Star Fleet Universe

Star Trek Adventures
41

I think that was nicely explained in later seasons - Soval points out that a lot of Vulcans are… concerned by humanity’s pace of development, regarding it as rash and reckless (considering that Vulcan had a similar history of atomic cataclysm followed by reformation… but the rebuilding after their cataclysm was approached much more slowly and carefully).

Another element I think is worth noting, from the Enterprise side of things, is how different technologies come from different places. While Vulcan warp drive in that era was a good deal more advanced than that of humans (capable of Warp 7 on their fastest ships), it was the Andorians whose deflector shield technology was the most advanced of the Federation founders, and Transporters as we’re familiar with them were a specifically human invention, and we see Klingons using photon torpedoes (rather than a precursor technology) back in the 2150s, suggesting that they may have had an edge in weapons development.

That helps back up the idea that the Federation is strengthened by different ideas from different places - they’re more advanced together than they would have been as individual cultures.

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42

I never quite got where this idea of the Vulcans as this nice friendly civilisation came from.

It can’t have been TOS, as most of the Vulcans we meet (apart from Spock who is very much an exception) are quite cold and heartless (T’pring for example). Even Sarek is admittedly affected by his close relationship with a number of humans. In The Search for Spock, they’re still so distant that hardly any humans know anything about their religious beliefs, 2 centuries after first contact.

I’ve always thought that the Vulcans in Enterprise were spot on in their attitude to humanity, given less than a hundred years of experience with a people, still recovering from a world war, that was so dependent on handouts that they thought they had a right to technology decades beyond their own.

It was simply a precursor to the Prime Directive, coloured by the attitudes of those on the receiving end.

Sorry, I’ll stop ranting now :slight_smile:

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43

Yes, using the various races and “friends” of the Federation as occasional antagonists is imo, a lot of fun and breaks up the usual - let’s kick the Klingons ■■■■■.

In a recent game I had a division of the Andorian military trying to frame the Telerites (with the help of the Orions) for stealing a weapon to try and reignite their conflict.

We also got to see how much havoc an orion female can cause while using the venus drug…: )

44

I think that Discovery portrays Vulcans quite nicely. Sarek, is flawless. And Spock, perfectly flawed.

45

You may want to rewatch Amok Time.
T’Pring’s choice of Stonn is very much emotion based.

SPOCK: Yes. I’ll follow you up in a few minutes. You will instruct Mister Chekov to plot a course for the nearest Starbase where I must surrender myself to the authorities. (the sound of a transporter off screen) T’Pring. Explain.
T’PRING: Specify.
SPOCK: Why the challenge, and why you chose my captain as your champion.
T’PRING: Stonn wanted me, I wanted him.
SPOCK: I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me.
T’PRING: You have become much known among our people, Spock. Almost a legend. And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend. But by the laws of our people, I could only divorce you by the kal-if-fee. There was also Stonn, who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him. If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn. If you were victor you would free me because I had dared to challenge, and again I would have Stonn. But if you did not free me, it would be the same. For you would be gone, and I would have your name and your property, and Stonn would still be there.
SPOCK: Logical. Flawlessly logical.
T’PRING: I am honoured.
SPOCK: Stonn. She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. Spock here. Stand by to beam up. Live long, T’Pau, and prosper.

Calling out the single most important line:

T’PRING: Stonn wanted me, I wanted him.

Want is emotional. Her essential spiel is two arguments:

  1. I don’t want to be known as your wife
  2. Even if you win, you’d turn me loose, and I could find another.

There is a huge subtext in that episode… she’s speciesist. She wants pure Vulcan, not to raise quarter-human halfbreeds.

Likewise, in Journey to Babel, Sarek clearly is holding a grudge against Spock.

We see in TAS Yesteryear that, at least for the youth, there is overt racism happening on Vulcan. Were it not present in Vulcan in general, it would likely not have been tolerated in school.

