Re: Trek/SFB conversions

At 04:23 AM 1/30/97 GMT, you wrote:
>Star Trek is about characters and stories. Taking battles out of
>episodes defeats the point. Episodes serve better as a model for
>RPGing rather than wargaming.

The problem with Star Trek is that the characters never change, never
evolve. Everything must end the episode at status quo. A group of them
are
made into children and not one of them thinks that adding 20 to 50 years
to
their life is a good idea. Picard is made into a Borg, there's one
episode
of remorse and one where it's mentioned, but no other lasting effects.
There's a Klingon civil war, and then it ends in the next season with a
return of the balance of power. Diana gets pregnant, has a kid, the kid
dies, she's back to normal in the next episode. I could go on (and on,
and
on, and on...).

Spoiler space for anyone who hasn't seen 4th season

B5's story and characters have been plotted to evolve. Sheridan died,
was
brought back to life, but now has a drastically reduced lifespan. The
Centauri ambassador has become the Prime Minister due to assassination
and
WILL become the emperor. G'Kar, the Narn, has been slowly, but
noticeably,
changing from a vengeance seeking hot head to a calm man of
spirituality, in
spite of being tortured and having an eye plucked out. Garibaldi, the
security chief and probably the number 2, or 3 character seems to have
been
influenced by the Shadows (or is at the very least some sort of mole).
And
this doesn't even BEGIN to touch the plot developments. In fact, in 4th
season we discovered that the War between the Shadows and everyone else
is
not that at all!

Sorry, but Star Trek pales in comparison. 

>Do you really think B5 is any better? 

Yes, by an order of magnitude. B5 is developing into I, Claudius in
space.

>I'm not an expert on B5. I've
>got a heap of borrowed tapes of season one. 

Ooo! Not all that hot. In fact if it wasn't for some back story, you'd
be
better off jumping into season 3.

>One story concludes
>with a space-battle settled, not by tactics, but by the "player
>characters" effecting the destruction of the enemy fleet by
>suitably heroic action from a nearby planet. They even brought along 
>a sacrificial NPC. Very Trek.

There was a bunch of that. The first Shadow ship to be destroyed was
destroyed by using a dangerous and untried tactic. Not really double
talk,
but sort of Trek like. The second Shadow ship was destroyed purely by
tactics. Most of the battles so far have been won by tactics, usually
involving the Alliance jumping the Shadows with a bigger fleet. Lots of
ships destroyed on both sides, but the victory was due to tactics, not
double talk.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage