Sanmateo's CODA Star Trek questions

[Sanmateo]

I figured that if I'm going to be asking a lot of questions and seeking input here and there it would be best not to make a new thread every time, eventually cluttering up the forum. So I'll be posting my "How the heck...?" and "What about...?" questions here instead.

As for now I've scribbled out a rough adventure for next Saturday's game and have question about something with that. Bear with me because it this may take a minute to present with any clarity.

After the all-day two part game session that kicked off our campaign all the PCs had just barely managed an advancement, so they went ahead and "levelled up" their characters. One of them, Marisa Rodriguez, had the Medical Deficiency flaw (can't remember where I picked that one up, to be honest). So she took the Medical Remedy edge to get rid of it rather than just "buying it off" so we could plug that into the next game session.
Since I wanted the ship at or near Vulcan soon I decided Marisa had been invited to participate in some Vulcan medical exchange thing that would test the adaptability of various Vulcan medical treatments to other physiologies. So I get to cure Marisa's illness and drag the crew on over to Vulcan for the next session.

To make a long story short, they'll be on Vulcan for the upcoming session. Since we 've been using a homebrew system of "spotlights" and "shines" to emphasize particular PCs during each "episode" of a campaign (and give the game more of a t.v. series kinda feel), the players had already determined that this episode would have the captain in the "spotlight", with Marisa and West (two other PCs) each getting "shines" (not quite the "spotlight" but just an opportunity for their character to do something cool and get the focus for a moment).

For T'Pril, the captain, that's easy. Since she has the spotlight here this episode is all about her. She'll be working on the behalf of Section 31 to retrieve a gadget from a Romulan sympathizer who works in the building where Rodriguez has been treated. They come to pick her up on Vulcan and T'Pril slips off for a quick bit of cloak and dagger while everyone's busy with Marisa. Then she gets caught, gets in a short one-on-one fight with the Romulan sympathizer and everyone has to dash off back to the ship before all hell breaks loose. In the process they get shot down and have to fight off a couple of actual Romulan infiltrators in Vulcan's Forge during the last half of the episode.

Marisa is easy, too. She's already got a bit of a "shine" since the whole episode hinges on the crew coming to fetch her in the first place but I'll be giving her a chance to do some fancy flying over the Forge (she's the flight control officer and has a skill specialty in atmospheric flight).

When I get to Jennifer West, the science officer, I'm suddenly having trouble coming up with anything cool for her "shine". I figure she's a science officer and all her best skills are in science, so her shine is pretty obvious. But...in the Forge there's this naturally occurring dampening field up to a few hundred feet or so that kinda makes sciency stuff hard to pull off. It interferes with power emissions and drains the charge out of anything powered anyway.
For her I'd love to figure out some kind of quick-fix way around a dampening field, even for just a second in order to fire a phase pistol at a bad guy or something. Can't figure any way of justifying that and it seems to throw off the whole purpose of a dampening field anyway.
A nice MacGyver gimmick would be cool, too. But your standard potato-cannon or makeshift gunpowder bomb is just too cheesy even for me. Doesn't fit Jennifer West's player's style anyway. And my players would probably roll their eyes at me and take away the pizza anyway if I tossed something like that in their lap.

So here's what I'm thinking. Looking over the Enterprise trio of episodes dealing with the Forge (The Forge • Awakening • Kir'Shara ) I notice two things.
1) There wasn't anything stopping the High Command from bombing the place from above the dampening field, so we know powered explosives work (I assume as long as they detonate before having the power sucked out of them).
2) A phase pistol set to overcharge is just such a powered explosive, right?

So I figure Jennifer West's sciency "shine" would be figuring out how to charge up the power cell on a phase pistol enough to blow it up before the dampening field sucked the power right back out of it. But how?
Well, gallicite deposits. Let our MacGyver girl figure out how to tap into the powerful zap those things give off to charge up a phase pistol power cell, quickly set the thing to overload and blow up a couple of Romulan bad guys. And this makes for a pretty good shine since the Vulcan environment is so harsh it will beat up everyone but the captain before the Romulans even catch up with them. Even four PCs (a Vulcan, an Andorian and two Humans) probably shouldn't tackle two Romulans agents hand-to-hand in the Forge and expect not to get their butts handed to them. A handy "grenade" like this will be quite welcome to them at that moment, I'm sure.

So, is this doable? I want to give my Trekkie geeks a nice campaign but I certainly don't want them turned off because my Treknoscience is too screwy.
A little screwy is okay...just not too screwy.

[Cut]

Haven't read the whole thing you posted, but I say, clutter away.

More and shorter posts make it easier to follow than a very long thread, including everything.

Whatever you do, I think you'll get answers

I shall go reading up your post now!

[iltharanos]

One idea is perhaps the Forge isn't the only place on Vulcan with such a dampening field, and that the other areas are similar but with one key difference: The other areas only have the dampening effect during certain times of the year (coincidentally, this is not one of those times where the dampening effect is in place).

Your Science Officier's "shine" moment can be to figure out how, if at all, the fluctuating dampening fields are related to the permanent one in the Forge. Plus, it's a good excuse to go sightseeing around the planet.

