why would you take anything you see on the internet seriously?
This is a Nyko Air Flow controller. I had one for the original Xbox. It was supposed to keep you from sweating during long sessions of gameplay, because it was ventilated and had a fan on the back. To be honest, I don’t remember it being excellent at keeping you cool. I think the fan was pretty lousy, but it was a great gimmick none the less.
I had a lot of weird controllers back then. Some good, some bad. Most of them Mad Catz.
I wonder which Enterprise they would have used. I don’t think any of them are appropriate for Janeway.
That being said, it’s fun to speculate! Was the E blown up at that point? Was it too early for the Odyssey class?
It’s nice to see Janeway in a new whip. The Voyager-A kind of looks like a Sovereign with an Intrepid deflector. Can’t say that I mind the look though, I love arrowhead ships!
I bought this when it originally launched, and unfortunately never really found the time to play a campaign.
We were workshopping a TMP-era story based around a crew serving on a Miranda class vessel. Kind of a “back to basics” sort of campaign. I had really high hopes because Star Trek is absolutely my favorite universe to roleplay in.
I hope a bunch of people pick this rulebook up and have a fun time with it!
You can check the md5 hash checksum provided by Microsoft to verify the authenticity. Massgrave gets it from Microsoft, it’s a legit ISO just rehosted.
Sure, the fanservice can be a lot.
My main thing is just that it’s clear how much McMahan loves the source material and it’s great how he can operate within the parameters of the universe with reverence despite being jocular.
I wouldn’t say mishandled but I would say both Disco and Picard’s first two seasons were incredibly sloppy due to a clear lack of planning, vision, and the difficulty of transitioning to a fully serialized format.
By contrast Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds were really able to find their footing quickly because they had season-wide arcs but outside of that they were generally episodic and allowed for a lot more exploration of the core of the universe. This is just a better format for the franchise in my opinion.
I find Kurtzman is occupied with making the series more cinematic than it needs to be. Overly cinematic Star Trek results in eye bleeding lightshows like the finale of Disco S2, while grounding the shows a bit more allows for more character growth and development. You can’t just always have Sacrifice of Angels all the time, you need to cut it with some Take Me Out to The Holosuite. I find that SNW and LD have found that balance for me.
I am very aware of Kurtzman’s influence on the franchise. I think he’s not the right guy to be in charge. It really feels like this is a Dave Filoni/Kathleen Kennedy situation but in Star Trek.
I dunno man, LD is like half fan service and half universe building, and it’s my favorite thing they’ve produced in the last decade and a half.
Can we just get Mike McMahan in charge of everything, please?
I think putting the face onto the source is what made it lose the value, unfortunately.
My comparison is what they did with the Borg and the Queen. Wolf 359 is a terrifying, tragic ordeal, made all the more serious by the fact that it was done by one cube that could not be negotiated or reasoned with. As soon as the Borg had a way to negotiate and reason, they became less scary because they had understandable motives and goals that could be bargained with, as excellently demonstrated by Janeway.
Ultimately, I agree with you that it’s kind of more of a TOS-y sort of plot device. I do feel like back then they really followed the science being indistinguishable from magic logic, and we’ve progressed over time to wanting more hard and serious technobabble. I think that’s kind of a disconnect for me, personally, is that they had to dip into a serious explanation for something that effectively functions like magic.
SNW rocks. I’ll follow Pike and the crew anywhere.
We can replace the words “magic” with “strongly telepathic” and it’s basically the same problem.
It’s a great idea to fuck warp travel right on its head as a concept, but the execution was majorly lacking for me. I would have much rather had a continuation of the plot from Force of Nature where warp had significantly damaged subspace gradually (like a climate change allegory), rather than a universe-wide explosion that happened all at once in a flash.
The same amount of fools who created the largest civilian surveillance network with Ring doorbells.
TSMC equipment only has the materials to function for about two weeks before needing a shipment of replacement parts for the fabs when they wear out.
Again, there are easier ways to do this.
Biometric authentication can be required for some companies. You’d have to opt in to use the system or at least agree to the terms set forth by the employer. This kind of stuff doesn’t just get collected just because; it’s pretty sensitive data.
What you’re talking about is a cyberpunk nightmare; some corporate-assisted mass surveillance designed for like, union busting.
If you’re making vocal and facial profiles of employees you must have some reason to do so, and it can’t just be to burn cash. Like I said before, this stuff costs money, and it’s kind of pointless unless you’re using it in a way that makes money, selling the data somehow.
There are easier ways to spy on your employees. This is not cost-effective.
I use Zoom for work now and each call can be several gigabytes large, depending on resolution of shared materials and a few other factors. If you want to save that kind of stuff long term, you have to pay to keep it somewhere. If you multiply several gigabytes over a few dozen calls a day, you’re going to end up with terabytes of garbage you need to store. Zoom also informs you of when a recording is starting and active, offering for you to leave the call or otherwise implicitly agree to being recorded. You have to pay for all these things because there’s a significant amount of processing power involved. It’s not like it’s free to run facial recognition and speech recognition.
When I did contract work for Apple support, the spying was way more efficient than just listening to my calls. My supervisor could literally always see my monitor through the chat program we had installed. There’s all kinds of remote software for things like this. If an admin wants to see you misuse your equipment, they have easier ways of finding out than sifting through calls to find wrongthink.
There’s a transaction limit on tap payments. Sometimes you need to chip or swipe when it’s over $250 or something.
I’ve heard great things, and I’ve been watching the original run of the X-Men animated series in preparation for watching '97.
Animation tends to get me more hyped than anything else. They always do crazy shit in cartoons that they never really try to do in live action. I’ve been a big fan of all the DC animated stuff since forever, and Marvel is getting back into the game with a really strong entry with '97.
Going after the one person still interested in Marvel content? Bold move, Disney; we’ll see how it pans out.
I really like The Drumhead from TNG. It establishes the nature of Star Trek at its most essential. It’s mostly a talking episode, although there’s some action with an explosion, which is perfectly average to me. It gives you a feel of the dynamics of some of the politics in the universe, which I think is a great way to get people involved. It’s got one one of those great Picard speeches that puts a badmiral in their place, solving the problem non-violently. It’s also a great parallel to any slippery slope security tightening after a major event happens, which is basically always a timeless message of avoiding overreaching authoritarianism at all costs.
Another TNG one I’d pick is probably The Ensigns of Command. It’s another example of an episode that’s mostly talking, a little bit of action, with a non-violent resolution. It’s fun watching Picard come up with inane legal bullshit to deal with the very strictly by the books alien species, satisfying their requirements in a way that meets his agenda while also being within the rules.
Honestly, I could rationalize different episodes all day, but since those were the first two that came to mind, I’ll just leave them at that.
I remember it being one of my favored chosen out of the plethora of random third party devices I had laying around. This was a step above Mad Catz for sure, but definitely still below the original controllers.