(upbeat music) - Welcome to Dyson Mind, a podcast hosted by Brad Brown and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, and creativity through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. (upbeat music) - I am, you know, after we had Michael on, Michael Dismuukon last time, and we just like toyed and had just this little discussion about the idea of Cleons and houses and all that. I'm really glad we decided to have him back on the talk about it because we've been so, you know, and don't get me wrong, I'm still on this idea of, you know, playing within a starship and everything like that. But I forget that you can play outside that realm. And you've been a big proponent of it in the Star Wars realm. You don't necessarily, you play on the Star Wars side of things, you play outside the empire, outside the rebellion, outside the republic. You play in the gray areas. - Yeah, I think as an adult, that sounds wrong because like we've been playing as adults for many decades now. But I think, yeah, I think the notion of the outer rim to me in Star Wars is so very provocative, continues to be so very provocative for storytelling and just for exploration because in Star Wars does this better, I think, truly than any other franchise around. But there's so much opportunity to just putts around, right? You can't break it, but also you can take as much from canon as you want. And again, Star Wars really lends itself, but we don't tend to do that in Trek or other franchises. - No, but the idea of playing, I think, you know, it's very easy to forget that Modefias has provided us material to play outside of Starfleet and play outside of the Federation. And so when we kind of teased that, or when Michael teased that with us the last time, it was only natural, we had to have him back to talk about it and it's going to be a fascinating discussion and the use of the Dune houses mechanic. - Yeah, I remember when he said that, and we were like, what? - I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. - Right. - Go on. - Yes, yeah, for me, being a, you know, we both are, we both are fans of the Dune franchise. - Right, well of the books, but you were already, you've gone into the game, you've been reading the game. I've been, I've been, I'm a fan of the material as lit 'cause I've been reading it. - As lit, right, right. - So I haven't played it, you know, someday, perhaps, but the idea of being able to play a little bit of Dune and a little bit of Star Trek together, mishmosh'd. - It's an interesting idea. - Yeah, yeah, and it will be interesting to see, 'cause I know that they haven't started, we're gonna get into this, into the discussion, and we're gonna come to find out that they really haven't, they're in the developmental phases of getting this. - They being Michael and his players. - Yeah, Michael and the players that are in the group of getting this ready to go to play, they aren't playing it yet. I'm very excited to see it and read about it and see how it plays out. And then ultimately, selfishly, I didn't say this during the interview and maybe I shouldn't even say this all the record, see how this stuff comes out if it becomes available for us for something that we can like download as like a PDF or something like that as like an add-on. - Right, I mean, if you can, if Doctor, who can show up on Lower Decks, come on, can't we, can we get a little Dune and our Trek? - Oh, there you go, good point, yeah. - Okay, so before we hop over to the interview then with Michael Dizmuke, we should give our listeners a proviso here. We think that Michael during the interview, especially as we get into like lower and soft cannon and super soft cannon, I think it's fair to say, we think he can be fairly, if not extreme, then a little fringey in his views. He has some thoughts about Federation, he has some thoughts about the other great Empire's quote unquote in canon. And while you or I or we may not agree with everything, I think this is what we so appreciate about Michael, that he is just truly one of the most creative novel thinkers around Trek that we've encountered, that with whom we've talked, with that, whom we've read, whom we've seen, tweet, whatever. And so there's lots of provocative stuff that Michael's going to suggest, and it's great. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I love what it does to my thought process afterwards because it allows me to think all that more broadly about this history of the future that I care about so much. - And it's first discussion. And if not for the fact that we had a hard stop, we could have turned this into another double or triple episode just because there were so many, when we, there were so many as we would be talking, you know, literally, I, there were like little threads where I'm like, oh, we should, we, you know, or I could have asked this or we should have, we should have maybe talked about this thread or what about the geopolitical thing of this thread? You know, there were so many different things that we could have talked about and we didn't. And all that means is that that's just one other reason for us to have him back on down the road. - Yeah. - Which we will. (upbeat music) - Michael Dismuk is a certified professional in talent development and certified leadership development and succession strategist. He is a national speaker, trainer and consultant, a freelance writer for the Star Trek Adventures RPG and a published comic creator. (upbeat music) - We've done all that introductions. Let's just head right into it. When we last had you here, Michael, you caught our attention 'cause you were talking about this idea of the merger of some of the mechanics of Dune and the Klingon houses and, you know, there were a couple of other things that I wanted to talk about, but before we go any further, I mean, it's been a little bit now since we've had you on. So obviously you've probably gotten into this a bit. - Yeah. - Talk as much as you're in the game. - Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you ask the question, a huge congratulations on everything with 2E. - Yes. - Oh, it's going really well. I have to agree. I'm very excited by the audience reaction. And even I've ran the game, like in Berkeley, there's a store called Games of Berkeley that's been around for 40 years in Berkeley, California. They had GobCon every year. Games of Berkeley Con. And I've been enjoying or running it for newbies and it's so much easier. It's so much more streamlined than one of these. So loving that. - Hey, breaking the fourth wall as we're recording this, this is Gen Con week. - Oh, yeah. - And can I assume that you're in somewhere closer? No, you're not. - No, I'm in California. I'm in the Bay Area. I was at Gen Con last year. I was planning to go this year, but the event coordinator for Mediphia has actually switched roles to a different company working for Gamma. And that was the person who was kind of like my contact to go out there. I want to go out there and do something. I just don't want to go as a fan. I actually want to go out there and promote a little bit, but there wasn't enough time to coordinate that this year. But next year, I plan to be there. - Nice. - Gotcha. Okay, well that being said then. So then you probably have a little bit of time because you probably have some folks that are that you game with that are going to be there. You have probably started gaming this new mechanic that you've built out as much as you're able to without spoiling it. - Oh