SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to Stories with Dice. This is Star Trek Magellan, a Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Actual Play Podcast. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others to discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated, share your thoughts, and enjoy the conversation. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode. It is the early 22nd century, four years after the founding of the United Federation of Planets, five years since the end of the Earth Romulan War. Starfleet has renewed their mission of peaceful exploration. But something has gone terribly wrong at Cradle Station, a research outpost on the edge of Federation Space. The crew is dead, its lead scientist missing. The USS Magellan's mission? Unravel the mystery of Cradle Station and boldly go where no one has gone before. We open on the USS Magellan, a Columbia class Starfleet vessel in standard orbit around Iridonis, a desolate, frozen world where the researchers of Cradle Station had spent the last two years. The camera shifts, diving through the atmosphere, past the roiling clouds of an encroaching storm, down to the planet's surface. Here the icy wasteland stretches in all directions, and nestled among the snowdrifts and ice-sworn ridges stands Cradle Station, a solitary research outpost, its perimeter lights barely cutting through the swirling snow. The camera holds on the station for a beat. Silent, lifeless. Then, the distinctive whine of a transporter, a shimmer of blue-white energy. Figures coalesce in the midst of the storm, their forms flickering into existence as the landing party, clad in cold weather gear, materializes just outside the station's main hatch. Their breath curls in the frigid air. The wind howls. They already know what they'll find inside. The dead don't talk. But somewhere in that frozen silence the truth of Cradle Station may yet be waiting. But first let's meet the crew of the USS Magellan. Ed, my friend, my my co-host.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Who are you who are you who are you playing today? So I'll be playing Chief Medical Officer Scott Travis. He is relatively I think it's his first assignment to a starship vessel, so he's, I guess, very uh keen to uh to stretch his muscles and I guess in this case, his medical uh knowledge to help the ship. And your familiarity with Star Trek is what? Is probably just slightly above casual. I've seen DS9, uh watching Strange New Worlds, and I've seen various films and some of the episodes smattered through the other the other, I guess, the other TV shows. So probably give me a sort of 60% uh knowledge of Star Trek.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Tony, the sexy endorian. Hello everyone.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Tell us who you're playing today. So we'll be playing the Captain Carl Tassarath from you know from USS Mageland. I'm a veteran of the Romulan war and already tussled with Romulans before during the war, and you know, perhaps we'll learn more about what happened to me during the war. And then I basically joined the Starfleet Academy and you know I was recruited to try to help, you know, the new recruits, the new promotion. And I was assigned US Magdalene shortly after. You know, I think this might be perhaps our first mission. I'm not so sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yeah, probably, probably. And your your familiarity with Star Trek was I would say it's like Ed. Like, okay, yep. Yeah. And your first experience was what? Wrath of Khan, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, probably the old movies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

The old, old movies, yeah. Can't go wrong with those. Douglas, Douglas, tell us who you're playing today.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

I am playing Chief Engineer Steven Rhodes, who is a human from Luna, as an moon. Before he joined Starflight, he had a long career as a miner in like outposts and that sort of thing. So being in the sort of like rigid sort of military structural that is relatively new to him only in the last like five-ish years.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Okay. Cool. And you're I already know your familiarity. We've played Star Trek Adventures numerous times before. So you're I mean, you've seen like every film and just about every series, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yes, the word excessive might be correct. I also on my desk have a copy of The Final Reflection by John Man Ford, which if you know what that is, you know what that is.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

I do know what that is. I do know what that is. That's an excellent.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

That sort of gives you the level.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

And we have Carmelo. He's actually my brother, and we haven't I don't think we we haven't played a role-play game together since probably we were thirteen. Leopard right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Yeah. So uh tell us who you're playing today. I am the Chief Science Officer, Lieutenant Commander Lev Maris, a another veteran of the Earth Romulan War, probably dealing with a little bit of trauma and PTSD as a result. So interesting to see how he reacts on this particular mission. And he has ESP, does he not? He is an ESP.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Yes, he has a bit of ESP. But a Gary Mitchell, and that's another deep cut. And so I already know Carmelo's familiarity with Star Trek since we've been watching Star Trek since the original series when we were kids. That's how old we are. Okay, so let's get right back into it. You step through the round hatch, boots clanking against the metal deck as you leave the biting cold behind. A gust of frigid air swirls past before the hatch seals shut with a pressurized hiss, the sound sharp in the station's eerie stillness. The walls are slick with condensation, and the stark red glow of emergency lights casts long shadows that flicker across the bulkheads. The readings from your hand scanners confirm the initial sensor data the Magellan took from orbit. There are no life signs, and the station is running on emergency backup power. The resupply ship's report had said that they found the scientists frozen to death beyond the station's rear hatch. No signs of struggle, no explanation. At your briefing at Starbase 12, you were told little about the station's research, only that they were searching for the origins of life in the galaxy. The deck plans of Cradle Station are available on your hand scanners so you can view the layout of the outpost. And I'm saying hand scanners, they're tricorders, but this is the 22nd century and it's unclear if tricorders if that nomenclature is being used yet, but tricorders, hand scanners, they do the same thing. So what would you like to do? Is the power on? Power is on, yes. It's on uh the emergency backup power is on. Okay, so main power is not on as the main lights.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