BOY: Earther! Barbarian! Emotional Earther! You’re a Terran, Spock. You could never be a true Vulcan.
Y SPOCK: That is not true. My father
BOY 2: Your father brought shame to Vulcan. He married a human.
(Young Spock lunges at him, but they dodge him easily)
BOY: You haven’t even mastered a simple Vulcan neck pinch yet, Earther.
SAREK: My apologies, visitor. I regret you were witness to that unfortunate display of emotion on the part of my son.

Vulcans are shown to be lying about their pure logic civilization even in the initial two series. There is also a bit that’s really interesting - T’Pau refers to the Ponn Far

T’PAU: What they are about to see comes down from the time of the beginning, without change. This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way. Kah-if-farr.

And let’s not forget that Vulcan logic dominance is under 5000 years. (All Our Yesterdays)

SPOCK: This is impossible. Impossible. I am a Vulcan.
MCCOY: The Vulcan you knew won’t exist for another five thousand years. Think, man. What’s happening on your planet right now, this very moment?
SPOCK: My ancestors are barbarians. Warlike barbarians.
MCCOY: Who nearly killed themselves off with their own passions. Spock, you’re reverting into your ancestors five thousand years before you were born!
SPOCK: I’ve lost myself. I do not know who I am. Can we go back?

Enterprise Era being a time of (well concealed) civil war on Vulcan, with one of the leaders being T’Pau, and T’Pau’s faction, a faction that is quasi-religious, being in charge a year or two later… A faction that carries around katra of venerable dead inside the heads of faction members…

Vulcan racism in TOS is shown; it’s nicely complimented by the ST III & IV elements, and then Enterprise gives us a civil war about religion… Not to mention Pajem…

A culture that is logic dominated and still religious either knows for certain that they have some benefit from religious praxis or is not as logical as they claim, and Vulcan in Ent can be shown to be both.

Contrasting this to the SFU version… it’s not really that much different culturally… The psionics masters also occasionally serve in the SFU Star Fleet, and they’re as smugly arrogant and condescending as what we see in later Trek… and especially Enterprise. Really, the only big difference is the tech disparity. Hmm… let’s check module Y1.

Early Years Vulcans do have better phasers (mobile Type 1’s), speed 24
Fed ships have speed 24 and type 2’s (which are weaker)
Rigellians are speed 24 and type 2’s
Alpha-Centaurans are Speed 16 and type 2’s,
Andorians are Speed 16 and type 2’s.

So, even in the SFU, the early years the Vulcans are tech superior to the rest of the feds, and their engine tech was usable on new construction, but, per Y1, other federation members couldn’t maintain the Phaser 1’s.

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46

In a word… Spock. Spock is a Vulcan and people really like Spock, thus they assume the culture he came from must be awesome, even though Spock, across multiple sources both past and recent (TOS, TAS, Star Trek 2009, and Discovery) all suggest Spock was something of a “less then totally accepted outsider” seen as, ESSENTIALLY handicapped by his genes.

47

Spock himself isn’t all that friendly, either. But, for some reason, Spock still seems a sympathetic character.

TOS Vulcans are shown to be strongly repressed, and not as logical as they want to be seen.

The SFU has Vulcans more strongly psionic than the TOS/TAS tends to imply to me; definitely more so than what we see of Tuvok in Voyager. DIS seems to massively up the psionics scale.

48

Oh @Aramis, only you could correct me, then argue my point more elquently :slight_smile:

I agree, but I think my phrasing may have led to some misunderstanding. The point I was trying to make is that there’s little evidence that they’re really the admirable people a lot of fans have assumed (Comic Book Guy for example).

49

Jamesrrocco, did you also consider using the Star Fleet Battles (SFB) rules for starship combat? I just bought SFA, after having run Conan 2d20 for about a year, and the starship combat rules don’t appeal to me all that much. (Possibly because I played SFB for decades…)

Before you guys jump on my head, the following example is just brainstorming at a very initial starting point!

