Adventure Seeds

[Black Armos]

Title: War Games
Recommended Series Type: TNG or after

Description:
The start of the episode has the players' ship rendezvousing with a Klingon warship. The purpose of the meeting is to conduct war games between the Federation and their Klingon allies. The adventure is helped if the Klingon ship or commander is one of note in the Empire (has some influence).

After an initial meeting/party with the Klingon crew, the war games are to start the next day. The games do not start at the agreed time however and it becomes clear something is wrong aboard the Klingon vessel. The players learn the commander of the Klingon ship has been assassinated and the new leader blames the Federation crew.

The players must find out what really happened to the late commander before tensions rise enough for the shooting to start.

A Narrator could use a number of antagonists for this episode as the individuals responsible for the assassination (ex. those go to guys, Romulans!). I actually used the Beta XII-A entity from the TOS episode Day of the Dove. I explained that the entity gorged itself during the Dominion War and was now trying to create a conflict between the Klingons and Federation in the confusion after the war.

[Alex]

A variation I thought of while reading Black Armos's War Games post. Pick a state that is on friendly or tenuous terms with the Federation after a long history of conflict. For example, the Klingons very early in TNG or if you extended the timeline possibly the Romulans well after Nemesis. The Federation sends it's best captain/ship (the PCs) and the other state sends it's best. Both are reknowned vessels, crews, captains. The idea is like in Black Armos's post, a friendly joint training exercise so each side can learn from the best of the other and adopt pieces of strategy and methods of thinking that will strengthen their space force. Except that the captain of the other vessel is secretly a supporter of a small movement to return to the old guard ways. He doesn't want the peace to continue and when the war games begin, the Fed ship is at an immediate disadvantage since the other ship isn't pulling any punches! Taking damage that disables the ship in key ways (like no communications, or whatever the GM wants to increase tension but not make the scenario impossible), the Fed ship now has to fight an uphill battle, probably running and using the terrain and every trick in the book to help them.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Or the aggressor is, in fact, the PCs ship–someone's changed the training lasers to real weaponry and is controlling the vessel from an unknown location onboard or off.

I think "to increase tensions!" is kinda hackneyed at this point–that's the first motive the players will all think of. Giving the antagonist some other goal–personal revenge, jealousy, professional envy and career sabotage, or the beta XII-a type alien incursion would make it more interesting.

[C5]

Title : Divided we stand
Type : Conspiracy, time travel, alternate universe
Era : Any

In a far or not-so-far future (a few centuries or less), the Federation managed to encompass all of the Galaxy. Some unaligned powers remain, but they are unable to represent the slightest threat to the behemoth the Federation has become. The Borg might have been destroyed or assimilated in the Federation - now allowing people to enter and leave the Collective at will, in a sort of exchange program.
Everything is well, and the only current concerns of the Federation are establishing treaties with various god-like entities (Metrons, Prophets...) and handling interdimensional species like Species 8472.

Then a race from another galaxy invades the Milky Way (it could very well be the Kheldian). This race shares no common ground whatsoever with any of the lifeforms in the Federation, including the strangest ones. And it is very efficient - much more advanced than the Federation, who, because of its enormous size and the lack of any serious threat, has become ill-prepared for war.

As the Federation slowly loses the war, some scientists realize that their chances of success would be much higher if the Federation had not been so successful in the last centuries. A few very advanced timeships (more like Aronnax's than TimeFleet) are then sent into the past. They are in constant communication with a temporally shielded outpost, who constantly updates them on the outcome of their actions.

Enter the players, at any era, who discover these strange operatives who seem intent on preventing the Federation to grow (depending on the era, they could try to start a war with the Romulan Empire in the 24th century, prevent the peace and further alliance with the Klingons in TOS times, disrupt alliance with the Vulcans in the ENT era...). The operatives from the future will at first appear like the villains of the story, until the players start bothering them too much, at which point they could decide to enlist them (this could lead to a whole series where the players start working for the future Federation to prevent it from existing).