It's like a little tiny.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yes, correct. So I'm uh as I'm walking through the entrance, I will look at our chief medical officer and I will say, Travis, can you please give me a scan of the facilities? Do we see any life science?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

I'll do my best. I have got a medical scanner, which is probably better for uh close up stuff. I look towards the chief science officer and say, he's probably the better person, Captain.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Mary's, can you give me a scan?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Insight or reason, and then science would be the attribute in department you would want to click? Insight and reason, yep.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Okay, roll dice.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

What I neglected to mention was that that was a difficulty zero task, so you've just given the group two momentum. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Could you do us a favor and just quickly explain that pretty system basic rule project in case anyone's listening? Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

I appreciate you keeping me honest, Ed. So you will always roll at least two dice, two 20-sided dice. You will add your the attribute and the department that you decide that you're using for the action. In this case, Carmelo used insight, I think, or reason and science. So then you add those two attributes together, and that becomes your target number that you have to hit that number or below to succeed. And then you would have a difficulty, which is how many successes do you need? So he rolled two successes. The difficulty was zero, so those successes turn into momentum that he can use to to to do certain things, or you guys can use as a as a group. Cool.

unknown 9:21

Thank you. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

No problem. So Mr. Maris, your your tricorder registers no life signs, just as the initial scan from the Magellan indicated when you were in orbit.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Captain, these scanners show no life forms as indicated by the uh observation from the from the ship above. Nothing at all.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

No life signs whatsoever. Mr. Rhodes, what about power situation in the facility?

SPEAKER_04 9:47

What can you Well, the emergency lights are on, so the batteries are probably working. Can't really say more until I've gone to the actual generators and had a look. Did the resupply ship mention anything when they went in here, or did they just come in, see the dead bodies and leave?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

They yeah, once they there, they didn't they didn't stick around very long. Once they saw the dead bodies, they they left.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

Tell you what, Captain, it's a I've got my map here where the generators are. So I'll just head on down there and see if we can get them started rather than us freezing our asses down here.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Please take Mr. Travis with you. I will stay here. I wanna inspect the chief scientist office with Mr. Maris.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Captain, did you want me to uh go look at the bodies or did you still want me to carry on with the engineer?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Go to the engineer for the moment. I wanna get full power on the station and to understand what are the locks that scientists are not going anywhere. Sure. So we'll ask, you know, Marys if if you will. Can you tell me if there is anything of use for us here?

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Yeah, so you enter the chief scientist's office and their chairs are overturned, there's broken data pads on the floor, star charts and notes have been torn down from the walls and scattered across the floor. The computer terminal on the desk is still active, the screen has been cracked and it's flickering with a a fragment of a log, and it says, found something beneath the ice, something extraordinary. Now, if you guys want to search through all of the the notes and to try to get some more information out of the log, that would be insight into science. And the difficulty is one. Antoni, you can assist in the task that Carmelo is doing, and in that case you would roll only one D20 as the as the person assisting.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Do I need to click somewhere or just click on the rolling d20?

