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subplotkudzu) wrote2008-05-13 06:39 pm
USS Carter Episode 15: Ioan (Betazed for 'Diplomacy') GM Notes
USS Carter Ep 15 - Ioan (Betazed for Diplomacy)
Starring
Asha: Captain Demy Sakhet, captain of the USS carter; Dr. Elissa Mark, chief medical officer.
Stephen: Cmdr J. Roger Funk, first officer and in charge of the tactical station; Lt. T'Prin, Vulcan engineer.
Jason: Ambassador Darius Rossad, Betazed envoy to the Federation; Ensign Bernie Liefson, astrogator.
Kristen: Suyira Knox, PhD, Federation-backed anthro-pologist; Lt. Cmdr Matthias Pelski, science officer.
Karen: Chief Petty officer Xian Coy Mahn, security chief; Lt. Fujita Daiki, sensor engineer & starship designer
GM Notes: This session was a pain to plot before I added Xenocrates into the mix - prior to that it was too "talking heads" to feel like an original show episode. To keep the mood I printed a Trek Motivational Poster (Diplomacy: Words don't always solve problems. Sometimes you just have to punch an alien in the face.) for my GM screen.
Jason will be getting a hand out on Betazed politics before the game, because it will matter. There are 5 stances on the latter of Betazed engagement, and they run in a circle. Start with the Isolationists who want Betazed to sever contact with the non-psis, stop forming new colonies and build up their defenses to prevent them from ever being attacked; they're roughly 4% of the population. About 25% of the race are Expansionist, wanting limited contact with non-psis, to keep an eye on them & absorb their tech to better defend the Betazed sphere of influence. Then the Unionists, who are for Betazed engaging other cultures and teaching them and learning from them in turn - Rossad belongs to this groupas do 25% percent of other Betazeds. Most (45%) of the race are Religionists, who are cautiously for peaceful contact but fear Betazed religion and identity will be deformed by contact with outsiders, just as the need to occupy Terabia to end the war made Betazeds more militant. Finally, 1% of Betazeds are Mystics, who are for religious-based severing of contact with the rest of the universe, allowing the race to turn inward and reach its full spiritual and psychic potential, which will make the race untouchable by its less psi-advanced neighbors. Some Mystics have developed greater powers, including the ability to project to non-psis. The Isolationists and Mystics have the same desire for severing contact with others, but very different means and motivations.
Synopsis: On Star Fleet orders the Carter opens talks with to enlist Betazed help against the Klingons. Negotiations start poorly with a Betazed claim that Star Fleet just obliterated a Betazed colony! Sakhet must prove Federation innocence and prevent the Terabian terrorist Xenocrates from dragging Star Fleet into his war against the Betazed, and stop the Betazed from withdrawing from Federation contact.
Following a captain's log discussing the ongoing repairs to the Carter and the joining up with the Linneas (a science cruiser focussed on biological survey) and the Adlai Stevenson (Darius' old Diplomatic Corvette) en route to spot in neutral space being used for the negotiations, the Hook comes with the arrival of Fleet Commodore Jemma Stadi in the Vigilence, claiming that she is under orders to reclaim the Betazed ambassador before the Matriarch openly declares war on the Federation! This is likely not the reception the Carter expected! Also on board is Vulcan Military Intelligence officer Sulon, to aid in the configuring of the Carter to act as a Flagship.
Plot Turn 1 is the arrival of the Batazed ship Peacekeeper, carrying three other diplomats (including Cydippe Chryseis, last seen in Yethma, a man who looks like a marshmallow but is more cunning; Talloc Hagen, captain of the Peacekeeper, he's an ex-cleric & isolationist; and Azuma Elbrun, she's a spy, diplomat & pro-Federation). Things aren't as bad as Jemma claims, but the Matriarch is deeply upset but the reports of one of their new colony worlds being wiped out by a Federation vessel. They can provide a visual of that, as well as the location of the system. Information gathering will show the ship to be the USS Han, a Manchu Class Light Cruiser destroyed by Orion pirates a decade ago. Chrysies is under orders to continue negotiations for 24 hours; the Carter has that long to prove the Federation innocent or the Matriarch will recall her ambassador as part of severing formal.
The destroyed world is too far away to reach by shuttle, but the Captain Kingsolver of the Linneas offers to take on Carter crew to lead the investigation. The most likely candidates for the trip are Lt. Cmdr Pelski, Lt. Raven and Lt. T'Prin - freeing T'Prin from Sulon's presence and letting us play more with the Pelski/Raven romance.
