There’s something odd happening to Starfleet in our game.  Thanks to a combination of Cryptic’s gameplay, it’s devotion to giving players vast customization options, the desire to offer (often sell) a variety of ships from every Trek era, and the fact that our characters lead away missions in place of our Number Ones, among other details, has given me a sense that Starfleet has gone a bit odd.  This is definitely the most speculative of all my observations.  Like with constellations, I may be connecting the dots here, but I’m adding a lot of lines to create a picture of my own devising.

But I think it’s an interesting picture.  And I think it could serve as a background for Foundry stories or at least for characters within them.

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Thanks to the doff system, my ship has an Orion female counselor. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?

Now, this essay is not about Orion female counselors specifically. Rather it’s about Orion pheromones and the implication of having so many Orion females on our ships. My ship also has an Orion female advisor and entertainer. But somehow having an Orion female counselor has become emblematic for me of the problem — and the opportunity for storytelling that problem suggests.

Ever since Enterprise’s “Bound,” we know that Orion females produce pheromones. With those, they can subjugate the wills of Orion males as well as males of many other sentient species, including humans (but apparently not Vulcans). Other species not controlled can still suffer physical discomfort. Human female suffer severe headaches.

Is that a good qualification for a counselor? Under normal circumstances, psychologists are told to watch out for transference. But with this. . .

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The Savior of the Klingon people is a member of Starfleet. And she’s not the only one. Cryptic said they want to let people play their “Worf fantasy” by rolling a Klingon Starfleet officer. In a game in which Starfleet is fighting against the Klingon Empire, it shows how decent Starfleet is to welcome Klingons into their ranks, giving them command of starships and the Special Taskforce. But what does this really mean for Starfleet? What does it mean for the Klingon Empire and for the individual Klingons themselves? And what stories can we Foundry authors tell about this?

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There’s something odd going on in the Klingon Empire.  Now, though I love the Federation/Klingon alliance, I don’t mind the war going on in the game.  While I intensely hope that by the (preferably far distant) end of this game, the alliance will be fully restored, Klingon culture is organized around conflict between Great Houses due to perceived slights.  When the Federation appears to slight the Empire, conflict is believable.  But in the meantime, this war seems to be doing strange things to the Klingon Empire.  Before STO (in the series & movies), the only non-Klingon we ever saw serve on a Klingon ship was Wil Riker.  Through TOS, the Klingons were regularly shown trying to take over the planets of other species.  And since Kirk couldn’t be everywhere, we have to assume they succeeded sometimes.  One of the big missed opportunities, I think, of TNG was not having any episodes in which the Federation had to deal with peoples conquered by their Klingon allies.  Imagine something like “The Higher Ground,” in which the rebel force wasn’t fighting against a planet of the week but the ally of the series.  The closest we ever got were the Cardassians in DS9 for a while, but the Klingons weren’t allies then, and that went sideways into other interesting territory.

And yet thought the late 24th century, this conquering Empire had a military filled, as far as we know, only with Klingons.  Even on the streets of the First City, the only people who weren’t Klingons were regular cast members.  Rome allowed barbarians to earn citizenship through it legions.  Britain incorporated descendants of conquered people like Scottish highlanders, Indians (ie the people, of India), and President Obama’s own Luo grandfather in their armies.

Not so, as far as we’ve seen up to Nemesis, with the Klingons.  But suddenly, now at this moment when they’re fighting an enemy who can mimic any appearance better than a Changeling can, they have an integrated First City and integrated KDF.  Sure, one can imagine that all this diversity existed before, just off-screen.

But imagine a changing Klingon Empire that is becoming more open to other species.  Why?  Does it have to do with the size or sophistication of these species? Are Gorn just more worthy warriors than the Kirosians (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kriosian)?  But considering that one can create one’s own alien species and make them a KDF captain, that doesn’t seen that the Klingons are only letting in just a few species.  With the Orions, there’s a strong suggestion in the Path to 2409 that they’re using Matron pheromones to infiltrate the Empire.  But for others, it appears Klingon culture is changing.

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I love story in Star Trek. I love the arc of Star Trek’s II, III, & IV. I love the subtle buildup to Sela’s appearance in TNG, Data’s slow advancement thought the series, and the sweep of the Dominion War as it brought a challenge to Rodenberry’s vision to human nature. And even though the Xindi Arc felt like a diversion to me, it’s mysteries and qualities brought me back to watching Enterprise after an off-and-on second season. I also love it when storytellers find ways to reconcile contradictions. Like Manny Coto’s explanation of how the Klingons changed appearance (which I wish had been followed in a Season 5 by an explanation of how Humans and Vulcans forgot about this change; He did plan to use Q then. Hm. . .)

And I even love the story in STO. Despite preferring the Klingons as allies than as enemies, the limitations of the ways in which plot and characterization had to be imparted in game, and how drawn out, and stilted the story can feel when the flow of missions was interrupted by being forced to scan five objects on dozens of planets in a row, I felt the story generally worked when played straight through. And from being surprised by discovering one had just unknowingly spent several hours on a holodeck to discovering new enemies and allies in Cloaked Intentions (as well as finding a few clues to suggesting a connection between a major, advanced enemy to an iconic TOS. . . uh. . . let’s say character), I’ve enjoyed the ride.

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