This link should be updated in the next thread as follows:
-Official Modiphius Page (Rules, FAQ and Player Resources)
>https://modiphius.net/pages/star-trek-adventures

>>93146883
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXh5TLAeJqw

>>93146883
>Have you ever played anything Trek with kids? How did it go?
Do you mean a younger player or a Wesley Crusher situation? Or, dare I say it, going full Rascals?

>>93147902
I did a rascals thing one time with some of my players but it affected everyone on the ship after technobabble energy inversion from the nacelles interacted with a microcontinuum thing. The crew were in a runabout heading back to the ship and were affected as well but they only deaged to 15 while the crew all went to like 5 or 6. They manipulated the microcontinuum and revered the polarity on the nacelles to age everyone back up except the one half-vulcan half-andorian chief engineer who ended up aging to old age (and was stuck that way for two sessions).

>>93147877
Ah what the hell, I'll say it. I'm glad that the Federation has access to slipstream and protostar tech. My reason? Neelix.

I was never a fan of the character, but after all that time spent in the Delta Quadrant they just brought so little of it back with them. In all only Icheb, and he barely remembers his childhood (such as it was). I like how season 1 had that girl from the group of telepathic aliens Voyager rescued from the Devore. It was something, at least, especially after Icheb is known to die horribly thanks to fucking PIC.

So Neelix ditches towards the very end of the series, and while ostensibly given the job of ambassador this seemed like an excuse for him to remain in communication with Voyager for as long as possible. There's no mention anywhere that the Federation kept up the long range comm operations just to talk to him. I mean what could he even do for them, anyway? BUT now that they have ships that can reach the area he can actually be useful. That Talaxian colony is a nice foothold into the Delta Quadrant that also happens to be very close to the border with the Beta Quadrant. A group of friendly people who know the Federation will be excellent allies, and with a very powerful protective forcefield to boot. It would be a logical place for the Federation to make inroads back into the Delta Quadrant and also explore the areas Voyager never reached.

I dare say if I ever do a Delta Quadrant campaign I'll consider that a useful potential plotpoint. I'm a bit iffy about giving the players such long range warp capability, so I might consider it a Stargate Atlantis kind of deal. The slipstream ships are largely occupied with crossing back and forth. Set long enough after the end of Voyager I'm thinking what if those miners abandoned the asteroid field to the Talaxians (who were sitting on the richest part anyway). The Federation and Talaxians build a shipyard, players get the first ship off the line. Name it after Neelix's dead sister.

>>93148597
That reminds me of Search for Spock.

"Oh hey, Spock was rejuvenated but only his body!"
"Great! We've got his soul bit with McCoy."
"So if we cram his soul back in him we could have young hot Spock back? Fuck yeah!"

But thanks to Kruge delaying Spock's beam up they wound up with basically the same age Spock as was when he died. Boo.

>>93148608
Icheb can still show up in LD or PRO tho, he only dies in 2386 this season of PRO will be 2385, the year of the Martian attack

>>93149826
It's more the foregone conclusion. Whatever they do with him he'll ultimately be wasted in the most pointless and stupid ways. A shitty attempt to generate drama that was just needlessly cruel.

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>>93146883
>Attention Starfleet Human Males, I’ve stolen your seed and have impregnated myself with it, I will do it again

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Folding nacelles: what we think about them?

>>93150390

Makes a degree of sense for craft capable of atmospheric flight, but there should be some trade offs in the design overall. Moving parts are always a pig for maintenance.

>>93149826
Unlikely. PRO s2 seems to be all about Janeway getting a new bathtub. And something about the collapsing timeline.

>>93150961
Those folding mechanisms look like a maintenance and operational nightmare, but its probably to pack a lot of vehicles in a small space.

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>>93150390
I can tolerate things that have actual semi-logical explanations for why they look the way they do, rather than simply being added without explanation because it looks cool. I haven't watched Prodigy, so I don't know which it is in that example specifically.
>>93150993
Everything spacefaring is a maintenance and operational nightmare because Trek ships require violating conventional physics a dozen different ways just to exist, let alone actually do anything. There's more wiggle room because of that, they can just say it's made of some durable hyperflexible polydingbatium alloy that can handle the stresses better.

