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

DragonCobolt · May 27, 2022

Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on May 27, 2022 at 11:52 AM, finished with 17 posts and 9 votes.

7 people have voted
[X] There are other Talaxian's here, they might have enough medical data on hand that The Doctor could extrapolate new lungs with a medical replicator bypassing the issue entirely, and without putting undue burden on our...hosts
- ThatGazzer
- RvengefuLobster
- Rivenscryr
- Spoit
- Derek58
- buli-buli
- Skippy
7 people have voted
[X] Demand the locals find the Organleggers. Offer the help of Voyager's advanced sensors and security officers in tracking down the Organleggers.
- RvengefuLobster
- Rivenscryr
- Spoit
- Derek58
- buli-buli
- Skippy
- CyberFemme
1 people have voted
[X] There are other Talaxian's here, they might have enough medical data on hand that The Doctor could extrapolate new lungs with a medical replicator bypassing the issue entirely, and without putting undue burden on our...host
- CyberFemme

Okay! Roll me 3d20 for the Doctor doing his Doctor Thing! (Diff 3, reduced to diff 2 by using the Talaxians)

Then roll me 3d20 for helping the Vidiians with your scanners, yo! (Diff...OPPOSED?! ROLL!? but they're so trustworthy...)

bigking321 · May 27, 2022

Doctor rolls.

Wish me luck...

Edit: I think I killed him.

DragonCobolt · May 27, 2022

That's a success! His base TN is 11, but thanks to his being an expert at doctor, it's bumped to 15! So, 16 and 6 = 2s, meaning he did it, he saved Neelix!

(As a peek behind the curtain: This is one of those "you can succeed with consequences" rolls - if you had failed, I'd have just added a complication!)

Jack Stargazer · May 27, 2022

Rolling for Voyager's Scanners:
This seems good. I'm guessing this counts as Security: Sensors which is TN 13
We also have +1 Momentum to out of combat sensor checks, can we get anything with that?

bigking321 · May 27, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
he saved Neelix!

Oh thank heavens.

CyberFemme · May 27, 2022

Jack Stargazer said:
Rolling for Voyager's Scanners:
This seems good. I'm guessing this counts as Security: Sensors which is TN 13

Vidiians: In terms of [secrets]... we have no [secrets].

Skippy · May 27, 2022

Jack Stargazer said:
Rolling for Voyager's Scanners:
This seems good. I'm guessing this counts as Security: Sensors which is TN 13
We also have +1 Momentum to out of combat sensor checks, can we get anything with that?

We can roll an extra dice, which might be an idea. Although right now I think if we're rolling with a TN of 13+, for a bridge officer doing the scans, we'd have scored three successes, so I'm unsure how necessary it is.

We can also use Momentum to ask a question, so asking "Are the Viidians hiding shit from us and trying to baffle our sensors?" might honestly be much more helpful to our characters.

Jack Stargazer · May 27, 2022

Skippy said:
We can roll an extra dice, which might be an idea. Although right now I think if we're rolling with a TN of 13+, for a bridge officer doing the scans, we'd have scored three successes, so I'm unsure how necessary it is.

We can also use Momentum to ask a question, so asking "Are the Viidians hiding shit from us and trying to baffle our sensors?" might honestly be much more helpful to our characters.

I'd vote for seeking the additional info on that one. I think with 3 successes we should be able to smell the fish.

Also, doesn't that description of the substrate sound a lot like bio-mimetic gel? There was a DS9 episode where Bashir mentioned that could be easily turned into biogenic weapons.

Maybe also up the old filters on the transporters to make sure the crew isn't bringing anything back from shore leave.

Skippy · May 27, 2022

Jack Stargazer said:
I'd vote for seeking the additional info on that one. I think with 3 successes we should be able to smell the fish.

Also, doesn't that description of the substrate sound a lot like bio-mimetic gel? There was a DS9 episode where Bashir mentioned that could be easily turned into biogenic weapons.

Maybe also up the old filters on the transporters to make sure the crew isn't bringing anything back from shore leave.

Actually, if the roll is Opposed though, we might need some more Successes to counter theirs - I forget how that works, let me open the PDF of the Quickstart rules lol

EDIT: I can't find a definition anywhere, but I am assuming that DC is rolling for the Viidians and the Difficulty we need to overcome is their Successes?

