Seeking help developing episodes/adventures

[JALU3]

Greetings everyone!
I am looking for assistance in developing episode/adventure ideas for the campaign that is described at this thread. The player character's ship will be transferred to the Beta Quadrant in the area of Federation Space (another map of the area) containing Starbase 105, Starbase 36, and Starbase 152. I imagine that area of space to be loosely populated, with lesser developed warp-capable Federation member worlds, and by many colonial worlds (in the Federation's attempt to outgrow the Romulan and Klingon empires and control that area of space). Now, since I (Starfleet) am no longer assigning them as a sector patrol craft, but as a wide ranging scout for the fleet that has general operational command over this far flung part of the Federation (I am saying 15th fleet), I need episodes for them. The period of time is the latter half of 2367 (4th Season TNG), before the Klingon Civil War erupts.
I have come up with the following ideas:
Idea 1 - 2290's era federation phasers being supplied to insurgent of a Klingon Empire client world with a surpressed species; ultimatly discovered being supplied by Klingons looking to tarnish federation/klingon relations (perhaps as part of the Duras/Romulan plot)

Idea 2 - just outside Federation/Klingon space a system (possibly rim-ward of Canopus) with a just about level 5 tech world is being used as a dumping ground for industrial waste by mostly klingon and some federation colonial worlds; becomes problem when planet becomes effected and using steam punk level tech send ships into space to find out what is causing the problem (using balloons to get to the far upper atmosphere, and steam generating electric thrust drives (slow acceleration/long duration))

Idea 3 - two planets, federation colony worlds, one balking at the regulations placed upon it by the core planets (particularly unable to mine resource rich planets in a neighboring system that has a tech level 2 civ), but does not want to sever ties; another struggling to survive (due to many who are unwilling/unable to work)(highly automated society, whose robot start breaking down (few if any know how to repair them)(few industrial replicators to supply parts)) wanting more support than the Federation can provide given the distance from the core worlds

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Regarding the waste-dumping thing—given the amount of actual empty space any given system has, it doesn't really make sense to haul it light-years away.

Maybe, instead, you could take the idea of the dangerous of electronic part reclamation (big industry in parts of China and India, with serious health hazards for people who do it) and apply it to a Klingon world where a subject species is given the hazardous job of dealing with industrial waste and parts reclamation. Their overseers, already filled with Klingony disregard for medicine, ignore some sort of mutant plasma plague spreading through the populace (make it hard to diagnose, so the Klingons are half-reasonable in suspecting the subjects of malingering) forcing the subjects to rise up and arm their waste-tugs and freighters, hoping to either steal or ransom for some aid.

[JALU3]

I was thinking that from the distance of the oort cloud the dumpers would launch the waste into that system's sun, and doing so causes some sort of negative effect to the level 4 steam-punk planet.
That being said I like the idea of a client race of the Klingon Empire having the difficult and environmentally disruptive task of breaking up old ships, quickly landing old D7s onto the planet.
But how would this involve a size 3 Starfleet Scout if it is done by a nominal ally?

[Sea Tyger]

2. Here's a different take on this idea: Instead of a "steampunk" world, make it an industrial world at the beginning of its space age. One of the world's two or three superpowers has just launched the first ever satellite, which is promptly hit by a container of space trash, sending both objects hurtling back to the planet.

The wreckage of both objects lands in a neutral nation, and the world discovers that the space trash is extra-terrestrial in nature and came from the rings of one of the system's outer gas giants. The superpowers begin to build up their space programs with the intention of reaching that gas giant first (to secure the "surely advanced" alien technology, so they can reverse engineer it and gain an advantage in their ongoing cold war).

Fast forward several years (10-12 or so), and at least two nations have reached the origin of the space trash...an independent group of miners from the Federation, based on a moon with an atmosphere (maybe the gas giant is actually a brown dwarf, allowing the combined heat from the center star and the brown dwarf to make the moon habitable). The miners are gathering materiel from the gas giant/brown dwarf's rings, apparently unaware that there's a civilization on one of the inner planets.

Enter the PCs. Starfleet has become aware of the miners and send the PCs to suspend their operations (due to some regulation mining without proper rights being granted or something). They find the miners under siege/captured by/caught between the two or three rivals, and must resolve the situation peacefully and get the miners safely away.

3. Instead of the two colonies, make it one, and use the plot to examine the consequences of an extreme post-industrial society where robots perform all of the menial labor, manufacturing and service tasks. The technical expertise of the society long ago gave way to a civilization filled with artists and philosophers.

The colony's infrastructure has begun to fail. Robots are no longer manufactured, and the ones built to maintain and repair other robots have failed in recent years. Now, the society is facing total collapse as the other robots are ceasing to function, and no one knows how to fix them or perform their technical jobs. They call for help, and the PCs are the ones who respond.

Is this a Prime Directive situation? Should the colony be allowed to fail and fall into anarchy? Or should the PCs find a way to get some part of the robot workforce running again and arrange for the Federation to send advisers to train some colonists in technology? What if the colony leaders resist the idea of learning to perform manual labor, or react so badly to the idea, they send their robot guards after the PCs? Do the PCs look to incite a revolution to save the society?