>>93148608
I'll take the Federation making allies with Talaxians over them allying with the Kobali like STO would do.

>>93146883
Gwyn is using her heirloom as pauldron decoration
Zero now has a proper containment suit
Murf is learning how to talk
Jankom Pog still has his crappy glove/robot hand
Dal and Rok-tahk look happy

I'm really happy for them. Those kids deserved some good things happening to them.

>>93153281
That does raise some interesting points. I wonder if they can get back to Talax. There's still quite a bit of problems in that region. The Talaxians are still conquered. It might be possible to finally undo the metreon cascade with more time to set up a a system that can handle the dispersion effect. The Kazon are still dicks with bad hair. Plus I think the Ocampa have been out of power for some time and they might just be a bunch of skeletons in an underground bunker by this point.

>>93153380
Seems like at some point they wind up back on their own ship, presumably the second protostar Gwyn was on. And some kind of mystery involving suspicions of Janeway. Not sure what's up with that.

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>>93153281
A perfect alliance. The Federation can provide them with an endless number of hosts due to the standard irresponsibility of Starfleet ensuring an endless supply of dead security officers alone. The Federation, on the other hand, can acquire an awkward version of immortality for their best and brightest, allowing the newborn Kobali to finish projects that would otherwise be impossible if a key scientist dies. Also if someone dies with key information they weren't allowed to pass on, especially undercover agents, well as the slogan for Quark's new Funtime Funerary Service says, "Toss that body at the Kobali!" Secure immortality the roundabout way!

>>93154752
While it's good that the Delta quadrant is now in range, I'd say divide the region into three:
Borg territory, the territory behind it and the territory in front of it.
Talax, the Kazon, Ocampa etc are all behind the Borg and therefore still kind of out of reach, for now.
Others like the Hirogen, Vaadwaur and Neelix's Talaxian colony are on the closer side.

It's interesting to think about the Federation eventually getting an actual border with the Borg.

>>93156426
Depends on the state of the Borg, really.

>>93156837
Semi-viable, I think. At some point the queen is dying and apparently no longer has the rest of the collective and blames humanity. That was in STP season 3, though season 2's "good" Borg still exist. In season 1 of Prodigy we see a cube that is dormant for some reason but able to be reactivated, and I believe according to Janeway or Zero that cube will eventually reactivate again after the kids managed to stun the local Collective (as in the local Borg network on the ship). But we still also have season 1 STP's Artifact. I'm not sure I recall if they put down a date for when that ship assimilated a dumbass Romulan Zhat Vasher and Blue Screen of Deathed. Not sure if that happened before the Voyager finale.

Then there's all the rogue Borg elements. The Cooperative that Chakotay helped birth, and also the rest of Unimatrix Zero who are in command of an unknown number of cubes throughout the galaxy. Presumably they're immune to what Janeway did to the Queen, though since the Queen could self-destruct those cubes remotely...maybe they weren't protected.

STP's finale season makes a lot more sense if we imagine that the Borg Queen they fought was the same one poisoned by Admiral Janeway and once she was contaminated the rest of the Collective just cut her off and switched to another Queen. That's perfectly in keeping with the Borg. If a member of the Collective becomes too damaged they disconnect from it. They should extend this to the Queen too.

True, the multiple Queen's theory was never proven, that I'm aware of, but it makes sense. The Queen time traveled back to post-WWIII Earth so SOMEONE had to be running the Collective while she was gone. Especially since she died but somehow the same Queen showed up on Voyager.

>>93156837
>>93156928
The borg are more or less telelogical, while the borg we see in TNG are more or less on their upswing but they'll get their again. Any fracturing of the borg is going to be solved the same way the solve alien species, they logical materialist. If the bigger borg encounter the smaller borg the smaller borg will convert (to same drones/resources) or fight and lose or flee and lose. They've managed to take three big loses (against Species 8472, Against Hugh, the loss of the hub). I doubt that they've even taken 50% losses. They'll rebound, it may take decades or maybe not. The collective facing losses will attempt to recoop their losses (because the biggest collective wins at the end o the day). Who knows the Kayzon may finally end up in the collective. The back side of the Delta Quadrant are populous but primative backwaters, If the borg roll out even in a little force they'll replace the numbers. No doubt it will knock their wunderkind projects back decades but honestly those are the worst/least productive aspects of the borg anyway.

