'Nathan Burgoine's Blog

It’s Saturday, so you know what that means: Trek. I’ve been re-watching the TOS-era episodes of Star Trek with the goal of mining them for ideas for use in Star Trek Adventures as put out by Modiphius.  

So, after The Man Trap, Charlie X, Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Naked Time, The Enemy Within, and Mudd’s Women, we reach…

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Also, just as a quick note, I put together a Star Trek Adventures tab here on the main menu of my blog for all these bits and pieces, and now there’s a sub-page where I tucked all the scenario seeds—and I’m going to keep organizing them using the Captain’s Log tables, with quick one-sentence prompts followed by the link to discussion of the episode in question and the more thorough scenario seed in question.

All right then. Let’s do this.

As episodes go, this one has a pretty solid teaser trailer: Enterprise has reached a planet on its journey they’ve specifically headed to in order to see if they—unlike anyone else—might figure out what happened to one Dr. Roger Korby. Korby is an expert in archeological medicine, and Nurse Chapel is on the Bridge because he’s also her (former?) fiancé. They were engaged when he went missing, and it turns out this is the whole reason she joined Enterprise on this five year mission—putting aside a career in bio-research.

So, I quite like this touch for Chapel, and if you’re also watching Strange New Worlds, they’ve tied in that past for her quite well (as well as having just introduced Korby this season). Without Strange New Worlds, it’s maybe a little surprising after Chapel was all “I love you Spock!” just a few episodes ago, but it’s been years, and even if it hadn’t, people can love multiple folk at once. We dig it.

Korby answers the hail, and everyone is “Wait, he’s alive?” Spock is skeptical. Chapel dismisses it. They’re beaming down.

(That said, Chapel’s little jibe “Have you ever been engaged?” when Spock asks her if she can be sure she recognizes Korby gains all sorts of layers when you add in the Strange New Worlds history since revealed, and I am also here for that being Christine’s little jab about T’Pring in later-acquired-retrospect. Anything that makes Chapel come off as less wet-tissue is awesome.)

So, Chapel and Kirk beam down, but Korby doesn’t meet them, so Kirk has two super-doomed-to-die redshirts (silver-fox Matthews and chisel-chinned Rayburn) beam down as well, Rayburn hanging out at the beam-down site, the other accompanying them and exploring while they try to figure out where Korby is. Eventually find Korby (he’s alive!), along with a kind of blank friend of his Chapel recognizes, “Brownie.”

Alas, silver-fox Matthews “falls into a bottomless cavern” is killed off-screen; friend-of-Korby seems “meh!” about it, we learn Korby has been studying a people who went underground as the sun went dim/dark, and how they basically went a little off-kilter because of it, but there are amazing medical breakthroughs and it’s going to change everything! (Also Chapel and Korby smooch.) Once we get to “interior: cavern with rugs and stuff” they introduce Andrea, a young woman dressed in two strips of fabric held in place by the gaze of every man in the room.

Okay, fast-forward. There’s a big robot android, he killed silver-fox Matthews. After Kirk tells chisel-chinned Rayburn that Matthews is dead (and to his credit, Rayburn seems really upset about it, and one wonders if they were rec deck friendos), Ruk the android also offs chisel-chinned Rayburn, so he doesn’t have long to be distraught about it. Korby tries to stop Kirk and Chapel from leaving, there’s a shoot-out, Brownie gets shot and it turns out he’s an android and then Korby explains this place can transfer the ill/wounded into android bodies (though Brownie was a bit far gone, hence him being so blank) or build them from scratch (like Andrea) and Chapel is all “yeah, I know why you built her to look like that, you don’t fool me” but he’s all “androids have no feelings, watch, I’ll make her smooch Kirk and then slap him” but honestly smooching-then-slapping seems about right for how any woman should treat Jim Kirk. But the big android, Ruk, holds Kirk up against a wall and they’re basically fucked. Ruk can also imitate Kirk to keep Spock off the trail, and does.

Korby’s plan is… unclear. Like, he wants to make sure Kirk and Chapel understand the tech, but the tech has already killed two of their people, so that’s not likely. Instead, he makes a Kirk-droid, and while it’s happening, Kirk overhears that one of the steps is to copy the mind of squishy-Kirk into Kirk-droid so he comes up with a brilliant plan.

Be racist.

No, for reals. He chants “Mind your own business, Mister Spock! I’m sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?” and that attitude gets copied into Kirk-droid, and at one point once they’ve beamed up Kirk-droid he snaps that at Spock and Spock realizes something is off and takes a security team down to the planet. Kirk fights off big android Ruk with a dildo (you cannot tell me the set designers didn’t do this on purpose) and then convinces the big guy that organic squishy-types will just cause the same disaster all over again (basically the androids went all “kill all EXO-III squishies!” when said organic types became afraid of the androids), and Korby has to disintegrate Ruk, and as for Andrea? Well.

Kirk kisses her, you see. She has a program error meltdown (I wouldn’t like kissing him either) and then she goes and vaporizes Kirk-droid because he won’t love her (sigh) and then Kirk and Korby have a scuffle and—gasp!—Korby is an android too! Chapel finds this distressing (fair) and it’s clear Korby’s wires are crossed on the ol’ logic circuits and basically it’s all gone to shit.

Andrea is still in an emotional spiral because Kirk-kissing—and also Korby basically tossed her aside once Christine showed up—and eventually the android Korby destroys himself and Andrea while Chapel and Kirk watch and then Spock arrives to save them. Except for a snide aside from Kirk when Spock points out how much he didn’t like being referred to as a “half-breed,” that’s pretty much it.

Then they leave. All the android-making stuff is still there, but they leave.

So, obviously the biggest seed here is the fact a fully-functional Android-creation machine exists on Exo III, and can make pretty indistinguishable copies of anyone who gets spun around while naked (no, really) and one is left to assume that Starfleet handled that in some way.

The other scenario seed—which I’ll totally credit to Strange New Worlds as well—is how fascinating the notion of Archeological Medicine is to me, and the idea there are Federation (or Starfleet) doctor-archeologists out there on formerly-inhabited planets digging around to see what they might learn from the past that might help treatments in the future.

Seed One: Exo III Androids

At the end of this episode, everyone who knew how to create android duplicates has been disintegrated, but there’s no way Starfleet didn’t send a follow-up crew to at least review Dr. Korby’s work. Now, one of the main conceits of this episode is that androids can’t feel as well as humans can, and so they’re never going to be proper copies of the individuals involved, but as we saw with “Brownie,” you can make androids of people who are injured or ill (albeit not great copies if they’re starting to fade, as in the case of “Brownie,” or if they chant racist garbage, like Kirk did). But still, the ability to make android copies of people that can perfectly pass, at least for a time? Yeah, you bet Starfleet is going to figure out how to keep that under wraps. Or at least try to.

Accessibility Android—An archeologist with a degenerative illness assigned to the Exo III site, upon reading the classified files from Kirk’s days, understands that the current mental focus of an individual undergoing to the android duplication can directly affect the android’s creation, and decides to create an android of herself while remaining focused on one thought: “I am here to assist the real archeologist, to be an extension of her mobility and function.” The android created—despite it being completely against the regulations Starfleet put in place after the Korby debacle—seems to function perfectly. It’s aware it isn’t the archeologist, though it also has all her core knowledge, and it functions as expected: as an assistant and accessibility tool. Starfleet is very twitchy about this, and sends the player crew to evaluate the situation (after declassifying the events and history of Exo III for them). How the crew react to the android—is it a tool, a being, an individual?—and whether or not the android remains stable as the archeologist’s health takes a turn for the worse could make for the crux of a philosophical and moral episode.

Artificial Intelligence Operatives—During the Dominion War (or some other conflict where things are dire for the Federation or Starfleet), an Admiral at Starfleet Intelligence recalls the facility on Exo III and brings a team of hand-picked officers to the planet specifically to create artificial duplicates he can send behind enemy lines without risking further loss of personnel. As time goes on, (a) this proves to be a functional tactic, though it sometimes requires clean-up when agents are discovered to be artificial and cannot initiate their own self-destruction, all of which is fine right up until the Attack on Mars occurs, and Starfleet prohibits the use of androids—but all the android intelligence operatives refuse the command to return for decommissioning, leaving the Admiral to have to send biological humanoids in to the various locations to ensure the androids are dealt with; or (b) one of the android duplicates, whose original is a friend or former romantic interest of one of the players, goes rogue after receiving orders it believes are amoral and against Starfleet regulations—and requests asylum from the player’s ship Captain, which threatens to expose the entirety of the Admiral’s (likely illegal) plan.

Seed Two: Archeological Medicine

Korby pioneered a whole movement of looking at archeological sites to discover medical progress that could be made (or had already been made, and then forgotten) thanks to now-gone alien species. For ships with a medical bent such as Olympic- or Norway-class vessels, this sort of mission assignment could be a welcome change from dealing with outbreaks, or highlight members of the crew who don’t get as much of the spotlight on the day-to-day. For more multi-role vessels, this can allow the medical and archeological crew to shine and take centre stage for an episode—at least until things go sideways.

Ancient and New—The crew is called to a planet that once held a thriving warp-capable civilization, all of whom are gone, and the world now exists in a state of abandoned ruin. The archeological team there has recently uncovered a medical facility where the records have survived the thousands of years since the vanishing of the civilization, and have requested the crew’s aid in cataloging and understanding what it is they’ve found. As the crew work, they (a) uncover these aliens had a viable cure to a currently non-treatable disease facing one of their family members, close friends, or other important loved one, and while Starfleet Medical would normally never allow it, this individual is near death, and as such the treatment is granted (in complete isolation and with the caveat of the continuation of such until such time as it can be ascertained there are no unexpected side-effects). The treatment works—but then the formerly sick individual begins to show signs of biological improvement beyond average—almost as though they’ve been genetically augmented. Worse, they’re showing physical signs of evolving into what might very well be one of the vanished alien species from the planet—none of which should have happened from the treatment. The race is on to cure the individual from the cure itself; but if the individual starts to enjoy their new form and rejects help, what then? Or, (b) a crew-member accidentally exposes themself to an intact treatment drug when the aged vessel cracks and breaks and must be put into isolation. They begin to have visions of the original alien civilization, gain an understanding of the language and culture the archeologists had only begun to crack, and start to feel a pull to “join the others.” Can the crew restore them in time, or will the accidentally infected crewman follow the aliens into an elsewhere he is more and more sure he can access solely with his growing mental abilities?

Have you done any medical-centric episodes among your gaming group? What about androids or other synthetic life forms? I’d love to hear about either.

As those of you who’ve been around my social media of late may know, I’m attending Can*Con again this year (it’s a favourite convention, and the fact it happens in my back yard is sort of the best thing ever), and I should probably note where I’ll be (and when)!