no. - No, it's out there. - No, are you talking about two E? - I'm talking about two E, but I'm talking about kind of maybe we can broaden it, but I was being a little selfish and talking about your Klingon house. - No, that's an idea. So let me tell you, two E, we've been playing for six months 'cause we've been play testing that baby for months. So this is old news for us, two E, but in my game group. But the idea we have, I've only so far been session zeroing it. In fact, by the time I don't know when this is gonna air, do you know when this is gonna-- - Yeah, I'm looking it up right now. Pretty soon, let me give you the date and everyone else will know this because they'll be listening to it on this date or later. This will drop, oh, this will drop in almost a month. So this is gonna drop two episodes from as we record, which is the 26th. - Okay, so before that drops, we have on our show, coming on a continuing conversation, - Yeah. - Eliza Pearl, who read "Blood of the Void", which is the clear skies Klingon game. So she and another one of the players come, Gina Benson, named Aki for short, came on our show and we started toying around with this idea since they're kind of experts of all things Klingon. Then we have coming on October 4th. So after this runs, this shows, you're actually ahead of our podcast on October 4th, we have Andrew Peregrine, who is the project manager for "The Dune Game" at Modefias. - Oh, that's awesome. - Plus Kelly Fitzpatrick and Derek Tyler Attico, who worked on the Klingon core rule book. - Never heard of them. - Okay. - Just kidding. - Just kidding. - Yeah, right. They're coming on for a crossover event. Dune meets "Star Trek Adventures" Klingon style. - Oh, you guys are really branching out. - Yeah, so I'm pushing this idea hard. - This is really, every time they talk about this, I get the goosebumps going, I'm saying. - Yes, so honestly, this podcast is really the one that's dedicated to the subject for the very first time. So you're actually beating it, me too, because of a programming schedule. - So that being said, we don't wanna talk. - Yes, I do. - I think we can. - Yes, we do. - Okay, good. - Yes, I do. - Yes, I do. - Let's talk about anything you wish to talk about. - Yeah, tell us. - Because this idea of spreading beyond playing within Starfleet and all that and playing within the empire is just, I mean, that's just so awesome. - Brad's been bringing this up for a while, ever since I mentioned this. - I think what it is, and again, people who could go back and watch the show with Aki and Eliza, we totally geeked out and went completely riffing on this. So this is the concept for people who were hearing this for the first time. - Okay. - Dune is a much slower game. Really, when you play it, generally, you can even play it year by year as to what your house is doing in the way of industry. So each house has one or two industries, maybe three, and picture it like this. In Dune, each house has its own planet, its own moon, maybe several planets, maybe a star system if you're a big house, depending on the size of the house. And how you fit in the empire, because remember, spice rules everything. Spice is the center of, without spice, you can't travel the planets, you can't enhance your abilities, you can't prophesy the future, little superpowers in Dune. So you can't really grow your house without having a strong link to the emperor and Arrakis and whoever controls Arrakis. So the premise of Dune is to just build up your house. So you can actually play the game Dune and never touch Arrakis. You could say, you know what, we're just gonna play a game of subterfuge, deception, and kind of like Downton Abbey on crack with Dune on just one family, all the drama that goes with that. Well, and so that's the premise of Dune. And of course, your goal is to eventually control Arrakis if you can, but it's a much slower paced game 'cause that's to do with family and marriage and bartering and then you could jump down to missions where you have a little bit more action if you want to. It's an option. Now, Klingons, of course, I was like, this is nothing like the Federation, right? But Klingon houses are actually very familiar, but they're not going for Arrakis. They're trying to get their house positioned to get a seat on the council because with the council, you control the, and I'm quoting in her quotes for you on the podcast. Spice, spice with the Klingons is ships and political prestige and honor and really making your house so strong that it can last hundreds of years. It could stand the test of time and political change. And so the idea, the concept came up was mixing, and me and Andrew have been talking about it for a while, if you really want to play a Klingon campaign, it's more than just mission by mission as presented in Star Trek Adventures. You could actually build your house first. So you could live hundreds of years of your house showing its struggles, creating all this story using the Dune construct. It fits in just perfectly. The roll tables are wonderful in the Dune supplements. And then by the time your ship takes off and is into space, each one of your characters could have this history and this pride of character, almost what they call career events for federations. They could have this house legacy that you now bring into the game with your characters. And at the end of the character, I introduced the concept of the Federation Klingons War campaign at the end of a single mission, you decide whether that benefited your house or not. Did it set you back or not? Okay. And so you could play this amazing game that to me, and then we'll talk about it later with y'all, but talking about what are the industries that make the Klingon Empire tick? It's more than just Photon torpedoes and backups. So what is a house and what can they be experts of? That's where I would riff with all of you. Oh, I'm thinking triple research. Who is the triple exterminator expert? Right? Yes. What else? I have a brilliant idea, so I'm gonna shut up so you guys can thank you. No, no, no, this is. What fuels you know, what industries make up the community? Or board breeding, you know, I mean, just, I, but you know, you think about that. Think about the industries that would, you know, I mean, what kind of agriculture exists within the empire? Who makes sure that when they're devastating planets, they're still preserving the agricultural resources because we see the war side of the Klingons 'cause that's how the Federation presents them. Right, yeah. But who provides Gok to all the ships while they're deployed? Yes, how about this one? This is when we played with Eliza and we really went off with this one. Klingon Opera, who is the house? That's awesome. That controls Klingon Opera. Who's the house that designs the opera houses and the Baroque fashion that it is? Who, and is it possible that since Klingons record their history through song, that opera is more of a political tool than an art form? That that's the way they record or rerecord their history. So could you have a house just about who controls that propaganda machine? Oh, interesting. Okay. Or even the faith that revolves around, you know, the revolves around Kayla's or so on. Is there a house around Kayla's or what's that? Like a house of clerics, essentially. Yes. Where are they? Fascinating. Well, where are they? And then, okay, so now you're seeing it 'cause this is gonna, we have way more to, we accidentally stumbled this on to this conversation and continuing conversations. We have not expounded on this yet. And I know we're gonna expound even more with Andrew. But think about what your point there. Who started the religion and keeps it? 