Post-Apocalyptic Trek Fun

[John Raynor]

After watching a few episodes of "Andromeda," and re-reading
some old "Traveller: the New Era" supplements, I am finding the
idea of running a "post-Apocalyptic Trek" campaign rather
attractive.

I would, however, like to kick the overall level of technology down
a notch or two. The "high Trek-nology" of the "Next Generation"
era makes running a campaign where starships are held together
with duct-tape and used chewing gum, and spare parts are
worth several times their weight in gold-pressed latinum. But
what could undermine the technological infrastructure of the
Trek universe so completely?

Well...
I envision setting this campaign in a "parallel universe," where
the point of departure from the canonical timeline is the Borg's
first invasion of Earth. At one point in "The Best of Both Worlds,"
the idea of using nanotechnological weapons against the Borg is
mentioned, but then quickly rejected because such weapons
would take too long to prepare. Suppose, however, the
Enterprise failed to stop the Borg. The Borg reach Earth,
invade it, and assimilate its inhabitants (along with a great deal
of Federation high technology -- remember, they're interested in
hardware, as well as people).

Starfleet is unable to save the Federation's core worlds (Earth,
Vulcan, Andor, and so forth), but delays the Borg long enough
for scientists working on some planet out at the Federation's
edge to develop those nanotechnological weapons. The
nano-plague is released. Now, Starfleet knows the Borg can
adapt to anything, so the nano-plague is released
simultaneously, in several different parts of what had once been
the Federation. Predictably, the Borg adapt. However,
each group of "infected" Borg adapts in a different way,
and these adaptations are, for the most part, mutually
incompatible. The Borg Collective is shattered into lots of
little Collectives, each of which is convinced that it is the only
real Collective, and that it has to "cure" the rest of the
Collectives of their "impurities." The Borg are lousy diplomats
(even among themselves), and regard compromise as subversion.
Bloody fratricidal war breaks out at once, and the inhabitants of
the Federation's core worlds are assimilated and thrown into
battle as canon-fodder.

But it gets worse. Before the Collective was shattered by the
nano-plague, the Borg had already assimilated quite a bit of
Federation technology. The nano-plague wasn't designed
to prey on Federation technology, but it was designed to
"mutate" like a natural microorganism (to overcome the Borg's
ability to adapt), and eventually a mutation arose which found
Federation technology quite tasty. After "jumping the species
barrier" (like prion diseases, jumping from sheep to cattle to
human beings), the nano-plague began infecting Federation
technology which had no direct contact with the Borg. Shortly
after that, the other starfaring races' hardware was infected, too.

So...imagine nanotechnological weapon that can take over
computers, use replicators to reproduce, and transmit itself (as
replication specifications "wrapped" in some kind of nasty
computer virus) via subspace radio.

I'd say that would kick the Trek universe down a technological
notch or two, and provide lots of "post-Apocalyptic fun."

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[ghosty]

If the plague is as wide spread as you say and as virulent, you're left with a complete systems failure for the whole Federation then you won't have much of a game considering that every Starfleet ship would be dead in space and if you say the plague mutates, it'll infect the tech of all species, it'll be end of civilization as we know it as all starships would full out of the sky. Your post apocalyptic world would be reduced to planet bound adventures.

One suggestion is that there is one remaining Starfleet vessel which had been modified to withstand the effects of the plague - a sort of ultimate contigency plan - its systems loaded with anti-body type nanoviruses. Its up to the crew to defeat the plague and begin the long process of rebuilding a Brave New World.

[Michael Barratt]

You could literally make it a parallel dimension by stranding some PC Crew from the "canon" universe and thereby give them a ship that is free from infection - perhaps the nanites were bred with a "half-life" and it ran out, and the virus is gone, but so is most of the tech the locals would have used to recreate their machines...

If you give them an appropriately lower-tech ship (ie: outdated, like, say an Oberth Class), you could give them limited resources...

The Doc

[Capt.Hunter]

Why not simply have the Borg destroy all the nifty ships in battle? Starfleet sends in the best - and they lose. The PCs then have to make to with a lower tech, upgunned civilian vessel, or a badly damaged Starfleet ship (like Voyager in "Year of Hell"). Seems to me the Borg would target shipyards - we already know the Borg Queen is reluctant to let people or tech escape assimilation in case they come back to haunt the Borg ("Dark Frontier"). Besides, with the Federation core worlds gone, the remnants would have lost much of their vaunted resources and maintaining and/or producing high-tech ships would be a problem. We've already seen from TNG that lower tech members of the Federation make do with Movie-era hand phasers and the like...

[Polanski]

Done that ...

In my campaign the entire Galaxy and sentient species in it have been wiped out by unknown cataclism, the players are investigating it at the moment but time will tell how well will they fare and if they will be able to reverse the cataclism and destruction.

