Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
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Stories with Dice
Star Trek Magellan S1 E6 The Stars Are Not Kind: A Star Trek Adventures Actual Play Podcast
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The crew of the Magellan must find Doctor Korby and stop Cressida City's burning deuterium tanks from devastating Corella IV, all while managing first contact with the Saurians.
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Music by Andy Luiten
Welcome to Stories with Dice. This is Star Trek Magellan, a Star Trek Adventures second 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 discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode. It is the early twenty-second 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. Before we begin, some of the deuterium tanks in Crescida City are on fire. This means there's an active trait in effect during scenes on the planet. Certain actions might be more difficult as the fires spread and further contaminate the environment. We open on a sweeping montage of the Magellan, Icarus, Integrity, and Red Sea in orbit around Corella 4. The camera pulls from the ships in space to shuttles darting between them, then down into the transporter rooms, where evacuees are transferred off the overcrowded Magellan. Over these scenes, we hear the first officer's log. Captain's log, star date, 114.7. First officer in command. The evacuation is complete. Thanks to the timely arrival of the fleet. Evacuees are being transferred to the other starships for return to Starbase 12. Administrator Phillips remains in the brig, pending investigation into her role in the exploitation on Corella 4, and who in Starfleet may have knowingly turned a blind eye. The creatures are gone. The spatial anomaly is collapsing, and no additional entities are coming through. The captain and landing party remain on the surface, initiating first contact with the alien inhabitants and continuing the search for Dr. Corby. As the log ends, the scene moves to the planet's surface. The air is thick with smoke as the camera pans over Cresceta City, now scattered across the plains outside an ancient settlement on the surface of Corella 4. Bodies still smoldering from the hard landing lie beneath twisted metal and shattered stone. Fires burn unchecked. Tanks of refined deuterium have ignited, casting flickering light across the wreckage. The camera sweeps toward the nearby alien settlement, its structures rising in layers of age and contradiction. Cobblestone streets threading between stone buildings laced with advanced alloy. Scans have confirmed what the eye can only guess. This place was built in part from the remnants of an ancient starship. We linger on the shuttle pod filero, grounded and damaged in the street. It won't fly again without repairs. The camera moves inside one of the buildings. The stone and alloy walls are cool and dim, lit only by filtered sunlight spilling through narrow windows. Your chief medical officer lies in a cot. Beside him, Commander Travis, his mother, works in silence, her hands moving with practiced care as she administers first aid to her son. Across the room the leader of the local inhabitants stands, watch. A tall reptilian humanoid cloaked in woven cloth and layered metal. He says nothing, but it's clear from his body language he does not trust you. He's stable for now, Commander Travis says, but we should get him to a sick bay. Then she glances toward the reptilian figure watching from the other side of the room. Her voice shifts as the universal translator renders her words into a series of clicks, glottal stops, and deep resonant tones. You can trust them, Thessin. They are not like the miners. The alien gazes from Commander Travis to the rest of you. Aren't they? They helped miners. They brought the city down almost on top of us, and now it burns with poison. They did not come to our aid. They came to aid their own kind, and he points at your chief medical officer.
SPEAKER_00Did not know that you were in danger down here. We're only called to help the city. How could we know?
SPEAKER_04Your Star Fleet sent a team of scientists here. They've been here for months. Interesting. Did you make contact with them? This woman was a part of the team.
SPEAKER_00She stayed behind when they were told to leave. Would very much like to talk with them. Tony, would you like to give me a presence in command?
SPEAKER_04Your difficulty is going to be zero. So you don't you don't have to roll if you don't want to, but if you want to try to generate momentum, you can. I roll with one uh difficulty. Yep. So you have one success, so that means you've added one to the pool, one momentum to the pool. So essentially that was. So this is essentially for you, this is a first contact, right? And he doesn't trust you. You're trying to gain his trust, you're having this conversation, you're telling him that someone higher than you in the command chain may have known about this, but you yourself did not. So you've impressed upon him that that you may not be like so whoever gave those orders, whoever, you know, and you're certainly not like the miners who were exploiting them and exploiting their labor.
SPEAKER_00I hope that by coming here and helping you out with this monster, you can trust me and perhaps help me out. I've been trying to find these scientists. I'm afraid that they might be in danger.
SPEAKER_04Well, if Commander Travis trusts you and says that I should trust you, then you seem like a good hearted and reasonable person. Come, let me show you our memorial. For our homeworld lies many light years from here. Follow him. So Commander, I'm sorry, Commander, Dr. Travis, you are able to be up and about. Okay, cool. Your injury, you've you've been treated, you know, you've been administered first aid, so your injuries have been mostly taken care of. They haven't gone away, so you will suffer some sort of consequences as you do actions. But you're not infirm, you're not bedridden or anything like that, so you are good to go. So you also have Cadet Asha and you have Henry Blank, unless the captain wants to send them back to the ship. We can have Douglas and Carmelo in the scene on the planet while playing either one of those characters. Last session Carmelo played the security officer blank, so we can keep it that way if that's what people prefer, just so people aren't left out as we move through this.
