Posted by Ensign MJ Shau (Security Officer) in OOC: “It Came From Subspace” Sim Cliff Notes for New Players
Team Chimera,

As our CO works behind the scenes to figure out how to wrap up the Sim, I wanted to help my fellow n00bs understand what’s going on since the Sim started over a year ago, and many of those early posts are difficult and tedious to locate.

I read the old Sim posts last month, but I am by no means an expert. PCs that actually played the Sim are invited to chime in and correct any key points I have wrong.

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Act I - Introduction
The Chimera was ordered to Deep Space 9 by an Admiral. They arrived to see a Flotilla of Federation, Romulan, and Klingon ships. There may also have been some Cardassian ships, since there was a handful of Cardassians in the following meeting.

The Captains met with the Admiral and were introduced to a Founder/Changeling and their Vorta assistant. The Dominion had tested a new engine/propulsion system in a distant sector of the Gamma Quadrant, and the ship(s) testing it disappeared. The ships sent to look for it also disappeared, so they are asking for help from the Alpha/Beta quadrants.

No, no information about this drive was shared… sneaky Dominion a-holes.

Captain Freja Andreassen of the Chimera was the senior Captain present, and was given command of the Federation forces and seemingly the Flotilla in its entirety.

Act II – Contact!
The Flotilla arrived in the Gamma Quadrant. It spotted what looked like a melted skeleton of a ship, which the Chimera began to study and obtained a sample of biomass for further research.

There was also a handful of freighters some distance away that a small group of ships was sent to investigate. A huge “biomass Entity” appeared, which I believe was described as the size of a Borg cube or something similarly imposing. The Entity had a group of Dominion ships covered in biomass with it. Those “tainted” ships appeared to have been taken over by the Entity.

I want to say that biomass jumped from one ship to another and started consuming/tainting them as well, but I don’t recall exactly how that started.

A battle ensued as the small group of ships tried to escape, but some of them were destroyed or taken over. The _ Pickett_ was one of the ships taken over by the biomass. Fortunately, a small group of survivors escaped on shuttles and were escorted to safety by the Chimera’s CAG fighters and taken onboard the Tribute.

Some damage was done to the Entity, but it shot out a red beam and consumed one of its tainted ships to heal itself, essentially restoring its biomass.
In addition to the massive Entity and stolen ships, the enemy also had a large number of fighters, which may have been stolen Dominion fighters or just based on them.

The Flotilla tried to hide in a nearby Nebula and learned that the Entity and its tainted ships couldn’t follow.

Act III: Regrouping in the Nebula.
The team learned that whatever this Entity was, it seemed to have originated from subspace, and it was knocked into real space by the Dominion’s experimental engine/propulsion system.

The Captain and other telepaths/empaths learned during the battle that the Entity was somewhat telepathic and it wanted to consume/devour. I believe this would also trigger some sort of “next step,” like evolution or expansion.

The survivors from the Pickett said that hand phasers set to max power will stun the biomass for about 45 seconds. Hand phasers set to a wide beam can apparently function as a sanitization ray to destroy trace elements of the biomass.

The biomass will consume both organic and inorganic matter to expand. It could be considered an advanced form of bio-circuitry that is at least 200 years beyond what Starfleet uses.

It is affected by EM fields such as hull polarization, which the Flotilla started implementing on its ships as well as its suits for away missions. Existing shields were only partially effective.

The Entity’s fighters were too fast and agile for conventional phasers to be effective, but the CAG’s fighters and Chimera’s point defense phasers were up to the task.

The radiation from the Nebula killed the biomass sample the Chimera took from the skeletal ship remains. The flotilla began modifying their phasers and proton torpedoes with this radiation to make them more effective against the Entity.

In order to learn more, the team needed a better sample of the biomass. The closest and easiest source of that “level” of biomass seemed to be on the bridge or main engineering of the tainted ships.

Act IV – Moving Forward
The Flotilla exited the nebula, and a boarding mission was sent to the Pickett after it was lured away from the rest of the enemy forces.

Federation command codes were able to shut the Pickett down for a while, indicating that the Entity may not have a full understanding or control of the tainted ships. The boarding team was able to retrieve a sample and plant an explosive to keep the Pickett from remaining in enemy hands. The boarding team then moved to escape…

The rest of the Flotilla was holding back the enemy forces, but they were slowly closing in. The Chimera had at least some of its weapons modified with the Nebula’s radiation and stood ready to use them.

The Chimera was also prepared to emit a beam of the Nebula’s radiation from its main deflector dish. This was presumably a means to disable the biomass on the Pickett without killing the boarding party in the process…

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And that is pretty much where I think we are. Again, Veteran PCs are more than welcome to chime in and help us, the new players, with anything I may have missed.

Ensign MJ Shau - Security Officer - USS Chimera

Thanks Jeremy, I appreciate you pulling all of that together for us.

Scott