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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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On the topic of weird alien sexuality, there's an amusing article that the GM could use for inspiration.

Some examples that could be used for Andorians:






Also gender and sex are two different things. Sex is pure biology, gender on the other hand is a cultural construct. Humans come with two sexes: male and female. But there are more than two genders, the Indian hijras, and Samoan fa'afafine are but two examples of a third gender.

So the writers fucked up there, for starters. It would have been pretty simple to limit the Andorians to two sexes, but have four genders due to how their culture evolved.

Honestly, having four sexes wouldn't even be so bad if they put any amount of thought into it. Evolution doesn't give a damn about how inefficient or complex something is as long as it works well enough to keep reproducing. The problem is that the writers didn't really do anything with the idea, so it's more of a goofy background detail that doesn't make much sense because we don't have much information about how it works in the context of Andorian biological and cultural evolution.

edit: Given how long this discussion has gone on, I feel like we should add 'Andorian sexuality' to the thread tags.
 
But seriously, yes that was a thing that they've run with. It was part of something else just as silly.
 
I vaguely remember something about the NX-02 crashing in the Gamma Quadrant and being found in the 24th century that I read in some EU thing long ago...

Of the EU things I did like, Articles of the Federation is a decent enough book imo, about a late 24th Feddie President's administration.
 
aeqnai said:
I vaguely remember something about the NX-02 crashing in the Gamma Quadrant and being found in the 24th century that I read in some EU thing long ago...

Of the EU things I did like, Articles of the Federation is a decent enough book imo, about a late 24th Feddie President's administration.
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It was a Calendar page. Yes seriously. That calendar inspired the story that has the MACO becoming the first Borg.
 
AKuz said:
It was a Calendar page. Yes seriously. That calendar inspired the story that has the MACO becoming the first Borg.
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...aaaand now I remember. A big illustration of Columbia half-buried in sand, from an old Ships of the Line calendar I must've seen... probably some time in elementary school, blimey.
 
There's more than a few good ideas in the Trek EU. I was fond of the A Time To... series, which had several excellent episode-format novels about the Enterprise, or the Titan books, which have Riker and Troi captaining a long-range explorer and a bunch of weird fun aliens. One of my favorite concepts came out of their big dumb Typhon Pact crossover, in which it was revealed that the Breen were a multispecies alliance similar to the Federation, but one which was as fanatical about equity as the Federation is about diversity and to that end maintain strict anonymity through their suits, which are actually designed to create the illusion that the wearer could be any one of their dozen member races.
 
aeqnai said:
...aaaand now I remember. A big illustration of Columbia half-buried in sand, from an old Ships of the Line calendar I must've seen... probably some time in elementary school, blimey.
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I mean it would be an interesting story to explore. The handling was just fucking insane tho.
 
Steven Kodaly said:
What 'bright spots' would you recommend? I'm sure we could mine them for ideas use some light reading for in-between turns.
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I have not read them in years, but standouts I remember include:

Uhara's Song
Dreadnaught! and Battlestations! (you may recognize some elements that were in the new Khan film)
The Kobayashi Maru (Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty also took the test)
Final Frontier (George Kirk and Robert April meet Romulans)
Spock's World (lots of Vulcan History)
 
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There is also the Rihannsu series that I've been rereading lately that is equal parts "Neat!" and "JESUSCHRISTWHUT". (I really should do the Let's Read that I've been threatening to do).
 
aeqnai said:
...aaaand now I remember. A big illustration of Columbia half-buried in sand, from an old Ships of the Line calendar I must've seen... probably some time in elementary school, blimey.
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[ten minutes and a google search later]

from Ships of the Line 2007
I was right, I would've been in 5th grade when this came out o_O
 
I have to give Star Trek credit for its visual design. You can look at any single ship in that picture and say, "Yep, that's a Federation ship all right."
 
Steven Kodaly said:
I don't believe that I've actually read this one, but I think it was one of Diane Duane's first novels, right?

This one I have read. Can confirm as fun. Also by Diane Duane.
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Okay she did the Rihannsu books too. Did those ones have as much Vulcan wank too?

