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  • 08 Dec 2024
    She is finally done and ready for public enjoyment.I present: The Battlestar Galactica, BSG-75
  • 22 Oct 2024
    Something new is cooking.
  • 14 Oct 2024
    Calling this one done.Enjoy all 8700 pixels across. As per usual, an un-watermarked infinitely scalable version can be had for a donation
  • 08 Oct 2024
    This one should be easy to get. My current WIP: Update 2: I think I have the hull shape and decks nailed. Update 3:
  • 04 Oct 2024
    I’m not a fan of the Neo Constition Class. The name sucks and the styling is 2290s. And knowing that all Blass did was take the Shangri-La class and clicked Edit > Scale > 300% and called it a day, irks me a lot. BUT, plenty have asked for it. So here you go. Have […]
  • 26 Nov 2024

    What was my expectation?

    Perhaps hugely masculine but I thought this was a book about the characters and their appearances in the franchise.

    I was very wrong and should be scolded for such an unusually closed opinion.

    Open a Channel is likely to be seen as one of the most ground-breaking books in Star Trek literary history and rightly so.

    Encompassing every generation from The Cage right up to Strange New Worlds, Nana Visitor has taken an incredible deep dive into the very foundations of not just the Star Trek franchise but the fabric of Hollywood across the last 60 years.

    Insightful, funny and at some points incredibly dark and personal, A Woman’s Trek never fails to be brutally honest. The personal experiences of Visitor herself are laid very starkly open at times as is the treatment of women in the industry right back to the first sparks of Star Trek’s existence.

    Including interviews with Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, Terry Farrell, Alice Krige, Nicole De Boer, Christina Chong, Tawny Newsome, Jeri Ryan and many many more, Visitor manages not only to capture the journeys of main cast actors but also recurring stars who graced the Star Trek franchise. It does feel as though every stone has been turned to provide the most complete picture of a female perspective to Star Trek ever.

    While the interviews of original cast members such as Nichelle Nicholls and Grace Lee Whitney are gleaned from talks they gave before their passing, these are some of the more gut-wrenching sections of the book. Or at least you think so at the time.

    The further into this book you get, you realise that it’s not consigned to the past and was going on in many different ways both verbal and physical for decades. The thing is, it didn’t and it hasn’t. While the towards the end of the book and into the Kurtzman era it’s certainly not prevalent, the male/female equality of the industry still seems out of balance although a million trillion light years from where it was. The “casting couch” is a thing of the past as is the need to be “f**kable” as it’s termed several times. Visitor aso encounters (it seems) quite a bit of hostility and caution when interviewing indicating the hold around TV and film that continues to protect some of its more grimy secrets and views.

    This is also a pretty heavy book not just in content but in weight. More a coffee table volume than a paperback novel, A Woman’s Trek covers every aspect and angles, even taking the time to include Jennifer Lien’s Kes even though the actress has distanced herself from media due to ongoing personal challenges.

    Maybe the disappointment here is the choice by Marina Sirtis not to be involved with the project in any way. Is this an indication she is becoming tired of Star Trek or the industry as a whole? Perhaps it's not right to speculate but given the prominence of Deanna Troi in The Next Generation and how that character was sold in the first few years, it’s a voice that is distinctively missing from the book.

    Jeri Ryan’s insights are as close as we may get to Sirtis’ outlook with her playing two very different sides of Seven of Nine through Voyager and then Picard. While not devoid of the brains that Sirtis often notes happened before she regained a uniform, Ryan is more than aware of what her Voyager version of the character was doing for the series and how it came to move away from that necessity in later seasons.

    Discovery, Strange New Worlds and Picard have certainly not had to deal with that visual “requirement” rather focusing on strong, independent female roles that have been key to all those live action shows in different ways and been played as absolute equals among the ensemble.

