Did anything from FASA make it into present continuity?

[rfmcdpei]

I recently posted a review at my blog of the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, drawing from this 2011 discussion thread. It made me wondering about some of its legacies.

As KingDaniel noted at the time, the Spaceflight Chronology had a considerable influence on the loose Pocket Books novel continuity of the 1980s--Final Frontier, The Final Reflection, Spock's World and Strangers From the Sky all include elements of the timeline and universe. This 1980s continuity has been superseded, first by Paramount's enforcement of its copyright in such a way as to ensure that the only stories told in the derivative media would be stories that couldn't contradict with the canon, second by the second novel continuity started in the late 1990s that built on the TV canon. Elements of the 1980s canon have been incorporated into the second, current canon, whether wholeheartedly (i.e. the heavy borrowing from Duane's Rihannsu series by Sherman and Shwartz in their Vulcan's ... series) as relatively minor homages (mentions of John Ford's Black Fleet and the Kinshaya).

A separate Star Trek continuity from the novels was also influenced by the Spaceflight Chronology, though, that of the FASA roleplaying game. A fair amount of material managed to get produced, ranging from Klingon modules partly co-written with Ford to FASA's own take on the Romulans and Orions to the neutral Triangle region at the intersection of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan spheres of space. (I own the Romulan and Orion modules, FWIW.)

Does anyone familiar with the setting if, akin to the 1980s chronology, anything specifically from the FASA RPG setting might have made it into the novels? Apart from a passing mention of the Romulan Great Brothers in one of the Romulan War novels, I can't think of anything.

[Avro Arrow]

One of the Vanguard novels featured a Loknar class frigate from FASA (but IIRC used a different spelling, namely Locknar, which I believe Dayton Ward mentioned was something from the movie Heavy Metal).

Cast No Shadow had a Riskadh class cruiser and some D-18 class ships, both Klingon vessels from FASA.

I know these are both ship examples, so I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, but it's all I can think of at the moment.

EDIT: one of the Titan novels had a Kasheeta crewmember, which I believe was a FASA-invented name for one of the background aliens in the council scene in TVH.

[RPJOB]

A Lotus Flower class ship, FASA's Kobayashi Maru type, was seen on a display in Conspiracy.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File...Conspiracy.jpg

[Therin of Andor]

The native populace of Andor is generally believed to have originated among the ice and glaciers of of the polar continent in the southern hemisphere. [The Mines of Selka (FASA, 1986).]

[James Swallow]

I used to play the FASA rpg and I have a lot of fondness for Spaceflight Chronology, so there are nods to both in my Trek fiction.

[King Daniel]

Not the novel continuity, but FASA's Leeding Engines Ltd (from their Federation booklet, also featured in Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise) was credited as the manufacturer of the new (JJ Abrams movie) Enterprise's FWG-1 warp nacelles in the now-defunct "Experience the Enterprise" holographic tour website.

[Christopher]

Avro Arrow wrote:

---

EDIT: one of the Titan novels had a Kasheeta crewmember, which I believe was a FASA-invented name for one of the background aliens in the council scene in TVH.

Yes, pretty much anything you see in the novels about the TVH background aliens -- such as Kasheeta, Arkenites, or Arcadians -- comes from the FASA sourcebook about them. Mainly since it's the only source of information about them, so why not use it?

[Deranged Nasat]

Avro Arrow wrote:

---

EDIT: one of the Titan novels had a Kasheeta crewmember, which I believe was a FASA-invented name for one of the background aliens in the council scene in TVH.

Titan has had two Kasheeta. The first was a female named Tylith, introduced in Orion's Hounds and killed off in Synthesis, the second is a male named Ot Rynaph, introduced in Seize the Fire.

On a related note, I want to see more of the Kasheeta. And the other underexplored Federation races.

