2d4chan - User contributions [en]

SJW

2020-07-12T14:24:51Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: /* See Also */

{{editwar}}
{{flamewar}}
{{fail}}
{{heresy}}
{{cleanup}}
{{delete|This is possibly the biggest lightning rod of shitposts on the site and edit wars by/against SJWs, so either permanently protect this accursed thing or make it so nobody can blather on about it ever again.}}
{{Topquote|The only way to win is to not read the crazy, and just fap and/or shlick to the pictures.|[[/d/]]}}
{{Topquote|People love to pretend they're offended.|Matt Groening}}
{{Topquote|Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.|Friedrich Nietzsche}}

== Meaning ==
[[Skub]]'s final form.

'''SJW''' stands for '''Social Justice Warrior''', a term originated in the late '90s to mid-2000's, where it was originally more neutral and meant to refer to ardent or outspoken advocates of social change, usually for 'furthering' civil rights. This generally meant someone who demanded that all races, genders, sexuality... any group where members can't leave voluntarily be represented in media and treated with equal respect.

Nowadays, it has a less-than-savory connotation, especially to people within 4chan (''especially'' [[/pol/]] and /v/ - the lattermost is a partial by-product of the GamerGate shenanigans). The modern usage of SJW refers largely to the (usually but not always) left wing-group of people who demand that media and society be inclusive and inoffensive (in practice, usually only to groups said SJW is a part of and those whose beliefs align with them) before all else, basically trying to police all media and, by proxy, the rest of society. See Identity Politics and Intersectionality (a.k.a "who is more oppressed and needs more help marathon"; the dynamics of this is often called Oppression Olympics).

SJWs also tend to chuck that aforementioned respect out the airlock as they prioritize looking and feeling "good" over actually doing good, like most zealots. They frequently employ simplistic and/or ahistorical analysis that could wring both tears and rage from any fa/tg/uy's inner history buff (and not just the ones with military vehicle fetishes, either). Such piping hot takes also open them up to "easy debunking", often by a mix of opportunists looking for an easy 'gotcha', /pol/acks looking for an easy triggering or (perhaps most rarely) people who actually studied their shit - bonus points if said people are left of center and/or themselves part of said minorities on whose behalf the SJWs pull this shit even as they speak over them. Of course, the debunking may itself be poorly researched - most political discussions set the bar amazingly low, if you hadn't guessed. Many SJWs also practice the double standard of selective outrage (attacking a particular person or group over what they said or did, but glossing over similar behavior from other groups - bonus points if the latter group is one the "rager" is part of and/or claiming to defend).

In short, it's associated with activists that advocate a a view of progressive societal change that non-progressives and sometimes even progressive groups, like feminists and minority activists, perceive to be ostracizing, harmful or unnecessary. This being mostly subjective is why the definition is so [[skub|contentious]] to begin with.

Expect Social Justice Warriors to show up or at least be mentioned anytime some combination of the following occurs:

*A) a popular figure does or says something considered offensive, whether legitimately so or otherwise;
*B) some asshole's trying to shut up people they're being rude to;
*C) someone is ''harmlessly'' being a bit less politically correct than people want them to;
*D) someone is being ''far less'' politically correct than the situation warrants; or
*E) there isn't enough presentation in a work for ethno-social groups that are already infinitesimal to begin with.

On that note, feel free to play a drinking game where you take a shot each time [[Nazi|Godwin's Law]] is invoked, and be sure to bid your liver farewell before hand.

Expect the affected thread and any other nearby discussion to be derailed in short order; this is becoming more and more frequent on /tg/ lately as hobbies like [[Magic: The Gathering|MTG]] and [[Warhammer 40k]] are being subjected to changes that are viewed as "progressive" and generate unholy waves of skub. This often appears in the forms of users being accused of bigotry for either not checking off enough "oppressed minority" checkboxes in character creation, or else portraying certain groups too positively. The sources are generally either the usual crowd of trolls and shit stirrers, or else actual morons who want to show off their 'good guy' badges - aka virtue signaling - and miss the point of their ideals entirely. Naturally, most people who hold similar views prefer to voice them only when appropriate to do so, and outside of the "radical" fringe, they differ from the average fa/tg/uy only by the presence of a few things they think tabletop games could be better at doing. The phenomenon is often referred to as "woke culture" and when it finds its way into media it's "identity politics".

This can and does often lead to rifts in communities, fanbases and franchises, with creators (most often independent ones) facing harassment and death threats. Despite this, even the largest companies and fandoms aren't immune (as all sides of the [[Star Wars]] fandom can attest). Any legitimate criticisms are almost immediately lost in the mix of mob mentality - just like most of the internet. When a work that didn't have identity politics suddenly displays these themes, the [[Skub]] WILL fly fast and hard. At best the backlash fractures the fanbse, at worst it shatters the fanbase and leads to a financial loss that sees the franchise discontinued, which is colloquially known as the "Get Woke, Go Broke" phenomenon.

There are plenty of examples, but the average fa/tg/uy is unlikely to care about most of them outside of the few relevant ones discussed further below.

== ...so why is this a big deal again? ==
The crux of the problem is that SJWs act as "moral guardians" to popular culture. Previous moral panics, such as the hysteria surrounding hip-hop, rock music and (most relevantly) tabletop games such as [[Dungeons & Dragons]] ever since each medium's creation, were driven by people who claimed to be protecting their children from the "evils" within certain works, as well as seeing enemies under every rock or choosing to die on hills that are ultimately of no consequence.

To use pen-and-paper RPGs as an example, the mostly-Christian right-wingers of the late 70s believed them to be [[Heresy|a gateway to devil worship and eternal damnation]] because of a misunderstanding. Some of the game developers lifted elements from real-life occultism and black magic practices for themes and stories, which was mistaken for trying to promote these practices - despite Gary Gygax, D&D's co-creator, being a known Jehovah's Witness. The response to this huge outcry mostly consisted of renaming or remodeling a bunch of shit (e.g. [[demon]]s and [[devil]]s were now Tanar'ri and Baatezu and in-universe occult symbols were redesigned). More concerning were a few murders and suicides by known players (the mother of James Dallas Egbert III - James being one of the people who committed suicide - even blamed D&D for her son's death). While it sounds ridiculous in hindsight, DnD had yet to gain the traction it currently has and coupled with some groups considering the murderers and people who committed suicide the face of the games, the games were nearly damned by association.

For more details on that sad, stupid time outlined above, see [[Satanic Panic]].

Where most moral panics in America are often attributed and traced back to said older outspoken conservative Christians, with SJWs it's different - they are generally younger, left-leaning and are either affiliated with new-age religions or atheists (the latter often alongside being anti-religious - ironically, mostly singling out Christianity). While many espouse lefty-hippie ideas of acceptance and inclusiveness, many have turned from simply promoting acceptance of varied interests, lifestyles, and hobbies to policing them for proper behavior and raising hell when they find something they don't like. Maybe it's too objectifying, maybe it's not inclusive or diverse enough, maybe it portrays a group they disagree with in too positive a manner or a group they do like in too negative a manner; either way, it is promoting bigotry and bad behavior and must be changed accordingly. Some extreme SJWs even become bigots themselves, but with different groups targeted and a "tit for tat" approach.

For the modern SJW, replace the religious issues with socio-political ones, pick a random issue somewhere in the Left (sometimes Far Left) using an advocacy dartboard, and you can find someone who is ready and willing to start petitions, run boycotts, and send death threats to the creators of Your Favorite Thing<sup>TM</sup>.

While there are many key differences, they've joined the ranks of still-existing moral guardians before them through a combination of sheer overzealousness, hatred of particular groups, the usual co-opting by corporations who use their ideologies as a new way to promote their brands and the plentiful organizations and other third parties willing to fund attention-grabbing political actions of varying effectiveness to whatever ends they may desire, whether it be for fame, name or revenge.

That said, compared to the Satanic Panic, any /tg/-related controversies that have occurred since then are hardly a blip on the radar (thankfully so) and are mostly centered around sporadic attempts at pandering by game developers trying to milk what is, to them, a new demographic.

==Further Relevance to /tg/ ==
[[File:SJW in WOTC Staff.png|thumb|right|300px|Typical SJW delusions, seeing people who hate women in places where there are none, while simultaneously implying women are idiots.]]
While SJWs mostly focus on comics, movies and video games, they've found relatively little traction on tabletop games - it's widely considered more obscure in comparison to other forms of media, thus not warranting scrutiny OR continued interest to the SJW's inner hipster. Movies are delivered as a finished product that usually cannot be tampered with, so they have to worry more about what's given to them. [[/v/|Video games]] can sometimes be modded to some extent, but are usually more at the mercy of its creators.

However, as with any game that allows GMs and their players to [[Homebrew|make up their own shit and tailor the rules and setting to their own goddamn pleasure]], the consumers are the arbiters of what is canon or relevant in their private sessions; [[Games Workshop|the companies]] simply provide the setting these sessions take place within. The 'worst' a given fa/tg/uy has to worry about is fits being thrown over given models, [[White Wolf|disingenuous pandering]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|that's often mandated by higher-ups]] (sometimes enforced by devs and writers), and a loss in quality of [[Black Library|franchise fiction]] (as if [[C.S. Goto|a ton of]] [[Matt Ward|terrible franchise fiction]] isn't already out there). More on that later, though.

Any other debates and criticisms surrounding the medium are either nearly as old as the genre itself, or else commonplace enough that it's not even exclusive to the genre anymore. [[-4 STR]] is something of an exception in this regard, given that the term originated with tabletop itself, and there has also been [[Sociopathic diplomancer gets shut the fuck down|at least one tale of an encounter with someone]] who would very much fit the stereotype. This hasn't stopped them from ''trying'', however, to the point where numerous people in high-level positions in the development of not only [[Dungeons & Dragons]], but [[Pathfinder]], are viewed as part of the same ideological mindset, and supposedly believe that THE problem with D&D, is, of course, the fanbase itself.

While this might seem to hold water due to the nature of tabletop and PnP games, more astute fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls might have already noticed the aforementioned logical fallacy with this: [[/tg/|traditional gaming]] is fundamentally an insular hobby populated predominantly by its fans, who consist of a much wider spectrum of people than stereotypes dictate. Trying to ''"mandate"'' inclusiveness and force the hobby to fit a completely different audience who has no real interest (key words) is equal to spraying napalm to put out a fire.

Oldfags can only chuckle to themselves; the neckbeards of old saw people try to demonize or similarly alter their hobbies for [[Gary Gygax]]'s entire lifetime, and know that ultimately, this crap is destined to fail just as hard as previous attempts to kill their favorite hobbies off. In turn, many gamers and self-styled movie buffs who don't understand the "players make the rules" aspect of tabletop thus fail to understand the futility of forcing roleplaying fa/tg/uys to join a "fight" that cannot threaten their fun, even in spite of the stereotype of roleplayers who define themselves solely by their hobby.

The main reason this article exists at all is to detail the perceived threat to the hobby that defines the board and (more often) the annoyance caused by forcing unrelated political discussions on a board of people who are ''ideally'' just trying to play some damn games or otherwise mind their business.

Y'know, like most of the internet.

