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Doctor Who

2022-01-09T17:54:00Z

2600:8803:E800:42:8D1D:DDA:F749:3A6: /* The Doctors */

{{British}}

[[Image:tardis.gif||center]]

{{topquote|There was a saying, sir, in the time war. First thing you notice about the Doctor of War... is he's unarmed.|Gallifreyan Soldier}}

'''Doctor Who''' is a long-running (and we do mean ''long''; it predates [[Star Trek]]) British science-fiction television show. And it is ''fantastic''. The Doctor, an immortal/regenerating alien <strike>(''well'' originally he was a human scientist, but that was [[retcon]]ned)</strike> that has been portrayed by a variety of stellar actors since the show's inception, travels through space and time in a <s>1960s-era police box</s> super-advanced, living spaceship called the TARDIS. Joined by a variety of companions (mostly female <strike>and often young</strike>), they solve kinks in time and see the wonders of the universe. It's also famous for the various monsters it created, most notably the Daleks (cyborg [[Imperium of Man|space Nazis]]) and the Cybermen (cyborg [[Tau|space Communists]])... and especially, the Silence, Weeping Angels, and those fuck terrifying gas mask zombies.
'''Don't blink!'''

For its more [[Grimdark]] and [[Hard Science Fiction|Hard Sci-Fi]] counterpart, see the [[Xeelee Sequence]].
==The Show==
Doctor Who is the longest ongoing sci-fi series in the history of television. It started in 1963 and ran until 1989 where it was temporarily frozen. It attempted a restart with a 1996 movie, but the circumstances were not yet ripe. The show finally started again in 2005 and is currently still running. Throughout this history, the show has maintained the same canon-less continuity, thanks to the fact that the main protagonist Doctor Who (aka The Doctor) is an alien capable of "regeneration" upon the time of death or when they grow old. This rejuvenates and replaces all the cells in their body, effectively changing their appearance and somewhat their mannerisms and personality (because it also changes the brain). In this way, the series has been able to continue with different actors without resorting to "remakes" or "reimaginings" or "spinoffs" like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. There were a couple of unsuccessful attempts at making spinoffs (One during the original run and one more recently, both based on the rather twee K-9 the tin dog), and three more successful, the recent Torchwood (on indefinite hiatus despite massive popularity... come on BBC, give us Season 5...), Sarah Jane Adventures (cancelled during its fifth year due to the death of the lead actress), Class (ended after one season) <strike>and a bunch of independently produced movies that have a legal license to exist, so long as they don't mention the Doctor. They have ''The Chiropodist'' instead.</strike> The Sarah Jane Adventures depict the adventures and encounters with alien life that the ex-companion of the 3rd and 4th Doctor goes through with her alien-made son and his friends. Torchwood is Doctor Who with a large dose of GRIMDARK (if you're a horny 12-year-old and just comedy for those who aren't, Children of Earth is when Torchwood becomes worth watching), along with a literally immortal lead character with a Charisma score so high that Alpenhorn-mancers turn gay for him within a sixteen-mile radius. Everyone is gay for Captain Jack Harkness. He even has a [[Harkness_Test|sexuality test]] named after him. Class depicts what happens when the Doctor sets one of their long plans in motion, and then fucks off for a good while, letting all hell break loose in the meantime. The others? Well, there's a film about the "Cyberons", a Zygon porno, a bunch of films that aren't stupid, featuring many characters like the Brig, the Yeti, Sontarans, and more.

The main show is heavily episodic, with the Doctor travelling through time and space in their TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space) and landing in different historical periods on Earth and elsewhere in the universe, often when there is some sort of trouble or disturbance nearby. The Doctor protects the flow of history <strike>except when you piss the Doctor off</strike>, preventing paradoxes and manipulations and attempts to stop evil and violence everywhere. This gains them the enmity of their own race, the Gallifreyan Time Lords who have pledged to use their time-travelling technology only to observe but not interfere. Even so, they often ask the Doctor to act on their behalf. The Time Lords got a bit shit towards the end of the original run, and were unceremoniously killed off en masse during the gap between the original and new runs in an offscreen "Time War". As of the new revival series, there has been the theme of a season-long arc within the episodes, which usually takes the shape of a recurring phrase or item, which is resolved in the two-part finale at the end of the season.

The show has become iconic in British culture and science fiction fandom around the world for many reasons, amongst them:

*Having been around for fucking ever. Even if you were born during the window when Dr Who was not being made, the chances are you remember it from re-runs or carefully archived bootlegged copies made by [[Neckbeard|that one uncle you had]] (No, not that one). On the brighter side, there were hundreds of really good tie-in books and audio dramas (and a few films).
*Not only has it been around for fucking ever, but we also don't even have all the episodes. Of the 253 episodes of the first six seasons, 97 are lost for all time because the BBC didn't think the content was worth saving long term. Of the missing content, only fan audio recordings remain as very few people had VCRs before the 1970s.
*Cheesy low budgeted effects and monsters which gave the show a special charm and made it rely on the story instead of flashy visuals.
*The TARDIS machine which has a "chameleon circuit" which allows it to change external appearance to fit into different environments where it "lands", its inside is much bigger than the outside, potentially infinite, thanks to the space-time technology it uses. The Doctor's TARDIS got its chameleon circuit busted and is permanently stuck in the iconic shape of a 60's British Police Box. And when we say iconic we mean ''the British police have to ask Doctor Who before they can use its likeness'', not the other way around.
*The character of The Doctor and their eccentric figure, with their alien traits like regeneration and a double heart.
*The show has been known to be aimed at a younger audience but scare them at the same time, so "hiding behind the sofa" has become a phrase connected to it.
*It also retains a big following amongst older fans because of its two-sided nature; it is largely easy-going, tongue-in-cheek and comical but often turns to darker and serious tones, with good storytelling.
*Writing for Doctor Who is something of a variety show of up and coming show writers. Terry Nation (creator of Blake's 7) wrote ten stories for Doctor Who. Chris Boucher (also Blake's 7) wrote three. Douglas Adams was credited with writing one but actually wrote a couple more uncredited and contributed to others. More recent guest writers include Neil Cross (Luther) and Neil Gaiman (Coraline).
*Comical yet fearsome enemies like the Daleks (Genocidal mutant squid [[Nazi]] pepper-pots with death rays and the best E-VIL VOI-CES E-VER while exterminating FUCKING EVERYTHING, think of the already-overpowered and omnicidal [[Necron]]s mixed with Nazis and turned up to 11 billion), Sontarans (Huge domed heads, eyebrows and foreheads of a 4e [[Tiefling]]-basically Mr Potato Head), Autons (Shop Dummies of Death), Weeping Angels (Scared the shit out of <s>children</s> everyone everywhere, don't ever blink) and memorable "supervillain" antagonists like The Master, a rival Time Lord, and the ever-wrinkly Davros, who's basically Palpatine, the Joker, Honsou, Abaddon, Trayzn the Infinite, Asdrubael Vect, & Kheradruakh the Decapitator all rolled into one.
*Hiding behind the sofa from the aforementioned Daleks was such a common event in the lives of several decades of children that the phrase "Hiding behind the sofa" has entered [[Britfag]] slang as a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of saying "Scared shitless".
*Various toys, gadgets and gags the Doctor uses, including a 'Sonic Screwdriver' (a lazy but cool plot device) and the use of Jelly Babies candy to distract or bribe people.
*The theme tune. You know it, you love it. Yes, you do, stop lying.
*Not being your average Science-Fiction story. While many normal Space Opera-style Sci-Fi stories are samey and bland, Doctor Who has practically every kind of adventure imaginable taking place. From dinosaurs on a spaceship to gas-masked zombies (who are creepy as all Hell) to literally going to hell, ''Doctor Who'' has it all. If not, then the spin-offs have done it.
**And its generally positive view of Non-Violence. The Doctor almost never solves problems by raw force, and is always willing to bury a hatchet against all but his most bitter enemies (the Daleks and the Master being the only beings he carries a true grudge against). [[Starship Troopers]] this ain't, the Doctor doesn't like solving problems with a laser cannon and a bag of jelly babies.
*For being a thorn in the side of Mary Whitehouse for the entirety of their parallel existence because of how scary it got in the mid-70s.
*Constantly being political, but in an accessible way. Ever since its inception it has had political overtones, be that support for the civil rights movement, hatred of Thatcher, or raising concerns about climate changes eventual effect on society and the world. It does this, however, in a medium that is accessible for children, which allows it to present the message of the week in very different creative formats - ''The Happiness Patrol'' being the best example of this.

==The Doctors==
[[Image:Doctor_Who_alignments.jpg|250px|thumb|right|But compared to anyone else besides themself they are irrevocably Chaotic Good]]
Originally the Doctor could only regenerate 12 times (well, originally it was implied it was infinite, but this was forgotten about), resulting in 13 different versions of themself (12 because David Tennant once managed to regenerate into themself) but during the 2013 Christmas special they managed to restart a new cycle (something that the Time Lords offered The Master in The Five Doctors all the way back in 1983.). They are currently in their God-Knows-Whateenth incarnation (We know of over '''100''' across every medium, counting John Hurt who doesn't get an official number for watch-the-damn-show reasons), of which at least 16 have taken up the mantel of 'The Doctor'. This means that they've had fifteen official actors so far. We really need to update that image.

*'''William Hartnell (1963-1966):''' A mysterious grumpy old professor. He didn't like to have humans tag along with him, but changed his mind after a while. Extremely intelligent (like all Doctors, duh), but also short-tempered. And a pretty good fighter, despite being old: Once beat up a big man in fisticuffs, while laughing. The Daleks and Cybermen were introduced during his time. (Evidently, one of the replacement actors for Hartnell is a fan of 40k. Duncan got a request to paint flayed wracks from Bradley, as Hartnell died in 1975, Hurndall in 1983, so it couldn't be them.) Some of these episodes are actually lost to the ages due to BBC at the time thinking that there was no reason to keep footage after it was broadcast. Notable episodes include The Keys of Marinus, The Aztecs, and The Tenth Planet. "Have you no emotions, sir?"
* '''Patrick Troughton (1966-1969):''' A cosmic hobo. He liked music and played the recorder. He was more of an anti-authority figure than his predecessor. Looked like a total idiot, made his enemies underestimate him, and ran away quite a lot. It was also during his time that his race, the Time Lords, was first introduced. At the end of Troughton's run, they banished him from Gallifrey for breaking the [[Star Trek|Prime Directive]], and forced him to regenerate as punishment. The Great Intelligence was introduced along with the robotic yeti during this time period, as was UNIT (more on those guys later). He is also distinguished by the fact that he may just be the most influential Doctor ever - not only would the show have failed if he didn't succeed, but over half of the later actors have claimed inspiration from his performances when they first took the lead role. Most of these episodes are actually lost to the ages due to BBC at the time thinking that there was no reason to keep footage after it was broadcast. However, the BBC is now funnelling cash into animation studios to animate the lost episodes with the use of off-screen recordings, fan-created recordings, and anything that they can scrape together to resurrect them. Some of them are even animated in colour! Notable episodes include The Power of The Daleks, The Enemy of The World, and The Mind Robber. The "Oh, my giddy aunt!".
* '''Jon Pertwee (1970-1974):''' A gentleman and a dandy. Spend a lot of time stuck on Earth, thanks to his stupid race putting him into exile (and not at all because the BBC decided to save money in the cash-strapped 70s by not set-building any more alien worlds, which cost more to look good on 625-line colour TV - ushered in by Pertwee - than they did on 405-line black & white). Could do Venusian Aikido, liked vintage cars, and at the end of the day was very much a less-womanizing, more science fiction-based James Bond. The Master, his arch-nemesis and a fellow Time Lord, was introduced: He tried to conquer the world with plastic chairs! We're not kidding. Notable episodes include Spearhead from Space, The Sea Devils, and The Green Death. "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!"
* '''Tom Baker (1974-1981):''' The bohemian, a total weirdo, who liked candy and had an extremely long, very colourful scarf. Very good in playing a fool: to quote Count Scarlioni: "No one could be as stupid as he seemed". Could switch from manic to serious in a single moment. Oh, and they were written for by Douglas fucking Adams. Yes, that one. The most iconic Doctor from the old series, probably due to his long tenure. Davros, the creator of the Daleks and a total maniac, was introduced. Baker briefly married and then divorced Lalla Ward, who played his travelling companion; their marriage difficulties (On the question, which was the most terrible monster in Doctor Who, Ward quipped: "Tom Baker!"), alongside Baker's bad relationship with the incoming showrunner John Nathan-Turner, contributed to Baker's end in the role. While the maxim "Doctor Who is a barrel of pretty good serials mixed in with pure, refined emeralds" is true of all eras of the show, Baker's era probably epitomises this the most. Notable episodes include Genesis of the Daleks, The Seeds of Doom, and City of Death. "Just touch these two strands together, and the Daleks are finished... Have I that right?"
* '''Peter Davison (1981-1984):''' Created to be pretty much the complete opposite of his predecessor. Very much a human, very noble, liked cricket. Was also a complete sociopath. Davison was also the youngest actor in the role, until Matt Smith some 25 years later. Some people hated him just for replacing Tom Baker (seems like the Who fanbase never changes... unlike the lead). People died a ''lot'' during his time: Sometimes there was literally no one left but him and his companions - or, in the case of his last story, only his companion. Is the father-in-law of David Tennant (Tenth Doctor), which means that The Doctor's Daughter played The Doctor's Daughter, and then became the Doctor's wife, meaning that the Doctor is his own Father-in-law. God time travel is confusing... Notable episodes include Earthshock, Ressurection of the Daleks (this has the highest on-screen body count of all time in Who), and The Caves of Androzani (an episode consistently voted as the best story in Who ever, even including the revival series). "When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal? … For some people, small, beautiful events are what life is all about!"
* '''Colin Baker (1984-1986, 2002):''' An unstable maniac. More violent than the rest of his incarnations put together, shocking the audience by dumping executioners into acid baths, and having the genetic torture of his companion broadcast live on TV - and they both happened in the same episode! The whole show became bloodier during his time. Thought he was awesome, despite always wearing that awful coat. Generally regarded as being the worst Doctor, at least in the TV shows, but became much more awesome in the Big Finish audio. Had already played a minor character in the series before he was cast as the Doctor, making this the first instance of a casting choice of a Who veteran, as it were. Notable episodes include go and listen to the Big Finish audios now, no, seriously, and why are you still here, go listen to The Marian Conspiracy. "I shall beat it into submission... with my charm."
* '''Sylvester McCoy (1987-1989, 1996, 2002):''' Started like a goofy wacky fellow, but quickly became more serious later on. Seemed like a god walking among lesser people, quite literally destroyed a pantheon of gods, and could <strike>probably</strike> definitely out-manipulate Tzeentch. Often they had beaten the villain of the week before they even came onto the scene, because of some centuries-long plan concocted in a prior regeneration. During their time, they started to turn onto some big questions, like who the hell the Doctor actually ''is'', but then the show got cancelled even as ratings increased. Bummer. He could also seem to be a dick to his companion (even if his motives were good), taking her to a circus despite being told about her fear of clowns, taking her to a house that she burned to the ground even when she requested not to, and manipulating her into a sense of hopelessness/depression so that he could slightly weaken a cosmic entity. Had the first CGI intro; all previous intros were generated using some combination of optics and analogue electronics. Notable episodes include Remembrance of the Daleks (in which The Daleks finally conquered stairs), The Happiness Patrol, and the entirety of their last season. Seriously. You'll cry when you see that this is what they <strike>cancelled</strike> rested Dr Who on. "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
* '''Paul McGann (1996, 2003, 2013):''' A romantic. Told people to make the best use of their limited time in this world and embrace their lives instead of being all emo and crying in a corner. But he also stated that he was half-human, which is a lie. The books and Big Finish fleshed him out a bit. Too bad his movie didn't do well enough in America to spawn a new series <s>(damn you America!). </s> There's an animated version of Shada with the Eighth Doctor that practically everybody has forgotten about, but it's an official animated story nonetheless, so there. </s> Also turned up unexpectedly, but to everyone's surprise, in a quick minisode in 2013 written by Steven Moffat, which, by a rare fan consensus, is considered superior to the movie in every fashion. It probably had something to do with the lack of that wig he had to wear in 1996... Notable stories are The Chimes of Midnight, The Silver Turk, and Neverland/Zagreus/Scherzo. "I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there."
* '''John Hurt (''secret bonus Doctor'', 2013):''' The Doctor as he was fighting in the Time War, known by some as the "War Doctor". In setting chronology, this incarnation fits between McGann's and Eccleston's, but due to committing some horrible war crimes in order to end the Time War, he denied himself the title of "the Doctor" and later regenerations refused to acknowledge his existence; so much so that Matt Smith's version is still referred to in-universe as the Eleventh Doctor, even in mysterious prophecies, despite technically being the twelfth incarnation. He was a rather grim and serious character and quite put off by the perceived silliness and light-heartedness of his successors. He was seen only briefly in the finale of season 7 played a major role in the 50th anniversary special, and had a set of audio adventures, but probably won't be seen again (RIP, John). "Doctor no more."
* '''Christopher Eccleston (2005):''' The only survivor of the horrible Time War (which is a rip-off of the War in Heaven, a war that happened in the Eighth Doctor books which had horrible consequences for everybody involved), which will never be fully shown, but we have seen parts of. All the other Time Lords died in it ([[Just As Planned|or did they?]]). Dark and moody, probably because of the survivor's guilt, tended to hide it behind a horribly manic and happy outward appearance. Was pretty dependent on his friends and companions when it came to moral issues. Often found himself in a kind of fix where he couldn't do shit without blowing the hell out of the area around him (the guy dropped missiles on his own head to kill a damn alien threat near him for fucks sake). The first Doctor not to wear (particularly) weird clothes. Notable episodes include Dalek, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, and Bad Wolf/The Parting of Ways. "You were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."
* '''David Tennant (2005-2010):''' Probably the outwardly happiest of all Doctors... or maybe the most Machiavellian. <strike>Nah, this award goes to the Seventh Doctor.</strike> A total crackpot. Talks a lot of [[Star Trek|technobabble]], at like 90mph, sometimes about something completely unrelated. If Time Lords could have ADHD, he probably does. Attracts a lot of women. For some reason, one of the last monsters featured was EAT. Yeah, that EAT. Oh and, when he'll offer you a chance of redemption and says that he can help you, you ''bloody well'' should take that offer! Because he doesn't believe in second chances, nor in letting someone walk away (Unless you're an arch-villain). "I've gotten too old, Wilf, and too clever; I don't kill people, but I get them to kill themselves." (you just read that entire paragraph in his voice, didn't you?) Alternatively a child on Christmas morning and the '''MASTER''' of the ''resting bitch face'' whilst he destroys you, or ''he watches you destroy yourself''. His performance was so good that BBC actually considered ending the series after his tenure because they thought that the show would fail without him. Notable episodes include Blink, Human Nature/Family of Blood, and Silence in the Library/Forest of The Dead (in which a future main character was introduced by being killed off, fuck you, Moffat). "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
* '''Matt Smith (2010-2013):''' The biggest nutjob since Tom Baker's Doctor. Acts like an awkward, hyperactive child most of the time, with a weird taste in clothes and an even weirder taste in food, but is also an old man, weary and reserved. Will deceive people for their own good, but this later backfires and makes him more cautious. Great with kids. Has one hell of a nasty streak: piss him off enough, and he ''will'' destroy you without so much as an offer of mercy. His stories tend to feature fuck-terrifying monsters and situations, including an army of quantum abominations who only move when you're not looking at them<s>, but logically should be of no threat to anyone who owns a time machine</s> and eat time, being trapped in a false awakening loop, a crack in the wall that ''eats reality,'' and an entire fucking race of Slendermen (whom you completely forget even exist when you aren't looking at one). Two of his assistants are insanely hot and another spends most of his time getting killed (and the rest of the time being awesome). Suffers a lot over the course of his tenure, but eventually achieves something of a happy ending before his regeneration into the Twelfth Doctor. Notable episodes include The Eleventh Hour, Vincent and The Doctor, and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. "I wear a bow-tie now; bow-ties are cool."
* '''Peter Capaldi (2013-2017):''' Something in between the Ninth and Fourth Doctors, making him an all-out sinister badass if you know anything about those Doctors. The actor has appeared twice in Doctor Who (well, once in Torchwood) in other roles before becoming the Doctor, which was explained as the Doctor trying to tell himself something. Thus far fans have imagined him in the role as the Doctor in the same style Peter Capaldi has appeared on the show The Thick of It, where he was exceptionally foul-mouthed. It turned out he's pretty damn hilarious. And Scottish. Quite eccentric, though. Apparently, a lot of the female fans were [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzWOlMif-Fw outraged] that an older guy got the role. It says a lot that the closest thing he had to a catchphrase was "Shut up!". Despite that charming catchphrase, his character eventually got his head out of his arse, and then decided to try and make everyone see that we should all be kind to each other. Probably also the most stubborn and loyal Doctor ever, spending roughly 7000 years in a sort of prison to save the life of his companion. He was also the absolute GOD of speeches, with arguably his best episode being a 45-minute long monologue over the idea of grief. On top of that, he is the only Doctor thus far to bring the Master round to the side of good, has stopped Zygon terrorists with nothing but words, and he became the Lord-President of Gallifrey... again. His tenure as The Doctor had ginormous levels of character development, for both him, his companions, and his own rogues gallery. Did we mention that the actor is a massive Whovian too?. Notable episodes include literally all of his season finales and Christmas specials, The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion, Oxygen, and Heaven Sent (which Capaldi carries ''entirely by himself'' as the only living being other than the monster). "Hey! I'm going to be dead in a few hours, so before I go, let's have this out. You and me, once and for all. Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I'm not doing this because I want to beat someone — or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it's easy. It’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it's right! Because it's decent! And above all, it's kind! It's just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live — maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it's the best I can do. So I'm going to do it, and I will stand here doing it until it kills me. You're going to die, too, someday. When will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?"
* '''Jodie Whittaker: (2017-2022)):''' The first female Doctor in canon <strike>THERE IS NO CANON</strike>. The precedent for Time Lords changing gender was established earlier during the Fourth Doctor's era and reinforced during the Eleventh Doctor's era when they mention banging a Time Lord named The Corsair when they had a sex change. An actress from ''Broadchurch'' to go along with the producer of the same show. Her first season was pure unrefined powdered Dr Who, in that it ranged between mediocre viewing to absolute god-tier TV at times with a well-written season finale/New Year's special that made the Daleks the powerful threat they should have been during Eleven and Twelve's tenure, where a Scout [[BLAM|takes out a whole armoured British Platoon with no effort]]. However it seems that the BBC is trying to compete with [[Star Trek|Paramount, CBS]] and [[Star Wars|Disney]] on who can run a decades-old franchise into the ground first, as regardless of quality, the following season wasn’t out until (very) early 2020. Making Capaldi's comments about "The Beeb" neglecting the show prophetic. Season 12 was divisive, to say the least, although almost everyone agrees that it was miles better than the previous season. Oh, and the Master is back. Again. Series 13 is set to premiere later this year, but with a lower episode count because of our current situation regarding [[Nurgle|Covid-19]]. Notable episodes (so far) include Demons of the Punjab (the aforementioned god-tier TV), Spyfall, and The Haunting of Villa Diodati. <strike>Chibnall was such an awful showrunner & writer, that the BBC asked Russell T. Davies, the first showrunner of the post-2005 reboot, to return. Too bad Whittaker won't be able to act under a good writer.</strike> While this rumour will probably persist for a long while, it seems that Chibnall, 13's showrunner, was always planning on leaving at this time as a result of 2023 being a big year for him and his family - he even had a 'three seasons and out' pact with Jodie over this. It is also worth noting that several big names, including the creator of [[Babylon 5|Babylon frickin' 5]], were after the job once he stepped down. This means that Davies, one of the most critically acclaimed writers and producers in the UK at the time of this edit, simply managed the best pitch for the show. Again. "You want the whole universe. Someone who has seen it all, and that's me. I've lived longer, seen more, loved more, and lost more. I can share it all with you, anything you want to know about what you never had. Cause he's an idiot with a daughter who needs him. So let him go, and I will give you everything."
* '''"Doctor Ruth":''' Another "missing" Doctor played by Jo Martin who debuted in Series 12 of the modern era. It's unknown where she fits in the timeline but she is confirmed to be a pre Hartnell Doctor. As it's now revealed The Doctor is "The Timeless Child" and isn't a Time Lord or from Gallifrey <strike>this was done first in the 1990s, but then [[retcon]]ned, and unretconned some more</strike>, but a being from a different universe [[grimdark|stolen and experimented on]] by the Time Lords, she is confirmed to be a real Doctor and not a trick or a misunderstanding. She is the result of trying to fix a plot hole created all the way back in the classic era episode ''The Brain of Morbius''. Where the battle between Four and the Time Lord war criminal Morbius revealed several Pre-Hartnell Doctors. Whether this was a plot hole worth fixing is a matter of [[Skub]] among fans. Something that other writers have tried to explain in side materials before now. An attempt to explain said plot hole was used earlier during the McCoy era to make him not just "an ordinary Time Lord" and restore mystery to the character with the incarnation called "The Other".