I desperately want to be interrogated by curious Tal Shiar girls

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>>93158580
>ensign anon gets two tal shiar girls assigned to interrogate him
>TWINS!
>they roll their eyes at your pathetic excuse for a boner and then delegate your interrogation to a reman with very cold hands
Not sure why anyone would expect any other outcome.

>>93150390
the Klingons have been using them for centuries, they're no worse than swing-wing jets

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>>93158702
>they roll their eyes at your pathetic excuse for a boner
Don't take too much grief from this, dismissal and insults are classic Romulan foreplay, like Cardies and complaining.

>>93158702
>Implying the Reman isn't sexier

>>93150200
>infiltrate Starfleet/Maquis
>get nutted in
>???????
>Cardassian Galactic Supremacy
Those Obsidian Order operatives are a wily lot

>>93160421
That´s a long, long, long game, unless the cardasian pregnancy is short.

>>93161088
I believe they have a pregnancy that lasts as long as a typical human's

>>93159864
Cold. Hands.

Were Tamarians ever statted out in the Modiphius RPG? I swear they were, but I can't seem to find the rules.

>>93153281
>>93155791
Still one of the more mind-bogglingly idiotic decisions that the STO devs went for, doubly so since they included the Klingons in that alliance as well.

>>93164854
Klingons leave plenty of dead bodies lying around, their own but far more of other people. Plenty they can "donate" to the Kobali. Besides, your soul is the important part. Once it's in sto'vo'kor what matter is the physical remains? Roar over it first and be done with it. The tricky part is convincing the Klingons not to just eat the body.

>>93164925
That's the worst part - the Kobali resurrection process revives the dead person with all their memories intact. From a typical Klingon's perspective, it's as if the soul has been ripped from it's rightful place in Sto'vo'kor and forced back into existence, and then is slowly overwritten by the 'new' Kobali.

>>93164978
Or to them is it similar to Kahless the Clone, especially since a Kobali's creation process doesn't preserve all the memories. A lot of details end up missing. It would be similar to how Worf came to accept Ezri wasn't really Jadzia even if she had the same memories and emotions stored within her, and it was dishonorable not to treat her as a unique individual.

>>93164628
Lower Decks campaign guide, I think

>>93165938
Yeah, the Lower Decks Campaign Guide has them, as well as some interesting fluff that they allied with the Federation during the Dominion War, which explains why Kayshon joined Starfleet. There's also an amusing fluff panel in the Gamma Quadrant supplement where negotiations between the Tamarians and the Dominion breaks down quickly over a lack of information on Tamarian mythology.

One odd thing to add, the attribute bonuses listed in the Lower Decks guide are different from the Tarmarian attributes listed in the Captain's Log solo RPG. It just swaps Insight for Reason.

>>93164978
>the Kobali resurrection process revives the dead person with all their memories intact

I was thinking about this a while ago, and came up with something STO could have done to kind of fix it.

>Lyndsay Ballard returns to the Kobali, but societal unrest about what to do with people like her who retain a lot of memory is increasing
>She decide to devote herself to studying these people and trying to identify an underlying factor
>People are mostly unwilling to "out" themselves or their family as rememberers, so it's very slow progress
>It's only when she discovers Harry Kim that she makes the connection
>Everyone who retained their memories had had an encounter with the Caretaker
>It's only a freak interaction of Nestene and Kobali technology that made this happen

>>93146883
>TQ
Not really, no. My niece is only 7 and my nephew is 13 but has 0 interest in any games that are not on the Switch.

Had a dream about a ship surveying extremophile life living around a black hole. Is there anything like that in canon?

>>93171461
There's that time the Romulans accidentally had blackhole dwelling aliens in their power core because they use artificial balckholes to power their ships. Timescape from season 6 of TNG.

>>93171461
The black hole itself would be rather hostile to life in general, but the accretion disk would be a good place to find some extremophile life.

