Stardate 2719.1
We have lost contact with the new colony on Remoro II. Housing and communications were set up and operational, but shortly after came reports of illness. A request for additional medical help was reported and a medical ship, The Mercy, was dispatched. Neither The Mercy nor its crew have reported back since shortly after their last message initiating a planetary evacuation of the colony.
Our mission is to discover what happened to the Mercy and provide aid to its crew. In addition we must try to contact and aid any colonists who may be left on Remoro II.
So what happened?
In short the colonist disturbed an underground race of sentient gaseous beings-the Remoro. The Remoro's were released into the surface and floated freely. Then the gaseous beings were being inhaled by the colonists and a war for control with the host begins. Eventually the gaseous being takes over control.
The Remoro cause many bodily functions to seemingly cease and the host motion becomes jerky and slow. As the gaseous beings don't understand humanoid functions nor how they came to be masters of those who have inhaled them, they have mistakenly tried to bite or eat non "infected" colonists or medical personnel out of a biological need to feed. Think of giving the keys to a complex new vehicle to a child: mistakes happen.
In my adventure I had the crew find the floating hulk of The Mercy. A low sub space garbled message still emanated from the ship "No (Squlech/static).....Mercy.......No (Squelch/static).....Mercy.....A quick scan reveals: The Mercy itself has only limited life support left and there appear to be a few living people left on board. There are no answers to attempts to hail the ship...what do yo do?
Beaming the living from the Mercy over unleashes the gaseous beings on to the player's ship. Beaming an away team over should provided opportunity for review of the ships logs and encounters with the infected. The infected are immune to all but the highest stun setting. At that setting the gaseous being will flee the host, but the host will be "on death's door step" for the remainder of the episode. If the players become trigger happy, in "curing" the infected have a..."He's dead Jim" death to curb their trigger happy ways.
Have the crew figure experience enough strangeness and find out enough details to make them go back to Remoro II. One there, they should find some "dead by bites" colonists...and strange infected animals and people.
Through guess work, tracking, and computer help, they should eventually find data leading them to an underground cavern. In it the remaining infected colonists and their leader reside. The "king" has mastered the ability to talk with its host body and can communicate its anger at its civilization being disturbed, as well as joy at its new power in this new body. Have the king phaser a flying cave moth-bat to death as a "show of force"
The king wants his people to "inhabit" these new forms and move amongst the stars and see the universe and all the strange things its host has seen. It feels its gaseous form is a weakness trapping his people here and limiting their potential as a people.
The crew will have to work out a means to:
1. Negotiate peaceful "live and let live" terms with the Remoro's
2. Have them leave their host bodies, and return the colonist to independent function.
3. Give them the ability to explore or at least see more of the universe
In my game the players came up with the idea of creating a robot that allowed the gaseous beings to control it and reside in it. The colonists will help manufacturer them on Remoro II and the Crew of the Agamemnon even agreed to take the king with them to see the stars for awhile. In return the Remoro's showed the colonists were the Dilithium crystal deposits were on the planet so they could easily become self sustaining and benefit the federated planets.