Can*Con is Ottawa’s Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Literature Convention, and it’s one I’ve had the joy of going to for many years now, and I should note that as a writer who is as often in the romance and YA world as the speculative, the convention is super welcoming to those who write anywhere across the various genres, and has a vibe you don’t often get at conventions, which is to say it’s fun.

Now, that doesn’t mean the topics don’t get serious, or the discussions shy away from complexities—I mean, look at the panels I’m a part of over there to the right—but the general vibe at Can*Con tends to be “we’re all in this together, the world’s on fire, want to borrow my fire extinguisher?”

Perhaps that sounds more dire than I intend, but I mean that in the best possible way.

Now, on the basis of the awesome schedule and great panels alone—not to mention the guests, speakers, and chance to hang out with awesome fellow nerds—Can*Con is worth it. But this year I’m also going to test run something I’ve wanted to try for a while now: a Convention game.

If you’ve been around here much at all, you’ve also heard me wax poetic about Star Trek Adventures, the tabletop role playing game put out by Modiphius, and how much I love running the two campaigns I’ve currently got going. I’ve perhaps mentioned Captain’s Log a little less often, but that’s the solo role-playing game version of Star Trek Adventures, and it struck me that the framework for Captain’s Log might work perfectly for a little narrative game to unfold throughout Can*Con.

So that’s what I’m going to test-run this Can*Con. Now, to be 100% clear, this isn’t something Can*Con is officially putting on or anything—though they’re being kind enough to let me try my weird thing throughout the three days—and it’s more like a Choose Your Own Adventure (remember those?) than anything else, though there will be dice-rolling, and some face-to-face interactions throughout the weekend (if you want, those are optional).

Also, because as far as I can tell, this will work just as well here remotely on the blog as anywhere else, I’m going to schedule blog posts so those of you who can’t come to Can*Con can also give this a try if you’d like.

So, with all those caveats, how do you take part?

All you really need are two twenty-sided dice (or some device that will let you generate two random numbers between 1 and 20), a pencil, and this modified character sheet (I’m also going to print some to have them on-hand at the event itself, and if you’d like me to make sure I save one for you, let me know). This isn’t a typical Captain’s Log character sheet—if you play Captain’s Log, you’ll notice I’ve made something that uses some (most?) of the mechanics, but not all of them—I skipped Complications, dropped Values this time out, and simplified Advantages—and even then the whole document ended up being more than 35k words (of which each player will end up receiving about a quarter of them, because of the branching narrative—it’ll be a short story, not a novella). Again, this is a Beta test of an idea, and I wanted to keep it somewhat simple the first time out.

With that sheet, you should have everything you need to make a character and get ready for the story.

That character sheet, a pencil and two twenty-sided dice is all you need to get ready, and it’ll also be all you need to play throughout the weekend. I’ve done what I hope is a thorough job to make the instructions clear as the events roll out, but there will be three parts for Friday, three parts for Saturday, and three parts for Sunday, and then a Conclusion. Each of the parts will have you making one of two choices for what your lieutenant intends to do, and depending on how it goes, you’ll end up with one of three endings.

The current plan is for those three updates to the story—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—to be available both here on the blog and at the Registration Desk. While Friday is an odd day for many (a lot of people don’t arrive until Saturday, and that’s fine), you can also easily catch up if that’s you. I’m intending to have all three Saturday and Sunday parts in place by lunchtime on those days (and, again, here on my blog), so that the Conclusion is available before people have to catch their rides home Sunday afternoon when things wrap up.

For the introverts among you, this can be a completely self-guided process (I see you from my ambivert tower). You don’t have to talk to anyone else, there is some “bonus” content where you can come chat with me (I’m playing the role of the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Ottawa) and some other brave volunteers throughout the weekend for some extra opportunities to shape your story.

If you also keep an eye on my Bluesky feed and/or this blog, I’ll make sure to post links and reminders as best I can.

Yeah, about that. If you’ve been around here throughout my publishing history, you’ll probably have heard me talk about how lousy I am at titles, and how more than half the things I’ve professionally published came back with editor feedback that said, “So, about your working title…” with a few suggestions for, uh, let’s just call it improvement.

But Captain’s Log is a game meant for you to tell a story your way, so… let’s pretend I always intended everyone to come up with their own title.

Yeah. That.

Hey all! It’s Tuesday, and I’m here being all nerdy about games and things. I just came back from a two week vacation with my husband, and for said vacation, I’d packed a new game for us to try out—Typewriter—one of the latest from Fowers Games. Our vacation was lovely, and we rented a house in Picton, took the dog for lots of walks, hung out, read books, soaked in a hot-tub, and I could walk out, grab us a takeaway dinner, and then bring it home (such a luxury for me who can’t drive to be able to reach things on foot).

In the evenings? We played Typewriter.

Typewriter isn’t our first Fowers Games game, and that was why I nabbed it, generally, we’ve had really good luck with the company, and we tend to enjoy what they offer. To wit, let’s talk briefly about the other two games we’ve played the most.

First up is Paperback, which is definitely a favourite on two levels. Paperback’s gameplay is deck-building game; you use the pennies you earn from the word you assemble from your personal deck of cards to buy more cards from the communal shop. Bought cards are added to your deck, and those cards earn you more cash that you can then use to buy better letters—some have powers that grant you boosts to your earnings—and on it goes. The competitive version of this game is fun, since you’re building from your own deck and it doesn’t involve any attacking. You’re just trying to buy more victory point cards until two of the piles of victory cards run out, at which point the game ends and you tally up to find the winner. The cooperative version, however, is a favourite. It gives you a limited number of turns with which to empty out a pyramid of those victory cards, and I find it all the more satisfying because the tactical move isn’t always to get those cards as fast as possible, but rather to make sure both players are building decks strong enough to handle the next layer of the pyramid. Competitive mode really shines if you’ve got a couple of word-nerds (like myself and my husband) and you can help each other out, figure out which tactic your individual deck will focus on (I tend to like building decks that let me draw extra cards, and my husband likes to get cards that give him more buying power) and playing to your strengths while you watch the ticking clock of the pyramid of cards you need to clear. When it comes to the co-operative version of the game, we often win by the skin of our teeth, which is just so satisfying.

Next is Burgle Bros, which is a heist game (think Ocean’s 8) cooperative game where you basically explore a building trying to get vault access, grab the prize, and get out, all while dodging guards (if you end up on the same tile as a guard, you lose a “stealth” and when someone runs out and gets caught, that’s game over for everyone). We’ve played Burgle Bros with two and four players the most and I think we prefer it with four (though the complexity definitely rises with more players). There are role cards, which makes each player just a wee bit more unique and better at one aspect of the game than others, and while there’s some randomness factor that can make a game functionally unwinnable with poor rolls or tile placement that just works our poorly, it’s still enjoyable, and the three-dimensional layout (you make three floors) adds a really cool “wait, if I can make it to the other floor, I’ll be fine” element on the regular, which is fun. The tile-placement, alongside which role you choose, makes this one really, really replayable—it’s rogue-like, in the sense that every time you play, the strategy you used last time might be pretty much worthless, just due to the layout you get this time. On that front alone, it’s really solid.

So, that brings us to the new game. Typewriter is a game more like Paperback, which had me excited because we love our word-nerd games, and it’s got a couple of neat mechanics to it. First, like Paperback, you start out with the same keys as each other (and I should note the keys are actual round, physical, keys as though they were pried off a typewriter, which is a nice touch). You make an area from which both players will draw one more key every turn from the face-up options, and you basically play by making words. The mechanic that makes it interesting is how, after every word you play, you then flip over your keys, and they have different letters, mechanics, or powers on the other side.

So, for example, your starting keys are the most common consonants (R, S, T, L, N), though you flip two of them, which makes them wild. Between that and a common vowel, you can come up with a word. There will also be a card in play that sets a new rule for a given round (say, if you use a certain number of one-point tiles, you gain a bonus). You play your word, add up its value, move your little token on your typewriter card to denote how many banked points you have, and then decide if you’re going to use those points to bank any of your keys.

That’s the big difference between this game and Paperback: you don’t count all your keys when you’re done, only the ones you’ve specifically banked away as points for end-game counting. And those keys you bank are removed from use going forward, so we figured there’d be some strategy to deciding when you might want to put a key away (though in reality, from what we’ve played so far, the strategy seems to be: if you can bank something, you should). The keys having two sides comes into play here as well, in that they have different values depending on which side is up, and also there are “stars” on some of them, which add to their value if they’re specifically moved from your “banked” area to your “starred” area.

So, each turn as you make points and move your little slider up your typewriter, that slider indicates things you can trade in all your points to do (there’s no “some” here, it’s all or nothing) and you can do one thing from each “colour band” within that slider. This sounds more complicated than it is, and basically comes down to “if you have more points, you’ll be able to do two things instead of one,” and there is also a third colour at the very end of the tracker which might tip that over into doing three things, but that third thing isn’t as powerful, more like a bonus for having reached the end of the track.

Now, that’s not the only way to bank (or star) a key, but it’s the main way, and for our two weeks of playing Typewriter, that fact became the repeated-every-game balance issue with the game. Some of the keys have powers on their flip side, as I said. This functionally means every other time you use them they’ll offer up a power rather than being usable as a letter to make a word.

And, unfortunately, in our experience over the last couple of weeks some of those powers are just too powerful. If you’re lucky enough to get some version of “bank a letter from your word” power key (especially early on) and the other player doesn’t get a similar powered key? You win. I’m nerdy about tracking things when we play games, and after the first couple of games where this seemed to be what was happening, I started writing it down, and the pattern was pretty clear.

That said, the game is still fun from a “I like word games” point of view, and we kept playing it throughout vacation, shrugging off that imbalance issue. And I should note that the imbalance issue can balance itself out if those “easy bank” or “easy star” keys happen to spread themselves out in a more even way, but a great number of the games we played didn’t do that. In fact, there were multiple games where one of us had no powers worth mentioning, or only complicated ones (“if you bank a 2 letter key, star it”) and even though the player without the useful powers banked and starred as often as they could, they lost by a wide margin to the player who could often bank an extra key (or two) on their turn.

I’ll be interested to see how that problem expands across more than two players.

It’s Saturday, so you know what that means: Trek. I’ve been re-watching the TOS-era episodes of Star Trek with the goal of mining them for ideas (no pun intended for this week’s episode) for use in Star Trek Adventures as put out by Modiphius.  

So, after The Man Trap, Charlie X, Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Naked Time, and The Enemy Within, it’s time for… Oh. Oh no.

Mudd’s Women.

All right then. Let’s do this.

