I'm working on a multi-generation story about a giant HYPOSTOMUS PLECOSTOMUS catfish that terrorizes the crew of the USS YAMMATO at five points in history. It all starts when a crew member of the first USS YAMMATO aquires a small lifeform simmilar to a PLECOSTOMUS catfish. It turns out that this is a 'baby' of a huge 3km long spaceborn lifeform. When the 'mother' arrives to retrive it's 'baby', it attacks the YAMMATO. In the resalting battle, (fought with early lasers and atomic weapons) the 'baby' is killed. From this point on, ships baring the name YAMMATO are plauged by this giant sucker-fish, wich has a habit of appearing at awkward times.
Has any one created stats for the YAMMATO battleship from Klingon Acadamy? How about any stats for an early pre-kirk starship? I have some ideas of my own that I'll post, as well as stats for the plecostomus.
A catfish, eh? I'll get Dr. McCoy - catfish should go well with his beans and Jack Daniels...
Seriously, though, I have a couple of problems with the scenario. How does the critter know that a given ship is called the Yamato? I mean, if it was constantly tracking a single ship (sort of a reverse Moby Dick), one could postulate that it can sense the ship's distinctive Warp signature. Likewise, if it was tracking the captain of the original Yamato, it could be using empathic or telepathic means. However, to track a series of ships over a few centuries, the only similarity between them being the name painted on the hull? There has to be more to it than that.
Not the same at all... The croc and Hook both inhabited a relatively small island. Besides, Hook is a single individual. The croc could recognise Hook by scent and sight. Again, aside from reading the hull registry, the various Yamatos are completely different. There's no way for the big catfish to know that the Constitution Class USS Yamato NCC-1305 and the Galaxy Class USS Yamato NCC-71807 are successors of the original ship which killed its offspring.
This leads to the question "How does it know?" Is it sapient? It seems to me that it has to be, to understand an abstract concept like name lineage.
Zytel, if you're looking for pre-TOS ships, you might consider making the original Yamato a Daedalus class ship. This ship would be low Warp, armed with lasers and either particle accellerators or nuclear missiles. It would not have transporters or replicators, but would have subspace radio. These ships were around at the birth of the Federation, so they it be either a UESPA (United Earth Space Probe Agency) or early Starfleet vessel, depending on whether you set it prior to 2161 or after.
[This message has been edited by Owen E Oulton (edited 08-07-2000).]
Good call, SkyNet! If the original Yamato has a "trophy" from the original, that would make perfect sense. Perhaps they even still have the original baby space-catfish in a tank as the ship's mascot. Could be these things take centuries to mature and, like goldfish, tend only to grow as big as their container allows. The baby could still only be as large as, say, a cat. Imagine the thing in a tank over the bar in the ship's crew lounge. It could be that the mature organism doesn't resemble the baby much - think "larval stage."
This of course, requires a very delicate hand on the part of the GM - you can't tip your hand and let the PCs know there's a connection between the ship's mascot and the white wha--- er, giant space-catfish. Only in the final encounter should a PC be allowed enough info to suddenly figure it out.
Additionally, I think this scenario begs the question of why the marauding catfish makes no appearance in the TNG episodes Where Silence Has Lease. Certainly Starfleet records would make mention of such a chain of events, and so for Nagilum to manifest the catfish would add versimilitude to his fake-Yamato ruse.
A dark little speck in an otherwise bright universe.
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To track a ship through various incarnations like this could be attributed to a... "different" form of... "empathy." And "Moby Dick" is tracking it down through its "empathic" signature, based on the pride of its crew.
Any ship with a distingished record may develope such a "empathic signature" over time. Simpler though, go with the "ticking clock in the crock" from Peter Pan. Maybe some part of the baby is "hanging over the fireplace" and has been on every ship called the Yamato as part of a tradition.
I think it's a good story, but we also want a logical reason as to why the creature plagues every ship called Yamato. That's the only real hiccup I see in all this.
