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britesparc · 1 year

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Weekend Top Ten #596

Top Ten Ideas for Star Trek Videogames

So Star Trek. It’s alright, innit? The slower, more cerebral sci-fi show, for Grown Ups who like Talking About Things. As opposed to Star Wars’ sugar rush of wacky aliens and loud weapons. It’s kind of weird now, when both franchises really feel just like stretched-out shared-universe TV serials, but Back In The Day, Star Wars was the exciting, cool movie series, and Star Trek was the serious, nerdy TV series. Everybody could drop a reference to the Death Star or Princess Leia or maybe even a wampa, and basically you were on safe ground. Start talking about dilithium crystals or bat’leths or the Grand Nagus, and people would back away slowly. Nowadays, simultaneously we have a situation where genre TV is all-encompassing, but also its more granular nuances of lore and nerdery are sort of kept to a minimum.

Back in the days of the Wars of Star, though, one way the hyperdrive people had more bragging rights than the warp drive people is through videogames. The nineties were, in a lot of ways, the Golden Age of both properties, and Star Wars excelled in producing some of the greatest of all licenced games. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter space combat games; the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight FPS games; the Rogue Squadron arcade shooter games. They probably reached their zenith with Knights of the Old Republic; since then, there have been good games, but I don’t think anything has shaken the galaxy in the same way. Star Trek, on the other hand, definitely had some great games – shout out to both Klingon Honor Guard and Voyager: Elite Force for being more unusual FPS titles and just generally terrific fun – but it’s hard to think of one that really broke through the way most Star Wars games did. I think because of the more cerebral, slower-paced nature of Trek, a lot of the games fed the fanbase in very specific ways, giving us complex simulations and interactive movies that went deep on the lore and the technobabble.

Anyway, despite the many Trek games on offer, I think nowadays there are some gaps in the market. So, despite my woeful ignorance of the depths that videogame Trek has to offer (I Googled it when writing this thing and there are tons more games in that franchise than I first thought), I’m going to offer my suggestions here. Ideas for games that scratch a particular itch in Trek fandom; areas of the franchise that would translate perfectly to different genres.

And that’s really all there is to it. What more do want from me? I’ve had a busy week.

Star Trek does Mass Effect: after making an official Star Wars RPG with Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare made an original property that clearly owes a debt to Star Trek: Mass Effect. But there’s something in its formula that would perfectly fit an official adaptation. Let’s say you play the First Officer of a starship; during the game you can select your team to go down to planets on away missions, talking to people, solving problems, and occasionally engaging in firefights. Meanwhile you get to walk around the ship, visiting various sections and chatting to the crew. It could be a great mix of discrete “levels” set on planets, with an overarching storyline that allowed for some evolving, emergent gameplay. And maybe there could be a little hidden emote that allows you to sit on a chair like William Riker.

Star Trek does X-COM: there was already an Away Team game, where you played as, well, an away team out on missions, but I think that concept lends itself to a turn-based X-COM style of gameplay. This would most definitely be a tactical combat game, where you have to position your squad behind the usual helpfully-placed crates and boulders to fire your phasers at whatever Cardassian/Romulan/Borg baddie you were facing off with this time. The usual Trek staple of different classes of character – engineers, commanders, etc – would lend a good dose of variety to your squad, as would the nuance of tinkering with your phaser settings and the option of beaming out if things got too tough.

Star Trek does Pandemic: Pandemic is a game where the aim is to spread a virus across the globe, wiping out all of humanity before they can develop a cure. This idea isn’t exactly the same, but what about a tactical game where you play as the Borg? The aim of the game is to assimilate the entire Galaxy. Perhaps the galactic map could be divided into different “powers” – eg Federation space, Romulan, Klingon, etc – and they might have different ways of tackling the Borg, and so you’re dividing time and resources between different tactics. The ultimate goal, though, is to conquer everything and make it all part of the Collective. Resistance is futile, remember!

Star Trek does Gone Home: I’m not necessarily riffing on Gone Home in particular here, but it’s more about those slightly spooky “walking simulators”; things like Dear Esther too. So here you’d have essentially an interactive version of one of those episodes where a member of the crew returns to the ship and discovers that Everything is Different. Here, basically, the plot is that you return from, I dunno, a Bat’leth tournament or a stellar cartography conference or something, to find your starship is utterly deserted. Only by wandering the dimly-lit corridors, speaking to the computer, solving clues, scanning with your tricorder, etc, can you piece together the puzzle and find out what happened. It would be creepy and kooky to begin with, but being Star Trek there’d be a pseudo-scientific explanation.

Star Trek does Superhot: you could definitely argue that the most compelling aspect of Superhot is its trippy time mechanics, with time only moving if you move. But this game would be more in the line of how Superhot plays, meta-textually, with the notion of being a game. You play a person playing the game, and the game in the game turns hostile. So this would be like a recreation of one of the numerous “holodeck goes wrong” episodes (seriously, the holodeck is the most dangerous piece of technology in all of science fiction). So you’d be playing the game, going through different puzzles and scenarios, trying to uncover the real game so you can escape. And the “real” bits, where you’re breaking down the “fake” game, could be rendered in a more stylised, Superhot-esque fashion; although with the old school yellow and black grid as a background.

Star Trek does Sim City: Sim City might not be the best example, but the general gist is you’re establishing one of the many-referenced Federation colonies. So you have to go out and tame the wilderness, making atmospheres breathable, building different buildings to regulate water or harvest local minerals. There could be a campaign where you’re tasked with running different colonies for different reasons – mining dilithium, setting up a research centre, etc – or a sandbox mode where you just basically cover a planet with your futuristic colony.

