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Thread: Madness: Crazy Alternative Timelines You've Always Wanted To Try

  1. #1
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    Madness: Crazy Alternative Timelines You've Always Wanted To Try

    Okay, this forum's a bit quiet today. Too quiet.

    Let's say you're going to ignore normal Star Trek continuity. What are the crazy things you've always wanted to try with your story lines that you couldn't get away with if you played by the rules?

    Me, I've always wanted to do a massive-scale Borg invasion of the Federation during the TOS era, if only to see what happens when you pit them against Kirk's ability to annihilate any sentient computer with ease.

    Next.
    "Guy, you have a last name."
    "Do I?! DO I?! For all you know, I'm 'Crewman Number Six'!"

    My half-assed d20 Trek homebrew.

  2. #2
    "But perfection is... a process! You only destroy their parts of perfection... by assimilating them!"

    And then he makes out with the Borg Queen.
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  3. #3
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    Pfft. As if he'd have to. He'd just start behaving irrationally, give them a logic puzzle and laugh as they all blue-screened and shut down.
    "Guy, you have a last name."
    "Do I?! DO I?! For all you know, I'm 'Crewman Number Six'!"

    My half-assed d20 Trek homebrew.

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    But he would still make out with the Borg Queen.

  5. #5
    Kirk always goes for the desperate, lonely chicks.
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  6. #6

    A Stitch in Time

    OK, one of my super plots covered this...

    Post Dominion war. The crews ship is being used for an experiment on Bio-Neural gel Packs, the department of Temporal investigations is looking into ways to protect computer files (notably history files) against temporal incursions, trouble is the field generated only affects Biological matter, hence Bio-neural gel packs.

    As the experiment is activated, or afterwards the timeline changes... Only everybody on the ship is affected and remembers how the timeline should be.

    Trouble is they are spread far and wide across the rag tag fleet, all the remains after Starfleet lost the Dominion war. Now all they have to do is work out how to get back together, convince their 'new' crewmates that they are not mad, and then they get to work out what happened.

    What Happened; maddened by the Dominion defeat, a Vorta scientist went rgue and studying the history files narrowed the moment of defeat to a key point in time. namely when Odo saved Rom and Kira during their sabotage and enabling the Defiant to enter the wormhole and for Sisko to contact the prophets. All he needs to do is to Kill one of his gods to save the rest.

    He is quite insane.

    He then stumbles across the captured intelligence about the guardian of Forever, and assembling a crack squad of Jem'Hadar he travels to the guardian, slaughters the science base there and travels in time to DS9 to kill Odo and change the course of history.

    Now all the players need to do is assemble their small fleet, find all this out (the Temporal investigations guys who were conducting the original experiment might be helpful here), travel to the guardian (kill the Jem Hadar guards left there) and then somehow infiltrate DS9 under dominion rule and save Odo from the assassin without changing the timeline... At which point events should reset just as soon as they step back through the Guardian.

    The experiment; Oh that failed, while the generated field works, the problem is that the timeline changes altered the creation of the computer memory, and when such alterations are not in a fixed location, the changes in the timeline 'delete' the creation of the secure memory... Although the field does work, and this by-product will be a key starting block of the 29th century Timefleet...

    You have to admit that its a hell of a DS9/ToS crossover, and i feel nearly worthy of Troubles with Tribbles... I just never managed to run it...
    DanG/Darth Gurden
    The Voice of Reason and Sith Lord

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  7. #7
    I also have some thoughts about the mirror universe.

    The one that keeps coming up is effectively a Star Wars ripoff, with Dukat (under the Pah Wraith influence), assuming an Emporer role in the Alliance and Smiley O'Brien's rag-tag rebel fleet looking for a savior.

    The players ship gets dragged across in a dimensional rift and collides with the undiscovered SS Botany Bay.

    Khan in this universe is a benevolent dictator, who chose voluntary exile from Earth rather than get involved in the wars, his supermen all followed him. Upon revival he see's that the human empire has fallen but that humanity is clinging on and sees it as his personal mission to save them.

    He will of course want to take over O'Briens rebellion, and as he is on a nice, shiny, powerful Starfleet vessel, believes that he should also take command as his flagship. He might not understand why the crew are less than willing to follow him/want to go home...

    Perhaps they cannot go home?
    DanG/Darth Gurden
    The Voice of Reason and Sith Lord

    “Putting the FUNK! back into Dysfunctional!”

    Coming soon. The USS Ganymede NCC-80107
    "Ad astrae per scientia" (To the stars through knowledge)

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Gurden View Post
    OK, one of my super plots covered this...

    Post Dominion war. *snip awesomeness*
    I would play in this campaign in a heartbeat. Reminds me of the sort of cross-series writing that started to show up in season 4 Enterprise. Great stuff.


    I think there's a ton of Mirror Universe stuff that hasn't begun to be explored. Playing the years immediately after TOS in the MU would be pretty great.
    "Guy, you have a last name."
    "Do I?! DO I?! For all you know, I'm 'Crewman Number Six'!"

    My half-assed d20 Trek homebrew.

  9. #9
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    I tossed an idea out somewhere on here about a war between the cannon established MU, and the one that appears in some books, where the Empire didn't fall, but continues into NG era. In order to get your characters involved, maybe this fight is spilling over into the 'regular' SF universe, and you can either try and stop the war (or at least incurrsions into their universe), or join one side and blow up the other one!

