A few people in my gaming group or huge Star Trek fans, my wife included, so with our Achtung! Cthulhu game wrapping up, they tasked me with running Modiphius’ new Star Trek Adventures.  Our group had playtested the system and liked it a lot.  To be honest I don’t think the rules mattered that much; any excuse for my players to act like they were in Star Fleet was enough.   Three seconds into the sessions and it was already like “Yes Captain” and “set phasers to stun.”  But alas this blog post isn’t actually about the game itself but my attempt at creating an adventure for it.  You see I while the available adventures are quite good I had a few of my own ideas.  What follows was the mission I used for the Maiden Voyage of the USS Schrödinger.

“Unintended Side Effects”

The Setup:

The new colony on Fenris IV hasn’t checked in in 10 months.  They never asked for their usual 6 months resupply.  Head out there and conduct a wellness check on the colony, render what aid you can.

(if you are someone playing in a Star Trek Adventures game you may want to stop reading this blog now, but instead, share a link to this blog with your GM so they can mine my adventure for ideas that they may want to use in their future adventures)

What has happened:

Six months ago an alien lifeform known as the Record Keeper crashed into the planet near the colony by accident.  It was injured by another race in a nearby system.  It tried to land on Fenris IV when it detected power and an advanced civilization.  It had trouble entering the atmosphere and crashed.

The being soon created an avatar for itself and observed the populous.  They caught glimpses of it and thought it was a monster.  The Record Keeper started creating a neural field around the colony so that he can penetrate their brain waves and make them think he was one of them.  Something he has done on hundreds of worlds.  Soon, however, the populous of the colony started getting sick.

The Record Keeper discovered that its own blood the runoff from the crash was poisoning the water and killing all in the area.  Unable to halt his lifeblood from flowing into the water and unable to move his vessel the Record Keeper did the only thing he knew.  He created synthetic vessels for the biological lifeforms.  He infiltrated the colony as a doctor and cured the sick by placing their heads inside a synthetic body.  Thus preserving their life.  The neural field, of course, made it so no one was the wiser.   Over the next 4 months, most of the colony was replaced.  However, supplies are scarce so the synthetic bodies were only what the Record Keeper had on hand or was able to replicate.

The Record Keeper

Is an anthropologist. It records species culture and knowledge and takes it back to its homeworld (The Core) every millennium.  It was on its way back when it got attacked.   It is dying it knows that and has resigned itself that fate.  In fact, it has cut off the colony’s communication with the outside universe in order to make sure no others get harmed unintentionally.   However, if a way out does present itself (like a starship with enough computer power to hold itself and all its knowledge) it will revert back to its original mission and do whatever it takes (without harming others) to get its knowledge back to The Core.

So that is the basis for the situation.  Here are my bullet points for prep:

Mission Briefing

• Colony on Fenris IV hasn’t checked in 10 months
• They never asked for their usual 6-month resupply
• Please Deliver the usual supplies to the colony and do a wellness check on them

Initial Scans of Planet

• A lot of life forms present on the planet.
• A lot fewer lifeforms per area inside the colony area
• Only 2 Human Lifeforms present

Landing

• Flora around the area is wilting no animal noises
• Small metal towers – non-federation standard around area
• Entering area Requires a Daring + Command Check difficulty 2

Raving Lunatic (seen outside of town)- Kabel Belleros  18 years old.

• “The forest Monster has infiltrated the community”
• Claims they have all been taken over
• Flash in the sky 6 months ago.  The earth shook.
• “Don’t go! It will change you too.”
• “My own mother’s a thing now” “It’s not her I swear it. It’s not her.”
• Insight + Command to calm him down. (people started getting sick. But then the Doctor showed up.  And the sick got well overnight)

Hexiped Attack

• Dog size feathered hexapeds growl at the group. They look gaunt and hungry, feathers wet smelly and carnivorous.
• Fear and hunger dominate thoughts.
• Xenobiology – they are sick desperate a significant show of aggression may scare them off.

The Colony

• The crops are all wilted or dead.  The tree bark looks slimy and is falling off. (If failed test Daring Command upon entering everything looks great. Healthy plants a field full of crops normal happy people)
• The Structures are all intact and you see people moving about.
• People harvesting fields with dead crops
• Insight + Security 1 (IF PASSED Daring Check) – the people have an odd shape they aren’t human.

The Colonist

• Look like bulky cobbled together robots to those that passed the Daring + Command Check Otherwise they appear perfectly normal.
• Colonists have metallic facsimiles of faces some have a bit of articulation while some do not.
• They are all wearing poncho like clothing covering their bulk.
• They are friendly to the crew.  Thanking them for checking up on them but no need.  They are self-sufficient now.  Though they should see if the doctor has need of medicine.  The doctor is such a great guy saved many of the colony members who got sick.
• Doctor out collecting herbs and medicine’s should be back before nightfall.

Meanwhile on Ship

• Once the time for gossip to spread has occurred.   Normal shipboard functions stop working correctly (replicators, holodeck transporters)
• Reason + (Security or Engineering)
• Ships computer becomes overwhelmed with incoming data.
• Something is writing itself into the computers AI.
• Data coming from the planet.
• Data coming in through sensor arrays
• Sensors cutoffs inoperable.
• This overflow of incoming data makes communication with the away team rather difficult.  Checks required.

The Doctor

• Herbert Hemingway (Record Keeper)
• No thoughts you can read.
• Looks like a well-designed robot. Arms legs notable socket in the back of the head.
• Non-violent
• Tries to bluff but if confronted admits truth… first 3 bullet points below

The Truth

• The Hausairans* attacked him when he was leaving the system. Managed to get to warp. But was injured. It Located a power supply on Fenris IV but entry into the atmosphere was unstable. Crashed nearby.  Tried to observe colony before approach. Locals who saw him thought he was a monster.  Then he realized the waste leaking from the crash site was making the land and the people sick. He did what he had to do to save the souls of intelligent biological life.
• Borrowed much of synthetic body design from the Botrex* design.
• Waste killing people is his blood. He is the ship that crashed
• He is uploading himself to the ship in order to commandeer it.  He must return his knowledge to The Core.
• Plans on putting crew in suspended animation for the journey
• Extended task to retain control of ship work 5 magnitude 3 resistance 1. (2 threat to increase resistance) (2 threat to release knockout gas on ship)

*The Hausairans and the Botrex are two alien races I intend to introduce in future voyages.

 

This idea; A colony replaced by a benevolent alien who accidentally was killing them, was originally the plot of a Numenera adventure I was working on (I still may write that up for a future CypherCaster) but the plot seemed to fit a Trek adventure quite well as well.  What was cool about this adventure is I didn’t have to write up an outcome.  I just had to present the problem.  I had no idea what the players would do.

So what did my player end up doing?  Well with the away team set to blow up their shuttle in order to destroy the rest of the Record Keepers body, and the Record Keeper close to taking over the USS Schrödinger, the Captain was able to convince it to stand down by offering to mind meld with It. Yes, the Vulcan Captain went all Star Trek 2/3 on the situation and melded with the Record Keeper transferring its katra into himself.   The doctor warned the captain that this could kill him.  The roll was very very difficult but with a few momentum spends and he was able to succeed with 6 successes.  So now a  millennia worth of information is locked away in the captain’s brain….. Ohh there will be consequences 🙂 (and a season long arc for the Captian has been established)