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subplotkudzu) wrote2008-05-04 06:16 am
USS Carter Ep 10 - The Stellar Nursery - After Action Report
USS Carter After-Action Report: Stellar Nursery
Act I: The Carter is researching an anomalous protostar cluster inside a nebula. The stars energy readings are strange, they show no sunspot activity, are connected by ribbons of stellar material, each bound to 2-3 others. Based on old maps, they are also moving unusually fast. Before Pelski & Fujita can continue with a survey to determine that movement's speed & direction they pick up a distress call from the Maria Theresa, sent in what is likely late 20th century Spanish - a slowboat? A time warping subspace fracture? A reclusive colony?
This went as planned. I suspect Act I usually will as the PCs don't yet have enough information to hare too far off the plotline. Karen's new Engineering Lieutenant (still a LT JG at this point, just one step up from an ensign) was given enough to do to make her inclusion logical. The biggest issue was how rapidly they blew through it, but that was likely just as well given the time spent reminding everyone of the rules and the time constraints of our 1 episode per 5 hr session structure.
Act II: They locate the damaged ship, rescue the two survivors, ascertain that it's a hospital ship out to rescue another vessel and that the damage is consistent with a solar flare, but the ship's logs show it as under attack by a Klingon warship. The Carter tries to identify the Klingon weapon while sensors locate the Klingon ship, apparently running silent and drifting in amidst the protostars. As the Carter approaches the Klingon drifts too close to a star and is vaporized by an aimed solar flare - the stars are alive! And on further analysis, it becomes clear that they're also breeding!
The shipboard recon included some puzzle solving & highlighted several PCs' traits, most noticeably Knox's 0-G Belter background, Fujita's skills at ship design & analysis, T'Prin's near flashback to a pre-game engineering accident that killed two of her Vulcan crewmates & led her to the Carter and Dr. Mark's swing between flightiness & dedication when she operated on the survivors. Funk anticipated the flare as the damage's source, but then nicely tied it into a Klingon super-weapon rather than guessing their true origin. Dr. Mark had great medlab scenes. Sakhet ordering that the Theresa be made warp-worthy helped, as Fujita was part of the Carter research crew and at the staff conference while Chief Engineer Fraiser oversaw the Theresa.
This was our first Sr. Staff conference of the new season and it went perfectly. It opened with Funk & Pelski arguing on their way in about the viability of a Klingon solar flare weapon, which perfectly highlighted their personalities and relationship. When everyone turned to Karen for Fujita to give the engineering analysis she blanked for a second. Asha cocked an eyebrow and said "Lieutenant?" which is when we all (even Karen) remembered that this was Fujita's first time at a department head meeting, and his flustered responses were spot on. The degree of fear of the Kingon super-weapon balancing with the need to learn from the Theresa was exactly what I had hoped for at this stage of the game. It was nice seeing the players firing on all cylinders.
Once they located the Klingon ship Sakhet surprised me by ordering that they quickly strip important things off the Theresa to use it as a stalking horse against the Klingon, just to see if they would use the flare weapon again. This didn't have a big impact: it cost some game time, but the Klingon ship was already a wreck from the last flare and destined to be plasma before the Theresa reached it anyway. I only stepped in when they started trying to work out strategies for what they'd do after the Klingon acted - I let them know we can consider that done, but I didn't want to lose momentum. They accepted this and moved on, understanding why once they got close enough to see the state of the Klingon ship. As a player, I would have been frustrated if I spent 45 minutes developing a plan that wasn't going to matter, so I'm glad they agreed. Their faces when the flares hit were priceless. "That was directed action," Funk murmured. A message came through from Lt. Raven, the ship's biologist, "Captain, I think the stars are mating." Seconds of silence, then Sakhet barked "Conference room, 45 minutes. Get me answers."
