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.
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)
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
I think Complications are normally only on a 20. There was a roll we did a while back (I can't remember what for) where @DragonCobolt extended the dice range which could cause Complications, and we ended up rolling two (I remember this because I was rolling 😅). But normally I think it's only a 20.
"What do we do?" Janeway asked. "Why, we negotiate in the faith we are given, and uphold the values of Starfleet. Just like, say, James T. Kirk or Balthazar Edison..." She turned to Wacoche, smiling. "Agreed?"
"I think that is indeed, exactly what is required," Brian Wacoche said, so evenly that Harry looked confused - but everyone else at the table, even the normally soft spoken Amy Strong, was grinning like wolves.
"Lets get to work," Janeway said.
***
Harry Kim stood next to the Emergent computer technician that the Emergents had sent over. He was named Trell, and Harry...did not like him. It went beyond the fact that he knew the Emergents were practicing some kind of horrible slavery in their space habitat and had hidden it from the galaxy and to something far...far worse.
Trell was fucking incompetent.
Harry had never thought that he would meet someone with a rank like 'Upper Security Manager' and find him so slow and finnicky and unable to parse basic computer technology. They were both at the tactical control computer, and Harry's only job was to keep Trell focused on everything but what Torres and Tuvok and their teams were doing...and...and he had spent the entire leadup faintly panicking about his terrible poker face...and yet, here, Trell wouldn't have noticed anything if Harry had been openly trying to hack into their systems on the same padd.
"Your computers are garbage," Trell grumped for the fifth, sixth time. "They can't handle any kind of basic diagonistic requirements."
"That's because they're computers," Harry said. "You're typing in plain text. Don't you know how to code? We sent you our fundamental programming architecture-"
"Glanced...I...I've been studying your basic substrate since we came in system," Harry said, letting some of his annoyance show.
Trell actually had the gall to look scornfully at him. Harry felt his jaw tighten.
Then Trell's eye flicked with glowing text - one of those contact HUDS that higher ranked Vidiians in their Emergency government wore. His brow furrowed slightly. "One second," he said at the same time Tuvock casually stepped around the corner of the tactical control computer that dominated the center of the room and shot Trell in the chest. Harry blinked as the phaser took the Vidiian and dropped him to the floor.
"Please continue to input data as if you were Upper Security Manager Trell for the next forty seconds, Mr. Kim," Tuvok said as Torres started to swear at a mile a minute in Yiddish, her fingers working faster and faster. Harry blinked, then...well, tried to type the stupidest programs he could think of into the computer. He actually had to try and think like his great grandfather, who was from a recreationist community in the middle of China and hadn't seen a computer until he was sixty eight. He shrugged, then leaned into the input, whispering.
"Hello computer. Fix the problem."
"Very good, Mr. Kim," Tuvok said. "We have completed the subterfuge."
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"We hooked up to their...system..." Torres said, her voice tight. "And I have figured out why their programming systems are so shit. Because they don't have to be good. Look at this."
Harry stepped over and saw the feed she was getting - it was a thousand data-feeds at once, scrolling by at incredible speeds. "The computer's already done an analysis, all of this is Vidiian inputs - they have the muscle delay and input lag that only comes from biological systems," Torres said, pointing, the disgust dripping from her voice. "Every single person we saw in that pen is hooked straight up to their security network and working like this, twenty four seven."
"That's..." Harry frowned. "That's not good. How the hell did we beat that?"
"Oh, we have a computer a century more advanced than them and programming technology that doesn't take shortcuts," Torres said, shrugging. "They can make their programs work-"
"-by having their slaves do it all, oh my god," Harry said, looking at the unconscious Trell. "...that's why he's a manager."
"...the airlock is right down the corridor, you know," Torres growled.
"Miss Torres," Tuvok said, warningly.
"You were thinking it too!" Torres snapped.
***
Dar and Nurel were watching everything on their consoles. Trell hadn't reported back yet, but that was within the yellow-bars of the time plots that their security zipheads had laid out. Dar knew that those plans were slightly skewed by the fact he had concealed some very important sensor data from Nurel's snoops and zips - but it was all within acceptable parameters for his risk. He watched as the heavily armed and armored shocktroops of Nurel and Dar's levies racked up on the pre-primed breaching tunnels and smiled grimly to himself.
Nothing but a thin guard around the two of them.
And, as the old saying went...betrayal was the ultimate force multiplier.
"Six hundred seconds, sir," Trell's replacement, Pahn, said from his console.
"Senior Podmaster, the aliens are signaling a radiation leak in their port nacelle," the other security handler, Boax, said.
"Puss," Dar snarled, stepping closer to peer at the feeds coming in from the security zips. They were peppered with red flags. "The zips say it's fake, sir."
