by Jay P. Hailey

Introduction
This adventure is intended for PCs crewing a Federation Starship near the border with the Talarian Empire.

The Happy Sunday
As the PCs' starship is travelling along, they detect a tetryon mine go off in the distance. It's a powerful blast. A tetryon weapon has an effect where, if you don't have countermeasures, it'll shut down most of your high technology devices until you reset them. After this trick was discovered and popularized about 10 years ago all Starfleet ships and systems are either shielded against this effect or have rapid restart mechanims to reduce the effect. After Starfleet and the Klingons made these changes the trick fell out of favor and isn't used much any more. It's still used by pirates because the shielding and rapid automatic restarts are expensive and people running on a budget don't upgrade as much as they maybe should, so the blast spotted in the distance would tend to indicate pirate activity. If the PCs need a push, have them recieve a garbled partial distress call from the area.

When they arrive they find three freghters and two Talarian patrol ships disabled and struggling to restart. Everyone denies being responsible for the tetryon blast. The Talarians say they are after the freighter Happy Sunday which is itself crewed by pirates and thieves.

The Happy Sunday is a Federation ship. The crew are mostly Federation citizens, although with colorful records. TheHappy Sunday crew tends to find themselves on the scene of chaos adventure and disorder. They are mercenaries and several previous reports cause Starfleet authories to suspect they may well be even worse but no evidence can be found.

The Talarians claim that the Happy Sunday crew stole ancient Talarian artifacts. The artifacts are composed of ceramics and metal and so won't show up distinctly on scans. But if the PCs search the Happy Sunday, they do, in fact have Talarian artifacts. If caught with the artifacts the Happy Sunday crew will explain that they got them at Gollusk Minor, a neutral world. This is true. Gollusk minor is the site of a territory dispute between the Federation and the Talarian Empire, so is currently considered to be neutral until things can be worked out. There are both a Federation colony and a Talarian Colony on Gollusk Minor Most colonists do not care where someone comes from so long as they pull their weight and do what they say they're going to do. But there's a small minority of people who put on team jerseys and cause problems for the "other side". Mercenaries can frequently find work there as peace-keepers upholding law and order on Gollusk Minor. There is a market for foodstuffs from Gollusk Minor in the Talarian Empire as they don't have widespread replicators, yet.


The Talarian captain

DaiMon Darzoz

One of the other ships disabled and trying to restart is a Ferengi freighter the FCS High-Premium Convertible Debenture, commanded by Darzoz, a Ferengi known for his excessive sexism and trafficking in antquities to the collectors market. All three freighters claim to have no reason to be meeting each other and are simply to be en-route to other places - this is a location where that is a reasonable explanation. The Talarians demand that the crews of the Happy Sunday and the FCS High-Premium Convertible Debenture be turned over to them immediately as pirates. Piracy in the Talarian Emire carries a high pentalty. Accused people are tortured to death in public and THEN tried. The goal here is for the PCs to determine the proper course of action and how they should pursue a set of interlocking and not always compatible goals.

What Really Happened
The crew of the Happy Sunday were working as security on Gollusk Minor and heard about a recent discovery of treasure, So in a sort of daring swashbuckling way, they raided an ancient labyrinth, recovered artifacts and were trying to sell these off to Darzoz. The existence of the ancient labyrinth with ancient Talarian artifacts in it harms the Federation's claim to the planet. The site was being held and secured by Talarian troops, which violated the agreement between with the Federation on how they were going to settle the claim to the world.

If the PCs go to Gollusk Minor and explore, there are a number of alternatives scenarios:

  1. All is as presented. Ancient Talarians lived on Gollusk Minor, built a labyrinth and at some point left the planet.
  2. The labyrinth is authentic but the Talarians planted ancient artifacts to artificially bolster their claims. If so, who built the labyrinth and why?
  3. The labyrinth and all artifacts are plants from the modern Talarian government to try and bolster their claim.

The GM should pick the one that amuses him (or her) most.

Author's Notes
Personally, I'd configure it thusly:
The labyrinth was placed by an ancient empire as an entertainment complex. It was ther version of "American Ninja Warrior" or "Wipeout". Competitors would enter the labyrinth with a limited supply of gear and then overcome various obtacles, fight holographic monsters and solve difficult problems to get to the bottom of the labyrinth and acquire a great treasure relative to the day. This would be a local year's supply of Worms-aRoni, the Gollusk Minor Treat, a full set of the Encyclopedia Galactica (which would be a treasure trove of information about the Pre-Federation Galaxy) and a gift Certificate to Madam Crimsons Brothel of Alien Delights. And of course, the labyrinth is functional enough to give the PCs a hard time.

I might also have the holographic monsters not respond to phasers. This would be cheating in the original game, so they're only damagable by approved low tech weapons. The game would inform the contestants of the rules and offer a supply of low tech pointy killers. It doesn't inform them, but contestants who are "killed" would be teleported to a disqualification room to await the successful completion of the contest.

If you want to make it creepy or scarier, have the machinery of the labyrinth be damaged and not particularly trustworthy.

The core of this idea is - what is the right way to cope with adventurers and totalitarian cops coming after them? If the players spend a chunk of time discusing such things I consider that a winning Star Trek game. I do not consider there to be one right answer to all of this Otherwise, it's open ended for the PCs to create a solution - the Happy Sunday adventure is purposley somewhat vague. The GM may make up his own amusing crew of NPC misfit adventurers or re-use one they've made up previously.

Talarians are a Humanoid species characterized by a distinctive hairless enlargement of the coronal area of the skull extending in two lobes to the back of the head. Talarians follow a strict set of traditions and customs. Their society is rigidly patriarchal, where a woman never outranks a man, and encourages warrior-like behavior. The Talarians are a brutal totalitarian culture as shown in Star Trek The Next Generation S04E04 Suddenly Human - not especially nice guys. But they can do the math and so take careful pains never to start a ruckus with the Federation. In Jay-Trek they are member of The League of Non-Aligned Worlds. If attacked or bullied can expect some back up by other members as well as a huge public relations disaster in response.

NOTE: If the PCs simply blow up all the disabled ships because they're sick of this crap, then maybe Star Trek isn't the right game to be playing right now?

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