Writer's room (spoilers!)

[Cairo]

Big ol' spoiler warning! Don't read this thread if you don't want to find out what's happening behind the scenes and just want to read the finished product.
 

I was pretty happy with what character creation uncovered so I decided to kick off the pilot episode with a flashback dream sequence based on one of the random career events. There's a whole heap of "Legacy" to build on - far more than will realistically be explored:

• The remains of the unnamed, ancient civilization, including the ancient medical device mentioned in the creation thread.
   
• Possible fallout from Tess's actions during the away mission four years ago. Did she try hard enough to negotiate or did she fly off the handle as soon as things went south? Why does she have nightmares about it? Is this why she doesn't have a command of her own yet?
   
• Then there's the other Andorians' side to that event. Why was the ancient device so important they couldn't risk their stunned comrade talking?  Why didn't they shoot Tess instead? Will their plans come back to haunt the Federation?
   
• And although we get barely a glimpse of it, the USS Legacy. I have trouble naming starships, but things started clicking when I finally landed on this one.

Where to from here?

It's late 2272 in the Federation. As hinted in the creation thread the Legacy has just completed its refit to a Constitution II class. The first season of a theoretical show would cover the ship's shakedown period, but the dice will tell how prominent that aspect will actually be in what play I'll enjoy. At the very least I'll want to establish just how fresh the paint is in the next scene(s).

The episode needs a substantial thread to serve as its throughline, though. Orders from the Starfleet, dealing with crew issues, or the like. As this is my first time diving into Star Trek Adventures, I need to read up more on the practicalities of play.

[Cairo]

My original idea for Tess' Discovered an Artifact -career event was a device that diverts her timeline from Star Trek canon. I soon realized a gadget isn't needed for that - USS Legacy isn't canon, so this is an alternate timeline from the getgo. I'm free to do whatever.

Evidently Myth-Weavers' die roller takes that idea to heart; the mission rolls above suggest a double-type mission involving a Borg incursion (in 2272!) and All crew getting sick (code for assimilated, I'm sure). I must admit, going into this I did not see myself playing the Borg.

Just to keep my options open I rolled an alternate tactical mission option to consider - Negotiate cease-fire. Doing so while the entire crew is sick sounds like a good time.

Still... I just know I could have some fun with an alternate timeline breed of Borg, especially with the ancient artifact setup I happened into... 🤔

Episode 1 general mission directive (tactical + medical):

• Borg incursion + All crew sick
• or Negotiate cease-fire + All crew sick

Episode 1 Incident Theme:

• Research + Spatial rift

With the Borg mission the spatial rift might be a sign of their passing. An omen of things to come. I'm liking this idea more and more.

[Cairo]

While mulling over the Borg question I started building up an understanding of Legacy's command crew. You can see rolls related to that above, although as in the character creation thread I'm adjusting these rolls as needed. For example a Trill or Xindi Insectoid didn't fit my vision, and no humans were rolled so I added some.

The first two posts have introduced our protagonist and raised questions, so the third one should introduce some of the people she'll be working with and set up where the episode is going. Some kind of "first impressions" roll might also be in order - this is a game after all!

[Cairo]

The senior officers' introduction post turned out to be a long one and got me thinking more about the game's scene structure. I'm considering the cold open post scene 1 (marked as a failure), but where as originally I was thinking the chief medical officer's log post was scene 2 (in full), I might actually include the introduction post and one more in it. I do want to keep moving through scenes at a good pace and keep the episode tight, but that might make more sense.

And hey – first task roll of the game is in (above) and resulted in Momentum! Cherog offered an interaction opportunity that could have gone badly for Tess, but with two successes (8 and 10 vs 13; I just botched the roll formatting) she embraced his ways and both came out on top. 

Plus, now they'll absolutely have to have coffee at some point!

Next up: let's talk about Starfleet's orders.

[Cairo]

That's scene 2 concluded, with a success! Since this is the first episode of a hypothetical series there needs to be a scene in act 1 covering Legacy's departure, but I don't think it's time for that just yet. The crew getting sick is something that should happen in act 2, though it could be hinted at in act 1.

So far we've set up a mystery, introduced some of the cast and their first mission, and we know they're going to be busy until it's time to depart. Scene 3 could either be a counterpoint to Tess' earlier comment about having lost many of her old colleagues—something that reinforces the fact she still has relationships on Legacy that she values—or then a glimpse into events taking place elsewhere that foreshadows trouble.

Something for me to think about.

[Cairo]

The rolls above tell us Tess is not currently in a romantic relationship, and wasn't in one prior to the refit. This could be for a number of reasons which I'm leaving undefined for now. Also, while she might enjoy more casual relationships, they're not her most important ones.

With these new facts in play I decided to delay a scene exploring her social life and have scene 3 instead go back to the antagonists of the story. Cherog's comment about reinstating access limits and 'things being left behind' served as a springboard for what I came up with. Although it looks like a bad actor managed to slip through the cracks, his threat assessment was on point and now comes across as a nice bit of foreshadowing.

