/STG/ - Star Trek General

So, once i finish TNG, i will probably go over the Borg&Species VOY episodes, but i'm wondering if there is a Veeky Forums approved episode list somewhere out there?
Or would you recommend skipping Voyager entirely?
I haven't watched any of these shows for a decade now

I'm in your same boat. But I am doing voyager first as a whole and mostly bc it's the only one I remember from childhood. I would not recommend binging it however. The weekly breaks the show had when it aired really assists the plot. By watching them back to back it is like a marathon of disasters that the crew seems to recover from magically

Voyager is about a third good, a third meh, and a third trash. The ratio gets better when they run into 34 of DD, but it's still a very episode-to-episode show quality-wise.

That always bugged me. The borg can adapt to energy weapons frequencies, even after a drone supposedly can't communicate said frequency. Why wouldn't they be able to solve some stupid brain teaser that some relative primitives, with a lot less computational power, can just cook up on a whim? And it's not like the Borg would just focus on it with everything until they either solved it, or forever - the Borg are a hivemind of humanoids, not simple androids. It's after the fact, of course, but we know the Borg are more than willing to isolate, even sacrifice, entire cubes for far less. And then of course there's the fact that the Borg adapted to some future anti-Borg mental weapon in less than ten minutes, which Future Janeway had a lot more time and tech to develop.

Honestly I can't recommend anything more than a handful of Voyager episodes and nearly all of them are season 4 and 5. Season 3 is garbage, season 1 & 2 are very rough but with a couple of ok things, and 6-7 is hot trash with some nice character bits here and there as the only bright spots, culminating in a turd of a finale.
Of note, season 6 and 7 may make you hate the Doctor, who is otherwise a bright spot, because he gets Flanderised in a big way.

Anyway my personal recommendations for episodes I'd possibly not change the channel on if they came up:
Season 1: Eye of the Needle, Prime Factors,
Season 2: Projections, Prototype, Meld, Death Wish,
Season 3: Fair Trade (kinda), Distant Origin, Scorpion Part 1
Season 4: Probably ok with most of this but definitely skip Unforgettable and the two part The Killing Game.
Season 5: Mostly ok, but seriously skip all of these; The Disease, Course: Oblivion, The Fight, 11:59 and Warhead.
Season 6: 'Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy', The Voyager Conspiracy, Live Fast and Prosper
Season 7: Lineage, Prophecy, The Void

The Void in particular I think is the point near the end that frustrates a lot of people because the writers finally actually dabbled with a premise that's the kind of thing that we really wanted to see throughout. And it's also what I'd say is one of the few genuinely good episodes of the show that could stand up there with the better ones of TOS, TNG or DS9 in being what Star Trek should be.

Meanwhile in the Terran empire.

youtube.com/watch?v=O1CQ7Vwz8Eo

I know there was one of those viewing guides for it. But it stops after Threshold.

Every time I go through season 2 it's a painful reminder that we could have had Polasky for six full seasons. Too bad she hated working there.

I think it's best to ignore that plot point actually. Whether you chock it up to the Enterprise crew misinterpreting how the Borg worked with so little to go on, the possibility that it would cripple the cube but the collective would cut them off like a dead tentacle, or the reality that The Borg were just not as fleshed out in their first few appearances and were not quite what they became then is up to you.

A lot of older episodes and lore building makes earlier plot points seem silly or wrong, and you can accept the writing having blind spots, or headcannon it away.
Why are there 50-100 year old ships operating in TNG and DS9? It MUST be because they built ships to last, and not because models are expensive and they didn't want to use the Connie.

I think Polaski didn't really work out as a character because they tried to make her McCoy to Data's Spock, when Data wasn't capable of the repartee necessary at that point in the series. She came off as a bitch screaming that he was a ROBOT AND ROBOTS ARE DUMB. I'd have loved to see her around for the Lal episode and getting her reaction.

Thing is that rapidly toned down. Pulaski as a character actually grew significantly in her short time on the show. By the end of the season they'd changed from that to her pushing Data to do more/be better.

Plus she had a great relationship with Picard. And Worf too, which was nice.