Oh god. Okay. Enterprise is chasing a wee Class J ship into some asteroids because they’re not responding and giving chase is apparently the correct response to a non-responding vessel, and said ship overheats its engines and Enterprise extends its deflectors around said vessel to stop it from getting blown up by asteroidal impacts but in doing so it burns out most of its “lithium crystal circuits” (we’re not quite at dilithium yet in Trek lore, though they’ll retcon that for Enterprise and Strange New Worlds) and is basically limping along with just one remaining (cracked) lithium crystal but they manage to beam off “Leo Walsh” and three super-beautiful women before the ship explodes.

Okay, I need to underscore something here—when the women are beamed aboard Enterprise, they beam on board in a pose. Like, Charlie’s Angels got nothing on Eve McHuron, Magda Kovacs, and Ruth Bonaventure, is what I’m saying. Even more impressive, there’s a cut scene of the three of them in profile looking at Scotty and McCoy in a line—even though they’re standing in various come-hither poses, including over-the-shoulder smoulders, when first arriving—and then they’re back into those poses in the next shot so… did they rush up so they could line up for a profile shot, then go back into sexy pose? That’s dedication to sparkle motion.

Also, their ship was powerless and about to be destroyed, but when the transporter locked on, they were all, “quick, sexy poses!”

ANYway, every man we see on Enterprise is immediately smitten by the women (crucially, we don’t see the Rec Deck Boys from Charlie X), and I guess the episode has a bit of an ongoing “mystery” where we’re left to uncover why the men are so attracted to the women, but the viewer learns they’re taking “Venus Drug” which makes them sexy and stuff but wears off if they don’t keep taking it, and actually they’re not beautiful at all—by which I of course mean… they’ve got wrinkles and grey hair and no make-up! Horror!

Also “Leo Walsh” turns out to be Harry Mudd and oh, yeah, the women are his cargo—and no one seems to have a problem with this.

Seriously. Utopia sci-fi future Captain is all, “Yeah, got it—listen, we nearly broke our ship saving you, so we’re putting you on trial for that—” (Not human trafficking, nope.) “—and then we’re heading to a mining planet to get more lithium crystals.” And Mudd is all “Aha! I’ll sell the ladies to the rich miners, and make sure they force the Captain to let me go free (or maybe I’ll take over the ship or something)!” (He actually basically blurts this plan out in front of two guards, too. I guess they’re busy staring at the women.)

The miners basically blackmail Kirk for the women if he wants lithium crystals, the three miners arrive—including Seamon Glass as Benton in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it but it’s worth not blinking if you, like I, are of the “Hello, Mr. Miner lug!” persuasion. Eve—the woman we’ve spent the most time with—gets tired of being a pretty commodity, runs off into the dusty storm, the lead miner, Ben Childress, gives chase, they end up connecting on more than surface level. Childress notices her looks are fading, and is confused and a total fucking man-baby about pretty much everything—seriously, rich or nay, these men are not a catch (though call me, Benton).

Long story short, Kirk beams down with Harry and the drug, Eve takes some, gets all pretty again and asks Childress if this is what he really wants, or does he want a partner (it’s kind of presented like while she’s pretty she couldn’t also be intelligent and useful) but—shock!—actually it wasn’t the drug, it’s just her confidence that… somehow…changed her skin and restored her make-up and hair? Uh. Okay?

Eve stays with Ben, Kirk gets lithium crystals, and Kirk quips to Mudd that he’ll speak at Mudd’s trial, har-har. No but seriously, are we charging him with trafficking or is it somehow only bad because he misled the miners with the Venus drug because I have some ethical concerns…

Credits. I know people chuckle about this episode, but yowza.

Okay! That sure was an episode. First, I liked the Class J ship—in the remastered episode it had a very “Federation” look and for players in the TOS era, it could be fun to flesh it out a bit. But the main thing I felt on a re-watch was wanting to dig into the three ladies for a second.

Some dialog is cut, and syndication often meant bits and pieces were lost from original airings, but there’s more back-story to Eve McHuron, Magda Kovacs, and Ruth Bonaventure. Why are they with Harry? Why run away from home to let Harry-fucking-Mudd-of-all-people try to find you a husband? Well, Ruth’s planet was a mostly oceanic world full of sea ranchers—which sounds like it meant little in the way of a cohesive community; Eve’s home, Bootes III, was a farm planet but almost entirely automated (she mentions basically only ever having her father and brothers as company); and Halium Experimental Station—where Magda called home—had ten ladies for every man (no doubt the Sapphics among us are pointing out this is the first appearance of actual sci-fi utopia in the series, and I hear you ladies). All three of those locations could be worth fleshing out.

Seed One: Isolated Worlds, Stations, or Colonies, and the Folk Who Leave Them

Breadbasket worlds, sea-ranching oceanic planets, and isolated space-stations—especially highly automated ones—would definitely be an “it takes a certain kind of person to work here” job. I mean, introverts and nature-lovers need apply, but what about the children brought along for the ride? Especially for places off the beaten path, there are opportunities here for some B-plot (or even A-plot) focus in a scenario.

Food Run Stowaway—Multiple times, we see Federation Starships bringing major shipments of food from point A to point B, often on a time crunch, so your players should think nothing of a scenario starting with doing just that. They’ve dropped by Bootes III, filled the cargo holds with important, nutrition-dense foodstuffs for a world in dire need of the supplies, and they’ve started the high-warp journey they’ll need to take to get there on time. Which is when they find the farmer or sea-rancher’s kid on the edge of the age of majority (but not there yet). The kid (a) is running away mostly because they don’t want to live on a planet with no one but their family anymore, and took the opportunity when they saw it—and will thereafter be a B-plot complication of “civilian kid on a starship for the first time who can’t seem to help themselves from getting into trouble.” Or, (b) the kid isn’t just running away, they’re running to—specifically, they’ve had a long-distance subspace radio relationship going for months now with someone on the planet the crew is bringing the grain to, and has every intention of marrying the moment they get there—despite the disapproval of every parent involved, which just happens to also include the governor of the planet, who is not going to be happy with the crew for bringing this complication into their life. In either case, the parent on the planet that supplied the foodstuffs in the first place absolutely wants their child brought back—and is willing to file whatever charges possible if they refuse—which leaves the crew in the uncomfortable position of potentially wrangling legal loopholes if they don’t believe the young adult in question should be forced back to a world where they’re miserable just because their family members want them there.

The Halium Experimental Station—The reason the Halium Experimental Station has a vast-majority population of women could be (a) borne of cultural reasons—perhaps the station is in orbit of a strict matriarchal society that only rarely allows its male population to take part in higher-learning, academic careers. This would make the crew’s visit potentially a bit of a culture clash if the more technical or scientifically trained crew aren’t women, adding a layer of miscommunication or distrust—and if the mission is time-critical or crucial in some way, adding tension to a ticking clock; or maybe it’s a relief for crew who’ve come from backgrounds where this environment would be welcome and refreshing change—a Klingon or Ferengi scientist, for example, might find her time on Halium Experimental Station to be akin to a vacation. Or, (b) if the reasons are more biological in nature—perhaps the native humanoids tend to birth male children only rarely, and as such the population split in the station is simply a matter of numbers. In that case, the reason for the crew’s visit might even tie into this facet of the humanoids in question: perhaps this ongoing issue isn’t a natural one, but fallout from a biological agent of war released centuries ago dealing permanent damage, and they’re hunting for a way to repair—or at least reduce—the damage that was done, so they don’t have to rely on artificial means of population continuation. (Given these scenarios make for a story about gender and potentially fertility central to a plot, I’d caution some pre-game discussion to make sure these topics will be handled within the ranges of comfort for your players—a check-in is always worthwhile even if you touched on these in a Session 0.)

Class J Starship

From what we see of the little ship in the remastered episode, it looks to have two or three decks, so I’d consider making the Class J Starship in the same style as a Raven-Type vessel (from Utopia Planitia)—a Scale 2 Vessel that follows Starship rules rather than Runabout Rules (in 1st Edition), or has the “Compact Vessel” rule (in 2nd Edition). For the various Systems and Departments, re-working the math for the year your campaign is set in is easy enough, and I’d be tempted to keep Weapons and Security fairly low, Focusing mostly on Conn to represent it being a zippy little ship, maybe capable of holding up to a dozen people or so.

Oh, It’s You Again—Much like I mentioned when I talked about including a recurring rogue-ish esper, a little ship like a Class J Starship can make a great base of operations for a recurring group of civilians in your campaign. In my USS Curzon campaign, one of the Trill character’s previous hosts was a miner/surveyor, and his former crew are still out there, surveying and mining and staking claims, and have showed up a few times—sometimes needing a rescue, other times just to set the stage or to set the stage for a non-Starfleet mining operation setting. A recurring civilian ship (and crew) open up some fun options for your stories. Perhaps (a) your crew need to get somewhere without announcing their presence via a Starfleet starship—or need to arrive without being flagged as Starfleet at all. Going undercover is much, much easier when you’ve got a friendly non-Starfleet ship you can call on, one with a legitimate business concern to offer camouflage. Of course, those friends might call in the favour later, or maybe end up in real trouble because of the mission—and how players handle the guilt of getting civilians involved in Starfleet business can make for a good story to explore, especially if the civilians in question aren’t just friendly, but close friends or family or romantic partners. Or, (b) after a few friendly (or perhaps more friction-laden) run-ins with a particular ship, the sudden call for help personalizes the event. Rather than being “it’s a rescue mission, that’s our job” it becomes “that’s Ero Drallen’s ship—and we’re going to find it!” Even if it’s just to set the scene for a larger catastrophe that’ll build over the course of a scenario, as a starting point, drawing on what came before adds emotional layers to a narrative.

And there we go—I made it through Mudd’s Women. Onward to the next episode, but for those of you with ongoing Star Trek Adventures campaigns: have you had recurring civilian ships in your campaigns thus far? Or do you play a civilian campaign? Either way, I’d love to hear it.

Hey all! It’s Tuesday nerdy time. I’m back with my 4th Edition Playtest Origin Edition of Mutants & Masterminds with the final part of my “upgrade to fourth edition” of a trio of NPC characters I put together for one of my M&M Campaigns as an ongoing arc (and foil) for the players a few years ago: “The Recovery Agency.”

I’ve outlined all three characters over the last three weeks and their origins and how they got snapped by by organized crime and shady government agencies before then finally broke free—and today is all about what they accomplish now they’re together and officially running as The Recovery Agency.

Current Members: Evac, Patch, and Pinpoint
Base of Operations: “The Cabin” is their main Installation; multiple other ongoing (and often changed) safehouses; they operate throughout North America, but have rarely also been active in South America and the former Soviet Union as well.
Motivation: Freedom and Personal Profit

Although not on the radar of most heroic, legal, or media groups, “The Recovery Agency” has built a name for itself among a very specific clientele: those who can’t afford to be cared for in public health spaces, those who need might need to be rescued from kidnapping (or from being otherwise institutionalized in some way), or those who might end up incarcerated and would prefer not to remain so. 

