USS Carter Ep 12 - Maris Ue - After Action Report

[subplotkudzu]

After Action Report - Maris Ue

Act I: the USS Carter is exploring a nebula that might hold Klingon vessels when its hit with an energy burst that incapacitates Ensign Liefson at the helm. He is replaced by a new crewmember, Lt. Maris Ue, who provides assistance to members of the communications and engineering departments as the Carter gets orders to take over diplomatic talks with the Anuzi - a silicon race with whom Captain Sakhet has dealt with in the past - for their assistance against the Klingons. While en route several members of the crew either fall comatose from various medical problems (or, in Rossad's case, no discernable cause) or begin to show signs of extreme distraction and incompetence.

Another late start this month; everyone had leveled up so we spent the first hour on advancement and bringing Kris up to speed on last game. It mattered less this month because I knew I had a shorter plot. As expected, the players accepted the new officer easily, since we're always filling in the roster - this captured Maris' ability to infiltrate a setting. They did not, however, write off the energy pulse and Bernie's condition as me removing Jay's PCs and continued an investigation on what it was and how it managed to just blow out Bernie's panel. Their ability to key in on how this was a mystery/medical plot rather than the event just being color before setting up the Klingons & diplomatic mission made me feel better about the plot. That the investigation was being done by Dr. Knox and T'Prin made me feel better about how Knox was bound to be sidelined.

This investigation stretched Act I, but that gave me more time to have members of the crew fall under Maris spell and gave Fujita more time to look capable covering for crew that were losing their skills. The other big unexpected moment was T'Prin's first use of the Mind Meld to contact Liefson in his coma. I hadn't seen this coming (unlike other times when I have planned for the Mind Meld and she didn't use it) but it made sense. T'Prin learned that Bernie was re-living his fear of crippling limb loss (due to his well established transplant rejection problem) over and over. Dr. Mark started to put the pieces together, connecting the 'greatest fear' aspect of the comatose victims and the fact that everyone affected had a similar brainwave modification.

Act II: Arriving at the negotiations, Captain Sakhet is isolated while Dr. Knox, Chief Coy Mahn, Lt. Maris and the alien Lt Kurck from the diplomatic mission explore the potentially Terran ruins nearby. Maris argues unsuccessfully with Knox that the ruins are human in origin, but their debate is cut short by a collapse that buries Kurck & Knox. Once Knox is rescued she remains comatose, and Kurck is only saved by Maris quick action as Dr. Mark unaccountably loses faith in herself. Meanwhile, Pelski & Fujita (put in charge of engineering with Fraiser incapacitated) face the depression and distraction of their staff before Fujita also falls victim, having nearly failed in a sensor sweep to detect the incoming Klingons before Maris assisted. Sakhet gets a break from the negotiations to hear what's going on, and the remaining crew manage to identify Maris as the vector. 

Knox almost blocked Maris from coming to the ruins, but that was because she found her irritating, not because she suspected her. Fortunately Maris' interest was enough to win over the captain and my plot was undamaged. The scenes of Maris getting frustrated in her inability to outdo Knox in her specialty, with Coy Mahn rolling her eyes as the "degree waving brain-bots" battled it out, was great. The cave in went flawlessly and Kris immediately mentioned that this was identical to Knox worst previous life experience (I'm glad I told them to re-read their character quizzes, because Kris admitted she had forgotten half this stuff). Coy Mahn & Fujita managed an impressive rescue, and no one questioned Maris traveling along to sick bay.

Once in sick bay I could see comprehension dawning in Asha's eyes just as Dr. Mark got her psyche undercut. When she realized that the now hesitant, insecure Dr. Mark would never trust her realization enough to share it with anyone Asha called me a mean, mean man, and then started plotting how Sakhet would deal with things when this happened to her. I had no problem with that since a) Asha hadn't told anyone else at the table either, and the other players hadn't caught on and b) we had the goal of mirroring an episode, and the Captain always solves these problems in TOS[1], so no harm in giving the her a  up.

Pelski & Raven had a nice scene - no intimacy, but it did move their relationship by Pelski convincing Raven that she was a valued officer despite her current, Maris-induced lack of self worth. There were also some good scenes during this with Fujita taking charge of engineering and catching other people's mistakes, making it believable that he's in line for division head. This was undercut when Maris managed to put the Whammy on Fujita as well, and Karen's portrayal of her distracted engineer was priceless. Maris then announced the Klingons closing, just a few minutes away. 

While this was going on Pelski & Funk had managed to ID Maris as the disease vector, but I'm not sure they had equated her to the energy pulse as yet. When Sakhet got a chance to call back in she - to my surprise - left the planet and beamed directly to the bridge before sending Pelski down to take over in engineering now that Fujita had slipped. As the Klingons approached she pulled the Carter out of orbit.

