Adventure Seeds

Based on Starship (with good stealth features just could make it worse for the players)
Era: Any period when a peace treaty stipulates some kind of Neutral Zone
Issues: Political, Diplomatic, mainly
Location: Neutral Zone, inside it

Basically, a mix of political intrigue and piracy adventure... The players are tricked to pass in/trough the Neutral Zone during an encounter with a foreign vessel. The foreign vessel is usually paid by their home intel service to provide documents, and they are the courier, but this time, the Tal Shiar or the Klingon Imperial Intelligence Service managed to discover the ship and intercept it, taking their place. Instead of disabling it or shooting it, they play with sensor interference to make them believe they haven't crossed the Neutral Zone. They then use the real sensor records before their own parliament/governing council in front of a Federation Diplomat to prove that there was an invasion attempt. Through a brilliant cover-up and behind the scenes play, Starfleet Intelligence manages to calm things, at only a small price, the PC ship. It is now up to them to find the people who managed to frame them, and possibly return them the favour, while the former is gunning for them, and Starfleet vessels are instructed to capture the ship and bring the crew to the nearest Flag Officer...

Name: Five Lights
Era: TNG, Post Dominion War
Issues: Political, Diplomatic, Low Conflict
Location: Near Cardassian space

Somewhere near Cardassian space, the crew detects a small Cardassian shuttlecraft. Presumably curious, they discover that this ship contains a single Bajoran life-form.

When they bring the ship aboard, the occupant emerges. She is a woman named Sito Jaxa (TNG: "The First Duty", TNG: "Lower Decks"). At the conclusion of "Lower Decks", she was thought killed, but in fact the Cardassians faked her death, and turned her over to Gul Madred (TNG: "Chain of Comand, Parts 1 and 2").

Gul Madred broke her, and rebuilt her as a sleeper agent. Then she was placed in a Cardassian prison until such time as a plausible scheme could be found to explain her "escape". Time passed, and during the Dominion war, someone settled old scores. Now Gul Madred is dead, and (perhaps not coincidentally) many of his records are missing.

Sito managed a *real* escape. The problem is, Garak doesn't know what Madred programmed her to do. All he knows is that the state of Cardassian reconstruction would be imperiled if she caused major trouble for the Federation. He feels he has little choice but to send a team to kill her. But murdering a Federation citizen carries its own repercussions...

Unanswered questions: Did Madred's murderer take his records, and is that person using Madred's projects for some scheme? Or were the records simply destroyed by the bombardment. Did he program Sito to do something specific, and if so, what? How will the Federation react to Garak's sending a hit squad to kill a Federation citizen, especially when he won't explain why?

Title : Hippocratic Dilemma
Era : The 2370s
Setting : Starship (even better if it's an Intrepid or Sovereign)

Note : I wouldn't be surprised if such an idea was used in a VOY episode, but I haven't watched the series past season 2 - not even by choice :( - so bear with me ;)

While charting a remote region of space, the Crew's ship detects some strange signals coming from a nebula. As they come closer to it, a Borg Cube emerges of the nebula and grabs them with their tractor beam. If the Crew tries to fight the Cube, they may be surprised to find it somehow weaker than it should be (I'm using BOBW and FC Borgs here). However, some Borgs soon beam aboard, and, optionnally after a quick scan of the ship's computer, grab hold of the Medical Officer and the Engineer (maybe also the Science Officer - the idea here is to split the PJs group as evenly as possible) and return to their ship, who then retreats in the nebula.
Inside the Cube, the abducted PJ are led to an area secured by forcefields, where the Borg don't follow them. They may also have noticed that the inside of the Cube is not exactly as they think it should - some areas seem secured by forcefields and strange orange glows replace sometime the normal green ambience. In the area they've been led in, the PJ discover a few obviously sick Borgs (their implants seem somehow corroded and rusted, especially around their connection with the Borg's flesh), and hear the voice of the Collective ordering to "Cure these units".
The PJ will then soon discover that the Borg seem infected with a virus wich has the particularity of attacking only bio-mechanical interfaces, making the Borg very vulnerable preys. Apparently, this disease is spreading through the Cube, and the Borg only temporarily managed to contain it with forcefields, but judged it apparently dangerous enough to make them "ask" for help to non-Borg individuals.
The catch is, the abducted PJ will soon discover that they have too been infected by the virus. Being (hopefully) fully biological, they are immune to it, but act now as carriers... making them a threat to the Federation, since ships carrying bioneural packs, or people like Picard, LaForge or Nog can suffer the effect of the virus... and they can't even be sure their ship has not already been contaminated by the Borg who beamed in to abduct them. OTOH, they know that if they manage to find a cure to the virus, their reward will probably be a quick assimilation.
The abducted PJ will have to find a way to escape both the Borg and the virus, and also prevent their friends who remained onboard to try to get them back (wich one hope they are doing), to avoid widespread contamination.

