Ok so as promised a sim update for all current and new people joining our lovely ship!

As Dave pointed out in another thread, this sim is a direct follow up to our last sim. There for those just joining us the Merrimack had been sent on a deep space assignment to track down signals and signs of a possible intelligent race. After several long weeks of following signals, scans, etc, the crew came upon a primitive barely warp 1 capable ship that had broken down in the depths of space just beyond a nearby system. The alien race was an all female like mono-gendered race known as the Alstairians, who were taking their first steps into deep space by FTL travel from their further away home system of Alstair Prime.

The Merrimack crew were able to render assistance to the broken down ship and learn more about these interesting all female like people. Turns out they lived for well on a thousand years, which gave them a slow to change and develop attitude in some regards. That said as the crew later found out the society of the Alstairians was quite peaceful and quite nice. Learning more about the ship’s crew they found the ship was indeed a prototype for the Alstarians, and had up till recently successfully navigated from Alstair Prime to several other nearby systems which they said retraced the steps of several lost cryo sleeper ships sent out many years ago, the hope being to try to establish contact with one or more of them or find out what happened to them. Sadly no signs of any of the three ships was found by the crew, and when their own ship’s capability to go to warp had failed they too seemed resigned to a lonely death in space until the Merrimack came along.

Repairing then towing the ship back to Alstair Prime the crew met with the Tri-Council leaders of Alstair Prime, there they learned more about the cultlure, including an interesting but well founded ingrained fear in the people of comets, asteroids and ion storms which had caused a lot of problems for their society and development over many centuries. This fact was driven home by the Merrimack experiencing such an asteroid impact on the city while they were touring it. Though the Alstarians had developed a quite intricate sensor and sublight system patrol ship network to tackle this problem, they were still quite primitive by more Federation standards. Thankfully the Merrimack crew were again able to lend aide to the injured. During this time the Merrimack crew on the ship picked up a sudden sublight energy burst at the edge of the Prime System. Going to investigate much to their surprise they encountered one of the lost Alstair sleeper ships! Stabilizing the ship’s fading fusion core and towing it back to Alstair Prime they boarded it with a recovery team finding the crew of several hundred safe and sound in cryo sleep. But also surprising was in the cargo hold an additional non-Alstairian sleeper pod hooked up to the ship, as well as evidence of an outside power altering the ship’s path and sending it back to Alstair Prime from the system it had been originally sent too and which by the logs it had reached.

Inside this alien pod the crew found a young boy! Human-like the boy was accompanied by several strange metal balls as well as a intricate alien language. Long story short the Merrimack crew took the pod onto their ship for further investigation, wrapping up talks with the Tri-Council the first contact with the Federation went well. Though the Alstarians would not be in the near future joining the Federation they would consider it in the years to come though likely this would not be for decades at least given the slow to debate culture tones. They did though agree for further contact by Federation representatives, as well as aide for improving their system defense network for preventing comet, asteroid, and ion storm problems which seemed prevalent in this region of space.

Returning to Deep Space K-5 the Merrimack spent a week investigating the pod, deciphering that the pod likely did come from the system the Alstair Sleeper Ship had gone too indicating an intelligent culture there. Determined to learn more and seemingly wanting to return the child to his home planet the Merrimack set out. Along the way they woke up the boy who later got named Franz. Franzy explained that his people chose not to live on planets, nor explore space in more known context. Instead those who were orphaned due to family death or families unable to care for them at birth could choose to enter a program by his people to be adopted by passing space borne societies, the idea being that then these ‘Seed Pod’ children would learn all they could about their adoptive society and such and hopefully then return to their original homes to enrich and teach new things and ideas which may or not be then integrated into their home.

Arriving in the system the Merrimack crew found that though the system was rich in planets with various minerals and such, none of the habitable planets were lived on. Instead the Franz’s people lived on a massive habitat dwarfing almost even Earth Starbase in size and scope. The technology though for these people was fairly primitive to the Federation, mostly on par with Late 21st to early-mid 22nd century technology. The people all wore pointed silver hats that were like almost aluminum in quality. While strange, it was eventually learned that this was originally a simple of slavery by the local people who came hundreds of years ago from another system and overthrew their masters to settle on this planet. They choose not to live on any planets because they fear that to do so would lead them down a path of enslaving others. The society seems quite simple but well managed, there is a single leader which is either a man or woman who chooses to run when the last man/woman steps down. This person takes up the title and name of Dol regardless of gender during this time, and they hold the position until they either choose to step down, retire, die, or do something which ruins the trust the habitat populace has in their leadership. At such time an election is run and volteer candidates step forward to be elected by a council. This council in turn advises the Dol leader in various matters for the habitat. They serve it seems for 8 year terms, at which point elections are held by the general populace with popularity vote winning the day. All in all the society seems quite well off, there is so far no signs of any major problems or concerning things like a curly ruled society.

As Dave mentioned, while the society IS primitive compared to the Merrimack and we are trying to limit their exposure to more advanced technology this does not mean you need to conceal tricorders, phasers, etc. They obviously have encountered other space faring cultures many times, indeed as the crew learned Franz was originally meant to be adopted by a family on the Alstairan sleeper ship, Dol has requested that once things settle with the Merrimack being here that either Franz be adopted by someone in the Federation or returned to the Alstairian family. At the present time everyone is on the habitat sitting in a meeting to meet and greet and wine/dine.

Any further questions please let me know

GM CockRoach