How about a good ole Prophecy?

[Calcoran]

(from an obscure mp3 adventure)

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
- [...] which will trigger the prophecy.
- But what's with this strange prophecy?
- I don't care, we're just here to get rich.
- No worries, a Prophecy, that's always worth havin'.
- Depends, sometimes it speaks about destroying the world ...
</font>

Right, that's exactly the kind of prophecy I need. Last episode, I had and inspirational flash, and I'm sure there is something to dig here.
Picture a ancient archeological site on Cardassia, not very far away from the place where the Bajoran sail vessel crashlanded.
Imagine huge and complex machineries from days gone by. Antique texts speaking of a dark menace, a prophecy from the dawn of times ...
That threat was what in fact motivated the first journey from Bajor to Cardassia, and had Cardassian and Bajoran priests, magicians and scientists work together at this eerie clockwork in an effort to avoid it. Then something happened. The Bajorans went back to Bajor and their temples, the Cardassians forgot about their heritage. But the days are coming back, the peril is nearing ...

And it had better be damn perilous and universe shattering, cause I want Cardassians and Bajorans compelled to work together, getting headaches trying to understand obscure hyeroglyphs (and having to bear with the sarcasms from the other race). I want old, mysterious (and aesthetically impressive) technology connected to state of the art Starfleet technology ...

I think I've got something there, but I lack something to glue it together. For example I need a menace that could be as old as warp travel itself and still be a real threat.

Well, so here it is ... feel free to let your imagination run wild, what would you do with that?

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Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

[Don Mappin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Calcoran:
I need a menace that could be as old as warp travel itself</font>

You need a Phantom Menace!

Okay, sorry. Bad Don, bad. I'll post some constructive ideas too.


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[Robert Lai]

So are you looking for the antagonist, or an actual prophecy couched in obscure text?

If it's an antagonist, it's likely to not have been the Prophets or the Pah Wraiths - unless that particular conflict mandated the Bajoran withdrawal.

So you're looking for an evil greater than the Pah Wraiths ...

One possibility for the device being incomplete is that it's actually being built on two planes of reality ... and that in the earlier era of cooperation, a combined team of Bajoran and Cardassian scientists (or whatever), were chosen to build the matching half in that otherspace.

This task was achieved, and the prophecy fulfilled as much as was possible, and the two halves of the device now await the final moment. The Bajorans returned home, the Cardassians went back to their task - each eventually forgetting the doom that was foretold (predict the Dominion War to creep people out).

The team that crossed over remained in otherspace to maintain and protect their half of the device. What your players may not know is if those people are still alive, still whole (mentally or physically), and whether or not the device is still functional. The team may even still hold the cooperative ideals that have been lost to their people.

As for the prophecy, there must be a heralding of danger - betokened by significant events, such as the Bajoran/Cardassian split, the presence of the Federation, and the Dominion War.

Writing it in poetry is usual, but you may find yourself pressed for acceptable rhymes. Writing it in prose is easier - copy the style of anything like the biblical prophets. Be sure to leave some things obscure or open to interpretation, which can themselves be keys or elements of adventures.

Prepare for the possibility that the characters will read an entirely different meaning into the words, and either have a 'dead-end' that ultimately redirects them, or persists for several episodes before petering out. Make them work for the clues, and keep a timetable ... give them every chance of success, but don't be afraid to let the forces of darkness appear on the verge of winning.

Bob

[Diamond]

I've got an idea: if it was that important, they wouldn't have split up until the situation was dealt with... unless there was some reason they couldn't finish things off then. Perhaps the reason is that whatever they needed took hundreds of years to mature.

For example, say the Bajoran priests got word from the wormhole aliens - the prophets- that something horrific was going to happen hundreds of years in the future (that is to say, about "now"), and they teamed up with the Cardassians because Cardassian technologies were required. Perhaps what they were building took hundreds of years to absorb power. But what sort of power? To fit Cardassian priest design philosophy it would have to be something sort of grim. Say it absorbs psychic energy, but the materialistic federation/Starfleet investegators would interpret it as technobabble energy. "After re-calibrating the sensors I was finally able to detect what was causing Mr. Sevik's headaches. It turns out we're in a sphyco-neuro-degenerative field." What's that mean? "Um, somethings draining off his ability to mind meld. Strange energy field, never seen anything like it."

