Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans

DarthOne

☦️
What the fuck is this abomination on my screen?

Fuck, is nothing sacred?

They've ruined Halo, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Doctor Who, and Star Trek.

Thank God they've never heard of Babylon 5.

We're going to need to start our own franchise if we want any decent fucking stories again.
Yeah, I never through I'd be so happy that Babylon 5 isn't as well known in the public eye these days until about three years ago. Thank god they aren't trying for a remake.

Babylon 5- The Last Old Sci-fi Franchise Standing
 
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Yeah, I never through I'd be so happy that Babylon 5 isn't as well known in the public eye these days until about three years ago. Thank god they aren't trying for a remake.

Babylon 5- The Last Old Sci-fi Franchise Standing

That’s exactly the same as I feel. It’s why I have gone all-in for B5 fandom since 2015. To some extent it’s why this forum is here, @Harlock ’s writing became a big deal for me again circa the time Star Wars collapsed into hell.
 

DarthOne

☦️
That’s exactly the same as I feel. It’s why I have gone all-in for B5 fandom since 2015. To some extent it’s why this forum is here, @Harlock ’s writing became a big deal for me again circa the time Star Wars collapsed into hell.
Well, in that case, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear I have one Babylon 5 crossover stories being written and two more being planed out.Without going too much into detail, two of the crossovers will be with RWBY with the remaining one being with Star Trek: Deep Space 9. And yes, I will be ignoring STD's....additions... to canon in their entirely for the Star trek crossover.
 
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Well, in that case, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear I have one Babylon 5 crossover stories being written and two more being planed out.Without going too much into detail, two of the crossovers will be with RWBY with the remaining one being with Star Trek: Deep Space 9. And yes, I will be ignoring STD's....additions... to canon in their entirely for the Star trek crossover.

Both will be interesting although the first should be nearly as odd as my own B5/FK/Highlander crossover.
 

bullethead

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Sad news for Trek fans - Odo has passed:

On a happier note, CBS and Paramount finally remerged:
The deal brings Viacom’s Paramount Pictures and cable channels such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and BET together with the CBS broadcast network, Showtime, 28 O&O TV stations, CBS All Access and Simon & Schuster. The combined company, lead by Viacom CEO Bob Bakish, will have annual revenue of about $28 billion.

...

While the merger is now complete, the new company has work to do yet on Wall Street. CBS and Viacom shares have dropped about 19% and 24%, respectively, since the long-expected deal was confirmed on Aug. 13.

The company has promised to deliver at least $500 million in synergy savings within two years of the closing — a number that suggests that there will be inevitable layoffs as overlapping operations are eliminated. ViacomCBS expects to offer more financial guidance for the company after the release of the enlarged company’s first earnings report in February.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Well, a more interesting premise than Star Trek: Discovery and people who give more of a fuck about continuity and canon than not at all. Plus it's probably got a better resolution to the Borg than the novels whipped up. It's also got someone who actually knows/understands scifi running the show, which automatically gives it much better odds of being good than Discovery.

I know you maybe had no way of knowing the truth, but I seem to recall seeing signs that this would not be the case, and that things would probably turnout worse because it would involve existing characters who had a definite on-screen history that would probably be ignored, and boy was I right. So I couldn't help but read this and go
 
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So I re-read destiny this past week. You know the novel series where the Borg are finally defeated. Shame the novel verse is non canon.