Idealist Narrators (which I consider myself to be) could rule that, in fact, what prevents the Federation from wining the future war is actually that it didn't grow fast enough (for instance, the scientist who could have invented the weapon to defeat the invaders has been killed in a petty war between two minor powers before they become encompassed in the Federation). This would of course become obvious only after significant changes to the timeline, resulting in a much smaller Federation in the future, did little to stop the invasion.

This scenario could also be used by a Narrator to rewrite history to his or her liking (the Narrator's favoured history being the one eventually allowing the future Galaxy to defeat the invaders).

[TorItara]

Title: Hippocratic Dilliema
Type: Exploration (First-Contact)
Era: Starfleet, Any Era (TNG would probably be the best fit)

Taking a cue from a seed on the first thread on this one. During first contact with a newly discovered species (that, oddly enough, selects its leaders from medical professionals), the species requests assistance with a medical problem. It seems that the planet is suffering from an outbreak of a deadly virus (Venarin Flu). They've developed a cure - something Federation science has yet to do, due to the adaptive nature of the virus (after a day has passed for the virus to adapt to the body, any attempt at treatment results in the condition worsening). Unfortunately, the Doctors say, those infected seek to flee treatment into the wilderness, and government resources are stretched thin trying to locate them and finally end the recurring outbreaks.

What the Doctors aren't telling the Starfleet crew is that the adaptive nature of the virus 'copies' sentience when it infects sentient being, and is essentially reproducing through these outbreaks. The species understandably fears the loss of identity that comes with infection - it is, in a manner of speaking, the death of one's identity - and is in the process of genocidal efforts against the virus. This poses a clear moral dillema when the crew inevitably finds this out - the virus cannot exist without causing the effective death of another being. Is it ethical to kill one being to save another, or even to kill off an entire species in order to prevent otherwise inevitable deaths? And what of the cure for the virus, which the species will provide for their assistance, and which may save countless Federation lives, albeit at the cost of the lives of the virus?

This is meant as a bit of a thought episode. Both sides are meant as sympathetic characters. The closest I've come to a decent solution to the dilemma is to broker an agreement allow those already infected to survive, and only allow the virus to reproduce when the infected hosts do - directly into the child. Still, even this is bound to pose ethical problems. If you run it, and your group comes up with some great solution - please, let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

[Gispert]

Starfleet
Era: Post Nemisous.
Type: Horror

"Massicuue at Gamma Theta IV"

This was my remake of the orginal Premade adventure by Decipher. Same setting, different time, and villians. When they team beams down for the resupply, they notice that the station is under lockdown. Instead of the Jem-Hadar soldiers that were in the orginal mission, I replaced them with Prime Drone, the millitary branch of the Prime, and the most replicated bodie type. If the players try to enocunter the Primes they will learn that they drain their phaser energy makeing them into "Hulk" like creature that will attack all that attempt to do that again. Only max setting can kill them out right (Which to this day still scares my crew, ) They crew must get out alive, and report this attack to Starfleet. As they walk down they halls they will notice that most of the walls are covered in a orgainic covering, that only seams to spread as they try to blast them. They could also see the Primes placing the "bodies" of the colony staff into large shafts that lead to their "de-replicating" centers where their DNA is organized and place into their own "birthing" machines.

Before the players escaped, I made sure they were teleported to the Prime Advisor, (Vorta replacement), which calls himself simpley as Prime (Yes thisis where the name came from, If someone knows how to say "Replicator" in Latin, I could replace that for it). The Prime Advisor attempts to interrigate the crew, and learn as much as he can about them with his Brain wave turrents that almost took down a disciplined Vulcan mind with only one hit. The Brain wave beam does something very simular to a Mind Meld, only it downloads their "thought" patterns into thier computers for further use later.