Star Trek does Startopia: shrinking things down a little bit more we have this, basically a Deep Space Nine simulator. You’re given a run-down starbase to manage, Sisko-style, and have to turn it into a bustling galactic hive. Yes, you can specialise in military or scientific research, or spy on the Cardassians or something; maybe you can even start churning out Galaxy-class starships. But you could also make it a home, creating shops and restaurants, living quarters, schools (watch out for Bajoran extremists!); basically, create the outpost of your dreams. Even open a branch of Quark’s!

Star Trek does Overcooked: speaking of Quark’s, this game would double-down on that setting, where you play another distant relative of everyone’s favourite duplicitous bar-owner, who’s been given the job of running a franchise. So here you not only need to make sure your dabo tables are turning in a profit and that there are adequate, er, stimulations in the holosuites, but also that you’re serving your customers. So you run from one job to the next, throwing drinks at grumpy Irish engineers and occasionally shouting “allamaraine”. And if you cock up a drink order or your racht dies before anyone has chance to eat it, Quark comes in and tweaks your ears.

Star Trek does Elite: really, this one seems kind of obvious, and I’m not certain that they’ve not actually done a version of it. But you’d play an independent pilot – maybe like Rios from Picard – who has a small ship, ferrying cargo or passengers. And, like the galaxy’s most famous space-sim, you can upgrade your ship as you progress, buying a bigger boat to take more cargo. And you can play it by the book – dealing with the Federation would mean protection, access to advanced technology, but also an inability to make profit in a society where money doesn’t really exist anymore – or you can go rogue, smuggling contraband to shady individuals around the Alpha Quadrant. Maybe you could even become a space pirate! Steal a cloaking device from a derelict Klingon cruiser, buy a couple of black market quantum torpedoes, and away you go!

Star Trek does Arkham Asylum: so the Arkham reference here is that this would be a third-person action adventure game focused on physical combat and exploration, but you’d play as a Klingon. Sent off on high-risk missions by the Chancellor, you’d visit far-flung planets, investigate mysteries, and beat up just tons of people. Expand your abilities, augment your tech, and buy a bigger Bat’leth, learning all kinds of vicious fighting techniques. Like Klingon Honor Guard of yore, the focus on Star Trek’s knobbly space Vikings means it can revel in the blood and the guts, swigging blood wine and deciding that today is a good day to die. Qapla'!

Sadly no room for a Pokémon-style Tribbles game, but ah well.

#top ten #movies #tv #games #gaming #star trek

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quasi-normalcy · 6 years

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Me: The Klingon episodes on Discovery have too much violence. It's not very Star Trekish.

My Brain: ...Didn't you play, like, 2,000 hours of "Klingon Honour Guard" when you were eleven years old?

My Brain: As I recall, you liked hitting enemies with the Assault Disruptor so that you could watch them disintegrate in slow motion.

Me: That. Was. DIFFERENT.

#star trek discovery #Star Trek Klingon Honor Guard #calling myself out on my hypocrisy

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raybyanothername · 4 years

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The Old Guard AU Idea - Star Trek Edition

I am aware I haven't written fic for Any of my AU ideas yet, but uh... Star Trek! My OG fandom! Had to ramble a little right?

-.-.-

Andy is a Klingon. She's skilled in the art of battle and can drink enough blood wine in a single sitting to make an entire starship drunk. There's rumors that she is an exile from one of the Great Houses, but no one has ever asked her about it. At least, no one has asked and lived to tell the tale..

Quynh is a Romula, or a Vulcan, or perhaps she's human. She has pointed ears and can smile serenly while she kills you, so most people guess Romulan. In reality she is both Romulan and Vulcan, though the difference is neglible both societies view her as Other. The Vulcan High Council captures her fighting for the Klingons and lock her away. They expected the solitude to drive her to insanity. It does not.

Lykon is half-betazoid, half-bajoran and found by Andy and Quynh when his family is killed by Cardassians. They raise him to fight, and fight he does. Telepathy and a spear are all it takes for him to catch up to the Cardassian Gul who had given the order for his family's death.

Joe is Federation, a Trill from the north who has rejected the near worship of joined Trill on his homeland. He's lived on Earth and various colonies, but mostly, he's lived on spaceships. And now, he's got his own. The Billah is an Apollo-class transport ship.

Nicky is a Cardassian deserter. He met Joe during the war and came to the realization that his destiny was to loge this man, not destroy him. He is reviled by Cardassians as a traitor, a badge he wears with honor as he serves about Joe's ship as a medical officer. He's the first Cardassian to ever be accepted into the Federation, for which he has Joe's letter of recommend to thank.

Booker is Booker, he's a Frenchman, a former forger who hookee up with a former Federation systems engineer named Copley. When Joe recruits Andy to his ship as a security officer, she brought Quynh and Lykon along. She also handed him a pad with information on a few crafty travelers who might be helpful.

Joe is very charismatic and the Federation doesn't question his choice of crewman as long as he's successful for fear that he will turn that charisma on them. Every admiral crumbles beneath his dazzling smile. Everyone finds it very amusing. Except...

Nile Freeman. The new bridge officer is very confused by absolutely everything about this ship and her captain. She's Federation born and bred, her father was a first officer on the USS Callisto before it's destruction in a conflict with the Borg. She grew up on the Luna One colony and various freighter vessels after her father's death. Growing up on tales of her father and the famous Travis Mayweather there was no chance Nile Wasn't enrolling in the Academy. None of that prepared her for life aboard the Billah.

