"In My Makers Image" Scenario

[Alex]

Tobian is correct in that the Local cluster uses Tannhauser Gate Technology to 'fold' from one system to another.

By my interpretation, then, there is no prohibition on the Federation about revealing their existence to the locals. They have achieved interstellar travel and are capable of encountering peoples from other worlds, so the UFP would want to be the first to make contact.

The Prime Directive has two big pieces in my mind. 1. Don't interfere and alter the internal development of a society. This still applies to this scenario. 2. Don't reveal the existence of other worlds to a society that has not achieved the technology to discover them on their own in a reasonable amount of time. This no longer applies since they can fold to other systems.

Of course, without careful examination of the alien's communications and traffic patterns, the PC's starship will not be aware that this is a starfaring race and may continue to impose restriction #2 on themselves even though it isn't necessary.

[Tobian]

The section on not interfering with a pre-warp society is not the prime directinve, but another one, but still it is an inviolble law, much as the prime directive is so you are right in that respect!

While Starfleet might not specifically have a 'directive' prime or otherwise to prohbit first contact, it always approaches these things carefully: Avoidable wars have started because a bold-as-brass captain walked in with his stomping shoes and caused an incident! large volumes of communications and relay satelites should make researching the best way to go that bit easier!

[BouncyCaitian]

Transmission#1: Dr. Hupteka, (a mustelid) and the rest of his recon team are currently attempting to figure out how to open an presumed (correctly) EVA hatch on the primary hull of the Hawking, but the relative scale and strength needed is beyond the doctors normal crew. So while the team wait for a entry team from the DH 1272, the are isolating and bagging Free Floating Objects from the ship for analysis. Hupteka is currently wandering the hull attempting to make sense of warning labels on escape pod hatches. A remote access (challenging difficulty) of the still functioning ships systems will indicate that the hatches electronic locking systems are off line and that simple manual cycling of the hatch will give the locals quick access to the ship’s computer core (still online, and unfortunately, the ships recognition protocols are offline, and so open to anyone who speaks the computer (translation matrix is still online)).

Beaming inside the hull is out of the question as radiation, while not lethal, renders the transporter, risky at best, deadly at worst. Also free floating hydrogen fuel from the alien starship makes the use of phasers or other energy based weapons a suicidal maneuver. After a scan it is currently thought that beaming in on the underside of the primary hull near one of the phaser emitters (to which the locals probes, are not currently monitoring).

Normally the players would be able to enter from the bottom of the ship but due to the angle of entry of the alien vessel (which now upon further examination is actually fused to the hull), the hatch is somewhere inside the shattered hull of the alien ship. The current solution would be to crawl up along the hull and get close enough to the doctors team and place small radio jamming devices near one of the power conduits.

EVA maneuvers will be need to be conducted in zero-g as the ships artificial gravity system has given out. Luckily for the players there is a large amount of scrap floating about the area and they will have cover from loose objects to mess with local visual and radar that might pick them up (TN bonus to be determined by GM)

Things that could go wrong as they get nearer the examination site is that one of the local worker bots used to sift through scrap could spot the players (if they’re not taking care to be stealthy).

Attempting to hack the bots security would be an immensely bad idea as it would be attract the attention of the entity that exists within the local datagrid referred to those who know of it called ‘The Net’ (see cultural write up later in the module) as well as the bot’s semi-smart frame that runs it. If this happens, the research team will become nervous as the bot indicates that something attempted communicating with it, but it has no idea what it was.

The players could attempt First Contact, but given the nervousness of the recon team, this could be also bad, as the Locals have had absolutely NO xeno-contact previously, except the examination of a ‘Creator’ vessel, to which they have derived relatively recent innovations from. And some rather unpleasant cultural memes (think a rather bad mixture of 1950’s Cold War style Paranoia and pulp magazine ‘Mars Needs Women’ nonsense and you’re beginning to get the idea). Also, those that are armed are carrying advanced projectile (8mm dual purpose dart-cored slug throwers adapted for space) and might fire if they see the crew (as they think everyone on the ship is dead and the crew might be from another ship coming to collect the remains (insert worst fear here)). The players might need to be reminded that the Locals still appear to be pre-warp civilization, therefore FC is proscribed.

