The Re-Examined Life

Lots of interesting philosophical discussions and thoughts have happened today, and in the preceding weeks. What about? Veganism. Yes, I have given serious thought to living a vegan lifestyle. Based on my eating habits alone, I and my wife would say I’m 90% there. More thinking on the matter is needed.

To commemorate my first post in a LONG time, here’s the Starfleet Ambassador-class Yamaguchi refit, in a new and shiny format. Enjoy!

The Examined Life

It’s been a long and eventful summer. My wife and I have spent quite a lot of time together this summer, getting to know one another even more, falling deeper into love. I know my life is better because of her presence in my life. She started a new job three months ago that is a lot closer to home, so she’s enjoying the flex time that affords her and us. We’ve gone on two vacations, one with family, and one just by ourselves for our 3rd wedding anniversary. Our beloved dog-child, Lina, passed away at the beginning of summer, and we miss her dearly. I am going out of my own comfort zone and will be teaching English Language Arts in addition to Social Studies.

Some of these changes have filled me with great joy (my wife), some with great sadness (our dog), and others with trepidation (teaching ELA). At times I have wished I could emulate Vulcans in their cool emotion-less logic, and feel detached from events. Other times I desire anything but. As the Vulcans would say, humans are not logical. It’s good to reflect, examine, and reassess our own lives, for as Socrates would say, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

In honor of the purplexed Vulcans and reexamining past endeavors, here’s an updated Vulcan Suurok-class starship.

Star Trek: Attack Wing

The Rav Laerst Breen battle cruiser .. on my kitchen counter

So here I sit in the latest Snowpocalypse to hit the southeastern United States. As my wife and I gaze through the winter wonderland that now paints our neighborhood and many other neighborhoods I can’t help but think of the icy-dwelling Breen of Star Trek.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, mainly due to being busy with friends and family and work, but now that things have effectively been shut down by the snow, I have time to post again!

So my wonderful sister-in-law gifted me with the Star Trek Attack Wing: Starter Set by Wizkids and I have just been in absolute love with this game! I mentioned previously the Star Trek Fleet Captains game (also by Wizkids) and Attack Wing complements, rather than supplants the former. Both games do a damn good job of capturing the feel of Trek while still being fun and relatively balanced. While Fleet Captains is a board game, Attack Wing is a minis game. Both games are immensely fun, and the easiest analogy to make to understand the two games is that Fleet Captains is like an entire season of a Star Trek series, while playing Attack Wing is like a single episode (complete with missions!)

I’d say more, and I will later, but my wife is calling for more together time, so I bid you all a safe and warm winter night (or day)!

Below is a link to my very first youtube video on Attack Wing, and anything, for that matter. Enjoy, and please comment either here or there!

The Rav Laerst

 

The Earth-Romulan War, Part 2

The 1st refit of the NX-class.

In a prior post, many months ago, I discussed the Earth-Romulan War. In that first interstellar conflict between Earth and Romulus, humanity found itself at a decided disadvantage against a mysterious and hostile species bent on humanity’s destruction. In the various Star Trek television and movie series, this event was always just a backdrop. However, pocket books released two novels in the Romulan War series that detailed the war in depth, heavily featuring the United Earth NX-class refit. All well and good, but the recent reference book, the Federation – The First 150 years, further muddies the matter by contradicting events in the Romulan War series. Both of these sources are contradicted by the Star Trek: Legacy computer game!

All of this to say, that there are things in life that are perhaps best left as purely backdrop elements, memories not to be forgotten, but also not the focus or constantly at the forefront of people’s minds. Perhaps we’d have less conflict in our world today if people left the muddied past where it belongs, in the past, and instead focused on the here and now.

London, the bridge is falling!

London-class transport

 

With the recent hubbub of American spying on their allies, it seems as though the United States is meandering along a path where it is becoming increasingly estranged from once close allies. While it may not be quite to the point where it is burning down those metaphorical bridges, it’s certainly scorched them.

What’s interesting is that the Federation, for all intents and purposes a utopian society, does indeed do the same thing and spy on its allies, the Klingons. The Federation doubtless justifies its spying as necessary for its internal security, as I am sure the United States does here on Earth. At what point though does spying to protect oneself cross the bounds and move into something more sinister?

In hopes of a decided dearth of bridge-burning, here’s an updated version of my previously posted: Starfleet London-class transport. Enjoy!

 

I live, but will Star Trek’s financial dream live?