Initially, The Recovery Agency started by liberating a small circle of incarcerated metahumans including the Vancouver projective-teleporter “The Gastown Geist” (arrested for liberating Indigenous and other museum artifacts and returning them to their original owners, tribal leaders, or countries of origin), the San Francisco vigilante “The Purple Hand” (in prison for multiple assault charges against violent offenders), and the hydrokinetic eco-terrorist Seiche (who was caught after destroying multiple data farms facilities), among others. Notably leaving nearly no real evidence and no trail to follow, their reputation grew among metahuman circles—both among villains and those heroes or vigilantes who keep their identities hidden. As their client list grew, so did their funds. Connecting the various “escapes” of metahumans might lead a hero group to learning The Recovery Agency exists—but finding them is a great deal harder. 

Motivation and Goals
While on the surface Evac, Patch, and Pinpoint might seem like three self-motivated cash-grabbing mid-powered metahumans who offer support to sketchy clientele—especially metahumans who can’t afford to end up captured or in a traditional hospital—“The Recovery Agency” does have a moral center of sorts. They don’t take on clients who seek to dominate others, nor do they work with outright murderers. Though some of their clients have killed, these are the exceptions rather than the rule, and their targets are never the innocent. The Recovery Agency’s services, which are by no means cheap, include extradition from nearly any location, which can include recovery from kidnapping (or jail), telepathic proof-of-life and/or locating services, reconnaissance to plan for or recover a missing person, and healing/medical aid. 

In exchange, they get the main thing they’re all after: their freedom from those who would prefer to have them back under their thumb. They have enemies—in particular a family of organized crime and the covert government program “Project Crosshairs.” Their Agency’s operation and the nature of their client list has had two unexpected positive side effects: one, they tend to be left alone by metahuman villains, even those who aren’t clients, because no one wants to mess with the recovery/escape plans of more powerful metahumans who might take umbrage; and two, they’ve earned a modicum of protection from those who are their clients, given they have a vested interest in keeping them safe for their own potential future use.

Tactics
The Recovery Agency are calm, collected, and methodical. To join their program, people need to pay a hefty fee and are screened beforehand. They do not accept extremely violent clients (those they deem too dangerous) nor ones that cross particular lines (the drug trade or sex-trafficking, as two notable examples), but they certainly work with thieves and meta-criminals who’d never be known as decent folk, let alone good guys. They also work with anti-heroes, vigilantes, and even some outright heroes considered by most to be on the side of the saints, most specifically those who need to keep their own identities secret. Once a potential client is screened and their dues paid, they will need to shake hands with Pinpoint—who will then telepathically contact the client as a test—which officially puts them on the roster and grants them a small signaling device, as well as phone numbers and other contact options they can use to call for aid—the Recovery Agency also uses algorithms to keep an eye on news about any of their clients. 

The Recovery Agency offers multiple services to their clients. Pinpoint can use her telepathic and remote sensing abilities to help track down kidnapped clients, examine scenes where someone was taken, or ensure proof-of-life. Her psychometric abilities can also give the group the leads they might need to locate a client if the kidnapped or incarcerated client doesn’t know where they are or can’t tell them. Evac’s abilities—the ones used central to their agency—are generally applied to grab and recover a client from a situation they don’t want to be in (up to and including jail), and to either deliver them to somewhere safe or to bring them to Patch for healing and recovery if they’re injured. Between the three metahumans, they generally have what it takes to get their clients out of bad situations and deliver them to somewhere safe. During official jobs, Pinpoint uses her telepathy to “network” the three together mentally to keep them all on the same page.

If they are ever compromised, The Recovery Agency doesn’t hesitate to use Evac’s abilities to get themselves to one of any number of safe houses they keep available to them and their clients (the locations of which are carefully changed over time), and can even fully retreat to “the Cabin,” their official headquarters on a small island in Northern Ontario. Evac has a series of “teleport hop” locations (RVs, small apartments, attic or storage rooms, or the like) they keep available on the outer edges of his teleport distance from each other just to give him a place to teleport to in emergencies—which they can then use on their way to places even further removed. 

Installation: “The Cabin,” a home on a private island in Northern Ontario that appears to be nothing more than a rich-person’s getaway (Installation, Size 6, Toughness 6; with Communications, Computer, Dock, Fire Prevention System, Grounds, Gym, Infirmary, Library, Living Space, Power System, Secret, Security System) [13 points]

Vehicles and Other Equipment: The rest of the 60 points of Equipment shared among the group should be mostly used for the various safe-houses and teleport “hop” sites Evac maintains (these can be as simple as RVs, small apartments, or storage rooms/closed storefronts (Small Installations with Living Space (cots or beds, mostly), Fire Protection System, Secret, and Security System features) [2 points each] or more developed spaces like Subway Stations (as per the Deluxe Gamemaster’s Guide, pg 259) [5 points] or Abandoned Warehouses (Deluxe Hero’s Handbook, pg 231) [5 points]. Pinpoint maintains a Penthouse (Deluxe Gamemaster’s Guide, pg 259), and Patch has a few Apartments decked out for recovery care (Small Installations (usually apartments) with Infirmary, Living Space, Security System 3, Fire Suppression, and Library features) [5 points]. They’re all wealthy enough to get their hands on specific equipment they may need at any time.

If you’re looking for a way to tie The Recovery Agency into your own Mutants & Masterminds campaign, here are three hooks you can use to bring Patch, Evac, and Pinpoint to your own gaming table.

Family Matters. A series of explosions among a particular organized criminal family’s holdings sets the city’s criminal underworld to a boil and leaves the city poised on the edge of what could be a terrible outbreak of crime and violence if the various families go to war now that one of them is wounded. Pinpoint finds a way to touch the heroes and telepathically approaches them with an offer: she knows who is bombing the family in question, and she knows why it’s happening. Someone has kidnapped Patch, and he’s being held somewhere she can’t reach him telepathically—at least, she hopes that’s why she can’t find his thoughts. Evac has assumed the criminal family who once had Patch under their thumb is responsible and has been teleporting explosives into their buildings after making sure Patch isn’t inside, and Pinpoint can’t talk Evac out of this angry course of action. So far, the family refuses to give Patch back—but do they even have him? If they don’t, who does? Is this in truth an attempt to draw out Evac or Pinpoint (or both of them) by Project Crosshairs?

Not Again! Villains the heroes have put away keep escaping, and the reason is simple: the villains are clients of The Recovery Agency. Tracking down how the villains escaped won’t be easy, and may involve the use of psychic or magic abilities, but once they know the “how” trying to find a way to thwart The Recovery Agency isn’t going to be easy, giving their penchant to cut and run. 

The Rescue. In a showdown with villains where things aren’t working out for the heroes, Evac appears (perhaps even alongside Patch). A few moments later (or a teleport or two), and they’re out of danger. The heroes aren’t clients of The Recovery Agency, though, so what gives? Well, the villains the heroes are facing are new recruits of Project Crosshairs and Pinpoint thinks the next target of the villains is going to be the assassination of a major political figure—one she was never introduced to, and thus can’t warn telepathically. The three saved the heroes, but does that mean they can be trusted? Is this a legitimate threat from Project Crosshairs, or are The Recovery Agency hoping to manipulate the heroes into doing damage to the off-book and shady agency as revenge—or a plan to reveal them to the world in hopes it takes down Project Crosshairs once and for all? 

It’s Saturday, and I’ve been cheerfully re-watching the TOS-era episodes of Star Trek and trying to mine them for ideas for Star Trek Adventures as put out by Modiphius. It’s been fascinating to pay as much attention as possible to the episodes as I’m watching them—I confess to often drawing or doodling while I watch TV—but as I’m hunting for little idea seeds, I’ve just got my journal to one side to make notes as I go.

So, after The Man Trap, Charlie X, Where No Man Has Gone Before, and The Naked Time, I found myself staring down The Enemy Within.

Oof.

Okay, so to start with this is a technology-does-wobbly-thing episode, and it’s the transporter that’s gone buggy in this one, and basically the way it goes is this: Away Team on a slow-rotation planet where day is warm enough but night drops so far into the cold it’s freeze-you-solid territory, collecting samples, but a geologist falls, cuts his hand, and ends up covered in “a powdery yellow ore.” He beams up because he’s injured, and the transporter goes a little funny, but Scotty and transporter technician both find it in working order thereafter. Okay, was probably just the ore, so Scotty tells the geologist to decontaminate his ore-stained jacket and get his hand fixed, and Scotty sends the technician off to check a technobabble.

Kirk beams up next, and he’s woozy (also he beams up without the little Enterprise symbol on his chest—oops!). So Scotty walks him personally to Sickbay, conveniently leaving the transporter room empty and… another Kirk beams up, and he’s all snarly and grinning like a maniac and has on a lot of eyeliner and okay, look, what we’ve got is a Good-and-Evil Kirk problem, basically.

Scotty figures out something’s wrong with the transporter when they beam up an alien dog later (off-screen) who is being forced to wear the best “it’s an alien dog!” costume ever, because a second dog beams up and that one’s snarly and awful. Evil Kirk, meanwhile, goes hunting for Saurian Brandy and then—

deep sigh

—assaults Janice Rand.

Because she’s in this episode, so of course she’s victimized. Four for four on the ol’ Rand-as-Victim counter.

She scratches him (which becomes an identifying feature for Evil Kirk until his inevitable escape and use of make-up and stuff), and for an added bonus, there’s a heavy layer of “There’s no way Kirk would do that, he’s the captain!” gaslighting of Rand from everyone until a man backs up Rand’s accusations and hey, it’s the sixties again.

There’s a lot of pontification on two things: one, that Kirk can’t be seen as compromised or the crew will, I don’t know, mutiny or something? So they keep things close to the chest, refer to Evil Kirk as “an imposter” and meanwhile, without his evil side, Kirk loses even more of his power of diction (speaking… so… slowly…) and all ability to be a commander because… he’s got no fear and anger or something?

Also Spock is way into this. Like, he’s all “This is great! What a chance to dissect human psyches!” He’s practically having a sciencegasm.

Oh, and I forgot: down on the planet, Sulu and the away team can’t beam back up because the transporter would create doubles of them, so they’re slowly freezing to death.

Now, you may ask yourself: why not send a shuttle to pick them up?

… um …

ANYway, they’re stuck on the planet, which is the ticking clock problem, and supplies they beam down aren’t functional (“heating units” duplicate don’t work, though I have to beg the question as to why they don’t beam down stuff that doesn’t have moving parts, like, y’know, thermal tents/sleeping bags/what-have-you, but again, ticking clock narrative tension).

Ultimately, Kirk is reintegrated by technobabble and the courage to face his dark side, unlike the dog who dies in the attempt, and then Spock cracks a snide aside to Rand about her assault, saying Evil Kirk had his interesting qualities, eh? It’s such a horrible, off-key moment.