I needed to have Raven advance the breeding theory to the bridge crew prior to the meeting. I had hoped it would come from Dr. Mark, but Asha was keeping her in medlab looking over the patients, and Pelski the science officer is an astrophysicist by training and Kris was not making that leap. Plus, time was running short, and I wanted to re-introduce Raven as a potential romantic subplot for Pelski this season. I realize now that I could have had Raven bring it up with Pelski privately but that might have diminished the joy of the conference room scene. Pelski was adamant that Raven's theory was just short of insane, and siding with Sigfried that even if it were true they had time to return the survivors to their homeworld and come back. Raven was in a bind, loathe to abandon the chance to observe this, and everyone knew it. Sakhet split the difference by reminding everyone that Pelski's unfinished survey would take another 48 hours or so to complete; they'd do that before leaving; Raven had that long to prove her theory. Pelski then took most of the ship's sensor and computing power for the survey, leaving Raven to snag Fujita's help with a lot of probes. This was an insight into Pelski: he has a background in sports, but this was the first time we saw his competitive edge, and also the first time he'd faced a decision as a supervisor in play.
Act III: Analysis of the stars locates the problem - one strand is being disrupted by the wreckage of the ship the Theresa had been looking for. The Carter can try to torpedo or phaser the wreckage out, find a way to communicate with the stars, or something else. If they succeed, the next generation of hundreds of smaller energy beings will be born, and one will thank the Carter for their help.
Since the PCs (well, Pelski) were slow to accept the mating theory I had Pelski make a series of rolls to see how long before he finished his cartography, and then had Fujita make a number of tests based on that timeframe to see how much I told them. Our third and final staff conference had Pelski stating that the stars would all collide in another 3 weeks, while Raven claimed that her theories based on the data she and Fujita collected indicated that they shouldn't be getting any closer then they already had. They had also found hundreds of spheres, much like eggs, deep inside the stars. Raven was adamant that something was wrong, and was trying to win over Funk (himself a marine biologist) when Fujita interjected with how one of the strands had an anomalous configuration - could that matter? Once it was described Sakhet put the pieces together at once: "It's the missing ship. Humans disrupted this."
The staff decamped to the bridge to get a closer look, still debating points on the way, and meeting up with Dr. Mark, who had come up to give a report to the captain. Fujita and Pelski were able to find the disruption point - the remnants of a warp core - and a tense debate erupted about how they could resolve the problem: could they talk to the stars? (It would take a while to open communication, even if they could find a way.) How would it react to weapons fire? (Phasers would attenuate in the ribbon, photons might work) How close could they get without drawing a flare? (Not very close) Could the Carter's shields survive inside the ribbon? (For a few minutes at most) They had no good options.
It was Dr. Mark who cut through the clutter "Communication is more than just what we try to say - it's also what we do and how we move." (Asha also added, "You should know that, girlfriend!"). This was another perfect bit, as Mark's skills & feats include Xenology, Cultural Flexibility & being Seductive. Pelski found an approach that would match how the stars moved relative to each other. Fujita went to Engineering, where he, T'Prin and (T'Prin's nemesis) Lt. Selzo had to discern the protostar's energy pattern and match it with their impulse engine plasma. The hope? If they disguised the Carter they could get inside the ribbon without an attack. Commander Fraiser and the rest of engineering would make sure the shields stayed up inside the ribbon while Funk snagged the tainted debris with a tractor beam.
It took multiple tries for T'Prin to get the energy match right, and Pelski detected pre-flare readings in the nearby star before they got the 'camouflage' working. Inside the ribbon the damage to the shields shorted the science station stunning Pelski. Mark roused him and he went to the multi-use station on the bridge, only to have another jolt to the ship make that console explode. He collapsed, with Mark and Raven working on him. One minute passed, then two, then three as Funk tried to catch the minute warp core in the tractor beam; Power was diverted from operations and life support to reinforce the shields - risky, but drawing power from anything else would hinder helm & tactical control. Once Funk secured the warp core the captain gave an order to the helm (where a minor NPC was handling things) and got them out of there, warp 2.
