Saturday, the day I continue my project of re-watching the TOS-era episodes of Star Trek with the goal of finding ideas—scenario seeds—useful for Star Trek Adventures as put out by Modiphius. 

Today’s episode?

Shore Leave

Let’s beam down.

The teaser of this episode is one of the most amusing in Trek, in that we start with an Away Team basically reporting that they’ve found a super nice planet with no life forms beyond, y’know, plants and stuff that will make a perfect Shore Leave opportunity—also Kirk is among those who really needs some down-time, it is noted—and then ends with McCoy, who has casually mentioned it’s “like Alice in Wonderland down here” seeing the White Rabbit (a furry costume, basically) and then Alice, and then we cut to the opening credits.

Post-credits, McCoy tries to convince Kirk that he either hallucinated or there’s something wrong with his tricorder, and Kirk… *sigh*… assumes McCoy is manipulating him to get down on the planet for shore leave. That’s right, his chief medical officer says he might have to relieve himself of duty and Kirk makes it all about him, discounting his chief medical officer. Again. What are we at now, four times in fifteen episodes?

I should mention we also have Yeoman Barrows dropping by, telling Kirk he should take shore leave too, and Kirk being all, “I’m not falling apart like all those other non-Kirk type people, I’m a Captain so I’m not gonna!” and whatever. But as I mentioned in “Balance of Terror,” throughout the entire episode it’s clear the Yeoman Barrows role would have been Yeoman Rand had she not been kicked off the show, and as such I had a really hard time (a) not being reminded how shitty Grace Lee Whitney was treated, and (b) how even Rand’s replacement has to get victimized (but I’m getting ahead of myself).

There’s also a fun scene where Spock notes there’s a crew person who clearly needs time off, and walks Kirk step by step through it until Kirk is all, “Yep, force that crewman to take a break!” and Spock is all “It’s you, jackass; ha! Checkmate!” (I mean, that’s what his wry eyebrow movement translates as to me, but your lightyears may vary.)

So. It turns out, of course, that no one is losing their mind, that McCoy was correct in that something odd is going on (listen to your fucking people, Jim) and you get glimpses of this UHF-like antenna aiming itself at the crew now and then before random things they’re thinking about come to life, and this includes Sulu getting a gun, some other crew conjuring tigers and a strafing run from earth history aircraft, which kills the woman who’s been flirting with him the whole time and annoyed he’s doing work instead of relaxing. And, listen, it’s the same actress and Memory Alpha lists this as the same character, so just take a breath because it’s Martine—Martine who just lost her husband-to-be last episode.

So. Uh. Got over that, eh?

Yeoman Barrows—who McCoy flirts with a lot—conjures a Don Juan to attack her and rip her uniform (I’m not keeping count of victimized yeomen anymore, it’s too depressing), then later gets to dress up like a princess, and then a dark knight comes to take her and “kills” McCoy (don’t worry, he gets better).

When Kirk gets involved, he sees (a) a stereotype, super-cringey Irish bully named Finnegan he’d like to beat up from his academy days who comes complete with super-cringey stereotype music riffs, and (b) Ruth, a beautiful woman he apparently had a thing with who’d like to snog. He beats up the Irishman until they’re both in torn shirts and dirty and Finnegan asks him if he enjoyed finally getting to do that, and Kirk is all, “you betcha!” and starts to realize this place is trying to give them what they want. (Which, apparently, for Kirk is “beat up a bully and have sex” and for Sulu is “gun” and the other guy wanted to get shot at from a plane and Barrows was “Don Juan who won’t take no for an answer” and… Yowza. Where’s Dr. Noel when you need her? Rorschach eat your heart out.)

