So I was thinking of this story for the Foundry...

lonnehart

It goes something like this...


Long ago, on a planet yet undiscovered there was a technologically advanced nation that tried to help everyone. Many nations appreciated the help and returned the gesture in kind. Other nations resented this nation, and began a campaign of terror and harrassment for one reason or another.



Having had enough, this tech nation's people decided to leave the world. They developed colony sleeper ships, invited the nations friendly to it along for the ride, and managed to escape their world despite the hostile nation's attempts to find and destroy the ships as they deemed that leaving the planet was against whatever rules or religion they followed. And in addition they destroyed any records of their ship building and starcharts in order to keep the hostile nations from following them.



Several hundred years later the Federation player's ship visits the planet as they have applied to become a part of the Federation. Then a huge monstrosity of a ship is detected approaching the planet. The player boards and learns that the ship is from the world the planet's inhabitants came from, and that world became toxic and very dead after the various hostile nations left behind warred with each other for dominance.


They had somehow piece together how the ship was built and where the escapees had fled to, and their leaders decreed that the world became poisoned and toxic due to some plot by the escaping nations (completely denying their their sole responsibility for it), and that if they were going to become extinct, they would take the escapees with them using a world destroying vessel.



Could this be a bit too far fetched? Or maybe too close to how our actual world works?

ryan218

lonnehart wrote: »

It goes something like this...


Long ago, on a planet yet undiscovered there was a technologically advanced nation that tried to help everyone. Many nations appreciated the help and returned the gesture in kind. Other nations resented this nation, and began a campaign of terror and harrassment for one reason or another.



Having had enough, this tech nation's people decided to leave the world. They developed colony sleeper ships, invited the nations friendly to it along for the ride, and managed to escape their world despite the hostile nation's attempts to find and destroy the ships as they deemed that leaving the planet was against whatever rules or religion they followed. And in addition they destroyed any records of their ship building and starcharts in order to keep the hostile nations from following them.



Several hundred years later the Federation player's ship visits the planet as they have applied to become a part of the Federation. Then a huge monstrosity of a ship is detected approaching the planet. The player boards and learns that the ship is from the world the planet's inhabitants came from, and that world became toxic and very dead after the various hostile nations left behind warred with each other for dominance.


They had somehow piece together how the ship was built and where the escapees had fled to, and their leaders decreed that the world became poisoned and toxic due to some plot by the escaping nations (completely denying their their sole responsibility for it), and that if they were going to become extinct, they would take the escapees with them using a world destroying vessel.



Could this be a bit too far fetched? Or maybe too close to how our actual world works?

In a universe where you have 'Spock's Brain' or 'Where no one has gone before'? No way. In fact, it sounds like a great idea!

As for too close to how our actual world works? TOS had a penchant for using its setting to explore current affairs, as did TNG. Besides, the plot seems sufficiently different if you ask me.

alexmakepeace

A couple plot holes:

If the home planet (and therefore the society) had degraded beyond hope of recovery, how would they have sufficient resources/infrastructure to build a world destroyer?

If they do posses the capability of creating a world destroyer, wouldn't it be more logical for them to build transport ships and leave their dying world?

Perhaps instead of having them build a world destroyer, they build a fleet of transports and, lacking anywhere else to go, try to take over the planet that is currently applying for Federation membership.

What's the player to do? Protect the would-be member and leave the refugees in the cold?* Or allow the refugees to forcibly take over? Add to this that technically, this is an internal conflict and so the Prime Directive forbids the player from "interfering" with this tragedy brewing right before his/her eyes.

For bonus points, maybe the "technologically advanced nation that tried to help everyone" turns out not to be as morally upstanding as it first appears. Nothing evil necessarily, but it would make things less clear-cut good vs. evil.

Above all, after you've put it together, get a friend who's good at English and proofread it. Read the dialogue aloud to find awkward phrasing, etc. I see such things in a lot of foundry missions, and it makes me go nnnnnnnnnnngggg!

*You'll have to come up with a suitable reason why they couldn't just settle somewhere else.

lonnehart

Well, this story will have a bit of "religion" mixed into it, and sometimes that can defy logic.


Perhaps the world is beyond recovery because the leaders of the religious order found one last set of blueprints and starcharts to build a ship and find out where the "escapees" had gone to. But instead of building transports to leave the world and find another one to settle on, the leaders decree that to enter the "Paradise" promised to them by their diety, they must destroy those who escaped the planet. Therefore they use the last of the planet's resources and forced manpower to build their massive world destroyer and set off with the remaining survivors to the world that their enemies had colonized. And they won't stop until they've accomplished their "Holy" mission....


And when the player warps away from the Federation candidate world to investigate the massive sensor reading approaching it, the World Destroyer tells the player that they know they are trying to help their enemies, vows to destroy the Federation when they are done as they are now enemies as well, then opens fire on the player's ship.


hmm... maybe that's a tad bit TOO scary...

starswordc

Reading this post I was vaguely reminded of the Stargate SG-1 episode "Scorched Earth". SG-1 has just resettled a group of near-humans on a planet, and then this alien terraforming ship appears over the horizon and starts refitting the planet to a sulfur-based ecology (because it's carrying material to repopulate an extinct sulfur-based intelligent species). If you've got a streaming service it might be good research material.