Alien Spotlight: Klingons preview

Well here's something we seem to have been waiting for forever! Nearly a year since it was first announced Keith R. A. DeCandido's Alien Spotlight on the Klingons is finally about to be released (this month some time) and KRAD has just posted some preview pages of J.K. Woodward's art for the books, which comes in three distinct styles for the three stories told:

UPDATE: KRAD has now posted a five-page preview (with words and everything!) from this issue, see it here.

Star Trek Monopoly review, and competition!

Those nice people at USAopoly decided to send me a copy of their new "Star Trek: Continuum Edition" Monopoly game, which is out this month in the US and Canada, to have a play with. As a huge Star Trek and Monopoly fan I can’t say I was anything less than very excited by this. To the best of my knowledge there have been two Star Trek Monopolys before; a TOS one, and a TNG one, so this is the first time we get the entire Trekverse in one Monopoly game, good stuff.

The thing that I first wanted have a look at when I opened the box was the counters, so I shall start there. We get six; A Vulcan lute, a TOS shuttlecraft, a TOS movie-era hand phaser, a TOS communicator, Kirk's command chair, and a blood wine goblet. My very first thought was to question why they didn't go for more starships, however on thinking my thought through I have concluded the selection is actually quite a nice homage to the classic Monopoly tokens, in that we get a nice random assortment. My favourite is the lute, which I would have lost if they had done ships, and these are a huge improvement over the little figurine tokens that came with the previous Trek Monopolys. My only real complaint about the token selection is that it's very TOS-centric.

The board is good fun, with a few exceptions (such as Starfleet Command and the Chin'toka system) each property is a planet, grouped into clusters; for instance the red properties are all Klingon worlds, the light blues are the Federation founders. Train-stations are replaced with starships and utilities become Delta Vega's lithium cracking station and the Argus Array. The only possible improvement that occurred to us while playing was that the jail could have been renamed the brig, and free parking maybe starbase. Though it did also occur to us that those four corners might never change on any version of Monopoly so we forgave that one. Also unchanged are the houses and hotels, text all over the game rules and cards refers to them as starships and fleets but the design of the actual pieces is your standard house and hotel.

The cards for each of the properties are your standard Monopoly layout on one side, with a little factoid on the other about the subject. While playing we developed a little sub-game based in Star Trek geekery by trying to guess what the factoid might be...

The box of the game also provided some little factoids, on subjects such as the timeship Relativity and Species 8472. When I opened the box I thought this was a somewhat obscure collection of facts, but as we progressed through game-play and found references to these we decided it was actually a good backup on information more casual fans might not know so well, clever.

Community Chest and Chance cards have become "Sensor Readings" and "Subspace Transmissions" and have appropriately Trek-based results. I found myself particularly irked to have to pay Dr Phlox to cure me from the Klingon augment virus!

Money in the game takes the form of gold pressed latinum bars (translated into the usual paper slips).

The game-play is your classic Monopoly set-up, ie, a very enjoyable way to gobble up a couple of hours. The instructions also have suggestions for optional Star Trek rules, which we played with and had even more fun. Rolling a double six for instance gets you a Borg attack! In which (using a dice role-off) you can assimilate another players property - I blame this for my losing of the game!

In conclusion, if you enjoy Monopoly and are a Star Trek fan you can't go wrong here. The design of the game is quite well balanced between all the series and films, the elements customised for this edition of the game are done so effectively and are quite fun and the extra Star Trek rules easily double the enjoyability of a very enjoyable game.

COMPETITION - Now closed

And if you'd like a copy of the game (you could buy it, or) USAopoly were kind enough to send me another copy of the game to give away to one of you lucky peoples. So just send an email with the subject "Monopoly competition" to 8of5opoly@googlemail.com for your chance to win, and start buying up the entire Star Trek Continuum! (competition closing 11:59pm (GMT) Saturday the 18th of April)

Mission's End #4 cover

A listing on Things From Another World for the forth issue of the Mission's End series has revealed the cover for that issue. Oww, Oriony:

Spock: Reflections

Former IDW editor Andrew Steven Harris has released some details for the new David Messina series that has been hinted at a few times. The series will be called Spock: Reflections, and will see Messina return to his regular writing partners Scott and David Tipton (woo!). The story will apparently be set in the new timeline created by the new movie.

