Maquis adventure

[ds9guy]

I'm working on a Maquis adventure, current with TNG 7/DS9 2. My actual adventure write-up is too long to post but I'll give you GMs the gist of it so you can critique my idea.

The players will be security officers (tactical officer and a regular security guy) aboard a small Starfleet scout, the USS Ranger. The Ranger is docked at starbase undergoing some refit and repairs. some Maquis, impersonating starfleet people, will sneak abaord and steal the Ranger. The PCs willof course be there to try and stop them.

This is only the setup though. The Maquis have heard of a secret Cardassian base in the DMZ which they want Starfleet made aware of. Since the Maquis are personal non grata they thought the easiest way of tipping off the Federation would be to steal and ship and show Starfleet firsthand what the Cardassians are doing. The Cardasian base is a Obsidian Order base researching psionic powers with the help of the Tal Shiar.

Thats my basic idea. I have a starfleet intelligence operative NPC placed within the Maquis group to help "troubleshoot" in case my players try and do anything too off the wall to derail the adve3nture. he should at least be able to talk the PCs into goinjg along with the Maquis enough to try and find out what the plan is.I will also be NPCing the ship's 1st officer who will be the ranking office there since the captain was left stranded at starbase.

En route to the DMZ in the Maquis stolen ship the PCs will have to sneak by a federation border patrol and then figure out what is going on at the cardie base. I pl;an on having the Cardassian's test subjects (a ferengi, Lethian, Vulcan, betazoid, etc) stage a prison break, making things nice and chaotic when the Pcs beam (or shuttle down). The PCs will have to cooperate with the prisoners to help overwhelm the guards. As an added surprise, i've put a disgraced Sela, exiled to this post becuase of her failed invasion of vulcan, as the major romulan NPC. There are also many guards and a romulan and Cardassian doctor. The Cardasiisan doctor is krell mosett (doctor mengele type character from hologram on Voyager)

Depeonding on how well the PCs do wih the role-playing and combat encounters in the base, I might have them tangle with the first Cardassian supersoldier the Order was creating. I wanted him to be an albino and a super ultra telekinetic/telepathic baddie.

i also have a short starship combat section at the end in shich the Pcs in their scout will have to escape (or fight up to them) a Cardassian scout and a romulan scout.

From there ists back to the fed border where they Pcs wil encounter a runabout with the ship's captain, who has been trying to find out where the hell his ship and crew went!

Getting kinda long so i'll leave off my NPC and acharcter write-ups for now.

any comments from the group?

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

Seems interesting enough. Will any of the player characters have psionics?

Perhaps add the write-ups you mentioned pulling in a second post to this thread so we can all see what you had in mind there.

Regards,
CKV.

[Dan Gurden]

Nice idea... Make sure you watch the DS9 Episode 'Defiant' so you can avoid too many similarities...

Heres an idea. Seeing as Starfleet defectors within the Maquis were not uncommon, you could even put an old friend of the players from their academy days as one of the Maquis. For an added twist, have the players be responsible for the loss of the Ranger to ensure that they take its return as a matter of personal honour. As they let their friend past their defences... While the friend be-moans the loss of honour and friendship 'for the cause'...

You never know. Make it convincing enough and they might not try to kill the main bad guy, letting you have an Ellington type love/hate relationship going on. Play it too well, and you could end up rnning a Maquis Campaign aboard the Ranger.

[Silverthorne]

My current group would not go for this particular story line. They would be more apt to help the Marquis than hinder them..

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

I suggest you make it clear that the Maquis are the bad guys and show what happens when a ST officer turns against his own and is captured. A long time ago, two of my players decided that they wanted to join the Maquis. They did in one mission in which they were supposed to rescue a Cardassian Diplomat.
It affected the group, because I had to run two seperate series for each and on occassion they met. The ST PC's were took it as a slight that they would betray them, though as it later turned out one of the PC's on the Maquis side was a double-agent working for ST intelligence and backstabbed his turncoat buddy.

You must be careful how you portray them, because it could cause your series to split into two if your PC's decide that the Maquis are the poor defenseless guys instead of the rebellious, trouble-rousing, Cardassian hating racists you should try to make them off as. Of course, not all of the Maquis should be evil/racist, thei should be place for some idealists or true freedom fighters.

Good luck.

[ds9guy]

since someone asked, here are my Maquis NPCs:

(I've done them as sketches instead of stat blocked out since I'm running this FASA trek and I realize most of y'all aren't)

Bulaan Suvla-a former Vedek in one of Bajor's religious orders. Bulaan had a crisis of faith during his days of fighting the Crdassian occupation of his homeworld. Although he tries his best to minister to the Maquis' spiritual needs, he is not in all honesty sure he believes anymore. Bulaan is considered somewhat of a lucky charm by some of the Maquis, particuarly the Bajorans. He also serves as the group's combat medic. Bulaan is of nondescript apperance, of average height and build with plain brown hair cut simply. He wears old tattered Vedek robes.