'Cause we know like on Boerath, they definitely have timed crystals and you have those monks. But is it possible that Kayla's was not a God, but he was the first Klingon general who pushed back the Hercs. So the Hercs are, of course, where the Klingons got their ships from originally. Those ones we see in Discovery Season One that looked nothing like Klingon ships we've seen before. Those were actually not Klingon technology. That was recovered Herc technology. Those ships were hundreds, if not thousands of years old. So is it possible that the religion grew up out of a military need to push back the Herc? And is it possible that the Klingons were once the peaceful people until they actually had to become war, like to overcome their alien extraterrestrial conquerors? So who contains, who controls that knowledge? And is it the priesthood that says, we have to buy into this warrior culture now? 'Cause it saved us once. But maybe they barely touched on the idea when they cloned Kayla's, you know. - Right, yeah. - How did that, how did that play in? They only touched on a very, you know, they touched on it a bit in TNG and it only came up in the periphery during DS9 and some conversations with war and all that. So how do you, how does that play into that? You know, I'm only-- - Right, right. - Is it possible the Klingon were originally a peaceful people so they had to evolve culturally to survive enslavement from the Herc? And so maybe that's why they're a little bit more paranoid about extraterrestrials. So when the Federation comes saying, we come in peace, remember, discovery season one, when they say, we come in peace, it's like, no, you don't. When we, all of our experience have been, if you come in en masse with all these ships, you're coming to conquer, we're not letting you get a lead up on us next time. We show you, we're tough, now let's talk. So maybe Federation completely missed their historical legacy and this ain't the way you approach Klingons is flying into their space. First contact is not how you do it with them. And so we just started opening up, let be the house that was the religion, that was the clerics that made Kayless from man to God. So interesting. - It's not canon, but you might find interesting is the non-canon STO story of how they played out the story of the founders and the dominion. - I'm unfamiliar with that, what happened? - Yeah, it would go on and on, but it's kind of a similar type of thing where they came to par because they were, they developed that type of attitude and that kind of xenophobia because of it. But what you were kind of talking about, there's for some whatever reason, it kind of zinged in my head that, and it's been a while since I played that storyline and STO, it's been a while since I played STO. But if you ever get a chance, maybe I'll find the link 'cause the stories are out there, someone is putting them out. It might be an interesting quick read, maybe 20, 30 minute read, just to see how they wrote that storyline in STO. - Right. - Because how you explained it could also kind of influence, in some ways, some of the storylines that may play out in the Klingons. - I'm still catching up with the Herx. I consider myself a pretty hardcore truckie, but I don't know like anything about that history. Is that canon or soft canon? - No, they're soft canon for sure that's mentioned about the Herx. But again, the fact that it's so vague, that might be part of the propaganda machine because if this big religion formed up around Kayless just to inspire people, and then later on, you find out, well, no, we actually were dominated for thousands of you, we were weak until finally one guy inspired us to rise up. We see that happen historically all the time, right? We don't have the nitty gritty of what really it was like for the right, for forming nations, and people want to always erase when they looked weak when we all were at some point. They want to act like we were born from boggy marshes of Godhood, and that's not truth. And so how powerful is that to Klingons to instill fear, like they're like instill fear first, then they show us respect. Now we're under negotiating, which is totally opposite of the Federation, right? - Right, right. - I love kind of, so we got into the houses from that level, and that's where I would develop my house to, where were you and your family over the last hundreds of years supporting the propaganda, supporting, you know, and talking about the diversity of houses as the way of almost politics, you meet the Klingons in Discovery season one, where they even look different. They're harsher, they're even cannibals. - Yep. - They eat their own. That's not every Klingon, but that became the Federation image of the Klingon, 'cause this was the house that had first, these were the houses that got into space using the Herk equipment. These were the most harshest worshipers of Calus as a deity. They did not represent the majority of Klingons, which we hadn't, hadn't really met until DS9. - Right. - Right. - Very true. - Yeah, and Worf does not represent Klingon culture. He was a simulator. - Right. And so exploring that diversity with your houses and understanding why the Klingons think they need the where mean propaganda machine to me is way more interesting than just having a Worf on a ship. - So what are some of the other houses? What are some of the other angles you all have been taking? - Okay, so again, this is all in riffing and where I plan, we're playing, our next campaign is going to be a Klingon campaign. And so we're gonna build all this backstory onto it. One of the things I'm playing with is, what if the Herk is the Klingon word for Herogen? Because we actually know that the Klingons Eastern Galactic Front heads toward the Delta Quadrant. And we also have seen the Herogen network and how vast it is in Voyager. In fact, it was so vast that you had one vessel that got close enough to the border of the Delta Quadrant that the Herogen network picked it up and they started transmitting messages through it. Now the Klingon exploratory vessels probably already hit that network way before. In fact, we know for a fact from Voyager that there was one ship that was 80 years traveling into the Delta Quadrant that thought that Bologna Torres' daughter Meral was a god. They thought that that was the savior of the people. So we already know the Klingons have already been in that space. What if the Herogen, who are a hunter species, are the ones who first came in and took over the Klingons and they emulate the Herogens and that's where their weaponry came from. Their armor, their battle styles. So that's where I would play as like Herogens vs Kling. - See, this is why you're so successfully moving into Star Trek lit, writing fiction. 