/STG/ - Star Trek General

Qo'nos Edition

First City? More like Worst City Sub-Edition

Previous Thread A thread for discussing the Star Trek franchise and its various tabletop iterations.

Possible topics include Star Trek Adventures - the new rpg being produced by Modiphius - and WizKids’ Star Trek: Attack Wing miniatures game, as well as the previous rpgs produced by FASA, Last Unicorn Games and Decipher, the Starfleet Battles Universe, and Star Trek in general.


Game Resources

Star Trek Adventures, Modiphius’ 2d20 RPG
-Official Modiphius Page
>modiphius.com/star-trek.html
Playtest Materials (via Biff Tannen)
>mediafire.com/folder/36m6c22co6y5m/Modiphius Star Trek Adventures
Reverse Engineered Character Creation.
>docs.google.com/document/d/1g2ofDX0-7tgHojjk7sKcp7uVFSK3M52eVP45gKNJhgY/edit?usp=sharing

Older Licensed RPGs (FASA, Last Unicorn Games and Decipher)
>pastebin.com/ndCz650p

Other (Unlicensed) RPGS (Far Trek + Lasers and Feelings)
>pastebin.com/uzW5tPwS

WizKids’ Star Trek: Attack Wing Miniatures Game
-Official WizKids Page (Rules and Player Resources)
>wizkids.com/attackwing/star-trek-attack-wing/


Lore Resources

Memory Alpha - Canon wiki
>en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Portal:Main

Memory Beta - Noncanon wiki for licensed Star Trek works
>memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Fan Sites - Analysis of episodes, information on ships, technobabble and more
>pastebin.com/mxLWAPXF

Star Trek Maps - Based on the Star Trek Star Charts, updated and corrected
>startrekmap.com/index.html


/stg/ Homebrew Content
>pastebin.com/H1FL1UyP

Other urls found in this thread:

memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Titan
chakoteya.net/NextGen/141.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Vinci_Surgical_System
memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Pen_Pals_(episode)
memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Romulan_shuttle
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I take it that that's a shot from ENT?

We were talking about erasing holodecks from existence in the last thread. Is there some element of Star Trek you'd particularly like to expunge? Not whole shows or movies, mind you, but something in them.

Magic

>Warp Lizards
>The Prime Directive condones genocide
>Borg Queen

>Magic
Like summoning the devil shit, or are you going with a broader "fuck Q" definition? Because, you know, I'm down with "fuck Q".

Warp 10 = infinity

>Warp Lizards
Honestly, I kind of enjoyed that (in a point and laugh at it sort of way). Considering how much they had screwed up Voyager, it's not like there was much integrity to compromise.

>The Prime Directive condones genocide
What specifically are you referring to here?

>Borg Queen
Yeah, she's awful. Fortunately, her presence was rather limited though (one movie and some later episodes in the worst of the Trek shows).

This. I think it was mentioned last thread, but I would change warp 10 to the speed of subspace. Still incredibly fast. Not infinite, mind you. They sort of forgot about it a lot of the time, but there were definite limits on the speed of subspace communications. Hence they'd often have to wait hours for messages back from Starfleet Command. Again, unless the writers forgot.

So with that, you could have the transwarp scale start at warp 10 (Transwarp 1) and continue on a similar line up to the next big speed barrier.

...

>Borg Queen
Making the Borg queen simply something that the Collective brought forth to fuck with Locutus or else a proto Speaker for the Borg on the Ent-E would have been better, yeah.

Psychics with universal telepathy. Spock managed to mind-meld with a damn machine. More than once.

Ok that's just a niggle though, really though the answer is always time travel. Controlled time travel should be the realm of god-tier shit like the Guardian of Forever, The Prophets or Q. Time travel was thrown in for no good reason at the end of The Naked Time right there way back at the start of TOS, and lead to so much fuckery. I hate it.

>What specifically are you referring to here?

My choice of wording was poor. Let's correct it to:
>The Prime Directive condones mass extinction by inaction

So I'm referring to 2 episodes in TNG and 1 in Enterprise where the "right" thing to do is sit back and let an entire civilisation die because of some nebulous "cosmic plan" or philosophical substitute for the same.

And I understand the reasoning behind it. Hell, I've justified it in these very threads, in terms of a self-protectionist policy. But I don't like it one bit, especially seeing as surripticiously helping the natives from afar is something we've seen in nearly every trek series anyway.

