Star Trek

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Star Trek is one of the classic nerd interests, with over 40 years of Geek history that span several generations, and is the longest running Sci-fi franchise...Ever. If you are a nerd (and you are, otherwise why the fuck would you be on this site?) you are at least somewhat familiar with Star Trek.

Star Trek is to gwai-lo barbarians what Gundam is to weeaboo faggots.

So why should I care?

Because between them, these 5 TV series and their assorted spinoff movies, books, etc. provide inspiration for any sci-fi game you could care to run. If you want light-hearted action, look at the sort of things that happened in TOS or DS9 to get the crew into some dangerous situation. If you want a charismatic villain, look at Ghul Dukat or the Borg Queen. If you want moral issues and debates, look at the shit that happened to Voyager. But more than all this Star Trek represents a fallback to a time and mentality that dared to dream of greater ideals and more meaningful pursuits than the standard conquer-the-universe cliches that most genres milk upon. It is in point a polar opposite to the gritty, dark, hopelessness of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Setting

Here's the York Notes on Star Trek (or Cliff's Notes if you're an Americanuck).

The Original Series

"Wagon Train to the stars". Created in 1966 (yea, wow) by legendary sci-fi god Gene Roddenberry, it's a Pulpy adventure sci-fi, with fist-fights and gunfights and occasionally sword-fights. The Original Series isn't deep, folks. It's good, hammy fun, monster-of-the-week type stuff. The USS Enterprise is tasked by the Federation to seek out new worlds and boldly go where no man has gone before. James T. Kirk is the captain, and he fucks and fights his way to victory. Mr. Spock is cold and logical, Dr. McCoy is rash and emotional and Scotty gets shit done.

The Next Generation

Here's where it starts getting a little deeper, and a little darker. The USS Enterprise-D (usually just called Enterprise) is once again tasked with going where no-one has gone before, but this time around the problems are less likely to be solved in a single episode. Jean-Luc Picard is the captain, and he plots and negotiates his way to victory. Mr. Data is cold and unemotional (but he'd like to learn emotions), Riker and Worf have sex and punch things, respectively, and Geordi LaForge gets shit done.

Deep Space Nine

Unlike all the other series so far, Deep Space Nine primarily takes place on a space station - the titular Deep Space Nine, out near the borders of Federation Space. Said space station is near a recently-freed world and a wormhole, so all sorts of crazy shit goes down. It's a lot more political than other series (Though TNG and Voyager have their moments) and the last series to have Gene Roddenberry's involvement.

Voyager

Voyager is...well, it's controversial. Many people say it's the worst series, but it has its fans. The USS Voyager gets teleported over to the other side of the galaxy, and the plot of the series as a whole centres on its efforts to get back home. Like TNG and DS9, it's a character-driven drama just as often as it is a sci-fi adventure romp. Plus, Seven of Nine is HAWT and Gets Shit Done.

Enterprise

This is the closest series to being genuinely, objectively bad. It's a prequel to the rest, taking place on the first enterprise, before the Federation got a lot of shit figured out - so there's a lot of primitive versions of things from other series. At least the uniforms were pretty cool, in an air force sort of way.

Games

There's been plenty of vidya gaems featuring Star Trek, including one of the earliest action multiplayer wargame: Netrek. There's also been plenty of tabletop gaming that was inspired by Star Trek without being merchandising bullshit.

• Star Fleet Battles (1979-2010) The crunchiest starship combat game you're ever going to find outside of a computer. Takes some liberties with the setting, which is why "Star Trek" isn't actually in the title.
• Call To Arms: Star Trek (2011) Their license for Babylon-5 expired, so they rethemed the game to Star Trek along with improving the system to make it more nifty. Less micro-management than SFB, and ships get some cinematic feats.
• Star Trek: Expeditions (2011) Ignore the tie-ins to the movie, Reiner Knizia designed this. Explore the gameboard, flip over missions, try to have the proper crew to get victory points.
• Star Trek: Fleet Captains (2011) Tile flipping, exploring, and spaceships fighting over resources
• Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (1983) FASA designed this, so it feels like Battletech but not as good.
• Star Trek Red Alert (2000) A Diskwars game themed to Star Trek.
• Star Trek CCG (many) There's been a few of these, but never popular enough to catch on. They also suffered from the game balance problems of fans wanting their fave character, but needed extra rules for their quirks. Latest versions are "deck-building" games to try to cash in on the popularity of Dominion and Thunderstone.

Star Trek IX (2009 movie)

There are two sides to every story, and when you can't compromise you can see two completely different views of the same goddamn thing. What we need is compromise. What we have is well... To get things straight, people either love or hate this movie for what it is and it can be summarized in two paragraphs:

• Trekkie Hipsters think: This was given to be a total revamp of the entire Star Trek universe, a modernization that would invite new generations of Trekkers to the fold. It resulted in one of the largest nerdrage controversies in the history of Sci-fi, with J.J. Abrams labeled as a total fucktard for effectively ignoring 45 years of Star Trek history. Set in the timeline of the 'The Original Series', it adds flashy, sexy, lens-flare faggotry to the aging Star Trek universe. Featuring a newly redesigned Enterprise that looks like it was built by Apple and more action than an entire season of TOS, it did indeed win new fans over. It also, to be fair, pissed off a lot of the old fans, but let's be honest: they could have remade Wrath of Khan shot for shot and old fans would have been pissed off about something. Regardless of what happened in the movie, Abrams' Star Trek maybe the future catalyst to a whole new generation of Trekkies that will carry on the Trek name long after all the rest of the Old Ones are gone.

• Trekkie Fanboys think: This was given to be a total revamp of the entire Star Trek universe, a modernization that would invite new generations of Trekkers to the fold. It resulted in one of the largest nerdrage controversies in the history of Sci-fi, with J.J. Abrams labeled as a total fucktard for effectively deleting 45 years of Star Trek history. Set in the timeline of the 'The Original Series' (where good ol' Abrams could do the most damage), it adds flashy, sexy, lens-flare faggotry to the aging Gene Roddenberry Star Trek universe. Featuring a newly redesigned so-totally-Not-phallic ship (the Enterprise), and proceeds to butcher and rape Star Trek fluff from there. Now, let's be straight here, many concessions have been made through the years over the course Star Trek lore has progressed/digressed and modernized; Voyager and Enterprise, are just two examples of such concessions. Trekkies concede that writers are not perfect, that fluff errors and intentional alterations to some aspects of the lore are indeed necessary to reach new audiences. However, the concessions stop when 'some aspects of the lore' become The Entire 45 year History of Trek. For any sci-fi fan, there is no excuse for such blatant, remorseless obliteration of not only just a timeline, but ultimately THE Timeline where the previous Kirk, Picard, Sisco, and Janeway existed as they were represented in each of their own series. All that is gone, as if it never existed.

Extra Note: To put into perspective, it is as if during the 1775 American Revolutionary War, the entire North American continent disappeared off the face of the globe. All that history; the Industrial rev, Edison (on second thought, take Edison, its all about Tesla), Lincoln, Hollywood itself, Star Wars, Hamburgers (Did anyone else pass out when they read that?), Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc etc...Is gone. Erased by people like J. J. Abrams. Who would NOT rage?

>> Trekkie debates are so much more civilized than the rest of /tg/. DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS

Would you like to know more?

• http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/ Main Memory Alpha: Star Trek wiki
• http://sfdebris.com/main.asp SF Derbis' opinionated episode reviews, has some non trek stuff as well