I haven’t, I don’t have Stellaris, but to be honest I am kind of exhausted by the theme of 4x games which always boils down to “paint the map your color”… like I don’t want to, I am bored with that. I want to win but the unquestioned assumptions in the foundations of 4x games is a bit too cynical for me even though I love playing war games, but then again there is a difference between two sides blasting it out in a war and an ever growing suffocating empire that consumes all under its color and banner and has no other objective than endless growth…

Almost every 4x game is concerned with consolidating power under your control, I mean yeah it is fun right! I am not trying to bash it as inherently bad but at a certain level I find it a really constricting theme after awhile even though I love playing evil villains in fantasy as the next person. I just want more from the genre in terms of evolution of game design at a foundational level not just more stuff and more dlc and more mechanics and more different kinds of space war. If the only shape of an empire game is of an oppressive unstoppable regime either succeeding or failing to rise I just think that is pretty limited in vision. Not that there isn’t an amazing diversity of strategy games that don’t fit the mold that I am describing, but in general I think there is truth to my point.

For a reference of what something different can look like, see modern euro game design in board gaming, in particular I think the board game Oceans creates a compelling strategy experience that while still being about winning isn’t inherently about just being the most powerful creature or presence on the board at any one moment. Mutual benefits are complex and arise spontaneously because the objective isn’t complete annihilation for anybody.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/232414/oceans

I guess you could argue my criticism is all a matter of perspective, any kind of winning is going to encourage more winning and snowball to some degree in a system that isn’t totally random, but then again the feeling of getting near the end game of almost any 4x gets a little bit tedious for most people, not only because every single turn takes more and more admin/micromanagement of a bigger and bigger empire but also because the most common impact of winning a 4x game is that the gameboard/environment becomes more and more homogeneous and less and less dynamic the closer you get to winning. Winning should reward you with interesting choices and dynamic board states not an experience that feels like a chokehold even though winning again can always be reframed as the process of gaining a chokehold on a system.

(again, a general point, I know and love that there always exception to the rule)

Yeah and the mechanism for adjusting your phasers is in the style of “Don’t Stop Talking And Nobody Explodes” co-operative minigames that border on silliness in their fiddly complexity at points as part of the fun (also a vehicle to poke fun at the goofy technobabble in Star Trek hahaha).

Harry Kim, we all want you to be promoted, but it isn’t productive to be upset with other Ensigns for getting promoted more than you.

I love how upset some people get about Tilly serving on a big burly masculine warship that sometimes has the serious job of killing people.

If a crew like this didn’t have people like Tilly on it, it would have fallen catastrophically apart after the 10th crisis or so.

Especially in this season it so obvious how Tilly’s intelligence manifests in being able to bypass entire complexes of prejudice and social norms (perceived and unconscious, spoken and unspoken) whether they be human or alien, and get right to the point with somebody. In an organization that is constantly trying to establish trust with a variety of unknown actors, Tilly is an incredible asset.

Stay angry, fools.

edit You know what is actually hilarious, TNG failed to really use Troi’s empathetic mind reading in interesting ways for most of its run, to the shows great detriment, but Tilly is basically who Troi would have been if Troi hadn’t been sidelined or written to be unconfident or naive for the stupidest reasons in most episodes. Tilly regularly walks into rooms and nearly instantaneously perceives the emotional context of the people in the room (whether or not she knows them that well) and boldly addresses it head on in a way that somehow isn’t overbearing, aggressive or intimidating. I don’t understand how this can be understood as anything but a minor superpower.

I am loving this seasons so far, does anyone know if I watch the TNG episode that this season connects too if it will spoil anything for later seasons of TNG? I am still in like season 4 or 5 as I am going through TNG, VOY and DS9 all at the same time.

Loved the first episode, I think the way they brought Book back made sense and I think the season set up connecting to an underutilized TNG episode is absolutely awesome, I could not be more down for this kind of season of Discovery. On to the second episode!

I am really gonna miss Discovery, I am not sure Doug Jones is going to miss dressing up as Saru for every shoot though.