#ray writes #fanfiction #the old guard #the old guard au #star trek au #star trek

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phantom-le6 · 3 years

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 (2 of 6)

Again, this is bit later in being posted than I’d planned, but here’s my second round of episode reviews for season 4 of Stark Trek: The Next Generation.

Episode 6: Legacy

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise, responds to a distress call from the Federation freighter Arcos, which has suffered engine failure and taken emergency orbit around the planet Turkana IV, the birthplace of the Enterprise's late chief of security, Tasha Yar. The Enterprise arrives just as the Arcos explodes, and finds a trail left behind by the freighter's escape pod leading to the colony. Turkana IV's government collapsed 15 years before; and the last Federation ship to visit, six years earlier, was warned by the colony's warring factions that trespassers to the planet would be executed. Because the freighter crew's lives are in danger, Captain Picard decides to attempt a rescue.

Commander Riker leads an away team to the surface, where they find the colonists initially unperturbed by their presence, but soon end up in a standoff with one of the colony's two remaining warring factions, the Coalition. Their leader, Hayne, reveals that the other faction, the Alliance, holds the Arcos survivors hostage, and offers the Enterprise the Coalition's support in exchange for Federation weapons, a proposal that Riker rejects. Hayne, however, after learning of Tasha Yar's service aboard the Enterprise, instead offers as a liaison Ishara Yar, claiming she is Tasha's sister. Picard accepts Ishara aboard; although the crew is initially skeptical, DNA tests support her claim, and she gradually gains their trust. Commander Data, who was especially close to Tasha, becomes friends with Ishara, who seems ready to leave behind her life in the colony.

To find the hostages, Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge suggests using the crashed escape pod's instruments; Ishara recommends that she beam separately to a nearby location as a distraction, because her implanted proximity device will set off the Alliance's alarms. The crew executes the plan, but Ishara is wounded in the attempt. Riker rescues her, and is impressed by her bravery. Later, Ishara privately tells Hayne "It's working."

When the Enterprise receives a message from the Alliance announcing that they are preparing to kill the Arcos crew, Picard's crew decides to execute Ishara's proposed rescue plan: Dr Crusher removes Ishara's proximity device, which she gives to Data as a memento. Riker leads an away team to the planet, where they rescue the hostages, but Ishara disappears in the confusion. Data finds her trying to disable the Alliance security grid; Ishara reveals that a large Coalition force is just outside the Alliance perimeter waiting to attack. Data concludes that all her interaction with the crew was a ploy. Riker arrives to distract Ishara just as she fires at Data, who dodges and then stuns her and reverses her attempted sabotage. Riker notes that her phaser was set to kill.

With the away team and Ishara back aboard the Enterprise, Hayne demands that Picard return Ishara and challenges his jurisdiction. While Riker argues that they have cause to hold her for firing on two Starfleet officers, Picard decides to allow her to leave. As Data escorts her to the transporter room, Ishara claims he was the closest thing she had to a friend. Data considers his relationships with both Ishara and Tasha, as the Enterprise departs. Data then discusses the recent events with Riker; while Riker states that trust always carries the risk of betrayal, and that that risk has be taken to have friendships, Data suggests he is lucky to be spared the emotional effects of betrayal. However, as Data leaves Riker’s quarters, he finds himself still carrying Ishara’s proximity device.

Review:

When it comes to get posthumous mileage out of the late Tasha Yar, I think this is the best effort TNG has offered us so far. Discounting minor allusions in episodes like ‘The Measure of a Man’ and ‘The Most Toys’, the only other episode prior to this to really try and utilise Tasha again was the over-rated ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, and that was just trying to re-do her death a bit better. This time, however, we get to see something of where Tasha came from and explore her in a more interesting way by having her crew-mates interact with her former home-world and her sister. There is also some allegory to gang violence and gang culture in the episode, but with Tasha’s sister Ishara being involved and having a connection of sorts with Data, that allegory is largely missed behind an inadvertent plot point that the episode brings up.

As I’ve noted in the previous TNG reviews I’ve posted, Data is often a metaphor for many aspects of autism, and the way he above all others is deceived by Ishara in the episode is an inadvertent, ahead-of-its-time allegory of mate crime. For anyone unfamiliar with that term, mate crime involves the offender pretending to be someone’s friend in order to set up that friend to be injured in some way. This can vary from being lured into a physical ambush to being set up to take the blame for something the victim hasn’t actually done. It often depends on the victim of this mate crime not having a full grasp of friendship and/or deceit, so people on the autistic spectrum and with other mental frameworks that make this difficult are heavily affected by it.

This being the case, one can easily see in Ishara Yar the exact kind of person who would commit such an offence in real life; selfish, ruthless and with no real regard for others. What she does to Data is every bit as heinous as any mate crime committed against an autistic person in the real world. It is inexcusable, and frankly I think Picard should have locked her up instead of letting her go. Nothing justifies her being let go at the end of the episode; not being Tasha’s sister, not the crew wanting to see something of Tasha in her, nothing. Honestly, I was hoping for a transporter accident to kill her when she was beamed back down at the end. Overall score for this episode, 9 out of 10; a transporter death some other suitable retribution on Ishara would have netted this episode top marks.

