“I am constant as the Northern Star.” Chang (quoting Shakespeare)- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Stardate: 9521.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“Romulan ale should be illegal.” Worf “It is.” LaForge- Star Trek Nemesis, Stardate: 56844.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 14 “Oh s’il vous plaît, Mariner. I want to put humanity to the ultimate test.” Q “Okay, I’m not French. No. Go find Picard.” Mariner “Oh, Picard. He’s no fun, he’s always quoting Shakespeare, he’s always making wine…” Q- Veritas, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #WeAreStarfleet
“I don’t need anyone to choose my friends for me.” Kim- Caretaker, Stardate: 48315.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet
December 16 “Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all shipmasters have had one happy privilege. That of uniting two people in the bonds of matrimony.” Kirk- Balance of Terror, Stardate: 1709.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
December 17 “Our children are not for sale at any price.” Dr. Crusher- When the Bough Breaks, Stardate: 41509.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 18 “We have the best crew in the fleet and the sturdiest ship. I promise you, we’ll get through this.” Archer- The Catwalk, Date: September 18, 2152 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet
December 19 “She’s a female, Rom, and the one constant in the universe is: females are trouble.” Quark- Doctor Bashir, I Presume?, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
Yes, I know, Ghostbusters Afterlife came out last month. Between my favorite holiday, a concert and a bunch of other items on my plate, we hadn’t had a chance to slip out to the movie theater. My wife and I were able to attend a Sunday matinee showing, which was still crowded considering how many weeks the movie had been available. Since the movie has been out for a while, I can be a little bit more spoilerish in my movie review.
Bottom line up front. I loved this movie and I can’t wait to buy the blu-ray to see all of the extras. Nothing in the plot really stood out to me or jarred me out of the story. There is a lot of character development at the start of the movie. I did have a moment where I mentally said “Hey movie, we’ve got our characters now it’s time to do something” and (like it heard me) it started doing something. So yea a little patience at the start will be rewarded.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the other Ghostbuster movies, but I felt confident enough that I could spot any major easter eggs. And sure enough, I saw them. When you are a fan of a series, you get to know the characters and the universe they inhabit. I mentioned one out loud to my wife (the book stacking). However if you have not seen any of the earlier movies, you won’t be lost when you see this latest addition. The plot is pretty straight forward and fits in well with the franchise.
You get to see (almost) all of the familiar face from the earlier movies. Some from various clips, some from deleted scenes that were re-purposed (and very well done). I understand that Rick Moranis is mostly retired from acting (for good reason) but I was really hoping that he would make a cameo appearance. Perhaps someday we will actually get Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money and he can revive his role as Dark Helmet. (fingers crossed) Paul Rudd didn’t make me think of his Antman movies and his reaction to the mini-marshmellow men was perfect.
I was wondering how the ending was going to come about and I was not disappointed. Without giving it away, let me just say that, as a dad, I was actually in tears when everything was wrapped up. There is an early-credits scene (very wonderful) and a post-credits scene so stay until the end. This post-credit scene may be hinting at a future installment in this franchise. With how well this movie is doing in the box office, I hope that can come about.
Another advantage to seeing the movie a few weeks later is that the various easter egg videos have been released. I did a search for them after I got home and found quite a few that confirmed my suspicions. What shocked me is that the “tabloidy” video makers were still trying to run click-bait videos with a movie as good as this one. Just a reminder from me, avoid these videos at all costs. They are trying to use an emotional response to gain clicks. I was able to stick with some main-stream content creators who were able to highlight a the easter eggs I had found or had missed.
With how many upcoming movies that I want to see being released soon (Matrix and Kingsman), I don’t think I’ll get a chance to see Ghostbusters Afterlife again in the theater. So I am glad that I had the chance to do so when we did. This is a movie that I’m glad was delayed from the “year that shall not be named”. It was much better seeing it in the theaters.
I’m sure that no one will talk about this project outside of work.
