Wednesday, June 19, 2013

"Star Trek Continues" Clip And Star Ships & Space Men Second Edition


Star Trek Continues V03 "Happy Birthday, Scotty" from Star Trek Continues on Vimeo.



In case you haven't seen 'Star Trek Continues' here's a pretty funny little clip from the episode " Happy Birthday, Scotty" that clearly shows what happens when the crew of the Enterprise upgrades their hand phasers. 
 I was reminded of the many times a party of adventurers in a science fiction game upgrades or levels up through alien treasures or experience points. Especially, Star Ships and Space Men second edition. The various missions of the Enterprise certainly reflect some of the tropes encountered by players of the various science fiction and science fantasies.
I keep thinking that there might actually be a hook here. The PC's actually get caught at the target range of their ship as some emergency looms. Dr. McKoy's reaction seems to echo certain players attitudes over the years from the allocation of experience points. 

I've often wondered about all those alien artifacts in the various incarnations of 'Star Trek' and the role playing games its inspired namely what happens to them? Is there a xeno archaeology department that handles all of the data. Then it trickles into the various star ship data bases so that the science officers  aboard can siphon through it? No actually its Chris Doohan's character Scotty's department of engineering that gets to disassemble the various alien gizmos they find. 

We get to see quite a bit of the Star Fleet Engineering spirit in the first episode of 'Star Trek Continues'. The  fact that Mr.Scott had so much contact with "Apollo" and is some what familiar with the "Gods" technology reminds me of the Star Fleet Corps of Engineer books. These make a perfect premise for a game of Star Ships and Space Men Second edition!
The premise goes something like this according to Memory Alpha wik: 
"As with the US military of the 20th century, there has always been a Corps of Engineers – a group who builds bridges, fixes machines, and solves engineering problems. In Star Trek, this group solves engineering problems in space that are too complicated, or take too much time, for a larger starship crew to handle. When the USS Enterprise-E disables a deserted alien battlestation, for example, it is the SCE that comes to investigate it.
This series centers on the crew of the USS da Vinci, a Saber-class ship that serves as the transportation of an SCE team. The SCE reports to Captain Montgomery Scott (of the original Star Trek), who serves as their liaison with Starfleet Command and also pitches in when his vast store of knowledge can be of help"This premise of an organization that has to do clean up work after the alien space station has been explored, the artifact needs to be wrapped up, and the incredibly dangerous weirdness needs to be contained is perfect for a premise for any science fiction retro-clone! 
The concept can easily be lifted and retrofitted into your own star trek style old school science fantasy campaign. It makes a great throwback for a game where PC's need a bit of an edge on surivival against some of the most dangerous things found in "Federation" style space. 
If you haven't checked out Star Trek Continues first episode " The Pilgrim of Eternity" do yourself a favor and check it out below! 

 
You can find the entire official site for 'Star Trek Continues' right HERE  


4 comments:

  1. I always wanted to see a special ops team using the kironide mineral from "Plato's Stepchildren".

    Or a black ops program to kidnap ESPers and slam them into the barrier at the edge of the galaxy to make controllable demi-gods, maybe as part of a contingency program in case the Q Continuum becomes hostile.

    Or a mission where Star Fleet intelligence on either of these cases has been stolen by the Orions, who plan to auction off the data to the highest bidder. Maybe the data fell into Harry Mudd's hands.

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  2. Make it so Tom! There is so much material to work with from the Star Trek Continuum that it can overwhelm a DM. With over 30 plus years of cannon there's more loose ends then the Marvel universe.
    I think that if your going to start using Star Trek material you've got to create your own timeline. That's one of the reasons that Abhams created his own version of the familiar Star Trek universe. It basic gives one the freedom to play in the world without being tied down to it. Fasa's Star Trek material worked in much the same way.
    What I want to know are the long term side effects that those technologies had.on the Federation. Unless of course its that the head of Star Fleet was suppressing such discoveries from the public. There are so many loose ends to exploit.

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  3. "What I want to know are the long term side effects that those technologies had.on the Federation." That was a complaint of mine with Star Trek. They very rarely allowed technology to progress and when they did it was rarely in a major way. Credit to Next Generation, they occasionally made nods to it, like the secret program to make a Starfleet cloaking device, and learning to beam through allied shields, but still it was apparent that they wanted to keep the technology to a familiar and comfortable status quo.

    Doc Smith's Lensmen books were the opposite. He would push the technology in his books relentlessly forward. That made sense, particularly given the nature of both his universe and the real world he was living in, but sometimes wore me out trying to keep up. He never dealt with how these leaps impacted the civilian world, but went into great detail on how it changed the war against the Boskonian pirates.

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  4. "What I want to know are the long term side effects that those technologies had.on the Federation." That was a complaint of mine with Star Trek. They very rarely allowed technology to progress and when they did it was rarely in a major way. Credit to Next Generation, they occasionally made nods to it, like the secret program to make a Starfleet cloaking device, and learning to beam through allied shields, but still it was apparent that they wanted to keep the technology to a familiar and comfortable status quo. "
    Well this is where Star Fleet Battles really shined. They showed what the impact on warfare would be in the Federation fleet( even if it was an alternative timeline) . Each piece of military hardware changed the course of the game. Made things move along in the grand scheme of things during play. This is one of the areas that war games shine in.

    'Doc Smith's Lensmen books were the opposite. He would push the technology in his books relentlessly forward. That made sense, particularly given the nature of both his universe and the real world he was living in, but sometimes wore me out trying to keep up. He never dealt with how these leaps impacted the civilian world, but went into great detail on how it changed the war against the Boskonian pirates.'
    Doc Smith's stuff was great but I'd hate to have lived in his worlds as a civilian. The world must have moved at a lightning pace and no one man could possibly master all of the technology coming into space ship design, form or function. The whole thing must have been a technician or engineer's nightmare in that world. The impact on the civilian market must have been horrid. Master one area and three more render that technology obsolete in months. Cracking space opera but logistical nightmare. Something that actually gets put into many of my Stars Without Number games.

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