    Interesting too is how some of the actors were almost pigeonholed into certain types of roles with Linda Park especially calling that out in terms of the underused Hoshi Sato or Roxann Dawson finding that she was being funnelled into Latin American roles that she had no desire to play. In that latter instance Torres gave her the opening which has seen her flourish into an in-demand director so Star Trek has certainly offered options even if it was a fight to get there as both she and Gates McFadden relay.

    It’s very easy to recommend this book to any fan. Certainly a reflection of the current times as well as the uneven, shoddy and downright horrible history that has dogged female representation in the TV and film industry. While this focuses absolutely on Star Trek it’s easy to transpose the opinions and experiences of those involved here to other shows and movies. Truly an inspiring read and a book that will without doubt alter your views on STar Trek’s importance to diversity, inclusion and equality.

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  • 26 Nov 2024

    Now let's be clear. This isn't a new game but it is one that has stood the test of Star Trek time extremely well.

    Originally launched back in 2017, Star Trek Ascendancy pushed past the ship-to-ship combat of Wizkids Attack Wing and ventured into new and unexplored territory. Quite literally in fact. But why should we still be interested in this when there's Into the Unknown out there and GFN's own Away Missions? If you want galaxy building why not dip into Infinite on your PC?

    Because this one is all about tactics and empire building that's physically on your table and brings fans together in one place to play and chat Trek. Magnificent.

    It's a bigger galactic picture and offers varied gameplay versus those now established tabletop and digital experiences. This is going to take some time, a lot of thinking and a shuttlebay full of patience to manage so buckle in for a good long afternoon of gaming.

    With a base game box that is packed to the gills with tokens, playing pieces, control panels, planets, space lanes, hazards and a rule book that covered every scenario, it's a Trek fan's dream. Players could start from their homeworld and expand out across the galaxy, discovering new worlds, new civilisations and boldly... ok... you get the picture.

    Crucially Ascendancy has evolved through the last seven years of its life, adding in player expansion packs for the Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Andorians and Breen as well as two substantial game expansions with Borg Assimilation and The Dominion War. In comparison to Away Missions this is more galaxy spanning and fleet based rather than a set of characters on a single board so the two aren't competing for the same space.

    As we head towards the end of 2024 I pulled out the box and got ready for a steady session on the table because Gale Force Nine (GFN) are set to release a single box which will contain everything produced to date as well as some new and exciting content. Definitely a great sign for the game after seven years!

    So let's just refresh on the systems as we unpack the plethora of equipment.

    In the original starter box players could choose from the Federation, Romulans or Klingons with each faction offering different tactics. For instance the Klingons can't run from a fight and the Federation will never try and take over an established civilisation by force. These factors and others come into play when you reach out from your starting planet and influence how you interact with your discoveries.

    It's also an incredibly organic game because of how the stack of worlds may be played as they are "found" and each of these will only have a certain number of pathways that can be connected to it. As they are revealed by exiting the space lanes with your ship or fleet, each new destination will have some form of action to complete via the Exploration card that is turned when you "arrive".. It may be to make contact with an existing species, it could be to colonise an empty rock or worse, it might be to try and avoid a dangerous nebula or other such hazard lurking in the depths of space. New planets to colonise will offer space to acquire additional Production, Culture and Resource nodes that can be used in the Building Phase of each round to enhance your existing facilities from ships to bases to completing research.

    No two games will ever be the same but just make sure you're ready for a long haul because GFN expect that for every player on the board there's at least an hour of game time (three players, three hours). Each round of the game sees players Build (chips, assets etc), Command (exploring, combat) and Maintain (assessing victory qualifiers and collecting resources) but don't forget to keep an eye on where your adversaries are up to!

    If you're not looking for that kind of commitment then there is also a one player option that was introduced as part of the Borg pack. More on that shortly.

    Ultimately the aim of each player is to reach Five Ascendancy points which can be acquired by collecting and trading in your Culture tokens. In the case of the Federation should you flip over a Civilisation card when exploring a new world that will immediately give you a Culture token! Each level of Ascendancy unlocks new abilities so you can run more projects and fleets with each increase.

