Star Trek
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Star Trek is one of the classic nerd interests, with over 40 years of Geek history that span several generations, and is one of the longest running Sci-fi franchises. If you are a nerd (and you are, otherwise why the fuck would you be on this site?) you are at least somewhat familiar with Star Trek.
Star Trek is to gwai-lo barbarians what Gundam is to weeaboo faggots. The polar opposite Noblebright to Warhammer 40,000's Grimdark. Probably someone at Games Workshop when working part of what do to with 40k decided to work from the point of doing the opposite of trek.
So why should I care?
Because between them, these 5 TV series and their assorted spinoff movies, books, etc. can provide inspiration for any sci-fi game you could care to run. If you want light-hearted action, look at the sort of things that happened in TOS or DS9 to get the crew into some dangerous situation. If you want a charismatic villain, look at Gul Dukat or the Borg Queen. If you want moral issues and debates, look at the shit that happened to Voyager and remove all the transparent deck-stacking and cheesy moralising (or you could read any decent SF book/watch a Twighlight Zone episode written in the previous 50 years, if you don't need your source material to be served at a 2nd grade level).
Not to mention in any sci-fi RP with remotely freeform rules you're likely to encounter Star Trek fanboys, so you might as well know what they're talking about. The unholy spawn of a Trekkie and a Furry is known as a Chakat, and you should fear it.
Setting
Here's the Cliff's Notes on Star Trek.
- A General Note
Star Trek likes to really take its "racial themes" bits just a little too far.
The Federation
Might as well talk about that main faction. The United Federation of Planets is what the Tau think they are. Its backstory is that normal humans not only told the Emperor and his Thunder Warriors to fuck off, but fought back, beat them, and marooned them in space. In the distant future of the 1990s, genetically-engineered superhumans(which likely created in the name of Humanity Fuck Yeah) began conquering the Earth. The Normals fought back and won, but the damage and mass political unrest soon lead to War World III and got half the planet nuked. Fortunately, in 2063, an asshole a heroic visionary named Zefram Cochrane created humanity's first warp drive and made first contact with the Vulcans. The Vulcans eventually helped humanity rebuild and overcome poverty, disease, war and hunger. With its Earthly problems solved, man turned to the stars and found out its three closest neighbors were dicks trying to murder each other. Since any war between them would've swept up puny little Earth and gotten it glassed, humans decided to force their neighbors to sit down and talk things out. Incredibly, it worked, and the Federation was born.
The Federation for the most part is a commie noblebright hippieland. It has a post-scarcity economy with no currency (future 3D printers made everything free...depending on the episode) and no hunger (future 3D printers can teleport dust into food). As a result, Federation citizens work not because they have to, but because they want to.
The Federation's Navy is almost always called Starfleet. It's a mix between a military, a coast guard and a space agency, and usually rates scientific research as a higher priority than defense. One of its quirks is that it doesn't subscribe to the "bigger is better" policy used in most sci-fi, and even by most of the other Star Trek factions. If the Federation does make a large ship, it's because they want it to have a daycare, swimming pool and ice cream bar. If they want a warship, they'll take a little gunship half the size of a modern day destroyer and pack it with enough guns to exterminate a solar system. They can get away with this because they out-tech almost everyone else by a country mile.
Some of the more important member races are:
- Humans: you know 'em, you love 'em. Comprise 90% of Starfleet for reasons in no way related to the cost of makeup/CGI.
- Vulcan: The Original Space Elves, logical and stoic, pretty bro-tier overall.
- Andorians: Blue dudes with antennae and constant rage, the polar opposite of Vulcans.
- Tellarites: Space Dorfs, like insulting everyone and arguing a lot (no, really, petty insults are considered a polite gesture in Tellarite culture).
- Betazoids: Humanoid aliens with empathic powers. Well-regarded by Starfleet captains for their ability to point out the obvious.
The Klingons
"It is a good day to die!"