Ha! That's why the site is abandoned! The priests created the battery to store the energy until the time of need, but after a while they slowly moved away when they forgot its purpose because it was giving them headaches! The very nature of the tool drove their descendants away!

Problem: The Cardassians aren't skilled at psychic stuff, so how'd they design the psi-battery? Answer: they were previously victims of the horrific evil that the Bajorans have the prophecy about. It left something behind on Cardassia, and that's the key component of the device. The Neither the Cardassians nor the Bajorans understand the device's psychic principles, they're just following the Prophet's instructions. The Bajorans follow the instructions because they trust the Prophets, the Cardassians do because they know just how horrific the THING is. This also fits the Cardassian "hard luck, poor resources" back story/motivation for being militaristic.

So, what's the big evil thing that the psychic battery must be used against? I'd make it a TOS-sytle giant pseudo-cthulian space beast that strips worlds of thier mental energy. It's mental powers are so great that it disables anything before it can reach it.

The twist and the resolution of the adventure: The players might try to use the mental energy in the battery to fight back. Let them make a dramatic attempt at this, but such a brute-force attempt is destined to fail. The only way to resolve things is to figuire out the prophecy, what the wormhole aliens had in mind. It turns out the psychic battery is BAIT, to lure the chtulian horror to this planet BEFORE it ravages half the galaxy. Also, the blindingly bright metal power will make it so that the creature won't be able to detect their dim minds if they send the starship away and stay on the surface as close to the battery as possible. It turns out the creature is very vulnerable to physical attacks. It normally destroys mentally anything threatening it from very long range, but since it can't see the characters in the blinding mental light of the battery, they jump out and suprise it, punch it in the nose. It dies and they save the day!

[Owen E Oulton]

"Okay, sorry. Bad Don, bad."

Hey, Don! Your evil twin Dan Moppin is using your account again!

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[Calcoran]

Wow ... I knew it was a good idea to ask around here .

Let us try to summarize.
Phantom menace is definitely out. We don't want no stinkin' phantom menace here (not old enough) .
The technology being in fact built on two planes of reality. Now that's an idea. I can already picture the typical Cardassian columns (if it's been constructed by Cardassians, it's got to have curved columns) that extend from the mechanism blending in a strange shimmer whith the mirror city/plane superimposed on the orange-red Cardassian sky ... the lost Bajoran/Cardassian colony of scientists who's kept intact knowledge from ancient aeons, the strange powers they may have developped ... wow! I keep it all .
Good point too, the prediction of the "Great War" (read Dominion) to creep the players out!
As for the nature of the menace and the reason why both races split up (in the "real" universe) ... I'm still not sure ... A mechanism/Building meant to absord an immense amount of power. A power so intense that it became impossible to stay nearby, or that made the engineers and architects forget. That could be a good start. However, I'm not a big fan of TOS doomsday machines/monster. It lacks a cerain DS9 style somehow ...
Maybe it could have to do with the very nature of the Prophets. Or relationship between the Prophets and the Pah-Wraiths. Maybe something both types of entities fear equally. Somehow, the Pah-Wraiths seem to be very keen on Cardassians, maybe it's not only because they consider them as the Bajorans's arch rivals ... maybe there's something more behind this that could also explain why the Cardassians and Bajorans had to ally. (the Bajoran Vedek PC has already had a vision that made her save a Cardassian ... the players are still wondering why .)
...
Here is something (brainstorming wildly here). Let us say that both ends of the wormhole act in fact like magnets ... magnets in a very fragile equilibrium. We've only seen what happens when the wormhole collapses around its axis. What would happen if it collapsed along its axis? It could mean a collapse of the whole galaxy, both magnets dragging enormous portions of the galaxy together.
/me submits the idea to the Voyager test. Ughh ... failed ... maybe not then. Something else ...

Ideas?

Don, didn't you say you would contribute with something constructive too ?

[Antonsb214]

If the battery absorbs psychic energy, how about something like Rifts Earth? The death of so many beings in so short a time span may have overloaded the battery causing it to "short out" and open dimensional rifts that the "evil" will come through. So the ancients' attempt to prevent it actually helped the prophecy come true. Or have some sort of monster come to the system to feed because it eats "normal" energy and all of the weapons fire during the war attracted its attention, but the beast is slow, it takes time to get there. The time it takes will depend on your campaign. But it doesn't show up on sensors until it's basicly right on top of you. But make it vulnerable to psychic energy.