As a possible spin off, if the Crew manage indeed to cure the virus (something wich should be trickier than rolling a few Critical Successes), they could find themselves at odds with the race who created the virus in the first place as a weapon against the Borg. Otherwise, the virus could be of natural origins - but now menacing to spead into Federation territory (interesting if the Crew manage to escape without really finding a cure).

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

I second that.

Heck I third it. :)


Series seed thread too, please :)

Title: Repairman
Era: Post Dominion War
Setting: Exploration Ship
Issues: Scientific Discovery, Everything You Know Is Wrong, Implications for the Future

The ship is summoned to a planet by an urgent distress call. It seems that gravitational "ripples" are causing localized gravitic aberrations, affecting the civilization and the ecosystem. If the ripples continue, civilization on this planet will be (at the very least) seriously damaged. It may be destroyed.

The crew sets off to discover the cause. Using specialized sensors, they follow the gravitic waves to their origin.

Arriving there, the crew experience several "fits and starts" as the warp engines begin acting strangely for no obvious reason. The systems are fine. It's the structure of subspace itself that's damaged. Sections of normal subspace are broken apart by sections of "corroded" subspace. Similar phenominae have been observed before, in fact, for a time, Starfleet limited ships to a maximum speed of Warp 5 (TNG: "Force of Nature").

It is unclear what has damaged subspace in this way. After time spent navigating (at impulse speeds) across one of these holes, the crew must use the sensors and navigate a path through and around the remaining holes, following the gravitic distortions.

When the arrive at the source, they discover an immense ship, shaped somewhat like a crescent moon. Sensors will not penetrate its hull, which is glass smooth with no obvious weapons or deflectors. This ship is directing a beam of energy at a point in space. The beam cannot be analyzed, it is an unknown form of energy. The point in space is a subspace fracture; the beam is interacting with subspace in some fashion that is difficult to understand. Not far away is another subspace fracture that is radiating the same energy; the two energy fields are interacting, and this interaction is producing the gravitic distortions the crew followed here.

The hook is that the crew is supposed to assume this ship is damaging subspace for some reason. But if they take the time to wait, they will discover that the radiant fractures are growing smaller.

If the crew attacks, they will suddenly find themselves encased in a sphere of ... something. Weapon fire will not penetrate the sphere, nor can the ship go to warp while so enclosed. In fact, it's as if the warp engines cannot make contact with subspace at all.

If the crew attempts communication, they will be ignored, *unless* they can communicate that the gravitic distortions are causing problems. In that case, they will still receive no reply, but the energy beam will cease. A few minutes later, the ship will depart, not using warp travel but some other means of propulsion. It will return an hour or so later. At this point, attempts to contact the imperiled planet will fail. It cannot be reached at all. Once the ship returns, it will start the energy beam again.

The crew may assume the colony has been destroyed. If they actually go there, they will discover the planet is still present, but is now surrounded by a bubble of ... something. Subspace phenomina cannot penetrate this bubble, and neither will gravity phenomina.

If the crew returns, they will discover that the ship is now directing a beam of energy at a third subspace rupture. The first one has all but ceased to radiate energy, and subspace is intact there. The second one is radiating energy at a decreasing rate. Gravity waves are being generated along a different vector, related to the positions of the two ruptures and the intensity of the energy beam.