Yeah, Trek certainly does overuse time travel. It's been put to good effect before, but I think the problem is that when it's badly done, it painfully undermines everything.

I think one of the issues with the Prime Directive is that it's rather inconsistent portrayed (or at least the crew's relationship with it is). But this doesn't bother me too much for an episodic show. I just kind of adjust things to a comfortable mean in my mind.

>The Prime Directive condones genocide
Easily fixed by tweaking Homeward slightly. It's not that big a deal.

>"cosmic plan"
Nevermind, you're that idiot.

The "Cosmic Plan" is the plan Riker enacted while he was a Q. No one else knows about it but Riker, and maybe Q.

It's not even the over-used nature of it in the show. Most of that over-use came from Voyager anyway.

Looking at it from a game perspective, imagine you're GM'ing and you've set up this neat scenario with a bunch of investigation to try and work out what happened at some fucked up incident so the players can stop a major war breaking out. And they just decide fuck it, let's time travel back to when the event happened, hang around at a distance and just learn everything.

Sure you can invent some excuse as to why they can't do it, or weave it into the plot. But what about the next time they encounter a problem? And the time after that? It just gets messy and confusing and stupid. Time travel should be really, really fucking special. Not something any idiot capable of hitting Warp 8+ can manage.

Godlike beings, magic, prolific use of time travel.

Most other things can just be ignored or written around (yes, even the lizard sex). It's not like there isn't a bunch of stuff from TOS and TNG that are just flat out ignored by later episodes (United Earth Space Probe Agency, women can't be starship captains, Klingons joined the Federation, Picard creating a bunch of vacancies at Starfleet Command, etc,).

Easily fixed, but set in canon because they didn't fix it before they started shooting. The only way to salvage the Prime Directive is to actively ignore those episodes and their interpretation of it.

Which was to become overweight, marry an aging Betazoid, get command of a less prestigious ship than the Federation flagship, and still have time to beat up Ron Perlman. Best plan.

Isn't the Titan a more advanced ship than the E?

The Riker Plan: Do as little as possible and come out on top.

It's "newer". It's also a contemporary of the E. I doubt it's "more advanced" in any meaningful way.

The only stuff we know about it from alpha canon fits on a post card, or near enough.

>memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Titan

No I'm not that guy. In fact, I've argued against him in the past. Generally I cite "First Contact" as the a primary factor in Starfleet's decision on the matter.

I'm well aware that the notion is discarded in Pen Pals. However it's philosphical substitute isn't. The idea that it is arrogant to assist a people is at odds with most of what we see in the show. It is for this reason that I'd prefer it wasn't there.

All three episodes show our protagonists siding, at least in part, with the notions that individual lives have essentially no meaning in the present and that sitting back and watching/allowing an entire civilisation to die when you have the means to save at least a portion of it is somehow morally reprehensible. That's the sort of thinking I expect from overtly evil admiral of the week, not the informed, compassionate crew of the Enterprise.

Because I don't want you to be unfairly slandered, I'm "that guy" who hates on the Riker Plan so much.

If people want to slander me for having a rational reason to dislike the idea of giving serious though to what fickle gods and destiny have in store for us, rather than considering only the moral and humane thing to do in any given circumstance, then so be it.

*somehow not morally reprehensible

Has anyone used the playtest materials for Star Trek Adventures? How does it compare to other tabletop games like DnD? What's the learning curve like?

I have some friends who are interested in playing, and I would be their DM, but it will be our first tabletop game ever.

It's probably the easiest to get into, especially for a first-timers. FASA and LUG are both older systems, with a lot more complexity, but starting from scratch it can be overwhelming.

I'm pretty sure the "shakedown cruise" mission is in the OP link-bin. As should all the rest material.

I'd suggest running that, its short enough and you'll get a feel for whether or not you're group will work.

Homeward is the only episode I have an issue with because it's the only one that explicitly says they need to let an entire race die. In Pen Pals they decide to help, and although that's technically considered a violation of the Prime Directive Starfleet sees it as an acceptable violation on ethical grounds that's in keeping with the spirit of the Directive and Starfleet as a whole.