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Click on your character sheet, choose the attribute and the department that you uh want to use. Science would be science or security. You could use security. That would that would work as well because you're searching, you're looking for information. Yep. And reason, I guess. Yeah, reason is a good one. Click on perform task.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

And then use info.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Yeah. And then on the on on the bottom where it says number of dice and pool, just move that slider to say one.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

So I got a tour, which is no successes.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Successes for you. Carmelo, the redhead.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Okay. So reason and science then.

unknown 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Also, you do you have two momentum at the moment you can use the buy dice.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Carmelo is on a roll. He hasn't played at RPG since we were kids, and he's coming up aces. Alright, three successes. You needed two, so that generates one momentum. So, Carmelo, you've you were you're able to reconstruct a fragment of of the lead scientist log. You're also and you also learn that his name is Dr. Michael Corby. And the log says that the outpost personnel are beginning to act strangely. There are signs of paranoia and erratic behavior. I cannot ignore the possibility that the Proto-Mentis is influencing them in some way. Now, if you want to spend a point of momentum, I can you can ask me a question and I will answer it as truthfully as I am able.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

I think it might be important to know what the Proto-Mentis is. So I think I'll ask you that question. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

So you find a reference that the Proto Mentis was a fragment of DNA that they found when they were drilling the ice, and that they they called it the Proto-Mentis, proto meaning first, mentis meaning mind or intelligence. It was their theory that this microorganism was the first intelligence in the in the galaxy.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

And that there might be more information in the genomics lab, which is where they were studying the DNA, sequencing it.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Maybe a place we want to look into. Indeed, Mr. Maris. I will send a message to Travis Haran Rhodes. This exert caution. It seems like there was kind of well, I wouldn't say a pathogen, but kind of an element that's perhaps was affecting the minds of the people on Cradle Station. So be careful with what you manipulate. Please report when you get the powered up and running.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

As soon as the captain says that there was a pathogen, I'll start scanning stuff with my uh with my actual medical scanner. Okay, go ahead and give me a roll, Ed. I guess I'm gonna do this with insight and medicine. Sounds good. With insight, I have a trait that says I have untapped potential, which allows me to if I succeed at a task for which you brought one or more additional dice by any means. I guess I I'm not I I'm not gonna buy anything, I suppose, because it's not probably not gonna pay a case, I've just realized that. So I'm just gonna make a normal roll.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Okay, your difficulty is for this is gonna be zero. So you'll just be generating momentum. Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

If you roll a 20, you'll create a complication. Oh, okay, that's fine. Let's see if I can roll that 20. No. So I got two successes under a target of 15.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Now the group has a total of four momentum. So your scan has registered no pathogens in the station. We'll just say, well, it took them a little while to rifle through the scientists' office that you guys are in the generator room at this point. So you'll be happy to know the generator room houses a fusion reactor. It is offline and the room is cluttered with backup power cells, battery banks that are providing the station's emergency power. You see some wires and conduits exposed and like pulled out of places where they where they belong, and the cooling systems are inactive. The backup systems are emitting a low, irregular hum as the batteries slowly deplete.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

I remain my uh medical scatter over it and look at look at Steve and uh I think it's almost dead, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

Possibly. It's almost looks like Slots Like. Can I use my quick survey talent and ask a free question? Yeah. Based on just entering. Can I tell why the Asian reactor is offline? Is it like broken or is it just turned off?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Yes. So those wires and conduits that got pulled out, they essentially deactivated the cooling systems. And once the cooling systems went offline as a safety feature, the reactor shut itself down.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Does that look like a relatively easy thing to fix? Yes. Okay. Yeah. It looks like the cooling system served when the automatic shutoffs kicked in. I'm a bit confused why they didn't just fix it. They did have like engineering staff on the screw list for this place, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:27

They they did have uh they had a medic and they had an engineer, yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

So he's obviously something's going on. Like, I guess I'll just go fix it. Do you want to plug anything in, Steve? It just should be relatively quick. But yeah, if you want to hold my a light while I do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Sure. Well I'll put the light in the wrong place and then into the right place until you kind of tell me, no, over here.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

So Douglas, this is a difficulty zero task if you want to get the generator. If you want to reinitiate the cooling systems and get the generator back online. I won't do anything fancy, so I will just take the automatic Okay. No problem. So it takes you about 20 minutes to fix the cooling system and start booting up the reactor. And move back to Tony and I should say Captain Carr and Lieutenant Commander Maris. You're still in the chief science officer's office, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

We probably move to the genomics lab as soon as we are done.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

