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Old 05-17-2022, 12:34 AM   #31
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
This gets back to the “what Star Trek became” line.
Of course, every ST fan has a different opinion of what is the true and perfect ST show/episode/character/whatever, and which franchise represents the golden age.

People who can't get into a particular ST show aren't wrong, tastes just differ.

Any given ST franchise is going to tell different stories in different ways. That's not inherently good or bad as long as everyone involved tries to stay consistent with canon and respects the basic premise of "humanity gets its **** together and heads to the stars."
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Old 05-17-2022, 12:58 AM   #32
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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Of course, every ST fan has a different opinion of what is the true and perfect ST show/episode/character/whatever, and which franchise represents the golden age.

People who can't get into a particular ST show aren't wrong, tastes just differ.

Any given ST franchise is going to tell different stories in different ways. That's not inherently good or bad as long as everyone involved tries to stay consistent with canon and respects the basic premise of "humanity gets its **** together and heads to the stars."
To be fair, that's one of my problems with new trek: with the exception (so far) of SNW, it doesn't respect the basic premise of “humanity gets its **** together”. (It's also worth mentioning that SNW is the only one in the new batch that I consider to be good.) But to each their own: if there are people who like Discovery, Picard, et Al, have fun!

But that's beside the point. The point that I was contesting was the idea that Starfleet universe is somehow inferior to other Star Trek RPGs because it doesn't embrace the, in my phrasing, Renaissance Trek viewpoint. In short, I agree with your most recent statement that different fans will have different favorites, and that you shouldn't look down on another fan's favorite because it isn't yours. Prime Directive wasn't written with Renaissance Trek in mind; but that doesn't mean that it's a failure as a Star Trek esque RPG.
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Old 05-17-2022, 03:22 AM   #33
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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Prime Directive wasn't written with Renaissance Trek in mind; but that doesn't mean that it's a failure as a Star Trek esque RPG.
As an old SFB player and a GURPS player I would say that ADB would have loved nothing better to include Trek from The Motion Picture forward into their game.

Paramount would have litigated them into oblivion. I suspect they are not real thrilled with the only open ended permanent license to a Trek property on the books.

IIRC the license derives through the TOS Technical Manual and it relatively proscribed as to what they can touch. If they step over the line, well Paramount is not known for being reluctant to litigate.
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Old 05-17-2022, 03:29 AM   #34
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

That's probably true. But the effect is that the Star Fleet Universe made the most of its connections to TOS.
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Old 05-17-2022, 03:47 AM   #35
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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That's probably true. But the effect is that the Star Fleet Universe made the most of its connections to TOS.
Quite true. Merely pointing out those that have complained about the limitations of Prime Directive (which are the limitations SFB has to work within) really should just shoot at Paramount instead.

ADB is a small gaming company that has hung in for 40+ years (through a couple of permutations IIRC), they never had a dump truck of money to give Paramount for rights to post 80's Trek.

Paramount at any time could have (or could now) cut a deal for a small piece of what would likely be a pretty small pie. Just for the fans if nothing else. But...(censored due to poverty)...rather milk the cash cow.
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Old 05-17-2022, 06:18 AM   #36
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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"Continuity" and "Could it be our future" don't seem to be the same issue. Only the first of your starred items is one that I would call a matter of continuity.

which is why I said "Agreed but even before The Motion Picture Star Trek had continuity issues either with itself or with history up to that time:
"
Your second item doesn't seem to be a historical error, but a question of how the phrasing is meant. Uhura says "It's not the sun in the sky; it's the son of God." That does not assert that the ancient Romans, or this analogous society on another planet, didn't have solar cults; it asserts that this specific group of believers are not such a cult. (The early Christians were contamporaneous with Mithraists and with worshipers of Sol Invictus, but they worshiped the son of God, not the sun in the sky.)[/QUOTE]

You are looking at the wrong part of the episode. Here is the relevant part:
MCCOY: Odd that these people should worship the sun.
SPOCK: Why, Doctor?
MCCOY: Because, my dear Mister Spock, it is illogical. Rome had no sun worshipers. Why should they parallel Rome in every way except one?