The Federation's main rival and (movie era and afterwards) the quintessential Star Trek race of lumpy foreheaded aliens. Originally they were a rough analogue to the USSR in a rough cold war allegory with the Federation. Their defining feature was that they were militaristic while the federation was scholarly. This gradually moved more and more into them becoming space vikings obsessed with honor, fighting and dying honorably in battle while worshiping at the altar of warrior Jesus, even as they turned from the Federation's bitter enemies into that friend who's fun to be around when he's not getting into drunken bar fights. You see shades of it in during the movie era and it became more and more prominant through TNG, by DS9 it had gotten into straight-up parody territory. Klingons often carry swords into battle in an age of energy beam guns.
The Klingons have their own constructed language. If you are ever worrying that you might not be a nerd, learning Klingon will solve that problem for you.
The Romulans
You know those Vulcans? Well a few thousand years ago, their planet was ravaged by war. Most of them turned themselves to intense emotional control and logic to tame their murderous passions, while a few others left the planet altogether, founding a colony on the planet Romulus. Since said planet shares a name with a mythical figure known for founding a city which built an vast empire and they had warp drive while those around them did not, you probably know that they turned to building an empire of their own. They hold the second place of prominence as immediate rivals to the Federation. The difference between the Klingons and the Romulans is basically the difference between Gork and Mork. Klingons will fight you up front with simple brute force. Romulans are sneakier guys, preferring to fight you when you're not looking with spies and cloaked ships. There is a lot of political infighting among them. Like the Klingons, they filled a rough cold war allegory. In this case, they were rough analogs to Communist China (as seen by 1960s Americans). A force which was threatening and vast, but also a secretive unknown. The first major Interstellar War that Star Trek Earth fought was with the Romulans, which was fought entirely in space with neither side ever seeing the other. Afterwards they set up a 'No Fly Zone' between the Federation and the Romulan Empire that no one even tried to cross for a century.
The Ferengi
"A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all."-Eighteenth Rule of Acquisition
Introduced in TNG's early days as the villains for the series. The idea was to make a caricature of capitalism as a contrast with the techno-socialist Federation. This might have worked if this were not TNG's early days. Instead they overshot the mark by a light year or so and you got a race of short(Gene wanted to make an evil short race as big evil races were overplayed), big-eared, goblin-like losers about as threatening as a grumpy terrier. Over the first and second seasons they tried to make these guys threatening, but they fell flat on their face every time. Eventually the writers just said "fuck it" and the Ferengi got demoted to comic relief species, and their status as terrible enemies was demoted to propaganda designed to scare the Federation while the Ferengi government tried to figure out what to make of a species that rejected the acquisition of wealth as a goal.
Almost everything in their society relates to individuals attempting to gain profit up to and including funeral services (your body is cut up and sold, which is a good thing according to the Ferengi because you can make a profit even after you died; just burying or cremating someone is more or less saying that you have no value whatsoever and is considered a grave insult), the philosophical text that their civilization is based around has such gems as "Greed is eternal" and "Exploitation begins at home." They are also horribly sexist a hang-up of 90's capitalism. Most of the good stuff that fleshed them out a little came from DS9 (although they did had their monuments in TNG).
The Borg
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture shall adapt to service us. Resistance is Futile."
The Ferengi were utter failures as serious villains, so they needed something to fill that gap. Thus they made the Borg, an aggressive hive minded collective of hyper-adaptive, regenerating cyborgs that assimilates entire species into into itself in it's attempt to improve itself. In many way the true Dark reflection of the Federation. While the feds want you to join their little club the Prime Directive means they happily accept you turning them down, even if you have shit they really want. The Borg say fuck that and just take you. While the feds believes everyone should work together for the greater good they still have a very strong sense of Individualism, the borg meanwhile pool everyone's mind into one large collective. Your standard Borg cube is a huge multi-kilometer craft able to go up against an entire Federation warfleet and win. That's right, one of their ships could threaten the entire Federation. When done right, they are a cold, calculating, nigh-unstoppable force, a threat to all life that wants to retain individuality (although they will ignore a single person as they only care about assimilate whole cultures). However, they got a bad downgrade during Voyager.
