[PODCAST] Priority One Podcast 267 | What’s Beyond the Horizon?

Comments

• tylermaxwell Member Posts: 184 Arc User

  April 2016

  Does the cancellation of Star Trek Federation Rising spell the end of fan productions?
  Not necessarily. I'm gonna lean towards the it's "just don't start any new fan films right now" reasoning, due to the ongoing legal battles between CBS/Paramount and Axanar; how that drama develops could potentially drag in other fan projects along with it, pursuant to the whole "well you're suing us, why aren't you suing all of them too?!" argument raised by the latter side. Or maybe it's to prevent story/viewer interest conflicts with the new Trek series, I dunno, but I hope not. I just don't think that CBS would be dense enough to snuff out fan productions altogether, nor could they either...if someone wants to make their Trek story badly enough, they'll do it regardless of the consequences.
  
  Have you learned any top tips or tricks in the new Star Trek Online skill system? Share them with us!
  Not especially, but I do agree with Attilio that the new names and descriptions of Skills since the revamp are much more straightforward at a glance compared to before; in the old days (of more than two weeks ago), no one would know what "Flow Capacitors" or "Countermeasure Systems" were or what they did unless someone else who already knew told them. But "Control Expertise"? It improves Control abilities, duh! Much more intuitive. Hopefully newer and less DPS-experienced players can now have a better understanding of how their ships work, know what they want to do, and have half an idea of how to achieve it.
  
  Do you think that Star Trek Online is actually Star Trek canon or does it fall just outside “true canon”?
  Nope, at best it's soft canon. I consider it probably closer to canon then any of the other not-TV-or-Film projects (novels, video games, tech or RPG manuals, etc.) because of their regular and ongoing coordination with the Trek heads at CBS, and the obvious love and care that they take to weave their stories with elements of the existing lore, but it's still not canon. A few reasons for this:

  • Any new Trek series or movie, no matter it's setting, has the potential to introduce elements in those shows that can easily invalidate things that have occurred in STO or any of the other soft-canon properties; screen canon trumps all other things, for better or worse. See all the things that Enterprise brought that that the non-screen sources have either had to adapt to or risk becoming apocrypha (Temporal War, Xindi as Federation members, Orions as a female-led society, etc). Even STO has been affected significantly: before it launched, I believe that the original story was supposed to be about the Federation and the Klingons working together against a resurgent Romulan Star Empire; then JJTrek hit and blew up their planet, erasing the Romulans' viability as a major villain, and leading to the current story that STO ended up with.
  • Some of the things in STO really only make sense in a game environment anyways; like the Lobi Consortium scooping up advanced enemy/alien/temporally-displaced ships left and right for later sale, or there being thousands of separate Fleet Starbases crammed into a couple neighboring sectors along the Federation-Klingon border, ya know, just cuz.
  • Plus, with an MMO like Star Trek Online, there is always the possibility for stories and missions to be redone/retconned/removed altogether for some reason or another; how many tutorial and mission arc revamps have we had again? The canon shows/films don't get to edit or remove content from themselves, even when we want them to (*cough*Threshold*cough*).
  • There's actually another Star Trek MMO in the post-Nemesis era where the Federation and Klingons have invaded Fluidic Space and somehow end up duking it out in a territory war against each other as well as Species 8472. That directly conflicts with the STO storyline, and yet both games are still licensed Star Trek products.

  So as much as I would like the STO story elements to be considered canon (well, most of them anyways), it's just not; it can't be. Either a new show will come along and make up new stuff that STO will have to deal with, or other games will be made in similar settings or eras, meaning that the STO storyline won't be canon anywhere except in our own hearts.

  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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