This thread will contain all of the official RPG-X staff reviews for
Star Trek: Task Force Theta. Each week the reviews will be added to the first post and the thread bumped for visibility.
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These reviews are slightly edited for grammar and accessibility but the content and the score remain untouched.
QuoteSRP Name: Task Force Theta
Episode Name and Number: Episode 01: Current Affairs
Who Attended: Archibald, Criminula, Lucas Picard, Klaw, SFC3, Telex Ferra
What Happened: The crew assembled in the briefing room and was briefed by Vice Admiral Peter Ward. According to the Admiral, peace talks between the Federation and the Klingons had gone south. Furthermore, the Klingon delegation's ship was reported destroyed on its way back from the talks. The Klingons immediately blamed the Federation, but the Federation insisted a disinterested third party, the Romulans be brought in to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Klingon delegation's supposed demise. The crew's mission was to infiltrate the system where the incident occurred, determine who was really responsible, and participate in a cover-up if the Federation were indeed responsible.
The Atlantis arrived in the system and analyzed the debris cloud from the destroyed the ship. The cloud had already been well-investigated by other ships so the scene was heavily contaminated. The crew was able to glean very little information about who was responsible.
Suddenly, a Romulan Warbird entered the system cloaked. The Atlantis destroyed the Romulan ship before it could discover the Atlantis. Then, a second Romulan ship raised the Atlantis and shockingly congratulated the Admiral for destroying the Warbird. The Romulans then beamed a mysterious package aboard the Atlantis and vanished just as quickly as they arrived.
At the very end of the episode, the Admiral ordered the package installed and set a course into Klingon space.
Opinion: The progression of the episode was relatively slow. While Archibald and Criminula seemed coordinated about the plot, they did not do a very good communicating to everyone else what they wanted to happen in a timely manner. Additionally, they could have done better to include everyone into the story. That being said, the plot is very interesting, and I am now curious about the Admiral's connection with the Romulans, the nature of the package, (though I have a pretty good theory about what ti is) and where the plot is going. I hope the events of the first episode are explained, and aren't just a forgotten prelude for what's to come.
I hope that the remaining 2-4 episodes see more coordination between the SRP runners and everyone else at a slightly faster pace. This episode was essentially two scenes that took almost 75 minutes that probably could have been done in about half that time.
Score out of 100: 65. I know you guys have it in you. Keep up the good work.
QuoteSRP Name: Task Force Theta
Episode Name and Number: Episode 02: Complications
Who Attended: Archibald, Criminula, Lucas Picard, Telex Ferra, HeyBenditoz,Kurtf2013
What Happened: The Atlantis continued on course into Klingon space. The commodore asked the CSO investigate the mysterious device given to the crew by the Romulans without attracting the attention of Admiral Ward. The CSO determined that the device was a cloaking device, and engineering reported that it was using up too much energy in the system.
Suddenly, a Romulan ship decloaked and sent a new device over to the ship to replace the first one. At the same time, the CSO determined that the Romulans were all members of the Tal'shiar, and that the Admiral was likely in league with them as well. The commodore was informed of this development and attempted to relieve the admiral of command. The admiral refused to comply and gave a very long speech about the entire mission being about him gaining control. Over what? Who knows? The Admiral beamed away and left the Atlantis surrounded by not one but three Romulan ships and a virus making it impossible for the ship to defend itself.
Opinion: There was one very bad trend present in the episode, and one very good one.
It seemed as though the plot had not been planned in advance, and that everything that happened was reactionary to the crew's disparate attempts to add to the story. (Not plotjacking) For instance, an engineer said the power draw from the device was high. This does not count as plotjacking and can be easily explained away with a hand waive (e.g. "divert power from the contrived power reserves!") but instead getting yet another device that was 'better' to replace the first one became an integral part of the plot. Furthermore, any attempt by the crew to deal with the situation at hand led to the mSRP runners adding unnecessary complexity to the plot. The CoS refuses to drop the shields? Now there's a virus in the computer that makes it happen. The CSO sends out a distress call? Suddenly we're being jammed. The crew catches onto the Admiral's suspicious activities? Suddenly he has his own ship waiting to beam him away. These things would not be so bad if they had been pre-planned, but it seemed very clear to me that they were invented on the spot to respond to anything anyone came up with to deal with what was going on in the story.
What I liked about this episode is that everyone seemed to have something to do. Unlike some episodes of some SRPs I've attended, this episode had everyone doing something involved with the story, even if anything they did was hand-waived away.
My recommendation to Archibald and Criminula is this. If you don't want people to come up with unexpected yet logical additions to the plot, like refusing to comply with an insane order, then you need to steer the plot by PM. I personally received no instructions by PM, and I'm fairly certain no one else did either. We can't read your minds, and in the absence of direction, I'm going to try to work within the plot to solve the problem at hand. Additionally, you should try to anticipate how the crew is going to respond in a certain situation so that obstacles to certain solutions can be created in a believable way. If the virus had always been part of the plot, then it wouldn't come off as such a hand-waive.
Score out of 100: 67