The contentious first round of negotiations takes the part of Pinch 1 with the paranoid Betazed looking for reasons to take offense. If the Carter tries to delay the negotiations until they can prove their innocence, Hagan fight them and Jemma will back them. There will be problems if the Federation doesn't apply Betazed formality (i.e., nudity) to the meeting, if the meeting does not open with a prayer, etc., from not just Hagan, but Jemma (solely to darken Darius' record). Once they start Azuma will demand answers to a litany of complaints against Terabian "Federation Colonists", much to the tooth gnashing irritation of Captain Hagan. The players might be confused here as the Good Cops & Bad Cops just switched.
Actually Hagan is an Isolationist who and sees this as chance to advance that agenda. He firmly believes the psi-hating Terabians are typical humans and that the Federation is responsible for the colony massacre.
Azuma is a Unionist and has grown to appreciate the Federation as she spied on it. She is purposefully delaying because in Betazed law the talks last of 24 hours once the negotiations start. The longer she can delay the introduction of the primary topic (a Betazed alliance against the Klingons), the more time the Carter has to disprove the charges.
Chrysies the Religionist is ever in the middle ground, and will appear ineffectual as he lets his race's politics play out before taking a role. He doesn't trust the Federation fully, but he seen what they've done on Terabia and he trusts Darius.
For the record, Jemma is an Expansionist who wants to join in the attack in the nebula to see exactly what the Federation is capable of. However, she is aligned with Hagan in not wanting a permanent Federation alliance. If properly wooed, she's a perfect short term ally.
This might look a little confusing, but with both Darius and Sakhet's diplomacy and law skills here, and that the first pinch should play out in 15 minutes real time, I hope the players end their first 8 hours of "negotiations" with a good idea of at least some of the agendas.
The Midpoint will be split between the Linneas team on Fidelity IV and the crew of the Cater on a break. The Linneas team will discover that something stripped the colony area clean of organic life down through the first meter of soil, and that the energy residue matches the energy found in the crystalline artifacts in the Constancy system and Nebula. In addition, careful hacking of the surviving Betazed satellite will reveal images of the Han, including modifications and repairs made by Orion shipbuilders, with a crystal artifact attached.
The Carter team will be able to compare notes. Hacking of the database will show that the Han might not have been destroyed, but its loss was covered up by Intelligence. If they give Sulan grief about this, he will pointedly ask about the true demise of Francis Saleha's vessel the Aristophenes (Sakhet covered up Francis' culpability in the Lysestrata plague to protect her lover, Francis' brother). Rossad might also learn that Hagan was once a radical cleric.
In addition, Sulan will run his own display on the screens, showing a high probability that Azuma, whom the PCs will have just tagged as their ally in the negotiations, spent the last year traveling Federation space as a spy, including time in the Rigel system, a know hotbed of Orion activity. Now what?
Pinch 2 comes after the next round of talks. Sakhet, armed with the information sent by the Linneas, will have a good chance to refute the charge that the Federation was responsible for the Fidelity IV massacre - at least to Chrysies satisfaction. That out of the way, they can make progress on the talks of a military alliance against the Klingons. Just after they exit, Darius becomes the target of an assassin. The corridor on the Adlai Stevenson will black out, but when the lights come back on there will be no sign of the killer - any stunning or grappling will have netted engineering crewman M'Batu, who has no reason to want Rossad dead, and was up working on a loose power coupling. This will shake up the negotiations all over again, with Hagan now claiming that the evidence Sakhet presented must be a cover up.
That brings us to Plot Turn 2, where the Linneas returns, followed promptly by the USS Han, dropping in out of the interphase (he's not cloaked, he's in the Tholians parallel dimension). Xenocrates Orion science officer tracked Linneas' transmission. We have a stand off just long enough for Xenocrates to make a rant about how he admires humanity, but feels that they are underestimating the Betazed threat, and he needs to act here to start the necessary cleansing of space. He'll also mention how he got this ship, crew and tech from Bardek's ally, Captain Dathio (from Sargasso), as long as Xenocrates promised to destroy that pup, Captain Liefson!
The Han has seriously boosted its shields at the cost of having no weapons, relaying on the organic destroying crystal artifact strapped to its hull. The combined ships will likely defeat it, but the Linneas will take a hit. When destroyed, the Han will collapse into a fold in space, leaving no wreckage.