So I love watching YouTube videos. Primarily because they can cover a wide variety of interesting subjects that you won’t usually find in regular educational (or semi-educational) channels. I’ve been able to find interesting looks at how common people lived and ate not only in medieval times, but in the 1920’s and 30’s (which make for interesting game fodder for gangster type role playing games). We all have a general idea how Mob leaders and the royalty lived by the various movies and glamorous stories. But informative videos talking about the other side of the coin for various eras can help when adding atmosphere to different RPGs in different eras.
YouTube has an interesting algorithm on suggesting other possible videos that may be of interest. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t (I won’t go into details but I wish that the YT apps on my TV had a way to give a “not interested” without having to go to the video itself).
One recent suggestion from YouTube was “Digging a Secret Tunnel” by a British content provider using the handle “colinfurze”. Apparently he’s been digging a secret tunnel that connects his house to his workshop and then to a backyard underground bunker for the past three years. Note: The video linked above is part six of the series, but it was the first one I had watched and inspired me to create this blog post. Also a warning, Colin comes across a little like a used car salesman in his enthusiasm. But don’t let that bug you, the video was quite interesting despite his almost game show host like quality.
The first reason that I clicked on the video was because I was one of the many young boys growing up who had the idea of making a secret tunnel in his basement as a means to covertly get out of the house. Luckily my parents never found out about me trying to cut through the walls in our home. And I didn’t get very far because the house was very well built. Colin’s video showed the amount of preparation and effort that was being put into the tunnel project. It was being built under his house, driveway and workshop before it made it to the bunker. You don’t want the ground sinking underneath those items. So it had to be re-enforced to hold the weight above them. They had to get the large amount of dirt and rocks hauled out through a 5×5 hatch that was built into the workshop. Colin claimed in the video that he is making the tunnel without the knowledge of his neighbors. Reading the comments was interesting (avoid the spambots) with posts from mining engineers and other interested parties.
The second thing that caught my attention wasn’t with the tunnel itself, but my thoughts that came up while watching the video. How many times have we seen a villain’s secret tunnel in an espionage movie? The image I used at the top of this blog came from the spy-fi video game “No One Lives Forever” and I remember seeing this scene thinking “who built this?” and “How did they keep it a secret?” As a gamer, I also thought about the various dungeons that our Dungeons and Dragons characters have crawled through. Quite a few times they were 10×10 tunnels underground occupied by various Orcs, Gelatinous Cubes and other dangerous creatures. While someone may have drawn the straight line on grid paper, in the game world someone would have had to dig it out, build supports and haul away the rock. Why was this built this way?
I eventually had a bunch of thoughts in my head that I knew I had to put it down as a blog post. I watched a really good video about creating a dungeon for D&D which went briefly into the whys and hows (and I learned quite a bit from the video). But it didn’t really get to the nitty gritty for me.
So why would a tunnel (secret or not) be built with the cost and effort involved? I think it comes down to several reasons. The first one that comes to mind is wealth. The tunnels are built as part of a mine trying to extract various ores and precious gems. While these may not be secret at the start (unless the digger wanted to keep others from getting to his prize) they could easily become forgotten. Just finding out which mine a highly prized gem used in an ancient crown came from could be the start of a quest all on it’s own. These mines could have been built by dwarves or other subterranean races. Mines were featured quite a bit in several westerns. Every once in a while the news reports about another soul lost while trying to explore a closed up mine or a murder victim being thrown down a mine shaft.
Another reason that a tunnel could be built is for transportation. Going over a mountain or across the English Channel represents a physical barrier. If you could tunnel under that barrier, you can make transportation much easier. Again, most of these would be known (at the start). However there have been smuggling tunnels built to avoid border patrols. The movie “The Great Escape” detailed the efforts of prisoners attempting to tunnel their way to freedom from a Nazi POW camp. This movie would also be inspirational about how to hide the tunnel and dispose of the debris needing to be dispersed all while trying to keep the tunnel from collapsing on them. When I visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in 2019, I learned about the railways and water tunnels and how they were built. They were built in a time before OSHA and safety guidelines. So corporations could hire workers to quickly dig, and if a worker was injured, they would hire the next guy to step up and replace them. This allowed them to build these tunnels quickly at the cost of human lives.
