The only thing that gets me about Voyager is fan service of nine.

Other than that there were many great episodes, especially with Borg. I like all things Borg, in fact, they just are such a scary proposition. On that matter, does anyone know when they introduced the whole "assimilation by injection" thing? I just watched the TNG Borg episodes and thats not a thing the did, yet.

Just read that Ascendency can technically be played with two people as long as you balance which faction plays who. Essentially Romulans vs Federation. Do the Klingons only win by conquest? If so I wonder if the Cardassians will be a good counter to them.

Are the expansions really going to be nearly $50? And will the game be 5 player eventually?

This might be my first 4X boardgame. I love Galactic civilizations and Civilization so the Star Trek theme seems to be pretty awesome!

Klingons v Federation without the third party Romulans is a stalemate. Klingons arent denied culture victories but its pretty difficult to do for them since they have almost no innate culture generation outside war, while federation can explore and get minor boosts via finding civilizations and romulans by researching certain techs.

Basically, it would automatically be full on war or the Klingon would lose, which severely hampers the Federation as they cant fight as good.

Federation and Romulans play very similarly for the most part.

Im actually excited for Ferengi. For some reason ive always been a fan of those guys and their playstyle is perfectly reflected of their "profit" mentality.

Cardassians seem uber hard to me. To the point where i almost dont want to get that pack because they seriously look difficult to play.

Also, i havnt seen TRG in awhile but if memory serves they never even showed the assimilation process. When Picard was assimilated he was just beamed off and next time we saw him he was borgified.

Voyager expanded on the Borg immensely. Im not a fan of the fluid-space crap but it was funny seeing the borg completely clueless.

Also, i havnt seen TRG in awhile but if memory serves they never even showed the assimilation process. When Picard was assimilated he was just beamed off and next time we saw him he was borgified.

Voyager expanded on the Borg immensely. Im not a fan of the fluid-space crap but it was funny seeing the borg completely clueless.

They didn't, thats why I think the concept was created later. In Voyager, though, it just happened and wasn't really introduced, I believe. So thats why I suspect it has to come from some time between those series. I don't know enough about Star Trek, though, to know what media was released in between.

Edit: Appareantly thats actually from First Contact. I don't recall there being much of a fuzz about it, seems like the characters just expect it. Weird.

From the wiki:

The flashbacks in "Survival Instinct" represent the earliest chronological appearance of assimilation tubules, notwithstanding the temporally-displaced Borg in Star Trek: First Contact and " Regeneration ". They were not seen being used in the assimilation of Captain Picard or the Hansen family, and it is possible the Borg did not develop this technology (or assimilate it from someone else) until after 2366. The Borg seen in " I Borg " and "Descent" show little interest in assimilation, so there is no way to know if they were equipped with tubules. In fact, Picard appeared to undergo a type of surgery to be transformed into a Borg, with implants being added to his body, while some of his crew where first injected with nanoprobes as well as undergoing surgery. However, in their appearance in "Star Trek: Borg", many of their arm prosthetics had syringe-like ends to inject a victim with nanoprobes and begin transforming them into Borg, though while the nanotechnology grew some of the implants, some were usually seen being added later on.

Which would place the first chronological use of infection tubes to the Voyager episode Survival Instinct.

One interesting thing, if i recall correctly Q states in Q Who the Borg are not interested in the crew of the Enterprise nor the Federation instead they want the technology of the Enterprise because i think the writers haven't had developed assimilation yet, but Seven of Nine was assimilated around 10 years earlier, so is this a continuity error?

From the wiki:

The flashbacks in "Survival Instinct" represent the earliest chronological appearance of assimilation tubules, notwithstanding the temporally-displaced Borg in Star Trek: First Contact and " Regeneration ". They were not seen being used in the assimilation of Captain Picard or the Hansen family, and it is possible the Borg did not develop this technology (or assimilate it from someone else) until after 2366. The Borg seen in " I Borg " and "Descent" show little interest in assimilation, so there is no way to know if they were equipped with tubules. In fact, Picard appeared to undergo a type of surgery to be transformed into a Borg, with implants being added to his body, while some of his crew where first injected with nanoprobes as well as undergoing surgery. However, in their appearance in "Star Trek: Borg", many of their arm prosthetics had syringe-like ends to inject a victim with nanoprobes and begin transforming them into Borg, though while the nanotechnology grew some of the implants, some were usually seen being added later on.