There's lots of resources there, stuff can orbit the black hole for millions of years and if you can deal with all the radiation and ambient heat you could find like there (in sci-fi at least)
You could write it that a planet with life on it got too close, got ripped apart over thousands of years and that some of the life on it turned into hyperthermophiles to survive.
It's also the perfect spot to put some extremely valuable resource, as the environment would be both rare and exceedingly hard to access for mining.

Starfleet ships entering a black hole's accretion disk would basically be running with shields and deflectors at maximum just to move through it.

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Thank you, Star Trek comics, for giving us cover art that look like Ro and Worf just took the nastiest tactical shit in history. You know it's been a bm worthy of song and legend when someone's nose is bleeding afterward.

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>>93176033
The other comic with Sisko has been interesting, and fucking weird since now they're sitting down with the God Squad. Trelane is still a little shit, Apollo and Scotty snark at each other, Dr. M'Benga's wacky magic daughter for some reason, The Guardian of Forever regrettably retains his Discovery personality, the Douwd is still mopey, and oddly enough Charlie Evans is a much reformed character who doesn't vote to help the main characters because he's learned that even with great godly power you shouldn't always get what you want. Curious that the Tholian isn't apparently a deity. I haven't read the comics where it came from but apparently Kirk saved it once and it became the first Tholian to become a Starfleet cadet. Curious that the Tholians are at the level where they can chill with higher beings. Also curious then that John Doe's people aren't represented. I guess with Doc Crusher off trying to find Wesley in this mess hey figured John Doe would be too much to add.

>>93176126
>>93176033
It's Beta Canon, of course, but they do some interesting things with the new material from the shows. It's not the best thing ever, but better than what STD and PIC did with anything they came up with. Charlie X having grown up and learned self control is kind of neat. While Scotty didn't appear in the episode I hope he has a few words with Charlie to comment on how much he's grown.It would be nice to have someone from the "old days" acknowledge the fact. It's definitely something compared to Trelane's obvious lack of growth. Maybe his kind matures at a glacial pace.

I don't remember Metron being that much of a cunt, though.

>>93176033
Somone really conjured the image of "frenzy". Or rabies. It looks like Mr. Worf will be put to "sleep".

>>93176126
Bright Eyes shows up in STO, too. He seems to be in charge of containing inter-timeline bullshit for the Assembly.

>>93180104
holy shit, nice

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>>93180105
Some vehicle reference.

Has anyone made use of the custom ship rules to make a rival ship of sorts? Like a ship that is connected to a long term arc, harassing the PC's ship and stuff over the course of many sessions if not a whole campaign.

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>>93146883
A hypothetical for the thread, let’s say your a newly minted DaiMon on Ferenginar who has the ear of the Nagus, on your rise to power and wealth you had to step on a lot of lobes to get to the top and made a lot of enemies that would love nothing more than to dump your body in one of Ferenginar’s many swamps. To prevent this you’ve gone bodyguard shopping and have the pick of three groups

>Group 1: the Nausicaans
For option one you have a nice group of twelve Nausicaan mercenaries. They are not smart, they smell bad and they have a terrible temper, but they are loyal, they are really good at killing and they aren’t particularly pulsed about the thought of death.

>Group 2: the Breen
A group of four Breen, some of the best mercenaries money can buy. Well armed, well armoured and well trained, however they are aloof and cold, expensive, and are more treacherous than a mud wrestling match between a female Romulan and a female Cardassian.

>Group 3: the Ferengi
A band of eight Ferengi Marauders and a Hupyrian bodyguard. The Ferengi are treacherous and deceitful but are for the most part hoping to curry favour with you and by extension the Nagus, the Hupyrian is ride or die for you and will be willing to protect you from his comrades. However your still weary of treachery.

Which group are you willing to spend the Latinum on?

>>93176033
nosebleeds are a sign of telekinesis

>>93185578
Nausicaans

>>93185774
A TK shit is the mightiest of shits, indeed. In this case Ro was hopped up on drugs, specifically "ketracel-red" or Klingon adrenalin.

>>93185578
Are Nausicaans shown to be loyal? They're shown to be a bit dim and single-minded certainly but I don't remember anyone mentioning loyalty.

