Worldbuilding Notes for Picard from Michael Chabon

Over on Medium, Michael Chabon’s been putting up a lot of background material that he wrote for Picard, starting with Thad Riker’s fantasy world in December, all the history and information about Freecloud in late January, and just a couple of days ago, what he came up with on Romulan culture.

I’m hopeful (and reasonably confident) that a lot of this is going to make its way into upcoming STA books these days there’s a LOT of good coordination going on, but in the meantime, here’s links to his background blogs, for your own edification and the fleshing out of your campaigns, if so inclined.

Some Notes on Ardani

Some Notes on Freecloud

Some Notes on Romulans

Remember, this doesn’t make it “canon,” until and unless it appears on screen, but this is the place the writers were working from, and it all informed what we saw in the show, with a lot of it showing up in background or otherwise expressed without coming out and having “info dumps” about it all.

The Romulan info is a fascinating take on things that, even as a massive Rihannsu fan, I can accept and integrate a lot of, and the Freecloud notes are just about everything I would want in a setting write up. It’s fantastic. The Ardani stuff also appeals to me because I love that kind of Tolkienesque world creation, and it gives insight into what the Troi-Rikers’ home life was/is like, but I get it may not be as useful as the other two. Can’t wait to see what Chabon puts out next, I’m hoping for info on Hugh and the Artifact, but hey, getting anything from a creator like this is always awesome. :slight_smile:

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Canon or not, background information from writers or designers is always welcome as it helps me to fill in blanks. So thanks for sharing!

I suddenly want to do a conversion from STA to Ardani RPG.

There are a lot of great ideas in there, unfortunately it was not always fleshed out in PIC.

I recently did a write up of the USS Emmett Till from DS9 “season 8”. And the Curiosity class from PIC almost looks identical from the top. I wonder if its actually the same class. So background info on that would be awesome.

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I’m pretty sure it’s not the same class, though both were designed by John Eaves, so there’s a lot that’s simlilar. The saucer is definitely close but the nacelles on the Emmet Till are much more like what we see in the Chimera class from Star Trek Online than the silhouette we see of the Ibn Majid, as far as I can tell.

Eventually, Eaglemoss will be releasing the Emmett Till as a special issue - it’s been on the docket for a long time, but switching to focus on Discovery and Picard has pushed it back. Hopefully, we’ll see it soon and get some answers. :slight_smile:

In any case I would love to see your write up on the Emmett Till, if you care to share it. I’ve got the poster they handed out at the screenings right next to my Stellar Cartography maps in my office. It’s a terrific design, and one I really want to get around to using myself.

Here you go:

https://forums.modiphius.com/t/new-spaceframes-from-lower-decks-and-more

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Awesome, thank you! :slight_smile:

This is definitely good info, and I like the way it is delivered. Broad strokes mostly to give the feel above all, with the right dash of detail to bring it to life without overburdening. Before finishing the Freecloud write up there were already at least 3 story ideas rolling around my brainpan.

On a side note I like the way he writes. I had absolutely no interest in joining Medium until I read these entries and a few of his non-Trek entries and decided I want to follow his writing and maybe learn a bit from it. So, thanks @TimPendragon for sharing this.

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