So just as you get to the door of this lab, you can hear a faint crackle breaking the sort of the silence of the of the station. There's a garbled voice, distorted by static, seems to be playing on a loop. You can't really make out what it's saying. It's too faint and broken by interference. But the recording seems to be coming from inside the lab. And when you get into the room, the whole place is a wreck. Consoles are smashed, screens are shattered, wires are hanging loose from the ceiling, and marred by the scorch marks of energy weapons fire. Only one monitor remains active, flickering a distorted and fragmented image of one of the research scientists. You recognize him from your briefing at Starbase 12. It's Dr. Elias Morrow. And he looks disheveled, and there's like this his eyes are wide with panic. And as you step closer to the monitor, you can make out his voice. And he's just saying, and it's again, it's in a loop, and he's just they're awake. They're awake. They're awake.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Just over and over on a loop. I check around Can I understand if this was a random if there was like a you know like a like a something. It seems to me very random, so I just want to make sure that this feels more like there was no combat here. It was like if I'm trying to piece everything together, then like the people were going mad because of whatever changing behavior because of this uh TNA, can I actually induce that? Can I deduce that based on on how this looks like?

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Is this yes, exactly. And also your tricorders register the scorch marks from energy weapons fire as being Federation standard face pistols. So in line with what you learned from the chief scientists' office that they that the personnel started acting irrational or erratic and paranoid, that it looks like the personnel of the station tore through this room for whatever reason and damaged all of this equipment.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Uh let's see. Well, with the uh with the equipment damaged the way it is, quite sure, but we'll do the best we can to pull some of that information out. So then Marco, would that be engineering and reason?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, we can use reason, yeah. And uh the difficulty is two, so you're gonna need two successes. So if you want you have four momentum at the moment as a group. If you want to buy an additional die, that'll cost you one momentum, so you'll be rolling three dice instead of two. Since your engineering, yeah, since your engineering scale is a little low, or your department, I should say. I would say go for it. I mean, this is quite important.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Like we don't use that, we lose it.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

So then when you click on perform task at the bottom where it says number of dice and pool, just move that slider to three. Okay, let me see. Dice three.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

There we go. Okay, so here we are. Let's see what what we get.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Okay, you've got two successes. That is exactly what you needed. So you're having a look at the computer console, that fragmented image of Dr. Morrow, who's it's on a loop saying they're awake, they're awake. The rest of the video is irretrievably lost. But you do find that the some information that says that the science team spent the last year and a half sequencing the DNA of an extinct microorganism that they called Protamentis. So that that tracks with what you learned from the chief scientist's office, and that they discovered it in an ice core sample, and that it is not native to this planet.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Tell me about this, Maurice. This sounds pretty bizarre. I'm guessing what do we what do you infer from this?

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Well, not native to the planet. It has to have come from somewhere else. Obviously, how it got here, that's the question. That might be what we need to think about as we're going through the rest of the information, if we can retrieve any more information from these systems. Hopefully, Rhodes and Travis can get uh a lot of the power back up that might help us.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, you start actually while you're having that conversation, you start to see the normal the normal light start to come on. So it looks like it looks like your chief engineer was successful. Now, uh, if you want to give me another momentum, I will give you a new piece of data that you can retrieve from the busted computers. What do you say, Captain? Yep. Okay. So you find a log here from Dr. Corby that says a new report from an archaeological team in the Corella system has uncovered remains identical to specimen three excavated here. I am leaving immediately for Corella to investigate. Until I return, I have instructed my Staff to continue their analysis of the Proto-Mentis, but to take extra precautions. And that log that was logged roughly 46 days ago. And the Corella system is noted as being one light year away. So the station's transport would take about a month and a half, so forty s to get there, so forty-six days at that about tracks that he left before the outpost personnel died and were found by the supply ship.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yes, and has he returned from that expedition, Marco?

SPEAKER_02 22:37

No, he's he's uh he's still gone. He's yeah, he hasn't returned, no one has heard from him, and you've heard no report from your briefing at Starbase 12 that he was anywhere near Corella.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Do you think I could get more information about the uh the officers in the staff office? Or where can I retrieve information about well I can probably get it from the ship now, right? If I want to get a like a manifest of the crew, I mean of the staffs in this station.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, you had that in the in the briefing.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

What do I know about Dr. Corvy? If I know anything.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

He is an archaeologist, he has studied the ancient Orion civilization, and most recently has been the lead on the Federation Science Council's push to learn about the origins of life in the galaxy. It doesn't really give you much more than that. It does say that a lot of what he's done at Cradle Station has been classified at the highest level.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Rotes? Reports? Roads here. Ours should be coming back on onto the station.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Very well. You might come back. I think it's time that we check on the dead scientist. I will need you here, Dr. Tristan.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Coming, Captain. As you're moving through the corridors, you know, and forgive me, I should have mentioned this earlier. There's definitely signs of struggles, perhaps, in the corridors. There's like there's close in the corridors. Things are just kind of a mess and disheveled in the station itself. As I um as I No, no, no, as I as I Sorry, I just for the folks at home, I just moved his token halfway across the map. I was gonna um stop in on the infirmary on the way to the Ah, okay. Sorry. Understood. I just want to just poke my head in to see what what's going on in the infirmary.

