Federation Commander

... but I better ask now. Are the Cardassians ever under consideration for Federation Commander? Just out of curiosity.

They are outside the scope of ADB's license as is anything from any of the other series beyond the original series. There are also some limitations on use of material from the original series as well.

Ah, I see. Just had to ask. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that Star Trek and ADB really are like comparing apples to oranges.

You're correct. It's because ADB's Star Fleet Universe is not Star Trek, both in the literary sense and the legal definition.

It has it's origins in the original series of Star Trek, the animated series, and the Franz Joseph Technical Manual/Deck Plans, and is allowed to use the items from those that it already does, but it very quickly grew beyond that seed material.

It started in 1979 and has grown massively since then, but has never had anything to do with "Trek" other than the bits it started with.

You could consider it an "alternate reality", that branched off where the source material stopped. Later Trek movies and tv series did their thing, ADB did theirs, and ne'er the two shall meet.

Trekdom is very broad, and ADB-SFU is really not any more different from "canon trek" than the various elements of "canon trek" are from each other.

"Canon Trek" is an ever-changing and seriously inconsistent body of work. Every scriptwriter does his thing without much reference or respect to the work of previous writers. That's why we have warp speed dogfights in one series, nobody can fight at warp speed in another series, and nobody can TURN at warp speed in yet another series.

ADB's SFU was designed by a military engineer and has been remarkably consistent over 30-odd years. There have been at least five official maps of "canon trek" which don't look anything like each other, but SFU has one map that has been the same since the first game was printed in 1979. SFU has a specific timeline of events, wars, alliances, and technology; Trek makes stuff up as it goes along without regard to what was done before. (We make stuff up every day but we make up stuff that fits into the existing framework.)

In one very real sense, trek is a literary/fantasy story set within the historial world that is SFU.

Trek kicks out a movie every few years and a series for a few years in any decade. SFU kicks out new stuff every month. The total body of SFU (history, technology, geography) is actually bigger than trek. We have published more ships, more planets, and more empires.

Magnum357 wrote:... but I better ask now. Are the Cardassians ever under consideration for Federation Commander? Just out of curiosity.

Nothing is stopping you from trying to design some Cardassian ships yourself. Obviously Fed Com doesn't have a construction system but if you're keen just make some stuff up, playtest it against other ships, and come up with some point values.

Pretend they're old cardassian vessels even and make their cruiser's power relative to say the Federation CA in the same way the Galor class might be compared to the Galaxy.

You can design anything you like and use it on your own game table. No trouble will ever come from that.

However, sharing it or posting online it gets icky, real fast.

Icky would be one term. We're not going to promote such illegal use of Paramount property (since Paramount could take legal action against us for violating our license if we did), and (while not specifically required) we protect ourselves by notifying Paramount whenever we find out about someone posting such things. That way there is a paper-trail that we tried to put a stop to it, leaving no doubt that we made no sneaky behind the scenes attempt to promote such illegal use.

It seems the good place toask, where can I get all the background fluff, history and all ?

I can't find anything on e23.

thanks

The background has devloped over 100 products and, well, that's pretty much how you get the background, by getting all of the products.

However, there is a lot of it on the website. Go to the master index and look around. History of the General War and Timeline are good places to start.

I am starting to smell another "away team log" by taking all of the existing background stuff and assembling it into another instant book.

Some general info here

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federatio ... erse.shtml

The underlines are hyperlinks that will take you elsewhere

You can find a lot of info using the site index

http://www.starfleetgames.com/masterindex.shtml

One good document there is the star fleet universe timeline - once you are on the index page scroll down to it

Another document is at

http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/general_war.htm

Explore the site, there are a lot of good info documents in various places

Cross posted with SVC

http://www.starfleetgames.com/masterindex.shtml


http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Timeline.pdf

http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/general_war.htm

http://www.starfleetgames.com/historicaldownloads.shtml

Steve Cole wrote:I am starting to smell another "away team log" by taking all of the existing background stuff and assembling it into another instant book.

I'd buy one!

I used to have a complete set of the SFB rules and supplements, and was generally familiar with all the history of the SFU. Since I lost that binder severral years ago, I've been slowly piecing my SFU knowledge together again through FC modules and Captain's Logs but a condensed "history" book would be a welcome addition to my gaming bookshelf.

me too, I would buy if in PDF

I can already hear the objections, but wouldn't it be great (from a consumer point of view) if selected articles that went along with various entries in the timeline were included in the book.

For example, the entry for Stocker preempting the Romulan invasion could refer to the fiction piece about that incident that would be included.

Not all the fiction to be included, but key "historical" pieces.

???