Episode 7: Reunion

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is met by a Klingon Vor'cha class battlecruiser, and Ambassador K'Ehleyr requests to speak to Captain Picard on an "urgent matter". When she beams aboard, she brings a young Klingon boy; based on his previous romantic experience with K'Ehleyr, Lt. Worf suspects the child is his son. K'Ehleyr warns the senior staff of a power struggle occurring within the Klingon Empire and implores Picard to meet Chancellor K'mpec aboard the battlecruiser. On the Klingon ship, K'mpec acknowledges that he has been poisoned and is slowly dying, and insists that Picard become the Arbiter of Succession and identify his assassin. K'mpec dies shortly afterward. In a private moment, K'Ehleyr confirms to Worf that the Klingon boy is his son, Alexander, and she did not tell Worf for fear he would try to have a deeper relationship with her; Worf, already burdened by his discommendation, fears for Alexander's future, given the stigma of his family name.

The two challengers for leadership of the council, Gowron and Duras, arrive for the Rites of Succession. Worf still harbors hatred for Duras, who had (falsely) revealed Worf's father, Mogh, as a traitor in the Khitomer massacre and stained Worf's family name. Both Gowron and Duras attempt to quickly end the proceeding, but a small explosion erupts in the assembly hall. Picard and K'Ehleyr are safe but decide to draw out the Rites using an archaic ceremony while the Enterprise crew perform a forensic analysis on the explosion. Though both resent the longer form, Gowron and Duras have little choice but to agree to continue the Rites.

The Enterprise crew discover that the explosion came from a Romulan bomb implanted in the arm of one of Duras's guards. K'Ehleyr, aboard the Enterprise, has become intrigued and tries to find out why Worf was discommended. She accesses the Klingon records, and comes across evidence of Duras's father being the true traitor in the Khitomer massacre. Duras, notified of K'Ehleyr's access to the records and already aboard the Enterprise, goes to K’Ehley’s quarters and mortally wounds her. Worf soon discovers K'Ehleyr, dying, just in time for her to reveal that Duras is her killer; then she has Worf promise to look after Alexander. Returning to his quarters, Worf grabs a bat'leth, leaves his combadge behind, and transports to Duras's ship. There he challenges Duras to the Right of Vengeance. Initially, Duras rebuffs Worf, claiming that his traitor status denies him any rights, but Worf declares K'Ehleyr was his mate; since even discommendated Klingons may claim vengeance for a loved one's death, Duras accepts Worf's challenge. Worf easily gains the upper hand, but Duras taunts him; if Worf kills Duras, Worf can never regain his honor. Worf nonetheless strikes the killing blow. With Duras dead and no other challengers present, Gowron is presumably named Chancellor of the Empire.

After the Klingons leave, Picard takes Worf to task for killing Duras. Though Worf defends his actions as valid under Klingon law (as does the Klingon government), Picard reminds him he is first of all a Starfleet officer and places a formal reprimand on Worf's record. Worf and Alexander mourn their loss, and Worf places the boy in the care of his own adoptive parents, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko, finally admitting to Alexander himself that they are related.

Review:

The first appearances of the Vor’cha class Klingon battleship, the Bat’leth, Gowron and Alexander, plus a combined follow-up on both ‘The Emissary’ and ‘Sins of the Father’. This episode has not only huge impact on this series and the wider Trek franchise with all that it does, but it’s also very well-performed and, unlike the previous episode, the villain of the piece gets immediate comeuppance. There are numerous occasions up to now where Trek has been a bit too willing to let their villains off a little too easily, so it was good to see Duras finally go down, and to do so in proper Klingon style.

Now I know some fans were disappointed, upset, even out-raged that K’Ehlyer gets killed off because they all loved the character so much, and some even thought it was a bit sexist of the show to kill such a strong, independent female character on only her second time out. However, let’s put this in a bit of context; first, K’Ehlyer is one of three named characters to die in this episode, the other two of whom are Klingon blokes. This means that actually it’s not all that sexist because the episode’s body-count, and I believe that of TNG in general up to this point, favours male guest characters for croaking in tried-and-true red-shirt tradition.

Second, if K’Ehlyer doesn’t die, Worf has no reason to go blade-to-blade with Duras and ultimately bury his Bat’leth in the petaQ’s chest. K’mpec’s death is hardly going to justify Worf going to such lengths, and I don’t think violent child death would ever be acceptable within the world of Trek. Third, you’re supposed to be upset and out-raged over K’Ehyler’s death, and you’re supposed to direct those emotions the same way Worf does; at Duras. The idea is to be rooting for Worf, to cast aside the normally high, often too liberal sensibility of the Federation ideology and be rooting for Duras to get slaughtered. It’s fine to have a visceral reaction this time round; just focus it on the guest character where it belongs.

My one issue with this episode is Picard’s speech to Worf in reprimanding him for acting against Star Fleet’s code of conduct, or more specifically the line “If anyone cannot perform his or her duty because of the demands of their society, they should resign.” Taken out of the context and applied to real-life military organisations in societies that are highly backwards in their standards of tolerance, this line seems to imply a condoning of societal demands that impede inclusion. After all, if a society frowns upon certain groups of people serving in a military organisation and makes the life of anyone from those groups who tries to serve harder, Picard’s line could be used to justify forcing that person out of the military. Frankly, the idea that people have to ‘leave their culture at the door’ seems totally anti-Star Trek. What’s next, asking Deanna to leave her empathic powers in her quarters? Overall, this episode nets 9 out of 10 for me; Picard’s backwards line robs the episode of top marks.

Episode 8: Future Imperfect

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Commander Riker's birthday celebration is interrupted as he, Geordi La Forge, and Worf are sent down to a huge cavern on Alpha Onias III, an uninhabited Class M planet, to investigate unusual readings. After their arrival, the cavern suddenly fills with toxic gases, and the three officers fall unconscious.