Ultimately, Spock beams down to deliver news on why they can’t communicate with the ship and also explain there’s major power usage and even the living creatures are synthetic and it all turns out the planet is basically a “read your mind, make it real” machine and all the dead people aren’t—they were taken away and repaired/restored/what-have-you—and McCoy comes back with a woman on each arm because it reminded him of a casino, and Barrows does a slightly huffy, “a-hem, you were flirting with me!” and they head off, Kirk decides he’s had enough up until he spots Ruth-bot and decides to stay on-site for snogging, and then eventually they all finish their Shore Leave after the planet’s concierge/controller/is-he-a-robot? says he’ll get it right this time.

We mock Spock and Vulcans (because we must mock Spock and Vulcans any chance we get for not being the same as humans) and then credits.

So, as is likely obvious, this episode is really not a favourite for me. It just sort of… rambles. Rabbit. Alice. Crewman visualizes tiger. Tiger hunts crewman. An airplane strafing run! Sulu has a gun. Black knight! Finnegan! Ruth. They run around a lot, mostly in circles, and… ultimately it’s all just a big nothing-burger where even the stakes we saw—the death of Martine and McCoy—are both ultimately reset.

That said, I do think it would have made a better role playing game scenario than it did an episode. Being a player and wandering around and bumping into all sorts of weird things and then ultimately finding the source is kind of par for the course in a lot of scenarios—though it’s not often going to be “our own thoughts are making this happen!”—but let’s dig and find some inspiration here.

First, the whole notion of crew taking shore leave is worth visiting (Starfleet is a high-stress job, after all, and time off is necessary for even the most Kirk of Kirks), and that’s a big sandbox to play in. Second, Sulu’s thing about collecting ancient weaponry made me think of exploring the crew’s various pastimes and hobbies (something the 2nd Edition of Star Trek Adventures codified into a kind of bonus Focus—bonus because it’s assumed the usefulness of things like “winemaking” or “violin” won’t come up often, but what if we crafted a scenario specifically around someone’s pastime?)

Seed One: Shore Leave

While there’s always Risa (after all, it was discovered during Archer’s time), we see the various starships declaring shore leave much like in this episode throughout and across series—and also see it going south or not being as restful as expected (looking at you, Wesley Crusher, getting the death penalty for falling on some flowers). Exploring somewhere that just happens to be nice, rather than a shore leave destination, leaves the door open for a few more twists and turns.

The One We Have Been Waiting For—The crew are offered shore leave at a planet where the people believe in hospitality, spiritual guidance of prophecy and omen, and have moved from a hostile past of warring nations to their current day of co-operation and peace, in part due to the belief that they must work together until a chosen one leader arrives, capable of some particular feat (which begins with drawing forth a crystal shard in one piece from its ancient holster in a former-palace-temple-turned-spiritual-retreat). A member of the crew being given a tour by one of the guardians of the palace ends up tripping/tumbling/otherwise stumbling when said guardian has a stumble of their own, and ends up holding said crystal in hand, which the guardian announces to all as the revelation of the one true leader of the world coming to pass. What follows is anything but restful, as (a) the crew scramble to unpack ancient prophecies for a loophole or pass that will get their crew person out of this mess, including a series of trials and qualities that unfortunately do seem rather tailored to the crew person in question. It’s a Prime Directive minefield—even if the planet is a fully present member of the galactic community, this is “interference” on internal affairs of the highest order. Also, there are factions on the planet very, very ready to have a new leader—and they all want said leader to go in different directions. Is the hard-won peace of the planet going to fall apart, or can the crew person figure out a way to extricate themselves from lore and leave the planet’s culture intact. Or, (b) in their investigation, the crew come to realize things have been every much arranged here, that the fact the crew person aligns perfectly with the prophecies in question might not be fate nor an accident, but a plan put into place, but by who? Ultimately, they’ll have to uncover the truth: the guardian who was giving the crew person the tour was actually the person who pulled the crystal free, a few days ago, but immediately put it back, feeling unworthy and terrified of what it might mean, and upon learning the crew would be arriving, managed to keep the removal (and replacement) a secret while looking for someone perfectly suited to take their place from the ship’s crew. Getting this individual to accept their fate—whether or not the crew believe in prophecy or omen—becomes the real task at hand, but all the factions and potential damage to the planet’s culture still remain.