Pualski only had one season of characterization though. If you judged everyone else entirely by how they were in season 1 then the entire crew would've made Enterprise's look interesting. It wasn't until later seasons that everyone (more or less) developed into interesting and likeable characters, and Pulaski probably would've done the same.

>Thing is that rapidly toned down.
I'm aware, but to the viewers, the change wasn't happening fast enough, and she was insulting a fan favorite. Diana Muldaur was a better actress, if not as easy on the eyes as early 90s Gates McFadden.

I articulated my thought wrong and apologize. When I said "I'd have loved to see her around for the Lal episode and getting her reaction." I was hoping for Data to grow and her to be toned down some, so that she'd be really supportive in the episode. Frankly, I think she probably would have browbeaten that admiral more than Picard would have by that point in the series.

Was gonna post .
Yeah she's a bitch to him in episode 1, but that was entirely the point. Once she gets used to Data, she ends up challenging his capabilities more than insulting him. And I don't think she was his Spock so much as someone as headstrong as Picard much more abrasive, forcing him into uncomfortable situations since they couldn't quite pull those from Data.

In one season she meshed so well with basically the two main characters, with an inclining that she'd be able to make Worf worth a damn, and have someone other than Jadzia interact with Klingons. She played the same hyper-humanist doctor roll as Crusher or Basheer, nutlike Basheer that isn't her entire character, and seeing what they did with her over multiple seasons would have been cool.

There were a few VOY episodes I liked. The most underrated one is The Chute, also known as Harry & Tom's Totally Awesome Vacation. Year of Hell was pretty good, if only because of the dad from Than 70's Show hamming it up. The ones with Crewman Suder (Meld and Back to Basics) were also good. The main problem with Voyager was that its writers hated each other and never communicated, which led not only to self-contradictory characters but also to the fact that no good idea ever survived more than, like, two episodes.

New trekkie here. Is there a good place to get a bunch of really high resolution msd? Pic related is like the only good res one I could find

>recommending the Voth
>recommending Fair Trade over Worst Case Scenario
>recommending Seven Gets Redpilled
>ignoring Blink Of An Eye
>ignoring Equinox
>ignoring Timeless
>ignoring (wasted gem) Year of Hell
>ignoring My Breathing Is Only A Simulation
Jesus christ, your taste is so shit. Granted, it had far fewer gems than TNG or DS9 and Berman hamstrung it, but the "VOY has nothing worthy of being Star Trek" meme needs to fucking die. And fuck you, Course: Oblivion was kino.

Equinox was not as good as it should have been because it accidentally highlights Janeway's massive hypocrisy.

Pulaski was right, though. She never hurt Data's feelings because he had none. Being nice to Data is purely a matter of personal habit, because you can insult him to his face and he really doesn't mind.

True, but it's a social nicety thing. Also, Data was Second Officer on board the ship, so she should have been polite to him as a superior officer.

>not recommending the Voth
"DO" is VOY kino. The less the main crew is on the screen, the better the ep is, every time. That's why "Course: Oblivion" is so good, desu.

Calm your anus easily flustered one, nearly all of that stuff is covered by the general recommendation of season 4 and 5.

Also the voyager conspiracy is at least 50% a good episode, which made it notable for that season. And Fair Trade isn't recommended 'over' anything else, I just like seeing Nelix suffer.

Eh that episode was dead to me the moment it turned out it wasn't the actual crew. And then lost me even more because I remembered what actually happened in the episode it was following on from so even less of it made any fucking sense at all.
And it was a Harry Kim centred episode to boot.

Spock was superior in rank to McCoy. It's really hard to put your finger on why the one rivalry was seen as cool and the other was seen as mean. Maybe because Data never reciprocated and threw underhanded insults back at Pulaski like Spock did at McCoy. Maybe because Data is usually portrayed as a socially inept child incapable of having relationships with subtext, while Spock is a cool older guy who can take a little ribbing.

Thanks a lot you guys

This; the only time you really see Data seem to emote is the episode where he gets his own ship and his first officer is being a shit. Even then that was probably a calculated reaction to get the guy to follow his fucking orders.

And that time Q made him laugh for like ten seconds. And that time he installed his emotion chip and Guinan gave him that glass of green.

Shame, too. I get the feeling that the Equinox was the more interesting ship anyway.

