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

Something to keep in mind is that one avenue of threat Dragon could use is neighboring polities coming in on the Vidians side. If we bring in other people theres a chance they won't turn out to be friendly.

I'm personally in favor of acting swiftly to eliminate Nurel's ability to threaten us and the populace.

I do like tying him up in negotiations for medical supplies, but I would definitely not want to actually use them.

Honestly I thought if we give them up to Neelix him being a steely eyed commando would result in some bad guys going for a suit-less spacewalk (they did just try to steal his lungs) and the intel getting to their intel division so they'd be able to weaponize it. If he felt more confident turning the criminals over for actual justice then we'd be less worried about corruption letting the guilty go unpunished.

I'm very pro plans that will heal our people or potentially eliminate/cure the phage. I'm also pro plans that get us as much information and resources while denying the treacherous enemy leadership anything,

I think it's highly likely that most powers Voyger were to contact for assistance in dealing with the Vidiians are going to eagerly ally with them, especially if Voyager offers to tell them about the nature of the Vidiian advantage that allows them to suss out spies and win naval battles with inferior warships. Everyone is said to want Vidiian medtech and it isn't an immutable code of ethics that's keeping them from doing that.

Besides self interest I foresee the Vidiian practice of using thousands of people as wetware CPUs is going cause local populations to turn against them because of how similar that practice is to Borg assimilation. Meanwhile the Kazon may view the practice as a dangerous attempt by the Vidiians to try and achieve technology singularity, placing everyone in the region at risk of a Borg incursion.

If Voyager is to conduct interrogations then they should make sure to also speak to the captured boarders. If Nurel thought those troops were either going to win or die he might have let slip information that might cause him trouble.

Those prisoners are also Voyager's first encounter with the Phage and we should take advantage of the opportunity to try and discover whatever we can about the disease. If the Doctor were to be able to find a way to stall the disease or even come up with a permanent cure for it Voyager would be able to flip the prisoners on their bosses. If these people are desperate enough to survive then even the offer to toss them into a stasis pod to halt the degradation of their bodies in exchange for information might work.

Zampano said:

I understand that momentum makes our actions more likely to succeed, and that threat is like momentum for the bad guys. im not sure I understand what generates momentum or threat, or how long they stick around.

Threat 4 means the bad guys will get one solid counterattack, or a Voyager will face a string of bad luck.

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So, to clarify this!

You get momentum from three sources: Bonus successes, beneficial equipment, and by giving me threat.

If you are rolling a diff 1 check, and get 3 successes? That means you get 2 momentum!

If you spend 2 power to add extra juice to an action taken with the ship systems? You get 2 bonus momentum from that if you succeed. If you scan using the ship's advanced sensors, you get +1 momentum if you're using them out of combat!

If, at any time, you give me 1 threat, you can get 1 momentum!

Momentum sticks around for "a scene" or until it is spent. What a scene is left kinda deliberately vague, but it's about as long as a scene is in a TV Show - but usually, each update is 1 or 2 scenes. At least, by my estimation they are...

Momentum can be spent on various things, but the most common are: You can buy bonus d20s for a roll (the first costs 1, the second costs 2, the third costs 3 - but your cap is always 5d20, that's the max per roll.) You can spend 2 to create an "advantage" (which makes things easier, possible, or harder for your enemies.) And, finally, there's tons of more specific things...you can spend momentum to re-roll damage dice, to add damage dice to attacks, to ignore enemy resistance, to take extra actions, to retain the initiative in combat, and so on!

Threat all works the same way for me - however~ there is ONE thing I can do with threat you can't do with momentum: Spawn in new enemies. It costs 1 threat per NPC spawned, or 1 threat per scale of NPC ship spawned!

Spart117MC said:

I think it's highly likely that most powers Voyger were to contact for assistance in dealing with the Vidiians are going to eagerly ally with them, especially if Voyager offers to tell them about the nature of the Vidiian advantage that allows them to suss out spies and win naval battles with inferior warships. Everyone is said to want Vidiian medtech and it isn't an immutable code of ethics that's keeping them from doing that.