===Other Doctors===
There have been a number of Doctors who were either the Doctor in strange circumstances, were later retconned or were never intended to be canon in the first place.

* Peter Cushing (1965-66): Yes, THAT Peter Cushing, the guy that played Grand Moff Tarkin in [[Star Wars]] and was so oldschool he once played alongside Laurel and Hardy. He played a human scientist called Dr. Who (yes, his last name is Who) in two movie-length remakes of early episodes featuring the Daleks. The movies were not very good, as one would expect when they [[wat|didn't use the iconic theme tune]], had [[HERESY|blaring jazz instead of electronic music]], were directed by someone who'd [[Extra Heresy|never actually watched Doctor Who]] and didn't even realise that the [[derp|Daleks' head lights are supposed to flash in modulation with their voices]], and rumours had it that Cushing was taking any work he could to keep his mind off the recent loss of his wife. He is easily the best thing about the movies, mind, and his sweet, grandfatherly Doctor is a flavour almost worth seeing if you don't mind wading through all the crap. It also featured a set of groovy-coloured Daleks (who had decorated their base with lava lamps!), which was considered silly because Daleks are supposed to be drab... at least until they returned in Matt Smith's run as a group of happy fascist murderous rainbows. This particular Doctor has the dubious honour of having successfully defeated the Daleks' latest world-domination plan by quite literally pointing at nothing and yelling "Look!"
* Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley (1999): The BBC has a tradition of making silly parodies of their shows for charity. Dr. Who got one called Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death, where the aforementioned actors played the Ninth through Twelfth Doctors in quick succession. Rowan Atkinson played the role magnificently as the Time Lord Blackadder. He announces to the Master that he is going to marry the only companion he ever ''had'', but the Master enlists the help of the Daleks to kill his archenemy once and for all. Belayed explanations, Zektronic energy, [[Nurgle|communication based on breaking wind]], a couple of [[Wat|Dalek chairs]], and LOTS of hijinks later, the Doctor burns through pretty much all of his regenerations in two minutes. It is a very funny short and should be watched, if only for the magnificent snark that only Rowan Atkinson can produce.
* Richard E. Grant (2003): Just a few years after playing the Tenth Doctor in Curse of the Fatal Death, Grant returned as the Ninth Doctor for the "webisode" Scream of the Shalka. This incarnation was angry, moody, looked like a [[vampire]], and compared to Sherlock Holmes by the actor himself (which is funny when you consider that Benedict Cumberbatch, of ''Sherlock'' fame, was in the running to be the Eleventh Doctor), but he was still a good man who left no monster rampaging (or at least unstudied) and no woman unsaved. He fought the exeptionally creepy Shalka, whom he defeated with... no, no spoilers, you wouldn't believe it anyway. He also traveled alongside none other than the Master, who was confined to an android body stuck in the TARDIS. They share homoerotic subtext to the level it becomes homoerotic SUPERtext; the author commented that this was intentional.
**As a side note, while they were making the special, some kid pretty much kicked down the door, ranted about how much he loved Doctor Who, and begged for a role in the short. The producers gave him one, causing the kid to all but explode. The kid's name? David Tennant.
* David Morrissey (2009): In the episode ''The next Doctor'', the 10th Doctor stumbles upon cybermen, cybermonkeys, and a man who calls himself the Doctor, played by David Morrissey, in 1851. He claims to be an incarnation of the gallifreyan time-traveler we have had for 50 years, but something is amiss; his memory is practically gone, his sonic screwdriver isn't sonic, and his TARDIS is a balloon. In the end, it turns out he was actually a regular person who absorbed all information the cybermen had about the Doctor and only thought he was him, altrough still hugely helps Tenth into defeating the Cybermen.

==Villains and Big Players==
Sufficed to say when you have hundreds of episodes of the week format over half a century of TV as well as tie in novels, comics, audio dramas and whanot with a a guy that can go anywhere and any when with an episode of the week mentality you'll build up quite a rogues gallery. Here are a few of the more notable groups and prominent non doctor characters.

* Daleks: Nazism distilled into octopus form riding around in pepper shakers. Each Dalek is a psychopathic genius riding around in what is basically it's own tank motivated by an unending hatred and desire to Exterminate every living thing that's not a Dalek. They're also notable for being as indestructible as the show needs them to be; that is to say they have been pushed out of a window one story up and exploded, died from baseball bat attack enhanced by a Macguffin of the week, and been spun around too much and died, but at the same time a single Dalek is capable of downloading the internet, and taking on a full platoon of highly trained soldiers. Yay for consistency! Notable episodes include Genesis of The Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, and Revolution of the Daleks (if there's one thing this era does well, it's classic villains. Probably helps that the current showrunner is a lifelong hardcore Whovian).
** Davros: Creator of the Daleks (at least twice), Davros is one of the Doctor’s worst enemies. Startlingly similar to the God-Emperor of Mankind, as both are geniuses in genetics who regard their creations as their children (or tools), but Davros is a twisted evil genius who would destroy all life - hell, all reality - if given the chance, basically just so he could say that he did. His relationship with the Daleks is complicated, as while they don’t view him as a Dalek, they also acknowledge him as their creator and that they wouldn’t exist without him. As such, they tend to spare him and sometimes follow his orders, on occasion even letting him be the emperor, but may just as easily turn on and kill him if the situation arises - or they feel like it. Covertly created a second generation of white-and-gold "Imperial" daleks that actually did revere him as their emperor, after the first generation of grey-and-black "renegade" Daleks rejected him. Needless to say, these two different Dalek factions (arguably subraces, since Davros genetically engineered the first batch from the last survivors of his own species, the Kaleds, and the second batch from human bodies he stole on Necros) did not get along very well. As of Capaldis era he seems to have a very love-hate relationship with the Doctor that stems from 12 saving his life as a child... watch this space, there could be a long story in this.
** The Supreme Dalek: Likes shouting orders and being on the cusp of victory before it all turns to shit. Notable for having one of the coolest designs for a Doctor Who monster EVER (seriously, Google it), and effectively being the Darth Vader to Davros's Emperor.
** The Cult of Skaro: Created by the Dalek Emperor (no, not Davros, the other one) to think like the enemy, act not as Daleks, and to experiment. The four members were specifically chosen for their incomprehensible ability to innovate, and were tasked with ensuring the survival of the Dalek race, no matter the cost. Evidently three of the members forgot this, because when their leader was one step away from recreating the Daleks race as a better species, they mutinied and killed him. The final member, Dalek Caan, later went on to save Davros's life and then went insane, betraying the Daleks and summoning the Doctor to stop Davros from using his reality bomb, which was the Infinity Gauntlet before the Infinity Gauntlet was a thing - in the MCU anyway.
** Rusty: The Good Dalek. The 12th Doctor got miniaturised, stuck himself inside of a malfunctioning Dalek, and fucked around enough with the circuits enough that the Dalek started hating the Daleks, and then left it to go do it's thing. A grand speech was also involved, but with 12 there's always a grand speech somewhere. Noteable for having one of the most fucking metal lines ever in Doctor Who, when the Doctor said "good man!" to it, it replied "No - you are a good Daaaaaaaaaalek!".
* Cybermen: Borg before the Borg, an army of Cyborgs which seek to turn everyone else into a Cyborg. Absolutely fucking terrifying when done in the right way, and generic robots when not. There are some *amazing* audiobooks with them in, notably Spare Parts and The Silver Turk. Due to their faceless, "we are all alike" aesthetic, there are very few 'special' Cybermen, but there are a couple. Notable episodes include Earthshock, World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, and the Haunting of Villa Diodati/Ascension of The Cybermen/The Timeless Children.
** John Lumic: In the parallel universe, John Lumic is the creator of the Cybermen as a way to prolong his own life due to a debilitating and terminal illness. As such he gives himself the flashiest suit of armour, and a massive silver throne as life support. Now where could we have seen that before...
** Bill Potts: The 12th Doctor's companion who has the dubious honour of being the first Cyberman. Ever. However due to some very strong willpower she keeps emotions, and eventually dies in a badass explosion, wiping out thousands of Cybermen at once.
** The Cyberking: Evil Victorian woman installed into a battleship class cyber-suit. Unfortunately for the Cybermen, she likes emotions, and starts stomping on London before the doctor can blow her up and throw her into the Time Vortex.
** Ashad/The Lone Cybermen: Arguably the coolest Cyberman EVER, he was a patchwork creation from various cyber-suits, but without an emotional inhibitor. Could time-travel, and actually singlehandedly defeats the Doctor without blinking an eye, and without repercussion later. Seems to have been a willing volunteer to become a Cyberman(?), as he slit his own kid's throats when they joined the resistance. Other Cybermen are so terrified of him that they actively scream upon seeing him. Unfortunately is no match for The Master, who yeets him out of existence without breaking a sweat.
* The Master: The arch-enemy of the Doctor. Once their childhood friend, the two have become bitter, flirtatious, and homoerotic enemies. The flirtatious part isn’t an exaggeration as when the Master regenerated into a woman she kissed the Doctor as soon as they met, though she was just messing with him - and didn’t take it kindly when the Doctor called Davros his greatest enemy. For what it's worth, the Doctor's confession dial, essentially the time lord equivalent of a last will, is addressed to the Master. The Master's motivation invariably boils down to infatuation with the Doctor, be it wanting his acknowledgement, or wanting to beat him at something, or wanting him to break his principles and be more like the Master. He is as intelligent and cunning as the Doctor, but unscrupulous, egomanical, and makes no effort to hide his contempt for lesser beings. Though there have been several moments where he seems to have died, the Master always manages to come back. This is what happens when you’re in a fifty-year old franchise and are one of its most iconic villains. Notable episodes include The Auton Invasion, Survival, and Spyfall. (Also World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, but that's already been recommended above.)
** Delgado!Master: The original one on screen, just turned up one day and immediately set about causing a mess. If you think they come off as a bond villain at points, then well done, guess what was very popular while Delgado had the role! Had some of the wittiest conversations with The Doctor ever "Come now Doctor, you mut see sense." "No.", and frequently invaded Earth with another monster of the week to act as the supporting cast and meatshields. Was going to be revealed as The Doctor's brother but then the actor died in a car crash in Turkey, and so one day they just never came back on screen.
** Crispy Master: Played by two different actors because their appearances were like half a decade apart minimum, showed the Delgado!Master at the end of their life and literally just running on energy drinks and spite. Had a really dark ending, by literally possessing and killing the body of Five's companion's father. Also is anyone going to talk about the fact that the prior actor died in a car crash, and then the next time we see the Master, they look like a really bad burns victim?
** Ainley!Master: Ran around the show like a saturday morning cartoon villain, with a costume and goatee to match. Seemed to want power for the sake of having power, and was killed multiple times on-screen, only to turn up a few episodes later to the surprise of no one at all. Also admitted on-screen that they were unable to die ever, which explains recent developments.
** Roberts!Master: Appeared for the TV Movie and <strike>that's it</strike> SIKE, Big Finish have finally got the actor to make a series, and apparently it's pretty damn good, which is nice to hear. Hopped between being The Terminator, Hannibal Lector, and saturday-morning cartoon villain depending on the scene they're in. Notable for [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDKuGBYpP3Y this absolutely hilarious line] in what is otherwise a really serious scene.
** The War Master: A fairly tragic and callous figure, played by none other than Sir Derick Jacobi. This editor would love to add more about the character but made a really silly decision to only listen to Big Finish releases in order of release date, so they are going to have to wait a while before they can update this page.
** Simm!Master: An absolute nut-case who at one point gains superpowers? This iteration of The Master has trauma to spare, and a deep-seated hatred of The Doctor, to the point that they end up '''spoiler alert!''' killing themselves to stop themselves from aiding The Doctor. Their madness and batshit crazy shenanigans can be explained because it turns out that The Time Lords planted a whole-ass Doomsday weapon into their head, and then set an audible countdown noise inside it too. bang-bang-bang-bang. You just heard it didn't you? Managed to get kicked out of Gallifrey for being too annoying, and then proceeded to do some of the most fucked up shit to The Doctor and their current companion seen to date on screen. No, seriously.
** Missy: Missy is pure refined character development. She starts out trying to make The Doctor like her by giving them an army of cybermen with which to conquor the universe with, but when that fails decides to change tactics and attempts to be good, with mixed consequences. Oh yeah she also created heaven. Notable for firmly impressing upon the modern audience that Time Lords could change sex, and also for continuing the New Who trend of making the Master's first appearance in a given incarnation an absolute surprise to everyone. Also fits the standard Steven Moffat trope of "horny bisexual flirtatious top" that he seems to fall into whenever writing powerful women. He matures out of this though, and not a moment too soon. Again a rare point of fan consensus in that the majority of fans consider her to be the best onscreen version of The Master, with only the Delgado!Master getting a similar level of appreciation.
** Dhawan!Master, or The Spymaster: So yeah, nobody saw this one coming! Out of the blue Chibnall hit the entire viewership in the nutsack with a new, maniacal Master who ''really'' has it out for The Doc. Continues the trend of using the Cybermen as background villains for some reason, and also uses a Tissue Compression Eliminator! No one quite knows when they'll turn up again, if they'll turn up again (though odds are on considering the largely positive audience reception to them), or where the fucking hell this incarnation fits in the timeline, considering the last one was apparently permakilled. Ah well, that's never stopped this big bad before, and probably won't ever.

