/STG/ - Star Trek General

Cardie spoon poon is superior, but Klingon kunt is okay too.

Tell me, /stg/, have you ever wrote any characters who were culturally divorced from their race, or at least their race's hat?
Trek does tend to suffer badly from race-hattism; all Klinks are warriors, all Rommies are schemes, Bajorans are guerillas or spiritualists or spiritual guerillas, etc.

They also tend to assume that, for some reason, most races which made it into space are culturally homogenous. Think about the difference between, say, an Irish Protestent and an Irish Catholic, let alone, say, an Irish Catholic and an Indian Sikh.

Have you ever defied that convention with a character who was NOT human? Or, alternatively, written an alien character who was raised by parents not of their race, and was fully culturally invested in the culture of their upbringing, instead of being a total weeb about the hat culture their species typically wears, the way Worf was?

Not that I disagree, but it could also be argued that when looking at alien cultures, the individuals could be very similar to our perception, yet vastly different in the eyes of their own race.

In the example of an Irish Catholic and an Indian sikh, if both were members of an organization like Starfleet, a Klingon would perhaps only look at them in the ways that are important to him (i.e. they are both mediocre fighters that rely too much upon the smoke and mirrors of diplomacy, just like the rest of Starfleet.)

Closest thing I've done is make a half-Kingon/half-Romulan, and even he was still a warrior, just more pragmatic about it. Less about personal honor, more about honor to the state.

desu I actually don't see the point. The good thing about "Planet of the Hats" is it ensures a diverse set of viewpoints, and it can be interesting to flesh out an alien culture to figure out why they are the way they are, like how Vulcans are logical because it's literally the only thing keeping themselves from angrily hatefucking themselves to extinction.

What no?!
>So easy mode if you don't fap to them you are literally gay.
Orion

>Tell me, /stg/, have you ever wrote any characters who were culturally divorced from their race, or at least their race's hat?

I did, but I wasn't very good at it.

I try not to kneejerk look down at the idea, because I'm sure we've all been there: playing with someone who just read their first Drizzt novel and they're ready to break the mould, too. I'm fairly confident that we've also all been the one who just read their first Drizzt novel, or their first book about a good vampire who only drank evil people, or something along those lines, and we came up with something we're not proud of to be unique.

These days, what I try to do is not to divorce a character from their race's hat, but to draw attention to their clothes, to put it clumsily. I show how their race's hat fits them, but I try to add on things that make them individuals and show what more there is to a given character than the features of their race.

One of the really good things about Trek is that sentient alien races were never portrayed as Always Evil. Even if they were antagonistic toward the Federation, there were always individuals who were portrayed as more-or-less reasonable, just different. So it really isn't difficult or against the setting to make a Drizzt, so to speak. This is the same franchise that argued that a remorseless killing machine was simply feeding itself, that it may have been possible to communicate and pacify it, and that it was a tragedy that some old bitch shattered it into a million pieces. Even the Borg had their own Drizzts.

It could be suggested that the members of the respective races would have to follow their culture's blueprint, at least to a significant degree, if they were to survive adolescence, to say nothing of being able to leave their world and interact with the galaxy at large.

Like, you could have a Klingon that chooses to become a doctor, but the warrior training and jockeying for status that shaped his childhood is still going to influence his behavior and reactions. Is he going to take a request for a second opinion as a question of his ability and honor, and a personal affront?

It does make me wonder, since we've seen characters like Worf and Alexander (and I guess Nog) that are raised with a heavy human influence, if there are human Klingaboos.

Did Star Trek ever retcon the "humanoid aliens will develop similar cultures to humanity, right down to Romans and the Declaration of Independence" stuff?

Pretty sure all of those were some outside influence explained in the episodes themselves.

True enough. I think though that there's an easy pitfall with Trek to fall with regards to thinking that every race has its own thing. Perhaps they're not Always Evil, but honestly, it's hard to argue that Klingons aren't overwhelmingly portrayed as being all warriors, or Vulcans aren't overwhelmingly portrayed as being all dispassionate and unemotional, and so on.

And you're right that we do have many characters that stand out from their species. The Borg has 7 of 9 and Hugh and others.

But rather than, say, wanting to write a pacifist Klingon who is involved in an intellectually demanding profession with next to no combat application, I tend to err on the side of making a Klingon warrior with enough personality to make them memorable in their own right without throwing out everything that's Klingon.

If that makes any sense. I'm sorry that I'm not able to articulate clearly.