Besides self interest I foresee the Vidiian practice of using thousands of people as wetware CPUs is going cause local populations to turn against them because of how similar that practice is to Borg assimilation. Meanwhile the Kazon may view the practice as a dangerous attempt by the Vidiians to try and achieve technology singularity, placing everyone in the region at risk of a Borg incursion.

If Voyager is to conduct interrogations then they should make sure to also speak to the captured boarders. If Nurel thought those troops were either going to win or die he might have let slip information that might cause him trouble.

Those prisoners are also Voyager's first encounter with the Phage and we should take advantage of the opportunity to try and discover whatever we can about the disease. If the Doctor were to be able to find a way to stall the disease or even come up with a permanent cure for it Voyager would be able to flip the prisoners on their bosses. If these people are desperate enough to survive then even the offer to toss them into a stasis pod to halt the degradation of their bodies in exchange for information might work.

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These are all good points!

So far as the Kazon and potential Borg interest, I do wonder how interested the Borg would be in this. It probably isn't too different from what they're doing themselves, but how do they decide civilizations have assimilatable qualities? Is it only big flashy hypertech that will put you on their radar, or would biotech like this attract them also? On the one hand, they come off as STEM supremacists in the show, on the other it would be kinda hilarious/terrifying to be assimilated for high levels of psychology, city planning, or pharmaceuticals.

It's occurred to me that we could threaten Dar with the prospect of having to go without regular Phage treatments. I'm willing to bet that's going to scare him far more than death or jail time.

Not that Starfleet would be so cruel as to deny a man his medication, but unfortunately Starfleet doesn't know how to make the treatment and neither does anyone else in the region but the Emergency and there's no way in hell Nurel is going to allow any amount of the cure to be handed over to be used on Dar.

[ ] Plan Prisoner's Dilemna
-[ ] Place the critically wounded into stasis pods for the time being.
-[ ] Interrogate the captured boarders.
--[ ] Offer to place those that share information into stasis until medicine for the Phage can be acquired. Hint that there are only so many stasis pods available.
--[ ] Ask for volunteers that would be willing to be examined so that Voyager may learn more about the Phage.
-[ ] Once the wounded have been treated and no one is in immediate danger of dying have the Doctor begin work on anti-Phage treatments.
-[ ] Inform Dar that he has three choices. Cooperate with Voyager's investigation, be handed off to the Talaxians for plotting the attack on Neelix, or be returned to Nurel for his attempted murder. In the hands of the Talaxians he'll live but without ever seeing another dose of treatment for the Phage again. If Nurel were to get him he would undoubtedly be killed, assuming the man Dar betrayed doesn't decide to go that extra mile by having him hooked up as his own personal computer as a twisted form of revenge.
--[ ] Bring in a skilled telepathic or empathic member of the crew to get a read on the truthfulness of Dar's responses.

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It would be telling if Dar isn't infected at all…

I do like this, but I prefer direct action. The entire system is dependent on two things: the continued existence of the phage and the pens. I want to take steps to halt this system as swiftly as possible, and putting pressure on those seems the best way to go.

The security state here has the potential to be really self contained. The general population may not be aware of the pens/milking farm, so if we eliminate the podmasters ace in the hole, the pens, and can also put pressure on their means of controlling the populace, the phage treatment, it might be possible to eliminate the practice wholesale. The stations have other economic activity (the gas giant mining) that can support them into either completely or as they go into a controlled decline. The whole milking farm could even be made less horrific if they need, a volunteer/blood donor type deal. Wrap it all up with a neat little bow!

Obviously, best case scenario. But my blood is boiling and I want the pleasure of seeing things come down around Nurels ears.

Eater said:

It would be telling if Dar isn't infected at all…

I do like this, but I prefer direct action. The entire system is dependent on two things: the continued existence of the phage and the pens. I want to take steps to halt this system as swiftly as possible, and putting pressure on those seems the best way to go.

The security state here has the potential to be really self contained. The general population may not be aware of the pens/milking farm, so if we eliminate the podmasters ace in the hole, the pens, and can also put pressure on their means of controlling the populace, the phage treatment, it might be possible to eliminate the practice wholesale. The stations have other economic activity (the gas giant mining) that can support them into either completely or as they go into a controlled decline. The whole milking farm could even be made less horrific if they need, a volunteer/blood donor type deal. Wrap it all up with a neat little bow!