Riker awakens in sick bay to find that sixteen years have passed. He is now Captain of the Enterprise with Data as his first officer, and Picard has been promoted to admiral, with Deanna Troi serving as his aide. Riker cannot remember any event after the Alpha Onias III mission, which Doctor Crusher explains is a side effect of a viral infection he contracted on the planet, and his memories of the intervening events may or may not return in time.

Riker learns that he was married, is now widowed, and has a son named Jean-Luc (named after Picard). He is further startled when Tomalak, a Romulan commander who was formerly an archenemy of the Enterprise but is now an ambassador, beams onto the ship to negotiate a peace treaty with the Federation. Despite Picard's reassurances, Riker is hesitant to reveal sensitive Starfleet information in negotiating the treaty.

As Riker struggles to adjust to his new life, numerous inconsistencies arise. The Enterprise computer is uncharacteristically slow, numerous systems experience minor technical glitches, and Geordi is unable to correct the problems. Finally, Riker discovers that his late wife "Min" is Minuet, a fictional holodeck character he fell in love with (in the first season episode "11001001"). Riker realizes that the entire "future" he has been experiencing is a charade and confronts Picard and Tomalak on the Enterprise bridge, with more inconsistencies arising as he does so, proving his suspicions. Suddenly, the false future fades away, revealing a Romulan holodeck. Commander Tomalak is revealed to be behind the simulation, the object of which was to trick Riker into giving away the location of a key Federation outpost. The Romulans, Tomalak explains, were fooled by the intensity of Riker's memories of Minuet and had incorporated her into their fantasy on the assumption that she was real.

Riker is put in a holding area, where he meets the boy whose image the Romulans had used to create his "son". The boy identifies himself as "Ethan". Together, they manage to escape and briefly elude their Romulan guards. However, as the two are hiding from their pursuers, Ethan inadvertently refers to Tomalak as "Ambassador", instead of "Commander". Riker realizes that he is still in a simulation; confronting Ethan over it, he demands that the game end immediately and that he be allowed to leave.

Everything disappears once more, leaving only Riker and Ethan back in the cavern on Alpha Onias III. Riker is then able to contact the ship and learns that Worf and La Forge had beamed up without incident, but the Enterprise was unable to locate him. After Riker advises the captain that he will presently report back after learning more about his situation, Ethan confesses that he had created the simulations, using sophisticated scanners to read his mind and create the "reality" they experienced. Ethan's planet had been attacked and his people killed; his mother had hidden him in the cavern for his own safety, with all the simulation equipment, before she died; and Ethan, all alone, had been yearning for real companionship. Realizing Ethan's intentions were not hostile, Riker offers him refuge on the Enterprise. Ethan accepts Riker's offer and after Ethan reveals his true form as a grey alien named Barash, the two beam up to the ship.

Review:

This episode is interesting to start off with; alternate timelines/futures can often be quite fun, and according to Memory Alpha’s page on this episode we also get some uncanny prescience in many of the predictions this episode makes, which would become apparent in later episodes, films and series within the world of Trek. It also very cleverly distinguishes itself from ‘Remember Me’ earlier in this season by having the alternate realities that Riker experiences nested within each other, as opposed to Beverly’s scenario where it was just the one alternate reality. However, once the second layer of deception gets revealed, I became a little disappointed.

Why is this? Well to be honest, I don’t like episodes that try to play on a character’s sense of reality part-way through a TV show that has long since established what its reality is. It can work by implying an alternate future and memory loss as this episode initially does, but the number of illusions need to be left at one and not keep going. I’d rather the rest of the episode been a straight-up action-adventure where Riker has to escape the Romulans with the aid of the Enterprise crew, possibly with some interrogation room dialogue between Riker and Tomalak beforehand as a means for Riker to play his captor, stall for time, whatever.

As it is, the ending ends up feeling like a cliché of Star Trek rather than anything truly Trek-oriented. Certainly there’s no deeper issue exploration or major character development in Riker himself. Overall, it’s really just a bit of a filler episode when taken on balance. I give it about 7 out of 10.

Episode 9: Final Mission

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise has travelled to the Pentarus system where Captain Picard must mediate a dispute among some miners on the fifth planet. Wesley Crusher receives word that he has been accepted to Starfleet Academy and, for his final mission on the Enterprise, he will accompany Picard on his shuttle trip to Pentarus V. A distress call comes in from Gamilon V, where an unidentified vessel has entered orbit and is giving off lethal doses of radiation. Picard orders Commander Riker to take the Enterprise to resolve that situation while he and Wesley travel in a shuttle sent by the miners, commanded by Captain Dirgo.

En route, Dirgo's shuttle malfunctions and they are forced to crash-land on the surface of a harsh, desert-like moon. Though they are unharmed, the shuttle is beyond repair, and its communication systems and food replicators are disabled. Dirgo admits he has no emergency supplies on board, so they are forced to search for shelter and water. With his tricorder, Wesley identifies some caves and a potential source of water some distance away, and the three set out across the desert. Reaching a cave, they find a fountain-like water source, but it is protected by a crystalline force field. Dirgo attempts to use a phaser to destroy the field, but this activates a burst of energy from the fountain which encases the phaser in an impenetrable shell and causes a rock slide; Picard pushes Wesley out of the way but is severely injured in doing so.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise has arrived at Gamilon V, finding the unidentified ship is an abandoned garbage scow filled with radioactive waste. Their initial attempt to attach thrusters to the barge to propel it remotely through an asteroid belt into the Gamilon sun fails, and Riker is forced to attempt to tow the barge themselves using the tractor beam, exposing the crew to the lethal radiation.