"VULCAN GUN KATA FOLDED 1000 TIMES. 400 UNARMED VULCANS CAN SQUEEZE DOWN CORRIDOR DEFENDED BY ROMULANS WITHOUT DAMAGE" and "JET FUEL CAN'T MELT STEEL BEAMS BUT VULCAN BRAINS CAN MELT STARSHIP HULL AT SIGNIFICANT FRACTIONS OF A SYSTEM AWAY"

(Also torturing a screaming Romulan officer to death without even looking around for what they want first?)

(This is of course after Kirk has one of his officers pointlessly torture a Romulan as a first resort?)
 
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Steven Kodaly said:
I don't believe that I've actually read this one, but I think it was one of Diane Duane's first novels, right?

This one I have read. Can confirm as fun. Also by Diane Duane.
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Those were written by Diane Carey.

It was once said that 'You should read Trek novels written by Diane" as the Duane and Carey books were some of the better ones.
 
ClawClawBite said:
Those were written by Diane Carey.

It was once said that 'You should read Trek novels written by Diane" as the Duane and Carey books were some of the better ones.
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This tells you how long it's been since I've read any Star Trek novels. :oops:

AKuz said:
Okay she did the Rihannsu books too. Did those ones have as much Vulcan wank too?
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As I commented above, it has very clearly been awhile since I read Spock's World, and I don't believe I've ever read the Rihannsu novels. I do remember enjoying the snippets of pre-Surak* Vulcan history used as flavor to break up the 'Vulcan Secession' plotline, along with Bones McCoy saving the day.

* Read: hella destructive
 
Weirdly, that book has human first contact with the Vulcans be a UN ship running into a damaged Vulcan ship in deep space... a lil bit noncanon these days, that.
 
Steven Kodaly said:
This tells you how long it's been since I've read any Star Trek novels. :oops:


As I commented above, it has very clearly been awhile since I read Spock's World, and I don't believe I've ever read the Rihannsu novels. I do remember enjoying the snippets of pre-Surak* Vulcan history used as flavor to break up the 'Vulcan Secession' plotline, along with Bones McCoy saving the day.

* Read: hella destructive
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Man, Those Rihannsu books have some cray shit. A small sampling:

1) Vulcans posses psi comms capable of operating over interstellar distances before they had FTL. I'm talking phone up your pal via your buddy's brain two systems over levels.

2) Romulan fourth names that are carefully kept hidden and revealed to few... are descended from Internet handles. Yes apparently nowadays they'd rather dox themselves than tell you thier Internet handle!

3) Romulan religion (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) is evolved from Internet memes. Or at least one popular set of Internet memes. Within a single generation. (I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. THIS IS REAL. IN THE SERIES. I MEAN. NOT IRL. OR CANON. OR HERE. BUT IN THE BOOKS. THIS IS REAL.)
 
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AKuz said:
3) Romulan religion (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) is evolved from Internet memes. Or at least one popular set of Internet memes. Within a single generation. (I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. THIS IS REAL. IN THE SERIES. I MEAN. NOT IRL. OR CANON. OR HERE. BUT IN THE BOOKS. THIS IS REAL.)
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aeqnai said:
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4) ROMULANS ARE HUGE NERDS. Romulan is a conlang.

5) The Federation goes out of it's way to get McCoy picked up for war crimes and brought to Romulus. He is rescued by Starfleet and Rebel Romulans landing a Warbird on the Senate roof firing into populated ares and having a Horta murder/eat half the Romulan Senate. This is all to check to see if a low level spy doing social research has not gone native. (She actually sort of had? But it wasn't really a big deal)

6) By the Start of the next book the Romulans are at the brink of war with the Federation. The Federation is aghast by how aggressive the Romulans are. I dont know why either, but Maybe you shouldn't have shot up an ancient Capitol building, half the legislature, and destroyed shuttles over populated areas.
 
See now, if the Feds did that sort of shit in canon, it would totally justify how paranoid everyone is of them all the time.
 
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