* Time Lords: Ancient Civilisation who long ago mastered Time Travel. Insanely powerful scholarly types who are mostly True Neutral isolationists. Currently all dead. Again. For fuck's sake Chinball, give them a break! At times their assholes who are no better than the Daleks. Mostly because their Founding members were jerks too. The fact that these guys produced some of the Doctor's greatest enemies and their own is a testament to their assholery. Small wonder that the Doctor doesn't come home to visit very often. Notable episodes include The Deadly Assassin, Trial of a Timelord, and The Day of The Doctor.
** The Rani: John Nathan Turners's attempt to make a 'mad scientist' character that wasn't an homicidal manic in a space wheelchair. Appeared in stories that are universally considered shit, and then never appeared again. Notable for being far cleverer than both The Master and The Doctor - she was top of her science classes.
** The Valeyard: If the Doctor was a villain, he’d become the Valeyard. Literally. The Valeyard is an evil incarnation of the Doctor with none of his good qualities and all of his intelligence. Showed up for one story arc which encompassed an entire season where the Doctor was on trial but once revealed to be the Doctor, everything changed and went pear shaped. Notable for being capable of scaring the Master. Hasn’t shown up again after his one story arc, despite being either the Doctor’s darker nature given form or just the Doctor turning evil, but hey, you never know...
** Rassilon: Surprisingly not a ripoff of [[Star Wars|Shiv Palpatine]], if only because Doctor Who came first. Basically Time Lord Mussolini, an incompetent warmongering dick with a serious hateboner for the Doctor.
*[[Squats|Sontarans]]: Mr Potato Men who live to fight and die in glorious combat for the Sontaran Empire. So balls to the walls crazy for war that they genetically designed themselves so that they can never retreat; their only weak spot being a probic vent at the back of their neck. Susceptible to tennis balls, however. They plan like Tzeentch itself designed them, fight like Khorne himself had designed them, and look like Nurgle himself had designed them. Now all that's missing is Slannesh. I guess that probic vent is used for more than just food then... Notable episodes include The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, and The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky
*Silurians: "Homo Reptilia" who owned the planet before humankind had evolved, and will rule it again! They went to hibernation/into space when the Moon came near to the Earth, and their scientists predicted that it would collide with them. And then it didn't. And they stayed sleeping. Almost all of their stories are the same - mining operations woke up a small colony; they fuck up all humans in a ten kilometre radius; The Doctor shows up; a peace settlement that will change the planet forever is written; and then the armed forces fuck things up for everyone and lots of people die. Actually serve to show a very cynical attitude towards humanity if you look at the subtext of most plots, particularly The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and The Silurians. Notable episodes are Doctor Who and the Silurians (should have just been called The Silurians, but a rookie forgot to remove the "Doctor Who and the" bit before the final production and so it stuck), The Sea Devils (please this technically counts), and The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood.
*Weeping Angels: Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink. In essence, the scariest damned things to be spawned from the revival. They aren't statues and they aren't angels, they just look like them. When someone sees one, they turn to stone, but if you so much as blink, they can snap your neck in a fraction of a second or send you back in time to die, while they feed off your energy from the life you could have lived. Worse, they don't have to appear solely as angels. They can be any kind of statue - though when one of them became the Statue of Liberty it kind of nullified the scare factor. Notable episodes are Blink, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, and The Angels Take Manhattan.
* Zagreus: A Time Lord fairy tale that came to life and was some scary shit. (Listen to ''Neverland'', ''Zagreus'', and ''Scherzo'' for more details.)

==Miniatures and Doctor Who==

Miniatures based on Doctor Who have been around since the Eighties. In fact, one of [[Citadel Miniatures|Citadel's]] earliest plastic kits was a Dalek and a Cyberman, and a few Who-inspired models were also manufactured and sold by [[Games Workshop]] itself. [[FASA]] also made a few models.

The license got picked up by Harlequin in the Eighties, who made a few minis as well as some skirmish rules. The game was a skirmish combat affair that didn't really fit the show. Harlequin went bust decades ago and the official license lapsed at some point, but BlackTree Miniatures "own a huge stock" of unsold models (or they own the moulds and simply claim they have a huge stock. No one really cares).

Character Options produced a version of Heroclix called Doctor Who Microuniverse. It wasn't really a game, and the minis were pretty awful pre-painted, 28mm-scale minis. It is now out of print, thankfully.

[[Warlord Games]] acquired the license for a Doctor Who miniatures game in 2016, which has yet to be released as of 2017. Gale Force Nine is also licensed to produce a card game based on the series.

==The Doctor Who Miniatures Game==

In part thanks to so many terribly produced games and models in the past, small firm Crooked Dice wrote a scenario based action adventure miniatures game and called it The Doctor Who Miniatures Game. Slick, clever, quick to play and simple to get in to, it went down very well amongst nerds.

Originally produced for fun, it found a great deal of popularity in the part of the UK wargames community who wore tweed and smoked pipes. Buoyed by this success, Crooked Dice approached the BBC for an official license. Auntie Beeb said it would cost ££££ for an official license, but then it was aluded that they could continue to produce the game provided no direct profit was made.

Crooked Dice gave the Doctor Who Miniatures Game away for free, and also produced a more generic action-adventure scenario based game called 7TV (Seventies TV, you see). So in a weird reversal of the way things are done, the generic rules cost money but the specific rules are free.

Unfortunately Crooked Dice, who already was producing "look alike" miniatures - started selling hard copies of the rules. This led to problems for them when Warlord Games acquired the Doctor Who license to produce a Miniatures Game and Miniatures - and not only was their Ruleset dropped, but also their range of unofficial Miniatures.

==The RPGs==
[[Image:DoctorWho_charsheet.jpg|250px|thumb|right|sample charsheet from the Cubicle 7 game]]
There have been three Doctor Who RPGs published to date. The first was produced by FASA, using the Star Trek RPG system . The FASA game was notable for its strange use Doctor Who continuity and official fluff. For example, it overused the Celestial Intervention Agency from the The Deadly Assassin episode. An odd choice.

The Time Lord RPG was closer to the series and sported a simpler system, along with mechanics that tried to emulate the show (macguffins, bench thumping etc). Published by Virgin and written by Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans, it can easily be found on the web. Legendary in the Australian con scene for one of the fastest Total Party Kills ever (GM: "You're in a moving TARDIS..."; Players: "We get out.")

A new game was made in 2010 (and remade in 2011) by Cubicle 7 Entertainment (SLA Industries, Victoriana, Starblazer Adventures), this time in conjunction with the BBC and based on the most recent series. It is rules lite, and biased against combat (much like the teevee show itself). For example: initiative depends on what you're doing, and goes in this order: Talkers, Movers, Doers and Fighters. It is a much better game than the last two, in the sense that it has modern mechanics and actually reflects the show.

===External Links===

*[http://drwhominiatures.co.uk/index.html Doctor Who Minatures Game] website with free downloads. Regularly updated.

*[http://www.torsononline.com/hobbies/timelord/main.htm Time Lord RPG by Marsh] Now out of print, but you can download this game for free.

*[http://shop.cubicle7store.com/Doctor-Who-Adventures-in-Time-and-Space-Core-Set Cubicle 7 RPG store (10th Doctor edition)] Cubicle7 doesn't have any promo material of it's own about the game. Odd.

*[http://shop.cubicle7store.com/epages/es113347.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es113347_shop/Products/CB71109 Cubicle 7 RPG store (11th Doctor edition)]

*http://tardis.wikia.com A wordy wiki if you want to read up on the series and lore.

[[category:Roleplaying]] [[category:Television]]

Star Trek

2022-01-09T16:41:31Z

2600:8803:E800:42:8D1D:DDA:F749:3A6: /* Factions */

[[File:Enterprise.jpg|thumb|500px|right|If you aren't already hearing the theme song you might not belong here.]]

{{Topquote|Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!|James T. Kirk, <s>third</s> captain of the starship USS Enterprise}}

'''''Star Trek''''' is a multimedia science-fiction series and one of the cornerstones of nerdy media properties (in fact, Klingon is the most learned fictional language, rivalled only by Tolkien's elvish in popularity), and one of the few to crossover into mainstream popularity (alongside ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[Doctor Who]]'' and a few others). It's also one of the longest-running science fiction franchises, as it began when the the first episode of The Original Series aired in 1966, and since then has had over 50 years of geek history spanning several generations. Needless to say, it's had a huge influence on all things sci-fi, and, by extension, [[/tg/]].

Originally, ''Star Trek'' was [[noblebright]] beyond noblebright and, in many ways, was the polar opposite of ''[[Warhammer 40,000|Warhammer 40K's]]'' [[grimdark]]. The more recent reboot films, however, have taken a much, ''much'' more grimdark tone, which is delightfully [[skub]]tastic.

= Games =
You're in /tg/ = 1d4chan, so, we'll start with the games.

There's been plenty of tabletop games and [[/v/|vidya gaems]] featuring ''Star Trek'' without being merchandising bullshit (see: themed ''[[Monopoly]]'' sets), including one of the earliest action multiplayer wargame: ''Netrek''.

*'''''Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier''''' (1978) The very first Trek tabletop [[RPG]]. Written by, I shit you not, Michael Scott. Groggy (grokky?) as all hell, and due for an OSR.
* '''''[[Starships & Spacemen]]''''' (1978 1e, 2013-present 2e) This was an attempt by a guy named Leonard Kanterman to make his own Star Trek RPG but since he didn't hold the license he had to alter the names and fudge the rules a bit so he wouldn't get sued. It appeared and died fairly quickly. It was later purchased by [[Goblinoid Games]] and heavily reworked to work more like their other game, [[Labyrinth Lord]] but different enough that converting things back and forth should take a minute or two longer than just dropping them in. The 2e version has some decent third party material at least.
* '''''[[Star Fleet Battles]] (SFB)''''' (1979-) The crunchiest starship combat game you're ever going to find outside of a computer. Based on the original series and not any of the later series, for licensing reasons. Takes some liberties with the setting, which (combined with the aforementioned licensing) is why "''Star Trek''" isn't actually in the title. It's had its own video game spinoff in the form of Starfleet Command. The vidya series died when the last company owned by Interplay broke up in the early 2000s, but the original game is still published by its designer, Amarillo Design Bureau (formerly in conjunction with the defunct Task Force Games).
* '''''Star Trek: The Role Playing Game''''' (1982-1989) Made by [[FASA]], essentially ''[[Traveller]]''-lite, or a happier, shinier ''[[Rogue Trader]]''. Hasn't aged terribly well, what with having been made when the only canonical ''Star Trek'' materials to work with were the original and animated series, the first four films, and a couple of now non-canon novels. If you try to dust it off, expect tons of conflict with the rest of the show. Died as they were trying to update it for ''TNG'', because Paramount's corporate suits (surprise, surprise) had no idea what an RPG actually entailed and were worried about violence, and getting their cut, and... oh you know the drill by now. Welcome to the 80's.
* '''''Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator''''' (1983) FASA designed this, so it feels like ''[[Battletech]]'' but not as good.
* '''''Prime Directive''''' (1993-2008) The most successful tabletop RPG line (but that's not saying much), it's actually still in print. Produced by Amarillo Design Bureau, so again no direct name-dropping of "''Star Trek''." Lasted as long as it did by constantly evolving, in Borg-like fashion, to adapt to the current zeitgeist. Has had 4 editions, with the second using [[GURPS]], the third using [[Wizards of the Coast|d20]], and the fourth [[d20 Modern]].
* '''''Star Trek [[Card_Game|CCG]]''''' (1994-2007, 2011-2014, 2013-2015, 2018-) There's been a few of these, most notably the games released by [[Decipher]], but never globally popular. They also suffered from game balance problems from fans wanting their fave character, but needing extra rules for their quirks. There's also the problem of putting numbers to character stats, such as one game that asserted that [[Heresy|Picard having about twice the integrity of a Klingon pig]]. Later versions are "deck-building" games to try to cash in on the popularity of ''[[Dominion]]'' and ''[[Thunderstone]]''. And now virtual CCGs are the order of the day.
* '''''Star Trek: The Next Generation Role Playing Game''''' (1998-2000) The next attempt, made by Last Unicorn Games. Won an Origins Award for best new game. Has a lot of extraneous skills, as expected of a 90's RPG, but does a good job of capturing the feel of the show. Includes core books for Deep Space Nine and The Original Series, with a planned Voyager book never released. Tons of fan material is available, including books for Enterprise, Voyager, and even the Captain Pike era. Authors of the original game have also finished and released adventures and sourcebooks online. Died an untimely death.
* '''''Star Trek Red Alert''''' (2000) A Diskwars game themed to ''Star Trek''.
* '''''Star Trek Roleplaying Game''''' (2002-2005) When [[Decipher]] had the CCG license, they decided, "What the hell, let's make an RPG, too." Some of the authors of the Last Unicorn Games RPG worked on this game. The systems are similar but different enough that they aren't compatible. The fluff focuses more on the Voyager era. A well made game but it's forgotten for a reason.
* '''''Star Trek Online''''' (2010-) An [[MMORPG|MMO]]. Decent gameplay mechanics, especially starship combat. Storyline leaves something to be desired, especially when the ostensibly [[Noblebright|peaceful]] Federation trades shots at least once with every other faction in the galaxy. Is also sadly being screwed over by CBS who keeps retconning the series thus forcing the game to bend more and more unnaturally to fit in the new canon. Still, it's solid enough for an MMO and you can hit max level quick enough to get into the real meat of the game and join a Fleet (their version of a guild) and blow shit up.
* '''''Call To Arms: Star Trek''''' (2011) [[Mongoose_Publishing|Mongoose]]'s license for ''Babylon 5'' expired, so they collaborated with Amarillo Design Bureau (the ''Star Fleet Battles'' guys), re-themed 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: Attack Wing''''' (2013-) [[WizKids]] license the flightpath system from [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and adds ''Star Trek'' to the mix, [[Skub]] ensues. The game has been consistently plagued with balance issues, to the point that the rules errata is more than ten times longer than the actual rules. The actual current rules for things like the Borg special movement and fighter squadrons are completely different than the rules as written.
* '''''Star Trek: Ascendancy''''' (2016-) 4X table top boardgame from GaleForce9. Most of the races are represented, though the base set only has the Federation, Klingons and Romulans. Andorians, Vulcans, Cardassians and Ferengi can be purchased as expansions. There is even a Borg expansion that turns the game semi-coop as everyone tries real hard not to be assimilated.
* '''''[[Star Trek Adventures]]''''' (2017-) The latest attempt at an RPG, by Modiphius. It also comes with a whole range of miniatures of the various crews from the show. Runs on a similar engine to the creator's ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' which both makes sense, since they're both pulpy storytelling, and is hilarious, given the total tonal mish-mash between the two. Task resolution is generally done via a mixture of six attributes and six disciplines, which are added together, then used as a modifier for a d20 roll. For instance, combat is usually handled by the Security discipline, but hand-to-hand combat would use Fitness or Daring, while firing a phaser or other long-arm would use Control, and shipborne weapons Insight or Reason. In addition to combat stuff, players might solve problems by obtaining information and sciencing the shit out of it. They also have various Values that can be tapped for additional dice, a shared pool of Momentum all players can spend to gain advantages and add to by overboosting on success, and a pool of Threat that they can give the GM rather than burning Momentum, which he can then spend to make the situation degrade. It's a fun system, but it requires a GM who can wrap their head around the idea of an evolving situation rather than a set encounter to really click, which can be hard for GMs who're used to the ''D&D'' model.

