The Final Fate of U.S.S. H.G. Wells

[Dan Stack]

Since I've posted about my Wells game on this board before and received lots of good advice on it, one final post...

Alas, the battered Starfleet vessel, U.S.S. H.G. Wells never made it home... First, she was adrift in time, space, and dimensions. She met universes filled with Borg, met the Voth 65 million years ago... Then she made it to the right time and universe but found herself in the Gamma Quadrant...

In our most recent (and "season finale") adventure, Wells found Iconian ruins (and hints the Iconians were behind their temporal displacement). Sadly, the Dominion wanted those ruins. Outgunned, the Wells destroyed a Dominion battleship (like the one from "Valiant") by ramming it while self-destructing.

Yet this sacrifice gave the crew, evacuated to the planet below, just time enough to figure out how to use an Iconian portal to return home while destroying the ruins so they could not be used by the Dominion...

Seeds were planted for a follow-up campaign. The Chief Medical Officer (a Betazoid) had been badly effected by the temporal shifts. But when they ended, she got even worse, becoming somewhat insane and preaching about God being at the center of the Galaxy. She did not go back with the rest of the crew. The Iconian portal, in addition to showing Deep Space Nine and other worlds, showed a bizarre planet, one near the center of the galaxy. The CMO sprinted through the portal to that world to be closer to God... With the Jem'Hadar reinforcements on their way the characters couldn't save her.

And the characters also found a coarse map of the galaxy, showing other Iconian ruins. One near the center of the galaxy. Another somewhere in the Kellinan Reach (as detailed in the DS9 Core Book).

Overall, the adventure and the campaign went pretty well. I think I ended the time and dimensional travel just before it started seeming like season one of Doctor Who...

The Wells herself seemed to lack some life in the earlier adventures. However, with time she became quite alive. Special thanks go out to people who gave good advice in helping bring the Wells to life, especially Tonyg's reminding me of the importance of down-time.

With that, I realized that I was doing something that I hated on Voyager. Much like Voyager ignoring the Maquis, I was beginning to forget the consequences of a ship filled with Starfleet officers, Klingons, Romulans, and smugglers... No adventure centered around these differences, but spending time in "downtime" allowed me to highlight the differences and feelings of the various factions on the Wells. Especially notable was when the most senior Klingon on board was killed in a duel by his second in command, Lt. Krenn,over a disagreement...

It was fortunate that the Wells grew to become a home, for it made her loss seem more real. Gone was the infamous Cargo Bay Three, where the smugglers had been secretly hoarding rare collectibles from different times. Gone was the holodeck and the Virginia Jones programs. Gone was the smugglers' modifications to the engineering section of the Wells. However, she died a noble death, giving her crew the time needed to get home and stop the Dominion from obtaining Iconian technology.

What's next for the group? A bit of sabbatical from Star Trek. Next week is a one-shot Toon adventure, where I get to be a player. Time to break out "Melvin the Martian" After which we switch gears to D&D for a few months. But I suspect that the crew of the Wells will someday find themselves together again at Bridgetown, on the fringes of the Federation...

"My God Bones, what have I done?"
"What you always do. What you keep doing. Change death into a fighting chance to live"
-Kirk and McCoy, "Star Trek III"

"I am not having a good day!"
- Lieutenant Ophella Tar, First Officer (and acting captain in the season finale) of the Wells, upon discovering the smugglers had "lost" a baby Utahraptor while at the same time dealing with a Founder infiltration and an imminent Jem'Hadar attack.


(Note -- some of the past posts on this game are still on the board. The two most interesting are: http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/For...ML/000446.html http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/For...ML/000503.html

[pesterfield]

Where did they arrive? Dropping them in the lobby of SFHQ could've been interesting.

What about all the non Starfleet crew, will Starfleet approve all the promotions and assignments?

Did the nonStarfleet characters decide to stay in Starfleet or did they return to their respective lives before the 'Wells'?

With the time/dimension hopping how much time has passed for them as opposed to home?

Could you put transcripts on a webpage?

[Dan Stack]

The characters arrived in Quark's Bar, just before closing (well, actually, a few minutes after closing, Quark was trying to get rid of Morn for the night...) About six months passed in game-time, both from the perspective of the crew and the rest of the universe. (Six months is a long time to spend on a tiny Defiant-class vessel...)

The non-Starfleet personnel will return to their normal lives, but normal for them has changed. It will actually be a large part of the next game, which is months away (after some D&D) but I know a few things...
- The Romulan character, Ayrton of the Tal Shiar, was the sole survior of half a dozen Romulans on Wells. This will not look good. I can see him being "banished" to Bridgetown, much like Garak. Of course, learning about the Iconians would allow him to regain his lost Glory...
- The smugglers see major profit potential. They too will likely go to Bridgetown in search of the Iconian ruins.
- I also need to balance how Starfleet Intelligence (and perhaps Section 31) will feel about the knowledge the non-Starfleet personnel have.

Of course, this will all be in "Season Two" which isn't really in the planning stages yet.

As for writeups, I have them in word format. It's such a pain to put them in html format. I might just plop them onto my webpage as-is, in Microsoft word format.