So let's ignore Homeward as I suggested. Every other instance of the Prime Directive being invoked, either explicitly or implicitly (hello Klingon Civil War) is to basically say that Starfleet shouldn't be meddling around in other peoples' affairs. Nothing wrong with that. Even in Pen Pals, the interference was limited so as to avoid cultural contamination. This is essentially the difference between that episode and something like Patterns of Force. It's easy to say you want to help people, but aside from obvious matters like complete annihilation which I repeat was dealt with appropriately in Pen Pals, it's very easy to fall in the trap of "the white man's burden" when it comes to helping lesser developed races, and the Prime Directive from a meta standpoint was developed as a response to and criticism of both colonialism and neo-colonialism.

So there is no "cosmic plan" or philosophical substitute. The Prime Directive simply says that they shouldn't be screwing around with other peoples' affairs, because even if they have the best of intentions to help it can still backfire easily.

Reminder that Picard only violates the Prime Directive because he hears Data's pen pal over the radio, not because he's reached any rational conclusion. His feelings get involved.

Let's just ignore Pen Pals while we're at it. The Prime Directive would be better off in almost all instances if we ignore how the Federation actually treats it or puts it into practice.

I don't see why we should ignore Homeward. It plays very much into the same rationale and happened just as much as pen pals and Dear Doctor did.

I figure Picard already made up his mind that he wanted to help and was trying to find a justification for it, hence the meeting. He was giving the cautionary viewpoint because he wanted to make sure it was something he could justify to command instead of just "lol we felt like it"

>I don't see why we should ignore Homeward.
My initial argument was that the Prime Directive would be fixed by either ignoring or slightly tweaking Homeward.

>Picard already made up his mind

Yes. In the other direction:

>PICARD: Data, I want you to sever the contact with Drema Four.

Picard has decided not to help.

>(Data goes to a wall panel and taps in commands)
>COMPUTER: Isolating frequency.
>SARJENKA [OC]: Data. Data, where are you? Why won't you answer? Are you angry me? Please, please, I'm so afraid. Data, Data, where are you?

Uh oh. Someone is now real in the Captain's mind, rather than simply an imaginary potential of a person.

PICARD: Wait. Oh, Data. Your whisper from the dark has now become a plea. We cannot turn our backs.

Picard has now changed his mind.

>chakoteya.net/NextGen/141.htm

I'd have just nerfed what holodecks were capable of myself rather than gotten rid of them entirely. Nobody should be able to mistake holodeck-simulated reality for actual reality.

Cartoonish animated graphics and holodeck characters have all the preprogrammed mindlessness of videogame NPCs.

The EMH isn't a hologram, he's an AI. His initial body is immobile and built into sickbay, although he might switch to something like an exocomp midway through the show.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Vinci_Surgical_System

With Homeward, so we're all on the same page:

>WORF: Nikolai, what have you done?
>NIKOLAI: They were dying. I refused to sit there safe in that observation post and watch it happen. I set up a deflector shield to screen these caves from the radiation and then I brought them here.
>WORF: What did you tell them?
>NIKOLAI: They think I'm a Boraalan. I told them I was from another village far from here.
>WORF: At least you had that much sense.
>NIKOLAI: When I sent the distress call I knew the Enterprise was in this sector, but I wasn't sure you'd be the one to come. I'm so glad that you're here, Worf.
>WORF: Nikolai, there is nothing we can do for these people. You have only postponed their deaths.
>NIKOLAI: I want to discuss that with your Captain.
>WORF: And I am certain he will want to speak with you.

I like it. I'd accept that as a consensual canon in PnP.

>(Worf and Nikolai are back to their normal appearances)
>PICARD: Doctor, you were fully aware that the atmospheric dissipation could not be stopped. What did you hope to accomplish by assisting these people?
>NIKOLAI: I was trying to give them a future. What I propose is we create an atmospheric shield on the planet. We can camouflage the equipment just as was done with my observation post. No one will ever know it's there.
>RIKER: You can't be serious.
>NIKOLAI: Indeed I am. I realise it will only provide atmosphere for a limited area on the surface, but it will be enough to save one village.
>PICARD: I have no intention of compounding what you have done by committing another gross violation of the Prime Directive.
>NIKOLAI: Captain, the Boraalans have a rich and beautiful culture, a deep spiritual life. They deserve the chance to survive. And isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do, to allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?
>TROI: Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference.
>CRUSHER: But aren't we interfering either way? If we take no action, it's a conscious decision to let the Boraalans die.
>NIKOLAI: Exactly. We have the power to save some of them. All we have to do is exercise it.

