A Halloween adventure featuring those spooky Tholians

[eharborclub]

I've really enjoyed the Adventure seeds thread, but felt that the adventure my gaming group played tonight needed a bit more explanation. I hope you all can make use of it in your campaigns as it is easily adaptable to TOS, TNG, or post Dominion war series.

As a bonus, tomorrow I'll be posting a mini-Tholian race profile, presented by two recurring characters in my campaign, Dr. Phoot Mcpherson and Dr. Telaya, Federation exobiologists. I'll also be posting Tholian ships in the Utopia Planitia forum.

Hope you enjoy the adventure!

[eharborclub]

Life, Death, and Spatial Interphase

Synopsis:

Part 1 – Ship in Distress!

The U.S.S. Lexington, a Constitution class cruiser, receives a distress call from the U.S.S. Aria Bella, an Antares class science vessel. Responding to the distress call, the Lexington’s crew encounters an area of time and space distortion. Navigating through and/or around the distortion area the Aria Bella’s crew is discovered to be dead except for 4 officers, all found in a life pod on the opposite side of the distortion area. One of the 4 officers is somehow related closely to the player characters, perhaps a loved one, former lover, or a relative. (Narrators note: In my game, the officer in question was a former lover of the Captain of the players ship and a related to the player)


There is no reason for the Aria Bella to be in this area as it was on survey mission of a binary star solar system 80 light years away. The ship has had all power drained from it’s impulse engines. Surprisingly, the warp core has been jettisoned.

The 4 recovered officers are all on the verge of death from lack oxygen deprivation. They are revived by the Lexington’s medical staff, but are unable to remember the events that led up to their escape into the life pod. (Narrator’s note: The Doctor notes that due to their fragile state, any attempt at this time to perform hypnosis, mind melds, or mental scans of the officers may send them into shock. Such an event may endanger the individual who initiated the mental scan or a mind meld. Even at the captain’s insistence, the Doctor must deny any attempt to perform these actions at this time.). All the officers can remember is that an area of time-space distortion had developed between the 3rd and 4th planets in the solar system they had been surveying. The captain ordered the crew to investigate and a course was set. They can remember nothing after arriving near the area.

The Lexington’s science department reports that the area of time-space distortion has developed into an area of spatial interphase, first encountered by the U.S.S. Enterprise on the now border of Federation and Tholian space.

If the players have not already thought of doing so, the 4 officers demand to return to the Aria Bella to recover data they have collected, hoping to piece together what happened. The Doctor objects, but does allow them free reign on the player’s ship. The players may suggest that a communications link to download information stored on the Aria Bella’s computer core. If this can be established in a short amount of time, the health risk to the crew Lexington’s crew (due to being in the spatial interphase area) would be minimized.

Beaming over to the disabled ship to place portable power generators (on the bridge, the engineering section, the medical section, and the computer section) the players encounter death of many types all over the ship. On the Aria Bella, the main cargo bay is very near the engineering section. Anyone heading to the engineering room will smell the strong stench of decayed flesh and humanoid death. The engineering team (perhaps with one of the players) first discovers traces of a force field with in the ship’s main cargo bay, unlike any Federation design, that had abruptly cut off. Once the team enters the main cargo bay, many are overwhelmed with the smell of decayed flesh and death. The smell is so strong that a few of the team wretch and/or pass out.

Within the main cargo bay, surgical beds and anti-gravity mats are spread about. Missing members of the Aria Bella’s crew, like the Captain, the Chief Engineer and the First Officer are strewn about along with other junior members of the Starfleet crew. A minimal inspection of the dead reveals a truly gruesome scene. The most benign of which belongs to crewmen who have had autopsies performed on them. The worst reveals that brains, eyes, and all the major organs have been removed from several of the crew, left to lie next to their formerly functional bodies.

Some of the crew has had their body parts amputated, only to have been attached to other members of the crew. Along these same lines, there appears to have been organ transplants conducted from one crewmember to another. Other crewmembers have been left in odd positions, as if their nervous system had been stimulated. A few even appear to have been left in contorted shapes as if operated upon while still alive (Narrator’s note: Indeed, several of the Aria Bella’s crew were still alive, but not coherent or sane in any sense.). The last of the crewmembers experimented upon have various the liquids drained from their bodies (blood, bile, stomach acid), a few have had all liquid drained from their bodies.

Horrified at this discovery, the players on board must continue to install the power generators and computer data extractors. Before this can be completed, the teams aboard the Aria Bella are informed by the Lexington’s science department that the spatial interphase area has become extremely unstable. The players are warned to beam back within 5 minutes. The Aria Bella begins to fade out of normal space within 3 minutes, and disappears completely just as the teams are transported back to the Lexington.

