I wax poetic....

[finarvyn]

Not sure where to put this, but it seemed more "General" than anything else.

I discovered Star Trek back in the early 1970's. I don't know the exact year, but it was before I found OD&D and most of my old James Bllish books were printed in 1973 or 1974, so I assume it was some time in there.

As a teenager just starting to enjoy adult fiction (Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes), I'm sure I didn't appreciate all of the subtle messages in the series, but something about Roddenberry's universe grabbed me. I watched re-runs of Star Trek as much as possible. I used OD&D to play Star Trek. I discovered the Star Fleet Technical manual, the Star Trek blueprints, and spent a lot of time speculating about how the technology of Star Trek "worked". I was hooked.

A couple of years later came the FASA RPG and Star Fleet Battles. Both of these occupied a lot of my brain power, and got me thinking even more about the TOS series. The movies added to my enthusiasm, as did the novels. More and more Trek!

I was in college when TNG came out. It was okay, but TOS was still my favorite. I watched TNG, then DS9, then Voyager, and each time found it to be cool scifi but not as cool as TOS. Of all the post-TOS series, Enterprise turned out to be my favorite probably because the other shows were too slick and the tech worked too well. Somewhere along the line I quit buying the novels, as they were being written and published so much faster than I could read them. And they just didn't grab me anymore. I slowly lost interest in Trek.

A long time passed. My Trek stuff got put into boxes and stored. I thought about getting rid of most of it. I did get rid of some of it. It basicaly just sat and collected dust.

Two things happened to revive my enthusiasm.
1. The J.J. Abrams movie.
2. This message board.

The new 2009 Trek movie was neat to me becasue it was young and hip and my daughter (a total non-Trekker) loved it. She and I went to see it 3 times in the theatre. We ate at Burger King in order to get collectable glasses. She didn't know about TOS Trek, but thought Star Trek was cool.

This board tipped the balance, at least for a while. Finding a community devoted to TOS is awesome. I find myself reading Star Trek RPG books again, reading some of my old paperbacks, and hunting for Star Trek on e-bay.

Thank you, Falconer, for starting this place that has pulled me back into the fold. Also thanks to the rest of you who have been posting and generating cool ideas and discussions.

I feel like I've found a lost friend again.

[Falconer]

Sweet, thanks for that, Finarvyn!

My story is different. When I was growing up, TNG was on the air and it was Star Trek in most peoples’ minds. The thing is, you either were a “Star Trek person” or you weren’t. Most people I knew had seen Star Wars ’77 and/or one of its sequels, and thought it was cool. It was, and is, something you can drop in casual conversation and people get what you’re talking about. But there was no such thing as a casual Star Trek fan.

Star Trek is something like Conan. By 1997, Conan was a vast mythology. There were 19 DeCamp books and 42 Tor books out there. So it’s not even a question of “how do I get in” anymore—it’s “what will I get out of it?” Could I read any one book and ever have a conversation about it with another human being, about that book or about Conan or his world in general? Maybe if they were a “Conan fan”, but not otherwise. Well, since then, there has been a movement to return to Howard-only Conan. Nowadays, you can talk about “Red Nails” or “Tower of the Elephant” to someone and they’ll know what you mean. Not, like, any random person on the street, but you know what I mean. You don’t have to be a specialized “Conan fan” to get it.

Back to Star Trek. By my calculations, there are 30 seasons of TV and 11 movies. That’s what, upwards of 750 hours of television? Let’s not even start with the novels! I didn’t know how to get into it, and I didn’t want to. I liked the concept of it, but I felt like an outsider. Eventually, as I researched it I realized that if I limited myself to TOS, I could get something “manageable” out of it, not to mention something of apparently timeless quality and incredible cultural significance.

And I think that is true!

[aramis]

I got into trek "from the womb" as it were. My mother first felt me move during an episode.

we watched reruns from the get go; when TAS came out, I watched it saturday mornings in first run.

I found a STTM when I was 7; used, $4, at goodwill, then had to wait to read it until I had earned enough to pay back my mom back for the loan.

Not long after, I got the ST Medical Reference Manual, and some uniform reference manuals. My neighbor kids and I often played ST and SW, rather than cowboys and indians. (Cops n robbers was not permitted by their
parents....)

I also got the photonovels. (None of them survive, sadly.)

