Star Trek : Discworld

[Calcoran]

And yes, I know, I read far too much Pratchett for my mental sanity ... oh well, who needs one anyway .

[Robbert Raets]

I like the magic=subspace idea. I wanted to use it m'self to explain a connection between the Traveller, Q, wizards and Fey in my Trek campaign.

[Calcoran]

All right, found a small seed .

/me gathers his gardener implements and begins working like a frenzied Hobbit.


Deep Space. The PC's ship is at warp, when sensors detect some kind of ship nearby. It:
- is on the smallish side,
- seems to show lifeforms readings (although confused),
- belongs to nothing ever seen or encountered before,
- generates slight subspace distortions.
Since there is almost no way it could have gotten this far into deep space without faster than light travel, chances are the PCs will get nearer and have a look.
What they see on visual is somewhat uncommon: this seems to be a big chest, with an incredible number of small feet protruding from its lower regions. It seems to be resting, feet paddling idly through space. Whether the ... thing is alive or not is difficult to ascertain, but there are definitely lifeforms instead, even though the sensor readings seem to be heavily distorted when it comes to scanning the inside of the chest.
All right, two options there. Either the PCs have read a few Discworld novels, or not. In the first case, they'd probably rather die than beam the Luggage onboard ... so they'll need a little incentive ... I'm a bit stuck here. If not, it should be much easier to convince them to beam the darned thing onboard.
Of course, as you guessed, the Luggage is not in a good mood. It seldom is, for a start, but having lost his master (again), and having spent quite a long time paddling through space as a mean to achieve faster than light travel hasn't done anything to improve its temper (oh, and for now, it's lost). So it'll soon begin chasing and if possible swallowing crewmembers. Keep in mind that the Luggage is sapient pearwood, that is, wood, plus a very healthy dose of magical lifeforms (the things I was discussing above). It is impervious to most beam weapons, cannot be restrained by containment fields ... well, the point is, it'll be such a nuisance that the PCs will be very anxious to beam it back where it came from. About the inside of the Luggage, I guess it's safe to describe it as a kind of subspace pocket, much bigger than the outside dimensions of the Luggage would suggest ... oh, and a few leaks to or from other dimensions probably. Maybe safe wasn't the best word to use.
Anyway, after a while, they'll manage to beam the Luggage offboard. It'll then be motionless for a while, then it'll start paddling, slowly at first, then faster and faster. It won't acheive much at first, but then the feet start moving at the speed of light, it'll create a warp bubble and go to warp. All right, it shouldn't do that! The magic particles have been helping him all the time, didn't you know?
So, if the PC's ship wasn't in the way, they probably feel safer now. Wroooong. Some of the particles of magic have left the luggage while it was in there, and are finding it very confy in the big ship. Looks like the Warp core is the ideal environment for them to develop . Soon, a lot of strange things will start happening, like curses coming alive, same for metaphors, well, the usual thing on the discworld. Of course, any attempt to remove them will fail, usually with dramatically funny consequences. After a while, they'll reach the conclusion that they really are unable to cure this infection. So they might get the idea to try to follow the Luggage ... which incidentally has managed to recover his bearing and is heading straight back to the Discworld.
...
Well, here it is ... I guess the PCs'll have to shuttle their way to the Discworld (transporters will certainly not work there), crashland, find wizards (asking people if they've heard of a chest with feet sould lead them sooner or later to the UU), convince one of them (Stibbons?) to come with them, dive off the rim, reach their ship safely, let the wizard do the exorcism or something (Stibbons in a bio-hazard suit anyone?) ... and finally find a way to send him safely back home. Prime Directive? What Prime Directive?

Err ... well, maybe it could take more than one episode to do all this .

[Robbert Raets]

Originally posted by Calcoran
Err ... well, maybe it could take more than one episode to do all this .

Ya think?! It sounds great, btw.