To be honest, I’d need a bit.kore context t9.ne helpful. In the starting part, what era are you in? TOS? TNG? it’s important because that will inform what we can do with the rest of the questions.
To answer the questions the best I can without knowing the era:
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Do cameos, and it doesn’t really matter who. You can have Picard…just don’t let him get involved. What you don’t want to do is to allow him to steal the limelight. So, depending on era, you will probably want Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Picard, Data, Troi, Worf, LaForge, Sisko, O’Brien, Janeway, Seven, Tuvok, Neelix, EMH, Kim, Paris. What you want is probably three or four that are era appropriate and that they’ll recognise. Remember though, don’t let them take over. The most you is maybe one attached to the party as a guide in the first mission or so, then they just become cameos or your party’s channel to Starfleet. Nothing more.
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This is really heavily dependent on context, I’m afraid. Where you are and when you are. Vulcans are omnipresent in the Star Trek timeline, but beyond that…it’s really context dependent. You want familiar faces, so Klingons would be amazing…but if you’re in Enterprise era or TOS,.it won’t jive with canon because they’re enemies to the Federation. Same with the Romulans, except it would have to wait until post TNG for that to make sense. Cardassians are a weaker but possible choice, but again, post DS9. We need to know the era at least.
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It’s completely your choice, but I’d avoid the future, do a parallel universe/dimension instead. You can rewrite history to suite your arc, so you can still find an abandoned starbase, but you can use the stats provided for “modern” ships rather than future ones, which will be harder to find or design.
As for adventures, I think you can assume that the initial phase will be repairing the station and getting it back to working order. After that, my suggestion would be that Phase II will probably be exploring, trying to find essential materials for the repairs and trying to find out what happened. Be sure to drop hints about a future protagonist, but don’t overdo it. Think the Dominion in DS9 - you heard about them long before you met them. Mix this up with the typical TNG dilemma or monster of the week style sessions. Phase III will be meeting the antagonists, and having things go to pot. You may or may not link these to the destruction of the Federation, or even those who attacked them in the first starbase…or you might save those for later.
As for specific adventures for the dilemma/monster of the week…I’d recommend picking your favourite Star Trek episodes (or adapting from other franchises) and just run those with a few tweaks. Alternatively, Modiphius do two packs of missions tha tyou could adapt (I have them, but I’m going to be starting them in the next week or so, so I can’t say how good they are). Those are the easiest options.
Big bit of advice - don’t plan too much. Notice I gave overall sketches of what should happen, not specifics. The specifics should depend on their choices. I’d develop a bank of missions - favourite episodes, poached missions, my own ideas - as part of my prep. Nothing too firm, but enough that I have a bunch of ideas to work with. Perhaps 10-15. Then, I’ll pick one to run as appropriate, develop it into a proper gameplan and run that session, influenced by my overall sketch. Once the players have completed it and made choices, I’ll pick another one that suits and reflects their choices, and run that. I’ll also occasionally replenish that bank. That way, you’re allowing them freedom to choose while not having to improvise either.
But yeah, pick an era, and then find some of your favourite episodes to run. Since they haven’t watched them, it’ll be new to them. You don’t have to stick to your era - even if you are in TNG, you could do a TOS episode, with a bit of adaptation.