As a GM I often explore popular culture in my games. Just the research gives me something as author to do besides think of monsters to be encountered and motivations for the Characters for encountering them. My whole Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra and gang) vs. Cthulhu run of scenarios was the first. Then I started delving into street-level D.C. Comics with Gotham P.D. sessions. And now I am doing bootleg Star Trek. This is because I can't afford the FASA ST RPG from the Big 80s, and I am increasingly not a fan of the Modiphius licensing the more I read it. For how long? Until I get bored of learning about the universe.
My "Star Track" is set in the timeframe of being in-between Star Trek-orginal and the first movie. Players are aboard a DERF-class starship, that's a saucer and fuselage and only one warp engine according to ST fan Mark Hunt (maker of Gangbusters) and I like his take better than the more popular designs at places like Memory Alpha on-line. These crews are doing the more routine things, like setting navigation and communication buoys in already-explored places, rather than boldly going about the galaxy and causing trouble.
So Chi Eridanni-7 isn't too far from the Neutral Zone. It's cloud covered and rather steamy for humans. Its moisture comes from primarily underground water tables and the atmosphere comes from a series of Amazon forest-sized realms of eukaryotic fungal biospheres spread out over the planet. Most parts look like a sand covered sound-stage with styrofoam rocks though. Two exceptions to that are a group of mountains in the planet's northern hemisphere. These very high attitude areas happen to be rich in the resource of dilithium and other materials required for spacefaring. The other is very near the southern pole where an open saltwater sea is.
Telarite mining firms have been investing in getting assets to this planet. They started the same time as Gorn entrepreneurs. Unlike the more violent human-gorn interactions in the past, the tellarites and the neighbors have been working separately from each other while diplomatically offering assistance when needed. It would seem that both species find the others candid and straight-forward natures agreeable.
In the southern sea regions, a race of beaver-sized frog-looking creatures have been noted to be building hydroelectric dams and small steamships. This has prompted the UFP to set up a clandestine observation post to monitor the species. The station is manned by mostly vulcan and tellarite scientists that specialize in ecosystems and alien anthropology.
The UFP has establishing a 40% tax on any minerals taken from the planet to be placed in a trust for the natives for when they establish warp-drive. The tellarite mining firms gripe about it, but it is the leadership from Tellar-Prime that proposed the plan. The UFP, pushed by Earth delegates, is in talks with the Gorn Hegemony to do the same similar sort of taxation on their denizens.
1- Evil guy wants revenge
2- Super alien makes contact
3- Romulan intrigue
4- UFP passive-aggressiveness
5- Gorn's being untrustworthy
6- Orion Syndicate corruption
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