>My Breathing Is Only A Simulation
Objectively best Voyager episode, no matter how much you autistically shit on the Prometheus

I don't know of any collections. Your best bet is to just google the class you want. If it ain't in the first few results then a high res version probably doesn't exist.

Oh yeah the episode is great. It's just that the Prometheus itself doesn't seem like a significant leap forward in Starfleet tech.

Just played my first game of Star Fleet Battle. It was the traditional Federation vs Klingon cruiser fight, with me playing as the federation.

On the first turn my photon torps missed, but I was able to take down his front left shield. He moved right in front of me and unleashed all his weapons, knocking my shields down and taking out a decent amount of my hull, including half my bridges.

This wouldn't have been a problem, if it hadn't been for the fact that the very next turn he circled around and struck my side, taking out the remaining bridges.

This basically crippled me for the rest of the game, as not only did it mean that I could only fire once a turn and my ships turning was severely worsened, I could no longer perform emergency turns. (aka not moving but instead turning in any direction I want)

That meant I could not turn around and fire my now recharged photons and phasers, and he could fire again at the area with no shields, which destroyed all my photons and most of my warp engines.

The thing is, its basically a one-in-a-thousand chance that he could take out all my bridges, with it being so rare that the guy I was playing against, who as been playing for 10+ years, didn't even know what the rules were for it.

tldr; My Fed cruiser got its bridge blown up my Klingon barrage, could not escape following attacks.

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Would you watch a Star Trek: Equinox spinoff?

God, the Intrepid would have been so much cleaner if the aeroshuttle was docked to the bottom of the fantail and accessed via the shuttlebay; If only the writers had REMEMBERED THING DESIGNED FOR THE JOB INSTEAD OF GIVING US THE SHITTY, INCONSISTENT RUNABOUT KNOCKOFF THAT IS THE DELTA FUCKER

That seems incredibly normal for SFB. When playing single ship vs ship, whoever hits with the most, first, wins. There's no comebacks.

Doesn't really matter that it was the bridges, if it wasn't them it was going to be other important things, like power and weapons, and the result would be the same.

>Even then that was probably a calculated reaction to get the guy to follow his fucking orders

I'd like to have seen more of Data faking emotions with people who didn't know him well enough.

They had originally intended to use the aeroshuttle. Apparently UPN had some rule about not sharing sets though. So it only happened very rarely.

I think I would. The characters seem interesting enough. And of course you could end the show with a bittersweet encounter with Voyager.

How would SFB compare to something like Battlefleet Gothic?

Isn't it supposed to be like a captain's yacht?

Anyone else hype for the new Modiphius RPG? The PDF is supposed to be out in a week or two.

The art and layout seems nice, and the alpha rules were really solid. I'm interested.

And yeah, I'm kind of shilling. We haven't had an official Trek RPG for ages.

I'm mostly miffed that they're releasing ground crew, and that the Feds aren't getting generics while the Rommies and Klinks are ALL generics.

What ever happened with those aliens?

Even if the Borg Cube set were more reasonably priced, I still wouldn't buy it because of the Fed minis. They're absolutely useless in play (since everyone makes their own character and not play Picard or whatever), and just jack up the box price.

A damn weird decision to include them.

Trading partners with the regular Federation, but they never appear on screen again.

The TNG crew is odd too. Half of the crew are in the First Contact jumpsuit, while the other half are in one of TNG series uniforms. Meanwhile, I want monster maroon generics.

Completely different beasts.

Battlefleet Gothic is about large clashes between over a dozen vessels ranging from weak single-hitpoint escort vessels up to gigantic battleships, with a very abstract rules set that groups most weaponry into simple 'firepower'. There's minimal tracking going on when it comes to the status of things, with some handy use of counters and dice.

Star Fleet Battles is a very detailed skirmish game where you have to track a lot of things, have a lot of very specific detail in all things from shield facings to damage effects to movement based on how much power is allocated to the engines. Battle size is fewer than a half dozen ships typically.

The star fleet game game that actually compares to BFG would be A Call To Arms: Star Fleet Battles, as that works in much the same battle size, with again a lot of abstracted detailing rather than specific detailing.

I really don't like the 2d20 system, based on the experience I've had with the Conan RPG. And the very fact that Star Trek and Conan run on the same system tells you that something's wrong.