Definitely one of my least favourite episodes.

Apart from the obvious: a transporter accident that affects one or more of the crew, at first I had a real struggle with this one, because it really just goes all-in on the Evil Kirk, Good Kirk thing, and there’s not a lot else even mentioned throughout the episode.

Then I remembered the planet of massive day/night temperature variation where Sulu uses a phaser to heat rocks where apparently alien doggies have still evolved to live, and then I considered the yellow ore. Like every other interesting transporter accident effect we see in Trek, it occurred to me someone with bad intentions could weaponize it—assuming they could recreate the accident.

Seed One: Slow Rotation and/or Extreme Temperature Planets

I’ve dropped some “Eyeball Planets” into my Star Trek Adventures games in the past, but instead of a planet that doesn’t rotate and develops a band of “middle-ground” temperature, this would be a planet like Alfa 177, where there’s an extreme to the day/night temperature fluctuations (and/or a very slow day/night cycle tied into that).

A Slowly Tilting Planet—If the day/night cycle is super-slow and that’s why the temperature rises and falls to such extremes, you’d could end up with something similar to the “band of habitable” you might theoretically get on an Eyeball Planet, but have it be in motion. Lifeforms like the space dog of Alfa 177 might have evolved to hibernate through the extended night-slash-winter, or perhaps they stay in constant motion: a species endlessly migrating to stick to the “warm” zone that moves across the planet as day becomes night, evolving to know to keep the sun at a particular “height” on the horizon—which would assume there’s a way to keep moving across the entirety of the planet throughout the entire day/night cycle—including very important land-bridges, or perhaps chains of islands where life-forms (or even humanoids) have to move from one to the next to stay ahead of the freezing night, but not get too far ahead into the blazing day. A planet such as this would mean people (say scientific or geological survey teams like the ones we saw in this episode) are (a) on a real clock for any singular location of the planet’s surface, and/or (b) need to keep in motion. If humanoids lived or evolved on such a planet, and now utilized slowly-moving structures (ocean-going city-sized vessels, or a kind of “caravan” city on a massive rail) rather than their ancestral migratory methods, were something to go wrong with any of those technologies, they’d be facing a massive problem—and one on a scale not easily solved by shuttles or transporters, if the populations are large enough.

Seed Two: The Yellow Ore

The ore found on Alfa 177 was decontaminated and dealt with on Enterprise before it could cause more trouble, but if someone got ahold of records or learned about or encountered the ore some other way, the player crew could come up against some new iteration of a very old problem.

Weaponized Yellow Ore—Enemies of the Federation, were they to learn of the ore, might be able to ensure they go through a transporter carrying the substance prior to the important arrival by transport of a target. This could mean (a) a diplomat intended to hold the line in tense negotiations ends up beaming in, only to find themself feeling a bit light-headed and weakened, but they head into the talks (likely after a player medical officer gives them a once over), only to fade and become weaker-willed as time goes by. Meanwhile, the enemies have snatched the “second” beamed-up version of the diplomat, the one with all the anger and fury and willpower. Once the crew first track down the source of the issue with their diplomat (likely starting with breadcrumbs leading to a missing transporter operator, given the enemies would have to deal with the chief or have infiltrated/replaced them to capture the second version of the diplomat), a dive through the history records only gives them the method of restoring the diplomat before it’s too late—but they’ll need to track down the ever-deteriorating “negative” version first. Or, (b) when meeting up with a transport carrying valuable cargo they need to get to a colony on a tight schedule, the crew find the small vessel adrift, cargo gone, crew all dead. Six people—three pairs of twins, which is unusual. Also, half the deaths appear to be violent in nature, paint a confusing crime scene, offering up little in the way of clues. However, records only list four crew in the official manifest, and none are twins in Federation records. Was the fourth crewmember responsible for utilizing the yellow ore to cover their own theft of the cargo? Are they a secret agent—Cardassian, Orion, Ferengi—out to ensure the cargo doesn’t get to the Federation colony in need? Was it an accident—and is the fourth (duplicated) crew still out there somewhere, one fading and trying desperately to outrun the violent negative version giving chase—the cargo in the shuttle the “good” crew managed to liberate when the evil duplicates first attacked them?

If you’ve got a Star Trek Adventures campaign, have you used a transporter fluke in your stories at all?

Hey all! Time for some Tuesday nerdy joy. Today, part three of my 4th Edition Playtest Origin Edition of Mutants & Masterminds “upgrade to fourth edition” for a trio of characters I put together for one of my M&M Campaigns as an ongoing arc (and foil) for the players a few years ago: “The Recovery Agency.”

So far, we’ve met Dusan “Deuce” Somerled, codename: Evac, and Jaison Turcotte, codename: Knockout (later Patch). Today we meet the architect of their escape and the organizer of what will become the Recovery Agency: Sophie Raymond, codename: Pinpoint.

Sophie Raymond’s curious ability to know more than she should showed up when she was only twelve, after a car accident that left her only surviving parent, her father, in chronic pain and unable to care for her. She described things to the police about the car that had struck her parents’ car that shouldn’t have been possible for her to know—including what her mother and father saw and thought at the time of the collision—and upon going back to the site of the accident once she’d recovered from her own injuries, she “saw” it all over again. Every detail she reported turned out to be correct. Soon after, a group of men from the government came, took her into their care, and put her father into a full-time care facility where he got the best treatment and had a higher quality of life than Sophie had believed would ever be possible. 

As she grew into a young adult, she started to realize (often through accidental telepathic glimpses) the kindness shown to her father was a condition of her following the rules and attempting all the tests the government group requested of her—and she now knew her role in “the project” was as a “Pinpoint Candidate,” and the goal was for her to help the government track people who might be (or had been) targeted for violence or kidnapping, and was told it was for their safety. 

While sometimes this meant Sophie “saw” things at sites of violence that were disturbing, for the most part Sophie didn’t mind her role or learning how to use her abilities—she believed in helping people and besides that, her options were limited; her father being comfortable and able to live a near-normal life meant the world to her. Alongside her psychometric abilities, her developing telepathy had qualified her for the Pinpoint Candidate group. At first thought to be limited to her parents, the testers instead realized Sophie was capable of forging a telepathic link to anyone she’d ever touched.

Thus, once she was eighteen and could legitimately pass as someone with a government position, she found herself presented as an “aide” in important meetings—all to garner a hand-shake introductions with major political figures, in the name of allowing Sophie to help track those individuals down should they be kidnapped or otherwise “disappeared.” 

It wasn’t until she was twenty-one and—on her father’s telepathic suggestion that she attempt to learn more, even if it risked his comfort—that Sophie learned about how she and the other “Pinpoint Candidates” were being tested to see which might best be folded into something called “Project Crosshairs”—and that she was in the lead for consideration. 

“Project Crosshairs” wasn’t about finding potential important individuals should they be taken hostage so much as it was about keeping tabs on targets. In fact, the project sought to make it possible to aim potential assassination attempts, or dip into the thoughts of powerful opposing political figures for military intelligence. Sophie realized how much her abilities were being abused, but stayed and did her part for nearly four more years—keeping as much of the developing extent of her abilities secret as possible, “struggling” to accomplish the project’s goals, right up until the day her father passed. After his funeral, she made a break for it, along with copies of all the information she could gather about other covert affiliated government programs under the “Project Crosshairs” umbrella, especially those trying to use metahumans like her. 

One of those was the “Metahuman Rehabilitation Project”—a “feel-good” program the government used to show metahumans who’d broken laws using their abilities for the good of society. Having learned about how many off-book uses of the “nonviolent” metahuman prison rehabilitation program had occurred—and specifically about Jaison Turcotte and Dusan “Deuce” Somerled—Sophie managed to work her way into the prison as a specialist long enough to shake their hands at post-mission “check-in.” After that, Sophie telepathically blackmailed other key government and prison staff to do what she needed to ensure the high-tech Faraday cage system keeping Dusan in the prison could be temporarily shut-down. 

Once she had everything in place she needed, she did just that and alerted Dusan and Jaison their escape time had arrived. 

They teleported out of the prison to the meeting place she’d set up, and while she helped them undo all the monitoring devices they’d unknowingly had implanted (including subcutaneous tracking chips), she explained how Project Crosshairs was after her—and would now be after them—and had already been using them both. Then Sophie made her proposal: they could have partnership and freedom through what they’d already been trained to do, using a blend of their three abilities, but most importantly by working for themselves. She called it “The Recovery Agency.”

Amongst themselves, the three shared the real breadth of their metahuman capabilities, much of which they’d managed to keep secret from those using them. Dusan’s range was much greater when teleporting to places he’d already been; Jaison’s full ability wasn’t just to heal, but to harm; Sophie told the men of her ability to read places and objects to see the past, and her psychic ability to “know” things around her she shouldn’t be able to know (represented by her enhanced sight and hearing)—as well as the full range of her telepathic abilities, which included “seeing” through the eyes of those she connected with. Sophie became Pinpoint, Dusan called himself Evac, and Jaison took up the moniker Patch. 

The three operate a kind of “location, protection, health, and recovery” insurance company. In many ways, they do what they were being trained—forced—to do, only now they do it on their own terms, for a tidy profit. (In game terms, shift their “Benefit—Status” Advantages to “Benefit—Wealth” of equal rank to represent them no longer being with the government and instead now taking payment for their services, but retain their Equipment Advantage as is—only now it’s representing their own funds.)

Over time, the three have grown beyond close. Jaison often spends the night with Dusan in whichever safehouse they’re currently using, Dusan protects the other two like it’s his born duty, and Sophie loves the others like the small family she lost. Now and then, they meet another metahuman who could potentially add a new skill-set to their organization, but so far, they’ve not increased their circle permanently; instead offering short-term contracts. Sophie handles most of the financial and organizational sides of the business, including an array of ever-shifting safehouses, vehicles, and equipment. Dusan maintains a series of planned “teleport hop” sites for distances beyond his initial range, and Jaison continues to study medicine and bio-chemistry to increase his understanding of he might accomplish with his abilities—as well as shifting some of his own funds to shelters and organizations for street-youth.