If they're rolling 2D20 then we've probably succeeded handily, but if they're rolling more dice than that, then things might be trickier.

DragonCobolt · May 27, 2022

So, the way it works is thus!

you roll to see who gets more momentum. Sometimes, one side has a harder time than another - E.G, if they have a trait that makes it harder for you and you roll 2s and they roll 2s, then they'd get 2 momentum, while you got 1 momentum, so they won, even if you are tied.

Bolo · May 27, 2022

Can't we ask for any and All medical data on Talaxians straight from the Viidians. It will help with treatment plus it should be a free thing to ask for and receive.

ThatGazzer · May 27, 2022

Bolo said:
Can't we ask for any and All medical data on Talaxians straight from the Viidians. It will help with treatment plus it should be a free thing to ask for and receive.

Because we don't trust them

DragonCobolt · May 27, 2022

"While we are happy, very happy, to have such a kind offer of help, our medical replicators will handle this crisis," Janeway said, nodding as she did so. Once we get Talaxian data from the local Talaxians. Aloud, she added: "In fact, what we'd far rather do is help you. Our ship has highly sophisticated sensors, we may be able to assist your security officials...a joint anti-crime operations might be the best way to begin our trade negotiations."

Nurel beamed. "That's perfect."

***

Nurel and Dar walked together through the Pens.

"I don't know, Phan," Dar said, quietly. "There's something funny going on with these Federation aliens. How the hell did they get the furred asshole back safe before we could core him out? The plan was to get one of our operatives in there-"

"Do go zip on me, Braxtur," Nurel said, shaking his head as he did so. "The mark of a Podmaster is adaptation to changing situations. It's what makes us who we are. They have better automation than we thought - my Pens think his communication device had more sophisticated programming than we guessed."

"I also don't like that," Dar said, turning, putting his hand on Nurel's shoulder, stopping the Senior Podmaster. "If their automation is near-sentient, or even full-sentient, then they might be able to handle even the Pens. We may need to do joint operations between our personal troops - not just relying on the levy for this."

Come on, Dar thought. Take the bait...

Nurel chuckled, quietly. "Dar, Dar, Dar, the Emergency hasn't needed to mobilize two Podmaster's worth of guardsmen for anything short of a Taker incursion. You're overreacting."

Dar knew he had one more chance to open up the only weakness in Nurel's protection. He made the tiniest of hand-gestures, one that was picked up by a Ziphead he had placed in this part of the Pens. One of the dangling bodies that lined the walkway twitched and jerked, their visor covered head jerking upwards as their lips started to open and the droning jargon of a deep insertion security Ziphead started to pour out: "Quantum subspace interpolation indicates, via security-backscatter plotting diadems in the Alpha Matrix that quasi-invisible stellar SecVec is on patrol vector..."

Dar aped annoyance. "Trell! TRELL! Get your useless rotting ass down here and translate for this Zip!"

His handler, Trell, hurried over from where Dar had made sure he'd be placed. He had blood all over his hands - according to Dar's HUD, it seemed that he had actually been needed here to deal with a Ziphead fight. "Yes, Podmasters?" he asked, bowing his head.

"We have a Zip in a jargon loop, translate for us," Dar said. "I don't like the sound of quasi-invisible SecVec." He murmured to Nurel, who nodded, listening.

"Uh..." Trell held up his terminal, isolated the mic that was on the Ziphead in question, then played back what they were mumbling. "Ah, got it, this one's from batch-2, they are the ones we have watching Voyager's communication systems for backdoors. They are convinced that Voyager is in constant communication with an invisible second ship."

"Invisible ship? Nurel asked. "Is that plausible?"

"It's...possible, sir, but it has a forty to thirty percent chance, by my estimation at least, to just be Zipheads getting into theory loops. They see something weird, they have to explain it, but all weird things need to fit into their purview. These are security zipheads, so every weird answer has to be some security vector, it can't just be stellar phenomenon or commerce or anything like that." Trell realized he was overexplaining and shut up, blushing.

