This is a mission we actually ran on the USS Athena called "The Constant of C". I'm posting up the actual mission planning document that was used from that mission.
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The Constant of CBy Constance LafayetteSummary:Story BeatsApril 1st:April 5th:The test begins and goes rough- but is viable. The ship is out in an uninhabited part of space but is to make no attempts to disguise itself. We want the rest of the universe to know about it. The ship reaches Warp 11.9237 and can't get any higher. As it does so fuzzy apparitions of humanoids begin to appear on the bridge and all around the ship.
April 10th:April 15th:April 20th:When the warp fish are destroyed the resulting release of energy will push the Athena to Warp 12.1 and allow it to be maintained. After a wild ride we will end.
April 25th:The Voon, after understanding our reality, pop into our reality (by slowing down their stable warp bubble) next to the Athena and talk about membership in the Federation.
Alien Overview: The VoonTwo-headed aliens who exist at a different frequency than us that we can only interact with at Warp 11.9237. Their heads share a central brain located in their chest, though it is quite large and their hands can act independently (like our hands) but have issues doing too much alone. Mostly used as a way to consume or converse and still watch their surroundings in primitive days.
They are a peaceful, technologically advanced, race who will become allies to the Federation if we play our cards right.
They have no idea that the Federation, or anyone at a different frequency, exists. They indicate that they are a few other species on their plane of existence.
Department OverviewScience: We are doing a warp test. They are gathering results. Also, investigating alien warp bubble.
Medical: I'd like them to possibly help an injured Voon? This won't be medically heavy.
Flight: Warp 12 flight? Yes please.
Sec/Tac: Providing protection for the away teams. Fighting Warp Fish.
Engineering: Warp 12 flight. Shit exploding everywhere.
Ops: Communicating with Voon, data gathering, etc. Probably a little weak.
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Then we allow things to "drift", as they do. If we don't hit everything, on point, every time, to the day, we don't sweat it. We can adapt to things on the fly but let them kind of take their own course. In our chat we talk about "hitting our story beats" and how we can accelerate plots or slow them down to hit our marks a bit better.
This was a pretty successful mission so I thought it would be fun to share with you all kind of how we run our missions.