Now I kind of want to play Trek as Conan the Captain.

What would you say it's problems are?

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Alright, here's a question for you guys:

What if the primary species of the Federation, ie. the one that spread out most throughout the stars, filled the majority of Starfleet, established their home planet as the capital of the Federation, et cetera, was not humanity?

Now I'm sure the people itt would fiercely contend that a human-led Fed is the best possible outcome for all involved, but let's set that aside for now and consider what would happen if primacy were given to one of the other three founding species. This plays out as either:

A Vulcan-led Federation
An Andorian-led Federation
Or a Tellarite-led Federation

How would the character of the polity and society change? How would the people change, if at all? What role would humans and other species play? How would they have reacted to various threats, like war with the Dominion or the Borg incursions? For simplicity's sake, assume we've fast-forwarded to the TNG/DS9 era, although do not be afraid to include some history where you see fit. And at least try to resist the urge to post fucking meme answers...

I dunno, Conan meets the Enterprise wouldn't be a bad TOS episode. He'd be all jerky to them about civilization, kiss Uhura, then somehow prove he was a real hero by sword fighting Klingons or something.

When I think of the Borg, I think of what a shitty, cludgy mess their code must be. Our company is only a few dozen programmers strong and adding their "technological distinctiveness" together is an absolute mess. If the Borg don't have some intelligent process to extract the best code and processes from each species, or intelligent caretakers to prune useless and bad code, the Borg codebase will be an exceedingly hostile legacy codebase. They'll eventually assimilate species in the hopes that the species has an efficient regeneration or ship navigation algorithm, because theirs broke 150 years ago when the navigation library was overwritten by an identically named holonovel sucked up during assimilation of a minor species. They'll never be at peak effectiveness, always kludging together band aids out of piles of other band aids decades old.

The original point I intended to make was that the Borg may be vulnerable to attacks on any of these extremely legacy systems they no longer understand how to maintain. Some optical rendering library, for example, may be vulnerable to the weird shape trick but all drones receive it in assimilation and too many things are implemented haphazardly on top of it to replace it.

I'm not sure if you're assuming the foundation for creating the Federation was
fighting off the Romulans as shown on Enterprise but I'd guess it'd be:

Vulcans: Interested mostly in scientific inquiry that looks inward rather than
through the exploration of deep space. Humanity realizes the merits of staying
close to home systems and taking generations to spread outward towards the stars.
Things like the borg and dominion would probably still not have been an issue at
the end of the DS9 timeline. Something like Voyager wouldn't have happened as no
ship in the Vulcan led Federation would be messing around in the badlands chasing
Maquis that likely would never have come to be.

Andorians: This would probably mean a more aggressive starfleet who is willing to
stomp out threats early rather than play the diplomacy game. Empowered with the
resources and technical expertise that their partners bring, I feel like they'd
finish off the Federation/Klingon war by actually invading Klingon territory.
They'd pour way more resources into designing ships like the Defiant after being
attacked by the Borg and probably be way more distrusting of a power like the
Dominion. They thought Vulcans were shifty after all.

Tellarites: I know less about them, but they seem like negotiators more than the
Vulcans and Andorians. I feel like they'd make stronger ties with a race like the
Ferengi and look to be an economic power. They'd probably be more willing to concede
territory to the Dominion though border skirmishes would still lead to war.

Why do the Discovery uniforms look so differently from Pike's and his crew? Aren't they only a couple years apart?

I'm going with it being a sort of long-term mission jumpsuit. But probably they just decided that the pilot uniforms looked like garbage (Because they did).

Continuity is for nerds.

Well, Vulcans would make it very uncomfortable for the other species I think. Having Star Fleet be 50+% Vulcans instead of humans would make it difficult for the other species to integrate.

Dealing with anomalies and god-beings would be a crapshoot, given they'd outscience the other species, get fucked by the problems that require out-of-the-box thinking, and emotion tampering problems would likely drive them all to bloodshed. So, not great overall.

Their tactics would be less improvised, but quicker and more coordinated. A decloaking ship wouldn't be as effective against a battle ready Vulcan crew. And while they wouldn't be as innovative in combat, they'd perfect the innovations of other species. Get the right Command oriented Vulcan in the seat of a Galaxy or Excelsior (era dependent) and you'd rather be dealing with pissed off Klingons in combat.