Dar turned to Nurel, his voice low, confiding. "If there is an invisible ship...if there's a second...we'll need an ace in the hole beyond the Pens." He gestured around himself - to the hundreds of softly murmuring, suspended bodies, their HUDs glowing, their hapatic gloves twitching as fingers made tiny motions to send the thousands of commands they sent every second to every piece of automation in the whole Pod. The thrumming, beating heart of the Emergency's security state.

"Dar..." Nurel said, quietly, looking at him. Dar felt his pulse quicken. In here, in the Pens, it was dark enough that his microexpressions couldn't be read by the Zips that Nurel had for his own security detail - and Dar didn't see the flash of text that might mean that Nurel was getting a status update from his invisible web of support. But that didn't mean that Nurel's own instincts weren't sharp and honed by years in the bloodiest, most dangerous political arena in this part of space. A tiny hunch, a shift in his voice, the faintest intuition could give Dar away.

"...we're going to need a way through their shields, if it comes to that. Our guards, together, if beamed in can handle it while the Levy ties them down at the airlocks," Nurel said.

"Of course, Senior Podmaster," Dar said, nodding.

It was all coming together just as he had planned.

There was only one tiny little itty bitty problem that neither of the two was aware of.

It was the fact they were being watched.

***

"What are we looking at here?" Janeway asked as she, Brian Wacoche, Tuvok, Harry, Tom, Torres, Amy, D-91 and a screen projection of the EMH looked at the screen projection of the Voyager's scans of the station. T'are, who had been in charge of the sensor operations, looked grim as she pointed at the glowing cross section.

"The...Vidiian Emergency made this part of the station has hardened as they could," she said. "But they have clearly not interacted with any civilizations that have cloaking devices - or they haven't done so enough to be aware of the responses that come from running into cloaking devices. Our sensors could penetrate through...and..." She squared her shoulders. "I've conferred with the Doctor..."

He nodded from his screen.

"There are six hundred Vidiians in these grid harnesses," she said. "All of them connected to computer operation systems. We've observed them for six hours - they don't get moved out, they don't get replaced, they don't do anything but operate or sleep. Their food and water intake appears to be handled automatically - the only Vidiians that move are figures like these..." She pointed at a glowing splotch, clearly struggling with two of the dimmer splotches. "And these..." She pointed to two others, walking purposefully through a narrow banded section of the...

"They're slave pens," Brian said, quietly.

"That is an assumption...but not an entirely unfounded one," Tuvok said. "The similarity to 18th century slave ships on Earth, or the 4th century sandships of similar design on Vulcan, are not lost on me either, Captain Wacoche."

"Do we have any idea what they're doing?" Harry asked.

"Each of them is hooked up to enough communication and computer gear to run a starship," T'are said. "But there's no way they could process that amount of information - and not for this amount of time..."

"Are they cybernetically modified?" Torres asked, grimly.

"We can't tell with this resolution," T'are said. "But it's...possible. And...there's more."

Janeway rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"...there are six other Pens. Two are an order of magnitude larger and are located under the factories," T'are said, quietly. Amy drew in a sharp, hissing breath as T'are brought up one of those pens. Thousands of Vidiians - but it didn't take the Doctor's acerbic words for everyone there to see what it was.

"Milking pens," the Doctor said, coldly, as they looked at the fibrous mass of wires leading into and out of every single suspended Vidiian.

"What do we do?" D-91 asked, quietly.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Neelix has no Lungs!" (Ship)

[ ] Leave and broadcast this information to the Talaxians, Haakonians, Okampa, Kazon...basically, everyone who can hear it.
[ ] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details.
[ ] Write In

You get 3s versus diff...1! Yes, the check has been made 1 step harder because the Vidiian trait of "The Pens"
They get 3s, which is 3 momentum!

So, 2 momentum for you versus 3 momentum means they win, yes?

WRONG!

+1 momentum from your scanners means...3 momentum versus 3 momentum, means the "aggressor" - you, looking for oddities - wins!

DrTrenchcoat · May 27, 2022

Frankly I think our best bet is this:
[ ] Leave and broadcast this information to the Talaxians, Haakonians, Okampa, Kazon...basically, everyone who can hear it.

...But we're Starfleet, we don't call the cavalry, we are the cavalry.
~~[X] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details.~~
[X] Plan Distrust and Verify

DragonCobolt · May 27, 2022

I mean, one of the advantages of this quest is it has infinite budget and a showrunner (me) who gives a shit - so you actually can do all the things you always thought Star Trek should do but...didn't.

