The Cardassians aren't too eager to depart with the Orb:
Tactical action by the away team allows a swift departure from the asteroid:
Friday, September 30, 2011
Cardassian Dance Party
A few crew members depart to take care of some prior engagements:
The Cardassians aren't too eager to depart with the Orb:
Tactical action by the away team allows a swift departure from the asteroid:
The Cardassians aren't too eager to depart with the Orb:
Tactical action by the away team allows a swift departure from the asteroid:
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Stick-stem Shock 2
Things start to go wrong:
A member of the team takes home a souvenir of a successful mission:
A member of the team takes home a souvenir of a successful mission:
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Mothma Review: Unknown Alien Ship
The Dominion.
A vast empire grown up on the far side of the galaxy, a huge new group of alien races, creating technology and ships the likes of which we've never seen.
Of course, right now we don't know much about them. They won't let us test fly their ships, and any attempt to maneuver side by side with them seems to end in phaser fire.
So what, then, are their capabilities? Are they fast? Slow? Maneuverable? Comfortable?
To find out, there was only one place to go: The Gamma Quadrant. That hot bed of Dominion activity. If I was going to see one of those Dominion ships for myself, it would be there.
We got there the same way any proper Starfleet ship would: we followed a distreses beacon. At the beacon we found, well, a Dominion Ship.
It wasn't at all what I had hoped. Its life support systems were rubbish, it had a top speed of zero, and it had the hull integrity of swiss cheese.
To be fair, it was also crashed into the side of an asteroid.
Now you might think that this would be the worst Dominion ship we would see on that trip, but you'd be wrong. That award goes to this thing! (Insert picture here.)
This hideous, blocky thing can reach a top speed of a mind bending warp 4. It has the turning capacity of a fully loaded Bolean freighter with one engine out in a gravity well. It has comfortable seating for a vast crew of zero, and then only if they don't mind phasing out of reality every now and then.
Alright, so its big, slow, and you can't get into it. But what about weapons systems? If it isn't a cargo ship, it must have some of those, right?
Wrong. This stunning vessels weapon load-out is... nothing! It's like a ship a Ferengi would have built for a Klingon on a low bid, if the Romulans were paying him better under the table.
Now at this point, I imagine you're thinking "This can't possibly get any worse, can it?" or perhaps "If you can't get in, how do you steer the thing?"
Now if you've been paying any attention to our reviews, you probably have a pretty good idea by now that we have a bit of irritation with modern steering programs. Ships computers try to take over every bloody part of flying the ship, telling you when you aren't supposed to go faster, don't turn at that velocity, the G-force is too strong and what if someone in the ship has a pet cricket, all that sort of nonsense. There's all this rubbish between you and the ship when, really, all you need is a couple of warp nacelles and a decent pilot.
So you can imagine our delight to learn that this particular ship is flown by... an artificial intelligence!
That's right! There's not a person on board that ship at all!
And it gets better! You might think that the only possible reason to have an artificial intelligence for a pilot would be to get them to follow orders, to stop whining and fly the damn ship sort of thing. But you'd be wrong. Because this designer, this Dominion designer, must have decided that the trouble with human pilots is that they get all this confidence and skill, and that they don't spend nearly enough time whining and panicking.
Let me tell you, they have that problem solved.
So if you want a ship that can't go anywhere, couldn't get you there if it could, and will complain at you the whole way, then the Dominion has the ship for you.
If you want a ship that does something useful, you'd be better off, and I can't honestly believe I'm about to say this, in a Federation ship.
A vast empire grown up on the far side of the galaxy, a huge new group of alien races, creating technology and ships the likes of which we've never seen.
Of course, right now we don't know much about them. They won't let us test fly their ships, and any attempt to maneuver side by side with them seems to end in phaser fire.
So what, then, are their capabilities? Are they fast? Slow? Maneuverable? Comfortable?
To find out, there was only one place to go: The Gamma Quadrant. That hot bed of Dominion activity. If I was going to see one of those Dominion ships for myself, it would be there.