Integrating into the Federation would feel weird I think. I'm sure everything would be as welcoming and expressive, but I can see new species feeling like they were joining an interstellar zoo for the Vulcans to lord over and analyze.

I don't see anything interesting coming from the Borg, or the Dominion actually. Most encounters with the Dominion went pretty much like usual, and we hear of all species (Vulcans included) entering the Gamma quadrant for research even when it's a no-fly zone. NonEnterprise Vulcans don't give a fuck about your boundaries when there's something they want to study.

One possible outcome would be less capable technology. We see tons of juryrigging and hotfixes improvising in Star Fleet ships, and while Vulcans had great tech early on, their more stringent policies may mean they hit TNG era behind where they should.

If they don't show people in the old-style uniforms, I will show you nerd.

>They'd pour way more resources into designing ships like the Defiant
I imagine Sisko's design crew for the Defiant being a few humans, a Vulcan, and a bunch of Andorians who didn't understand why the ship tearing itself apart was so much of a design problem as long as the ship unloaded all its torpedoes and escape pods first.

Different universe.

So the Borg run the Star Trek equivalent of Windows?

Maybe they just constantly assimilate new drones to replace the ones made useless by bugs.

>Tactical Sphere 4f56af of subdirectory 419i has been trying to assimilate a small asteroid for 58 years now
>After 50 years, the respective report ticket has been bumped up from priority 4 to 3

Vulcans: The Federation is the UN
Andorians: The Federation is NATO
Tellarites: The Federation is your university honors debate team

Are you fucking kidding? It's the same universe as the original show.

Yeah they say that but it looks nothing like it in any way. So it might as well be a different one.

Nout wrong with alternate continuities anyway.

There's nothing wrong with it, but it is completely insane and unreasonable to pretend that Discovery is something it's not and was never meant to be.

What Discovery is and what it was meant to be are probably two different things.

It started as a Prime continuity prequel, but after Fuller quitting, rewrites and reshoots, and re-done designs and visual effects, who the hell knows what it is now.

A Tellarite federation would be like a sprawling fantasy empire run by mountain dwarves. It just doesn't fit in with what we'd normally expect.

Anyway, Tellarites have a very mercantile bent, so they wouldn't get rid of money even in the practical post-scarcity of Trek. They would have more rivalry with the Ferengi than the Klingons. I think their wars with Romulus and Qo'nos would be more about getting them to open up economically than for any moralistic reason. Humans in this universe would act kind of like 19th century North Americans, always looking for an opportunity to better their lot and not being regulated too harshly by their government, but less refined and "advanced" than they were in their own Federation. They would also treat Andorians like modern Germans treat themselves, to the point where multiculturalist, pacified Andorians would start to develop.

Tellarite Fed would also probably fall to the Dominion, unless they are able to pressure most of the Alpha Quadrant including the spoonheads and Breen to join them, which is not out of the question considering what we know about Tellarite persuasion (read, browbeating) skills.

Maybe Vulcan-fed ships have better base specs than Human-fed ones, but the spirit of innovation is much more stifled in favor of standardization. "It is clearly illogical for an engineer to so modify his ship's engines that another similarly trained engineer would not be able to make sense of it."

Maybe human-crewed ships could be famous for their various enhancements, but also random humiliating technical failures.

This is making me want stuff I'll never have.
>Discovery has a subplot about integration of Vulcan Science Core and Andorian Imperial Fleet into Star Fleet
>second generation of this, with the still mostly segregated crews now dealing with Federation ships instead of their own
>follow a Han and Vulcan getting dumped on a mostly Andorian ship, trying to remind them to not replace every escape pod launder with a new torpedo tube
Enterprise should have covered the TOS species much better.

>multiculturalist, pacified Andorians

Don't even joke like that.

Well if someone is gonna ask for reasons as to why it doesn't look anything like the time period it's supposed to be the only two options are just make something up or just point out that CBS are chasing the look of the recent films with no fucking care for actual continuity.

Which is just blindingly fucking obvious so why even ask unless you want people to make shit up to try and explain it?