Nothing to See Here, Just Taking a Break—For a different spin on a shore leave, you could include a layer of “showing the flag” on an independent planet where an opposed polity is getting more and more comfortable taking their shore leaves, with Starfleet assigning the player’s vessel to take some time there to remind the locals of the goodwill and positive associations of being involved with the Federation. Depending on the era, this could have Romulans, Klingons, Ferengi, Vorta, or other species “taking a break” on the planet alongside your players. Perhaps the independent hosts are vocal about expecting both sides to be civil, which (a) sets one (or both) sides to try to catch the other out breaking the rules—or outright setting them up to be caught doing so—creating a back-and-forth of what on the surface is prank-level annoyances rather than high-stakes, but in fact could have far-reaching repercussions should the planet decide the Federation isn’t capable of “playing nice” with others. Or, (b) the shore leave crew realize there’s more going on here, after a few clues lead them to believe the opposed polity isn’t taking a break, they’re aiding a seditious subculture, setting up a spy cell, or some other act intended to sway the populace to their side or weaken the Federation’s security in the area. Following the rules while attempting to stop these agents from succeeding will make for a less than restful shore leave indeed.

Seed Two: Pastimes and Hobbies

While on the surface of things, a character’s hobby or pastime is a way of adding colour and exploring their personality (who are they when they’re not at work?), there’s ample opportunity to add a tweak here or there to an adventure where the hobby has a moment in the scenario (think Dr. Crusher growing her Diomedian scarlet moss as a plot point in “Clues”), but you can also have it be far more front and centre to a scenario (such as Cadet Nyota Uhura’s musicality showing up in Strange New Worlds for “Children of the Comet” as the key to understanding an alien artefact).

The Arts of Communication—When the crew find a damaged vessel and beam over to help a reptohumanoid species, the universal translator offers up zero aid in breaking the language barrier between the two species, the device determining the hisses and vocalization of the species in question incapable of providing enough variance to actually form a language. Figuring out how to help a species that’s injured on a vessel that’s damaged without any communication methods is tough enough, but the vessel itself provides even further mysteries: there’s a similar “not complex enough” quality to the bare-bones symbology the crew can locate on the various ship readouts and systems. Ultimately, communicating with the species requires a different methodology. Perhaps, (a) the species see further into the infrared and ultraviolet end of the spectrum, and can also alter their scale colouration in those visual ranges in complex patterns—this being a key a portion of their language and thereby invisible to the crew, it takes a crew person with an interest in art to notice that they do seem to have paintings and art objects, but all they can see is… texture. No colour variance. That can be the crew’s first real clue—when they scan the painting and realize the pigments used are outside the human (and Vulcan and other player species) range of vision. Or, (b) a player with a background in dance notices details in the way the reptohumanoids move their tails, hands, or body-language, unlocking that a significant portion of the language this species uses is, in fact, something closer to a full-body-and-tail sign language alongside their vocalizations (as well as the scale colourations from before). In the end, the crew may have to figure out a way to see differently, be seen differently, and move differently to speak to the aliens.

Language as a Complication—In Captain’s Log or Star Trek Adventures, 20s mean complications, and “the Universal Translator can’t figure this out, Captain!” is a great way to toss an extra barrier between communicating with a new alien species at your players (or your character in CL).

Bonus: If you’re in the mood for some fan-fic, I’m going to point to something I wrote that deals with this scenario: Parturition (Alternate) was my take on the episode of that name in Star Trek: Voyager fanfic I write, and I leaned heavier on the reptohumanoids to form the basis of the episode, and communication being the key hurdle. I ended up porting those aliens—the Hisith—into one of my campaigns as part of an ongoing arc.

Have you rolled out any shore leave episodes on your players? What about pulling in their pastimes into a scenario? Let me know.