USS Proxima: Another Campaign I'll Never Get to Run.

[Sheliak Bob]

sigh.
From time to time, I cannot stop myself from planning out ST campaigns, often in too much detail, but with work and schedules and such, I NEVER get to run them.
Here's another idea that is destined to lie stillborn in my brain. Maybe someone else can pick up pieces of it for their use.

USS PROXIMA: A Nebula Class starship exploring the Gamma Quadrant. As mentioned in DS9, the Proxima goes missing and is presumed destroyed by the Jem'Hadar. In this campaign, the ship survives the attack, barely, and limps into a nebula where it hides for about a year or more, taking on Gamma Quadrant natives who also have reason to avoid the Dominion, as well as some unusual strays.

Session One: I'd run the actual attack. Players should have two or three characters, since odds are some or all of them will wind up dead before the evening is over. Harsh, but it sets the tone to come.

Along with the carefully orchestrated just enough to rough them up badly ship to ship battle, a Jem'Hadar attack ship rams the saucer, scraping open the bridge and killing most or all of the Bridge crew. Boarders beam aboard, fanning out through the ship Shrouded, much chaos and a D&D style corridor by corridor sweep of the ship must be performed.

The Med-Bay Massacre: To ram home how violent and merciless the Jem'Hadar attackers are, their assault boarders discover the Med Bay, awash with casualties from the ship battle, and the Jem'Hadar open fire, killing just about all of the medical staff and most of the patients before they can be stopped. If they can be stopped.


Later: The ship has been in hiding, slowly undergoing repairs near a rag tag "outlaw" base/camp. Since this is one of the few places the Dominion either can't reach, can't find, or doesn't care about in the sector, it has become the "Hole in the Wall" for refugees.
Command of the Proxima has gone to a Communications specialist in the Ops department, who is the senior surviving officer. He is quite mad by this point. Since there is no effective Starfleet medical staff left on the ship, he has insisted on putting all the dead and all the too severely wounded to survive without advanced care casualties in stasis in a converted cargo hold. He hopes to bring them all back, even the dead ones. In any event, he will not bury in space lost crewmen because he has sworn to bring everyone back to the Alpha Quadrant, one way or another. He talks to ghosts only he can see. Sometimes he puts on a vacc suit and goes up to the shattered bridge to "consult with the Captain". (eventually structural integrity fields will be erected to make the ruined bridge safe to enter, if incredibly creepy, with its ripped open bulkheads and naked view of the stars).

Cast of Characters:

Dr. Yu: A Paradan scientist and medical replication expert. (see relevent DS9 episode. the Paradans have very advanced bio-replication technology) He is setting up a replication lab and will be creating replicant versions of dead crewmen who have not or can not be replaced. (Bringing back some of those PC's who bit it in the brutal opening scenario. And you thought I was being mean!)

Teplan Doctor: Afflicted with the Blight, he has nevertheless discovered a treatment which will keep it in remission--as long as he gets his ingredients and keeps taking regular doses. Dark Secret: he achieved this breakthrough by experimenting on an unacceptible number of his fellow Teplans, which is how he got "invited" to go somewhere else, now that he could. The medicine requires some ingredients of dubious origins and he is always dealing with the most unsavory of suppliers. But, he is a brilliant surgeon and the best medical doctor Proxima has access to, so...heads are turned. for now.

Yaderan Hologram: A research assistant and field companion created by a Yaderan and equipped with a mobile emitter--in the form of jewelry that is worn.

Agrathi rebel/ex-convict: Permanently at odds with the Agrathi government, he has already served the equivalent of a dozen "life sentences" but still is unbowed. Relatively young, but with centuries of simulated experience. All of it bad.

Various Gamma Quadrant natives: Dosi, Karemma, Skreeans, a wiley Tosk seeking to break the record duration for a hunt, Wadi gamesmen/women etc.

Alpha Quadrant refugees: Some Ferengi merchants who got caught onworld when their ship was destroyed. More importantly, survivors of the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order fleets--with a Cloaking Device.

Locations to visit:

The ramshackle refugee camp inside the nebula--and attendent hot spots, bars, derelict ships, monster-haunted ancient mines etc.

Wadi Game Stations/Casinos: The Wadi maintain space stations hidden away in folded space pocket dimensions that the Dominion cannot get into. Access to these stations is dependent on solving puzzles at a beacon station. Everything on the station has a challenge level of puzzle or game to access. Win the game, get the prize! No credits asked. Lose the game...bad things happen.

