Inspiration: Wreck of the old star galleon

I saw an article the other day on NPR about the discovery of the wreck of a galleon from the legendary Spanish treasure fleet and my initial reaction was "wow, this would be good inspiration for a fantasy RPG" and indeed it would be. Buuuuuuut then I started to think about it tonight and realized that hey, this would work for scifi too. Here's the scenario I've come up with:

An ancient star galleon from a fallen space empire has been discovered in some remote reach of space. All that's known about the galleon is that it was once part of the aforementioned empire's treasure fleet, hauling fortune from its far-flung reaches and sometimes high technology. The contents and defenses of the galleon are unknown, but the potential for incredible riches and technology make its exploration well worth any dangers.

This could work for a wargame setting as well. In that situation, you'd have several star navies rushing ships to secure the galleon and its contents. Its worth noting that the technology in both scenarios are still very advanced even though the empire that created it has long since expired. Speaking of which, while that empire has gone the way of so many real world analogues, the star nation that spawned it still does, which adds another element to the scenarios: They themselves would love, love, love to get their hands on their former riches and technology in order to restore themselves to their former glory.

Thoughts?

The trailer for Star Trek: Beyond is...well, it's a...uh...it's something

I was going to write something snarky here, but I can't. I just can't. If that trailer is any indication, Star Trek: Beyond is going to be a hot pile of shit like Into Darkness. Can't say that I'm surprised. After all, Justin Lin is the same guy who directed four of the Fast & Furious movies and that trailer shows that he went at Beyond just like one of those movies. I make no secret about my dislike of the reboot and this only increases those feelings. This isn't Star Trek, plain and simple. This is Paramount trying to squeeze as much money out of the franchise as they can by reducing Trek to nothing more than an action movie franchise.

I don’t think Beyond will be Battlefield: Earth bad, but it’ll definitely trek beyond Final Frontier.

Oh, pretty ship

Credit: Peter Elson.

Stolen shamelessly from the blog of BARKING ALIEN. I am without shame, people! In any case, I swiped it because it's an awfully cool looking starship for the most part. The knock against I have against it is that antenna/mast. It's just odd and is that a gun mounted at the top? You just know some asshole gunner on an enemy ship is going to aim for that thing just to be a jerk. All the other gunners are aiming for the main body of that ship and there's Johnny Jackass trying to shot the antennas off. What a jerk, am I right?

My thoughts on the new Star Trek series

Meh.

Shit, I wrote thoughts, didn't I? Fuck, now I have to write more.

Anyways, "meh" sums it up pretty well. For those who haven't heard, CBS recently announced a new Trek series and any other day of the week I would be one happy boy, but unfortunately, I'm not. You see, the new show isn't going to be on TV (aside from the first ep) but on their website behind a paywall. Yeah, CBS is trying to get a piece of that web streaming pie by creating a subscription based service and apparently they think sticking a new Trek in there is just going to bring all the boys to the yard (ask your kids or Google). Now, a subscription only costs six bucks but that's six dollars more than I'm willing to pay just for one show and to be honest, that's really all you're going to get out of the deal. You do get access to entire runs of all their other TV shows, but the thing is, you can just as easily watch their most popular ones for free. I mean NCIS (both original and LA), Mike and Molly, The Big Bang Theory, Criminal Minds, like three of the CSIs, and other shows are all in syndication and air daily on other networks, so there's no incentive to drop any money for their service.

I will admit that I'm curious about the new Trek series. Which continuity, the characters, premise, the ship, etc., but my curiosity isn't enough to pay to see it even if I could and fortunately I can't, because I have no way of buying shit on the interwebs. :P

An interesting mashup of Star Trek: Enterprise's intro with Quantum Leap's audio

I just love how it syncs up perfectly.

I feel like reading a Star Wars novel

Which to read? Heir to the Empire isn't there because I'm saving that for another time.

Jennifer Lien (Kes from Star Trek: Voyager) arrested for allegedly exposing herself to minors

2015 is a weird, weird year. Via Variety:

“Star Trek: Voyager” actress Jennifer Lien was arrested and has been in custody for two weeks after allegedly exposing herself in front of several children, Roane County police confirm.

Lien has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure in an incident that happened on Aug. 31 in Harriman, Tenn.

A neighbor of Lien’s made a complaint to police after Lien began a tirade due to a crying child, and during her tirade, exposed her breasts and buttocks. The neighbor stated that she had three children in the yard while this was happening.

I checked her Wikipedia article and this isn't her first run in with the police, with arrests in 2012 and this past April. I'm glad that this wasn't one of those gross sex crimes that celebrities have been getting caught up in the past few years. Don't get me wrong, anyone exposing themselves to children is gross as frak, but at least it wasn't anything exceedingly gross. It's pretty clear that Jennifer Lien is in bad need of help and hopefully whatever sentencing gets or plea deal she takes (I doubt any prosecutor is going to push for a trial) includes some mental health treatment.

So guess who scored all twelve James Blish Trek AND The New Voyages paperbacks?

 So I went to the local Goodwill yesterday to see if they had any good pants for sale (I have an aversion towards spending ten dollars on a single pair, lol) and after finding two, went over to the books.

And I was coming up dry until I saw these babies sitting there. At a dollar a piece, they were a steal!

It wasn't until after I got home and looked them up on Wikipedia that I discovered that I had gotten my grubby hands on the entire series.

It gets better though, because I also snagged copies of both Star Trek: The New Voyages anthologies!

The New Voyages is interesting because not only were all the stories written by fanfic writers, but all but one story is preceded by an introduction from a TOS castmember! Imagine submitting a story for this anthology, then finding out that Leonard Nimoy or Nichelle Nichols is penning an intro it.

All in all, not a bad haul for $14.

The Blish Trek covers are from Memory Alpha. The New Voyages covers are from here and here.

Star Trek: Vanguard: Summon the Thunder so far (spoilers)

I can't even remember when I put that picture in the "Currently Reading" tab on the sidebar and in that time I've probably read several other books. I have a habit of doing this: I'll start reading a book, get a ways into it before dropping it and reading something else. I'll come back around to it sooner rather than later and this was the case with Summon the Thunder, the second book in the Star Trek: Vanguard. I can't stress enough that I didn't stop reading the book because it was bad or uninteresting or anything. Summon the Thunder really is a very good Trek novel that I'd recommend easily.

Currently, I'm on page 274 out of 420 pages total, although the last few pages are an "About the Authors" section and the usual ads that appear at the back of Trek novels. So what have I experienced so far? Hit the jump to find out and heed the spoiler warning in the post's title.

John Scalzi signs $3.4 million deal with Tor for thirteen books over the next decade

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. According to the article, we're getting a Lock In sequel (YES) and we're bound to get some more entries in the Old Man's War series (DOUBLE YES).