It's highly likely that the covert action in the first scene 3 post is directly related to the group of Andorians from the cold open (who, per another roll above, are in it willingly), but I'm keeping my options open. It could be an unrelated party with their own goals. I don't even know what the device does. We might find out in the next scene, the next act, or the next episode (if there is one).

[Cairo]

I originally imagined that the Utopia Planitia worker was perhaps being blackmailed to work for someone and wrote the worker/nurse scene with that in mind, however the dice had other ideas! That's Ok, though—I think the worker/figure/victim reveal turned out great. And although who exactly these two shady characters are and their connection to the original antagonists (if any) remains vague, it does kind of feel like they're part of the same group. We'll see!

With scene 3 done, I do have to mark it as another failure on the scene tracker. It's true that I didn't have a task or other roll in there to determine success/failure, but the fiction indicates trouble for Tess and the Legacy crew. They just don't know it yet.

In general I'm not overly worried about getting task rolls in at this point. It's the first act of the first episode and I want to introduce people, places and what's going on. And although Tess is the protagonist in this game, she's been present in all three scenes so far and it might be interesting to see something else in the next one. In any case Tess will be busy running meetings for the rest of her day shift.

Now then, where to turn the spotlight...

[Cairo]

By now it should be plenty obvious this game's going for a TV-series aesthetic. There's a lot of description about what the camera does, and no descriptions of emotions or inner dialogue that's not made explicit in a way someone watching the show could observe.

Case in point: Jack isn't confused. Jack looks confused.

This means having to think a whole lot more about what the camera is telling through showing, what a transition within or between scenes means, or what callbacks I can make. I was thrilled to—after the fact—realize there was an opportunity to go from scene 3's 'We're done here' to scene 4's totally unrelated 'What do you mean we're done?' I'm realizing it's a ton of fun for me to write something and later notice it's also good for something other than why it was originally brought up.

Case (literally) in point: the blueish grey briefcase Tess was carrying in scene 3. At the time I simply wanted her to have a reason to step into her office for a slick way to show the toolkit left behind by accident. I wanted to put the post out but in the moment couldn't think of how she'd decorate her office, so I hid it in a briefcase. Now looking at scene 4, I have an idea what to do with it.

I don't always get that lucky, though; sometimes I need to go back and tweak something slightly, either because I realize I made an error, or because sharpening some detail enhances what comes later. I try not to and so far haven't had to change events. I don't want someone who's reading this 'live' to have to keep rechecking old posts.

Example 1: the CMO's log scene originally described the sickbay bustling with 'workers and crew'. After Cherog implied that his security teams were basically herding Utopia Planitia crews out, and we saw the infiltrator sneaking around in Tess' office, I went back and changed that to 'workers and medical and security personnel' to subtly imply the workers in sickbay were being watched and then cleared out, and that the infiltrator/worker wasn't supposed to be there later (as nurse Reade noted).

Example 2: the original version of the Jack/Chawas scene started with a crossfade from the previous scene. It later occurred to me that a crossfade might suggest some emotional or story connection between the two scenes that simply isn't there. The tweaked version keeps the fun voiceover part but follows it with a hard cut instead.
 

Speaking of Jack and Chawas..! It looks like I continue to fail to not bring Tess into a scene (in some way), but this was just too good to ignore. I previously mentioned I wanted to explore Tess' relationships onboard the Legacy. I had also shown Chawas' enthusiastic reaction to working with Tess again. And in the background I had rolled up two details for Chawas: 'acquisition' (trait) and 'reunite her family' (goal).

At the time I was viewing these details in a literal sense, but when I went digging through my notes for ideas for scene 4 a more metaphorical interpretation occurred to me. The crew of a starship can be seen as a kind of family, just with a wider variety of possible relationships, and acquisition might imply a desire for something that's so far been out of reach. As we established earlier, Tess hasn't been in a romantic relationship in years—but that doesn't mean someone else hasn't thought of the possibility.

Five years is a long time to hold out hope and maybe kick yourself for not going for it. With Tess waiting until the last minute to accept her second assignment Chawas couldn't have taken it for granted and now finds herself facing a dilemma: wait another five years and see if Tess can read minds, or do something about it. As truthful as she was with Jack about why it wasn't going to work out, Jack was also in the way.

Sorry Jack.

[Cairo]

Speaking of making errors:

I just now realized that for some reason I described the worker/infiltrator as not being Andorian, and the actual worker as being a Bolian, despite having rolled a 'yes' on the question 'Is the worker an Andorian?' earlier. For the fiction—as I'm imagining it—to follow that result I should have described both of them as Andorian.

That said, I'm not going to change the fiction. As I mentioned in the very long-winded thorough post above I want to avoid changing past events if I can. Here ignoring the roll doesn't break anything, so that's what I'll do.

[Cairo]

The second part of scene 4 is a pretty simple conclusion to the first one. The reason why it wasn't included in the first post was because I was considering two different options for how to follow up the Jack/Chawas scene.

I chose this one because I think it's both hopeful and a little bit bittersweet all at once. It shows that Tess, too, values Chawas' friendship, but she hasn't (yet) elevated it above all the other relationships she's formed aboard the Legacy. I see it as meaningful subtext (possibly to be challenged) that Chawas has the photo in what we assume are her private quarters, and Tess in her office.

