Star Trek 11

[Falconer]

According to The Making of Star Trek, the Klingons’ defining phrase was originally “Honor is a despicable trait”! I love how in TOS they always feared the Romulans, but they just hated those Klingons!

[K.G. Carlson]

Did you watched Enterprise? They tried to do a work around on this issue of the changes in the Klingon features from TOS to TMP and beyond - something to do with genetics.

Not 100% on the how or why, but it might be on Ex Astris.

I think it was a retro-virus dumped on the Klingons by those rampaging Khan brats, the Augments. I thought I'd read that this also explains the pre-Federation deep-seated loathing of humans by Klingons.

[Rotwang]

To be honest, I don't watch television very often, and I have not seen hardly any of the Enterprise episodes and only a few of the later episodes of TNG, DS9, and VOY. The mass majority of my information is from TOS and the first 6 movies and, now, the most recent movie.

[JALU3]

I would also like to include DS9 and Babylon 5 style settings where players might be engaged in commerce, whether legal or illegal, and I will need some system of exchange without keeping track of every credit or commodity that could possibly exist.

I'll bite. Lets look at what, then Cadet, Nog did in DS9. It need not be currency to trade, barter is a completely acceptable form of trade, all be it one that has less rules, subject to value judgments, and non standardized as such. A resourceful Starfleeter should be able to easily wrap their mind around the concept. The only thing that I saw was that there appeared to be a train of thought amongst Starfleeters that engaging in commerce, for the sake of profit or personal gain, was something below them.

[Tricky]

In the deleted scenes for the new Trek, you never see the Klingon faces; they are wearing helmets that have the ridges on them. While this was probably done by the creators as a way "keeping the peace" with fans.

I always thought that after the ENT episode that showed the changes in the Klingons, they should have said the neo-klingons had seized control of the empire, and that they were creating their own new empire, free of all the foolish trappings of the old one. That way, you explain why the TOS Klingons were nothing like the later ones.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I think a distinction between a particular goal of, say, acquiring a bottle of Chateau Picard '27 or whatever and the nonspecific, continuous accumulation of monetary assets beyond the capacity for personal use is probably made in UE culture. Scotty didn't buy a boat because he was rich; he bought a boat because he wanted to sail. Likewise, people who really love manageering or entrepreneurship probably join administraive organizations or start social collectives, or even act as administrative consultants on a freelance basis.

Upon further reflection, UE might also see the undemocratic methodology behind valuing currencies as oppressive, as well.

[Rotwang]

In any created work, the writer determines physical and metaphysical truths of his universe by fiat. These truths do not have to comport to what is known or believed to be true in real universe, but better universes are at least internally consistent with itself, and by fiat as an observer, I maintain that a universe cannot be inconsistent but people can be.

To muddy the water even further, real humans are by nature inconsistent and their metaphysical creations will bear those inconsistencies. In story writing, these inconsistencies are commonly referred to as continuity errors, and the inclusion of other co-creators can reduce some of the inconsistencies but will create more inconsistencies in the process. In observed media like movies, television shows, and novels, these inconsistencies can be easily glossed over by not highlighting them; however, in participatory media like roleplaying games and video games, these inconsistencies can become glaring quickly.

Follow my logic. Star Trek was initiated by Gene Roddenbery, but for purposes of this argument he is treated as only a co-creator since he had allowed other writers to write in his universe. If modern humans are inconsistent and Roddenberry and company are modern human, then they are inconsistent. If inconsistent humans create inconsistent metaphysical creations and the Star Trek universe is a metaphysical creation, then the Star Trek universe is inconsistent. If roleplaying games require more internal consistency than do observed media, then roleplaying game writers for Star Trek will need to determine the most consistent truth of the Star Trek universe. If you want this converted to symbolic logic, do it yourself, but I believe that you will find it to be sound.

To determine the truths of the Star Trek universe, we must first determine which evidences bear the the most weight. The three types of evidence are what was said by the writers, actors, and characters, what is actually observed within the Star Trek universe, and what can be observed in the real universe. We must also determine which sources are going to be classified as germane, and for the purposes of canonical Star Trek it would be best to limit sources to the live action TV series and the first ten movies, though my personal knowledge is limited to the first series, the first six movies, and the first few seasons of The Next Generation and Deep Space 9.

Regarding the weighing of evidences, our observations of the real universe is only valuable as much as we want to employ them in our own games and will not be employed here which leaves us with what was said, who said it, and what we observe. The statements of the writers need to be given reduced value because they are inconsistent and they don't live in the Star Trek universe. The statements of characters must be also be reduced in value because in many ways characters merely repeat the statements of their writers and will reflect their inconsistencies and, if written as well-rounded and interesting, will have internal inconsistencies. This leaves us with observation as having the greatest weight.

What can be observed? It can be observed is that Federation citizens have certain views of what is true of their civilization, but do other observations support their beliefs? The most contreversial issues are the existence of military organizations and commercial economics in the Federation. As much as I would like to avoid controversy, the discussion of anything else would be nonsensical.

I will deal with the military issue first. It has been implied, but I don't recall it being stated, that the Federation does not have a military organization and Starfleet is not a military organization. Starfleet is the only organization that can be truly observed, and I believe the nature of an organization is additive as represented by the sum total of its usage. The primary usages are exploration, scientific discovery, and diplomacy, but its usages do include military readiness and police enforcement. In addition, Starfleet regularly go around armed and Starfleet ships sport powerfully offensive weaponry. Non-military and non-police organizations do not regularly carry weapons. Based upon the above statements, Starfleet is a military and police force and in open space may be the only organization with that authority; therefore, the statement that Starfleet is not a military organization is purely semantic, and Federation citizens are self-deluded.

The commerce issue is stickier and any conclusions would be less conclusive due to limited evidence, but I will tackle the issue none-the-less. We have Admiral Kirk stating and implying that money is not used in his natural time period, and we have never actually seen a credit that I am aware of, but we have statements that credits exist and we have observations that some sort of trade takes place, but we do not see Starfleet personnel walking around with duffel bags full of trade goods. Though good arguments can be made for both the existence of something that works like money or a system that depends entirely upon the exchange of goods and services, I feel that the existence the money is stronger, and Federation citizens delude themselves by stating they don't use money.

I have stated two main problems that plague us as roleplaying game writers in trying write an internally consistent game using the Star Trek universe as our canvas. How do we use canonical information to write our stories consistently and write the stories we want to write? Part of the solution is that we have to selectively choose to ignore some parts of the canonical source. To make the issue more difficult (And, more fun in my opinion), we have to fill in the gaps that has not been filled by the writers. The combination of glossing over inconsistencies and filling in gaps are the opportunities that allow us to write the Star Trek universe in a way that reflect our combination of what we believe to be true and what we want to be true, and as long as you enjoy your own creations in spite of our own inconsistencies, there is no wrong solution to this problem, and my campaign, I am writing things in accordance to what I believe and want to be true for my own purposes. This is not intended as an attack against those who make different choices with different wants, beliefs, and purposes in mind.

[Rotwang]

I swear I did not start off with the intention of writing an essay.

[Tomcat]

So what you are saying is...

it is your game, so you can do what you want in said game with a group of players, as long as you stay consistant with the things you apply in said world with said players.

[Rotwang]

That is a good summation. I recently returned to college recently, and after getting my hand slapped for not elucidating my point many times, I guess I over-intellectualize things a bit.