Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Red Dwarf, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VIII

Going through my past blog entries I realized that it’s been a while since I posted a batch of my homemade memes. Here are a few that I randomly pulled out of the “My Work” folder. If you are brave enough, you can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI and Part VII. All of the entries in this post were created with MS Paint.

I’ve posted this on some of my social media sites and it has made the rounds on the internet. The look on Dr. McCoy’s face while holding the communicator made me think of the caption.

The only real reason I watch the Superbowl is to see the commercials. Companies spent a lot of money to show us the “best of the best” advertising. Sometimes they work really well, and sometimes they have wasted a lot of money. After the crypto commercials last year with the weird QR codes, I was surprised to see a lot of commercials with QR codes this year. So it inspired me to make this meme.

If you haven’t seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, go watch it now. Oh, are you back already? Good. This scene from the first episode was turned into a series of memes where the TV displayed different shows that Captain Pike could have been watching because it was a classic. I had to drop a scene from the Red Dwarf episode “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”. I received lots of compliments on this entry including the use of the letterbox. Honestly, it was just the way the picture fit on the screen.

I actually just made this meme an hour before posting this blog entry. I saw the pun on one of the newsletters I subscribe to and knew I had to meme it. Luckily I’ve been making meme blanks and this one stood out to me.

What are some of your favorite memes? Do any of my past memes stand out to you? I have a Jokes and Memes channel on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. Not only am I posting my latest memes there, but others have been sharing as well.

Posted in: My Creations, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Race for Star Trek Adventures: The Tarn

Art by Rebecca Wu and shamelessly lifted from https://twitter.com/wuzidan. It was just too kewl not to use to represent the Tarn race.

So one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do with this blog is produce fan-made roleplaying game material for various systems. While the publisher of a game based off an intellectual property may be locked into the confines of the contract, fans can homebrew from any source. Sometimes even pulling elements from different sources to create a final product.

Today’s entry was a join effort between myself and longtime friend, Roger Taylor. We’ve both been fans of Star Trek and various roleplaying games. We have played campaigns using the Decipher Star Trek RPG rules. Several months ago Roger was sending me some of his hombrewed material for Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius for review. I mentioned that I was really interested in an enemy race that GMs could throw at their players called The Tarn. This reptilian race came from William R Forstchen’s 1999 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, The Forgotten War. While the plot to the novel was simple, it did introduce the Tarn Empire. The way they were described in the book really enthralled me with their concepts of honor and social interaction. So Roger found his copy of the novel and dived back into it to see what interested me. He did most of the heavy lifting with the RPG numbers. I sent him all of the Memory-Beta (the fan Wiki for licensed Star Trek products) entries I had put together on the Tarn, which Roger then polished up for the PDF file listed below. I pulled various quotes from the book that was used for the suggested Tarn values.

Prior to all of this, I had spent quite some time looking for images of a science-fiction reptilian warriors that was not the Gorn. There were a ton of fantasy reptilian warrior images, but very little from the sci-fi side of the coin that spoke to me. Finally, the Starfinder RPG was released by Paizo that introduced the Vesk. Eventually several fan produced images were produced and the one above by Rebecca Wu fitted my mental image of the Tarn race. If gamemasters pulled any Vesk image from the internet, it could be used to visually represent the race to players.

Here is the PDF with Roger’s polishing and notes.

Besides Star Trek Adventures, I’d like to generate RPG stats for the other systems that are out there (FASA, LUG, Decipher and more). Also while talking with fellow Treknologists on the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat System Online Database and Archive forums, an artist took the descriptions of a Tarn starship from the novel and generated an artistic representation of the vessel. I plan to generate game statistics for this vessel as well. Watch for future blog posts.

Many thanks to Roger for pushing through the novel (it could have used another pass by an editor) and had a few continuity holes that could have been caught) and for dealing with my excitement for this project. And thank you to Rebecca Wu for the wonderful image I pilfered off of the interwebs. I’m amazed by artists who bring these visions to life.

Gamemasters, let me know if you end up springing the Tarn on your players. How did the sessions go?

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VII

Time for another post showing my warped sense of humor. After last month’s post I ended up creating a bunch of Star Trek memes using some odd images that I had found. If you are brave enough, you can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI. All of the entries in this post were created with MS Paint.

Just the look on Tom Paris’ face told me that I had to use it in a meme. I heard the phrase used somewhere on the internet and thought it would be perfect for this image.