Anyway here are some thoughts

-The Caeliar aren’t necessarily benevolent but they are definitely not malevolent. Their neutral in a way that leans benevolent. I didn’t recall just how deeply Inyx cared about Erika Hernandez.
-As for Erika herself, I’d say my main complaints are she acts and seems broken, and then flees when she can, and then leaves with the caeliar. I don’t have a problem with this-and her “I’m a Caeliar now, I just wasn’t able to accept it” is still very poignant. But we don’t have her POV for these shifts. For her escape, her broken state, and her choice to leave with her new community. Maybe that was intentional. I would just have liked some connecting tissue here. Personally I wish Mack had given a POV of her after the Borg were merged into the gestalt-where she realizes that not only can she be a part of this new community-but that there is nothing on earth for her. And maybe love of Inyx as a factor as well. A since as well as that 800 years have left her less and less human and more Caeliar. It’s not inconsistent-it’s just we don’t see her thought process. The book was long enough to be sure
-Bacco’s speech is Star Trek. It epitomizes the optimism and warmth of Star Trek as a series.
-Still dislike the lack of voyager beyond the Chakotay cameo and seven dooming for the council(in fairness she’s right). The Borg were central antagonists on voyager and so making them side characters was more than a little disappointing. janeway was dead though so I can understand how they would affect things.
-Riker and Deanna’s marital issues are understandable. They just take up a lot of page time.
- Ezri Dax is a bit too...hardass. Her vulnerability and counselor’s background is something I like a lot about her in DS9. Not that being a captain is bad or anything-it’s just she’s made into hard action woman. I do think Nicole De Boer in a hypothetical adaptation would be absolutely amazing though.
- Destiny upon re read mostly holds up. And my complaints are the same as they were when I first read it, except that Erika’s decision making is seen through other POVs in the last section of the book.
-Hirogen are awesome and Worf fighting them is also awesome.
-I can totally see the actors in this series.
-The Borg have their final swan song. And go out swinging. One thing I do like is how Picard points out to Beverly that janeway’s reports show just what a juggernaut the Borg are. Far from rendering the Borg weak-voyager does show through the numbers and scale of the Borg collective just how obscenely powerful they are.
-The MACOs come across as assholish. Which is a trope in sci fi for the military. But then again-expecting Graylock and Pembleton and Foyle-men who are soldiers and foremost doers-to just meekly submit to guilded captivity-isn’t more realistic that what they did do. Still killing 98% of the Caeliar was a gigantic screw up. Then the survivors either being one court martialed or two made the first Borg drones. Having one MACO survive with Erika and friends a male, would have changed the dynamic a lot. Which would have been interesting.

All in all 9/10. 8.5 out of ten if I am not being generous.

Don’t understand why destiny gets so much flack.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
So I re-read destiny this past week. You know the novel series where the Borg are finally defeated. Shame the novel verse is non canon.

Anyway here are some thoughts

-The Caeliar aren’t necessarily benevolent but they are definitely not malevolent. Their neutral in a way that leans benevolent. I didn’t recall just how deeply Inyx cared about Erika Hernandez.
-As for Erika herself, I’d say my main complaints are she acts and seems broken, and then flees when she can, and then leaves with the caeliar. I don’t have a problem with this-and her “I’m a Caeliar now, I just wasn’t able to accept it” is still very poignant. But we don’t have her POV for these shifts. For her escape, her broken state, and her choice to leave with her new community. Maybe that was intentional. I would just have liked some connecting tissue here. Personally I wish Mack had given a POV of her after the Borg were merged into the gestalt-where she realizes that not only can she be a part of this new community-but that there is nothing on earth for her. And maybe love of Inyx as a factor as well. A since as well as that 800 years have left her less and less human and more Caeliar. It’s not inconsistent-it’s just we don’t see her thought process. The book was long enough to be sure
-Bacco’s speech is Star Trek. It epitomizes the optimism and warmth of Star Trek as a series.
-Still dislike the lack of voyager beyond the Chakotay cameo and seven dooming for the council(in fairness she’s right). The Borg were central antagonists on voyager and so making them side characters was more than a little disappointing. janeway was dead though so I can understand how they would affect things.
-Riker and Deanna’s marital issues are understandable. They just take up a lot of page time.
- Ezri Dax is a bit too...hardass. Her vulnerability and counselor’s background is something I like a lot about her in DS9. Not that being a captain is bad or anything-it’s just she’s made into hard action woman. I do think Nicole De Boer in a hypothetical adaptation would be absolutely amazing though.
- Destiny upon re read mostly holds up. And my complaints are the same as they were when I first read it, except that Erika’s decision making is seen through other POVs in the last section of the book.
-Hirogen are awesome and Worf fighting them is also awesome.
-I can totally see the actors in this series.
-The Borg have their final swan song. And go out swinging. One thing I do like is how Picard points out to Beverly that janeway’s reports show just what a juggernaut the Borg are. Far from rendering the Borg weak-voyager does show through the numbers and scale of the Borg collective just how obscenely powerful they are.
-The MACOs come across as assholish. Which is a trope in sci fi for the military. But then again-expecting Graylock and Pembleton and Foyle-men who are soldiers and foremost doers-to just meekly submit to guilded captivity-isn’t more realistic that what they did do. Still killing 98% of the Caeliar was a gigantic screw up. Then the survivors either being one court martialed or two made the first Borg drones. Having one MACO survive with Erika and friends a male, would have changed the dynamic a lot. Which would have been interesting.