===SJWs and WH40k===
Now, you may hear complaints about wargaming, and how it has too much [[Imperium of Man|imperialism, war crimes]], [[Exterminatus|genocide]], [[Ecclesiarchy|religious extremism]], [[Inquisition|xenophobia, abduction]], [[Cadian Shock Troops|child soldiers]], [[Daemonculaba|injury and death of minors]], [[Penitent Engine|religious mind-rape driven war machines]], [[Slaanesh|rape, drug abuse, sexual exploitation]], [[Warp|supernatural horror]], etc. etc. While not mentioned by name, you can imagine those complaints had [[Warhammer 40,000|a particular franchise in mind]]. Naturally, you can also imagine the lengths they went to in order to [[Derp|completely ignore]] [[Grimdark|the entire air of black vs. black morality within the setting itself]] (with shades of super-dark grey if you're feeling [[Salamanders|gene]][[Tau|rous]]).

The three most common complaints about Warhammer 40,000 are usually: the absence of [[Female Space Marines]]; the [[Sisters of Battle]] having boob plates; and - tied for third - how 40k models and art seldom depicted non-Sisters of Battle women and non-white humans, despite lore containing multiple, numerous easily-found examples to the contrary.

Here is a handy quick-list of refutations, to make everyone's lives a little easier:

#Warhammer 40,000 originated as an ironic parody of hard-right authoritarianism, born out of the explosion of progressive UK Sci-Fi and Fantasy that erupted as a reaction to [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Margaret Thatcher]]'s policies of moral regulation and strong executive power (as well as all the other shit that happened in living memory during the 20th Century). Warhammer 40k took the piss out of the conservative UK government in the same way ''2000AD'' did, via satire and cautionary tales - this context has been lost over time with the growing popularity of the game, the growth of the company itself, and how the right-leaning political climate being satirized is no longer dominant in the UK (Margaret Thatcher herself also ''died'' several years go) while its current political climate is an entirely different beast.
#Anyone who actually reads the fluff knows that the Imperium as a body doesn't care about sex or race on that level, because the encroaching forces of [[grimdark]] make any form of discrimination impractical. Women and other minorities regularly participate in every level of Imperial society. The lack of female models is a semi-regular issue that ends up at the feet of GW, who already get enough shit from pearl-clutching moral guardians about [[Hot Chicks|Sisters Repentia and Daemonettes]] to generally want to avoid gender controversy and making "redundant" models. [[Mutant|The discrimination that ''does'' happen in the Imperium]] has some credible backing, in that the Imperium is an empire of semi-justified zealots: mutation is a common symptom of exposure to [[Chaos]] or [[Genestealer|other very bad things,]] so they figure it's best to not take chances.
#:Female Space Marines also have a well-defined fluff reason for not existing: recent lore stated there were in-universe attempts that failed badly enough to warrant discontinuing them. And of the section of the actual playerbase that clamors for female Marines, you can guess how many do so [[Rule 63|with impure intent.]] At any rate, important characters have a higher percentage of female or LBGTQ+ representation than expendable meatgrinder characters. This goes for both old characters like Yarrick (revealed to be gay) and new characters like Arch Magos Exasus (who is non-binary).
#Until recently, GW was also [[Commorragh Slaves|terrible at sculpting female characters in most cases]]; the Sisters of Battle were a rare exception for years, and that's likely ''because'' they're just power-armored humans with boobplate.
#GW so rarely listened to their own customers that complaining wouldn't have changed shit no matter how obvious the problem was. Nowadays there is a MUCH better chance for more fan-interaction, but there you go: anyone looking for change should be taking it up with GW, not Warhammer fans.
#When it comes to racial representation, they've previously said that their idea was for humanity in 40k to be as ethnically and physically diverse as they are across Earth in real-life. GW said the reason for having majority white people in the art was because the early art teams were small and made art of what they knew (the UK is still populated by 95% white people, although interestingly where GW is in Nottingham is nowadays only about 65% white), and this pattern just became an unthinking habit. This is typical of a lot of fantasy work, which is often based on history or mythology from Europe or Asia where lighter skin colors are believed more common. While it is discriminatory, it's 'unconscious bigotry' as opposed to GW being actively malicious. [[Image:5zft MoOz3I.jpg|thumb|right|200px|It begins!]]
#Every Warhammer Fantasy and 40k player knows that GW is simply [[End Times|bad]] [[Abaddon|at]] [[Matt Ward|making]] [[C.S. Goto|writing]] [[Storm of Chaos|decisions]]. Asking for well-written ''anyone'' from GW is like praying for a miracle. Furthermore, some of the most interesting characters in Fantasy were female, and got written out of canon as the years went on, so best believe the fans were already outraged over that.

If you read GW's Annual report: 2015-16, you'll find there were complaints about most of the staff being male even back then. To GW's credit, they answered: "The Company does not consider that diversity can be best achieved by establishing specific quotas and targets and appointments will continue to be made based on merit." (p. 15, if you're bored enough to check). That kinda contradicts with the "principle of boardroom diversity, which was first introduced into the Code in June 2010" mentioned on the same page, but you get it.

On the other hand, it should be noted that GW has been somewhat 'addressing' things, in [[Age of Sigmar]] anyway; several human models have non-white skin tones in their official paint jobs (and most of them look laughable with it, as they're rocking classical European features. Painting grizzly white doesn't make it a polar bear, you know), there's black Sigmarines and at least one black Ultramarine, there's more than one model for a Sigmarine woman, and in the early days of AoS, the most promoted faction other than Sigmarines and Khorne was the mostly female [[Sylvaneth]] led by [[Everqueen|Alarielle the Everqueen]]. Meanwhile, [https://spikeybits.com/2017/10/female-representation-40k.html GW has promised on social media to "improve female representation" in 40k], specifically referring to reducing "boob-plate" in the miniature line and artwork (which may have factored into the decision to cover up - and bulk up - the Sister Repentia in 8th edition).

That said, it isn't all rosy of course; [[Age of Sigmar|Age of Smegmar]] 2e has a female Stormcast Eternal with warning-coloration hair done up in a [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trigglypuff Trigglypuff-tier] mohawk on the front cover of the BRB, though that might not be anything other than garish visual design. The Daughters of Khaine ''could'' also be viewed as a caricature of radical feminists, being a violently misandric society where the men are literally slaves to the women... or it could be because they're [[Drow]] with the serial numbers filed of. On the 40k side, [[Gav Thorpe]] wrote a recent book, ''Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah'', with a Magos who "does not identify as male or female". While this makes some sense - the Mechanicus shuns the flesh, which would presumably include gender roles - it generated a good amount of [[skub]] due to this new gender dynamic, the use of recently invented gender pronouns, how they fit into the universe, and whether or not this written in an attempt to pander to SJWs or a sign that Gav Thorpe has become one. It should be noted that, like many GW/Black Library writers, Gav Thorpe's content is by no means 100% great reads, and this might just be a case of him finding a character interesting, political views aside, and writing them very badly.

===What do???===

Unless you meet them face-to-face, '''nothing'''. It's your hobby, and at day's end, any changes you make to doing what you love and loving what you do should be ultimately ''your'' decision. Don't care so much about what other people think, let alone some fanbrats and/or political sheeple who probably don't even give a shit about it to begin with. Anyone who DOES care enough about diverse characters and settings will eventually take matters into their own hands and [[Homebrew|brew some up]] [[Get shit done|themselves]], as they should. Half the fun of Warhammer is [[Your dudes|making your armies your own]] anyway, like most tabletop games, so why wait for GW to change?

The ''wrong'' response (and this is almost always true, by the way), is to insult the fans for liking something they don't like. But hey, whatchagonnado? "Pretending to be offended" can cut '''both''' ways, and complaining about people liking something you don't like is [[Twilight|almost]] [[Drizzt|as]] [[Ironclaw|popular]] [[The End Times|here]] as [[Grognard|complaining about people ''not'' liking something you love]]. And as long as someone makes their dudes "wrong," [[That Guy|''someone'']] will always be yelling. Yet again, ''like most of the internet.''

If you do meet an SJW face-to-face, do to them as you would a /pol/ack; treat them with love and respect while calling out and deconstructing their cause... with a caveat depending how aggressive the SJW in question is. They're harder to ignore and kick out than /pol/acks and even with a much lower body count, there's still SJWs who'll resort to violence, or other tactics with deadly consequences such as hounding people to the point of [https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-mysterious-death-of-a-cyberbullied-porn-star committing] [https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/steven-universe-fanartist-bullied-controversy/ suicide] or [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Swatting Swatting]. For the non-violent types, if you're good at debating and knowledgeable about the subject (bonus points if you're from a group they're claiming to champion), call out where they're going wrong and any related hypocrisy. For the violent types, if they resist a calling out, politely disagree and move on (but keep your guard up, just in case; they're harder to ignore and kick out than /pol/acks).

tl;dr Weigh your options and pick your battles wisely, because God knows these chucklefucks won't.

==Do They Have a Point?==

===TL;DR:===
'''It's complicated.''' Many of the points the SJWs raise aren't incorrect in themselves, ''but'' they are often distorted by proponents and detractors alike to further their respective agendas. Regardless of your stance on the social issues in dispute, keep in mind that it's not black-and-white and the goal is change rather than destruction.

===The long version===
While the term represents legitimate grievances and real issues, as hinted earlier "SJW" has also seen use as a snarl word by people on the right to shut down arguments, regardless of any merit they might have. This snarl creates a crude caricature of modern leftists to smear a rather large body of people (e.g. lumping said leftists with liberals, even though not all liberals are left-wing and may participate in said smears themselves), misrepresenting any position left of the "snarler" as a threat to any cultural aspect you can think of (like say, entertainment and gaming). Sometimes it doesn't matter if the SJWs in question (or their supposed position) are even partly real, or just convenient caricatures up to and including the most blatant trolls. This use of the term is especially true of those on the [[/pol/]] side when they don't want to scare the normies - or at least let the caricatures do the work for them. After all, who's gonna pay attention to someone when they or their views are successfully cast as "[[That Guy|rocking the boat?]]"

Some fiction ''does'' have problematic elements, and all fiction has a certain degree of subtext woven into it (intentionally or not) by its creators and/or the general worldview of the day. For example, in a lot of 1950s fiction, female characters would usually be sidelined to supporting roles such as home keeper, while a male protagonist would be the guy who took charge and get shit done - even in a science fiction setting where many futurists would have speculated that women would take a greater active role in future society. Most times, writers consider the way things are done where they're from to be the way things "should" be, unless they're exploring a "what if" scenario or criticism of an aspect of their society. Tropes built around the worldview of a generation persist into the next and often serve as the foundation for that generation's works - it's part of human nature for people to write what they know, take their worldview for granted and/or follow the leader without considering the implications.

Though such tropes ''can'' serve as useful indicators of the author's beliefs and/or the cultural zeitgeist, many of these tropes also do not age well, becoming discredited in some fashion as society and attitudes towards history change over time; a fair number of MST3K episodes snark at this. Understanding how this process works, and the ramifications thereof, is a perfectly valid approach to identify problematic matters and address them in future works. This has far more practical applications than trying to be as inoffensive as possible merely for the sake of it, which often does the subject matter(s) a disservice - it is frequently an exercise in futility, and besides that, context is key. One series having [[Fantasy Armor|metal bikini armor]] is not a problem (especially if its general tone is tongue firmly in cheek), but when that becomes the norm even in more serious works, especially without justification, then it's become an issue.