It occurred to me that the SFA skill checks could work in harmony with the SFB rules, for example in firing phasers (or any other direct-fire weapon except Hydran hellbores). You can always roll a 6 (the worst roll on the phaser combat table in SFB), so we could call that Difficulty 0. If your phaser crews roll 3 successes, then the phaser bank might have rolled 6-3 = 3, a good solid hit. If you managed to wring 5 successes out of the task, you just rolled a 1, which does maximum phaser damage.

Alternatively, you could abstract that more, and if the crew rolls well in their tactical operations tasks, you could treat them for the scene [the ship combat] as elite crew as defined in the SFB rules. (-1 on weapons rolls [which is good], better chance of pulling of high energy turns, other benefits) Or if a single officer/department rolls particularly well, then treat the ship as having a legendary crew member.

I love the SFU and plan to set my first SFA campaign in it. It’s closer to my envisioning of TOS. I will probably not have the General War break out, since that converts an already-semi-military SFA game into a 100% military SFA game. If the Klingon fleet of C9’s, D7C’s, D7’s, F5’s, and carriers is threatening the federation on the “western front” and the Romulan’s equivalent is attacking on the “east,” probably not all that much focus in Star Fleet on normal exploration missions… It’s just a good starting point, and SFB is another of my all time favorite games, so if I can mix them?!? That’s a “squee” from me!

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50

(Not expressing an opinion on this, just some mechanical thoughts.)

Generally speaking STA doesn’t directly allow for better levels of effect on a good roll, but via the excess Momentum you get from more successes. Effectively the players could parlay the bonus Momentum into more damage, but they might also want the option to get some other effect or simply save it. You might want to look into the idea of spending Momentum on area effects and so on.

Also be aware that you can theoretically generate 12 successes on single Task roll (2 dice base, +1 for assistance, +3 from Momentum or Determination, each of which could roll 2 successes) - more if you have other assists (Captain’s Direct for example). With savvy players, you’ll see 5 successes alot.

Also thinking that STA player crews are by definition Legendary in Trek terms (or at least Elite), as they are basically intended to be the heroes of their own TV series.

Other than that, you might have a workable system there. Just be careful not to let the rules get in the way of the roleplay (unless that’s your preference of course!). My own interest in SFB waned precisely because I lost interest in complex rules and I much preferred the story-telling side of things.

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When I typed “good roll,” I meant “got a lot of successes - slash - got a lot of Momentum.” Thanks for the warning about savvy players and lots of 5-success (or more) results. My players are definitely savvy and spend a lot of the non-combat-monster character actions in a round to generate Momentum pool for the archers and melee fighters in Conan. It is unusual for the party pool to have less than 3-4 Momentum in it by the time the combat-oriented characters open fire, and it’s often full.

If they had Supporting Characters, the Starship itself, and maybe Command officers’ talents to add additional assistance dice? Yeah, I can see where that could be quite impressive.

I would be limiting SFB to a limited set of the rules to make it playable within the RP session; basically, if it’s more complex than the SFA starship operations/combat rules, I’m not doing my players any favors. Well, except for one who’s a SFB player from way back in the TAMU open gaming days, like me :slight_smile:

52

Must say, playing anything in TNG or after feels kinda wrong to me compared to playing in either TOS or the SFU.

53

Just thoughts on the whole SFB/STU/STA thing…

…I’ve always used the general SFB timeline for the “big picture” history of Trek.

One thing about using SFB in the TNG era and later is that, technically, you’re in the X-ship era and soon outside SFB’s rule system.

I’ve run the old FASA adventures with GURPS characters and Prime Directive character building and races.

I like the STA character generation but I may go back to GURPS. STA is more true to Trek, with an “engineer” being able to work on almost anything… but GURPS seems more realistic.

54

Always liked the SFU ship development. SFU’s ships showed lineage and the old concept if “Form follows function”. Ships from a design set (Federation, Klingon, Tholian, etc ) would carry on a resemblance unless there were a radical change in technology.

The old FASA game had some decent rules, but their ship designs seemed to not follow any kind of rhyme or reason.

Even if it isn’t “official” Trek cannon, it is still a great resource.