Brains Before Bounty
Author: dixonium
Mission Code: ST-HBMXP6I8C
Date Played: April 5, 2011
Length: 20-40 minutes
Author Description:
Something is terribly wrong at the rain-soaked Ferengi mining colony known as Quintoola Quarry. High-priced shipments are missing, a dark battleship patrols the skies, and the miners are being plagued by unending headaches. Bound by Ferengi cultural tradition, it falls to a Starfleet captain to save the colony from itself.
Review
I deeply dislike the Ferengi, but dixonium’s skilled writing led me to a newfound appreciation for a race I had written off as “vile-looking comic relief.” In fact, dixonium did such a great job, that Brains Before Bounty is one of the best STO missions I’ve ever played.
Unlike most STO missions, Brains Before Bounty doesn’t open with a hail from Starfleet — rather, a passing civilian freighter informs my captain that the Ferengi mining colony on Hana II is behaving erratically. There’s nothing so obvious as an enemy occupation, but the captain says the Ferengi seemed unusually jumpy and were complaining about debilitating headaches. I promise the freighter captain that I’ll look into it.
I arrive in the Hana system to find a Nausicaan Talon battleship in orbit, “protecting” the Ferengi quarry from any intruders — including, and apparently especially, Starfleet vessels. But, in a surprise move for an STO mission, violence didn’t immediately break out — instead, my captain took a page from Picard’s playbook and decided to find a peaceful, albeit sneaky, way of circumventing the Nausicaan’s blockade. The solution that my science officer purposed was exactly the sort of thing Mr. Data would say — and it reflected the fact, often forgotten in STO, that lowering a ship’s shields Is Very Dangerous.
After the exchange in orbit, it seemed that the Nausicaans were somehow involved, and a meeting with Governor Grempa only confirmed my suspicions — Grempa had hired Nausicaan mercenaries for protection, but within weeks the Nausicaans had started to extort their ostensible clients. However, I still didn’t have an explanation for the terrible headaches the Ferengi were suffering from, and so I set out to find solutions to both the health and the political problem,
As I moved around the planet’s surface, I was greatly impressed with both the mission’s setting and its dialogue. In its own way, the Quintoola Quarry was a beautiful — despite being a rain-soaked world full of grays and browns, it was clear that time and effort had gone into the map’s construction. In particular, I thought the architectural differences between the quarry proper and the Nausicaan “squatters camp” was spot on — like darren_kitlor has posted previously, the city setting is also a character in the mission, and dixonium knocked that fact out of the park.
The mission’s dialogue showed a similar concern with quality; not only was it well written, but also dixonium sprinkled the text with subtle references to other aspects of Star Trek‘s lore. I don’t particularly like the Ferengi or the Nausicaans, but as I talked with the workers and their “bodyguards,” I began to appreciate what each race brought to the Star Trek universe. The author did a very good job giving each NPC his or her own “voice.”
Without spoiling rest of the plot, I want to say that Brains Before Bounty was an extremely enjoyable, extremely high-quality mission. It provided a perfect mixture of conversation and combat, all wrapped up in a self-contained story that went on for just the right amount of time. dixonium successfully played to the strengths of the Foundry creator without having to cut corners, the end result being that Brains Before Bounty feels like a “real” STO mission. If Cryptic is looking for a Foundry mission to officially incorporate into the game, Brains Before Bounty is an obvious first choice.
“Brains Before Bounty” took roughly thirty minutes to finish. There was limited diplomacy in space and some investigation on the ground, but eventually violence broke out. I was forced to fight several Nausicaan ground mobs, as well as an enemy fleet in orbit. All said, there was a good balance between talking and fighting, and between space and the ground.
Originally posted at StarbaseUGC on April 7, 2011.
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