AndrewLyon

What do I mean by Transformation? Think of it like Transformers franchise, where the characters have an alt mode (i.e. your pony idea) and a humanoid mode for day-to-day interaction. You can write it into the character profile that the character prefers it in the alt mode, but can transform to humanoid form. That would solve the problem of the character really serving in deep space. I mean can you see a pony (even a robotic one) doing fine manipulating with tools? Or getting into small spaces? As per it being within the character's parameters, well we are getting there with cars transforming into humanoid forms, or cars transforming into planes so off hand I'd say it's plauseable.

Compu, Two criticisms, note I am NOT a GM in anyway/shape/form. Just an old simmer who retired from simming 15 years ago. In Star Trek we haven't seen any quaderped species yet (I have only watched TOS, ANI, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT). I haven't seen any in Star Wars, Andromedia, BattleTech, Star Gate (I watch too much sci-fi). I know Star Trek authors have had Horta characters on ships, but a quaderped is a whole load of problems. If you want to play the robot angle, transformation might solve this problem even if its short term. Since could you imagine a horse trying to move around a Starship or Starbase? The second thing is this feels like Data meets my Little Pony, since the crystal entity did destroy the colony he was being built on. Lost in space might work, or some rogue robot who can't remember who its creators are, and decides to enlist with the fleet as part of its self discovery. I have to assume that if you go deep enough into space you can leave almost any problem far behind you.

Just caught this off this off the wire. Streaming… the final frontier. Ever since Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, key players on the Star Trek feature franchise, moved to CBS TV Studios, there had been talk about them resurrecting the studio’s marquee title. Now the long-rumored new Star Trek TV series has become a reality as the first original series on CBS’ digital platform CBS All Access. Shepherded by Kurtzman, who will serve as executive producer, the series will premiere in January 2017 with a preview broadcast on CBS followed by an exclusive run in the U.S. on CBS All Access. Kurtzman and Orci have gone their separate ways in features. On the TV side, their company, CBS TV Studios-based Kurtzman/Orci Paper Products, is still intact though Kurtzman is expected to work solo on the Star Trek series as one of the projects under a separate deal with the studio. CBS Corp. had been high on rebooting Star Trek with a new series installment, which had been a goal for the company. “There is no better time to give ‘Star Trek’ fans a new series than on the heels of the original show’s 50th anniversary celebration,” said David Stapf, President, CBS Television Studios.“Everyone here has great respect for this storied franchise, and we’re excited to launch its next television chapter in the creative mind and skilled hands of Alex Kurtzman, someone who knows this world and its audience intimately.” http://news.yahoo.com/star-trek-tv-series-takes-153032696.html

Like countless people during Enterprise's run I didn't have access to it, wasn't going to pay $20+ extra a month for the Paramount channel. Now as a Christmas gift I received all 4 seasons on DVD, and I want to salute CBS for dropping the price on all the Star Trek seasonal DVDs to a reasonable price. That being said, does anyone understand why for season 4 she doesn't wear a normal uniform? Season 1 & 2, she was with Vulcan High Command, it made sense. Season 3, she's a civilian, once again makes sense. Season 4, she's with Star Fleet, heck when Archer doesn't have his rank tabs on she has hers on, but she doesn't wear the normal Star Fleet uniform. Anyone know why?

Back in High School when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and we connected with 14K modems, one of my goals was to collect all the Star Trek novels ever printed (gave up on Voyager). Recently with the addition of another book case I spent sometime on Amazon, and ordered some novels that were missing from my collection, and I hit a problem. I went to place the novel in order, but a book was already in it's spot, and it left me a bit confused. I checked inside the cover, and found out the book was printed in the UK. Seems the UK printed the novels in a different order than the Star Trek novels in North America were printed in. Well live and learn, live and learn. On a closing note, I have almost a complete set of every Star Trek (TNG, D.S.9, and NF) printed before the reboot of all three series a few years ago.