This episode should scare the crew, and force them to think outside of the box on how to take them down. Phasers will not work real well here, but primitive weapons do, such as AK-47 but they crew will most likely not have a clue how to use that kind of weapon. If you want to use the Primes, let me know I have almost complete species profile written up. Just PM me, and I'll send you a copy, it only cost 3.5 million Federation Credits, which goes to the Federation Reconstruction Fund,

[Scarecrow]

It's been probably about six years since I posted in this thread!!
Anyhoo, I'm running a TOS era game using Savage Worlds and using a mish-mash of Renny's rules, Red Alert and some others.

The adventure seed I've come up with is this:

The players are summoned to the transporter room of their ship. They've responded to a distress signal and have arrived at the scene. What they are shown in the briefing beggars belief. Two ships, one Federation, one Klingon are merged in space. The point at which they join, both ships are distorted, tapering down into a pin-point and meet at a sphere of brilliant white light. The players are to form an away team and beam across to either ship and find survivors and try and figure out what the hell is going on.
Scans of the light show an extremely powerful localised time-space distortion and several forms of energy and radiation, "like nothing we've ever seen before." It's interfering with scans of the remains of the ships aswell.

What is going on?
Against incredible odds the two ships collided at high warp. Far from being utterly annihilated the warp bubble of each ship intersected and the excessive time-space distortion created a rip in the fabric of reality opening a hole into another dimension. A hole through which something utterly alien has fallen.

The players have to navigate the limited habitable areas in what's left of either ship and figure out what happened. They will almost certainly meet angry Klingons. The question is, what about what came through? Is it loose on the ship? Or is it the size of a ship and is currently away terrorising a nearby colony?

Probably both!

Crow

[Cdre Bob Wesley]

Title: Hot & Cold
Type: Diplomacy
Era: Starfleet, Any Era (TOS would probably be the best fit)

The adventure is based on the Katy Perry video of the same name. Don't laugh, please hear me out.

STARFLEET ORDERS: [Your starship is being sent on a diplomatic mission of utmost urgency. Two neighboring planets in the Aurora system, Genovia and Andalaisia, are on the brink of war.

During a 47-day cease-fire, the Federation had been able to moderate peace talks that appeared to be going downhill. But in a surprise windfall for both sides, the Prince and Princess of Andalasia and Genovia have taken a liking to each other. They are now engaged, and as a result this will promise unity for both worlds.

Your orders are to perform the role of interplanetary officiate and preside over the wedding ceremony.]


Unfortunately, the groom gets cold feet and runs out during the ceremony. To make matters worse, it's revealed that the groom is an alien empath and has this effect on women all the time. So his ex-GFs are stalking him, as well as the Princess of Andalasia.


LOL, it's the fairytale from hell. This one simply writes itself, man.

[Cdre Bob Wesley]

"Mudd, Sweat, and Tears" . . .a TOS-era scenario.

This is a sandbox-style Harry Mudd encounter you can spring on your PCs with very little setup. The events follow sometime after the TOS episode "I Mudd."


Basic premise:

Harry Mudd has sold everyone a bridge and your crew has to settle potential conflict-upon-conflict.

Number of encounters: The con man + any number of those as he has ripped off.

The Backstory:

- Still stranded on the android planet, Mudd settles down and takes up an apparently benign hobby: Building model ships in a bottle. Seeing this as a constructive form of therapy, the androids assist him. Even the Stella androids appear to ease off, since this is one of Harry's few activities that she can't really criticize.

- After building several rather nice little models for the fireplace mantle, Mudd’s final project is to be his “masterpiece” a “1:1 scale class-J starship made of the most precious metal and gems of the entire planet, with only the finest attention to the most minute detail!” The naive androids are only too happy to indulge him and assist.

- Once finished, Mudd then confesses all his illogical indiscretions to the multiple emotionally charged Stellas; implicating each Alice in the process, and pitting them all against one another. In the midst of this brief period of chaos, Mudd grabs a sledgehammer and shatters the bottle that houses his escape.

