Starting a new Star Trek (ICON) Campaign

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I just realized that the solar radiation is probably harnessed to power environmental control systems. You could have storms the size of Jupiter roaming across that thing.

[Tobian]

Bigger, if they are unchecked! Whooee that's a big storm! Actually I doubt it would have, since it's Jupiters turbulent atmosphere, thousands of kilomiters deep, the Coriolis effect, and the mass, but the gravity, relative to the surface, it would appear is 'earth normal', so it may not happen like that

Atmosphere polarisation would also lower the effects of the radiation on the surface, since it can filter it out said radiation, handily

On a surface area that huge, yes it would be easy to miss a lot, especially if technology which dampens sensors is involved (since the technology level is clearly better than Fed-normal) but a major sweep wouldn't necessarily take THAT long, since their technology is capable of sweeping sensor scans across huge areas, rapidly! In detail, of course, would be another story!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Of course, it's probably filled with unstable non-corporeal entities and entombed psionic god-kings and stuff like that.

I mean, what would your motivation for building something THAT HUGE be? It'd take millenia, even with Federation technology. It'd be easier to build a dozen Class M planets in orbit around a star anyway–and you'd have plenty of space then. All the simple reasons–each of which boil down to population growth–well, they don't really make sense in this case.

So what else is there? Who would want space for quadrillions of humanoids packed into one tiny place? What use are they?

The answers are both horrific and excellent game fodder : d

[Owen E Oulton]

In my game, one name: Yaskoydray. Take it from there.

[Commander Sonek]

The Star Trek NG novel Dyson Sphere by Charles Pellegrino & George Zebrowski drops a lot of tantalizing ideas about the Dyson Sphere.

In it, Enterprise returns to the Sphere for further exploration. Among other things, they discover a "net" around the star - the Sphere does indeed utilize solar radiation. They also discover an abandoned planet in orbit, and in orbit around the planet what was apparently a "test bed" miniature of the Sphere.

Another note: Keep in mind the scale of the Sphere.

Example: imagine a civilization developing on a plain by a river.

Now imagine the plain has a surface area greater than the Earth, and the river is wide enough to roll Earth's moon down its channel.

And that's just one corner of the Sphere.

"That's a lot of space to get lost in!"

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

In my game, one name: Yaskoydray. Take it from there.

*grin*

Any chance I can take a look behind the Narrator's screen at your notes?

[Commander Sonek]

So I have been developing ideas for my campaign set in the Dyson Sphere (first game three weekends from now!) and have been putting in some thought to a new threat species native to the Dyson Sphere. Here is the way my thoughts have been running:

The Sphere is essentially a big open space with (presumably) a lot of different life forms running around in a lot of different terrains.

What kind of species might develop in such an environment?

The C'ys are a parasitc species that physically resemble a mobile pool of jelly. They survive by merging themselves with a host life form through a "cell phase matching" process where they merge or fuse on a celluar level with the host(something like the Mortax from the old War of the Worlds TV series). Once merged with a suitable host, whether an animal or a member of an intelligent race, they will "ride" the host, either remaining passive, or exerting control to pursue their own goals.

So what are their goals? Well, initially, curiosity about these new creatures unlike any they have encountered before. Perhaps they were even a gentecially engineered species created by the Builders that "got smart". I could see them steathilly infiltrating Dyson Base with the goal of taking control of iit with the ultimate objective of spreading beyond the Sphere. The PCs could stumble onto once the infiltration is well under way, and have to come up with a method of rooting out the compromised personnel - and the cell phase matching process would make them damn difficult to detect. Paranoia, Star Trek style!

Only hitch: the biofilters on the transporter. I would think that they would be capable of detecting and seperating a C'ys from a host, so a C'ys infected crewman would avoid transport at all costs. But in a base in the Dyson Sphere serviced by shuttles and runabouts, a C'ys might just be able to pull that off - especially if an entire shuttle or runabout were infected at once.

Anyhow, I realize that I still have a ways to go, but those are my initial thoughts. B-)

[The Tatterdemalion King]

you might want to avoid having such an easy way to separate the parasite–at least, make it dangerous for both.

what're the parasites' usual host lifeforms?

[Commander Sonek]

Maybe their cell phase matching ability is like the Founders - they could be able to mimic the host body's cells to the point that the biofilters can't distinguish them them from the host. Maybe the cell phase matching process can actually create a a hybrid life form that is not easilly distinguishable without a detailed medical scan.

My initial thought as to their origin was that the Builders had bio-engineered them as sort of an "intelligent tagging" system that they could use to track the different species in the Sphere. A C'ys would hop onto a member of a herd to track migratory patterns or whatever, perhaps dividing as needed. In the time since the Sphere was abandoned (if it was abandoned), they have developed a mind of their own, as well as the ability to link and "hybridize" a host. They could be the biological equivalent of the Replicators of Stargate SG-1, but more insidious.

[JALU3]

Are the only "threat species" on the planet, are there non-intellegent threat species to worry about? What is left of the technology of the buildings? Ever thought of going all "Halo" on it . . . and that maybe the sphere was built as a humane was of keeping infected individuals away from the general populace, that way they can continue living, or die in peace, while the general populace lives uneffective . . . but have since moved on . . . or died off?

[Commander Sonek]

More and more, I am thinking of the Sphere as being like the island on "Lost"

[The Tatterdemalion King]

That's a perfect example of the situation you have, actually.

You could even make the connection explicit, and have occasional flashbacks to explore the lives of your Crew before they came to the sphere...