Aldebaran & Pagh
Two things that shaped Rian Kael and give this blog its name: the draw of fine whiskey and the Bajoran concept of life-force, of spiritual journey. One grounds him in the physical world—the burn of good spirits, the ritual of appreciating what's been carefully crafted. The other connects him to something larger—the path the Prophets laid out, the meaning he found as a Ranjen looking to heal from the Occupation before Starfleet Intelligence called him. Both anchor him, remind him that life is meant to be savored and examined, not just survived.
This is a blog about exploring strange new worlds from the inside out.
2403
two years after the Frontier Day crisis nearly destroyed everything, the Federation is rediscovering what it means to be optimistic. I'm exploring that moment through the eyes of Commander Rian Kael, a veteran Starfleet Intelligence officer aboard the USS Ameade—a Constitution III-class ship pushing the boundaries of holographic integration. He writes letters to his niece on Bajor, journals about life aboard, and occasionally pulls back the curtain on what makes Trek tick in this era.
The Ameade is a ship built to honor exploration, named after Kihala Ameade, a Betazoid pioneer who believed in seeking out the unfamiliar with grace. It's also a floating laboratory for holographic crew integration, with emitters throughout and one of Starfleet's first series of fully commissioned holographic officers and crew. Rian's intelligence detachment is posted on the Ameade to figure out if this future is brilliant or dangerous, and what it means when your shipmate can be switched off with a power failure.
Building strange new worlds
There's writing here that extrapolates canon and fills in the gaps left behind—what's happening with the Romulan diaspora, how Starfleet rebuilds trust post-Frontier Day, what it's like serving on a ship where the walls can become anything. You'll also find Star Trek Adventures resources: mechanics for intelligence operations, holographic complications, character builds, setting guides, and tools for running games in the Picard era. This is for GMs who care about the moral dilemmas as much as the dice rolls, and players who want to understand the world their characters inhabit.
I'm writing this because I love Star Trek and STA; I've been TTRPG-ing since those strange dice first showed up in a scout tent decades ago, and I've dabbled professionally for Traveller and Cepheus Engine. I feel like the Picard era speaks to something we need right now—hope that doesn't ignore complexity, optimism that's been tested and earned. I want more of that in my life right now, and I want to explore it at the table and on the page.
But I'm also writing this because my head is too full of ideas that need somewhere to go. This blog is how I work off that excess imaginative energy—getting the ships, characters, missions, and mechanics out of my skull and into pixels where they can breathe. Where I can actually see what I've been building in the dark.
No actual play recaps here, but plenty of the lessons learned running and playing STA. Think of it as intelligence reports from the frontier: useful, flawed, and always wondering what the Prophets have planned for beings made of light.
Welcome aboard the Ameade. Let's see what's out there.