Unrelated but I've watched most of Prodigy and I just wanted to say that it's probably better than Lower Decks, sorry for all the times I referred to Lower Decks as the best modern trek. Truth be told, I still like LD better, but I can clearly see how a good earnest kids' adventure show is harder to write than an adult comedy cartoon.

What's the difference between a phaser and disruptor, and why does everyone but starfleet seem to lean towards the latter?

>>93186912
From what I remember disruptors VIOLENTLY agitate cells to erupt (making them far more painful, even in the rare "stun" setting we see them have). Phasers, meanwhile, seem to have far more control and options, like almost using a surgeons needle when needed.

>>93186912
>>93186981
Yea, phasers are directed energy weapon but they can 'direct' it in a wide variety of ways, they can be used as tools. Disruptors just destroy matter, it's what they do, so for instance you couldn't use a disruptor to heat up a rock and stay warm, it would just obliterate the rock.

On that note I'm not sure where we get the idea of disruptors having stun or how that's supposed to work. I always thought that the stun setting was the main difference between phasers and disruptors.

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>>93186912

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>>93187150

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>>93187167
Oddly enough redone when the critters showed up in the Defiant comic.

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>>93187532
RIP Iotian mob boss.

I've been rewatching Voyager, and the first season at least wasn't that bad.

Even their budget episodes of that season had some decent character development. Prime Factors is what comes to mind.

Then season 2 hits and we get Achoochimoya, Tuvix and the Salamanders. What the fuck happened?

>>93187687
I think that the character development is generally good and entertaining all the way through, people who love Voyager usually love it for its characters, but I also think that the main episode plots and their solutions are generally terrible and that starts right from season 1. Some people perceive season 2 as a drop but I've never been able to see it, season 1 was the same kind of good-but-terrible as season 2.

>>93187710
I disagree, but not strongly. They did make more allusions to the scarcity of resources in the first season, which they seemed to drop in the second.

Also there was more going on in the first season compared to the second as far as interpersonal relationships. You still had the Maquis and Starfleet butting heads.

One of the reasons Prime Factors was mentioned.

You have the episode opening with Janeway saying to Tuvok that the Maquis and Starfleet crew are starting to integrate. Then they come across a device that can transport them 40k LY closer and suddenly this new esprit de corps threatens to make the entire crew mutiny as Janeway has to choose between respecting the customs of the race who owns the device and getting the crew closer to home. Tuvok eventually goes behind Janeway's back to get the device, mainly so she's not dealing with a mutany.

It was some good shit, especially for an episode with the budget of Move Along Home, and it came around because it used so much of the premise.

>>93164854
sheer insanity to not allow the klingons and romulan players to straight up glass the fucking kobali and side with the vaadwuar. INSANE.

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>>93187150
>>93187167
Come on, you know that on this fanchise is plot über alles, particulary on esoteric details like how weapons work.

>>93186912
A phaser is a tool easily able to be used as a weapon
A disruptor is a weapon

At least in TNG. Roddenberry said when they were going through the concept phase to make phasers less like pistols and more like tools. source: Trust me bro.

In the show we see the phaser creating force fields, heating rocks in survival situations and using low yields. We are also told what >>93186981 and >>93187033 said; Disruptors are weapons that violently rip apart molecules.

>>93189622
The concept artist behind that keyboard needs to be strangled.

>>93189651
>The concept artist behind that keyboard needs to be strangled.
Yeah, immediate revulsion. I can only hope it's designed for a non-humanoid. But Trek has some really fucky interfaces, in general.

>>93191005
Gross

>>93191005
This is fine, at least it still follows the normal keyboard layout.

>>93190838
Its not just the hand position, its the way they keys are laid out.

2 sets of number keys, one of them isn't arranged as a number pad.

They arranged the letters around weirdly too, like they split the normal QWERTY arrangement, it didn't quite fit so they just chucked random blocks everywhere.

Could have at least used Dvorak or something.