Still though wow he really knocks it out of the park with conveying an alien with a physicality much different than ours, he has to easily be one of the best aliens in the whole series.

I really hope this is good, I am actually really excited to see how this turns out, I don’t necessarily have high expectations but also I don’t think there is any reason it has to suck so long as Georghiu isn’t let of the moral hook for being an awful, murderous leader.

Also Michelle Yeoh is great so I am excited fuck it.

I can’t wait!

7/10 I think its get hated on very unfairly, though it has significant structural issues that keep it from being the best of star trek. Even still, anyone who says that it didn’t have the heart of star trek is wrong I think, if it wasn’t still there in some essential way we wouldn’t have gotten the rest of new star trek.

Also anyone who says the futuristic starship designs in discovery aren’t awesome are just wrong, sorry.

No but I did watch the TOS episode Balance Of Terror after watching the associated SNW episode and I HIGHLY recommend it, it is great fun to watch one right after the other.

I really enjoy how lower decks makes the events on screen absurd in a way that fits the vibe of an adult animated scifi series but manages to make it still feel like LD is in the same universe as other star trek shows that are superficially very different in tone, genre and pacing. In the crossover episode Captain Pike finds Boimler and Mariner annoying (they act like cartoon characters… because they are) but ultimately Pike is pretty seriously charmed through an immediate recognition that what these annoying time travellers value about starfleet/the federation is the same thing he does. It is things like this that ground LD in the rest of the universe and make it not feel like a superfluous side gimmick.

This week’s episode is a great example, the ferengi joining the federation (from my as of yet incomplete star trek watching experience, I havent finished DS9) is actually a pretty massive expansion of star trek canon to hand out to the animated spinoff show. To me, as a fan of star trek less for what happens in any one particular moment and more for the broader constellation of stories in a shared universe, I had high expectations for what the final negotiation process was going to be like with the ferengi.

I thought they nailed it, the ferengi acted like cartoon versions of themselves by trying to swindle them, but ultimately it came not from an unrealistic supervillian type place but rather a place of ferengi’s not wanting to enter into a serious alliance that makes them vulnerable with an organization that can easily be swindled by others (which would probably be considered a serious moral failing by ferengi) … it is a cultural thing to them and the final test was looking for a recognition of that which I think is a perfect way to allow a lot of silly fun while also making the choices feel like real people were making them. It also echoes the SNW episode where Pike realizes how to be genuine with an alien species in order to convince them to join the federation, and I don’t think I will ever get tired of those episodes as they get to the heart of what star trek is about.

Great episode!

WOOF WOOF WOOF

Binoculars. You will be traveling across lots of landscapes, stick a pair in the sidedoor of your car so if you stumble across a nice vista or see a cool animal you can get a better look!

I think my favorite part about this episode is any amount of excessive silliness or criticism of being too fan-servicey is completely obliterated by the very next episode which deals with the trauma and horror of war head on. It didn’t feel like whiplash either, which I think speaks to the fact that even though episode 7 was silly there were still very serious emotional beats like Boimler convincing Pike to have a birthday party so he can hang out with the people that love him.

I am upset they are cancelling Discovery, it had flaws but it is an awesome show with some amazing moments and a very diverse cast.

The dodge car product placement was really obnoxious, like REALLY obnoxious.

Especially this late into climate change, big gas guzzling sportscars are unethical to promote as cool fullstop.

I mean, some of them are inconsistent but they are all good and all of them are very much in the spirit of star trek.

The joke in the court felt kinda cringe, though I otherwise really like Spock in SNW

Yeah as much as there was silly, stupid action in PIC season 2, the emotional character arcs behind it all felt genuine and interesting. In an ironic sense it is fitting that none of the material of Se2 got carried over to Se3 except that Picard had completed an emotional arc that would allow him to save the day in the penultimate moment of Se3.

I also think Se2 makes it more interesting to watch TNG because you can see Picard from a totally different angle at a much later age in a way more vulnerable position and sort of compare the two.