STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

DragonCobolt · May 8, 2022

The Dragon: Once per episode, at the beginning of combat place an Advantage on the field representing a cunning tactic or strategy devised by Danara Pel.

NAME	USS Voyager	PROF.	MULTIROLE
CLASS	Sovereign Class Heavy Exploration Vessel	CONST	2371
SHIELDS	13/13	RESISTANCE	6	SCALE	6
POWER	13/13	CREW SUPPORT	6	SMALL CRAFT	5

		COMMS	ENGINES	STRUCTURE	COMPUTERS	SENSORS	WEAPONS
BREACHES		0/6	0/6	0/6	0/6	0/6	0/6
		9	11	10	11	9	10
COMMAND	3	12	14	13	14	12	13
CONNING	2	12	14	13	14	12	13
ENGINEERING	2	11	13	12	13	11	12
SECURITY	3	13	15	14	16	13	14
SCIENCE	2	11	13	12	13	11	12
MEDICINE	2	11	13	12	13	11	12

TALENTS	Command Ship: Can give advantages using Command within range to Away Missions or to supporting ships. EMH: Has an EMH! Improved Warp Drive: When going to warp, roll 1cd on an effect, regain the power point. Quantum Torpedoes: Can use Quantum Torpedoes! (60 total) Secondary Reactors: +5 to Power High Resolution Sensors: +1 momentum to out of combat sensor checks.
TRAITS	Federation Starship – A highly sophisticated and advanced vessel, with holodecks, replicators, and similar comforts, primarily designed to handle multiple operations. Highly sensitive and requiring constant maintenance, the vehicle is less rugged than other interstellar craft Maquis Crew - a good chunk of the crew are former Maquis troublemakers. Expect discipline problems and unorthodox plans.
WEAPONS	Phaser Arrays Power Cost: 1-3 \| Range: Medium \| Damage: 9cd [+1 per extra power spent] Can Use Spread: Hit +1 time at ½ damage per effect OR Area: hit +1 ship per effect within close range. Versatile 2: Gain 2 bonus momentum with a successful hit Photon Torpedoes Power Cost: 0 \| Range: Long \| Damage: 6cd High Yield: If it causes 1 breach, it causes +1 breach Quantum Torpedoes Power Cost: 0 \| Range: Long \| Damage: 7cd (Vicious 1 - +1 damage on effects) High Yield: If it causes 1 breach, it causes +1 breach Calibrations: Requires 1 minor action to calibrate Tractor Beam (Strength 5) Power Cost: 0 \| Range: Close \| Damage: None Effect: If successfully established, enemies face a diff 5 check to escape.

CREW COMPLIMENT (Base Stat: 9 | Base Skill: 2)
CO: Captain Katheryn Janeway (Skilled: Command, Science | Weakness: Combat)

SPECIAL ABILITY: "We Can Be Better" - if you succeed on any diplomatic check with Janeway, Get +1 momentum

XO: Commander D-91 (Skilled: Command | Weakness: Socialization)
HELM: Lt. Tom Paris (Skilled: Conn | Weakness: Not Being A Fucking Up)
TACTICAL: Ensign Harry Kimm (Skilled: Gunnery | Weakness: Harry Kim)
SECURITY: Lt. JG Amy Strong (Skilled: Personal Combat | Weakness: Lying)

MAQUIS HEADBREAKER: C'nola (Skilled: Combat, Sneaking and Scheming | Weakness: Emotional Wreck)

SCIENCE: Tuvok (Skilled: Science | Weakness: Emotionless)
COMMS: Lt. Bian T'are (Skilled: Communications | Weakness: Combat)
MEDICAL: The EMH (Skilled: Doctor | Weakness: Kind of a Dick)
ENGINEER: B'lanna Torres (Skilled: Engineering | Weakness: Also a dick)

SECONDARY CHARACTERS
Ensign Steve (Useless Security Goon)
Ensign Becky (plural fighter jock)
Petty Officer Third Class Jessie (Hard working engineer)
Crewman Billingsly (Dude, Billingsly!)
Crewman Chandra (Concerned Crewman)
Bifurcate (bidimensional robot girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Princess Lyan Positron (runaway daughter of magician most foul and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Soria Flyte (Pegasus girl and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Mirror Universe Trevor (he's fine!)