Which would place the first chronological use of infection tubes to the Voyager episode Survival Instinct.

One interesting thing, if i recall correctly Q states in Q Who the Borg are not interested in the crew of the Enterprise nor the Federation instead they want the technology of the Enterprise because i think the writers haven't had developed assimilation yet, but Seven of Nine was assimilated around 10 years earlier, so is this a continuity error?

Wasn't it suggested that Sevens parents wanted to join the collective? I honestly can't remember, would be interesting to catch up on again.

Something thats been around as long as StarTrek is bound to have some continuity errors. All the oddities ive noticed of startrek were usually minor or ignoring something really dumb the original series did lol.

Like in the last episode of the Original Series where they said women couldon't be Star fleet captains. Man that was dumb. I get why because in the pilot when they had a female first officer they got tonnes of angry letters from women but still...

Enterprise wasn't a bad idea, but fell flat on its face because of horrible writing, acting, and execution. The problem is modern day thinking. Everyone has short attention spans. They want to see sex, guns, and explosions on their screens with minimal story, and Enterprise for the most part sold out to that (same with the JJ movies). All of the depth and integrity of Star Trek was thrown out the airlock with Enterprise. Not to say there weren't a few good episodes, but on a large scale, it was just a shallow cash grab to exploit an old franchise.

thats part of the problem with startrek in general now days. Startrek has always been about the plot, theres dozens of episodes where the ship in question that series follows didnt fire a single shot.

But thats why i like Startrek more than Starwars. Starwars is nothing but fancy fights and energy-swords and space wizards. The plot goes all over the bloody place and their tech is so random its laughable. Startrek is believable, in fact a large chunk of what happens in Startrek involving technology is how i think we will end up: capital ship warfare with insanely advanced alloys and energy fields, not fighter tech. I dont think the Replicators are possible but aside from that all their tech is believable.

DS9 gets a lot of rep as the best startrek series, and personally i find it the lamest lol. I liked Voyager the most, i was upset they cut that series short and gave it a surprise "Welcome home!" episode finale.

Voyager is definitely my favorite, but I think Deep Space 9 is definitely best written. If you can slog through the first 3 seasons of mediocrity, it improves greatly. I'm not sure they cut Voyager short, both TNG and DS9 before lasted exactly 7 seasons, and when they quit, they were probably the most popular things on tv at the time.

i believe DS9 was shut down because the writers werent happy with where the plot was going, i.e. the Klingons declaring war again. I felt like the story was odd but it wasnt lost, they could have repaired it. Nope instead they rebooted startrek....ugh i HATE REBOOTS. I simply cant like the new movies.

Also Startrek Online is canon far as i know. Which at first i thought was cool because the story continues, but when i stopped playing now what do i do?

Voyager technically wasnt cut short since it also had 7 seasons, i only said that because it FELT like it was abruptly ended. They were working on Transwarp and Slipstream tech to get home and were constantly getting big boosts to cut off several years in minutes, but could never get it stable to go all the way home. Then suddenly they hijack a borg sphere and pop were home! ...wat?

it felt like they had another seasons worth of progression before finding a way to use transwarp or slipstream to get home in one go.

Probably the main thing i liked about Startrek was all 3 of the next gen series were happening in the same time period. TNG obviously starts before DS9 or Voyager but it was still going when they started, or at least plotwise im unsure of the dates off hand. I loved it when the crew of TNG popped up in DS9 or Voyager somehow.

i believe DS9 was shut down because the writers werent happy with where the plot was going, i.e. the Klingons declaring war again. I felt like the story was odd but it wasnt lost, they could have repaired it. Nope instead they rebooted startrek....ugh i HATE REBOOTS. I simply cant like the new movies.