The Cardassians
Introduced in TNG, they are third fiddle to the Klingons and the Romulans. If the Klingons are hypothetically-honorable techno-barbarian warriors and the Romulans are an empire of civilized, but sly and ruthless imperialists, the Cardassians are somewhere in between: an highly aggressive and nationalistic species of space fascists. Their trials announce the sentence at the beginning, and the Defense At tourney is executed if he wins. Also, THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
As far as plot significant activities went, they had a war with the Federation a few years before TNG which ended in the creation of a Demilitarized Zone between the two powers and (significant to Deep Space 9) occupied the planet of Bajor and exploited it for resources before eventually abandoning it.
The Bajorans
The Bajorans are a species native to the Planet Bajor. They were, until shortly before the events of Deep Space Nine, under a brutal occupation by the Cardassians who strip mined their planet. After that, they got their independence. The Bajorans have one system and are technologically backwards. The only reason why they are significant in terms of the politics of Star Trek is they have a wormhole near their planet, which has some timey-wimey aliens living it that they worship as gods.
The Dominion
A vast empire which exists on the other side of the galaxy where most things happen. The Dominion is ruled over by a species of liquid shape shifters called The Founders which has at it's disposal a military composed of two genetically engineered species that worship the founders as gods: the Vorta who serve as ambassadors, bureaucrats and military officers and the Jem'hadar, who are vat grown drug addicted cannon fodder. These oversee a large number of vassal races. They are vast and aggressive, but fortunately for the Alpha Quadrent the only way between the Dominion and the Alpha Quadrant that would not take decades is through a wormhole.
The Shows
The Original Series
Created in 1966 by legendary sci-fi god Gene Roddenberry and pitched as a "Wagon Train to the stars", it's a pulpy adventure sci-fi, full of fistfights and sword fights (the guns never work). The Original Series isn't deep, folks. It's good, hammy fun, monster-of-the-week type stuff. The USS Enterprise is tasked by the Federation to seek out new worlds and boldly go where no man has gone before, though due to budget constraints, her crew often find that man has in fact gone there before. James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy have sex, are cold and logical, and rash and emotional, respectively, and Scotty gets shit done.
The Original Series frequently ran out of budget and entire episodes were filmed using spare costumes belonging to the production company, resulting in a series of extremely goofy excuses to go to planets full of gangsters or Nazis. This is often copied by shows who don't realize it was done out of pure expediency, and nowadays it's practically a box to check off when doing sci-fi adventure. The lack of budget also resulted in one of the more memorable inventions; unable to budget for a sequence showing the Enterprise landing on a new planet every week, the writers instead decided the ship would have a "transporter" to teleport people to where they were going through the magic of sweet, cheap FX. TOS has a lot of terrible episodes and a cheesy overall feel, but its heart is in the right place, and when it is good, it's fantastic. Also worth noting: for a silly 60s show, TOS had a hell of a cultural impact.
Fun fact: the Enterprise, and each of her 11 sister ships, have enough firepower to Exterminatus a planet by themselves. This may be related to their secondary ship-to-ship weapons traveling at FTL speeds.
The Animated Series
The often forgotten middle child. More or less "seasons 4-5" of TOS with the same writing staff and actors, sans poor Walter Koening. At least he got replaced by a badass birdman. Being animated allowed the staff to get a lot more creative with the alien designs and plots, and the writing and acting remain... well, top notch is a stretch, but certainly at the same levels as the original series. Not nearly as bad as you're probably picturing from the name, although still limited by the low budget and primitive animation techniques of the television era it was aired in.
The Next Generation
Here's where it starts getting a little deeper, and a little darker. The USS Enterprise-D (the original, A, B, and C were all destroyed; eventually, so was the D) is, like its predecessor, tasked with going where no-one has gone before, but this time around the problems are less likely to be solved in a single episode. Jean-Luc Picard is the captain, and he plots and negotiates his way to victory. Mr. Data is cold and unemotional (though not by choice - as an android, he'd very much like to change that), Riker and Worf have sex and get punched by things respectively, Wesley Crusher is an abominable little shit (even the guy who played Wesley hated him), and Geordi LaForge gets shit done.
Although the first couple seasons were laughably bad, the quality improved dramatically after Gene Roddenberry's declining health conveniently stopped he and partner-in-crime Maurice Hurley from filling it with enough lazy stereotypes and tired cliches to make even George Lucas jealous. The later seasons are widely considered to represent the apex of the franchise on the small screen (although DS9 also had its moments); sadly, however, they only got one good movie.