Housing and storage is another reason to build tunnels. I recall watching documentaries about World War II and how residents of some towns escaped into tunnels under the city to escape bombing raids. Repurposing tunnels from another use has allowed underground survival dwellings to be built. In Utah, the LDS Church stores massive amounts of genealogical records in an underground vault in the Wasatch mountains. In Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault preserves over a million seed samples underground in a former coal mine. Both locations could make for interesting modern day missions in an RPG. On the fantasy side, how many times have we heard about massive underground cities used by the Dwarves and the Drow. Tunnels would connect them all to each other and to the surface.
The last reason may sound weird, but I think is valid. Tunnels could be built for a sense of vanity. A cult, probably using cultists or slaves to dig, could build secret tunnels in order to hide their temples of worship. The image that I used above is a tunnel under a Swiss Alp chalet as seen in the video game No One Lives Forever. In the second video game of this series a very interesting quote came up. “Why do you think we have our headquarters in underground caverns? It’d be a lot cheaper and more convenient to lease an office building, but then you get potential clients who don’t think you’re evil enough for the really high profile operations.” If you look at movies like the various James Bond entries, the Flint and the Matt Helm movies all the way up to the Austin Powers series, they all made the secret underground lair look cool.
So Game Masters, think about the tunnels that you use in your games. Sure they are easy to draw on graph paper, but how did they get there? What was the cost to build these tunnels? How did they become secret? A king killing the slaves that built the secret tunnels may become the avenging undead monsters encountered by the players. A missing handyman may lead to the clue that the agents are needing to find the bad guy’s underground lair. Those lines on the map may look cool, but they hide much more than the treasure the adventurers are trying to find. They hide a possible story.
(looking at the wall on the side of my office) “I wonder if the wife would notice if I put in a secret tunnel?”
“Come on. Come on!” Sulu “She’ll fly apart.” Lojur “Fly her apart, then!” Sulu- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Stardate: 9521.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone – a father, a brother, a God – and asks, “Why am I here? What was I meant to be?” Spock- Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Stardate: 7412.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“To die defending one’s ship is the hope of every Klingon.” Worf- Power Play, Stardate: 45571.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 9 “They’re Nazis, totalitarian fanatics, bent on world conquest. The Borg of their day.” Paris- The Killing Game, Part II, Stardate: 51715.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet
“Savour the fruit of life, my young friends. It has a sweet taste when it ‘is fresh from the vine. But don’t live too long. The taste turns bitter after a time.” Kor- Once More Unto the Breach, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
“It’s too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of a people you don’t know.” Picard- Star Trek: Insurrection, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 12 “The procedures for restarting the reactor are in the database.” Dr. Phlox “You’re suggesting I read the manual?!” T’Pol- Doctor’s Orders, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet
I posted a bunch of scanned catalogs from FASA in a previous blog entry. There was also a second blog entry where readers had sent me a couple of scans that were missing. Well I’ve come across a couple more catalogs for my collection. Technically both of these catalogs have been posted before on this blog, but now that I have physical copies, I decided to scan them in myself. As I continue to empty out boxes in storage, I’ll keep an eye out for additional catalogs that I haven’t scanned in yet and post them here.
In the first blog post, I only had photos of this catalog provided by a friend. In the second blog post, this catalog was posted but was in two parts. I had recently picked up a 1st edition Klingons boxed set by FASA off of Ebay. This catalog was one of the books contained within the boxed set.
I found this catalog while going through some of the boxes in my garage. When a reader sent me a PDF of this catalog for a previous blog entry, I knew it looked familiar. And my suspicions were confirmed when it had been uncovered. Since that catalog only contained the Star Trek items, I decided to scan the entire book into a PDF format. This will allow anyone wishing to conduct research on early FASA products to see the book in it’s entirety. One thing I did notice while going through the PDF. The description for the module “Decision at Midnight” talked about how the commanding officer of the USS Arkadelphia was Captain Barbara Vellacora and how she was the youngest woman to ever be promoted to the center chair. When the module was published, the name had been changed to Ian Vellacora and the sex changed to male.
