[Tour]: New Passenger Orientation (IC Primer)

[ten_fwd_npcs]

"Hi, I'm Miles O'Brien," smiles an officer wearing Operations gold. He has a friendly, relaxed disposition about him. "Welcome to the Enterprise. Now that you've passed quarantine, we want you to be comfortable while you're here. We're doing everything we can to get you home, but in the meantime we hope you'll consider the Enterprise a home away from home. Let me show you around."

With a broad wave, he beckons you to follow him as he starts explaining a few important things.


☆ The Ship, and Why You're Here
☆ End of the Tour, and Noteworthy Moments (game events)
☆ The Federation and Starfleet
☆ Who's Who on the Ship

Comments

The Federation and Starfleet

[ten_fwd_npcs]

O'Brien leads everyone back to Deck 10, but before you enter Ten Forward he shows you a PADD.

"This is what we call a PADD, or Personal Access Display Device," he explains. "You'll each get one in your room. These sync up to the computer's databases on the ship, which means you can access any un-restricted information you need. Here, let me show you how it works."

He presses a few buttons (which some of the 21st century humans might liken to doing a Google search on a smart phone), and then turns the PADD around so that everyone can get a quick look at the screen. He's called up an article on the history of the Federation.

"I'm sure you're all curious about where you are now. With a few easy commands I've just accessed a file on the United Federation of Planets. Starfleet is the Federation's deep-space exploratory and defensive service. We're sailing in Federation space right now, which means most if not all of the people you'll encounter will be members of the UFP. So I suppose I should let you know a little bit about what that means.

"The Federation is an interstellar federal republic. It was founded in San Francisco, Earth, in 2161, and as of today it encompasses 8,000 light years with about 150 formal member worlds. Each planetary government agrees to exist semi-autonomously under a single central government based on the principles of universal liberty, rights, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in peaceful cooperation and space exploration.*

"The Enterprise is the Federation's flagship, and part of her ongoing mission is to maintain exploratory, scientific, diplomatic, and defense functions throughout the whole of the Federation. Her principal function is the advancement of our knowledge about the galaxy as well as science and technology, and the defense of the Federation. Because of our mandate of deep-space exploration, we may all frequently be brought into contact with cultures and species none of us have known of before now. You are all now official representatives of the Federation in these cases." He lifts a hand, chuckling. "Don't worry, we won't be sending you out as diplomats. You may meet a few while you're here, though.

"Now, as for Starfleet, Lieutenant Worf will be giving you more information about some of our directives, but it's important you know that we're not just a military force. While the Enterprise does have those capabilities, it's not a Federation warhorse. Yes, there will be certain risks on board, especially with Q upping the stakes for all of us; however, we exist during a time of relative peace. I assure you all, you'll be quite safe on board.*

"Now, if you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a member of Starfleet or of the Federation, the crew has arranged for a class to be taught by a qualified officer. If at any point you choose to volunteer on the ship, you will be bound, by a certain extent, by our rules, and expected to uphold those responsibilities. But you've only just got here, so let's not jump the gun. If you do decide you would like to take that class, you can inquire about it with one of our officers. Which brings me to the last part of your tour..."


* ooc: while O'Brien likely would have gone into detail about the Federation's history and more technical specs about Starfleet, that can be incredibly dry to read so we wanted to keep this succinct. If you wanted your characters to get more info than what's written above, you can assume they did and flesh out those details from the linked wiki articles.