Deep Space Nine
Unlike all the other series so far, Deep Space Nine primarily takes place on a space station - the titular Deep Space Nine, out near the borders of Federation Space. Said space station is near a recently-freed world and a wormhole, so all sorts of crazy shit goes down. Benjamin Sisko is the captain, and he alternates between blowing shit up like Kirk and talking people down like Picard in his quest to deal with all the crap that falls in his lap. Kira struggles to free and rebuild her people, Dr. Bashir struggles to find his character, Dax struggles to hold things down and has to switch bodies doing it, Odo IS 'Liquid Space Cop, Quark runs his bar and heckles the Federation, Garak pretends to be a tailor while dropping killer lines, and Miles O'Brien gets shit done. Also, Worf wanders in halfway through, and actually gets to punch things instead of just getting punched by them. It's a lot more political than other series (though TNG and Voyager have their moments) and the last series to have Gene Roddenberry's involvement.
Its the closest the franchise ever gets to Grimdark. Hasn't aged well, what with one of the main cast being a terrorist and her people occasionally coming off as right-wing bible-thumpers and/or Muslim extremists now a days. On the other hand, being one of the only Star Trek programs with an ongoing set of story arcs has its own advantages. Probably the last serialized Star Trek television show to demonstrate something like consistent quality.
Voyager
Voyager is...well, it's controversial shit. Many people say it's the worst series, but those people obviously haven't yet seen how pants-shittingly awful Enterprise is. The USS Voyager gets teleported over to the other side of the galaxy, and the plot of the series as a whole centres on its efforts to get back home with the primary obstacle being the consistently terrible decisions of its own captain. There were several ways you could have done this, you could have slowly . Think Gilligan's Island on a starship. Yeah. This is also the first ship in the series captained by a woman, Kathryn Janeway. Since they did not want to come across as sexist, they decided to make her flawless. Very rarely would Janeway be criticized in her action. A course of action which A: is rather sexist in of itself, B: shoved her into the Mary Sue slot and C: often made her come across as a power mad maniac.
Like TNG and DS9 it's a character-driven drama just as often as it is a sci-fi adventure romp, although from the fourth season onwards the only character the writers seem to care about is Mary Sue of Nine (but she's hot, and the other characters are much worse, so that's not really a bad thing). Fans who stuck with the show despite its glaring failings were given one final slap in the face with the controversial shit final season, in which the producers decided "screw steadily crafting a satisfying conclusion to a story which we have wasted for most of the last seven years anyway; lets just ignore it until the final episode and then throw in some shit about trans-warp conduits and time travel, bitches love time travel".
Hopes that the franchise had sunk to a new low from which it could surely only get better were about to be proved wrong in spectacular fashion...
Enterprise
A bold and according to some successful attempt to create a series even worse than Voyager was, from the minute the fantastically awful theme tune started the fans knew in their hearts it was fucking doomed. So bad that even the most devoted Trekkies gave up on it, in just four seasons this series almost single-handedly killed off the Trek franchise (which is actually quite impressive, in a perverse sort of way).
It's a prequel to the rest, taking place on the first Enterprise, before the Federation got a lot of shit figured out - so there's a lot of primitive versions of things from other series. At least the uniforms were pretty cool in an air force sort of way, although when that's the best thing you can say about a series, that tells you all you need to know about its quality (or lack thereof).
Was retooled twice, the third season tries to be 24 in space while the 4th is a massive apology about the last three seasons that tries to fix all the problems they had, and as a result, the only season that's close to being good.
Amusingly the final episode is set on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D and leaves us with the firm impression that the producers would have much rather have just continued making The Next Generation; considering the mediocre quality of the TNG movies we got instead, this probably would have worked out better for all involved.
Films
As a general rule, the even-numbered ones aren't complete shit.