[rfmcdpei]

rfmcdpei wrote:

---

Does anyone familiar with the setting if, akin to the 1980s chronology, anything specifically from the FASA RPG setting might have made it into the novels? Apart from a passing mention of the Romulan Great Brothers in one of the Romulan War novels, I can't think of anything.

On reflection, the Orion supplements might well have left a legacy. The two depict the Orions as a civilization with a long history, a species that barely survived slavery by offworlders in its distant past, later rising to heights but succumbing to a bit of a dark age.

[Christopher]

rfmcdpei wrote:

---

On reflection, the Orion supplements might well have left a legacy. The two depict the Orions as a civilization with a long history, a species that barely survived slavery by offworlders in its distant past, later rising to heights but succumbing to a bit of a dark age.

I did present Orion history in a somewhat similar way in Forgotten History, but any resemblance to FASA's version is purely coincidental. I was trying to come up with a justification for how the "Empire of Orion" mentioned in "Yesteryear" could be a totally lost civilization so that it would be safe to mess around in its history, and so that it would be obscure enough to justify risking travel through the Guardian to learn more about it. So I came up with the idea that they had an earlier civilization that was effectively eradicated by alien conquest, and that they got their slave-based culture from those conquerors. I don't know, maybe at some point I came across a reference somewhere to the idea of the Orions having been former slaves themselves, and subconsciously remembered it when writing FH, but I did not draw consciously or directly on FASA in any way. I guess the idea of multiple Orion skin colors/races that I alluded to was part of their version of the Orions, but I got it indirectly through novel and comics references (and I assume it was derived in turn from the blue-skinned Orions in "The Pirates of Orion," so there's some onscreen basis for it).

[Timo]

Indeed. The idea of Orion as a glorious and advanced empire of the past, now in ruins, is very much a canonical one, from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" before it made it into "Yesteryear"; in that sense, FASA material doesn't offer all that much original content. It just combines the slavery angle with the ruins angle, something the writers of further material would probably have been prompted to do in any case. But it all holds together pretty well in retrospect.

Timo Saloniemi

[rfmcdpei]

Christopher wrote:

---

I did present Orion history in a somewhat similar way in Forgotten History, but any resemblance to FASA's version is purely coincidental. I was trying to come up with a justification for how the "Empire of Orion" mentioned in "Yesteryear" could be a totally lost civilization so that it would be safe to mess around in its history, and so that it would be obscure enough to justify risking travel through the Guardian to learn more about it. So I came up with the idea that they had an earlier civilization that was effectively eradicated by alien conquest, and that they got their slave-based culture from those conquerors. I don't know, maybe at some point I came across a reference somewhere to the idea of the Orions having been former slaves themselves, and subconsciously remembered it when writing FH, but I did not draw consciously or directly on FASA in any way. I guess the idea of multiple Orion skin colors/races that I alluded to was part of their version of the Orions, but I got it indirectly through novel and comics references (and I assume it was derived in turn from the blue-skinned Orions in "The Pirates of Orion," so there's some onscreen basis for it).

I was initially thinking of Dave Stern in there being an Orion civilization fallen from its previous heights, FWIW.

[Christopher]

^Well, maybe I was subliminally influenced by something he wrote.

[RPJOB]

The Kinshaya did make it into the novels, although in name only. Other than the description of the ships they're nothing like what was described in the FASA Klingons supplement.

[Timo]

One of the Vanguard novels featured a Loknar class frigate from FASA (but IIRC used a different spelling, namely Locknar, which I believe Dayton Ward mentioned was something from the movie Heavy Metal).

...Also, the name of the particular ship in the novel was USS Akhiel, which is an acceptable alternate spelling of "Achilles" but not what FASA originally intended: their list of Loknar frigates included one USS Ahkeil instead. The other Loknar names in the FASA material were names of locations, not of people, and we can assume both Loknar and Ahkeil to be fictional locations. (Sure, there is bound to be a location or two named after Achilles somewhere...)

Timo Saloniemi