Star Trek: Ghost Brigade (Interest Check)

[Cold Heritage]

Hello fellow Elliquiyan! Thank you for taking the time to look at this thread.

In this thread I aim to gauge interest for a potential Star Trek fandom game. It would follow the pre-JJ Abrams material and is primarily inspired by my personal favourite Star Trek television series Deep Space 9, but it also draws on Enterprise and the other series and films. I don't want to restrict this to hardcore Trekkies, though, but it is definitely an asset to be familiar with Star Trek that is not from the JJ Abrams era of the franchise. It also owes a debt of inspiration to John Scalzi.

This game would lean more towards military science fiction than is typical of Star Trek. The central conceit to this game would be that in the wake of the Dominion War, Section 31 determined to create its own military element to complement its covert operatives. In light of the horrible casualties inflicted by the Jem'hadar, elements within Section 31 deduced that simply training the best candidates would not be enough to offer a force with the tactical flexibility and operational capability that Section 31 required. And so, in concert with elements within Starfleet Medical, Section 31 set out to create the best candidates. Roughly one thousand augments were created and honed with advances in genetic engineering to retain the superior ability of augments, but to offset the personality traits that led to tyrants like Khan.

Raised and trained secret, these augments came to maturity with full knowledge of the nature of their creation and instilled with a sense of purpose: to defend the Federation. Although these augments would not be able to enjoy the enlightened society that made the Federation so worth protecting, the education they received instilled in them civic virtue, pride, and patriotism that far exceeded the average Federation citizen. The augments were never lied to; from the moment they could understand the irony of their existence - created by methods that the Federation frowned upon, and to defend a society they could not participate in or enjoy - the augments were told and made to understand the importance of the duty they were fashioned for. None of the augments would be slaves, however: all were given the choice to serve. Whether it is a testament to Section 31's capacity for propaganda or the better nature of humanity, all of the augments embraced - to greater or lesser degrees - the weighty duty that was set upon their shoulders.

The augments collectively were known as the Ghost Brigade. They received training that was comparable to what was offered at Starfleet Academy, with individuals receiving the same basic instruction and specific training based on their personal interests and aptitudes, however, there was a very heavy tactical component. All augments were trained to function as soldiers, and received instruction in hand to hand combat, small arms, demolitions, and other needful skills to allow them the tactical capacity Section 31 required. They would be broken down into smaller complements, never larger than one hundred, and dispersed as Section 31's operational demands required. In the main, those groups were sufficient and the augments performed beyond expectations.

This game would focus on a Defiant-class ship operated by Section 31 operatives and a complement of the Ghost Brigade, performing clandestine black operations to ensure the safety, security, and continuity of the Federation.

Does that interest anyone? Thanks kindly for your time if you've read this far.

[Orange Marmalade]

You had me at Star Trek. This sounds interesting!

[HockeyGod]

ST always interests me. You could do some recruitment on USS McNair which is on hiatus if you want: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?board=482.0

[Cold Heritage]

Hello Orange Marmalade and HockeyGod! Thanks for the interest. And thanks, HockeyGod, for the permission. I'll pop on over and give that a shot!

I hope this can come to some fruition. I really enjoyed the way that Deep Space Nine looked at the Federation from another angle with stuff like the Dominion War and Section 31, and while it's kind of dopey I enjoyed the MACOs in Enterprise. If this game ever comes about I'd like to include elements of intrigue and military action with all of the life that we Elliquiyans can breathe into our characters.

[Juggtacular]

This to me feels more along the lines of the Nu-Trek movies. With lots of action and such, which is why I love all three of them. I'm in.

[Mac84]

Hello fellow Elliquiyan! Thank you for taking the time to look at this thread.

In this thread I aim to gauge interest for a potential Star Trek fandom game. It would follow the pre-JJ Abrams material and is primarily inspired by my personal favourite Star Trek television series Deep Space 9, but it also draws on Enterprise and the other series and films. I don't want to restrict this to hardcore Trekkies, though, but it is definitely an asset to be familiar with Star Trek that is not from the JJ Abrams era of the franchise. It also owes a debt of inspiration to John Scalzi.

