Hi Everyone
So I am looking to write a new and very large module set to take place in the year 2405 on the 140th anniversary of Captain James T Kirk’s Historic 5-year mission 5 brand new Starfleet starships will head out on a new 5-year mission in the Shackleton Expanse
I need help writing this I need suggestions for Planets Species plots everything of course Credit will be given to contributors both in the Module credits and in the Youtube Audio Drama uploads that I will be doing eventually Please Lets work together to write a huge module that could give many different playgroups many options for years to come for stories
That’s a tall order. Why not start with a small module and a strong central idea?
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Why not have the Shackleton Expanse be the staging ground for an invasion of Species 8472? Could lead to a fantastic mega module 5 year story arc.
I’d certainly consider starting small and plan the rest as a framework (overall plot and the like) - fill in the details as you go. Trek settings are sufficiently flexible that you don’t need to go the hexcrawl route!
A personal thought: the 140th anniversary is an odd choice - you could tweak the timeline a little and set it in 2365 - then it becomes the centenary?
the reason i have gone for this is because this group is tied with a Star Trek Play by post RP website Star-fleet.com we have been active since 1990 and our current sim year is 2395 so i bumped it ahead so that it was the 140th rather than the 130th 
Even still I could go a bit further and make it the 150th
Ah, that makes sense! I know it’s not part of your original question, but if you’re using anything from ST Online for background, Continuing Mission has an excellent set of related setting and ship-related articles. (https://continuingmissionsta.com/).
thanks this looks like It might be useful 
A long plot arc isn’t hard to make, but for having it play effectively, it requires being careful to…
- Not require player to do specific actions to advance the plot
- allow the players to affect the plot
- let the players see the plot.
- not be the focus of every adventure.
Note that 4 isn’t “They aren’t in every adventure”
In order to have #2, you need to consider how players can affect the overall, and don’t overplan in advance.
One thing Trek has going for it: many antagonists have diplomatic immunity; going after them requires convincing their boss they’re a problem (Gul Dukat, Weyoun). Others are functionally immune to anything the PCs can throw (Q, Trelane, Kevin Uxbridge) or can throw without potentially ending their careers (Their own government, other interstellar states and their leaders, Section 31).
Even captains of other states’ ships are excellent foes with players being low threat to them.
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Thanks for the Tips!
I have the Beginings of Episode one starting out And I would like to share that with you
Start Nerendra Station The location of the First ever Galactic Rimpac The Federation is hosting this Galactic exercise with ships from Starfleet The Klingon Defense force The Remnants of the Romulan Star Empire The Cardassian Fleet The Breen The Tholians The Ferengi the Gorn and Even the Dominion as well as hundreds of other Minor powers who send representatives and observers as a huge wargames and cooperative exercises take place in the general area of Nerendra station
This event culminates in the launch of the 5 Year Exploritory mission 5 ships from the Federation begin to spread out through the Shackleton expanse and exploring for 5 years Each ship has a Liaison from the Klingon and Romulan Empires joining the crews they will be noting down interesting things for their own nations
For the 5 year mission program there are actually 20 ships assigned to the project devided into 4 waves of 20 all 4 waves will go out on their own dropping comm arrays as they go if a ship from one wave is too badly damaged to continue they will stay with in comm range and redeploy to balance things out