The Legitimate Cardassian Government in Exile

[Dan Stack]

Bridgetown players, run away, run away.



Gone?


Really?

I mean it!


Ok then...

This weekends Bridgetown game is going to be a crossover of the two major threads going on in the background - ancient Iconian Artifacts and Cardassians who have rejected the Cardassian loss in the Dominion War - the Legitimate Cardassian Government in Exile. We turned against the Dominion. You'd have never defeated the Dominion without us. In return you demand reparations. You carve our empire as spoils of war. We will never surrender. We will reclaim all that we lost. Our enemies will pay with interest.

In any case, the characters are heading for a rendezvous with the Starship Icarus, a Galaxy-class ship our game was originally based on. Indeed, two of the players (and one of the characters) served on her. The adventure involves the Icarus suffering a horrible attack at the hands of Cardassian terrorists armed with an Iconian subspace weapon. (Prior to the characters' arrival.) And it also involves the characters having to come to the rescue of an Icarus away-team lost on a world that Icarus was surveying at the time of her attack.

What I'm debating is if the Icarus should be damaged beyond repair - i.e. stardrive section used as a bomb to protect the saucer... What I want to illustrate is these Cardassian rebels are a real threat and blowing up the original ship the game started on back in '98 seems a good way to do it...

But, my eventual plan for the campaign is to have the characters (assuming I keep all my players, which looks like it might happen) eventually wind up on a large ship to explore a distant region of space, home of ancient terrors the Iconians once had control over - the Demons of Air and Darkness. It makes a lot of sense for this ship to be the Icarus - a lot of history to that ship. I could always replace her with a new Icarus later on.

If I want to keep the original Icarus, I could have her be repaired - make this something like a U.S.S. Cole attack.

So, "you are the narrator. What would you do?"

[Ineti]

Well, if you want to really drive home the idea that the terrorists are bad, bad, bad, destroy the Icarus. Like the Dominion blowing up the Odyssey in DS9, doing this will show that these Cardassians mean business.

If you do that, though, you've got to make them recurring threats. If they're going to be one-shot villains or not recurring, I'd save the ship for your later adventures.

If you blow it up, don't just hand the crew a new Icarus later. Make them earn it.

[Dan Stack]

I should note that these are indeed to be recurring baddies. I love the Cardassians as opponents - they are the most three-dimensional of Trek rivals. They don't have some "magic thread" tying them together - being warriors or being ex-Vulcans or something like that. They had a complicated government and complicated alliances.

They've been appearing in the adventures so far, but they have seemed like a second-rate threat. This is where their plotline and the Iconian plotlines merge into the same - the good guys aren't the only ones looking for these Iconian artifacts.

[tonyg]

SAVE THE ICARUS!

I'd suggest crippling the Icarus rather than destroying it. A crippled hulk with huge holes large enough that you can see the nacells grlowing from the other side of the ship is much more dramitically effective than destroying the ship.

You could have the wreck of the Icarus happen near the future HQ for the PCs, a constant remeinder of the danger, sort of like the battleships that were sunk at Pearl Harbor. IT would be a much more effective rallying point if you could see the remains of the Icarus from the station's viewports.

And- if you leave the hull around-no matter how damaged, it could eventually be repaired/upgraded and returned to service if and/or when you decide you want to bring it back. Something that you can't do if you blow the ship up.

[Dan Stack]

Tony, I just had a flashback of Back to the Future - "Save the clocktower!!!!"

I don't have the description handy, but I picture the evil Cardassian terrorists transmitting an image of the intitial attack - the freighter the Icarus approaches explodes in a Praxis-like shockwave. The port portion of the saucer of the unshielded Icarus is torn off like tissuepaper and the Structural Integrity Field in the main shuttlebay fails, causing it to collapse into a heap of twisted metal. The port warp nacelle's ramscoop catches a portion of the direct blast, causing her to vent plasma and cut power to the warp nacelles. The subspace shockwave spreads - indeed, instead of being diminished, it actually increases in strength, reaching it's peak about two light-years away - the location of the Avenger, the characters' Defiant-class vessel.

With that, a trio of Keldon-class vessels decloak and begin pounding the Icarus. Captain Sinar (her former first officer back in '98-99) orders her to withdraw so she can regroup. The warp core is overloading with the horrible pounding the Icarus is suffering, her bare superstructure exposed in many places, fires burning throughout. In a move of desperation, he transfers to the Battle Bridge and orders the Icarus to warp speed for a few seconds - long enough to detach the saucer and give her some distance.

Now here is where I see two possibilities. Possibility one - the core ejection system is off-line - he self-destructs the star drive, taking the three persuing ships with him. Possibility two - the ejection system functions, allowing him to get a little distance from the Cardassians. The three Cardassian ships are destroyed in the explosion and the Icarus stardrive is further damaged by the explosion and forced to jettison the warp nacelles as well. Either way the captain dies, saving as many civilians and crew in the saucer as he can. (The Captain was rather memorable, being a follower or Jarok, not Surak).