NAME	MRSS Val Jean	PROF.	TACOPS
CLASS	Keldon Class Heavy Cruiser	CONST	2370
SHIELDS	12/12	RESISTANCE	5	SCALE	4
POWER	7/7	CREW SUPPORT	4	SMALL CRAFT	3

		COMMS	ENGINES	STRUCTURE	COMPUTERS	SENSORS	WEAPONS
BREACHES		0/4	0/4	0/4	0/4	0/4	0/4
		9	9	9	8	7	10
COMMAND	3	12	12	12	11	10	13
CONNING	2	11	11	11	10	9	12
ENGINEERING	2	11	11	11	10	9	12
SECURITY	3	12	12	12	11	10	13
SCIENCE	1	10	10	10	9	8	11
MEDICINE	2	11	11	11	10	9	12

TALENTS	Electronic Warfare Suite: Whenever making a Jamming or Intercept communications check, can spend 2 momentum to select +1 target (repeatable.) Fast Targeting Systems: No +1 diff for called shots Improved Hull Integrity: +1 Resistance Cloaking Device: Spend 3 power, and make a Control+Engineering + Engines + Security check with a diff of 2. If successful, gain the Cloaked Trait (impossible to detect, cannot attack, shields are down.) It takes a minor action to decloak.
TRAITS	Cardassian Ship – Durable, uncomfortable, close, cramped and cheap. Thinks creature comforts are for other people and technical sophistication is for people who haven't spent decades starving to death. The fact that the starving could have been avoided if the government were less...you know, monstrous doesn't seem to have occurred to that many of them. Okampan Crew – the crew are bright, perky, cheerful, and incredibly psychically powerful. Individually, they're all better than Vulcans, and as a gestalt? Who knows!
WEAPONS	Phaser Arrays Power Cost: 1-3 \| Range: Medium \| Damage: 7-9cd (Spread: Hit +1 time at ½ damage per effect OR Area) Versatile 2: Gain X bonus momentum with a successful hit Disruptor Banks Range: Medium \| Damage: 8-10cd (Vicious 1: Each effect adds +1 damage) Tractor Beam (Strength 3)

CREW COMPLIMENT (Base Stat: 8 | Base Skill: 1)
CO: Lt. Commander Brian Wacoche (Skilled: Commando Tactics | Weakness: Independent)
TACTICAL: Seska (Skilled: Being Seska | Weakness: Everything Else)
CONN: R'lash skilled: Piloting | Weakness: Romulan Fuckup)
ESPIONAGE: Kes (Skilled: Commando Tactics | Weakness: Naive)

Crewman Stadi - Age 23, Betazoid, born Beta Colony-5 to Zani and Talwyn of the House of Riis, survived by her sisters Tari and Batri.
R'mor - age 182, Vulcan, burn on Romulus to R'tan and Leslali, survived by his twelve nieces and nephews across the Empire

CyberFemme · May 15, 2022

Aura said:
Molecular faults within the body don't sound particularly safe

That's... not a thing for squishy biological bits. Even if there's some sort of atom-thick cut, it should heat very quickly, especially given things liek dermal regenerators exist so I assume they do have more specialized tool for working in biological tissue.

slybrarian said:
With transporters and replicators, the canon explanation is that normal replicators don't have sufficient resolution to recreate living things, and transporters can't hold a pattern in the buffer for very long under normal circumstances. There were a few freak one-off instances where age got reversed with the transporter, but they were pretty much all things where no one could possibly do an ethical experiment to recreate because they were things like "beamed out of an exploding shuttle."

The one time we did see patterns stored outside of the buffer, it required erasing an entire station's computer to hold them for a few hours, and even then there was no editing going on.