Part 3 – A death in the family

Shortly afterward, one of the 4 recovered officers from the Aria Bella dies on the bridge, quite violently including convulsions. The Doctor reports upon completion of the autopsy that a previously undetected synaptic failure, coupled with a sudden brain aneurysm, was the cause of death.

The 3 surviving officers are extremely shaken by the 1st officers death, as he was the one officer everyone relied on and many of the Aria Bella’s crew looked up to with respect.

The Doctor checks the 3 officers. Medical tests reveal the same synaptic failure is present in them as well with varying degrees of decay. The medical officer is able to temporarily stabilize the 3 officers. Unfortunately, without knowing the cause of the synaptic failure, the medical officer can only guess at how to permanently cure the officers. At present, the medical officer can only slow the process (and hopefully prevent any brain aneurysms).

To the surprise of everyone, the Aria Bella returns to normal space. The players then consult with the Captain and the senior staff (Narrator’s note: if they are not already part of the senior staff) as to what course of action should be taken.

The security chief and the Chief medical officer interrupt to report to the Captain during this meeting. Reports of vandalism, fighting among the crew, hallucinations, euphoria, paranoia, start occurring all at once. Ships security and medical personnel have attempted to deal with the problems but are fighting a losing battle. Walking in the ship is somewhat hazardous, and the Captain orders everyone to secure to duty stations, again with limited success.

With ships sensors continually malfunctioning, something else appears within the spatial interphase area. Returning to the bridge to investigate, one of the junior bridge officers attacks the player characters and almost injures the Captain in the process.

Part 4 – Enter the Tholians

Shortly after the Aria Bella returns to normal space, a contingent of Tholian ships arrive inexplicably out of nowhere. The science officer determines they have traveled through the spatial interphase, and theorizes that the Tholians may have discovered a way to travel through the dimensional rifts in the spatial interphase areas across the universe. After this startling theory is put forth, the Tholians hail the Lexington. The Tholian commander, Niskal, declares all non-Tholian ships in the area to leave immediately or be absorbed by the spatial interphase and thereby destroyed.

The three surviving officers are instantly horrified when they learn of the Tholians arrival but cannot explain why. One of the 3 officers collapses and becomes catatonic. She dies soon after. The doctor reports that a sudden neurological episode essentially shorted out her brain due to the lack of fully functioning synapses.

At this point, the science officer reports that the ships sensors have been fully restored, by compensating for the interference caused by the spatial interphase. The science officer also reports that Aria Bella has returned near to its initial point of disappearance, but gravitational forces have caused it to drift back deeper into the spatial interphase area.

The players should respond to the Tholian demands and ask why they have violated Federation space. The Tholians respond by stating that this is no longer Federation space, it is a Tholian territorial annex. They further inform that the player’s question clearly shows their ignorance and the player’s continued presence displays their indifference over their own survival. Commander Niskal determines that the Starfleet ships should be destroyed.

[eharborclub]

Part 5 – Tholians At The Advantage?

Sciences and tactical both report the Tholians are on the move. Two previously unknown ships move away from the Tholian flotilla, opposite the Lexington’s position. Each stops at certain points and then proceeds to move along three-dimensional axis. The three web spinner ships approach the Lexington and begin to spin their web. Two others begin to spin a web around the Aria Bella.

Any attempts to negotiate with the Tholian commander are met with indifference. The senior staff (along with the players, hopefully) will probably recommend that the Lexington attack before the web is complete. The ship will be outnumbered by the Tholians but not in firepower.

The Captain takes this under advisement, but should concur with the opposing position promoted by the science officer and Doctor that they must discover what happened aboard the Aria Bella and attempt to save the 2 remaining officers and to gather evidence for a full diplomatic inquiry over the deaths of Starfleet personnel. The science officer and engineering officer are also concerned as to why the Aria Bella’s warp core was ejected and the impulse engine drained of all power. The tactical officer and the science officer due note at the present rate of the three Tholian web spinners will have completely engulfed the Lexington in 45 minutes. (Narrators note: If the a player is the Captain of the players ship, and is particularly inclined to fight before the facts are revealed, have a mutiny occur during the meeting and the Captain badly wounded enough in the fire fight that the Doctor declares him unable to command.