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If a circle is the perfect shape, then what's wrong with circular reasoning?
Phasers?
“Because I am The Gamemaster And I Can Give It Quantum Torpedoes If I Want Too, So Shut Up And Roll!!!”-type Super-Enhanced Quantum Torpedoes?
Speaking as both a GM and a player, that's about the time I'd be picking up my dice and walking out.
“Because I am The Gamemaster And I Can Give It Quantum Torpedoes If I Want Too, So Shut Up And Roll!!!”-type Super-Enhanced Quantum Torpedoes
Number: 925
Launchers: 18 ad, 18 fv,
Spread: 100
Arc: Forward or aft, but are self-guided
Range: 20/360,000/1,400,000/5,000,000
Accuracy: 4/5/7/10
Damage: 50
Power [6]
Weapons Skill: 5
Defensive Systems:
Plecostomus Deflector Shield
Protection: 250/350
Power: [80]
OTHER FEATURES: (Insert evil laughter here)
Biomimetic Armor Matrix
The more advanced version of the normal Ablative Armor, based on a adapting bimolecular compound. Each hit from a directed energy weapon increases the Resistance by 20 points against that particular type of weapon. (This is why the “ship” ended up with a Resistance of 420, after starting with a base of 20! Easy does it with those phasers, folks!)
Enhanced Cloaking Device:
Super-advanced cloaking device that completely hides the “ship” from sensors. The only way to detect it is by scanning for algae particles, specifically ones that give off alpha-spirulina energy. (Thank you to Commander Sally Rand of the Starship Discovery for “discovering” this by watching me feed my pet plecostomus.)
Multi-Dimensional Drive
A special propulsion system capable of breaching the subspace barrier of different dimensions and timespace. This is a special application of the “Suction Mouth” weapon. By tuning the “Suction” force, the “ship” can ‘chew’ a hole in the space-time barriers and fly into the resulting rift. If the “Suction Mouth” weapon is disabled or destroyed, this system goes offline. (This will allow me to terrorize the hapless crew of the USS YAMATO in four different time frames.)
NOTES: Here it is, the Plecostomus! I based it on the PROPHECY-class ship I found on this board. (I forgot who posted it, but thank you. Drop me a line.) Questions or comments, anyone? (I’ll answer the first two: No, I was not on drugs when I came up with this; and I was not drunk!)
These specs reflect four sessions of play-testing, so feel free to lower the resistance and other levels.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far. I plan on using the Daedalus specs, slightly modifing them into an early dreadnought-type starship.
As for how the fish tracks the ship through time... Thats easy! It simply *smells* the *sauce* and that leads it to the *bubble* that *smells* the *same* as all the *others*.
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"ARRRGH! DAMN THAT PLECOSTOMUS!!"-- Captain Mark Roster of the USS Discovery seconds after his arch-nemisis eats his starbord warp nacelle.
[This message has been edited by ZytelST801 (edited 08-13-2000).]
Too bad the baby catfish chunk gets vaped along with the rest of the Yamato. The adult won't be able to identify the next Yamato. Actually, too bad the Yamato got vaped itself... Yamato is just such a cool name for a space ship. I have to wonder if there were any animé fans in set design at Paramount, since the Yamato was given a Starfleet battleship bridge, with plexiglass tactical display etc.
(Justy-san hums the Space Battleship Yamato theme, since he doesn't know the words)
For pre-TOS era ships, how about something from The Starfleet Museum? Start with a broken-down Comet class cruiser refit as a Federation Express delivery ship.
Hey, hang on, that wasn't there last time I looked at the site... sweet, update! Why am I typing here?
Sure, there were anime fans in the art department--Sternbach and Okuda. Note also the presence of "Nausicaans." And they seemed to be really into the Dirty Pair.
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"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand." -Anon.
ARRRGH! THAT DARN FISH!
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