'Cause you keep coming up with this stuff. That's absolutely fascinating. I'm gonna have to think about that tonight. That is so cool. - And so what if the Federation would have taken time to study that and think about it, should they be thinking the Klingons that they were the species that slowed down the Herogen's expansion into that Alpha Quadrant? - Right, right. - Before Humankind, Humankind would have been wiped out by the Herogen's. They were not ready for the Herogen. - Absolutely. - They would have been a hunter. This would have been the predators on planet Earth. - I was just gonna say, yeah. I think it's just a little in walk-away. - It's a reminder too that this is a game that we've got a lot. We've got such a, we've got just so much material. - Yeah. - And there's this chunk of material out there that we, that we don't talk much about that takes us in such a different direction. I mean, we're talking about playing Star Trek Adventures, but we're not talking about playing Star Trek Adventures. I mean, we are-- - Well, Jim Johnson makes a point all day. He says every, this is the thing about Star Trek. Every genre fits into Star Trek. - Yeah. - And we've only explored this much of it, right? - Yeah. - So for the game, if some people were like, well, Star Trek is boring. Well, no, that's not true. Maybe you're bored by the Federation and how it does stuff. But there's a lot of universe out there. You could have a Dungeons & Dragons planet if you want. - So my, a case in point. So my wife actively detests Star Trek. She has many other admirable qualities, but she actively, not just as neutral dislikes it. And, you know, psychologically, we go to get into the concept of reaction formation. That's not important right here. But once when I was, I think at work, this was years ago when my daughters were little, she and my younger daughter ended up watching, I'm blocking on the, on the episode name, but they ended up watching just by accident the, the "Rescen Flute" episode with. - Oh, I love it. - I mean, brilliant storytelling, right? But to your point, so they watched that. And Amy, my wife, like, begrudgingly acknowledged, like that was really good. - In her life, that's my favorite. - In her life, thank you. - That's my favorite TNG episode. - Yeah, and so, so, like to your point, Trek can do so many different things. Well, as long as it's well written, it can incorporate that genre. Okay, so a question about the Klingon houses. And maybe, maybe there isn't an answer for this, but like you said earlier, in June, the ultimate basic arbiter is Spice, who has a controller of Spice directly or indirectly, right? The Spice must flow, period. In Trek and with the Klingon houses, like you said, there's not any one thing so specific. Have you found with your group or with your groups, sort of a conceptual litmus test of what's enough to cross that threshold? - Well, I actually have an answer for that. We've talked about that. - Okay. - Because being on the Klingon High Council and/or having influence on the Klingon High Council can make or break your family. We've seen that. We've seen entire houses wiped out because of dishonor or enslaved, right? So I'm gonna, I pose that in this manner, the Klingon are more like the Ferengi. That they actually know business really well. In fact, we see the episode where Quark marries-- - Grilka. - And he becomes honored by the Klingon 'cause he actually fixes their economic system to bring the house up. So why have we not explored Klingon economics as a way to get on her? - Yeah. - That is one of my favorite that, 'cause she comes on, I think it's a two story. It's not really an arc. She comes back for another story. But those two episodes are phenomenal episodes. - They are, and it really showed you the Klingons are not-- - Pro Klingon over everything. - But just like, how are you helping me build my house up? - Yeah. - So imagine the Federation comes in and says, we want to now introduce to you a non-monetary system. That's like trying to force that on the Ferengis and calling them enemies and declaring we now have to war the Ferengis 'cause they won't give up what is their religion. The religion of the Ferengis is money. So they're never gonna give it up, right? So again, I'm not saying I'm anti-federation, but anyone who plays with me knows I'm anti-primed directive. I'm anti-vulcan, and I do believe federation is generally acted like colonists. And it's not their fault. It's because it was written in the '60s when that was just the way TV was written where colonists were heroes. And so now the new skeptic generation is re-looking at this like, well, why can't I be a Klingon? Why do I need the federation? So again, you have federation coming in saying they want to have peace and dismantling their economic systems, which is their house, which is their spice. Insta-war, instant war. It's not gonna be done. So I think the houses should play to that too is if I'm playing characters and playing houses, like, well, we have a different set of directives. Our directives is build your house up at any cost. - Yeah, very cool. - If your house is weakened, your honor is gone. - Right. - So that kind of becomes your prime directive for each episode is like, did you build up your house or did you tear down your house? Can you get songs written by your house? Can you give influence to the opera so they start singing about your house in popular music? - Well, then let me ask this. I mean, okay, so that's cool. If you do that, then if you go, then if I'm playing and I go the duress route, and I am duress and I'm playing-- - Just for the record I've called you hers. - Yes, you, yeah, yeah. - You called you a big duress. - I had you a big duress. - We move duress and add lots of other stuff in front of it, but-- - It did start with the D, but sorry. Go on. (laughs) - I walked into that one. But what I'm saying, just in context to what you're saying is is are you saying that if I kind of went that skull-duggery type of route, that would is, you know. - The answer is it's all who gets to write the history books. - Got it. - So if you're doing skull-duggery, but at the same time you're, now I'm taking this to Dune, and at the same time you're bribing the opera writer and the composers and the poets and the religious people to say and cover over for you, 'cause in Dune that's what you're supposed to be doing. You're rolling. And I would actually take, just to say, when I'm playing the Star Trek Adventures mission level of the Klingon game, I would be using the Star Trek STA stats. The minute I go to house the house doing this year with its propaganda machine, maneuvering and bribing, I would then use the Dune 2D20 stats. I would write those up separately. - Okay. - So one is how are we doing on the political front and relationships and bribing and backyard conversations and seat at the opera assassinations? Like how are we doing there? And then what missions does my ship have to go off to to help that overall agenda? - Right. - Which is the Federation Klingon War Campaign, which is how spaders lead right around. And so to me, you're creating the Klingon Empire in a richness that we've never seen on television. - Yes. - Yeah, which is beautiful. - Well, you're telling the story and I'm just thinking to myself, you're telling the story in a way and I can go in from a map. I can go in at a map. We've seen it at a very macro. I mean, even that's more micro than we've been able to see it. I'd be able to go in and watch your story and be able to see at a micro level, the details going into the spider web inside. - Yeah, see, that's where it's cool. - Yeah, they're not killing it. The thing is they're not, I don't picture that. Federation wants to make you think that and we see the characters make comments like it that they're in the inner worlds killing each other. No, they're not. They're more like Dune. If they're gonna murder someone, they have to make sure to murder someone where vengeance is not coming back on their house, where it doesn't become