= So why should I care? =
Because between them, these six 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. More serious issues are often handled with various degrees of success. While many science fiction series deal with a wide range of topics, Star Trek does so as aspects of a greater world. Like [[Tolkien]] is to fantasy it's a prime gateway drug to science fiction and especially science fiction which is more than "action movie IN SPACE!"

Not to mention in any sci-fi RPG with remotely free-form 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.

At its best ''Star Trek'' is thoughtful, optimistic futurism with a positive human element and brings you to strange new worlds in the grand tradition of speculative fiction but one that's accessible to even the layman. At its worst ''Star Trek'' is arrogant, smug, hypocritical, one-sided, preachy, dull and sloppy.

= Setting =
Here's the Cliff's Notes on ''Star Trek''. A couple of general warnings; firstly, ''Star Trek'' likes to ''really'' take its "racial themes" bits just a little too far. Second, despite this, it's rare for an entire race to be completely irredeemable the way many fictional aliens are: there are heroic and sympathetic characters from nearly every race listed below, able to put more-positive spins on their racial themes. Thirdly, aside from very occasional appearances by [[H.P. Lovecraft|aliens who are so bizarre that humankind can barely comprehend them]], all of the aliens look like dudes with rubber masks on (because they are). In real life, this was because there was no budget for anything else, but in-universe it's been explained by some kind of [[Old Ones|Precursor]] race who seeded all of the planets with their broadly humanoid DNA, and every race evolved slightly differently from there. There isn't much [[fluff]] on what these precursors were like, and some of it was contradictory, and Gene Roddenberry didn't like the idea (although he still had to work with the rubber forehead stuff). The good news for fa/tg/uys who like [[homebrew]] is that this makes it fairly easy to write [[d20 system]] rules for all of the races - after all, most ''D&D'' races are just humans with rubber masks on...

== A Composite Creation ==
This is a general note that one should consider: Star Trek was created in pretty much the opposite way as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked out a bunch of linguistic stuff and general history of Arda in his spare time over the course of years, then decided to use that as the basis for some stories that he eventually gave to some publishers which in the end sold quite well.

Roddenberry, by contrast, pitched a very broad general idea (it's the future, things are good, we got some guys on a ship exploring space; a "wagon train to the stars") to the networks and eventually Lucy from ''I Love Lucy'' made it happen. Roddenberry then worked with a variety of writers and actors (and some later on in later series) who added to this rough skeleton of an idea in a process that would continue on to this day.

This is not to knock either approach, but both have their advantages and disadvantages. In regards to Star Trek, a franchise which relies mostly on an episode of the week format (until recently, apparently) that's been going on for more than half a century, there were numerous people at the helm and many of them had often very different ideas about what should be done that were just thrown out to see what stuck, many of which were contradictory, meaning that the canon is a fucking mess ([[Warhammer 40,000|Kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it?]]). Some of which we'd frankly rather forget (Data being possessed by a mask, for instance). In general fans and fluff writers have been spending a whole lot of time trying to straighten things out and much of the lore is basically a [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main rough consensus of what people like and what fits in with it]. Later series got more systematic about this, but there are still points of contention and a lot of flat out contradictions due to its scattershot nature.

You know, like [[/co/| comic books]].

= Factions =
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'''The Federation'''
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[[File:Federation_Ships.jpg|thumb|500px|left|Starfleet's ships of the Line (original universe/canon)]]
Might as well talk about that main faction. The United Federation of Planets is what the [[Tau]] think they are. Its backstory is that in the distant future of the 1990s, [[God-Emperor of Mankind|übermensch]] [[Space Marines|created by genetic engineering]] began conquering the Earth. The [[Imperial Guard|normies]] fought back and won through sheer numbers, cryogenically freezing the Augments and kicking them out of Earth, but the damage and mass political unrest of World War III got half the planet nuked. This was why genetic engineering was banned. Fortunately, in 2063, a <s>drunken asshole</s> heroic visionary named Zefram Cochrane created humanity's first warp drive (though it functioned based on the principle that gravity bends space-time, and was therefore more akin to an Alcubierre drive than anything that's dependent on the [[Warp]]) 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 [[Imperium of Man|racist xenophobic 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 United Federation of Planets was born.

The Federation is a commie [[noblebright]] hippieland society with a post-scarcity economy and a strong democratic government ([[Mary Sue|pretty much Roddenberry's idea of utopia]]). As a result, Federation citizens work not because they have to, but because they want to. However, despite their advanced technology, transhumanism, that is intentionally making [[Space Marines|SPESS MEHREENS]] and mutants like the infamous antagonist Khan Noonien Singh, is illegal.

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 [[Warhammer 40K|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 antimatter nukes and guns to exterminate a solar system. In some cases, especially when dealing with ships from several centuries into the future, the ship is bigger on the inside than on the outside [[Creed|allowing it to hide a vast array of powerful armaments, ''space-bending'' equipment, and even whole planetary landscapes]]. They can get away with this because they out-tech almost everyone else by a country mile. The reason for the series' infamous "technobabble" is that <s>even ''they'' don't know everything their tech can do!</s> their technology is always evolving, and they know it so well that they can often use it in ways that even the original in-show design schematics did not intend.

In theory, Starfleet follows a rule called the "Prime Directive", which says that you're not allowed to interfere with low-tech races ("low-tech" being defined as "not having invented the warp drive", since warp technology apparently follows naturally from the laws of physics) or else things like turning the locals into Nazis might happen. The Original Series talked about this rule all the time, and Captain Kirk threw it aside whenever there was a sexy alien babe in sight. From ''TNG'' onward, it tended to instead be brought up whenever a hack writer needed a reason for the heroes to ''not'' instantly resolve a given problem with their superior technology or a way of making our heroes look like assholes for following it rigidly (yes, we could save this species from extinction but that would be interfering with the cosmic plan!), though there were a few good episodes that took it seriously.

Some of the more important member races are:

'''Founding members:'''
* [[Humans]]: You know 'em, you love 'em. Comprise seemingly 90% of Starfleet for reasons in no way related to the cost of makeup/CGI.
* [[Vulcan]]: The Original [[Eldar|Space Elves]], very emotional, especially during "pon'farr" (see below), who followed the teachings of an enlightened sage and embraced logic and rationalism after their emotions nearly led to them [[Slaanesh|wiping themselves out]]. They are what the average race of fantasy elves think they are, except on ''Enterprise'' because the writers wanted to artificially inject tension into the show (some of that was retconned to be a Romulan plot). Occasionally enter a state called "pon'farr," where they need to either [[Dark Eldar| fuck something half to death]], kill it with the nearest sharp object, or die of a brain aneurysm to let out all that pent-up emotional tension. Fa/tg/uys may recognize this as the sensation they feel every time [[Games Workshop]] puts out a new army book. There are ships with mostly Vulcan crews. But only two are seen. One commanded by the biggest jerk among them and the other [[grimdark|got eaten by a giant space amoeba.]] However they're pretty bro-tier overall.
* Andorians: Blue dudes with antennae and constant fits of passion, the polar opposite of Vulcans and their one time foes. Pretty much fa/tg/uys, right down to the romantic streak, in the technical sense. Also, they live underground on a diet of meatbread and rage. Most of what defined them happened in Enterprise as they rarely showed up in the TNG-era, and even then did so as set dressing, allegedly because one of the showrunners hated their antennae and banned anyone from using them.
* Tellarites: Space [[Dwarf|Dorfs]]; like insulting everyone and arguing a lot (no, really, petty insults are considered a polite gesture in Tellarite culture), mostly because the very first tellarite ever shown in the series got in an argument with Spock's dad and now it's their whole racial thing. “Sarek said something in a scene once that was meant to demonstrate that he was stand-offish and kinda rude, but we like Sarek so it's now the defining attribute of this species.” It's all in good fun you understand, your confidence in your ideas and actions should be sturdy enough to withstand honest assessment and critique.
'''Notable Additional Members:'''
* Betazoids: Invariably attractive humanoid aliens with telepathic powers. Half-betazoid, half-humans apparently only have "empathic" powers, so they are well-regarded by Starfleet captains for their ability to point out the obvious and fill out the tight bodygloves that make up the Starfleet uniform in a pleasing manner, especially since theirs seem to come in a custom cut for reasons entirely unrelated to Roddenberry's erection. Their homeworld is like dropping a really hippie college and Space Vegas into a blender. They were taken over during The Dominion war because Earth or Vulcan would be seen as bullshit due to their large post Borg attack defense fleets/ship yards. While the writers would have to actually add new characters for the Andorians and Tellarites(such as Ambassadors for a government in exile). So Betazoid took the hit to raise the stakes.
* Trill: Originally a one-off race introduced as a sapient parasite that possesses and controls a barely, or even unintelligent humanoid host, they were radically reworked in ''Deep Space Nine'', right down to losing their rubber foreheads in favor of spots. Now, the host is itself an intelligent humanoid, and some, but not all, of their kind are able to willingly merge with a symbiont (because someone can't spell) that allows them to access a mixture of the memories and personalities of all previous hosts, though in a way that, theoretically, enhances the host's personality rather than destroying it or subsuming it. Then, when they die, they can pass on the symbiont to another host, theoretically, one they mentored. They went from having a rubber forehead to some spots because Terry Farrell had a allergic reaction to the make-up.
* Tamarians: Previously a one-off in ''TNG'', newly joined as of ''Lower Decks''. Tamarian communication is based entirely around metaphor and idiom, meaning their entire language is predicated on understanding their history's pop culture references. This throws the universal translator for a fit, as it can chew on the vocabulary okay but it can't unpack the contextual meanings. Imagine a medieval monk trying to decipher Korean text messages and you've got the basic idea.
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'''The Klingon Empire'''
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[[Image:Batleth.jpg|thumb|right|A Bat'Leth (sword of honor), one of several types of Klingon bladed weapons. Frequently mocked IRL for being a poorly designed weapon.]]
[[Commissar|''"It is a good day to die!"'']]

The Federation's main rival and (movie era and afterward) the quintessential ''Star Trek'' race of lumpy foreheaded aliens. Originally they were a rough analog to the Russians (though they took some elements from [[Communism|communist China]]) in a rough cold war allegory with the Federation (even though the Federation are as commie as they come, though admittedly much of that came around in the TNG era). Their defining feature was that they were militaristic and imperialistic while the Federation was scholarly and respected liberty. This gradually moved more and more into them becoming Imperial Japan/[[Vikings]] In SPESSS obsessed with honor, fighting and dying honorably in battle while worshiping at the altar of [[Sigmar|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 during the movie era and it became more and more prominent through ''TNG'', culminating in ''DS9''. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Klingons are nothing more than barbaric savages, however; with Worf being part of the crew, and with ''DS9'' dealing with Klingon politics an awful lot we can see Klingon society as it truly is. Even so, they do often wander into self-parody territory.

The Klingons, in their current iteration, are a feudal society ruled by a council made up of the most powerful families. Klingon society holds very little value on things such as currency and material gain (which results in the Klingon empire [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65l7RHUx2A having a very simplistic understanding of economics]), believing that anything you acquire without some form of blood, sweat and/or tears on your part is a pathetic and dishonorable way of going about things, much the same way many cultures used to hurl abuse at merchants and bankers. Another thing to keep in mind is that a Klingon's reputation is literally everything. Central to this is fighting your battles personally and against worthy opponents. Calling out a superior is almost always an honorable fight, and Klingon captains can expect challenges if they become lax or suspect in their decisions. Klingons are still capable of being cunning and crafty, however, and having a high diplomacy score is viewed as honorable as they still have examples of cunning and clever heroes tricking boorish and stupid monsters.

[[Warhammer 40000|Klingons often carry swords into battle in an age of energy beam guns]]. In-universe, this is less suicidal than it sounds in the context of boarding actions and tight starship corridors. The Bat'leth is actually a rather shitty weapon. The Mek'leth is noted to be better in most situations. They use the same Disruptor weapons as the Romulans, and at one point used similar starship designs. While is explained as the result of a temporary and unholy alliance, given the eventual animosity between the two races, it was just an excuse to reuse props on a limited budget.

The Klingons are tied with the Vulcans and the Borg as being the most prominent and recognizable non-human species in Star Trek. Beloved of the Internet and the general public, to the point that there are published books like "A Klingon Christmas" in the world. 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. Please note that this is in general considered by experts to be pathognomonic of autism. You have not experienced Shakespeare until you hear it in the original Klingon.
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'''The Romulan Star Empire'''
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''"It's always chess with the Romulans"''

You know those [[Eldar|Vulcans]]? Well a few thousand years ago, as their planet was ravaged by war, some of them turned to intense emotional control and logic to tame their murderous passions, while most others left the planet altogether, founding a colony on the planet Romulus and dubbing themselves [[Dark Eldar|Romulans]]. Since said planet shares a name with a mythical figure known for founding [[Roman Empire|a city which built a 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. Comically, they actually have better emotional control than the average Vulcan, since they gene-engineered most of their problems away years ago, and don't have to deal with the emotional blowback from pon'farr. The downside is that they lost some of their cousins' niftier powers, like mind-reading and being able to transfer their soul into another person for safekeeping. Although Star Trek Online also revealed that their trip to Romulus was a terrible ordeal, and their gene-engineering was taking during that time resulting in them losing most emotions save for bitterness of being "forced out".

The difference between the Klingons and the Romulans is basically the difference between Gork and Mork, or Khorne and Tzeentch. 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, cloaked ships and complex plots behind the scenes and playing the long game. There is a lot of political infighting among them, though where the Klingons would duel to the death Romulans would seek to discredit their rivals, have them die in unfortunate "accidents" or disappear. This difference has left both Romulans and Klingons with a big hate-boner for each other, to the Romulans the Klingons are crude brutish barbarians and to the Klingons the Romulans are a pack of scheming cowardly weaklings.

Like the Klingons, they served as a rough Cold War allegory. In this case, they were rough analogs to Communist China (as seen by 1960s Americans), a distant horde of inscrutable and potentially dangerous Orientals who generally were unseen and projecting vague menace, but when encountered face-to-face could pack quite a punch indeed: 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 face to face. Afterward, they set up a 'Neutral Zone' between the Federation and the Romulan Empire that no one even tried to cross for a century. From the Original Series onward, they frequently squabble and bicker with the Federation, before joining forces with them to fight the Dominion in ''Deep Space Nine'' and having their government devastated in ''Nemesis''.

In one of the two alternate universes created by J.J.<strike>Binks</strike>Abrams movies, the so-called "Prime Universe", Romulus itself got caught in a supernova as part of the Abramsverse's backstory. ''Picard'' has revealed that Starfleet was going to help evacuate Romulus before the nova hit, but then some rogue androids destroyed the shipyards that the rescue fleet was being built at, so the Federation shrugged, flipped the Romulans the bird, and let them get blown up. The Romulan Star Empire collapsed in the aftermath, with the surviving Romulans are now scattered across half the galaxy. Most of the former Romulan colonies are now officially governed by the Romulan Free State, but their ability to exert their authority is implied to be limited at best and non-existent at worst. The Neutral Zone, in particular, collapsed into near lawlessness. One of their secret police/ anti android cults got a hold of Borg cube and were presumably up to some nefarious shit with it until the events of Star Trek Picard.
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'''The Ferengi Alliance'''
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[[Image:GW_Ferengi.jpg|thumb|left|A typical ferengi engaged in typical ferengi activities]]
{{topquote|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, and what [[/pol/]] thinks Jews are. Some Jewish people have actually complained about their being subliminally Jewish and thus anti-Semetic, specifically mentioning that they were money-hungry, lascivious, and ugly, and their large ear lobes were stand-ins for the sterotypical Jewish nose, based on an old medieval stereotype that was enforced to prevent them owning land or assets and ended up sticking around long after the fact (i.e. ([https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/14/science-fictions-anti-semitism-problem/?noredirect=on we're not shitting you] but also they have a valid gripe). Claims of stereotyping aside, they're basically just a ripoff of the ''Shingouz'' from ''Valérian and Laureline''.

