Game Idea 10-19-2005
A professor Bergholm builds an experimental drive that out performs everything. It's stupidly speedy.
Starfleet is very happy - this will change everything.
The PCs are assigned as special security and science support for a test mission
As the ship begins to move (it's barely peddaling but the PCs ship is straining to keep up) Explosions light up space and threaten to destroy the experimental ship -
It's Bergholme field is disrupted - and the experimental ship goes sublight -
The bombardment becomes random and tapers off just as it seems that the ship will be destroyed.
Serious investigation shows odd subspace emmanations connected with the explosions - but no source - no cloaked ships, no hidden saboteurs
After a day of repair and investigation they start the Experimental ship back up - once again it makes impressive speed without even trying -
And a few moments afterwards the bombardment starts again this time with better targeting - once again the experimental ship is forced back to sublight with damage.
- the odd Subspace signals accompany the explosions
- after a time, the PCs or other scientists may reveal that the subspace emmanations are from a deep layer of space, not known or detected until now.
The punch line is this - the Bergholme drive creates a massive energy pulse into this odd subspace layer - it takes the consequences of rapid travel and dumps them into an out-of the way dimension.
The energy pulse was immense - it exterminates all life on several worlds in this other level of reality - it has done terrible damage to peoples neary-by
The Residents of this dimension have now tracked down the source of the disaster and are trying to put a stop to it with the equivalent of multi-dimensional depth charges
The victory conditions - for the PCs to realize this from clues included in the scene and as revealed by their own investigation and put a stop to it, either by contacting the natives of the other dimension and negotiating a peace - (May be difficult at this point, but the preferred resolution or by alerting Starfleet to the problem and ending all experimentation with the new drive
Professor Bergholme will be the most difficult to convince of this - or course - and it may be necessary for him to meet his demise at the hands of the Aliens as he tries once again to prove his drive.
A failure means trouble - the Aliens will eventually track down that the attack was launched by sentients in another dimension. The Federation would see probes appeared at random, then by organized design, seemingly out of nowhere - in space and on planetary surfaces
And then they'd find bombs and heavy warships materializing out of nowhere and launching a massive attack on the Federation.
That would be a bad thing. The PCs must avoid it.
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this material for me.