Doomsday machines campaign

[theSisko]

I am kicking about ideas for a Doomsday machine game when one of my players handed me the original FASA module he bought from e-bay.
Now I was thinking to start the character of a Miranda Class Reliant vessel called the USS Christopher Pike in drydock in the year 2360.
The Christopher Pike is commanded by a war weary veteran Starfleet Captain Caesar DelPrincipe. A distress call comes in from Starfleet Command that a fleet of Doomsday devices is headed into Federation territory in the Alpha Quadrant...worse these machines can anticipate attacks and travel at warp speeds themselves. These devices are 100 times the size of the original encountered by Kirk and his crew nearly 100 years ago and pack more devastating power that can vaporize an entire planet into seething gas.
The original crashing a ship into the center doesn't work because they have adapted new programming including a deflector against starship collision. Any other ideas ?

[J.Ramirez]

Yeah. . . it involves sticking your head between your knees and kissing a part of your anatomy GOOD-BYE!

But seriously -- one thing I'd do is cut down the size of the Machines and not have them sentient. That is WAY too much overkill.

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"Now then, pendejo, let's see what kind of swordsman you've become." -- Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez

[Don Mappin]

I think the Doomsday Machine was pretty formidable to begin with—upping its capability just seems like useless fluff.

If you read the module, “A Doomsday Like Any Other” you will see that the Kirk Maneuver is far from being a guarantee success—the chances of success are slim. Kirk happened to be lucky.

Plus, there aren’t typically a lot of starship cruisers just lying around that Starfleet are willing to blow up in a slim chance to stop the beast. The characters are wise to think of an alternative solution.

Keep the Doomsday Machines as seen in the TOS episode, if nothing else as a tribute to the original show. Do give them a new spin, however. Perhaps one with a more advanced computer that doesn’t chase ships that are not a threat and instead heads straight for planets. How about multiple Doomsday Machines? Talk about raising the pucker factor!

How about a derelict Doomsday Machine that has been found and a race between two (or more) empires to reach the hulk and learn its secrets? If the Romulans or Breen got a hold of one wouldn’t it utterly change the balance of power in the quadrant? What if the Maquis took control of the beast and flew it into Cardsassian space? Then the PCs could be tasked to come to the aid of the Cardassians (a distasteful but necessary mission) and try to parlay with the Maquis.

The possibilities are endless and you don’t need to make the Ultimate Doomsday Machine. Resist the urge to make everything “bigger and badder” than seen onscreen.


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[Steele1701]

The Star Trek: TNG book Vendetta also offers some intresting info on the doomsday machines. It even goes into some detail on how they operate and who constructed them. It might offer some alternatives on how to stop it other than ramming ships down there throats.

[AslanC]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Steele1701:
The Star Trek: TNG book Vendetta also offers some intresting info on the doomsday machines. It even goes into some detail on how they operate and who constructed them. It might offer some alternatives on how to stop it other than ramming ships down there throats.</font>

SPOILER (?)

Is that the book where the say they were made by a race who was trying to kill the BORG?

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Aslan Collas
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RPG_Trek; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rpg-trek
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Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

[Robert Lai]

Please resist the temptation to make them 100 times longer, warp-capable, sentient, and shielded.

It's entirely unnecessary.

While a doomsday machine ideally must appear threatening, after a point, someone's going to wonder if the twenty-kilometer long orbital scaffold is just a boondoggle at the taxpayer's expense. Also consider the DM as a secret -- the bigger it gets, the more likely someone who shouldn't know is going to find out about it.

Warp-capable. If it takes a significant application of warp speed to get to your enemy, you don't need a DM, you need a fleet of Dreadnoughts. The original DM was perfectly designed for a dead-drop last resort -- the creators unleashed it, and this thing lumbers through the silent expanse between their star systems, arriving months or years after the crushing and total annihilation of their culture. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Sentient. Sentience interferes with the cold-blooded mass destruction of an inhabited system. Even a coldly logical AI could be defeated by the proper argument. And if it's programmed for blind obedience to its original directives, it's not really sentient, is it? Check out 'The Adolescence of P1' by Thomas Ryan, in which the original program had only two directives: acquire space and conceal its presence.

Shielded. The original DM was made of neutronium, a material so dense that it was impervious to phaser or physical attack. Who needs a shield on top of that?

The larger the capability, the larger the infrastructure needed to support it. Warp capability requires field generators, etc. -- and therefore would likely include an engineering section that eventually becomes unmanned, but remains a vulnerable point in the structure.

As for a fleet, why bother? You'd only build one, because one is all you'll need. If you've got enough enemies that you build several, they're all going in separate directions, and there's no real reason for them to regroup and go cruising.

Give some thought to taking the original DM concept and adding a twist. Make it smaller. Make it an unexpected form. Make it acquire a new mission after encountering the players.

Bob

[Steele1701]

Asain, that is the same book. A race had constructed them outside the Galactic barrier. If I remember right there was refrence made to more than one being constructed. I am not sure though as it has been some time since I have read it.

The story was a little out there but it was a better show of what Starfleet had to done fight the borg than the books Shatner had written.

[Steele1701]

Sorry AslanC, my typing can be pretty bad sometimes. Didn't mean to miss spell your name.

[lone wolf]

My last session had a Doomsday Machine in it. I am ashamed to say that the players technobabbled their way through it by activating a micro-gravimetric pulse within the core of the thing, thusly creating a split sceond long singularity just strong enough to destroy the sucker while also preventing the good ship Sovereign from getting blown to f**k by the main gun due to the majority of the energy being sucked back into the micro-singularity.

Yes, it was a major excercise in Technobabble but it was late and I was wanting to get home in time for the Friday night late Buffy repeat.

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Kid Mama-san, what do they call that thing they shoot the cats out of?
Mama-san I'm not sure, but I think they call it a catapult.
Kid Boy, I'm glad I didn't have to say that line...

Samurai Pizza Cats

[Karg]

We ran thru that modual in Fasa Trek

In our game it turned out that the machines were built by the Slavers and it had 2 of 'em in Stasis in the control room

Karg

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All these worlds are yours, except Europa, which is a wholy owned subsidary of weownthattoo, Inc. (TM)

[John Raynor]

I've got to agree...
One gigantic neutronium-plated planet-eater
should be more than enough to give the
players a chill. The Doomsday Machine's
relative stupidity is part of what makes it
scary. It's too stupid to question its
mission, or bargain with, or reason with.
It's a creature of little more than pure
destructive reflex... A metaphor, really,
for Mutually Assured Destruction, the Cold
War, and the so-called "Nintendo War" of
electronically-guided death-at-a-distance.
Making it smart ruins all that, aesthetically
speaking...

[Aedh Rua]

Hmmm.....

Actually, I like the fleet idea. Just not TOO many of 'em. Maybe five or ten, depending on how dangerous your players are. Shields are really not needed, except maybe on a point basis. Then, they shouldn't be too strong.

The way I always figured it, the culture that built the DM was actually only a little more advanced than the TOS Federation, and that mostly in materials engineering. After all, that neutronium hull had to come from somewhere. But otherwise, the DM is roughly what TOS tech could do with an unlimited budget, and no ethics whatever.

With this in mind:

1. Warp Capable?: It would almost have to be, wouldn't it? I mean, how otherwise would it get from one star to another without taking centuries to do it? For that matter, if it really crossed intergalactic space under impulse drive, then you're looking at many thousands of years travel, with no planets to eat on the way. I think that it would almost have to have warp drive, but slow. Make it a mximum warp of 5 or so, that way the players can outrun it. In a solar system, it is a moot point anyway, since you will need to operate at impulse in order to fight.

2. Sentient?: Here, I agree with the others. It's actually scarier if it's stupid. But maybe not TOO stupid. If it learns to avoid starships trying to run down its throat, say, but is still not bright enough to be destroyed by the classic Kirk tactic of telling it to calculate pi to the last digit, that is about right.

3. How about phasers?: Here is a neat trick, and one which will drive your players crazy. Give the DM/s defensive phasers. Again, not too powerful, roughly TOS level. This will mean that the players could heroically sacrifice their ship by running down the thing's throat, but an old, broken down hulk will get gutted before it is too much of a threat. Position them roughly as an old B-29, a couple in front, one on top, one in the tail. They aren't too well shielded, and so can be taken out, but you will have to roll hit location to do it.

The trick is to tailor the DM's capabilities, and the number of DMs, to your players' level of ability. If you think they can take out one pretty easily, make it more than one. If you think that one is enough for a single starship to tackle with some challenge, then make it one, but give it a few of the wrinkles above.

A really big fleet of really tough DMs would only be suitable for a campaign involving admirals and fleet actions, though this may also have its possibilities. A fleet of DMs invading the galaxy may be the only thing which could force Star Fleet and the Borg to cooperate, except possibly an invasion by Species 8749, or whatever the number is. You know who I mean.


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Slan agat!

[theSisko]

Thanks guys. I think I will listen to your advice though the fleet of Doomsday Machines idea would work...it actually changes the scale of things somewhat making the threat greater as well as the stakes of galactic survival.The campaign title is called A Taste of Doomsdays to Come


[This message has been edited by theSisko (edited 07-11-2001).]

[aelius]

Actually thr doomsday machine was capable of warp 2 in the episode.
That's why they were so worried that it would reach the Orion colonies (described as the most densely populated region of the galaxy).
If it was only impulse capable they could have left and nitiated a long term research project to learn how to stop it in the years or decades or even centuries that it would take to reach them.

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