Obviously, best case scenario. But my blood is boiling and I want the pleasure of seeing things come down around Nurels ears.

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I am very much of the same mind, no question about it. But our sensors can breach their hardened structure to get readings on the pens themselves and that provides a lot of overt action options as we could either remove the slaves from their stations or break down the communication equipment they depend on, hell if their programming is so shoddy then they may be open to a computer infection of a propagating virus targeting that equipment.

Just right now, we got a goldmine of information dropped in our laps and we might be able to leverage to create something lasting to permanently undermine the dictatorship that is doing this. A lot of the direct actions we have open at this moment create holes and advantages for us now, but we may uncover information to make a strike far more widespread that will force unrepairable change upon this system.

Remember we have 2 ships. Any plan should include both ships to maximize success.
Maybe have a "random" ship decloak and raid the station for everything will give Voyager a chance to also pull off its own things…..

[X] Plan Prisoner's Dilemma + Counterstrike
-[X] Place the critically wounded into stasis pods for the time being.
-[X] Interrogate the captured boarders.
--[X] Offer to place those that share information into stasis until medicine for the Phage can be acquired. Hint that there are only so many stasis pods available. Have crew empaths nearby to help. Take detailed scans and samples as part of prep for stasis.
--[X] Ask for volunteers that would be willing to be examined and test out treatments so that Voyager may learn more about the Phage.
-[X] Once the wounded have been treated and no one is in immediate danger of dying have the Doctor begin work on anti-Phage treatments and or transporter bio-filter cure shenanigans.
-[X] Inform Dar that he has three choices. Cooperate with Voyager's investigation, be handed off to the Talaxians for plotting the attack on Neelix, or be returned to Nurel for his attempted murder. In the hands of the Talaxians he'll live but without ever seeing another dose of treatment for the Phage again. If Nurel were to get him he would undoubtedly be killed, assuming the man Dar betrayed doesn't decide to go that extra mile by having him hooked up as his own personal computer as a twisted form of revenge.
--[X] Bring in a skilled telepathic or empathic member of the crew to get a read on the truthfulness of Dar's responses.
---[X] Key information we want to know: What are the Zipheads (where do they come from, is it voluntary, how long do they do the "job", what happens afterwards, are they infected, can they be safely removed from the biocomp) and a description of current political picture for the station and Viideans in general.
-[X] Based on Dar's answers plan a raid to capture guilty parties and individuals key to defending or mobilizing a response to our raid.
--[X] Raid station, get samples and in-depth scans of cures, treatments, pens, etc. Steal, hack, or trick enemy computers into giving you as much as possible. If station size is small enough, take and hold control, if not get as much as possible.
---[X] Spool up some virtualized doctor "clones" either in sickbay to help with investigation or in a holodeck lab to assist crew with quickly understanding what they're scanning during the raid and processing data from station computers.
---[X] For slave pens if individuals can be safely disconnected do so and transport them to spare cargo bay on Voyager or Val Jean for debriefing, bio scan, and contaminant containment. If they can't be disconnected quickly see if they can be hacked to stop giving enemy information (or feed bad information to enemy) to make capture or raid easier.
---[X] Interrogate/question guilty parties using Emergency Espionage Hologram's and Okampan assistance.

I really like the prisoner's dilemma and figured I'd tack on some smash and grab stuff. This should get us individuals responsible for ordering the crimes, the individuals that make us acting freely on the station difficult, some helpful prisoners, and possibly some freed slaves if disconnecting them doesn't fry their brains. It should also give us a chance to get a ton of key information about treatments, technology, and crimes which we can use and pass on.
If we develop a cure quickly it opens a bunch of doors for us. If we can free slaves and they're aware enough to be able to take control of the station and work with us longer term (a week or longer for us to clean house/cure them, create helpful new cured faction) that'd be ideal.


Honestly feels like a plan that would require multiple updates so probably semi-invalid but maybe @DragonCobolt would see the plan and then let us walk through some of the option chain with follow up votes in the spirit of the plan. Like instead of fading to credits right away we decide to have some political arcs and science/medical arcs tacked on to make a double episode.

Edit: Solutions to phage, slaves, criminals, stealing tech, and Neelix's lungs all seem dependent on answers we'd get during interrogation so I want to make it clear we're interested in some detail and dismantling evil in follow up votes as we learn more.