This game would lean more towards military science fiction than is typical of Star Trek. The central conceit to this game would be that in the wake of the Dominion War, Section 31 determined to create its own military element to complement its covert operatives. In light of the horrible casualties inflicted by the Jem'hadar, elements within Section 31 deduced that simply training the best candidates would not be enough to offer a force with the tactical flexibility and operational capability that Section 31 required. And so, in concert with elements within Starfleet Medical, Section 31 set out to create the best candidates. Roughly one thousand augments were created and honed with advances in genetic engineering to retain the superior ability of augments, but to offset the personality traits that led to tyrants like Khan.

Raised and trained secret, these augments came to maturity with full knowledge of the nature of their creation and instilled with a sense of purpose: to defend the Federation. Although these augments would not be able to enjoy the enlightened society that made the Federation so worth protecting, the education they received instilled in them civic virtue, pride, and patriotism that far exceeded the average Federation citizen. The augments were never lied to; from the moment they could understand the irony of their existence - created by methods that the Federation frowned upon, and to defend a society they could not participate in or enjoy - the augments were told and made to understand the importance of the duty they were fashioned for. None of the augments would be slaves, however: all were given the choice to serve. Whether it is a testament to Section 31's capacity for propaganda or the better nature of humanity, all of the augments embraced - to greater or lesser degrees - the weighty duty that was set upon their shoulders.

The augments collectively were known as the Ghost Brigade. They received training that was comparable to what was offered at Starfleet Academy, with individuals receiving the same basic instruction and specific training based on their personal interests and aptitudes, however, there was a very heavy tactical component. All augments were trained to function as soldiers, and received instruction in hand to hand combat, small arms, demolitions, and other needful skills to allow them the tactical capacity Section 31 required. They would be broken down into smaller complements, never larger than one hundred, and dispersed as Section 31's operational demands required. In the main, those groups were sufficient and the augments performed beyond expectations.

This game would focus on a Defiant-class ship operated by Section 31 operatives and a complement of the Ghost Brigade, performing clandestine black operations to ensure the safety, security, and continuity of the Federation.

Does that interest anyone? Thanks kindly for your time if you've read this far.

First off, HEY JUGGY! Great to see you again! XD

and on to business. :p

Since you mentioned MACO, From what I understand (Via Star Trek Online which I'm told is Canon) StarFleet reinstated their MACO units under Task Force Omega to work in conjunction with the Klingon "Honor Guard", and Romulans against threats to the Alpha, and Beta quadrants from such forces as the Undine, Borg, Iconians, True Way, the Jem Hadar, etc. Starfleet finally realized that They can no longer be strictly pacifists and the ideology of arming ships to be able to run away is no longer feasible. Starfleet has also been producing ships with more military operations in mind as well. Such as (My Favorite) The Yamato Class Dreadnought Cruiser,  andThe Arbiter Class Battlecruier.

Don't know if that can help you at all with giving you more options for ships to use, and paths to work with. :D

[Cold Heritage]

I saw that on the Memory Alpha article about MACO. Thanks for bringing it up, though. It's a possibility if someone wanted to be a MACO who was brought into Section 31 and ended up on the ship that this game would focus on.

Choosing a Defiant class ship was a deliberate choice. Not just because of my love for Deep Space 9 and how the Defiant was a plucky little ship that hit above its weight class, but also because Memory Alpha lists the crew complement as ~50. Star Trek is a fairly niche interest and this idea I figure would be even more niche still, so having a small "environment" appealed to me more. On a bigger ship like those you mentioned, I'm imagine there's a crew complement of several hundred, if not cracking a thousand. In that kind of setting it's entirely within the realm of possibility that several legitimate characters could never have occasion to run into each other without deliberate contrivance. The smaller setting of the Defiant class and the smaller crew complement makes it much easier for characters to interact without having them all be bridge crew or part of the same department.

[Hamadryad]

I would be keen to get in on this :)