What's Going On: The ship is essentially, a robot. One of a fleet of such ships, it was constructed long ago by some uber race to ... repair subspace. When this race developed intelligence, in a distant part of what is now the Delta Quadrant, they could only travel at subluminal speeds. Eventually, they discovered a way to travel faster than light -- but creating what is now known as subspace, a medium they could build engines to use. It's similar to paving a road, in a way. Originally, subspace was created by a series of stellar detonations, that powered very sophisticated equipment. The ragged edges were then "spliced" together, and over the course of thousands of years, subspace was established, first through the galaxy, and then to other galaxies. They discovered that the connection between subspace and realspace can be damaged by any number of things, and so they built automated ships to repair the problem. They abandoned these vessels, but billions of years later, they are still functioning. Originally, these ships also travelled by warp drive, but this made them too vulnerable to the very problems they were intended to correct. After a number were lost, they were recalled and retrofitted with what had become the current state of the art, a tesseract drive. Some argued that there was no need for subspace any longer, but the majority said that "lesser" races were exploiting it for travel, as they once did, and it would be wrong to deny them the ability to explore.

Questions/Issues:I originally created this scenario because I was dissatisfied with the events of "Force of Nature". I wanted a way to "fix" subspace, and eventually hit upon the notion that it might not be a natural phenominon, but instead an artifact. If that were true, might the builders have provided for its repair? I also wanted to creep out my players, by making them wonder if this race was still around. That's why the ship was hard to scan -- I wanted them to wonder if it was manned. The adventure was also designed so that "shoot first ask questions later" wouldn't accomplish much, but attempting to handle the matter as I felt Starfleet officers should would solve the problem. In the original adventure, at the end of the encounter with the robot, it sent them a design for a warp engine that does NOT damage subspace, which enabled me to lift a restriction I was never comfortable with.

I like this one. Although if I might suggest a more... apropos title?

"Celestial Mechanics." :)

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Originally posted by Fesarius
Name: Five Lights

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Great idea! I love bringing back Sito... it's a minor character so that we GM's can feel comfortable screwing with canon (not that we have that many problems doing it anyway!) and it makes the PCs feel that they're connected with the universe of the series! Very cool!

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Originally posted by Fesarius
Name: Repairman

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Also a great concept... I've always wanted a way to really make the players regret "shoot first" mentality... this could do it! :)

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

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Originally posted by Captain Zymmer

CRYSTAL CLEAR
[...]

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Boy, I have no idea for a plot here, but the first thing that came to mind when I read that adventure seed title was the phrase "clear as mud", and then that quickly became:
"Clear As Mudd"
Again, I have no idea for a plot, but sometimes a title is all you need to generate an idea.
Any takers?

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Originally posted by mactavish
Title: The Collector
Series Type: Exploration
Description: While exploring a distant system, the PCs encounter an alien vessel many times larger that any they've encountered or read about (Size 50+).
The object captures their vessel and begins to make it part of itself, in effect assimilating their ship. Though they manage to get shields up, it's only a matter of time before they're forever trapped.
Exploring the alien vessel, they find terrariums constructed for the thousands of other sentient beings captured and their descendants imprisoned. Many familliar and unfamilliar races will be found (including Gamma and Delta Qadrant species).
Further searching reveals the AI responsible for the vessel's mission. The ship is eons old, traveling at very low speed (slower-than-light), capturing and adding aliens from ships and planets to its colelction. The computers are degrading and have lost track of where it came from and why it's collecting.
The PCs must not only escape, but determine the nature of the Collector and help it (?) and/or put an end to its mission and/or relocate the many intelligent beings aboard the vessel.

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another question to be resolved: are some of these trapped species too dangerous to let loose?
on the opposite end of things, maybe these "colonies" of people in their terrariums ahve figured out how to communicate with each other,a nd over time many or all have overcome whatever differences they may have had. When freed, a lot of them want to go back to their respective homeworlds, but many want to form a new colony composed of a wide variety of these alien races, some of whom were once enemies.

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Originally posted by Captain Zymmer
Title: Mind's Eye
The player's ship comes across the ruins of an ancient civilization...in the centre of the "city" is a large sculptor of somekind, but it turns out to be a computer or machine...psionically pwoered, it activates and the characters are suddenly emboiled in the last days of the civilization, as outsiders? natural disaster? etc claim the planet. While there is nothing to win, or defeat, it may be a good chance to do some serious role-playing as the players interact with the people, who just come out of no where.
Just a seed, anyone want to help it grow?

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Well, here's a twist: what if the statue is of someone (or something) the PCs recognize - a historical (or fictional/mythological) figure from earth or (*gasp*) one of the PCs!!! Obviously there would be some kind of outside influence on the culture at some point in it's past...

This thread has been stuck!

"Mudd in your eye!"
How about this for overused cliche?
The players' ship finds a huge derelict starship, upon investigating it, they find a cryo/stasis/whatchamacalit chamber with one H.F. Mudd in suspended animation (he froze himself by accident when exploring the ship and dreaming of all the credits he was going to make on this salvage). The PC thaw him out (hopefully not knowing who he is, he'll use an alias as soon as he can speak) and the narrator can ham it up until the PCs figure out who they have unleashed on the 24th century. Throw in the usual surprises to be found on a huge alien spacecraft and this could be a little bit of a breather from saving the universe every week.

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Originally posted by Pope
Bump.

Grrrrr :mad: - I spent 1/2 an hour on a seed but the system must have logged me out and I just lost it all. Here's a short version.

Title: Enemy Mine (based on the book)
Era: Any
Setting: Planetary/Starship

[...]

PS - anyone like the book/move? Loved the book, turned the movie off after 1/2-an-hour of really bad SFX.

Pope.

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I liked it - the bad sfx are mostly in the beginning. Good performances, and looking back it's sorta like "Castaway" (a good deal of time passes during the course of the movie) but with two enemies and in space.

I was wondering if there was a way to work the Borg into my TOS Movie-era game in a fresh way. Surely there's a way the Borg could have gotten farther faster in the Mirror Universe? :)

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Originally posted by selek
TITLE: Shattered Mirror
ERA: Preferably Dominion warTNG
STORY TYPE: Exploration

The PCs are on a routine patrol when they detect strange temporal/subspace distortions emanating from a nearby system. A quick detour and some brief sensor scans indicate there is a starship crashed on the surface, apparently Borg in origin, but there is a subtle difference in the quantum signature of the Borg vessel.
Beaming down to find out what's going on, the PCs determine that the wreck is that of a small Borg scout, and the surviving drones (desperately trying to make contact with the Collective) are the PCs themselves.
In the (a?) Mirror Universe, the Borg have run rampant through the Alpha Quadrant, assimilating most of the Terran Empire a/o the Cardassian/Klingon Alliance (depending upon which timeline you favor.)
Having been captured and assimilated, the PC's evil counter-parts were cheerfully wreaking havoc when the Empire or Alliance cobbled together a new super-weapon which shattered (at least locally) the collective and ,as a by-product, tossed the evil-PCs into our space-time continuum to crash on the planet.

Who the heck are these Borg who look so much like us?

How will the PCs deal with their assimilated (and ultimately-evil) counterparts?

What lies will they be told in the meantime?

Can Star Fleet get their hands on a similar weapon? Would they use it?

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Belly of the Beast

Recommended Series Type: Starship, Exploration

Description: While investigating a strange plasma trail heading straight through Cardassian space, the PCs encounter a massive vessel reminiscent of an enormous garbage scow. Closer investigation reveals that the "ship" is actually a melange of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other ships.

The PCs suddenly find themselves captured by the ship's powerful tractor beams and "ingested" by the leviathan. Further scans indicate that their computer core's database has been scoured and that nanites are slowly devouring their vessel, using the base materials to create something completely different, adding on to the ship that captured them.

Can the PCs discover the nature of their captors? Can they escape with their ship? With their lives?

mactavish out.

Maybe I am the only one who is bothered by this, but I think that this thread has gotten a little bit too long. Therefore I thought that we could start a new adventure seeds thread every year, making everything much more clearly arranged and it would also be nice to look back and see what kind of ideas got posted in a specific year.
I already have two adventure seeds ready to post, but first I wanted to have some additional opinions on this.

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Originally posted by Michael Barratt
Title: "Flashforward,"...

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Read this book...not bad.

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Originally posted by Ergi
Maybe I am the only one who is bothered by this, but I think that this thread has gotten a little bit too long. Therefore I thought that we could start a new adventure seeds thread every year, making everything much more clearly arranged and it would also be nice to look back and see what kind of ideas got posted in a specific year.
I already have two adventure seeds ready to post, but first I wanted to have some additional opinions on this.

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I rather prefer having it like this - I've subscribed to the thread, and like viewing it whenever someone adds to it. :)

Michael Barratt

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Originally posted by qerlin
Read this book...not bad.

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I adore Robert Sawyer. I was trying to think of some ideas born out of his new trilogy (of which two are so far written), but haven't gotten them to fruition yet...

Michael Barratt

Quarantine

Series Type: Exploration
Era: Any but TOS

The adventure starts a couple of days after the players’ ship has been docked to a trading station of an apparently friendly alien species called the Grofma which has developed warp drive less than a century ago. A total of 18 relatively small vessels of various types appear on the ship’s sensors approaching fast from behind. All are Grofmian with only light or even no armament at all. As soon as the fleet is identified by the crew Dr. Terek Azar, head of the Grofmian disease control center, hails them from the lead ship. He informs the crew that an outbreak of Colinas plague has been detected on the trading station shortly after the players departed. At the same time he transmits a DNA structure sample of the virus causing the plague, so that the ship’s doctor can check the crew for infection. A quick tricorder scan reveals that everyone on the bridge is infected. Dr. Azar asks the captain to stop his vessel and let the Grofmian doctors come aboard in order to help finding a cure and prevent further spreading the disease.
The crew has indeed and intentionally been infected by a virus on board the station, but it isn’t fatal as claimed by Dr. Azar. However, once the incubation period is over, it makes the victim feel bad enough to believe in the possibility of a fatal outcome. The symptoms should start shortly after the Grofma arrived. Dizziness, headaches and a lack of muscle tonus become worse every day, incurring a –1 penalty for all tests within the first 8 hours, -2 within the next 8 hour period, and so on until 72 hours have passed and the penalty decreases by one for every hour passed.
When the Grofma get on the ship they are wearing full body bio protection suits and carrying a lot of equipment. Once they are on board they want to begin examining the crew as quickly as possible. The examination confirms that everybody is infected. Dr. Azar claims it would be best to isolate the nonessential crew members in their quarters since the virus tends to mutate very quickly. After the symptoms have become worse the other crew members are send to their quarters as well. Only the medical staff is allowed to continue their work without any protests by the doctor.
The Grofma could be paid by a more powerful race or be acting own. Their real intent could be anything from getting access to secret data, to stealing equipment or even the whole ship. In the latter case they want to break all command codes before getting rid of the crew.
No matter what their intention, somehow the PCs find out what is going on and they have to find a way to fight off the invaders controlling all key areas.
Emphasize the PCs’ helplessness at the beginning of the adventure, they are the victims, unable to help themselves. Imagine how the people in Outbreak must have felt, that’s what I mean.

Working Title: (Evil) Stargate

(I'm not proud of this. Suggestions are welcome. This is just to know what I'm talking about.)

Type: Exploration
Era: Any

The player's vessel passes near an inhabited star system with two class M planets. One is inhabited by a early 21th century Earth equivalent race ruled by a sort of imperialistic US. The other inhabitable planet used to be colonized by the Iconians and they have left an operational gateway behind. This has been discoverd by a scout team and their superiors have been informed about it. One of the locations constantly appearing in the gateway is the players' ship. The rulers have decided that these aliens pose a serious threat and decided to attack and if necessary destroy them. A sub-light vessel with an A bomb is under way to reinforce the troops protecting the gateway as the first scouts are sent to the vessel.
Keep in mind that the race hasn't developed Warp flight, yet, and therefore is protected by the first directive.

I have to add that this adventure is not meant political in any way. I had the idea for it before the war started and the reason why I used the term US was simply because the US armed forces is the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about the best equipped and trained soldiers.

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Originally posted by Ergi
A sub-light vessel with an A bomb is under way to reinforce the troops protecting the gateway as the first scouts are sent to the vessel.

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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

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.

---

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