Furthermore, acknowledging problematic elements in a work is not the same as a condemnation of its quality or wanting it censored because of that (usually) comparatively small element - this assumption is a classic Hanlon's Razor scenario, assuming malice where at worst stupidity may exist. The presence of certain views or "biases" in a work doesn't mean that the modern reader will instantly like or adopt said views. No one is immune to propaganda, but reading Atlas Shrugged doesn't automatically make you an individualist; being a fan of the Imperium of Man doesn't make you a militaristic theocracy advocate, reading The Lord of the Rings does not automatically make you a monarchist, and so on. Aside from tarring all people with the same brush as being easily impressionable morons, that's mostly putting the cart before the horse and attacking symptoms rather than the actual cause, i.e. what would lead someone to seek reinforcement of that particular worldview via reading or producing fiction, for instance - [[Skub|a nuanced topic that would take up a page on its own and isn't likely to be done real justice here]].

There are numerous reasons why there's "pandering" in /tg/ media, beyond the points discussed above. For one, many companies want to broaden their consumer base by taking in new demographics. As the world gets interconnected and as society becomes more diverse, there is an increasing demand by people who aren't heterosexual white men to see people who aren't heterosexual white men in Western media, be it as the hero, getting the girl/guy, or "just" being more than a sidekick (matters of representation and diversity in non-Western media - such as China's film industry or India's Bollywood - and related questions of double standards/selective outrage in the complaints are [[Skub|something that would warrant several paragraphs, if not their own page]]). Putting all your eggs in the established core demographic basket can be as disastrous as trying to appeal to a new demographic at the expense of that initial base (AKA "biting the hand that feeds you"). For example, the former was a contributing factor in the [[/co/|Comics Crash of 1996]], focusing too much on the established fanbase at the expense of bringing in new ones by (for example) abandoning magazine stands for comic stores, only to lose it all when they failed to appeal successfully to either while driving much of that old fanbase away.

The 'threat' to any given body of work, much less works within the domain of our hobby, does not lie merely in conflicts between people with different political views, but more often in foolish mass-marketing mandates. And when those politics themselves become mass-marketed, the parasitic corporate practices it enables, along with framing the matter as one of a dichotomous nature - be it unintentionally, actively, dishonestly, and/or otherwise - provides further ammo to the "fringe" ideologues involved, supporters and detractors alike, that they may continue their never ending game of philosophical sportsball, and only the most short-sighted and/or fanatical sorts, especially "SJWs", consider that to be a good result.

Thankfully, some solutions are straightforward; there is absolutely no reason that you could not make the the Inquisitor in your Warhammer 40,000 campaign [[Mordecai_Toth|black]]. In the typical Tolkien-knockoff fantasy settings, you can (depending on how cosmopolitan or travel-allowing the setting is) include a few black characters, and the bare minimum requirement is a sentence to the effect of "their parents were from a distant land where humans look a bit different" (though Tolkien himself had ethnic diversity among humanity in his setting; the Drúedain people of LotR were non-white and opposed Sauron, while there were those among the Free Peoples who knowingly or unknowingly aided Sauron). Population dynamics, such as the oft-cited 1:1 ratio of male-to-female, suggest that there needs to be a pretty good reason NOT have a mix of characters (such as an epidemic that only effects males or females). The lack of LGBTQ+ people is often a point of contention, as it is very difficult to calculate the actual number in any population, given the inherent dangers in certain regions and the vagueness of personal gender/sexual identification. Adding said characters if they're written well and fit the story is, in general, a positive and just good business, especially for those who are transparent about the reasoning behind their works.

The problems arise with executives and other figureheads who don't know any better: some only care about lining their own pockets, and engage in the usual out-of-touch appealing to what the kids are into today without understanding the how and why of it; others fail to distinguish between diversity and tokenism as a result of pushing an agenda-based quota; and still others use the work to push their views and beliefs onto others, the latter two groups ignoring that their franchises are sold to people and not reductive demographic abstractions. Then there are the marketers and PR representatives who encourage this behavior in the vain hope that "new demographics" will eat it up no matter what; when this is almost inevitably proven wrong, they will double down on the pandering, which alienates those who support the view represented by not giving them what they actually wanted while further souring those who don't endorse said view.

When further combined with the tendency of sensationalist media outlets to lionize or demonize whoever they have to in order to meet their given slant's quota, as well as the presence of astroturfing and other means of manufacturing outrage in support of or against said slants, you have the recipe for a failed market or a doomed franchise at best. In a worst-case scenario, you end up creating a new set of problematic cliches and stereotypes. That the majority of fiction is political in some shape or form '''''does not''''' absolve writers of their responsibility to skillfully and properly handle what, if any, politics they acknowledge, lest we get propaganda masquerading as entertainment - and the groups they're expecting to eat that kind of slop up may very well be the first to notice.

== See Also ==
*[[/pol/]] - /pol/ is the largest face of the "alt-right", the yang to the SJW's left-leaning yin... if the analogy works when one side has a much worse track record and without the excuse of at least having a good cause to hide behind. Exudes a very similar rage to their perceived enemies, but it has a chance of ranging from hilarious, to the pot calling the kettle black, to "[[Edgy|Hitler did nothing wrong]]", to actual Neo-[[Nazi]]s and mass shooters.
*[https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-master-list/ Purported examples of when SJWs have had a negative impact on Western media (take with a grain of salt)]

[[Category:Meme]][[Category: RAGE]]

SJW

2020-07-12T14:23:04Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: /* See Also */

Star Trek

2020-07-04T06:33:28Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: /* Lower Decks */

{{cleanup}}
[[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, and the only one to surpass 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 ==
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 series died when the last company owned by Interplay broke up in the early 2000s.
* '''''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 which is 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 in how it was made. 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'' took to have it on the network. Roddenberry then worked with a variety of writers and actors (and some later on) 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 this means that the canon is a fucking mess. 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 and some of which we'd frankly rather forget (Date 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 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 ===
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Federation'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[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. 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.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''The Klingon Empire'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[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. This can be easily seen in the episode "The House Of Quark" where dying honorably can literally change the outcome of an entire noble house, later when the Grand Council is visibly disgusted at D'Ghor. No respectable Klingon uses ''money'' to defeat his opponents. And no respectable Klingon would be so eager to perform an execution of an unarmed Ferengi in what was supposed to be an honorable duel. 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 [[Chris Chan|autism]]. You have not experienced Shakespeare until you hear it in the original Klingon.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Romulan Star Empire'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
''"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.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. Some of them have got hold of a Borg cube and are presumably up to some nefarious shit with it.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Ferengi Alliance'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[Image:GW_Ferengi.jpg|thumb|left|A typical ferengi engaged in typical ferengi activities]]
''"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 moneyhungry, lascivious, and ugly, and their large ear lobes were stand-ins for the sterotypical Jewish nose ([https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/14/science-fictions-anti-semitism-problem/?noredirect=on more on that here, we're not shitting you]), based on an old medieval stereotype that was enforced to prevent them owning land or assets. 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 (Gene wanted to make an evil short race as big evil races were overplayed), big-eared, [[goblin]]-like losers about as threatening as a grumpy pug. 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 daughter," 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), although 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.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Borg Collective'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[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 [[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...]]
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Cardassian Union'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.

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. After a disastrous war with the Klingons and The Maquis led to a popular revolution and overthrow of the existing government, one leader seized power, declared himself absolute leader, and joined the Dominion towards the end of ''DS9'', which was some serious bad news for the ''DS9'' crew.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''The Bajoran Republic'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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 big thing that makes the Bajorans unique is that they actually have a serious religion going on -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]]. A blatant attempt to simulate Israelis for criticism, although that can apply to many religions nowadays.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Dominion'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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 aka 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.

Continuing from the Cardassian Union section because the fate of both powers are linked in DS9. After joining the The Dominion. Everything was going seemingly for them and their leader Gul Dukat. They figured out how to bring down the minefield created by the Starfleet crew of Deep Space Nine to block access to the wormhole. (The Cardassians use its old name Terok Nor while in charge.)

However during the start of the sixth season the Founders learn that their not the only "gods" in the Galaxy. As the Sisko convinces the Bajoran Prophets to remove the Jem'Hadar reinforcements in transit. Forcing them to retreat back to Cardassian Space and Dukat's old friend Damar shoots Dukat's half Bajorion daughter Ziyal. This makes Dukat jump off the deep end as the sod loses his sanity and than goes full nutcase after his rehab transport is destroyed by the Jem Hadar, and ends up fighting an injured Benjamin Sisko after hiding inside some caverns on a hell planet for a few days.

After escaping he allows one of the evil wormhole aliens to possess him, kills Jadzia Dax, forgives Damar for killing a family member. Creates a cult of Bajorions dedicated to the Pai-Wraths,than abandons the cult when Major Kira knocks over the suicide pill jar that mixes it in with his fake. Than has sex with an old woman and becomes a demi-god. Bent on buring the universe despite the fact that his own people suffered heavily under the rule of the Dominion. After getting a final bitch slap from the Sisko who gets to have a happy ending living with his god alien parents. At the same time teaching them not to be huge dicks. While Dukat himself is trapped in the Fire Caves on Bajor.

His old friend Damar despite murdering a half breed woman is a lot more sane. Lacking Dukat's crimisa, things get worse for him and the Cardassians under Dominion rule. Most of their victories are off screen such as taking over Betazed. One of the none few major non founding planets of the Federation. This forces the Sisko to bring the Romulans into the war on the side of the Klingon-Federation alliance. With some underhanded methods from a former member of the Cassidian Obsidian Order(Elim Garak). I.e. blow up a Romulan Senator's shuttlecraft and tricking the pointy ears into thinking a damaged but fake datarod(an advanced form of Solid State Drive) was the real deal.

Thus the blame for his death will be switched from the Feds and pals are shifted to the Cardassians. By the final season this leads to the Dominion finding new best buds in the form of The Breen. Damar decides he has enough of the bullshit and in the ultimate irony realizes that the status of his people are now no different from the Cardassian occupied Bajor.

So after the Breen score the Domain a temporary victory over the Federation Alliance. Damar and his Cardi buds destroy a Dominion cloning facility while their backs are turned. Just so he can stick it to his "friend" the Vorta, Weyoun 8. Leaving them and the Klingons being the only thing stopping The Dominion from steamrolling over the Alpha Quadrant. As one Bird of Prey(doesn't say if its the frigate sized B'rel or Light Cruiser sized K'vort class. Though DS9 almost always used the former) was immune to the Breen energy dampening weapon due to modding its warp core. Gowron, due to being a moron who did nothing to change course after his most trusted advisor(Martok) turned out to be a Founder and the first time the Jem Hadar kicked their asses during the Klingon-Cardassian War. Decides to take glory for himself and discredit General Martok(who now how his pre Dominion internment job). This goes as badly as your thinking. Forcing Worf(now a legitimate badass compared to his TNG days) to kill him and turning the role of Chancellor to Martok.

