players: Jamie, Caroline, Marc, Johnzo, Ben

Jamie had a mad plan to do a Star Trek style ship+crew game by hacking Apocalypse World. But not just your average Apocalypse World hack: this was a GMless Apocalypse World hack.

After some brainstorming we decided that in this universe, star fleet actually existed to enforce the Armistice and keep all the colonized planets from attacking each other (again). So we're mostly military enforcers keeping the peace, until we bump into the inevitable strange phenomena.

Our warship was the ICARUS. Yep, it's an inauspicious name for a star ship. Somewhere along the way we decided that all the ships in the fleet were named for disasters or tragedies ("open hailing frequencies to the Vesuvius!"), possibly as a brute force reminder of the terrible things man had experienced before and would again without a watchful eye and careful military oppression.

There are 110 souls on the ICARUS, but only five of them are PCs (and if you're thinking "hey, that's a lot of red shirts to send on away missions" you'd be right):

Captain Li Kamala (Caroline) -- She's never wrong. Never. She always asks her bridge crew for recommendations, but it's just a test, because Captain Kamala already knows what the best move is. She always knows. The Kobayashi Maru simulator calls her up asking for advice.

First Officer Mirza Hotspur (Johnzo) -- Our much-needed moral compass. He gives us a guilt-wedgie when we consider doing things like leaving thousands of miners to die horribly in the collapsing bubble of a sun's corona. For instance. I'm not saying we saved them, but thanks to Hotspur we at least knew to feel bad about it.

Lt. Margarita Casado (Jamie) -- Hewn from the classic fleet mold, she likes threats she can shoulder-throw or melt with a phaser.

Junior Lt. Niphon Tsaphas (Marc) -- The wise-cracking helmsman and life of the party. He may be disappointed to find out that the Captain favors the ladies.

Ensign Gail Sanders (Ben) -- The lowliest yet perkiest of the bridge crew, this impressionable young cadet idolizes the Captain. Really. "Worships" might not be too strong a word. She would do anything for her Captain, if you get my drift. And does it pay off? Well guess who the Captain picks to take command when she's incapacitated, in defiance of all chain of command? Yep, that's Captain Sanders to you!

Our Mission: find out what happened to all the moons in the (mumblemumblemumble) system. That's right, some of our moons have gone missing...

(All that and I haven't even touched on rules or game play yet. Someone else, take over!)

I was so happy just to get to play this even once, but got so much good feedback I have to make a new draft, which means I'll have to play it again...

Also, I checked out InSpectres InSpace - so many of the same beats there! Ship's Logs as narrative override is pretty cool, maybe should steal. But I don't see the rules for the fields of authority you guys mentioned.

A lot of great moments in play:
- John having us warp into the corona of a sun. Ben: "Um, we're called the Icarus?" Jamie: "Oh, I get it now." John: "I'm BSG, he's Babylon 5."
- Captain promoting the Ensign and giving her the Conn.
- John doing essentially the opposite of Dr. McCoy with the Heart character was really interesting ...
- Gail's dead parents being a throwaway detail in the beginning and then John bringing them into the game, alive - and then Gail sacrificing them because that's what Kamala would have done...