SPEAKER_04 24:17

Douglas, are you doing are you sticking with him or are you going Yeah, if if the if the doctor has like an inkling or something, I'll stay with him rather.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Captain can wait. Yep. So this is a small utilitarian space, sterile white walls, two biobeds. They're sorely lacking in medical supplies. You see, most of the shelves are empty. Uh, there's a computer terminal on the medic's desk. It appears to be functioning.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Okay. Does it look like it's been trashed like you know like the other parts, or has it just been left? It just sort of has been left. Okay. I will quickly log on to the computer and see what the last few entries will be. Um that's if it's not locked down or anything.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

No, it isn't. It isn't locked down at all. So so you've got the generator back on. The computer is not locked down, it hasn't been damaged, so there's there's no need to make a roll here. So it appears that someone deleted all of the personal medical files of the station personnel. But the remaining entries, one of them says that the Proto-Mentis was capable of surviving extreme environments and showed evidence of biological activity, though it remained dormant and in a state of quantum superposition.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

I've got a medical I've got a medical medical degree, not a scientific degree. My mum would have loved this. Um I'm gonna see if I can download that to my Hadhub com or had or whatever. You can download that to your tricorder. Yep. Uh you can just literally give the just a once more once over, so it's just an in-out and then go. Because the captain's calling. Yep, okay. Yep, dubs it.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Alright, so yep, so you guys are reunited in the hallway here.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

We have discovered that apparently there was this microorganism that was unearthed from this location that has been perhaps trapped under the ice. They call it uh Protomantis, and they were able apparently to sequence the DNA of this organism. Interestingly enough, valid is not native from this location, and it comes from another planet or well, I don't know if it was a planet or the system, uh, Corella, which is not very far away.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

I've just seen some of the uh medical noff medical officers' notes. It kind of pretty much says the same thing. And it's got a bunch of uh scientific gobbledygook that I'm pretty sure that Lieutenant Commander Maris, you might be able to understand, and I'll share that data across to his.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah, Maris, you find the fact that the Proto Mentus is in a state of quantum superposition rather interesting because in your transporter accident in your character's backstory, you yourself were in a state of quantum superposition momentarily, which the medical team at Starfleet probably believes was the spark that enhanced your dormant ESP talent, shall we say. Right. So quantum superposition essentially just means that the DNA is in two different places at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

I I've not found anything.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah, but we don't want to take any risk. We cannot go back to the ship carrying any contaminants. Of course. Um but I would like to have an inspection on the dead scientists to understand why they are all together in the same location. If this microorganism makes them go crazy, what forced them to do this? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Good, we get to go outside in that nice balmy weather again. I'll zip up my jacket, put the hood up, go towards the back door to the outside.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Okay, so you're at the rear airlock, you release the lock on the outer hatch, it opens with a hiss, you get a blast of freezing air that washes over you, and you step out onto the barren ice, and you've got the howling winds sort of swallows up the noise of the station coming back to life as the generator, you know, kicks back in. And then you see four figures sprawled in the snow. Bodies are stiff, their skin is pallid, frostbit, their uniforms frozen solid to their flesh. Some of them are lying face down, half buried in the snow, others are curled in on themselves as if they were trying to shield themselves from being struck or perhaps from the cold, it's unclear. Their expressions, those of those that you can see, are locked in terror or pain.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Okay. I will give them a good old scan over. See what has well guess what what's caused the issue. And I'm gonna I want to specifically scan for pathogens and and that kind of thing. I do have as a focus a medical toxicology, which I don't know if we'll come into some kind of use.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

I don't think toxic I don't think toxicology works here.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Okay, no problem. It's not a toxin. Excellent. What would you like me to use? Insight, I suppose?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

You can use insight, you can use reason, but the insight choice is yours.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yep, and then medicine. Yep, that's fine. Your difficulty is gonna be two. Two. I don't really have any talents that's really gonna help me. All my kind of talents are based around field medicine, not really kind of looking at the dead bodies, that kind of thing. So I do mind if I use the momentum. Oh for it.

