SPEAKER_03 0:25

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 as it really helps others to 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 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. Last time on Star Trek Magellan, the landing party located Dr. Corby at the crash site of a 700-year-old alien starship. Meanwhile, Chief Engineer Rhodes and a damage control team successfully extinguished deuterium fires in the fallen creditor city, averting an ecological disaster. At the crash site, tentacled entities emerged from an anomaly, attacked Dr. Corby, and sent a landing party back to the Magellan. Moments later, the spatial anomaly, known to shift unpredictably, moved from the planet into orbit. Thousands of creatures poured out, passing through the ship's shields and latched on to the warp nacelles. The Magellan lurched violently as the anomaly began to pull it in. And now the conclusion. The scene opens on the main bridge of the Magellan at red alert. The landing party has disappeared. Commander Cabal spins around in the command chair. That wasn't our transporter, he says. What was that, Captain?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

No, but I can only guess is it's due to this interdimensional creatures that we encounter. I can still hear them in my head. What's his status?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

This anomaly appeared in front of the ship just as soon as you arrived. He turns to the engineer who's on duty on the bridge to find out what those what those creatures are doing to the warped cells. Douglas, do you want to play Mr. Denner while your chief engineer is on the planet?

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Yeah, sure. Someone else can play blank do his accent this time. Okay. But do I want to do an accent? Let's do terrible Russian, why not? Nuclear nuclear nuclear vessel. Vessel. Vessel vessel. Quessel. Quessel. Quessel. Nuclear nuclear quessel. Aye, Captain. Okay. Let me go do my check. What's going on? What's happening? So that is a control and engineering task. Control engineering. Is it relevant to the warp drive? Yes, it is. Okay. Alright. Nothing and a complication. I am going to bank that complication for two threats.

SPEAKER_06 4:12

Scott basically says over to the captain. Captain, bridge is no place for a chief medical officer. I'll be down in Sigbay and I'll wander off the bridge. It's no helpful. I'm not gonna help anyone here.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Alright, so, Mr. Denner, you have discovered that the warp core is pulsating at irregular frequencies. The fluctuations are beating in unpredictable, overlapping patterns. A duplication effect is occurring. It is as if the warp nacelles are existing in two realities simultaneously.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Are we moving?

SPEAKER_04 4:44

He would probably turn to like the helm officer and be like, are we moving? Captain, we all.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

You're being pulled, so the gravity of the anomaly is pulling you toward it.

SPEAKER_06 4:53

Would you like to try and uh change course? Yes. Get us out of here. Sarah Holtz, who's the helmsman, is going to attempt to fight against this. Guessing control and con? Correct. Your difficulty is going to be five. Guess I'm going to use helm operations as my uh my focus? Difficulty five. That should be fun. And I generate one extra momentum when I'm helming a starship. So we'll give it a go.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Oh, will it help? It's what control and command.

SPEAKER_06 5:22

Do you know what?

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Yes. They give you one one threat as well. Yeah, then an extra dice. Okay, so I gave you a one sa uh one success. Is the ship gonna be relevant to this task?

SPEAKER_06 5:33

So I got four successes.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

So I assume it's the ship's engines to help maneuver? Yes, that's correct.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

Wanna roll for the ship?

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Uh yeah, I can roll for the ship.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

So far we've got five successes. Dude, you guys are insane right now. Okay, so.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Okay. Let's get some momentum. Yep. Let me have a loop. Ship always rules if it's out of focus. Do we have any relevant talent?

SPEAKER_03 5:57

A ship always operates as if it has uh an appropriate focus.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Okay. Yeah, I'm just seeing it for the performing task, one dice, use focus. Chip go.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

One success from the ship. The ship is shaking under the strain of pulling away from the from the anomaly, and you've managed to you have not broken free from the anomaly, but you have now given yourself some distance from it at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Uh Lieutenant Marius, I'm wondering now if it would be a good moment to use that Orion device close this. Is that even possible? The device has not returned with you.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Corby did not return with you as well. That was a complication generated with threat from last episode.

SPEAKER_06 6:44

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Well, I guess I answered your question, Captain. So we do then. Carmelo, do you want to uh attempt a sensor sweep of the spatial anomaly?