Chirakis, You are not the only one dusting off old books literally and figuratively. Now that I have ample shelf space (for now). I am reading my way though the Battletech universe, from the Forth Succession War to the end of the FedCom Civil war. When I have kids they will wonder what kind of man daddy is. He rides a mountain bike, reviews old games and toys, and knows how to repair almost anything. I mean the later part, fixed my cycling shoes, computer, and kitchen inside 24 hours. For all the faults of the 21st century, one thing I've got to approve of is the fact Amazon let's people self publish novels. Don't get wrong they all won't be good, they all won't make a lot of money, and odds are a load of them need editing, but with the software out there the editing can't be that bad. Anyone with a sharp eye has spotted plot holes, typos, and spelling errors in printed novels. It will also give those who dream a way to get out there and get noticed where before the door was closed because they didn't know the right people. I do write some fan stories and game reviews when I get the time as a chance to practise new methods of writing. I've come to realize after all these years if some kid wanted to skip doing his/her homework and had to do a writing assignment they might steal one of my stories. The story I am writing (when I get time) is a fantasy/fiction story, set in two worlds, one of which is Earth, Florida 1980s in a fictional city. I am touching up on several ideas like honor, and MAD. I mean Mutually Assured Destruction. Since the end of the cold war, not many people remember that little turn of phrase. I've seen two sides of the coin when it comes to reading and writing. In some parts of society its seen as an ancient skill, not one really required for the 21st century, soon to be cast aside like driving. While others are expecting it from our youngest members. I am one to believe that the demand for skill will only rise as does our technology, and our society evolves. In the western world the idea of earning a degree, and it being good for the length of 25 years in that role is dead. Only by self-educating ourselves can we keep pace, and to do that we need to know how to read, and by extension write. That's it for now, somehow I got a 5 page piece of fan fiction out before Legion launched, despite 60 hour work weeks. Got the genesis of the story in the shower, where else.;) Now a 20+ year old game is crying for me to review it.

Sadly due to this evil thing called work and "we need you to do triple OT" some things fell off my radar, but now that things are slowing down I can sit down and play catch up. Funny thing Chirakis even as I was working so hard I found a used bookstore that called to me like a siren to a sailor, where I found a used copy of Kahless, hard covered! Little over priced in my opinion for the book, but in excellent condition! As RPGers with our own characters we do have some idea of how hard professional authors have it. Since when we look at that blank screen we face the same questions they face when they start a novel. Yes I know there is a difference between a sim and a novel, but logs could be considered mini-novels. I hope like them when the story is right before us how good it feels, they have that same joy. To this day I wish I could recapture that magic I had when writing The Hunter Trilogy years ago. As an aspiring author, I'm not afraid to admit having taken ideas/character names from previous fan works of mine to help build a living breathing universe. Trust me on this one, as hard as it is to sim, to create a whole universe from the ground up is all the harder. Also hard when your flash drive doesn't save 10 pages of work when the juice is hot! One novel I failed to mention before that I do feel deserve mentioning is Star Trek #20: The Vulcan Academy Murders. Since usually we associate Star Trek with action/adventure, not mystery and romance. Jean Lorarrah without making it feel like a stretch or gaudy. She doesn't feel a need to play with all the characters of TOS crew, just three once they get past the main introduction. As a fan I find it interesting how the earlier novels seemed physically smaller, but still told a good story, while some of the later ones seemed to drag on too much for my tastes. One of Peter David's first book series I found to be his best is the Knight series which documents the problems of one Author Pendragon as he tries to handle the modern world where the world needs him, but has out grown him in a sense. Chirakis, I'll take your advantages of real books and raise you one. Power goes out, batteries drain away, but as long as there is light, and you have your sight, you can read any day. It shocks me in a sense how many people are illiterate in the western world today. To me it's as basic a skill as being able to walk, or feed yourself. Yes Google has audio input, and there are countless how to videos, but to truly work within the western world, to truly be understood, you need to be able to read and write, otherwise in a sense you are someone who is self crippled.

Chirakis, Truer words were never written, in regards to the questionable quality of some novels. I remember when I read Gene Roddenberry's authorized Autobiography, he tried to get approval right to all the Star Trek novels at the time, and have the right to also demand rewrites. The powers that be rejected his request (I need to re-read that book). Back then it would be hard, now it would be a daunting task with 2-3 new novels a month, and who know how many eBooks being green lighted. I feel there is nothing wrong in me saying more than a few novels I own, I have to ask who thought this was worthy of the Star Trek name. A good example would be Star Trek Deep Space Nine: #12 "The Laertian Gamble." The book is 273 pages long, and has 73 chapters in it. The core concept is weak (Dr. Bashir agrees to gamble for a woman Quark forbids to gamble, then her race's fleet show up and forces him to gamble under punishment of destroying D.S.9) to top it off the author brings in concepts that have no business being in Star Trek like a Ferengi priest that Quark borrows money from, and the priest does it without charging Quark interest! I felt the author had no business writing this novel in the first place, and lo and behold he is used to writing short stories, and never touched Star Trek before this novel. There are a few Trek authors who are regulars who I feel earn my hard earned dollars. Peter David (wishing him a speedy recovery), Michael Jan Friedman, L.A Graff to name a few. Actually disappointed to find out the New Frontier series went to eBook only status, need to find a place to print it up so I can read those novels.