- Now back in space, Mudd then trades his pimped-out ride to Orion pirates for a stolen First Federation pilot vessel. His goal is to carry-out the plan he had during his initial attempt to take-over of the Enterprise. Mudd was always a few steps ahead. He not only wanted off the android planet (desperately), but had his next big con already planned out. The android Norman provided a wealth of classified information from his time aboard the Enterprise. One of the ship’s previous encounters was with an automated planet killer. Even inert, the salvage value alone would be astronomical. Wealth beyond Harry Mudd’s wildest dreams was just floating there in space. As soon as he heard news of stolen tractor beam technology from the First Federation’s Fesaurius, he had everything he needed to pull off the greatest con ever.

Adventure setup:

- A few sessions prior to the actual scenario, the PCs hear news of First Federation tractor-beam technology (basically a powerful tug) being stolen from the Fesaurius. The thieves are still at large and Balok asks Starfleet to keep an eye out.

- At the beginning of the actual adventure, the players encounter a First Federation vessel (perhaps of similar appearance to Balok's pilot vessel) quite far from its home system and in obvious distress. The ship is in poor condition as a result of being flown/traded by beings incapable of maintaining the ship's advanced technology.

- The pilot vessel resists standard hails. At one point, the Balok puppet will appear onscreen in a crazy attempt to scare the crew away; making empty threats (the vessel is unarmed). Sensors reveal a single human aboard.

- The PCs eventually realize that they're dealing with Harry Mudd. After capturing him and getting him to talk, Harry reveals that he has "sold” the inert planet killer (from The Doomsday Machine) to the Klingons. It just so happens that Mudd also “sells” the very same planet killer to [whatever homebrew main villain that is native to your campaign].

- So pretty much everyone wants to claim the planet killer. Three dogs in the proverbial junkyard, but only one bone between them.

NPC information:

K'RALE - A nomadic Klingon Warlord currently on the outs with the Empire. He desperately wants to regain the favor of his superiors, and the quicker the better.

He encounters Harry Mudd, who offers to "sell" K'Rale the planet killer from the episode "The Doomsday Machine." K'Rale has never heard of it before. He is also totally unaware of Mudd's reputation as a con artist, and pays him almost an entire fortune. . .safe in the assumption that Mudd will deliver on his promises.

Mudd informs K'Rale that the Planet Killer is currently inactive and, "in need of a few er-hmm. . .small repairs. Otherwise, it is quite worthy of salvage I assure you!" Thus, Mudd appears honest and even draws up an honorable-appearing contract. K'Rale is convinced that if he could bring this device back to the Empire and somehow reactivate it, he will regain his former status. Not only that, but he is assured of even more glory when this weapon brings the downfall of the Federation!!!

Mudd tells the Klingon that there is only one little catch. The Planet Killer is only available for pick-up across the Neutral Zone in UFP territory. This means little to K'Rale. If everything goes as expected, he will be in and out of Federation space with his prize before anyone notices, much less responds. K'Rale heartily agrees to the terms, "It's a deal."

What K'Rale does not know is that the salvage rights to the Planet Killer have also been "sold" to someone else. Mudd has not only been double-dealing behind his back, but it turns out that Starfleet has even caught wind of it.

Once all the ships appear in the same sector and attempt to lay claim to the same object, K'Rale decides he wants to nail Mudd's head to a wall and feed the rest to the Targs.

Hmm. . .maybe I should have submitted this to BTFF instead?

[Cdre Bob Wesley]

"Warchild" . . .a diplomacy scenario/bottle episode for any era.

This is a send-up of "Charlie X" or "And the Children Shall Lead" wrapped in Ender's Game.

Many of my friends are sci-fi nuts, but never read any Orson Scott Card. So this works out great!


Basic premise:

- Eight-year-old Ender Wiggum (or any other name of GM's preference) is beamed aboard as the "ambassador" of an advanced Earth-like civilization that has been at war for centuries with a distant insectoid race.