We got there the same way any proper Starfleet ship would: we followed a distreses beacon. At the beacon we found, well, a Dominion Ship.
It wasn't at all what I had hoped. Its life support systems were rubbish, it had a top speed of zero, and it had the hull integrity of swiss cheese.
To be fair, it was also crashed into the side of an asteroid.
Now you might think that this would be the worst Dominion ship we would see on that trip, but you'd be wrong. That award goes to this thing! (Insert picture here.)
This hideous, blocky thing can reach a top speed of a mind bending warp 4. It has the turning capacity of a fully loaded Bolean freighter with one engine out in a gravity well. It has comfortable seating for a vast crew of zero, and then only if they don't mind phasing out of reality every now and then.
Alright, so its big, slow, and you can't get into it. But what about weapons systems? If it isn't a cargo ship, it must have some of those, right?
Wrong. This stunning vessels weapon load-out is... nothing! It's like a ship a Ferengi would have built for a Klingon on a low bid, if the Romulans were paying him better under the table.
Now at this point, I imagine you're thinking "This can't possibly get any worse, can it?" or perhaps "If you can't get in, how do you steer the thing?"
Now if you've been paying any attention to our reviews, you probably have a pretty good idea by now that we have a bit of irritation with modern steering programs. Ships computers try to take over every bloody part of flying the ship, telling you when you aren't supposed to go faster, don't turn at that velocity, the G-force is too strong and what if someone in the ship has a pet cricket, all that sort of nonsense. There's all this rubbish between you and the ship when, really, all you need is a couple of warp nacelles and a decent pilot.
So you can imagine our delight to learn that this particular ship is flown by... an artificial intelligence!
That's right! There's not a person on board that ship at all!
And it gets better! You might think that the only possible reason to have an artificial intelligence for a pilot would be to get them to follow orders, to stop whining and fly the damn ship sort of thing. But you'd be wrong. Because this designer, this Dominion designer, must have decided that the trouble with human pilots is that they get all this confidence and skill, and that they don't spend nearly enough time whining and panicking.
Let me tell you, they have that problem solved.
So if you want a ship that can't go anywhere, couldn't get you there if it could, and will complain at you the whole way, then the Dominion has the ship for you.
If you want a ship that does something useful, you'd be better off, and I can't honestly believe I'm about to say this, in a Federation ship.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Transporter stick-block
The crew makes a surprising discovery:
ALTERNATE ENDING:
After the away team transports, things go wrong:
The crew considers contacting New Bajor:
ALTERNATE ENDING:
After the away team transports, things go wrong:
The crew considers contacting New Bajor:
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Personal Log of Lt. Praxi
This is probably the happiest I’ve ever been to lose a liver. Wait, that’s not fair to say, I’ve never lost a liver before this. Well, except for that time I bet on squamish at the academy and we used spare body parts from the Medical department as currency; but that wasn’t really mine to begin with, and also I think I lost a Tellurian squiddle then as well. So if that one counts, then this is definitely the happiest I’ve ever been to lose a liver, and if it doesn’t then it’s also the worst.
So! We have just opened up First Contact relations, well okay no that’s too much. We’re not diplomats, and there- Right. We have just established the foundation for a First Con- well that’s too far in the other direction, hmm. We met some aliens! Yes. They’re very nice, except for when they think you’re not sentient, then they are kind of dissection-happy. They exist outside of our known model of space, currently. They live in a… plane, adjacent to our own and accessible through a subspace pocket. They built an ambassador for us, out of bits, bits of... local life. People. She’s where my liver went. Mind you she needs it, and I usually don’t need both unless I’ve eaten a lot of syrup, oh but then I have a new one now! Yes it’s even got a swappable filter built in it, so if I take up a drinking habit I can beam it- right, yes. Some people died when they harvested the parts for their ambassador, so there's going to be repercussions about that. Good news is, they’re sorry about what they did, and they have a legal system, so justice can be pursued.
