Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans
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Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
At this point, I think Star Trek has actually been worse than Star Wars. At least every once in a while, Disney Star Wars shits out something passable if not outright great - Rogue One, Mandalorian (earlier seasons at least), Andor (passable), the Darth Vader comics - but Nu Trek just keeps vomiting out garbage.
I think it's a matter of what you're looking for in Star Trek.
If you're looking for cerebral, SRS BSNS Trek... yeah, you're probably going to be disappointed, because the intellectual capacity isn't there in the writers' rooms. And to be honest, unless they open up the writers' rooms for greater intellectual diversity and actual in-story debate, you're not likely to see that kind of Trek for a long time.
If you're looking for fun, team based action adventure with characters you like watching, Lower Decks, Picard S3, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy have you covered, even if the plotting can be a bit janky at times.
That said, I think the producers didn't realize they fucked up the Gorn so hard when they started, and are now trying to walk it back while pretending to have done it all on purpose.
If you're looking for cerebral, SRS BSNS Trek... yeah, you're probably going to be disappointed, because the intellectual capacity isn't there in the writers' rooms. And to be honest, unless they open up the writers' rooms for greater intellectual diversity and actual in-story debate, you're not likely to see that kind of Trek for a long time.
If you're looking for fun, team based action adventure with characters you like watching, Lower Decks, Picard S3, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy have you covered, even if the plotting can be a bit janky at times.
That said, I think the producers didn't realize they fucked up the Gorn so hard when they started, and are now trying to walk it back while pretending to have done it all on purpose.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The EU novels had their own, better-written xenomorph ripoffs.
Yagghorths: Questionably-sentient monstrosities which board ships to attempt to devour their crews and have eyeless elongated craniums. Arguably also rip off the hounds of tindalos and are ripped off by STD's tardigrade in that they've got teleportation powers with unlimited speed and range. Yes, they'll die to a phaser shot but that's assuming they don't just teleport in of fucking thin air, eat someone and vanish before anyone can draw a weapon. And in the possible future timeline, they'd been domesticated as a superior substitute for warp drive.
Crossroad
Kirk must stop a power-hungry alliance from destroying the Federation. Crossroad is a Pocket TOS novel – #71 in the numbered series – written by Barbara Hambly. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in August 1994. From the book jacket The crew of the Nautilus, a battered starship of...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
The Unclean: Parasites which copy traits from their hosts, meaning they've got no choice but to incubate their larva in sentient species to have them born with intelligence.
Time's Enemy
Beyond the Fury, history hides the birth of terror! Time's Enemy is a Pocket DS9 novel – #16 in the numbered series, and the third book in the Invasion! series – written by L.A. Graf. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in August 1996. Sisko, Dax, and Bashir are called to Starbase...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
Devernian Titans: A species, the adults of which are harmless cosmozoans, but they reproduce by dropping their eggs on class-M planets, which hatch into monstrous larva which eat everything organic they can find then burn whatever's left with their stage tree rocket boosters as they launch themselves back into orbit.
Where Sea Meets Sky
Captain Pike braves uncharted dangers! Where Sea Meets Sky is a Pocket TOS novel – the sixth novel in The Captain's Table series – written by Jerry Oltion. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in October 1998. From the back cover There's a bar called "The Captain's Table", where...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
I see this word used a lot to defend bad Trek. Got used a lot to defend the Abrams movies as an example. From what I can tell, though, it basically translates into self-parody at best.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
So, basically classic comedy. A scenario deliberately exaggerated to show just how comically ridiculous even the basic premise is.
...yeah, that sums up a lot of Nu Trek.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I felt like Prodigy did pretty well for itself. Honestly an incredibly dark storyline considering it was aimed at kids, and the continued survival of a franchise is also greatly enhanced by getting the next generation into it early.
The animated format let them get away with a lot of stuff that costuming would have just puked at so we got a lot of aliens we almost never see in regular Trek and an all-alien crew, including some non-humanoids and barely-humanoids. It had a decent array of ships with some favorites coming back along with some new ones.
Apparently, it's been canceled even though ten more episodes have already been made, not sure how that's going to work out. I don't really mind anyway, the 20 episodes we got form a satisfying story arc and conclusion and I don't see that it needs more episodes.
