Adventure Seeds

[Brite Dip Man]

Of course, this could be an episode put out by B&B.

That, good sir... is an insult. I challange you to a duel!

[Brite Dip Man]

Who in the Federation has Vast Wealth?

I don't see every member of the Federation subcribing to the "no money free stuff for all" tripe mentioned on screen. Someone from a culture that respects money and wealth assumes a position of power in a Federation media producer... and driven by his cultural imperitives he does what he thinks is right to bring in more fame and wealth for himself.

However in this case he goes too far and puts the lives of millions at risk.

....


Of course this becomes even easier if you're not bound by the restrictions of canon and are able to pick and choose the elements of Trek Lore that suit your vison, like I do.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I don't see every member of the Federation subcribing to the "no money free stuff for all" tripe mentioned on screen. Someone from a culture that respects money and wealth assumes a position of power in a Federation media producer... and driven by his cultural imperitives he does what he thinks is right to bring in more fame and wealth for himself.

If he was a weapons broker or something i could understand it, but the shows give no indications that there's large-scale media consumption in the federation beyond holo-programs and books; at least not in ways that are amenable to advertising.

[kridenow]

A variation I'd play on this adventure : keeping the journalist idea but rather than going for a purely media sponsored warship, I'll make the journalist a contact between the refugees and another group, more involved into weapon dealings.
Ferengis could be interested to sponsor the fight, on the promises of future dealings/monopoly on the (maybe) freed world.
Also, it would allows to bring nasty weapons in the fight as Ferengis would be less reluctant and less scrupulous to sell formidable weaponry.
(I suppose any other shadowy group fit, like Orion Syndicate, or even Section 31)

So, I'd organize the adventure on :
- the Romulan takeover as a background info at first
- the rumor/information survivors of the defeated army are gathering military support (single warship, fleet of smaller ships).
- seeing favorable media coverage, investigation will lead to the key journalist, yet he alone can't bring much military support.
- investigating on the journalist will show the Ferengi connections

There, two tasks will appear :
- sever the Ferengi connection (probably operating from the inside of the Federation for a easier handle), by arresting for illegal dealings/closing the cover business.
- stop the defeated army to fight back with destructive weaponry, maybe in a cataclysmic revenge on a Romulan world (or on their own world, to wipe Romulan occupation forces, despite civilians losses).

The adventure will be two main parts :
- investigation
- space fight

Complications that can be thrown in :

- freedom of media during the early part making investigations harder and bring some law skills in, discussions about legal authority etc...

- dilemna if the Ferengi are operating out of Federation space (like a bordering station) ie : "Can Starfleet intervene in a conflict between Romulan Star Empire and a third party when the Federation itself has little ties to the conflict (only the actions of a single individual - the journalist). Yet, not intervening will lead to massive deaths of civilians".
Intervening is stepping on Romulan toes, warning the Romulans is tacitely agreeing with their takeover, not intervening is allowing civilian deaths.

- Starfleet mothballed ships could be stolen, giving a heavier case for Starfleet intervention and probably giving the false idea of a Federation backing

- Starfleet is asked by the defeated world to negociate peace with the Romulans in a tricky manner for players : by negociating the way the world is now occupied (accepted takeover by the native government). Then, bring in the fact the whole journalist/native army conspiracy has really good chances to succeed (the conquered world must be a minor issue for the Romulan then). So Starfleet officers may now have two conflicting objectives :
* negociating while investigating and then stopping the maneuver
* negociating and investigating and finally decide to do nothing, which will ruin their own negociations despite orders.

Thanks for reading

Pierre

Et bonne année.

[Brite Dip Man]

Great ideas, they really build on the basic idea.

As for the mass-media angle... prehaps it's an outside media group... from a non-member world. One that has a good amount of resources to throw into an undertaking like this.

...an entire planet where Reality TV has run amok. Naaah.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

...an entire planet where Reality TV has run amok. Naaah.

You watch lexx?

[Brite Dip Man]

You watch lexx?

Not in a long time.

[Alex]

Here's another variant on the journalist episode, drawing on all the "corrupt admiral" episodes.