unknown 29:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

I I have no issues with that.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Okay. I presume that just means I get to add dice to my dice pool, so I'll have three.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yeah, so when you when you click on perform task, we're at the bottom of that window that opens up where it says number of dice and pool, just move the slider to three.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Okay. And I just want to see if I can do this. You let me know if I can bag this for a value. A good mystery is very irresistible. And so this is a good mystery, and that's one of my values. Would I be able to use that? Yeah, you want to use one of your Well, I'm guessing just just using that as a I guess as a role-playing element. That's the reason I'm doing it. I'm not really sure how the determination and the values and all that kind of work, but right.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

So basically you can spend your point of determination. That value is perfect, by the way. So you're you're using the value in this in this task. Uh so that means you can spend that that point of determination to either after you've rolled all your dice, you can re-roll any of the D20s in your dice pool, or you can spend that determination before the dice are rolled to make one of those dice automatically give you two successes. Wow, okay. That's pretty cool. And how easy is it for me to get back to termination? So for you to get back determination, you would have to challenge one of your values. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

So you can suffer a complication because of one of your values.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

If Marco decided that was relevant.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

So in this case, going out of my way to a good mystery is irresistible, putting myself in harm's way, that kind of thing, instead of the opposite. That kind of thing? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Some things are best left not looked into, would probably be the opposite of that means.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Some things should be left buried. You know, do you know what? Why not? Let's do that. That seems like a fun thing. So because I I tick in the in the Foundry VTT box the user determination value. Is that correct? Yes. I I I don't know if that's going to work, but yes, it looks like that's what we're supposed to do. Let's let's try this then, shall we? Yes. Okay, I'm making my role. So it looks like I rolled 3D20, target number is 15, and I got four successes. Yes, and it it did, it looks like it did work. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

It gave you one of it gave you one of them as two successes. Okay. You have put I I I misspoke. It was not two successes you needed, it was three, so you generated one extra momentum. Okay. And this is what your scanner tells you. Your your scan of the victims reveals no wounds or other signs of violent trauma. They most certainly died of hypothermia. However, you find damage to their synaptic pathways in their brains, which could have resulted in intense psychological disturbances, including hallucinations and impaired judgment. So this could account for why they were acting strangely, why they went outside without any protective weather gear.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

So we think perhaps maybe the the Proto-Mentis could have affected their synapses, which meant they went a little bit nuts and went outside.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Correct. Now, if you want to spend momentum for additional information.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Why not? Let me spend one point of momentum for some extra information. That momentum comes and goes really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Technically, you're supposed to ask a question, but sometimes I like to flub that. So you find trace evidence of quantum superposition in their synaptic pathways. So in essence, the evidence I need. Their mind was in multiple realities simultaneously. However, the human human mind wasn't built to comprehend such a phenomenon, so the strain of trying to process all of that information drove them to madness. Okay. And perhaps the hallucinations that they may have been experiencing weren't really hallucinations, but they were witnessing this other reality intersecting with ours since they were in two places at once.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Okay. I will I will relay all of that as I get it to everyone here.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

While the doctor is doing his super interesting prodding of dead bodies, what is the ice core operations platform that I'm standing next to? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 33:55

It's got drilling equipment. It's open air, so it's not sealed in, so you can just see the platform. It's got large drilling equipment, some monitoring stations meant to track the ice core samples.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

As as a X miner, I immediately recognize everything that is over there pretty much. Yes. From like a glance. I'm like, that's an open cast mining system using uh whatever whatever. Well, like while they're doing that, I'm just gonna go look at that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Well uh Yeah, there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary with the ice core platform. However, you notice a in one corner of the platform is a large hole, like manhole size hole, not not a hole that would be that they would have drilled an ice core sample out of. And there's a ladder leading down, a metal ladder leading down. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

So this looks like kind of like dodge as it was, as in they just drilled a hole and then chuck a thing in into it. As I say, I I I I know mining stuff. So I'd be like, if that was like not a part of a normal thing, I'd be like, that's weird. If that's just the normal hatch that you usually have to get down, I'd be like, No, it's it's weird.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

It looks like your your guess from your experience as a miner, especially with working on the Earth observation outposts along the neutral zone and and on the moon, that they were they were using the the drill to uh excavate ice core samples, found something else, and then dug this giant hole that they could climb into. Okay. Alright.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Well, I guess since the captain and the medical was was everyone really busy looking at the bodies and it was just or was there anyone who wasn't looking like they were very busy looking at the bodies when I left?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Well uh we'll let the characters let us know. Well, I was paying attention to what Dr. Travis was doing. In fact, when he finishes, you know, I I see that you are checking the installation, so that's alright, because that's important too. But I will ask Dr. Travis, do you think there is still some Proto Mentiis left on these bodies?