An image of Picard drinking tea? Of course I had to use it to make a Star Trek version of the Kermit drinking tea and stating “But that’s none of my business.” After a few clicks, it was ready to go.

I had made this before First Contact Day with the intention of posting it afterwards. Unfortunately, April 6th was so busy for me that I ended up not being able to post it. So here it is, ready for the next year.

When I saw this image I knew that I had to turn it into a reaction meme. It just screamed “what the hell did I just read?”

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VI

What’s that you say? You want more memes? Here is another set of memes for you to enjoy. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

I used an online meme maker for this one. I don’t recall where I found the image, I just thought it fit the phrase as most RPGs result in a lot of collateral damage.

Watching Kirk move away made me think of this phrase. I created this meme with MS Paint.

I almost didn’t share this one because the white text didn’t stand out very well. This was another reaction to the “Share this image with money and you will get some” series of memes that were plaguing social media.

Dayton Ward is a science fiction author that I’ve met several times at different conventions. When this picture was posted from one of his convention it reminded me of the “I love you, random citizen” meme that came from the Megamind movie. I posted this meme on Mr. Ward’s facebook page several years ago. It was created with MS Paint.

Posted in: Fan Club, My Creations, Star Trek

Thoughts on completing a project

I get a lot of ideas in my head. I mean, a lot of ideas that I’d like to see come to fruition. They rattle around my head, and if I’m smart, I put them on paper so that I can remember them later. Role playing adventures, story ideas, blog posts, homebrew ideas and more. Being creative is a natural high for me. I also love seeing creativity in others. When I see what others have done, it encourages me to do more. Especially if I believe that I can improve upon an idea and share it with everyone.

Getting these ideas started is usually the first hurdle to overcome. Sometimes I’m over-thinking things. Do I have all of the pieces in place? Do I have the time to complete a project if I have other irons in the fire? Certain things can freeze me into place. So getting started is a big step.

Once I’m on the road, I need to stick with it until I’ve reached completion. Seeing half completed items on my plate only discourages me from completing or starting a project. Sometimes it feels like I’ve got them all hanging over my head. If I run into an issue, find away to resolve it. In the photo above, I am holding a 136 page fanzine that I’ve just completed for my Star Trek club, Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet. You don’t know how happy I am to have this done since this idea has been more than a year in the making.

This Seventh Fleet Annual is a fanzine that displays the “best of” art and articles from various Seventh Fleet chapter newsletters and blogs. There has been a lot of creativity within the fleet and I wanted to put it an outlet. Why do this with a fanzine instead of a fleet newsletter? I look at club newsletters as windows to the past. To borrow a line from Galaxy Quest, they are the historical documents. I’ve collected hard and soft copies of newsletters not only from Seventh Fleet chapters, but other fan clubs as well. This includes several newsletters from Star Trek fan clubs going all the way back to the 1970’s. Seeing things through the eyes of the fans that have come before me is very intriguing. What challenges they had to go through at the time. Not only to get a newsletter published, but to keep their fandom alive. I’ve seen how a chapter newsletter helps the chapter become stronger. Every time a new issue is released, it tells members and recruits that the chapter is thriving and growing. It makes the chapter stronger. So, creating a fleet newsletter could be a detriment to chapter newsletters, and in turn, the chapter itself. Members would be moved to submit items to the fleet newsletter instead of their own chapter publications. So I felt that having a competing newsletter would weaken the chapters, which in turn would weaken the parent organization. Instead, the fleet should be supporting the chapters. So the idea of a once-a-year annual highlighting some of the gems created by members would help the chapters, and in turn, the fleet.

Now I’ve edited newsletters for a variety of special interest groups that I’ve been involved with in the past. However at the most they have been up to 32 pages. A fanzine is much, much larger. When I discovered that I had the tools, but not the know how, I set out to learn some additional tools that the word processors provide. I am very grateful to the various instructors who have shared their knowledge in YouTube. Just watching someone do what I wanted to do on video, got the ball rolling for me. Since I had poured over decades of newsletters from various chapters, I already had a good idea on which submissions that I wanted to use. Once I had momentum, I didn’t want to let it stop. Within several days I had a rough draft that I could show to my wife who has always been a second pair of eyes for me.

