Hello and welcome back to the final installation of Plot Hook Madness here at Tuesdays at Quark’s. As I said at the start of the month this is a crazy time of year for me, as evidenced by the fact that this is going up on Wednesday! Next month we’ll be back to regular NPCs but in the meantime here are some plot hooks!
The first post in this series covered action-oriented plot hooks, the second covered science-oriented plot hooks, and the third covered diplomatic-oriented plot hooks. Let’s wrap up with mystery-oriented plot hooks, celebrating the unknown in the Star Trek universe which makes it such a compelling setting.
- While mapping a system on the edge of Federation space, the crew discovers a strange resonance in the system’s star. To help with researching this phenomenon, Viristia Delnar of the Trill Science Ministry comes from a nearby starbase with a runabout full of scientists. Among the newcomers is Chris Park, a face from one of the Player Characters’ past whose presence causes nostalgic dreams… and then hallucinations. What is this experience and how is it connected to the strange stellar resonance?
- The Player Characters’ ship arrives at Deep Space Nine to test a new piece of surveying equipment in the Delta Quadrant. After taking on a group of Bajoran scientific observers they head through the wormhole… and find themselves in the Mirror Universe. Something about the spacespace field of the experimental sensing array has altered the wormhole and they have to figure it out even while trying to fool this universe’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard. To make matters worse, it’s revealed that the Bajoran “scientists” are actually a Maquis cell led by Li Chami and it might have been their interference with the equipment that caused the accident.
- Mysterious reports from around the ship correspond to energy surges that are affecting internal sensors. While attempting to recalibrate an affected system, Lt. Shemar Vahron is hit by an energy surge. When he awakens in sickbay, he claims to be possessed by an energy being who is desperate for help in saving its people. The crew moves to investigate but as they grow closer Lt. Azala Kyl begins to perceive strange subspace signals and Lt. Commander Cirrek is having his doubts about the device they’ve been instructed to build in the shuttle bay…