Meanwhile the Feds decided to help out Damar's resistance by sending him Colonel Kira(who now has the rank of a Starfleet Commander), Odo and Garak(Ziyal's former simi-boyfriend). The resistance eventually get their hands on one of the Breen Energy Dampeners. During some infighting Damar realizes that the restoring the old Cardassia is pointless. Killing one of his old friends. The Breen and Jem'hadar do eventually one up the resistance. But not before their brutality turns more Cardassian against them. So during the final space battle this makes the Cardi military switch sides.
Damar is killed during the final raid on the Dominion HQ. Focing Kira and Garak to lead the final push into the compound.
The War between the Alpha Quadrant Alliance and The Dominion ends when Odo offers to share the cure to the disease created by Section 31(the Federation's answer to the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order) which he passed onto them after the Founders also infected him with something that forced him to return to the Great Link the first time. He also promises to rejoin the Great Link so the Founders will learn not to be paranoid assholes.
It's difficult to say who are the bigger dicks here. The Founders for having Wayoon 4 infect Odo to return and turned him into into a solid(who was restored because dying a Changeling baby merged with him a season later) for killing a Founder who hacked the Defiant and almost succeeded at starting a war in the Alpha Quadrant. Or Section 31 for making the disease in the first place.

With all their advanced technology. One would think the Founders would have discovered a cure before being handed one. But the bad guys being just as flawed as everyone else is a common theme in Star Trek. Even in Star Trek Online despiste Odo being the one in charge a few decades later. As their Ambassador to the Federation. The experiments of the Founders sketchy past cause them and everyone else huge headaches including the dishonorable mention of the revived True Way movement.(i.e. the guys who hated that fact that the civilian Detapa Council ran Cadassaia.)

</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''Species 8472 / Undine'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.]]
</div>
</div>

===The Q===

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, an all-powerful epic [[troll]] (no, not the fantasy kind) who'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.

=== The Mirror Universe ===
Not so much of a faction as an alternate setting, this 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. 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. (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 ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===''The Original Series''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Created in 1966 by legendary sci-fi [[spiritual liege]] and money-grubbing sexist 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, 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).
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''The Animated Series''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''The Next Generation''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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; Counsellor Troy 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.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Deep Space Nine''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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 a 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]]. Also, Worf wanders in halfway through, and actually gets to punch things instead of just getting punched by them. 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. The show has aged remarkably well and the terrorist/freedom fighter debate was repeatedly explored in a very mature and honest 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, when the writers who made it good were pulled to try and fail to make good movies, heralding the failure that was ''Voyager''. The finale episodes were mostly okay and tied up the story semi-satisfyingly, though a few die-hard subplots fell flat.

It wasn't without its controversies however. 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. 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.

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."
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Voyager''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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 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.

</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Enterprise''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.

</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Discovery''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

----
<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, keep an eye out for the upcoming [https://ew-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ew.com/tv/2018/10/25/star-trek-animated-comedy/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2WN6auDNm5YiunYhaqiu7vt9f-P08AuUjMpLA5LlpUgvTm9_xloJNRYb0 Star Trek: Lower Decks]; want a pseudo-Star Trek show about other modern issues? Try ''The Orville'' below; that's right, American Dad In Space may right now be a better Star Trek than an actual Star Trek series.

Initial reviews have been... well, it's shit. 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. That being said, Anson Mount's portrayal of Captain Pike was a revelation that was BY FAR the most well-received aspect of Season 2.

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?).

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 decide to watch it, do not think about it 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.}}
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Picard''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.

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.}}

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.

</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Strange New Worlds''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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.

NOTE: It may or may not actually come to light as rumors are leaking out that CBS has been pitching this, a Section 31 show and several other show ideas to try and get funding after failing to actually make money from their streaming service and dumping millions into Discovery and Picard with little return in way of merchandising money.

</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Lower Decks''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
A new animated series being written by Mike McMahan, the guy who does the Rick & Morty cartoon. It's set in 2380 and will apparently focus less on the bridge crew in general and more on the grunts working in the bowels of the ship, specifically four ensigns including an Orion named Tendi which leads one to believe the show will probably be focused mostly on lowbrow "humor" episodes with technobabble nonsense stapled to it just like McMahan's other works. Expect people to be spouting off inane bullshit and saying "you're just not intelligent enough to understand" if you call out their dumb bullshit. Barring that expect a lot of "REEEEEEEEE" shit.

Is due to come out in August 2020..

</div>
</div>

== 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 Star Trek. Here are some examples.

=== Galaxy Quest ===
A sci-fi/comedy film released in 1999, directed by Dean Parisot. It parodies science fiction films and series in general, but particularly ''Star Trek'' and its fandom. 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) 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. 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. Can these actors find greatness within themselves, and possibly personal redemption? (Spoiler: yes, and it is incredible.)

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?" Featuring a veritable all-star cast of talented comedians and character actors, this is one of the best parodies ever made, and an affectionate love-letter to the franchise as a whole.

===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]].

===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).

=== The Orville ===
<s>Star Trek fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off</s> A comedy drama sci-fi television series that began as a homage to Star Trek, created by and starring Seth MacFarlane of ''Family Guy'' infamy-- [[Skub|No wait, come back!]] The guy's a huge Trekkie and felt too many shows were up in their ass with grimdark, so he pitched his idea to the execs to make a loving comedic sendup of The Next Generation. Many of the executive producers and developers are notable industry Trekkies such as David Goodman (who wrote the ''Futurama'' Trek parody episode), or Trek alumni such as Brannon Braga. First airing in 2017, the series is about the strung-out not-Picard protagonist Captain Edward Mercer, played by MacFarlane himself, of the eponymous not-Enterprise spaceship "The Orville" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Orville likely named after one of the Wright Brothers]). His ex-wife Kelly is the first officer while the crew includes the not-T'Pol alien security officer Alara, gay beefy not-Worf alien Bortus, asshole not-Lore android Isaac, and John LaMarr and Gordon Malloy - an even more ridiculous parody of Harry Kim and Tom Paris. They explore the galaxy while dealing with personal problems and fighting various bad guys.

The show has a mix of drama, comedy and commentary on real world issues and the first Season ran for twelve episodes. The episodes includes the pilot episode "Pilot" - where Ed and Kelly begin their posting on the Orville and start trying to reconcile enough to work together, "Majority Rule" - an episode with good (if derivative) commentary on social currency systems, "About a Girl" - A Bortus-centered episode that explores his relationships during a vital part of his race's life cycle, and "Krill" - one of this season's three anti-religion episodes (seriously, Season 1 preaches atheism enough to make Star Trek look like The Chronicles of Narnia), this one named for the villainous alien race who follow a violently xenophobic religion and the Orville's crew are tasked with studying them. The season was mostly well-received, a few recurring complaints nonwithstanding, and the show was greenlit for a second season.

In the second season, Alara was written out of the show halfway through. The character's actress, Halston Sage, was briefly rumored to be dating Seth MacFarlane, although it is just as likely that other factors such as her role on ''Prodigal Son'' or a desire for a pay increase may also have played into her departure. If the dating rumor is true, however, it just goes to show that [[Derp|dating a co-worker and subordinate 20 years younger than you almost never ends well]], which may come back to haunt the showrunners as she was one of the better received characters. Don't worry though, Alara's character was immediately replaced with another forehead-alien of the very same race, gender, and profession, despite the fact that it had already been established that Alara's career path as a security officer was considered rather unusual for her species. Throughout the Season Isaac gradually turned good, becoming the crew's not-Data member, and another episode relied on a plot hole where a Krill captured and imprisoned by Mercer and co. in Season 1 returned as part of a strike force targeting Ed with no explanation for her escape. Speaking of the Krill, they become the "lesser villains that need to team up with the good guys to fight worse villains" cliché, in a possible asspull given all the villainous setup they got (deliberately built around being violently religious and xenophobic with a sinister design invoking Nosferatu to the point of sharing his fatal weakness to sunlight). The team up happens because the rest of Issac's robotic race, the Kaylons, have gone [[Necrons|Full Skynet]] against organic life. The cast seems to be gelling better - rumored situation between Seth and Halston aside, the writers have a better idea of what the show should be and the humor is now used in service of the stories. While the show is getting a third season, it was moved from TV to streaming service Hulu, with filming delayed by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Some commend The Orville as a well-made, witty breath of [[Noblebright|fresh air]] in an overly [[Grimdark|stagnant]] genre with a side of nostalgia. Others denounce The Orville as derivative, sophomoric, vain (some consider MacFarlane stunt-casting himself as the main character the height of vanity, especially given his tendency to push his views on the audience) and uncomfortable (how many view Mercer's interactions with ex-wife character Kelly since the beginning). Some think both sides have a point. Trekkies are equally divided on the show; many Trekkies [[butthurt]] over Discovery endorse The Orville, a significant number of Discovery fans hate The Orville, and a small and overlooked group quietly enjoys both.

As always, stay tuned for how this turns out.

== Films ==
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 makes a dramatic reapperance: [[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.
* '''''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 but there was a contract stipulation that Shatner would get whatever Nimoy got, thus leading to...
* <del>'''''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier''''':</del> <s>The epitome of the "odd-numbered Star Trek films suck" rule.</s> {{BLAM|Lies! There is no}} '''''Star Trek V'''''{{BLAM|! It was not called}} '''''The Final Frontier'''''{{BLAM|! It was not directed by Kirk's egotistical actor and did not have a plot that could literally be summarized as "Kirk is betrayed by his incompetent crew, yet goes on to fight God and win!" The films mysteriously moved from four to six and ''we are all improved because of this!''}}
* '''''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''''': The Space Cold War ends amidst 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.
* '''''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. 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, ruining 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 watchable (if a shiny CGI filled, non-moral space action means watchable for 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]] 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''''': Controversial, but more in a question of whether it's decent or quite good. Lots of good character stuff and a decent story revolving around a race of mysterious space pirates trying to conquer a colony, but the action photography is poorly-lit shaky-cam horseshit and the sound work is awful. If it's the last "Kelvin Timeline" movie, as it seems it will be, at least it ended on a good note.

== Novels ==
Like most long time franchises ''Star Trek'' has a massive line of books. Unlike most they're basically just fanfics as nothing but the show and the movies is canon so the writers can do whatever they want. This changed after ''Nemesis'' since they might never have another show or movie in the "Prime" universe, so 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]].

During yet another novel continuity (Star Trek: Destiny), 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 win, 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.

== Video Games ==
=== 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.

=== 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.

== 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]

[[Category: Television]]

X3: Curse of Xanathon

2020-06-29T23:03:58Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: Very minor edit

{{Oldschool}}
'''X3: Curse of Xanathon''' was by Douglas Niles, 1982, for levels 5-7. Duke Stephen of the frontier duchy Rhoona is nuts and the party has to figure out why and fix it.

Stephen's madness offers some of the finest comic-relief in RPG history. I don't know if Niles was aware of Caliph Hakim al-Fatimi's ludicrous edicts down in pre-Crusade Egypt, but they read about the same. An especially nice touch is how Stephen explains his ''reasoning'' behind, say, that horses eat meat henceforth. I mean, ''of course'' they need the protein.