    One of the things that I levelled against this game back in the day was that it focused heavily on TNG and TOS without much care for Voyager or Deep Space Nine. In terms of the latter, some of that has been accomplished with one of the two larger supplements which includes the Bajoran wormhole and the Gamma Quadrant. There is still to be anything forthcoming from the Delta Quadrant however!

    But back to the main game for now and it can play out a few ways. Boundaries can be set and some players may choose to try and avoid other major races, instead choosing to cultivate new worlds and build up resources with which they can upgrade weapons, fleets and abilities while others may be looking for a fight. That's the genius of Ascendancy in that it can play out however you want it to. Each journey along a space lane opens up a new and unknown challenge. You'll never (probably!) get through the entire planet stack (Exploration deck) in a game so there's always going to be a variation from the off. Nor is it a given that the Federation moves first each time so you never know what order events will unfold or who will have that key tactical advantage. Uncovering a planet might be a good thing but it could also draw the attentions of an opponent keen to expand their resources of a particular type or simply add some territory to their sector of the board. GFN includes sets of ships to represent fleets in the box but players can supplement further with different ships, starbases and dice packs if they so wish although some of these are now verging on rare to impossible to locate (especially the Defiant pieces).

    Players can also be defeated if their homeworld is captured by an opposing force. The neat thing that the Dominion War expansion pack does is allow a conquered people to turn into a resistance force so that you're not left sitting out the rest of the game.

    The Borg expansion does add in a feature which makes it impossible to avoid the Collective as they will spawn and head directly for the nearest opponent. In a one player game that's a given and with their "AI" ability it actually becomes more of a challenge to see how long you can last out rather than attempting to defeat them which is near impossible.

    As with Attack Wing before it, the Borg dynamic is naturally overpowered and almost invincible meaning that any true attempt to defeat them would likely require at least two if not three or more players hounding their cubes until the bitter end. There's a ton of new content in the Borg packs beyond the ships such as additional/expanded rules, new nodes and tokens. For me this has become something of a go to where I can try out different factions against the Collective to see which is most effective. So far the results are not promising!

    One thing that frustrated me was how fast the Borg could come out of the gate and be on top of your home system. Best case three turns, worst case two - the margin was that fine. However, by a bit of YouTube research and just thinking more about strategy it's actually quite straight forward to elongate the game - just make sure that any pathways into your territory are completely used up. For example if a planet has four space lane options, use all of them to connect it into your network. This is where the additional resources and the built ships really come into play as otherwise players wouldn't stand a chance to build any form of defence.

    So to that Dominion pack and that's an entirely different twist again. Adding in the Dominion as their own faction there is the chance to use Changelings as infiltrators onto opponent worlds and also to battle through a campaign loosely tuned into the Deep Space Nine saga.

    This is a real step upon the multiplayer concept with the Dominion faction starting on the other side of the Bajoran Wormhole and having to make their way into the Alpha Quadrant as part of the initial setup. Of course they could just fly around the Gamma Quadrant but at some point trouble will come calling.

    The nice piece here is that the Gamma Quadrant systems can ONLY be used on that side of the wormhole and there's some familiar planets in there for the Karemma, Dosi and of course the Great Link.

    The problem with the Dominion War campaign is that four players are needed to form two alliances consisting of four already developed and explored worlds (ready for conquering). That's a lot of people to get together and at least a four hour play time both of which I would personally struggle with but may suit other gamers perfectly. I expect that in this case I may field the Dominion as a faction against the Borg or in a smaller 2/3 player scenario perhaps even without the wormhole piece.

    Ascendancy is a superb, detailed and in depth Star Trek game that does require some time and patience to get the most out of it. If you want quick and straight forward pick up some Fluxx cards or head for your copy of Away Missions but for a real test of your metal this is the game to do it. Will you try and conquer from the Gamma Quadrant? Dominate from the off with the Klingons? Offer peaceful co-existence via the Federation or watch your foes be assimilated by the Borg? You make the calls!