Part 6 – The Horror Revealed

At this point, the players are unable to reach the Aria Bella. It should be clear to everyone, that the only way to discover what happened lies in the minds of the two surviving officers of the Aria Bella. They should proceed to use hypnosis, a Vulcan mind meld, or a Betazoid telepath to probe the mind of the 2 Aria Bella officers.

It is discovered that the Aria Bella, upon discovering the developing area of spatial interphase set to surveying the area and placing of marker buoys to warn off other ships from experiencing the same fate as the U.S.S. Defiant. Shortly afterwards, crewmembers began experiencing increasingly aggressive tendencies and paranoia. Several fights among the crew began, and the Captain became agitated and indecisive. With 2 out of the determined 5 marker buoys left to place, the Captain ordered the ship out of the area due to a suspected mutiny. The Aria Bella attempted to engage impulse engines but the engines did not respond. Warp drive also was inoperative. The Aria Bella proceeded on thrusters alone. The mutineers had taken over engineering and it took several hours to reroute control of the engines and secure the engineering room. As soon as ship control was restored to the Captain, the Aria Bella disappeared from normal space. The officer in question described floating and feeling extremely nauseated. He started hyperventilating and then had to fight for air.

Returning to normal space, the crew members immediately turned upon one another, beating and killing one another with their bear hands. The four officers appeared to be the only ones still lucid, and decided to secure the Captain and the Chief Medical Officer, (if possible) to concoct a plan and save the ship. They were unsuccessful, and the four decided to escape in a life pod.

The Tholians then arrived from the innerspace area and demanded the Aria Bella surrender as it was interfering in a Tholian territorial annex. Stabilizing the area, the Tholians proceeded to mark the area of the spatial interphase. The Aria Bella’s crew, largely dead or otherwise incapacitated, did not respond to the Tholian claims and three web spinner ships moved closer to construct a web. Believing they would be unable to escape because of the web, the 4 officers barricaded themselves in the secondary engineering control room.

One of the officers theorized that a warp core breach or perhaps a jettisoning of the warp core and then setting it to explode would collapse the spatial interphase area, destroy the Tholians. Of course, with only impulse power, the Aria Bella would probably also be destroyed. The 4 officers saw no other choice and set about their plan. The Aria Bella then blinked out of normal space and back into the alternate dimension for a second time. The time in the other dimension was much longer this time. Returning to normal space, the 2 of the officers killed the 3rd and 4th. The 2 officers then turned on one another stunning each other at close range with phasers. The point blank range caused severe synaptic damage to the two remaining officers and sent them into shock. That was the last the officers remember until awakening in the Aria Bella’s cargo hold.

It appears the Tholians, using their sensors, determined what the 4 officers were attempting, abandoned their web creation and boarded the Aria Bella. Sluggish and disoriented, the four officers could not understand why the ship, was not immediately destroyed, or why they are alive at all. They instantly become aware of the death around them and discover the Tholians have boarded the ship, constructed force fields throughout the ship to allow interaction with the now dead crew. (Narrator’s note: The Tholians are extremely intelligent and the four officers were merely their attempts to revive the humanoid life forms after they had completed their experiments with the other crewmembers).

Moving through open decks the 4 officers proceeded to escape, initiating the ship’s self-destruct sequence. This failed, as the Tholians have succeeded in overwhelming the ship’s computer defenses. Realizing they had failed, the four officers were able to jettison the warp core after the set it to overload at certain time, hopefully giving themselves enough time to reach a life pod and get clear of the area. Due to failing power (The Tholians have drained both impulse and battery power so the Aria Bella would not disrupt the spatial interphase area.) life support failed. Very near the closest life pod, the four officers started to lose consciousness due to oxygen deprivation. Reaching the life pod, the fourth officer (the one with the attachment to the Lexington player or players) drags the other 3 incapacitated officers inside, activates the pod, and then loses consciousness himself.

Part 7 – Confronting the Tholians

Piecing together what has occurred from the officers’ memories, the Lexington’s captain (Narrators note: Or the second in command, if the Captain fell prey to a mutiny and was wounded) hails the Tholian commander and demands an explanation for such horrendous acts. He also warns that if the Tholians do not cease their activities in Federation space, reinforcements will be called in to deal with the Tholians activities.
The Tholians, very concerned about being placed off schedule, proceed to inform the Lexington that their intrusion into Tholian space is unacceptable, that they had every right to discover as much about the humanoids as possible (they were all dead or dying anyway) and warn the Lexington that any aggressive action will be met with deadly force.