Stephen's edicts get less funny when one orders that dwarves be stretched on the rack that they might enjoy true equality with the human population. Turns out there's a cult, of the Chaotic god Cretia (TSR hadn't thought up "Immortals" yet), eager to foment Chaos (remember that in this line of D&D, Chaos=evil). Its leader is Xanathon, and he's working to install his puppet Draco upon the ducal throne.

Then follows one of the most iconic moments in the X-series: the party goes to confront Xanathon and... can't.

So they gotta go on a quest to a remote shrine to retrieve Xanathon's life-gem/phylactery. It's guarded by a [[spectre]], a formidable foe for level-six characters standing a good chance to knock them down to level four. When they come back they find Xanathon much more amenable and they can extract from him the antidote for the addled duke. Draco, having been thrown right under the horse-and-carriage, knows he's facing the rope or the Blood Eagle or something equally horrible so he's not amenable at all; he's the 14th-level final boss fight.

Pretty sure after all this is done, Xanathon flees the duchy and, indeed, the whole Vestland/Rockhome region. What would ''YOU'' do after all?

This plot is for a human barony on the border of a powerful dwarven realm. Given that the X series is still working within the Known World confines, Niles figured inland Vestland for Rhoona's location. Vestland is, thereby, assumed to be less Viking and more late-medieval Norway. It does seem that Niles wrote the story first, and placed it later, given that "Rhoona" and "Stephen" aren't particularly Germanic. Neither is "Xanathon" - he could be a foreigner as his name leans more towards being Hellenistic. But anyway, what we got is set in Vestland.

This module is one way players of [[Desert Nomads series | X10]] can get Vestland in on Darokin's side. Assuming Vestland can move their troops through their neighbors space.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Modules]] [[Category: Mystara]]

Lolipope

2020-06-24T13:25:37Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A:

{{dnd-stub}}

'''Jaela Daran''' is the highest-level cleric and pontiff-in-training for the order of the [[Silver Flame]] in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting. She is humble, modest, dresses in grey or black muted clothes, walks barefoot, and keeps her hair short (a lock of her hair is prematurely silver, a mark of the Silver Flame). She's pretty much an Expy for the pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

She is also [[Loli|eleven years old]]. With 21 Charisma.

Yes, Eberron's infamous '''Lolipope''' (aka Jaelbait) plays to many a fa/tg/uy's fetishes with her [[DFC|Delicious flat chest]], delicious chocolate skin, delicious bare feet, and the authority of a holy empire. WotC writers working on Eberron splatbooks will protest "no-no! she's not like that at all!" Suuuuuuuure, just like [[Elminster]] isn't Ed Greenwood's self-insert character when he's simultaneously fucking his albino adopted daughter and the goddess of magic and rad-boobs.

She assumed power when she was six years old. Jaela helped guide Thrane through the peace talks after The Last War and has developed into a caring and forceful leader despite her young age. It isn’t unusual for a Keeper so young to be selected, but it hasn’t happened since the nation denied its king and became a theocracy. She also has a one-of-a-kind pet rancor (the fluff calls it a [[dragonhound]], but let's face it it's a fucking six-legged rancor) named '''Skarajoven''' who acts cuddly and plays fetch like a golden retriever, that is unless it senses a threat to the Keeper of the Flame at which point the VTEC kicks in and it kills the shit out of whatever looked at Jaela funny, which is not at all like a golden retriever.

Note that she's about six times as powerful within the confines of the Silver Flame's Vatican-equivalent than she is outside (18th level vs 3rd in the 3.5e book). Make of that what you will, potential pope-nappers. The Wizards interviews assert that this is so there is always at least one NPC who can cast all Cleric spells since players won't encounter many high-level divine casters in Eberron.

==Gallery==
(Note: Except for the Skarajoven picture, all of this is fan art because for some reason she's the only head of state in the Five Nations to not have an official portrait.)
<gallery>
Image:Jaela_Daran.png
Image:SKARAVOJEN.png|Skarajoven.
Image:Jaela_screencap.jpg
Image:Jaela_cropped.png
Image:Jaela.jpg
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Mary Sue]][[Category:Eberron]]

Lolipope

2020-06-24T13:24:29Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: Undo revision 667666 by Saarlacfunkel (talk)

{{dnd-stub}}
''Loli Pope<br>
''Loli Pope<br>
''Oh Loli Loli Loli<br>
''Loli Pope<br>
''Loli Pope<br>
''Oh Loli Loli Loli<br>
''Loli Pope<br>
'''[POP!]'''<br>
''Bud dum dum dum...''

'''Jaela Daran''' is the highest-level cleric and pontiff-in-training for the order of the [[Silver Flame]] in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting. She is humble, modest, dresses in grey or black muted clothes, walks barefoot, and keeps her hair short (a lock of her hair is prematurely silver, a mark of the Silver Flame). She's pretty much an Expy for the pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

She is also [[Loli|eleven years old]]. With 21 Charisma.

Yes, Eberron's infamous '''Lolipope''' (aka Jaelbait) plays to many a fa/tg/uy's fetishes with her [[DFC|Delicious flat chest]], delicious chocolate skin, delicious bare feet, and the authority of a holy empire. WotC writers working on Eberron splatbooks will protest "no-no! she's not like that at all!" Suuuuuuuure, just like [[Elminster]] isn't Ed Greenwood's self-insert character when he's simultaneously fucking his albino adopted daughter and the goddess of magic and rad-boobs.

She assumed power when she was six years old. Jaela helped guide Thrane through the peace talks after The Last War and has developed into a caring and forceful leader despite her young age. It isn’t unusual for a Keeper so young to be selected, but it hasn’t happened since the nation denied its king and became a theocracy. She also has a one-of-a-kind pet rancor (the fluff calls it a [[dragonhound]], but let's face it it's a fucking six-legged rancor) named '''Skarajoven''' who acts cuddly and plays fetch like a golden retriever, that is unless it senses a threat to the Keeper of the Flame at which point the VTEC kicks in and it kills the shit out of whatever looked at Jaela funny, which is not at all like a golden retriever.

Note that she's about six times as powerful within the confines of the Silver Flame's Vatican-equivalent than she is outside (18th level vs 3rd in the 3.5e book). Make of that what you will, potential pope-nappers. The Wizards interviews assert that this is so there is always at least one NPC who can cast all Cleric spells since players won't encounter many high-level divine casters in Eberron.

==Gallery==
(Note: Except for the Skarajoven picture, all of this is fan art because for some reason she's the only head of state in the Five Nations to not have an official portrait.)
<gallery>
Image:Jaela_Daran.png
Image:SKARAVOJEN.png|Skarajoven.
Image:Jaela_screencap.jpg
Image:Jaela_cropped.png
Image:Jaela.jpg
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Mary Sue]][[Category:Eberron]]

Dawn War

2020-06-22T01:46:45Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: /* Outcome of the Dawn War in other settings */

Originating from [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition]], the '''Dawn War''' is an ancient battle from the [[World Axis]] cosmology, fought at the dawn of time (hence its name). In a nutshell, after the [[Archomental|Primordials]] arose from the [[Elemental Chaos]] and created the mortal world, the [[Feywild]] and the [[Shadowfell]], the [[Gods]] descended from the [[Astral Sea]], stabilized these new planes, and seeded them with life, creating all non-elemental or immortal beings in the cosmos. This meddling in their creation ultimately incensed the Primordials, who reacted violently to the intrusion.

The Gods of the [[Nentir Vale]] setting are also known as the ''Dawn War Pantheon'', as a result of this over-arching piece of lore. This term is used in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]], where the Dawn War Pantheon was, for some reason, relegated to page 10 of the DMG rather than to Appendix B in the PHB.

For a complete accounting of all 4e setting lore and historical information, see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2mLfpEGKv-Sb29tN2tBYVBWZzA/view

Also, don't be so bold and so foolish to mistake this for [[Dawn of War]].

==The War at the Dawn of Time==
It's unclear whether the conflict broke out immediately, or if it actually there was initially a tentative peace; lore scattered throughout issues of [[Dragon Magazine]], [[Dungeon Magazine]] and various splatbooks suggest that at first the Gods and Primordials actually got on fairly well. For example, [[minotaur]]s were created by [[Baphomet]] when he was a Primordial as part of a bid to take the role of God of Nature from [[Melora]], various elemental beings like [[genie]]s, [[hellhound]]s, [[bullywug]]s, and even some animals were born of the Primordials in imitation of godly efforts - manta rays are said to have been made by [[Demogorgon]] before he turned into the [[Demon Prince]]!

Inevitably, though, the Primordials grew to resent their Godly competitors. Many sources imply that it was the creation of the first [[dragon]]s by [[Io]] that provided the first major spark that ignited the conflict; imbuing his creations with powerful elemental magics, Io symbolically claimed dominion over all elements and, by extension, sovereignty over the Primordials themselves. Which they did not appreciate in the slightest so... yeah, nice going, dragon-boy!

Of course, the Primordials were far from innocent themselves; the first major blow in the Dawn War was fought over what the [[dwarf]] race now remembers as the Age of Chains, when [[giant]]s and titans descended upon Moradin's creation of Stoneroot, the mightiest mountain in the world, and besieged it, seeking to enslave the dwarves and ultimately provoking retaliation from [[Moradin]] when he became aware of his creations strife.

In the end, the Dawn War was inevitable; the mortal world was too stable for beings born of endless chaos, and they sought to unmake all that was in order to start again, a continuation of the same cycle of creation, destruction and recreation that dominates the Elemental Chaos. Existant rivalries merely added fuel to the flame, and when the Primordials sought to unmake the World, the Gods declared war. It was a bitter conflict that spanned all of creation, seeding great destruction; the Lattice of Heaven was torn asunder and the Rune of Stone Eternal was stolen by Primordial agents, forever after scattering the Gods across the Astral Sea and breaking the planned mechanics for exalting their devoted worshippers. Abominations, unholy living weapons, were birthed on both sides of the war in order to find some super-weapon that could shatter the ranks of their enemies - ironically, [[Carceri]], the Astral Dominion where the Gods bred their abominations, would ultimately be repurposed as a prison to hold them forever. Death's Reach, at the core of the Shadowfell, was sealed shut by Primordials, in hopes of trapping the souls of the dead to consume them for power. Whole worlds perished in the conflict; the Astral Dominion known as the Forgotten Sanctuary is the only remaining continent of one of these dead worlds, whilst [[Dark Sun|Athas]] was doomed to its ultimate fate by becoming a world from which the Primordials successfully drove away the Gods, opening it up to the taint of defiling magic.

Initially, the war did not go well for the Gods; only when the god Achra managed to convince a small group of gods to unite under his leadership and slew Tabrach-Ti, the Queen of Bronze, did the Gods find a unifying leader who could help them fight more efficiently. Whilst some remained aloof, it was to their cost - [[Gorellik]] was killed and his [[gnolls]] stolen by [[Yeenoghu]], whilst [[Io]], who fought alone throughout the Dawn War, ultimately perished at the hands of Erek-Hus, the King of Terror. So integral to victory did Achra's leadership become that he became known by a new name, a title bestowed upon him by the fearful Primordials: [[Bane]].