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"Retreat?! Hell, we just got here!"

[Calcoran]

The Dominion War could indeed have drastically increased the charge of the device ... but that should not cause the problem. Not if we consider that the prophecy predicts the Dominion war. If the Dominion war has been predicted, it stands to reason that the creators of the ... biplanar device ( ) have taken it into account.
I like the part with dimensional rifts that open ... Mind you, it is easier to see why an incredible amount of energy could tear through the fabric of the multiverse than why it could prevent it from happening ...

[Antonsb214]

Then how about this, The battery absorbs some of the energy, there is still enough left over to open rifts, but the energy in the battery will seal them, IF it is used in just the right way. So you really have to decrypt the "writing on the wall" so to speak, use it correctly and the rifts are sealed, maybe not before some particularly nasty things come through which the PC have to deal with. Use it the wrong way and well... don't need to tell the PCs how bad that will be.

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"Retreat?! Hell, we just got here!"

[calguard66]

You would need a good reason for why the Bajorans went home. Having them just pack up and go doesn't make sense, they would have left some sort of caretaker crew behind.

First I would put the device on a useless minor moon of Cardassia... it would have been discovered by now otherwise.

I would have a society much like the Romulan/ Klingon hybrid Worf discovered... perhaps with the two races interbred to the point where they are their own sub-race.

Here is a thought: The Cardassians and Bajorans used to _be_ the same race. Something about the device mutated the early Bajorans into the Cardassians, or split the race in two... The philisophical, intellectual "good" side became the Bajorans, the "evil" side became the Cardassians... a-la Dark Crystal.

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[Calcoran]

Oooooh maybe I see what you mean. There is something on Cardassia. Something way older than the devices that have been unearthen. What could that be? I have no idea. The fact is that it is just there, and there is absolutely no way to destroy it. And, how about that, it uses the wormhole as a kind of giant antenna to suck up a fraction of every and any psychical energy source in the galaxy. Of course, the nearer the source, the stronger the income. (Maybe it actually acts as a dampener and most psychically receptive races would be completely overwhelmed by the psychical noise if it did not exist) ... For some obscure reasons however, once it reaches a given threshold, it tears the fabric of the multiverse appart and opens great rifts between the universes. Of course, with the Dominion War and the billion Cardassians that have been slaughtered by the Jem'Hadar, all this happening in the immediate vicinity of the thing, the threshold has been reached ...
And that's what the strange machinery is for: the energy it stores, no matter how immense it seems, is nothing in comparison to the thing. However, it can be greatly focused, and (barely) suffices to seal those rifts.

Better? Do you think it passes the Voyager test now?
Feel free to fill in the gaps . (or to explore a completely different theory )

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Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

[Calcoran]

Calguard: I was thinking something along those lines too ... with a strong bipolarity Cardassians-Bajorans, PahWraiths-Prophets, Good-Evil ... I'm just not sure how to fit it in there ...

[This message has been edited by Calcoran (edited 06-29-2001).]

[Robert Lai]

If we have the Bajoran/Cardassian team in otherspace, then there is the possibility that the project on THIS side was abandoned because the initial engaging of the device (charging state, wait mode, whatever) caused an initial surge that blanked the memory of the project ... all the workers know is that they tried something, and it didn't work, but it's too difficult to disassemble.

This opens the door for the threat being active and aware of what is happening on our side of the gate ... had the workers remembered, and all the items documented, the enemy would move NOW, and not when necessary conditions were met to fulfill the prophecy.

Bob

[Antonsb214]

What if the device was under one of the cities of Cardassia Prime. But it is uncovered during the orbital bombardment. It isn't recognized for what it is until much later, either "discovered" by Cardassian or Federation personnel. It's like the ancient cities in the middle east, there could be three or four cities in the same spot. The Cardassians were "chosen" to keep the device because it doesn't affect them, maybe why they don't have many psychics in their race. They would be the keepers of this device/weapon until it was needed by the whole galaxy.
Or if you want to go with the common origin/Dark Crystal line, maybe an NPC or PC will be the "chosen one" that will reunite the races. Of course there will be those who will be against this.
Just some more ideas.

[Diamond]

I like the reasoning behind the first part of your suggestion, Antonsb214.