PINPOINT — PL 8 (116 points)
Abilities: Str 0, Sta 1, Agl 1, Int 1, Awe 4, Pre 2 [18 points]
Combat: Attack 2, Defense 4, Initiative +5 [12 points]
Unarmed +2 (Close Damage 0)
Mental Blast — (Perception Ranged Damage 5, Resisted by Will)
Resistances: Dodge 8, Fortitude 6, Toughness 4/1*, Will 10; *without Defensive Roll [15 Points]
Skills: Expertise: Geopolitics 4 (+5), Expertise: Governmental Organizations 8 (+9), Expertise: Psychology 4 (+5), Insight 4 (+7), Investigation 6 (+7), Perception 6 (+10), Technology 6 (+7) [15 points]
Advantages: Assessment, Benefit (Status 2—Government Affiliated), Contacts, Defensive Roll 3, Equipment 4 (Various Headquarters, Safehouses, and Vehicles), Improved Initiative, Trance, Well-Informed [14 points] 
Powers: 
Telepathy (Mental Communication 4, (Broadcast, Rapid 1, Selective, limited to people Pinpoint has touched); linked with Comprehend Languages 3) [19 points]
Telepathic Powers: (Array) (16 points)
AE — Mental Blast (Perception Ranged Damage 5, Resisted by Will) 
AE — Probe Thoughts (Mind Reading 8, Close, Cumulative, Effortless)
AE — Sense Link (Mind Reading 8, Sensory Link, Sense-Dependent: limited to those with whom Pinpoint is in Mental Contact via her Telepathy power) [18 points]
ESPer: (Array) (4 points)
AE — Psychometry (Postcognition 4)
AE — Heightened Senses (Enhanced Senses: Analytical Hearing, Analytical Sight) [5 points]

Much like Evac and Knockout before her, Project Crosshairs doesn’t know Pinpoint’s full capabilities—most notably the full range of her telepathic abilities, her mental attack, nor how deeply she can probe into the minds of others—she has walked a fine line of them wanting to continue training her for full use with their program and keeping them from reaching the full functionality they’re hoping to attain. Once her father died, Pinpoint unleashed all her abilities to get out. 

If you use Pinpoint while she’s still part of Project Crosshairs, her role might not even be noticed by non-psychic heroes—she’ll likely be in the background, shaking hands with important people and forging that initial link she needs to keep tabs on people for her superiors. Other telepaths might be able to sense the presence of a powerful telepath, but that’s not an ability Pinpoint herself has ever had, so she doesn’t automatically know when she’s in the presence of others like her. Alternatively, If the heroes are involved in recovering a major political figure who has been kidnapped, it might well be Pinpoint—through Project Crosshairs—giving them the intelligence they need to locate the kidnapped individual. Having the heroes meet Pinpoint before she breaks off from Project Crosshairs could be a good way to seed knowledge of her to the players before she’s in the wind.

It takes time to set up a new extra-legal organization, but in time, Evac, Patch, and Pinpoint get their agency up and running. After a few tactical rescues as “free samples,” the group finds themselves in no shortage of potential clients.

It’s only matter of time after that, however, that the heroes will start to run into the Recovery Agency and might find themselves needing to track down the organization.

Or maybe The Recovery Agency will come to them—asking for help.

And we’re back for the fourth episode of my “Let’s take a look at Star Trek (The Original Series) episodes and mine them for Star Trek Adventures ideas. It’s been quite fun going back to season one of the series, and not just watching, but combing for scenario seeds. The Man Trap, Charlie X, and Where No Man Has Gone Before all had crumbs I was interested in considering—and now it’s… The Naked Time.

Okay, I have to confess something about this episode right off the bat. Spock and doomed-to-die guy going down to a planet in full hazmat gear to figure out why all the scientists on an imploding planet Enterprise is there to watch implode are dead, and it’s clear something went bonkers wrong. Someone is strangled, someone else is in the shower where they froze to death fully clothed. But—this is the thing—the entire plot hinges on an away team of “somehow, a trained member of a starship thinks nothing of taking off glove so he can scratch his nose and thus brings a deadly virus on board ship” and, look. I used to roll my eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of that.

But now I look at the world and think, “Yeah, fair.”

Anyway, this is a Bottle Episode (meaning the whole episode is set more-or-less in the ship/settings we’ve already seen and only includes characters who’d normally be there—no villain, no non-Starfleet crew) and since the narrative is basically: “What if crew of Enterprise, but drunk?” I wasn’t sure what I’d find in there.

I mean, other than Yeoman Janice Rand once again being harassed by someone. She wasn’t in the last episode, but she’s back in this one, and therefore a man won’t leave her alone. We also get our first glimpse of Nurse Christine Chapel, who—once she gets virus-drunk—tells Spock she loves him (both human him and Vulcan him) and I have to say, this is one area where I truly appreciate Strange New Worlds, because with all the backstory of their previous attempt at a relationship and him getting burned once, his responses don’t just read Vulcan-says-no-to-emotional-connection but also fool-me-once-shame-on-you. I like that. It also makes it way less out of left field that she’s just “Hi, new character; also I love Spock.”

I mean, in order of airing, that’s exactly what happened, but prequels are neat that way.

Bones (a.k.a. Doctor Racist) drops a few barbs at Spock for being an alien, and when Spock is infected we see some pretty awesome acting from Nimoy playing a Vulcan trying to hold himself together (and failing). We unfortunately also get to listen to Lieutenant Riley tell women to wear less makeup (dude) and sing terribly for a really long while (OMG stop), but counterbalanced with Shirtless Sulu looking good and the brilliant interplay of “I’ll save you Fair Maiden!” to Uhura who quips back, “Sorry, neither.” Captain Jerk makes another appearance or three as he yells at Uhura, Scotty, Bones—pretty much everyone, actually, including punching Spock, but by that point he’s also virus-drunk—and for some random reason when Bones finally comes up with a solution to the virus, he tears Kirk’s uniform at the shoulder to administer it.

Oh, and also they invent time-travel in the last few minutes, but kind of shrug it off. Seriously. “Maybe we’ll find a way to use that someday, huh?” is kind of their whole reaction. But I guess they did just narrowly survive almost dying.

Okay, while at first I was a bit at a loss for where to go with this one for my gaming sessions, the whole notion of a “bottle episode” struck me as a solid thing to consider. The vast majority of my plots absolutely involve the crew interacting with other individuals (non-Starfleet, most of the time) but we’ve had some really strong sessions where that’s not the case. Also, the opening scene with Spock leading an away team reminded me of something I’ve done a couple of times too, and the notion of Department Away Teams. Finally… they freaking invent a method time travel in this episode and barely spend a minute or two on it!

Seed One: Bottle Episodes

Sticking to the ship and the crew that would normally be present can maybe feel limiting, but starships have a lot of people on them, and thanks to the wonderful Support Crew mechanic and incidental NPC creation as your campaign progresses, it’s likely you’ve already got some of that crew populated all around your players. This doesn’t mean you can’t introduce new characters, but a Bottle Episode is more about there being no outside villain at play, or at least, everyone who’s on board is supposed to be here. One of my favourite TNG episodes—Disaster—plays with this idea by having the ship ram into a quantum filament and shaking up the main characters: Troi is in charge on the Bridge for the first time ever, Worf has to deliver a baby, Crusher and Geordi are in deadly escape room, Data and Riker have to figure out how to get from one end of the badly damaged ship all the way down to main engineering, and—the most terrifying of all—Picard is trapped in a broken elevator with three children.

Routine Survey—Now, you don’t have to smash the ship against an anomaly of the week, or expose your crew to a virus like “The Naked Time” does, but you certainly can. But one idea that sprang to mind was to have the crew be working on a routine star system survey—somewhere probes picked up something interesting and unusual enough for the crew to take a peek, odd harmonic readings that could be indicative of dilithium deposits—only to have a hard time tracking down any dilithium. While the crew work, it gets harder and harder to concentrate, with crewman reporting signs of what might be some sort of novel illness symptomized by difficulty thinking or concentrating. Ultimately, they crew can uncover that the false dilithium readings are created by a unique radiation present in the system among the asteroidal belts and planetary rings and moons and so forth, but as individual after individual stops being capable of doing their job, they’ll need to rely on whoever is still functional to get them out of there. This can really be fun if you’ve got some “Lower Decks” characters, or at least one character who is an ensign or even a crewman. “You have the bridge, Ensign.” Allowing a character who isn’t usually in charge to be very much in charge, or to have characters stretched out of their usual roles in general can be a refreshing change—or just amusing.

Seed Two: Department-Led Away Teams

This one builds on that notion of “stretching” characters, in that every now and then I like to put together Away Teams like the one we see in “The Naked Now” where the usual commander (Kirk, in this case) isn’t in charge, and is responsible for the rest of the group. This is where the glorious Support Crew mechanic can really shine, and it’s also a great opportunity to flesh out the people who live-and-breathe around the main player-character crews. So, if there’s a Medical mission, and there’s no reason for the First Officer to be there, hand the reins to your CMO player and have the player of the XO hop into the boots of the nurse or medtech heading on the mission with the doctor. Now, I’m not suggesting sidelining the usual characters for the entire session, and likely things will revert to the usual senior officers once whatever-the-heck is going to hit the fan hits the fan, but as a first scene or two, setting the stage with some Support Crew and one or two of the usual main player character crew can make for a fun change. I should also note this is something you’ll want to keep an eye on with your individual groups. I love the Support Crew mechanic, so I know I’m tempted to bring it up more often, but if I get the sense a player wants to stick to their main character, I’ll do my best to ensure they get to play their main character the vast majority of the time. (I’m serious about loving the Support Crew mechanic, though—I’ve only gotten to be a player twice, but both times I’ve taken the Supervisor Talent and chosen a character who’s not as likely to be useful in every scene—the CMO and the pilot, respectively—knowing that increases my chance of getting to add/play Support Crew.)

Medical Team to Transporter Room One—The crew is responding to a medical crisis on a starbase or starship or colony, and a great way to start a scenario is to have the medical officers beaming down into the thick of it to start saving lives. Sure, the other senior officers are all likely doing something as well, but triage is the realm of the Chief Medical Officer and the medical staff, and having the players put together a full medical away team with different specialties and running a scene first to stabilize a situation, and then to begin investigating can set up the mystery of the episode before the baton is passed to the crew of the ship as a whole. So maybe (a) the CMO, the head nurse, medtechs, medics, life sciences officers like xenobiologists who are cross-trained in triage and emergency medicine have some time to shine and gather information, figure out what’s going on, and come up with the details the Chief Medical Officer can then present to the Captain. Or, y’know, (b) the CMO ends up having to be in charge for far more than triage when they’re cut off from the ship due to an ongoing conflict (maybe the reason there’s a medical emergency in the first place) and find themselves defending patients from aggressors or having to negotiate or some other situation once things go off the rails.

Security, Engineering, Science…—And, obviously, you can do this with engineering teams, science teams, security teams, shuttle pilots and so on as well. The Division Sourcebooks are a great resource for figuring out roles for team members within each department. With my groups, the Chief Engineers have Assistant Engineers as well as three department heads (one for Systems Engineering, one for Propulsion Engineering, and one for Structural Engineering), all of whom have developed over time when things start going awry in Engineering, and in my Shackleton Expanse campaign, which has had more tactical encounters, they’ve got a really fleshed out group of Security for when things hit the fan, complete with a combat medic, a sharpshooter, and a hand-to-hand expert. Ditto the science divisions on the USS Curzon, where Oceanographers, Botanists, Stellar Cartographers, and Particle Physicists have already popped up.