The scale on the crashed ship looks off to me, or is it really supposed to be that small?

iirc the declaration of independence thing was retconned as "planet was a Federation shipping outpost, one of the personnel was kind of a red-blooded American and had a copy of the Declaration of Independence he gave to the natives"

It is really supposed to be that small.

Owner: United Earth

Operator: Starfleet

Type: Explorer ship

Active: 22nd century

Length: 225 meters

Beam: 135.8 meters

Height: 33.3 meters

Mass: 80,000 metric tons

Decks: 7

Crew complement: 83

Speed: Warp 5.2

Armament:
Phase Cannons
Plasma Cannons
Pulsed Phase Cannons
Torpedo Tubes for Spatial and Photon Torpedoes

Defenses: Polarized Hull Plating

Well, my main in STO is a spoon who hates spoon history and is trying to be Jean-luc Spooncard. Also polygamy.

Thanks for the info, I guess it really is that small It's a nice looking ship. Well aside from the sand and the damage I mean.

I'd hop onto STO and spend so much money on it if you could play a spoonhead for realsies and not as some generic ass ayyyy lmao

Admiral Korvat, is that you? After all this time?

I haven't looked at STO in years, is it actually fun, and is starfleet dental still a thing?

Last i saw of Dental was when Leonard Nemoy died and he and a bunch of others came to rain on other peoples mourning party at Vulcan, by dancing in the fountain, around which folks had gathered to mourn and by popping space disco balls all over the place.

No, the scale is way off. I'd say it's even half as big as it should be, 2/3 at best. Those people are at least 2.5m tall, if that ship is proper scale.

I don't know who that is.

Yeah, that sounds like dental.

But is the game actually fun? I'm an eve player, so you know I'm already autistic...

The space game is basically an arcade/casual version of Starfleet Command, if you've ever played that. But if eve is fun to you, then you might explode with the fun of STO.

I dunno, I got bored of sto about ten minutes after I hit level cap last time I played.

Has it improved in the last four years?

I have a Klingon Spoon who I've justified as being from a prison colony that everyone ended up forgetting about and the Klinks and Cardies ended up living in harmony like the TNG episode with the same plot but Klingons and Romulans

Well, they have been adding story missions non stop since the game started, currently their phase seems to be one episode per month, this months episode is set on a planet that looks like a dystopian shithole (Not Earth).
Also theyadded yet another rep grind and few STFs to go with it, this one is called Competitive wargames reputation.
In Competitive war games you gotta play with a team of poorly trained Orangutangs against a team of Korean competitive players in a match to try and get to the end of a three trial obstacle course to destroy a giant warp core/enemy bosses before the enemy does.
In space one you can also fight the enemy players, so this is some sorta PvP/E stuff.

Also they made it so the tier 6 escorts with x requirements get a new additional heavy weapon which only they can use.

There was some nerfs recently, beamboats, though they got nerfed too, remain still very playable, while science was made even more useless and tac boats were made even deadlier.
They tried to somehow buff healing and shield and hull health, but DPS still wins the day.

Also, thanks to Cryptic screwing up we now know what the next summer event ship will be.
A Vorgon Carrier!

Let's see.
Multiple new rep grinds, several seasons of story content, multiple new ships, multiple new dead STFs and new ships got added to the Ferengi PvP, including this fucker.

Oh right and this is what STF queue lists look like now.

OH! and they also changed the sector space so it's much more open now, basically there is a map loading only when you leave a quadrant.

Pic related is the current map.

I have a Cardie (with Galor) that I claim has a mixed crew. I.e. My Cardassian and his crew are allowed to fuck about in Federation space so long as they keep a few Feds on board. But at this stage most of them have gone "full-Terran" and started encouraging my Cardassian to become a Privateer.

>lighting 2.0

If the Vorgon carrier uses the same skin as that battleship, I may never use any other ship ever again. That ship is SOOOOOOOOOO sexy.

I kinda doubt it, found these pics on google.
This is probably what the carrier looks like.
The battleship is going to be either a lock box thing or next years summer event ship.

They used the NPC Breen Battleship as the playable Breen Carrier, so they might repeat that here.

That's been a cruiser so far. That said, I kinda hope you're right, just because I'd rather the battleship be, you know, good.

Dunno, carriers got buffed in latest balance changes.
>Fighters are now immune to single torpedo hit per 30 secs
>Fighters damage output increased and their abilities buffed
>Fighters can no longer die by being in the blast wave of a ship with core meltdown

They are now more like flying weapon mounts than before.