With all honesty I am on the fence beyond the original pocket book run. Yes I have picked up a few novels from that era, the problem is understanding things in the long term. Much like the old Star Wars expanded universe, Star Trek EU has grown, and it's hard to pick up a novel sometimes and know where things are. Unlike the old novels they are rarely numbered. Which makes it hard for me as a reader & a collector to want to go out and buy them.

Odds are if you are a Star Trek fan, you are a fan over other series (my list is so long it is insane) but I digress. I recently picked up a new bookcase, and I posted on a Transformers Fans part of it some photos of the Transformers before the books. Most of the people gave thumbs up for the bots and how they looked. While one guy made comment he completely loved the Star Trek book collection he saw behind the bots. Sad fact is I have close two full book cases full of Star Trek novels, and I just ordered more from Amazon. I now admit it, I have a Star Trek novel addiction, but I don't think it's at the 12 step stage yet.;) The point being it's nice to see people online who are fans of one series can also be fans of other series as well.

Despite all the advances in subspace communication, news seemed to always reach those ears that needed to hear it as fast as possible. From depths of space a ship that hadn't been seen in the Alpha Quadrant for over a decade was caught on sensors blazing its way back to Earth via Quantum Slipstream drive. The ship, USS Party Crasher, her captain Andrew Lyon, late of Star Fleet. Lyon had joined the fleet during the Dominion War, when a client wanted several known felons captured, and brought to justice. Felons that various sources said were within the Fleet, given what these parties saw as Star Fleet's big red wall, they had helped Andrew Lyon join Star Fleet, with his alternative identity of The Hunter being something spoken of only at the highest levels of the Fleet, and then only whispered. This despite the unusual amount of personal equipment he brought with him. Lyon had stayed on with the fleet for four more years after the conclusion of the war, with an honourable discharge. He had come to realize in the post-war fleet his place was no longer there, despite the paydays. It was those old loyalties that brought him here today. The last ship he actively served on (even briefly) was the USS Reaent. It hadn't taken too much effort via subspace to get him access to the festivities of the fleet decommissioning the ship. With the Party Crasher safely landed on Earth, Andrew Lyon stepped off the transporter platform and mingled with the last crew of the Reaent as one of the countless guests in attendance. He wished he could say he saw a familiar face in the crowd, but he didn't. He ended up chatting up the late Chief of Security of the Reaent. It was only when he proposed a toast to their missing brothers did he realize how many people had come and gone over the years, and he couldn't help but wonder where they all were now. In an instant he saw the wrangled wreck of the Exodus crashed on some planet never to be recovered, stations abandoned by command over the years, friends killed in combat instead of returning to their loved ones. He gave a salute to Admiral Fred as he appeared before the crowd and gave his final speech as the commanding officer of the Reaent. Who knew, maybe one day the fleet would resurrect this command, and maybe recall some of her officers to action? It was hard to say how long Andrew stayed at the festivities marking the end of the Raeant's journey. Over the years he had developed the ability to become a ghost, seen, but unseen. All that can be certain is that at one point late into the night a single coin was found stuck with the date of commissioning, and the date of decommissioning of the Reaent close to where he had been mingling, and that the Party Crasher had reclaimed her own heading out into the depths of space, her master's journey continued.