I would also like to say that I love the cover. I commissioned it from my college kid studying art. She provided several preliminary sketches showing different interpretations of the cover idea. From this, I was able to narrow it down to the one that looked the best. Then she spent quite some time getting all of the details right. Seeing this process first hand gave me a better appreciation of how artists work when creating their artwork.

Once I had everything done, I sent over the document to a local printing company in my neighborhood. One I had used for several projects before. So when I gave them a heads up that this was coming through the pipeline, they were ready. Within a day I had the first prototype in my hands. Not only am I excited to see what my fellow members of my Star Trek family think of this fanzine, I’m also on an emotional high from completing a project. A burst of energy that I want to put into the next project. I’m typing up this blog post not only to re-affirm my thoughts now, but giving me an opportunity to re-read these thoughts again the future if I ever feel discouraged. Look what can be done. Look at what your efforts have produced.

Let’s see what can be created. Let’s see what can inspire others.

Posted in: My Creations, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Final

And we have reached the last of the scans from my 1990’s Starship Homebrew book. I had found this book earlier while unpacking various boxes after a move. It was a book that I had assembled in a three-ringed binder contained copies of ships that could be used in the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator by FASA. These were ships from the official Starship Recognition Manuals, Rulebooks, Sourcebooks, Adventure Modules and Magazine Articles. I discovered that I wanted even more starships for the book and I found them in various official and fan-made tech manuals and blueprints. Using the Starship Construction Manual and the stats from the source material I was able to convert several starships for use with the FASA game. These scans look rough, because they are the original dot matrix printouts with, literally, cut and pasted images combined on a photocopier. But I am sharing them here for all to enjoy.

Additional: Here is a photo of the original book that I was talking about.

Master Book of Ships

Past Entries:

Homebrewed Stats for Starships

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part II

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part III

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part IV

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part V

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part VI

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part VII

For the last batch of vessels, we have one Gorn ship, a couple of Tholian ships and some merchant vessels. Now onto the batch.

The name of this vessel in the fan-made Gorn Guidebook is the “Gorn Space Control Dreadnaught”. I don’t know why I had changed the name to the CK-5. Probably because I was trying to mimic the naming convention seen in the Klingon Ship Recognition Manual and the Romulan Ship Recognition Manual.

The image came from The Worlds of the Federation resource book. The stats were guestimated by me at the time of creation. The 2nd edition of the Starship Construction Manual doesn’t provide any stats for Tholian equipment. I didn’t know that the 1st edition of the book had Tholian equipment until I got a hold of it several years later.

A friend of mine had several fan-made technical manuals that he let me borrow in the 90’s. This Tholian ship came from one of them. I don’t recall the title of the book. Like the Spinner, I guestimated the stats for this vessel based off of the information in the publication. The name of the class came from the book.

Stats for a passenger liner? Yes, I made these based off of the information on this vessel from the fan-made Starfleet Dyamics book. A liner could be caught in a pirate situation for both the starship tactical combat simulator or on the roleplaying side.

There were a ton of ships in the 1979 publication, “Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology“. Some of the illustrations by Rick Sternbach were even used as on-screen graphics in Next Generation episodes. There were a few different ships that I wanted to homebrew stats for. This was the first, and only one, that I did in the 90’s. I had planned to write up others, which may happen sooner or later.

So now that my past works have been uploaded for everyone to see, I’ll start working on new homebrewing ships, races, equipment, etc. Not just for FASA but for other gaming systems as well. I’ve been playing a Far Trek game online with some fellow Trekkies and I’m still enjoying Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part V

I’ve still been hard at work trying to spread my warped sense of humor. Here is another set of memes for you to enjoy. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Just the look on Kirk’s face inspired me to make this meme. I could see him saying this. I used MS Paint to create this .

Another “I saw this face and had to meme it” project. Again this was done in MS Paint.

And the last of “Inspired by that look” memes. Here Trip Tucker is doing his Thor “Is it though?” impersonation. Plus we need more Enterprise memes.

I’ve spent some time making blanks of popular memes so that I could easily create my own. Here is one that I created using the goosebumps meme blank.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part IV

Since this is a relaxing day (Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone) I thought I’d drop a quick post with more memes that I’ve created in the past. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II and Part III.

After seeing the image of the chicken at the table, I knew that I’d have to make a variation of the Screaming Lady vs Cat meme. I believe that I created this using MS Paint.

