Post by senko on Aug 30, 2021 9:17:08 GMT
This one popped into my head while watching a star trek voyager review.
Background
A high TL 7 society is experimenting with various temporal and spatial technology. They're not yet at the level of making a TARDIS this is more probing the concepts to expand their understanding. Not being idiots this experimentation is taking place on an isolated space station at the edge of their space. One of the experiments intended to create a box larger on the inside than the outside (think a lunchbox containing space the size of a suitcase) goes horribly wrong as they're simultaneously trying the expand the space by borrowing it from the lunch boxes past an future. In an implosion the station vanishes and the society moves on. Moves on unaware that the station had been puled into its own pocket dimension 25 light years across and empty of anything. No stars, no planet, no life just an empty void. To make matters worse for those on the station it was badly damaged and is low on power and has areas flooded with radiation, crumpled debris and in some cases open to the void. It floats there barely hanging onto life but what life? The crew did not escape unscathed but where horribly mutated into monstrous creatures roaming their areas alone or in packs hunting for food or to kill perceived threats. It might have ended there but the dimension is unstable the surface shifting, roiling and tearing. Tears that create short lived dimensional whirlpools that reach out across time and space pulling random things and people into it such as our party.
Explanation for arrival
Lower TL heroes can be pulled either from regular day to day events or from something cataclysmic like their ship sinking or plane crashing into the station itself and need to try and survive and figure out this strange metal world they find themselves in. A GM can provide them hints such as by having an automated voice warn them if they're wandering into a hazard like radiation their character wouldn't understand.
Higher TL heroes can be pulled into the station or if they have a ship (spaceship or TARDIS) they can be pulled into the void itself and need to figure out this strange place they find themselves trapped in.
Once a sufficient amount of time has passed players with appopriate sources of knowledge e.g. ship scans, pulling up computer information on the station can determine that the power plant is malfunctioning and if steps aren't taken to correct it will soon explode (time to this event is up to GM discretion)
Depending on the nature of the party there are a number of way's this can go.
Motivation
A party can be motivated to explore the void and station out of curiosity, desire to help those trapped (NPC's can send out signals for help and if not rescued illustrate the dangers by dying to them) and simply because if the void isn't stabilized or destroyed its impossible to safely exit it (of course if you want to try exiting unsafely thats a potential story as well).
Hazards and threats
The malfunctioning station has many hazards for those roaming around it including poor lighting, malfunctioning equipment, radiated or vacumn exposed sectors and of course the creatures. A GM should adapt any suitable alien for group or individual threats or create their own. The nature of the station means you can have a lot other victims of the dimensional shift in addition to these horrors. The party may encounter a Sontaran who has not tried to escape because to him this is the ultimate war or a Dalek purging the impure before studying the technology of the station for Dalek kind.
Outcomes
Shut down and destroy the station: It explodes erasing the dimension and history moves on with the stations implosion and erasure changing to something appropriate perhaps with knock on effects depending on how much can be salvaged. This may also kill the party so be sure to warn them of this possibility before begining this scenario. Alternatively it may return the players to where they were before they were dragged in here due to the temporal nature of the scoops allowing a GM to preserve the players if they take this route.
Restore the power plant: Things continue on as they are and the party still needs to figure out how to leave. Options will depend on the party composition and resources but the best option would be a scientific character to reverse the polarity and send them up a vortex. This option also allows for a low TL time and space travelling group as a side efffect of this is them as a group jumping randomly in time and space. Alternatively you could have everyone except a character with a vessel (such as a time lord) be snatched from the instant before death. So the characters choose to travel with them in hopes of a lift home as using the vortexes would put them back in situation where they'll die. Of course getting home wont be easy and thus we have our player groups origin. Of course the dimensional void will remain pulling thing into it. Alternatively the reversed polarity option may see things and creatures from the station deposited back out into the larger unverse to cause problems.
Repair and seal the void: This one is the trickiest option and will require much technobabble to explain how they sealed off the void without being trapped. Though a sufficiently advanced craft or scientific knowledge may be able to breach the barrier afterwards.
Shut down and destroy the station: It explodes erasing the dimension and history moves on with the stations implosion and erasure changing to something appropriate perhaps with knock on effects depending on how much can be salvaged. This may also kill the party so be sure to warn them of this possibility before begining this scenario. Alternatively it may return the players to where they were before they were dragged in here due to the temporal nature of the scoops allowing a GM to preserve the players if they take this route.
Restore the power plant: Things continue on as they are and the party still needs to figure out how to leave. Options will depend on the party composition and resources but the best option would be a scientific character to reverse the polarity and send them up a vortex. This option also allows for a low TL time and space travelling group as a side efffect of this is them as a group jumping randomly in time and space. Alternatively you could have everyone except a character with a vessel (such as a time lord) be snatched from the instant before death. So the characters choose to travel with them in hopes of a lift home as using the vortexes would put them back in situation where they'll die. Of course getting home wont be easy and thus we have our player groups origin. Of course the dimensional void will remain pulling thing into it. Alternatively the reversed polarity option may see things and creatures from the station deposited back out into the larger unverse to cause problems.
Repair and seal the void: This one is the trickiest option and will require much technobabble to explain how they sealed off the void without being trapped. Though a sufficiently advanced craft or scientific knowledge may be able to breach the barrier afterwards.