All in all 9/10. 8.5 out of ten if I am not being generous.

Don’t understand why destiny gets so much flack.
Destiny obviously gets so much flak for having the audacity to destroy the USS Gibraltar aka a member of the Sovereign class aka one of the prettiest starship designs to come out of Star Trek
 
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Destiny obviously gets so much flak for having the audacity to destroy the USS Gibraltar aka a member of the Sovereign class aka one of the prettiest starship designs to come out of Star Trek
I imagine your being sarcastic(well with trek fans maybe not).

Do you have anything substantive to say about the review?
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
I imagine your being sarcastic(well with trek fans maybe not).

Do you have anything substantive to say about the review?
Nope I agree that you pretty much hit the mark with your review as I to very much enjoyed the series but I do agree with you that it had some flaws. Although I might be biased in Destiny's favor as it introduced me to the novel verse. And yes I was being sarcastic in my previous post
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
By the way is anyone a fan of the Star Trek Armada III mod for Sins of a Solar Empire? If so we should try to set up a community event,heck if we can get 5 people to be part of it we can do a event against the Borg
 

Battlegrinder

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By the way is anyone a fan of the Star Trek Armada III mod for Sins of a Solar Empire? If so we should try to set up a community event,heck if we can get 5 people to be part of it we can do a event against the Borg

I've played it a bit. It normally works very well, my one issue is that, that all similar mods, it doesn't have a solution for the fact that once you have more than, say, ten or 15 ships, the sound of all those phasers firing at once gets horrifically annoying.
 
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Nope I agree that you pretty much hit the mark with your review as I to very much enjoyed the series but I do agree with you that it had some flaws. Although I might be biased in Destiny's favor as it introduced me to the novel verse. And yes I was being sarcastic in my previous post
Destiny I think is somewhat overly ambitious and focuses on certain minute details. Leading to a sense of unevenness. I’m not expecting it to be the marvel endgame crews team up-when that’s not its purpose(especially with the proceeding novels).

All in al though, I really do love the series. It concludes the Borg and sets up the dynamic post borg astropolitics in the novel verse. As well as being Roddenberryian in theme.

I sort of wish we had more on the Caeliar as well. Especially just a science fiction examination of the gestalt.

Anyway I need to find my copy of Rise Like Lions to do a re-read of that.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
I've played it a bit. It normally works very well, my one issue is that, that all similar mods, it doesn't have a solution for the fact that once you have more than, say, ten or 15 ships, the sound of all those phasers firing at once gets horrifically annoying.
I just turn down the effects by around 50% and that mostly solves the problem
 
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One aspect I like about the gestalt in Destiny-is that to join, the subject has subconsciously and consciously “surrender” to it. If they are injected with catoms and reject it they die or lose their sense of self.

This is contrasted with the forcible assimilation of the Borg.

From a sci fi thematic perspective-the gestalt only works if the individual agrees to surrender their “separation” of sorts and become part of the greater whole. They don’t lose their individuality but they are tied to something beyond themselves in a way that can not be reversed.

Borg assimilation is over the will of the individual.

That is one aspect where the series asks readers to imagine some sort of trans human transformation and it be a good thing.

I think I could join the gestalt.
 

bullethead

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Honestly, Destiny is a microcosm of the problems of the post-DS9 Trek novelverse:
-Another big Federation spanning crisis within five years of the Dominion War, a conflict that already kicked the shit out of the Alpha Quadrant
-The Borg not being dead, therefore plaguing the novels with the same curse as the shows, where their overwhelming force reduces them to an existential threat that must be eliminated for the sake of the franchise's own survival
-David Mack being let off the chain and just killing fucktons of people and planets for the sake of drama
-Early TNG sanctimoniousness in a lot of characters, despite literally all these people except the Voyager crew surviving a brutal ass war five years earlier that should've knocked some sense into them
-Key plot points revolving around super powerful aliens who are apparently too stupid to do shit rando-aliens did in a fucking one-off TNG episode, despite their superior tech, because they are massive assholes (which is at least consistent with how most alien races are portrayed in Trek)