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (AKA the Slow Motion Picture. Old school sci-fi geeks like the ideas, but terrible pace and interminable special effects that were clearly meant to capitalize on this newfangled Three Thousand and Eleven doohickey all the kids are yammering about kill them dead for everyone else.)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (KKKHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!! Widely considered the best of all the films, and the only one considered a straight up great film, no qualifiers. If you haven't seen it, see it.)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Where is Spock? He's on Genesis. ALL AHEAD FULL! Not really bad, just run of the mill compared to the superior films that surround it. If you had to say that any film broke the odd numbers suck rule, it would be this one.)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (The crew of the Enterpise travels back in time to save whales. No, really. Somehow it works; The Voyage Home is a zany comedy romp beloved by the general public and fandom alike, leaving only the most intractable fanbois to bitch and moan.)
- Star Tre Lies! There is no Star Trek V! It was not called The Final Frontier! It was not directed by Kirk's egotistical actor and did not have a plot that could literally be summarized as "Kirk fights God and wins!" The films mysteriously moved from four to six and we are all improved because of this!
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (The Space Cold War ends amidst Tom Clancy-esque drama. The sendoff for the original cast. Gene Roddenberry watched it, hated it and was going to seek legal advice but died a week later. And good riddance to that, because it's a pretty sweet political thriller if your hippie-panties don't get into a twist at the thought that the Federation isn't a perfect place full of perfect people.)
- Star Trek Generations (Malcolm McDowell blows up planets to get into a magic space ribbon to live forever, no it does not make sense in context. Also, Kirk dies on the bridge in the sense that a bridge kills him.)
- Star Trek First Contact (The TNG crew face off with the Borg to ensure the future happens. Lots of action and some good performances make this the only good TNG movie.)
- Star Trek Insurrection (If you thought the Na'vi were a bunch of Mary Sues, you ain't seen nothing yet! B-b-b-baby you ain't seen n-n-n-nothing yet! Also, Riker shaves his beard, and that's basically a war crime.)
- Star Trek Nemesis (The last stand of the TNG cast, ending not with a bang but a whimper. It also required amending the even-good-odd-bad rule to include "multiples of five shit a hole straight through the bed.")
- Star Trek (2009 Alternate timeline "reboot" with the original crew. Some say it, too, broke the even-good-odd-bad rule. Others do not..)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (Terrorism and flapdoodle. Considerably less skubtastic, though the ending left some fans groaning.)
Relaunch
Like most long time franchises Star Trek has a massive line of books. Unlike most they're basically just fanfics as nothing but the show or movies is canon so the writer can do whatever they want. This changed after Nemesis since they might never have another show or movie in the "Prime" universe the writers got there shit together and wrote a group of books with tight community very close to the shows. The relaunch novels are a continuation of the show they're about. Also they're the Titan books which is about Riker and Troi getting their own ship, which happens to be staffed by every race in the Federation including living rocks and a space cyborg ostrich.
Also the Borg go nuts and eat Pluto... yeah...
Then all the federations main enemies get together and form an Anti federation and start poking the bear, all the while telling the Federation and it's allies that their warmongerers and dicks.
Star Trek Online is also part of this (its written by the same writers), although it ignores the Borg part never happen.
Games
There's been plenty of vidya gaems featuring Star Trek, including one of the earliest action multiplayer wargame: Netrek. There's also been plenty of tabletop gaming that was inspired by Star Trek without being merchandising bullshit.
- Star Fleet Battles (1979-2010) The crunchiest starship combat game you're ever going to find outside of a computer. Takes some liberties with the setting, which is why "Star Trek" isn't actually in the title.
- Call To Arms: Star Trek (2011) Their license for Babylon-5 expired, so they rethemed the game to Star Trek along with improving the system to make it more nifty. Less micro-management than SFB, and ships get some cinematic feats.
- Star Trek: Expeditions (2011) Ignore the tie-ins to the movie, Reiner Knizia designed this. Explore the gameboard, flip over missions, try to have the proper crew to get victory points.
- Star Trek: Fleet Captains (2011) Tile flipping, exploring, and spaceships fighting over resources
- Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (1983) FASA designed this, so it feels like Battletech but not as good.
- Star Trek Red Alert (2000) A Diskwars game themed to Star Trek.