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I can't find any, but I don't know. I I'd have to I'd have to take it to the ship and use uh put it into the uh put it to the into the bay and then actually do some proper pathological stuff, he says.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I wouldn't like to risk the ship. Perhaps we can use one of the labs here in this facility.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

I don't know, Marist, do you think perhaps it could be important to understand what is this portomentis and yes, I would not risk taking this back to the ship at the moment because uh it's logical to assume that if it's in a s a state of superposition that it can appear and disappear possibly at will if it has a will of its own. But if it's standing between two dimensions or two realities, it could reappear at any moment at any time, anywhere, would be my assumption. I would use the labs here for sure. Would you do that? This taking extreme caution, please. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

I mean I can give that a go.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I'm I've worked in worse.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Doctor, you could also you could, you know, you could do autopsies at the infirmary in the outpost. You can have the ship beam down whatever equipment you may need if there isn't, you know, enough equipment available for a momentum fee, of course, but of course. Or or threat if you don't have enough momentum. So all of that, and you can also there are there are two or three other labs that that are in the facility that you can use. I mean uh the labs would probably be my thought rather than the the infirmary, but yeah. So Mr. Rhodes, what are you doing with this giant hole?

SPEAKER_04 37:32

I guess I'll have a look down and see how that far down it goes. You do see the bottom, yes. Well everyone else seems very busy at the moment. So and since you know, I'm not doing anything, and sometimes, as my value says, sometimes decisive action is required. So I'm just like, okay, I'll go check down the bottom of this ladder.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Okay, I love it. So the the ladder takes you into this vast underground chamber, and in the center of this chamber stands a massive monolith. Its surface is as black as deep space.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Can I do you sort of like quick geological scan of the like this cave so I can get more and more information? What would that be? Like insight and science? And do you have a free level focus in geology? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

So what's the difficulty? Uh your difficulty is one. I won't buy anything. So this is an artificial structure who was built over seven hundred years ago by some intelligent simple construction. There's nothing fancy about it, nothing overly uh technological about it. Most likely buried by the glacier once the climate change on the planet. Can I use the quick survey challenge?

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Do I get any sort of weird values from this area? You do. Like from a senses. You do. Okay. From the monolith. Okay, specifically the monolith. Okay. Is there anything else down here? Like women or anything lying around. No. Like it seems a bit old from what Marius was saying this seems to be the thing they were looking at. I guess I'll get my communicator and go to the captain. Okay. Do I get through to the captain?

SPEAKER_02 39:24

You do. So Captain Carr, your communicator is leaving right here.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

And down in the IC or platform. There seems to be some sort of thing down here. It's some sort of weird monolith because it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

We don't know if that's the protamentus or the source of the protamentus.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Did they say what the source of it was?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Yeah, the Protumentus was found in an ice core sample.

SPEAKER_04 39:56

This isn't part of an ice core, this is something different. Do you get an analysis of there? The this cave that it's in is made artificially made, not by a particularly technologically advanced civilization per se. Uh this is a monolith here prior. This wasn't dug out by the scientists. This is the cave I think was here before.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

And did you get any readings from the monolith?

SPEAKER_04 40:24

I haven't really gone to have a look at it yet. Okay, I will I will stay here. I didn't see any any of the scientists' equipment down here either. Just kind of empty.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, get some recordings and let's wait for Maris and Travis to get some information from the scientists. Let's see if we can isolate this uh microorganism or whatever this is. Would you like me to go uh in the system, Captain? No, what's more honestly, Travis, could do you think you can do the um isolation? I don't know if I wanna just stay alone when you're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

That's okay. I can happily uh call down one of the nurses.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Okay, come prep.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Along with the along with the equipment. That should be fine.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Okay. If you start the prepping, uh, we'll also head down to see what this is. Come on, Laris.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Okay, so the three of the two of you are going down into the chamber, the underground chamber, and then Dr. Travis is going to one of the labs.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah, I'm gonna go to the labs. I'm gonna contact the ship and ask them to beam down some relevant equipment and someone to one of the nurses to help with the with the autopsy. So we'll stick with the the underground chamber for a moment.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Captain Carr and Lieutenant Commander Maris, you climb down this ladder from the operations, from the Ice Corps operations platform into this underground chamber. You see this massive monolith that's in the center of the chamber.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