Just like Star Wars fans from the 80s, Star Trek fans haven't had any new cannon materail in over a decade. No offence to the two Star Trek films relased, but a reboot does not make fresh materail. As I understand things, Star Trek Online is following one path, the novels are following another, while both connect to characters we knew and loved. Talk about a good way to leave a fan confused. What I am trying to understand is which one is considered "offical" for lack of a better term. As well is it just me or have both gone into a darker universe than what the TV series had? Yes, what Roddenberry said was true that books and cartoons are cheaper to produce than shows, but that doesn't account for the dark tones I've seen in both. I mean the more I read the novels, the more I can't help but see Andrew "The Hunter" Lyon alive, and well, and loving the universe that is there. Where a Dark Knight like his is welcome and almost needed by Star Fleet. One other thing that caught my attention about the novels is it seems everyone is having kids. I mean Picard and Crusher have Rene. Riker and Troi have Natasha, Data has Lal, both who came back from the dead, one via Dr. Noonian Soong, the other via Flint. I mean even Proffessor Moriarty has children, a hologram who now had a body thanks to Mr. Mudd. I can't help but wonder if all these children fill the void that kids do in Jurrasic Park/World which is to be innocent bystandard and get caught up in things outside thier respective control/responsibility. On a closing note about the young ones, anyone a bit distrubed that these carrier women who are in thier . . . older years for lack of a polite term are actualling having them? Or should motherhood have no date in the 24th century. I think I am now offically ranted/raved out. Blew my top, cooled down, still confused, and sorry if I played spoilers. Just had to get it out of my system.

Add one more kid to the mix, Leeta and Rom have a child. Here is hoping she takes after her mother.;) Here is a shocker to all the DS9 fans. Elim Garak is the head of the Caradassian Empire. Yes the man who one of the Obsidain Order's more elite operatives is now running the whole show. I suspect Dukat is spinning in his grave at that idea.:) If there is ever proof democracy isn't the perfect system it is in the fact that Garak is running the show now (he was elected to the job, after being the Ambassador to the Federation from the Empire/Union), and has diplomatic immunity. Who wants to place odds he pardons himself for crimes he committed as a memeber of the Obsidain Order?;) Just to fill more info. The Ferengi Alliance, the Caradassian Empire, both signed the The Khitomer Accords, along with the original signing Empire, the Klingons. Love to see all those races serving together on a Federation Starship.

A9, On August 8th, I tried to use the chat rooms via IE. and Firefox, and I couldn't get into them. Something about a HTTP: Authentication problem. I cleared both, updated java, no go. Good news is I ran a test before posting this, and via both browsers it worked fine.

It is rare that one role so defines an actor's life. With Leonard Nemoy he did countless roles both before, and after Spock. His two autobiographies include Spock in the title, this was the impact that the character had on the man. As a geek who has played countless hours of Civilization IV, who loved (and hated Transformers: The Movie) I saw how he tried to break out of that role, but because of the power of Spock it shaped his life, and I'd hope for the better. I feel sorry there is no second act that we can see now. There is no Genesis Planet looking to remake the flesh, and a Vulcan healer looking to merge body and spirit to make one. Mr. Nemoy, rest in peace, and may some of your last messages fall on ears that need to hear them, and may you never be forgotten.

I collect Transformers (my love before Star Trek), so I was looking for new bots for my collection when I look at the Hotwheels. I saw Hotwheel cars done I Star Trek the original series (not the reboot) theme. With each character getting his/her own car.

Anyone who reads and watch's stuff other than Star Trek will see characters, an go "what if", a deadly phrase if I ever heard one. Well, I have a match up of pure intrigue. In this corner hailing from Cardassia Prme, Elim Garak. He was a Tailor, a Gardener, and a member of the Obsidian Order. In this corner hailing from New Jersey of the planet Earth. I give you Dr. Gregory House, Head of Diagnostic Medicine. Why do I think these two would make a great match up in the "what if" sense? Simple. House says everybody lies, while Garak loves lies. Where would a conversation between these two go if it were to happen?

I am a fan of several different franchises of science fiction, and I have a question here. Would we really unite if we made it into deep space? Would it be to our benefit to unit? I ask this since like anyone, I can look at the different forms of government and cultures, and something hit me. Maybe the way the US of A does things isn't perfect. Maybe you need communism, or monarchies, or dictatorships to handle the culture in question. Let's look at history for a moment. Rome started off as a democratic nation, with checks and balances to handle power. As a nation is grew physically and proportionally outside the limits of what democracy could, so it became an Empire. I am not saying that democracy is bad, but given voter dissatisfaction these days, it is hard not to wonder if there isn't a problem with the system as it relates to the governed. You don’t see the change into the new system until you cross that divide. It makes me wonder if while liberty is good for us, it is really that good for others. I mean the US has the most people in prison per capita on the planet. . I can’t help but think if we make it into traveling between start systems if maybe, maybe we need this diversity for both our good as a species so we can understand others, and because we are all different culturally as well.