In middle school, I got several of the then brand new books: ST Spaceflight Chronology, a few novels. And I got into D&D.

In high school, we'd moved to the suburb, and I got into SFB and Traveller. When Fasa STRPG came out, a buddy was given it, didn't like it, and sold it to me for $10. I still have it. (and 2nd ed.) I really didn't run it as a camapaign until college, but did a few one-shots in HS. About the same time, I found a copy of S&S. I ran more S&S in HS than Fasa-Trek.

Also, in HS, I'd made a contact with a guy at a local TV station; he knew I was a robotech fan because he saw the Robotech RPG on the kitchen table when he installed the exterior antenna... he was cueing tape for the saturday rerun of TOS (7am... I usually didn't watch)... "Wil, sorry to wake you, but it's Pete... Watch this trek, you'll not be sorry..." It turned out to be a rough-cut episode that wasn't on the official list. "The Captain's Woman"... opens with a boot-scene... as Kirk's ensign GF gets sent on an away mission, and he has to decide how much to risk to save her... Very much like a certain TNG Episode.... No transporter visuals, no environmental sounds on the bridge. I wish I'd had a tape to record it.

In college, I ran a FASA-Trek campaign... it later switched to a much more successful SW d6 1E+RC campaign (actually, the RC came out DURING that campaign...) It was this that convinced me FASA had major issues with ships.

I also ran a Traveller-Trek game, using MT CGen, and a HG interpretation of the SFB versions of the ships. (CA=19,000Td, CC=20,000, DD/SC=12,000), Phasers being 100Td PA beams, Photons being 50Td missile bays.

I wrote my own game engine, adapting from FASA-trek for what training existed, but using the SFB ships and my own game engine. I used it for several years, and a few games even after PD1 came out.

I then abandoned it for Prime Directive 1E. PD1 became my go-to Trek game.

I got LUG Trek by demoing it for my FLGS. Never got the TOS flavor... my players wanted TNG era, and I was given TNG by my FLGS... I had to demo it twice, plus ran a couple other LUGTrek books for 50% off them.

I bought Decipher's Trek for myself. It's close enough to MegaTraveller in both task mechanics and meaning of attribute levels.... and rather close to half-value for the meaning of skill levels. Worked pretty well... but again, the FASA/LUG/Decipher lineage suffers from rather stupid conventions on the meaning of various naval terms, albeit less so...

The problem I have found is that half my player base reject trek out of hand, and the other half only want to do their own favorite flavor.... and that seldom matches to mine. Mine is the SFU of ADB, but excluding all post 1999 products.

I'm thinking about writing a S&S knockoff, but basing off of hybridizing T&T and a certain GW RPG produced under license for a popular comic turned movie....

[Falconer]

Wow, great to have someone who has played, from what it sounds like, almost every single different Trek RPG!

Feb 3, 2010 20:19:08 GMT -5 aramis said:

Also, in HS, I'd made a contact with a guy at a local TV station; he knew I was a robotech fan because he saw the Robotech RPG on the kitchen table when he installed the exterior antenna... he was cueing tape for the saturday rerun of TOS (7am... I usually didn't watch)... "Wil, sorry to wake you, but it's Pete... Watch this trek, you'll not be sorry..." It turned out to be a rough-cut episode that wasn't on the official list. "The Captain's Woman"... opens with a boot-scene... as Kirk's ensign GF gets sent on an away mission, and he has to decide how much to risk to save her... Very much like a certain TNG Episode.... No transporter visuals, no environmental sounds on the bridge. I wish I'd had a tape to record it.

Wait... what? Are you serious? How come I’ve never heard of this anywhere else and can’t find any reference to it? Please confirm!

[aramis]

Yes, I'm serious. Seems a buddy of his at the station found extra eps in cans at the LoC. Duped one of them. The station got hit with a fine by Paramount for airing it.

[Grendelwulf]

Feb 4, 2010 0:17:19 GMT -5 aramis said:

Yes, I'm serious. Seems a buddy of his at the station found extra eps in cans at the LoC. Duped one of them. The station got hit with a fine by Paramount for airing it.

Okay, I could almost believe it..until the "found extra eps in cans". So, not only one...but more never aired eps?

[update] I did find this after some searching...

During renovation of a soundstage facility used by the Trek production crew in the 1960s, staffers moving forgotten archives discovered materials from an episode which was never completed. Kept secret until late March, the boxes contained a script, conceptual sketches, and reels of film with a total of 18 minutes of footage.