It's the kind of plan where it'd go fine unless a dice roll throws a wrench into it!

DragonCobolt said:

It's the kind of plan where it'd go fine unless a dice roll throws a wrench into it!

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But...

Isn't that... every plan?

[X] Plan Prisoner's Dilemma + Counterstrike

DragonCobolt said:

no, it's great, make it higher

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borg cube borg cube borg cube

DragonCobolt said:

CURRENT TRUTHS: "Ship Defended To Fuck" (Ship)

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Are we currently still docked with the station?

Skippy said:

Are we currently still docked with the station?

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I will say...n...o....

DragonCobolt said:

I will say...n...o....

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Oh thank god.

So, in terms of voting, where I'm feeling is that plan PD + Counterstrike has some great concepts but is a bit too complicated, trying to cover every contingency and plan several steps ahead, but liable to be de-railed when something does not go to plan. I really like the spirit of it, and I have made a fair number of plans like that in my day, but learnt the hard way that short and simple is often better.

Consequently, since we're no longer docked with the station and hopefully they can't board us again, I'll go for:

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick
-[X] Try and keep our critically wounded alive by any method necessary until we know if the bio-gel is safe to use or some kind of trap.
-[X] Have Janeway show Dar the entire conversation with Nurel, unedited, from start to finish in a Starfleet interrogation. Have a telepath available to verify truth and intent from surface thoughts. Let the man spill his own guts, so to speak.
-[X] If Dar is less then cooperative, then show him the sensor scans of their slave pens and just simply tell him "we know everything."
-[X] If Nurel tries any shit, fire a shot across the bow, and remind him who has the loaded gun here.

A lot of this is stolen shamelessly from "Plan A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words" @SweetJackal. Also a suggestion about the critically injured from @CyberEnby.

My main difference, other than a caveat for how to deal with Nurel if he gets ideas, is that I want to hold off on using the bio-gel. We don't know if it has some sort of wet nanotech that will start rewriting people's brains, or contains the Phage, or if Nurel might try altering a batch sent our way, or if it is derived from captives somehow and we need to think about the ethics of using it.

Both of these plans have elements I like, but neither are quite focused enough for me.

I've put together a slightly more elaborate version of my original plan with elements of both:

[x] Plan Tear the Root v2
-[x] Interrogate Dar with a psychic present, pumping him for details on the phage and specific details on the pen infrastructure.
-[x] Use Phage samples from the captured boarders and info from the interrogation to synthesize a phage treatment.
-[x] Launch a two pronged offensive: distribute the phage treatment to the general population (either putting it in the life support system or handing it out for free in public), and destroy infrastructure which the pens rely on.

Short n sweet, this takes concrete steps to eliminate the police states grip on the populace and hopefully paves the way for its demise. I left out details about specific people, as this seemed like micromanaging.

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

With the caveat that I do think before this episode is over, we should be trying to learn about / cure the phage.

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

Seems like a good balance, simple and clean.

I would also maybe note that if our momentum is going to last long enough we should save it for any future shootout just in case. I somehow double the capitalist fascist police state is going to take it well when we blow the lid off the Memory Hole.

If it's not going to last till that scene, we should focus on using it in any action that will aid our wounded. As has been noted, attrition is our worst enemy here, and we need to make sure our people are taken care of above all else. What do you think @Skippy?

Jack Stargazer said:

I would also maybe note that if our momentum is going to last long enough we should save it for any future shootout just in case. I somehow double the capitalist fascist police state is going to take it well when we blow the lid off the Memory Hole.

If it's not going to last till that scene, we should focus on using it in any action that will aid our wounded. As has been noted, attrition is our worst enemy here, and we need to make sure our people are taken care of above all else. What do you think @Skippy?

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That makes sense to me. Unsure if the 4 Threat we have listed can be spent as psuedo-Momentum now, or just tracking Threat we accumulated earlier and is still hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick

Skippy said:

That makes sense to me. Unsure if the 4 Threat we have listed can be spent as psuedo-Momentum now, or just tracking Threat we accumulated earlier and is still hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.

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That's accumulated threat already hanging over us.

[X] Plan Carrot and Stick