1. Alien world taken over by Romulans (in Romulan space, so no legal recourse for Federation).
2. Journalist sets up Aliens with resources to obtain weapons to fight back in exchange for exclusive coverage or special priviledge presence before, during, or after the attack to interview/document.
3. Turns out Journalist couldn't front the resources himself, so who provided them to the Journalist? Ferengi!
4. Several old starships stolen from Klingon mothball Fleetyards near Federation Border. Klingons pissed at Federation for allowing Raiders to operate.
5. Why would Ferengi give resources away to a Journalist? They specifically stated who should get them and for what cause. Why? They say the Federation gave them their orders. Could it be a rogue Admiral like Cartright from ST IV-VI who wants to escalate a war the Federation could win without looking like the agressor?

The very convoluted solution: The Alien world was taken over by the Romulans, but being in Romulan space there was nothing the Federation could complain about. Yet this Alien race, which was low power militarily, was working on a form of mathematics which would yield a code unbreakable by Romulan cryptologists. Section 31 wanted such a code. They paid off the Ferengi, which would seem like a powerful enough group to have such resources and is interested in operating outside the law if the profits are there. The Ferengi, under instruction, provided the Journalist with a different story about how this "sample" would cement them to providing future weapons for the Alien world once they forced the Romulans out and realized it would require ongoing effort to keep them from returning. The Journalist provided the money, the documents, and the plans to the Aliens. The plans recommended hiring a given group of Nausican mercenaries (included in the documents) to obtain the needed weapons, and the amount of money provided happened to be exactly what was needed. The Nausicans, also contacted by Section 31 for this "mission", were instructed to accept the payment from the Aliens (actually from Section 31 through several lairs of indirection to provide cover for its true origin) and then raid a mothball fleetyard right across the Klingon border. They did, and provided the (fully armed and cloaked) ships to the aliens who would use them in their war. This served Section 31 interests in 2 ways: 1) the Klingons would be implicated in any ship-to-ship engagement that failed to retake the Alien world, possibly putting two of the Federation's greatest adversaries at each others' throats, or 2) if the attempt to retake the world succeeded, the Aliens would prioritize their unbreakable code so the Romulans couldn't spy on them, and Section 31 would be there to provide the necessary resources to complete this research...and steal it when it is complete, giving the Federation a means of passing orders no Romulan ship could intercept!

Now, if you could follow that reasoning...! This adventure idea is suitable for one of the two-part TNG episodes, like Redemption. It could take your players many sessions to get to the bottom of it, and when they do...what can they do? Leaving the ending open to the players to figure out is the best part.

[Sundowner]

Okay all, first off an apology to all.

Some time back i uploaded a pdf file with all of the Adventure Seeds, Series Seeds and some of the highlights from the Evil Games Masters Support Group

The feedback I got at the time was positive (thanks all) but one comment was that it would have been nice to have been creditied for the ideas written... so, in that spirit attached is Seeds v2.0.

This one is up to date, and lists writer and posting time. I've still had to trim some things from the file, (it's almost a mb & 140+ pages) but i've certainly found it useful, hope you all do too.

Apologies again that this has taken sooooo long.

Sundowner...

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"Shall I goto 'Red Alert' sir? It does mean changing the lightbulb."
Kryten, Red Dwarf
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[Sundowner]

Adventure Seed
Title: The Trouble With Transporters
Recommended Series Type: Space Station
Era: TNG (Early)

Description:
The original idea for this plot was to be set early TNG where the Federation has just started recognising the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, and also set on a Starbase on the Federation edge of the Triangle (FASA Map)

Act One:- Scene One
The introduction for this adventure is the opening of a Formal/State dinner on the Starbase of your choice, you could start it sooner, your choice, but if you give everyone a chance to investigate the NPC’s too much they may find anything you have in their background.

Suggested NPC’s at the Dinner are as follows:-
StarBase Commander plus senior staff
The PC’s (If of sufficient Rank)
Local Klingon Representative
Local Romulan Representative (If possible)
Any other foreign government reps (Imperial KLingon States, Mantiev Colonial Association, Bakers Dozen, Orions etc [FASA Triangle Political Groups])
The New Cardassian Gul in charge of Trade and negotiations assigned to the Triangle, plus a staff officer
(Present with his New Hideki Class cruiser plus 6 freighters on trading missions)
A Bajoran Prylar (Wandering Monk)
Local Important Business Representatives
Local University Dean (Or equivalent)
Plus assorted other dignitaries and notables

The dinner commences and everyone has a good meal, the various speeches at the conclusion bore the tears out of everyone as expected,
For anyone who is paying attention, mention that the Bajoran is polite and courteous to the Cardassians, even shaking the hand of the Gul!
The room (Plus surrounding rooms) are protected by a security forcefield, and everyone entering and leaving are thoroughly scanned for biological agents and weapons, plus full ID checks.
Scene one concludes with the end of the dinner and everyone moving into the next room for after dinner coffee and mints. The Base power goes down and backup power fails, plus auxiliary power units appear to have been disconnected.