If the players decided to bypass the crew and head for a hatch that’s available, it will take them about a half hour if they move carefully and use floating scrap for cover (which is what the local bots are being used to collect and remove), they should reach an emergency hatch and be able to cycle the hatch manually or use a power pack to open it.

If they think to listen in on the locals, they will pick up the following conversation

“Doctor, I think these Xeno’s use base ten for a numerical system instead of Base Eight.”
“Really? How did you determine that?”
“The way this external keypad is set up, look at the extra characters. They seem to follow the general form of the other characters. But these on the lowest tier on either side are far too different to be numbers. At least to me, anyway.”
“Let’s not make assumptions too hastily, but you may have a point. What is the progress on the door?”
I’ve had to improvise a mechanical sledge to get things moving. This mechanical pump looks to be frozen up. I’m guessing whatever lubricant they use needs to be primed. We might want to stand back if any atmosphere is still in the airlock too. It’ll about half an hour before I think I’ll have everything braced properly.”
“Very good. Anything else.”
“Yeah. The ILR is going to have a fit when the find out about this. And so is ConFed Central.”
“That’s not your worry, specialist.”
“Yes, Doctor”

While the players mull over this tidbit, the hatch will open in whatever manner they chose (note: escaping atmosphere from the airlock will disturb the local flotsam and will be noticed by the locals radar). Once inside the lock they can close, and begin working their way towards the computer core. Currently the lighting system is haphazard at best and GM’s might want to play up the creepiness of the players working their way through the dead ship. If any players have certain Phobias, now would be a good time to turn then screws on them. Particularly when sensors don’t work 100% of the time

After searching about through the wreckage for a good fifteen minutes, the players will find access to a functioning data terminal locate on a deck above where they came in. Since their isn't a local atmosphere, they will have to plug in via fiber optic link or use a hardwired tricorder (all external transmission linkages are offline) (routine difficulty due to system twitchiness). After they gain access they will be able to access the secondary cores ‘quaternary backups’ (Anyone with a Ships Ops Familiarity will recognize this as the ships message buoy, that didn’t launch), including the Captain’s , Science Officer’s , and Chief Engineer’s logs. Thankfully, the buoy was hardened for just such occasions and the records for the ships voyage are intact. After compiling the information from the buoy, the following can be discovered.

The Hawking had been exploring the local area until approximately thirteen days ago, cataloging navigational hazards such as gravitational anomalies, gas pockets, and space time distortions such as wormholes. Of note, it had noticed and beamed back to fleet the unusual micro-singularites that momentarily appeared then disappear on Ships sensors. Notations from the ships medical staff and the Captain indicated morale had improve considerably once they had a task to focus on (instead of focusing on the fit giving local space time).

The Ship’s Sciences section reported that as soon as the ship left the gravitational ‘tides’, it began picking up immense amounts of old-style and advanced radio transmissions, indicative of a relatively advanced pre-interstellar society. Ships Captain ordered further investigation. Upon further examination, the locals followed along standard mid 21st century Terra technological progression with several rather peculiar oddities:

A. The Dornathanti do not use anything resembling the primitive nuclear powered fusion drives of many early civilizations, but instead use a exceptionally efficient chemical fusion reaction drive similar to the maneuvering thrusters used on modern starships, but upscaled for general starship usage. Extremely environmentally friendly for their technological level.

B. They do not have any form of gravity plating that can be detected and the starships simulate gravity by rotation of their hull. The Local design philosophy seems to be arranged along a Generic hull that is cigar shaped and is modular in design. The majority of the ship is taken up by fuel and reaction mass (some 76%), while the rest is tasked for various normal starship functions depending upon the design in question.

C. The Dornathanti do not appear to be aware of subspace physics in a way that is readily understandable, if they are at all. Because of this, their optical and scanning technologies have developed along in ways that are not normally seen, such as optical, radar, and mazer technologies that appear to be refined several orders of magnitude past what had been normally thought impossible. The Ships Captain notes that the Hawkins crew had come close to breaking the Prime Directive more than once because they had underestimated the locals technology.