After the blockage was cleared the protostars pulsed, then exploded into hundreds of energy spheres, each no larger than the Carter. I had timed the CD to be playing pulse pounding music during the operation, and switched it to a 'sense of wonder track' as the energy being touched the Carter's shields, creating a small orb on the bridge that read their translation files and offered the thanks of their species - they could bring themselves to let the others die, even at the risk of their own existence. The session ended with Pelski, still recovering, telling Raven that she had been right and that he owed her a beer. Over dinner Stephen and I mentioned liking this "You were right, I was wrong" moment when Kris said "he never admitted he was wrong." Stephen's response, "Offering to buy a beer, translated to guy speak, means he admitted he was wrong." Kris smiled. She also agreed to the romance subplot, her initial idea is having Pelski be oblivious, but that's something we've done before and I see it as the least interesting option of those available.
There was other stuff in the session that I didn't include above, for the sake of the narrative: Funk trying to find the captain's cabin on the Theresa, getting lost in the wreckage and settling for the chapel, salvaging whatever looked important (being in Star Fleet, he has minimal knowledge of religion) back when they planned to use the ship against the Klingons. Knox's analysis of New Spain's history and culture from their records - how the colony had developed a huge cultural need to leave no one behind, hence the hospital ship on call in case of space based accidents - which Kris told me later she did connect thematically with the protostars being unwilling to sacrifice any of their own in the mating process. Fujita's discussions about the relative technical aptitude of New Spain 's warp drive and spaceship designs, and his ability to quickly model and analyze ships. Finally, there was the data in the captain's log about how Starfleet Intelligence is taking a more direct hand in their actions as the Klingon threat in the area increases. This is going to increase as the season goes on.
One consequence of this adventure is that Icarus Incident, my original plot for Season 2, episode 1, is DOA, at least for this season. I carried over a lot of bits into Nursery, and the similarities would be too great. I might be able to fit it, or something that borrows the other bits from it, into season 3. Ah well. Since Nursery was an unqualified success, it would be churlish of me to complain. I left things set up to run Messages from Earth next month - they're being pulled away from New Spain to that plot should play to the sense of Star Fleet reacting to a growing threat.
USS Carter After-Action Report: Stellar Nursery
Act I: The Carter is researching an anomalous protostar cluster inside a nebula. The stars energy readings are strange, they show no sunspot activity, are connected by ribbons of stellar material, each bound to 2-3 others. Based on old maps, they are also moving unusually fast. Before Pelski & Fujita can continue with a survey to determine that movement's speed & direction they pick up a distress call from the Maria Theresa, sent in what is likely late 20th century Spanish - a slowboat? A time warping subspace fracture? A reclusive colony?
This went as planned. I suspect Act I usually will as the PCs don't yet have enough information to hare too far off the plotline. Karen's new Engineering Lieutenant (still a LT JG at this point, just one step up from an ensign) was given enough to do to make her inclusion logical. The biggest issue was how rapidly they blew through it, but that was likely just as well given the time spent reminding everyone of the rules and the time constraints of our 1 episode per 5 hr session structure.
Act II: They locate the damaged ship, rescue the two survivors, ascertain that it's a hospital ship out to rescue another vessel and that the damage is consistent with a solar flare, but the ship's logs show it as under attack by a Klingon warship. The Carter tries to identify the Klingon weapon while sensors locate the Klingon ship, apparently running silent and drifting in amidst the protostars. As the Carter approaches the Klingon drifts too close to a star and is vaporized by an aimed solar flare - the stars are alive! And on further analysis, it becomes clear that they're also breeding!
The shipboard recon included some puzzle solving & highlighted several PCs' traits, most noticeably Knox's 0-G Belter background, Fujita's skills at ship design & analysis, T'Prin's near flashback to a pre-game engineering accident that killed two of her Vulcan crewmates & led her to the Carter and Dr. Mark's swing between flightiness & dedication when she operated on the survivors. Funk anticipated the flare as the damage's source, but then nicely tied it into a Klingon super-weapon rather than guessing their true origin. Dr. Mark had great medlab scenes. Sakhet ordering that the Theresa be made warp-worthy helped, as Fujita was part of the Carter research crew and at the staff conference while Chief Engineer Fraiser oversaw the Theresa.