Anyone the Bajoran has shaken hands with will be beamed out, he/she has a molecular ‘tag’ imprinted on their palm, it marks selected people for beam out,
*Note* if a PC talks to the Prylar, make sure s/he has a drink in hand, unless you want the PC kidnapped
Also, when the hostages are beamed out, ONLY ORGANIC MATTER is beamed out.
This means most clothes will remain, as will any technology (Such as tracking devices, pacemakers, prosthetics, weapons, etc - This also means any silicon based life forms will 'not' be beamed out)
All the Hostages are beamed to the cargo hold of an orbiting Orion Blockade runner, this is to ensure the DNA traces of ALL the hostages will be found in the cargo hold, then, the Bajoran, and all but six preselected hostages are beamed back down to the StarBase and held in long term transporter stasis (See notes below)
The Orion then leaves orbit, along with several other ships, at maximum warp.
*Note* Any Starfleet ships in orbit will need to be either delayed, out on call or slower than blockade runners

Scene Two
Once the Power is back on (This will have to be done by engineers, it will not kick back in on its own, how long this takes is up to you) the PC’s will hopefully start with ‘Oh No, Not Again!’.
They will already know, or will soon find out who is missing, and what has been left behind, so the investigation will begin, the fact that several ships left at high warp should soon be evident, all have headed into the triangle, and then separated, (one to Rom Space, one to Orion space, two to Klingons & two deep into the triangle)
The ship that had the six hostages on board makes several rendezvous, and beams five off to other ships, (the pilot doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s just beaming cargo onto other ships) there will have to be an accomplice in the cargo bay, he’ll have stunned the hostages & put the selected six into boxes, he’ll have transported off at the first rendezvous & made his escape. The cargo transfers will keep the PC’s busy tracing ships all over the triangle.
The reason for six ships leaving orbit will hopefully be to dissuade the PC’s from following, if they have any sense, they’ll send ships to follow the ships & stay on base, but, they may go?
Anyone who stays will have to deal with the political aftermath, many senior people, ambassadors and the new Gul will have been kidnapped, and everyone will be blaming everyone else, especially as the suspect ships have headed into the triangle, the Hideki will head into the triangle, but leaving several crew behind to monitor the situation, various other ships will also follow (Klingon/Rom/Orion/Free Traders etc), a veritable fleet will chase the suspect ships, hopefully the Starfleet will get there first
The Hostages on the first ship will be spread out on subsequent ships to create false leads, to occupy anyone who chases the ships.

Act Two:- Scene One
We move forward a day or so, the PC’s should hopefully have spent their time pacifying unstable NPC’s, searching for clues (why did ALL the power go off line, who did it, who kidnapped all the people, what do they want, background checks on all missing people, that sort of thing,)
Meanwhile, a junior Starfleet officer (Ops/Engineering) is doing routine maintenance on a backup transporter, it’s actually working, but it’s where most of the hostages are being held in transporter stasis. He’s monitoring the buffer & transferring the group pattern between three buffers to keep the buffers from destabilising & loosing the patterns of the hostages. He beams out the Bajoran & they’ll chat. This officer is one of the first Starfleet defectors to what will one day be called the Maquis
The Bajoran records a message, and lists his demands (Whatever they are is up to you, but it could be a federation investigation of the cardie occupation of Bajor, or intervention, or supplies?)
This message is quietly left on someone’s desk in the night by the defector (I'd suggest making this guy a telepath, so he can scan people he needs too or block unwanted scans, he can also keep an eye out telepathically, not using scanners)
The transporter isn’t drawing power from the station as he has rigged the phase inducers and connected them to an emitter array, he has set them up as a regenerative power source, backed up by a portable power generator, this will allow it to function without drawing power from the station.
The patterns of the hostages are being used in a level one diagnostic routine to maintain their integrity.
Once the message is received the pc’s obviously will realise that someone on base is involved & a search will begin, the buffer, if scanned, should simply show as running a detailed level one diagnostic. (Scheduled maintenance) but only mention this if the specifically ask about transporter activity. (IE, logs, usage etc)
Messages should follow every 9 hrs or so, again, up to you.