Cadet Placement—This is a scenario I’ve used twice now with my players of the almost-entirely-Trill ship the USS Curzon, and was inspired from what we saw Nyota Uhura in the first season of Strange New Worlds, and also Spock’s crew in The Wrath of Khan, but adding final-year cadets to any situation can be a whole lot of fun. Having your player’s ship be considered a training vessel means you can drop a bunch of cadets in their laps. Then (a) have the senior officers taking turns guiding some (or all) of those cadets through rotations in their department over a few episodes (including them not being good at it), and/or (b) having some really good conversations with cadets about the realities of Starfleet versus what they’ve maybe convinced themselves it will be like. Either way, once their time is up on the ship, they ship home to graduate—and, if any of those cadets strike a chord with the group and feel like they’d be a great addition? Well, they can return as commissioned Ensigns. Then, the following year, you can introduce a new crop of cadets, and repeat as often as is fun. Another option is that you can have them serve on other ships, but be a familiar face the crew encounter later on when they realize the helmsmen of that ship they’re meeting up with, or one of the science officers on the duckblind station, or what-have-you, is one of the former-cadets/now-ensigns they all served with. It adds an immediate investment of the players wanting to ensure everyone is okay—it’s not just the USS Alcubierre out there, it’s Ensign Tovi Otner’s ship!

Seed Three: Time Travel

I’m still chuckling over how blasé the crew of Enterprise were when they were all, “Oh, huh, we traveled three days into the past because of what we did to the engines. That formula we put together for the emergency restart of the engines is also a recipe for time travel. Neat. That could come in useful, I suppose.” Again, I get it, they just averted imminent destruction by the skin of their virus-drunk teeth, but still, it’s such a throw-away moment at the end of the episode.

A Do-Over—The scenario in “The Naked Now” is a “cold-start” of the engines being impossible (because it takes half an hour) and basically messing with antimatter and matter to get things moving much faster via a dangerous, theoretical intermix formula and there was every likelihood they’d blow up, but instead they went back in time three days. It’s easy enough to drop something very similar into the hands of your crew—a loss of engine power requiring a restart before dropping into a gravitational well or a collision—though if they’re doing this after the events of 2266, they’ll at least know this is a possibility. Still, if it’s that or nothing, they may find themselves in the position of having some very much unscheduled free time. After that? Well, (a) maybe they need to hide from themselves given they’re co-existing with themselves from the previous situation that led them to have to use the intermix formula in the first place—if that was due to an enemy attack, they’ll have to resist the urge to stop the attack from happening (because paradox) but it doesn’t mean they can’t use the time to get ready to deal with the initiator of the violence once their other selves make the hop back into the past, no? Keeping off everyone’s sensors, trying to restore the ship after the dangerous maneuver (and potentially the battle that led to the engines going cold in the first place) can add an odd ticking-clock element as they have to make sure things unfold as they did before—at least until their other selves vanish, at which point they can get down to business again. Or, (b) they could stare down the temporal prime directive and escape the scenario they were in only to realize there’s a swath of destruction about to happen that they could—theoretically—stop from ever happening, or at least mitigate in some way. They still need to end up hopping back in time (otherwise, paradox) but perhaps they can stay off their own sensors and at least fix some of the damage done. But is that bending (or outright breaking) the Temporal Prime Directive? Does it matter when lives are at stake and the time-jump is such a small amount? Aren’t they duty-bound to save lives if they can? Such philosophical discussions are staples of Trek for a reason, and there’s no real right answer, really, just the best choice the characters can live with—which may or may not include a dressing down from the Department of Temporal Investigations.

Do you have a favourite “bottle episode” scenario or episode? Also, if you play Star Trek Adventures, I really want to know: how often does your group utilize the Support Crew mechanic?

See you next week!

Hey all! It’s Tuesday nerdy time. I’m back with my 4th Edition Playtest Origin Edition of Mutants & Masterminds with the second “upgrade to fourth edition” of a trio of characters I put together for one of my M&M Campaigns as an ongoing arc (and foil) for the players a few years ago: “The Recovery Agency.”

Last week, we met Dusan “Deuce” Somerled, codename: Evac. This week, a second member of the “metahuman rehabilitation” project joins up, Jaison Turcotte, codename: Knockout.

Jaison Turcotte developed his regeneration and sleep-touch abilities as a young adult—and a second-generation metahuman—and ran away from his lesser-powered evangelical parents when he realized they’d want to use him as a prop to gain money for their “church.” On the streets, Jaison finally allowed himself to admit he was queer, and was lucky enough to find a small group of fellow queer runaways and did his best to blend in. 

Unfortunately, his luck took a turn for the worse when his group got caught in a crossfire between organized crime and police in a building they were squatting in. Even worse, one of the criminals stumbled upon Jaison while he was using his abilities to heal one of his fellow street kids from a stray bullet. Snatched up by the criminals, Jaison ended up in the “employ” of the crime family, under their control, punished for acting even slightly counter to their demands. Forced to use his abilities to affect the biology of other people both to hurt and to heal (often in succession, during “interrogations”), he grew desperate to find a way out, and when he was forced to take part in a raid against a rival drug lord of the criminal family, Jaison took it upon himself to get “caught” by the police.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear the police were crooked, and while Jaison was sent to jail—the criminal family couldn’t stop it—they had multiple contacts within the metahuman-capable prison where Jaison ended up.

In jail, Jaison met “Deuce.” While Dusan noticed Jaison was both a smarter man than most (as well as handsome), Dusan steered clear, even though the two were one of only a few metahumans in the prison. Even after they both joined the nonviolent metahuman prisoner rehabilitation program, Dusan barely interacted with Jaison. 

At first Jaison was left alone by the general prison population and metahumans because of his ability to knock other people unconscious (this was the only power he’d admitted to having to the police and rehabilitation program workers, though an injury during hand-to-hand training forced him to pretend to “discover” his self-regeneration abilities). Jaison tried to avoid notice, sticking to his own cell and working through medical courses/first-aid training through the rehab program, but the criminal family continued to send him violent “messages” they knew Jaison’s healing ability would handle before anyone would be the wiser. During those attacks, the family-aligned inmates let him know he’d be expected to return to their service upon his release—and that they were more than aware he’d turned himself in an attempt to escape them. 

Jaison was given the code-name “Knockout,” with hand-to-hand training specifically focused around grabbing and holding combatants, and was sometimes paired with Evac on missions where Evac’s target might potentially be unwilling to leave. Evac teleported the two of them in, Knockout rendered the target unconscious, and Evac teleported all three out. Their handlers ensured they were capable of working together well, but also manipulated both through their trust issues to make sure they never quite reached friendship.

Then, after one of the mandatory psychological evaluations the rehab program required between missions, Jaison heard a woman’s voice in his head telling him to seek out Dusan, and to wait for a chance to escape. Desperate to find a way out from the criminal family who sought to control him, Jaison decided to gamble on it. Dusan started shadowing Jaison as much as possible—he’d also heard the voice in his head. The voice told Dusan to keep Jaison close, and that an escape opportunity for them both was being arranged. While the two waited for the opportunity, word of Dusan’s “protectiveness” of Jaison spread back to the criminal family, and Dusan found himself targeted by other inmates as well. After a particularly rough beating the two took, Jaison revealed his ability to heal others to Dusan, healing Dusan for the first (and not last) time. That gesture of trust cemented a real friendship (and the start of something more) between them, and was also Dusan’s first use of the nickname “Patch” that Jaison would later take as his codename.

But only after the mysterious voice in their head made good on her promise.  

KNOCKOUT/PATCH – PL 8 (111 points)
Abilities: Str 0, Sta 3, Agl 1, Int 4, Awe 1, Pre 0 [18 points]
Combat: Attack 2, Defense 4, Initiative +1 [12 points]
Unarmed +4 (Close Damage 0)
Knockout +4 (Close Affliction 8, Progressive)
Cellular Disruption +8 (Close Damage 8, Penetrating 8)
Resistances: Dodge 7, Fortitude 10, Toughness 6/3*, Will 6; *Without Defensive Roll [15 Points]
Skills: Expertise: Streetwise 6 (+10), Expertise: Emergency Medicine 6 (+10), Insight 6 (+7), Perception 4 (+5), Stealth 4 (+5), Technology 4 (+8), Treatment 8 (+12) [16 points]
Advantages: Attractive**, Benefit (Status 1—Government Affiliated; the rehabilitation program treats Knockout as lesser than Evac, but this still does open doors for him), Close Attack 2, Defensive Roll 3, Equipment 4 (Much like Evac, Knockout is kitted out for any mission, and if injured are involved, this includes equipment suitable to his ongoing EMT training), Improved Grab, Improved Hold [13 points]
Powers: 
Bio-Manipulation: Array (24 Points)
AE – Knockout (Progressive Affliction 8 [Fatigued, Exhausted, Asleep])
AE – Patch-up (Healing 8, Energizing, Resurrection, Limited to Others)
AE – Cellular Disruption (Penetrating Damage 8, Accurate 2, Incurable, Reversable, Subtle 2) [26 points]
Rapid Healer (Regeneration 3, Immunity 2 [Disease, Poison]) [11 points]

Like Evac, Knockout is a little underpowered point-wise for his PL, but similarly to Evac, the rehabilitation program doesn’t know his full capabilities—most notably his ability to heal others, especially not to the point where he can bring them back from recent death, but also his ability to disrupt the cellular stability of anyone he touches—what can be healed can be harmed. 

If you use Knockout while he’s still part of the “rehabilitation” program, his role is likely partnered with Evac as part of an extraction of an unwilling target: the two teleport in, Knockout goes for a grab and activates his namesake ability, and as soon as the target is incapable of putting up a fight, Evac teleports out with both of them. Like Evac, Knockout isn’t here to fight—but also like Evac, he has options up his sleeve if he needs to: most specifically his cellular disruption ability. But while still with the government program, Knockout is loathe to use the ability in any way that can be traced back to him because once that happens, he knows he’ll be used to a much more destructive degree. While luckily his cellular disruption leaves no obvious signs it was him, it’s still his touch.

**(In 3rd Edition, Attractive is an Advantage that offers bonuses to social interaction skills if the person being interacted with finds people of the individual’s gender attractive; the Origin playtest book mentions the Attractive Advantage, but it’s not included, which I’m guessing will be fixed via errata—if it’s not, drop the Attractive Advantage and give Knockout two ranks of the Persuasion skill.)

By the time they’ve managed to connect to each other and their friendship is underway—as well as their shared secrets—Knockout and Evac are both more than aware the agency they were working for is using incarcerated metahumans outside the legal limits of whatever legal frameworks the government is supposed to operate within, but their options aren’t many. 

That changes when the voice of the woman they’ll come to know as Pinpoint returns to their minds with one word:

Now.