D. The Sciences department made note of a cultural peculiarity that the Dornathanti do not appear to have a musical tradition that they have been able to detect by quietly listening in on local transmissions.

[BouncyCaitian]

While perhaps interesting, this does not answer exactly how the hawking and a local starship became fused together. A little more digging into the computer system (challenging difficulty due to the amount of damage from the fused vessels). After a bit of computer work and jiggery pokery, the players will be able to partly reconstruct the missions logs from the Ships Science officer, Lt Thelev (Andorian).

“…eport…..is a multi species coalition similar…..ederation. Systems traffic analysis, by Ensign M’vore, to which I am officially placing a commendation for her diligent work has uncovered that the Dornathanti appear to be estranged from their coalition’s central government, hereafter referred to as ConFedCent. Long range subspace observation of the most developed world indicates that the primary city, Annahport is recovering…..strike. No radioactivity or trace elements indicating standard thermonuclear wearhead or matter/antimatter detonations have been detected, but significant damage has resulted to the City and surrounding area. Possible early tractor weapon used to activate the local substrata has been suggested, but no significant fault lines neat the capitol have been detected……
“Interestingly, we have still yet to detect any warp-trails or other phenomena to explain how this civilization has managed to expand….”
“COMMANDER!. Micro-Singularity forming inside of our Warp Field!”
“What!?!”

At this point, the screen goes blurry as a large white flash erupts on the screen and then goes dark. It should be somewhat obvious at this point that the Hawking is the victim of a ‘jump point’ opening up inside of the warp field. A Challenging Space Science or Warp Physics (due to the obscurity of the technology, and the physics related to it) roll should indicate that the incoming vessels ‘fold in’ was severely distorted by the Hawking’s warp field, sucking the starship off it’s planned entryway and materializing inside the hawking….at least partly. This sort of information will need to get back to the players ship as fast as possible as the range on this sort of distortion is relatively unknown.

What the players wish to do at this point is up to them, but this should get the players minds working

[Tobian]

Hm ok that is interesting, initially it would appear they are pre-warp, so they follow those guidelines, then it becomes clear they are not. It's good to have a bit more mystery and not understand the answers imediatelly. This should keep the story initially focused round the wreck and secrecy, it will open out into a full political nightmare.. The paranoia factor and 'little green men' factor should prove amusing

I like the touch about the octimal numerology

[BouncyCaitian]

Transmission #2:
Alternatively, the players could chose to enter near the back of the Hawking, and attempt to contact the Flight Officer that beamed visuals back to the Fleets flagship. This is actually much easier than it sounds as the local starships don’t really have much in the way of portals to speak of and most of the work is concentrating on the primary hull. Between the scrap floating around the ship bright lights and an appropriately ‘stealthed’ FC shuttle, it would take a nearly impossible stroke of luck of the locals to notice the shuttle coming into range. How the players wish to keep the shuttle from being noticed is up to them, but they will have a fair amount of cover to work with.

As transporters are rather dicey, the use of spacesuits would be better for entry into the shuttle bay. The players will have to take care as floating debris is still something of a problem (+5TN to Z-G maneuvers). Once inside, they will have do deal with the normal floatsam, tho they will notice almost anything lose has been sealed in Z-G plastic bags and marked in the local language (actually the Standard Language of the ‘local group’), including several bagged corpses and various body parts.

After maneuvering a bit through the shuttle bay they will find a magnetized tripod with piece of electronic equipment on top (Moderate difficulty roll to determine that it is a radio booster), and what appears to be a robot drone (looking like a Preying mantis with four feet attacked to a segmented drive train, and a three part extendable upper body with a camera on top) working on what appears to be the starboard nacelle of a damaged shuttle craft.