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I still think it'd look way better if the nacelle pylons were angular or at least a wide curve matching the actual ambassador class, the angle these things are at just irks me. A lot.

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Torpedo tubes are cultural appropriation.

Check your antenna privilege.

Why yes, my wife and I are indeed hosting a Nausicaan refugee in our home. She seems to enjoy his company very much.

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Has there ever been an in-universe explanation for why 90% of sentient life is human size and shape with small changes? Like some sort of forerunner planet seeder or even "nature just be that way"?

Yes.

>Like some sort of forerunner planet seeder

Exactly this.

Another example of Star Trek can not into evolution episode.

>Vulcan-led Federation.
Off the bat, I think the Federation would be much smaller. Not much larger than its core systems. Partially owing to the Vulcan's tendency to expand very gradually, as well as their slow reproductive cycle, but also owing to their lack of social graces. Humans have always disliked Vulcans. And they've always been allies. They're abrasive, aloof, arrogant. Relations with foreign power are likely strained due to this.

Technologically the Vulcan federation would be superior to the Human-led one. The Vulcans seem much more focussed on technology than anything else. This trait has likely been officiated by turning the Vulcan science academy into a Federation institution. Other species are encouraged to send their best and brightest there rather than to starfleet. Humans, as the earliest client race of the Vulcans are the most integrated into their societal structures. While some other races find it easy to integrate, such as the Denobulans and Rigellians, the Tellarites and Andorians remain somewhat hostile, preferring to operate their own independent military forces alongside Starfleet.

On an international level, the quadrant is starkly different. The smaller size of the Federation has allowed it to avoid many of the conflicts it otherwise would have been forced to fight. This has come at the price of most of the surrounding systems being annexed by the Romulans, Cardassians and Klingons(who have been forced to decentralise after the loss of Quo'nos). The Cardassians and Klingons are content to war with one another for the most part. The Federation's primary threat comes from the Romulans, who exist in a state of Perpetual war with the Federation because of their unyielding hatred for the Vulcans. The Federation can hold their own in border conflicts. But the Romulans have had some success in supporting Andorian and Tellarite nationalists to ferment rebellion. The probability of a widespread secessionist wave is rising.

>Andorian-led Federation
The Andorians would create a much more militarised Federation. I’m not just talking about Starfleet, I’m talking about the entirety of the Federation. Limited service within the Federation Defence Forces is a requirement to accessing higher education or pursuing certain careers, particularly political ones. Post-scarcity is reserved for loyal citizens.

The Andorians are actively duplicitous in their dealings with other species. Most races are coerced into joining the Federation in some manner. The most popular strategy employed by the Andorians is to ferment civil unrest on a prospective member world and then step in to “restore order”. The benefits of cooperation are made clear to the natives and most generally fall in line. In this way, the Andorian Federation is able to use native populations to police their own dissenters.

Humans were one of the first races to fully embrace the philosophy of this Federation, seeing as there was already a large body of people on earth looking to militarise Starfleet. The Tellarites required more aggressive encouragement and the Vulcans did their usual act of partial isolation.

The Federation has been at war with nearly every neighbouring power at some point or another. These wars are often costly but effective. The Romulans have been held back, the Klingon Empire entirely absorbed after the destruction of Quo’nos, and the Cardassians forced back into their territory. Threats like the Borg and Dominion are dealt with by throwing bodies at the problem. The Andorian Starfleet is extremely large and can amass simply ridiculous amounts of firepower at a given foe.

The primary issue now, however, is the increasing frequent rebellions and protests against the Andorian state. 2 centuries of nearly uninterrupted warfare have drained public morale and created an extremely Polarised Political scene. The first signs of widespread rebellion will likely see a massed invasion by outside Empires.

>Tellarite-led Federation
Quite frankly I don’t think it would last. The Tellarites are almost universally disliked by the other major fed-founders. They are technologically weaker than the Vulcans and Andorians. Their society is stagnant and their particular brand of diplomacy is more likely to piss off their enemies than avert wars. In short, they have nothing going for them as a dominant race.

I give them a century or so before the Klingons or Romulans invade and fuck everybody’s shit in for all time. Any colonists that escape the invasion would get to enjoy being the Bajorans of this wretched timeline.

how is discovery shaping up to be