Those are fair points on transporters, I'm just a little mystified why you can replicate a steak but not a human kidney.

edit: My hard sci-fi brain cannot shut up.

DragonCobolt · May 15, 2022

10ebbor10 said:
Anyway, the basic problem is that you're using hard sci fi questions in a soft sci fi setting.

That is the fun part, though!

Rivenscryr · May 15, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Those are fair points on transporters, I'm just a little mystified why you can replicate a steak but not a human kidney.

I mean, I'm sure a replicator can be used to make organs for transplant, depending on the complexity.

Anyway, if you have molecular faults with a steak, that usually won't affect the steak much. A brain though...

CyberFemme · May 15, 2022

Rivenscryr said:
I mean, I'm sure a replicator can be used to make organs for transplant, depending on the complexity.

Anyway, if you have molecular faults with a steak, that usually won't affect the steak much. A brain though...

Yeah, the brain is the part I would speciafically call out as not being worked on by these sort of treatments. That could require very specialized tools indeed. Through keeping the body young might buy us enough time that we don't have to worry about it until we reach the Federation.

DracoDracul · May 15, 2022

On a metaphysical level in star trek exposed thighs are morally superior to exposed stomach

Rivenscryr · May 15, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Yeah, the brain is the part I would specifically call out as not being worked on by these sort of treatments. That could require very specialized tools indeed. Through keeping the body young might buy us enough time that we don't have to worry about it until we reach the Federation.

I think that at present, while our replicator technology is good enough to make organs for transplant, it would be more difficult to put someone in a pattern buffer, and just edit them while they're in there. Hence sure, you could replace organs, but that would still require surgery (and thus some downtime), and recovery time, so its a tradeoff - and one that might not be considered strictly worth it if everything is still working well for the moment.

CyberFemme · May 15, 2022

Rivenscryr said:
I think that at present, while our replicator technology is good enough to make organs for transplant, it would be more difficult to put someone in a pattern buffer, and just edit them while they're in there. Hence sure, you could replace organs, but that would still require surgery (and thus some downtime), and recovery time, so its a tradeoff - and one that might not be considered strictly worth it if everything is still working well for the moment.

That's a fair take. Through the calculation of how much down time would be worth is might change if we were planning sustainable operation for 70 years.

Skippy · May 15, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Follow-up on this become this just occurred to me: The thing is, since they have replicators and transporters, they have molecular manipulation. What's stopping them from taking a scan of someone's body in their physical prime, then just resetting everything but the brain to that state every few years? And to tackle brain related aging, you could use more conventional targeted medicine as well as transplanting newer replicated neurons to replace ones that are wearing out on a case by case basis, maintaining continuity.

The out-of-universe answer is because Star Trek is not Eclipse Phase, has a technological paradigm largely designed by Gene Rodenberry and scriptwriters, who were great sci-fi writers but were not "hard" sci-fi writers, and does not think about its own technology like that. There are about a dozen things you could do to break the setting over your knee, without resorting to exploiting tech-of-the-week. In-universe, fans have come up with all sorts of ingenious fanon explanations for how transporters work which try and pre-emptively and rule out a lot of stuff like this. But the actual series do not even attempt to do so, because those kind of concerns are not a major preoccupation of the writers or the assumed audience.

This actually reminds me of a story I read, which I tried to Google for just now before giving up, where the protagonist was a precocious teenager living on a starship, who naturally started asking these questions and trying to play around with this sort of stuff. It transpired that the "Federation" was actually a simulation set up by a group of LARPers who liked Star Trek and preferred living in it to the actual transhuman sci-fi setting they lived in, and there were rules in place to stop people from breaking the setting. Even worse, the kid was a simulation rather than a "real" person, under the somewhat dystopian laws of their setting, and his "mother" proceeded to wipe his memories - thwarted by the fact that he had already made a copy of himself via transporter. Together with his copy, they had to work out how to escape the simulation...