SPEAKER_01Well, I assume the kids and stuff have all gone back up to the fleet and they're all dead. Correct.
SPEAKER_04They were all beamed up, that is correct.
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess after sort of like being treated and hugging my mum and, you know, just generally being worried for her, as soon as I find she's fine, then I'll obviously just follow along with them.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so he leads you through the winding streets between, you know, low stone dwellings into a wide circular plaza cobbled with dark volcanic stone and ringed by arching columns etched with this strange alien script. And at the heart of this plaza stand the shattered ruins of tall stone columns, and he and he tells you, Captain, this is the remembrance circle, a place where we gather to speak aloud the stories of our ancestors, to preserve the great exodus of our people from our home world. And then he gestures to the fragments of one of the columns, and carved across its ruined surface is what appears to be a star map, its lines cracked but still traceable. We are Saurians, and this is our star. It lies many light years from here. Long ago we fled enslavement and death at the hands of the ancient ones and sought refuge on this world you call Corella Four. And then he picks up a round stone medallion from a nearby container, and its surface is marked with a symbol unfamiliar to you. And he says, The ancient ones had many chattel armies, one of them found us, and for generations we endured beneath the oppressive boot of their brutality. And then he gives the medallion to you, Captain. They called themselves Klingons. They live for war. We hope never to see their like again. But that is the least of our worries, for one of your kind has disturbed the hibernation cycle of an ancient one cluster. Soon the entire swarm will awaken, and when they do, they will sweep from star system to star system like a dust storm, turning once fertile worlds into barren deserts in their wake.
SPEAKER_00They make the connection that the star where they came from is the one that we were. Is this any way related to the monolith and all the stuff that we saw?
SPEAKER_04Asha, give me a reason in science task if you're gonna study the star map. Okay. Star stuff.
SPEAKER_03None of these focuses are relevant. So what's the difficulty of one? Insight and science, is it? Re reason and science. Reason and science. Alright. Okay. Can I spend that momentum to buy dice? Are we particularly precious about momentum at the moment? Go for it. Yep, go for it.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you've got a momentum back. You know that star is Tao Serpentis. It is in the serpent's constellation. So it is not the planet that Cradle Station was on. It's roughly 20 light years away from where you are, approximately 73 days at warp five, which is the maximum warp of your starship.
SPEAKER_00And I asked Asha, are there any of these symbols related? Because this remembrance system also has symbols and things, right? Yes, written in their alien language, yeah. So I will ask her to scan it and send it to Lieutenant Maris to, you know. So I will call you Maris. Lieutenant, we are sending you a scan of the remembrance system of the species living here, the saurians. I just wanna if you can have a quick look and compare it with in our database. Yes, Captain. No, we've received it. Okay.
SPEAKER_04So I know he he did tell you, just in case you missed it, that one of your kind has disturbed the hibernation cycle of an ancient one cluster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's that's always my next question to him. You know, I wanted just to get this done. Who can you tell me more about this?
SPEAKER_04And here Commander Travis speaks up and she says, he's talking about Dr. Corby. But don't ask me to explain what the doctor is doing. I'm just an exobiologist. All I know about quantum superposition is that it's a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, and it essentially means that a quantum system can exist in multiple states simultaneously until a measurement is made. And then Thesson says yes. And this Dr. Corby must be stopped before he makes that measurement. Mom, do you know what Dr. Corby is? Last we knew he was at the excavation site. We can take you there if you wish. Says Thessin. Why does he need to be stopped before he takes the measurement? Because the ancient ones are hibernating in a state of quantum superposition. Once a measurement is made, it's like Schrdinger's cat, where the cat is both alive and dead until the box is opened.
SPEAKER_03So is this the chief, the village chief explaining this? He's the leader, yes. The leader, yeah. Okay, so he he knows a lot more than what's going on, really, because he's just let's just say this is not a sort of civilization where they're like quantum position. Yeah, I know exactly what that is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, let's ask Commander Travis, what is the knowledge of how did you get to know Dr. Corby?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I I only met him briefly when he arrived. He was quite incensed that I'd stayed behind. He didn't mention anything about his previous position? No, I mean I I I knew that he came from Cradle Station, but his work there is classified. He didn't share anything with you.
SPEAKER_03I understand.
SPEAKER_04No, he did not. Very well.
SPEAKER_01Have you been to Cradle Station? I have not, no. Got some data for you. Do you? I've uh uncovered some information around three different skulls that were found there. You'd be really interested in them. I can uh I can uh I can um then I realize that my um day pad and stuff has all been destroyed. I was like, yeah, what once I get that again I'll I'll I'll share the information with you. Well, I look forward to it.
SPEAKER_00Well actually that's a good point, Dr. Travis. I will pull out the skull of this old species. Remember the one that looked like very demonic? And I will show it to Cesan and Commander Travis. Is this the old one?