When Pokemon Go became really popular, it scared me a little. I was amazed at how big it became in a short time. I remember reading about people renting dogs just to have the excuse of “I was walking my dog” while out playing the game. I know that warnings had to be sent out stating “no you can’t play Pokemon Go in high security areas even if the good Pokemon are out there.” So when I saw this image from Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, The Game, I had to make a meme out of it. Full disclosure: Had there been a Star Trek version of Pokemon Go, I probably would have played the hell out of it.

A few years ago I was going through several college courses to earn my Bachelor’s degree. The release schedule for a new role playing game was always coming out at the wrong time. If I wasn’t careful, I could become easily distracted. Especially if the course subject was really boring.

The family watched The Princess Bride as one of our feel good movies today. It reminded me of the time I altered the quote from the movie to make it sound like something Worf would have said if he was cast in the movie.

I hope this batch of memes brought a smile to your face. I’ll be posting more soon, but probably not until after January which will be consumed by the 2022 Character Creation Challenge.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part III

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of the memes I’ve created. You can see the past entries from Part I and Part II by following the links posted above. I enjoy sharing my humor. Sometimes I see an image and I think, that could be a meme.

Those of you that know me, know that I am not a fan of the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. So when the “Agatha All Along” meme trend started with Agatha admitting to all of the bad things she has done, I had to make one for “These Are the Voyages…”. I’ve posted this on a few Star Trek social media sites.

The other Agatha meme that became popular was the “Agatha winks” meme. Usually it’s the “yea sure I’ll do that” type of response. So when I saw this picture of Keiko O’Brien doing a wink, I thought “here is a Star Trek version of that meme.” So I created this with MS Paint.

This was another spur of the moment creations. I came across this image of Spock reacting to a telekinetic contact with the Kelvans. One of my kids came up with the phrase and I placed it on the image.

This is one of those quote memes. I had recently completed a re-watch of the Daria series on Paramount+. Some of the episodes I enjoyed just because of the sarcastic wit of the main character. When I heard this quote, I had to write it down and turn it into a meme. I’ll probably use it later in various online conversations.

Hopefully the next batch of memes won’t take as long to be posted.

Posted in: My Creations, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part VII

Yes this is part VII of the series. Part VI was the one ship entry into the #RPGaDAY2021 challenge in August.

Past Entries:

Homebrewed Stats for Starships

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part II

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part III

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part IV

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part V

For those of you reading about this series for the first time, I had a blog post where I talked about finding an old three-ringed binder full of starships for the FASA Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. I had photocopied all of the official starships for the game that I could find from various manuals, sourcebooks, modules, magazine articles, fanzines and more. When I had collected all that I could find, I used the Starship Construction Manual from FASA to convert Starships found in various professional, semi-professional and fan made tech manuals/blueprints.

So I’ve been able to scan in a few more starships of my own conversion (plus an extra). We’ve made it past the Starfleet starships to a group of Klingon and Romulan ships. Note: There is one Klingon ship in the first entry.

The D-34 Taq’r image and information came from a fanzine for a Klingon fan club if I recall correctly. I remember being excited because there were plenty of Starfleet ships to convert, but very few non-Starfleet vessels.

A ship I found from a fan made Star Trek tech manual that was owned by a fellow starship enthusiast. I don’t recall the name of the manual. I’m not certain if this is their attempt at drawing up the Star Fleet Battles Sparrowhawk. I believe that I gave it the V-3 designation, but I could be wrong on that.

So the images came from FASA, but it was for a different ship. In the early publications for Romulans, this was listed as the V-30 Winged Defender. It had the front, top and side views as well as the image seen in the header for this blog entry. Later FASA changed the image to the very birdlike (and very popular) design now marked for the V-30. I thought the original design was too good to go to waste, so I created an original ship using the construction manual.

So here is the bonus ship for this blog entry. I did not create this, but I wanted to share it so others could appreciate the work that went into it. It was created by someone named Burke and published in a Utah gaming fanzine in 1987 or 1988. This page came directly out of the fanzine and was given to me by a friend. On the back are advertisements for gaming stores in Utah that are no longer in existence and an “upcoming releases” announcement. I’d love to find the fanzines that came out during that time. I know to brothers named Burke who are gamers and would have been around during this time frame, however both stated that it wasn’t their creation. If anyone recognizes it, please contact me via Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com to let me know.

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