The idea was to make a caricature of capitalism as a contrast with the techno-communist Federation. This might have worked if these were not [[FAIL|''TNG's'' early days]]. Instead, they overshot the mark by a light year or so, on top of other bad decisions, and you got a race of short, big-eared, [[goblin]]-like losers about as threatening as a grumpy pug. (Gene wanted to make an evil short race as big evil races were overplayed.) 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. The Ferengi had some good moments in the later seasons of ''TNG'', but most of the best stuff that fleshed them out came from ''DS9'', which had an [[awesome]] Ferengi bartender named Quark as a major character. For an idea of what the Ferengi might have been like if the writers had their shit together, look up the Druuge of [[Star Control|Star Control II]] or the Magog Cartel from Oddworld.

Ferengi religion is only hinted upon in ''DS9'', but what is seen implies a simplistic system based on financial success. Ferengi all follow a rulebook/canon known as the Rules of Acquisition, which can be described as Ayn Rand IN SPACE and condensed into the form of Confucius' Analects. There are 285 of these, each a short piece of advice on how to stay in the black. Examples include "Peace is good for business," "War is good for business," "Never have sex with the boss's sister," and "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack." The first (and most important) of these is "Once you have their money, you never give it back." Sometimes, the Ferengi Randian spirituality extends into outright interpretations of the afterlife: according to some, the afterlife consists of the Divine Treasury and the Vault of Eternal Destitution, which are respectively analogous to Heaven and Hell. Entrance into one or the other depends on one's business ventures at the time of death; those that were turning a profit are allowed to enter the Divine Treasury, and the rest are damned to the Vault.

Ferengi government is ruled over by a Grand Nagus, a mix between a <s>pope</s> chief rabbi and a CEO, and he basically treats his civilization like some sort of company, with citizens regarded as workers. Directly below him is the Ferengi Commerce Authority, a [[what|quasi-religious]] organization dedicated to ensuring that correct business practices were followed and correct moral behavior was shown (including keeping the proles in line) - of course, to the Ferengi, these are one and the same. The agents of the FCA are the Liquidators, who are essentially Inquisitors crossed with IRS auditors on steroids. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ferengi females have no rights and are mentioned as [[PROMOTIONS|not even being allowed to wear clothes]], which leads to [[That Guy|boorish behavior]] on the part of Ferengi towards just about any species. Of course, we see female Ferengi on the show who push that envelope, but it seems that overall "regressive" does not even begin to describe the gender relationships in their culture. Quark's mother, a social climber who marries the head of their government, begins pushing through a women's rights movement during DS9, which proves more successful as time goes on.
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'''The Borg Collective'''
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[[Image:Borg cube.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Borg have assimilated and improved your [[d6|die]]. It always rolls six. Crap your pants, 'cause resistance is futile.]]
{{Topquote|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 Borg's opening hail. This is not a boast or a brag, it's them simply explaining you how things are going to go down.}}
{{Topquote|One other thing. You may encounter Enterprise crew members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire. Believe me, you'll be doing them a favour.|Picard going full [[grimdark]].}}

The Ferengi were utter failures as serious villains, so they needed something to fill that gap. Thus they made the Borg, an aggressive [[Tyranid|hive-minded]] collective of hyper-adaptive, [[Necron|regenerating]] cyborgs that assimilates entire species into itself in its attempt to improve and evolve. Shit, that's like coming up with [[Warforged]] while trying to replace [[Kender]].

In many ways, the Borg are the truest dark reflection of the Federation, and despite their name, they're not Swedish. While the Feds want you to join their little club on your own, to "add your culture to the galactic community," the Prime Directive means they will ultimately accept you turning them down, even if you have shit they really want. The Borg say "fuck that" and just absorb you. While the Federation believes everyone should work together [[Tau|for the greater good]], they still have a very strong sense of individualism and a culture of personal accomplishment (unless your individual belief happens to run counter to the Federation's principles anyway, in which case you're just WRONG because the Federation is the best). The Borg pool all their minds together into a massive collective consciousness in the pursuit of group perfection, becoming an almost-literal personification of techno-capital. The Federation is all about beauty and tranquility and all that hippie stuff, and their tech is eco-friendly and dolphin-safe. Borg [[Tyranids|strip mine entire planets and drain entire oceans]] in the name of growth and efficiency.

Your standard Borg [[Cubes|cube]] is a huge multi-kilometer [[Firaeveus Carron|metal box]] (yes, bigger than most [[Imperial Navy]] cruisers) able to go up against an entire Federation warfleet and win. That's right, one of their ships could threaten the entire Federation and [[Exterminatus]] Earth. When done right, [[Necron|they are a cold, calculating, nigh-unstoppable force, a threat to all life]] that wants to retain free and distinct personalities (although they will ignore a single person if not on an assimilation mission, as what they really want is to absorb whole civilizations). Apparently, in Picard's nightmare in ''First Contact'', the Borg assimilation process includes a surgical [[Grimdark|drill through the eye. While awake.]] Of all the stuff to come out of the TNG Era they are undoubtedly the most well recognized in mass pop culture.

Unfortunately the got a bad downgrade during ''Voyager'' (the Borg Queen blew up cubes full of tens of thousands of drones because a few of them have been severed from the Hive Mind), but even there they were frequently not to be messed with. One amusing thing to note for people that haven't watched ''TNG'': the Borg were actually only in six episodes (and three were breakaway drones) and one movie, yet they're arguably the franchise's most famous pure villains aside from Khan. Goes to show how good they were when written properly. Then in ''Voyager'' they get their shit completely pushed in when they discover a new race of extradimensional aliens which they label Species 8472, which were immune to being assimilated, and had to ask the Federation for help in dealing with them. [[Necron#Regarding_Fluff_Change_-_Sore_Butts_Everywhere.|Wait, this sounds familiar...]]
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'''The Cardassian Union'''
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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 and refined but sly and ruthless expansionists, the Cardassians are essentially scaly fascists re-enacting ''[[1984]]'' IN SPACE. Their trials announce the outcome at the beginning, and the defense attorney is executed if he wins. Also, THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

Originally a race of peaceable, spiritual artists called the Hebitians (ironically not dissimilar to the Bajorans), modern Cardassia was born in hunger and desperation when their homeworld began to suffer simultaneous mass famine, pandemic, resource depletion, and ecological collapse. A military junta seized power, figuratively and literally auctioned off the soul of their culture through liquidating all the planet's art and religious artifacts into cold hard cash, and turned the Cardassians into the opportunistic imperialists they are today.

Despite being a whole lot weaker than the Federation, the Cardassians manage to hold their own, partly because what they lack in resources and raw power is made up for by a combination of intense cunning and high charisma stats. Compared to the equally deceptive Romulans, the Cardies are more likely to flash you a smile while tickling your ribs with a knife. They'll use any tool they can to gain the upper hand and while that often means unpleasant and terminal sessions in dark rooms, strip mined planets and the enslavement of entire species, they'll gladly become your bestest buddy if it would achieve their goals. Their intelligence service, the Obsidian Order, is also one of the most ruthlessly efficient organizations in the entire sector, managing to outscale the Romulan Tal Shiar when it comes to producing magnificent bastards and manipulating the politics of entire worlds to their advantage. Unlike the Romulans or the Klingons, they don't tolerate the sort of literal infighting that is rampant in both those states, that shit only serves to weaken '''GLORIOUS CARDASSIA''' and needs to be stamped out with ruthless efficiency. Exposing that someone who just happens to be your enemy as being a dangerous subversive is just a benefit, although this can result in both sides of a conflict shouting "For Cardassia!" as they charge each other. Sort of how Democrats and Republicans are both for America, yet oppose each other.

Cardassia has a very fluid hierarchical government, similar to the political realities of post-Stalin but pre-Collaspe Soviet Russia. Broadly speaking, there are three different facets of the government: the Central Command (which holds all the power) the Obsidian Order (who holds the least amount of power, but controls the most puppets) and the Detapa Council (similar to the [[High Lords of Terra]] and just as worthless). Cardassian society holds a very strict view of family, placing family just below the needs of the State in a vague approximation of Confucianism.

The State holds a semi-divine mythical status in the eyes of its citizens, with it being viewed as impossible for the State to ever make mistakes. The ideal Cardassian life was one of complete loyalty and servitude to the State and family, with the "repetitive epic," detailing how generations of Cardassians go on to serve both in exactly the same way over and over seen as the height of their culture. The Cardassian government is assumed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent by pretty much every Cardassian, with all Cadassians gladly giving of themselves to the State. Such was this level of belief that when Picard was tortured by the Obsidian order, the torturer saw nothing wrong with bringing his daughter to work because he was working for the State, and therefore the torture of Picard could never be disturbing or wrong. That's why their trials announce their sentences at the beginning and execute the defense attorney if he wins; their "trials" are more excuses to show off the power and infallibility of the State to the masses than actually determine guilt or innocence.

In terms of the Alpha Quadrant's political landscape, they are basically space fascist Italy: indisputably still a great power but nonetheless basically the weakest of the great powers, resentful of it, and unwilling to accept it. They first bully weaker powers in an attempt to carve out an empire, turn from a military junta to a despotist state after a coup, eventually join a bigger, meaner power in a great war against the rest of the Quadrant in an attempt to gain power and respect, see it blow up in their faces and force them to rise again in revolt to save themselves. Beta canon continues the analogy with the establishment of a democratic but unstable postwar government in the vein of the Years of Lead.

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 Nine'') abandoning the previously occupied planet of Bajor they had exploited for resources and along with it the space station Terok Nor, which the Federation took over and renamed Deep Space Nine. After a disastrous war with the Klingon Empire and a faction of ex-Starfleet settlers who refused to be relocated after a treaty called the Maquis led to a popular revolution and overthrow of the existing government, one leader seized power, declared himself absolute ruler, and joined the Dominion towards the end of ''DS9'', which was some serious bad news for the ''DS9'' crew, and, ultimately his own people.

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'''The Bajoran Republic'''
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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. They had a fighting resistance which veered in and out of being considered terrorists and all in all were often represented as Palestinians IN SPEHSS. After that, they got their independence, although they're thinking about joining the Federation. The Bajorans have one system and are technologically backwards; the Federation is technically breaking the Prime Directive by interacting with them, but as they've spent years under the oppression of a warp-capable species, they can probably handle it. Also ''DS9'' proves that ancient Bajorans managed to travel at warp speeds to Cardassia using solar sails and an enormous amount of luck, which technically makes them a warp-capable species. The only reason why they are significant in terms of the politics of ''Star Trek'' is that they have a wormhole near their planet, which has some timey-wimey aliens living it that they worship as gods, and serves as the only way to get to or from the Gamma Quadrant that won't take decades, making it strategically priceless. Hilariously, this was discovered almost immediately after the Cardassians ''thought'' they'd extracted everything of value from the Bajorans and peace'd out, certain that the system was no longer worth the PR hit they were taking from it, only to get burned by some harsh seller's remorse. Also, their species has the oldest civilization (roughly a half-million years) of any major ''Star Trek'' race, and the wormhole aliens have gifted them some cool shit, like the Orb of Time.

The other big thing that makes the Bajorans unique is that they actually have a serious religion going on in a way that isn't an extension of their racial "hat" -the human race is depicted as mostly non-religious. They're also probably one of the most accurate depictions of any highly religious alien race in a sci-fi franchise, because they are divided between the majority who interpret their religion as [[Noblebright|peace and love]], and a small but loud minority of bastards who interpret it as [[Grimdark|condoning acts of terrorism]]. They generally represent all manner of oppressed and colonized peoples throughout Earth's history, with the Cardassian occupation standing in for the Holocaust, Imperial Japanese atrocities in Asia, and European mischief in Africa during the Age of Imperialism.
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'''The Dominion'''
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A vast empire which exists on the other side of the galaxy in the Gamma Quadrant. The Dominion is ruled over by a species of liquid shapeshifters called The Founders.(aka Changlings, Odo's people) They have at their disposal a military composed of two genetically engineered species that worship the Founders as gods: the short and articulate Vorta who serve as ambassadors, bureaucrats, and political commisars and the big brutal Jem'hadar, who are vat grown, drug addicted, cannon fodder. These oversee a large number of vassal races, including (as of later seasons of ''DS9'') the Cardassians.

The Founders were once (according to them anyway) a peaceful, kind civilization of explorers who wished to see the galaxy, explore strange new worlds, and seek out new forms of life. Unfortunately, they did this in the wrong neighborhood, and quickly ran into species who did not tolerate others. The fact that the Founders were shapeshifters capable of mimicking almost anyone did not help either. Paranoia, mutual mistrust, and some very bad things eventually led to the Founders deciding "fuck this" and moving their planet into a nebula so nobody would bother them. So more or less, a [[Grimdark|grimmer]], [[Grimdark|darker]], counterpart to the Federation, but with spookier Real Aliens.

The Founders are obsessed with order and are both extremely racist and xenophobic, and believe that all alien life is inherently untrustworthy and evil, and the best thing to do is conquer/enslave them before they do the same to them. They don't care about the rights of "Solids", and will happily ignore any sense of decency when convenient. This can be seen when The Dominion runs a simulation of the Dominion dominating the Alpha Quadrant. When O'Brien is assaulted by a Jem'Hadar and severely beaten to the point of needing emergency teleportation to medical (the crime being "disrespectful"), the Founders (disguised as Federation Officers) do not press charges, and when Sisko comes barging in demanding answers, dismiss him with little concern about their own soldiers brutalizing citizens. Their overall ideology could be thought of as Qin legalism IN SPACE: people are inherently evil and the only way to make a better world is to impose order upon them through brute force from a position of absolute, unquestioned power.

The Founders, when not wandering around in various forms, tend to spend their time in a massive ocean literally made up of countless billions of Founders, something which is referred to as the Great Link. According to the Founders, this allows them to share information with each other and come to peaceful decisions. This is rapidly proved to be bullshit; when a separated-at-birth one of their own merged into the Great Link to share his memories of the Federation as peaceful and tolerant space hippies, not only did the Founders ignore his memories, but actively fucked with his mind in an attempt to turn him into a sleeper agent. And even if it weren't, it shows their hypocrisy through their willingness to share freedom and liberty among themselves while depriving all their various slaves and conquered peoples of the same.

The Founders are massive dicks, even to their own people. Failure among Jem'Hadar is rewarded with slow and painful death from deprivation of the drug they're created to need and their lifespans are incredibly short. To be even bigger dicks, the Vorta have no sense of taste and can't appreciate beauty. Not to make them better diplomats, but because they were raised from a primitive stone-age ape tribe, and the Founders think they shouldn't be ever allowed to forget that. (On the plus side, they did give the Vorta an immunity to poison that would make [[Mortarion]] himself jealous. [https://youtu.be/rACCZaBcq1g?t=1m29s Observe.]) This may also stem from their own neuroses: the Founders themselves have almost no bodily needs at all and require no nourishment, so they design their slaves to be like them. Notably, Vorta tend to come in [[Paranoia|packs of clones; a new one is activated when an old one dies, and they retain some memories and personality between "lives,"]] further hammering home how expendable they are to their makers.

And both races are literally engineered to love their makers for what they have done to them and worship and revere them as gods.

They ultimately get what's coming to them in the latter half of ''Deep Space Nine'', through an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant that starts out in their favor and rapidly goes against them.
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'''Species 8472 / Undine'''
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The one and only race in the galaxy even the Borg don't want to fuck with. Introduced in Voyager, Species 8472 are three-legged creatures that live in a space called Fluid Space. It's similar to the [[Eye of Terror]] for the fact that it connects to an alternate dimension and [[Khorne|everyone will be ripped apart upon entering.]]

When the Borg first came around to try and assimilate them they were completely obliterated in a war in which 4 million Borg were killed in the first few days at the cost of almost no members of Species 8472. This war was such a roflstomp that the Borg were forced to call on the Federation for help. [[Tau|The Federation being the better people swallowed their pride and decided to help their sworn enemies,]] [[Eldrad|but were dicks and sent only one ship.]]

Species 8472 fought with fast moving, small ships and devastating beam weapons so the small ship of the Federation could keep up with them and helped the Borg force the species back into Fluid Space. The Federation were the villains on this one. That said, they eventually came to an accord with Species 8472, preventing further wars between the denizens of Fluid Space, except in lots and lots of video games that want to use a fresh antagonist.

That and that in ''Star Trek Online'', [[Awesome|they look like the fucking Predator.]]
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'''The Q'''
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The Q are a race of beings who have elevated themselves to the point where they are basically gods. Most of them do not interact directly with the younger races, who they tend to consider with disdain- if they consider them at all. However a few of them take a more enlightened view, and one in particular has been known to fuck with individual humans from time time. They are mostly a TNG thing, and even there they work mostly by grace of John de Lancie's acting chops as a counterpoint to the charisma of Patrick Stewart, as de Lancie played the ''character'' Q. "Tapestry" even has the two waking up in bed together.

Q is an all-powerful epic troll. TNG's Q's occasionally [[Tzeentch]]ian games sometimes appeared to be for his own amusement and sometimes acted as education or event protection to the human race. Various subplots involving the Q ''species'' range from somewhat thought provoking to mildly entertaining to ridiculous and banal, but the classic episodes that highlighted the charisma and chemistry of the two actors were often quite excellent. De Lancie also appeared as Q in DS9 and Voyager a couple of times, but the chemistry just isn't there without Stewart. The writers knew it too, composing a scene where Avery Brooks punches this bastard in the face telling him "I'm not Picard!" (with the added fanservice of watching Q get punched, high on the wishlist of anyone that had the misfortune to meet him).
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=== The Mirror Universe ===
This isn't a faction; it's an alternate setting. Its own factions do bleed into the mainline starting in DS9. So it merits its own section.

