Early Federation series

[BraidsMamma]

Okey..... my ENT-era series Star Trek: Frontier is over..
It spanned from 2153-2156 with the series finale taking place after the Romulan war in early 2161.
My group is in the early stages of planning for a new series picking up some plotlines from the old series (most notably some of the player characters involvment in the newly founded Section 31).

Anyways I'm having trouble finding plotlines for the new series...
In my contunity earth/coalition/federation has not yet mede first contact with neither Tholians or Klingons in 2161 so I will probably introduce one of them early as a neutral/hostile species.
I'm also thinking about Orions.... it feels like orion pirates would be the obvious badguys in a 2160's series but I don't really know what to do with them...

Okey... what do you think Tholians, Orions and Klingons would be up to in this era...
Ideas?

[toadmage]

What about having the Orions being a loose confedation of warlords , bandits and princes . The differents betweens the three could be ,

Warlords use force to control a world or systems .

Bandits are your classic raiders who strike on the weak . They never try to taken control of a world .

The princes are the ones who use poltical means rule . They are the most peaceful
of the lot . Some Orion prince's world may even want to join the UFP .

All three have together interact on some level for many reason . Warlords and Bandits need a ship yards for new ship or repairs . Princes need the cash from the warlords and bandits .

This way the players learn that not all Orions are evil bad guys . DS9 and Next Gen show us that klingons are not all the same.

One idea is the crew discovery a ruin of Orion city that hold some lost secret that could an Warlord's mind , help a friendly Prince hold on to power

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The Orions of that time period would be the last, crumbling remnants of a slaver empire that's ruled the local Beta Quadrant for millenia. Rather than a single government, a succession of independant worlds, each claiming to be the legitimate capital of an effectively dead civilisation. One of them might see the nascent Federation as an ally to reestablish control for their new dynasty. The Federation would want to secure a safe trade route to the populous Rigel colonies.

You could take some offhand Trek reference and make an antagonist species out of them, like the Zora Fel. They were conquored by Rurik the Damned, a famous Klingon warrior, so they could occupy what is Klingon space in the TOS era.

If you haven't used Enterprise, then the Axanar are still undefined. There's the Kzinti, but I don't know how you feel about them : P