Okay, two weeks ago I began a silly little project to re-watch Star Trek (starting with TOS) with the goal of trying to draw a story seed or two for Star Trek Adventures from each episode. We’ve done The Man Trap and Charlie X. Next up? Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Okay, before we dive into this episode—which I truly do believe sits best as Episode One of the TOS series, rather than three, we need to address the hunk in the room.

Specifically, Gary Mitchell could get it.

I give Dr. Dehner props for calling him on his admittedly cheesy line, but those wonderful brown eyes, the eyebrows, the chin, the lips… listen. I’m not saying that it adds up to the complete dismissal of James T. Kirk (or, in this episode for some reason, James R. Kirk), but I am saying we need to admit that pretty much only one person on that set makes those mock-neck-zipper-shoulder tunics look good, and that is Mr. Mitchell here.

(Also the scruff. I forgot the scruff.)

Ahem! Sorry. Anyway. So the Enterprise picks up an Earth signal from space that’s kind of impossible because no one has been here in quite the while, and Kirk takes a moment from being Captain Jerk and teasing Spock (already sick of that and I’m only three episodes in) to determine it’s basically a starship black-box, and then because other ships will come this way at some point, decides to… ram the barrier around the edge of the galaxy.

(Yeah, so there’s a barrier around the galaxy. Also, Enterprise is at the “edge” of the galaxy? This I can only assume is in an “up” or “down” direction given the galaxy is something like 100,000 light years in diameter and Sol is about half-way between the centre core of the galaxy and the edge, and in Kirk’s era, they sure weren’t jumping 25,000 light years at any time warp factor. Whatever. It’s Star Trek, and as we’ll come to treat like a mantra, they sure weren’t attempting to build a cohesive canon episode-to-episode.)

Anyway, ramming the barrier turns out to be a bad idea, because a number of the crew die—all of whom had high-ish esper ratings (meaning they had little flashes of insight, precognition, what-have-you), and we witness two of the crew—a psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, and also the aforementioned hunk, Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell—spark and sizzle like fireworks, and when they barely manage to pull away from the energy barrier, Gary’s eyes are no longer the most swooniest of lovely browns, they’re silver (also those contacts look really uncomfortable).

Gary starts to progress from hot dude in a sleeveless sickbay shirt (chest hair!) to hot dude who can control his own biological state to telepath to telekinetic and—alas—absolute power begins to do what it always does. Meanwhile, Dr. Dehner is entranced by Gary’s whole smokin’ thing, the ship is damaged, and they stop at an automated mining facility on an otherwise empty world where the plan is to dump Gary before he loses touch completely (humans are starting to be like insects to him by this point) and repair the ship and then get the hell out of there.

Alas, Gary gets silver sideburns, so you know he’s powered up into godhood, and—Oh No!—it starts to happen to Dehner, too, and Kirk has to kill Gary (but first he has to convince Dehner to hold on to her humanity for just a little longer to fight Gary back down to a mortal level) and in the end, the gods die, Kirk’s uniform rips for the first time (this will be a recurring theme) and as they fly away from the planet where Kirk lost Dehner and Mitchell he has time to be Captain Jerk about Spock’s feelings one more time. Roll credits.

(Oh, and this time no one stalks Yeoman Rand, but it’s because she’s not in the episode; but don’t worry, Dehner—a focused, cool and composed professional—gets super emotional at the staff meeting while all the men remain completely calm and aloof look at her like ‘jeez… women,’ and Dehner makes a crack to Gary about being cold because she’s a woman overcompensating as a professional and so there’s still that. Also Captain Jerk doesn’t even know his Yeoman’s name. Dude. Boss 101.)

This time, something that jumped out at me right off the bat was the inclusion of the Delta-Vega Station as a setting for Enterprise to limp to in a damaged state, and the other thing was the notion of espers.

Seed One: Automated and Uncrewed Mining/Mineral Facilities

Delta-Vega Station is an uncrewed lithium cracking station. The mining facility is on an other wise desolate planet (which does have a tonne of minerals and crystals, but Dehner notes would take a miracle to survive on for any length of time), and Kirk mentions that ore ships drop by once every twenty years or so. Facilities like this one were set up by a mining company, working alongside the Federation.

Your Place/Ore Mine?—Quite a few options pop to mind with facilities like these. For one, (a) setting up a new automated and uncrewed mining facility would be a great starting point for a mission where you wanted to focus on your player engineers and science officers (especially any that might have a Focus in geology or mineralogy or the like), and having a non-Starfleet or civilian mining company also be involved is always a fun way to set up some tensions or personality clashes—or perhaps new friendships or relationships—between the Starfleet crew and people who don’t exist in (and aren’t used to) Starfleet’s hierarchy. Then of course, the routine “set it up and get it running” goes awry when individuals with telepathic ability start to see/hear whispers, especially those who handle any of the crystals the facility is setting up to process, and later, non-telepathic individuals start to wander off, vanishing off sensors by going deeper into the mines and actively attempting to stymy the efforts by sabotaging the automated units, as it turns out the crystal formations are all connected and host a nascent consciousness—something similar to a crystalline entity, only planet-bound—which is attempting to save itself from being harmed by the facility via telepathic influence on the weaker minds around it. Or, (b) the crew’s vessel is passing by an uncrewed facility and picking up strange readings—explosions?—that may indicate something may have gone wrong on the site. When they arrive—taking a shuttle because the particulates in the atmosphere being processed here refract transporter beams—there are clear signs the facility has been breached, but not by whom, and an atmospheric hunt through the dimly-lit facility with only machines in motion follows, a cat-and-mouse game where it turns out enemies of the Federation have laid a trap, and now the crew have left their shuttle behind them, the enemies are going to use it to return to the crew’s vessel and infiltrate it—or simply destroy it with explosives placed on the shuttle. The crew need to find a way to get a signal back to the ship through the disruptive atmosphere, and there are still enemies on the planet to worry about. Or perhaps (c) a frantic call from an ore-ship brings the player’s crew to the site of one of the facilities only to find a previously unknown alien species suffered a catastrophic failure of their own engines and crash-landed on the planet weeks ago: they’re hurt, afraid, and combining a First Contact mission with disaster relief and medical interventions among the many wounded makes for a high-tension setting—especially if it soon becomes clear the “catastrophic failure” of the alien vessel’s warp-engine doesn’t seem to have been an accident in the first place, but might have been by design (though more effective than intended), to give the species a plausible reason to end up on this planet where they could attempt to gain technological advantages by learning all they could from Federation technology without earning the ire of the Federation itself.

Seed Two: Espers

As described by Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, being an esper is not something I’d consider a Talent by Star Trek Adventures terms, or even the the level of a Focus (though for someone very high on the scale it could work, and be applicable to situations where having a vague insight into the future or random events might offer an advantage). I’d consider “Esper” a great facet to drop into a human or other non-telepathic species character as a Trait, however, something the narrator or player can spin up here and there in a scenario when it might apply. Or, to put it a little more front and centre, a value of “Highly rated on the esper scale” could be a great way to tuck in some psychic ability without overdoing it, given the use of Determination, and also a way for a narrator a fascinating Sci-Fi way to challenge the player—strange radiations, other telepathic species, time loops; all might affect an esper in a way the narrator could roll out by challenging the Value in a given scenario: does an esper refuse an order when they get a flash of insight that following orders might lead to disaster? How can they prove it?

The Sound of Psilence—The crew are called to a newly discovered species to initiate first contact after a survey ship reports an encounter with their warp-capable test ship, only to learn the species have no sense of hearing, utilize an incredibly complex and difficult to understand written language, and communicate with each other via a form of telepathy that doesn’t register clearly among Vulcans, Betazoid, or any of the other telepathic or empathic species of the Federation—but the player and crew espers find themselves glimpsing images and sensations that might make it possible to speak with them. First contact progresses until (a) the esper crew start to realize they’re also getting senses, images, and glimpses of impending doom, and the alien species aren’t just trying to communicate but to warn them about an enemy incursion or natural disaster about to destroy a Starbase, Colony, or Starship—can they manage to communicate clearly and in time in order to stop the destruction? Or, (b) the more the espers interact with the alien species, the more they notice stratification among their people, and ultimately learn that some of their species are “silenced”—made telepathically invisible via genetic engineering—specifically to be utilized as spies and assassins, and this First Contact is also an assessment by a species that cares little for individual rights to gain control of the crew’s ship and reverse-engineer Starfleet technology now they’ve learned more powerful species exist in the galaxy. Or, (c) when it becomes clear the species have a natural talent for accurate prescience, a group of Ferengi, Orions, or other advantage-seeking-species swoop in to kidnap a group of the more gifted aliens, intending to use them to scan the future for opportunities they can use for profit or personal advancement, turning First Contact into a rescue mission. Things are all the more complicated given co-ordinating or even clearly communicating with the alien species is difficult and done via esper-level vague intuition and imagery.

Just Lucky, I Guess—Adding a rakish rogue Okona-like figure as an ongoing character to the campaign might be fun if one of his qualities the crew only uncover over time is his high esper rating. The first time the free-wheeling trader/surveyor/independent businessman shows up where the crew are assigned to prospect a dilithium source only to find he’s gotten there ahead of them to stake his own claim and the Federation will now have to cut him in on the deal, it’s an unfortunate circumstance, but not the end of the world. When he shows up again with exactly what’s needed—assuming he receives a favourable trade—during a minor disaster, it might cross into unfortunate and into annoying. His ability to know where to go—one he calls a ‘knack for being in the right place at the right time’—is one he’s learned to trust, and even more so when it’s paired with the notion of bringing something with him, but it’s only so long before something goes wrong. Potentially, (a) he has the same relationship with Klingons, or Romulans, or some other political organization that decide his ongoing ability to be where things will be interesting is something they can use against the Federation, and they attempt to kidnap him—only, their attempt goes sideways as he manages to glimpse just enough of the trap springing around him to lend them on a merry chase into neutral territory and leaving the players to realize they might need to risk a political incident to stop their enemies from using his ability against them. Or, (b) knowing a place will be “interesting and important” isn’t the same as knowing that place will be safe, and the rogue gets himself in way over his head when he shows up somewhere with exactly what a violent militant group need to launch a coup. His own esper ability is enough to escape, but the group now has everything they need to build a bomb—and the only people he can call on for help close enough to be in time are the player crew. Or perhaps (c), he shows up somewhere the crew are set to begin a routine colony mission only to warn them of dire intuitions—he knows, somehow, they could spell doom with what they’re planning to do, only without any real specifics. Assuming, of course, he’s telling the truth and this isn’t a long con.

I will say, this episode is still a favourite, with the budget for practical effects (telekinesis!) and those silver contacts. And even if the energy barrier thing is head-tilting, the whole “absolute power corrupts absolutely” plot still lands.

See you next week!