The drone will ignore the characters for the most part as it continues it’s work. However if they set off it’s vibrational sensors in it’s feet it will turn to look (normal protocol). If it spots them, The drones A.I. net will run identification protocols and if it manages to identify one of the members as human, it will be confused as it’s Creators have not run the set protocols needed to access higher Net functions, such as ‘The Net’ monitoring program. It will send off a micro burst to the fleet flagship where the Ships ‘Net’ Fragment will activate and assumed direct control of the drone, but continue it’s normal work, while sending off a micro-burst to Flight Commander Felna that there maybe ships crew still alive aboard the vessel as well as activating recording devices aboard the flagship.

Bypassing this won’t be easy as one might think as the drone and radio transmitter is using hardened transmission systems designed to work in high radiation environments and sudden jamming will draw suspicion as the system has worked (almost) flawlessly in many similar environments (including the local systems advanced M/AM total conversion facility). This would result in several AV’s being launched for rescue operations (as the transmitter is the only thing keeping Felna in contact with the Fleet).Discovery of the shuttle would be inevitable, unless the pilot is on the ball.

Players should be creative in figuring their way around this.

Once the players by pass this little problem, they should make their way into the hull past the shuttle bay, finding another radio booster and a large power pack with a portable spot light ‘glued’ to the wall using a resin similar to those used for space suit patches (no power in this section). They will also pick up radio transmissions from Felna as she explorers the ship.


“This is Flight Officer Felna to DH1272. I have finished examination of the ‘office’ near what I am judging to be the main engineering core. Judging from what I have observed I believe it to be a senior officers work room, perhaps the Senior Engineer. I can’t even begin to understand what form of drive system they might be using, but something this big has to be a power generation chamber of some form.”
“Leave that to the Science teams when they show up, Felna.”
“Understood, Colonel. I’m just making my way….oh…”
“Felna?”
“It…can’t be…”
“Felna? Respond!”
“Sir…It is Them. There’s no doubt.”
“Felna. What did I say earlier? Leave that to the Xenophys to decide.”
“Dammit, Sir! I’ve got visual evidence and a corpse to work with! I’ve bring them back and let you look at them directly!”
“Alright, Felna. Relax. I know it’s been a while since your last S.P.I….”
“Sir, I am not needing a mental hygiene eval and you know it! I’ll be back presently with the evidence. ETA: forty-five minutes.” The transmission from Felna’s end goes silent and several indignant attempts at contacting her continue.


The players might be wondering what has gotten the explorer in such an uproar. She happened to find a picture of a crew members cat (ship’s zoologist) with the crew member in question, along with a the crew member’s corpse, along with several books on native earth animals. While this might not seem very important to the players, considering the majority of Dornathantii are derived from genetic constructs that combine human DNA with canine and feline DNA, the implications are staggering to the locals, and will colour all future responses with the Federation (humans in particular) if this information gets back to the DH1272.

[Tobian]

Sorry for not getting back this sooner BC. Looks like a really nice setting, but I have a few questions..

On to the Hybrid thing.. How much do the aliens understand about their physiology.. do they know they are hybrids or did they just grow up on a world and forget their roots (they could easilly if they had been carefully raised too). I mean a cat Hybrid would not know it was a hybrid with a cat, unless it had seen both a cat and a human and done DNA testing.. Unless they have very advanced genetics, they might not be able to tell their DNA is not natural anyway. If cats are common on their world, then how would a cat photo be significant?! A cat, to them, might look like a wierd baby, like the way Greys often look like distorted children (or even foetuses) to us.. it's just a thought

Do any of them know what humans are?

A couple of quick bioligical and planetary backgrounds would be helpful in imagining this scenario easier; from a Narrator's POV..

[BouncyCaitian]

The Locals happened to come across a human corpse on a starcraft in a another system relatively recently. After genetic analysis, they determined they were the decendants of genetic constructs seeded on the local clusters 'homeworld' (detailed later along with planet bios and local species listed) some 200 and so years ago. They happen to have a few of the original creatures around in the wilds on homeworld and it was originally assumed that they were evolved from those critters. After finding a 'Creator' corpse, well that idea went into the dumper and they assume that they might have been seeded. As to what purpose, they haven't any clue.

So the big question for them that they are seeking is "Why"?

