Holidays, and Holy Days, and the overall Daze

Do y'all include Holy Days, Holidays, or the like in your trek campaigns? On board the USS Perseus, my character, Michael Barratt, the CMO, takes a really active hobby/interest in the cultural holidays of both his Human and Betazoid ancestors - there's a chime at his formal meals, and he cellebrates Christmas the way his ma always did - including his vary famous (attempted) cooking of figgy pudding.

The Bajoran chief of security asked if the ship could cellebrate the "Whatever it's called" Festival that we saw twice on DS9, with the burning of hte regret scrolls and so forth.

I found it added a sense of both time and cultural variability to my campaign, and now and then I'm tempted to throw in a "religion -vs- duty" storyline (I haven't yet). The characters get a blast out of Christmas in the game time, for one it's "another year gone by," and for another, it's fun to play the culture-clash of Christmas Gifts. (One year, the Andorian security officer decided to give the CMO a present, in order to "participate" in the event. He gave him antique surgical tools from Andoria's past, which were pretty grewsome...)

Anyway, just curious.

The Doc

Only done it once, in a PBEM.

I used New Year's day as an excuse for my Vulcan science officer to show emotion. He let out a tremendous scream, much to the dismay of his comrades.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGH!

*straightens self*

I fell much better now! :D

Actually aside from our annual Christmas Special no other holidays make it unless it advances the plot. I do tend to have a horror type scenario for Halloween but no direct reference is made.

The only holiday that comes up in our game is Federation Day. That usually gets a big celebration where everyone who wants to, shows a part of their home culture to the rest of the crew, be it song, dance, poetry, music, cooking or anything else.

It's about that time of the year again and I think this time I'll make it a little more solemn. Have the Captain hold a little speech that reminds everyone of what took place during the last year and maybe hand out a promotion or two.

I include 'em on a regular basis: with a very multi-species ship like Constitution, as the captain says, almost every day is someone's holy day.

Personally, I don't believe that we can ever truly get rid of religion...

My contribution to the Star Trek religious pot: Efrosian Shodin beliefs are 1) there is no direct involvement of a higher power, 2) the universe is simply the expression of probability, 3) the nature of the universe is changed by the observation of sentient beings, 4) reincarnation exists, but it is not the 'reuse' of a soul...merely the existence of a new being similar enough in characteristics to be a 'near copy' of a former self. They have problems with some of these beliefs, of course, having encountered the Vulcans & their katra stuff...

I've never had to input religion into my episodes although I do have a special for the day of the dead(1st Nov.) which is celebrated in Poland. We all go to our cemeteries and light candles on the tombstones and crypts. I did somethin' of the sort on a ship, freaked out my players when they were stepping on the grounds of a battlefield and graves were as far as the eye could see. All in all a good episode, ended with them placing candles at the step of a large crypt and beaming out.

Overall though I believe their would be too many holidays and we would wind up like the Canadian Post Office or the Governments, where they work very little 'cause every day is a religious holiday. A certain amount of time should be set aside for holy days, but it shouldd be work as usual otherwise(i.e.NO decorations or extras on the part of the commanding staff).