Undercover at a Karemma trade center. The Karemma conduct trade with the approval and supervision of the Dominion. Members of an underground conduct clandestine trade without that approval. The PC's will have to go to a trade planet, in disguise, find necessary equipment/supplies and get out without falling afoul of Vorta overseers and their Jem'Hadar enforcers.

etc.

yep.
I think this one would be fun. Probably won't get to find out.
I think I remember other GMs posting about running Gamma Quadrant campaigns. Anyone want to compare notes?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I had a similar idea... I might post my notes later.

[K.G. Carlson]

Never give up, never surrender!

I first began plotting Star Trek RPG scenarios in my early teens. It was 25 years before I actually got to run Star Trek! First time running was at Origins last year. As a nontraditional college student, I don't have time during the semester for gaming, but I've gotten two of my old groups hooked over Christmas break and will be Trekkin' all summer long the way it looks. So hang in there, champ; if you GM it, they will come!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Here's what I could find... I suspect there was more, somewhere.

BATTLESTARTREK: PROXIMA

In 2373, the Dominion declared the Gamma Quadrant forbidden to travellers from the Alpha Quadrant. They slaughter the New Bajor colony and hunt down Federation starships.
USS Proxima. nebula-class. flagship of the refugee fleet. two runabouts?
USS Heliopolis. science vessel, destroyed by the dominion.
USS Maryland. renaissance-class. destroyed by the dominion. pegasus?
USS Sarajevo. colony ship, evacuated New Bajor. only designed to take on a certain amount of colonists
Vayraal. Vulcan science ship, evacuated New Bajor
IKS T'krogh. Klingon BoP. initially antagonistic, hiding something from the fleet
about a half-dozen more bajoran and ferengi vessels

Greem, ferengi freighter captain carrying a shipment of goma-fruit from Karemma. A tracking device was hidden in the fruit shipment by a Dominion agent to keep tabs on the fleet.

Doriun, Vorta in charge of the Warship chasing them.

Yaderans - conquered by the dominion. refugees crawling around the sector
Rakhari - insular totalitarian species.'

Qaphai'i - hierarchal buglike antediluvians, scattered by the Dominon ten millenia ago.
G'thoji - nomadic scavengers.
Moh-Lok - tribal warriors, descendants of the ur-yadera. enslaved some g'thoji as a labour class. engage in hit-and-run tactics against the dominion and steal their equipment.
Vudra - ancient pre-dominion lawgivers; constructed the satellites around the Ennis/Noh-Ennis moon, gave the Lawspeakers to the Rakhari, constructed the Temple of the Five Faces. possibly machine-based lifeforms.

Palaboz - Large Dominion outpost two sectors away.
Internment Camp 366 - where the Maryland personnel are being experimented upon.
Idran outpost - The outpost the dominion builds around the perimetre of the wormhole.

USS Vendetta - patrol
USS Ghandi - diplomatic missions
USS Constellation - colonial assistance

PLOTS
PILOT: during a first contact mission, the Proxima responds to a distress call from New Bajor, and helps hold off the Jem'Hadar as some ships manage to escape.

-RED GIANT: while running from the Dominion pursuers, the Proxima comes across a colony of bug-people living underground.

-the Bajoran's ships begin to break down, and sympathetic aliens are hard to find. A yaderan refugee ship (also in poor repair) tells them about scavenger-aliens that might be able to help, but chasing them down and convincing them to trade may be difficult

-the chieftain of a tribe of pirate-refugees, Omor, wants revenge on the chieftain who sold his people out to the dominion, a ruler named Aru. negotiating with the pirate-refugees for their needs, the fleet becomes embroiled in the conflict. Things turn bad when Aru captures Omor [...]

-sometime after the proxima has been severely damaged, limiting it's tactical abilities, a klingon bird-of-prey enounters the fleet. while the increase in tactical power is welcomed, the klingon's plans for a military assault on the Dominion forces guarding the wormhole to break through divide the fleet. (a la Pegasus)

-the fleet finds a planet in a mysterious nebula shunned by the Dominion. on it resides a powerful but mad entity with the power to send them back. the entity, however, is more interested in having the fleet play out its twisted games.

-information from alien traders leads the fleet to an area where Dominion patrols are light. They discover it's a Borg-controlled area with a transwarp hub they might be able to use to get home. (your chance to do Endgame in a way that doesn't suck).