Flying weapon mounts that get none of your buffs, though.

That has got to be the ugliest ship I have ever seen. Even uglier than the other 26c ships and I didn't think that was even possible.

>Buff the pets stats because buffing their AI is too much effort

I think they do get your buffs.
No wait, i think that was some T6 ships mastery skill.
Hold a sec, going to wiki.

sto.gamepedia.com/Heavy_Escort_Carrier_(T6)#Starship_Mastery
sto.gamepedia.com/Jupiter_Class_Carrier#Starship_Mastery
sto.gamepedia.com/Breen_Sarr_Theln_Carrier#Starship_Mastery

Yeah, at least the beam overload and cannon rapid fire can be performed with the heavy escort carriers mastery trait.

Is it "Dee deredix" or "Duhderedix"?

But that means that those trait slots AREN'T emergency weapons cycle, or the temporal emergency power trait, or any other OP traits.

I actually made my Klingon in STO a bit of tech geek, engineer class, sure he can handle his Batleth, which was actually the energy Batleth you got from that one Christmas event. It was kinda funny to get threatened by some Trill player going all Klingon warrior and my character was more interested on the material the Trills daggers where made out off.

If we're talking just head-canon stuff, I made a bunch of Cardassian characters for a story idea I had.

Essentially, the story would see numerous different military/political factions vying for control of Cardassia and, by extension, the future path of the Cardassian Union.

On the extreme ends, there are the Restorationists, people that subscribe to Dukat's logic. "Cardassia shall regain all that she has lost", etc. Imagine the True Way only state sponsored and with no interest in kowtowing to the Jem'Hadar. On the other en there's the Charterists, who believe in intentionally weakening the Cardassian state so as to force them to join the Federation.

In between there are a number of less extreme parties aiming to shape a new Cardassia, distinct from the old one. The New Hebitians, for instance, wish to see a return to spirituality. Nominally they wish for some form of bi-patriate union with Bajor, as they see Bajoran and Cardassian spirituality as inexorably linked.

The Nationalist believe in rearmament, but with the tacit agreement that war with the Federation must be avoided at all costs, even if that means supporting the Federation in it's own conflicts. Their primary goal is to create a self-sufficient Cardassia.

And finally there is the Provisional government, ironically similar to the initial government of post-occupation Bajor, the provos are all about keeping the status quo and end up compromising with all of the factions to a significant degree.

The plot would revolve around a member of the Provisional government actually working for the Restorationists and trying to pull a fast one on Starfleet observers, effectively wiping out the Charterist insurgents. The Feds eventually figure out what's going on and are forced to back the Nationalists, as the only other major military influence in the Union.

What follows would be a very Cardassian civil war. rather than open fighting, most of the conflict would take place as a vast web of intrigue.

>Think about the difference between, say, an Irish Protestent and an Irish Catholic

That is, perhaps unintentionally, a very apt example to explain the existence of both a culturally homogeneous and culturally schismatic society, from a combination of the same 2 subgroups.

Within the Republic there is essentially no difference between Irish Catholics and Protestants. Both groups are so mixed together that class is probably a bigger filter for societal views. Where there are differences, they are generally superficial. Catholics watch hurling, Protestants watch Rugby. And even then that's more of an old, inaccurate assumption, seeing as Rugby has become so popular over here. Both groups intermix socially, attend the same schools and apply the same intrinsic Irish culture to their own identities.

Whereas within the North, the difference is so pronounced and volatile. Religious identity is perhaps the greatest divider in Ulster. There are signs that, after decades of peace, that's finally beginning to change, but all the Ulaidhs and Ullans I know still have very partisan views on the culture and politics of their home.

I think Star Trek doesn't focus on these cultural difference for a few reasons.

1: With a few notable exceptions, most cultures in trek aren't deeply explored.
2: the nominal dominant society from which Star Trek is coming aspires to leave these differences at the wayside to create a new national monoculture

But we do see a bit of cultural diversity.

Obviously there's humans. The dominant culture is shown to be a sort of blend of of Western values with tolerant secularism. But we see examples of Creole, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Russian, Japanese, African and various American cultures through out the various series, distinct from the Federation's .

We also see, albeit to a lesser extent, differing cultures within Bajoran, Cardassian, Klingon and Romulan society to show that the dominant monoculture isn't directly representative of all of these species, but does serve as a good touchstone for their society.