>PICARD: We are sworn to uphold the principle of the Prime Directive, and until that is changed there is no further course of action that we can take. Is that understood?
>NIKOLAI: Some of my log recorders are still in my observation post. They contain most of my research. Since it appears that the only way I'm going to preserve Boraalan culture is in a museum, I request permission to return to the surface and retrieve them.
>PICARD: I'm afraid that won't be possible. But you can have full use of the ship's computer to set up a comm. link and upload your data from here. If there's nothing further, you're dismissed.
>(all leave except Nikolai and Worf)
>WORF: I'm sorry, Nikolai. I wish there were another way. I am quite familiar with your communications systems. If you like, I will help you set up your comm. link.
>NIKOLAI: I'll do it myself.

At this point, Nikolai transports the Boraalans to Enterprise and Worf investigates, and Nikolai is found out.

So, last thread a few people were talking about who was in the right/wrong during insurrection. I'd like to weigh in with my thoughts on the matter.

The Baku had exactly dick-all legs to stand on. A colony of 200. An eminently relocatable colony should not take precedence over the good of literally trillions of people.

That being said, Starfleet handled the whole affair terribly from start to finish.

1st off, it should be obvious to Starfleet that the Baku are non native. 200 people living on a world in the middle of a nebula, with no evidence of prior habitation shows without a shadow of a doubt that the Baku are non-native. So from the get-go, there's no reason to secretly observe them. Just beam someone down and explain the situation calmly. If the Baku refuse to cooperate, there's still relatively little they can do. Just beam them up and send them on to peaceful, non magic planet. Although, honestly, I doubt the Baku would have refused if they had the situation explained to them rationally.

2nd, working with the So'na is a terrible idea. They're literally supplying your enemies with a drug their soldiers need. They've conquered numerous species and they're clearly hiding information about the Baku. Starfleet should probably just done the work and research themselves.

Failing that, send a well armed ship to oversee the operation and make sure the So'na aren't pissing about. Say, maybe that new Enterprise could help out.. They're in the area after all.

Stop taking shit out of context and making up your own headcanon because you have a hateboner for the Prime Directive.

As far as we the audience are aware, Picard didn't even know the civilization existed until Data said that he had been in contact with someone. At that point Picard orders him to stop contact and then calls the meeting to decide what to do with that new information. Up until Data gets the transmission the episode was a fucking Wesley episode.

>PICARD: You realise your career is finished.
>NIKOLAI: I know that, Captain, and I would do it all again.
>PICARD: What do you expect us to do now? You have left us with a colony of Boraalans who think they're still on their planet.
>NIKOLAI: I didn't beam them up without a plan. I've given this a lot of thought. I think we can find a new planet, an M class world, that can be their new home.
>PICARD: A home which would look very different from Boraal. You can't really believe that they'll be fooled.
>NIKOLAI: That's where the holodeck comes in. I'll go back and tell the Boraalans we're going on a journey, to a different place where they'll be safe from the storms. The holodeck can gradually change the terrain as we travel, so that at the end, the holodeck simulation will match the conditions on the new planet. Then we'll simply beam them down.
>PICARD: What if it doesn't work? What if they become aware that something strange is going on?
>NIKOLAI: Captain, I can't prepare for every contingency, but I assure you I'm accustomed to thinking on my feet. I'll deal with the situation as it evolves.
>PICARD: I'm not enthusiastic about this plan, but I don't see that we have another option. Very well, let's give it a try.
>NIKOLAI: Thank you, Captain.

Now, do I think Nikolai is unconditionally right? No. I think he did all this for selfish reasons, got involved without consulting anyone with the authority to violate the Prime Directive (like a starship captain), and then lied and misappropriated Enterprise's resources to kidnap a people against their will.

My issue with Picard and the rest of them is that they don't even consider helping them despite the cultural contamination. They aren't even willing to entertain Nikolai's plan until he's already done it.

Picard, who has the authority to violate the Prime Directive on at least some grounds (as seen in Pen Pals, ironically enough where he changes his mind at the last minute) argues for doing nothing.

