Make time for the lines

In Star Trek related gaming, I have been spending a little more time on my Android app, Star Trek Timelines than my PC game. Slowly leveling up....

....discovering some interesting bugs, some which are amusing....

....another gave me a temporary advantage to the game.

I finally collected a doctor, a character with a very elusive trait it seems, to finish off some previously uncompleted missions, due to being locked to not having one.

Although I have unlocked a lot of the universe so far, I find myself going back to finish off episode and playing them over and over, in an attempt to collect rare rewards and level my characters up.

There's no hurry really, I have all the time in....

What ever happen to....

....the Vulcan Shuttle Surak? Only ever seen for a brief moment, during Start Trek The Motion Picture, delivering Spock to the disabled Starship Enterprise. I thought how it docked was pretty cool too!

However, after this short scene, it was just gone. And, when I mean gone, poof, never to be seen again onscreen. This has always struck me as odd, since Star Trek, from the shows through the movies, has recycled many ship models in either their original form or modified to stand-in for something else/new. But, not this one?

Even out in the real world, only one model was produced. Although the box art has been updated over the years....

....finding one in a local store can be a daunting task. The internet has opened up the possibilities of acquiring one with better success, these days.

Still, I wonder if this forgotten ship will ever make another appearance onscreen, someday....

What if?

With the third Star Trek movie, set in the J.J. Abrams' re-visioned but alternate universe, set for release soon, I thought I would have a look back and consider something. With a new cast and other big changes, what if one thing wasn't changed from the Star Trek most of us have known all our lives?

If you have seen the first two films or not, you might be familiar with the above picture anyways. Right before the first movie rolled into theaters, there was a mass media blitz of commercials on just about every electronic device that could broadcast them.

This simple scene from those commercials, showing the Enterprise under construction in an Iowa field (yeah, but don't go there) set in motion a mixed bags of emotions on how this icon was....changed....improved....altered....pick your own wording.

However, what if the ship remained as it always was, as many wished it would have stayed as, how it could have been....

 

Starship Sunday IV

Starship Sunday is a showcase feature of cannon spacecraft seen in Star Trek television episodes and movies.

This week; HMS Bounty, Klingon K'Vort Class. Renamed for Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, released 26 November 1986.

In 2285, the commander and crew of the late Starship Enterprise captured a Klingon Bird of Prey, while in orbit above the Genesis Planet. Under new command, the Bird of Prey left orbit as the unstable planet exploded and traveled to Vulcan. It was there, during a three month period of exile, the ship was named with a nod to historical irony. 

The Bird of Prey departed for Earth, only to be informed a probe of alien origin was causing environmental havoc to Earth. The crew, deducing the probe's intentions, traveled back and time, collected two humpback whales, then traveled forward in time, so a response to the probe could be made.

When the Bird of Prey arrived back to the correct time, it was caught in the same effect as other starships, losing power. Unlike the other starships, the Bird of  Prey returned inside the atmosphere and was crashing to the Earth. Narrowly missing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Bird of Prey made a water landing in the bay. The whales were freed from the sinking ship and the crew was rescued.

It is unknown if the ship sunk to the bottom or was later salvaged by Starfleet Intelligence.

A first escape through electric dreams

At the start of the 1980's, there were a few choices of video game machines on the market that could be purchased for the household. Atari was one, Colecovision was another. My family chose the Vectrex. With a built in screen, which freed up the television for other activities and a fairly simple to use control system, this was what we got.

One of the games that had been acquired was Star Trek The Motion Picture, which bore little in relation to the movie of the same name. In modern terms, it was a first person shooter against opponents who were vectored ships made out of sticks of light.

It was a very simple operation to get started with. Roll out the built in control panel, place the cartridge into the side, reach around back, turn the knob to power things up....

....pop in the plastic color screen to cut the intense screen brightness down and blast away enemies, dock with wormholes and dodge incoming fire.

Okay, there was some creative license used for the game content and ship depictions, but for the time and technology, it worked. I can remember playing for hours and hours, trying to beat my previous high score. The odd time I had a friend come over and managed to talk them into playing, we would challenge each other against our lined foes.

One drawback I can still remember to this day, the sore eyes. Even with the colored plastic screen in place, staring and tracking at those lines of light wore down my eyes, might like looking at freshly fallen snow on a bright day. Worse, driving, at night, into the snow.

Ah, the memories looking back. I suppose, as good as any place to start, huh?

Getting the right cew

Like most other MMO's, Star Trek Timelines has a Daily Rewards feature and collect a good one, I think.

By the numbers, my newly acquired Captain Janeway has some pretty good skill attributes right off the bat. She joins my roster, along with other legendary captains as Picard and Sisko, helping me to progress through the game's storyline. However, what does the color and stars mean?

Well, if I am interpreting things right, here is how I see things. White, one star characters are the most common to collect and can't be fused with duplicates. Green, two stars are a little harder to get and can be fused once. Blue, three stars are harder still to acquire and can be fused twice. Purple, four stars are the really rare ones, being able to be fused three times.

So, my theory goes something like this, one and two star characters can be viewed as disposable, held onto until a better  three or four star is collected and leveled/fused up to meet or beat the skills and attributes of the lower characters.

For example, here are two different versions of Wesley Crusher. The one star version is probably the most common and easiest to collect. Skill wise, the one star variant doesn't bring much to the table, except for the starting stages of earlier missions. The three star version could come in quite handy for progressively harder missions, due to the higher ceiling of skills and levels.

Also, taking into account that having a standard account, meaning I haven't spent any real world money yet, I am limited to having only 25 crew slots available. So, somewhere along my journey among the stars, my one star Wesley will be jettisoned....er, retired, when a better character is offered.

Plus, I never did like his sweater....

Ships and planets

A random selection of certain shots from all of the Star Trek shows and movies with one theme, ships and planets. Above is probably one of the most easily remembered scenes from the Original Series.

The Next Generation brought the world the scene, repeated many times over it's seven year run.

While Deep Space Nine had a few shots of Federation runabouts in orbit, I wanted a more rare image of the Defiant doing the same.

The Enterprise E spent most of it's onscreen time in space, however, I did  find one image the fit the criteria.

Voyager in orbit, not as rare as one would think.

Last, but not least, NX-01 Enterprise rounds out this series of themed images.