SPEAKER_04 6:54

I absolutely do. So that's gonna be uh reason and science? Yep.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Your focus supplies. Okay. Rolling dice. Okay. And Douglas, do you want to roll for the ships? Yeah, sure. Sensors and science?

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Sensors of science plus it has high resolution science, which gives it extra bonus if it succeeds. So sensors and science. One dice.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Off we go. And okay, so you've now generated three momentum plus your bonus momentum, correct? For your high resolution sensors. Okay. So Mr. Maris, sensors indicate that the anomaly is a quantum fissure. You estimate, thank you, thanks to the Helmsman's quick thinking, she has now given you 40 minutes before the gravity of the anomaly overwhelms the Magellan and pulls you into it. And if you want to spend a point of momentum, you can ask me a question.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

Right. Okay, I will definitely spend one to ask the question.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

And remember you have those creatures that are uh to have passed through your shields and are attaching themselves to the hull of your warp engines, which are affecting the warp engines in some strange way.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Could could we use the warp engines in some way to make the the creatures let go? Can we s can we do something with the power of the of the warp engines? Shut shut them off, t change the change the frequency of them in some way?

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Well, if you if you shut the engines off, you'll just be pulled right into the anomaly. You can certainly try to adjust ionize the hull?

SPEAKER_04 8:41

The frequency, you can just ionize the hull. Yeah. Like this is technically a refitted Earth ship, right, where they just stuck the shields on. Like, you've still got technically the hull plating is still like the old hull plating, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:54

No, this this was a a Columbia class built from scratch.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Yeah, but they the shield was put in after the Columbia class was designed, right? Because they initially they just had the hull plating. Because do we still technically have the hull plating, just we don't use it anymore? So we could run something through the hull plating if we re like turned that back on. Polarize the hull plating. Yeah, exactly. Sure, okay. Like, we'd probably have to go down to engineering, like get those old systems like bypassed or something like that. But like. What what would we polarize, like electricity or like something?

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Or so here's the the So there's a clock ticking. So you have 40 minutes before the ship is pulled into the anomaly. Every task that you now perform is going to take 10 minutes. So you have four tasks that you can perform before your 40 minutes are up.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So let's try this polarization thing, because why not? Second, it would be nice to get rid of these things on the work nacelles, uh, which I don't even know where to start, but I'm guessing we detach them somehow. You know, with some kind of MP or kind of electrical kind of current thingy. Right, that's what they were discussing, the polar polarizing the hull. Okay, but uh I thought they were inside. They are not inside. No, they're not inside, no, they're on the outside of the ship. Yeah. Okay, so this polarization should do that.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

How did we kill the other ones? Like the the ones on the planet? We just shot them with a phaser. Well, three of us aimed our phasers at it because the three phases combined created the enough power needed to destroy it. Yeah. So recreate the sort of like phaser effect on the whole plating somehow? That sort of energy. If that makes sense. Like maybe rewrite the rewrite the phasers into the whole plating.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

These polarization probably should do that, though. That sounds Star Treky.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

If only we have a chief engineer, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Yeah. I know.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

So if you want to if you wanna if you want to soup up the po the the potential power of polarizing the hull, there I'll just increase the complication range because you'll risk like blowing out, you know, circuits in certain parts of the ship and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

So Matt can go and do that. We'll send Matt to get this done, this polarization and rewiring all the stuff. Maris, what else can we do with this? Can you try to somehow you were mentioning with using the warp cells? Can we actually use the the warp cells to close this rift? We can use a something even possible.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

Well, I was thinking if we could use the deflector dish.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

We might be able to channel create a tachyon wave. Worth a try, man. Worth a try, Lieutenant Maris. Worth a try. Go get it done.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

So we'll I'll roll a reason and science again? I'm gonna say that is daring and a science. Daring and science. Got it. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Take focus, using focus. I don't see a focus that applies. Yeah, neither do I actually. Okay. I'll just roll them.