>Let's just ignore Pen Pals while we're at it.
Yeah, I felt that the character motivations and reactions in that were pretty weak.

>posts transcript of actual scene
>headcanon

I don't have a hate boner for the PD. I have issues with how it is inconsistently applied throughout Trek. Despite the good intentions of the PD, the writers insist on wielding it like it's some kind of dogmatic truth that must be adhered to (until an exception occurs, of course).

I'm actually in favor of the Prime Directive, if only it would be applied consistently and with thoughtful care, rather than "muh feels" and "break it nevar evar!"

If it was about the discussion recently, regarding Riker's mental blackout during brainstorming session and you're "that guy", I actually share your opinion and thought your argumentation was very intelligent. I really must say, I cringe a lot every time I see that scene in penpals

Yes. I am "that guy". It's always nice to know I'm not universally despised.

I've been in /stg/ since the beginning and even nursed some of the early threads through. I regularly post screenshots and there are pretty good chances that the very people insulting me right now also agree with me on other aspects of Trek.

I'm not going to hold it against them. It's an anonymous image board, and the insults are a part of the culture. Let them have their vitriol. I'll let what I have to say stand or fall on its own merits.

The reason why I have an issue with your stance on this issue is because you take words out of context and greatly overly exaggerate things to such a degree where you basically do warp them into headcanon. It's no longer a rational argument because you're strawmanning.

Nobody, not even Riker, took the "cosmic plan" thing seriously at all. You can complain that he brought it up in the first place all you want, but if you're claiming anyone, including him, took it seriously then you're absolutely wrong and no wordplay will change that so knock it off.

Then why did he bring it up at all? Just to have it dismissed as a silly thing to be discussing?

Let's discuss fast cars then. Irrelevant to the discussion? Oh yes. Clearly. Let's drop it. Fast cars are completely irrelevant. So much for the auto industry.

Just out of curiosity, I went to Memory Alpha to see what it says about Pen Pals. I've never contributed to MA, so whomever wrote this isn't me.

The following is from the plot synopsis:

>regarding the Cosmic Plan

"La Forge and Pulaski on the other hand are aghast at the prospect of sitting by and allowing an entire sentient race to die out. Riker and Troi offer yet another argument; that the destruction of Drema IV and the other planets could be part of a larger "cosmic plan," which the crew of the Enterprise have no right to interfere with."

>Picard's decision to help

"Picard announces that they will obey the Prime Directive and leave the system. Picard orders Data to cut the transmission with Sarjenka, but Data plays a transmission from her, where she pleads them to help her planet. Upon hearing this, Picard decides that since it is a direct plea for help, the Prime Directive no longer applies. The crew cannot simply turn their backs on the inhabitants now. "

>memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Pen_Pals_(episode)

I'm not saying Memory Alpha is correct for agreeing with me, but I'm curious as to why your interpretation of the scene is more valid.

>Then why did he bring it up at all? Just to have it dismissed as a silly thing to be discussing?
Not that user, but the answer is pretty obvious, speaking as someone who's watched a lot of Star Trek. It was pretty obviously the writers using Riker as a mouthpiece to bring up the involvement or machinations of the capital G God (or Gods) without being denominational. That you're assuming a TV show has its characters organically come up with ideas is odd.

>I'm not saying Memory Alpha is correct for agreeing with me, but I'm curious as to why your interpretation of the scene is more valid.
You're simultaneously looking too deeply at some aspects (Riker was made a Q at one point, which the writers probably forgot about), and not enough at others (It's a TV show, and one whose writers made hamfisted references when possible)

>it's a TV show and dialogue and action serve the audience before the story

Agreed. I've even brought this up before.

>Riker was a Q

But he's not at the time of this particular discussion. He's never shown to have a greater understanding of the workings of the universe at any other time I can think (I do welcome cases to the contrary, naturally). Why would he have insight in this particular case?

You keep taking Riker's statement far too literally. He doesn't know that there is a literal cosmic plan, but he knows by virtue of being a Q that humanity is limited and can't go arrogantly barreling in when they don't know what the fuck's going on, even when it's for the best of intentions.

>Why would he have insight in this particular case?
Did you miss my previous point? The writer was looking to bring up God without actually *saying* God. It's not some reference to Q powers, it's a reference to the fact that religions talk about an ineffable plan.