Scene Two
Okay, after a couple of days, the PC’s should have an idea what’s happening, from here, it’s up to you as to how you want this to proceed, if the players have spent too long chasing the wild goose in the Triangle they should soon realise they need to be back at base to find out what's happening there.
If they've been on the base and investigating the ease or difficluty of their investigation will entirly depend on the questions they've asked...
From here it is up to what the PC's have been doing, and what the GM has planned, i haven't run this idea yet (And not likely o get a chance to either) but if anyone does, let me know how it went please.

[TorItara]

Title: The Soulless
Recommended Series Type: Exploration (Federation, Any Era)
Era: Any

The crew's starship is warping through space to their next destination, along the edges of explored space, when a heavily damaged starship of unknown type gets expelled from a micro-warp wormhole (I may have gotten the name wrong - the type of wormhole formed by the Enterprise's warp engines in TMP). Sensors pick up one life-form onboard, heavily wounded and on the verge of death. Presumabely, the Crew beams off the life-form and has the Doctor among them (or an NPC Doctor) heal him. The alien dies 'on the table', but the Doctor manages to fortiously revive him. The crew investigate the starship - the first warp-capable vessel of their world - and retrieves data from the computer system. The species that launched the vessel is called the Ako-cho, a highly spiritual/religious species from a nearby star system, and the pilot is the Crown Prince, named Ichiru.

The Captain orders a course set for the star system, which leaves the crew to deal with the Prince - and the main problem of the episode, which lies in the Ako-cho's belief system: That the soul leaves the body on clinical death, and that the body is Ako-chinn, or soulless, if revived using medical technology after death. Naturally, the performance of such a 'crime' against their Crown Prince's body poses certain diplomatic problems - as does the fact that the Ako-chinn have no rights, and are used, effectively, as slave labor. If you do it right, the Crew may well be entirely unaware of this problem until after they warp into the Ako-cho home system. Other than their mis-treatment of the Ako-chinn, the Ako-cho would seem to be ideal Federation members - all other elements of their society are equal, they hold personal rights and freedom in high regard, so on, so forth, and so the crew will hopefully make an effort to solve this diplomatic problem and begin the first steps towards guiding the Ako-cho to Federation membership.


Title: The Tenacious Dilemma
Recommended Series Type: Exploration (Federation, TNG/Pre-DW DS9)
While exploring (once more along the edges of explored space), the crew's starship picks up a repeating distress signal from the USS Tenacious - a starship that is currently under construction in Utopia Planitia, a year and a half from being space-worthy, and nowhere near the area of space the crew is currently exploring. Despite the apparent discontinuity, Starfleet regulations mandate that they respond upon the receipt of a distress signal, and manage to trace the signal to the surface of the fifth planet of a nearby binary star system after finding the Tenacious does not respond to any attempt to hail it.

Upon arrival in the star-system, sensor sweeps reveal debris from two starships - one Federation and one Romulan - and an apparent anomaly: the debris is over one thousand years old, existing far prior to the formation of the Federation. Scanning the fifth planet of the system - where the distress signal originates - reveals another apparent anomaly: The local society is presently at the equivlant of Earth's mid-1300s, yet sensors are showing distinct signs indicating the presence of an operational fusion reactor underneath some plains on the planet's largest continent - plains where significant amounts of humanoid lifesigns are currently arraying themselves in apparent preparation for battle.

The Captain orders an Away Team to be sent, and they arrive three hours before the amassing armies arrive within sight of each other - and where the crew are. Tricorder scans indicate a holographic projector active, concealing an entrance within a nearby hillside. Upon entering, they find a hidden base, much akin to a Starfleet observation outpost, with but one addition - the presence of cyrogenic sleep chambers holding about 27 individuals in Starfleet uniform - and 17 Romulans (and, if you wish, a few Remans) in standard Romulan Navy (or Tal Shava - Marines - for the Remans) uniform. There is also one abnormality present - the base computer systems contain historical data for years that have not passed yet - up to mid to late-2374, shortly after the capture of Betazed and the entry of the Romulans into the Dominion War.