Also Startrek Online is canon far as i know. Which at first i thought was cool because the story continues, but when i stopped playing now what do i do?

Voyager technically wasnt cut short since it also had 7 seasons, i only said that because it FELT like it was abruptly ended. They were working on Transwarp and Slipstream tech to get home and were constantly getting big boosts to cut off several years in minutes, but could never get it stable to go all the way home. Then suddenly they hijack a borg sphere and pop were home! ...wat?

it felt like they had another seasons worth of progression before finding a way to use transwarp or slipstream to get home in one go.

Probably the main thing i liked about Startrek was all 3 of the next gen series were happening in the same time period. TNG obviously starts before DS9 or Voyager but it was still going when they started, or at least plotwise im unsure of the dates off hand. I loved it when the crew of TNG popped up in DS9 or Voyager somehow.

I don't remember the Klingons declaring war again? It ended with Martok being a pro-Fed chancellor, and Worf becoming the representative to the Klingon Empire?

Also STO isn't canon, as only the movies and tv are canon, but nothing contradicts it, so it might as well be.

Doesn't Star Trek also have an Expanded Universe which contains every non movie and series?

And yes there was as second Federation-Klingon war, the Klingons even attacked DS9. Here is the wiki aticle about the war. And the article about the attack on DS 9.

Doesn't Star Trek also have an Expanded Universe which contains every non movie and series?

And yes there was as second Federation-Klingon war, the Klingons even attacked DS9. Here is the wiki aticle about the war. And the article about the attack on DS 9.

Oh, but that war happened in Seasons 4-5. By the end, it was far behind.

Star Trek has an interesting continuity. The only things recognized as canon are the Tv series, and Movies. Books, Games etc. are apart of the Memory Beta continuity, which is licensed but not canon.

Basically the Star Trek EU isn't canon, but it has a good continuity (unlike the SW EU) and nothing contradicts it, so it might as well be canon.

Yeah thats kind of the major difference there.

Most of the additional startrek stuff can easily be mistaken as canon just because of the way the universe is structured its easy to add in bits here and there in the timeline.

Heck, lot of the races they encountered in the original series completely vanished from TNG era, and were seamlessly brought back in STO (Tholians being a big one) and made believable.

Starwars additional content (games, books, comics, etc) likes to mess with everything. The never ending battle of "how strong IS the force, really?" bugs me alot. In a lot of iterations, its not much more than being able to throw small to medium objects, force choke, and enhance your own body movements with a sprinkle of foresight, but then theres crap like Force Unleashed where Starkiller RIPS A STARDESTROYER OUT OF THE AIR like cmon really? Even Vader himself bounces around with how strong he is. Sometimes hes just stronger than a handful of grunts, others hes a one man army.

i still prefer startrek over starwars, but starwars has better games lol.... The scifi flick i have in my head that i really wish i knew how to write down is heavily based on startrek with a lot of obvious changes, such as humans being more like they are IRL and not "unified peacekeepers"

especially with Borg. I like all things Borg, in fact, they just are such a scary proposition.

The Borg were great bad guys as they were presented in TNG, then First Contact introduced the Borg queen, completely violating the fundamental concept of them and ruining the visceral horror, and voyager was forced to run with that.

Basically the Star Trek EU isn't canon, but it has a good continuity (unlike the SW EU) and nothing contradicts it, so it might as well be canon.

My God, are you being serious?! Star Trek EU is the worst example of continuity in sci fi. Can't really even say that because there is no continuity. Paramount handed out novel contracts like candy to any hack that wanted one and none of those authors paid any attention to what the others were doing. There's multiple different versions of how the Romulans left Vulcan, several different takes on Klingon culture, contradictory histories of the federation, at least 3 different versions of Kirk's Kobyashi Maru test, to say nothing of the original crew having something like 40 years worth of adventures in their 5 year mission. I know of 2 authors that simply established their own continuity, to hell with everything else. Then each successive roleplaying game has had to rewrite the settings background to account for more recent series.

Compared to Star Trek, the Star Wars EU is a model of consistency and rigorous fact checking.

