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.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Nano-stick-nology
The crew comes into contact with a strange man:
The extent of the crew's infection is discovered:
The infected members (heh) are taken to a strange place:
Hypnosis is used to recover repressed memories:
The extent of the crew's infection is discovered:
The infected members (heh) are taken to a strange place:
Hypnosis is used to recover repressed memories:
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Personal Log of Lt. Praxi
Where to begin, where to… oh! The Vulcan Science Academy sent a representative with us to negotiate with the planet Denebole. Her name was T’parr, and she was very polite. Um, yes. So our negotiations were for a rare sort of crystal which was reputed to have special mind-altering properties, and T’parr figured they were worth investigating. As it, uh, turned out, the crystals were useless, some sort of ruse by the locals to get access to our shield generator technology. Still, they were- oh yes, and they grow their technology! With plants! And they sing at their plants! I knew it was something worth doing! Ha! So, right, they were, well are, fighting a, the, whatever they are, Dominion. And since they’re all very uptight about interference with their planets, or maybe it’s because we’ve fought them before, hmm, but they wanted us to, not give the Denebolians shield technology. I wonder if it would be creepy to have a plant-grown tricorder. Would it be meaty, or chitinous? Would I have to water it? Would it… gurgle? Hm.
So the plan was, the Aperture was to draw away the Dominion ships while a Ferengi ship, there were Ferengi there as well, they wanted the crystals for… whatever, doesn’t matter. And me and Ensign, well he was still ensign then, Ensign Quog and I would be on the Ferengi ship, with the Ferengi, since it’s their ship, and we would sneak past them and get back to the wormhole. Except that Quog thought it might be more useful to fight the remaining ship around the planet, and it seemed like a good idea, but then he wouldn’t stick to the plan, and… there must have been some impact to the ship, and they say he stabbed me over a misunderstanding, or… then I hit my head on a bulkhead. It’s very fuzzy, what happened. But yes, the trial was held on the station recently, Quog and I were pulled from active duty on the Aperture, and after a lot of hush-hush questioning, he was demoted to a noncom rank, which was not something I thought you could do, actually.
Apparently it was all due to a cultural misunderstanding, so I’ve decided to bridge this gap and cheer him up with the classic Ferenginaran comedy, “Shlork the Stuttering Vulcan Meets the Tax Man”. The ship’s holodeck is out of commission because of art moles, or something, so I got a holosuite on the station where we can watch it. I’m even bringing a box of popped corn to eat, which apparently requires milk to eat properly, and doesn’t actually take well to heat, but it seems to be alright on its own. I just hope Quog doesn’t hold any grudges against me about all this.
So the plan was, the Aperture was to draw away the Dominion ships while a Ferengi ship, there were Ferengi there as well, they wanted the crystals for… whatever, doesn’t matter. And me and Ensign, well he was still ensign then, Ensign Quog and I would be on the Ferengi ship, with the Ferengi, since it’s their ship, and we would sneak past them and get back to the wormhole. Except that Quog thought it might be more useful to fight the remaining ship around the planet, and it seemed like a good idea, but then he wouldn’t stick to the plan, and… there must have been some impact to the ship, and they say he stabbed me over a misunderstanding, or… then I hit my head on a bulkhead. It’s very fuzzy, what happened. But yes, the trial was held on the station recently, Quog and I were pulled from active duty on the Aperture, and after a lot of hush-hush questioning, he was demoted to a noncom rank, which was not something I thought you could do, actually.
Apparently it was all due to a cultural misunderstanding, so I’ve decided to bridge this gap and cheer him up with the classic Ferenginaran comedy, “Shlork the Stuttering Vulcan Meets the Tax Man”. The ship’s holodeck is out of commission because of art moles, or something, so I got a holosuite on the station where we can watch it. I’m even bringing a box of popped corn to eat, which apparently requires milk to eat properly, and doesn’t actually take well to heat, but it seems to be alright on its own. I just hope Quog doesn’t hold any grudges against me about all this.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Captain's Log: The Par'Mahk Defense
The trial has ended.
Ensign Quog has been found to be guilty of assaulting a superior officer. Due to... cultural considerations, the penalty has been reduced to demotion. He is still serving aboard this vessel, but I will have to keep a careful eye on him in the future.
The circumstances of his crime still bother me. It seems to me that the Vorta fought hard to stop us from leaving that system. At the time, I had thought it was because of the value of our cargo. But if our cargo was worthless, then... what? Were they trying to convince us of the value of our crystals? Were there crystals that had value, and they gave us counterfeit crystals instead?
Or perhaps it was only what we've seen. What if the most valuable thing on the planet was not the crystals, but its chanting population?
They're all possibilities. But all of those possibilities point to one thing: we've been played by a civilization that we're only just learning about.
And I damn well want to know why.
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