The Dawn War only grew more complex and straining on the Gods when a third party grew involved; the [[demon]]ic creations of [[Tharizdun]] united around [[Demogorgon]] and hurled themselves into the fray. Although indiscriminate in their hatred, they had a particular enmity for the denizens of the Astral Sea, and the betrayal of He Who Was by [[Asmodeus]] did not help matters much - unless perhaps it did. Neither did the Kinstrife Wars, in which [[Corellon Larethian|Corellon]] and [[Sehanine Moonbow|Sehanine]] fought with [[Lolth]] after she betrayed them, causing the [[eladrin]] race to splinter and creating [[elf]] and [[drow]] from different factions.

So great was the conflict that the Primal Spirits, entities born of the mortal world and perhaps an unwitting creation of the Gods, ultimately rose up to add their own might to the fray, determined to protect that which had given them life. Though a comparatively minor element, their help, alongside other factors such as the rebellion of the [[genasi]] slave-soldiers and "The Desolation", a genocidal cleansing of the elementals whom the Primordials reforged into [[Archon]]s, was one of many tipping points that ultimately brought about divine victory.

The tide turned when an exarch of Moradin, in alliance with seven Bahamutian [[archangel]]s known as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and a benevolent fiery Primordial named Bristia Pel, crafted the Rod of Law and used it to banish [[Miska the Wolf-Spider]], the Prince of Demons. This shattered the unity of the demonic hordes, causing them to fall into scattered mobs and constant infighting. With this threat ended, the Gods could focus entirely on the Primordials, who subsequently found themselves riven by dissent and betrayal. Primordials who had always been on the side of the Gods, such as Chan, made their influence more openly felt, whilst other Primordials betrayed their kin in pursuit of power or survival, as was the case with [[Ubtao]] the Deceiver. The [[nagpa]]s, created as powerful sorcerous minions, betrayed their creators en-masse, for which they were cursed into their present hideous shape.

With the death of the Primordial Sehil at the hands of the god Kord, the final battle of the Dawn War was ended in the Gods' favor.

Of course... fate has a tendency to work in cycles. All too soon, with the Primordials defeated, the Gods would turn on each other, fighting what would be called the Godswar.

==Participants of the Dawn War==
The list of powerful beings who partook in the Dawn War is a long one, and includes pretty much all of the major names in 4th edition's cosmology. This segment should help to keep them in straight, including their ultimate fates.

{{dnd-stub}}

===Gods===
====Survivors====
* [[Bahamut]]
* [[Moradin]]
* [[Avandra]]
* [[Pelor]]
* [[Corellon]]
* [[Erathis]]
* [[Ioun]]
* [[Kord]]
* [[Melora]]
* [[The Raven Queen]]
* [[Sehanine]]
* [[Asmodeus]]
* [[Bane]]
* [[Tiamat]]
* [[Torog]]
* [[Vecna]]
* [[Zehir]]
* [[Gruumsh]]
* [[Lolth]]
* [[Tharizdun]]

====Fallen Gods====
* [[Amoth]]
* [[Aurom]]
* [[Gorellik]]
* [[Haramathur]]
* [[He Who Was]]
* [[Io]]
* [[Khala]]
* [[Laeris]]
* [[Lakal]]
* [[Nerull]]
* [[Nusemnee]]
* [[Sagawehn]]
* The God of Humanity
* The God of the Word
* [[Tuern]]
* [[Zorthos]]

===God-Sworn Primordials===
* [[Ubtao]] ([[Forgotten Realms]] exclusive)

===Primordials===

===Demon Princes===

===Primal Spirits===

==Outcome of the Dawn War in other settings==
The outcome of the Dawn War in the Nentir Vale setting is described above, but other settings have slight variations:

===[[Dark Sun]]===
In Dark Sun, the Dawn War ended with the Primordials winning and wiping out the gods, which is much of the reason the place sucks as much as it does.

===[[Forgotten Realms]]===
In the Forgotten Realms, the war went on for a while until [[Ao]] got tired of the Gods and Primordials acting like children, and simply split the world in two. Toril for the gods, Abeir for the primordials. The war thus ended in a tie. The Primordials lost in the long run, though, since without Godborn races like Giants, Elves and Dwarves, the dragon empires of Abeir (Dragons as a species predate the Dawn War, and thus exist on both worlds) until they were powerful enough to wipe the floor with the Primordials.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]]

Approved Literature

2020-06-12T01:39:58Z

2601:602:C900:68F8:E4F9:1DDC:155B:705A: Undo revision 663782 by 217.96.215.9 (talk)

This page lists the genre fiction which is popular on /tg/, along with a brief description and the notable area's of merit. While paragons of Fantasy and Science Fiction...

==Fantasy==
*'''''Richard Adams - Watership Down''''': The epic story of a tiny band of desperate people's odyssey to flee a great calamity and find a new homeland. Along the way, they fight dangerous battles, encounter dangerously seductive dystopia after dystopia, and ultimately destroy a fascist dictator before founding a new nation. Also, [[Bunnies and Burrows|everyone's a rabbit]]. Badass storytelling, sweet worldbuilding, and an incredible level of quality for a children's book.
*'''''Jim Butcher - [[The Dresden Files RPG|The Dresden Files]]''''': Basically the [[World of Darkness]] with <s>all</s> most of the depression, brooding, doom and gloom replaced with badass, humor and a pinch of noir detective. Follow the young wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden through his misadventures in a supernatural world of Chicago, as he grows in power and fame, deals with ever increasing levels of supernatural horrors, get his life ruined to oblivion and beyond and yet manage to make it look cool rather then utterly depressing and sanity-check inducing by sheer will alone (OK, will ''and'' snarkiness).
*'''''Brandon Carbaugh - Deep Sounding''''': A two-part story written by a fa/tg/uy, dealing with themes of isolation in a Dwarven society. Consistently humorous and socially relevant.
*'''''Glen Cook - The Black Company''''': I can't remember the exact quote, but someone put it best when he said "it's a story about level 5-8 badasses trying to make it in a world dominated by epic level Wizards". Follow the mercenary entourage known as the Black Company as they sell their swords to the highest contractors, who usually end up being The Big Bad Evils. The first three books are good then things start to get weird.
*'''''Steven Erikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen''''': An enormous read that stretches across over three million words and ten books, Erikson's worldbuilding rivals anybody else in the genre, with a large focus on the many different cultures, how they rose, and then how they fell. Can be overwhelming at times due to the sheer number of simultaneous plotlines and a large, perhaps even bloated, cast. Very much the definition of epic fantasy, the level of power at play swings fairly wildly depending on which set of characters is being focused on at the time, from assassins fighting upon rooftops, to flying castles being crashed into cities, and then back to the oft-humorous exploits of a group of mostly mundane soldiers that is reminiscent of Glen Cook's Black Company. In all, a story full of engaging personalities exploring a supremely fantastical world, with all the hallmarks of classic fantasy, elves, dragons, gods, and wizards, given a unique spin.
*'''''Raymond E. Feist - The Riftwar Cycle''''': A 30 book epic written over the course of three decades, The Riftwar Cycle starts off as the story of a boy learning how to be a wizard, only to save the world by the end of the debut novel, ''Magician''. After this the series evolves into an epic spanning multiple generations of characters (but roughly half focusses on the initial cast) fighting to protect their world from internal political strife and malevolent external forces. Grew to be a lot more cosmic in scale in the last eight or so books, and the ending was kind of a lackluster business. The classical fantasy races are not the focus here: the [[dwarves]] and [[elves]] get along just fine, and while there's [[dragon]]s, serpent folk and [[dark elves]] (the latter of whom are Native American inspired), it's mostly about humans and their struggles. The series is divided into ten sagas, with the best one being the Empire trilogy which tells the tale of the chronologically six first book from the perspective of the antagonists in a beautiful tale of loyalty, honor, politics and love. Was also the inspiration of ''Betrayal at Krondor'', an [[Old School Roleplaying|old-school RPG]] that is held in high esteem in some circles.
*'''''J.K. Rowling - [[Harry Potter]]''''': Love it or hate it (and there are things to [[RAGE|hate]], [[skub|especially where the author herself is concerned]]) this series is a big part of the collective fantasy consciousness, especially where normies are concerned. As such, if you want a tone that is easily familiar to those unfamiliar with fantasy in general, or children, this is not a bad place to start. At best, they're pretty readable books; at worst, they're thoroughly mediocre and derivative as all hell. At the very least, you'll look less of a [[neckbeard]] knowing what a Muggle is. '''MAIN BOOKS ONLY.'''
*'''''Neil Gaiman - American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Neverwhere, Sandman, etc.''''': He's a damn entertaining writer, known for his unique and well fleshed out ideas. There's something here for everyone, from the [[Noblebright]] Stardust to the [[Grimdark|fairly grim and pretty dark]] Sandman comics. American Gods, however, is the one he's best remembered by, which is a story about physical manifestations of IRL gods fighting a losing war against globalisation, mass media and technology. [[/d/|There's also a part where a man is swallowed whole by a woman's vagina.]]
*'''''Michael John Harrison - Viriconium''''': A truly peculiar set of novels and short stories dedicated to put traditional world building on its head, by never making sure if the stories are happening between the same characters, in the same place or same time. A very open-ended to interpretation "setting", which is also a great exercise to how tell a story without overburdening anyone with details and in the same time providing all the important elements to keep audience (readers or players) invested and interested.
*'''''Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy and The Liveship Traders''''': First is a story of a royal bastard's horrible upbringing as an assassin. Second is a story of magical sailing ships that talk, dragons, pirates, rape, 14 year old girl overcoming terrible misfortune. It has it all. (Please note the following two sets of books in the series are a little average compared to these two). The endings of the books in the second series are a little pat, but are still entertaining.
*'''''Robert E. Howard - [[Conan the Barbarian]]''''': Conan the Barbarian was born from this quill. A seminal pulp classic which could be considered the father of sword and sorcery.
*'''''Ursula K LeGuin - [[Earthsea Cycle]]+''''': Threads about /tg/-approved literature will consistently end up having a poster say something to the effect of "no Sea Jedi Wizard Chronicles WTF" about halfway down, immediately being followed by a chorus of agreement. Needless to say, this series is an excellent one, little-known but suprisingly influential. It's the series that established the concepts of the concept of nominal magic as understood in modern fantasy literature: names of power in the language of magic are spoken to exert power over the person, place, thing or idea that name refers to. Later, less-respectable novels such as those by Christopher Paolini would abuse this concept for fun and profit. Sadly, such novels seldom strive to equal the actual accomplishments of the Earthsea novels, such as the successful building and display of a rich, believable, and internally consistent setting without letting any of the world building bog down the narrative like in LotR.
*'''''Fritz Leiber - Swords and Deviltry, et al.''''': A runaway momma's boy and a failed magician's apprentice lose everything and become thieves in Lankhmar, center of civilization and debauchery. They are Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser:, swordsmen supreme, insatiable adventurers, womanizers unequaled, and bros of the highest caliber. Together, they plunder the world of riches, bitches, and wine, while facing magic and horror of a decidedly cosmic sort.
*'''''Charles De Lint - Someplace to be Flying and Trader, Pretty much all of his books, you can't really miss''''': Most of the books seem to be set in Canada and revolve around Gypsy folklore and Native American spiritual stuff with urban settings. Don't get attached to characters.
*'''''[[George R. R. Martin]] - [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''''': Some of the better character development in genre, with a bit of mystery, political chess and high death rate. Tends to drag at times, and since the release of the HBO series will be consistently overrated by those who've seen little else.
*'''''Terry Pratchett - [[Discworld]] series''''': Starts from parodying Fantasy as a genre, soon turns to far beyond AWESOME. Rare combination of good humor and wise messages. Does get a little preachy towards the end, but hey, it's still a great read.
*'''''Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind''''': A mary sue bard goes on mary sue adventures (arguably an unreliable narrator) - world building may be weak but it's a fun read, so enough people on /tg/ have read it to count, even though nobody will praise it.
*'''''Brandon Sanderson - The Stormlight Archives'''': A warlord, a depressed soldier/slave/soldier again, and a fraudulent scholar play the main roles so far. [[/d/|Women's left hands are fetishised]] Currently 3 of the expected 10 books are released, but tie into his other works within the overarching universe ("the Cosmere")
*'''''Andrzej Sapkowski - Witcher short stories''''': While the Witcher saga is just getting more bland and increasingly more generic with each following part, the two initial books collecting all the short stories (especially "Sword of Destiny") are the reason why everyone treated Witcher as unique and original. Tonnes of wacky ideas how to spin cliches and old tropes into something fresh. Reading the saga proper is not required and generally not advised, especially with wooden English translation.
** Alternatively, the saga can be read for precisely what it is routinely bashed for. Starting from "Baptism of Fire", it turns into an unapologetic "you all met in the forest reserve and your party is tasked with retrieving a lost princess" campaign. If read with such mindset, it's pretty good after-campaign report, including random hijinks, new players joining half-way through and bunch of party in-jokes about the situation at hand.
*'''''[[J.R.R. Tolkien]] - The Hobbit, [[The Lord of the Rings]], and anything else he wrote (eg; the Simarillion)''''': The great grand-daddy of modern fantasy. Not having even the slightest familiarity with his work is inexcusable in eyes of /tg/.
*'''''Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun''''': The setting is inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, so this could be either in SF or Fantasy. A torturer is exiled from his guild and old life after he helps kill the woman he loves to spare her from the agony of torture, now forced to journey through Urth; our Earth in the far, far, far future, in a time when our sun is beginning to die. These books do not make for easy reading, however. The author uses lots of very obscure words to create the worlds own unique lingo. Also, the main character is an unreliable narrator of the more extreme sort. The reader will be spending some time figuring out what are the truths and what are the lies.
*'''''Larry Correia - [[Monster Hunter International]]''''': In the modern world monsters of all kinds are out there. Stopping them from eating humanity are private groups of monster hunters who get paid very handsomely for removing the supernatural with superior firepower. As one would expect from an author with a background in running a gun store and competitive shooting, it's very [[/k/]]. A character's choice of firearm describes them as much as their clothes or hair and guns work as they're supposed to. The first book (which can be obtained as a free e-book) is enjoyable, but very rough, and the series improved dramatically each book. Features a writing style that improves dramatically when listened to as an audiobook.
**'''''Grimnoir Chronicles''''': A separate series by the same author. Set in an alternate 1930s where a small (but constantly increasing) percentage of humanity has been born with super powers since at least the 1830s. While there's X-men style discrimination, it's largely in the background. The series is actually about how Japan is trying to use its research of Power to take over the world. The super power system is unique in that there are only about 30 documented Power types, with many just being lesser versions of other powers, and outside of a core handful everything else is rare but the creative and powerful can strech the rules. The world has also had cultural and technological shifts as a result of Power instead of keeping it the same aside from their existence.
*'''''Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of Amber''''': A lesser known series written between 1970 and 1991 about a family of (essentially) demigods who inhabit the "true" reality of the city of Amber. Everything else is merely a shadow of Amber and its inhabitants. The princes and princesses can move freely between Amber and an infinite number shadow worlds but the constant plotting and backstabbing at home and the less-than-real nature of everything outside makes them callous and often amoral. The first book effortlessly turns from "hard boiled detective story" to "psychedelic road trip" to "drama about Greek gods" in style.
*'''''Karl Edward Wagner - Kane series''''': Essentially a more grimdark version of Howard's style of sword and sorcery, Kane is more akin to a villain that Conan would fight than the "noble savage" barbarian archetype. Immortal and cursed with the inability to ever truly settle down, Kane is an expert fighter, leader of men and potent sorcerer. After thousands of years his only real goal is to stave off boredom, which he does by offering his services and considerable intellect to various rulers, although more often than not with an ulterior motive. In one story he sets out to revive a race of ancient cosmic horrors simply because they offered him a chance to explore the cosmos.