Best thing about the Star Trek EU is the Star Fleet Battles continuity. If that counts.

Best thing about the Star Trek EU is the Star Fleet Battles continuity. If that counts.

Yeah but they did add in races that were only seen in SFB. Good job on keeping the Gorn and Tholians with the big 3 (Federation, Klingon, Romulan) but have you ever say the Hydrans, the Lyrans, or Kitzini in any Star Trek show or EU outside of SFB?

No the best thing about Trek EU is you can really determine for yourself what is canon. For example I feel the comic the Gorn Crisis to absolutely be canon same with the Fourth Year Comic and STO.That's why I have to agree Star Trek arguably has the best EU. You can read or play anything Star Trek and if you hate it, then you don't have to worry about it being canon. If you love it then it absolutely can be canon because typically the show doesn't contradict it.

Honestly that's what became wrong with the SW EU. Because strictly speaking while all of the EU wasn't actually canon it was very much treated as such and while at first carefully tended to soon got crazy. There was no overall direction and the same stories kept repeating. I mean really, a second galactic civil war a hundred years later? This is where I give the prequels credit they actually told a different story.

Yeah but they did add in races that were only seen in SFB. Good job on keeping the Gorn and Tholians with the big 3 (Federation, Klingon, Romulan) but have you ever say the Hydrans, the Lyrans, or Kitzini in any Star Trek show or EU outside of SFB?

Well the Kzinti showed up in the animated series of all things. What I like about it is how it does diverge from the real Star Trek canon, though. It kinda had to because the only recent star trek thing to come out when it was made was the first movie. I think it's really interesting how you can create official lore for a product within an established universe that isn't influenced by the main canon.

Well at that point there really wasnt any official canon, least far as i know.

Original series was just a universe where random episodes popped from. They seldom linked together if at all. Also had a bad habit of introducing "godlike" creatures or people lol. Only "canon" was Vulcans were emotionless space elves and Klingons didnt like the Federation lol

Well at that point there really wasnt any official canon, least far as i know.

Pretty much. They kept going on their own way once more movies and TNG came out though.

Wellit looks like Star Trek Ascendancy will have taken from TOS and TNG mostly. I don't know how much they will take from others like DS9 or Discovery.

Also, i havnt seen TRG in awhile but if memory serves they never even showed the assimilation process. When Picard was assimilated he was just beamed off and next time we saw him he was borgified.

Voyager expanded on the Borg immensely. Im not a fan of the fluid-space crap but it was funny seeing the borg completely clueless.

They didn't, thats why I think the concept was created later. In Voyager, though, it just happened and wasn't really introduced, I believe. So thats why I suspect it has to come from some time between those series. I don't know enough about Star Trek, though, to know what media was released in between.

Edit: Appareantly thats actually from First Contact. I don't recall there being much of a fuzz about it, seems like the characters just expect it. Weird.

Pretty certain there was a scene of him getting Borgified. And it was very much in TNG, with the great 90's SFX of digitally greying Stewart.

Also, i havnt seen TRG in awhile but if memory serves they never even showed the assimilation process. When Picard was assimilated he was just beamed off and next time we saw him he was borgified.

Voyager expanded on the Borg immensely. Im not a fan of the fluid-space crap but it was funny seeing the borg completely clueless.

They didn't, thats why I think the concept was created later. In Voyager, though, it just happened and wasn't really introduced, I believe. So thats why I suspect it has to come from some time between those series. I don't know enough about Star Trek, though, to know what media was released in between.

Edit: Appareantly thats actually from First Contact. I don't recall there being much of a fuzz about it, seems like the characters just expect it. Weird.

Pretty certain there was a scene of him getting Borgified. And it was very much in TNG, with the great 90's SFX of digitally greying Stewart.

Yes, he is getting borgified, but I was talking about the drones assimilating "on the fly", like they do in first contact and Voyager.

Well the Expansions got pushed back to 2017. So the Ferengi and Cardassians won't be home for Christmas. However since we are on the topic of the Borg HERE is a thread on BGG I made for a sketch of what a playable Borg faction could play like.