A little well earned rest, been putting in some 40-60 hour weeks with my "part-time" job, despite not being employed full time technically. I have no desire any trips of any kind. I drive for a living, so I think that's understandable. My two things to do are the following: Make some headway on a project that could have some big results. I am not even at the "proof of concept" stage yet. Play a little "Transformer" restoration, ordering parts, stickers, and such to make these titans stand proud once again.

I guess with all the Star Trek novels I've been reading recently, an idea crossed my mind. How much Star Trek has impacted the 20th/21st century? We have Cell phones. We have people developing real tricorders, as in it will be ready within 2-5 years. We have computing technology that even at the start of the 80s would be considered impossible. In some ways the touch screen we take for granted is from the Next Generation. ATI is working on making the first holodecks within 20 years. People have linked here about cloaking devices and wrap drives. I can't help but wonder if Paramount missed Star Trek's calling to us as a culture. It's not about Kirk, Picard, Archer, and so forth. It's about the possibilities of what can and cannot be done with technology. I am wondering now if maybe, we need Star Trek on the air, a new series, a new center seat. Not so much as to inform us of the latest adventures of the good ship/station X, but instead to inspire us to make the impossible possible.

Looks like the guys at CBS might've read this, according to Yahoo Robert Orci is trying to sell them on a relaunch of the TOS.

<<Caught this story earlier on Yahoo> At the 100 Year Starship Symposium this weekend, scientists, astronauts and other space enthusiasts met to discuss the future of human space travel beyond our solar system and to another star. The biggest challenge to overcome for this kind of space travel is the time it would take to reach the intended destination. The New Horizons spacecraft, the latest mission to travel to the edge of the solar system, was launched in January of 2006 to investigate Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and is only now, over six and a half years later, reaching about the halfway point to its destination. In science fiction, we'd just engage the hyperdrive, or power up the warp core, but that does us little good when we really need science fact. In 1994, a Mexican scientist by the name of Miguel Alcubierre came up with a real-life concept for a warp drive. The problem with developing the technology was how much energy it required. The minimum amount of energy to power such a drive would, by the mass-energy equivalence of Einstein's equation E = mc2, consume the planet Jupiter. The ship design wouldn't look anything like what Kirk and Picard commanded, though. The closest thing I can find is a Vulcan ship from the Star Trek: Enterprise tv-series — a roughly football-shaped vessel encircled by a ring, possibly constructed of currently-hypothetical 'exotic matter,' which would bend space around it while the ship inside the ring would remain safe from any warping. Harold White, of NASA's Johnson Space Center, recently tweaked the design of the Alcubierre warp drive, changing the original flat ring that encircled the ship to more of a rounded donut. That change reduced the mass-equivalent energy needed to power the drive from the planet Jupiter down to the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had a mass of 722 kilograms. This put the idea of an Alcubierre warp drive far closer to the reach of science. The basic idea behind the warp drive, both in Star Trek and in the real world, is a manipulation of a loophole in the laws of physics that govern space and time. "Everything within space is restricted by the speed of light," said Richard Obousy, president of Icarus Interstallar, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to achieving interstellar flight by the year 2100. "But the really cool thing is space-time, the fabric of space, is not limited by the speed of light." If you could manipulate the fabric of space-time, contracting it in front of your ship and expanding it behind your ship, the amount of space-time between you and your destination would shrink and the amount of space-time between you and your origin would expand. Even though your ship did not actually move in any conventional sense — you didn't move from your location in space, but moved space around your location — you would still end up at your destination, light-years away from where you were. This new 'Alcubierre-White' warp drive is currently being tested, in miniature form. "We're trying to see if we can generate a very tiny instance of this in a tabletop experiment, to try to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million," White said. The idea behind all this may seem silly, but if the human race is ever to achieve space travel beyond our solar system, and be able to visit even the closest of our stellar neighbors, this is what it's going to take to achieve that. "If we're ever going to become a true space-faring civilization, we're going to have to think outside the box a little bit, were going to have to be a little bit audacious," Obousy said.

Like a load of other people I have a huge VHS collection. I have the original Star Trek movie collection, I to Generations. I am really considering selling them and upgrading to DVD. Does it have any value finically?

Wonder what is says about me that I have 2 VHS players still hooked up...

Wikipedia, and a few other sites have been my best friend on keeping up with the "expanded" universe that is Star Trek these days. I have better luck on being arrested for not using my turn singels than I am for finding new English books in Québec. I just read they resurrected Katherine Janeway, and I am wondering why? I am not going to play spolier, but why bring back the Captain of one of the least liked series out there?