SPEAKER_04Commander Travis glances at the image you pulled up on your tricorder and asks Thesson, is this what I think it is? Thesson examines it and replies Yes. This is the skull of what we call the ancient ones. There's a complete specimen at the excavation site. Did you know where they come from? Thesson tells you that they do not know where the ancient ones came from.
SPEAKER_01Well, we probably don't want them coming through, do we?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_00Very well. I think we should head back and go to the excavation.
SPEAKER_04So we're gonna lose this momentum as we switch scenes to the excavation site. Is there anything, Douglas, that Asher wants to use it for?
SPEAKER_03I guess while we're going to the Campbell ask them for like the history of his people, because that seems quite interesting. Like how how did they get here? If this is not like where they came from, why are they here? Well, onto the ship.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, so as you're walking into the jungle to the excavation site. Would I command uh Lieutenant Maris to be with us as a chief scientific officer? I think we might need him. I mean, I will let Asha perhaps finish this discussion that we are having. And then send her back?
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and send her back and get Lieutenant Maris. Okay. Sorry about that. Alright.
SPEAKER_04Yep, no, no problem. So he explains to Asha that they fled enslavement and death at the hands of the ancient ones who invaded their home world over 700 years ago. Came to this planet seeking refuge, but then were found by a warrior species who called themselves Klingons, who were an army of the ancient ones, who they were themselves enslaved by the ancient ones, and the ancient ones you used them as an army. And then he sort of ribs her a little bit and says, You should pay attention, boy, when your elders speak, young lady. Because I already explained all of this moments ago.
SPEAKER_01When Lev Maris comes back, I'll make sure I requisition some kit just to kind of send back some medical gear and stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and he can come down with an extra medical trichorder for you. Yeah, yeah, that's great. So Asha gets beamed away after Thessin scolds her just a little bit, jokingly, of course. And Lieutenant Commander Maris beams down. So Douglas, you want to take over for Henry Blank?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure I can do that.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So Thessin leads you to a clearing in the jungle where the weathered hull of a massive starship juts from the earth at an angle, partially buried beneath layers of soil and creeping vegetation. Nearby is a portable Federation habitat that stands silent. Its entrance is unsealed, and beyond the habitat is a shallow pit marked which marks the dig site. And the earth here has been excavated. It reveals a complete specimen of complete skeleton of specimen three. It is a colossal humanoid figure, nearly ten meters tall. The remains are partially embedded in the soil. They're positioned preserved with field braces along the walls of the dig site. Marker beacons are blinking steadily around the perimeter, and there's a tripod mounted scanner that sweeps the bones in a slow rhythmic arc as it continues to scan the remains. And the only sounds you hear are the low thrum of a generator and the whirr of machinery and the ever-present buzz of of insects in the jungle.
SPEAKER_01I think this is where you're staying, Mum. Well, this is where you're working, Mum.
SPEAKER_04Yes. That is correct. Until we were recalled and all of our work was designated top secret at the highest level, with no explanation. Who gave the order, do you know? I don't know, and I'm not getting any answers from anyone. Has uh has dad been in touch? He's not thrilled that I disobeyed orders to leave. So how long have you been here, Mom? We were here for a few months before we got the order to leave.
SPEAKER_01Really? Wow. I didn't even know where you were. To be fair, I have been busy. Your first posting aboard a starship is not a small thing. No, and the captain's alright. I sort of like point that. Towards the captain. Mommy started tweeting now. Yeah. I'll then also download the stuff from mine to her so she's got all the data that I had. When you get a second, you might want to look over this. Thank you, son.
SPEAKER_00Uh is what do we make of this ship? Do you recognize it? I don't think I will.
SPEAKER_02It's a design that we've never really seen before. Well take some I would say take some tricorder reading so we can take them back to the ship and examine them a little more closely. There may be something on the database.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so Carmelo, you can give me a reason and science task. You'll need one success to scan the crashed alien ship.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Reason and science. Okay. So two dice, okay. I've got a sensor operations, so you can use it use a focus. Okay. Rolling dice.
SPEAKER_04Two successes, excellent. So you have one momentum. So your scans reveal that the vessel is well over 700 years old. No active power signatures are detected. Though you are registering trace amounts of exotic energy near what appears to be the engine room. You are also detecting a single human life sign in that location. So you have that one momentum you can spend it to ask me a question.
SPEAKER_02So we've got a guy of a human signature inside ship near an engineering section with an exotic energy field. Okay, I think I actually want to ask you a question about that energy field. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I thought you might. So what it reveals unstable subspace fluctuations. Energy readings are increasing in amplitude, and it's consistent. With early stage formation of a spatial anomaly, likely the same phenomenon previously encountered at Crescita City.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so in that case, my uh Esper my Esper must be getting itchy. Your Esper is getting a little itchy. Does the captain know about the transporter incident and the precog flashes?
