Entry by Admiral April Hebert

Admiral's Log, Stardate #######.# (April 28, 2371)

[Game date: March 16, 2018, 6:00 pm]

A captain under my command has died. No time to mourn the loss, as there are many challenges facing the Federation here on the border of Klingon and Romulan Empires, and along the Shackleton Expanse.

I have given temporary command of the Shakespeare to Lt. Commander Geshoni. My hope is that he will rise to the challenge … but no sooner had I done this than we were interrupted by the arrival of Ambassador Lwaxanna Troi and a Tellarite lawyer, Pola bim Gerkow, who had arrived with a petition to declare Geshoni to have no legal rights or competence to make medical decisions.

I have ordered Svelt and Shran to keep silent on this. After discussion with Geshoni, I have decided to use my discretion to give him some time to coordinate his legal defense. And some time to establish whether he is suited to the command of a starship.

As such, I have dispatched them to perform their regular fly-by of the Romulan Neutral Zone. This is a priority mission, because we want to see if there's any Romulan activity along the border in the wake of them losing their ship T'Chakma, so it justifies a delay in the legal proceedings.

Their secondary mission is to perform a review of a petition to membership in the Federation, the Elantrians. This is a planet we have had some contact with, and they seem good candidates. We could use a stronger presence in this part of the Quadrant. We currently have an Elantrian ship that has arrived at the station, but before we send a full diplomatic mission we want to evaluate their species be sure they embody the ideals of the Federation.

Mission Directives: 

• Evaluate Elantrians as Federation candidate species
• Scan Neutral Zone for any unusual activity

Entry by Dr. Joal Imonim [male Trill (unjoined), rank: Lt., Shakespeare Ship's Counsellor]

Counsellor's Log, Stardate #######.# (April 27, 2371)

Tragedy has struck the ship. It will take all of my training to help support the crew through these difficult times. Our captain has died. A senseless death at the hands of a vengeful madman.

We arrived at Narendra Station per our orders, and were greeted by Admiral April Hebert, who commended us at our handling of the situation with the Teslans. The Captain remained behind for a full debrief, while the remainder of the bridge crew were granted shore leave to explore Narendra Station. We discovered some fun activities, like a gaming store called Gamer's Sto-vo-kor, Klingon bars (depending on your definition of fun), and an intriguing little jazz club.

This merriment, though, was cut short when a Klingon criminal and terrorist named K'Vesh attacked the station. K'Vesh as seeking vengeance for the death of his father, a Klingon criminal known as the Albino.

Sadly, in his first wave of attacks, an explosion resulted in the death of Captain Ral. Her body was rescued by the heroic actions of Ensign Muscles. Nurse M'Rala and myself identified that the Ral symbiote was alive, but had taken massive radiation damage. Unfortunately, the symbiote's healing properties require drawing resources from a host body. The only physically and psychologically-viable host among our crew is the quarter-Trill Ensign Muscles, and he agreed to have the symbiote implanted.

Meanwhile, Lt. Shran and Lt. Cmdr. Geshoni both worked to defuse bombs, preventing additional damage and loss of life. Lt. Shran's bomb went off, injuring her, but she survived and the damage was minimal.

Lt. Cmdr. Svelt, with the aid of the Klingon K'vok, tracked down Kor, the Klingon that K'Vesh was seeking to extract vengeance from for the death of his father. While Svelt distracted K'Vesh, attempting to negotiate a peaceful resolution, K'vok was able to slip near him and use some sort of jamming device to block the deadman switch that would have set off the remaining explosives. Kor attacked K'Vesh with a mekleth dagger, but K'Vesh then called to beam back to his ship. (Presumably, the jammer blocked only the narrow frequencies of the jammer.)

Lt. Cmdr. Geshoni, Lt. Cmdr. Svelt, and Lt. Shran were called to Admiral Hebert's office. Shortly after their meeting, word came that our stay was cut short and we had new orders, under the command of Acting Captain Geshoni.

Tension among the crew is high. I have faith we will rise to the challenge, but I am alert for what I can do to help lift the load from Geshoni's shoulders. It is situations like this that Starfleet has implemented the presence of Counselors on our ships, after all.

Entry by Cmdr. Olimund Delai (male Betazoid), First Officer U.S.S. Shakespeare

First Officer's Log, Stardate 48269.0 (April 10, 2371)

Lt. Commander Svelt has been attacked on the mining planet, but was rescued by Ensign Muscles. The Captain's away team have discovered that the ancient starship Tesla, along with their cryogenically-frozen human crewmen, must be sent back in time to crash on and colonize this planet. The science team is currently working on a method for utilizing the energy from the surrounding tachyon field to achieve this.

