By
Shuttlecraft Epsilon 2
|
By |
|
-----
Summary
The PCs must discover the secret orion Plot
Main conflict
Get out with skins intact
Side conflicts?
Convince the lost Earth colony that their benefactor isn't
Characters
Michael Loving, Mayor of Elohim Colony - face man for the council of
reverends, an excellent liar and salesman
Sarah Cooper, Chief of Security of Elohim Colony. Believes with all her heart that Aliens and Space Men are bad, bad news - Will not voluntarily give them an even break. Her security staff is competent and tough.
The Council of Reverends - Old fundie preachers who, in fact, run the Colony. All about snotty attitudes and control - they are not stupid or they'd have been killed by the bitter and evil in-fighting to get to the council.
Sam Brown - A terran Business man who has seen the light and brings the people of Elohim Colony new technology, and gives rides to Missionaries back to Earth
Locations
System NGC 4578590, an Asteroid belt around a red dwarf.
Elohim Colony - a City carved out of a mountain sized Asteroid, maintained by a totalitarian society.
MacGuffins?
The Colony was founded by a mid 22nd century group that's an amalgam of Cultish
religion, and racism, human supremacy. They don't like non-humans much
Story beats
Leaving Starbase 5 after previous adventure - everyone is rested and tanned
and repaired.
The captain calls in the PCs - interrogation of the Orion prisoners revealed several things. An incipient attack, which the Asimov must be in place to foil, and something weird involving Mister Brown and an Elohim colony - but the name and location of the Colony are unknown.
The PCs and their shuttle will be dropped off in the system to investigate and picked up two to three weeks later by the USS Asimov.
The PCs encounter and meet Elohim Colony, devout believers and human supremacists, they are curious for outside news, word of Earth and generally confirmation of their beliefs
The PCs discover that Elohim colony isn't as isolated as all that - the Colonists have some advanced technology, toys basically - of Orion design.
Mister Brown, supposedly an Earth businessman who has seen the truth of the belifs of Elohim colony is actually a disguised Orion, lying and manipulating the humans of elohim colony to his own advantage. The Missionaries he has taken back to Earth were actually sold off as slaves.
Upon seeing the PCs, Mister Brown knows that the Jig is up.
But the people of Elohim colony point guns at everyone - they have ideas of their own - which include torturing the truth out of everyone and cuttting off all knowledge of their location from the "corrupt galaxy"
The PCs must escape.
Time Line
The first few days, the PCs are welcomed cooly, but politely and questioned extensively.
When Brown shows up, there is about half a day of tension and fencing while Brown seeks a graceful way to get out of Dodge.
Then the capturing of the people, being held and "Interrogated"
-----
Escape routes
The PC's shuttle is guarded and possibly damaged by Elohim people seeking knowledge
Brown's Orion Scout is also similarly guarded and interfered with. heavy damage may result from Browns boby traps.
The Elohim colony has 22nd century shuttles used to explore and mine the asteroid belt - they won't be as heavily guarded (unless the Elohim have any reason to suspect the PCs have designs on them, the Elohim NEED those shuttles!) If one can be stolen and flown away from pursuit then the PCs can hide in the asteroid belt and wait for the USS Asimov
If the PCs can get into their own shuttle or the Orion Scout scout they can send a distress call and the Asimov will return directly.
The Elohim are armed with plasma guns and tactical nuclear warheads on advanced real space missiles. Dangerous at close range but if intact the Orion scout or the Shuttlecraft can easily outrun the Elohim shuttles and missiles.
----
It is entirely possible that the PCs may well talk the Council of Reverends out of their plan to torture and execute the space men, given the right approach and role playing by the players.
----
In modern times we have fundamentalist christians - who on the extreme ends of their beliefs, shade into white supremacy - this is a extreme fringe of the belief system.
By the late 21st century in Jay Trek religion has become discredited as a public issue. There are devout believers but they keep it private.
The public fundamentalists have been distilled to a lunatic fringe of extremists
After first contact, fear of Aliens alters white supremacist movements into Human supremacists. Still a very small fringe
In the mid 22nd century the last remnenants of this extreme religious/prejudice cult fled Earth, which they felt was becoming corrupted by contact with Aliens.
They set up an asteroidal city in an obscure solar system and proceeded to create their perfect society. Their belief is that Earth will suffer and collapse under alien domination - following which the Elohim colony will reveal itself and lead humanity to victory to over evil Aliens.
The Federation and its success is an unpleasant and unexpected surprise to the leaders of Elohim colony.
Joe Average in the Elohim community believes that Aliens are inherently evil, because thats what he was always taught, but doesn't especially care what's going on outside of his daily life, and curiousity may well over whelm old childhood stories. So the average Elohim will stare at Aliens and Strangers, not go out of his way to talk to them and gawk. But once the ice is broken, he may well be filled with questions.
But the Leaders of Elohim supsect that the Federation is a lie, a scam cooked up by Aliens to sucker them. And if its the truth, that's even WORSE.
Sam Brown, an Orion man, spied on the Elohim enough to get a general idea of how things went there. His goal is to corrupt the colony from within and eventually turn it into another hidden orion freeport. To this end he disguised himslf as a human and is spinning stories of an Earth dominated by Aliens where humans have to struggle to get by. He is basically feeding their prejudices in order to get inside on them and back stab them.
But when the Starfleet crew appears, the council of Reverends will turn the tables on him.
-----
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this material for me.
|
|