SPEAKER_04The transporter accident in your your character's history was part of your personnel file, so he would probably definitely know about that. Your personnel file would also include your ESP abilities. Whether you shared with him your experience while you were in Sick Bay and then in your quarters when you were unconscious. That's up to you to d to to decide.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well I'm going to tell the captain my I'm getting these precog flashes, Captain. And they're very reminiscent of what started beforehand before I became incapacitated and went to Sigbay. Yeah, so so but we are we are receiving a human life signature inside the ship. However, I'm not sure what the exotic energy might do to me or even the rest the rest of you. It may be safer for you, but uh again, as before, I'm willing to go in if we can find a way into the ship. I think we need to find out who this human biological sign might be. Yeah. I was thinking the same.
SPEAKER_04Doctor, uh, your mother has looked over the data that you provided, and she's like, look at this. These skeletal remains in this archaeological dig site have the same DNA as the fragment discovered in the ice core sample at Cradle Station. All of them. No, no, she's saying that the skeletal remains at this archaeological dig site its DNA matches the fragment from the ice core sample. Which Dr. Corby called the Proto-Mentis.
SPEAKER_01Yes, okay. Right. No, I think we yeah, because it matches the same as the other weird creatures, isn't it? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00We are gonna try to go in, but Lieutenant Marius, if you feel any discomfort, please do let me know. I don't want to put you in danger.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Captain. But I I agree we need to go, we need to find out. If this is Dr. Corby, a lot of answers can be given in his discovery.
SPEAKER_00But you don't have to. I would rather you perhaps stay here while we investigate.
SPEAKER_04There is the habitat that you could look at if you're interested. And we are going to switch, I think, to Chief Engineer Rhodes aboard the Magellan for a moment. Tell us where you are. Probably let's say on the bridge. That'll make things easier. You're on the bridge, okay. And what are you doing on the bridge?
SPEAKER_03So City's kind of on fire at the moment, right?
SPEAKER_04Yes, and if left unchecked, it will get very bad for the inhabitants of the Saurian settlement and the landing party.
SPEAKER_03Can whoever can we tell from here is like all the deuterium gone up, or is it just some of it that's ruptured so far? So imagine if all went up, like there wouldn't be much of a city left, because that burns hotter than plasma. Correct, just some of it. Gonna ask like uh Commander Cabell permission to go down to the city and do something about the deuterium fires. If we don't uh get that under control, like the whole city might go up and cause untold ecological damage.
SPEAKER_04Take an entire damage control team with you or an engineering team, whatever it is you need, but I agree with your assessment. I'll I'll inform the captain.
SPEAKER_03I'm going to go and have a word with the administrator as well before I go down there, because some of this stuff might have like permissions and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04So you go down to the brig, administrator Phillips is sitting there, and she looks at you. As soon as you walk in, she looks at you, and you can see right on her face she knows you. And she gets up and she says, Well, I'll be damned. Stephen Rhodes in the flesh.
SPEAKER_03Do I recognize her now that I'm face to face with her?
SPEAKER_04It's starting to come back to you. And yeah, I mean, you know, she's older now, and but you seem to remember your because you had two siblings, correct?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I'd uh brother and sister, younger.
SPEAKER_04Right, and they are in prison, if I'm not mistaken.
SPEAKER_03They went to a penal colony about 20 years ago. We don't speak much. Okay. So they're out. I thought they were still in prison. Okay. Who who knows? I don't know. They got put in prison in like 2155. But that was oh no, that would be no, that was yeah, 10 years ago. Ten years ago, it went in.
SPEAKER_04So who knows? She was a member of Terra Prime, and uh, you distinctly remember your brother telling you about this woman by the name of Phillips. And it seems to you that you remember that she was the one who radicalized your brother and sister into Terra Prime.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Guess we like. So what was her what was her first name?
SPEAKER_04Camelia.
SPEAKER_03There's our Patreon NPC name for you right there. I didn't know they'd nice you don't let you out. You seem to have uh gone up in the world since last we met. Administrator.
SPEAKER_04Life is funny that way. Sorry about your brother and sister. I think they're still in prison, but I might be able to pull some strings.
SPEAKER_03Don't push yourself out for them. They did something and they need to pay the price for what they did, unfortunately. But I'm not here to reminisce about past. How has anyone told you what's been going on outside the cell? No, of course not. How are my people? We managed to get 500 out. Unfortunately, we lost a hundred. Those aren't bad numbers. We managed to land the refinery on planet and kept most of the structure. But and most of the refined deuterium is fine at the moment. However, some of it has ruptured. So I'm setting up a team to go down and try and damage control the deuterium fires and hopefully cover as much of the refined deuterium so you know you and your miners at least get something out of this deal. But I'll need, you know, the access codes.
SPEAKER_04Come on, Starfleet, we know you're s you're concerned about the natives. Please, bleeding heart.
SPEAKER_03You can't fool me. Here's a question. Do I know anything about the natives really, apart from someone mentioned they were talking to natives on the planet?
