Pegasus Fleet Forums

With the opening in the Northern Frontier, a great many available task force story arcs are obviously available.

I've been working on a few fairly basic(at the moment) story lines, and with the assistance of other members in the Fleet, have narrowed it down to two possibilities:

1) Several previously unknown Romulan colonies are discovered, on the other side of Cardassian space. These Romulan have been living fairly peacefully, for about 13-15 years, despite repeated pirate attacks, and do not claim to be part of the Romulan Star Empire. Upon discovery of these colonies, a series of increasingly bold pirate attacks begin happening within Federation Space, as unknown forces attempt to undermine Federation support for getting involved in another political power's personal wars.

2) The previously Federation-friendly Cardassian government is overthrown in a major military coup, and the new military government has a very strong dislike for Federation interference.

Either story arc would have lots of leeway for unrelated mission ideas, as the task force would also be tasked with scientific, diplomatic, and exploratory missions in the Northern Frontier, but each idea has a different set of monkey wrenches to throw in. The Cardassians would be much more open about their hostilities, while the Romulan Star Empire would spend more time with cloak and dagger situations, that may not have any obvious ties to the Tal'Shiar.

So. Please. Vote. Discuss. Let's hear what you have to say!

I like the first idea. There is so much to play with there and could be alot of fun. And as a Captain if the Shepherd was located in this task force I think this storyline of unknown pirates would lead to some great manhunt stories for my simm and allow us to impact the cannon

Aaron wrote:I like the first idea. There is so much to play with there and could be alot of fun. And as a Captain if the Shepherd was located in this task force I think this storyline of unknown pirates would lead to some great manhunt stories for my simm and allow us to impact the cannon

Very valid. A massive uptake in pirate activity would be good mission food for the Shepherd.

I'll leave the discussion thread open until Sunday or Monday. Anyone else with opinions, or alternative ideas, please, don't hesitate to reply!

Isn't there a chance to use both? Neither political power is stable. It isn't unreasonable to think both scenarios couldn't happen at the same time.

That's.... Certainly a plausible idea. Though it would be a lot more complicated. Hmmmmm.

One extra thing to throw in here to think about is maybe doing something with the Breen. I read one of the Typhon Pact novels a while ago (Zero Sum Game, I believe - minor spoilers ahead for those who haven't read it), and I found what they did with the Breen in that to be quite interesting.

Essentially, it had been assumed up until that point that the Breen were a single race, and came from a frigidly cold planet; hence the environment suits they always wear. That novel introduced the idea that the Breen was actually made up of up to a dozen species, all approximately humanoid, who all wear the same environment suits and use the same voice scramblers as a way of anonymising themselves. There's something similar (though obviously not quite so extreme) going on in workplace applications in the UK right now; essentially, companies are trialling ways of looking at job applications with certain details, such as names, gender and race withheld until after the decision is made, as a way of removing any bias in the decisions. The Breen method just takes it to the extreme. It's been a while since I read it, but I think it was actually a really big taboo to reveal your race/gender/etc to non-family members or those who weren't close friends and in the privacy someone's home, but that there was a small movement starting which was at odds with that.

I think only five of those races have been named so far, and four actually described (Memory Beta has some info there), but what about using a portion of the TF plot to explore that a little? Perhaps the Breen are suspected in an espionage situation, and Starfleet starts conducting covert counter-surveillance on them (possibly leading to infiltration missions such as those in the novel), or a faction of this breakaway movement becomes known in the unclaimed space near DS3, and while the Breen are trying to forcibly bring them back into the fold, the Federation gets involved in some way?

I've rambled on a bit longer than I intended, but I figured I'd throw the suggestion into the mix.

Now, that. That's some intriguing stuff to think about. Huh. I'm not *overly* fond of the Breen, but it certainly does leave some extra ideas open. And they always were pretty troublesome enemies. I could see it working.

I'm a big fan of the Romulans, so I would lean in that direction if it were me. But then again, post-war Cardassia would be really interesting too. I always imagined that Cardassian territory was occupied by the allies, mostly the Federation, after the war to help them rebuild. Think of Germany and Japan after WWII. Maybe as a combination, we could have the Romulans occupying part of Cardassian space, and that's where the rogue faction is setting up shop? They could have influenced the coup.

Only issue with your idea I can think of Alex is that they're clear across the quadrant all the way through the Federation to get to Cardassian space to even take control of it. Starfleet keeps close watch on the boarder and if there was a civil war brewing they'd be watching every speck of dust that crosses the netural zone. Course they could take the long route but that would be either through Breen space our around it which would take ages.

That being said.. There's a fair amount of empty space north of Deep Space 4 and Deep Space 5. Space that has no claim to it, would be on the front of exploration and most of all if a dissident group set up shop there would be a Starfleet presence between them and the Empire. That could lead to some pretty heated encounters.

All in all, honestly one of the few things i think STO got right was the Civil war in the Empire and the creation of the Republic. I'd love to explore that story arc personally.

On the Cardassian front, I do believe the books explored that a bit. Following the Dominion War, Starfleet/the Federation set up a group to help Cardassia rebuild. They spent a long time there rebuilding and helping improve relations between the two groups. They also interestingly had a nice Cardassian traditionalist group that conducted terrorist operations against the Federation relief forces. Something we could build off of. Food for thought... they made Garek the leader of the Cardassian Union.

Lord help them.

All of these are fantastic suggestions. With the poll closed at dead even, I'll try and find a way to blend these ideas together.

One thing that has been pointed out to me, however, is that the Cardassian Union isn't technically "within" the Task Force's area of control. I'm thinking Williams idea with the Breen might have less effect on possible future task forces.