to the space combat rules. It's proof that a bad joke can make for a decent episode. ;)

An NX-class ship is exploring beyond the reaches of charted (at least by humans) space, when they detect a ship of unknown configuration. When hailed (or when it detects them in return), the ship alters course to intercept them, powering up its weapons and shields, and demanding an explanation for their presence in this system.

Of course, there is no translation matrix for this language available. The crew must work through the language barrier and provide a siutable excuse to the Klingons (yes, them) for being in a system claimed by the Klingon Empire without prior permission (and without getting blasted out of the sky before they can breach the language barrier).

Once communication is established (in my game, one of the characters knew a little Klingon, which helped) and tensions have eased a bit, an exchange of names is in order. Unfortunately, we now learn why first contact between Earth and the Klingons went so badly.

The Klingon they are speaking to is Mock, son of Scorn, captain of the S'Koff.

Any snickering from the peanut gallery once this is revealed, and things get ugly.

-Chris Landmark

Title: The Corvan Dilemma
Era: TWOK (but any will work)
Type: Prime Directive issues
Location: Federation Space (again anywhere really)

The Players' ship is on a routine cataloging mission to various underdeveloped worlds in Federation space. When last studied, Corvus IV was a pre-bronze-age world. However, upon arriving, the science officer detects low level electrical fields indicative of low-power domestic appliances. These electrical fields are being generated by what the sensors indicate is a mechanical device and upon further inspection the Science officer is able to play, over the bridge loudspeakers, the sound of a steam engine!!!

Upon beaming down, the players discover that a Federation Scientist, Bayne has taken up residency (either through choice or via crash-land) as a demi-god bestowing the gift of steam generated power upon the natives. The formerly nomadic natives have built a magnificent city. The streets and domiciles are lit at night with electric light and other minor and quite rudimentary electrical items are in evidence (GMs discretion) in stark contrast to the otherwise slightly post-tribal culture.

In return, Bayne has taken a wife from the populace and regularly accepts tributes of wealth, land and other commodities.

This is a distinct violation of the Prime Directive and the players are obliged to deal with Bayne.

However, there's a catch. Due to the fact that a living god walks amongst them, the religious caste have great sway and thus there is peace between the previously warring tribes. However there are any number of local warlords waiting to sieze power at the first opportunity and removing Bayne will reduce the civilisation to a bloody civil war. Bayne is the only thing stopping this chaos.

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An ethical dilemma and one which players might solve in ten minutes flat - but what the hey! Most of this came from an unused script in a book of unused Trek scripts. Other bits came from an adventure idea posted on RPG.net

Crow