New TOS Enterprise varients

As reported by TrekMovie.com, DST have announced two new variations of their Original Series Enterprise model. The latest additions to DST fleet are, a mirror universe ISS Enterprise, complete with Terran Empire markings on the hull. And a TOS remastered version fo the model, with extra orange nacelle caps…


TrekMovie also report that the previously announced Sisko Dukat action figure two-pack has been cancelled.

Star Trek Online: 2386

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with the next year in their Path to 2409 timeline. The story continues to weave in elements from Countdown, while moving forward the story arcs for the Romulans and the developing Klingon-Gorn conflict. In summary:

In the Romulan Star Empire an investigation by the Romulan Mining Guild concludes that the continued over-taxation of Remus could result in a Praxis-like end to the planet and suggest Romulan mining effects spread to further reaches of the Empire. This suggestion puts the Guild at odds with the Remans, with vessels of both sides occasionally clashing for control of more distant mining worlds.

The Remans also continue to fight for greater rights, requesting a continent to live on Romulus. That request is rejected, and instead the Remans are offered the planet Crateris, the site of a failed Romulan colony, but a vast improvement over Remus.

Meanwhile Rehaek of the Tal shiar concludes his investigation into the assassination of Tal'aura, finding she was killed by a coalition of noble houses who had been enraged by her reformation of the Senate. This report sparks a feud between Rehaek and Sela, eventually leading to attack on Rehaek's home, killing him and his family. Sela is sentenced to death, but Donatra steps in to arrange for Seal to be exiled rather than killed.

Later in the year Admiral Taris takes her ship to Levaeri V to investigate claims that the "Sword of the Raptor Star", a reversed artifact from the time of the Sundering, had been discovered.

Outside of Romulan space relations between the Klingons and Gorn continued to degrade. Following the death of the Gorn King his successor, Slathis, acts to reinforce the boarders with the Klingon Empire, resulting in an escalation of forces on both sides of the boarder, and eventually a successful attack by the Klingons on Gila VI.

Away from the field of battle Worf marries his new partner Grilka, with many of his old Starfleet comrades in attendance.

In Starfleet, the refit of the USS Enterprise is completed, with command awarded to Data, and Starfleet introduces a new uniform design.

Meanwhile on Ferenginar protests rage for two days after Rom introduces free schooling using tax revenues. The protest are brought to an end when Rom introduces a scheme requiring a permit to protest, using the funding from said permits to fund the new education system.

In neighbouring Cardassian space a new agreement is reached between the Union and the Federation to disband Cardassia's military, instead allowing Starfleet to maintain security and concentrate resources n rebuilding Cardassia. The new agreement prompts the Bajoran coalition to drop it's call to charge Cardassians for war crimes in recent conflicts.

Finally, on behalf of the Founders, Odo meets with Lamat'Ukan, the leader of the Jem'Hadar in the Alpha Quadrant, to request they return to the Gamma Quadrant. Lamat'Ukan rejects Odo as a false god, and refuses to return with him.

Mission's End #2 preview

Comics Continuum have posted a five page preview of issue two of Mission's End (out next week). It also comes with a new cover, see the whole preview, here.

DAC caps

TrekMovie.com have released a couple of screenshots from the game with the mysterious name; Star Trek: D.A.C.:

Looking a bit Xindi those Romulans...

trailer trailer sequel

A new TV trailer for the new film:

And one for the Playmates toys:

And news: Work on a sequel has been confirmed, a script is to be delivered by the end of the year with a target release of 2011.

New starship class Online

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with details of a new type of Federation starship, the Oslo class, which is the next generation design from the Norway class and starts to take the Online fleet towards the customisation to be seen in the game with an in-universe idea of greater flexibility in starship design as the fleet was redeveloped after the Dominion war.

Check out the full specs and history, here.