The animated format let them get away with a lot of stuff that costuming would have just puked at so we got a lot of aliens we almost never see in regular Trek and an all-alien crew, including some non-humanoids and barely-humanoids. It had a decent array of ships with some favorites coming back along with some new ones.
Apparently, it's been canceled even though ten more episodes have already been made, not sure how that's going to work out. I don't really mind anyway, the 20 episodes we got form a satisfying story arc and conclusion and I don't see that it needs more episodes.
I think there's at least two major overarching camps of Trek fans:
- The ones who take Trek super seriously all the time.
- The ones who acknowledge that it can be absurd at times.
The problem is that the first camp isn't really being served, mostly because the quality of writing isn't there. But I do think there's a lot "exceeding the parody" tendency to people who reflexively hate all of post-2017 Trek. Like, yeah, there are problems, but if I could send Lower Decks, all of Picard, and Strange New Worlds back in time to me in the early 2000s, I think even that me (who was pretty "Trek is SRS BSNS") would admit that most of that output is better than middling to bad Voyager and Enterprise.
I have no idea if it's actually cancelled, since they literally announced they were trying to shop the show out to other networks or something.
The upcoming Star Trek grand strategy game seems like it has potential:
Comes out October 12, $30 for the regular edition, $40 for the Digital Deluxe version.
Article: The Stellaris DNA is overt from the moment you start playing; most of the game's mechanics and systems are going to be extremely familiar if you're a fan. Science ships to explore and survey systems, construction ships to build starbases and claim territory, and myriad mysterious space rocks to collect and devise new technologies from. Edicts, Traditions, and even the byzantine Claim system for acquiring territory in wars all return, but modified to fit a Star Trek mold.
The Traditions, for example, each feature a unique selection only available to one faction—like Progress for the Federation, or Misdirection for the Romulans. The rest are spread into choices: defense or conquest, research or development, commerce or welfare. Some of Star Trek's best stories are about difficult choices, and this structure added to the idea that I was crafting my own unique entry.
Every time I turned a corner in Star Trek: Infinite, I ran into something that reinforced how much Nimble Giant loves the source material. For example, there's a narrative event after you build the Enterprise where Wesley Crusher brings something to your attention and you can tell him to shut up. More materially, each faction has important story beats pulled from the canon, like first contact with the Borg or the Cardassians' turn toward peace after the signing of the Treaty of Bajor. These encounters determine the course of your playthrough, and it's the Mission Tree that lets you explore these stories.
The Mission Tree is essentially a quest log. It sets goals for you to accomplish that represent events in the history of your faction. When you achieve them, you unlock further goals and get rewards like permanent bonuses to your faction or massive chunks of resources. These serve to give your game some structure, and further cement each faction's identity. The early missions for the Federation require you to explore lots of star systems and research anomalies, whereas the Klingons are more interested in building a large fleet and recruiting strong leaders to guide it.
The system feels great, and I think it's the beating heart of Infinite. One thing I find myself struggling with in grand strategy games is a sort of lost feeling toward the middle game. This system introduces story beats but also gives you some guidance on what sorts of things your faction likes to be doing and rewards you for doing them. There's an entire section devoted to building the Enterprise from TNG and recruiting its iconic cast, each crew member requiring you to run missions specific to their expertise. Complete them all and you can upgrade the Enterprise to its Sovereign-class version, which is an absolute monster.
What's encouraging about these narrative systems is that it doesn't seem like you're simply playing out a single-track victory condition for each faction. The Mission Tree branches, and you'll make meaningful decisions within it. Do you embrace the Cardassians' fascist nature, or redeem them and free their enslaved peoples? As the Romulans, do you accept Federation aid when the star by Romulus collapses, or give in to your people's overweening pride and face the consequences? There are only a couple of these for each faction, but they feel like they add meaningful differences to their respective playthroughs.
Technical director Andres Ricardo Chamarra told me a bit more about their philosophy of choice in the game. "There are a lot of 'What If' scenarios in Star Trek. If you watch DS9, for example, there are a couple of times the Federation is in danger of going full dark," Chamarra says, referring to the wartime decisions the Federation makes in order to defend itself against The Dominion, like the creation of a military units like Red Squad, which you could say go against Federation doctrine. "All of these moments had a possible alternative, and we wanted to give the players agency by letting them make those decisions." To capture this alternative path, the Mission Tree lets Federation players make a choice between open borders and diplomacy or closed borders and spycraft, leaning into the autocratic possibilities the shows explored.
