Ideas from Star Trek: TNG “The Survivors” S3E3

I am re-watching ST:TNG with my kids and through out, I am watching for things I missed, plot elements that could have been used later (one of the biggest complaints I heard while watching it) and inspiration for RPG games. When I watched it in the past, the show inspired many of my game sessions at the time. The challenge I had at the time as to disguise it as everyone in my game group watched TNG.

TNG did not get too bold until part way into season 2. The little bug-things that infiltrated Star Fleet was an interesting story arc – TNG’s first attempt at it – but it was kind of tropey in it’s own way but also too short-lived. There were a lot of missed opportunities with that storyline. I explore that in a previous post.

This post is about the powerful being found in the Season 3 episode The Survivors (S3E3). Passing himself off as Kevin Uxbridge, he was in truth a very powerful being called the Douwd. Apparently incorporeal and psionically based, this creature could rival the powers of the Q continuum. However, this one just wanted to live in peace.

However, after the Husnock wiped out the colony Kevin was on, killing his human wife, he lashed out – not only killing all the Husnock that attacked the planet but all that existed. Every last one. Genocide. In one single thought. Picard simply left the guy alone on the planet instead of attempting to performing some kind of justice on this guy.

Adventure Idea: Why wasn’t this guy tapped when the Borg or the Dominion were a threat? Grant it, he was trying to be a pacifist because of what he had already done, but given the threat of either the Borg or the Dominion, don’t you think that someone would try to persuade him to help. If he could wipe out one race all at once, how about the Borg present in the Alpha and Beta Quadrant? Of the Dominion? The adventure could be to venture back out to that world and persuade him, only to discover more about the Douwd. Maybe he was the last one. Maybe they are an enemy of the Q? Or an off-shoot race?

Adventure Idea: The Douwd Kevin wiped out the aggressive and war-like Husnock, but what about the stuff – the ships, their colonies, and their space stations. Imagine a mission to explore the ruins of the Husnock empire only to discover the Romulans or the Kardashians scavenging it.