The Emissary

After many long months, I’m finally posting again. Hopefully this will not be an infrequent occurrence. The original Star Trek has always had a rather socialist economic system, later muddled by subsequent series that introduced things like Federation credits and gold-pressed latinum. At its core, the Star Trek universe as presented is a much more equitable one than the world we live in today, whatever lens it may be viewed by (social, political, economic). After having watched the video link below that a friend sent me, I wonder sometimes if we will achieve something more equitable in my lifetime, or even in my children’s lifetime.

http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2?g=2

Below are two starships, one from the Enterprise-era, and one from the era of Star Trek: Online. Both represent visions of a more equitable world, visions we can strive for even if we never achieve it.

Starfleet Bonaventure-class (updated format)

Starfleet Emissary-class

Star Trek Into Darkness – CODA Rules updates

Well, it took longer than a few weeks, more like a month, but here are my promised CODA rules statistics on the U.S.S. Vengeance from Star Trek Into Darkness, a Starfleet Dreadnought-class (alternate) large. This utilizes my updated Expanded CODA Rules. I’ve also updated the statistics on the U.S.S. Enterprise, Starfleet Constitution-class (alternate) large.

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think of the stats and format! I may try my hand on providing stats for the new Klingon ship in the movie next.

Star Trek Into Darkness, living it Large

It’s another giant dark starship beating up the Enterprise!

I watched the latest Star Trek movie with a group of like-minded Star Trek fans. We all agreed it was a fast-paced action-packed movie with lots of homages made to the original series fans, and very entertaining to watch. That being said, there seems to be so much conflict between original fans and new fans. The former consider the new trek to be a Star Wars flick with the serial numbers filed off and replaced with Star Trek names and places. The latter consider the new trek to be a breath of much-needed fresh air for an otherwise now-stale and nearly dead franchise. I am not sure exactly where I fall, probably a little bit of both.

If I had to, I’d say either way you look at it, it’s a good thing for Star Trek. The new movies have generated more interest in Star Trek , and that’s always a good thing for keeping the franchise going. Despite this, some fans have some serious issues with the size of the new Enterprise. Fans of the “old” trek say the new Enterprise can’t be more than 300+ meters in length, while fans of the “new” trek say its as it was stated in various abodes on the interwebz, 700+ meters in length. All sorts of evidence is cited, from art designer quotes to meticulous pixel by pixel examinations. As far as enjoying the movies, does it really matter?

Again, I am not sure which is quite right, not without some definitive tech manual popping up from an official source saying, “The Enterprise is X meters long.” So without further ado, I give you this revised and updated version of the USS Kelvin, large and in charge! Stay tuned in the next few weeks as I will also be statting out the large and in-charge USS Vengeance from the latest Trek film!

Starfleet Kelvin-class large

The Cardassians: Resource Scarcity and War

The Hutet-class Battleship

The Cardassian Hutet-class starship was a powerful battleship designed by the Cardassians around the time of the Dominion War. The Cardassians were a resource-poor polity that was ever-expanding its empire to remedy that lack of resources. Ironically, this expansion meant a further drain on their empire’s resources, thus fueling further expansion.

How many times have we seen the same vicious cycle at work here on Earth? Resource scarcity begets war begets resource scarcity begets war. Perhaps the only way to truly reduce or eliminate this vicious cycle here on Earth is to expand out into space and acquire resources from other worlds in our own solar system. The cynic in me, though, would only surmise that we would just expand our wars into space. The optimist in me, however, would hope that we could spin the exploration of space as a conquest requiring the unity of all humanity to succeed.

 

Nestor, Star Trek counselor

The Nestor by thefirstfleet.deviantart.com

Nestor was a character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Throughout both books he was simultaneously praised and scorned for his hospitality and counseling, but overall was viewed as a good and wise counselor, irregardless of the success of those that followed his advice. Too often, nowadays, it seems that we are too focused on immediate results. Even when following sound advice, we lack the patience to see things through when this advice does not bear immediate fruit.

Imagine, then, a dark evening just after a rain shower. We require light. Instead of viewing sound advice as a light switch to be flipped on to produce immediate results, we should look at it as a match being struck and set to a candle wick. A breeze may unexpectedly come along and extinguish the match before we can light the candle, or even an errant leftover raindrop may splash upon our match, but that does not mean the striking of the match was ill-advised.

Here then is the Starfleet Nestor-class, for whom I’ve concocted a storyline as being the first Starfleet ship to feature ship’s counselors as part of the regular crew complement. May their advice bear fruit (in time)!