SPEAKER_04No, yeah, you don't. You don't. Just other than other than there were some sort of indigenous inhabitants who were being exploited. Which is strange because all st all Starfleet records that you have seen have mentioned that the planet was uninhabited.
SPEAKER_03I believe that's something the captain's dealing with at the moment. I don't know anything about any natives per se. My priority at the moment is to stop the deuterium fires.
SPEAKER_04Can you trust this Endorian captain of yours to do what's best for you and the other humans on this crew?
SPEAKER_03If we stop the deuterium fires, there's gonna be at least some deuterium to recover, and you you and your miners get paid. Like, if not, those guys have been wasted like years of their lives. So are you gonna help or not? Or am I just gonna have to go down there? Fair enough.
SPEAKER_04You can have the access codes. I may ask for something in return at some point, but we'll worry about that later, won't we?
SPEAKER_03No. There won't. I can go down there without them. You get some of the refined deuterium, that is what you have you and your miners have worked and strived for. That's your that's the offer I'm giving. You can take it or leave it. Either way, you're still staying in that cell until the captain tells me otherwise.
SPEAKER_04She hands you the access codes, then says, You should care more about the well-being of your own kind. I promise you, your captain certainly cares more for his than he does for you.
SPEAKER_03While I'm leaving, I'll just be turned back and be like. You know, I've thought after like all these years you guys would have changed, but apparently not. And then I'll leave. Alright. I guess I'll start rounding up some people to go down there and do something. Some very horrific damage control, probably, because that's going to be war. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So we'll probably need like the space suits.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I imagine you're gonna need uh protective suits, like EV suits, which will not have an opportunity cost because without them you wouldn't be able to breathe. So so there's I believe, at least I remember in the first edition, there's that rule where if you need the the tech, because without it you die, then there's no momentum cost to to have it. So yeah, so you can your team can take whatever it is you need. And we we'll call your whether it's a damage control team or an engineering team, that'll be a trait, and it'll cost you, remind me, I think it's two momentum.
SPEAKER_03Yes, but we don't have any, so I guess I'll just give you threat. Or else I'm going down there solo, and that is a bad idea. That is a bad idea. Because if I get stuck under a beam or something like that, I'm gett losing my leg and getting the beam stuck inside me, like pog.
SPEAKER_04And speaking of your navigator, you just got word as you're getting your team together that he's died.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, that's he hasn't got time to let that sink in at the moment. But yes, the captain will probably be getting an ear pull at some point. And roads might get be thrown in the brick with the other guy, with Phillips.
SPEAKER_04And so we will switch back while you get your team ready to the excavation site.
SPEAKER_01So I'll I'll have wandered in with the um with my mum to the portable habitat.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was gonna say, let's start with you first. So inside this very small, cramped habitat, you see a bunch of archaeological tools and scanning equipment lying scattered around. There's a bunch of crates and some workbenches, there's a few consoles that are humming. One of them appears to be on, the other ones are are locked down. And she tells you that these computers have files on them that are encrypted, and she has she's come here before when he was not around, and she hasn't been able to decrypt them. Uh maybe someone on the ship could do that. It is a reason and security task. Would you tell me? Would you and your mother like to try?
SPEAKER_01I'm awful of that, so let me have a look. You know what? I can give that a go, I suppose. Okay, I will roll for your mother. Do you want to buy some dice? I've got no momentum. I don't really want to give you any more threat. You've got enough. Then saying that, will my head wound come into play or?
SPEAKER_04Yes, it will. So your difficulty is going to be instead of two, it's going to be three.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. It's it's unlikely. I'm not feeling up to it. I'm probably I probably start and then I realize that I can't really focus properly, and I've got a bit of a headache, and so I I stop. I don't actually attempt.
SPEAKER_04Okay. She's like, oh I I'm sorry I've I've I've pushed you too hard.
SPEAKER_01I've pushed you too hard, son. No, no, it's fine. You need someone who knows what they're doing, and it's just not me. But I think maybe one of the others might be able to help. They've gone into the alien ship. Oh, okay. Well, in that case, I guess I'll use the I'll use it, I'll use the um mucator. That's the word. Thank you very much. Um and say um uh Henry, uh would you mind coming back to the to the cabin? Just need to see if we can kind of have a look at getting into some data. That'd be alright.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Uh Henry will turn to the captain to unlook him in a sort of is that okay expression. That's alright. Please take care of them.
SPEAKER_04Alright, so Henry Blank comes back, and they had just started to enter like a break in the hull to get it to the ship when Blank turns around, comes back into the habitat.
SPEAKER_03Hey Henry. Hey Doc, where's the computer? Oh, this one. Alright, let me add it. Let's have a look here.
SPEAKER_04So you're gonna need a difficulty to reason and security task, Mr. Blank. Wanna give me a hand here, Doc?
SPEAKER_03Probably my mum might be best to help you. Alright, Mrs. Doc. I like that, Mrs. Doc's cool. Okay. Two successes required. Reason security. And Mrs. Doc is not helping. She isn't entering.