Again, no task rolls in this scene but I will mark it as a success in the scene tracker.

[Cairo]

Although I still intent to post scene 5 of act 1, I wanted to do some rolls (above) to see if there was an act 2 story element that should be telegraphed in advance. Since the rolls indicated no undetected ship defect or a crew cohesion issue, I figured I'd answer a question I've been tracking in my narrative thread notes:

• What's the source of the sickness?

To figure this one out I created a custom propability matrix called 'Source of X', designed so that it can be used for other things as well in the future. The rolls of 3 and 7 (above) indicate that the source is a 'central crewmember', which can be seen a couple of different ways:

• Tess is the most central crew member from a game perspective, by virtue of being the protagonist
• Tess and Chawas are potentially forming into central figures on the social side of the story
• Captain T'Rel and commander Rhyne are at the top of the ship's command structure
• Tess, Chawas, Cherog, Rhyne and T'Rel have been established as senior crew

Using the above points of views to establish a probability matrix (in alphabetical order) looks like this:

01-04 Chawas
05-06 Cherog
07-10 Rhyne
11-14 T'Rel
15-20 Tess

And the dieroller says... 9: commander Avery Rhyne.

[Cairo]

Since it might also be useful in the future I put together a 'Symptoms' probability matrix. I can't claim it to be perfect, but it's got enough variety for now. The first thing it'll tell us is what's wrong with commander Rhyne...

Loss of speech

That'll be problematic for him!

[Cairo]

Since one of the first episode's two missions is 'All crew get sick' it's my understanding that–in the spirit of the game–I shouldn't have Tess solve the problem before it actually comes true. Right now only commander Rhyne is sick, so I need to wait for the rest to get sick too. When the time comes finding a cure sounds like a Reason + Medicine task.

Right now Tess is in research phase however, and for that I'll use Control (10) + Science (3). Rolls of 16 and 6 mean success, so Tess is able to obtain medical records that send her down the right path in her investigation.

The two lines of investigation I mentioned in the first post of act 2 scene 1 were 1) something in Rhyne's personal medical history, and 2) something passed down through one or more generations. I'll say there's a 50-50 chance of this being either. A roll of 16 here means it isn't hereditary.

Since this is Star Trek the cause of Rhyne's sickness could be anything from the mundane to 'that's not how any of this actually works'. Which is fortunate for me!

I've previously rolled the trait 'supremacy' and the goal 'earn someone's respect' for Rhyne. I already leaned on the trait by portraying Rhyne as getting frustrated by what he perceives as a weakness–the loss of speech–but there could be something more sinister at work here too. That combination of trait and goal could suggest Rhyne has received illegal gene therapy, either of his own volition or because someone else wanted it (such as his parents). Let's call this option 1.

Option 2 is his Starfleet career. I don't see Rhyne getting where he is without all kinds of adventures, aka the daily grind for Starfleet ship crews. I'll go ahead and roll up some things he could potentially have experienced just prior to moving to the Legacy. For missions rolls of 9 and 11 mean Medical / Disease is solution, which is amazingly on point, and rolls of 5 and 11 mean Diplomacy / Negotiate release of political prisoners. For incident and theme rolls of 18 and 8 mean Unite / Marooned shuttlecraft and (flipping the second results for variety) rolls of 16 and 18 mean Terraform / Unknown lifeform.

This is good stuff! I'll give it some thought and if need be, roll for which option to use.

[Cairo]

I've decided to go with option 2 as—especially with what I rolled above—it makes a ton of sense. Rhyne having received illegal gene therapy is still an interesting idea I might explore later.

So, Medical / Disease is solution is definitely in. I'll work on the details as needed, but the basic idea is that while using a disease to somehow solve some problem, commander Rhyne was infected. The illness laid dormant until something caused it to flare up and make him infectious.

I forgot to mention earlier that I marked act 1 scene 5 as a success in the tracker, and thanks to the successful task roll above act 2 scene 1 is a success as well. Although the disease has now spread to Cherog, Tess is keeping up—for now.

And hey—Cherog got his coffee break with Tess!

[Cairo]

I checked (above) if Tess has plot armor against what I'm now calling 'Rhyne's Disease' on account of her interactions with the ancient artifacts, but the die says no. In the background I've been thinking about what the devices could be for, and I have an idea that feels interesting. For that idea to eventually come to fruition I need to start establishing the devices' abilities, so I think this is a good time to use the Momentum I have to overrule the dice and create a custom Advantage:

Advantage: Resilient to Rhyne's
Tess' interactions with the ancient artifacts make her resilient to Rhyne's Disease. She suffers a lesser symptom.

Notably this is not yet immunity or cure, so I rolled for a (fiction-wise) lesser symptom to go with it. While the bleeding result (6, 6) can be interpreted as minor nosebleeds for example, generally coughing and bleeding are TV shorthand for 'they're deathly sick', so I chose to re-roll. In the end I landed on muscle spasms (5, 20) which I can tune to suit my needs.