Summary of Events Stardate 0309.29

TNG Era:

Captain Farrell reports a signal received from the Kazon-Oglamar warship approaching Oblissa Three, stating that First Maje Eeluk would agree to meet with them upon their arrival in system. Ambassador Khan has advised that Captain Farrell will maintain a defensive posture while not showing any overt aggression.

Captain Murphy reports some success in extracting alien biomechanical DNA from the bodies of Romulan soldiers on Oshionian Six. The soldiers had died when scientists on the RIS Decius attempted to graft biomechanical circuitry with their DNA in an attempt to construct cyborg soldiers. Survey teams from the Guadalcanal are still on the surface. Captain Murphy also reports that he has advised Captain Reggie Farrell that the disabled and released Decius has left Oshionian Six and proceeded, at warp one, in the general direction of Oblissa Three. The warbird was stripped of its weaponry and limited to warp one as an alternative to capturing or destroying it.

Following unconfirmed reports of an unprovoked attack on a Romulan warbird by a Federation starship in the triangle zone, the USS Entebbe reports detecting a Romulan warbird in the neutral zone. The RIS D'Shoanna was on a stealth mission when the starship attempted to warn it off. When the warbird failed to withdraw, Captain Shaw was forced to open fire. After fierce fighting, the Entebbe escorted the disabled D'Shoanna to a neutral starbase where the ship and crew were turned over to Romulan diplomats.

The USS Lily Sloane arrived in the Coramonde system to find no sign of the USS Sternbach or the Yorktown, which it had been sent to search for. It did find an unusual amount of neutrinos in the area. It is conducting an extensive sweep of the system.

USS Archer and USS Arizona report increased military activity in the Triangle Zone following clashes between Romulan forces and those of the Klingon Empire and the Federation.

TOS Era:

Starfleet monitor stations report the first signal in close to a month received from the USS Xerxes at Archer Four. Captain Lionidas reported that science teams from the outpost and the Xerxes had succeeded in disabling the jamming device set up in the vicinity that had cut off communications from the region. Starfleet Command is reportedly studying several options for getting a fleet of starships to the area without making a major move through Klingon space.

The USS Magellan has continued its search for the USS Coramonde, following reports that its transponder signal had been detected more than a hundred lightyears away from the site of its disappearance.

ENT Era:

There have been no further communications from, nor reports of the Challenger NX-07 on its mission to circumnavigate Romulan space.

Sources on Denobula report sightings of possible Romulan ships within their system. Columbia NX-02 has been dispatched to confirm.

Two Sloane Class light cruisers have arrived at the site where hull plating from the EX-01 Roddenberry science ship was discovered. The Roddenberry was lost on a mission towards the center of the galaxy.

Command College

"What Are Your Orders, Captain?"

(TNG Era) "Dangerous New Worlds" Resolution

The USS Agamemnon entered the Coramonde system, investigating the disappearance of the Science Ship USS Lily Sloane. It discovered an object similar to a wormhole that appeared to be in a state of constant flux. Scans are inconclusive, but a probe sent through the anomaly reveals a Federation warp trail on the other side. All indications show that the anomaly is stable and safe to pass through. Based on this, Captain Decker chooses to proceed.

An analysis of star positions fails to show any familiar stars, but the warp trail is now identifiable as belonging to a Constitution Class ship lost almost a hundred years ago in the same area. The USS Coramonde, for which the system was named, vanished without a trace while on a humanitarian mission. While a detailed analysis of the warp trail confirms that it came from a starship of that era, its state of decay is consistent with having been produced within the last month. After sending a communications probe through the anomaly to update Starfleet, Captain Decker orders the conn officer to follow the warp trail, which leads to a nearby star system

They arrive to discover that the Coramonde was pulled down, nearly intact, to the surface of a Class M planet. Life signs are inconclusive, and visual scans show that the ship is on the surface, partially buried in a large desert area.

Captain Decker has more than one mystery on her hands, and all of them could be critical to her crew and mission. Is the anomaly a temporal wormhole that brought the Coramonde ahead in time, or the Agamemnon back in time? What brought the Coramonde down to the planet yet kept it impossibly intact? While realizing that resources could be split, she also feels a sense of urgency and impending danger. Should she:

A) First try to determine if they've traveled back in time,

B) Concentrate first on finding out what happened to the Coramonde, or,

C) Attempt to divide her resources to answer both questions at the same time.

Captain Decker decided that determining what happened to the Coramonde was a more critical objective, and could answer the time travel question as well.

(TNG Era) "Biomechanical Threat"

The first step in Captain Decker's investigation is to conduct an intensive scan of the planet-bound starship to confirm the apparent lack of life signs and to search for evidence of weapons fire on the hull. After establishing a synchronous orbit over the Coramonde, intensive scans are directed at the ship. Readings show no discernible weapons fire, and no definitive life readings. There is, however, an unusual and unexplainable electromagnetic signature across the length and breadth of the ship that probes launched from orbit cannot penetrate. The next step is to send an away team. In light of the mystery surrounding the ship, Captain Decker chooses four Hazard team members and the chief science officer to join her. They were all outfitted with Hazard team personal force fields and vital sign monitors continuously transmitting to the ship.