The Avenger will need to protect the battered hulk but the captain's last request will be that they retrieve the away team - currently missing in Iconian ruins. But they need to be fast - more Cardassian ships can be approaching.

Whichever fate has the saucer a mess of a hulk - exposed superstructure, a collapsed shuttlebay, missing a huge chunk of her port-side. The stardrive may survive.

It actually does seem a bit more of a downer having her towed to the Antares Shipyards in the Bajor Sector, where they might be able to salvage her...

It should be noted that the characters will learn the fate of the Icarus when they arrive, perhaps with them chasing off a final Cardassian ship (yes, should add that to allow the characters some control of ths). The Icarus attack is really just the teaser and a means of adding tension to the rescue of the away team - currently being held by the mad scientist Dr. Zantoss who has been trading Iconian tech to the Cardassians in exchance for Cardassian technology - for the system, thing a sort of crossover of Deadlands/Space 1899/Castle Falkenstein, with a 19th century civilization gaining access to Iconian supertechnology...

[Sarge]

Separate the saucer from the stardrive and blow up half the ship. You can salvage the surviving half and mate it with a new saucer or stardrive.

Personally, I'd blow up the saucer section, since that's where the characters spend most of their time. Blowing up their home will let them know you're serious. When a new saucer is mounted on the stardrive, you can still have the heritage of the old starship.

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Sarge

Personally, I'd blow up the saucer section, since that's where the characters spend most of their time. Blowing up their home will let them know you're serious. When a new saucer is mounted on the stardrive, you can still have the heritage of the old starship.

Thats the one. All those memories and anything thay own... Imagine being stuck in the one uniform 4 to quarters, and even in the corridors while they get away...

[Dan Stack]

It should be noted the characters currently are crewmembers of the Icarus - it is a ship with some game history. I view it as functioning a role like that of the Odyssey on DS9 - a neon sign saying "this is a serious threat".

However, should she survive, the characters will most likely eventually serve on her.

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Phantom]

I'd go with the "pummel the crap out of the ship" approach. Imagine the feelings that will be stirred in the PCs and the rest of Starfleet and the Federation when they see the Icarus, a mighty Galaxy-class starship...Being towed into Spacedock, with holes the size of shuttles blasted into the hull, the warp nacelles leaking drive plasma, the flashs of fires yet to be extinguished and the flickering of the beacon lights as power goes off line.

Seeing what these terrorists can do will be better then hearing what they can do. I think it will get more of a "real" reaction out of your PCs.

Anyway, just my 2 Riyals worth.

[Phoenix]

I'm also going to say, nearly destroyed. the exposed inner hull just kinda' makes it hit home a little more.

Your players should also deal with the personnel and civilian injuries, not just a list of names in a casuality report, give them faces.

[tonyg]

Dan,

If you do leave something on the ship around, make sure the players get to see some sort of "damage report" listing just how bad a shape the ship is in. You could even send some teams aboard to salvage the few useful components for use elsewhere.

("But you can't take our portside torpedo launcher- it's the only party of the ship that's still in working order!"

[tonyg]

You might consider having something small from the ship, like the dediation plaque, or a personal memento of the Icarus' captain be given to one of the PCs to really tug on the heart strings.

[Dan Stack]

Game played today (missed part of the Big East tournament championship... )

The Icarus did "survive". I thought the emotional impact of walking through a crippled ship that once was home for one of the characters would beat one of just seeing the ship blow up. (Again, recall the game doesn't take place aboard theIcarus but she was a ship the characters were familiar with - picture if on DS9 Worf came upon a crippled Enterprise-E.

The most emotional moment was probably when they were trying to get the saucer's starboard impulse engines back on-line (no port engines anymore...) and they found a child in the Jefferies tube - he was trying to get his mom, who was an engineer who had died in the battle. It was kind of creepy when the Reverend Finnegan (religious studies and bartender of ten-forward) came to take the child from Captain Jasmine Kharn, who had served on the Icarus and was a friend of Finnegan.

The Icarus was towed in two halves to the Antares shipyards. She lacks warp nacelles, a warp core. Her main shuttlebay was damaged. The port edge of her port saucer is "missing". There are holes big enough to fly a shuttle through. It is unknown at this time if she can be salvaged. These Cardassian terrorists will definitely be remembered. And, for good measure, off-camera they also attacked a Bajoran orphanage, slaughtering a group of Bajoran/Cardassian War Orphans. They've been set up as definite bad guys.

If the characters do wind up on a refit Icarus, it will definitely have some impact to it, which was a secondary objective. And if she is scrapped, the new Icarus will have a name to live up to.

Hopefully the game will continue after a hiatus after the birth of the upcoming Stack-baby at the end of May, since it really has picked up momentum, combing the best of my original Icarus game back in 98-99 and the later H.G. Wells game. Any advice from other narrator daddies or mommies out there?

[Dan Stack]

There's a writeup for this at my Bridgetown page if anyone is interested. Thanks to all who helped with ideas. As you can see, some made it in.

A Clockwork Imperium Writeup