- The USS Bretagne is assigned to transport the young ambassador to the signing of a peace treaty on the insectoid planet. If all goes well, both planets would be considered for Federation membership. War between the planets has always been conducted through long-range remote weapon systems.

- To the crew, Ender appears benign and obedient. . .but withdrawn. Apart from his advanced military schooling, Ender is a rather naive and good-hearted soul. His only fixed interest is in "playing games," with a portable game unit that he brings aboard with him (and nothing else). To the PCs, this appears to be a simple escort mission.

Number of encounters: Numerous, depending on the decisions the PCs make. I plan on ripping them all off of characters from the book.

The Backstory:

The Earth-like civilization is not who they appear to be. In reality, they're setting the PCs up as a mule under the pretense of a peace treaty. Ender is not an ambassador, but rather an "ultimate weapon" meant to annihilate the insectoid homeworld. Ender has no knowledge of any of this. The "games" he plays are very real in a certain aspect (see below).

Options:

- Ender's "game" automatically links into and takes over the ship; turning it into a long-range offensive weapon. Prudent analysis of the game would lend itself to clues that could tip off the ship's crew.

- Ender himself is some kind of TK bomb. A member of the crew who is an empath and/or telepath would be able to detect this inherent trait. Troi doubles over in pain, or Spock is stunned after attempting a mind-meld.

- Ender is a gatekeeper for a long-range "gate" for the main fleet that bypasses long-range sensors.

- You get the idea.

This episode would free-up the PCs for a lot of general roleplaying and off-time recreation or whatnot. Ender could be assigned a PC crewmember to watch over him and make sure he enjoys his trip, etc. Of course, Ender behaves very strangely for a child, and relates more with the Captain, weapons crew, and security. If other children are on board, they will express a high level of aversion and hatred towards Ender.

The possibilities are numerous for a creative Narrator. This will be my next-to-final episode as GM.

[Owen E Oulton]

http://www.coldnorth.com/owen/stuff/intrepid.htm

[Pluribus]

TITLE: Uprising (yeah, I'm blanking on a decent title)
ERA: Any
TYPE: Diplomacy


The crew makes first contact with an alien race consisting entirely of machines. Not even androids, a lot of them have wheels or tank treads and such. I would try to emphasize that they're not even trying to mimic humans in appearance or functionality.

The planet has no evidence of previous organic civilization. In fact investigation reveals that the machines were originally sent to terraform the planet. They finished terraforming, and have been going about their business ever since, eventually forming a civilization. For reasons outside of their control and knowledge colonists just never showed up.

As part of terraforming the world was to be populated with basic life forms in order to create the ecosystem. In the thousands of years that followed the machines started breeding and eventually genetically engineering organic life forms to perform menial or dangerous tasks. They even have a space program involving creatures modified to survive in space and serve as ships. Which are capable of low warp speeds. In essence they have organic technology.

They do not use robots for this because that would be unethical, in their eyes it would be no different than slavery. Creating machines without AI would be as reprehensible as we see lobotomizing humans.


Most importantly, this first contact comes at a time of crisis. The machines went too far. They created a humanoid race, and made them too smart. The organics have rebelled, seized several cloning facilities, and are in the process of trying to wipe out the robots. The humanoids even have the advantage in numbers as they can clone as many as they like throwing in genetic diversity as is convenient, while creating a new robot in their culture always means creating a new individual, a process that takes time and deliberation.

Something that worries the robots is that the crew of the ship has "self replicating capacity". IE they're male and female, as opposed to the gender-less clones they are currently fighting.



In short, its a race of robots in the middle of a human apocalypse. Which side do you take? How does the prime directive apply in this situation? After all, it's only a civil war if you consider both sides to be 'people'.

[Doug Taylor]

I'm planning on using elements from two of the earliest ideas on this thread (from the first two pages, posted over a decade ago in 2001) for my session this Friday. The two I'm sort of combining (and adding to) are "Dangerous Find" (reply #12) and "The Ancient" (#20).