This was our first Sr. Staff conference of the new season and it went perfectly. It opened with Funk & Pelski arguing on their way in about the viability of a Klingon solar flare weapon, which perfectly highlighted their personalities and relationship. When everyone turned to Karen for Fujita to give the engineering analysis she blanked for a second. Asha cocked an eyebrow and said "Lieutenant?" which is when we all (even Karen) remembered that this was Fujita's first time at a department head meeting, and his flustered responses were spot on. The degree of fear of the Kingon super-weapon balancing with the need to learn from the Theresa was exactly what I had hoped for at this stage of the game. It was nice seeing the players firing on all cylinders.
Once they located the Klingon ship Sakhet surprised me by ordering that they quickly strip important things off the Theresa to use it as a stalking horse against the Klingon, just to see if they would use the flare weapon again. This didn't have a big impact: it cost some game time, but the Klingon ship was already a wreck from the last flare and destined to be plasma before the Theresa reached it anyway. I only stepped in when they started trying to work out strategies for what they'd do after the Klingon acted - I let them know we can consider that done, but I didn't want to lose momentum. They accepted this and moved on, understanding why once they got close enough to see the state of the Klingon ship. As a player, I would have been frustrated if I spent 45 minutes developing a plan that wasn't going to matter, so I'm glad they agreed. Their faces when the flares hit were priceless. "That was directed action," Funk murmured. A message came through from Lt. Raven, the ship's biologist, "Captain, I think the stars are mating." Seconds of silence, then Sakhet barked "Conference room, 45 minutes. Get me answers."
I needed to have Raven advance the breeding theory to the bridge crew prior to the meeting. I had hoped it would come from Dr. Mark, but Asha was keeping her in medlab looking over the patients, and Pelski the science officer is an astrophysicist by training and Kris was not making that leap. Plus, time was running short, and I wanted to re-introduce Raven as a potential romantic subplot for Pelski this season. I realize now that I could have had Raven bring it up with Pelski privately but that might have diminished the joy of the conference room scene. Pelski was adamant that Raven's theory was just short of insane, and siding with Sigfried that even if it were true they had time to return the survivors to their homeworld and come back. Raven was in a bind, loathe to abandon the chance to observe this, and everyone knew it. Sakhet split the difference by reminding everyone that Pelski's unfinished survey would take another 48 hours or so to complete; they'd do that before leaving; Raven had that long to prove her theory. Pelski then took most of the ship's sensor and computing power for the survey, leaving Raven to snag Fujita's help with a lot of probes. This was an insight into Pelski: he has a background in sports, but this was the first time we saw his competitive edge, and also the first time he'd faced a decision as a supervisor in play.
Act III: Analysis of the stars locates the problem - one strand is being disrupted by the wreckage of the ship the Theresa had been looking for. The Carter can try to torpedo or phaser the wreckage out, find a way to communicate with the stars, or something else. If they succeed, the next generation of hundreds of smaller energy beings will be born, and one will thank the Carter for their help.
Since the PCs (well, Pelski) were slow to accept the mating theory I had Pelski make a series of rolls to see how long before he finished his cartography, and then had Fujita make a number of tests based on that timeframe to see how much I told them. Our third and final staff conference had Pelski stating that the stars would all collide in another 3 weeks, while Raven claimed that her theories based on the data she and Fujita collected indicated that they shouldn't be getting any closer then they already had. They had also found hundreds of spheres, much like eggs, deep inside the stars. Raven was adamant that something was wrong, and was trying to win over Funk (himself a marine biologist) when Fujita interjected with how one of the strands had an anomalous configuration - could that matter? Once it was described Sakhet put the pieces together at once: "It's the missing ship. Humans disrupted this."