[Ed update: having just aquired ST: Worlds, I'll publish the local system in that format]

[Tobian]

While they might not yet realise it, the players could be stumbling into a creator myth nightmare.. Revelations like this without actual alive people to pin it will spin out a whole lot of creator myths, or re-ignite old one's! Which create a nightmare for the Prime Directive.. it could have a radical effect on their culture!

Without any hard evidence, they may begin to believe that they are the 'creators' and while a living god is a lot easier to manage than a etherial one, it could lead to lots of nasty complications, sects jumping up, huge planetary arguments and a furore in the media as everyone gets carried away. This could make 'first contact' very awkward for whoever does it! Things could get nasty when they don't have answers for them (as the Federation is not responsible, Nor Earth).. I'm reminded of Vger's reaction when he 'met' god

[Alex]

This is one of the best adventure suggestions I've seen. It presents a moving target for the players. First the aliens are a pre-warp society and then they are part of an interstellar alliance. First the mission is about recovering the Starfleet vessel without disrupting the alien culture too much, then it becomes a creator myth problem. Whatever the players think is the mission imperative today will likely be turned upside down next week.

[BouncyCaitian]

In playtest, the players were sweating bullets over how to deal with the scenario presented as more information came slowly trickling in and the full scale of the situation bgan to present itself

[BouncyCaitian]

At this point, a large fragment outside the ships hull will bump into it. While no penetrations result, it will knock out the rather threadbare systems that were still functioning (lights, gravity, etc.), rendering the ship completely dark, as well as dislodging anything that had been secured by ‘sticky’, leading to a rather surreal lighting scheme as the light tumbles through the hall and impacts from various flotsam can be heard. The radio booster, being magnetically clamped to the floor, will not be affected. If they players think to listen, they’ll pick up the following:

“Net? What was that?”
Synthetic voice responds: “It would appear that this particular impact had rendered the xeno-ships power systems inoperable, Commander Felna. Gravity Plating appears to be offline.”
“Wonderful. Anything else I should know about?”
“General Frothgar is currently not very pleased with you. I’ve had to divert a rather vociferous report to back home.”
“Story of my life. It will make packing this body up a little easier.”
“You’ve become cynical, Erma.”
“I seem to remember Derzon and how a few well meaning officers tried back-benching me because I was female. Then I went and got shot in action and became an icon. They were real pleased about that.”
“True, but this is a different situation all together. I can only dampen and divert these kind of reports for so long before someone starts noticing. It’s only recently that the Creator protocols activated allowing me to spread and clean up the damage caused by the Net Editing tool that was deployed. I cannot be too blatant or someone will start notice that I’m up and running again.”
*sigh* “Understood. It’s just…this is so different than what I signed on for.”
“Societal breakdowns will do that. That incident with your former lover was not pleasant.”
“Don’t remind me. You think I need a S.P.I. Re-Eval when I get back?”
“Hardly. A bit of downtime might be in order, however.”
“Toki will love that. She hates getting in the flightsuit.”
“True.”
“Cracking Chem-sticks.”

[BouncyCaitian]

At this point, the players will see a soft green light in the in a room several doors down and will see a glowing rod float out and attach itself to the far wall. A bit of grousing will be picked up over the com channels as Erma is attempting to maneuver a body bag as well as several evidence bags in Zero-G. astute players monitoring their tricorders will also notice a rythimic pulse being send out from her suit every few seconds as she enteres the hull. A simple test will indicate that it is a millimeter-wave radar unit attached to her space suit and feeding into her helmets HUD. The tension at this time should be relatively high as the ships hull will have fragments grinding against it, the power has gone completely out and players who have managed to get to cover will notice that Erma is packing a machine pistol on her right hip (actually quite lethal to the players).

How the players wish to handle this is up to them, but caution is advised. Erma is not likely to shoot first given her EDF indoctrination and general rationalist culture background, but she will be unpleasantly surprised to find survivors. The ships damage and general reports from the various crews has shown that their have been no possibility of survivors (well….to the local tech level it would seem impossible), and to have living xenos show up (particularly any humans) might actually make her go into panic mode (given the sordid ‘mars needs women’ meme floating around, the GM is encouraged to come up with all sorts of bad ideas to have go through her head). Or a look of wonder. Or possibly one of inquiry. She will however inform her command ship that she has made first contact.