    Star Trek Ascendancy is available NOW from retailers stocking Gale Force Nine. Prices (for expansions) start from around £25 ranging to around £75 for the base game set.

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  • 26 Nov 2024

    Ten years? Seriously? A decade of Attack Wing?

    Two starter sets, 30 waves of individual ships, prize events, faction packs, a total rehacking of the points system... and that's just the scant surface moments I can recall from those times.

    Now to commemorate the event we have These are the Voyages. Fortunately not a pack that focuses on the final episode of Enterprise but instead one that honours the legendary starship name.

    Containing five golden models, this new pack includes the NX, Constitution refit, Excelsior, Galaxy and Sovereign Classes plus 115 new and updated options to outfit them.

    Each of the classes can either be fielded as the Enterprise in its different registry guises or an alternative ship from including the NX-02 Columbia, USS Excelsior, USS Atlas or USS Galaxy. It also marks the first retail appearance of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A.

    Some of the ships, such as the Enterprise-D have seen modifications to their existing cards and a significant number are now superseded by the contents of These are the Voyages.

    As ship models go, there are no real surprises since these are repaints of the existing craft from older waves. My Constitution refit though does have horribly wonky nacelles which will require a bit of work to straighten out. That and the saucer is bent.

    Captain options are extensive with all possibilities including Styles, Harriman and Jellico included, each with their own neat twists to add. Crew options are exhaustive too with every canonical crew represented in almost every single way and that includes Porthos.

    The pack also continues the new updates of Lower Decks, First Officer and Night Shift although the latter of those three only appears on a couple of cards.

    That 115 card stack is something that might never make its way into your main card haul though because nestled into the bottom of the box is a brand new campaign that pits Enterprises of all generations against thew Q Continuum and some equally obnoxious foes. Taking it in turns to select a ship, captain and upgrades, players take on the Crystalline Entity, the Borg Queen's ship or the hard-as-nails Doomsday Machine in a battle for survival and bragging rights.

    There are some "obvious" choices to go for such as the E or the D but the A, B, refit and NX-01 aren't without their advantages since a smaller ship score allows for more upgrades and a thoroughly packed out starship.

    These Are the Voyages
    is a very unique set though and one that players/collectors may not want to directly add into their big box of cards. The Q scenario actually turns this more into a set to have available for one off game occasionally “stealing” cards from it to supplement an existing fleet. It also shows that there is still life in the game after a decade. New features abound, there is still some expansive thinking as to how to keep the game alive and with Into the Unknown requiring a re-mortgage or the sale of a kidney you can understand why players are choosing to remain firmly in the Attack Wing stable.

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14

Jan

1892 Anthony Jochim is born.
1939 Martin Goslins is born.
1941 Barry Jenner is born.
1947 Eric Mansker and Sherri Townsend are born.
1952 Marston Smith is born.
1953 Duke Moosekian is born.
1955 Nancy Linari is born.
1957 Drew Deighan is born.
1960 Michael Van Dyke and Robert J. Van Dyke are born.
1961 Michael Bair is born.
1973 Randall Koerv is born.
1982 Forty-sixth day of filming on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Scenes at Carol Marcus' lab are filmed today.
1986 Shawn Ahmed is born.
1991 Sixth day of filming on TNG: "Night Terrors". Hannah Spear is born.
1992 Seventh day of filming on TNG: "The Outcast".
1993 Seventh day of filming on TNG: "Birthright, Part II". Final draft script for TNG: "Starship Mine" is submitted.
1997 Fifth day of filming on VOY: "Before and After".
1998 VOY: "Waking Moments" airs. Fifth day of filming on VOY: "The Omega Directive". Final draft script for DS9: "Inquisition" is submitted.
1999 Sixth day of filming on VOY: "Think Tank". Mart McChesney dies.
2002 Last day of filming on ENT: "Rogue Planet". Twenty-fifth day of filming on Star Trek Nemesis. Paramount Home Entertainment releases Voyager volume 7.12 on VHS in the UK.
2003 Fifth day of filming on ENT: "The Crossing".
2004 ENT: "Chosen Realm" airs. First day of filming on ENT: "Damage".
2005 ENT: "Daedalus" airs. Sixth and final day of filming on ENT: "Bound".
2008 IDW Publishing releases Valued Intelligence", issue #1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation - Intelligence Gathering. Viola Stimpson dies.
2009 Ricardo Montalban dies.
2015 IDW Publishing releases The Q Gambit, Part 6", issue #40 of the ongoing Star Trek series.
2016 Star Trek Timelines is released.
2018 DIS: "The Wolf Inside" and AT: The Wolf Inside" both air.


