NEW Star Trek Encyclopedia?

[khyber]

I was wondering if anyone knew when the next update to the Star Trek Encyclopedia would be coming out. It hasn't been updated since '99.

[odoital]

I don't think there is an official date for that... or if there even will be another one. Might want to check out www.psiphi.org or www.startrekbooks.com to dig a little deeper.

If they do, judging by the timing of the others, it will be after Voyager ends and right around the start of Star Trek series V and the motion pic Star Trek X... They like to have a couple of tantalizing details, but not the complete info so that you have to buy the next version.

[SIR SIG]

Well we need a complete run down on DS9 sometime! Guessing around nov/dec like most of the others 1-2 yrs apart.

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[First of Two]

I suspect at LEAST a year after Voyager's run its course, to get the whole thing reformatted (which would be better, IMHO, than adding yet another appendix), and possibly not until after at least the first season of Series V.

[SIR SIG]

Two True, First Of Two!

That almost rhymed.

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[Cochrane]

I think the writers are reluctant to do it again. What I would like would be a novel encyclopedia, or separate ones for different authors, such as Duane, David, and Shatner.

[Jabara Eris]

Last week I actually saw a new one -- yes, an official version of the Star Trek Encyclopedia! -- as a FREE CD-ROM add-on to a British magazine about computer programs on DVD -- which means it only works on computers that have a DVD drive. I didn't get it at the time -- it was $15, and I didn't happen to have it on me -- but I'm going back to Borders Monday to see if there's any copies left.

According to the description, it covered up to Voyager season 5.

Wait a second -- didn't the 1999 version cover that? Maybe it's just a DVD printing of the '99 version after all ... I'd better make sure one way or another before I buy it ...

Either way, it's got the whole thing on one disk (instead of two), so if you've got a DVD player on your computer it's a good deal. As soon as I find out the name of the magazine, I'll let everybody know.

Eris

[darkwing duck1]

My understanding (from reading interviews with the persons involved) is that there are NO current plans to update the Encyclopedia, Chronology, or to do any Tech manuals (updates or new ones).

Part of the reason is the publicly stated weariness of the authors at the painstaking amount of documentation required to do valid entries. The REAL reason (as anybody who's been following the behind the scenes soap opera that is the Trek production team) is the not-so-subtle pressure from on high to keep definitive Trek techno/historical material out of the hands of fans. Brannon Braga HATES continuity! Berman feels straight jacketed by it, and the PTB in the front office want to be able to get away with gross violations of it any time they think it profitable!

Thus their pronouncements that only what is actually aired ON SCREEN is "official" (even the Encyclopedia, et al fail this test). What makes it to the screen? Whatever they want, no matter how contridictory it is!

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Deo Vindice!

[Jabara Eris]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Jabara Eris:
Last week I actually saw a new one -- yes, an official version of the Star Trek Encyclopedia! -- as a FREE CD-ROM add-on to a British magazine about computer programs on DVD -- which means it only works on computers that have a DVD drive. </font>

Sorry. False alarm, guys.

I checked, and the free disk attached to the magazine is nothing but the 1999 version of the encyclopedia, just converted to DVD.

Oh, well.

Eris

[Miymaani]

Personally I think the Chronology is probably the most useful Trek gaming product <even if it wasn't meant to be such> ever devised. The real beauty of at least the older one is that the wide margins leave room to stick in Post-Its with data from one's games: I can stick in events from campaigns that I want to keep as history, and can put birth, death, and continuity data <Cpt Hammartrack enters academy, Dr. Sheehan escapes Ganymede, etc> right there alongside the 'canon' dates. It's excellent for character creation and creating realistic attitudes in NPC's: "I fought in the Tholian wars, son. Don't tell me about wierdness."

While most of what happenned in Voyager hardly relates to most campaigns I'd run, having a chronology of Starfleet and the Federation is indispensible, and I hope that whatever happens to Star Trek roleplaying, that they make use of it. The last ST game I ran used a world from my very first Star Trek roleplaying campaign, that was cobbled together from D&D and a bit of imagination.

I've run and played Star trek in that system, the FASA system, a homebrew "Gurps Trekmaster" <a Gurps-Fasa-Rolemaster hybrid,> and of course LUGtrek, which is the best yet...

In short, whatever happens to the systems, the game goes on, and it'd be too bad if the Chronology didn't go on as well. I'd still like to see one that goes to the end of the Dominion war, even if it didn't cover Voyager much. In the end, that series only covers a few characters doing things which may not affect the Federation for a long time to come... which may have everything to do with why the series proved unpopular.

I hope to see them get rid of the Borg, at least as a threat, because I think that enemy has lost its drama, and tempted the scriptwriters to make such creatures as Species 8472 or whatever, that seem to have taken the continuity toward a level wlike an RPG where the characters have become too powerful and only gimmicks can keep the challenge factor up.

I'm actually looking forward to a new series where they might go back into history and start asking questions like "How did this begin," and "Who are these people in the COuncil chambers in these movies?" "Where did they come from?"

[Weyoun11]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by darkwing duck1:
Brannon Braga HATES continuity! Berman feels straight jacketed by it, and the PTB in the front office want to be able to get away with gross violations of it any time they think it profitable!

Thus their pronouncements that only what is actually aired ON SCREEN is "official" (even the Encyclopedia, et al fail this test). What makes it to the screen? Whatever they want, no matter how contridictory it is!
</font>

Makes the former DS9 writing staff look like the "true prophets" of Trekdom as opposed to the current blasphemous pah-wraith like "we dunno where to go with this" Trek limbo hell the PTB regime has cornered Trek into. Braga "HATES" continuity? No wonder why I've DISLIKED Voyager....

"Put Janeway out of her misery."--Annorax (VOY "Year of Hell Part 2")

[AslanC]

I love the Encyclopedia. It has been a valuable resource in my campaign and will continue to be so. You know why? Becuase I ignore everything to do with Voyager

Voyager is a bad example of what happened to a good idea. DS9 started hard and redeemed itself in the last coupld of seasons, Voyager continues to blow chunks weekly on my TV (yet I watch it in morbid fascination).

Will there be another encycolpedia? I doubt it, but then this may just be what we need. Once they start killing off the side Trek stuff, the fans will begin making stuff again and then it will really be interesting

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Aslan Collas
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Star Trek:Strange New Worlds;
http://www.geocities.com/aslan_collas/
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Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

[Cochrane]

guys, guys... it can all be explained by time travel and alternate universes.

[Caretaker]

Like how history was rewritten in "Before and After", the two-part "Year of Hell", "Relativity", "Fury" and "Shattered"?