Star Trek Adventures – First Response – Episode 3: Court of Opinion, Part II

Ron, KC, and I have completed another episode of play in our Star Trek Adventures campaign, First Response and with it, we have completed our 'learning STA' project.

This episode was the second part of a two-part episode which ended up first bringing major elements of each of the main characters' lives into focus and then having them intersect. 

Run-times on the sessions which comprise this episode got incrementally longer and the final session runs 3hrs, so that allowed for quite a lot to be explored and demonstrated to a greater degree than the shorter sessions could, the feel of the rise and fall of Momentum, Threat, and Determination on play. 

What Happened?
The episode opened with the arrival of a new captain for the Avicenna. His mission was simple, give chase to and recover the USS Potemkin, a starfleet vessel which had been commandeered by her own crew (now possessed by alien intelligences) and the former captain of the Avicenna – a man who has been under psychiatric observation for months. Of course, the two captains were once friends, and know each others' tactics well. 

The crew of the Avicenna was justly concerned that the mision orders were silent about the rescue of the crew and this became a major focus throughout the sessions. 

Session A mainly dealt with responding to the situation, meeting and adjusting to the new captain, and giving chase. Session B mainly dealt with escaping a deadly trap their quarry led them into and had a srong focus on the supporting crew. Session C saw the introduction of an ally in the form of the Ambassador of the Gorn Hegemony. This was initially made possible by Ensign Yang's (KC) pushy political affiliations (family) and solidified by the efforts of Lt. Korsakov (Ron) who recruited them to the mission (a very cool twist!). That ally enabled them to compile a better picture of what their quarry was trying to do and where he might be taking the Potemkin. The crew threw their resources into figuring out what his destination was and how to beat him there.

Session D saw the Avicenna and their new Gorn ally arriving at a seemingly-inert, massive, incredibly-ancient object in space referred to in legends and fragments of forgotten history as the source of the alien culture's military might and a destroyer of worlds. Adrift in space, it awaited reactivation and the resumption of its mission of conquest. There was no sign of the Potemkin – they had succeeded in getting there first and were able to gain the advantage of positioning and coordination before it arrived. 

When it did arrive, a delicate effort to disable the ship and free the crew was initiated, but their prey was as dedicated to his plan as they were to foiling it. Appropriate force scaled up into lethal force, and rescue teams sent to the shattered Potemkin needed to call on boarding parties to help protect them from the very crew they were trying to save. The Gorn ship…

A final confrontation between our main characters and the former captain brought about the end of the episode in a climactic struggle of power versus dedication, fists versus bone, and greed versus altruism. 

Links:

Session A

Session B

Session C

Session D

As usual, the playlist contains the reflections and other material produced as a part of one of these learning projects, such as preparation notes, and discussions about play between the players.

First Response Playlist