SPEAKER_06 12:17

You say we're really good at our uh our roles, but then we seem to get quite a lot of complications. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Come really good scientist ideas, and then fail horribly on the rules. So it's like, no. Sounded like it would work. Didn't work. If you want complications, I'm your guy.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

You're setting up this tachyon pulse through the main deflector dish, and you blow out a bunch of relays. The ship is being strained right now because of the gra the pull of the gravity of the anomaly. So that coupled with you trying to set up this tachyon pulse, overtacks some of the computer systems and blows out a couple of relays in the in the deflector in the deflector room. So the any tasks now that you either use sensors or the deflector will increase by one. So that was ten minutes. You have three more tasks left. Let's try the polarization next, no? Mr.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Mr. Denner. Denner, yeah. Who's down to engineering and whoever's left is just like, right? You know those old systems we never use. We're going to use them in ten minutes. So we're crawling through tubes and stuff to get this working. Okay, I assume this is gonna be some daring rewiring stuff, I assume. Yes, absolutely. Okay, I have no relevant focus, I have no talents, because I am a very early on supporting character. You're you're an ensign, as a matter of fact. Now's your time to show in. I've literally never been mentioned before this episode. Right, exactly. Okay, uh, what's my difficulty? Your difficulty is going to be four. Okay, and the ship, I assume, is rolling because I'm doing something to do with the ship? Correct. I still don't think I'm gonna pull this off, but there's momentum there. I think it's I think it's actually physically impossible unless I can Can I buy momentum as a supporting character? So buy use momentum? I think a supporting character can, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. I might just buy a dice. Because then it's actually physically possible for me to succeed. Well, would you like me to roll for the ship? Yes, and I think the complication range goes up as well on the ship. It does. So let me roll my three dice. Wow. Joining Maris and the complications club. But I got two successes. So I think unless like the ship rolls of one. What would you like me to roll, sir? Well, we'd be the relevant ones, Marco.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

The the system is going to be structure. The department is gonna be engineering and tick focus. Yep. And then you're gonna roll one die. And hope we get two successes.

SPEAKER_06 15:10

Well, let's see whether the luck holds out, shall we? No, one success.

SPEAKER_04 15:15

That's no, that's zero. That's well, that's even worse.

SPEAKER_06 15:21

Oh god. I was like, surely they must have less Oh no, probably not.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

So here's your complication. You have blown out the shield generators, so your shields have not collapsed.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

They weren't working.

unknown 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

So I assume all the Brits are like, shields are down, Captain.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Exactly, yes. What what could we do extra? Try to warp away? Is this something that we can try to see if we can pull out of this quantum thingy?

SPEAKER_03 15:50

You know that you don't have enough power to escape the gravity. Well, you'll just blow out your engines.

SPEAKER_06 15:56

Okay, that's a bad idea. Sorry, Captain.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Can we get a reading on how many of these creatures are attached to a hole? Thousands, did you say? Yeah, they're they're they're they're really small. They're tens of thousands of them. Okay, so now because I was thinking like perhaps we can just go out and shoot at them with a shuttle or something.

SPEAKER_06 16:13

Would we be able to take this into the atmosphere? Would you not be able to burn them off in the atmosphere?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

The problem is that we are being attracted by this rift. So if we try to fly to the atmosphere, we might not be able to move.

SPEAKER_06 16:26

That's good point. Okay, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

And we use the teletransporter in some way. Is there a way that we can teletransport them away? I mean, or they'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_06 16:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I don't know, Captain. And we still try to keep on pulling away, or this is the maneuver that we did is everything we can do, Marco.

SPEAKER_06 16:46

I guess I'm I'm I'm trying to uh stay away as quick as we can, but we're it's inevitable. I can kind of maintain this for another twenty minutes. Um and then we're going straight into that thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Lieutenant Maris, can you tell us what's on the other side of this thing? Do we know anything?

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Well I'm getting from from the sensor so the censors I'm not getting uh getting much because obviously sorry, I blew out most of the most of the equipment. But my Esper capacity is is is again picking up different realities, glimpses of of different different universes, uh past, present, future, all of them combined together. I'm not exactly sure where we're gonna end up or where if we go through. We can only hope that we're gonna be able to get the.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

If we survive the crossing. And if it doesn't burn my brain out in the process. Could you be possible to contact these entities? Because we assume that these entities attached to the hole are the same entities that we were speaking with, correct? Correct. We could try using the universal translator that we had that I adapted to the uh tricorder again. What's a try? Can you can you can you somehow transmit something through the hole so they can listen to us? Some vibrations or or can we boost this message so they can hear it outside?