As Wesley continues to analyse the forcefield, Dirgo becomes impatient and attempts to breach the field again, but this time the energy burst encases him as well, killing him. Picard, weak from his injuries, gives Wesley advice about the academy, and tells him he is proud of him. Wesley refuses to give up. Meanwhile, the Enterprise, despite the rising radiation levels on board, manages to get the barge through the asteroid belt and on course into the sun. The Enterprise then speeds off to help in the search for the shuttle.

Wesley continues to study the fountain, and devises a plan to disable the force field. He fires his phaser at the fountain to attract the energy defence mechanism, then uses his tricorder to disable the mechanism and is finally able to access the water.

Shortly thereafter, the Enterprise locates the wreckage of the mining shuttle, and Picard and Wesley are rescued. As Picard is carried from the cave, he tells Wesley that he will be missed.

Review:

It’s with this episode that Wil Wheaton finally left TNG as a main cast member in an effort to try and expand his acting career, and given how poorly his character of Wesley Crusher was written in many episodes, it’s not unreasonable or a bad idea that he did so. After all, Wesley had to get off the Enterprise at some point if he was ever going to attend Star Fleet Academy, and you couldn’t do the show that TNG was if it was all about Star Fleet characters on Earth. That said, a spin-off about Star Fleet Academy might have been an interesting thing to see. In any event, this episode is better than most Wesley-centric plots and features a bit of coming-of-age narrative within the story. However, it has a few bits of less-than-stellar dialogue-writing for Wesley in some of the earlier scenes (Wesley coming onto the bridge and the argument with Dirgo by the crashed shuttle being key examples).

The b-plot makes for an ok diversion, but part of me wonders why it took the Enterprise so long with that waste barge. I mean space is three-dimensional and the asteroid belt looked to only be at a certain height, relatively speaking. I therefore fail to see why the Enterprise couldn’t have pulled the barge above the ‘top’ of the asteroid belt, while keeping it on course for the nearby sun (which, being circular and massive, the barge would easily hit even going over the asteroids and not through them). If there’s one thing I really hate, it’s stories where people go through an obstacle instead of round when the only reason to go through is because the story is too short otherwise. Honestly, it’s just as well Wesley gets to return as a guest character a few times after this because it’s not a great episode for him to go out on. I give this one a score of 6 out of 10.

Episode 10: The Loss

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Traveling through deep space, the Enterprise stops to investigate an odd phenomenon of phantom sensor readings. Meanwhile, ship's counsellor Deanna Troi experiences pain and loses consciousness as her empathic abilities suddenly cease to work.

The crew discovers they cannot resume course, as the Enterprise is caught up in a group of two-dimensional lifeforms.

Without her powers, Troi suffers a tremendous sense of loss, and goes through several classic psychological stages, including denial, fear and anger. Ultimately, despite the reassurances of her friends, she resigns as ship's counsellor, believing that without her empathic abilities she cannot perform her duties.

Lt. Commander Data determines that the two-dimensional creatures are heading for a cosmic string, with the Enterprise in tow, and that once they reach the string the ship will be torn apart. Noting that Troi's training makes her the most qualified to assist, Captain Picard pleads with her to try and aid Data in communicating with the strange creatures.

After attempting to warn the creatures of the danger posed by the cosmic string, Troi posits that they are seeking out the cosmic string in much the way a moth is drawn to a flame. Working from this hypothesis, Data and Lt. Commander La Forge simulate the vibration of a cosmic string, using the deflector dish at a position well behind the Enterprise. The simulations eventually cause the creatures to briefly reverse their course, breaking their momentum long enough to allow the Enterprise to break free.

Freed from the two-dimensional creatures' influence, Troi's empathic ability is restored. She discovers that her powers were never lost, but were instead overwhelmed by the two-dimensional creatures' strong emotions. Troi returns to her old job with a renewed confidence.

Review:

I get that this episode is Next Generation trying to identify with what people who suddenly become differently abled go through when they lose their regularly abled status, and it’s a sound idea in theory. In practice, it’s ruined because they put it across through Troi spending most of the episode being a whiney cry-baby about it. I mean ok, granted, as someone who has been differently abled all their life and who has been aware of that from a very young age, I don’t easily empathise with those who end up differently abled later in life. More often than not, they’ve had experiences and opportunities that someone like me has never had, and for that matter may never have. For instance, having to go to schools away from where I lived means I’ve never been able to grow up with friends I could met outside of school or walk to school with, and being an adult now I can never have that childhood experience everyone else takes from granted.

Moreover, in the episode ‘Tin Man’ Troi notes that Betazoids are born with their telepathic abilities inactive in the vast majority of cases and develop them during their adolescence, so having her lose her empathic powers doesn’t warrant this level of response. She’s only been psychic since she was a teen, for crying out loud, and it’s an extra sense rather than one of the five ‘core’ senses most humans/humanoids have by default. The level of wigging out she experiences would have been far more appropriate if she’d been blinded or deafened, and speaking of the former, why was Geordi not among those who spoke to Deanna about what she was going through? The one time another member of the TNG main crew loses a sense and you don’t have them compare notes with the one TNG main crew member who was born one sense down on everyone else? Talk about a ludicrously squandered opportunity.

