Oh! I´m not real

[Ergi]

Hello, all.

I´m currently thinking about an adventure-idea which has been on my mind for some months.

It´s about the following:

The players have been captured by the enemy. I´m thinking of the Romulans or the Cardassians, or maybe even better, an other government working for one of them. The players are strapped on chairs, apparently for torture by a hurting energy beam moving across their whole bodies. After this procedure they are removed frome the chairs, whithout being asked any questions. During the night the players manage to escape and return to their ship.

What they don´t know, they aren´t the ones who have been strapped on these chairs, but replicas thinking they are the player characters whith one difference, giving the enemy a big advantage in an upcoming event.

Most of you probably see the parallels to a DS9 episode focusing on O´Brien, but I think this could make a great adventure. It will probably be as difficult for the players to realize what they really are, despite of the many little evidents, as it would be for you to believe you´re not yourself.

I´d like to know if anyone of you has ever run a similar adventure and if yes, what happened.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

I like that idea. Damn, I may have to steal it.

[Robbert Raets]

Very nice! But what do you plan to do when all is over and the 'real' PC's are rescued? Will the replicants die, or turn to the Romulans (even though they don't want to)?

[Dan Gurden]

Who said that the real PC's should be captured in the first place? Perhaps the replicants were sent todistract and track the originals, when their programming takes over and they try to replace them...

Maybe the escape was staged, precisely to convince the replicants to find there 'former' posting.

Imagine the players face when they do all they can to reach safety, only to suddenly switch back to their main characters as the replicants they have fought hard to get where they are try to kill them... Combined with a Cardie or Romulan attack from the evil general/legate that masterminded the whole affair...

And should any of the players die, the replicant can step in as replacement, if the replicant dies, oh well, if it dies heroically... even better. And if both survive, the lucky player even gets a 'get out of jail free' card for his troubles.

[Sea Tyger]

And if both survive, the lucky player even gets a 'get out of jail free' card for his troubles.

That might have some Will/Thomas Riker implications, and worth using for later adventures.

[Ergi]

Originally posted by Robbert Raets
Very nice! But what do you plan to do when all is over and the 'real' PC's are rescued? Will the replicants die, or turn to the Romulans (even though they don't want to)?

Although I´m a great fan of free will I never thought that they would possibly be able to remain in cotrol of their action should the enemy activate their hidden personality.
My plan was that they will try to free the original characters and die heroically during the escape. Or even better, they die during the destruction of the enemy fleet/ covert space station/ ...
To prevent the whole thing from becoming a moral dilemma the doctor could find out that they will cease functioning in a few days. Since the doubles will be of no big use to the enemy, they still got the originals, it wasn´t necessary to take care of a long lifespan.


But to be honest, the original reason for me thinking about this kind of adventure was that the I won´t have to worry about experience points.

"Could you tell me what you´ve done to deserve experience points! You were sitting in a dungeon for the last to weeks without doing anything of note."

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Ergi
But to be honest, the original reason for me thinking about this kind of adventure was that the I won´t have to worry about experience points.

"Could you tell me what you´ve done to deserve experience points! You were sitting in a dungeon for the last to weeks without doing anything of note."

Thats just plain mean.

And I hope they make you suffer for it!

[Fortunae]

A Twist on a concept like this...

In GURPS Flight 13 a SciFi Space / Horror adventure now out of print but still locatable, the heroes think they are boarding a shuttle for a commercial flight down to earth..since we are talking Star Trek, let's call it to San Franscisco...

During the flight down the shuttle enters a storm...and then something buzzes the ship...

...but then they discover that one of the pilots is having a massive coronary (in Star Trek let us say his artificial heart replacement for a war injury just failed) and the other pilot has retreated into some sort of vegetable state...

...so of course our heroes step in and try to land but they find that non of the usual traffic is appearing on the sensors, and the lightning has damaged the engine, they will need to land eventually (Darn substandard equipment on civilian shuttle) ...and the find only one location transmitting on...of all things...radio?

The players must land, and explore this odd out of time city set in the late 20th or early 21st century...the other passengers want to strike out on their own, some don't believe that anything is really amiss (particularly any aliens)...

I won't tell you anymore (except pick this up!) but I will say that one of the possible outcomes for this adventure is that the players realize at the climax that they aren't themselves but rather aliens capable of shape changing who have had the mental and physical characteristics of their real characters imprinted on them....and this is all just an experiment by a secretive and unscrupulous race --- can they imprinted starfleet people manage to free their oppressed bretheren before the imprinting wears off and all those skills and training vanish...

and if they escape managing ot retain their forms... what then? Or worse..what if everybody is a replacement except them because the thrust of the experiment was to see how Starfleet personnel can survive the psychological horror fest presented....


ahhhhhhh.

Seriously, check it out, Flight 13...one of my favorite all time pre-written horror adventures and the extra "lab areas" put out for it in an old issue of Roleplayer (now pyramid) can be picked up at IO.com so hey....unleash the horror.

Peace

[Paul]

Hhmmm...I may have to steal the idea.

After all, my players are picking up a new ship soon - why not "new" PCs as well?

** Evil thoughts start running through the GM's head... **

[Sarge]

I've had some time to think about this idea and how I want to use it. Here's what I've come up with.

The Romulan plan is to disrupt operations aboard the PC's ship in order to insert or retrieve a spy at a diplomatic conference. They have developed a sensor and transporter procedure that allows them to analyze a Federation transporter signal and materialize another copy of the transportee, much like Tom Riker.

When the PCs beam down to the conference, their replicas materialize in a Romulan "reprogramming center", like the one where Geordi was held and programmed to assassinate the Klingon ambassador. They all prove "resistant" to reprogramming (the Romulans aren't really trying to reprogram them, so fudge the dice rolls accordingly, but don't let the players know that the Romulans don't really want them reprogrammed.) Eventually, the Romulans will "give up" on the reprogramming plan, and "accidentally" let slip that the PCs have been replaced by replicated constructs that will wreak havoc shortly. The Romulans allow the PCs to escape to a transporter (don't make it too easy or the players will realize the Romulans wanted them to escape). They have only seconds to beam straight to their ship's bridge and stop their replicas from allowing the Romulans to do their nefarious deeds. The players will have just enough time to form a plan and decide who does what at the moment they rematerialize.

Now, things get confusing. Cut back to the real characters. Tell them they beamed down to the conference and have been performing their duties normally for the last several days. They are all present on the bridge when a Romulan transporter beam rematerializes their replicants. The replicants instantly begin trying to perform the actions that the players planned in the Romulan transporter room. An NPC shouts, "Replicants!" Chaos ensues.

Whatever happens next, try to keep at least one of each character alive. I'll probably switch the players back and forth between themselves and their replicants at least once, allowing them the opportunity to perform misguided acts of heroism. Hopefully, the replicants will die well. To keep them from being captured, the Romulans dosed them with drugs that both resist stun damage, and kill the replicant within hours or days. If a real PC dies, a doctor may be able to find a miracle cure for the drug, allowing the player to continue running a nearly identical character to the deceased character.

Meanwhile, the Romulans are beaming spies in and out, right under the nose of the starship while combat rages on the bridge. If the PCs are exceptionally alert and lucky, they might be able to detect what the Romulans are doing. Their success or failure could have long term impact on a Neutral Zone campaign.