SPEAKER_04 18:03

We can try and boost the message, but I think we we have enough capabilities to try and boost the message through a communication system.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yep. Please do that and uh try to communicate with them. Perhaps with your special ability, you manage to reach them.

unknown 18:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

So we're going to first try and uh use the universal translator through the communication system.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

So that will be reason and science for me. Yep. And her assistance, since she's a non-controlled character. Well, actually, Ed, you're not on the you're not in the seed, so you wanna you wanna roll for her? Sure, okay.

SPEAKER_06 18:37

So she's got linguistics, cryptography, subspace communications. That'll be really helpful. Subspace communications as a focus applies.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

You're gonna roll probably Comms officer, what does that do?

SPEAKER_06 18:49

Control or daring and engineering. Control engineering, communications, officers of talent. When you attempt to task set up with the ships computers, or communication systems. Do not roll the ship's assist die. Instead, count the ship's die as if it had rolled a one.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Okay, so that means you have two automatic successes. You need two more. Alright, so you're gonna roll one die. Maris is gonna roll two.

SPEAKER_06 19:17

Okay. So have a look. So two successors are what I've got. Roll mine. So that's gonna be a few. Three successes.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Five.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Well done.

SPEAKER_06 19:28

Three, four, five, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Okay, so that's one momentum. One momentum, correct. Alright, so what do you say? What message are you transmitting? So, Emma Emmy kind of looks at Maris.

SPEAKER_04 19:41

Please disattach yourself from our ship. We could we may not be able to survive the trip through the quantum rift.

SPEAKER_06 19:48

She kind of like changes that and messes about with the um frequencies to kind of send it to something similar that you had done before and sends it through subspace on a hult ultra high frequency, directed towards the creatures that are on the hull and focused in the rift, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

So you hear a response come back moments later. These are a collection of our colony that did not agree with the decision of the majority. We regret their actions in harming your vessel. And then you see like this this flash of light, like if you have one of the other screens near your console to show you the warp nacelles, the back end of the ship. Does you sort of see this flash of light around the nacelles, and then the creatures all get pushed away from your nacelles and they start flying back into the quantum fissure?

SPEAKER_06 20:43

Stolt says, Did you want me to get out of here now? Captain.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

You try to break free from the gravitational pull of the quantum fissure, the engines, strain under the pressure. But whatever those creatures did to your warped cells, their departure hasn't changed a thing. We need to ask it another question, Captain.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

We need to ask it another question whether it can close the rift for it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

If you can communicate with these creatures, they already help us with this. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

We will we'll send we'll send this message to them right away. Okay, and as you're doing that, you're getting a frantic call from your ensign, Ensign Denner, in the engineering room, that he says whatever those creatures were doing to the nacelles caused significant damage to the engines, potentially resulting in a core breach. Everyone's eyes just got buggy. And we'll leave it there for a second now that Douglas is back with us, and we will go to the planet. Douglas. Wow, things are even better down here than last time.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

I just look up and be like, ooh.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

So you're on the planet, you're at crest of the you're in the crest of the city. You've managed to bring the fires under control. The tanks that had not yet ignited to stabilize them so that they won't ignite. But in doing so, you blew out most of what was left of the power in the city. So all of that progress m is may now start to be undone as the power dissipates. You've got a couple of wounded men, not not badly wounded, injured, I should say. Some of their suits are singed and one of their suits ripped open, but they're still, you know, they're still in it. They're not they're not they're not walking away from the job. Backups. Do we have backups?

SPEAKER_04 22:31

Did the batteries survive the crash?

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yes. The batteries survived the crash.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

If I rewrited the batteries, how long would that give us? How long do the batteries count out if I just got it on maintaining the temperature stuff and the fire control? The batteries will be good for several days. Okay, so if I can get the batteries, that gives me several days to figure out something else. Fine, then let's uh get the batteries. See if I can rewire these things. So that would be a daring and an engineering task once again. I assume power systems is relevant. Absolutely. Or if anything else. Nope. Okay, how many successes am I looking at? You know what? I think the other guys might need the momentum.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Like if I fail, I think it might not be the end of the world, but three because a lot of systems are damaged, so it's not like the easiest thing to get them back up and running. That is three successes exactly. That is amazing. Okay, yeah. So you've you've you know spent the next like 10, 10, 15 minutes rerouting circuitry to get the backup batteries back online, and they're and they're working, they're humming along, and you've got that fire under control. Those the temperature on those tanks is going back down. I guess I'll go check on my guys and see if they're fine. Yeah, a couple of them are you know a couple of them are coughing a bit because one of their breathing apparatuses got damaged, but other than that, they they seem okay. You know what?