Is it so so wrong to criticize the treatment of the PD? I think the moral substitute referenced by the other user was refering to dear doctor, which uses the exact same type of "cosmic plan", only wraped up in a very, very flawed understanding of science/evolution theory, where some form of fate is justification enough to allow the extinction of sapient species.

Of course it is all understandable in a Doylist context: the huge amount of writers, who often enough have little knowledge of Star Trek use the PD as stupid plot devices, so it's treament is fairly incocistent.

Which is inherently unknowable, and therefore irrelevant. It's effectively moral cowardice to say "we should not help a dying people because god might not like it". Especially where god is fickle, capricious, cruel, and doesn't reward your efforts to please it/him/her.

Refer to the above. Ineffable plans are inherently unknowable, and therefore impractical to follow. This isn't a case of a god laying out a code of behavior. You're trying to guess what is going on in the mind of god, and to predict its/his/her intent.

And if you could do that, you would be a god. But you can't, the only recourse is to proceed as though there is no plan, and try to make the moral, ethical, and humanitarian decision you can live with.

>Is it so so wrong to criticize the treatment of the PD?
No but it needs to be based on how the Prime Directive has actually been used and not "DAE STARFLEET GENOCIDES RACES BECAUSE THEY'RE RELIGIOUS NUTS"

And Dear Doctor predated the Federation, therefore it's irrelevant. Hell, even between TOS and TNG the Prime Directive clearly changed (TOS was specifically about pre-warp civilizations while TNG broaded it to ban all interference in external civilizations) so there's no point bringing up Enterprise.

On which other occasions is Riker's insight as a Q ever brought up and dominates his opinions/actions, or is just a general vibe why he's so superior?

Q isn't the kind of god as YAWEH/ALLAH or such, he's basically a grown up Trelane, his powers or not omnipotent, nor has he omniscience. Why should Riker have any of those traits?

>Which is inherently unknowable, and therefore irrelevant.
Which is basically what Troi said, and Riker agreed with her, therefore you seriously need to drop it and stop overexaggerating everything.

Holy fuck, actually read my post, read the actual words, understand the meaning of those words. Riker does not have special magical insight. Nothing suggested he did. Nobody suggested he did. The episode did not suggest he did. All that was suggested is that Riker is in character to remind people that humans are limited mortals. That's all. That's literally all. Stop flying off the handle.

No. It's La Forge who got him to drop it, because he used Riker's argument against him to argue in favor of interference (which is partly why the Cosmic Plan is a bad argument in the first place).

Holy crap user, please just drop it. It's embarrassing everyone in the thread.


In other news, I've been playtesting some of the Mophidius stuff, but I can't say whether I prefer it over the FASA or LUG systems I've used for years yet.

I made the clear destinction as it being the moral substitute mentioned, not the PD itself. And to undely the following point.

Anyways, if you make that distiction, look how many times the TOS-crew interferred with pre-warp civs?

Fine. I'll drop it to save you, and the rest of /stg/ from shame. It's been retread as much as possible anyway. In the mean time I will search for a way to regain my honor.

>but he knows by virtue of being a Q that humanity is limited and can't go arrogantly barreling in when they don't know what the fuck's going on

Read your post again, then understand what I ment. If you are making the argument, that the writers wanted to punch said message about human limitations through, than they did a very, very stupid job at doing it, because the entire argument Riker made is as often enough pointed out, idiotic and not very clear.

Biggest case of blue-balls I've seen in a long while.

At least it wasn't premature.

Funny shapes are best shapes

I'm fond of the shark that's two decks underneath the shuttle bay. Also, the little hangout in front of the warp coils.

Mostly the weird fetish Roddenberry seemed to have with god-like entities.

It gets real fucking annoying.

Because there's only one person who takes objection to the "cosmic plan" bullshit.

>Mostly the weird fetish Roddenberry seemed to have with god-like entities.
>It gets real fucking annoying.
Agreed. And while TNG put basically all its marbles in the Q basket, Q appears repeatedly, so it amounts to the same thing.

Also Q is a pretty entertaining character.

And unfortunately for us, fiction is based on what exists in the text. And based on the textual evidence, the Prime Directive is fucking stupid. It doesn't matter if you personally dislike the fact the Prime Directive is awful, or that you imagine that there is some Real True Prime Directive out there that isn't stupid. It doesn't actually exist outside of what was shown in the shows.