{ed note: I'll be popping in a few sample questions a bit later on to give an idea on what sort of things our poor NPC will ask}

[LUGTrekGM]

Ponder...

What happens when a Federation ship sails up and the CO gets on the line to these aliens, and says "I am James T. Kirk of the Federation of Planets. The object that your salvage crews are working on is on of our ships. We want it back, if you don't mind, and would like to open a dialogue with your planetary leadership explaining the Federation, and discussing your world's potential alliance or Membership in it."

I mean, some players might see what is more or less a Saturn V rocket wedged into a saucer, and just sail on up into parking orbit, and "Go for it."

I'm not clear on what the planned theme for this adventure is.

Is it:

Can we play Gods to Space-going kitties?

Do we deny the Kitties their religion by proving we are not Gods?

Who owns a starship wrecked in another's backyard, who is already taking it apart?

Or

How can we be sneaky and recover our ship, while at the same time covering our backside, politically, while being the oh-so-cool and friendly Federation?

I mean if the situation was reversed, and some alien catlike race sails up to one of Earth's first space going vessels wrecked into some weird space folding ship, and says, Hi, this is our ship, you can't have it, **BOOM*** it explodes, PS You aren't ready for this technology...and sails off. who are they to decide?

But if they approach and say, "We are part of a group of 1000 peaceful worlds, we want to talk to you." there's paranoia, but someone up in the chain will see okay they didn't torch New York, London, Mexico City, and Bangkok right off, so maybe we can talk to them.

I mean, if they are space-faring, ultimately, the Federation will have to deal with them at some point. The possible advance to their tech via re-engfineering of Fed tech is a much more secondary side issue, I would think.

I see a Ship's CO (Empowered as Ambassador by Regulations), Doc (To explain/study thier physiology or as a psych consultant), one or a pair of security guards (just because regulations demand it, and generally a good idea), and a handful of Caitians/whatever cat-like race you have in your specific setting (for empathy/ like-mindedness, even if overly simplistic) beaming down, and having a big talk, with the feds getting a slightly faster warp drive via improved use of anti-matter conversion, and the Dornathantii learning of the big wide world, and perhaps getting clues as to their origins.

If they react badly, the Federation vessel would more than likely be able to defend itself, tractor the ship out, plunge it into the sun and warp out, etc.

What theme are you trying to prove with this?

[BouncyCaitian]

The theme in this case is Unintended Consquences, really. The Dornithanti are a bit twitchy after breaking away from their ConFed homeworld (explained later) and have never really met a Xeno (as most of the local planetary cluster is compsoed of species that jumped from homeworld and settled). They are aware of humans indirectly, and have no idea what to think if they bumped into one. While rational...then tend to err on the side of caution.

A human (but not terran) corpse was found on a vessel in their system recently and thier technology is obviously dirived from the vessel (thier is lower grade, but thier are way to many similarities to conclude otherwise). DNA analysis renders them as being build from human DNA with thier own species traits integrated into it.

Which opens a very disturbing question for them: Why? until they found this evidence, the concept of God or a creator was sort of a vague abstraction that wasn't really addressed much except in local chat sessions (cultural trait, they are a chatty bunch) as a thing of academic interest. Now that they have phsyical proof, local society is losing it's collective mind, half in wonder, the other half in terror of what the Creators are like, and every question under the sun, half of which never occured to them previously, is being asked.

Their previous evidence of Humanity (xenos) indicates a highly secretive bunch that created a collection of spieces whole cloth, gave them tech to reach for the stars and do as they will.....and no guidance whatsoever. Not exactly what you could call friendly.

Then the Nebula shows up. And it appears to be the same species with other spieces (?!?) coming to check up on them. In a far more advanced vessel. With incredible devices. And their ship was trashed in system via local intervention (even if it was an accident). But they don't know how the Creators will take that

Every nightmare scenario for the players to deal with. And it wasn't the Federation's fault on this one, but they have to deal with it before it spirals out of control.