"Security zips get twitchy and paranoid right before an op-" Boax said, but he was cut off.
"The alien captain is requesting immediate departure, to protect the station," Pahn said.
"Senior Podmaster, I suggest we attack, now," Dar said.
Nurel nodded. "Signal it."
He lifted his hand.
Dar smirked slightly - and knew that, at the same second that the levies were engaging the aliens...his own few bodyguards would be firing their tox-darts into the backs of Nurel's troops. He waited for the all clear signal, while Nurel watched him with an enigmatic little smile. Dar waited.
"Breaching begun, sir," Boax said. Dar didn't tear his gaze from Nurel's face - the yawning silence in his earbud was-
A muffled thump came at the same time a soft gurgle of escaping blood came over Dar's earbud. A white flash in Nurel's eyes followed.
Dar flung himself to the side at the same time Nurel whipped out his own wire-gun. The two monomolecular strands slammed through the air where Dar had stood and ripped into Pahn's back. The completely distracted security handler let out a choked noise as red blood exploded against his console and sparks exploded from the wire impact that had sliced through him with impunity. Dar rolled up to his feet, but before he could level his wrist mounted tox-darts at Nurel, Nurel was vanishing in a wave of orange light, transported away. The walls burst inwards, revealing the completely unharmed Nurel bodyguards - and the corpses of Dar's men.
Dar wasted no time.
He swiveled and fired and caught the leader of Nurel's bodyguard's in the throat, then ducked before sputtering pulses of low-powered disruptors turned his cover into smoke and ash.
***
"Amy, they're breaching!"
"Phasers up!" Amy shouted, tensing.
Another universe.
Same fucking story.
The last thought Amy had before the wall had determined the infiltration would be coming in at exploded was: At least I don't have a fucking flashlight this time.
The entry had clearly been chosen because it was very near to the secondary power generators to the phasers and the security control systems worked into those. By taking them, they could shut down Voyager's ability to hold the Pod at hostage via high energy particle cannons. It was also fairly close to several turbolift nexus, and could lead straight to the bridge with enough time...which was why they had worked so hard on fortifying it and several fallback posts. They had fabricated and laid out heavy cover plates, sighted in their phasers, and prepped the medical bay transporter.
Amy had picked the crew who were here herself. One of her most promising security ensigns, Alexandra Munroe, and two of the most experienced security crewmen in the ship, Telsia Murphy and a Bolian named Chell. Even if Chell wished he was literally anywhere else. Amy smiled at them one last time, then hunkered down behind the cover.
Cover and transports and phasers were all well and good - but Amy trusted these people with her life.
That helped a hell of a lot more when the wall exploded inwards with a wave of smoke and heat and light.
"Let 'em have it!" Amy shouted as she propped her phaser rifle up and began to feather the trigger. Strobing pulses of light slammed into the roiling smoke as the Vidiian boarding party rushed on. The first of them managed to sprint forward, faster than she thought possible in their heavy ablative armor, and fired his disruptor at Chell - the beam whipping past and blowing a smoking hole in the wall above his head. Alex sighted and fired back - the phase pulse she sent downrange struck the Vidiian and blew his shoulder plate into a fine mist.
"Their armor's tough!" Alex snapped.
"You noticed!?" Chell shouted as he and Tesla and Amy hastily adjusted their phasers to double-pulse mode. The next Vidiian through the smoke - three of them, advancing with the set determination of men across the galaxy and throughout the centuries attempting to force a forlorn hope. Their disruptors ripple fired into their cover, but Telsia and Alex fired back. Their strobing pulses hit once to ablate armor, again to hit the flesh beneath.
Amy fired as well, her beam and someone else's taking another Vidiian down - but more of them were coming. She noticed, in the smoke, that at least half of them were wearing different insignias as others, but she barely had time to consider that as a disruptor beam clipped off the corner of her cover. Two more struck the metal plating that Chell crouched behind - and he screamed, clutching at his face, metal droplets sizzling against his blue skin. He clawed at himself - then vanished with a whirr of blue light. Alex ducked down, her cheek seared by a near miss - airkissed, they called it.
"There's too fucking many of them!"
Amy had to make a decision in a flash.
Because she was pretty sure she'd just heard something suspiciously like the whirr of vibro-blades.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRUTHS: None (your existing truths were obliterated, see rules)
What does Amy do? NO, DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION. ANSWER ME NOW!
[ ] Counter Charge - morale shocks at an unexpectedly difficult entry are very effective.
[ ] Beam back to position down and defeat them in detail
[ ] Risk setting for AOE cross-fire and hope diffused beams en mass can beat ablative armor
[ ] Write In
Result from rolling: The Emergency launches its attack while you try and fake the radiation.