This is a fantastic resource, so thanks to everybody for their creative plots and wonderful story ideas!

[XOCatboy]

Ran this last night, it went well.

Title: Colony or Bust
Type: Diplomacy
Era: TOS/Movie

Whilecon a routine border patrol near the Klingon border the crew receives a distress call from the colony on Sherman's Planet. Planetary sensors have detected a large unknown ship hurtling towards them out of control.

The ship turns out to be a cryogenic colony ship from a prewarp civilization a few lightyears away. It was headed to colonize shermans planet and got caught in a tachyon eddy. Turning a sublight journey of a few hundred years into a few days. The crew was escaping their planet which their people turned into a nuclear wasteland. They are a bit disappointed to find out the planet is already colonized, but their ship can not refreeze them once they were unfrozen (nor do they want to refreeze).

Whatever side the players take (help them colonize, or encourage them to relocate) things get complicated when the klingons show up also answering the distress call. The Klingons take the opposite side of the players, refusing to let them colonize the jointly owned world or offering them a position of authority on the planet.

I wrote this to see how my players would handle the prime directive when it is a prewarp civilization that is interfering with them. They managed to diplomacy the klingons into letting them settle on shermans, but not after the aliens were getting thoroughly fed up with both nations lol.

[Sarge]

Since the new trailer came out, I've been thinking about what set old Trek apart. Social relevance and willingness to explore present-day controversial topics are key elements that have faded in later Trek. So I dreamed up this:

THE RIGHT TO LIVE

The latest Federation census shows a marked decline in the population of Andorians. The leader of a major Andorian religious sect is preaching that this decline is divine retribution for modern Andoria's lack of respect for innocent life, specifically, abortion on demand. This cleric went to Andoria's courts to push for a law defining the abortion of a healthy fetus as murder. He made his case clearly and powerfully, including testimony from doctors and biologists emphasizing the sophisticated brainwave patterns of the unborn. He also brought in psionics, including Vulcan mindmelders and Betazoid empaths and telepaths, who testified that the unborn had their own thoughts, feelings, and distinct personalities. The Andorian judiciary carefully considered the evidence as well as the counter arguments of reproductive rights advocates, and concluded that the right of all Andorians to live their lives must take precedence over reproductive rights of those already living. Abortion on demand was outlawed.

This ruling caused turmoil throughout the Federation. Caitians were particularly incensed. (Caitians give birth to multiple litters, and high infant mortality rate is an accepted part of life on Cait, so abortion is widely accepted and encouraged there.) The Caitian embassy on Andoria declared its doors open and medical staff available to any and all Andorians wishing for abortions. The Andorian government forced the closure of the embassy and beamed all the Caitians there onto a fast transport for delivery to Cait. Cait declared all its worlds open to political refugees seeking asylum from Andoria. Andoria embargoed all travel to Caitian worlds and mobilized its defense fleet. The "Big Blue Fleet" has declared that its mission is to protect the lives of Andorians everywhere, whether they are on other worlds or living in other Andorians.

Currently, demonstrations and counterdemonstrations are popping up all over the Federation and occasionally turning violent. Bombs have been found in abortion clinics and assassination attempts against Andorian clerics have been foiled. The Andorian fleet is readying to blockade Caitian worlds. Caitian defense forces are mobilizing to protect the liberty of Cait. The Andorian and Caitian home defense fleets are the most powerful in the Federation and both cultures have ancient warrior traditions, so this is a powder keg that could explode into a major blood bath.

Enter the PCs, assigned as diplomats with broad powers to resolve the situation peacefully. Ensure they make contact with eloquent and well-reasoned proponents of both sides of the issue. And if someone finds a satisfactory solution, share it here!

PS: If things go badly and the GM is willing to upset the apple cart, this adventure could lead in to a Federation Civil War series.