Klingons have dominant warrior culture, even outside of warrior jobs, but other identities exist within Klingon culture. Religious, legal, agricultural. In fact, when separated from their monodominant culture, Klingons can develop wildly different world views. Ranging from and idealism for a lost personal identity (Worf) to a near complete rejection of their own culture (Be’Lanna). Not to mention the conflicting ideals of their political elite. Gowron, Martok and Duras all have wildly divergent views despite being essentially contemporaneous.

The Overarching threme of Cardassian society is service to the state and to the family unit, but numerous interpretations of that core identity exist simulataneously. The Military’s concept of conquest, Quark’s missus’ ideal of democratic conversion, The Cardassian scientist’s more open peaceful views.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that you can be both homogeneous and schismatic within essentially the same subgroups. In Trek we often only get exposed to the latter during times of strife within a culture. Civil wars, political unrest and so on. But even then we’re really only ever dealing with a small facet of each of these societies.

That is very much true, satan.

I don't think it's ever said on screen. Everybody just refers to them as Romulan Warbirds.

Though in a few games they tend to put emphasis on the "Dee" sound at the start, so you end up with "Dee-der-ay-dex" or something similar

>I don't think it's ever said on screen.
Tin Man, although in that episode they were called D'daridex.

Man, the D'deridex has one of the best musical suites in TNG. It really conveys the sense that one of these fuckers showing up is absolutely going to ruin your day.
youtube.com/watch?v=jBZdkEm8g4Q

Better than a lot of the early tng tracks. They had a weird carnival feel to them.

>slave camp roleplay
>implying the Bajoran isn't hiding the biggest sub kink ever behind her tough mask

quints confirm

I T ' S C A N O N
T
S

C
A
N
O
N

>triggering nightmares in TNG kiddos

Also triggering sadness.

Canon doesn't mean quality

Does it even really need to be said?

On the topic, I recently found out that the actress that originally played Ziyal was also one of the 3 Orion girls in that episode of Enterprise.

Lately I've been reading the pulp novels of TOS. The first one I read was a real adventure- derring-do, problem-solving, character in adversity. If it had been written today, it would've been made into a tabletop adventure or vidya.

But the next one I picked up was a romance novel in trek clothing. Every character had some lost love they were pining over, threw hissy fits when they didn't like where a conversation was going, did things purely for social relationships over any sense of duty, and had conversations with themselves that would certify them insane, at least for the males. If you guessed that the second book was written by a woman, step up and collect 20 credits; if you guessed she disguised this fact by using her initials instead of her name, collect 50. I just got to the halfway point and realized this book isn't going to get any better, and I'm royally pissed off.

show us on the doll where the "sjws" touched you

He isn't too off the mark, there's some original Trek novels that are just good adventures (or comedies*), and others that are almost embarrassingly Mary Sue-ish. I started rereading Uhura's Song yesterday and it's got a race of incredibly graceful, beautiful, gentle, emo cat people with a tragic past AND a lady doctor who's more ornery than McCoy and a better duelist than Sulu who just happens to be strikingly attractive but short (only as tall as Kirk's chest insignia).

*Best TOS novel of all time is "How Much For Just The Planet", where Humans and Klingons have to band together to face a terrifying foe... a people who's "hat" is Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

Yeah but John Ford's two books are better than 90% of all Trek media because of how self aware it was.

Just rewatched "The Inner Light" for the first time in years. Fucking hell, I thought I had over-hyped it in my head as a result of nostalgia, but it really does still speak to me on a level that most science fiction doesn't.

I think that's what Star Trek is at it's best. Characters engaged in something bigger than themselves, being changed by an experience that you couldn't possible imagine.

On that note, favourite episode of Trek? And why?

Butthurt OP here, is that what Uhura's Song was? It was so widely acclaimed, I was looking forward to reading it. I feel lousy enough to go to /r9k/ and fit right in.

I'm there, hombre, you saved the day.

In the Pale Moonlight

TNG's Chain of Command I & II were really great. On DS9 I also really liked Duet.

Overall favorite: "Trouble with Tribbles". Because I'm a simple man with simple tastes.

Close second is TNG's "Cause and Effect". Anything time loop is top tier for me.

Could we get a compilation of Trek novels worth reading? Maybe OP can ad an /stg/-approved reading material link" for the next thread

>almost embarrassingly Mary Sue-ish

Isn't Star Trek fanfiction fandom the *source* of the original Mary Sue?