Oh hells, I still have to write my official report. The diplomatic corps are frothing giddy about all of this. They want all the details they can squeeze out of us: what color were they, how many eyes did they have, how many facets per eye, did they seem shocked at any point, did they have breathing apparatus, it’s very overwhelming. Doctor Kay, he’s the fellow behind the portal technology that brought us to them, and them to us, sort of. I haven’t seen him since we first reported what happened to the captain. The diplomatic corps just swallowed him up, like a thing… that drops on another thing from a tree… and then eats it. There’s even a bartender who’s advocating for the establishment of a permanent trans-subspace diplomatic and commercial waypoint on the station! The Bajorans will probably have something to say about that, I think.
Apparently, there was a previous encounter with these aliens, and it didn’t go as well as it did now, and it was with the crew of the… Federation flagship. That is, hum. I don’t, I don’t know how petty they are, on the flagship, and they might not take well to a lesser ship getting the First Contact that they, sort of, may have but really probably-didn’t-given-the-circumstances, botch. And my name is going to be on that report, and well, hm. They can’t be that bad, can they? No. No I’m being silly. Silly in a personal log, that’s a demerit. Haha. Okay! I need to collect my tricorder from that subspace pocket, which means I’ll have to get clearance from diplomatics, and SCE, which means I should leave soon, and then I can use that information in my official report. And then maybe if Quag isn’t busy with that Ferengi trader’s market, we can go watch a Betelgeusan comedy. I don’t think I really like Ferengarian comedies, they’re sort of… xenophobic.
So! We have just opened up First Contact relations, well okay no that’s too much. We’re not diplomats, and there- Right. We have just established the foundation for a First Con- well that’s too far in the other direction, hmm. We met some aliens! Yes. They’re very nice, except for when they think you’re not sentient, then they are kind of dissection-happy. They exist outside of our known model of space, currently. They live in a… plane, adjacent to our own and accessible through a subspace pocket. They built an ambassador for us, out of bits, bits of... local life. People. She’s where my liver went. Mind you she needs it, and I usually don’t need both unless I’ve eaten a lot of syrup, oh but then I have a new one now! Yes it’s even got a swappable filter built in it, so if I take up a drinking habit I can beam it- right, yes. Some people died when they harvested the parts for their ambassador, so there's going to be repercussions about that. Good news is, they’re sorry about what they did, and they have a legal system, so justice can be pursued.
Oh hells, I still have to write my official report. The diplomatic corps are frothing giddy about all of this. They want all the details they can squeeze out of us: what color were they, how many eyes did they have, how many facets per eye, did they seem shocked at any point, did they have breathing apparatus, it’s very overwhelming. Doctor Kay, he’s the fellow behind the portal technology that brought us to them, and them to us, sort of. I haven’t seen him since we first reported what happened to the captain. The diplomatic corps just swallowed him up, like a thing… that drops on another thing from a tree… and then eats it. There’s even a bartender who’s advocating for the establishment of a permanent trans-subspace diplomatic and commercial waypoint on the station! The Bajorans will probably have something to say about that, I think.
Apparently, there was a previous encounter with these aliens, and it didn’t go as well as it did now, and it was with the crew of the… Federation flagship. That is, hum. I don’t, I don’t know how petty they are, on the flagship, and they might not take well to a lesser ship getting the First Contact that they, sort of, may have but really probably-didn’t-given-the-circumstances, botch. And my name is going to be on that report, and well, hm. They can’t be that bad, can they? No. No I’m being silly. Silly in a personal log, that’s a demerit. Haha. Okay! I need to collect my tricorder from that subspace pocket, which means I’ll have to get clearance from diplomatics, and SCE, which means I should leave soon, and then I can use that information in my official report. And then maybe if Quag isn’t busy with that Ferengi trader’s market, we can go watch a Betelgeusan comedy. I don’t think I really like Ferengarian comedies, they’re sort of… xenophobic.
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