The Mirror is a parallel universe in which [[Alternate History|things have gone differently]] in Earth's History. The main point of divergence appears to occur when the Vulcan scientists who landed at Bozeman, Montana in 2063 are not welcomed with alcohol and music but instead are killed and have their ship looted. It is equally clear that where the main universe is Noblebright the Mirror Universe is Grimdark. Instead of a peace loving Federation searching for knowledge and friendly cooperation for the betterment of all, Earth gave rise to the ''Terran Empire'' which seeks out new life and civilizations to conquer and enslave, as it had done with the Klingons. Pretty much it's the PG-13 version of the Imperium of Man with a bit more Grimderp. Junior officers get promoted by killing their superiors, those that fail at that get thrown in the agony booth for their troubles and Emperor gets the job by usurping the previous incumbent. As a rule, characters in the mainline become, in the Mirror Universe, a selfish asshole version of themselves (or have to go along to get along: O'Brien, Spock). Following comic book logic the uniforms for the female characters are more revealing, and facial hair is vogue. Occasionally people can cross over from one universe to the next due to technobabble and cause mischief in either realm.

Originally it was a one off TOS setting for an episode of the week, but it was brought back in a few novels and some romps in Deep Space Nine in which [[Fail|the Terran Empire had fallen]]. In Enterprise's fourth season it got a two parter that was pretty good and would have been an annual thing if the show had been renewed, this one having little crossover with the main universe (a ship from TOS ended up in the Mirror Universe and is salvaged after all it's crew have died). We also went there in Discovery, for better or worse. Voyager never did the mirror universe, but instead got a homage episode with some alien historians in the far future getting the details wrong like historians tend to.

=== The Star Trek Crew ===
Whether the focus of the show is exploration, manning a space station in an important locale or trying to get home, all Star Trek series have a basic set up of casting and focus: namely on a collection of people who are usually the senior-most officers on the ship. If you decide to make a Star Trek inspired game take this into consideration.

* '''The Captain''': Big cheese. Makes the hard decisions. Needs to be able to talk, think or fight out of situations as needed. The third option fetishist finding the balance between empathy and reason. (Two least skubby examples: Kirk and Picard, but the skub will fly hard if you say one is better than the other, sufficed to say that people like both of them alot but for different reasons)
* '''The First Officer''': Second in command and trusted advisor. Added after the original series, where the role was combined with and split between two others. (Two least skubby examples: Riker and Kira)
* '''The Science Officer''': Got high Int stats. Can analyze the situation and work out solutions. The voice of reason. Almost never human. (Two least skubby examples: Data and Spock)
* '''The Engineer''': Hard working technically minded guy who gets shit done. (Two least skubby examples: Scotty and Geordi)
* '''The Doctor''': Ship's healer with a secondary scientific role. The voice of empathy, whether prickly or serene. (Two least skubby examples: Bones and the EMH Doctor)
* '''The Security Officer''': Rough and tumble no-nonsense sort whose job it is to keep these guys alive when diplomacy fails, which it often does. Often has to juggle providing ship's security with working the tactical station on the bridge in a crisis. (Two least skubby examples: Worf and Odo)
* '''The Helmsman''': Got mad spacecraft piloting skills, either full-sized starships, shuttles, or fighters. Younger and more brash. (Two least skubby examples: Sulu and Tom Paris)
* '''The Other Guy''': A crewmember whose role doesn't cleanly map onto other positions, a role often restricted to a single show. Example positions include communications officer, ship's councilor, transporter chief, and linguist. (Two Least skubby examples: Uhura and Troi)
* '''The Outsider''': Someone who is a passenger and regular cast member, but exists outside the organization, looking in and commenting. Usually works a side-job, like tailor, bartender, or cook. Either a beloved fan-favorite or utterly despised, there is no middle ground. (Two Least skubby examples: Guinan and Quark)

Some of these hats may be worn by more than one character, some may be worn by no one at all. This is especially true in the original series, which had a smaller cast overall, and which put less emphasis on an ensemble and more on the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The usual roles and character dynamics were instead set down by ''The Next Generation'', which later series generally copied.

= The Shows =
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==''The Original Series''==
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Created in 1966 by legendary sci-fi [[spiritual liege]] and money-grubbing, sexist, pseudo-communist lounge lizard Gene Roddenberry and pitched as a "Wagon Train to the stars", it's a pulpy adventure sci-fi, full of fistfights, sword fights, and hammy speeches. (The guns never work.)

The USS ''Enterprise'' is tasked by the Federation to go on a five year mission to explore space: the final frontier, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before, though due to budget constraints, her crew often finds that man has in fact gone there before. Or at least something that looks exactly like a man but is actually an [[Xenos|alien]]; most episodes split the difference. James T. Kirk sleeps with [[Hot Chicks|hot alien babes]] who either die tragically or leave tearfully at the end of the episode, but it's 'k because he's too in love with the Enterprise to ever love a mere ''woman'' more. Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are cold and logical and rash and emotional respectively, and their constant friction must be resulting in the best make-up sex in the world, Mr. Sulu and Lieutenant Uhura wait in vain for focus episodes that never come, Ensign Chekhov suffers horribly to the approval of American Cold War audiences, and Scotty [[gets shit done]]. Uniforms, while iconic, tend to look a bit civilian though. Miniskirts are apparently mandated attire for the ship's fan-servicey female "yeomen" and others, because 1966. The civilian nature of the attire (including, one must assume, the miniskirts, but they had a visual appeal all their own) were apparently an intentional design decision by Roddenberry who didn't want uniforms to look military. Further specialness on the part of Roddenberry demanded phasers not look like guns ([[FAIL|not even have trigger-guards even though those exist for safety reasons]]), instead looking like nothing in particular at all (although looking back at them today they look sort of like TV remotes, which would be invented much later), and also (probably the only sensible decision in this category) ships that didn't look like rockets, giving ships their distinctive and iconic saucer-engineering-nacelles look that still stands out today.

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 [[Nazi]]s. This is often copied by shows who don't realize it was done out of pure expediency, and nowadays this [[TVTropes|"Planet of Hats"]] gimmick is 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'' or a shuttle landing on a new planet every week, the writers instead decided to invent the transporter to "beam" the crew down to planets or between starships. Also worth noting: despite its mediocre critical reception, ratings and eventual cancellation, not to forget the uneven quality of many episodes, especially in the Roddenberry-less third season where poor Fred Freiberger had to come onto a show he didn't understand and try to get better ratings with less money, ''TOS'' had a hell of a cultural impact thanks to syndication and it has been said that since it entered syndication in 1969, there hasn't been a 24-hour period without some TV station, in some country, playing Star Trek. Cancellation of The Original Series is now considered one of the worst decisions in TV history, and while much of its silly 60's campiness is now laughable, it often still manages to teach relevant and important lessons today.

Fun fact: the ''Enterprise'' and each of her 11 sister ships have enough firepower to [[Exterminatus]] a planet by themselves, after getting issued an order called General Order 24. This however is likely a time-consuming task. According to a later DS9 episode, it takes a fleet of 20 warships 1 hour of sustained bombardment to destroy a planets crust and 5 hours of sustained bombardment to destroy a planet down to its mantle. These 20 ships were also in service 100 years after the Enterprise so they were also more powerful.
Kirk has the distinction of being the only known captain to issue a [[Exterminatus|General Order 24]], because a planet was ''too'' much into wargames (he changed his mind after they dropped wargaming).
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==''The Animated Series''==
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The often forgotten middle child. More or less "seasons 4-5" of ''TOS'' with the same writing staff and actors, sans poor Walter Koenig. He was replaced by a weird camel person. He learned this at a convention, from a fan, while he was trying to announce he'd be writing an episode, which Gene promptly demanded he rewrite over and over. Classy.

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'', with the occasional low point. Not ''nearly'' as bad as you're probably picturing from the name, although still limited by the low budget and primitive, cheap animation techniques of the television era it was aired in. Notably some sci-fi novelists were brought in to write some episodes, such as Larry Niven, and at least one episode, "Yesteryear," is considered such a pivotal moment in Spock's development that even people who hate the series enough to consider it all non-canon often make an exception just for that one.

Also, since the series now has no excuse for throwing in lots of Space Puritans and Space Wizards, it of course continued to do so to derptastic results, because by this point it had become traditional. The presence of a straight-up [[furry]] on the bridge, however, is downright unacceptable.
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==''The Next Generation''==
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Here's where it starts getting a little deeper and a little darker, although with a lot of left-wing political subtext turned up to 11. The USS ''Enterprise-D'' (the original and C were destroyed in action while A and B were retired) 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 takes over the captain's "sleep with alien babes" duties since Picard is married to the job; Worf the Klingon gets beaten up by monsters to show how tough the monsters are, meaning that Worf winds up looking incredibly weak by the end of the show's run and doesn't regain his badassery until his run on ''DS9''; Dr. Beverly Crusher is good old Bones minus his temper; Dr. Pulaski is Bones ''plus'' temper; Counselor Troi is so badly written she becomes a running joke; and Geordi LaForge [[gets shit done]]. Only two things need to be said about helmsman Wesley Crusher: he was [[Mary Sue|Gene Wesley Roddenberry's shitty self-insert fanfic character]], and his sueness got to the point that even his actor started to hate him within the first season of the show.

Due to the massive success of The Original Series in syndication (and Paramount being [[Rage|pissed off]] by broadcast networks treating their most valuable IP like any other show), TNG was aired through syndication from the beginning. Although the first two seasons were laughably bad, the quality began to improve dramatically after an increasingly cocaine-addled Gene Roddenberry got too sick to keep ruining it and his partner-in-crime Maurice Hurley was thrown out on his ass, a moment often pinpointed via looking for when [[Meme|Riker grew a beard.]] The later seasons are widely considered to represent the apex of the franchise's episodic formula on the small screen (although ''DS9'' gave it a run for its money with a more serialized approach); sadly, this series only got one good movie.

The Next Generation started and ended on one of its skubbier elements, that being Q, an omnipotent trans dimensional alien that starts testing Picard in the first episode and is finally persuaded to go away in the last. The entire multi-season run of the show is set up with the subtext that the Q are judging whether humanity is worthy of its implied lofty destiny. What should have been a stifling deus ex machina was carried entirely by the performance of Q's actor; the dialogs between Picard and Q were some of the show's most entertaining, even as the Q episodes tended to be the obligatory season silly story.
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==''Deep Space Nine''==
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Unlike all the other series so far, ''Deep Space Nine'' primarily takes place in a fixed location - the titular space station Deep Space Nine, out near the borders of Federation Space. Said space station is near Bajor, which was recently freed from Cardassian occupation, and a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy which allows [[Warp|all sorts of of crazy shit to go down]]. If the other shows are a wagon train, this one's the border fort.

Benjamin Sisko is the captain, declared Emissary by the nearby Bajorans for making contact with the wormhole aliens they worship, and he successfully hybridizes the blow-the-shit-out-of-whatever-you-can't-punch Kirk approach with the talk-in-a-very-dignified-way-about-the-philosophy-of-the-thing-and-win-by-rhetoric Picard maneuver, in his ultimately-successful quest to become the baddest motherfucker in space, then literally becomes a space god. Kira the Bajoran ex-<s>terrorist</s> <S>''noble freedom fighter''</s> (who are we kidding she calls herself a terrorist) struggles to free and rebuild her people while coming to terms with the moral ambiguities of situations she prefers to see in black-and-white, Dr. Bashir works to find his character for several seasons before becoming a highlight, Dax gets often written poorly and has to switch bodies doing it, Odo IS ''Liquid Space Cop'', Quark runs his bar and [[troll|heckles]] the Federation, Garak pretends to be a tailor while definitely not being a super-spy and dropping killer lines, and Miles O'Brien [[gets shit done]] and gets physically, mentally, and/or emotionally tortured in at least one episode a season (referred to by the writers as the "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes). Also, Worf wanders in halfway through, and actually gets to punch things instead of just getting punched by them, up to and including offing the Klingon chancellor in an honor duel. It's also a lot more political than other series (though ''TNG'' and ''Voyager'' have their moments) and the last series to have Gene Roddenberry's involvement (with less enthusiasm, in fact often much to the benefit of this particular series thematically, although Roddenberry's complete departure did not necessarily bode well for the franchise in general.)

It's the closest the pre-Kelvin series ever get to [[grimdark]]. Especially when the Dominion show up. With minimal grimderp that plague the later seasons and Kelvin era movies. The show has aged remarkably well and the terrorist/freedom fighter debate was repeatedly explored in a very mature and honest way; the darkest episodes ventured into duping the Romulans into a war by assassinating a senator, and forcing a Klingon regime change [[rip and tear|''the Klingon way'']]. ''DS9'' is the most serialized of all Trek shows and could be considered a forerunner to the golden age of television with its long story arcs and deep character development. Overall, ''DS9'' has to be considered the most consistently good Trek show thanks to the excellent writing and fantastic performances from a truly wonderful ensemble cast. At least until the final season . . .

Which brings us to DS9 Skub. The show was airing around the same time as another thematically similar sci-fi show, ''[[Babylon 5]]''. Not only that but characters also shared similarities, as did the episodes especially as both shows became war stories later on. Interestingly, beginning of both series, introduction of characters and airing of similar episodes were often too close to each other for one show to copy the other but this did not stop massive [[Rage]] and [[/v/|fanboy wars]] from starting between fans of the two series accusing one another of plagiarism and having an inferior product. Happily, as time went on and both shows evolved, these hurt feelings have mostly faded.

There's also that last season. The earlier (good) writers had got pulled to try to make movies, which movies they'd failed at. The new writers also had to bring in a new Dax, Ezri, who was very different from Jadzia; and Ezri only got that one season to make her mark, which season she had to share with the Great Epic Conclusion (it's a miracle Ezri was as well received as she was, and a testament to Nicole de Boer's talent). Those finale episodes were mostly okay and tied up the story semi-satisfyingly, though a few die-hard subplots fell flat. The season, therefore, was shaky; not necessarily a harbinger for The Decline Of ''Trek'' to come, but at least inauspicious.

How good is ''Deep Space Nine''? Every Star Trek series and even the reboot movies have pretty much ripped off ideas and concepts established during the series. Famously, within the "Trekker/Trekie" fan community, there's a little cell of fans who like it better than most other ''Star Trek''; these fans are typically called "Niners."
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==''Voyager''==
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Star Trek: Voyager centers around the eponymous USS ''Voyager'', a smallish ship which gets teleported over to the other side of the galaxy. The plot of the series centers on the crew's efforts to get back home, which COULD have made for an excellent premise. Unfortunately, there were few lasting story arcs, with most episodes being fully self-contained (as well as being littered with far too many episodes featuring holodeck or transporter incidents). As a consequence, despite being completely isolated from the Federation, no matter how bad things got Voyager always appeared in the next episode without a scratch, fully supplied, and with all its shuttlecraft intact. Think ''Gilligan's Island'' on a starship.

Like ''TNG'' and ''DS9'' it's a character-driven drama just as often as it is a sci-fi adventure romp, although compared to TNG only a few of the characters are particularly memorable. The captain and arguable "main character" is Kathryn Janeway, a Katharine Hepburn lookalike (I see what you did there) who is stern without being cold, and principled without being inflexible. The fan favorite is a character called "The Doctor" ([[Doctor Who|No relation]]); he's the solid-light hologram representative of the ship's emergency medical computer, who has to take on actual medical duties when their chief medical officer was conveniently killed in the pilot episode. Other than this, Chakotay is a peace-loving and spiritually rich indian <s>freedom fighter</s> <s>terrorist</s> [[FAIL|who was written with the help of a special Cherokee consultant so native his name was Jamake Highwater and it turned out later on that he was actually Jewish and didn't know dick about native cultures so he made everything up resulting in Chakotay basically being a borderline racist caricature of what you think Indians are like. Akoochimoya.]] Tom Paris is an annoying jerk and is counterbalanced by Harry Kim who is the ideal boy-scout, making him only half as annoying and twice as boring. B'elanna Torres tries to perpetuate a lineage of dudes getting shit done but ends up blankly reciting her technobabble, having second degree plasma burns and – worst of all – systematically fails to get shit done whenever the warp core goes nuts. Tuvok tries hard to be as cool as Spock but ends up being a lame version of the n°1 Vulcan who uses logic to justify everything and makes it short for "you are wrong, I am right because I said so." Kes is passed as a fragile and nice character but it takes a couple of episodes to realize that having a short lifespan does not change the facts: [[powergamer|when you can boil someone to death from the inside of their body, drain life from everything around you to become stronger and do anything you want without knowing how, just by thinking of it]], you are a goddamn Mary Sue. From the fourth season onwards the only character the writers seemed to care about was Seven of Nine, [[Mary Sue|a human woman who recently escaped from Borg control and kept all of her cyborg enhancements but regained her free will]]; another Mary Sue, to be sure, but she's [[Hot Chicks|hot]], and the other characters are much worse, so that's not really a bad thing. Fortunately, The Doctor still received a lot of attention from the writers and almost single-handedly made the show watchable. There was also Neelix, who was the apparent inspiration for Jar-Jar Binks, and any sane crew would have pushed him out of an airlock on the first episode. Fans who stuck with the show despite its glaring failings were given one final slap in the face with the <s>controversial</s> 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!" If you did not care about any of the characters or the subplots or time travel making sense (the writers sure didn't), then the final episode was made just for you (and the Borg got a major setback, too, just don't think about the setup too hard).