The staff decamped to the bridge to get a closer look, still debating points on the way, and meeting up with Dr. Mark, who had come up to give a report to the captain. Fujita and Pelski were able to find the disruption point - the remnants of a warp core - and a tense debate erupted about how they could resolve the problem: could they talk to the stars? (It would take a while to open communication, even if they could find a way.) How would it react to weapons fire? (Phasers would attenuate in the ribbon, photons might work) How close could they get without drawing a flare? (Not very close) Could the Carter's shields survive inside the ribbon? (For a few minutes at most) They had no good options.
It was Dr. Mark who cut through the clutter "Communication is more than just what we try to say - it's also what we do and how we move." (Asha also added, "You should know that, girlfriend!"). This was another perfect bit, as Mark's skills & feats include Xenology, Cultural Flexibility & being Seductive. Pelski found an approach that would match how the stars moved relative to each other. Fujita went to Engineering, where he, T'Prin and (T'Prin's nemesis) Lt. Selzo had to discern the protostar's energy pattern and match it with their impulse engine plasma. The hope? If they disguised the Carter they could get inside the ribbon without an attack. Commander Fraiser and the rest of engineering would make sure the shields stayed up inside the ribbon while Funk snagged the tainted debris with a tractor beam.
It took multiple tries for T'Prin to get the energy match right, and Pelski detected pre-flare readings in the nearby star before they got the 'camouflage' working. Inside the ribbon the damage to the shields shorted the science station stunning Pelski. Mark roused him and he went to the multi-use station on the bridge, only to have another jolt to the ship make that console explode. He collapsed, with Mark and Raven working on him. One minute passed, then two, then three as Funk tried to catch the minute warp core in the tractor beam; Power was diverted from operations and life support to reinforce the shields - risky, but drawing power from anything else would hinder helm & tactical control. Once Funk secured the warp core the captain gave an order to the helm (where a minor NPC was handling things) and got them out of there, warp 2.
After the blockage was cleared the protostars pulsed, then exploded into hundreds of energy spheres, each no larger than the Carter. I had timed the CD to be playing pulse pounding music during the operation, and switched it to a 'sense of wonder track' as the energy being touched the Carter's shields, creating a small orb on the bridge that read their translation files and offered the thanks of their species - they could bring themselves to let the others die, even at the risk of their own existence. The session ended with Pelski, still recovering, telling Raven that she had been right and that he owed her a beer. Over dinner Stephen and I mentioned liking this "You were right, I was wrong" moment when Kris said "he never admitted he was wrong." Stephen's response, "Offering to buy a beer, translated to guy speak, means he admitted he was wrong." Kris smiled. She also agreed to the romance subplot, her initial idea is having Pelski be oblivious, but that's something we've done before and I see it as the least interesting option of those available.
There was other stuff in the session that I didn't include above, for the sake of the narrative: Funk trying to find the captain's cabin on the Theresa, getting lost in the wreckage and settling for the chapel, salvaging whatever looked important (being in Star Fleet, he has minimal knowledge of religion) back when they planned to use the ship against the Klingons. Knox's analysis of New Spain's history and culture from their records - how the colony had developed a huge cultural need to leave no one behind, hence the hospital ship on call in case of space based accidents - which Kris told me later she did connect thematically with the protostars being unwilling to sacrifice any of their own in the mating process. Fujita's discussions about the relative technical aptitude of
One consequence of this adventure is that Icarus Incident, my original plot for Season 2, episode 1, is DOA, at least for this season. I carried over a lot of bits into Nursery, and the similarities would be too great. I might be able to fit it, or something that borrows the other bits from it, into season 3. Ah well. Since Nursery was an unqualified success, it would be churlish of me to complain. I left things set up to run Messages from Earth next month - they're being pulled away from New Spain to that plot should play to the sense of Star Fleet reacting to a growing threat.
no subject
I remember being gobsmacked that I'd RP'd a guy that accurately without even realizing it!
Interesting text..
(Anonymous) 2008-05-07 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Interesting text..