>>93191135
QWERTY only exists because of Christopher Latham Sholes' design taking precedence; it's not even the only major Roman alphabet layout used in the Western hemisphere; AZERTY and QWERTZ are both in use. I don't think QWERTAS is a real layout (in the sense of one that anybody's suggested irl) but it's not a huge departure and in any case Sholes was thought to be working in part from feedback from telegraph operators and Remington (the guns people, later on). I strongly suspect the layout here is intentionally not-anything (though forgive me if I've missed transliteration from a non-Latin set) specifically to give it an alien/future feel and to be non-denominational in a Star Trek way, which at least shows willing.

Structurally my only real problem with it is the pronation it would apply at the wrists if the spaces beneath are intended as rests; but it may be intended to sit on a concave console in which case dependent on the angle, that may not be as much of a problem. The two numpads I actually like; arranging low-high and high-low feels as though it offers a degree of flexibility though, as with all ST keyboards and displays, there's a lot of "this button could have been a menu option" and so on. I cannot imagine why you would ever need a hot button for "Discarceration" on the Security console. How fast do you ever need to get people out of jail?

>>93194981
I don't think the Galaxy-style curves work well on this Miranda variant

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>>93192811
I'm aware of the differences in key layout options. I mean DROVAK.

And the most efficient layout for number is a number pad.

They whole thing just screams that not a lot of thought was put into it at all, which bothers me because apparently computer ergo has a place in my brain.

No symbols, no shift key, space. A starship probably won't need scroll lock, insert, home and end, and it has function keys.

Look, buddy, a lot of things about it compound on my autism.

>>93148608
I've given this some thought before. I think there's a lot of potential for various stories, like the episode with Friendship One. If the Federation could return to that ravaged world and help them rebuild. Sounds like a decent job for a Cali-Class to set up atmospheric processors and industrial replicators (maybe, I'm not sure what level of tech the Prime Directive would clear them for). Of course how the hell would you get a Cali-Class there? The protocore is out of the question and slipstream tech seems largely incompatible with Starfleet standards. I don't know of any canon source for this but I imagine the slipstream tech is surely only compatible with ships specifically designed for it, thus explaining why it's still not standard in PIC.

I was toying with the idea that the Borg Transwarp corridors weren't entirely destroyed just because Voyager took out the Borg hub. Not without risk (because more drama is never a bad thing) but imagine they can reopen the corridor near Earth and use that to reach various points. You can use it to get to entirely new parts of the galaxy, or visit a number of known locations. For instance the same nebula where the hub was located is near to Neelix. And Icheb? Imagine a mission to ferry him back to his homeworld using the nearby exit corridor. Tell his people they're free of the Borg, but also to tell his parents where to stick their good intentions. Could make a nice bittersweet mission. There are surely corridors that extend back to where Voyager first encountered Borg space, relatively close to where Voyager entered the Delta Quadrant. That can get you encounters with the Vidiians, the Talaxians, the Kazon.

Sadly I never got beyond kicking around ideas like this. I just haven't had much time on my hands these days.

>>93195764
fair
except the number pad

>>93196446
What do you use?

>>93196574
number line

numpads are for accountants

>>93197484
Boxes, nice

>>93200274
I dig this more than the Odyssey. Not as a hero-ship, but as the cavalry. It feels like the sort of ship an admiral rocks up in to get their shit pushed in, you know?

>>93201080
Absolutely. I actually main it in STO with Captain Gigachad (tall, broad, rugged man colored in all grey tones).

Prodigy s2 dropping on Monday. You fuckers ready for a time travel season?

>>93201267
Imagine being the 1 deaf French Prodigy fan who's eagerly looking forward to the episodes finally being released in a format where half of them aren't missing subtitles

The Ferengi should be a fairly competent military power, probably with a collection of lucrative PMCs that engage in piracy when there isn't a real war going on. The Marauder was competitive with the best ship the biggest local power could produce, the retcon of them being goofy weaklings that can't even rescue a hostage was nonsense. Ferengi are ripe for an out of control military industrial complex angle.

>>93203659
they probably had so many coups by PMCs they made the licensing and bribes necessary to run one impossibly difficult

besides, what self-respecting Ferengi would fight for a salary when he could sub-let his contract to a Klingon or a Nausicaan, or buy an OEM Soong-type knockoff or Jem'Hadar birthing pod to do it for him? Those guys WANT to die.

