STAR TREK FAE

Lemurs & Lies v1.0a

A Star Trek Mission for the Fate Accelerated Tabletop (FAE) Roleplaying System

By Mark Tygart

Play testers: Michael Palucki, Ric Battaglia, Josh Iverson

Introduction

“Star Trek typically isn't focused on action and combat. The nice thing about Fate Accelerated is that its conflict rules work just as well for phaser blasting a cadre of Romulans as they do for talking a group of robots to death using logical paradoxes. This here is just a long string of Flashy social attacks...So yeah, FAE is perfect.”

---Josh Burnett (Bernie the Flumph Blog)

Josh Burnett is right, of course. There are a respectable number of Star Trek rules conversions for Fate in all its various flavors but you can’t go wrong with Burnett’s brilliant example of how you can simply play Star Trek with the FAE rules. So much so that when my normal gaming group’s GM had to miss a D&D 5e session I was able to beam them over to the Star Trek universe for an adventure using Josh’s Trek blog entries as a basis for our ensuing space opera.

Josh Burnett’s Fate of the Federation

Character Creation

http://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com/2017/07/star-trek-with-fate-accelerated-part-1.html

Starships

https://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com/2017/07/star-trek-with-fate-accelerated-part-2.html

Bad Guys

http://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com/2017/07/star-trek-with-fate-accelerated-part-3.html

Setup

The players are the crew of the USS Prometheus, a starship which closely resembles the USS Archer in the Star Trek: Strange New World pilot. It’s a small scout ship intended for scientific missions within the Federation with a very minimal crew and a high degree of automation. The onboard ship’s A.I. which can perform almost all the ship’s functions at the crews’ command. It has unusually comfortable crew quarters to cater to a possible civilian staff, advanced sensors but no photon torpedoes or shuttlecraft.

One of the players should be given command and a higher rank than the other officers although the culture aboard Federation science vessels tends towards the informal. Another item to note is the absence of a shuttlecraft and dependence on transporters can easily help strand them when dramatically needed.

The Prometheus is something of a plum assignment, given it has the latest equipment, comforts and crew cabins for both the small crew and any passengers. However, this entire ship class has been given the derogatory nickname of the “comfortable coffins” for it perceived lack of combat ability. More than one barfight has been started by envious officers asking about crewmembers “funeral plans” when learning they are serving aboard this class of ship.

U.S.S. Prometheus

Classification: Marco Polo class science vessel

Assets: Scientific Sensors, A.I.

Weakness: Doesn’t carry torpedoes or shuttlecraft

Reputation: A.I. is the best the Daystrom Institute can currently supply

Stunts

Because the Prometheus has an advanced sensors, the crew gets +2 on all ship sensor rolls

Because the AI is so advanced it can run routine operations, maintenance, and repair with minimal crew input, by receiving a -3 penalty on all combat roles. Over time the A.I. will develop a personality of the GM’s choosing and after multiple missions could even become a liability or even dangerous at the GM’s discretion.

Refresh: 3

Stress: OOO

Mission Briefing

(Wherein our brave crew learns its mission)

Wherever the crew of the Prometheus is currently occupied they receive urgent and updated orders.

The crew of the Prometheus has been at once tasked with checking on a small scientific outpost on the only moon of Palucki 3 (Palucki 3a), an M class planetoid with conditions like Earth during its Ice Age (think Endor or Pandora with Hoth’s climate). Despite the system’s proximity to the Klingon Neutral Zone its chief attraction to the Federation is scientific. In the snowy forests of the moon’s equator live a race of small, sentient humanoids that strongly resemble Earth’s lemurs (if on Earth lemurs were the size of young children and had snowy white fur, with black stripes and soulful blue eyes). The appearance of this sentient species on the planet contradicts the three most currently popular theories of sentient evolution and a pair of scientists (Andorian female and male Human) were dispatched to a small and carefully camouflaged base (nicknamed “New Siberia”) to study the situation. Recently the Federation has lost contact with scientists and the Prometheus is ordered to leave at once to check on their welfare. All the restrictions of the Prime Directive are to be fully enforced with the possible penalty of court martial. Godspeed, Prometheus.

Actual Situation

The moon’s inhabitants (called Snow Lemurs, Ice Lemurs or simply “Lemurs”) are the products of bioengineering experiments of an ancient, alien manufactured entity known as the Crystal Probe. Dispatched eons ago by its creator race it has been manufacturing both life and eventually sentient lifeforms all over this section of the galaxy ever since. To aid it in its work it also uses psionic cloaking technology and manufactured servant Biological Probes from its former bioengineered polar base on Palucki 3a.

The Crystal Probe is ancient and arrogant, holding both the Klingons and Federation in contempt. It originally simply ignored the Federation scientists and successfully cloaked itself and its base from them as successfully as they avoided the Lemurs. It was detected by the nearby Klingons due to fact that it radiated a signature form of temporal displacement like the Klingon world of Boreth’s time crystals and the Klingon’s recently acquired knowledge of simple cloaking technology obtained from the Romulans. A cloaked Klingon ship (ISS Horrifying Death) was dispatched to covertly investigate and promptly engaged in a brutal conflict (Klingons being Klingons) with the Crystal Probe. This resulted in a deeply damaged Crystal Probe being captured, its polar base largely destroyed and its Lemur friends being traumatized. The Federation base was destroyed mistakenly by the damaged and malfunctioning Crystal Probe and the Human scientist killed. The Andorian female scientist was captured by the Klingons who decided to frame the Lemurs for the loss of the Federation base. Unaware they were slowly being driven mad by the vengeful psionic attacks of the Crystal Probe the Klingons decided to hide and repair their damaged ship in the upper layers of the Palucki 3 gas giant where under the captive Crystal Probe’s malign influence most of the crew has lapsed into delirium. Their ship is malfunctioning and descending slowly deeper into the gas giant. Within a few days it will reach a crush depth and everything and everyone aboard will be destroyed unless the Prometheus intervenes.