Anyway, I think that you can come up with lots of smart rationalisations to answer these kinds of questions, which can be fun in its own right, or even modify the setting a bit to accommodate them without going so far that you change the tone. We've already seen, for example, that Voyager can use its transporters to gather essentially limitless raw materials, and make new equipment via transporter - that is very sensible, but seems not to be the case in vanilla Trek*1. So it may already be the case that in the DC Trekverse, emergency medical transports and precision surgical transportation are a thing - you could probably use "degradation of the transport buffer" to explain why body uploading is not a thing, if you say that transporter patterns are actually a physical phenomena, and cannot be read, legibly edited, or safely stored longterm by a computer*2.

But there's also probably a point where you want to call it a day, and enjoy the setting on its own terms - and that point is probably a bit different for everyone, I think.

*1(Which means fans continuously have to invoke "unreplicable materials" to explain why Federation starships are built basically like 20th century planes/warships, but in space. Rather than it perhaps being because Gene Rodenberry was in the US Navy in the 40s, and the setting was heavily inspired by the Space Age sci-fi aesthetics of the 60s.)
*2(Although in one episode Scotty did store himself in a transporter successfully for the best part of a century, on a crashed and broken ship, this can be handwaved away as a lucky fluke, or because Scotty is just that good.)

slybrarian · May 15, 2022

The Federation has no trouble cloning organs and limbs, or using cybernetic replacements like Picard's heart and (I think) Nog's replacement leg, so the replicator isn't really the problem anyways. It's that the transporter seems designed to just pull in patterns and spit them out again. They can do a little addition and substraction for things like the biofilter or changing someone's position, but intentionally doing medical changes seems out of the current state of the art. Not entirely - there was that time Pulaski got de-aged using recently shed DNA as a template, but that was after super-speed aging to being with. Ditto re-aging Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko. We also saw the transporter used for a birth emergency.

It would plausible be something we could research, just like there have been some successful attempts at mind transference between people or machines that could be useful. It's just that, at this point of the 24th century, the technology isn't there yet. Interestingly enough, it is definitely possible in 32nd century to build a body and transfer a mind into it, although in that case there was a warning that it's not completely reliable.

Punchweasel · May 15, 2022

Considering I had a lot of fun reading the Double-Ra quest you ran and already like where this is going so far, I'm definitely giving this a watch!

Jack Stargazer · May 15, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Following up on this because this just occurred to me: The thing is, since they have replicators and transporters, they have molecular manipulation. What's stopping them from taking a scan of someone's body in their physical prime, then just resetting everything but the brain to that state every few years? And to tackle brain related aging, you could use more conventional targeted medicine as well as transplanting newer replicated neurons to replace ones that are wearing out on a case by case basis, maintaining continuity.

There is an episode of TNG where Picard and two others are deaged to around age 13. They keep their adult memories, but are effected by teenage hormones.

The transporter then returns them to normal age and they retain memories of being children again.

This means that that particular transporter accident is biological immortality in a bottle.

This is, of course, never explained or used again.

buli-buli · May 15, 2022

KarmaA said:
I'd vote for Enterprise over that TBH, could tie in well with temporal Cold War storylines/characters.

That sounds like it could be amazing. Maybe set after the finale (as I've read they did have plans for more seasons)?

Rivenscryr · May 15, 2022

slybrarian said:
It would plausible be something we could research, just like there have been some successful attempts at mind transference between people or machines that could be useful. It's just that, at this point of the 24th century, the technology isn't there yet. Interestingly enough, it is definitely possible in 32nd century to build a body and transfer a mind into it, although in that case there was a warning that it's not completely reliable.

Well, we know the Vulcans can do this sort of consciousness transfer to an extent (see: katras) in the present, though I don't think this is something any other race can manage as a regular thing yet. We have seen some one-offs involving neural implants and taking over other bodies with one's mind, so I can believe that by the 32nd century the tech would be there to allow mind transference on a broader level, since 800 years is quite a long time for R&D.

Derpmind · May 15, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Follow-up on this become this just occurred to me: The thing is, since they have replicators and transporters, they have molecular manipulation. What's stopping them from taking a scan of someone's body in their physical prime, then just resetting everything but the brain to that state every few years? And to tackle brain related aging, you could use more conventional targeted medicine as well as transplanting newer replicated neurons to replace ones that are wearing out on a case by case basis, maintaining continuity.