SPEAKER_04 24:05

We might as well multitask while we're down here. This stuff's it's gonna stay. This is fine. This is safe now for a while, right? For three days. Yep. You know what? We'll take a bit of a hike, we'll go fix the shuttle pod while we're down. Okay. As far as I'm aware, nothing else is going on at the moment. Exactly. Now, is anyone calling down to their chief engineer? They have other problems.

SPEAKER_06 24:28

Well, if I'm in sick bay, would I be able to kind of hear what's going on or would I would I not be part of that kind of like conversation at all? It depends on what you mean by hear what's going on. I guess Would I be listening to sort of like intercom channels as a as the doctor, or would I be kind of just You could certainly turn that on and pay attention. I will probably use the ship's communication, I guess, depending on how far and out of orbit are we? Are we still in orbit?

SPEAKER_03 24:56

You're in orbit, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:58

Yeah, which case I'll I'll call down and go, hey roads, yeah, communication.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

What was the last thing that I knew Scott Travis was doing? I was He well no, what was the last thing I knew you were doing? You I think you crashed your shuttle was the last thing. Yeah. So you the shuttle had crashed. Yeah, that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:19

Why, Scott? You still with the shuttle? We're just heading your way now? No, we are in the Magellan and we are heading towards some kind of gravity well or something. Are you still going to come get us? No, we'll probably beam you up here. Knowing how well he loves a good old beam.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Like we're just going to go fix if you left the shot, we'll just go fix that and take that back up. You've just said we're going into a gravity well. You've not said we are being kidnapped by a gravity well.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

And then I then I say, um, I think there's something to do with a core breach. A whoop core breach. We might need some assistance. I'm just kind of thinking. I mean, I look around uh at some of the others and go, maybe you don't want to come back. I mean, that seems perfectly reasonable. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Um, Rhodes, you can you can hear the you can hear in the background the red alert siren is going off. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

Hang on, hang on, Doc. I'm gonna call Matt and see what's going on. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna call Matt. Denner. Now you can voice both these people. Now you're gonna have a conversation with yourself, Douglas. Yes. At least I'll do the accent. Denner, yeah. This is Rhodes, what's going on? Calling to the doctor, and he said there's some sort of core breaching thing. Yes. The ship things are ships overloading. We're just trying to shut down the core at the moment. But the the aliens were attacking the warp syndicals, and the big thing opened up into the thing, and he's just rambling on about a bunch of stuff that wrote, what on earth are you talking about? And he's like, Give me a status report. And he could so so what what is Denner, what is actually going on? What could Denner assess exactly what's happening?

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Okay, so a quantum fissure, you're you're being pulled by the gravity well of a quantum fissure, and you have about 20 minutes left before the ship is pulled into the anomaly. The warp engines were pulsating at irregular frequencies because of something that these alien creatures were doing to the nacelles, and it was as if the nacelles were existing simultaneously in in two different realities at once, and that caused some significant damage to the to the engines, which could potentially cause a catastrophic core breach. He's getting conflicting readings from the from the engines, most likely due to that duplicating effect.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Are you in the process of attempting a core shutdown? Yes. We're just thinking about it, but as soon as we do that, we're probably going straight into this gravity well. Right. Denner, you've got this. I try I have my trust in you. Because I think I'm one of my values is you have to put trust in the person next to you. So this is I don't know. Would this be a negative application of it if I'm like, I have favored you to do your job? And not be like rush back? Depends if that if he's going to fuck up royally or not.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

Yeah, so here's the thing, right? Perhaps we should challenge that value. You have to trust the person next to you.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Yeah. Well, uh, yeah, actually I'm looking at that's not quite that's not quite relevant. It's next to you. So it'd be like if he was down here. Right, he's not next to you. I'm I'm seeing that. Yeah, the wording of that's slightly different. You know what? I'm just I'm just trying to think if he would insist on like getting teamed up or not. It depends on how much he he, as the chief engineer, loves his ship. This is how much faith he has in his own engineering team. You know what? He does have faith in his engine his own team. Yeah. He has faith in other people to do their jobs. Okay. Everyone else has failed horribly, apparently, at their own jobs on the ship, but includes Jenner, but he doesn't know that yet. So Right. We're double timing it back to the shuttle, and we'll hopefully get that up and running and join you when we can. Roads out.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Okay. We are now gonna switch back to the Magellan. What is the crew doing? You have twenty minutes left, which means you have two tasks left to perform. Here's a question, Marco.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

You're yes, go ahead. What's gonna happen first? The core breach or the us getting sucked into the gravity well?

