Ask'kaar First Contact - Input wanted

thay8472

So I'm thinking of making a first contact based mission with the Ask'kaar (a prequel to Depths of Nukara Prime) involving the Ask'kaar Republic and Talarian Republic, both sides are preparing to go to war over an incident both sides blame the other for. Both sides have agreed to a final peace talk on a world both sides established for this very purpose.

My question. What sort of things/topics do you want to see in a first contact scenario? Also does anyone have any first contact missions I can play to get ideas for my own?

Thanks

#HailHydra

theraven2378

Someone playing both sides against each other, it's then up to the player to find who and stop a war from starting leading to first contact with the Ask'kaar.

That's my idea

duncanidaho11

First Contact Subjects:
-Food & Drink
-Culture & Music
-Pets
-Economics & Politics
-Chemistry & Physiology
-What is this "love" you speak of?
-Science & Technology
-History
-Getting to know the people involved

First Contact Missions:
-Trident, Part 1 [AEI]
-Inversion [SSF2-2] (kind of)

Talarian design:
-Coming soon

zebgodwin

First contact is always more interesting when what is completely normal for one side is bizarre and/or offensive to the other. Just as an example, suppose one side considers eating food in front of other people obscene. That would make a diplomatic dinner party problematic.

As for first contact missions, my "Paying the Price" sort of is, a little bit, although the first contact isn't really the major focus of the mission.

starfarertheta

Kind of a simple thing, but I would be interested to hear if the Ask'kaar and Talarians have any numbers they consider lucky/unlucky. What if what one considers an lucky number is unlucky to the other? Do they have similar preferences concerning color? Hand gestures?

spiritborn

While technically not first contact in the backstory for Teldralian species my current main belongs to and I'm using a lot in my foundry Project is that while species wide telepaths, reading someone's mind without their consent is considered by them just about the vilest thing you can do, so you can imagine that it'll cause some friction with the betazoids who (if the elder Troi is any indication) not only read minds without any regards to privacy but like to annouce it to everyone around them. Something like that could work for a first contact mission too.

galatt

Negotiations.
More thinking, less pewpew.
Can you put in an failure option if the player gets it wrong?

designationxr377

Suggested play: Try out "Delta Volanus: Starchaser" by @Johnnysnowball it was good take on a first contact scenario, especially one that wasn't the old STO "First Contact" diplomacy missions of two ships meeting, you talk a bit, and then get a quiz at the end.

If you are still after playing missions to get your juices going give that one a shot. Definitely worth it.

I second @Zebgodwin's mission of "Paying the Price" as well, it kind of skirts the whole first contact mission thing, but, it could still get your gears turning.

thay8472

-Insert title here-

zionus0

Is the player a non-existant observer like witnessing a hologram recording?

If not why have a third party mediator or what ever?
A good route in my opinion (remembering the Tala Rian reaction to learning Picard had a female superior and the refusal to let Dr Crusher help the injured because they don't like touching aliens) would be the polar opposite gender roles in the two powers.

thay8472

zionus0 wrote: »

Is the player a non-existant observer like witnessing a hologram recording?

If not why have a third party mediator or what ever?
A good route in my opinion (remembering the Tala Rian reaction to learning Picard had a female superior and the refusal to let Dr Crusher help the injured because they don't like touching aliens) would be the polar opposite gender roles in the two powers.

Already planned for that. Might throw in an option for them to hate female PC's too.

theraven2378

My crew apart from the Captain, the engineer and Romulan tac officer is female, this could be a problem

markhawkman

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

First Contact Subjects:
-Food & Drink
-Culture & Music
-Pets
-Economics & Politics
-Chemistry & Physiology
-What is this "love" you speak of?
-Science & Technology
-History
-Getting to know the people involved

First Contact Missions:
-Trident, Part 1 [AEI]
-Inversion [SSF2-2] (kind of)

Talarian design:
-Coming soon

One of the things I LOVED about early TNG was that they'd take an alien of the week and get to know them before moving on. We learned more about Acamarian and Talarian culture in one episode than races later seen in dozens. Heck, I even liked Angel One, even though it's cheesy.

rickysmith1

Not sure how far you have got so far, but I have always found that the most heart breaking reasons for war was over a stupid misunderstanding between two people or groups that could have been settled if they simply did what they were always going to do in the first place; Sit down and talk.

Examples: Romeo & Juliet / Troy / War of the Roses / The Cold War / War of Independance / British Civil War

THE DOCTORS SPEECH
Watch and let it inspire you my freind.

spiritborn

If it's a peace conference, I think a failure option that ends in a firefight would be a nice addition if possible, though I'd give ample warning before locking the player in to the path to failure. Also that should constructed in a "we could have avoided this" way so people won't fail on purpose to get the fun part. One way I suppose you could do this is to have the Player not be involved in the firefight instead being only a "helpless" observer of the events.

thay8472

Updates (yay!)

There will be Federation or Romulan Republic dialog options that will effect the plot in a minor way depending on the players allegiance (or whatever you pick).

I.E.