[Admiral Wolf]

Or you could have it where the PC's have to scrounge the remaning parts of the UFP for ship's from TOS era....that are not affected by the "virus".

This would give you the "lower" tech you are looking for....plus no doubt many of the 2260's era ships that remain would be in poor condition...and need to be jury rigged to function.

Just a thought.

[Capt.Hunter]

And, as an ongoing "quest", Starfleet sometimes hides top-of-the-line designs until needed. Remember the bit in the TNG Tech Manual saying that six of the twelve Galaxy-Class spaceframes were assembled to 60% completion and hidden in classified locations until needed? I'm betting those ships ended up fighting in the Dominion War, but there could be, say, a Sovereign lying around partly assembled out there. Finding that and getting it up to operational capacity could be the basis of many adventures (seeing as how the Starfleet Command databases recording its whereabouts would've been destroyed by the virus too - tut, no-one prints hardcopy in the 24th Century...)

[ghosty]

A partially assembled Soveriegn with all the parts there but since none of the computers have been hooked up it could not have been infected by the virus, it was never part of the network for the virus to infect. The only problem is that there are no shipyard facilties to assemble the damn thing. So most of it will have to be done by hand...finding the techs and engineers to build something this huge and complex...without plans and half remembered tech manuals will be a challenge in itself. Especially since age has probably destroyed some of the parts, new or jury rigged ones will have to be added...this could be fun...

I could use this as a time travel adventure the PC ship gets stuck in the future and the with their warp engines wiped out by the time travel, they'll need to locate this disassembled Sovereign to get home again. WIth the help of locals they uncover the partially completed Soveriegn and manage to rebuild it...well the crew would have more up to date knowledge about the Sovereign and how it works...and they can strip their own ship for spares...they return to their own time onboard a jerry rigged Sovereign and prepare to lead a transtime relief effort to the future.

[Captain Zymmer]

I am thinking mid-way point of Season 3 I will spring an Andromeda styled arc on my players...but what makes Andromeda work for me is the fact that the ship is a top of he line ship from their day, so they can survive without the support network.

Why make it even harder on your players?

[ghosty]

Simple answer: Because you can?

IMHO it'll be a good opportunity to take away all the nifty tech that they've become dependent on and teach them to rely on themselves and whatever they can scrape together. The Lexington's a Soveriegn isn't she...lets see how they handle it with a half functioning Constitution...no bio-neural gel packs, no type XII phasers no EMH...just them, their brains (or lack thereof ) in a very nasty universe...no glory to be gained here...survival is all that counts.

[John Raynor]

Originally posted by ghosty
If the plague is as wide spread as you say and as virulent, you're left with a complete systems failure for the whole Federation then you won't have much of a game considering that every Starfleet ship would be dead in space and if you say the plague mutates, it'll infect the tech of all species, it'll be end of civilization as we know it as all starships would full out of the sky. Your post apocalyptic world would be reduced to planet bound adventures.

A complete, civilization-wide infrastructure collapse was precisely
what I was going for. Anything with both (a) "modern" (by which
I mean "Next Generation era") and (b) true replicators (the food
synthesizers of the "Original Series era" wouldn't count) would be
vulnerable. I can see a few starships surviving, but they would
have had to have been both lucky and careful. Being way out in
deep space (beyond the subspace radio relay net's coverage
area) would help, as would being lucky enough to have a
subspace radio malfunction at just the right time. Learning of the
plague without being infected would be tricky, but possible (a
ship assigned to a "deep space exploration mission," for
example, might encounter a series of drifting hulks on its way
home, and somebody aboard is clever enough to figure it).

Only very strict "quarantine" procedures, however, would *keep*
a starship healthy. Keeping the subspace radio turned off, and
carefully decontaminating everyone, and everything, that comes
aboard would be essential (the transporter's "biofilter" would be
very useful, althought it might miss the most recent mutant
nanoplague strains).

Basically, I envision a general retreat from space for several
years. A few "high tech" worlds would survive, and would begin
building new starships with simple, robust, rough-and-ready
"plague-proof retro-tech." Surviving pre-plague "modern"
starships would probably be put in mothballs, in *very* carefully
guarded, strictly quarantined, facilities. They *might* be used for
critical missions, but imagine a deadly, highly-trained commando
who is also a hemophiliac with an impaired immune system.
Mostly, they would be put aside until a "vaccine" could be
perfected, or alternative technologies developed. This would,
however, probably take a while. A lot of knowledge was lost
when the computers crashed, and the Borg probably assimilated
the best scientists and engineers (and then killed them off, in
their plague-induced fratricidal warfare).