The boarding action is facing +1 diff to everything due to their prepared actions
But also!
Dar V Nurel, ROLL!
2s for Dar, 2s for Nurel - Dar is facing +1 diff for being the less powerful Podmaster, so Nurel wins. But Nurel got a complication. So, Dar escapes.
BOARDING BATTLE!
Twelve Nurel troopers force the corridor with Amy Strong, Ensign Munroe, and Crewmen Chell and Murphy are there too!
STARFLEET: Amy directs the crew to lay down a withering field of suppressive fire - to create a complication for the enemy! She gets 2s, creating the complication of "Withering field of suppressive fire"
NUREL: The Nurel 1 moves into the breach. This is normally a diff 0 check, as all movement is, but it is inreased to diff 2 thanks to preparations and withering field of suppressive fire. He gets 2s and manages it, barely, and opens up with his disruptor on Chell. He rolls 2s verses the base diff of 2+2 for the two complications and misses!
STARFLEET: Munroe is up! He takes an aim minor action, then fires! He gets 2s, versus a diff of 2-2 to a minimum of 1, for 1 momentum! He gets 4 damage, spends 1 momentum to re-roll, gets 5 damage! However, the enemy has resistance 2, so he only takes 3 damage! He's still up!
NUREL: The Nurel 2 moves into the breach next to the first and fires at Munroe! He gets 1s on the movement, and so succeeds with consequence (he gets shot by Murphy for 7 damage, dropped to 5. He's down and out!
STARFLEET: Murphy, on Munroe's advice, takes a minor charge action to set her phaser to Pierce 2, and then fires at Nurel 3. She gets 1s and a complication! She'll buy that off by giving the GM 2 threat, and does 5 damage with 1 effect, dropping their resistance to 0. She takes out Nurel 3!
NUREL: Nurel 4 is up! He gets a 0s AND a complication, which means he gets shot by Amy AND Munroe, doing 5 (3) and 6 (4) damage, taking him down.
STARFLEET: Chell, the last one up, sets his phaser to Pierce 2, then fires at Nurel 5. He gets 2s! He does 7, pierce 2, which takes out Nurel 5!
NUREL: Nurel 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 all get to go now. They move into the corridor, getting 2s (he's in!) 1s (he gets shot for 7 (5) damage by Amy and is down), 4s (this guy spends all 4 threat to buy off the two complications.) That means that five of them are able to get in (since one is out) and they all open fire at our heroes in cover, two for Amy, two for Chell, two for Munroe and one for Murphy: 1s, 1s for Amy (Miss!), 2s, 2s for Chell (hit and hit!), 0s and 2s for Munroe (1 hit), and 1s for Murphy (miss.)
The two hits against Chell do 9 and 5 damage! The one against Munroe do 6! Chell is in real good cover and rolls 4d to resist! He gets 3! So he takes 6 and 2 damage, which drops him to 2 Stress and deals 1 injury. He's badly hurt and dying, but not IMMEDIATELY dead! Good for Chell! Munroe rolls 2 , so he only takes 4 damage, meaning it's a close miss that lightly burns him by shockwave, but no real damage.
That's a thing you can do, but...it's harder than it sounds.
It's diff 2 as a base, +1 for them not being on a transporter pad, +1 for the target not being a transporter pad...AND, unlike normal transporting, this is resisted - you have to stand still for the lockon.
There's a reason why beaming people into space isn't used as anything more than an execution method, save for some very select circumstances. Though, you do only need to get 4s once, since you can beam a group of people in one go.
That's a thing you can do, but...it's harder than it sounds.
It's diff 2 as a base, +1 for them not being on a transporter pad, +1 for the target not being a transporter pad...AND, unlike normal transporting, this is resisted - you have to stand still for the lockon.
There's a reason why beaming people into space isn't used as anything more than an execution method, save for some very select circumstances. Though, you do only need to get 4s once, since you can beam a group of people in one go.
The increased difficulty isn't from the target you're picking, it's because of the lack of the transporter beam. If the beam doesn't go somewhere, the automatic safeties kick on and they are shunted back to where they started.
And no, you can't just turn those safeties off. They're built into the transporter so intensely that removing them would break the whole machine because...otherwise, literally NO ONE would EVER GET ONTO THE DANG THINGS.
trapping with force fields is a thing, but it tends to work better on people who aren't armed with disruptors (they tend to just...shoot the emitters.)
you can beam charges around them, this is just an attack like with phase rifles! A pulse grenade has basically the same level of damage potential as phaser rifle (it even has the Charge function, so you can set it to "do extra damage" or "ignore armor" modes.) The main difference is it has an inherent Area feature!