>/stg/ approved reading material
Just Beta canon, or non-trek stuff too?

Lets go with the latter. Should be more interesting

Really torn between In The Pale Moonlight and Trials and Tribbleations.

Both exemplify what Star Trek can do well in serious, hard hitting moral conflict with a big dose of self examination and light-hearted space shenanigans.
Both are also really self-referential, relying a lot on the established setting and characters. And the actors too, with the episodes (and of course the Trouble with Tribbles) really getting pretty much everyone to bring their A-game. Hell I even liked Jadzia as a character in them and, well she wasn't that great for a lot of her stuff. Fuck Rick Berman

>terrible novel gets awesome cgi fanart

The art came first, the novel was based on it.

Okay folks, since we had the question about each series' shitty episodes before:

How would you fix Destiny?
>Fuckhuge Borg invasion compulsory
>Deus Ex compulsory
>Throwback to ENT-era preferred
>OP donut steel ayylmaos optional

>Hard Mode: It has to include viewpoints from all of the TNG era show's crews, wherever they ended up being reassigned.

Only thing I would have changed was the removal of the Borg as a threat. All it would have needed was "Hey this particular chunk of Borg have turned into good guys!" and maybe "Neat, they've given us new lazors to shoot at the rest of the Borg!"

>borg actually invade and assimilate
>no destroying planets
>Voyager 6 was actually a post-FC warp probe
>some borg nanoprobes survived getting destroyed in "Regeneration," get on Voyager 6 somehow, becomes VGER
>Deus Ex: someone remembers TMP, pulls out VGER Starchild from the Weird Shit vault
>Starchild reunites with Borg
>Borg have now reached a point where assimilating Federation isn't going to lead to improvement
>Borg bugger off, day is saved

...

here, I guess I'm just easy to please. I enjoyed the books, and maybe that's a bad thing.

"Necessary Evil" or "Duet"

In general, I like the way that the Bajoran-Cardassian conflict is handled. But these episodes really stands out for me as an example of how not everybody on one side is inherently good or evil.

Not him, but I genuinely have no idea what you mean but nice trips

Yes. Mary Sue was a TOS era fanfic character.

I would do WWII's Pacific Theater IN SPAAAAAAACE.
>Voyager gets the Endgame upgrades reactivated
>so do all the Sovereigns, Defiants, and Akiras
>the Borg finally received the ENT era broadcast telling them about Earth's realspace coordinates and showed up in force
>much of the Sol system is in ruins
>paradise is burning
>"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with terrible resolve."
>The Big Bag of Kinetic Weapons and Doomsday Devices gets turned into an armory
>island hopping with star systems
>landing fleets of MACOs versus dug in drones
>Starfleet propaganda saturates the home front
>actual WWII arms and ammo brought back after experience vs. Hirogen and Picard's tommygun fun
>Ezri Sniper Special as squad DMRs
>fleet carriers versus Borg swarms
>Defiants and Peregrines versus Spheres and Borgnuggets
>phase cloaked "sub duels"
>any planet or moon the Borg can't be dug out of gets hit with a Genesis torp
>internment of Borg-ish Federation citizens like Picard, Seven, and Jacob, which causes Commodore Kira and Admiral Demora Sulu to have uncomfortable reminiscences
>at series end, Borg Queen unconditionally surrenders
>Janeway drops a Genesis on the Borg homeworld anyway because she's Janeway/MacArthur
>sentenced to life imprisoned the same place Paris was doing time
>last page of the last book: a dormant Borg nanite in Earth's Arctic gets picked up by a polar bear and hums to life

It has sweet fuckall to do with Trek, it's not even sci-fi in any sense, but The Fated Blades series by Steve Bein (Daughter of the Sword, Year of the Demon and Disciple of the Wind) are fucking awesome.

Best ship?

Hahahahahahahahahahaah no.
But for some reason I love 'em nonetheless.

Anyway, I'm bumpin' to prevent threadcap, with a Miranda no less, and here, have an example character questionnaire I made for a game I considered runnin' but didn't.

drive.google.com/open?id=1olu9sXm08YxYp8TUfrI_-mNJjcuF5kJ3K1c1LojBM5g

Shatner beat you to the punch there. And sowed the seeds that would lead to the Romulans fucking with Borg tech too.

Ahh, the good old "V'Ger was Borg, so Spock was immune to assimilation because they thought he already was" trick

I unironically like that book as a better ending for Kirk than just Generations, even if the Kirk wank was in full force.