Hi Tom.
This is all true as regards startrek, indeed for the military and politics
plot I think babylon 5 can't be beaten.
for instance, in Babylon 5, the relations betwene the main races were not
streight forward.
The humans were a major power, but eventually fell into a military
dictatorship with the show focusing on the now independent B5 and their
relations with other races. The mimbari had their own religious concerns,
but also had just come out opf a major war with the humans meaning relations
betwene those two races were very strained, while the Sentari were a
steadily declining power trying desperately to make alliances and regain
lost ground (especially concerning their relations with the Narn). Then
behind all of these you have the Vorlons and shaddows playing games and
causing or preventing conflict.
this lead to a lot of very complex relations betwene the different powers
that just didn't seem to come up in Ds9.
i think Startrek, having setup the Federation as pretty much a perfect
utopian society with o classes much less a dictatorship,had rather a lot of
trouble intigrating the sort of complex relations betwene different cultures
with their history necessary to back up a war plot.
while I did enjoy Ds9, it was primarily for the characters and their
interactions than really any interest in the power struggle, where as
babylon 5 the two were intimately connected.
Voyager I really liked for the first three seasons, when you did! indeed
have new aliens and interesting situations in a totally unknown region of
space that challenged the crew out on their own, ---- for example the
alliance they had to make against the Kaison directly against federation
policy, but one needed by necessity. This was distinctly the thing I always
enjoyed in startrek.
It however did seem after series three the plots got a little stale, certain
characters such as Kim and Paris stopped evolving, and virtually every
situation was solved by a deus x nano machina, ---- ie, 7 of 9's nano probes
(which i quite like 7 as a character, I got heartily sick of hereing "we can
modify her nano probes to solve this!).
Plot aside though, the voyaging of voyager was fantastic, and something I'd
love to see in a startrek game, actual new situations and challnges
presented to the player out of the blue.
Btw, this is also why i'm such a major Doctor who fan, sinse the Tardis can
go very litterally anywhere! in time or space from Ancient Rome, to
prehistory, to the distant future or hundreds of alien worlds. However a
doctor who game would be less practical, unless of course it was some sort
of text adventure with puzzles that you could get through
interlectually, ---- hmmm another gamebook perhaps? :D.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
---
Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected].
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to [email protected].
