/STG/ - Star Trek General

So I was wondering if you fellas would help me with some original species for my campaign. The idea is that those rascally Iconians or however the fuck they're spelled subtly influenced these guys to be unconscious guards/maintenance crew for one of their relics just by existing, which is starting to come off the rails as the federation's able to explore this reach of space thanks to an ion storm receding.

Here's what I've got so far;
Gas Men, encounter suit wearing antagonists who have been raging against the explorers in the reach because the hydrogen scoops everyone uses for fuel is literally using their dead (maybe breeding clouds?) unknowingly. Kind of a classic trek misunderstood antagonist, I was thinking of making them distantly related to the Breen explaining the heavy suit look.

Migratory bovine like species that live in big ships. They have advanced deflector technology that lets them live a fairly pacifistic life, and are able to calculate probability to such an extent that it seems like prophecy. They're fairly fatalistic because of this.

I dig the Bajorans. I think they're very much to humans what humans were to vulcans, a younger race with an energy that could revitalize the stogier parts of the federation.

Ok you have a legitimate point. Damn necrophilia.

However, are the kazon really worse? Also, that image is pure cancer and isn't helping your arguement.

More dudes:
A machine race that's obsessed with 'upgrades' that come from some great automated refinery on their world, with the youngest models worshiped for their innovation and advanced processing ability and older models struggling fiercely to scavenge the parts that'd make them socially relevant again.

Sasquach-like aliens who grow their whole lives, and fossilize as they age. The mountains that dominate their homeland are actually the oldest living members of their species, hibernating for hundreds of years between brief periods of activity. Maybe they even build ships out of some, great living cairns that let them slowly take to the stars.

Energy beings that inhabit electronics and speak in a strange mathematical patois. They're obsessively curious and tend to fuck with visitors because their very nature tends to screw up technology.

I've got a few VERY rough designs left, like a species that projects themselves into space instead of traveling it, but I'm interested in feedback or even just some ideas for naming these guys.

Kazon were supposed to be a threat but came off like a joke. A bad joke. An old, tired bad joke about Klingons.

And they just kept turning up for two years being just shitty henchmen for a cartoon villain and nothing more.

Not seeing how that image is cancer either, given it's a fairly decent shoop as these things go.

Really, you don't think a shopped sidecut on an unattractive actress isn't cancerous?

Sidecuts looks fine as fashions go as long as they're not on people who are outright ugly, or just fat. That goes for most fashionable haircuts though. Still, it's better than anything with a big forehead covering fringe or one of those looks that just builds the hair up on top like it's a cake decoration.
And she seems reasonably attractive enough, not fat or oddly shaped or with a big man-jaw or whatever.

So in short: no.

/thread

Mostly I liked that were more fractious than other races we had seen up to that point. Besides the Klingons and, eventually, the Cardassians, we hadn't really explored a society that was neither unified or utopian.

I liked how the civilian government was more or less staving off a military and religious coup for most of the first few seasons. Hell even the religious orders who've basically just had confirmation that their gods are real can't get over their own infighting for long enough to seize authority.

The best thing about Bajor and the Bajorans in general is that their problems can't be solved with a speech and a warp away. They're an ongoing situation with many people who have differing ideas about what the future of Bajor should be, and the Federation is not supposed to interfere with that process beyond taking over the station and providing assistance.

And then Ben Sisko is apparently the Messiah, and no amount of waving the Prime Directive in people's faces is going to make them stop believing it. There's religion, politics, terrorists, etc. It's a very exciting setting.

The biggest misstep is that they don't show the counterpoint to all the zealots and terrorists, which is that the vast majority of Bajorans want to live in peace, worship in peace, and generally just move on with their lives. But we don't see them because it isn't exciting.

As a result, we see the best of the Cardassians in contrast to all the bad things they supposedly did, and the worst of the Bajorans. I don't think that this was on purpose, but just kind of a thing that happened over the course of the series.