on the news service in a negative way to make them lose honor. Here, they're crafty people. - And we did see that in canon. It's just widely ignored because of all the independent episodes. - During the Civil War episodes, was that in T&G, the Civil War episodes, the Klingon Civil War was when they would all get together and they would drink, even though they were in separate sides, when there was some assassination attempts and all that, it was made out to be that that was not regular. And that was, and that was very, very frowned upon and that was dishonorable. - Right. - So there was this, but that's as far as they went. - But you're right. No, I think the episode with Riker, when he was the officer exchange program episode, you can't just attack the captain. You better be sure that you've done all the political footwork behind you so that you don't get assassinated next. - So that's very much like Dune. That's Dune level stuff. - Right. - But that's not the way the Federation wants to portray the Klingons. They wanna portray them as, oh, they get mad they're gonna kill you. No, they're gonna kill you one if you're gonna take honor away from their house. And if you, oh, and oh, this is a big part of it. Why are they okay going into space to blow up a random Federation ship? Because blowing up a random Federation ship does not affect a house. And it makes you look tough, which they want, that they have, that our ship has the capability to defend us against outsiders. 'Cause that's big the Klingons. So going to blow away a Federation ship is a big deal. But if all of a sudden there's a Klingon member of some house on that ship, that's gonna make them think twice. Or if there's some tie to a Klingon house that blowing up this Federation ship just cost a deal with this house. See, and that's the intricacy of the Klingon Empire we don't see. - Yeah, go back and start thinking. Now, go back and watch Star Trek. - Three, start for some? - Yeah, go back and watch, yeah. - The Grissom, the Grissom, exactly. - Go back and watch three. Go back and watch four when they go, when you have the Klingon ambassador there, preaching again, you know. - Yup. - You can go back and watch six and think about that from a different, when you have David Warner in as Chancellor Gorkon. - Well, even the arrogance that everyone deserves inalienable human rights. - It was such an important scene in that film. And it was so far ahead of its time. - It was. - And like if you were paying attention, you got it. Like, you know, like that? - It's a human, the even word is race. The word is-- - Right, like that really-- - Shakespeare and the original Klingon. - Right, okay, right, yeah, I mean, which is cute, but like that was like the core of the movie right there. But it just didn't, that's not what people remember. - Yeah, they never found a way, and to me, the lesson learned with this is this. We all agree, we're all in leadership at some point in business. You meet people where they're at. - Yeah. - That's the way to be successful with teams or cultures or diversities, you meet people where they're at. The Federation did not do that. They did not do that. They did not back up. They did not show humility. They did not, you know, and the Romulans already know this 'cause of course it's the Vulcan agenda of not wanting to meet people where they're at, you know. And I wanna show the Klingons this is the houses that there's something to be honored, that they've had value over the decades and millenniums and stuff like that and let you play this rich character that when you're playing this character, you should be feeling like any other country that's ever been colonized. Clinging to your culture, violently clinging to your culture, you know, is what I would play with the house of Klingons game. - Can I, can I assume maybe, maybe I'm assuming incorrectly, but are there potential stories churning in your head that may show up at some point down the road, somewhere published just based off of all this? You don't have to answer. Let me just rephrase. I hope there is. - I mean, we've seen that guilty smile before. - Yeah, I just hope there is just because, just because I think-- - Hopefully some of this will go to paper. - I have not, I will plead ignorance in terms of, I am not, I am not as well read in the Star Trek, the Bantam Universe as many are, you know. - I'm not that much either, yeah. - You know, I'm not, I could probably talk to Jim and others out there who are much better. Maybe there's a lot of material out there written in this, in this realm and I just don't haven't seen it or I don't know it. I would love to read more in this. - There isn't, there are some good Klingon books I've read, you know, and now I'm at this point where I'm kind of scared to read them 'cause I don't want them to influence me. - Yeah. - I'm at that point with a lot of stuff. So, but no one has ever, I've never walked away from a Klingon book or story thinking, you know, the federations might be the bad guy here. And to me that's the honor you'll actually give to the Klingons is when you actually can see their point of view. 'Cause in my game, in my fan fiction that I run with my players, they don't like Romulans, they're into Romulans. They're like, Romulans did the right thing becoming isolationist years ago. And that took a lot of writing to defend that position, that they're pro Romulan, yeah. - Yeah, I can see how you can, I see how you could weave, I can see how you could weave a story in a way that would make that position from a story perspective. - Well, the premise is simple, the premise is simple. Again, this kind of, you could play Romulan houses the same way 'cause Romulans actually have senators. They have the senate, which you're trying to buy to get into the senate so you can play it the same way. But basically the federation was insulted that this culture wanted to stay private without federation influence. Have we heard that before in modern history? Even though that culture is quite satisfied with itself and doesn't need Western civilization to be successful, someone says, no, because of that, there must be something wrong with you. Because of that, you must be our enemy because you don't want to be with us. That is the Romulans to me, is that they're like, we're fine, how many alien species can you name that live within the Romulan Empire besides the Remans? - Not many. - But there's a lot, and are they happy? Is it possible that they're happy and that the Romulans are out to protect them because they have paradigms and maybe they have a system and the federation coming in like, they're like, no, you have the Vulcans and the Vulcans have never been in our best interests. We left Vulcan a long time ago for a specific reason and you come at us like we're enemies 'cause we say we don't want to introduce ourselves to you. So now we're your enemies and the Vulcan propaganda machine is behind that? I'm thinking from real social situations that happen that all of a sudden you tell the colonists don't step on my shore and they have to now work up a propaganda machine to get onto your shore. - Yeah, see this idea, yeah, this is gonna be, how are you, so now you've got this, you're in this, you're obviously churning out and you're building out this idea to play. You're going to, in effect, play this and you're gonna record these, these are gonna be episodes, correct? - Yeah, so how we're gonna, well, I write everything down, so we make many novellas and sometimes we