FASA's Star Trek was the best

[Dayton3]

I didn't want to put this in gaming because I never actually played the FASA Star Trek role playing game.

Nor in Trek literature because it doesn't really fit there.

But I think that FASA's interpretation of the Trek universe was best.

Most of FASAs material was set after the original series ended. Primarily between the The Wrath of Khan up until The Voyage Home.

The thing that FASA did was make Star Trek very realistic and understandable to me. The characters they created were believable. They designed their version of the Federation with a believable political system and even more importantly, a believable economic system.

In FASA's Star Trek, politicians still troll for votes, people still get rich (or poor), and starships actually cost money.

It outclasses any of the "Federation utopia" crap that Michael Piller and company insisted on having in later Trek series.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

It outclasses any of the "Federation utopia" crap that Michael Piller and company insisted on having in later Trek series.

in the interest of giving credit to those who deserve it, it was Gene Roddenberry who insisted on that crap, Piller and co just ran with it.

 

[Dayton3]

It outclasses any of the "Federation utopia" crap that Michael Piller and company insisted on having in later Trek series.

in the interest of giving credit to those who deserve it, it was Gene Roddenberry who insisted on that crap, Piller and co just ran with it.

Roddenberry made vague references to that crap while he had one foot in the grave.

Star Trek producers had no problems ignoring Roddenberry when it suited him.

The deceased Michael Piller contributed all sorts of terrible ideas and concepts to Star Trek.

 

[JNG]

A moneyless economy is no more or less realistic than a faster-than-light drive. Why would anyone think money was a great thing to orient a Trek episode around anyway? Far too many of their adventure publications made this mistake, along with taking a far too militaristic view of Starfleet, utilizing weak revisitations of TV episode plots, and setting everything in "the Triangle" all the time.

FASA's product got the success it deserved, which is to say not very much. It is chiefly remembered today for ship designs. The Klingon ones were a mixed bag, their Starfleet ships were a boring collection of saucer and nacelle copypasta roughly as "creative" as most fan designs, and their attempts at Next Generation-style starship designs could not have been less successful. However, some of the Romulan ships were cute, and the Orion ones too.

 

[Redfern]

The thing I remember most was turning the Caitians, M'Ress' species, into an entire planet full of vegetarians by the time FASA had to give up its license. When first introduced in the game, I could understand the company throwing in the cultural twist by having a small faction of the populace giving up meat, especially if we are to assume this feline-like race developed from carnivorous stock. But due to what I can only assume was a misreading of the original description, the last edition rule books stated the entire race had given up meat. With all due respect to the creators of the game, that totally adled my brain.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Michael]

The thing I remember most was turning the Caitians, M'Ress' species, into an entire planet full of vegetarians by the time FASA had to give up its license. When first introduced in the game, I could understand the company throwing in the cultural twist by having a small faction of the populace giving up meat, especially if we are to assume this feline-like race developed from carnivorous stock. But due to what I can only assume was a misreading of the original description, the last edition rule books stated the entire race had given up meat. With all due respect to the creators of the game, that totally adled my brain.

Sincerely,

Bill

What about the Vulcans then?

 

[Kegek]

The point of this additional material was to provide a background for the game, right? Why then were you interested if you never played the games?

in the interest of giving credit to those who deserve it, it was Gene Roddenberry who insisted on that crap, Piller and co just ran with it.

Roddenberry made vague references to that crap while he had one foot in the grave.

Nonsense. He lived for five years during TNG; and he wrote and co-wrote some of the show's episodes. If anything, there's an uncomfortable relationship with the legacy of hyper-utopia shown by Piller and others than a slavish adherence thereto. One of the very first ideas Piller introduced was a simple but nuancedly negative one: In the future, baseball is extinct. DS9, which Piller co-created had a more critical view of the Federation, and there was an attempt at a similar ideological clash with the Maquis, who he helped develop for VOY. At best, one can criticise those who ran the franchise after Roddenberry to have adhered to his vision, and only partly at that.

Under Gene's brief run of dominance in TNG (early S1 to be exact), Riker baldly stated that replicators had replaced the need to enslave animals for food. While avoiding the subject of meat, from the Piller era on references to replicated food being less than adequate were frequent.

Whatever your opinion of Trek's utopianism, give credit or blame where it is due: Gene Roddenberry.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Well, Kegek, I never played the game but back in the late 80s I bought the Federation Ship Recognition Manual. Stranger things have happened.

I liked the design of the ships and their back stories. I particularly liked the Chandley class. The Romulan Nova wa nice too. There used to be a hobby shop in Winnipeg that had all of the miniatures displayed beautifully.

 

[Dayton3]

A moneyless economy is no more or less realistic than a faster-than-light drive. Why would anyone think money was a great thing to orient a Trek episode around anyway? Far too many of their adventure publications made this mistake, along with taking a far too militaristic view of Starfleet, utilizing weak revisitations of TV episode plots, and setting everything in "the Triangle" all the time.