SPEAKER_04It's all on me. You haven't seen this kind of encryption before. It's it's new to you, it's strange. And the complication that Commander Travis rolled is now gonna make the difficulty three. So that the next time you try it to decrypt the file. Some kind of like security system on it that Right. And it tells you now you only have like, you know, two more attempts to two more attempts to enter the password before you're locked out of the computer.
SPEAKER_03Did I just try password by any chance?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think the password is Megalomaniac Scientist. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03Do we want to go again?
SPEAKER_01No, I won't. I think we'll just have to leave it as is.
SPEAKER_04Okay. We will now switch scenes to the inside of the alien spacecraft. You you step through this uh break in the hull and you enter these towering corridors that stretch in every direction, clearly built for a crew as massive as that specimen three skeleton that you saw outside. There's corroded metal archways overhead tangled with roots and hanging vines, faded markings line the walls and some indecipherable text worn by centuries. Your trichorders register faint traces of that exotic energy that Lieutenant Commander Maris picked up earlier. And as you push deeper, following those readings, they sharpen. There's definitely a subspace distortion forming, and there's a low-level quantum flux. And that these are the telltale signs, and you know this, Maris, that a spatial anomaly is forming. And it leads you into the heart of the ship, and the corridor opens into this immense chamber, which looks like it might have been the engine room at one point. And there's strange alien machinery all broken around sort of the central core of whatever their power system was, and there you can see pulsing faintly in the air this light crack in reality. And standing at the base of this forming anomaly is Dr. Corby. And he turns to you as you enter, wild-eyed, and his voice is trembling with awe. Don't don't you see? It is not just some creature, it is thought itself. The universe is made aware. Our minds, our consciousness, it all comes from this. And then the anomaly flares like a like a bright light, and there's a energy lashes out, crackling like lightning. It hits Dr. Corby, he screams, he's thrown back against the bulkhead, something in his hand clatters to the deck, and then the anomaly just tears open. And dozens of these tentacled creatures slither through, their forms are pulsing, they pile one upon another, layering into a single shape. A humanoid figure, they're creating a humanoid figure with tendrils across its shifting skin, and then the last few organisms sort of slide into place like a puzzle forming in front of you. Shaping eyes, a nose, a mouth, and it stares at you. Does it have the shape of this skull? No, this is more reminiscent of those tentacled creatures that attacked Cres of the City and the one that was rampaging through the streets on the planet. But it's different. It looks it looks almost humanoid.
SPEAKER_00What are we looking at, Lieutenant Maurice? I I pull out my my gun, my face. It is something that is from outside our universe. I need to get out of here. What are we tapping into? And I look at Dr. Corby. Is is is is are there this is this creature doing anything to this?
SPEAKER_04No, it's just staring at you. And it appears to be making some kind of noise.
SPEAKER_00I'll try to see if I can translate that, if that makes any sense to my translator.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so can you give me an insight and science task?
SPEAKER_00That's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_04And uh so Maris can be the lead on that. You can like ask him to do it, and then you can assist if you want to do it that way. He does want to get out, yes. Uh and I have spent threats so that he's feeling overwhelmed at the moment in his mind. You will just do it. Okay. So Carmelo, have you run out of the room?
SPEAKER_02No, I haven't run out yet. The desire is very desire is very strong. Yep, okay. So go ahead, Captain.
SPEAKER_04Do I fail miserably? You don't fail miserably, but you do fail. So you're yeah, you're got your tricorder and you're uh you're trying to figure out what these sounds that it's making. It almost sounds like off-key music. And you're you're unable to understand what it means.
SPEAKER_00I will just lift my arms and say, calm in peace. We want to know what do you want.
SPEAKER_02Maris, what are you doing? I'm gonna see if I can commute try and try and push back the temporal noise and try and understand bringing the the off-key music notes, as you mentioned, into some sort of understanding. So should I do insight and uh or presence?
SPEAKER_04I would say reason and security. You're trying to sort of protect yourself, right? Right, yep. So you have some values here. Uh-huh. There is always a way, might might you all you also have a focus, survival. You could you could use that. I think that would count here. And you're sort of like, you know, coming into survival mode, like you're got some PS PTSD going on, this thing is sort of entering your mind. You don't want it to. It's showing you these images that like you you don't want to partake in, so uh you could certainly use survival. But if you wanted to use a value that would enable you to use the one point of determination that you have to give you two automatic successes on the roll.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I think that sounds that sounds better. So shall I tick using focus then?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Right. So gonna do a roll now.
SPEAKER_04So if you wanted to use your determination, you can check that box as well. Determination value, yeah. Yep. Okay, and then the thing that I learned is that when you're using the determination, set the number of dice in your pool one lower than what you are normally rolling because it's gonna give you that die automatically.