>Although, honestly, I doubt the Baku would have refused if they had the situation explained to them rationally

I'm not so sure. The Baku seem pretty adamant about staying. "Where could warp take us but away from here", "this is our home". They're close minded to the notion and would likely refuse to go. Do you remember that one Farmer that Kira couldn't convince to leave a moon? One man, putting his own comfort over something that will benefit billions, even himself if he allows it. The Baku are like him.

So really it comes down to whether you think it's okay to disenfranchise 200 people to benefit billions.

For my part, I wouldn't be comfortable with it, but I'd absolutely do it. These people aren't being sent to death camps or just dumped on some lifeless rock. Even the evil version of Starfleet's plan was essentially what Worf's brother did in Homeward, only less imperative.

They can claim that this is opression all they want, but when Starfleet are willing to relocate them to another temperate world, with a perfect replica of their town and likely the opportunity to avail of this new wonder-drug, those complaints just ring hollow.

>"There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions."
>"When has justice ever been as simple as a rulebook?"
>- Picard and Riker

Yeah... Picard can be a total hypocrite at times.

So I'm reading through the argument and both sides seem needlessly fixated on the "cosmic plan". This seems especially egregious because the first guy to bring it up in this thread seems to have quickly stated that the primary issue is the morality of non-interference. So, from my perspective, the constant reuse of "cosmic plan" rather than actually progressing your own argument is a clear cut case of grand-standing. It doesn't help that, as far as I can tell, the 4 or so key debaters here seem to have been arguing on entirely different cases that only tangentially line up.

On balance, I agree with the notion that the 3 episodes mentioned did a bad job of framing the prime directive and the morality of the crew.

No im pretty sure that's the TNG/DS9 one.

Or they did a good job at framing a bad directive and an inhuman crew.

...

Hardly. They spend most of the show being goody 2-shoes

Bestbird, coming through.

Except when millions of lives are at stake. Then they turn all apathetic to the suffering of lesser races.

Yes, that's why I think those 3 episodes and Insurrection are dumb.

Are there any cute Romulan ships?

T'varo a cute. And maybe those scout ships from TNG

The Romulan shuttle is the CUTEST

memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Romulan_shuttle

Jays lads, could one of ya not bump, no? We're ya born without hips?

Some of you guys are ok.
Don't go to Qo'nos tomorrow.

Oh shit! The Dave is free!

I though Dave was a force for good

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I read that as NCC-2400 for a second and had the thought that it was odd that a Galaxy would have such a low registry number. I may need a little help.

Not if you're between him and somewhere he thinks he needs to be.

He will try to spare you if he can but if he can't he will scurry over your cooling carcass. And he will almost certainly go through your pockets.

Could be one of the other early Connie numbers getting reused. Like the Endeavour or some shit.

I feel like Dave isn't so callous. He only fights in situations where he (and his) is threatened.

Any more of those Troi interviews? I thought they were pretty good, all in all.

See now this here is why I shouldn't post when drunk. Make an ass of myself, so I do. Have a Saratoga by way of apology for my drunk(er) posts.

Anyone know of anyplace that has free pdf files of star trek comics?

...

Imagine how comfy a dildoship would be with 24th-century guts: internal space for days, but with decks small enough to be single-purpose! A flying skyscraper, nicely partitioned into functional segments...

Get out of here with your reasonably believable interior space and comfy sci-fi aesthetic!

No, I get you. It would even make more sense given that gravity plating exists in Trek, so having the decks stacked like a skyscraper but never having to worry about which way is "up" would b fantastic.

Go full modular, have all the space stuff (warp core & nacelles, impulse engines, deflectors) in a standard stern section so you can have a different forward hull depending on the intended role of the subclass...

Get your own personal runabout and you have enough modular space to make your own flying luxury condo.

I like you style.

Exactly what I was getting at: I know some people aren't too keen on the Starfleet Museum...

The ships with the impulse engines forward of the warp drive are a bit fiddly and none of them have the deflectors at the stern, but the aft section of a Yorktown or Pioneer would make a good starting point for one hell of a refit!

>The ships with the impulse engines forward of the warp drive are a bit fiddly

Unless that's so they can separate the main hull from the warp drive.