By Andy Romine

Our Captain’s Log  game began as a one-shot break from our regular game (not Star Trek). For out first foray, we decided to roll up our characters & ship randomly. We really wanted to play Starfleet, so we decided the Blackwing was NCC instead of civilian NAR. We determined that the Blackwing was serving as a scientific survey vessel.  

One of our players was not all that familiar with Star Trek and happened to roll up a non-Starfleet Zakdorn spy turned scientist/diplomat. We haven’t quite figured out why she’s on this particular ship with this particular crew besides her being really great at science, but we’re pretty sure it has to do with her old career in espionage…

I happened to roll up the commanding officer, which was nice since I was also going to be the one guiding group play. 

Since this game was intended as a one shot and we only had a couple of hours to play, we decided to go with 3 deltas per act. We still didn’t finish, only making it to the end of Act One as the evening grew late. 

Because we were playing with a group and not solo, I was really interested at first in tweaking the CL rules a bit around Momentum and Threat. In the end, I decided just to play the game rules-as-written and it worked really well! I think the only tweak I’d make going forward is to find a way for Advantage to grant a mechanical benefit as well as narrative effect like Complication does. 

After the game, I explained to the group how things worked in STA 2E vs CL, and they were all excited to try it sometime. 

Characters

*** Commander Hayden Belmont (human, CO of the ship, charismatic) 

** Lt. Siranna (Kelpien flight operations/helm, crack pilot and engineer)

** Lt. Melcor “Mel” Shebulquar (Paradan security chief) 

Ambassador Rikal Dokachin (Zakdorn science and cultural specialist, former spy) 

USS Blackwing, Raven-class surveyor NCC 5126

Talents: Advanced Sensor Suites, Siphoning Shields

Additional Crew: 10 (TBD)

Captain’s Log: 54868.6 (Commander H. Belmont, CO, USS Blackwing) 

While surveying gaseous anomalies in Sector 521-Alpha-36, we have intercepted an alien distress call not meant for us. The Mapushions are a humanoid species unknown to the Federation, explorers and scientists who have just started to settle their corner of the galaxy. 

The garbled signal originates from an apparent research outpost on a uncharted Class K planet and warns of a computer virus that has infected their communication and life support – so time is of the essence. Starfleet has authorized us to render aid and establish first contact with this intriguing people. 

We rolled Conspiracy – Malware, with a dual inciting incident of Rescue/Destroy. We also determined the location was an inhospitable but inhabited world, where a sinister attack was about to happen. 

We rolled for some basics on the Mapushians; they are scientists, valuing exploration. Initial attitude to the Federation is Unconvinced. They are not as advanced as the Federation, perhaps with a maximum of Warp 3. We also decide they are bright orange and have hairless, lumpy foreheads. 

Act One, Scene One (Teaser) 

The USS Blackwing hails the Mapushion outpost, Administrator Izmuz answers. He is typical for his people: bipedal, humanoid, with searingly orange skin and a lumpy forehead. He’s clearly suspicious and distrustful of the crew’s intentions. 

Izmuz seems convinced the Federation interlopers are responsible for the malware attacks to their systems and are here to take control of the outpost. 

Commander Belmont manages to convince Izmuz that Starfleet is here to help, and he grudgingly agrees to let us try. Direct contact with the infected systems seems too risky, though, so we agree to enter orbit and run some scans to start.  

As the USS Blackwing enters orbit above the outpost, another unknown ship (black, spiky, sinister-looking) exits warp and opens fire! The ship is slightly larger than the Blackwing, and more heavily armed (though their weapons are not as advanced as Federation’s). From their warp signature we surmise they can probably reach Warp 5. 

The USS Blackwing takes a hit and we cut to opening credits! 

Act One, Scene Two

Our Kelpien helm officer does some fancy flying and manages to evade more disruptor fire. So well, in fact, that the attacker takes some stress trying to keep up and not hit the atmosphere. They retreat and warp off, but we can’t shake the feeling they’ll be back. 

We buy off the Hit the Blackwing received with some Momentum. 

Of course, this ship is the “sinister attacker” from earlier. We name this new unknown species Bactronians, and we surmise these raiders are probably behind the malware. They want the Class K world for their own, and are trying to drive the Mapushions off world. 

The characters don’t know any of this yet, of course, and we leave it loose enough to allow more twists along the way…  

Act One, Scene Three

A scan of the infected systems by Ambassador Dokachen allows us to jury-rig/harden our own equipment against the effects of the malware. We beam an away team down to the surface and accomplish a number of tasks. 

In our rush to beat the real world clock, we forgot to roll for the planet’s distinguishing features. I’m imagining a rocky ball of ice, but we’ll see what the probability matrixes tell us next time. 

The compound is a cluster of buildings and a sheltered plateau. 

• Commander Belmont meets with Admin Izmuz and a handful of his chief scientists to learn more about them and continue to assure them we’re here to help. We learn they don’t know who the sinister attackers in the spiky ship are. In fact, the first time they’ve ever seen that ship is when it attacked us. 
• Lt. Siranna heads to the life support facilities and is able to isolate the most malicious fragments of the malware for analysis. She identifies a cryptographic codebase that reminds her of the research Ambassador Dokachen has published. Create an Advantage “Dokachen wrote the Book on Malware*.  Siranna sends her findings to the Ambassador. 
• (We all want to know exactly HOW Dokachen knows so much about computer viruses, though…) 
• Alerted to the similar nature of the Mapushion’s malware problems, The Ambassador is able to hack into the affected comms and learn a terrible truth: it was no remote signal that triggered the virus– the outpost’s systems were sabotaged by someone on the inside…  

End of Act One.