[Sanmateo]

One idea is perhaps the Forge isn't the only place on Vulcan with such a dampening field, and that the other areas are similar but with one key difference: The other areas only have the dampening effect during certain times of the year (coincidentally, this is not one of those times where the dampening effect is in place).

Your Science Officier's "shine" moment can be to figure out how, if at all, the fluctuating dampening fields are related to the permanent one in the Forge. Plus, it's a good excuse to go sightseeing around the planet.

Interesting!
The wife tells me that the Vulcan pon'farr(?) is every seven years and that this developed to match the seven year period at which Vulcan (the planet) was farthest away from the system's star, and thus had the lowest level of background radiation. Safest time to make little baby Vulcans. Or something like that.
So if that's true and Vulcan does have some kind of lopsided revolution (and there's nothing to say I can't simply make it so in my campaign universe) then...well, there you go. We'd at least have a logical place to start looking into any cyclic phenomenon involving the planet itself.

[iltharanos]

Interesting!
The wife tells me that the Vulcan pon'farr(?) is every seven years and that this developed to match the seven year period at which Vulcan (the planet) was farthest away from the system's star, and thus had the lowest level of background radiation. Safest time to make little baby Vulcans. Or something like that.
So if that's true and Vulcan does have some kind of lopsided revolution (and there's nothing to say I can't simply make it so in my campaign universe) then...well, there you go. We'd at least have a logical place to start looking into any cyclic phenomenon involving the planet itself.

Even better, perhaps your half-vulcan crew member may also be affected (in whole, or in part) by the pon'farr!

Talk about your complications.

[Sanmateo]

Even better, perhaps your half-vulcan crew member may also be affected (in whole, or in part) by the pon'farr!

Talk about your complications.

My wife GMs about half the time (and has actually run more games over the last year than I have, come to think of it). Of course she already thought of that and pinned me down on it before she even rolled up her character. She gets the Chief Engineer for her love interest in this series in exchange for plugging her character into a couple of integral background plots.
Of course, she doesn't know I intend for him to play hard to get. Or maybe a nice little love triangle with the Communications Officer? Which, come to think of it, could result in some serious drama when the plak tow kicks in. The Captain chasing the Communications Officer around the ship with a lirpa comes to mind.
Hey, she'd do it to me.

[Sanmateo]

Here's another...

I've already very roughly sketched out the first "season" of the campaign, passed it around the table and had the players determine their PC's standing in each episode. Having done that I went ahead and finished up the next session for this coming weekend. So now I find I'm all caught up and looking ahead a bit to fill in a few blanks on the coming episodes.

Looking at episode IV (which will be our third session, since the PC's blew right through the two-parter premiere) the basic premise is a run out past Agosoria Nebula to drop off a subspace amplifier (a little ref to Ent: Silent Enemy). Secretly that subspace amplifier has been modified by Section 31 to act as a listening post to detect and surveill any Romulan transmissions in the area, addressing concerns that Romulan "pirates" might come after Earth interests from that direction. Hence our PCs being tapped to deliver it. And only the captain knowing about that little detail.
So I get to drop a nice trip through a nebula that no one (as far as I know) has ever said anything about yet canon-wise. I've decided it's a Hugora Class Nebula (knocks out sensors and shields - and I'm assuming that means hull polarization as well). I also need something integral for T'Pril and P'Trell to do.

Here's what I'm thinking...

What if the Vulcans have had pretty much the same idea? At this point in the campaign the so-called Federation between the five species isn't really tied together with a clearly defined common threat other than an unusual amount of piracy going on (Romulans haven't been identified yet as anything other than a glorified pirate gang, much like the Orions). So there's still a good bit of tension and distrust between five powers that are supposedly allied.
So if the Vulcans have decided they need to drop a subspace amplifier there as well? And they likewise have theirs rigged to watch for Romulans? Section 31 accurately perceives the Romulan Star Empire isn't just a cool name for a bunch of pirates but references an actual empire bent on expansion. Likewise the Vulcan V'Shar (intelligence agency) has come around to that idea. And both groups have made a point not to let that get around just yet and certainly don't want anyone knowing they're preparing for a Romulan invasion.

So along comes the Vigilant through the Agosoria Nebula where they run upon another ship (some tension identifying that ship in the nebula before someone gets nervous and starts shooting). Once the two are talking we find out they're both here for the same thing, dropping a subspace amplifier. But of course our captain knows her amplifier is rigged specifically to detect Romulan communications in the area. So she needs her amplifer deployed here. But then so does the Vulcan captain.