That being done, the players probably think this is over - while Hagan is still talking about a conspiracy, the Linneas taking a hit to protect the Vigilance, Star Fleet's destruction of the renegade Han, and the clear threat posed by Bardek and the Klingons, make the rest of the negotiations a no-brainer. There is, however, still the person who tried to kill Darius. That person was Captain Hagan, whose time as a Mystic taught him project thoughts and actions to non-psis. I'm hopeful that the Resolution can be maneuvered to being a stand off between the Captain and Hagan (I might substitute Funk for the Captain) - Hagan having mind controlled the Star Fleet officer into beaming over to the Peacekeeper to kill him. 'There's just no other way to protect my people," he states as he prepares to martyr himself. Whomever I pick will have to overcome the mind control; the best way to do this is to subvert the control punch Hagan in the face - it's true to the spirit of the command, and will stun the telepath enough to break the control. Insert a quick bare knuckled brawl!
The players might well figure this out in advance, and Coy Mahn & Darius could be shadowing the puppet to trump the situation, which would make them look really clever. Darius will have had clues about Hagan's mind control abilities (his background in the clergy, his political stance, the fact that it was M'Batu's body who attacked him) that make the mystery a fair one rather than a set of railroad tracks.
In the midst of this there are some sub plots going on. First, the ongoing relationship (or not) between Raven and Pelski. The two will be working together on the Linneas, and she will finally decide to make a move, which he will likely rebuff due to his strong adherence to Star Fleet protocol. The Linneas will lose one of its biologists in the Han attack, and Raven will request a transfer to the other ship. Once she's no longer under Pelski's command, she makes her case again.
Second, Commander Sulan will be in engineering, giving Lt. Fujita a chance to be all officer-like. This will include Sulan talking down to T'Prin and at least one instance of Lt. Selzo losing his temper with the "arrogant, copper-blooded despot" for Fujita to step in on. One big admission from Selzo that will come up if Fujita questions him is that his main mark against T'Prin isn't so much that she's a Vulcan, but that she's not Star Fleet. She's one hell of a lot better than this Sulan character!
There was another potential subplot - by the dice Dr. Knox had become addicted to her Deltan paramour last session. Kris and I discussed this and decided that it didn't fit the feel of the series or her conception of the character, so we left it hanging. It will either be ignored in perpetuity or saved for a very special flashback episode. We were both much happier with this outcome - everyone acknowledges that the Deltan's powers can be a problem, but this was clearly a case of telling rather than breaking game stride to show it.
Astute readers will recognize Xenocrates' weapon as being related to the Crystalline Entity from TNG. They might also see parallels between Hagan's final actions and the events in the TNG episode First Contact. This is not intentional, but I do recognize that it's there. There is nothing new under the sun, after all, even in space.
USS Carter Ep 15 - Ioan (Betazed for Diplomacy)
Starring
Asha: Captain Demy Sakhet, captain of the USS carter; Dr. Elissa Mark, chief medical officer.
Stephen: Cmdr J. Roger Funk, first officer and in charge of the tactical station; Lt. T'Prin, Vulcan engineer.
Jason: Ambassador Darius Rossad, Betazed envoy to the Federation; Ensign Bernie Liefson, astrogator.
Kristen: Suyira Knox, PhD, Federation-backed anthro-pologist; Lt. Cmdr Matthias Pelski, science officer.
Karen: Chief Petty officer Xian Coy Mahn, security chief; Lt. Fujita Daiki, sensor engineer & starship designer
GM Notes: This session was a pain to plot before I added Xenocrates into the mix - prior to that it was too "talking heads" to feel like an original show episode. To keep the mood I printed a Trek Motivational Poster (Diplomacy: Words don't always solve problems. Sometimes you just have to punch an alien in the face.) for my GM screen.
Jason will be getting a hand out on Betazed politics before the game, because it will matter. There are 5 stances on the latter of Betazed engagement, and they run in a circle. Start with the Isolationists who want Betazed to sever contact with the non-psis, stop forming new colonies and build up their defenses to prevent them from ever being attacked; they're roughly 4% of the population. About 25% of the race are Expansionist, wanting limited contact with non-psis, to keep an eye on them & absorb their tech to better defend the Betazed sphere of influence. Then the Unionists, who are for Betazed engaging other cultures and teaching them and learning from them in turn - Rossad belongs to this groupas do 25% percent of other Betazeds. Most (45%) of the race are Religionists, who are cautiously for peaceful contact but fear Betazed religion and identity will be deformed by contact with outsiders, just as the need to occupy Terabia to end the war made Betazeds more militant. Finally, 1% of Betazeds are Mystics, who are for religious-based severing of contact with the rest of the universe, allowing the race to turn inward and reach its full spiritual and psychic potential, which will make the race untouchable by its less psi-advanced neighbors. Some Mystics have developed greater powers, including the ability to project to non-psis. The Isolationists and Mystics have the same desire for severing contact with others, but very different means and motivations.