Act III: Before the crew can isolate Maris the Klingons attack. The Carter is badly wounded. Funk faces an explosive decompression and falls into a coma while T'prin relives the circumstances of the accident that drove her out of Vulcan service - a situation which she recognizes as being artificial due to the extreme odds against it. On the bridge Pelski faces Maris, who claims that he has to help her take command to save the ship or be thrown out of Star Fleet. Simultaneously Sakhet will face Maris on the planet - the lieutenant has just successfully concluded the negotiations that Sakhet has bungled. Recognizing Maris as the psycho-emotional parasite that she is, Sakhet and the remaining crew are able to drive the energy being off by playing on its insecurity, undoing the effect of all of her actions and restoring the crew to health.  

Once they left orbit the Klingon ship attacked, with Maris offering suggestions from engineering. Both the Klingons and Maris were stymied again & again by Sakhet's tactics and Funk's weapons skill. Just as with Dr. Knox, they were too sure of themselves to be undercut. Instead Captain Sakhet sent Coy Mahn to confine Maris to her quarters as the Carter held off the larger Klingon ship in a fun space fight scene.

Falling back on her blunt attack Maris made the Klingons hit the ship, causing a hull breach on the bridge and a coolant leak in engineering (along with a loss of gravity to slow down Coy Mahn). These mirror the personal nightmares of both Funk and T'Prin, but while Funk was knocked into a coma (despite Sakhet managing to raise the emergency force field to keep him from being sucked into space) T'Prin's refused to accept the improbability, calmly completed her task and then located the responsible party. Coy Mahn burst into engineering and the now-cornered Maris reverted back to a ball of energy and fled to the bridge. Pelski noted that the Klingons were holding off - another point of illogic - and Coy Mahn cursed her inability to follow Maris, who was undoubtedly heading for the bridge. T'Prin opened the Jefferies tubes, suggested that Coy Mahn grab hold of her feet and made use of the lack of gravity to drag the security woman at high speed back to the bridge. T'Prin had just picked up Zero-G training at the start of the session, too!

Sakhet had already sealed the bridge and Maris appearance despite that confirmed her suspicions. She ordered Maris off the bridge and, when that was met with inaction, shot her with a pahser. Maris' form wavered for a moment but she didn't fall, so Sakhet unleashed a blistering invective against the 'lieutentant': that Maris was acting like a child with no comprehension of the things it was playing with. Maris claimed that only she was skilled enough to save the crew, and Sakhet countered that Maris was nothing more than a voyeuristic parasite whose delusions of grandeur endangered Sakhets ship[2], and that Maris was entirely lacking in the skills and character required of any Star Fleet officer[3]^. T'Prin and Coy Mahn witnessed the end of this from the Jefferies tube (Vulcan muscles proved capable of snapping the security lock), seeing the energy being collapse first emotionally and then physically as it fled the ship. With wavering of light all of the battle damage vanished; Sakhet helped Funk to his feet as the rest of the crew recovered.

We were 15 minutes from our usual target end time, so we glossed over the dénouement, as usual: the discovery that there was no diplomatic mission, no Anuzi on the planet and the ruins were likely the remains of Maris' civilization. Inside the original nebula they found 3 wrecked Klingon ships, all victims of Maris Ue's appetite for glory. Kris was quite dumbfounded that nothing was real, but everyone admitted that it was perfectly in keeping with the Trek canon. Total elapsed play time was 3 hours, 45 minutes.

I was very happy with the way this played out, especially given how bad such a planned on short notice, railroad heavy adventure could have gone. I think the key to making it work was bringing the players in at the start: I told them it was an experimental session, that there was a good chance of having some PCs sidelined and that the goal was a Trek feel. They bought into it and ran with it. I don't think I'd want to do this with every episode, but I think it was worth the gamble to get a classic episode type played out, even if it is just once.

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[1] As the Trek Inspirational Poster says: of course Captain Kirk has the know-how to do this - that's why he's the goddamn captain!

[2] I was kinda bummed that Asha missed adding "and the 113 lives under my command!" but you can't have it all.

[3] Watching from the door, Rachel commented that Asha can get pretty intimidating. Time as an inner city HS teacher, we expect.

 

Comments

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

So awesome. So very TOS. And a great meta-plot drawn from True Life (or whatever fandom counts as).

[(Anonymous)]

Did anyone comment on her name?

Cambias

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Nope - just as well as their getting the joke in game would have ruined the mystery. After the game when I made it a little clearer they threatened to pelt me with dice.