==Science Fiction==
*'''''Douglas Adams - The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy''''': One of the funniest works of science fiction ever made, although you could count it as the first. The precursor to all comedy stories about everyday people having to deal with the absurdly massive and meaningless universe around them. Grab your towel, make a fresh cuppa, and make sure you've got enough tape to keep your sides from splitting too much.
*'''''Neal Asher - The Gridlinked Series''''': Some of the best, hardest sci-fi out there, this is one of those universes that has unique, creative technologies (rare nowadays)as well as 007...EEEN SPESSS
*'''''Issac Asimov - Foundation Series''''': The seminal space opera modeled roughly on the decline of the Roman Empire. It follows the fall of a Galactic Empire and the rise of a new civilization from the ashes.
*'''''Iain M. Banks- [[The Culture]] Series''''': A series about a perfect, utopian spacefaring society and all its many problems. Some of the grandest-scale worldbuilding in science fiction, and full of clever ethical and political musing.
*'''''Paolo Bacigalupi - Pump Six and Other Stories''''': Biopunk meet post-apo and hefty dose of shady business. Think Shadowrun, minus the magic.
*'''''David Brin - The Postman''''': First novel to present post apocalypse not from the point of view of badass heroes or insane raiders, but random villagers and such. Great world building for a very small world. Has infamous film "adaptation", sharing only title.
*'''''Edgar Rice Burroughs - the Barsoom Series-aka Mars Chronicles and the Pellucidar Series''''': Iconic, manly, and fuckin' A! This guy also did Tarzan and a whole slew of other works that would go on to inspire other manly stories, chiefly Conan the Barbarian and most of the knockoffs thereof.
*'''''Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps''''': Basically an EVE Online novel written decades before EVE Online. Was supposed to be a trilogy but the publisher wouldn't okay sequels so it gets rushed at the end. Not as iconic as The Black Company, but this is in SPAAAAAAACCCCEEEE!!!!!!!
*'''''James S. A. Corey - The Expanse series''''' Bar the intentionally fantastical elements it provides <s>a fairly grounded</s> muh gritty realism version of near future space exploration. Some fantastic characters and stories, but as the main plot goes, slowly turns into a generic space opera-western mix. Got an unapproved TV show adaptation that ignores all the good stuff, while taking the worst aspects of the books and runs wild with them.
*'''''Harlan Ellison - I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream''''': The last five humans alive are being held deep in an underground complex, where they are perpetually tortured by AM, the sadistic AI that wiped out the rest of humanity, with no hope of escape. The most creepy thing in this book is that the author thought it was ''optimistic''. If he someday went to wrote something pessimistic, the universe would implode from the sheer grimdark overdose.
*'''''Robert A. Heinlein - Glory Road''''': An homage to ''John Carter of Mars'' about a badass Vietnam Veteran who travels to another planet act as a champion to an alien queen in her war against rebels. It features an interesting deconstruction of Portal Fantasy/Isekai genre.
*'''''Robert A. Heinlein - [[Starship Troopers]]''''': Where Space Marines and Tyranids came from. The novel carries a vastly different message and tone than the campy movie based on it. [[Roboute Guilliman]] keeps a copy in his duffel.
*'''''Frank Herbert - [[Dune]] & its earlier sequels''''': World-building, politics, super-humans - it's one helluva party. The spice must flow! <s>[[Navigator|Navigators]] are totally not stolen from Dune</s> {{BLAM}}
*'''''Aldous Huxley - Brave New World''''': Take 1984, and do the total opposite the way people are controlled (rather than "Do what I tell you or I'll beat you", it's "Do what I tell you and I'll make you feel good") mixed with a Tau-esque genetically enforced caste system and conditioning to make people embrace their servitude.
*'''''Stanisław Lem - Tales Of Pirx the Pilot''''': Collection of short stories documenting gradual progress of humanity in space exploration and AI development. Nice deconstruction of all the shitty elements from space opera, ''before there even was space opera''.
*'''''Walter M. Miller, Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz''''' In the grim darkness of the far future there is only Catholicism. Think Fallout meets Farenheit 451 and you wouldn't be too far off.
*'''''Larry Niven - Footfall''''' Remember kids: if at first your nukes don't kill the xeno, just use more. Also 'The Magic Goes Away' is good for DnD while technically not fantasy.
*'''''George Orwell - [[1984]], Animal Farm''''': WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH! FOUR LEGS GOOD! TWO LEGS <s>BAD</s> BETTER!
*'''''Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy''''': /x/ the book, and a cult classic in every sense of the word. Once you get used to the massively cheesy tone, what you'll find here is an intelligent and fun series of books that are both a parody and a send up to: 70s counterculture, Western esotericism, political and religious dogma, numerology, and conspiracy theories.
*'''''Robert Sheckley - short stories''''': once dubbed the clown prince of sci-fi, recommended by Douglas Adams.
*'''''John Steakley - Armor'''''
*'''''Charles Stross - Missile Gap''''': While Stross is most famous for his Laundry Files (basically collection of [[Delta Green]] shorts, which are all worth reading too), Missile Gap is just mind-numbing novella about entire Earth being transported on an Alderson disk... or maybe a snapshot of Earth... or maybe ''both''. All right in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. Think "Primer" meet Tom Clancy techno-thriller.
*'''''Andri Magnason - LoveStar''''': Equal parts biting satire and bittersweet love story, set in a bizarre future (think equal part of Brave New World, corporate dystopia and high-concept sci-fi). It's the humour and creative application of own setting and its rules that makes it helpful for worldbuilding that amounts to anything more than just trivia.
*'''''H.G. Wells - The War of the Worlds and Time Machine''''': Absolute classics. Not knowing them is akin to being illiterate, while they can be used for all sorts of games.
*'''''Philip Jose Farmer - The Riverworld Series''''': A group of dead people from many different time periods, including Richard Burton, Hermann Göring, Tullus of Rome and Mark Twain wake up on an alien planet and have to survive. Very fun read with interesting character interactions.