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The points about twentieth century military and political history are attributible to differences of opinion, changes of interpretation, and/or scriptwriter ignorance (and failure of research). In dealing with such matters I think it's usually best not to take them literally as representing the factual state of affairs. I mean, back in the early days of New Teen Titans, they used to say that Cyborg's white noise generator put out a million decibels, and since decibels are a logarithmic scale (+10 dB multiplies power density by 10), that was louder than the Big Bang and would annihilate the Earth, and perhaps the entire Local Group; obviously that statement can't be taken literally.
Well comic book physics is wonky like that. I remember the Silver Age where characters would talk to each other in the vacuum of space. Besides who says their decibel scale is logarithmic? New-Earth had a different 12th amendment for example (theirs allowed meta-humans to protect their identities even when testifying in court)

Of course with all the technology around in either Marvel or DC you have a Reed Richards is Useless situation. Silver Age Superman was even worse as Krypton was likely TL9^ (they had a space program which they outlawed when Jax-Ur nuked Wegthor killing 500 people) and Superman either had or made some of this Kryptonian tech.

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As for the claim about German efficiency, one of the points of the script is that John Gill is an unsound historian. He may be akin to the people who believed for decades that the Soviet Union's centrally planned economy was, and indeed had to be, more efficient than the market economies of the West. Indeed, the National Socialist economy was centrally planned, and no less an economic figure than Lord Keynes wrote in the second edition of The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money that Germany was better suited than England or the United States to the implementation of his proposals because of its reliance on central planning. Perhaps the Federation also has economists who think that way.
SPOCK: I never met John Gill, but I studied Earth history from the text he prepared.
KIRK: I knew him very well. He was my instructor at the Academy.
SPOCK: What impressed me most was his treatment of Earth history as causes and motivations rather than dates and events.

Also the whole thing with City on the Edge of Forever had happen so Spock had a scan of history regarding just how efficient Nazi Germany really was. That epidoes also established that their WWII had to be radically different from ours because the rocket technology to make ICBMs didn't really become viable until the late 1950s

And given the thumbscrews the US was putting on Japan was with one of the Axis power would have happened in the 1940s even with Edith Keeler's peace efforts.
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Old 05-17-2022, 07:57 AM   #37
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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You are looking at the wrong part of the episode. Here is the relevant part:
MCCOY: Odd that these people should worship the sun.
SPOCK: Why, Doctor?
MCCOY: Because, my dear Mister Spock, it is illogical. Rome had no sun worshipers. Why should they parallel Rome in every way except one?
He's a doctor, not a historian!

More seriously, that's another case of the writer's ignorance, just like Victor Stone's million decibel white noise generator, or the murderer in one of the Wimsey novels who gained immunity to arsenic by dosing himself with it repeatedly. I don't feel the need to come up with Watsonian explanations for such things.
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Old 05-17-2022, 05:51 PM   #38
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

As far Star Trek as an RPG, Modiphius is producing some excellent items, with physical and electronic versions.

I was a long time player of the FASA version. Modiphius is taking its place.
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Old 05-17-2022, 08:38 PM   #39
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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As far Star Trek as an RPG, Modiphius is producing some excellent items, with physical and electronic versions.

I was a long time player of the FASA version. Modiphius is taking its place.
Before jumping on this one with both feet, check out Modiphius' 2D20 system. We did one session during their open Star Trek playtest and it worked better than I expected but soem of that was because I had very low expectations after reading the 40 pages of rules for rolling the dice.
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Old 05-18-2022, 01:12 AM   #40
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Default Re: What's happening with Prime Directive

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He's a doctor, not a historian!

More seriously, that's another case of the writer's ignorance, just like Victor Stone's million decibel white noise generator, or the murderer in one of the Wimsey novels who gained immunity to arsenic by dosing himself with it repeatedly. I don't feel the need to come up with Watsonian explanations for such things.
If we are going Infinite Worlds and assume the reality of Star Trek is "real" (ie a Myth parallel) going Watsonian comes with the territory.

Remember we have realities in the Infinite Worlds setting where physics is very different allowing Mars and Venus to support complex and intelligent life. Heck, Reich-5 likely come closes to being a Myth parallel (The Man in the High Castle)
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