They are transported to the surface, a few meters from the Coramonde. Intensive scans show biomechanical circuitry covering the hull that was not detected from orbit. The circuitry is similar to bio-neural gelpaks found in modern starships, as well as some Borg circuitry, but it lacks the familiar Borg 'footprint' found in every recorded encounter with them. According to scans, the circuitry is covering twenty percent of the hull and growing at a rate of one percent a day.

At this point, Captain Decker determines a potential threat to personnel if they come in physical contact with the ship. At the same time, she knows that they won't learn any more without getting inside the ship. The team does have limited protection thanks to their personal force fields, but they might not protect them from whatever power brought down the Coramonde. What should be her next step?

Choose what you think should be the next course of action, and write a brief summary. You can also feel free to join the investigation with your own ship.

(Moderator's Note: There are no predetermined right or  wrong answers. Feel free to discuss the challenge with other players. Every player who submits an entry receives a "Command College Point". Ten of those equal an experience point. The most popular choice will determine the next step taken)

Captain's Log

(From last week) "...nothing like I remember it..."

Class J Gas Giant
Age: 2-10 billion years
Diameter: 50,000-140,000 km
Location: Cold Zone
Surface: Tenuous, comprised of gaseous hydrogen and hydrogen compounds; radiates some heat
Atmosphere: Zones vary in temperature, pressure and composition
Life forms: Hydrocarbon-based
Example: Jupiter, Saturn

13) Members of your crew decide they want to be left behind on the planet.

(TOS Era)

USS Kabul Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser
Captain Jim Lacy

We were ordered to investigate a reported sighting of an abandoned Suliban helix within a Class J planet in the Beta Orinoco system. The Suliban people have been scattered since their sun went nova in the year 2161. Since then Suliban refugees have found themselves forced to abandon their planets and helix, moving from star system to star system, unable to settle, even on uninhabited planets, because nearby inhabited systems wouldn't tolerate them. That stems from the part the Suliban played in a temporal cold war that stretched, or will stretch from the 29th century to the 22nd. They also interfered with the mission of the Enterprise NX-01 from its launch to its trip home to be decommissioned. It wasn't until the end of the Earth/Romulan war that the Suliban cabal broke with their temporal benefactors and attempted to form an alliance with Earth. While there was never any proof, it is generally accepted that the Suliban's masters punished the cabal by destroying their sun. Since then the Suliban have existed by moving from planet to planet, living like gypsies until they are pushed along. The ships they travel in vary from ancient cell ships to even more ancient DY-500 freighters. And, of course, the occasional Federation starship. In this case, a Suliban named Talac petitioned to Starfleet for an investigation of a helix sighting in the Beta Orinoco star system, located on the fringe of a stellar nursery more than a hundred lightyears from the nearest inhabited planet. Indeed, the system would be perfect for the Suliban except for the fact that there are no habitable planets there. It is sad but true that in a time that we consider to be tolerant and enlightened, there are still innocent populations condemned to live in places where nobody else wants to.

I was relieved, then, to discover the helix sitting, as promised, within the soupy, unpredictable atmosphere of one of six Class J gas giants in the Beta Orinoco system. I happily include these words from Salac, who asked to be left behind to explore and begin repairs to the helix. "I have been not been aboard a helix in many years, and that one was nearly destroyed by people who were terrified to have us living within a lightyear of them. This helix is small and remote and, like the last one, in need of repair. But in one respect, the experience of being here is nothing like I remember it on the last one. There, I lived as a refugee. Here I live as a settler. A pioneer for my people. I have come home."

For Next Week: "...no obvious answer..."

(Expand the following into a log entry of at least 100 words. Members post answers to the yahoogroup or the 'comment' feature on the blogsite. Lurkers feel free to leave comments on the blogsite)


Developer's Diary:
It hasn't been one of the most productive weeks on Fantasy Trek. RL continues to be a distraction (don't you hate that :)?), a
nd having the computer dump two weeks worth of work didn't help. But I've also continued to flesh out and streamline the heavy combat part of the game. I've created different heavy combat templates for the different races (so, for example, you don't have to add or take away plasmas as applicable), and I started to think about secondary systems like transporters that are not weapons, nor are they necessary to the basics of combat, but they are tools for advanced tactics. It also occurred to me that the idea that a ship is destroyed only when you take out all of the internals really isn't realistic. I mean, one surviving tractor emitter isn't going to save your crew if the rest of the ship is gone. So while that may not really alter the mechanics of heavy combat, it does change the context that results of the combat fit into the game. Maybe, if someone feels the need to physically destroy a ship and/or kill the crew, they would need to think about environmental systems for life-support or intruder defense systems, and then what it takes to literally destroy the underlying space frame. And if a ship has comm capability left, it can send a distress signal and hope that someone is close enough to help.

Readers of the storyline might notice an underlying theme of mysterious biotech spreading over everything. That will continue to build. And Enterprise era fans can look forward to news of the Romulan war starting to seep in. I've also included an experimental option for command college participants to add their ship to the ongoing storyline taking place in "What Are Your Orders, Captain?". I'll see how that works.

I've designed an emblem/mission patch for the Kri'staK Fleet. All I have to do now is scan and paintshop it for presentation. I'm also going to be designing a new Enterprise era ship, a Roddenberry Class Explorer. If my artistic skills are up to it.



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