The Slave Minders - Claimed and used by Katra

[Solluk]

While the Yourship is conducting routine duties in its assigned corner of space, it receives a distress signal. Responding, it finds the distress signal is simply a deceptive communications buoy transmitting a false signal.  Before the Yourship can take further action, it is ambushed by a large, hostile vessel that zaps the ship with an unknown weapon.  This weapon causes skills to be randomly reassigned among the crew.  While the ship is in disarray due to confusion, the hostile vessel pummels the shields, bringing them down and beaming away all psionically talented crew before racing off to parts unknown.  The strangest aspect of the enemy ship is that it has no visible means of propulsion.  It is very fast and very maneuverable, but it has no discernible engine.  Now the Yourship must figure out what happened to the crew's skills, regain control of the ship, and track down the hostile alien that has abducted members of the crew.

Starting Point: While the Yourship is conducting routine duties in its assigned corner of space, it receives a distress signal.

End Goal: Yourship tracks down the hostile alien ship, disables it, and retrieves the abducted crew.

Story points that must be passed?:

I) While the Yourship is conducting routine duties in its assigned corner of space, it receives a distress signal.

II) Responding, it finds the distress signal is simply a deceptive communications buoy transmitting a false signal.  Before the Yourship can take further action, it is ambushed by a large, hostile vessel that zaps the ship with an unknown weapon.  This weapon causes skills to be randomly reassigned among the crew.

III) While the ship is in disarray due to confusion, the hostile vessel pummels the shields, bringing them down and beaming away all psionically talented crew before racing off to parts unknown.

IV) Whoever has medical skills on Yourship eventually deduces that the crew has been struck by a neural scrambler which randomly copies crew skills to other crew members.  Essentially, the skills of the crew have been randomly re-distributed, such that medical officers might now know engineering, the cook might have science skills, and the tactical officer might understand the latest counseling techniques.  The effects seem likely to be temporary, but until it wears off, the ship's crew will have to perform in roles that they are normally unaccustomed to.

V) Once the crew skillsets are determined and the crew are reassigned according to their temporarily adjusted skills, the Yourship can begin its pursuit of the dastardly alien vessel.  The alien vessel is strange in that it had no visible engines.  However, the com-badges on the abducted crew uniforms provide a means to track them down.

VI) The abducted crew aboard the alien ship are strapped into Psionic Collection Tables.  In essence, the aliens use psionic slaves to power their ship and provide propulsion.  The aliens are revealed to be Krendosians, a small militaristic empire that uses slave labor, and that has perfected Psionic Energy Collection.

VII) The Yourship catches up to the Krendosian vessel, entering a vigorous battle and eventually disabling the ship.

VIII) All the psionic slaves on board are freed, and the Krendosians are taken into custody to stand trial for their crimes.

IX) As the mission concludes, the crew skills gradually return to normal, with everyone having gotten a taste of what it is like to work in a different field.

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

- Flight: Whoever inherits the flight skills will be involved in thrilling combat maneuvers.

- Engineering: Whoever inherits the engineering skills will have to repair the ship from battle damage.

- Operations: Whoever inherits the Ops skills will have to perform power transfers at critical moments and dispatch damage control crews.

- Security and tactical: Whoever inherits the Tactical skills will be involved in thrilling space combat, and Security skilled crew will be performing a boarding action to rescue abducted personnel.

- Medical: Whoever inherits Medical skills will have to discern what happened to everyone's minds, and also treat injured personnel.  They may also work with science to come up with a countermeasure for the Krendosian neural weapon.

- Science: Whoever inherits Science skills will work with Medical to develop a countermeasure for the Krendosian neural weapon, and also figure out a way to boost sensor arrays to detect the now-distant com-badge signals of the abducted crew.

Note:  Depending on the desire of the Yourship Captain, Personality traits might be transferred along with skills, so that everyone can have a good time emulating whoever's skills they inherited.  Recommended for crews who are comfortable with each other and generally like each other.