[This message has been edited by Dan Stack (edited 08-06-2000).]

[ZytelST801]

I would be intested in reading the writeups. How can I get a copy?

Also: I feel like I'm in a parallel universe here. I'm gone for a few months and WOTC buys LUG... Hmmm... Must have took a wrong turn at the quantum keyhole.

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"ARRRGH! DAMN THAT PLECOSTOMUS!!"-- Captain Mark Roster of the USS Yammato seconds after his arch-nemisis eats his starbord warp nacelle.

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by Dan Stack:
As for writeups, I have them in word format. It's such a pain to put them in html format. I might just plop them onto my webpage as-is, in Microsoft word format.

Which version of Word do you use, Dan? If you want to be lazy and are using Word 97, you could just Save As an .html document and put it up that way. It's worked for me when I've been in a hurry.


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Doug Burke

McCoy: "You're taking me to the promised land?"
Kirk: "That's what you get for missing staff meetings, Doctor."

[Owen E Oulton]

Alternatively, save 'em in plain vanilla ASCII. I'm not a big fan of using proprietary word-processor formats for web documents (like Word). Dan, if you want to send 'em to me, I can put 'em in .HTML format for you.

[Dan Stack]

Ow. If I remembered what a pain in the butt webpages were I wouldn't have bothered...

Your wish is my command. You can find the beginnings of a Wells webpage at: http://www.geocities.com/breschau_of...lls/Intro.html

So far, just writeups for two adventures. Six more to go. "What, just eight adventures?! It sounded like a game of 127 tightly linked adventures..."

Since returning to "active" gamemastering about two years ago, I discovered both me and my groups suffered from burnout if a game lasted too long. Since then I've operated on the theory of "leave them wanting more". I'd rather end a game four adventures too early than one to late. This game was a rough one due to the "real world". During it, we lost one player due to personal reasons, another was entering business school, my wife and I discovered the joys of buying a home, and a month-long period from late-August to late-September when we wouldn't be able to get together... Not to say the game was a bad one -- much to the contrary, I'm very pleased the way it went but I began seeing the very early signs of burnout in myself a bit earlier as a result of these and other non-game issues... By ending the game on a good note, we hope to pick it up again some time in the future.

Rather than clutter the board with constant updates, I'll just post one update when I'm done html-izing adventure logs. Anytime from a week to a month I'd guess, as I still have to do a writeup for the final adventure and prep for our D&D game. However, any questions about the game, feel free to fire them off.

[Commander Phil]

Depending on what the map of the Iconian gates details, I can picture a "Stargate" style campaign where the crew could possibly travel throughout the galaxy on away mission, charting unexplored regions of the galaxy. Some known, or even unknown, race could pose the characters a threat, much like the Gou'ald (I think that's how you spell it). Any hoo, just a thought

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I fight fires 'cause the voices tell me to...

[tonyg]

Dan,

Sorry to hear about the end of campaign (or haitus-it didn't bode well for DR WHO either). I'll have to check out you web page on the Wells.

PS.> Some ideas for Season Two.

1) Have the Iconian ruins destroyed at a time BEFORE the PCs got home.

2) Have the Wells be found somewhere INTACT. (THis is a great way to get everyone back on board to check the ship out, giving you the chance to revive the campaign).

[pesterfield]

Due to the Iconian gates exploration by them used few ships, however when ships where needed much of the journey could be skipped by using a gate projected from a groundbased station.

For some reason a gate was projected in the path of the 'Wells' as it collided with the Jem'Hadar vessel. 'Wells' passed through the gate but the Jem'Hadar vessel was destroyed by the 'Wells' passage through the gateway.

The gateway also fried the 'Wells' computer systems, but this can be fixed with a few engineering skill rolls which should bring all systems, including a frozen at 00:01 autodestruct sequence, back online.

At least that's one way you could do it, comments?

[Dan Stack]

Don't be sad... True, it ended a little earlier than expected (I had planned 12 adventures), but it was a good run which was always intended as a "limited series". And hopefully our hiatus will go better than Doctor Who's! We have picked up other games that were on hiatus (indeed, Wells game, was, in many ways, a continuation of an earlier LUG-Trek game) so there is hope.

But, I do like the idea of finding Wells intact... That'd make a great opener for season two. And I actually had mentioned the gateway "projecting a small transwarp conduit..."

[This message has been edited by Dan Stack (edited 08-08-2000).]

[SIR SIG]

That sounds like a good idea... A the final fate of the USS ..... All the narrators could drop a line about how the PC lost yet another ship. Personally my PCs have come from 3 destroyed ships.
Any ways what board would be best; narrators or general chat?

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[tonyg]

I always though the idea of the "lost starship returinning intact" was a good one. I had hoped PARAMOUNT would have thought so for ST IV, but there's nothing like recycling a good idea.


Still, the Wells was a personal favorite, even if I didn't get to play in the campaign.

The fact they you are switcing over to 3E (boo, hiss) from ICON seems sort of symbolic these days.

[Dan Stack]

Actually got around to adding all the adventure logs...
http://www.geocities.com/breschau_of...lls/Intro.html

And perhaps there may be more in the future...