The quest to get more of my collection out of generic (and falling apart) cardboard boxes continues. There are several items that I’ve got listed down in my records, but I am unable to locate now. I’m really hoping that I haven’t lost them. Seeing some of the prices for things that I already own on Ebay has only made me more determined to find them. I really can’t afford to replace these games.
Mariner is preparing for the Whamageddon Challenge.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of November 29th through December 5th.
November 29 “Back home, wherever that is – you have a family?” Bilby “Yeah.” O’Brien “Heh, good. That’s the most important thing.” Bilby- Honor Among Thieves, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
November 30 “If it’s real, it can be affected.” DeSalle- Catspaw, Stardate: 3018.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
December 1 “I never want to see this part of the Enterprise again.” Ro “I hear you. This is what starship designers call ‘easy access’.” LaForge- Power Play, Stardate: 45571.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 2 “You know what I am always saying: If you can’t stand the heat…” Barclay “Get out of the warp core.” Kim- Pathfinder, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet
December 3 “Do you think the two of us can handle a drunk Vulcan?” Dr. McCoy- Requiem for Methuselah, Stardate: 5843.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“It is a time to celebrate for tomorrow we all may die!” Kurn- Redemption II, Stardate: 45020.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
December 5 “Captain, this man is dying a painful death. To keep him conscious is unethical.” Dr. Phlox “Until I get the answers I need, we’re going to have to bend a few ethics.” Archer- Harbinger, Date: December 27, 2153 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet
In another sign of returning to something resembling normalcy (what a boring word) I had the chance to take the family to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert this year. We’ve had a chance to go to several of these in the past and they have always been very entertaining.
Flames and lasers and rock music.
All lined up for one of the songs.
You can feel the heat even in the back of the arena.
If you ever get the chance to attend a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, I would highly recommend that you sit in the back part of the arena. TSO sets up their concerts with multi-media all over the arena. If you sit up front, there are several presentations that you’d have to turn around to experience. In past concerts, members of the band use to go down into the audience as part of the show. This concert had cranes that would move band members over several front rows. I remember one concert where they had this ramp that was lowered down and they had band members running up it (while singing or performing, one in high heels that you could use to kill a man with). The 2021 concert had a rotating block with TV screens on all four sides and flames shooting out the top. Again, sit in the back of the arena so you can see the entire show.
There were two safety measures taken by the arena. Unless it was a medial bag (like oxygen) or a diaper bag (and there was a lot of kids present at the concert) you were not allowed to take in a bag of any kind. This includes purses, fanny packs and backpacks. The other safety measure is that everyone had to show a vaccination card or negative COVID-19 test from the previous day or two. It actually made me feel safe to go to the concert. There was a lot of people in the arena. Knowing that they had all been screened before the event made me buy a ticket. Not only am I planning to attend another show very soon (the latest Mystery Science Theater 3000 live show) but I am looking at a few other concerts as well. I would not be considering these without the safety measures in place.
It felt good to go to events again. It felt good to take the family out to make memories. I’m looking forward to making many more.
“The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. …We work to better ourselves …and the rest of humanity.” Picard- Star Trek: First Contact, Stardate: 50893.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
November 23 “Too many people dream of places they’ll never go wish for things they’ll never have instead of paying adequate attention to their real lives.” Odo- If Wishes Were Horses, Stardate: 46853.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
“We have always perceived the maximum speed of the Enterprise as a function of warp but I know now there are no limits. We will explore new worlds that we could never before have reached in our lifetime.” Barclay- The Nth Degree, SD: 44704.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
“Before you know it you’re taking the drug not to feel good but to keep from feeling bad.” Yar- Symbiosis, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
“Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity. But improve man, you gain a thousandfold.” Khan- Space Seed, Stardate: 3141.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“Oh you mean the profanity?” Kirk “Yes.” Spock “Well, that’s simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word.” Kirk- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Stardate: 8390 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“I have a superpower. I can sense mistakes while I’m making them.” Dr. Agnes Jurati- The Impossible Box, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekPicard #WeAreStarfleet
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.