are talking about playing some live, so here's what's gonna happen. So, if you know what I would like to know is I selfishly, yeah, I'd like to be able to follow along, that's why I wanna know, yeah. - Well, here's how it'll work. So using the Dune model in mixture with the Federation Klingon War model from the tactical campaign, first we build your house, then we do kind of a year or maybe even a month of action using the Dune rolling system to see how is your house shifting in power? - Okay. - Then I wrote a module for Star Trek Adventures called the Kid-A-Moor Accords. I don't know if you saw that, it's free, it's a free mission brief module and it's all based on Star Trek 6 and when the Kid-A-Moor Accords were signed before, during, and after that event happened, how did all of these houses inside react? Not all of them were in favor. - Right. - It's impossible. And think about if you were on a deep space Klingon assignment and you fly in and two weeks later, you get the message that Praxis exploded and the Klingons are now allies with the Federation. Imagine if you're on that ship. So our players are on that ship. - Oh, interesting. - So we go from this big house, this is where your house was where pre-Kiddimer. Now you play a mission where you find out about Kid-A-Moor, we zoom down to that ship level, then we zoom out and say what happens in this couple of weeks or month as leading up to the Kid-A-Moor Accords signing. So we're gonna play at high level from the whole house. How's your family reacting to this with diastro homes and powership? And then we go down to modules where your ship decides really what side it takes on through a series of missions to support Azet bur or to fight against Azet bur. And the Klingon Accords module, if you look at them the Vero, wrote 10 mission modules in there, it's all about what stand do you take during this tumultuous time in Klingon history? - Interesting. - And at the end of it, are you allies of the empire or enemies of the empire? - Right. - Right. - Oh, that's fascinating. That sounds like fun to play and to watch and to read. - Yeah, see, this is gonna be, this is gonna be something I'm going to follow just because it's going to be, it's Star Trek, but it's from a different angle. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, it's expanding it. - Yeah, yeah. And I'm looking for, and it's funny, I think what we were alluding to before, and I mentioned this to Jason, just over the past month with, all sorts of stuff, nothing bad, just all sorts of stuff going on. I had kind of like, had needed to breathe a bit from role-playing games. And so I put something down, and I texted a mutual contact, and just said, I had to put something down and said something about Trek, and they said, Trek covers everything, just don't forget Trek, just doesn't cover, you know, Starship. And that's what triggered, that's what, something as simple as that reminded me of it. And then all of a sudden I realized, then all of a sudden the Klingon book came out, and then all of a sudden, I remember you were gonna be on them, I'm like, okay, the Kismet, whatever the case may be, this is just, all this is just a reminder. - Yeah, we have one more season of our current game, which is a Federation ship. You know, we're in our sixth school- - Well, you have a lot to- - You have a lot that you're building out still, too, and everything. It's not a vision of the sixth season, but once that's over, we want to explain, we want to explore two things. We want to explore the Klingon houses, and then we also want to explore the Fenris Rangers, too, which are, again, non-Federation games. So to your point, Brad, we're trying to show that you can have a game that's like Dune, and then the next time you can have a game that's like Firefly. - Yeah. - We're trying to show how cool the Star Trek universe can be. - I want one more. Now, this is, I know this sounds super mundane, but I have been on this kick for the past few, I don't know not how many years, I want to see in whatever venue, right? I take it through the RPG lens. I would love to see like a canon show, whatever. And I get that this wouldn't be interesting to everyone. I want to see a day in the life of the Federation citizen. I love Starfleet. I don't want to see Starfleet. I want to see, right, more than the little hints. Don't shuck clams. Don't go to an apartment with your robotic girlfriend. I want to see what's it like for the, I mean, whatever, hundreds of millions of people. - You got clams and a robotic girlfriend? Is that really much- - I was calling from Michael's. Oh, maybe the, no, DS9 and Picard season one. - Okay, yeah. - No, I mean. - That was a robotic girlfriend, yeah. - Yeah. - What do you want to see? - I want to see the day in the life where, what does life look like at the start of the 25th century? - Not Starfleet. What are the complexities of life? What are the joys and challenges and whatnot when you're not off exploring or fighting? - Okay, well, there's a dream I've had. No, don't yawn, Brad. - No, no, I'm not yawning. I have some, I have some, no, I have something I want to say, but I'm sorry, 'cause I had- - 'Cause it's funny. Jason, there's something I've been wanting to work on. And if you want to collaborate on it, I'm off for it 'cause I just haven't had time to do it, but I need inspiration to do it. - I've been, does anyone here use the call map? Okay, so the call map is when you go to bed, they're sleep stories. And they're people- - Oh, call map, yeah, I've used it in the past for research, yeah. - Okay, so you know what it is, okay. - It's very good. - And I've actually dreamt. I started writing when I got busy with other stuff. I started writing a lower deck thing of what it's like just to be doing your normal duties when you wake up in the morning during like gamma shift or alpha shift, and you're going into the sensor. And it was very, like, the way I wrote it was like, as you move into this, and picture the sound of the engine behind you, that calming sound, right? As you move into the sensor array, you decide to begin at level one diagnostic since your supervisor explained to you that you'll be coming into a Jovian system very soon. - But Fred hasn't listened to the call map, but this makes perfect sense. - Okay, okay. - And so as you go to bed, you're sitting there just performing your duties. One of my favorite ones, the call map, is called "The Perfect Way to Rise and Shine." And I'm beginning to organization and micro and to a minimalist. And so she just talks about how everything is where it needs to be as she pours her tea to get ready to bed, and she puts on her lavender scents candle and she opens up a book and she wraps herself with her cat. And it's this for 30 minutes. I don't make it through five minutes of it, right? And so I thought about doing a call map. So to your point, a day in the life of the Federation citizen, because it's low stress. It's pleasurable. So imagine if we wrote it and then we just got the sound of effects behind us of like e-rails passing and shuttles flying over the head and the sound of the series. And we just do 30 minutes of what it's like. And we could just pour these things out, put them on YouTube, they'll probably get a million hits. - Jason, we had the call map in 1996, if you remember. So this is gonna borderline creepy. - No, we did not have the call map in 1996. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Oh, no, where are you going? - Okay, so in 1996, so Jason and I, I'm gonna just give Ribber backstory. Jason and I met when we went to college together. I left after freshman year, but obviously we stayed connected. I would go up and visit. He had the Star Trek Enterprise Technical Manual. - On CD-ROM, right. - CD-ROM. - Oh, I didn't know you could do that. - It was a beautiful thing when it came out. - I'm CD-ROM. - It was a walkthrough. It was really cutting edge at the time. I still have it. - But at night, when we would read or relax, I would sometimes crash in his room. - And we just put on the audio. We put on the audio, which is the ambient enterprise noise. - We'd pull the files off of the disc. Now you could just go to YouTube. - Yeah, I'm putting it on. - And it's sometimes, I stopped doing it, but for several years, when I moved over to the university and I was working or writing or whatever, in the office, I would put on the background thrumming of engineering. - I have it at my work. Okay, you're gonna crank up. So I have at my office workspaces pre-pandemic because we were on the office. So I have the three screens and I have that L-cars, you know, the Trek 47 thing, the L-cars 47 thing. I have that so that my people come in and they'd be looking like, what kind of pro... They had no idea if people had started so it's like advanced Excel, right? And I was like, oh yeah, I would lie to them. I was like, oh yeah, well, I'm working on a new statistical analysis of the learners in the property operations division. And then look at it like, what? So anyways. - So me and my direct report was also in the same office with me at the time and she had triple screens. So we had the background noise of Voyager's bridge and those L-cars going when you walk in and we'd be working to... - Oh, that's awesome. - I felt like I was in space. It made the office so relaxing. - Yes. - I was working. I was, I didn't get a chance to do that. - And we'd dim the lights too. We would knock out the overheads and just have like our side lamps. So it looked very dim, like, like we're the midnight shift on Voyager. - Right, right. Oh, that's so good. - The other night, we all three are working on a similar project right now together, different pieces. And I have been in kind of a block for it. Well, I didn't sleep the other night and Jason saw some of the product of it. Well, I ended up putting on the actual noise from the technical manual. I didn't go out and find any other. I went and found a 10-hour YouTube stream on YouTube. - Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of streaming TNG on YouTube, just audio. - I used the audio, but I didn't know the technical manual. I will find it and send it. It's in my history. - Yeah, please. - Yes. - And I put that on and-- - We'll put that in show notes. - Yeah, I blew through three hours worth of work. 'Cause my wife gets up at four to work out and she comes out, 'cause I put it in my earbuds and she comes out and she goes, "Were you writing?" And I'm like, "Yeah." (laughing) And she probably, and the way I said, yeah, she probably wondered if it really was writing that I was doing, but it-- - A little more for Engy than Romulin in this house. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But-- - Yeah, you gotta send that. Yeah, you gotta send it. - Yeah, you gotta send it. - I'll send it, because I wanted that exact, that exact noise, and it's a small clip. It's probably 45 to 60 seconds, but they just kept looping it because back then, it's a 650 megabyte CD-ROM. They only have a certain amount of room, and it was a wave file. I think a 44 Hertz wave file. - Yup. - So after we get done with this current project, can we work on a series of 30-minute-- - These stories based on the average life of the federations, is it? - If you're serious, I'm in. You're actually, this is inspiring me. I've been playing with the notion, I've been playing with the notion of, I've been itching, because of some feedback I got, on our first, Aaron in my first book, I've been itching to write a little more fiction, but not like anything significant, right? And this isn't like, I think I know what I wanna do now, and yes, count me in, this would be fascinating. - That'd be fun. And just to be mundane, to relax people, to me it's about getting into a better future, like, I wanna put my mind at ease like I'm already there. - Okay, so this is a deep cut, but as you maybe kind of start to move toward the end here, so this I think, I think this, well, I don't know how much it predates, so when I was a kid, like little, I had a bunch of the Osborne books out of the UK, so these were all these super futuristic ones. There were ones on war, there were ones on medicine and health, there were, you know, it was the 80s, it was a very, right, it was just the height of the start of the, like the shuttle program, Apollo was still in the rear view mirror, like it was a time of, like unbridled futurism, and I had all these books, and then actually about a decade ago, I searched and like, through eBay, I went to have found the ones I never had and got them. - Oh, wow. - And then I also had, I grew up on the kids' whole future catalog, right, which was just, you know, like Stuart Brand, but for kids. And I bring this up because there were specific images in there that stayed with me all my life that showed like daily life in the living room, two centuries from now, like all these, and it's exactly what you're talking about, but just the images, not the story. - Right. Well, you could use those for inspiration when, right? - A hundred percent, yeah. - Yeah, describe those. - A hundred percent, right. - And just so you all know, I looked on YouTube and I found the Star Trek TNG Interactive Technical Manual part one structural features. And it's from the CD-ROM, it says. And then no one sees Michael for 49 hours. - I'm listening to this tonight. - Yes, sir. - I'm not putting on the TV. I'm actually going to just put it on with my speakers upstairs and see if the wife notices like, what the hell do you want to do this now, too? - This was, this was, I mean, back then, this was, I mean, they had, there was dial up internet in the dorms. I would come up and visit the Jason and the guys that I was connected with there on the weekends. They would go to class. I immediately would sit at Jason's computer, put this disk in and walk around the enterprise. - Just to hear the ambiance and experience. - Hear the house on his Mac. - Performa 578, it was a similar time. - Yeah, you know what, I'm looking at it right now. Well, say I'm getting into my creative mode. I don't know if any of your listeners are the type to like, still copyright ideas, but I mean, we have recorded it here. - This was a 1994 Simon and Schuster interactive production. - Yep, that's right. - I wonder if they would-- - I got it on my shelf. - I wonder if they would ever sell that off to somebody. And then you could strike a deal with Calm and have the licensing rights to it. I mean, I love like getting copyrights and trademarks. - That is a question. - My dream is I've been trying to get the last Starfighter trademark and rights to the last Starfighter. - Oh, God, was that a clue. - Oh, such a clue. - Eric Campbell set me on a mission to try to do it. - Did you just say, did you say last Starfighter? - Yeah, the last Starfighter, I'm trying to get the, I've been dying to get the rights of that. I've been searching-- - Just watched it last night. - Oh, it's epic. If anyone, I've been, the guy who owns it, I've got his