Paramount special production manager Abe "Ralph" Hewell (center) with Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner at a January 30 press conference.

In a tightly-controlled press conference on January 30th, Paramount execs were joined by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (who played Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in the original series). The studio plans to create a standard 51-minute episode by using digital wizardry, splices of stock footage, and the voice talents of the surviving cast members (DeForest Kelley, who played Dr. Leonard McCoy, died in 1999).

Actor Jim Carrey, best known for blockbuster comedies like Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura, and last year's The Grinch, will provide the voice of Dr. McCoy. "Most people don't realize that Jim started his career doing nothing but impressions - and he can do a dead-on Bones," said Abe "Ralph" Hewell, the special production manager assigned to the project. "Jim is just nuts about Star Trek, and he contacted us, practically begging to get on the project." Hewell said Carrey will receive an undisclosed percentage of video sales as compensation.

The episode, entitled "Outpost," was written by Thomas Butterfield (who died in 1987), a ghost writer long associated with the franchise. Details of the episode are a tightly-held secret.

A special effects studio will be employed to create the 33 additional minutes needed for a complete episode. Most of the new scenes will be shot using look-alike actors. The youthful faces of Kirk, Spock and the others will be digitally "harvested" from original episodes and "pasted" onto the faces of the stand-ins later - a technique used in a very limited way for such films as Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park. The original Trek cast will then record new dialog to complete the scene. "You'll never know it wasn't Bill (Shatner) and Leonard (Nimoy) from 35 years ago," said Hewell.

This sort of manipulation of classic Trek is not unprecedented. The most popular episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (which ran from 1992 to 1999) was "Trials and Tribble-ations" - an episode which blended original footage with new sequences.

In some cases, stock footage from original episodes will be spliced in. Some new sets may be constructed, while other sets will be digitally extracted from the background of original episodes.

Links:

Paramount has set up a special website - www.startrek.com/lostepisode

Ciao!
Grendelwulf

[aramis]

Feb 4, 2010 1:03:25 GMT -5 Grendelwulf said:

Feb 4, 2010 0:17:19 GMT -5 aramis said:

Yes, I'm serious. Seems a buddy of his at the station found extra eps in cans at the LoC. Duped one of them. The station got hit with a fine by Paramount for airing it.

Okay, I could almost believe it..until the "found extra eps in cans". So, not only one...but more never aired eps?

Roddenberry killed one episode after shooting began for not being "trek" enough, and the censors supposedly killed another. Given the opening scene, and a 1968 shooting (Spock's got full commander, no Checkov)... and opening with them sitting on Kirk's bunk getting dressed, the censors would have killed it. We tend to forget that the episodes had to pass the censors, and effects were very expensive... so the censors often got to see rushes, rather than finals, so that effects could be used after to fill/shorten the run time after the censrs nipped scenes.

But even incomplete, in order to protect them, they would still have to have been filed with the LoC. You're not supposed to make copies, however, of the stuff on file.

Also, they seem to have turned up a complete copy of The Cage in a German collection.

[coffee]

Aramis, old son, I've seen you around a bit here and there and am as usual impressed with the depth of your knowledge of all things roleplaying and science fiction.

But you do have a tendency toward the alphabet soup.

What, pray tell, is LoC? I can work out most of the rest, but that one lost me.

[Grendelwulf]

The PTB/censors didn't seem to have a problem with the episode, Wink of an Eye. There is an infamous scene that begins after a commercial break. Captain Kirk is seated on a bed, putting on his boots, while the woman guest star is preening herself in front of a mirror.

But this digresses from the spirit of this thread. If you would liek further discourse on this "Lost" episode, I suggest starting another thread about it. Heck, I have already done it for you. Perhaps there may be other sightings that will draw further commentary. But, to do so here is not "waxing poetic". Just waxing...

coffee: LoC is probably something akin to License of Censorship.

Anyway, the other thread is here.

Ciao!
Grendelwulf

[aramis]

Feb 4, 2010 6:11:11 GMT -5 coffee said:

Aramis, old son, I've seen you around a bit here and there and am as usual impressed with the depth of your knowledge of all things roleplaying and science fiction.

But you do have a tendency toward the alphabet soup.

What, pray tell, is LoC? I can work out most of the rest, but that one lost me.