I’ve already had people ask me if there will be a Character Creation Challenge in 2022. I had so much fun participating and running the 2021 challenge that I knew I wanted to do this again. So here is the official announcement, yes we will have the challenge in January 2022. New year, new you (errr… new character). Have fun with this event.
For those of you learning about this for the first time, the Character Creation Challenge is for fans of various role playing games. You may have looked into a game or collected the books with the intention to play but never have. Or perhaps you have a favorite system that you always turn to for RPG sessions. Well the Character Creation Challenge is an event to create a new RPG character for each day in January (running parallel to the “new year, new you” theme) from what ever system(s) you choose. Once you have the character ready to play, post it on a website, blog, social media (use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge) or message boards. The forums at RPG.net was a popular place that a lot of participants had posted their completed characters. UPDATE: The new thread on RPG.net for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge can be found here.
In 2021 I took part in this challenge by making different characters for different systems using just the core rulebook for the game. Because I would be creating on a daily basis, I used a spreadsheet to schedule out what games would be on which days. This way the games I was very familiar with would take place on my busy days. Games that I was not familiar with or had difficult creation rules were saved for my non-busy days (usually weekends). I was able to create characters for systems that I had not played in quite some time. It was a blast going through the steps that I had not taken in years. Some games I had remembered playing, but forgot how clunky the creation process was for a book printed in the 80s and 90s.
For 2022 I’m going to go with another random assortment of games. Some I thought about after seeing others post their characters (like Feast of Legends from Wendy’s) and others were from games that I had picked up over the past year or gifted to me by friends. There were also several games that I didn’t get a chance to use in 2021, so they will be strongly considered. I’ve also decided that I’m going to use official supplements for the game in my character creations for 2022 instead of just sticking to the core rules.
I had other participants tell me that they had chosen a theme (like all Witches as seen in different roleplay systems) or a favorite setting (Al-Qadim for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition) or even a favorite system (all characters were from Classic Traveler). When I first suggested this idea, I had one person respond that they wanted to try this with games they had never played or haven’t played in five years. If a common theme helps you with your #CharacterCreationChallenge then go for it.
As I was writing up this blog post, I visited several of the sites that had participated in the 2021 challenge. I think I’m going to try to come up with something for those who complete the challenge in January. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I’ll come up with something.
If you would like to participate, email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and let me know where you will be posting your challenge characters at. If you are posting them on a website, I’ll add the link to my Character Creation Challenge page.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of November 15th through the 21st.
November 15 “Madness has no purpose or reason. But it may have a goal.” Spock- The Alternative Factor, Stardate: 3087.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
November 16 “We don’t consider even one survivor petty.” Riker- Angel One, Stardate: 41636.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
November 17 “If I were you, I’d take what little honor I had left and go home. Fire one shot, and I’ll blast you right back to where we found you.” Archer- Sleeping Dogs, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet
“We don’t have a tractor beam.” Harriman “You left spacedock without a tractor beam?” Kirk “It won’t be installed until Tuesday.” Harriman- Star Trek Generations, Stardate: 48650.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
“I do consider these my people because nobody else on this ship will look out for them like I will.” Chakotay- Parallax, Stardate: 48439.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet
“I think you Klingons embrace death too easily. You treat death like a lover. I think living is a lot more attractive. I think an honorable victory is better than an honorable death.” Dax- Blood Oath, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
November 20 “If the information I provided helps Starfleet deter even one pointless skirmish, I’ve served my purpose. I’m sick of war. My people need peace.” Jorat Dal- Lower Decks, Stardate: 47566.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet
“I don’t care about your negotiations and I don’t care about your treaty. All I care about is my patient and at the moment, he needs more treatment and less politics.” Dr. Bashir- Life Support, Stardate: 48498.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