The players should not appreciate this! The Doctor discovers that the Tholians, apparently quickly learning the various humanoid physiologies by their experiments, resurrected the 4 officers. Why these 4 were resurrected is unknown, perhaps because they were the last to die. Unfortunately, the synapses of all the three remaining officers have begun to degrade and die, and there is nothing the Doctor can do about it. At this point, the 3rd officer collapses, and dies shortly thereafter in sickbay.

Part 8 – Endgame

The Tholians web nearly complete, the Lexington’s commander then sends a request for reinforcements to the area and proceeds to exit the web. Upon doing so, the Tholian web spinner ships, abandon the web and open fire on the Lexington. The Lexington is able to destroy the weaker web spinner ships and escape the web. This greatly angers the remaining Tholians. With their remaining ships, the Tholians again attack the Lexington. With luck, the Lexington disables all but one of the remaining Tholian ships, which escapes through the interphase node, stating they will return with reinforcements. (Narrators note: Apparently, communications cannot be sent through one interphase area to another.)

The remaining Aria Bella officer suggests that the Lexington, a much more powerful ship, eject its warp core and once at a safe distance, destroy it with a photon torpedo. This should destroy the spatial interphase node and return space to normal. While this is being done, the final officer from the Aria Bella dies, but not before leaving a message to the crew and a special message to the player character(s) he share’s a past with in some way.

[eharborclub]

Part 9 – Living through loose ends…

The Lexington’s science officer determines that the area has returned to normal and the spatial node area has been closed. The Lexington then should begin it’s limp home to the nearest star base. Other Starfleet vessels with tractor beams will soon assist it.

At the star base, posthumous awards are given to the 4 officers of the Aria Bella. The player characters should be awarded commendations and if it is appropriate, promotions.

The spatial interphase area had rendered some of the Lexington’s crew temporarily insane, but they begin to return to normal. A few of the players’ superiors have been killed or committed suicide, so the players are recommended for promotion to department head positions (Narrators note: If the players do not hold department head positions already).

The information retrieved from the recorded testimonial by the two Aria Bella officers and the sensor logs from the player’s ship should be enough for the Federation council to present formal grievances to the Tholian Assembly. (Narrator’s note: A further adventure could send the players and their ship along with Federation diplomats to the Tholian border to meet with Tholian ambassadors.)

[Sarge]

Cool. I should be able to adapt this for my early TNG era game very easily. It's not easy to come up with ways for PCs to interact with truly alien aliens like the Tholians.

[TomMarg]

It's an interesting story but there is a flaw in it that perhaps you can explain.....

It's about the insanity effecting the crew, as I recall the cure for this was found by doctor Mc Coy by using klingon nerve toxins deluted with alchohol. Did this suddenly become ineffective?

[eharborclub]

Sorry I haven't responded until now, I've been sick for the past few days.

I'm really glad you caught that! My group played the entire episode without remembering about Dr. McCoy's cure. My brother wanted to thank you also because he was about to run this episode for his TNG game.

The concoction you are speaking of was called theragen, a Klingon biochemical weapon. Diluted and mixed with good old alcohol, it would deaden nerve imputs to the brain.

Here's the solution to the theragen problem my brother and I hashed out:

The theragen concoction only works fully for 24 hours within a spatial interphase zone. After 48 hours the spatial interphase effect begins to return. After 72 hours, the affected person cannot be helped because of the constant assault on his various senses. Not even an increased dose will assist humans, betazoids, or alpha centaurans. Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, and Andorians are a bit tougher in my game and can be helped by a stronger dose, extending the provided protection twice as long. This brings a bit more drama to the game, with the players working against the clock.

If a humanoid actually experiences spatial interphase, he may survive the effects once (40 to 50% chance) but never twice (100% chance). Once the madness takes hold the concoction becomes completely inefective.

The reason:

First, the time/space/gravitational distortion of spatial interphase plays havoc on the brain's interpretation of one's senses (in my game it led to fun things like vertigo, players losing their balance, reducing or enhancing perceptions and nerve ending responses, like pain). The increase of the synaptic decay rate within the humanoid brain cannot be stopped long term by the theragen concoction. Second, the humanoid body grows resistant to the "deadening" effect the concoction has on the nerves. I liken it to a drug addict requiring more and more of a drug to achieve the same high.

One final note: Leaving the spatial interphase area is crucial by 72 hours. If not, the resulting madness may be permanent. (Another fun role-playing opportunity in the works).

I hope this makes sense and works for those of you hit with this problem! I'll have more to post about this topic when I'm feeling like my old self!

Erik

[Captain Zymmer]

Interesting idea

I may just have to modify and use in my game as well