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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Meet the USS Powerista

Jean Sexton writes:

Today is Halloween. It's a day for ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. So today, we'll focus on our "Frankenship," the Fralli cruiser USS Powerista. Here is her official story.

Federation policy was to provide member planets with older starships for their local defense. This accomplished several goals: relieving Star Fleet of boring garrison duty, getting a few more years of service out of old worn-out ships, and training reservists for rapid fleet expansion during a possible future war.

When Frallia asked for such ships, Star Fleet was none too happy to part with any useful vessels. They sent the Fralli an old light cruiser with a severely damaged forward section, two worn-out police ships without working photon torpedoes, and a frigate with burned-out engines. The Fralli found none of the ships of any use, and Star Fleet blithely suggested that they scavenge systems to use on auxiliaries built on freighters.

The Fralli wanted their own real ship for their defense (having very narrowly defeated a horde of rampaging monsters with an armada of 550 shuttlecraft) (see Captain's Log #47 for their tactics) and set about to make what they could with what they had. They combined the saucer of the frigate, the back half of the light cruiser, the back half of a police ship, and a spare set of police ship engines into the Powerista, a cruiser in every respect.



Back story: Steve Cole has always teased me about the Fralli (see our blog post). He announced he was going to make an "ugly ship" for them. He struggled, because his natural instinct is to make an organic whole that is pleasing. Finally he created the story and the ship flowed from that. He then contacted a master kitbasher named Tony L. Thomas to create the Powerista. Steve worked on the ship card for this unique ship and found, to his surprise, that she'd be a fun ship to fly with new advantages and challenges.

In the meantime I created a scenario for the Powerista. I knew it had to be something from early in its career. Then it came to me -- a kidnapped Fralli artist, a rag-tag crew of Frallis, and a bunch of drunken Orion pirates who think they've pulled off the Crime of the Month -- that's what the Powerista needed!

To see the ship card and try the scenario, check out our free Communique #94.

Have a safe and fun Halloween.