So what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 41:48

I'll let you try and take um another scan with my uh with my equipment, but uh would I also be able to use my extrasensory perception? Yes. Okay, so that would be my insight.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

So at any point during play, you may ask the game master for hints or insights about the current situation, and the game master may offer you information about the current situation that you would not normally be able to determine. Each hint adds one threat, and you may always refuse to accept the hint offered. So it's not a role. At any point you can ask me for a hint or an insight about the situation, and I can also just give you one in exchange for a point of threat if you but you can say no, thank you, in that particular case.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Okay, well I'll I'll ask you for if you have any in insight on this. If you have any information.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

You have a very strong feeling that the the monolith responds to frequencies. Oh, like on a tricorder.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Yes. Okay. Would we be able to tune into those frequencies?

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Yes. Now that would be a reason or insight. With science or engineering, you can use either one. Difficulty will be two. You do have one momentum left if you want to buy a die for that. Should we should we risk it? We'd have none left. How long is uh you'll lose it anyway once the scene changes. Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

I I can assist on the engineering part of it if you want to.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

That is true. That is true. Yep, good. That sounds good. So I'm gonna put insight and science on this. Okay. And I will perform task. I have to do the assistant first.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

It doesn't matter who does what first. Your role only counts if he succeeds. What would you say for my engineering assistant? Reason or insight.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Insight I'm gonna roll here. Oh no. Um was it two twenties? I'm not sure if I'm gonna roll my assistant. It's not gonna help. It isn't.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

It isn't it isn't going to help at all.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Um in Star Trek Adventures, if you are assisting someone who fails spectacularly, does that mean you also take the same complications and stuff? I did everything correctly.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

I was like, I tuned into that frequency. You want to, oh no, we probably shouldn't have tuned into that frequency.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Okay, so uh Carmelo, you you you start messing with the frequencies, you're fluctuating them, and then all of a sudden there is this enormous like the rest of you guys can see him. He drops his trichorder and he cups his ears as if he's hearing something extraordinarily painfully loud, but you guys don't hear anything at all. So and so Carmelo, you just drop to your knees, you have this splitting headache from this high pitched, screeching noise that just barrels through your eardrums. I won't do the checkoff screen here for you.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yes, don't do the check-off screen. I will go on and assist him. I will go next to him. What's going on? Aris, talk to me. It hurts.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

It burns through my brain. What burns through your brain? I don't know. But when we hit a particular frequency, I'm hearing something and it it's just like a spear through through my head.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

You know what this requires? Decisive action. I'm gonna pick up the communicator and throw it against the nearest hardest object. Okay. Probably the monolith.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Yes. So you you break his communicator, you smash it against the monolith. The high-pitched screeching noise stops. I feel better now.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Not a Vulcan, but I'll say fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

I don't know what to do about this. Perhaps we should just report back to the Starfleet. It seems dangerous to me.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

Can I go check the pieces of the communicator? Are they can it be solid? You could probably you could probably get it fixed, yeah. Uh don't worry, Lieutenant. I think I could probably put this back together. So so now I'm right next to the monolith because I went to go pick up the pieces.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Am I still feeling a bit unsure? Yeah, you're you're you're getting a you're getting some weird vibes from the monolith. Are you working on the tr on the tricorder right now? The GM wants you to say yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

Like, unless like the captain's like we're leaving or anything, I'll be like, hang on a minute, I can put this back together in a couple sects.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Give me a Okay. So if you want to give me a roll, please.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

I'll make sure I won't turn it back on. Yeah, please don't. Would you like it would you be daring if I'm just jury rigging this thing back together? Yes. So what's my do I have a difficulty on this?

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Your difficulty is going to be two. Do you want to spend that last momentum you guys have?

SPEAKER_04 46:30

Two successes.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Okay. And I'm gonna spend some threat here. When you got it when you jury-rigged it and got it fixed, it comes on of its own accord. You did not turn it on. And all of you now start to hear this frequency humming and shifting in in deliberate sequences. And the tricorder, for some reason that you cannot fathom, is translating these frequencies into English. And the voice out of the tricorder says, We shouted our existence into the void, wondering if we were alone. Yet in almost a century of listening, we received no reply until a message finally came back too late to save us. Be quiet, or they will hear you.