The Doctor never once stopped being totally fucking awesome though (enough so to even earn a cameo in First Contact and for Robert Picardo to turn up as his inventor in an episode of DS9), and the great acting from the cast carries the series from being horrific to ''occasionally'' watchable. Just goes to show that no matter how good your actors are, they can't make diamonds out of shit.

Overall, most Star Trek fans view Voyager's legacy with a shrug and a "meh." Unfortunately, hopes that Voyager's successor would revitalize the franchise would soon prove to be overly optimistic.

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==''Enterprise''==
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From the minute the Nickelback-tier theme tune started, Enterprise attempted to take Star Trek in a new direction and was only partially successful in doing so. The series never quite caught its footing, although it still managed to have some enjoyable moments. It was most notable for providing a first-hand view of the key events that directly led to the formation of the Federation. The Federation's founding races were also featured heavily, with Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans all enjoying significant screen time alongside the human characters.

It's a prequel to the rest of the canon, taking place on the first ''Enterprise'', before the Federation was founded and during the period when Earth was still an independent power- 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. Captained by <s>that guy from ''Quantum Leap''</s> Jonathan Archer, in hindsight the fact that they had to rename him from their original choice of Jeffrey Archer to avoid confusion with the disgraced British MP and author of the same name probably cursed the series with bad karma before it had even begun shooting. In an unusual twist for a ''Trek'' series, his first officer isn't a <s>terrorist</s> ''noble freedom fighter,'' however she does share a trait with her ''Voyager'' predecessor in that the actress who portrayed her frequently criticized the show's writers in interviews. Other than that, well, Hoshi Sato screams a lot, Travis Mayweather was so dull that even the writers forgot he existed, the resident Vulcan T'Pol serves as both the Science Officer and source of sexy fanservice, Malcolm Reed has an accent, Dr Phlox is a weird creepy alien with weird creepy alien morals (and gets surprisingly interesting when given enough screentime, which hardly ever happened), and Trip also has an accent and [[gets shit done]].

Was retooled twice, the third season tries to be ''24'' IN SPACE (stop some aliens, the Xindi, from blowing up Earth) while the 4th season is a massive apology about the last three seasons that tries to fix all the problems they had. As a result, the last season is the only one that's close to being really good.

Unfortunately, the poorly-received final episode is set on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D, which 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 (Or not since ''Voyager'' was that; its first episode was even numbered 901, as in Season 9 Episode 1).

Yet despite all the bad directing, subpar plots, and frankly boring episodes, ''Enterprise'' sometimes still manages to be moderately enjoyable with occasional moments of awesomeness if you can suffer through a fair few awful spots and aggressive mediocrity almost everywhere else. The focus on founding Federation races like the Andorans was refreshing and the technology level, being somewhere between the original series and the real world present-day, was quite interesting. We also got to see the Vulcans portrayed as arrogant, superior dicks. This actually makes a lot more sense than the way they're usually portrayed (which is fairly submissive towards humans) because they are, obviously and objectively, the superior race. The Klingons certainly still considered themselves to be honorable but the show made it clear that the Klingon notion of honor is rarely analogous to the human concept which was interesting as all hell to watch. There have been a few small nods to Enterprise in Discovery and the Abrams movies.

And let's be fucking honest, [[/tg/]] loves 40k and the Xindi arc was about as grimdark as shit gets. And that was awesome.

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==STD aka ''Discovery''==
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----
<s>A LOAD OF SOCIAL JUSTICE SHIT!</s> Ahem, let's start again, shall we?

A new "prequel" series set 10 years before ''The Original Series.'' Again. Run exclusively on CBS' paid streaming service (unless you live outside the US and Canada, in which case you can get it on Netflix) to try and drum up sign-ups and revenue, it features a mix of ''Enterprise'' and Abramstrek aesthetics despite supposedly taking place in parallel to the TOS "The Cage" pilot while [[what|having technology superior to late DS9]] and introducing [[dune|mushroom-based space travel]] that would imply [[retcon|all later events and warp travel would be outdated]]. The trailer has attracted a lot of concern over the fact that Klingons have been completely redesigned to look like slit-nosed ogres wearing ancient Egyptian cosplay, and rumors that the Klingons shown were [[Racial Holy War|primitives who had been trapped in stasis]] proved to be unfounded, so there is no excuse. Not having a cold war to posture about, the new villains are based off of Trump-inspired xenophobia by the admission of the authors. Also the lead character is Spock's human sister that he never mentioned before, aka the ''exact'' origin of the [[Mary Sue]] which is just fucking depressing. To further reinforce this, there are ''numerous'' examples of dialogue and exposition that serve only to show how the Mary Sue main character was right all along, usually in conjunction with the death of the character that had foolishly disagreed with her. Want a new Star Trek episode about racism and immigration? Try the now-banned [https://youtu.be/3VEZH8bqytA Star Trek Continues]. Want Star Trek with humor, we suppose: ''Star Trek: Lower Decks'', below. Oh! want a pseudo-Star Trek show about other modern issues? Try ''[[The Orville]]''. That's right, American Dad In Space <strike>may right now be</strike> is a better Star Trek than an actual Star Trek series.

Initial reviews have been... well, never mind the 2017-era soy-guzzling critics. STD is as much fun as an outbreak of Nurgle's Rot. Mostly. There ''are'' exceptions.

The writing is overly convoluted, the massive injection of grimdark into pre-TOS continuity is anathema to the hardcore fans (the ''human'' characters are often the ones doing the nastiest shit, including [[Marines Malevolent|trying to kill a Klingon party by planting an explosive on the corpse of one of their comrades for when they came to collect the dead]]) and the Klingons are so flat and devoid of characterization that they might as well be Larry the Cable Guy lookalikes wearing Trump hats. This is a massive disappointment for a series that promised to put a spotlight on Klingon culture but ended up retconning all the characterization that happened in TNG and DS9. It ''may'' get better with time (remember that it took two seasons for TNG to get really good) but given the release schedule (split between 2017 and 2018 with a long break) it may come too late for the fanbase to care. Currently it's cause for more fans to lose their shit over whether it's better or worse than the Abrams movies, which is a new record of [[Skub|Trek Skub]]. Releasing the show on CBS All Access instead of cable or broadcast TV makes it seem that executives don't really give a shit if the show succeeds or fails, bringing up the question of [[Bioware|whether they're deliberately putting Star Trek: Discovery in a no-win scenario where, no matter what happens, the executives have an excuse to cancel Star Trek altogether]].

Another stupid decision was not shelling out the cash to bring back Bruce Greenwood and Zachary Quinto as Captain Pike and Spock, respectively. Their ages wouldn't have mattered either if CBS and Paramount weren't too cheap to use the anti-aging CGI tech that is so commonplace these days. Hell, Star Trek makeup artists are among the best in the entertainment business. So they could have pulled it off with applying the bare minimum, and we probably still wouldn't have noticed.

There were also allegations that large chunks of the plot were stolen from previews of an in-development indie game. The unreleased 2014 game featured giant Tardigrades that had the ability to use an interstellar network to travel anywhere they wanted to- sound familiar?

We must however give credit where credit is due. Season 1's fifth episode "Choose Your Pain" starred Rainn Wilson as a younger Harcourt Fenton Mudd, and this was a surprising treat. Season 2 also featured Anson Mount as Captain Pike, whose addition to the cast was nothing short of a revelation. Indeed, Pike's character was by far the most well-received aspect of that season.

Unfortunately, while Season 2 had some watchable moments, it was still middling at best, and nobody is ''ever'' going to let this series live down the garbage fire that was Season 1. If you do decide to watch Season 2, try not to think about it too hard once you are done. It gets worse and worse the more you think about it as you can and will come to realize that {{spoiler|the overarching plot hinges on time-travel but because the writing and production staff kept being shuffled, no one kept continuity so some of the hints of future actions or "red lights" are just forgotten about, some time-travel is done just to set up another event to make it possible for that same time-travel to happen. Think Bill and Ted, except lame and very confusing. Season 2 is an okay show if you look at the state-of-the-art visuals, let the big emotional moments grip you, but if you stop for a second and think about the continuity of events, you push yourself on a slippery slope that ends in not being able to ever trust the showrunning staff again.}}

Season 3 sees the Discovery transported far into the future, one in which the Federation itself has fallen apart due to the mysterious disappearance of the Dilithium required for Warp Travel. What was the issue with the Dilithium? A member of the same species as the character Saru was on a planet with a lot of Dilithium and had a freakout so bad it somehow psychically fucked up all Dilithium everywhere at roughly the same time. Oh, and apparently turbolifts now fly around in a pocket dimension or some stupid shit.
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==''<strike>Retard</strike>Picard''==
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Set to be a continuation of the original timeline, featuring old man Picard with Patrick Stewart reprising the role. Hopes are not high, but at the very least Patrick Stewart's presence should make it watchable if nothing else.

Update: It's bad. So, so bad.

The story so far: Picard ragequit Starfleet after they sat back and let the Romulans get blown up by the supernova mentioned in the first Abrams movie. This happened because some rogue androids orbitally bombarded Mars and blew up the rescue fleet that was being built there, so the Federation has banned all R&D on synthetic lifeforms and subsequently become [[Imperium of Man|isolationist, racist and xenophobic]] (does this remind you of anything?). Picard has been living in his family chateau ever since, making wine and hanging out with his dog and his Romulan housekeepers. Then a scared girl named Dahj turns up on his doorstep, and it turns out she's a highly advanced biological android constructed from the surviving bits of Data's positronic brain by the guy who wanted to dismantle Data in that episode "The Measure of a Man." Before Picard can really figure out what to do about her, she gets killed by a secret society of Luddite anti-Android Romulan assholes, but it turns it that's okay because she has a twin "sister" named Soji who is working with some other Romulans on a derelict Borg cube. Picard decides it's time to saddle up and go be a hero again. He starts putting together a crew that includes Agnes Jurati, a former cyberneticist; Raffi Musiker, his last executive officer, [[What|who is now an alcoholic drug-vaping hermit]] after getting kicked out of Starfleet; Cristobal Rios, a scruffy merc pilot whose ship is staffed entirely by holograms of himself; Elnor, a Romulan warrior monk raised by Romulan warrior nuns; and Seven of Nine, who has become a kickass pilot and is no longer wearing her infamous catsuit. Together, they're out to save Soji, stop the Romulans, and be the good guys in a galaxy that needs heroes, etc etc.

Key storytelling criticisms of the show include the idea that the Romulan Empire should have had enough infrastructure to effect an evacuation without help, and that even if they didn't, the Federation would ''never'' abandon a neighbor who was asking for help- not even a former enemy, and not even when doing so became difficult or inconvenient. Another issue comes up when the show reveals that the Borg have assimilated transgalactic teleporters from a throwaway alien race that appeared in an early episode of ''Voyager'', but only for the Borg queen to use in case the cube she's on is about to be blown up, which begs the question of ''why in the hell aren't they using them to overwhelm the Federation's defenses with drone spam and assimilate everything??'' There's also an (abortive) space battle in the final episode where Riker shows up leading a fleet of ships that are just copy-pastes of the same CG model, which was derided for being cheap and lazy on the part of the showrunners and a failed chance to show Riker in command of the ''Titan'' or ''Enterprise''.

To make matters even more dumb and yet also more complicated at the same time, the showrunners are apparently under some kind of licensing agreement regarding the portrayal of images and concepts from the earlier shows. This means that they can't, for example, casually mention the Dominion War and its impact on the Federation, because if they did, they'd have to pay a licensing fee. This is why the show has been carefully crafted to look like a distant, derpy cousin of Star Trek, while only occasionally featuring cameos of things such as the Enterprise-D, or directly referencing arcs in previous shows: because if they use concepts from prior Star Trek shows, they have to pay for them.

Finally, when all has been said and done by the end of Season 1, Picard himself is reduced to a nearly-useless side character in his own show. Where once he commanded the admiration and respect of friends and foes alike, in this show he is consistently portrayed as a disrespected, disregarded, and often powerless caricature of himself, utterly reliant on the characters around him. {{spoiler|It doesn't help they legit kill him in the last episode and then made him an android after he also agreed to "kill" Data whose memories are basically in a server on a planet of Soong androids. The showrunners specifically came out and said their plan was always to kill Picard to make a point about how privileged he was being a captain in Starfleet. You can't make this shit up. Patrick Stewart himself claims that they hadn't written Picard's death until they were almost finished filming the season, so who knows what the hell was going on.}}

One other thing is certain. Whether you like the series or not, it's clear that this series is not taking place in Gene Roddenberry's noblebright vision of the Federation, and the fact that it is yet another grim, violent entry into the franchise is a point that has left many viewers with a bad aftertaste. If the rumors are true, then this show may have either killed the current grimderp Trek or has left fans so pissed that CBS is, once again, on the verge of financial ruin and possibly looking to sell the franchise since they aren't making the money they thought they would after the massive amounts of money they dumped into both this and Discovery.

Season 2 is set to come out in 2022 after the Covid pandemic delayed production. John de Lancie and Whoopi Goldberg are both set to come back and there appears to be some kind of time travel shenanigans happening. Expectations are low after the trash fire of the first season, but at least it'll be nice to see Q getting on Picard's nerves again.

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==''Strange New Worlds''==
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An attempt to put the golden goose back together on the operating table. After seeing the reception of having Captain Pike in Discovery, Paramount decided to simply return to the pilot cast of The Original Series with its fingers crossed that the old bird will resume replicating gold eggs.

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==''Lower Decks''==
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Mike McMahan is doing this one, him being the person behind the Rick & Morty cartoon. It's set in 2380 on the ''Cerritos'', concentrating (like the TNG episode of the same name) on the grunts working in the bowels of the ship. The main characters are ensigns and low-level lieutenants: there's Tendi the Orion female, there's the cyborg Rutherford, and the rebellious daughter of the captain Mariner. They are all the bane (and close friends) of the worrisome Boimler existence, the Starfleet straight-man.

Fans feared this would focus on lowbrow "humor" episodes with technobabble nonsense stapled to it just like McMahan's other works. And they were right, although the technobabble is here honestly ''less'' annoying than in mainline Trek, on account it's not being taken seriously.

The fans weren't won over by the August 2020 pilot ep, with the manic energy of Rick & Morty, directed at appearing to kick the shins of the franchise it has in its name.

As the first season progressed consensus warmed up a bit. Lower Decks is not as unwatchably bad as Discovery or Picard. While it does ooze millennial snark, it's greater sin (or virtue) is that it's completely irreverent. It's not that the writers don't know of Roddenberry's [[noblebright]] ideals, they just believe that ideal won't survive contact with reality (remember the conversations between Julien Bashir and Elim Garak?). Enjoying Lower Decks means accepting the likely reality that a few decks below all of Picard's noblebright ready room monologues there were hundreds of ignoble, corner-cutting crewmen who just want to get to the end of their shift.
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The most-justified complaint against Lower Decks so far is that it can come off as mean and sarcastic, making low blows against Star Trek for the sake of a joke. High points are moving the plot forwards with Bajorans in Starfleet proper and the Pakleds, originally a joke of a species (in 2365), are now a serious threat that can take on weaker Federation ships and win (in 2380). It also has the first on screen appearance of the USS Titan. John de Lancie reprises Q, last seen in Voyager and now infamous throughout Starfleet as an unwelcome menace. Among all but the most whiny of fans, Lower Decks is at least considered better than the first two seasons of STD and first season of Picard with a better understanding of what Star Trek is than either.

The second season is on a more even footing, now that it's gotten past the shock of introducing people to the series and is teasing more backstory for all of the main characters while the mix of TOS and TNG era humor continues.

In summary, it's a show that directly appeals to people who loved Star Trek but now believe Star Trek is dead Jim.
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=='' Prodigy''==
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Here for sake of completeness, an animated show targeting a younger audience that debuted in 2021 on Nickleodeon (alongside Paramount+). The show follows a collection of misfit (mostly young) aliens on a mining colony that find hidden in a crystalline planetoid the USS Protostar, a Starfleet Starship with a hologram of Janeway to aide the collection of "Cadets" as they escape and venture out into an galaxy full of adventure while the owner of the mining colony and his robot minion try to take the Protostar for themselves.

So far it has a decent critical reception. If you want Star Trek which is noblebright and not ironic and are fine with a PG rating, this may be worth a look.
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= Films =
We're putting these at the end in the (unlikely) event someone does a movie that's in the non-Abrams canon ever. As a general rule, the even-numbered ones aren't complete shit.

