I’ll admit…I haven’t watched past season 3 of Discovery. Taking the canon problem and transporting to the far-flung future was a damned good idea, but the third season, with it’s half season to get everyone back together, the sudden jump to a post-apocalyptic setting where the Federation is gone was just a bit too jarring for me. (And still no moving antennae on Andorians. Get it together, Trek!) I’ve also not really connected with any of the Disco crew, with the possible exception of Saru and Jett Reno (but I likes me some Tig Notaro).
That said — the ability to walk away from constraints of fan expectations about technology and the like did free them up to go full Iain Banks on the show: programmable matter, ships that reconfigure themselves to highlight John Eaves’ and Ryan Dennings’ love of negative space in designs. It’s all hugely inventive. It just…didn’t grab me.
Save for the ship designs. If anything, Discovery has always be saved by fantastic-looking ships — even the ones that pissed off the fans. (Sorry, I like the Warhammer -looking Klingons.)
One of the designs that instantly spoke to me was the Saturn-class. what do we know about it? Bugger all, so now I get to play:
Saturn Class
Launch Year: sometime in the 31st Century
Overview: The Saturn-class was a science and survey vessel that had — at the time — many innovations. Many, if not most, of these vessel were lost in the Burn, and the few that were left to travel the stars as generation ships. When the negotiations between the Federation and Species 10-C led to the end of the Dark Matter Anomaly and the inability to create dilithium, these venerable ships finally saw the return of warp drive. Many were also set to receive the new Pathway Drive system pioneered by USS Voyager.
Capabilities: Despite it’s massive apparent size, the volume of a Saturn class is roughly comparable to that of a Galaxy-class of old. The average crew complement was between 800-1000 personnel, but they could carry almost twice that.
Refits & Variants: The loss of warp drive meant most of these ships were hopelessly outdated in the technology by the time they returned to the new Federation, and upgrades to better computers and programmable matter were central to the upgrade programs of a renewed Starfleet.
Suggested Mission Profiles: Science and Survey Operations, as well as Muultirole Explorer.
Naming Conventions: Only a few of these vessels survived the Burn and there is currently no set naming convention.
Notable Examples: U.S.S. Annan, N.C.C.-325051
Traits: Federation Starship, Saturn-Class, Aging Relic
Scale: 5
Talents:
Advanced Research Facilities: The vessel is equipped with additional laboratories and long-term research facilities. Whenever a character aboard the ship succeeds at a task to perform research, and they are assisted by the ship’s Computers + Science, they may ask two additional questions, as if they had spent Momentum to Obtain Information.
Advanced Emergency Crew Holograms: The ship has several holographic supporting characters equal to half the ship’s Computers score (round up); their appearance and personality are determined when the ship is created, though the supporting characters have a species trait of Hologram. These can be activated or deactivated as a minor action, and they do not require any Crew Support to appear. They cannot operate outside of the ship, and they do not improve when introduced in subsequent adventures. However, if any character advances are used to improve these supporting characters, all the supporting characters granted by this talent receive the advance.
Advanced Sensor Suites: Whenever a character performs a task roll assisted by the ship’s Sensors, the ship may roll 2d20 for assistance rather than only one (if Reserve Power is rerouted to Sensors, one of these dice is set to a 1). This talent cannot be used if the ship is suffering one or more breaches to Sensors.
Dual Environment: The ship is outfitted with redundant system rooms that can be filled with gases or liquids that allow crew members requiring different atmospheric conditions to work side by side with the rest of the crew. A character who is in a redundant system room may assist others in the connected system room as if they were in the same room.
High Resolution Sensors: The vessel’s sensors can gain large amounts of accurate data, though they are extremely sensitive. While the vessel is not in combat, any successful task assisted by the ship’s Sensors gains 1 bonus Momentum. Bonus Momentum may not be saved.
Redundant Systems: Select a single system when this talent is chosen. When that system suffers a breach, the crew may choose to activate this talent in response; doing so immediately patches the breach inflicted. These redundant systems may only be activated once per adventure.
Special Rules:
Larger Crew: The ship’s Crew Support is increased by 1.
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