SPEAKER_03 29:45

That information is unclear from the perspective of your engineers.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

Because yeah, escaping from the cover well is not an issue if we're just going to explode. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

But we already did three tasks, no? What's that? The communication, the polarization, and kind of the dish thingy that we're trying to close the rift. We did three tasks.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

We're waiting for one to one. We're waiting for a response. Tony's right. We've done three tasks.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Well, no, the the the met the message itself, both messages count as one task. Yeah, yeah, but that's still three things that we did. Right, right. So we have ten minutes left. No, no, no, you still have 20 minutes left. Don't argue with the GM.

SPEAKER_04 30:30

Okay, I'm not gonna argue for extra time.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yeah, don't argue for extra time.

SPEAKER_06 30:34

Ca Captain, can we uh send the core that's gonna breach into the anomaly ahead of us and then set it off? Which would then could zipper the riff.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Do you think a warp core explosion is gonna close the riff?

SPEAKER_06 30:51

It's theoretically possible.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

Helsin' stolt says, dunno, I'm not not an engineer. The thing that's being attracted is the warp engine itself. Therefore, it's the power in the warp core. Therefore, if you get rid of the warp core, we're probably not gonna get pulled in anymore. That the warp core will get magnetized to Is Is this Matt talking? Because that's what's pulling us in, right? Is that Matt is that Matt Denner talking? If Denner is involved in the conversation, he can He was.

unknown 31:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

The gravity is what's pulling you in. Right. So isn't that the warp was the aliens which is now being resolved? Correct. So what's stopping us from just like putting all power into engines?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Because we mentioned that and he said they was gonna blown, no?

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Because I just do warp. Your engines can't escape the gravity of the well just by going to warp.

SPEAKER_06 31:47

So we need to sort of like somehow stop gravity.

SPEAKER_04 31:50

Well well warp fields inherently are well warp fields are inherently warp gravity. That's how they work. If the warp core is ejected and it blows in the uh and seals the rift, then there's no more gravity. Because it's Well, we don't know if that's gonna seal the rift. That's a question I think theoretically possi. It's a theoretical possibility. We're also very unlikely to survive because we have no shields.

SPEAKER_06 32:15

Yeah, scratch that, Captain.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Well, there are two things. We might survive. There are two things there, the captain says. One, first would be how these entities will take that we launch an explosion within the rift. And the second, like, we don't know what's gonna if that's really gonna close the thing. In any case, we should try to stop this critical core tubo critica. Like that would be the first thing.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

And then the engines lose all power. Well, do whatever you can, then it go for it. Core shut down then. Fix it, Captain? Yes, sir. He just sort of like just funny, he just sort of stands there being like, how on earth do I fix this?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Not an engineer.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Fix it. It's like it's like Chernobyl where it's like the thing's exploding. Just fix it. Something to consider. If we can although we don't have shields, we still can polarize the hole plating. So if we needed to shield. Last we failed and polarized the hole plating. We failed to polarize the shields. We failed everything. Well, boy, am I gonna be working a death job at Starbase 4 for the rest of my life? No, I think I think you'll be dead, along with everyone else.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Captain, your armory officer has just has just told you that you've suffered a hull breach from the strain of the gravity. It's starting to affect the structure of the ship. They've sealed off the breach, so now, rules-wise, you can sustain five more breaches because you have a structure of six before your structure is destroyed. So you're gonna need to eject the warp core? Is that what's happening?