Frankly, this episode is a howler of such dire magnitude that it feels like we’ve stepped into a time machine back to the first season. Frankly, I’d sooner go for any Marvel lore featuring Daredevil or the M*A*S*H episode “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind” for a good sensory loss story than watch this shipwreck of an episode again. 3 out of 10 here, and that’s mostly for Guinan; it’s amazing how good Whoopi Goldberg can be at making even the worst episodes worth something.

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recentanimenews · 4 years

Text

Star Trek: Lower Decks – 08 – Out of the Space Loop

Hoo boy, this was one extra-stuffed, extra-caffeinated episode of Lower Decks! We begin by being thrown into an unknown situation with the core quartet: a sinister dungeon, then an alien trial on K’Tuevon Prime in which they are apparently being forced to testify against the senior staff.

One by one, they must speak into a Horn of Truth about the events of a specific stardate, starting with Mariner, who regales the court of a day when she and Boimler are late for bridge duty and have no idea what’s going on, only that the aliens they’re dealing with consider gratitude an insult.

Unsatisfied with her testimony, the aliens suspend Mariner over a vat of eels. Rutherford is next, and one would think his cybernetically-enhanced memory would be perfect, that is not the case as on that particular stardate his implants were undergoing constant system updates that caused multiple blackouts.

Everytime he comes to, it’s in a totally different situation. One minute he’s in a Cerritos corridor, then on a stolan Vulcan warp shuttle, then a kind of starship museum, then in outer space clinging to the hull of a cloaked Romulan Bird-of-Prey, and finally at a Gorn wedding.

Needless to say, Rutherford gets suspended over the eels along with Mariner, and it’s up to Tendi to tell her story. She was the assigned cleaner of the conference room when Ransom and a team of handpicked commandoes are briefed on a top secret mission. Ransom wrongly assumes Tendi is a cleaner cleaner, as in part of their covert operation.

The op unfolds as follows: they use the stolen Bird-of Prey acquired by Rutherford & Co. to slip past Warbird patrols, transport down to Romulus, and retrieve a secret “package”. Tendi shows off some Trek Fu on some Romulan guards, and the team manages to get out without detection.

Having failed to get what he wants, the alien consigns Tendi to the vat and all three are dumped in. That’s when Boimler saves them by telling the court that they are Lower Decks, the senior officers almost never fill them in on what’s going on, so they truthfully don’t have the info he wants.

Boimler goes even further to state that oftentimes even the senior staff doesn’t know what’s going on, such as whenever Q(!) shows up. But that’s okay, part of Starfleet’s mission of exploration is facing the unknown and…muddling through.

But it turns out this isn’t an alien trial at all…but a party, held by Magistrate Klar to honor the senior staff for rescuing him from Romulan captivity. As is the case with all Lower Decks episodes, it’s a subversion of the old Trek trope. Back on the Cerritos, Freeman promises to do a better job of briefing the Lower Decks, but as Mariner aptly puts it, “knowing things means more work”, so it’s probably better to keep things need-to-know!

So yeah, there was a lot going on this week—almost too much for 24 minutes—but it was still a hell of a fun ride, and the trial/party conceit held together all the loosely connected vignettes well enough.

Stray Observations:

The design of the “party silo” is heavily influenced by the Klingon courtroom in Star Trek VI.

There’s a mention of Roga Danar, a supersoldier from the TNG episode “The Hunted.”

Mariner warns Boimler if they wash out of Starfleet they’ll end up on Earth where all there is to do is drink wine (at Chateau Picard) and eat soul food (at Sisko’s dad’s New Orleans bistro).

Boimler suggests a Crazy Ivan, which is really more of a Submarine thing.

Shaxs warns about a Denobulan parasite that infects the peen from the same planet as Dr. Phlox on Star Trek Enterprise.

Tons of Trek ship references this week. The Vulcan museum contains Starfleet shuttles from both TOS and TNG, the Vulcan ship from First Contact, the timeship Aeon from the 29th century, a Klingon battlecruiser, a yellow Work Bee, a Ferengi shuttle, and a Jem’hadar attack ship.

The shuttle they use to airdrop into the museum is a Vulcan Warp Shuttle of the exact kind that transported Spock to the Enterprise in The Motion Picture.

Rutherford is asked to distract the guards with the “fan dance”, last performed on screen by Uhura on Nimbus III in Star Trek V. He really should be nude when he’s doing it.

The eels in the vat sound just like the Ceti Eels Khan uses to control minds in The Wrath of Khan.

Dr. Crusher’s ghost lamp pertains to the very bad TNG episode “Sub Rosa”.

Q shows up! Voiced by the inimitable John de Lancie. Love how he adds a little more floridness to his animated Q.

Klar is voiced by another Trek guest star, Kurtwood Smith. Known primarily for That 70s Show, he was the Federation President in Star Trek VI and Annorax in “Year of Hell”, my personal favorite Voyager two-parter. If he was going to yell “DUMBASS!” in a Trek episode, this would have been it. Alas…

When the guy tells Klar he only paid for the party silo for 22 minutes, exactly 22 minutes of time had passed in the episode.

By: sesameacrylic

#Anime #News #RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

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redshirtgal · 5 years

Photo

At the end of the last article, you were promised a follow-up on Jay Jones and other TOS stars he had acted with. So what is this poster of Rough Night in Jericho doing here? Afraid you’ll have to read on to find out. But there are plenty of other Six Degrees of Trek instances involving Jay Jones.

Remember, his first television stunt job was in The Man from U.N.C.L.E was as Robert Vaughn’s stunt double but he also got to do some acting in the episode “Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.” But we also see Illya Kuryakin being confronted by two T.H.R.U.S.H goons. Look closely at them. We’ve seen them before, but where? (Thanks to Brad Filipone for both photos!)

