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McCoy: Frontier Doctor....

So I suppose it could be entirely possible that in our first exposures to an alien race that they could all seem to look alike or very much so.

And vice-versa. The ENT Andorians refer to humans as "pink-skins," even though quite a lot of us aren't pink.
 
So does he explain the differences at all? I see the mention of some House something, so does that mean they're different races?

Nope. They are just standing there, a group of interrelated Andorians, with at least two antennae types, as matter-of-factly as if a group of blond, redheaded and brunette humans were there.

In Heather Jaman's "Andor: Paradigm" (WoDS9 Book 1), she does sort-of suggest that various costume types we've seen on canonical Andorians are favoured by certain sexes. ie., one group tended to wear the suede and chainmail of TOS, one the dark leathery jumpsuits of ENT, and one the flowing gowns on the women in TMP.
 
I'd be interested to see Byrne write a 22nd century pre TOS story that essentially ignored ENT and whatever else contemporary Trek references. I suspect it would rock.
 
I'm now considering ordering Byrne's Assignment: Earth trade.
Let me recommend it! All Byrne's Trek material has been outstanding, really capturing the feel of TOS. Assignment: Earth is probably my least favorite of his four IDW Trek projects, but that's really not a complaint. Romulans and Crew, both of which are more traditional Trek stories in the TOS mold "do more" for me, but all the series are great!
 
I'm now considering ordering Byrne's Assignment: Earth trade.
Let me recommend it! All Byrne's Trek material has been outstanding, really capturing the feel of TOS. Assignment: Earth is probably my least favorite of his four IDW Trek projects, but that's really not a complaint. Romulans and Crew, both of which are more traditional Trek stories in the TOS mold "do more" for me, but all the series are great!
I've ordered it.
 
I am going to have to get this now, after your glowing report of it, Warped9... you've got me interested.

BTW, do you have a link to where I can order his Captain April-era stories, or the name of them?
 
I am going to have to get this now, after your glowing report of it, Warped9... you've got me interested.

BTW, do you have a link to where I can order his Captain April-era stories, or the name of them?
I don't know of any Captain April stories. He did write a collection called Star Trek: Crew which depicts the rise of Number One from "The Cage" from graduating the Academy to getting to the Enterprise under Pike. It's quite good. You can order it from Amazon same as I did.

Byrne is only interested in the TOS/TMP era (he's said so himself) and he's obviously got a feel for it. His Star Trek: Romulans - Pawns Of War is also very good and feels right even if I could quibble with some of his ideas in that one. There we get a perspective of the Romulan encounters with the Enterprise and the Federation from the Romulan perspective.
 
^

The Crew story must have been what I meant, as you mentioned it earlier. I will certainly look for it, as I'm pretty interested in the pre-Kirk TOS-era stuff, but like I said... if you think his work feels right for the era, and that he "gets" the characters and setting, I will certainly like all his stuff as well.
 
I liked his background for "Balance Of Terror." He picks up on the hints and subtext from the Romulan Commander and his Centurion and weaves an interesting situation leading to the mission that sets the BoP on its inevitable encounter with the Enterprise.
 
I am going to have to get this now, after your glowing report of it, Warped9... you've got me interested.

BTW, do you have a link to where I can order his Captain April-era stories, or the name of them?

I am going to have to get this now, after your glowing report of it, Warped9... you've got me interested.

BTW, do you have a link to where I can order his Captain April-era stories, or the name of them?
I don't know of any Captain April stories. He did write a collection called Star Trek: Crew which depicts the rise of Number One from "The Cage" from graduating the Academy to getting to the Enterprise under Pike. It's quite good. You can order it from Amazon same as I did.

Byrne is only interested in the TOS/TMP era (he's said so himself) and he's obviously got a feel for it. His Star Trek: Romulans - Pawns Of War is also very good and feels right even if I could quibble with some of his ideas in that one. There we get a perspective of the Romulan encounters with the Enterprise and the Federation from the Romulan perspective.

^

The Crew story must have been what I meant, as you mentioned it earlier. I will certainly look for it, as I'm pretty interested in the pre-Kirk TOS-era stuff, but like I said... if you think his work feels right for the era, and that he "gets" the characters and setting, I will certainly like all his stuff as well.
I thought the April thing sounded familiar so I check on Memory Beta, and apparently one of the three series that he has coming out in the future
will conclude at about the time Robert April took command of the Enterprise
. He's also doing a secon Assignment: Earth series and a series that will feature Kirk at the Academy.
 
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Great news about the April story... thanks for sharing that!

IDK about the Assignment: Earth follow-up or prequel... that TOS episode is one of my least favorites, and IMO, never had to be made in the first place... it was an hour of indecision and story going nowhere.
 
^^ Well, of course, it was something of a backdoor pilot episode for a series concept. And probably cheaper to make than a made-from-scratch pilot episode. But it did have some interesting ideas and while I'm not sure whether I'd be into an entire series based on it seeing what Byrne does with it could give us a clue as to what it might or could have been like.
 
IDK about the Assignment: Earth follow-up or prequel... that TOS episode is one of my least favorites, and IMO, never had to be made in the first place... it was an hour of indecision and story going nowhere.

That's a common problem of backdoor-pilot episodes. The premise requires that the guest character (who'd be the star of the putative spinoff) do the heroic stuff, so that means the regular stars must be either largely absent or largely ineffectual.

But then, Byrne's A:E issue 2, which shows Gary and Roberta during the events of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," has the complementary problem -- Gary and Roberta have to be passive observers in their own story, since Kirk and crew are the ones getting everything done. So it kind of balances out.
 
^^ Actually you touch on one thing that I kinda didn't like in Byrne's Romulan stories. In some of them we saw a little too much of Kor, Kang and Koloth. It felt too much contemporary Trek like in that the same few people seem to be involved in everything and know everyone else. I'd rather that he had minimized the use of the familiar Klingons or better yet introduced new characters. It was just a little too cute-and-tidy for my taste even though I liked the stories.
 
John Byrne has a site called Byrne's Robotics with forums for discussing all manner of things and where you can see samples of his art as well as discussions regarding some of his work and projects.

Some links:
website: http://www.byrnerobotics.com/home.asp
Star Trek discussions: http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=11
Star Trek art: http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/oa/idw/idw-trek/
http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/sketches/sketch-idw/

I must say I quite like Byrne's starship designs. They have a genuine feel to them that looks right for the era.
 
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IDK about the Assignment: Earth follow-up or prequel... that TOS episode is one of my least favorites, and IMO, never had to be made in the first place... it was an hour of indecision and story going nowhere.

That's a common problem of backdoor-pilot episodes. The premise requires that the guest character (who'd be the star of the putative spinoff) do the heroic stuff, so that means the regular stars must be either largely absent or largely ineffectual.

But then, Byrne's A:E issue 2, which shows Gary and Roberta during the events of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," has the complementary problem -- Gary and Roberta have to be passive observers in their own story, since Kirk and crew are the ones getting everything done. So it kind of balances out.

Yeah, I realize that "Assignment: Earth" was indeed intended as a backdoor pilot, and aye, it's probably why I disliked it, due in large part to the points you mentioned above... it wasn't Kirk and friends who were doing all the fun stuff.

I DID like how for once, the Enterprise crew found themselves on the other end of a kind of "Prime Directive mentality", in the sense that they could not be told what was going on... I thought that was good.

But in terms of overall plot and story, I just didn't feel anything for that episode, because IMO, it was a waste of what could have been an hour of otherwise entertaining and captivating drama. Instead, what we got was an hour of Kirk and Co. bumbling around and not getting anything done, and by the end of the episode, nothing was really resolved.
 
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