Of course, the whole balance-of-power in the Alpha and Beta
quadrants would be screwed up. The Tholians, with their
radically alien technology, would probably be immune to the
nanoplague, and anyone who already had a substantial number
of "retro-tech" starships would suddenly become *very* powerful.
The Klingon Empire would probably Balkanize into dozens of
planetary principalities... I haven't worked out all the implications.

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[John Raynor]

Originally posted by Capt.Hunter
And, as an ongoing "quest", Starfleet sometimes hides top-of-the-line designs until needed. Remember the bit in the TNG Tech Manual saying that six of the twelve Galaxy-Class spaceframes were assembled to 60% completion and hidden in classified locations until needed? I'm betting those ships ended up fighting in the Dominion War, but there could be, say, a Sovereign lying around partly assembled out there. Finding that and getting it up to operational capacity could be the basis of many adventures (seeing as how the Starfleet Command databases recording its whereabouts would've been destroyed by the virus too - tut, no-one prints hardcopy in the 24th Century...)

Yup. This sounds like an excellent idea for an epic quest.
Getting a big Galaxy- or Sovereign-class starship up
and running (even with inferior "plague-proof retro-tech") would
be tough. Suitable parts would be hard to find and/or make
(getting an old Constellation- or Excelsior-class clunker
running would be much easier). Let the PCs start with a
broken-down clunker, in a backwater star system. Give them an
un-glamorous job, like search-and-rescue duty in an asteroid
belt (the mines, abandoned during the "plague years," are
opening up for business again). Then let them stumble upon one
of Starfleet's "secret starship stashes," with a shrink-wrapped,
half-completed Galaxy-class starship tucked away inside a
hollowed-out nickle-iron asteroid. Then let them go scurrying
around, looking for the odds-and-ends needed to make it
spaceworthy, like "Dungeons and Dragons" characters on a quest
for the legendary Rod-of-Seven-Parts...

[TomMarg]

To make this really interesting the crew would have to be assigned to a small ship like a miranda or oberth, or as been suggested a tos era ship, then have the crew find the 'holy grail' of starships that needs to be completed.

The ship should'nt be by any mean's easy to find, so the first part....say season one would be the players just finding out just what the heck happened. The season finally bieng a nasty situation in recovering the ship, with other interested parties desiring possesion of finding the ship and using it for their own neferious reasons.

season two would be hiding it somewhere else and protecting it while the players hunt down the needed hardware to get the ship running. ( all kinds of posssibilities here ).

Hell! I like this idea so much I just might use this myself.

Might make for an interesting source book for dectrek too.

[John Raynor]

Originally posted by TomMarg
To make this really interesting the crew would have to be assigned to a small ship like a miranda or oberth, or as been suggested a tos era ship, then have the crew find the 'holy grail' of starships that needs to be completed.

I'd strongly suggest giving the players an old Miranda- or
Excelsior-class starship. There were still a lot of them in
service in the "Next Generation era," and that alone would
increase the odds of a few surviving the nano-plague. Finding
spare parts for such ships in the post-plague years would be
easier, and as older designs, they would also be fairly easy to
retrofit with "plague-proof retro-tech" (no improvisation required,
since these ships were originally designed for it).

Originally posted by TomMarg
The ship should'nt be by any mean's easy to find, so the first part....say season one would be the players just finding out just what the heck happened. The season finally bieng a nasty situation in recovering the ship, with other interested parties desiring possesion of finding the ship and using it for their own neferious reasons.

I can see the campaign beginning with a mystery. Perhaps the
PCs find the wreckage of a tramp freighter, drifting at the
outskirts of their "home" star system. Investigation of clues found
about the wreckage (log tapes, crew diaries, a cargo that can be
traced to a specific world, and so on) reveals that the freighter's
crew had been "on the trail of Something Big," when their ship
was attacked and boarded by somebody else who was pursuing
the same mystery... The players then get to re-trace the
doomed freighter's route, and eventually find the "Holy Grail of
Pre-Plague Starships."

Originally posted by TomMarg
season two would be hiding it somewhere else and protecting it while the players hunt down the needed hardware to get the ship running. ( all kinds of posssibilities here ).

Shipyards in the post-plague years would be few and far
between. Getting the half-finished ship back to a base capable
of making it fully spaceworthy could be a long, tense game of
"cat and mouse." I envision it being unarmed, half-blind (because
a lot of the secondary sensor packages were never installed) and
generally "brittle" (lacking backup systems, and running on an
ugly patchwork of original equipment and bits of field-installed
retro-tech). For added fun, make it partially vulnerable to the
nano-plague, so the players will have to worry about quarantine
procedures... On the other hand, post-plague adversaries are
generally going to be flying kludgework rust-buckets, too, so the
game won't be completely unfair.

Originally posted by TomMarg
Hell! I like this idea so much I just might use this myself.

Might make for an interesting source book for dectrek too.

If there's anything I can do to help, just ask!