Whether that could be viable in-universe or not, if it came up in a normal episode, the writers would probably come up with some reason or other why it wouldn't work.

Star Trek's lack of (positive) transhumanism is an OOC setting conceit that I genuinely don't like. But I understand that it was done to keep the setting relateable to a general, tv-show watching audience. The problems a Starship's crew will face may be fantastical, but the crew themselves remain recognizably normal-ish, baseline humans. Someone your average audience member can easily imagine themselves as. It's not like there wasn't plenty of speculative fiction about curing aging and transhumanism in general back in the 1960s, or the 1980-90s, but the shows only pushed forwards in some aspects of sc-fi, while leaving others for more monster-of-the-week type episodes.

None of this whuld be a big deal, but modern versions of Star Trek still end up adhering to those old setting conceits and decisions. And for such a highly-advanced, multi-species society to still die of old age is a bit contrary to the themes of optimism in the future. (I still enjoy Star Trek in general, this bit just bugs me too.)

KarmaA · May 15, 2022

The interface between an older brain and younger body seems like it'd be pretty challenging to manage. It feels like the sort of thing they should have the tech to do (with some physical therapy, recovery, and extended time for mental adjustment) but would probably also require a lot of ethically questionable testing before it could be widespread.

Anyone know how a nervous system can control a transplanted heart?

For IC context:
Voyager launched in 2371 and they also had to deal with eugenics wars and then WW3 (2026-2053) where earth lost 30% of it's population and tons of species died off so they had a lot of clawing back to do. First warp was in 2063.

Aside: that WW3 start date -_-;

Enderminion · May 15, 2022

Derpmind said:
Star Trek's lack of (positive) transhumanism is an

Julian Bashier (DS9 medical officer) is technically a genetically modified human.

DragonCobolt · May 15, 2022

The votes came in.

"All right, Sha'Ka'ree it is," Janeway said, as she read off the PADD. "Not exactly shocked. Who doesn't want to one up Kirk."

"Quite," Tuvok said as he stood from the table, the other officers getting up as well.

"B'lanna, Wacoche, stay," Janeway said, as the others started to go. Once they had slipped out, Janeway set the PADD down, frowning slightly. "We need to talk about the Val Jean."

"Right," Brain said, quietly. B'lanna, meanwhile, was just looking belligerent.

"We should keep it, run it, and use it for support duties. It's a cloak capable, fully repaired warship," she said. "Leaving it behind or scrapping it would be kind of like shooting someone else in the kneecaps to make a race fair, it's bullshit and nonsensical."

Janeway shook her head. "One problem: Crew. We don't have the warm bodies to run both ships - automation could carry us, but not through sustained combat operations. If the Val Jean is run on autopilot, or by remote, it'll do just fine right up until it gets shot. Then it'll be so much vapor all too quickly. Another problem: Supply. The ship's not built to be self sustaining - we'd need to tap our output to keep her up in parts. And food."

B'lanna scowled, but conceded the point.

"I've floated options past you," Janeway said. "But since it is your ship, technically, you two have the final say on it."

"Really?" Brian asked. "I'd have thought…being that we're Maquis and all."

Janeway shook her head. "We don't have time for that kind of division. And, more importantly, I don't get paid enough to care about TacCom's petty grudges." She smirked slightly, while B'lanna frowned.

"We're Starfleet, ma'am, we don't get paid at all."

"Exactly," Janeway said.

That startled a soft snort from B'lanna.

"Okay," she said, after pulling out her PADD. "We've got three good options. The first is easiest - we strip the cloak and the guns off, leave the hulk for the Okampa. They can turn it into a secure power station, or a shield emitter, or whatever they want." She shrugged. "We can try refitting both onto the ship."

Janeway nodded.