This means that you can, for example, give the pulse grenades "ignore armor" and detonate them and go all bewom beowm!
What the pulse grenades also have is Escalation 1, meaning using one adds +1 threat to my pool of threat...
And, Amy making the decision- she's from a 40K Crossover holding the line against a ship breach boarding action by men in power armor. That have just readied melee weapons.
[X] Plan: Teleportariums Always Win
-[X] Request the bridge to replicate/teleport an armed photon torpedo into the grid co-ords of the Breaching Tube they used, deep enough in to have Voyager be past the minimum safe distance.
-[X] Have Telsa and Alex continue to use Pulses to pierce their armor.
-[X] Prepare a Change should any boarders already on the ship get into melee.
Or if we want a less Overkill solution from someone using Starfleet training to be gentler:
[X] Plan: Teleportariums Make Me Queasy
-[X] Request the bridge to replicate/teleport armed pulse grenades set to pierce armor among the boarders.
-[X] Have Telsa and Alex continue to use Pulses to pierce their armor.
-[X] Prepare a Change should any boarders already on the ship get into melee.
Or for an Amy that still cannot let a burden be shared:
[X] Plan: Change-lings Are Fun
-[X] EMBRACE THE CHANGE!
-[X] Give a stirring speech to Alex and Telsa: "I haven't crossed realities to just have some two bit tin-pot dictator start shooting up my friends or worse. Let's beat them back and show them we HAVE something worth fighting for! LIGHT THEM UP!"
-[X] Use momentum from that stirring speech to get extra minor actions to change the phaser rifles from just +pierce to also having +area and if enough momentum exists, +vicious, have Telsa and Alex fire.
-[X] Prepare to charge into melee to hold back the line.
If we beat them without grenades they might surrender but if we do something that makes threat increase they might lose the surrender potential and have a try and destroy voyager chance instead?
I don't undestand the mechanics and how they relate to narrative at all, so I'm throwing out some very basic ideas many of which might be terrible. Spitballing.
Rather than 'threat increasing' grenades, would it be possible to beam into the area some sort of viscous substance that hardens very quickly in contact with air, that can maybe halt or slow down even their armour?
So as to get an advantage on firing at them and preventing them from grouping up (or force a disadvantage on their closing to melee (and make it harder for them to move their arms to aim disruptors?)).
Then, if they are sucesfully inhibited from moving, defeat in detail looks best, and if they are not slowed/stuck still, hope diffuse aoe phaser attacks as a backup attempt.
---
Their blades are making think they want to get into melee, so I think that option is best avoided.
Also: "at least half of them were wearing different insignias as others" I... don't see anything we can do here to make use of this, in terms of turning them against eachother due to the an utter lack of specific information about different factions, but maybe another player might think of something.
---
I don't get what part of 'pulse grenade beam in' is the threat generating bit (maybe their armour has short range inhibitors against incoming teleports?), but maybe beaming in a bunch of grenades and decoys near the security team to be thrown at once might be valid?
I recall in the Deep Space 9 episode where the station is attacked by rogue Jem'Hadar intending to seize an Iconian gateway that the Defiant's transporters detected the weapons carried by a party of loyalist Jem'Hadar Sisko had ordered beamed on board and automatically disarmed them before rematerializing the incoming party.
How about we lock onto as many of the boarders as possible and then beam them over to a transporter room, taking advantage of that aforementioned security feature built into Starfleet transporters to disarm a portion of the Vidiian boarding party and turn the transporter room into a temporary brig? Using a transporter room as the destination should lower the difficulty of beaming the Vidiians and deprived of their disruptors, force fields set up around the transporter pad should be sufficient to hold them.
[X] Lock onto and beam as many of the Vidiian boarders over to one of Voyager's transporter rooms. We'll take advantage of the security features built into the transporter to disarm as many of them as possible.
-[X] Remotely disable the transporter room's control panels, raise force fields around the transporter pad, and dispatch an additional security team to keep watch over the captured boarders.
I'm somewhat worried this'll set a bad precedent in the future, but it's a good solution for now.
[X] Lock onto and beam as many of the Vidiian boarders over to one of Voyager's transporter rooms. We'll take advantage of the security features built into the transporter to disarm as many of them as possible.
-[X] Remotely disable the transporter room's control panels, raise force fields around the transporter pad, and dispatch an additional security team to keep watch over the captured boarders.
[X] Plan: Teleportariums Make Me Queasy
-[X] Request the bridge to replicate/teleport armed pulse grenades set to pierce armor among the boarders.
-[X] Have Telsa and Alex continue to use Pulses to pierce their armor.
-[X] Prepare a Change should any boarders already on the ship get into melee.