How the crew deals with this influx of information is the crux of the story, and ultimately up to your group, but a little backstory (or rather, forestory, since the events in question have yet to happen) is in order - in 2374, the Dominion makes the capture of the Barzan system - and the unstable wormhole therein (TNG: The Price) - a priority, in hopes of facilitating it's research into a means of creating an artifical wormhole to Dominion space. Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire realize the threat, and have a significant presence waiting for the Dominion upon arrival.

During the battle, a cloaked Romulan destroyer - travelling along the edges of the battle-zone - collides with the USS Tenacious, and the collision pushes both the Tenacious and the destroyer into the nearby Barzan wormhole, where chronitons emitted from the destroyer's still-functioning cloaking device push the two ships about 1500 years into the past, and hundreds of light years through space, to the system it's now in. The Tenacious rescues the crew of the destroyer, managing to make it to the nearby planet despite heavy damage and construct the outpost the crew are now in, before engaging their own ships self-destruct sequence - to prevent historical contamination - and put themselves and the Romulans into cyrogenic stasis, programming the computer to start sending the distress signal shortly after they 'historically' disappeared, and awaken them then. The computer malfunctioned - after centuries without maintainance, it's a miracle it functioned as well as it did - and started sending the distress call early, and lost the instructions to revive the crew. Enter the crew, who must now deal with the ramifications of the knowledge that the Federation is going to enter a war - and soon - that it is on the losing end of as far as the historical data goes.

For an interesting variant of this scenario, replace the Tenacious with your own crew's starship - the crew's starship will be at the Battle of Barzan, and get sent into the past, and among the crew in stasis are future versions of the crew, scarred by the horrors of war.

Just a few thoughts,
-Tor Itara

[TorItara]

Title: The Soulless
Recommended Series Type: Exploration (Federation, Any Era)
Era: Any

The crew's starship is warping through space to their next destination, along the edges of explored space, when a heavily damaged starship of unknown type gets expelled from a micro-warp wormhole (I may have gotten the name wrong - the type of wormhole formed by the Enterprise's warp engines in TMP). Sensors pick up one life-form onboard, heavily wounded and on the verge of death. Presumabely, the Crew beams off the life-form and has the Doctor among them (or an NPC Doctor) heal him. The alien dies 'on the table', but the Doctor manages to fortiously revive him. The crew investigate the starship - the first warp-capable vessel of their world - and retrieves data from the computer system. The species that launched the vessel is called the Ako-cho, a highly spiritual/religious species from a nearby star system, and the pilot is the Crown Prince, named Ichiru.

The Captain orders a course set for the star system, which leaves the crew to deal with the Prince - and the main problem of the episode, which lies in the Ako-cho's belief system: That the soul leaves the body on clinical death, and that the body is Ako-chinn, or soulless, if revived using medical technology after death. Naturally, the performance of such a 'crime' against their Crown Prince's body poses certain diplomatic problems - as does the fact that the Ako-chinn have no rights, and are used, effectively, as slave labor. If you do it right, the Crew may well be entirely unaware of this problem until after they warp into the Ako-cho home system. Other than their mis-treatment of the Ako-chinn, the Ako-cho would seem to be ideal Federation members - all other elements of their society are equal, they hold personal rights and freedom in high regard, so on, so forth, and so the crew will hopefully make an effort to solve this diplomatic problem and begin the first steps towards guiding the Ako-cho to Federation membership.


Title: The Tenacious Dilemma
Recommended Series Type: Exploration (Federation, TNG/Pre-DW DS9)
While exploring (once more along the edges of explored space), the crew's starship picks up a repeating distress signal from the USS Tenacious - a starship that is currently under construction in Utopia Planitia, a year and a half from being space-worthy, and nowhere near the area of space the crew is currently exploring. Despite the apparent discontinuity, Starfleet regulations mandate that they respond upon the receipt of a distress signal, and manage to trace the signal to the surface of the fifth planet of a nearby binary star system after finding the Tenacious does not respond to any attempt to hail it.

Upon arrival in the star-system, sensor sweeps reveal debris from two starships - one Federation and one Romulan - and an apparent anomaly: the debris is over one thousand years old, existing far prior to the formation of the Federation. Scanning the fifth planet of the system - where the distress signal originates - reveals another apparent anomaly: The local society is presently at the equivlant of Earth's mid-1300s, yet sensors are showing distinct signs indicating the presence of an operational fusion reactor underneath some plains on the planet's largest continent - plains where significant amounts of humanoid lifesigns are currently arraying themselves in apparent preparation for battle.

