A Bridge Too Far
Your Spacefleet Communicator Badge beeps, and your surroundings fade as you're enveloped in a glittering light show. When the effect fades, you see you're standing on the bridge of a spaceship. An older, bald guy stands up, pulls his shirt down a little in the front, and holds out his hand. "Welcome to the Starship Jefferson," he says, with perfect Shakespearean diction. "I trust your time aboard our ship will be instructive and edifying. What would you like to do first?"
"Well, I'd really like to try driving the ship -- er, navigating, I guess," you say.
"Oh," the Captain says, "everyone wants to do that. In fact, there's a line -- and the line must be formed HEYAH! HERE and no further!"
"Um, that's okay then," you say. "What else is there to do?"
"Well," the Captain says, "you can call up some training programs in the holodeck. Or you could go help out in What's Your Twenty, our lounge -- they're having some sort of diplomatic crisis down there, and could benefit from a fresh perspective on the situation."
| Hit the Holodeck |
You head down to the holodeck. The computer tells you that the deck is occupied, so you wait for the occupant to come out.
An older gentleman in an astoundingly bad toupee comes bounding out, fastening the collar of his uniform. "Well. . .that was . . . certainly an experience!" he says, then takes a quick gasp of air before continuing. "We certainly didn't have . . . anything like this when I was captain! *gasp* I recommend JTK Workout #34, in which you, the studly Captain, must singlehandedly subdue . . . a dozen green-skinned Amazon women from the planet Doubledee Five!"
You decline the suggestion and instead pull up a program that enables you to practice your mental prowess by playing poker with Genghis Khan, Adolph Hitler, and Ashton Kutcher. You're actually ahead by a few dozen meat before there's a power surge on the ship which causes all the holodeck's illusions to physically manifest themselves, somehow, and take over the ship.
It takes all of your might, magic, and moxie, but you manage to trick the villains back into the holodeck and trap them there. You feel pretty good about getting through the ordeal without being disemboweled, genocided, or punk'd.
Sadly, the Captain blames the whole thing on you, and your career in Spacefleet is over before you've romanced a single green-skinned alien woman. Which, considering the prevalence of intergalactic STDs, is probably for the best.
| You gain 0.6-0.725*(level)^2 up to 200 Strongness. |
| You gain 0.6-0.725*(level)^2 up to 200 Mysteriousness. |
| You gain 0.6-0.725*(level)^2 up to 200 Cheek. |
| Practice Diplomacy |
You go down to What's Your Twenty, and immediately see the problem. There's a conference table set up, but the foreign ambassadors and the Jefferson crew are sitting in awkward silence. You slide into a chair and ask your crewmate what's going on.
"Well," he says, "these guys are Hipsterians -- they're the best meat farmers in the galaxy. The techniques they could teach us are invaluable, but we can't understand what they're saying!"
You glance at one of the Hipsterians. "Jessie Spano on diet pills," he says.
"I see," you say. "They're referencing their rich heritage of disposable popular culture. He's indicating he's excited, but scared, to meet with you. I'll tell him to calm down, and that we view today as a momentous occasion." You address the Hipsterians. "Arthur Fonzerelli. Rex Manning Day."
"Marty at the dance, after George and Lorraine kiss," the Hipsterian says, nodding.
"Ah, good," you translate, "they feel relieved and hopeful for the future. I'll ask them if they're hungry. Sarlacc before Boba Fett?"
You spend the next couple of hours translating for the Hipsterians, keeping their best secrets for yourself. Then you retire from Spacefleet to put those secrets to good use.
 | You acquire an effect: Meatwise (duration: 20 Adventures) |
Occurs at Seaside Megalopolis (with Spacefleet Communicator Badge in the inventory, which is consumed).
References
- A Bridge Too Far is a book by Cornelius Ryan.
- This adventure is a giant reference to Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are also a variety of specific references scattered throughout this adventure.
- The bald headed captain is Captain Picard. He is well known for the Picard Maneuver which involves tugging the front of his shirt down whenever he stands up. "The line must be formed" is a parody of a Picard line in Star Trek: First Contact.
- What's Your Twenty is a parody of the Enterprise's bar, called the Ten Forward.
- The older gentleman that leaves the holodeck would be Captain Kirk, famous for his love of green skinned women, his hair, and his stilted speech pattern.
- The holodeck adventure refers to the TNG episode "Descent" in which Data plays poker against Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein as well as the episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle" which featured a holographic Professor Moriarty seizing control of the ship .
- The strange manner of speaking of the Hipsterians is a reference to the TNG episode "Darmok", about an alien race that communicated entirely in references to their mythic tradition. The Hipsterians also appear in Space Trip.
- The Hipsterian lines, in order, reference: Saved by the Bell episode "Jessie's Song", Happy Days, Empire Records, Back to the Future, and Return of the Jedi
- The Starship Jefferson is a reference to Jefferson Starship.