* '''''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''''': AKA: The Slow Motion Picture, or the Motionless Picture. A giant space whatsit is flying towards Earth, the mostly-retired crew has to go figure out what's going on and stop it. Old school sci-fi geeks like the ideas, but terrible pace and interminable special effects that were clearly meant to capitalize on ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' while failing to understand what people like about that movie kill them dead for everyone else. Besides the uniform worn by Kirk, the uniforms also look like pajamas. So no wonder they were changed only a movie later. Features an entirely bald female alien who is [[What|so good at sex that she has to swear an oath not to get it on with the crew]]. Really. This is canon.
* '''''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''''': As Kirk starts to feel his age, a one-off villain from the show played by Ricardo "Corinthian Leather" Montalban makes a dramatic reappearance: [[Meme|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. So good many later movies in the franchise just try to rip it off instead of finding their own identities. Interesting fact: due to time constraints, actors of Kirk and Khan weren't available at the same time. So the entire script was written so that Kirk and Khan never need to meet face-to-face. But you'd never notice if it weren't pointed out to you. Roddenberry screeched autistically and objected to some of the actions of his characters, including Kirk shooting a [[Enslavers|brain eating space parasite]] rather than "[[Noblebright|keeping it for study]]." The fact that his strongest objections came to the most [[win]] of the films says a great deal about his deprecating value to the franchise around the TNG era.
* '''''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock''''': Where is Spock? ''He's on Genesis.'' ALL AHEAD FULL! Not really bad, just mediocre and run of the mill compared to the superior films that surround it. It was also saddled with the misfortune of undoing some of the previous film's more-daring decisions, and having its only daring decision reversed a film later. If you had to say that any film broke the "odd numbers suck" rule, it would be this one. This was Leonard Nimoy's first attempt at directing a full film, having asked for the seat in exchange for agreeing to play Spock again.
* '''''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home''''': The crew of the ''Enterprise'' travels back in time to save the whales. No, literally and unironically. Scott tries to talk to a computer through the mouse, Spock nerve-pinches a punk on a bus in San Francisco, and somehow it works, creating something perhaps not quite in the genre intended but a classic in sci-fi dramedy. ''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. Nimoy directed this one too but there was a contract stipulation that Shatner would get whatever Nimoy got, thus leading to...
* '''''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier''''': aka. the film that should never have been made, even by many die-hard Trekkies. Kirk's actor got his spin behind the camera as agreed and wanted a "thought-provoking movie" after the more comical IV. Good intention, but the abysmal execution leaves the audience facepalming at the very best. Between the weak script, the 'moral' of the story ('faith can be abused by unscrupulous people', for the record) delivered with all the subtlety of a punch to the face, poor (or deliberately campy) special effects, uninspired performances by the actors (who for the most part didn't like the script as it had them behave against everything that had come before and betray Kirk) and Kirk's screentime-hogging (despite being behind the camera); this movie is by far the absolute worst of the original six and simply not worth watching... but it's just dumb and hapless, not dead and soulless like what's to follow from other crews.
* '''''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''''': The Space Cold War ends amidst searing mystery and drama. The sendoff for the original cast, except Kirk who got a worse send-off a movie later. 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. Press F for Christopher Plummer, second best ham in ''Trek'' history. After the previous movie's painful directing, Sulu's actor only agreed to come back if he got to be captain of his own ship.
* '''''Star Trek Generations''''': Malcolm McDowell blows up planets to get into a magic space ribbon to live forever, no it does not make any more sense in context. An already-weak story hamstrung by its obsession with being daring and unconventional rather than good (aside from the bit where Worf gets promoted, that was great). Also, Kirk dies on the bridge in the most face-palming manner possible. Nimoy was offered the Director's chair, took one look at the script and demanded a rewrite which didn't happen so he refused to be involved.
* '''''Star Trek First Contact''''': The ''TNG'' crew face off with the Borg to ensure the future happens. Lots of action, a script that sparks with energy and snark, and some quite effective performances make this the only good ''TNG'' movie (we don't blame you TNG cast). It sadly is also the only appearance of the Defiant on screen, doing a pretty decent job of fighting the Borg before the Enterprise E saves the day of course. The Borg Queen was also introduced here before Voyager ruined what could have been a good idea.
* '''''Star Trek Insurrection''''': If you thought the [[Avatar|Na'vi]] were a bunch of badly-written [[Mary Sue]]s, 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. Aged from terrible to forgettably bad thanks to that one scene of Picard and Data singing ''HMS Pinafore'' going memetic.
* '''''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 "''Galaxy Quest'' counts as a ''Star Trek'' film so this one is also odd."
* '''''Star Trek''''' (2009): Alternate timeline "reboot" (sideboot?) with the original crew, albeit with new younger actors. Timey-wimey shit happens and old prime timeline Spock (reprised by old Leonard Nemoy) is hurled back in time along with a bunch of Romulan assholes. The dickbag Romulans begin fucking shit up, slightly altering history in a way that ensures gratuitous lens flare. [[skub| Skubtastic]], but at least fun to watch (if a literally gleaming, uncomplicated space action-adventure that doesn't delve deeply into the human condition ala II or deeply into idiocy ala V/Generations/Insurrection spells "fun" to you), which is more than ''most'' odd-numbered films can muster. If you still even count it as odd, without the ''Galaxy Quest''-amendment.
* '''''Star Trek Into Darkness''''': Some [[edgy]] [[Fail|shit]]. The second of the alternate timeline ''Trek'' films. Terrorism, conspiracy and flapdoodle. Even more skubtastic, but generally considered worse than its predecessor, partially because (like ''Nemesis'') it tries to be a remake of ''The Wrath of Khan'' and having Kirk at his most punchable.
* '''''Star Trek Beyond''''': Didn't totally suck; graded on a curve against the prior two. So - the good / bad / skub. Good: lots of good character stuff for the entire cast and a decent story revolving around a race of mysterious space pirates trying to conquer a colony; handles IRL death of Leonard Nimoy excellently. Bad: villains are under-written, the action photography is poorly-lit shaky-cam horseshit, and the sound work is awful. Skub: Takei came out to complain that its Sulu was gay-married, since he'd played Sulu straight himself, so gay-Sulu was - Takei complained - an insult to his acting prowess (but: alternate universe, remember). If it's the last "Kelvin Timeline" movie, as it seems it will be, at least it ended on a note that wasn't total turd.

= Novels =
Like most long time franchises ''Star Trek'' has a massive line of books.

Most are effectively fanfics as nothing but the show and the movies is canon so the writers can do whatever they want. Partial exception to be made for the ''Deep Space Nine'' line; those are considered the "eighth season", justifiably, because they're actually quite good. Start with Andrew "Garak" Robinson's ''Stitch in Time''.

This changed after ''Nemesis'' since that movie was so godawful the producers calculated they might never have another show or movie in the "Prime" universe; also, several ''DS9'' actors started dropping off dead (so their fans never did get their kino). The writers got their shit together and wrote a group of books as a tight community very close to the shows. The relaunch novels are a continuation of the show they're about. Also there's the ''Titan'' book series which is about Riker and Troi getting their own ship, which happens to be staffed by every race in the Federation including living rocks, [[awesome|space dinosaurs]] that smell like [[meatbread|toast]] and a [[what|space cyborg ostrich]].

All the relaunch lines eventually got brought together in Star Trek: Destiny, where the Borg go nuts and eat Pluto ... yeah... and then they finally get sick of the Federation somehow managing to not get assimilated all the time, so they finally just send every last cube they have with orders to Exterminatus the absolute SHIT out of the entire Alpha Quadrant. Pretty much every important character from TNG, DS9, and Voyager has to team up to stop them, and even then the Federation still gets its shit kicked in and winds up having to rely on a vaguely ridiculous deus ex machina to beat the Borg, and [[Grimdark|billions of people still die and dozens of planets are blown to shit]]. It was pretty insane.

Then all the Federation's main enemies get together to form an anti-Federation and start poking the bear, all the while telling their allies that they're somehow warmongering dicks, Section 31 gets its cover blown in a big way, and Riker gets promoted to Admiral. Also, a lot of the newer TNG novels have been devoted to following up on one-shot aliens from the show, like the guys that sent out the probe that made Barclay super-smart and those fish monks that were abducting crewmembers for experiments. Now that the Picard show is coming out, though, this will all presumably be chucked in the dustbin.

Picard show came. Dustbin. But! Some of the authors who'd been working on the novel continuity for the last twenty years weren't willing to let the Trek novelverse die an inglorious death like the original Star Wars EU, so they got together and wrote a trilogy to give it a proper send-off. The dickhead aliens from that TNG two-part episode with Mark Twain have worked out a way to blow up entire quantum realities and feast on the neural energy of the trillions of lives snuffed out in the process. The novelverse crews all team up to stop them and learn that they're in an alternate timeline created by the Borg during the events of ''First Contact'', and that their reality will have to be erased permanently in order to ensure the survival of the rest of the multiverse. Some of them are less happy about it than others, but they band together to fight the good fight one last time. Everyone fucking dies, of course, but in the end they defeat the dickhead aliens and save the day before being extinguished forever. Still a better note to go out on than Disney saying "lol none of the old EU is canon anymore, buy our new stuff nerds."

= Video Games =
Again, you're in /tg/, so /v/ comes LAST.

There have been over 100 Star Trek video games to date but you'll be lucky for find more than [https://www.gog.com/news/6_classic_star_trek_games_ready_to_beam_up_new_players_and_fans_alike 6 on Steam or GOG] that aren't shitty mobile phone games. The vast, vast majority of Star Trek's games are abandonware with no way to purchase them, let alone get them from completely trustable sources. Also for a long time gamers had the (justified) prejudice that ''Trek'' games were shit and ''Wars'' games were good. This changed a bit after ''Elite Force'' redeemed ''Trek'' a bit and more so on the other end after EA ran ''Wars'' to the ground.

* [https://www.gog.com/partner/startrek List of Star Trek games on GOG.com]

== Star Trek Online ==
''Star Trek Online'' is the free-to-play online game built by Cryptic Studios and run by Perfect World. With an official license CBS, recurring characters voiced by various Trek alumni, and recently a license to include references to the reboot chronology (officially known as the "Kelvin Timeline"), it's the closest existing thing to an "official" continuation of the "Prime" timeline, and contains history and fluff extending nearly 40 years from the end of Star Trek: Nemesis.

Taking place in the 25th century (around the year 2409-2410), the Hobus supernova (the event that kicked Nero and Spock into the past during Star Trek 2009) has devastated the Romulans, and its near-collapse and fragmentation causes tensions between a resurgent Klingon Empire and the Federation. The tensions blow up into a war, with members of a new, nicer, breakaway Romulan Republic playing both sides in exchange for development aid.

The game contains deep cuts from all over Trek lore, and answers questions about what happened to various key characters, including Data (took over the Enterprise-E, then retired), the Enterprise (now an even bigger ship run by Andorian captain Shon), and the Voyager crew (it took Harry Kim 30 years to make Captain lol). Raises barely-shown, unnamed, and otherwise obscure races to new prominence as big bad foes, including the Iconians (ancient aliens with god complexes who mutated into energy beings, currently live in dyson spheres and were only defeated by predestination paradox), Tzenkethi (4-armed halo guys whose weak points are the FRONT of their shields), and Na'kuhl (the alien nazis from Enterprise as time-traveling terrorists who blame the Federation for a throwaway event that happened in TNG's beach episode).

Ostensibly free to play, but don't let that fool you... the ''not-so-micro''transactions are the only reason the lights stay on.

== Elite Force ==
There was an "Away Team" game that sucked and a "Voyager" game 1995-7 that got canceled. ''Elite Force'' was the ST:VOY away-team FPS game that critics didn't poop on, and it even got a sequel featuring much of the cast of ''TNG''.

== Starfleet Command ==

''Starfleet Command'' was a series real time space battle games by Interplay based on the much older tabletop game Star Fleet Battles. It came out in 1999 and was followed by several sequels and expansions. Gameplay was much like ''Battlefleet Gothic'', but with the player only controlling one ship. SFC remains Interplay's best selling game, topping even ''Baldur's Gate''.

== Armada ==

A series of low effort RTS's churned out by Activision in 2000. Tried to take on both ''Homeworld'' and ''Age of Empires'', both of which have recently gotten HD remakes and ''Armada'' hasn't so that should tell you all you need to know. However, for one of the first 3D model space RTS's it was surprisingly easy to mod, resulting in many ship mod packs being made for it.

=NonCanon=
== Homages ==
Being such a long-running franchise with a wide audience, Star Trek has gained enough pop-culture recognition that it is often referenced in other works. In a few cases entire projects are made to pay homage to Star Trek. Here are some examples.

=== Galaxy Quest ===
A sci-fi/comedy film released in 1999, directed by Dean Parisot. Built around that ''Three Amigos'' premise of "What if the cast of ''Star Trek'' ended up on a real spaceship and had to actually do the shit they did in the show?", this one parodies science fiction films and series in general - ''Star Trek'' (and its fandom) in particular.

The film stars big name actors including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and the late Alan Rickman. The plot revolves around the cast of a defunct cult television series called Galaxy Quest (for example, Tim Allen played the Kirk/Shatner expy and Alan Rickman played the Spock/Nimoy expy). They're also suffering fatigue that mirrors the experiences of the actual Star Trek actors (Rickman's character is typecast with his Galaxy Quest character and laments it, similar to how these things happened to the late, great Leonard Nimoy).

The cast are suddenly visited by actual aliens, the Thermians, who believe the series to be an accurate documentary (they have no concept of fiction and only the most bare bones idea of lying - they even only learned about lying through the actions of the film's antagonist) and seek their help. The Thermians take the actors with them, who find themselves involved in a very real, and dangerous, intergalactic conflict, and unlike the show where it all wrapped up quickly they struggle to learn about and relate to the aliens. Can these actors find greatness within themselves, and possibly personal redemption? (Spoiler: yes, and it is incredible.)

Speaking of the aliens, in a witty nod to the "rubber forehead aliens" so common in Star Trek, the Thermians first appear to resemble humans with unnaturally pale skin and straight hair, but that's revealed to be a holographic disguise and their true forms are squid-like.

/tg/ deems this one of the best parodies ever made, and an affectionate love-letter to the franchise as a whole. If you disagree then feel free to consume a big bag of Saurian Swinoid dongs.

''"Never give up, Never surrender!"''

=== The Orville ===
Now has [[The Orville|its own page]].

==Fanfics==
We ''could'' point you to An Archive Of Our Own but, for those (few) of you not keen to watch Kirk and Spock probe Uranus, here are some of the better noncanonical Trek you might want to watch.

===Star Trek: Renegades===
Kickstarter Trek. The makers submitted their made-for-TV movie pilot to CBS in an attempt to get it made into a legit on-the-air series (and by god it shows), but they were not successful. As a result, while the project limped along for a few years afterward, it has good and bad in equal measure. As a non-official product it also cannot be considered canon. Some characters are actually interesting (about time we saw more of the Breen!) while others are pure Mary Sues (including a male Seven of Nine with a built-in Borg-gun/personal shield/fully-functional hand). Some of the ideas are interesting while others are boring or already-been-done. The CGI is all Hollywood-quality, but the practical effects are okay at best.
It's obvious that they made this without knowing that they were going to be able to make a TV show or not, and tried to cram the sort of build-up and intrigue we saw in DS9 into a span of 90 minutes. For now though, it's decidedly meh, and probably a dead project as well since it hasn't been mentioned on the maker's website in over a year as of late 2019.

===Star Trek Continues===
Of all the offerings listed here, Star Trek Continues is BY FAR the closest in theme and tone to the original 1960's series. Indeed, this is the whole point: from its inception, this fan-funded project was intended to represent a what-if "4th Season" of the Original Series, ending with the conclusion of the Enterprise's 5-year mission. It is surprisingly and at times ''delightfully'' watchable, with strong stories, consequences and arcs that carry over to later episodes, tons of attention to detail, unexpected cameos, and a cast that really came together, particularly in later episodes. It also delicately navigated a line between viewing female characters through the lens of a show that was rooted in 1960's culture while also not treating them as weak children dependent on men for protection. Star Trek Continues successfully concluded its "season" with all 11 episodes gradually released from 2014 to 2018, to heaps of industry awards and wide praise (including a personal endorsement from Gene Roddenberry's son, who said his father would've approved).

==Parodies==
===Futurama===
Matt Groening, that mad lad, got almost all the original actors in a ''Futurama'' episode to [re-]enact a ''Trek'' episode on behalf of an alien fan. But not Doohan, so "Scotty" is replaced by "Welshie". Who gets horribly killed and has his corpse zapped whenever the alien loses his temper.

===Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning===
Another parody, parodying not only ''Star Trek'' but ''Babylon 5'' as well. The seventh in a series fan movies released in 2005, it's about Captain Pirk builds a starship called CPP ''Kickstart'', allies with Russia and takes over the world. He wants to take over more planets but the ships of his P-Fleet aren't fast enough to travel outside the Solar system. A maggot hole opens and it leads to an alternate reality. Pirk wants to take over the Earth of this reality, which leads to an [[awesome]] space battle between the P-Fleet and the fleet of the space station Babel 13 led by Johnny Sherrypie. The movie features some of the best special effects ever put in a sci-fi movie, which is pretty impressive, considering that this is an amateur film with a very low budget and was rendered in five years in someone's bedroom. The film is spoken in Finnish but subtitles are available for a wide variety of languages, including Klingon. They also made [https://web.archive.org/web/20070828010927/http://rpg.starwreck.com/ a role-playing game based on it], where your character [[Truenamer|becomes more incompetent]] [[Page 42|as he levels up]].

= Would you like to know more? =
And oh Lordy, is there more...
*[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/ Main Memory Alpha: A ''Star Trek'' wiki]
*[http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/ Main Memory Beta: The flip-side of Memory Alpha for the less than official stuff]
*[http://sfdebris.com/ SF Debris: opinionated episode reviews, has some non ''Trek'' stuff as well]
*[http://www.letswatchstartrek.com/ Let's Watch Star Trek]: A curated list of the episodes for newcomers - which episodes to watch or skip.

[[Category: Television]]