The T.H.R.U.S.H. henchman on the left in the episode was played by Pete Kellett who also played Kirk’s henchman Farrell in the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror.” And Dave Armstrong appeared as the henchman on the right. Armstrong later appeared on TOS as Kartan in “Operation: Annihilate!”

Actually, Jay and Pete would later appear together as Klingons in “The Day of the Dove.”

In the Bonanza episode “Kingdom of Fear” we see Jay Jones as a bad guy who tries to use his bullwhip on Hoss. To the left in this photo is his boss, a local judge who hires men to capture passing strangers and put them to work as slaves. Can you name the actor and Star Trek episode he appeared in? Hint: He was in the first episode broadcast on NBC.

Maybe seeing the character will jog your memory. Remember him from “The Man Trap”? Professor Carter, married to Nancy, Dr. McCoy’s former love was played by Alfred Ryder. And he also was the actor who played the judge in the Bonanza episode.

Another connection - “Kingdom of Fear” was directed by Joe Pevney, who directed many of the best Star Trek episodes. He is shown above directing the episode “The Immunity Syndrome.”

We had already discussed Jay’s appearance as a demon in the Kung Fu episode “One Step to Darkness.” In that same episode was a doctor (on the left) who treated Caine and other children for malaria. That doctor was played by Lloyd Kino and we’ve seen him before as well.

He appeared as Wu, Captain Tracey’s Kohm guard in “The Omega Glory.”

And now, we finally get to why the movie Rough Night in Jericho is mentioned at the beginning of this article. This movie contains not just Jay Jones as a stunt double and teacher for Slim Pickens, one of the villains in this movie, but there are nine ( count ‘em, 9) connections to Star Trek (counting Jones) Slim Pickens and George Peppard have a scene in this film where the two are involved in a brutal fight. Yarborough (Pickens) begins attacking Dolan (Peppard) with his bullwhip (it has been established earlier he is an expert with the bullwhip). Once fighting gets more intense, two stuntmen jump in - Jay Jones for Slim Pickens and Bobby Clark for George Peppard. Remember Jay Jones had rodeo experience, which made him an excellent choice. He taught Pickens how to handle the bullwhip for the beginning of the scene and he took over for him when the hand to hand combat occurred.

Variety and other newspapers and magazines called this scene one of the most violent brawls in Western cinema at that time. Not only does Yarborough inflict quite a number of cuts to the body of Dolan but he and Dolan get into a bruising fight at the end. Dolan winds up killing Yarborough by bashing in his head with a club. You can bet Jay Jones and Bobby Clark handled a lot of the fight scenes.

One review mentioned it was easy to tell when Bobby Clark was in the scene instead of Peppard because Bobby’s hair was straw-colored and drier than Peppard’s own darker blonde hair (which was not dry at all). Take a look at the above photo. We don’t know for sure that this is Bobby Clark, but if you compare this person’s hair to George Peppard’s straighter blonde hair in this movie, there seem to be some differences. However, we could be completely wrong. By the way, Bobby Clark is credited in IMDb as a juror in the same movie but we couldn’t find him. It was not a traditional jury - mainly a gang of henchmen belong to Alex Flood (Dean Martin) gathered outside in the street on the site of a hanging.

Jay and Bobby had actually worked together before in Star Trek on the episode “Mirror, Mirror.” Jay was Scotty’s stunt double and Bobby was one of Chekov’s henchmen.

However, those two were not the only Star Trek: The Original Series actors to appear in Rough Night in Jericho. Above are two more of Flood’s hired hands, Torrey (appointed sheriff by Flood) and Simms. Both appeared on Star Trek, but on completely different episodes.

Torrey was played by Brad Weston who also played the one of the miners named Ed Appel in “The Devil in the Dark.” He and Jay Jones do share another place of honor in Trek history. Jay was considered for a recurring role with an accent, a character that we now know as Pavel Chekov. Coincidentally, Brad was also briefly considered for the same unspecified part. The character of Simms was played by Steve Sandor one year before he landed his role as Lars, Uhura’s drill thrall, in “The Gamesters of Triskelion.” Interestingly, another person who appeared in this episode with him was also in Rough Night in Jericho.

In the movie, Angelique Pettyjohn plays a bar girl who catches Dolan’s eye as he walks into Flood’s bar. But she was also Captain Kirk’s drill thrall in the previously mentioned episode of Star Trek. One more Trek actor/stuntman appeared in Rough Night in Jericho.

Bobby Herron was a stuntman who made several appearances on Star Trek, most notably that of Sam, the crewman in the gym who made the mistake of laughing at the main character in “Charlie X.” He appears in the credits of Rough Night in Jericho as a stuntman, but of course, it would be nearly impossible to pick him out.

And now the 9th and final TOS connection with Rough Night in Jericho - and it’s not an actor. Albert Whitlock was the matte supervisor for the film and did the matte painting on the left for the background scene of the explosion that rocked Flood’s ranch and mines. We are familiar with his many matte paintings for Star Trek, including the one on the left from “The Cage.”

Finding several Trek actors in another TV series episode or movie is not all that unusual. Even stunt actors often popped up in other places before or after their Trek appearance. But as we were working on the Jay Jones article, we kept running into photos of these connections in so many of the shows and films he did, we figured we would just save them all and present them in a separate article. Thus ends another round of Six (or more) Degrees of Trek. Hope you enjoyed it!

#Jay Jones #Six Degrees of Trek

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