Adventure Ideas "The Hell Sector"

[Owen]

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time Star Trek fan and visitor to this site (since the LUG days), but a first time poster. I am new to this game, but have been playing various RPGs since 1987. My favorite is Rifts. I'm about to start running my Star Trek game.

Anyway, I have all the books and will set my game just after the Dominion War. The crew will spend some time patroling the Romulan NZ and then the border with the Breen. According to the ST Star Charts book there are some unexplored sections and amid the exploration duties is where the action away from the Breen will take place.

One 20 lightyear sector will be made up of numerous M-Class planets from various sci-fi books and movies. The twist is that they all had very bad endings. Examples:

1. The Company (Whelan-Yutani) did get the Aliens back to Earth, as planned in the second movie.

2. The remaining humans or planet natives are fighting for survival after the War of the Worlds went the Martian's way. In my adventure, the world in trouble will have technology just like the novel: late 1800s to early 1900s

3. At the beginning of my series, the crew's ship is hit by remnants of very sophisticated technology after a massive explosion in subspace. While investigating, they find a dying soldier who says one word before passing on. "Berserker".

4. The crew's Runabout crash lands on a plague stricken world with a handful of survivors fighting for their lives against countless zombies (the new Dawn of the Dead movie).

Well, sorry for the long read, but those are my ideas for the "Hell Sector". Everything that could go wrong did for these planets. I want more than 6 worlds but these are my top four. I have 5 PCs for my game and want to make each particular PC the lead character for each planet's story. I welcome any additional ideas and comments you all may wish to share.

[AslanC]

Neat ideas.

So who is behind it all? What power has made these things? Who is Berserker?

[Owen]

There is no one in particular behind it all just bad endings on each of the planets different from the original movies and stories.

Berserkers are from a series of Fred Saberhagen novels. They are near sentient doomsday machines left over from a very ancient war. Their goal is to erradicate all life from the universe from the highest life forms down to bacteria. A lot of the early books are out of print now but the stories started in 1965 I believe.

[tmutant]

Check out the Evil Gamemasters Support Group thread for miore ideas. Or post some of yours over there. These would fit right in.

[tmutant]

Originally posted by AslanC
Neat ideas.

So who is behind it all? What power has made these things? Who is Berserker?

The Doomsday Machine in TOS was loosely based on the Berserker stories. Same concept. Ultimate Weapon that runs out of control, and tries to kill everything. Only Berserkers are smart, and reproduce (by building copies of themselves, with improvments built in), capture live enemies to study their physiology and gather intelligence, and send andriod spies into the enemies population to spread misinformation and subversion. If I recall correctly, in one of the stories, they started a Death cult to encourage people to kill themselves. Nasty buggers. I like.

[Balok]

Another idea would be a world on which an atomic war has occurred, and pitiful bands of survivors are hunted by machines under the control of a central computer.

Or a world on which a plague transforms humans into strange mutants, whose violent tendencies make the dangerous to survivors. Life is only possible for the survivors because the mutation includes albinism and the mutants cannot exist in the sunlight.

Or perhaps a jaded dystopia in which high stakes game shows entertain the masses, and at the same time provide an easy way for the government to dispose of troublemakers.

[AslanC]

Let's see if I get them all

Another idea would be a world on which an atomic war has occurred, and pitiful bands of survivors are hunted by machines under the control of a central computer.

I say Termiantor

Or a world on which a plague transforms humans into strange mutants, whose violent tendencies make the dangerous to survivors. Life is only possible for the survivors because the mutation includes albinism and the mutants cannot exist in the sunlight.

Omega Man nice one! Excellent

Or perhaps a jaded dystopia in which high stakes game shows entertain the masses, and at the same time provide an easy way for the government to dispose of troublemakers.

I notice a Ahrnald trend here. Oh yeah, Running Man.

Do I win a No-Prize?

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by AslanC
Omega Man nice one! Excellent

Except for the Albinism, this fits the Morlocks (sp?) from Wells' Time Machine, too... In fact, you could have Morlock/Eloi style world, too... Quite, pacifistic, beutiful people preyed upon by ugly, nasty cave-dwellers...

[Sundowner]

One idea i'm modifing for my group is one from an old RPG called 'Living Steel'.

Basically humanity has colonised a planet, nice place, until an alien race called the spectrals showed up. The spectrals are completly xenophobic, and see humans as a tasty snack. So, they release a virus onto the planet, while subequently bombarding any military targets from orbit.

The virus is called (by humans) the VISR virus (Virally Induced Sociopathic Response). Basically, anyone infected is turned criminally insane. Infection rate was about 70+ % planet wide.

The virus burns out fairly quickly, but leaves a permanent genetic alteration in the infected. Them & their kids will forever be schitso.

Then the spectrals started to land. In the game, for some reason the spectrals only landed a few hundred troops of varying levels when their ship blew up. (Reason unknown). But, those that did land, set about forming a new hive to overrun the planet. The spectrals in the game were impervious to almost any damage, but due to their rarity, it was unlikely you'd ever run across more than one.

In a ST environment, it'll need a little modification, but it could work, especially if you make the spectrals invisible to sensors.

Sundowner.

[Mitchell]

Two ideas....

Idea One: The Thing. You find two people, stranded in the wilderness. They explains about an attack by a shapeshifting, evil lifeform, that can infect people, regenerate, etc. Big deal on the Infection, thing. Have one guy mention, "Just like the Borg..."

Of COURSE, one of the guys is infected, and the Thing promptly shuts off all power, except vital systems. Let havoc rain...

Idea Two: The RPG paranoia. You beam down on a planet, and discover that a psycopathic Computer rules the planet, and fears Commie Mutant Traitors. Luckily, he thinks you're residents, so you're safe...And he even made five clones for you! Of course, you have to get outside the dome he put you in, to get to Transporter Range, to escape...(Combadges don't work, of course.)

[Balok]

Originally posted by AslanC
Do I win a No-Prize?

Yes, indeed! You got them all, and I have no prize available for that, so I'll get that in the mail to you right away!

[Antonsb214]

Throw in Armagons from Shatterzone... an intro for them is making a roundezous with a Sovereign-class ship with Defiant-class escorts or a new heavily armed defense platform or outpost and find all of them destroyed, and the crew chopped up and lots missing....
Armagons are a silicon-based lifeform, they are bad. They'll rip your arm off and beat you with it, because they grafted it to their own body.