EDIT: Oh, also, NONE OF YOU HAVE READ A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY!?

For shame!

FOR SHAME!!!

slybrarian · May 27, 2022

I've read it, although it's been a long time.

Rivenscryr · May 27, 2022

[X] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details.

Spart117MC · May 27, 2022

DrTrenchcoat said:
...But we're Starfleet, we don't call the cavalry, we are the cavalry.
[X] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details.

On the other hand Starfleet is supposed to be a coalition of multiple worlds and species. We've got the phone number for Relora and there are loyalist Talaxian ships in the area. The bad guys are marshaling their forces so why don't we do so too?

Plus realistically a Sovereign and Keldon wouldn't be enough to help so many people even without the possibility of a fight.

[X] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details. In the meanwhile work to establish contact with the Relora and Talaxians in preparation for a rescue operation.

10ebbor10 · May 27, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
"Milking pens," the Doctor said, coldly, as they looked at the fibrous mass of wires leading into and out of every single suspended Vidiian.

To be overly optimistic, these could non sentient lobotomized clones.

In which case the technology can be justified, if rather gruesome looking.

SweetJackal · May 27, 2022

So, just throwing a few thoughts here for a plan before i drop into work.

[ ] Realize that if they are using living brains for computing power, if it was focused to security then the gangs would be impossible to operate- rather they would fit as an expression of the government themselves. As this fits with how human governments clamped down on crime as technology advanced when the focus was on crime and punishment as a security state instead of tackling the social-economic conditions that caused crime. So Security across the ships needs to be kept at Yellow Alert until further notice.

Revan4221X · May 27, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
"Each of them is hooked up to enough communication and computer gear to run a starship," T'are said. "But there's no way they could process that amount of information - and not for this amount of time..."

This makes me think of that automated station that used brains to supplement it's CPU.

Spart117MC · May 27, 2022

It's all very Ghost in the Shell, which has me concerned that they'll be able to beat Voyager's computer security.

10ebbor10 said:
To be overly optimistic, these could non sentient lobotomized clones.

In which case the technology can be justified, if rather gruesome looking.

It would clash with Nurel's narrative of the organleggers being a major societal woe though as if the Viidians could make thousands of such clones they should be able to make replacement organs easily enough and things shouldn't be so bad that they have to warn off members of certain species from traveling certain parts of their ships to avoid having their organs stolen.

10ebbor10 · May 27, 2022

Spart117MC said:
It would clash with Nurel's narrative of the organleggers being a major societal woe though as if the Viidians could make thousands of such clones they should be able to make replacement organs easily enough and things shouldn't be so bad that they have to warn off members of certain species from traveling certain parts of their ships to avoid having their organs stolen.

It would mean they have the technological capability to fix the organleggers problem, but that doesn't mean they will actually fix it.

Organleggers exist because some people can not afford their phage treatments, and thus fall behind. The Viidians have the technology to provide all their citizens with this medicine for free, they just don't do it because :

DragonCobolt said:
T'are and her entire staff has been examining them since we came in system and she says that they're...normal capitalist hellscapes."

If anti-phage medicine was easily accessible, there would only be maybe a handful of people who were really affected by the degradation.

Skippy · May 27, 2022

[X] Continue operations with Vidiian security as a means to infiltrate their computers and figure out more details.

This feels like the Starfleet thing to do, and also, whilst we have enough to make the Vidiians look bad right now, we don't have enough that they could not attempt to explain away, I think.

The Vidiians are immensely fucked up and I'm here for it.

Jack Stargazer · May 27, 2022

I think we need a bit more here than just the agreement to keep working and trying to subvert them.

At a minimum we need to reinforce our computer security (though our computer defense is pretty damn good it seems with a 16 TN in Security), probably airgap whatever controls internal security, and put transport scramblers in most sensitive areas. That or put an airgapped computer in charge of raising the shields and beaming all crew home in the event of an attack.

Also the old Viidian ships were about an even match for the Intrepid class Voyager. A sovereign is much, much stronger in a combat situation and that's without even looking at the Val Jean, so I think a shootout is not so much to our disadvantage as long as we don't get boarded.

So:

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

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