...
Your actions also influence the decisions the AI makes. In my first game as the Federation, I ignored diplomacy for a while and focused on science and exploration, and the Cardassians left me alone—clearly pursuing their more peaceful mission tree. In my second attempt, I supported Bajoran independence as my very first game action (I really wanted to build DS9), and sure enough a few years later the Cardassians came gunning for me. By the time I reclaimed Denobula from them, I discovered all they had built there were surveillance complexes—they were well on their way toward a dark path.
At first brush, this mixture of lore-accurate starting points with branching decisions is what I'm looking for in a Star Trek grand strategy game. The Bajorans, for example, always appear in between Cardassia and the Federation, with the Betazoids off to one side of the Federation's home space. There are a bunch of other minor factions, including the Ferengi, that are procedurally placed around the map.
Comes out October 12, $30 for the regular edition, $40 for the Digital Deluxe version.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
MOO/GalCiv/Imperium Galactica in Trek clothing, maybe.
The number of 4x games has definitely increased as of late.
It's a stripped down version of stellaris.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Might as well just download one of the Star Trek mods for the game, yes.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Oh, it is Paradox...
Seems to be Stellaris mashed up with a bit of Endless Space, given the questline stuff.
That said, the questline system makes me genuinely interested in picking the game up once modding tools are available and proven. You could do a lot of stuff with that, and to be super honest, the plain grand strategy/4X stuff doesn't really do much for me, since I don't get a big kick out of big number like other gamers do.
Star Trek: Infinite drops some real nice art:
I think the artists are fans of Gowron, because they nailed his portrait.
(The pics are huge and very nice, so check out the full post.)
Article: The first of these pillars is Consistency. We wanted the Star Trek IP to be presented in a respectful, consistent, and synergistic way, to better help us visualize the wondrous universe of grand strategy games. These three key elements will help us analyze the treatment to give to each of the artistic elements integrated into the game. Each of the assets must fulfill these three purposes, without exception.
This brings us to the second pillar, Classic Trek. The goal is to fulfill trekkie expectations so that they are comfortable with, and can identify with, the use of the classic IP vision for the game. Establishing this rule greatly simplified our decision-making when choosing the characters, the places they occupy within the canon (both for the actors and the audience), the models of the ships, and above all, faithfully representing the source material, as the franchise was built over many decades.
In order to apply all of this correctly, another pillar, Stylization, is defined. In the spaceship stylization for this type of strategy game, legibility will always be prioritized, and will respect the IP boundaries. One of the biggest challenges in the styling proposal came with the 3D models of the ships and structures. Although I was aware that the ship designs had to be adapted to be able to be used in the game engine, the methodology that was used when reducing information was to reverse-engineer the key elements of each design, extract them, and preserve their essence in the redesign.
I think the artists are fans of Gowron, because they nailed his portrait.
(The pics are huge and very nice, so check out the full post.)
evilchumlee
Well-known member
Yeah. Trek is very rough.
I did think Picard Season 3 finally did it right. I honestly didn't hate Picard as a whole. Far from perfect, but a far better attempt.
Discovery became almost kind of watchable with the time jump. It could have been salvaged by moving Burnham to the background, but alas... Burnham Christ must cry every situation away.
And Lower Decks is fun, but I wish Paramount wasn't trying to suggest it actually takes place in Star Trek. Like, let it be a fun parody/tribute show.
Infinite's artwork is nice... the game is kind of "meh". It's not terrible.
They have done a good job in trying to adapt a 4x game to fit well into a defined time period. The artwork is done as a labor of love for Trek and has some fun nods that could have been ignored, like some of the Cardassian portraits have the old TNG-style uniforms.
What is more of a problem was using Stellaris as the base. Stellaris is a fun game, but given the focus on ships in Trek... it doesn't work. Space warfare is just... Stellaris, swarms of tiny ships zipping all around the system. You barely see the ships and they don't behave at all like Trek ships.