Act 1

(Wherein our brave crew may be freaked out by one of the many obligatory strange alien probes inhabiting both the Star Trek Universe and this adventure.)

This act is entirely optional and may be omitted by the GM to reduce session time if needed.

A confused and malfunctioning Biological Probe survivor looking to protect its master will pull the Prometheus out of warp and look to scare the ship away by manufacturing harmless illusions it intends to be terrifying. This can be played seriously or as a comedy. Any decent Sensor Roll (+1) will reveal the illusions are unreal and any successful attack will destroy the probe or cause it to retreat. It will in no event use its powers to in any way harm the Prometheus or her crew. A good Sensor Roll (+2) will reveal it is quite small, defenseless, and completely organic. If the crew can somehow perform a brilliant Sensor Roll (+4) the probe’s DNA will be revealed to be related to that with life from Palucki’s moon.

GMs are encouraged to consult the Star Trek: TOS episode The Corbomite Maneuver for more inspiration.

Ideas for probe encounters include:

The probe pretends to be huge, silent, and scary

The probe pretends to be Darth Vader aboard the Death Star and threatens to use the Force

The probe pretends to be Count Dracula in a giant floating castle and announces it wants to come aboard for dinner unless the ship retreats

The probe pretends to be the Devil and tells the crew this is the road to hell

The probe pretends to be a giant, interstellar Abraham Lincoln and orders the crew back to Earth

All the above

Act 2

(Wherein our brave crew gets to play detective amid snowy landscapes amid terrified but cute Lemurs, hopefully not forgetting the Prime Directive)

Depending on the time allowed to complete the adventure this Act can be abbreviated or even eliminated. Ships scanning the Palucki gas giant can detect the Klingon ship on a roll of +2 and an investigation of the devasted former science outpost (an earlier version of the one in the Next Generation episode Who Watches the Watchers) reveals a wide variety of clues left by Klingons affected by the Crystal Probe that the Lemur attack was staged and a +4 scam will add clues that the badly damaged Crystal Probe was responsible. The corpse of the human scientist is present at the New Siberia site, pierced by multiple Lemur spears added after his death and replicated from wood not native to the planet.

A +4 scan of the planet can also indicate the former site of the destroyed organic base used by the entity to bioengineer the planet, but little of it remains after the devastating Klingon attack. The Lemurs can provide a great deal of information about the “Sky Demons” (Klingons) as they call them, but unless the party can avoid breaking the Prime Directive, they may face court marital for their actions.

Eventually if the players will be psionically contacted by the Andorian female scientist (who is half Aenar) if they do not board the Klingon ship to investigate. She is wounded, terrified and being held against her will in the Horrifying Death’s brig.

Act 3

(Wherein our brave crew attempts a rescue of a captured scientist aboard a malfunctioning Klingon ship sinking to crush depth in a gas giant with a mostly comatose but largely demented crew of murderous aliens).

There are a few active Klingons in both the brig and control room. At this point the Andorian will be unconscious.

The players will need to beam over to the Klingon ship without being detected or the Klingons will attempt to attack them. This is quite possible as the few remaining Klingons aboard the ship are suffering from delusions brought upon by the captured Crystal Probe and no shields will operate in a gas giant.

Promptly after beaming over the ship will suddenly descend due a delusional Klingon pilot to near crush depth and the transporters will be inoperable. The players will have to seize the bridge and pilot the ship out of the gas giant to survive unless they bring pattern enhancers to improve their transportation chances. GMs wishing to expand the adventure can additional delusional Klingon attacks or various forms of Klingon “food” from the galley escaping deciding to make the Starfleet officers lunch. Star Trek: Enterprise’s first season episode Sleeping Dogs can be a useful source of inspiration for the entire act.

The Crystal Probe is kept in a cloaked energy cell in the hold, but it is simple to detect +0. If freed (+1 roll required) it will apologize for mistakenly destroying the Federation base while malfunctioning and depart the system for a hidden location to regenerate itself fully before establishing a new bioengineering base on a new planet. The remaining Biological Probes will stay behind to care for the peaceful Lemurs as they begin to form a basic agricultural civilization. When recovered the Andorian Scientist can fill in any gaps the players may have in understanding the mission’s events.

Players that solve the mystery, recover the scientist, and salvage the Klingon ship without breaking the Prime Directive will be commended by Starfleet. Players that break the Prime Directive will possibly face court martial with the outcome to be roleplayed in a future session or decided by the GM. Successful players will find that they are given the honor of officially naming Palucki 3a and its new expanded Federation camouflaged science facility. War is avoided as Starfleet officially accepts that this was a “rogue” operation in exchange for several important Klingon diplomatic concessions.

ISS Horrifying Murder

Classification: D7-class cruiser (Klingon Bird of Prey)

Assets: Burly workhorse of a ship

Weakness: Weak belly plating

Bridge Positions

Captain: +2, Tactical: +3, Helm: +1. Engineering: +2, Communications: +1

Stunts

Because the Bird of Prey also has a cloaking device, it gets +2 to sneakily create advantages related to stealth or invisibility.

Because the Warbird is powerful and well-built, it has an extra stress box.

Because the Warbird is bristling with weapons, It gets a +2 to forcefully attack another ship under a “Focused Fire” aspect.

Refresh: 2

Stress: OOOO