A Blight of Passion (Medical Ship Adventure)

[Solluk]

Basic Premise: A subspace listening outpost near the Romulan border sends out a strange subspace message to the Federation and then goes silent.  Due to fears of a potential medical issue, YourMedicalShip is sent to investigate.

Starting Point: YourMedicalShip is sent to investigate a subspace listening outpost near the Romulan Border when a medical issue is suspected.

End Goal: YourMedicalShip identifies the contagion and develops a cure before the entire ship succumbs to wild amorous compulsions, then captures a Romulan spy.

Story points that must be passed?:

I) YourMedicalShip is sent to investigate a subspace listening outpost near the Romulan Border when a medical issue is suspected.  The listening outpost is a small facility in an asteroid designed to house a dozen crew who spend their time listening to Romulan subspace transmissions and relaying them to Starfleet Command.  However, they recently sent a bizarre transmission to the Federation and then went radio-silent.  In that transmission, half-dressed officers were seen in passionate embrace while the outpost commander declared that Starfleet must seek 'Love, not War.'

II) YourMedicalShip arrives at the subspace listening outpost, after a week of warp travel.  Medical Teams sent to the outpost find that everyone on the outpost has died of dehydration while in various states of undress and embrace.

III) Samples/Bodies are collected for analysis, and the Medical Teams begin mild, harmless flirtations with each other or other crew members while they search for a medical explanation to the incident.

IV) It is found that the dead outpost crew's brains had been altered somehow, with the impulse for amorous passion multiplied while all other desires were suppressed.  This allowed them to die of thirst while perpetually making love.  Meanwhile, the mild and (thus far) harmless flirtatious attitude spreads through the ship.

V) Science officers studying the sensor records of the Outpost note that an Ionic cloud recently passed through the area.  Operations officers tasked to study the outpost logs note that the entries become increasingly odd and romance-related shortly after the ionic cloud passed through.

VI)  YourMedicalShip crew's innocent flirtations become increasingly prominent and difficult to suppress, with wild crushes and romances spilling out into the open.  People on the ship begin eating and drinking less, exercising less, spending less time on their duties and more time making googly eyes at the officers manning the next station.

VII)  Flight Control officers may note that the ionic cloud that recently passed through the area first passed through Romulan space.  Science officers may ask to examine the cloud, either by bringing the ship to the cloud to conduct scans, or by launching a probe, or by sending a shuttle to examine the cloud up close.

VIII) Scans of the ionic cloud will reveal the presense of Psionic energy.  Medical teams on the ship may use this clue as inspiration to check Yourmedicalship and the outpost for Psionic energy, finding it in both places.  Finally, in a breakthrough, Science and Medical teams will discover that a Psionic Parasite is present on the outpost, in the cloud, and on Yourmedicalship.  This parasite lives at the edge of subspace and feeds on loving and passionate psionic energy.  It sends neural pulses into the minds of victims to create or amplify these emotions and suppress all other desires, allowing it to feed.  The parasites seem to be non-intelligent and even artificial.  They show signs of having been created in a lab by cutting-edge technology... possibly technology available to the Romulans.

IX) Science and Medical teams figure out a way to cleanse people of these parasites by using a particular type of phased energy.  This information is provided to Engineering teams who modify the ship's phasers- both the ship-mounted phasers and hand phasers- to emit this particular type of phased energy.  Meanwhile, most people on the ship have stopped eating and drinking entirely, and ship discipline has almost completely broken down as people give in to their wildest passions.

X) Security teams go through the ship phasering everyone, clearing out the parasites.  Tactical officers on the bridge phaser the outpost and the ionic cloud.  Soon, everyone's behavior returns to normal as the parasites are eradicated.  (Though some awkwardness between crewmembers may remain.)

XI) The Security Chief reads the latest transmission interceptions from the outpost, and figures out that the outpost may have been purposefully infected by this parasite so that certain transmissions between Romulan space and their secret operative within Federation space would not be noticed.  The Romulans likely seeded the ionic cloud with the parasites, knowing the cloud would soon cross into Federation space and infect the listening outpost.  The Romulans may have intended the infection to be a non-lethal distraction, and simply underestimated its power.  However!  Now that the Security Chief's curiosity has been piqued, he finds the transmissions that were meant to be missed.  After a frantic decoding session with the help of Science and/or Operations teams, it is learned a Romulan spy will soon be passing back into Romulan space in a stealthed civilian ship, carrying gigaquads of stolen secrets back to Romulus.

XII) YourMedicalShip is not the best equipped ship to intercept the spy, but it is the only ship in range to do so.  Knowing the expected route of the spy, it races to intercept.  Science teams defeat the stealth tech of the operative's ship, and after a brief combat, the spy's ship is disabled and the spy is captured, averting a major intelligence disaster.

Departments: (To make sure everyone has something to do.)

- Flight: Figuring out the origin of the ionic cloud.  Thrilling space combat with the spy ship.

- Engineering: Implementing the phased energy cure on ship's phasers, and repairing damage caused by combat with the spy ship.

- Operations: Investigating outpost logs, helping to decode the Romulan transmission.

- Security and tactical: Phasering the ship, phasering the cloud, phasering the outpost, investigating the transmissions, thrilling combat with the spy ship.

- Medical: With the help of other departments, will solve the medical mystery of the Psionic parasites.

- Science: Will help discover the nature of the parasites in the ionic cloud and work with Medical to devise a treatment.   Will also figure out how to defeat the spy ship stealth tech (not an actual cloaking device, but still sneaky tech mods, like an Energy Sheath.)

Additional Notes: This adventure mixes some Naked Time/Naked Now style comic moments with an actual investigation, intrigue, and combat.  The mission really turns during Step XI, and this could be expanded into a two-parter if desired, with the first part involving the medical and relationship issues and the second part involving the uncovering of the Romulan plot and the subsequent action sequence.