    I had another idea, influenced by both Marvel's orginal "Secret War" (where good and evil superhumans were gathered by a cosmic entity to see which is better), and the TOS episode where the Excalibans did the same thing. In it, some force gathers characters from various eras, timelines and maybe even universes. They are united against some uber-threat that threatens (as they are want to do) the whole of reality. Or, go bigger scale, having not just persons, but ships.

    I thought it would be fun for, say and ENT era captain to see where Earth stands in the future, or a DS-9 era captain to see Vorta, Borg or even Founders as SF officers!
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  10. #10
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    An idea I toyed with (and posted a few times on these boards) was that the Mirror Universe as seen in DS9 was not the "regular" MU, and that another MU, where the Terran Empire didn't fall and where the situation mirrored more closely the normal timeline, still existed somewhere. And that the DS9 MU was actually the mirror of another Trek timeline, where the Federation had indeed fallen to the hands of the Klingon-Cardassian alliance, but where things were less grim (and where, for instance, Intendant Kira was indeed trying to help the resistance).

    Another pet idea I had was an alternate universe where the pagh'wraith were the ones in the wormhole, and the Prophets imprisoned in the Fire Caves. Bajor would be a ruthless empire, led by the Kaï and Vedeks to whom the pagh'wraith would have granted dark and dangerous powers....
    (and I must be able to prove, after some search on these boards, that I suggested this idea some time before the Oris appeared in SG-1 )

    Otherwise, a very crazy idea I had once would involve the crew dropping in another dimension, on 21th century Earth, where they discover a TV show called Star Trek.... One spin-off of that show (which doesn't exist in our timeline) happens to bear stricking similarities with their own adventures, up to the last aired episode... and the current one ends with a cliffhanger.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by C5 View Post
    Otherwise, a very crazy idea I had once would involve the crew dropping in another dimension, on 21th century Earth, where they discover a TV show called Star Trek.... One spin-off of that show (which doesn't exist in our timeline) happens to bear stricking similarities with their own adventures, up to the last aired episode... and the current one ends with a cliffhanger.
    Which brings up several possibilities for your cast: That the writers are somehow psychicly aware of their existance; that the writers have access to their logs (which would mean someone from the future has given them to the writers; probably to break the strike!); or the very unlikely (and uncomfortable) realization that the cast are infact fictional characters at the whim of a group of TV writers! (and maybe the hot head of your group will blame certain people for their misfortunes/sweeps week episodes!)

    That would take the 'fourth wall' and break it right down!
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  12. #12
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    One of my upcoming adventures has the PCs encountering a dimensional rift from which emerges a warp starfighter in bad shape. It is piloted by one Kara Thrace, a lieutenant from the USS Galactica. Thrace comes from a universe where the Borg destroyed the Federation and the Galactica leads a rag tag fleet of survivors in search of a legendary wormhole that will lead them to another part of the galaxy, free from the Borg. Thrace asks for the PCs help. Hijinks ensue.

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  13. #13
    While its true that the USS Galactica/Borg Treat makes a good alternative trek plot, the dates involved point at another more likely crossover between alternate Earth timelines...

    Perhaps Commander James T Kirk of the Earth Ship Enterprise manages to hop dimensions (thanks to his Science officer the Minbari Spock), during the Shadow war... Hijinks ensue, but he will want to recruit allies to run to the rescue to the Babylon 5 Space Station(it is the last, best hope for peace)

    ;P
    DanG/Darth Gurden
    The Voice of Reason and Sith Lord

    “Putting the FUNK! back into Dysfunctional!”

    Coming soon. The USS Ganymede NCC-80107
    "Ad astrae per scientia" (To the stars through knowledge)

  14. #14
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    LOL. I'm guessing Kirk would be a-okay in Babylon 5. The potential for wooden acting and asskickery would be far too much.

    Fred's idea reminded me of a campaign idea I had a ways back for a post-apocalyptic Trek campaign. Basically, the setup was that some sort of civilization destroying event had torn the core systems out of the Klingon Empire, forcing them to invade the Federation to find habitable systems and resources and causing a power struggle that eventually results in a partial meltdown of civilization in that quadrant. The campaign is set a couple generations later, after everything had finished melting down into a Balkanized set of petty baronies.

    I figured it'd wind up like Asimov's Foundation series with a dash of wild west. The fun part would be figuring out how to make it feel like Trek but keeping it different enough to keep everyone on their toes. I'm guessing it would have wound up heavy on the diplomacy fronts with a continuing theme of rebuilding ancient glories.

    You could do some amusing things like making the two key players in the quadrant the Gorns and the Tholians with the remants of the Romulans, Klingons and Humans trying to maintain their positions on the fringes of the struggle.
    "Guy, you have a last name."
    "Do I?! DO I?! For all you know, I'm 'Crewman Number Six'!"

    My half-assed d20 Trek homebrew.

  15. #15
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    I think my choice here is a bit more subtle: I've always thought that the Klingon Empire being threatened by a moon blowing up (ST6:TUC) was, well, lame. It's an interstellar empire, fer chrissakes.

    So I've wanted to run a campaign that uses John M. Ford's view of Klingons in The Final Reflection, and keep them as the on-going bad guys, and drop the Cardassians altogether (and probably all of that Delta Quadrant stuff, too). I'm also partial to the Rihannsu view of Romulans, from Diane Duane. Between Ford's Klingons and Duane's Romulans, the Federation has more than enough to worry about.

    Put another way, keep the background structure of TOS but move it ahead into the future. (Sorry, DS9 and Voyager fans)

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