SPEAKER_04 34:00

No, we're fixing it.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

You're gonna fix the warp core, okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

That's what the captain told me to do. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

Tell me, because Tenner don't know. You want to put the hydro spanner in the thingy majig, and then you want to kind of like reset it, turn it all off and start again. Turn it off for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

The polarity of the neutron flow, that usually works. Where's my sonic screwdriver? They're bad, right? Yeah. Probably bad because I don't know if they established you can even eject them in these old ships.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, I don't know if you're the clinical ones go out and out. Yeah, I don't I don't think you could.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

We might really be for Okay, so if you need So, Ed, to stab Ed, I'm sorry, Douglas. Or Denner, I should say, to stab to stabilize the reactor is a difficulty three daring or control plus engineering task. And this is actually better use it. This is actually ooh, this is actually an extended task with the house. Oh my god, 20 minutes track. The progress track is equal to the ship's engines. So you need to have seven ticks you need to tick off seven. Seven successes in 20 minutes. No, no, not seven successes. So when you when you succeed in a task, the department that you're using is the impact that that goes against the work track. So what is your engineering department for your character?

SPEAKER_04 35:31

Let's have a look. I think it's all right.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

I think it's four. Yeah. Four. Okay. So if you succeed at the task. So if you succeed at the task, you'll have applied four points to the work track. So you'll need three more points after that. How long is an interval? That is not a timed task. But the t the the because the There is a time. Yes. Yes. You have two more tasks left before the anomaly pulls you through.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

So is this extended task one of those tasks? Yes.

SPEAKER_07 36:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

So I will have to spend ten minutes attempting to fix make sure we don't explode. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Do not explode. Probably not. I don't think it does, no. It doesn't mention it does right here in the stabilizing the reactor rules, so. Is the warp core part of the warp drive?

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Yes. Then I get a focus, so. Okay. Yes. Okay, here we go. So we need. What's the difficulty on this extended task? Oh, so we need three to even like, okay, I'm gonna buy a dice with the momentum. Okay. Look at that. Three successes. Now I just need to do that once more. That is amazing. Nice. So we're halfway there.

SPEAKER_06 36:52

You're halfway there. One task left to do. And the only task is to basically repair the bobcall.

SPEAKER_04 37:00

No. Well, no, this is this is all within the 10-minute list bit. So whether I succeed or fail, I think is within this. Is it?

SPEAKER_03 37:07

No, that was one task. Now you have to do the second task is gonna be another 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Literally, so we're going in. See whether I succeed or fail, we're going in. You'll be going in alive. It's whether we go it's whether we go in in a million pieces or as a semi-intact ship.

SPEAKER_06 37:24

Exactly. So in that intervening ten minutes, I will have run. This is uh Scott Travis will have run to the transporters. Because, you know, I know I could just phone it in, but it's more dramatic that way. And try and see if we can get a look on the engineering team that are on the planet. Okay. Denner, give me that role.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

No, please don't. Because there's sensor interference.

SPEAKER_06 37:53

You wanna spend some threat?

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Sorry. Well, Denner. Oh yeah, is this for the ship? Okay, fine. Uh, here we I'm gonna give you some threat because if we don't how much I'll tell you what, I'll give you three threat. Because we need we need to not die. Okay. It's important. So that's four dice. Oh my god. Wonderful, wonderful. I've I've managed to sh- three dice, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Okay, I'm gonna spend two of those threats that you gave me, so I'm only adding one to the pool. To cause another structure breach. So now you've got two. Okay, so it's tense on the bridge. The alarm, the red alert is blaring, the ship is shaking, you're all in your chairs, like wondering why there aren't any seat belts. And Denner, you're down in engineering with like a skeleton crew because the chief engineer brought a a very large contingent of the engineering team to the planet surface. And you managed to stabilize the warp core, which was not an easy task. Every time you were inputting information, you were seeing that information change. It was like the warp nacelles were were in a quantum state. But you somehow managed to get around all of that, stabilize the warp core, and the threat of a core breach is over. Let's switch for a second to the planet. Chief Engineer, you're at the shuttle, you're at the shuttle pod. Yep, we're backing up 20 minutes. You're at the s you're at the shuttle pod.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

And uh, well, I suppose I'm like, oh, look at these uh interesting people down here. As I wander through their city in my spacesuit.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

They're all looking at you quite you know quite strangely, but they're you know, they they've seen they they've they've seen your crew before, so they're just kind of like waving. Okay. None of them seem to interested in interacting with you.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

In a hurry, let's let's go see what Travis has done to this shuttle pod. How badly is Travis broken by shuttle pod scorch broken by shuttle pod?