"Option two, we use it like a big drone. We accept the risk that it might get blasted and not have anyone aboard who can effect repairs - and if we treat it like a drone and not a spaceship, then we'll be able to wring a lot of ops out of it before we lose it," B'lanna said. "With the cloak and remote control using entangled quantum-paired communications…it could be a really good ace up our sleeve."

"And option three?" Janeway asked.

"We run a recruitment drive and get a crew of Okampa and Maquis on there. Promote someone and give them the Val Jean."

"Like me, I'm someone," Brian said. "I did have some mild success while captaining her." His dry sense of humor covered for the serious damage he had racked up across Cardassian space with a cloaked Keldor.

"True, Brian is, indeed, someone," B'lanna said, hiding her smirk badly. "I'd recommend him."

Janeway nodded, slowly.

"...truth is…" B'lanna shifted in her seat. "I kinda like each of the options. Don't get me wrong." She looked at Brian. "I love the Val Jean. But…"

"It's a Cardassian trashship, built for trashpeople?" Brian asked.

"Yes, that's exactly right," B'lanna said. "No replicators, a persistent vole infestation-"

"Vole infestation?" Janeway asked, her eyes widening.

"Yeah, I've been running a baryon sweep with deployable emitters, but, these fucking voles will survive anything, they're worse than Cardassians," B'lanna said, scowling. "Did you know that Glar we picked up spent two weeks in crawlspaces? Shielded fucking crawlspaces! Obsidian Order assholes built their ship with boltholes. Boltholes and murder holes, if she had had a disruptor, she could have vaporized half of us before we blew her out of the compartments."

Janeway snorted. "Sounds like something the Voyager can use, if we run into any boarding parties."

B'lanna made a face, but didn't disagree.

—
Vote on the Fate of the Val Jean.
[ ] Strip her for parts, give her to Okampa (+1 to Voyager's weapon systems, gain Disruptor Bank, and trait Semi-Functional Cloaking Device)
[ ] Run her as a drone (she will operate as a remote - meaning she can do any action so long as it doesn't require physical access, I.E, repairs and damage control.)
[ ] Run a recruitment drive (skill challenge - if successful, gain a new ship with its own crew!)
[ ] Write In

Forgothrax · May 15, 2022

Would the Talaxians like to make a deal for one slightly used Cardassian ship sans cloaking device?

DragonCobolt · May 15, 2022

Forgothrax said:
Would the Talaxians like to make a deal for one slightly used Cardassian ship sans cloaking devic

That is an acceptable write in! What would you trade it for?

buli-buli · May 15, 2022

First or third for me.
Second choice feels like a waste of a cloak and guns.

First choice is the smart one. Third choice is the fun one.

samdamandias · May 15, 2022

[X] Strip her for parts, give her to Okampa (+1 to Voyager's weapon systems, gain Disruptor Bank, and trait Semi-Functional Cloaking Device)

ThatGazzer · May 15, 2022

[x] Strip her for parts, give her to Okampa (+1 to Voyager's weapon systems, gain Disruptor Bank, and trait Semi-Functional Cloaking Device)

Forgothrax · May 15, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
That is an acceptable write in! What would you trade it for?

Would have to make an IC knowledge check about the limitations of diplomacy, but... safe passage through Talaxian territory with necessary material support to speed our journey wouldn't go amiss. Particularly if it comes with military support or at least Intel vs the Kazon.

Idk what Janeway and staff think would be something the Talaxians could reasonably help us with.

Model DC.14F · May 15, 2022

[X] Run a recruitment drive (skill challenge - if successful, gain a new ship with its own crew!)

The Shiny Choice. What will happen if the skill challenge is failed, default to second option?

jwolfe_beta · May 15, 2022

Personally I'm in favor of stripping the thing and leaving. The voles sound like they'll be an on-going problem and who knows what 'surprises' the Obsidian Order left in it.

STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

Transbian Communist

Labrador Wrestling Champion

Creature of Fable

Maverick Weasel

(Verified Entity)

Not Going Gently

Apprentice Plane Wizard

Minds Eye Bind

Not Going Gently

Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord