Star Trek : Discworld

WARNING : This is an utterly non serious thread... but it might be useful for an utterly non serious ST game

You have been warned... keep the flames away, please :p

Ok, this started as a joke between me an kalamaro....

Imagine a StarFleet ship that encounters some subspace anomaly, wich throw it into another universe... where they encounter a giant turtle travelling in space, with four elephants on its back carrying a huge rotating disc populated by wacky inhabitants... and, of course, they discover that some laws of physics have been changed.

What do you think would happen ? Do you think it could be playable (with Discworld fans players, and for a completely relaxing gaming session of course) ?

May I ask what 'Discworld' is?

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Originally posted by redwood973
May I ask what 'Discworld' is?

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redwood, have you been living in another universe? :) Maybe a strange one where the world is a sphere? :)

Discworld is the world created by Terry Pratchett for his comic-fantasy novels, of which there are now about two-dozen. They are hugely popoular here in the UK (Pratchett's works are the most often stolen books).

Discworld itself is flat and supported by a giant turtle, who is carried by four elephants.

See http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/ for more.

(slow fade in, voices first)

Data: Detecting several immense forms, bearing 12 mark 230, Captain. Oddly, we are picking up life form readings.

Picard: Curious. Can we get them on screen, Mr. Data?

Data: Just available now, sir.

(view on-screen of A'Tuin, carrying Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen, atop which is a disc spilling water -- sounds of Picard spewing Earl Grey)

Riker: What the....?

Data: Hmm. Intriguing.

Picard: Turtles? ELEPHANTS?

Troi: I detect ... silliness?

(fade to commercials)

And I can hardly wait until they meet Granny Weatherwax :D

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

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Originally posted by Ramage
And I can hardly wait until they meet Granny Weatherwax :D

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I'd be in favour of a fire-fight vs. the UU Faculty.... :D ;)

Picard meeting Granny Weatherwax...

Troi meeting Magrat...

Garak meeting Lord Vetinari...

Worf meeting Cohen the Barbarian...

Kirk meeting Angua... (okay, this is my hatred of Kirk talking here.. :p)

Data meeting DEATH (oh wait, has been done in Nemesis - well, not the same DEATH)...

Wonder what would happen if the first person to be encountered was Rincewind... especially if Worf is leading the away team... :D

**groan**

No more Rincewind.

Dear GOD! no more Rincewind!

When I find Discworld books nowadays, I check to see if Rincewind is a character. If he is, I put the book back. He is not "cute annoying", just "smash my head against the wall annoying"...

OTOH, having Scotty or Geordi meet Leonard of Quirm would be fun :)

And just think of the delights of any Ferengi and CMOT Dibbler ;)

One of Pratchett's other books, "Strata" talks about a discworld in a more practical fashion... it may make for an interesting "non-silly" adventure seed. I recommend it.

Well, depends how you define "non-silly" ... I'd say it'd still definitely be on the humorous side ... but not on the "completely wacky" side as Discworld is, granted. :)

Strata is definitely a good idea ... that I might try to use in an adventure ...

Anyhow, back to toying with the real, genuine Discworld. The main problem I see with the laws of physics is that they are definitely too weird for anything like a Trek spaceship to exist. I mean, light is only as fast sound? Just imagine what it'd do to optronic relays!

Fortunately, this may not be as bad as it seems. Pratchett makes it quite clear that the Discworld is a world on the far end of the probability curve, where magic exists and distorts everything. That said, he mentions in a few of his books the fact that there exist other worlds in space, that definitely do not behave as strangely as the Discworld does. The same space that Great A'Tuin paddles through since eons. So, probably, the Discworld, the Elephants and Great A'Tuin are enclosed in a bubble of physical improbability, that allows the whole thing to paddle on and joyfully exist in a more practical universe.
What about an adventure now? Well, easy: the Enterprise comes by, stays out of the bubble, but sends a shuttle in. Shuttle enters bubble, everything stops working, shuttle crashlands near a beach (that's what shuttle are for anyway ... and remember, life is a beach, Om, century of the Fruitbat) in the circle sea probably. Everyone has fun, and then everyone wants to depart, right? Easy: they just need to fall of the rimm, avoid DEATH or other buggers (faster than light particles like the Sun or the Moon), and punch through the bubble again. Sounds easy :D.
On the way back they could have a word with Trolls, wich are probably just distant cousins of the Hortas ... and would be a great deal smarter if ligh wasn't that slow ... oh ... this just dawned on me ... ever noticed that Trolls get brighter when it gets colder? Maybe the speed of light on the Discworld depends on the temperature ... or maybe Magic is rendered less effective with cold, which in turn lets light return to its (almost) normal state. So maybe, if they could find a way to make a Tricorder real cold, maybe they could get it back to work? Just a thought.

All right, I'm not finished yet! Why not have the UU Wizards as APSBotW (All Powerful Supreme Beings of the Week). How? Remember Project Roundworld? If not, just get out of here to the nearest bookshop and ask for "The Science Of The Discworld". All right, now that everyone's read it, let's see what we could do with it ...
I mean, basically, the Wizard have created a universe, that the Librarian probably keeps somewhere with a bunch of banananananas. This is supposed to be the very universe we live in, and by extension, ST's universe as well right? So ... why would the anyone at the UU need to:
- either go down there with their whateveritwascalled suits,
- find a way to bring someone from the project to the real world (I'm speaking of the Discworld, of course) ...
Hmmm not sure ... but it'd be interesting to see the player's faces when they realize their whole universe has been created by fat, bickering, and seemingly incompetent wizzards trying to part the Thaum into smaller pieces :D .

Nice ideas here, Calcoran. The wizards as creators of the universe would be extremely fun indeed (I can see Q looking embarassed : "well you know there are superior lifeforms to us... however their main concern in life is the hour of the next meal..." :p)

Another funny thing for our Discworld explorers would be the ability of this universe to mimic our own whenever the right conditions are created.
"Well, Captain, we didn't want to break the Prime Directive... all we tried to do was build a radio emitter to contact the ship... we couldn't have known the next thing happening would be all these people carrying these imp-powered boxes everywhere with them to ask each other where they were calling from, while this Dibbler individual was trying to sell 'extra minutes on long range communications'...."

Mmm... I wonder what the Discworld version of Star Trek would be...

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Originally posted by C5
Mmm... I wonder what the Discworld version of Star Trek would be...

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Mmmmm dunnow ... can't get rid of this mental image of Detritus in a Starfleet uniform operating a starship console with his thinking helmet on ... (wow, from splatter to starship officer, talk about a career move)

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Originally posted by Calcoran
Mmmmm dunnow ... can't get rid of this mental image of Detritus in a Starfleet uniform operating a starship console with his thinking helmet on ... (wow, from splatter to starship officer, talk about a career move)

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LOL!! :D I can see it now!

"Um... Wat dat button do again...?"
>BEEP<
Enterprise launches spread of Quantum Torpedoes at Ba'ku.... :)

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Originally posted by C5

You have been warned... keep the flames away, please :p

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Hadn't noticed this at first ... I mean, we should not forget the words of Wisdom from our master pTerry:

"It's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness."
Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms.


All right, let's get back to something more serious. Sorry, useful I meant. Err, usable. Whatever.

One of the problem you'd have with a Trek meets Discworld scenario would probably be the modelisation of Magic. I mean, Magic shapes everything on the discworld. It shapes belief into gods and other anthropomorphic personifications, it shapes metaphors into stupidly real things, it allows spells to be cast, it may even lend a hand to the existance of highly unprobable species or plants. Subspace anomalies are all good and well, but I doubt you could achieve that much with them.
So how about that: Magic is in fact a microscopic, emphatic and symbiotic subspace lifeform. Microscopic cause it's ... well, let's face it, it's very small ... thaums are probably some kind of social gathering events for them. Emphatic is the part that explains all the "strong belief + magical field -> existence" equation. Symbiotic because it seems to thrive when associated with other lifeforms of the Discworld. And subspace because it has to have some very strange properties to do things like slowing the speed of light ... I don't know, maybe it likes to play ball with gluons or something.

Anyhow, I was just trying to extrapolate a bit. I'm still stuck as to what this lifeform feeds on ... and why it only exists in the immediate vicinity of the Discworld ... maybe that's where the subspace anomaly comes in ...

Not sure how this could be used in a scenario either ... sorry ;) .

And yes, I know, I read far too much Pratchett for my mental sanity ... oh well, who needs one anyway :D .

I like the magic=subspace idea. I wanted to use it m'self to explain a connection between the Traveller, Q, wizards and Fey in my Trek campaign.

All right, found a small seed :D .

/me gathers his gardener implements and begins working like a frenzied Hobbit.


Deep Space. The PC's ship is at warp, when sensors detect some kind of ship nearby. It:
- is on the smallish side,
- seems to show lifeforms readings (although confused),
- belongs to nothing ever seen or encountered before,
- generates slight subspace distortions.
Since there is almost no way it could have gotten this far into deep space without faster than light travel, chances are the PCs will get nearer and have a look.
What they see on visual is somewhat uncommon: this seems to be a big chest, with an incredible number of small feet protruding from its lower regions. It seems to be resting, feet paddling idly through space. Whether the ... thing is alive or not is difficult to ascertain, but there are definitely lifeforms instead, even though the sensor readings seem to be heavily distorted when it comes to scanning the inside of the chest.
All right, two options there. Either the PCs have read a few Discworld novels, or not. In the first case, they'd probably rather die than beam the Luggage onboard ... so they'll need a little incentive ... I'm a bit stuck here. If not, it should be much easier to convince them to beam the darned thing onboard.
Of course, as you guessed, the Luggage is not in a good mood. It seldom is, for a start, but having lost his master (again), and having spent quite a long time paddling through space as a mean to achieve faster than light travel hasn't done anything to improve its temper (oh, and for now, it's lost). So it'll soon begin chasing and if possible swallowing crewmembers. Keep in mind that the Luggage is sapient pearwood, that is, wood, plus a very healthy dose of magical lifeforms (the things I was discussing above). It is impervious to most beam weapons, cannot be restrained by containment fields ... well, the point is, it'll be such a nuisance that the PCs will be very anxious to beam it back where it came from. About the inside of the Luggage, I guess it's safe to describe it as a kind of subspace pocket, much bigger than the outside dimensions of the Luggage would suggest ... oh, and a few leaks to or from other dimensions probably. Maybe safe wasn't the best word to use.
Anyway, after a while, they'll manage to beam the Luggage offboard. It'll then be motionless for a while, then it'll start paddling, slowly at first, then faster and faster. It won't acheive much at first, but then the feet start moving at the speed of light, it'll create a warp bubble and go to warp. All right, it shouldn't do that! The magic particles have been helping him all the time, didn't you know?
So, if the PC's ship wasn't in the way, they probably feel safer now. Wroooong. Some of the particles of magic have left the luggage while it was in there, and are finding it very confy in the big ship. Looks like the Warp core is the ideal environment for them to develop :D . Soon, a lot of strange things will start happening, like curses coming alive, same for metaphors, well, the usual thing on the discworld. Of course, any attempt to remove them will fail, usually with dramatically funny consequences. After a while, they'll reach the conclusion that they really are unable to cure this infection. So they might get the idea to try to follow the Luggage ... which incidentally has managed to recover his bearing and is heading straight back to the Discworld.
...
Well, here it is ... I guess the PCs'll have to shuttle their way to the Discworld (transporters will certainly not work there), crashland, find wizards (asking people if they've heard of a chest with feet sould lead them sooner or later to the UU), convince one of them (Stibbons?) to come with them, dive off the rim, reach their ship safely, let the wizard do the exorcism or something (Stibbons in a bio-hazard suit anyone?) ... and finally find a way to send him safely back home. Prime Directive? What Prime Directive?

Err ... well, maybe it could take more than one episode to do all this :) .

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Originally posted by Calcoran
Err ... well, maybe it could take more than one episode to do all this :) .

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Ya think?! It sounds great, btw.