Synopsis: On Star Fleet orders the Carter opens talks with to enlist Betazed help against the Klingons. Negotiations start poorly with a Betazed claim that Star Fleet just obliterated a Betazed colony! Sakhet must prove Federation innocence and prevent the Terabian terrorist Xenocrates from dragging Star Fleet into his war against the Betazed, and stop the Betazed from withdrawing from Federation contact.
Following a captain's log discussing the ongoing repairs to the Carter and the joining up with the Linneas (a science cruiser focussed on biological survey) and the Adlai Stevenson (Darius' old Diplomatic Corvette) en route to spot in neutral space being used for the negotiations, the Hook comes with the arrival of Fleet Commodore Jemma Stadi in the Vigilence, claiming that she is under orders to reclaim the Betazed ambassador before the Matriarch openly declares war on the Federation! This is likely not the reception the Carter expected! Also on board is Vulcan Military Intelligence officer Sulon, to aid in the configuring of the Carter to act as a Flagship.
Plot Turn 1 is the arrival of the Batazed ship Peacekeeper, carrying three other diplomats (including Cydippe Chryseis, last seen in Yethma, a man who looks like a marshmallow but is more cunning; Talloc Hagen, captain of the Peacekeeper, he's an ex-cleric & isolationist; and Azuma Elbrun, she's a spy, diplomat & pro-Federation). Things aren't as bad as Jemma claims, but the Matriarch is deeply upset but the reports of one of their new colony worlds being wiped out by a Federation vessel. They can provide a visual of that, as well as the location of the system. Information gathering will show the ship to be the USS Han, a Manchu Class Light Cruiser destroyed by Orion pirates a decade ago. Chrysies is under orders to continue negotiations for 24 hours; the Carter has that long to prove the Federation innocent or the Matriarch will recall her ambassador as part of severing formal.
The destroyed world is too far away to reach by shuttle, but the Captain Kingsolver of the Linneas offers to take on Carter crew to lead the investigation. The most likely candidates for the trip are Lt. Cmdr Pelski, Lt. Raven and Lt. T'Prin - freeing T'Prin from Sulon's presence and letting us play more with the Pelski/Raven romance.
The contentious first round of negotiations takes the part of Pinch 1 with the paranoid Betazed looking for reasons to take offense. If the Carter tries to delay the negotiations until they can prove their innocence, Hagan fight them and Jemma will back them. There will be problems if the Federation doesn't apply Betazed formality (i.e., nudity) to the meeting, if the meeting does not open with a prayer, etc., from not just Hagan, but Jemma (solely to darken Darius' record). Once they start Azuma will demand answers to a litany of complaints against Terabian "Federation Colonists", much to the tooth gnashing irritation of Captain Hagan. The players might be confused here as the Good Cops & Bad Cops just switched.
Actually Hagan is an Isolationist who and sees this as chance to advance that agenda. He firmly believes the psi-hating Terabians are typical humans and that the Federation is responsible for the colony massacre.
Azuma is a Unionist and has grown to appreciate the Federation as she spied on it. She is purposefully delaying because in Betazed law the talks last of 24 hours once the negotiations start. The longer she can delay the introduction of the primary topic (a Betazed alliance against the Klingons), the more time the Carter has to disprove the charges.
Chrysies the Religionist is ever in the middle ground, and will appear ineffectual as he lets his race's politics play out before taking a role. He doesn't trust the Federation fully, but he seen what they've done on Terabia and he trusts Darius.
For the record, Jemma is an Expansionist who wants to join in the attack in the nebula to see exactly what the Federation is capable of. However, she is aligned with Hagan in not wanting a permanent Federation alliance. If properly wooed, she's a perfect short term ally.
This might look a little confusing, but with both Darius and Sakhet's diplomacy and law skills here, and that the first pinch should play out in 15 minutes real time, I hope the players end their first 8 hours of "negotiations" with a good idea of at least some of the agendas.
The Midpoint will be split between the Linneas team on Fidelity IV and the crew of the Cater on a break. The Linneas team will discover that something stripped the colony area clean of organic life down through the first meter of soil, and that the energy residue matches the energy found in the crystalline artifacts in the Constancy system and Nebula. In addition, careful hacking of the surviving Betazed satellite will reveal images of the Han, including modifications and repairs made by Orion shipbuilders, with a crystal artifact attached.
The Carter team will be able to compare notes. Hacking of the database will show that the Han might not have been destroyed, but its loss was covered up by Intelligence. If they give Sulan grief about this, he will pointedly ask about the true demise of Francis Saleha's vessel the Aristophenes (Sakhet covered up Francis' culpability in the Lysestrata plague to protect her lover, Francis' brother). Rossad might also learn that Hagan was once a radical cleric.