>>93203659
It'd work, but you'd have to pick the right era to set it in. To me the concept of pouring money into a bottomless pit of weapon development slightly falls apart when you actually have threats like the Borg who better weapons might be useful against.

>>93203787
Everyone wants to be a captain of industry, but the reality of the numbers is that most Ferengi end up running (or working in) a bar, deriving their profit from salaried work and the occasional attempt at day trading and the odd scam or two. War profiteering makes perfect sense for the Ferengi who has the mind to earn a profit by improving photon torpedo guidance systems, or in engendering a Cardassian/Bajoran war and selling weapons to the terrorists as a sales pitch to sell personal shields to the occupiers as a sales pitch to sell disruptors to the resistance and so on. It isn't an entire society of CEOs, so it makes sense that the one Ferengi mercenary we do see isn't that abnormal. Even in TNG we seem them being willing to attack a Galaxy class or attempt to steal it for a profit, not to big a leap from there to Ferengar Blackwater. I think the Ferengi were just introduced too early for the writers to really get it, if they had appeared in 2004...

>>93203659
Their military guys are apparently competent and even fearsome, while retaining the quintessential Ferengi greed. They're vicious, but opportunistic, with a tendency to strike when they feel they have the upper hand but are likely to be cowards, or just bargain, when they feel the upper hand is lost.

>>93203659
>the retcon of them being goofy weaklings that can't even rescue a hostage
That episode was also two bartenders, a bureaucrat, a merchant, a cadet, and one guy who actually knew what he was doing.

>>93203844
>Their military guys are apparently competent and even fearsome,
And the Ferengi do have a servant race (the Hupyrian’s) that are more than happy to fight and die for pay. Which is also something that doesn’t get much focus even though it seems most serve as personal bodyguards.

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>>93201267
Yes. Just hoping they stick the landing.
The more important issue is being prepared for the aftermath of the "somehow, he returned" moment.

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So where do YOU like to have your campaigns start?

>>93208563
Post-war Alpha Quadrant is objectively the best area for starting a campaign.

>>93208563
Beta Quadrant is just comfy

Star Trek: Into The Unknown Core Set has started appearing on FLGS pre-order sheets, so we may soon have some miniature game stuff to talk about.

>>93208583

I agree. I'm still turning over a post-Dominion War game set 'south' (on this map) of Cardassian space, which would be an area where initial exploratory cruises, probe sweeps and long distance observations pre-war would now be followed up on.
There'd be a Cardassian Dissident - Bajoran Artist hybrid colony in there, one planet will have a Age of Sail Royal Navy frigate on it (displaced in both time and space by the Bermuda Triangle) and one of the main 'military' threats would be a band of Ferengi salvage/arms merchants picking clean the sites of Dominion War skirmishes

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>>93208563
Entering the sector where the campaign will play out or begin. I don't run STA campaigns frequently so I tend to have the first session act as a tutorial for new players and a warm up for the rest. I do up little maps in Lcars-style for reference.
>>93208932
>Star Trek: Into The Unknown Core Set has started appearing on FLGS pre-order sheets, so we may soon have some miniature game stuff to talk about.
Welcome news. I'm just hoping the models are nicer than AW.

>>93209179
I like that map, anon! Got any more to share?

>>93204421
When do you see hupyrians fighting? I remember when I first saw the Nagus's trip to the mirror universe, I thought I'd get to see Maihar'do beating up klingons, but he's a butler not a fighter.
I also didn't know that they were beholden to the ferangi in particular, I got the sense that they were extremely loyal and fantastically expensive so ferangi get them as a status symbol

>>93185578
I think the main concern here is that ferangi assassins are really good and numerous. Nausicaans are useful in a wide range of situations but I don't think they can do anything about ferangi assassins. If you were serious about staying alive then you'd have nausicaans to make you look good in public, plus some close ferangi associates who stand to profit from your survival (give them special titles and make them feel more important than the nausicaans), then keep the breen on retainer for operations against your enemies but never give them a chance to wack you (this way you earn their respect and can build a more stable relationship over time).

