Don Quixote

[JALU3]

As a character idea . . . would they make a good NPC . . . a well meaning, misguided, and physcologically confused character. And Sancho . . . the ever-faithful squire, who is uneducated, but wise, and highly capable.

Imagine someone who claims themselves a Commodore of some unnamed planet's navy, in a small ship that is flying about space . . . barely held together by the ships only other crewmember. The Commodore bringing his sence of strait forward morality amoungst the morally ambiguous and treacherous space, and the planets and systems found in it. Always underpowered . . . always valiant . . . ever the under dog . . . heroic victor.

Imagine how a crew of a Federation Starship or a Romulan Warbird would react?
No Prime Directive to inhibit where he goes . . . using technology long since outdated . . . thinking himself a travelling righter of wrongs.

Have there been characters like that in Star Trek?

And what of Sancho? Who knows more than he says, ever patiently waiting his promised insula. Keeping his master out of trouble . . . helping him get out of the tightest binds . . . a Scotty of sorts, but a jack of all trades.

[First of Two]

I don't think that a character like that has ever existed in ST in any official capacity.

And my players know me well enough to know that if someone like that appeared in one of MY games... he'd almost certainly be right about whatever it was he was doing.

Heck, if he was doing the moral, but massively politically inconvenient thing, they'd probably JOIN him.

By G’Quon I can’t recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces. They were the bad guys, as you say, and we were the good guys! And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor.

[JALU3]

But what if that means that to do the "right thing" in the black and white morality, which Sir Quixote posessed, ment failing doing the wrong thing with even dire consequences for the characters.

For instance, like with what happened when Bones went back into the past . . . which lead to the Nazis winning World War II.

And what other situational forks could be written into the story where both were right, but both were wrong.

[First of Two]

To be honest, despite the critical acclaim, the "Edith Keeler must die" scenario is a bad plot. There are ways to keep Keeler alive and still remove her influence from history. (Pulling a Dr. Gillian on her seems the most obvious choice.)

But to me, the choice you're giving isn't so much black-and-white vs shades of gray, as it is small picture vs. big picture. (Nazis sure aren't grey.) I think that if you give a black-and-white thinker a larger perspective, it'll change things more than a claim of shading will.

For my part, I think that most adults really do see things in shades of gray, from their own perspective. It's just when we don't have that same perspective (or we're being dishonest with ourselves because we disagree), that we accuse them (or they accuse us) of seeing in black-and-white.

Now, being forced to choose between two bad choices, that's something else entirely. And wicked.

[JALU3]

Well how can one set up the use of NPCs following the arch types of Don Quixote and Sancho . . . while hopefully leading the PCs astray from their stated purpose, for a higher moral reason as described by the Knight . . . yet leading to having to make the lesser of two evils . . . where neither outcome will be favorable in the long-run.

[First of Two]

Well, let's see... for this to work right, you're going to need a "wheels within wheels" scenario...

Maybe the Knight is raiding outposts of a species, which would be a negative in the PC's eyes, generally...

But upon investigating, it's because that species is aggressive, expansionistic, and unreasonable, and presents a threat to its neighbors. Perhaps "Sancho" is the real power behind the Knight, maybe the threat species did something to him in the past... or maybe he's from the Future, and knows what's coming from these guys down the road - maybe they're destined to wage a destructive war against their neighbors in a few years, and he's the only one who sees it coming, and nobody is listening to him (Think Winston Churchill in the early 1930's).

The Knight would be the idealistic fighter, convinced by the subtle manipulation of "Sancho," who has the knowledge but not the ability to fight on his own.

Maybe he figures the only way to avoide a larger, wider war is to strike at the enemy before they're ready - but the problem is that he neighbors aren't really ready yet, either. They're not ready for a war, and they're definitely not ready for a "preventative" attack.

So there's the conundrum... launch a pre-emptive war against an enemy who hasn't attacked you yet, but very likely will someday, or wait until you're attacked in a far more devastating war later?

What if "Sancho" is wrong? Worse, what if the PC's find proof that he's right?

If you're clever and evil, and toss out the occasional confusing historical reference, you should be able to keep your PC's guessing about whether or not they should be thinking about 1930's Germany, or early 21st-century Middle East...

If the "threat" species is not a threat to the Federation, but is to, say, several independent systems nearby, the Prime Directive could come into play, too.

That's all the evil I can come up with right now. I hope it was coherent. I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out on Thursday, and right now it hurts so much I can hardly think.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

If the Don Quixote is not the protagonist, he is there to either cause a problem or lead the protagonist to a new understanding of something. If he is the protagonist, his romantic idealism will carry the day until some horrible problem that breaks his worldview occurs, then he must rally himself and others (or others rally him because he's brightened their worlds) before defeating the problem.