==Horror==
*'''''John W. Campbell - Who Goes There?''''': Remember John Carpenter's The Thing? Well this is where it all started. Taking into account ''when'' the novella was written is the real game-changer.
*'''''Laurell K. Hamilton - Guilty Pleasures''''': Probably one of the most iconic and influencial urban fantasy in existence, despite seemingly obvious setup for occult detective. While rest of Anita Blake series is unquestionably in shunned territory, this one is still a must-read. Also, mind the title.
**'''''Aneta Jadowska - Dora Wilk series''''': Essentially Anita Blake: Polish Edition. Unlike original, doesn't turn into BDSM harem porn, but instead gradually distances itself from romance and focuses on the world-building and occult. Also, it fully embraces being written to cover for bills. Decent fan translations exist.
*'''''[[H.P. Lovecraft]] - At the Mountains of Madness and anything else published after it''''': Lovecraft is to modern horror what Tolkien is to fantasy. While his early stories are mediocre, starting with At the Mountains of Madness, their quality rises sharply, explaining how this guy reached such memetic status.
*'''''Richard Matheson - I Am Legend''''': Singlehandly responsible for creation of post apocalypse genre and modern take on zombies and vampires. Also, depressive as fuck, so bring some tissues. No, really. None of the 3 film adaptations managed to match the quality of the novel.
*'''''Anne Rice - The Vampire Chronicles''''': Where [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] started. You are probably already familiar with this particular style of vampires even without knowing there were any books, that's how iconic the imaginary is. And for the sake of everyone's sanity, let's just pretend the Chronicles consists of only three books: ''Interview with the Vampire'', ''The Vampire Lestat'' and ''The Queen of the Damned''. You really don't want to read any further titles, trust us on that, especially since this is a self-contained trilogy.

==Alternate History==
*'''''SM Stirling - The Peshawar Lancers''''': In the 1878 a bunch of comets hit the Earth causing much havoc and forcing the British to Evacuate to warmer parts of the world. In 2025 the British Empire still reigns as the most powerful nation on earth run from Delhi, along with French Africa, the Japanese Empire and a rather nasty Russian Empire in a world powered by steam. If you want steampunk that's more than superficial, exotic and just all around well done this is where you go. Just be prepared for a lot of Indian terms.

==Mystery==
*'''''Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep''''': The grandfather of noir.
*'''''Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None''''': Ten random strangers trapped with a vengeful killer. Or so they think.
*'''''Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''''': A stample of detective fiction.

==Historical Fiction==
*'''''Robert Bolt - The Mission''''': A journey of a young boy into becoming a murder-hobo and then trying to repent his sins as a missionary, taking place in 1740s Paraguay. But more seriously, it's about the Jesuits and their mission in a patch of land contested between Spain and Portugal, with great, nuanced characters caught up in a conflict they can't even hope to win. Mostly famous for its movie adaptation with de Niro and Irons and cutting the entire backstory which made the book worth reading in the first place.
*'''''Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October''''': '''The''' quintessential techno-thriller, being one of the halmarks of the entire genre and probably the most famous of all Clancy's book. Tightly written, with plausable story and great characters.
*'''''Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey–Maturin series''''': A series of 21 nautical historical novels, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. Almost autistically well-researched and amazingly addictive series which should be read by just about anyone even wishing to run a maritime-themed game. They are really addictive, so make sure you have enough time to spare before starting reading. The film adaptation is also approved.
*'''''Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle''''': Adventures of a really big cast of characters living amidst of the central events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central America. Extremely well-researched portray of the era, seamlessly blending history with fictional characters. And a real door-stopper.
*'''''Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island''''': If by any chance or twist of fate you still didn't read it, you damn should right now. Absolute classic and absolute gold mine for ideas, not even for pirate game, but just adventuring in general.
*'''''Kawabata Yasunari - The Master of Go''''': The story of a brash young [[munchkin|power gamer]] challenging a grizzled old [[neckbeard]] to a championship [[Go]] match. Chronicles the national-scale [[edition war]] that was 1930s Japan through the medium of gaming obsessed hyper-autists.

== Weird Stuff ==
This is for things which may not strictly be the best stuff but have some off beat noteworthy qualities which might make it worth a look regardless. Sometimes "flawed but novel" can beat "generally good but run of the mill".
*'''''David Brin - Uplift Hexology''''': A sort of really lazily worldbuilt sci-fi setting, based around the idea that a trillions-years-old galactic civilization is perpetuated by the "uplifting" of near-sentient animals and tool-using species. Every species has its specific attitude and special trait, like most bad sci-fi, except for humans and their uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees. But it does have some interesting ideas about evolution and how that could lead to truly strange forms of life and ways of thinking, if you can suffer through all the ecofanaticism.

==Other==
*'''''Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - The Ingenious Nobleman Mister Quixote of La Mancha''''': The misadventures of an old man driven to madness by reading chivalry novels, being the first major parody of the classic interpretation of that setting. Mixing comedy and a ton of political commentary for its time, it's one of the most important novels of all time, and the elements and tropes it brought to popular culture are referenced and satirized to this day.
*'''''Marcus Tullius Cicero - De Re Publica''''': A political dialogue, explaining all the virtues of Roman Repiblic. Survived only partially and in short-hands, but still makes a compelling read about "ideal" (and most definitely not idealised into absurdity) state of Roman politics and political machine, along with all the machinations gradually leading to [[Star_Wars|the Republic turning into the Empire]]. An obligatory read for all Romanboos.
*'''''The Epic of Gilgamesh''''': The original Conan, gettin' bitches and slayin' witches since 1800BC, baby. The story of Gilgamesh (no shit), a demi-god Babylonian king who the gods continually try to beat down and/or kill because he's [[Awesome|just that fucking awesome.]] [[That guy|He's also a HUUUUUUGE dick.]] Eventually meets his best bro for life Enkidu and they go on fuckin' sick adventures. Unfortunately some parts of the story are lost.
*'''''Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli - The Prince''''': [[This guy]] seems to be very underrated in popular culture, and its name is often used as a pejorative term, sometimes as twisted or evil. But this guy only wrote some sort of historical summary of how previous governments around the world have risen to power, how they handled it, and how they lost it all. It's just a guide of how you should rule your kingdom. You totally won't find [[Skub]] here. A major influence on Camarilla of [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] (note the name of their leaders).
*'''''Antonio Pigafetta - Journal of Magellan's Voyage''''': A historical account of the first circumnavigation of the globe. Aside obvious historical value, it's worth to note Pigafetta wasn't an explorer himself or a member of the crew - he was a tourist, joining the expedition for the thrill of adventure and described everything from such perspective. Provides a lot of nautical and ethnographical observations, creating a panorama for Age of Discovery.
*'''''[[The Poetic Edda]]''''': A historical source, the Poetic Edda provides most of the basis for what we know about norse myth and belief today. The mere fact that it's [[Viking]] myth poetry written in [[Awesome|Old Norse]] should entice most fa/tg/uys, but for those somehow unmoved still, it's basically THE sourcebook for the [[Lord of the Rings]] and all else [[Tolkien]]. If you want to know where Gandalf (who is basically Odin), [[Dwarves]] (and their names), [[Elves]], the phrase "[[Middle Earth]]" and that obssession he has for massive trees came from, then look no further. Also, pick up a copy of the Prose Edda while your reading this one, seeing as you're on a roll.
*'''''Herodotus- The Histories''''': The first work in the genre that he gave name to, the Histories recounts the war between the Persian Empire and the Greek City States, but is also packed with insights about life across the eastern Mediterranean from the Scythians to the Egyptians. While derided in favour of Thucydides for a long time due to a perception of unreliability, the cultural aspects of Herodotus' work have only become more important as history has shifted from a mere retelling of events to examining the cultural and social aspects that shaped and influenced those events.
*'''''Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War''''': Happens right before The Anabasis, covering roughly two decades of warfare between Athens and Sparta, in varying degrees of detail depending on the sources Thucydides had access to at the time (he was exiled from Athens and switched sides mid-war). Trails off at the end, presumably he died writing it. Basically the oldest human text in existence that is regarded as a historical account to be taken at face value, and it inspired many other leaders such as Xenophon and later Julius Caesar to write accounts of their own deeds.
*'''''Xenophon - The Anabasis''''': Another historical account, this time of the journey of 10,000 Greek mercenaries (hence the other title - ''The March of the Ten Thousand'') who end up stranded in the middle of Persian Empire after their employer, Cyrus the Younger, got killed in the battle. Problem is, Cyrus was trying to overthrown his brother, king Artaxerxes II, using said Greeks. So now they are in the middle of hostile territory, with no means to resupply, no support and constantly endangered by Persian military and tributary locals. Due to Xenophon's writing style, the book is highly entertaining and action-packed, while also providing countless descriptions of both Greek and Persian customs. And if you wonder why the plot sounds familiar - you probably saw "The Warriors".

==Shunned/Hated==
*'''Terry <del>Good</del>Badkind - The Sword of Truth:''' An infamous series full of Terry's [[magical realm]] BDSM, utterly gratuitous rape and torture (Terry's cheap/lazy method of making his main characters look better by comparison), and "heroes" we're supposed to arbitrarily like no matter ''what'' horrible things they do. Badkind himself having nothing but contempt for the entire fantasy genre while bragging about how he is a "serious" novelist and packing the later books with his stupid Ayn Ranting (even when it ''contradicted previous fucking events'') did him no favors.
*'''John Norman - Gor''': A cheap knockoff of Barsoom and Conan made notable for having a lot of half baked philosophizing, skeevy BSDM stuff and [[/d/|a ton of fucked up ideas about gender, slavery and sex]]. In brief a bunch of bug aliens make a zoo full of humans to live "as nature intended" as misogynistic slaving barbarians and make sure of it [[wat|by incinerating anyone who attempts to develop technology or societies they don't approve of with laser beams. Which they sometimes do to whole cities just for the lulz]]. Also for spawning one of the ''original'' obnoxious apologist Internet subcultures, the Goreans. Spread to Second Life, so go there if you want to burn your brain.
*'''Stephanie Meyer - [[Twilight]]:''' ...Have you ''been'' on the internet <del>lately</del>? (Twilight's an old meme at this point) The series that singlehandedly killed an [[Vampire: The Masquerade| entire style of modern fantasy vampire]] for an entire generation of fantasy fans who ''aren't'' sexually-frustrated housewives and hormonally-addled teenage girls.
*'''Christopher Paolini - [[Eragon|The Inheritance Series]]:''' A Mary Sue main character and a derivative plot. It was written when Paolini was a teenager and it shows. Every single book could stand to lose at ''least'' a third of its wordcount and there are lot of times when the plot grinds to a halt for entire chapters just for the characters to think and ramble about the most inane of topics. Less offensive than other stuff on this list since it lacks traits such as bootlick fans and an asshole author. The author also put a decent amount of effort into his worldbuilding which is more than can be said for Badkind and Smeyer. If you must, start in book two and read his cousin's story, he is a farm boy who was getting his dick wet while struggling with a hostile father-in-law, until the civil war reached his hometown and his betrothed is whisked away by humanoid bug-birds, he then murders 200 people with a hammer and deals with PTSD.

=Gallery=
<gallery>
Image:Approved Children's Literature.png|Kid-tested, fa/tg/uy-approved.
</gallery>

==Other Recommendations==
*[http://desuarchive.org/tg/thread/27995546/ Fatguys briefly exit their basement comfort zone to recommend /tg/ romance novels.]

*[https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/109337._tg_approved_reading_list /tg/'s approved reading list on Goodreads]

[[Category:Approved Media]]
[[Category:Literature]]