Like, if you look at the criticisms of DS9 and Picard as being grimdark, they don't have shit on Destiny in terms of the death toll and long term repercussions that (should) result. Seriously, the fact that the Borg were hitting the Federation almost exclusively in Destiny means that, on top of the massive refugee crisis caused by the destruction of multiple planets that would stress an already weakened Federation, literally everybody who wants a piece of the Federation's territory would come in and kick the ass of whatever tatters of a border defense they have left. And that's assuming balkanization wouldn't kick in before that (it sure as fuck would after, as the worlds that can muster resources to defend themselves would horde that shit) due to the cumulative damage done by all the other multi-part novels.

And it's not like they can just go "We're rescinding the ban on Genesis tech to repair these busted up planets," because they did a fucking storyline that was apparently "Genesis caused super bad shit that's kicking in nearly a hundred years later."

The fact that the Federation survives a nightmare scenario that should break any interstellar nation speaks to the blind optimism that the writers apparently believe is part and parcel of Trek.

Compared to shit like that, one gory death, the Federation tossing their hands up and saying "fuck it" to helping out a race of douchebags that had to be tricked into siding with good, blowing up the Romulan sun & apparently balkanizing the Empire + creating a refugee crisis that generates racism on border worlds, and some of the wonky or dumb writing decisions of Picard are small time. At least Michael Chabon and company comprehend that narrative brutality must be applied on a small scale for maximum effect, haven't engaged in Mass Effect 3 levels of scorched earthing the setting, and don't leave me asking "How the fuck does the Federation still exist?"
 
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Another big Federation spanning crisis within five years of the Dominion War, a conflict that already kicked the shit out of the Alpha Quadrant
My knowledge of Trek novels is relatively limited-but...I don't think there are that many large scale crises? The next one in the timeline that's existential level is the Hobus supernova
The Borg not being dead, therefore plaguing the novels with the same curse as the shows, where their overwhelming force reduces them to an existential threat that must be eliminated for the sake of the franchise's own survival
Um, Destiny solves this problem? The Borg are dealt with for all time. Picard can't say the same.
David Mack being let off the chain and just killing fucktons of people and planets for the sake of drama
No one major died? Like Tuvok's son, Owen Paris, and some other relations to main characters. But no one that is like a central star.
Early TNG sanctimoniousness in a lot of characters, despite literally all these people except the Voyager crew surviving a brutal ass war five years earlier that should've knocked some sense into them
Picard is despondent and hopeless. Riker and Troi have deep marital issues, Worf feels he isn't ever going to get a command. What sanctimoniousness are you referring to?
Key plot points revolving around super powerful aliens who are apparently too stupid to do shit rando-aliens did in a fucking one-off TNG episode, despite their superior tech, because they are massive assholes (which is at least consistent with how most alien races are portrayed in Trek)
Ehrm? The Caeliar's way of doing things is extremely consistent. They are super non violent to the point of nearly allowing themselves to be genocided. They value their secrecy and privacy to extreme degrees. This puts them in conflict with the protagonists-but its not assholish behavior, just values dissonance.

Seriously, the fact that the Borg were hitting the Federation almost exclusively in Destiny means that, on top of the massive refugee crisis caused by the destruction of multiple planets that would stress an already weakened Federation, literally everybody who wants a piece of the Federation's territory would come in and kick the ass of whatever tatters of a border defense they have left. And that's assuming balkanization wouldn't kick in before that (it sure as fuck would after, as the worlds that can muster resources to defend themselves would horde that shit) due to the cumulative damage done by all the other multi-part novels.
Bacco assembles a coalition that gets the tar beat out of it. The Tholians and Gorn, and Tzenkethi and Breen are the only powers that come out somewhat stronger. The Romulans were already divided before hand. None of these powers trust each other, and the Klingons and Romulans got hit hard too. As did many independent worlds.

The fact that the Federation survives a nightmare scenario that should break any interstellar nation speaks to the blind optimism that the writers apparently believe is part and parcel of Trek.
Because it is? Like its absolutely central to Trek. That's why Destiny ends with the Borg absorbed into a benevolent collective not militarily destroyed.
 

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