The Captain orders an Away Team to be sent, and they arrive three hours before the amassing armies arrive within sight of each other - and where the crew are. Tricorder scans indicate a holographic projector active, concealing an entrance within a nearby hillside. Upon entering, they find a hidden base, much akin to a Starfleet observation outpost, with but one addition - the presence of cyrogenic sleep chambers holding about 27 individuals in Starfleet uniform - and 17 Romulans (and, if you wish, a few Remans) in standard Romulan Navy (or Tal Shava - Marines - for the Remans) uniform. There is also one abnormality present - the base computer systems contain historical data for years that have not passed yet - up to mid to late-2374, shortly after the capture of Betazed and the entry of the Romulans into the Dominion War.

How the crew deals with this influx of information is the crux of the story, and ultimately up to your group, but a little backstory (or rather, forestory, since the events in question have yet to happen) is in order - in 2374, the Dominion makes the capture of the Barzan system - and the unstable wormhole therein (TNG: The Price) - a priority, in hopes of facilitating it's research into a means of creating an artifical wormhole to Dominion space. Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire realize the threat, and have a significant presence waiting for the Dominion upon arrival.

During the battle, a cloaked Romulan destroyer - travelling along the edges of the battle-zone - collides with the USS Tenacious, and the collision pushes both the Tenacious and the destroyer into the nearby Barzan wormhole, where chronitons emitted from the destroyer's still-functioning cloaking device push the two ships about 1500 years into the past, and hundreds of light years through space, to the system it's now in. The Tenacious rescues the crew of the destroyer, managing to make it to the nearby planet despite heavy damage and construct the outpost the crew are now in, before engaging their own ships self-destruct sequence - to prevent historical contamination - and put themselves and the Romulans into cyrogenic stasis, programming the computer to start sending the distress signal shortly after they 'historically' disappeared, and awaken them then. The computer malfunctioned - after centuries without maintainance, it's a miracle it functioned as well as it did - and started sending the distress call early, and lost the instructions to revive the crew. Enter the crew, who must now deal with the ramifications of the knowledge that the Federation is going to enter a war - and soon - that it is on the losing end of as far as the historical data goes.

For an interesting variant of this scenario, replace the Tenacious with your own crew's starship - the crew's starship will be at the Battle of Barzan, and get sent into the past, and among the crew in stasis are future versions of the crew, scarred by the horrors of war.

Just a few thoughts,
-Tor Itara

[TorItara]

My sincere apologies for the double post - it was entirely unintended. My browser was being slow (five minutes waiting for it to post), so I hit the post button again, and it apparently posted it twice. Once more, sorry!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

So the Ako-chinn are... zombies? I think there's something you can play with there.

Would Ichiru accept his state? Is the workforce pacified simply by their own beliefs, or is there a medicinal component, like in actual zombism?

I think i'd give Ichiru a sinister streak–what does he decide to do when he's no longer actually a sentient being? Sure, others may have no moral obligations toward them (hence the slave labour) but he has no moral obligations to anyone else. And if he can hide his Ako-chinn status ("Don't tell them about the revivification! I will... uh... loose face among my peers!") then he may believe he's free to become a Devil Emperor of Ako-cho, or whatever. Perhaps there's a prophecy concerning the an ako-chinn ruler sent to herald doom or something.

And then someone sticks crazy-juice in the Ako-chinn's medicine, and they go berserk.

[TorItara]

According to the Ako-cho's beliefs (as I intended them)... that's a pretty good word for it. Of course, the intent was that this be merely a strong belief (and that the Ako-cho are, effectively, exploiting this group) - it was originally conceived of as a 'thought episode', of sorts, the kind of episode that causes you to leave the episode thinking about a modern problem.
To be fair, though, I forget what one was supposed to be thinking about - it's been a long while since I came up with the episode seed. I do remember the idea was planted in my head while I was trying to come up with a thought episode, of sorts, regarding euthanasia (I ultimately failed in that endeavour, and I had forgotten that there were a couple of episodes of actual Trek that dealt with that issue). Of course, your interpretation of that is certainly interesting. I may have to run it, if I ever manage to find a group that would let me run (or would run) a Star Trek game - I seem to have trouble with this.