- Star Trek CCG (many) There's been a few of these, but never popular enough to catch on. They also suffered from the game balance problems of fans wanting their fave character, but needed extra rules for their quirks. There's also the problem of putting numbers to character stats, such as one game that asserted that Picard had about twice the integrity of a Klingon pig. Latest versions are "deck-building" games to try to cash in on the popularity of Dominion and Thunderstone.
Star Trek (2009 movie)
Whilst Star Trek has never been known as the most awesome of settings by /tg/ save for some rare bits of win here and there, it is still point and fact an enduring sci-fi legacy of a time when ideals and a utopian dream were striven for. Star Trek 2009 proceeds to ritually defecate on all that star trek once stood for. It is to the Star Trek universe as Codex: Grey Knights is to Warhammer 40,000 - a work of such incomprehensible nonsense and utter failure that it is honestly terrifying to look upon. Monumentally idiotic to the point of being subject to nearly as much mockery as Chakats in the Star Trek universe, Star Trek 2009 is utter shit, and its creator, J.J. Abrams, is a hack of the worst order.
And the numb-skullery does not end there. Whispered amongst the void between stars and pointedly avoided as a conversation piece in social gatherings of the higher geek Echelons, it is said that Abrams, not satisfied with the pillaging and slaughter of 40 years of geek history, is once again creating a menace to sci-fi families everywhere. His Star Trek 2013. Which, when released will be photon torpedoed in earnest. It is all that can be done to body-shield the sacred tomb of Gene Roddenberry from the inevitable spit that will be coming his way thanks to the machinations of this idiocy. On a related note, Abrams is also lined up to direct the upcoming 7th Star Wars film.
At least, that's what the pissed-off fanboys will tell you. We're not here to judge, just extract lulz.
There are two sides to every story, and when you can't compromise you can see two completely different views of the same goddamn thing. What we need is compromise. What we have is, well... To get things straight, people either love or hate this movie for what it is and it can be summarized in two paragraphs:
Trekkie Hipsters think: This was given to be a total revamp of the entire Star Trek universe, a modernization that would invite new generations of Trekkers to the fold. It resulted in one of the largest nerdrage controversies in the history of Sci-fi, with J.J. Abrams labeled as a total fucktard for effectively ignoring 45 years of Star Trek history. Set in what is clearly an alternate timeline version of the 'The Original Series', it adds flashy, sexy, lens-flare faggotry to the aging Star Trek universe. Featuring a newly redesigned Enterprise that looks like it was built by Apple and more action than an entire season of TOS, it did indeed win new fans over. It also, to be fair, pissed off a lot of the old fans, but let's be honest: they could have remade Wrath of Khan shot for shot and old fans would have been pissed off about something. (Funny you should mention that...)
Trekkie Fanboys think: This was given to be a total revamp of the entire Star Trek universe, a modernization that would invite new generations of Trekkers to the fold. It resulted in one of the largest nerdrage controversies in the history of Sci-fi, with J.J. Abrams labeled as a total fucktard for effectively deleting 45 years of Star Trek history. Set in the timeline of the 'The Original Series' (where good ol' Abrams could do the most damage), it adds flashy, sexy, lens-flare faggotry to the aging Gene Roddenberry Star Trek universe. Featuring a newly redesigned so-totally-Not-phallic ship (the Enterprise), and proceeds to butcher and rape Star Trek fluff from there.
>> Trekkie debates are so much more civilized than the rest of /tg/. DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS
The second Abrams movie, Into Darkness came out recently. Fans were worried they'd just get Wrath of Khan without what made that movie work (more or less, aging crew on an out dated ship vs superhumans in the lasted, best ship and Kirk's only advanced is his years of experience) and Abrams shit replacing it, much like Nemesis. Some, after watching it, still think so. Others think they got a pretty okay Star Trek movie that, while introducing some Khan-like elements, was also recognizably doing its own thing and doing it pretty well... for a while. Also, Khan becomes white. The ending was VERY skubtastic.
On the whole though, a pretty good film, and a significant improvement over its predecessor no matter which side of the civilized and respectful debate you sit on.
Would you like to know more?
- http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/ Main Memory Alpha: Star Trek wiki
- http://sfdebris.com/ SF Derbis/ opinionated episode reviews, has some non trek stuff as well