So what I need to make this work is the idea that both amplifiers can't be deployed right here. The two being in such proximity to one another causes interference or something.
The two ships end up at odds, both insisting their amplifier being deployed. And their conflict over this strikes both their crews as silly since Earth and Vulcan both communicate over the same network these days. It doesn't matter who's amplifer is deployed here. Except of course it does. Because both captains think their amplifier has a unique covert aspect the other doesn't. And neither side is about to explain exactly why their amplifier has to be deployed.
So while they're butting heads of this and/or waiting for their superiors to play politics over it...the Vulcan captain, being the sort to take his job very seriously, decides to drop a saboteur on the Vigilant and wreck the PCs subspace amplifier deployer gizmo. Viola. You can't deploy yours anyway so I guess that means we'll be dropping mine here, silly humans.
T'Pril gets to play politics, negotiate and have a secret mission that's in jeopardy. P'Trell gets to track down a saboteur through the ship, catch him and interrogate him. The ship as a whole gets to deal with the nebula and sabotage.
Then I'll probably have the Silent Enemy show up, shoot at everyone a bit, destroy whatever amplifier was eventually deployed and ride off into the sunset. Or Section 31 and the V'Shar get together, realize they're both doing the same thing and try to shut up the two ships out there making a spectacle of their supposedly covert missions. Just drop an amplifer already!

So is the idea that both amplifiers can't be deployed in the same general area workable? Can I get away with a little treknobabble explaining why this is not an option? I've a full two weeks before this session comes around so that's plenty of time to scrap the whole thing and come up with something else. Illuminating on the mystery of the Silent Enemy is probably the direction I'll go if this isn't workable.

[Sanmateo]

Oh, also. Anyone have stats on Orion Interceptors? I'd like a couple of them to kick-start the Federation/Romulan war in the episode immediately following the subspace amplifer/nebula situation. I looked around but didn't find anything.

[iltharanos]

I love episodes where multiple things all come to a convergence. As long as it won't drive you crazy, that sounds like an excellent adventure session for your group. Saboteurs, political tension, and crazy alien antagonists, all in one nebula!

Specifically with the amplifier: The beauty of treknobabble and being GM is that you can make it do whatever you want, then explain it away using treknology. A thought occurred to me that while the vulcans and humans try to find a way to make both their amplifiers function in the same area, the vulcans with their superior technical prowess can explain that onboard their ship they would have the facilities to modify the human amplifier to make it so it does not interfere with the vulcan amplifier. This gives you one way to introduce a saboteur into the mix. One way to throw your group for the loop is to have the saboteur then be a human in the employ of the vulcans, but make it seem as though one of the vulcan scientists modified the human amplifier.

Don't know if there are any stats out for the Orion Interceptor, but if you've got the starships book it should be fairly easy to cook up some stats. Based on the one episode we saw them in, I'd say make them faster and pack a slightly more powerful punch than an NX class of the 2150s.

[Sanmateo]

Specifically with the amplifier: The beauty of treknobabble and being GM is that you can make it do whatever you want, then explain it away using treknology. A thought occurred to me that while the vulcans and humans try to find a way to make both their amplifiers function in the same area, the vulcans with their superior technical prowess can explain that onboard their ship they would have the facilities to modify the human amplifier to make it so it does not interfere with the vulcan amplifier. This gives you one way to introduce a saboteur into the mix. One way to throw your group for the loop is to have the saboteur then be a human in the employ of the vulcans, but make it seem as though one of the vulcan scientists modified the human amplifier.

That's a pretty good idea! I'll go with that. Thanks.

Don't know if there are any stats out for the Orion Interceptor, but if you've got the starships book it should be fairly easy to cook up some stats. Based on the one episode we saw them in, I'd say make them faster and pack a slightly more powerful punch than an NX class of the 2150s.

I already whipped up a little Orion Fast Attack ship I'll be using. I'll play around with it a bit and see if I can throw two or maybe three of them at the Vigilant all at once. They'll already have been beat up a good bit by the Rodger Young (Daedalus class) once the Vigilant gets there, so I don't think it'll be a problem. One or two can always bug out, leaving a heavily damaged one behind. My main focus here being establishing the ships are crewed by Romulans which, following years of Romulan "pirate raids", will set off the war.

"Treknology"
The fact that this word exists and can be used in a sentence largely illustrates why I'm lovin' this game setting as a GM.

[PGoodman13]

I think there's an Orion ship or two up on my support site (the ships would have been made by K.G. Carlson). Something there might strike your fancy.

[Sanmateo]

I think there's an Orion ship or two up on my support site (the ships would have been made by K.G. Carlson). Something there might strike your fancy.

First place I looked! Already got the Lightning Class IV blockade runner from your site. Thanks again for your site!

[K.G. Carlson]

First place I looked! Already got the Lightning Class IV blockade runner from your site. Thanks again for your site!

I've got another Orion ship in the drydock. Next week is Starfleet's turn, but the week after I'll bump it up to first in the bad guys' queue.

[Sanmateo]

I've got another Orion ship in the drydock. Next week is Starfleet's turn, but the week after I'll bump it up to first in the bad guys' queue.

It should probably be up before the actual game session comes around then. Even if it's not, I'll be using a few Orion ships here and there during the campaign anyway.
Thanks!

[K.G. Carlson]

It should probably be up before the actual game session comes around then. Even if it's not, I'll be using a few Orion ships here and there during the campaign anyway.
Thanks!

If it turns out you need it early, PM me and I'll email you an eary release copy. The game must go on!