This is a good way of putting it, though I'd argue Kira very much is the best of the Bajorans,

Kira had her arc. She started as the worst of bajor and over time learned that things were more complicated than sitting in a cave plotting to kill spoonheads.

I agree, though in Kira's case she's a main character. I probably should elaborate: We don't see very many Bajoran guest characters who represent the best of their people. Arguably, Bareil, maybe the guy who raised Odo. I can't honestly think of many others who aren't zealots, terrorists, or former terrorists of some stripe.

Shakaar is a pretty good one. He goes from a leader of a resistance cell to a quiet farmer to leader of Bajor simply because he's unsatisfied with what the Provisional Government was doing.

True. I'd forgotten about Shakaar. It's still a very short list.

I mean on paper a fleet of feuding space gangsters could be a cool idea. they just needed something they never really got.

So there was a Pah Wraith farm on the Enterprise D? No wonder Troi crashed it into a planet, the ship was literally cursed.

Looking back at DS9 it's actually quite interesting how little they did with the Emissary thing for half the show.

It wasn't forgotten entirely, but that Sisko went and spoke to their gods was, well that was it for the most part. Only quite late on did he start actually having to deal with visions and stuff.

That we see more of the worst of the Bajorans nails it. We do see some good from outside the main characters but it's not as distinct as when we see something we don't expect to be good, like when Quark occasionally catches a case of being a decent person against his better judgement (and suffers for it in some way usually).
We do see plenty of Bajorans just getting on with stuff, often being characters who are clearly good-guys (like with Ro and Sito Jaxa over on TNG) but when it's Kira it just blends into it being because she's a main character rather than the mascot for her entire planet.

It's all too easy to see Winn as the mascot character for them instead because she's so distinct and memorable.

>Gas Men
GAS MAN!

Nobody will get this.

Nah. Troi crashed the D because she's incompetent. She's always been some form of incompetent, stupid, or useless, they just made it painfully obvious in Generations.

From the TNG tech manual, where they got the idea to have that sequence in the first place.

Troi didn't crash it. Just didn't manage a best-case landing, given they were punted by the drive section exploding, forcing them out of orbit and into the atmosphere.

Shakaar was very forgettable in general. Despite his position as First Minister, he rarely ever appeared on the show. He spent more time being a vehicle to further drive Odo's growing attraction towards Kira than ever really doing Bajoran government things. Not to mention he was largely bland overall. Bareil was at least introspective and had his dynamic with Wynn. Shakaar never really had a character outside of "Kira's boyfriend".

I forgot Shakaar wasn't Bareil. That's how much of a non-entity he is.

Hey. Hey, user. You there.

You're getting upset about a hairstyle because you've conflated it with a sociopolitical ideology that you don't like.

Seems pretty fair to me, people are getting upset over moustache styles when they are similar to certain peoples from the past.

Hardly. It's unattractive to have a hairstyle where half your head is shaved while the rest grows long. It has nothing to do with ideologies, it just makes the person wearing it look like an idiot. Hold on to that conclusion though, I hear kneejerk futures are rising.

I admit I don't get it.

Shakaar is in 2 episodes. He's mentioned a bunch over the course of the latter seasons, seeing as he's First Minister. In his 2 episodes all we really learn about him is that he's a charming man and he'd really rather be growing crops on his farm. The problem there is that he's given no goals or end game. He's a passive character as he's essentially dragged into the plot. That'd be fine if he appeared in a dozen more episodes and grew into his role, but as it is he's eminently forgettable.

Whereas Barail has numerous goals that are made clear throughout his appearances. He wants to stop Winn, he wants to become Kai and he wants to establish a proper peace treaty with the Cardassians. Those are tangible objectives that drive his character. And that makes it easier to relate with him in the short term.

Actually, if you think about it, Shakaar is a pretty good example of Bajorans overall. Aside from their priests and military, the Bajorans are pretty goddamn passive. It took 50 years for them to make the Cardassians throw up their hands and go away despite an active resistance movement. And even then, the most proactive members of their military after the provisional government was formed felt their best option was a coup attempt led by Frank Langella and that guy from Wings, rather than work with the Federation until they were back on their feet.