Library of Congress.

[coffee]

Feb 4, 2010 12:17:47 GMT -5 aramis said:

Library of Congress.

Thanks!

[finarvyn]

Cool stuff, but a bit tangential to the sappy daydreaming of days gone by in my original post. :-)

[Ronin84]

Star Trek

I of course waited with baited breath every Saturday for the next episode of TAS to come on, I remember my dad being upset when we had to wait to go to the barber because of me needing to see the next one that day. I watched TOS every time it was on and I remember the day TNG premiered, there were about 10 of us watching and the reviews were not kind, though I remember all of us loving Worf! On the other hand we couldn't stand Riker...

Gaming wise, I remember looking at some of the earlier attempts at a Star Trek game but really it wasn't until FASA ST 1st edition that I got hooked. This lead to SFB and eventually the second edition of the FASA game, which I ran in college. Set during the movie era as a Starfleet Intelligence game.

When LugTrek came out I bought everything that came out and even ran games for two year for them at GenCon. I still have everything for that system and use it as reference material often.
It was because of this association I was able to get my hands on the DUNE rpg that came out.

When Decipher released their version I was a lot less interested because of what I knew in the background but eventually bought all those books as well.

I have run Star Trek using Traveller rules, and more recently using the Mongoose version of the rules....we haven't done any ship stuff yet but....

At one time I worked in a Game Store and had access to tons of gaming materials and as a young man I was exposed to the hobby early and never looked back. My first job as a high school sophomore was teaching elementary kids how to play tunnels and trolls which became DnD as soon as I could sneak it in!

I have worked as a high school truant officer and security officer for the last 21 years and also sponsor the Gaming Club at the high school as well coach football. We have had many many kids come through and it has been fun sharing the hobby with them, and it's neat to run into them years later and swap storied.

My sons, ages 9, 9, and 6 play, right now mostly 4th edition DnD but they have been also itching to do some Star Wars, so we shall see. (Before you ask, yes I have every book from the SAGA series, as well as the d20 series and most of the important books from the d6 series as well.) My wife plays now and again and often she is just the voice of reason for the boys and that is fun by itself.

I have been involved with a lot of different gaming projects and systems...you could say that if it came out, I usually would at least look at it...most times.

[vulcanridr]

Feb 3, 2010 15:32:25 GMT -5 finarvyn said:

Two things happened to revive my enthusiasm.
1. The J.J. Abrams movie.
2. This message board.

I completely agree with Finarvyn's sentiment. Fin and I have been best friends since, what, 4th grade? We grew up less than 1/4 of a mile apart. We agree on most things but not quite everything. In the battle between realism and playability, he came down firmly in the playability camp, while I was an advocate for realism.

My story is similar to his. We grew up on Trek together, TOS and TAS. By the time he was in grad school, I had joined the army. TNG came out, and I was fairly nonplussed (don't get me wrong, there were some great episodes). It was Trek, but not the same. Then DS9 came out, and I enjoyed that more. In fact, the latter seasons of DS9 are my favorites along with TOS. Voyager was a disappointment, as was Enterprise. I have tried to watch ENT, but with the exception of the two mirror universe episodes, I have a hard time sitting still through an episode.

Then came the movie last summer. My wife loved it. I hated it. I thought it was a typical JJ Abrams "lotsa bling-bling, explosions, flashing lights" action film, only this time with a Star Trek skin. For me, it was like the movie Starship Troopers. The name was the same, but it felt different. Kind of like taking a swig of what you think is apple juice and getting a mouthful of salt water.

However, I agree with him 100% that this board has given me a new interest in Trek. I've gone back and watched all of the TOS I have recorded, and may go and watch DS9 again.

Thanks for this board, Falconer. As Finarvyn says, it has brought me back...

--vr

[finarvyn]

Feb 4, 2010 21:28:42 GMT -5 vulcanridr said:

Then came the movie last summer. My wife loved it. I hated it. I thought it was a typical JJ Abrams "lotsa bling-bling, explosions, flashing lights" action film, only this time with a Star Trek skin. For me, it was like the movie Starship Troopers. The name was the same, but it felt different. Kind of like taking a swig of what you think is apple juice and getting a mouthful of salt water.

So tell us how you really feel!

Certainly the apple juice / salt water analogy brings an interesting visual image to mind...