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Anyone else obsessed with mixed-heritage characters? PC or NPC, I love mixing the heritage stuff around. Had an NPC recently who was half-Risian and half-Vulcan, had him be one of the best side characters for the adventure after he convinced the engineer in the party to let him "massage her muscles and let her worries slip away" before using a unique form of mind-meld to get some secrets about the ship since he was secretly a Maquis agent.

>>93210929
I think people draw the inference from the Nagus must have a super awesome bodyguard since his people routinely employ muscleheads like the Nausicans. Still they seem more loyal than fearsome. I seem to recall some line about seeking revenge on anyone who harmed Zek kind of thing? I can't pin down the episode from memory, so I can't be sure. I might misremembering due to inference, like Rom and Quark freaking out when Maihar'du caught them breaking into Zek's shuttle. Pretty sure Mirror Kira humbled him right in the groin, though, so it might mostly be appearance and it's just the loyalty that the Nagus prefers. Makes sense when you basically run an empire of greedy backstabbing SOBs.

Mr. Homn, however, you definitely expect him to have crazy Lurch strength/durability, har har.

>>93215962
I had an idea that the Hupyrians are a very long-lived, slow breeding species whose homeworld has extremely limited resources (its primary export is Beetle Snuff), but great memories and passion for learning about the wider universe. So they made a deal with the Ferengi Alliance that played to their strength - intellectual property.

Thus when Zek took on Maihar'du, not only did he get exclusive access to all his existing knowledge (such as how to act like your dead), but everything he learns from then on is stored in a format that's less vulnerable to corporate espionage.

>>93215962
Yea, that was basically my take, he intimidates the bartenders because that's easy to do and because he's somewhat immersed in ferangi culture but you never see him really fighting. Also that episode shows you how fantastically loyal he is, because the space gods change his boss to be neutral good, and he can't stop crying about it and goes to extraordinary lengths to make things right. That's a special kind of loyalty. I struggle to describe it because it challenges my concept of personal agency, a lot of autarchs wouldn't want a servant like Maihar'do, a servant so loyal to the person that you used to be in the past. But also it's good insurance against space god mindrape and similar shenanigans.
>>93217717
Cool take, I hadn't thought about it that way but it makes a lot of sense, he's like a mentat. But if he were like a mentat then he would have been more help after the debacle with Ishka (when Quark was trying to be Zek's advisor and failing), but also there are a lot of ways to explain that away, and there's precedence for thinking that Maihar'do is an accountant/advisor type figure.
It's worth noting that prime universe Kira is shown overpowering males much larger than her. But also mirror Kira is a powerful sex-tyrant and would be even better at nut punching than the prime Kira. What I mean is that this one scene doesn't necessarily invalidate the idea of hypurians being bodyguards.

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>>93187772
>They did make more allusions to the scarcity of resources in the first season,

I never understood why this was a stalling point for so many people over the years. It's a 700,000 metric tonne starship, one of the most advanced ever built by Starfleet, with a capable, resourceful crew all focused on a singular goal of getting home.

When they first arrive they know nothing, they don't even have a stellar cartography or whatever other normal operations because a third of the crew is dead and for weeks afterwards, even with the Maquis on board, they're still figuring things out re: shifts and assignments. There are no starbases, the only local guide they have is Neelix who means well but isn't always on the money about his local guiding. They're surrounded by Kazon sects - that'll use up your scarce resources fast, having to constantly stay on high alert, with a new crew, with frequent battles where you use energy for shields and phasers.

By the next year it's less of a problem. By year two they're making their own photon torpedoes in a former cargo bay converted to Starfleet armory regulation standard. You never see it just like you never see Ayala's quarters - they're there, he doesn't sleep in the mess hall or anything, but you know they're there because Ayala is there.

Just mystifying to me that people were ever hung up on a godlike starship having the ability to make smaller starships to replace lost smaller starships, or make new space bombs. DS9 did it too but I guess the assumption was that those runabouts they burned through were being made somewhere else, even though O'Brien was probably knocking them out on weekends as a hobby. Hell DS9 probably exported surplus runabouts to the rest of the fleet.

Prodigy starts tomorrow. Due to premature autosage probably better to start a thread then. Just my two strips of latinum.