FASA's product got the success it deserved, which is to say not very much. It is chiefly remembered today for ship designs. The Klingon ones were a mixed bag, their Starfleet ships were a boring collection of saucer and nacelle copypasta roughly as "creative" as most fan designs, and their attempts at Next Generation-style starship designs could not have been less successful. However, some of the Romulan ships were cute, and the Orion ones too.

Incorrect in all respects.

FASA wisely divided the structure of Starfleet into Military Operations, Galaxy Exploration, Merchant Marine, and Colonial Operations branches.

Several of the FASA adventures were so good ("Where Has All The Glory Gone" for example) that they would've made great television episodes.

 

[Anwar]

Sure, if you think that the 23rd Century should be exactly the same as the 20th century despite the fact that humanity had been exposed and co-existing with alien cultures and had access to unheard of technologies for so long you'd think some things would be different.

 

[Unicron]

* shrugs* Well, for all its faults, I do enjoy a lot of the FASA Trekverse. I felt like they made an honest attempt to keep things reasonably consistent with the Trek universe that existed then (TOS and the early movies) and they helped keep some fans interested in the series. FASA's RPG was far from perfect, but I don't feel like they created any new problems.

 

[FalTorPan]

I liked the FASA game a lot.

 

[Sharr Khan]

The thing I remember most was turning the Caitians, M'Ress' species, into an entire planet full of vegetarians by the time FASA had to give up its license. When first introduced in the game, I could understand the company throwing in the cultural twist by having a small faction of the populace giving up meat, especially if we are to assume this feline-like race developed from carnivorous stock. But due to what I can only assume was a misreading of the original description, the last edition rule books stated the entire race had given up meat. With all due respect to the creators of the game, that totally adled my brain.

Sincerely,

Bill

What about the Vulcans then?

Well if Caitians are the least bit like any other feline (and why wouldn't they be?), vegetarianism would be very unhealthy diet for them.

I also don't see any reason all Vulcan's are vegetarians either. A point that I don't think ever entered canon until Enterprise as far as I'm aware and in that instance it was regarding a specific person (T'Pol).

Kegek is right in that GR was the big force behind the utopianism in later day Trek, but what was worse all those who took the reigns after clung to the notion making it a straitjacket and an excuse to not break the mold.

Sharr

 

[Dayton3]

Sure, if you think that the 23rd Century should be exactly the same as the 20th century despite the fact that humanity had been exposed and co-existing with alien cultures and had access to unheard of technologies for so long you'd think some things would be different.

The 23rd Century in FASA was NOT exactly the same as the 20th century.

But FASA took a slower, more evolutionary approach to the changes in human society, politics, economy, and culture than onscreen Star Trek did.

It seemed far more believable.

FASAs Star Trek economy was alot more realistic and reasonable that onscreen Star Treks economy of "replicators are miracle machines"

 

[Michael]

Well if Caitians are the least bit like any other feline (and why wouldn't they be?), vegetarianism would be very unhealthy diet for them.

Why?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Well if Caitians are the least bit like any other feline (and why wouldn't they be?), vegetarianism would be very unhealthy diet for them.

Why?

Cats are obligate carnivores. Even more than dogs--which are more omnivorous, though not so much as bears and humans--a cat's anatomy is geared toward the capture, killing, ingestion and digestion of animals. Funny, though--I did once see a cat in South Philadelphia raiding a back yard fig tree.

Back to FASA: the Klingon culture John M. Ford developed for them was somewhat superior to what we saw in Modern Trek even though Moore used Ford's Klingons as inspiration (just not so much as to actually pay him, I guess).

 

[Cyke101]

-utopia shown by Piller and others than a slavish adherence thereto. One of the very first ideas Piller introduced was a simple but nuancedly negative one: In the future, baseball is extinct. DS9, which Piller co-created had a more critical view of the Federation, and there was an attempt at a similar ideological clash with the Maquis, who he helped develop for VOY. At best, one can criticise those who ran the franchise after Roddenberry to have adhered to his vision, and only partly at that.

Under Gene's brief run of dominance in TNG (early S1 to be exact), Riker baldly stated that replicators had replaced the need to enslave animals for food. While avoiding the subject of meat, from the Piller era on references to replicated food being less than adequate were frequent.

Whatever your opinion of Trek's utopianism, give credit or blame where it is due: Gene Roddenberry.

Drat, Kegek beat me to it: Piller helped create DS9, which basically shot down many notions of perfection that TNG had built up to that point. Conspiracies, back-stabbings, politics, even good ol' fashion interpersonal conflict came back.

 

[Anwar]

Piller's interpretation of Gene's "Utopia" was that the humans believed that they had evolved and stuff, but they really hadn't and when push came to shove they'd show it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It outclasses any of the "Federation utopia" crap that Michael Piller and company insisted on having in later Trek series.

Yeah, that's why it was so much more successful.

 

[Dayton3]

It outclasses any of the "Federation utopia" crap that Michael Piller and company insisted on having in later Trek series.

Yeah, that's why it was so much more successful.

Success and quality are not necessarily related.

Seven years of Voyager proves that.