Pindus Bado-also Bajoran. where Bulaan is a man of thought and introspection, Pindus is a man of action. Pindus is the Maquis leader. A former freedom fighter turned militia officer, Pindus was forced to flee Bajor when the Circle lost their abortive attempt to take over. Pindus is in late middle age; he's till fit but going grey and losing his hair. He wears a grey Bajoran uniform with all rank and unit insignia removed.

Cligg-a Chalnoth. This antagonistic alien is the group's best hand-to-hand fighter. Like all of his race, he is anarchistic and resents authority. He enjoys nothing so much as thumbing his nose at authority. That and he loves a good fight. In the Maquis he gets to do both. He's a happy man. GM Note: Cligg refers to himself in the third person in conversation. He wears primitive furs and leathers with a disruptor rifle slung over one shoulder. he favors his fists or a powered mace in combat.

Tslanlagi-native o0f Dorvan Five, a Federation colony colonized by Amerindians. Tslanlagi is the group's technician. He is a quiet man of thoughtful disposition. Tslanlagi lkes to debate Bulaan on spiritual matters as he finds the former vedek easy to bait. Tslanlagi respects the Bajoran maquis very much; he sees many parallels between hyis own people's mistreatment on old earth and the cardassian occupation of Bajor. As a Maquis, the Amerindian hopes to fight such injustice. Tslanlagi dresses in work coveralls with an eagle feather tucked in his hair. he carries a large Bowie knife as well as his phaser and equipment bag.

Jenin Azer-this is the cover identity used by Captain Hastings when he infiltrated the Maquis. as afar as the Maquis know, azer is an orion booted out of the Merchant Marine for corruption. The Maquis think Azer a scoundrel, but a likeable scoundrel whose heart is in the right place. Hastings' cover idendity is golden: Intelligence used the Azer identity to smuggle weapons to the Bajoran resistance during occupation. Most of starfleet is ignorant of Hastings' efforts as its was "black budjected" done without the approval of the Federation Council. In his Azer disguise captain Hastings wears flamboyant clothing in clashing colors. He wears a brace of old style phasers tucked into the sash at his waist.

whew, a lot of typing....thats it for the Maquis write-ups

Monty

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

Good old Fasa-Trek. In some ways this sounds like a cross between the Strider Incident module, the episode "Defiant" and one of the old TOS episodes.

It definitely has potential and merit but I would add on to what Dan suggested. If you have the time and can put off this scenario for one or two episodes, have the former friend contact the PC(s) and mention coming out to visit. That way the character and their relationship can be established beforehand.

Regards,
CKV.

[ds9guy]

Hello folks,

Thanks for the feedback.
I'm aware of the similarities with the DS9 episode "Defiant". I ahd thought of playing up the similarities and have one of the Maquis drop a line about this being part of "tom's big plan" but nixed that as too contrived.

One way I intend to mark this different from the Defiant episode is that my Cardassian base is one researching psionic powers. iI plan to really stress the romulan tal shiar presence there with the Obsidian Order. Obviouslym in Trek continuity this base and the one in the episode are part of the same collaborative effort that results in the dominion ambush of the Order and the Tal Shiar.

I'm doing this adventure to introduce a new PC to my game (he's the tactical officer) so I have the captain conveniently attending a ceremony on the starbase when the Maquis board. The player of our Captain has graciously agreed to play a "red shirt" for this game to allow the new guy a chance to shine. The Maquis have sabataged things on the starbase to trap the captain and other guests there and cover their escape aboard the Ranger.

This adventure is also being set-up as lead-in for a dominion War game i'm doing later. One of the junior Cardassian officers at the base will return later as a Gul fighting alongside the Dominion. Its sorta a prequel in that I'm running this "getting acquanted" session for the new guy back in the timeline a few years. Its been neat for me to revisit the Ranger as it was the first ship my party played on.

In terms of using an ex-styarfleet type as one of the Maquis i was actually going to do that myself but didn't want to go over territory DS9 already tread over with Calvin Hudson and Mike Eddington. So my new PCs is Bajoran, I have my two Bajoran Maquis NPCs, one of which the PC will have a connection to (probably the ex-vedek). Ideally I would like to re-introduce the old friend before the theft of the ranger but time constraints won't allow me to add another game before this one.

For those of you familiar with the old FASA Trek rules, the USS Ranger is indeed an old Ranger class scout, refitted for service in TNG times. The refit looks a little less like a waffle iron with nacelles!


Thats about it. The only other thing I wanted to ask the group was whether any of the gamemasters had any starship combat tricks i could use in my starship duel at the end. right now the ranger would be facing off against a Cardassian scout of comparable stats, with a romulan scout waiting in the wings if the PCs make short work of the Cardassian. Right now I'm thinking of having the base be near an asteriod belt and use some creative tractor beam use to sling asteroids towards the Ranger during combat. Tracking and then evading asteroids while in the middle of dog fight is good practice for both tactical and helm! I think it'll keep them on their toes. I just wishe there had not been a scene in episode two with an asteroid chase. my players will think i ripped it from that oh well.

thanks,

Monty

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

Given the speed of combat, any asteroid flinging would be a bit tricky...small debris on the other hand may not be too bad.

