Star Trek: The Dark Beyond

I've been a Star Trek fan since high school, when I watched much of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was never a big fan of the original Trek series, but TNG really appealed to me. So I watched TNG eagerly, and as much of DS9 as I could, though sadly a missed a lot of it. I was disappointed in Voyager, and thought Enterprise had a lot of promise that was squandered by poor management. The most recent Star Trek movie was one I found myself very interested in. So when I watched all of Enterprise recently on Netflix, I looked to the Star Trek RPG books on my shelf and wondered what a Star Trek game would be like. I'm still not quite sure I'm ready to run a Star Trek game, but I do have a pitch, at least. I'll put it below.

Star Trek: The Dark Beyond

The year is 2155. The newly founded coalition of planets, including Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, Rigel, and a few others is in its infancy, but they have all proved willing to contribute members to Starfleet - and the first ship to accept members from all the members of the coalition, should they wish to join, is the NX-03, the Challenger. Its mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations, new allies to expand the coalition, and above all, to explore, to gain new knowledge of the universe.

But unbeknownst to the crew of the Challenger and the members of the coalition, an enemy lurks beyond their borders, and sees the newborn alliance as a threat to its growing power, and seeks to destroy it. This power lurks in the dark, striking from the shadows, concealing its identity as it tries to weaken its foe. The crew of the Challenger will face many obstacles on its mission of exploration - and may find itself unknowingly on the front lines of a shadow war.

You have been assigned as part of the command crew of the Challenger. Starship officer, soldier, diplomat, scientist, human, Andorian, Vulcan, Tellarite - you are a member of the first true coalition crew, boldly going into the unknown, challenging the known universe. What will you make of your mission?

System: The CODA Star Trek RPG, made by Decipher; it is out of print, but it is the most recent iteration of a Star Trek RPG.

Character Creation: Standard for the CODA system; the Starship Officer, Soldier, Diplomat, and Scientist professions are preferred, but others will be allowed with justification. Allowed species for this game will be Human, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, Denobulan, and Rigellian, though as with professions, other species might be allowed within reason. Regardless of profession, each player will start at the rank of Lieutenant, though higher rank can be gained in creation. Characters are intended to be bridge crew.

House Rules: The Fit trait is unavailable. Also, players will be asked, when Away Team missions are occurring, to temporarily play the 'Red Shirts' if their main characters are not on the mission; this is similar to Grog rules from the Ars Magica RPG. This is to give those players whose main characters are not on the mission some way to contribute (and so I don't have to come up with justification to send the senior crew on every away mission), and also to help flesh out the remaining crew members.

Themes: The themes to this series will be exploration and intrigue, though these may change during play. The crew will explore unknown space, while dealing with intrigue between coalition members and those outside who wish to destroy the coalition.

Media For Play: To be determined. Either chat-based or VOIP.