SPEAKER_03 39:58

It's it's a it's it's not as bad as it looks. The outside, you know, there's a lot of dents and dings, there's there's some structural issues that you can deal with later. Might be a little dicey, but you can, you know, you can in a in a pinch, you can get her up in the air, but you just gotta get those you just gotta get those engines taken care of. So if you're in a rush, you can do a daring and an engineering task to repair the engines. The ship seems like it got clipped by some debris. The engines, part of the engine block has sustained some damage, so you just have to reroute some circuits to uh to make the ship go again. As as I guess as Spock would say on Strange New Worlds, make the ship go.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

So a daring engineering, I assume.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Yes. You want to use jury rigging?

SPEAKER_04 40:45

Yeah, I'll use jury rigging focused, so that's fine. How many successes am I needing? You are going to need two. And what does the rugged design do? Oh, I can re-roll a d20 when I repair. Yeah. Okay. So if I fuck up completely, I can re-roll it a single d20. How many was it? Two successes, was it? Or one? Uh two. Uh focus. Let's go. Uh does the engineering team help in any way? But I passed.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

So yeah, it brought the difficulty down from three. Excellent. Okay, so you have a you have a momentum. So you've spent the next ten minutes getting these engines ready. Ship is ready to go. You've got it jury-rigged. What are you doing? Tak taking her up? Can you fit your engineering team? Probably, right? Well, I assume I take six. I think.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

I don't know how many people I took. I assume I probably like probably six, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

So six, I think, is seated. You could get people standing.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Yep, you get her in the air. We're gonna switch again. So uh you want to use this momentum for anything?

SPEAKER_04 41:49

It's just gonna disappear, isn't it? Next thing. Uh can I spend the momentum? No, it need to do a trait. I can't think of any other additional momentum spends I could do that could cost more than one. Okay, question.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Are you piloting the shuttle?

SPEAKER_04 42:04

A trait would be I'm the only character.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

That's that's there's no supporting characters here. They're literally nameless. They have no personalities. I would have to spend momentum to give them a personality. Give me a control and a con task for piloting the shuttle? This is going to suck. And if you want to buy a die with that extra momentum, you can. You know what? Will I buy a die to not get sucked into the thing instantly when I get up there?

unknown 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

Why should I say these things? They just give you ideas.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Okay. So you take the shuttle up and you get into orbit, you see the Magellan. It is like nose to nose with this spatial anomaly. It is dangerously close to the being pulled in. You're starting to feel the turbulence of the of the gravity of the anomaly. You know, it's starting to overpower the engines, so you're gonna have to throw you throttle back on the engines so you don't burn them out, trying to fight against the the gravity.

SPEAKER_04 43:07

No. And now that we're in space, can I send out like a distress call? Yes, you can. Then I will send out a distress call. To who? And what does it say? Just generally, out. Because there's those ships that took away the people can't have been gone for more than a couple hours. That's true. That's true. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

So you're sending out a distress call, like a general distress call. Dr. Travis, you've run to the transporter room.

SPEAKER_06 43:31

I get there and go, right, look onto the planet for that. And they're like, he's in space or walking call.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Scanning, scanning, scanning. I can't find him. And then we switch to the engineering room. You've got that warp core. We're now on the timeline is now like the timeline of events has now caught up with everything. So you you you've just averted that warp core breach and and the entire ship lurches forward. Everyone falls to the deck. We go to the bridge. Captain, you're like the gravity is pushing you against the back seat of the captain's chair.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

I'm asking Sarah. Sarah Holt. Lieutenant. She's Lieutenant Holt. Yes, Captain. We cannot keep on fighting. The ship is gonna break if we don't.

SPEAKER_06 44:15

Okay, Captain. She like puts her sort of like hands up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

And I'd send a message to the whole ship. Get ready. We are going inside a wrist. We don't know what's gonna happen, but it's the only way that we will survive. Hold fast.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

We see the Magellan and the shuttle pod Filero shudder violently under the strain of overwhelming gravitational forces as they're both dragged into the quantum fissure. Then reality fractures. You're in two places at once. You're on the Magellan. Chief Engineer Rhodes, you're on the Falero. But you are also on another slightly different Magellan. Another Falero, and then another, and another. You feel every version of yourself, some alive, some screaming in pain, others on the brink of death.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

There are no stars, just darkness, endless, absolute blackness, and something else watching the colour.