The few asteroid field combats I have run, I mainly just used the fact that an asteroid belt itself is not static, the debris has its own motion and random order of movement, trajectories change as asteroids collide with one another etc.

So just using the field as cover while trying to avoid becoming a permanent part of that cover should keep the officers busy.

On a sidenote, I too liked the Ranger quite a bit and eventually created a TNG version of it when we were still using the FASA rules. I occassionally still bring it out.

A version of the TNG using ICON stats is in the Utopia Planitia section. I called it the Expedition-class.

Regards,
CKV.

[ds9guy]

A few more odds and ends,

first, when the Maquis eventually get the ranger to the planet they will scan a small, shielded power source. The Maquis previous long-rnage scans had indicated a large power source. Scans of the surface will indicate a small abandoned Bajoran colony. PC belief in the Maquis' story should shrink here and the Maquis will begin angriliy pointing blame at each other.

The team that investigates the site will discover there is a ruined Bajoran colony down there. It looks like it was attacked and abandoned(Strangely, Bajoran records do not indicate a colony was ever set up here). Exploring the ruins they will encounter a life sign moving at the edge of their tricorder scanning range. The lifesign turns out to be a small Bajoran girl, malneurished and frightened. She claims to have been left by her family when the Cardassians attack. This girl is a trick, a holodecoy projected by the base guards to distract invaders until the base can scan them and see how best to deal with them. a unto of guards will begin sniping the party. The colony bhuildings, while real, are cardassian forgeries constructed as part of their ruse. The actual research base in underground, beneath the fake colony buildings.

I plan a running firefight once the PCs enter the base until they encounter a group of escaped prisoners making a push for the surface. The prisoners will want to join up with the PCs to improve their chances of making it back to the surface and fredom. That and the prisoners will need the PCs ship as transport off planet!

After the PCs encounter the escaped prisoners and learn the purpose of the base I have two further encounters planned. These are one each with the Cardassian and romulan research scientists (who have seperate labs).

Since one of my PCs is a Bajoran I'm going to have one of the missing Orbs of the Prophets being worked on by the Cardassian research scientist in his lab. To make things interesting my cardassian supersoldier will be in the lab as well. Since he will be a powerful TEL/TK psycher, the PCs will have to be inventive or depend upon NPC prisoner help (i.e. the Betazoid) with this encounter.

To spruce up the encounter with the romulan scientist I plan for him to have a prototype personal claoking device. To make things fair for the players though I'm going to have the unit be very glitchy, with a tendancy to go out when the unit is jossled.

I'm still debating whether to have the base have a self-destruct that will detonate once the PCs leave....

Monty

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

Once the base is discovered, I could see both the Order and the Tal Shiar destroying it to remove any physical proof on the site thereby having deniability to a degree.

Regards,
CKV.

[ds9guy]

Well I'm running my game on Thursday. I'l llet the group know how things went

Monty

[ds9guy]

I was talking to a GM friend who suggested that for my setup I include mention that the Starbase be hosting some DMZ refugees fleeing the Cardassians. He thought and I agree with him that this helps explain how the Maquis sneak onto the starbase.

This also gives me a chance to have my Bajoran PC meet up with and talk to some old Bajoran friends (Maquis obviously but they don't let on) there on the starbase before they sneak aboard the Ranger.

My friend also suggested, again correctly, that the Bajoran Maquis should try to get their Starfleet friend alone once they take over the ship and try to convince him that they are fighting the good fight and that they are on the same side.

I was going to do this with the Maquis leader speaking to the PCs as a group but it makes more sense one-on-one.

well thats it. Hopefully the other gamemasters have gotten something out of my posts. Maybe my adventure will give others ideas.

After the Maquis adventure I'l be working on a Dominion war tie-in game.

Monty

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

I would agree with your friend ds9guy, after all peer pressure works far better when the person being pressured does not have any support of his own to bolster his original position and it makes it that much harder to resist coming from old friends..."You know us. You know where we stand and you know we wouldn't be doing these things if it were not necessary. What would have happened to Bajor if we had just submitted to the Cardassians...how can the Federation ask these people to do that and here our government has entrusted them to run Terok Nor, who is to say the Federation won't sell Bajor out for some political gain as they did the people in the DMZ?"

Regards,
CKV.

[Dan Gurden]

I notice that you are referring to the Maquis as the Bajoran Maquis? Is that in reference to the group name, or the personnel?

I as as the Maquis were considered Federation seperatists. And as such would have the vast majority of their membership made up from the Colonists in the DMZ. Extra personnel came from the few Starfleet defectors, and I dont doubt that a large number of (highly sympathetic) ex-Bajoran resistance signed onto the Maquis for a common goal... But they would be additional membres of the group, and would not have been part of the original group of Federatoin Colonists that were the cause of the groups existance...

Y'Know, sometimes I wish that the DS9 Companion had come out with its details on the Maquis... Now I will just have to write something up myself... One Day...