Unfortunately, it seems that one of our own crew members, Ensign James T. Smith, is also among those who must go back with the Tesla. He has accepted this responsibility, out of obligation to the Temporal Prime Directive. Part of his duties will be to guarantee that the ship crashes in the proper location, and then to discretely use his advanced engineering knowledge to help the colony develop an advanced system-spanning civilization within a mere 500 years with access to scant resources.

The most disturbing detail of this account is the realization that a Romulan vessel, the T'Chakma, will be destroyed and a shuttlecraft from it will also crash on this planet. Ensign Smith will, it seems, help to repair the ship within a year, giving them the ability to travel the system. This is how they are able to efficiently get access to the resources to build an array of solar-power gathering satellites throughout the system, providing them the energy needed for their technological advancement.

I wish him well. To accept such a mission truly represents the finest that Starfleet can hope to achieve.

Addendum

The mission has been successful. Ensign Smith has been lost to the past it seems.

Captain Ral has informed me that when things stabilize here, she will be taking the Shakespeare back to Narendra station to provide an in-person report. I will remain in command here, coordinating work of the engineering team that is helping to stabilize the warp field on this society's first interstellar warp vessel: The Elon.

First Officer's Log, Stardate 48268.9 (April 9, 2371)

Elon Musk fainted shortly after being revived and was transported to Sickbay for care. The medical team discerned that the prototype nature of the cryogenic freezing was causing a rapid cellular decay, which they were able to stabilize, but Musk required additional rest.

A scan of the nearby system discovered a vibrant, warp-capable civilization that utilized English as its primary language of communication. Captain Ral left a science team, coordinated by Science Officer Pitaki, to investigate the residual tachyon energy being emitted by the hull of the Tesla. 

Captain Ral initiated first contact with the beings in this system, who identified themselves as descendants of Earth refugees. It turns out they are descended from the passengers on the Tesla itself, along with some Romulans who crashed on these planets at roughly the same time, about 500 years ago. 

The human/Romulan hybrid society seems largely peaceful, and to have adapted to their situation well. They have settled the 5 habitable class-M planets in their system, as well as placed space stations around their system's gas giant and domed cities on their ice planet, for mining purposes. Though they are capable of warp drive, the tachyon field has prevented them from leaving their system to travel the rest of the universe.

The science team believes the arrival of the Tesla is related to the disruption of the tachyon field and to a number of bizarre transporter accidents that happened at the time. Since then, the people of the Tesla system have begun a major works project to build a starship to explore the universe. This project is under way, but upgrading their inter-planetary warp drives to an interstellar scale has provided some technical difficulties.

Captain Ral has made the decision that, in order to preserve the integrity of the timeline, we must find a way to send the Tesla, and Elon Musk, back in time 500 years, to crash on this planet. Our science team is working on the challenge now. I respect the difficult decision … but I also am concerned about this element involving the Romulans, and how they figure into crashing—

First Officer's Log, Supplemental

My earlier designation of these people as "peaceful" may have been premature. I have just received word from Ensign Smith that Lt. Commander Svelt has been attacked and critically injured on the mining planet. They have safely made it to their shuttle.

- Commander Olimund Delai, Executive Officer, U.S.S. Shakespeare

First Officer's Log, Stardate 48268.1 (April 8, 2371),

The U.S.S. Shakespeare, under the command of its new captain, Azala Ral, has been dispatched to a region of space known as the Shackleton Expanse, along the frontier border of Federation space. Our mission was to investigate unusual radio signals in English from the region.

Upon arriving, we identified three anomalies: a ship, a tachyon field, and a planetary system surrounded by the tachyon field. The Captain investigated the ship first. Communications Officer Gavelbringer discovered that it was an ancient Earth vessel from the pre-warp era, called the Tesla. The ensign also detected a Romulan Bird-of-Prey, which appears to have cloaked before we could complete the scan.

Captain Ral dispatched a human-only away team to the Tesla, led by Master Chief Specialist Xiao. An equipment malfunction threatened one of the cyrogenically-frozen passengers, an elderly man who has identified himself as Elon Musk …

- Commander Olimund Delai, Executive Officer U.S.S. Shakespeare

Wondering how to get started? Here are a few tips:

1. Invite your players

Invite them with either their email address or their Obsidian Portal username.

2. Edit your home page

Make a few changes to the home page and give people an idea of what your campaign is about. That will let people know you’re serious and not just playing with the system.

3. Choose a theme

If you want to set a specific mood for your campaign, we have several backgrounds to choose from. Accentuate it by creating a top banner image.

4. Create some NPCs

Characters form the core of every campaign, so take a few minutes to list out the major NPCs in your campaign.

A quick tip: The “+” icon in the top right of every section is how to add a new item, whether it’s a new character or adventure log post, or anything else.

5. Write your first Adventure Log post

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.

That’s it! The rest is up to your and your players.