Say, howsabout a little storytime? My treat!

Here's a fun little offering from Star Trek: The Manga - Volume 1. Yes, really.

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We get a Kirk the size of a barn door?
Yes please!

Re: the sidecut issue... Yeah, they're pretty fugly imo. The only time I've seen one done well was when Vulvatron (formerly of GWAR) was rocking one, and that's only because she actually did something with the big gap where her hair should've been.

But hey, it's a fad and it'll die out soon enough to be replaced with something just as stupid. I just want the pixie cut to make a comeback... is that so much to ask?

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Fun fact: I always wanted to storytime this on /co/ for April Fool's, but a) I never had the time and b) I'm not sure I'd have gotten away with posting a manga, even an OEL manga.

I even considered storytiming it on /a/,
but I KNOW they'd never let me.

>Her body is a mixture of mechanical implants and organs form nine different species
Aboard U.S.S. Deviantart nobody can hear you scream.

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Another factor keeping me from posting this on /co/ is the fact that this is the only scan of any of Tokyopop's Star Trek manga, and it's kinda ass.

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Personally I think the religious crap that was Bajorans major hat for most of early episodes was the reason why people hate them. It' gave them that holier than thou-vibe that is annoying in real life religious people, now imagine that in fictional people you are supposed to like.

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And then add Winn Adami to that picture of religious nutjobs bombing schools just because it doesn't conform to their believes and you can start to understand how much viewers don't really like Bajorans outside Kira.

I get the idea they had with Winn as this antagonist and bad guy, but when she is the basically the face of anything relating Bajor in general, and being the smug shit she was, it's no wonder most people stopped caring shit about Bajorans at that point.

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Who saw that one coming from a mile away ? It's the genesis of the Borg

The only reason I posted this was because somebody was asking in the previous thread if there were any TOS era Borg stories
Honestly, when I first read this the twist hit me like a sock in the jaw.

>Shakaar

They were thinking of having Li Nalas fill that role, but they weren't sure if they could convince the actor to come back for future episodes.

Well it's better Origin story than some of the other writers have come up with.

Pretty much my thinking but with more of a dose 'Oh here we go...'

The sidecut is basically a cyberpunk fashion, I mean we're at the right time for it but nobody's got the chrome in place.

kek

>spoiler
mein negro of superlative taste

>Nobody will get this.
A nice cup of steaming cold tea.

>the ultimate evolution in martial-arts

Truly, man has reached his apex. The battle-q-tip surpasses even the great philosophers for artistic merit.

>bombing schools just because it doesn't conform to their believes
To be fair that part of a larger plot to kill Bareil.

>relativistic time dilation
Has this EVER been referenced in the main canon? It's obvious from the way tech and travel works in Trek that time and space are absolute rather than relative.

The rules of the Alcubierre-White warp drive essentially dismiss relativistic issues by moving space around the ship rather than moving the ship through space. So, in theory (and in setting), there should be no time dilation while using a warp drive.
But then, using the Alcubierre-White model, there should also probably be a cataclysmic release of exotic radiation at the exit point of the warp bubble, so it's all really just whatever suits the story.

I thought the deflector dish deflected the radiation away pretty much as fast as it accumulates and thereby prevents a ship from becoming a planet-smasher.

Well then boom, there you go, problem solved by "science"

Anyone ever design their own ship for a game (or just for fun)? How hard is it?

I don't find it hard, but then I've designed hundreds of ships for different settings.
Unless you mean full designs with deck plans. That shit is a lot of work for full sized starships.

Wish I could find the plans for that Runabout sized yacht I did for a guy's Star War game. Did you want a ship designed? Always interested in making new ships.

I've been working on one, concepting it is all I've done since I'm shit at actually drawing and stuff. Surprisingly this is very, very similar to what it would like so that's what I've been using to help me with the design and concepting.

It's covered in the TNG tech manual but for the most part, not a big issue except if sustained cruising at impulse.