In addition, Sulan will run his own display on the screens, showing a high probability that Azuma, whom the PCs will have just tagged as their ally in the negotiations, spent the last year traveling Federation space as a spy, including time in the Rigel system, a know hotbed of Orion activity. Now what?
Pinch 2 comes after the next round of talks. Sakhet, armed with the information sent by the Linneas, will have a good chance to refute the charge that the Federation was responsible for the Fidelity IV massacre - at least to Chrysies satisfaction. That out of the way, they can make progress on the talks of a military alliance against the Klingons. Just after they exit, Darius becomes the target of an assassin. The corridor on the Adlai Stevenson will black out, but when the lights come back on there will be no sign of the killer - any stunning or grappling will have netted engineering crewman M'Batu, who has no reason to want Rossad dead, and was up working on a loose power coupling. This will shake up the negotiations all over again, with Hagan now claiming that the evidence Sakhet presented must be a cover up.
That brings us to Plot Turn 2, where the Linneas returns, followed promptly by the USS Han, dropping in out of the interphase (he's not cloaked, he's in the Tholians parallel dimension). Xenocrates Orion science officer tracked Linneas' transmission. We have a stand off just long enough for Xenocrates to make a rant about how he admires humanity, but feels that they are underestimating the Betazed threat, and he needs to act here to start the necessary cleansing of space. He'll also mention how he got this ship, crew and tech from Bardek's ally, Captain Dathio (from Sargasso), as long as Xenocrates promised to destroy that pup, Captain Liefson!
The Han has seriously boosted its shields at the cost of having no weapons, relaying on the organic destroying crystal artifact strapped to its hull. The combined ships will likely defeat it, but the Linneas will take a hit. When destroyed, the Han will collapse into a fold in space, leaving no wreckage.
That being done, the players probably think this is over - while Hagan is still talking about a conspiracy, the Linneas taking a hit to protect the Vigilance, Star Fleet's destruction of the renegade Han, and the clear threat posed by Bardek and the Klingons, make the rest of the negotiations a no-brainer. There is, however, still the person who tried to kill Darius. That person was Captain Hagan, whose time as a Mystic taught him project thoughts and actions to non-psis. I'm hopeful that the Resolution can be maneuvered to being a stand off between the Captain and Hagan (I might substitute Funk for the Captain) - Hagan having mind controlled the Star Fleet officer into beaming over to the Peacekeeper to kill him. 'There's just no other way to protect my people," he states as he prepares to martyr himself. Whomever I pick will have to overcome the mind control; the best way to do this is to subvert the control punch Hagan in the face - it's true to the spirit of the command, and will stun the telepath enough to break the control. Insert a quick bare knuckled brawl!
The players might well figure this out in advance, and Coy Mahn & Darius could be shadowing the puppet to trump the situation, which would make them look really clever. Darius will have had clues about Hagan's mind control abilities (his background in the clergy, his political stance, the fact that it was M'Batu's body who attacked him) that make the mystery a fair one rather than a set of railroad tracks.
In the midst of this there are some sub plots going on. First, the ongoing relationship (or not) between Raven and Pelski. The two will be working together on the Linneas, and she will finally decide to make a move, which he will likely rebuff due to his strong adherence to Star Fleet protocol. The Linneas will lose one of its biologists in the Han attack, and Raven will request a transfer to the other ship. Once she's no longer under Pelski's command, she makes her case again.
Second, Commander Sulan will be in engineering, giving Lt. Fujita a chance to be all officer-like. This will include Sulan talking down to T'Prin and at least one instance of Lt. Selzo losing his temper with the "arrogant, copper-blooded despot" for Fujita to step in on. One big admission from Selzo that will come up if Fujita questions him is that his main mark against T'Prin isn't so much that she's a Vulcan, but that she's not Star Fleet. She's one hell of a lot better than this Sulan character!
There was another potential subplot - by the dice Dr. Knox had become addicted to her Deltan paramour last session. Kris and I discussed this and decided that it didn't fit the feel of the series or her conception of the character, so we left it hanging. It will either be ignored in perpetuity or saved for a very special flashback episode. We were both much happier with this outcome - everyone acknowledges that the Deltan's powers can be a problem, but this was clearly a case of telling rather than breaking game stride to show it.
Astute readers will recognize Xenocrates' weapon as being related to the Crystalline Entity from TNG. They might also see parallels between Hagan's final actions and the events in the TNG episode First Contact. This is not intentional, but I do recognize that it's there. There is nothing new under the sun, after all, even in space.