Memory Alpha New Articles
  • 16 Nov 2024


    On November 9, 2024, an iconic piece of Star Trek history - the "hero" or working Type II Pistol Phaser prop which had been used for close-up photography in such memorable TOS episodes as "Court Martial" and "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and had been extensively pictured in the famous 1968 behind-the-scenes reference book "The Making of Star Trek" - sold at Julien's Bid Long & Prosper auction for a record shattering $910,000 (based on a hammer price of $700,000 plus a 30% buyers premium); making this phaser the most expensive piece of Star Trek memorabilia ever sold at auction. The emergence of this prop into the public consciousness was just a recent development; as it was privately held for nearly 50 years by it's consignors who inherited it from a relative in the Hollywood prop industry. The original pre-auction estimate for the phaser was $100,000 - $200,000; which was consistent with earlier, recent Star Trek memorabilia sales history. In the Heritage Greg Jein Collection auction on October 14, 2023, Lot #89139, the Jein TOS Hero Phaser prop that is virtually identical to this piece realized a final price of $187,500 including buyers premium - or approximately 1/5th of the price observed in the Julien's auction.

    The TOS “hero” phaser props were elaborately constructed based on the design created by Walter “Matt” Jefferies, the Art Director and Production Designer for TOS – who might be best known as the creator of the original U.S.S. Enterprise starship. The working phaser features:

    • A removable Hand Phaser unit (also called a Type I Phaser) that mounted into the Type II body and could be secured in place or released by depressing the bronze colored cylindrical button (or “Lock Release” ) projecting outwards from the left-side of the Type II body
    • A moving silver thumbwheel ( or “Force Setting Wheel”) on the top surface of the Hand Phaser that would, when rotated fully forward, raise a clear acrylic “sight” mechanism out of the top of the unit, lifting slightly the rear of the silver rectangular meshed plate or “Electron Aspirator Pile” and also causing the beam emitter at the very front of the Type II body to extend forward
    • Fully rotating the silver thumbwheel forward would also cause a tiny “grain of wheat” light bulb mounted into the beam emitter to illuminate. This would be useful for the graphic artists working on the post production “special effects” processing for the series to correctly add in the bright blue or red or white colored light beam seen projecting from the phaser when it was firing.

    • A rotating ring piece as part of the aluminum front nozzle section (or “Photon Accelerator”)
    • A machined aluminum rear “Deflector Shield” component with 4 fin-like projections incorporated in the design. (This detail was simply painted onto mid-grade level phaser props.)
    • A removable grip or handle which also served as a PowerPack for the Type II unit; as revealed in the episode “The Omega Glory”, where discarded powerpacks were found as evidence of extensive use of phaser weapons in a battle

    This historic piece with it’s intricate internal design mechanisms truly represents the pinnacle of 1960’s propmaking expertise.

    Presented below is the complete Julien's auction catalog description, with accompanying photos, for this iconic hero phaser, as well as several rare images that reveal the elaborate internal construction details of the prop.

    Special thanks to John Long, the renowned Star Trek prop expert and prop maker who masterfully performed the restoration and conservation activities on both this Hero Type II Phaser and the Hero TOS communicator prop also sold at the Julien's Bid Long & Prosper auction, for his very gracious permission to include his detailed photography of the phaser's interior within this article.