SPEAKER_02So that'll be one dice. Okay. Only dialing one rolling one dice. Okay, here we go. All right, you have two successes.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, you have managed to keep this entity from invading your mind. You've pushed out all of the images that it's flooding your mind with, and you're you're feeling calmer and more in control of yourself. Like you're not worried that you're gonna fall unconscious or slip into some kind of other dimension or what have you. You're not gonna have the kind of experience that you had, you know, earlier when you were unconscious in Sick Bay.
SPEAKER_02It just gives me a better opportunity to try and interpret what it's saying. Yes. So I'm gonna ask it a question who are you? And it just sort of screeches these high-pitched sounds back at you. I think it might be understanding me. We don't understand. We don't understand it, but it may be understanding me.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to try to use your tricorder to sort of figure out the pattern in these idea? So that's insight and science and your difficulties too.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04And rolling now. Okay, so I'm gonna say you succeed at cost here. So your trichorder is isolating a repeating pattern. The pulses of musical notes are not random. They're form a structured kinetic language. And they're not actually notes. You're you're hearing them as notes, but it's actually underneath them is actually a a micro vibration. So you can modify, you you think that you can modify your universal translator to tie it into the tricorder so that the trichorder can scan these synchronized vibrations and and then let the translator form the syntax and the language. And that is gonna be a reason and engineering task. Okay. Reason and engineering. And you've got three successes. Perfect. Okay, so you it's taken you a few minutes. You believe that you've modified the the your universal translator to work with the tricorder. The tricorder is scanning the alien's language, well, you believe is language, and after a few minutes, computerized voice in the translator starts to speak. And it says, We are emissaries of what you might call a colony. Ample warning was given to the talking primate called Maris. We now invoke our Our right to self-defense against the one who reimposed sentience upon us, the one designated as Dr. Corby. He draws us into your universe. For what purpose? This question and others have gone unanswered. Answers are no longer required. Warning was given. Corby must die. All his knowledge, wherever it may reside, must be eradicated.
SPEAKER_00Will answer to that, I guess he will translate, and it's like we understand that you feel forced against your will, and this is something that we understand is giving you pain. I come from I'm part of Corby's group, and we can punish him. We will take him back to our home and put him into trial. Death is not necessary. He will not do this again. Knowledge will be put safe somewhere else.
SPEAKER_02Insufficient. The warning that you gave, I didn't understand it at first. You have to understand that if we had known what you were were telling us from the beginning, we would have done it. You need to give us a chance. Jazz was given ignorance is not an adequate defense.
SPEAKER_04Not ignorance. It was lack of understanding. Lack of understanding is lack of intelligence. This is ignorance. We grow weary of sentience.
SPEAKER_02If we could find a way to close this temporal rift, send you back and make sure it never opens again, would that satisfy you? Perhaps. Tell us more. Is the power structure of this ship creating the temporal rift? Negative. Is it within this ship at all?
SPEAKER_04These primates are ignorant. They do not know how to close what has been opened. Dr. Corby probably could if he opened it. He has struck a chord that should never have been struck. And they have heard it. The song of awakening. A cluster deep in the darkness of slumber, but their time in that dark sleep is nearly over.
SPEAKER_00Tell us more about these ancients or these sleepers. Perhaps you can understand then.
SPEAKER_04You would do well to avoid them. They rise like a plague, devour, conquer, and then retreat into our universe to hibernate. And your galaxy forgets until they awaken again. Only one species in all our knowledge has ever driven them back, forced them into early hibernation. They call themselves Klingon. Do you have any suggestion?
SPEAKER_02I don't know who these Klingons are, but if we can't figure out. Wait a minute. Corby knows how to open this.
SPEAKER_00Go to him. I will try to distract them.
SPEAKER_02I'll talk to Dr. Corby.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So, Tony, do you want to try to do you want to give me either a reason in command or like a presence in command role?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's fine. And just trying to keep them distracted, trying to understand. You know. Let me just roll first.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I'm rolling like a garbage. Yay!
SPEAKER_04Okay. You can give me a roll if you wish. You need zero successes. I can you have two momentum. Okay. So, Lieutenant Maris, you go to Dr. Corby. He's unconscious, and there's a device that fell out of his hand that is by his body. Pick this device up and kept it. He was holding this. You've read about devices like this before, but you've never seen one. It's an ancient Orion artifact, a portable spacefold manipulator. Somehow, Dr. Corby must have gotten it working. So he's using some ancient technology. If you want to spend a momentum, I can give you a little bit more information about this device.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. I need that information.
