6: Lysestrata
The discovery of the trader Aristophenes inside the
Temptation nebula exposes the Carter's crew to a disease that kills anyone with
a Y Chromosome. An away team needs to comb the freighter to discover the diseases'
cause while Dr. Mark struggles to keep the men of the crew alive, and the men
face their impending mortality.
Hook (in the form of the captain’s log)
"It's been a week since concluding our exploration of
the Generosity system, the third and last of the inhabited planets revealed by
our Betazed guest. We don't know what the inhabitants call themselves, as they
are a pre-transmission aquatic culture whom we have no easy means of observing,
but somehow the nickname of Innsmoths has circulated amongst the crew. They are
cephalopods evolved to live at high pressures, and while what we saw of their
culture looks fascinating it appears unlikely they'll ever develop warp
technology. This puts them outside the
prime directive, and so we went on our way.
"We are about to enter what the romantic cartographer
who mapped this system called 'The Sin', a starless expanse running across the
sector. Lt. Blake has orders to take us to warp 6 when we enter the expanse, to
both shorten a dead route and speed our return to the Sagan Observatory. Not
only has Mr. Pelski discerned a location for the Gamma I's passengers, but Mr.
Funk informed me last night that T'Prin had cracked Xenocrates encryption. I
have a strong suspicion that the computer's contents will shed significant
light into what the Klingons and Orions are doing in the Burning Nebula.
"Speaking of Nebula, we'll be passing one at the border
of the Sin, and another one at its center, the only stellar object within three
hundred light years on either side. The one we're approaching is the Temptation
nebula, the other is the 'Heart of Sin'. I'm sure Cmdr. Funk will just love
these names."
Once she finishes her log, I'm sure she'll be calling for a
scan of the Temptation nebula - her or someone else. If no one does, Sigfried
will announce a very faint signal coming from inside. This should institute a
bevy of scanning that will reveal the presence of a small trading vessel inside
the Nebula - roughly 3/4 the size of the Carter. The ship is floating in space,
operating only on minimal emergency life support. The beacon announces that the
ship the Aristophenes, under the command of captain Salihah… Demi Sakhet's lost
love! (Obviously you should substitute your own captain’s lost love interest
here – or actually a brother of same, since it’s not really him….)
Plot Turn 1
Sensors determine that the ship is maintaining life support
systems at a minimal level. No distinct life forms are apparent on scan. The
air aboard is good, though cold, and the artificial gravity is turned off. A
records search shows that the Aristophenes had not been heard from in nearly
two years. Records also showed that the Captain is the brother of one of the
PCs old love interests
I assume an away team will transport over, and will head to
the bridge, engineering or both by splitting up.
The bridge team will find three male corpses in the
turbolift. There are 18 corpses, all male, floating in engineering. The bodies bear
signs what may be explosive decompression. This accounts for all 21 of the
ship's male crew; none of the 14 female crew were among the dead. The crew on
the bridge finds signs that something might still be living on the ship
(including some recently dropped food), as well as clothes and type 1 phasers
on the bridge deck.
Pinch 1
I assume this will lead to a hunt for whatever is still
alive on the ship the Players might think that there’s a monster on the loose
rather than what it is – the last survivor, an 11 year old girl. This is Sheila
Mirarchi, daughter of one of the crew, who has been living her alone for months
after the last of the female crewmembers went mad from isolation and grief and
killed themselves with the phasers (quick red lightshow = no bodies). She can
be tracked through the Jefferies tubes and conduits with a tricorder, but once
the PCs catch her (and she will make a game but non-violent try to flee) she
will pass out from exhaustion, malnutrition and possibly the effects of gravity
if the PCs have turned that back on. It is logical to assume that the PCs might
transport her to medlab since the Aristophanes only has a dispensary, but they
may treat her there.
Midpoint
The evidence collected by the away team, in the form of logs
from the dispensary, and the logs of Captain Saleha and his first officer
Melissa Sleiffer, tells the PCs that the crew of the Aristophenes contracted a
lethal disease while on Patience II loading deuterium ore and other minerals.
The disease is carried by males and females, but it appears to attack only men.
It kills by inducing massive pressure in the cardiovascular and pulmonary
systems. This accounts for the look of the corpses. The players may have have
unwittingly contaminated the Carter. If the disease is still active, the first
symptoms will probably begin appearing in three to five days.
The PCs should start doing the logical things at this point:
figuring out what to do with the the Aristophenes, what to do with the infected
crew (which might be the Carter if they weren’t careful – and I expect them to
be not careful, but they might surprise me) and so on.
Pinch 2
Things get worse: The Patience II disease is not only
active, but has mutated into a more virulent form. The doctor/science officers
can identify the pathogen as a heretofore unknown virus. The largest and/or
least healthy men will collapse first, well before the 3-5 day timeframe. A
general outbreak of the exposed will be in hours and sickbay can only treat
symptoms. (In my game they also used the transporter’s pattern buffer to hold
the sick in stasis – by the laws of Star Trek the transporter can’t solve the
problem since it didn’t cause the problem, but it’s still a handy tool.)
This is a pinch so this information should come out in a
tense, medical drama way – this is the equivalent of a fight scene for the
ship’s doctor, so make sure to play it that way.
Plot Turn 2
The restof the crew will have to figure out what to do next,
but the Doctor will be able to theorize that if they can work from an
un-mutated version of the virus they might have more luck. Of you can develop
something else. Whatever rules system you use should have something for a
really complex for the medical and science offers to have to do – the equivalent
of a long ship to ship combat – for them to work out a possible solution to the
virus.
This section of the episode is really a chance for the
players to investigate how they react in the face of impending death and or
perpetual isolation based on their gender. This part is basically there for the
narrativists, genre fiends, tragedians, and other “plumb the depths of my
character’ psyche” types to strut their stuff for a bit; it’s later in the
campaign than Tooth and Claw so we can see the characters operating under
different stressors (I’ll be doing this one more time in the campaign with a
third emotional stress point). If a limited number of PCs are infected than
they get a chunk of spotlight time here mulling over the life in their isolation
tank while the others race to save them.
Resolution
This is where the medical crew gets to implement whatever
solution they’ve developed. If they aren’t doing well on the mechanics they may
start having bodies of dead crew members piling up – while we assume the PCs
are going to pull this off it is not without any risk. To my mind any solution
that gets the other members of the crew involved is a better one, which is why
in my game the medical officer learned that they had to get a pure sample of
the virus from Patience II, so the engineering crew had to ramp up the engines,
the science officers/astrogator plot the fastest gravity slingshot course and
the helm officer had to pilot the ship along said corpse to get back to
Patience II in time to get the needed mcguffinite to save the crew.
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