    Lot #7 Star Trek: The Original Series | William Shatner "Captain James T. Kirk" Hero Screen-Matched Phaser Prop

    An original screen-matched, hero, Phaser prop used by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk in the television series Star Trek: The Original Series (Desilu Productions, 1966 - 1969).

    This iconic prop, created in 1966, is one of only four hero or “practical” versions of the Phaser used on the show which feature intricate details and moving parts that were unique to those few props, making it exceedingly rare. This Phaser is known in the collecting community as the "Finney" Phaser because it was seen on screen used by actor Richard Webb who portrayed the character "Finney" in the season one episode "Court Marshall." Held by its current owners for nearly fifty years, this Phaser was thought to be lost until now. The current owners inherited the Phaser from a close relative who was a Hollywood prop industry veteran that purportedly acquired it from a former Paramount Pictures employee that worked on early Star Trek productions.

    Construction
    Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to avoid the sci-fi cliche “ray-gun” and preferred that his new weapons have details and features beyond just a static prop. To that end, the hero Phasers feature a removable top-mounted Phaser 1 that could be used by itself or in place within the larger body which, when combined, were collectively referred to as a Phaser 2. Both of these pieces are marvels of prop engineering with various electric switches, hidden linkages and moving parts that can only be seen when the pieces are opened to reveal their inner workings. The intricate interior details with both custom and off-the-shelf parts from the 1960s are specific matches to another acknowledged hero Phaser previously owned by prop maker and collector Greg Jein. The handle of the Phaser, which is also removable, is the battery compartment that powers the light in the emitter tip.

    In addition to the fact that this Phaser perfectly matches the materials and methods of construction seen on the Greg Jein Phaser, this Phaser was also showcased in The Making of Star Trek, a book published in 1968. The Making of Star Trek included a photo section featuring many key Star Trek props. The section on the Phaser included detailed photos, including interior images of the Phaser 1 section perfectly match this Phaser.

    Screen-Matching
    Thanks to the fact that Star Trek has been re-mastered from its original film to high-definition Blu-Ray, this Phaser can clearly be matched to specific scenes in multiple episodes which is a highly unusual and sought-after feature.

    This Phaser holds another distinction that sets it apart from its counterparts. It was apparently designated by the prop master as “The Beauty Phaser,” which is demonstrated by its excellent condition and its many close-ups throughout Star Trek’s three seasons, the only Phaser used in this way. We have been able to identify unique details, scratches and flaws on this Phaser to make positive identifications of this prop to a number of specific episodes. It can be seen in close-up in the episodes, ”Court Martial”, "The Cloud Minders", "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and “A Piece of the Action,” a singular honor.

    Restoration
    While the Phaser was already in exceptional condition, it nevertheless underwent restoration to stabilize inner working parts to allow gentle movement without risking damage. The interior battery compartment had corrosion fro a previous battery. The corrosion was removed and the compartment was stabilized to prevent further damage. During this process, an external power source was used to illuminate the original bulb still present in the nozzle tip. Although it is possible to use a battery to enable the lighting of this bulb, further work would be required to fully stabilize these connections for reliability. The original acrylic semicircular top meter cover was absent from the Phaser, a replacement has been created for display purposes and comes with this lot. This part was not affixed to the Phaser in any way, to maintain the integrity of the piece.

    Estimate: $100,000 - $200,000

    Some very special internal construction imagery courtesy of Star Trek TOS expert John Long ...

    A perfect match of the interior hand phaser compartment cover appearance with a 1968 photo published in The Making of Star Trek ...

    A closeup screen shot from the 2nd season episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion" ...

    A closeup screen shot from the 1st season episode "Court Martial" ...

    Some breathtaking modern day imagery of the hero phaser, illuminated again!, courtesy of John Long ...

Important notice None of the above feeds, videos and galleries is under the control of the EAS webmaster. EAS is neither responsible for the correctness and legality, nor for the safety and correct display of the external content. In order to preserve the visitors' privacy, EAS does not include any kind of "social plug-ins" anywhere, the only exception being YouTube video players.

 

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