SPEAKER_04These manipulators were known to weaken the fabric of space-time itself, causing unstable anomalies to appear and shift, seemingly at random, sometimes moving across whole sectors of space. We're going to pause there for a minute, lose this momentum, go back to Mr. Rhodes. You've beamed down to the surface with a team of damage control team, engineering team, what have you. Tell me what you're doing. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So are we beamed like into the city?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so you've beamed down to uh the the remains of Crescita City as close to the burning deuterium tanks as as is safe. You're in protective gear, breathing gear, you have all that out. You've all of that available to you.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So from what I remember, deuterium needs to be sub-zero temperatures, I think it needs. So I would imagine maybe they have some sort of like liquid nitrogen or some sort of thing that they use for like cooling. Yes. Like keeping this stuff like frozen. So maybe I'll have a go have a look and see if there's any of that we can use to like fight the fire, if that makes sense. Or if there's any sort of automated system for like damage control?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's an automated cooling system. And there's also a f a fire control system.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I assume both of them are not working at the moment, or else they would have kicked in. Correct. Let's try and get the fire control online then.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you want to give me a daring and engineering task?
SPEAKER_03Would we consider the center like mining operations? Yes, I would. That's fine, so I have a relevant focus. Okay.
SPEAKER_04And you have the team with you, which acts as a trait, so it reduces the difficulty from three to two.
SPEAKER_03Okay. No momentum at the moment, so I will roll my dice.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you've generated one momentum, you've got the system back online, you've got fires raging, you know, it's starting to like get hot in those suits, even though they're protecting you from the from the heat. It's, you know, the the longer you stay here, the less protection they'll give you, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Can I use my additional momentum to sort of like bypass the safeties on the fire prevention just to like set it to like mat 11, pretty much.
SPEAKER_04So that's like a trait. So it's gonna cost you two momentum, so you can give me one momentum and then or you can spend that one momentum and then give me one threat. If that's what you want to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, let's do that. Okay. So explain again what what you're doing. Bypassing all like the safety protocols where it's just like, you know, nice. Sort of like, you know, like sprinklers, it's sort of like a nice sort of gentle then they're listening. I'm just like bypassing everything, max pressure. Everything.
SPEAKER_04So the fire fire prevention system is like blasting out tons of water. Are you working on the coolants now?
SPEAKER_03Coolant will be the next thing. So the fires aren't spreading any further. Now it will be trying to put out the existing fires, I assume, by reinitializing the coolant.
SPEAKER_04To cool down the so that you have to yeah, you have to cool down the tanks and the existing tanks before they ignite as well, because it's you know, the fires caused raise the temperature significantly.
SPEAKER_03Okay, right. So I guess I'll do that then. Yep, another daring and engineering. Daring, engineering. Assume the mining operation is still relevant because it's a storage of deuterium. Two successes again. Two successes required. Yep. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_02Two successes again, but no momentum gained.
SPEAKER_04Excellent. So then you have got the fires under control. You're most of them are starting to go out, you're lowering the temperatures on the on the tanks that have not ignited so that they don't ignite. But then the since you sort of threw caution to the wind with the fire suppressant system, you've overpowered and over-taxed the remaining power systems that are still functioning on the sh on the on the city, and they've blown.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So is everything now kind of shutting down?
SPEAKER_04Yes, everything is shutting down.
SPEAKER_03Can I quickly try and see if I can switch over to like backups if there's any? Yes.
SPEAKER_04Before you do that, we're going to switch back for a moment. So the the remaining power systems, the conduits, the circuitry has blown, exploding into like, you know, sparks fly, you know, perhaps some of your some of the team, their suits have been singed, maybe some of their suits have been are now ripped and exposed. We switch back to the alien vessel with Maris and Captain Carathazareth. Now, Doctor, did you want to, you've been hanging out in that habitat. Did you want to go into the alien vessel?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I kind of figured that what will happen would be that once you've kind of figured that we couldn't get anything in, we couldn't get into the information, then we will go into the ship because we've just been following from behind. So we'll probably come in at the point that the captain's trying to distract the creature.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so you come into so you follow the the energy signature of the anomaly to what looks like made engineering. You see that entity that they're speaking to. They're talking to one of them squid things.
SPEAKER_01I mean, geez, what the hell? I I'm about to swear and realize I'm with my mum. It's a very awkward moment.
SPEAKER_04I kind of look at it. And Captain Car Thazaris, you've been sort of distracting the entity, chatting with it, reason reasoning with it, and it says to you, as all of that is going on, maybe I'm not even sure if you notice at this point that Dr. Travis and Ensign Blank have entered this entered the space, but the entity says to you, and this is coming through Maris's translator, so it's sort of echoing through the room. We have listened, blue primate. Your words have weight. And then a ripple of energy surrounds all of you. And in an instant, you find yourselves transported onto the bridge of the Magellan. And you can still hear the entity's voice. It's in your head now. Never again draw us into your universe, nor force sentience upon us. We desire no further contact with your kind. And then their entity's words echo and fade, and then the proximity alarm blares, and you barely have time to register the buildup of exotic energy before space itself fractures on your main viewer. And out of the rift, tens of thousands of these small organisms burst forth, surging toward your vessel with terrifying speed. They swarm across the hull. Your armory officer shouts out that whatever those things are, your shields have no effect. They're passing right through them and attaching themselves to the warpna cells. The red alert lights are flashing, the deck groans beneath your feet as the ship lurches forward, pulled toward the heart of the spatial anomaly.