name, but he lives in San Francisco. And I've been trying to get a meeting with the guy because I think if Modiphius could get the last Starfighter licensed, I'm like, dang. I would help write whatever you guys wanted for that, for free, seriously. - Put it in their sleeves. - I want the last Starfighter license. I want the last Starfighter license. - First of all, I mean, I love Robert Preston. You know, music man and everything like that. That was his last thing before he passed away. - Isn't that amazing? - You know, he had the best voice. - Yes. - Best voice, yeah. - And I just watched it, something popped up in YouTube. I don't know why, and I'm like, I'm gonna watch that last night. - Anyways, I put the dreams out there in the universe. Whenever I think it's highly unlikely, I'll be able to actually do something. - If they could get-- - I speak vocally about it. - If they could get Space 1999, they could get, - Oh. - The last Starfighter. So, hey, we-- - I don't know if that's equivalent. - Space 1999, if they can get something obscure, obscure-- - Oh, oh. I thought you were talking about quality. Yeah, obscure. - No, no, no, no, no. - I'm with you, okay. - I'm with you. - The other one, I mean, my thing is if I actually scored getting something like Last Starfighter, then I'd be on the hunt for enemy mine after that. I want to-- - Well, you're not gonna get that because they're bringing it back. - They really, who's gonna play? - I don't know, but-- - You know who's producing that. - Isn't it Abrams? No, no, no, no, no, who's producing enemy mine? Who the new one-- - That story is so good. That is one of the best sci-fi stories ever on film. - Who? - Steven Friedman. - Zombies! - I don't know how to say it. - No, no, no, hold on. - Remake. - No, who's behind that? - No, no, no, you gotta understand. I'm surprised you don't know this. The remake of enemy mine, okay? The producer for that one. - Yep. - I want you to guess who it's gonna be. - No, I already was wrong. - I'm not good with producers. - No, no, no, no, you need to guess this one. Take a guess. - Okay, fine, fine. Steven Spielberg. - No, no, no. - I don't know. - All the producers that we could guess after universe, that it could be. - Oh, it's Cherry Metallis. - There you go. - Yeah, that's right. It's going to be amazing. - Wow. - It's going to be-- - When does it come out, you know? - 2029, who know, I don't know. It's, I mean, they just announced it, so I don't know. But you think of that story and that producer for a film like that, I mean, what could they do now? - Yeah, 'cause that story's even more relevant now than ever. - Way more, though, it'll be hard, I think, to like, how do you recast and do homage and not lose something for that? - Well, I hope they said minimal too. Like, don't have a chase scene. Don't introduce these vehicles. It was so alien a planet on its own. It was so beautiful. - Yes, yes. - Simple that I hate when they dance these things up and it's just like confusing, you know? - Don't try to make it modern, make it good. - I would even go grungy or I'd even say, if you're gonna do anything, get rougher with it. Don't make it pretty. - Right, 'cause it shouldn't have been. It wasn't supposed to be. - It's a hard planet to live on, man. - I'm hopeful that the right guy is... He did pretty well, he's done pretty well. - Yeah, he has, I mean, you know, full faith and trust as it says, I'm done money, or whatever it says. - I mean, he's got the, he's got-- - In terms of talents, we trust all else required cash. - He's got some work over in DC, right? Is that where he is now? - Yeah, you know what's funny? When I was watching that movie, Brad, an enemy mine recently, I actually said, well, what if there was a, like, before the Federation was Jonathan Archerd, what if there was a competitive agency that was actually flying to a different part of the galaxy? They're like, well, okay, we know they're trying to get the UFP to get the Vulcans and stuff like that. But what if there was actually, you know, a different group of people, and that was their story? Before the Federation was formed, like 2149, there's something, you know? I, that's how I think of it. I always try like, could this fit into the star, 'cause I believe even Star Wars could fit into the Star Trek universe, 'cause Star Wars was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. So I accept it. Okay, it's probably the same universe, just a different galaxy. - I've already taken notes on some stuff, so. (laughing) All right, gentlemen, I, we need to have you back to talk about what was there actually a couple other, there was a couple other questions I wanted to ask about some different topics, but that just gives me, gives us an excuse. - Give us again. - To have you back again. - You are, you are my favorite podcast about RPGs, you really are. - Thank you so much. - I love, listen, I finally caught up and listened to the weather. What's the meteorology? - Okay, she's so good, she's just neat. - Can you find her on, find her on. - Find her and follow her. - Find her and follow her. - She's all over. - It was so good. - And did you mention it, or did she, where I'm like, I want to put her and Dr. Erin McDonald on the same podcast. I thought that in my mind while I was listening to it. - Oh, that would be good. - That would be good, but I haven't heard that. - No, I mean, she's also just. - Something, so I must have been driving and imagining, like, I was thinking to myself, like, "Oh, this is Dr. Erin McDonald's good." And I was like, if we could put both of them on podcasts together, that'd be amazing. - That would make for me. - We've already had her full. - Yeah, we're gonna have Katie back this fall, as soon as, 'cause she's just across the pond from us at Michigan. As soon as the severe weather season ends. - That is a really, literally use of the word pond. - Yeah, I know. - That's what we call, you know how we call it. She's across Lake Michigan. As soon as the severe weather season ends and she isn't necessarily going on. - Yeah, yeah, I was just across the pond. We don't call Michigan that, okay. - Okay, great show. My point was great show. - That would be awesome. - You're my favorite RPG podcast. Well, you were very kind. - We always love and are grateful to chat with you on the podcast and off the podcast. - Yes. - All right, so you live long and prosper. We'll be talking to you soon. - All right, IDIC. (upbeat music) Well, if it didn't make you think, or it didn't make you wonder, then I think you need to go back and re-listen, because even now, traditionally, we do our intro-outro traditionally after we record this. - This is days after we chat with Michael. - Yeah, and traditionally we need to do that, 'cause we need time to process. And I've been thinking about his idea since then. - Yes, and I still feel I need to ruminate on it more just because just this idea of thinking from these different perspectives, whether I agree with them or not, it's a fascinating- - That is a lovely, lovely thing. - Yes, and just so much, that was such a thick conversation that we just couldn't get into more of it. And I want to be able to do that down the road. And it will be fascinating to do that as their campaign and adventure kicks off as they start playing when they as they wrap up their existing launch their new one. So as that wraps up, as we head over to Audubon Court, what's been on your desk or in your hands lately from a book or reading perspective? - You can probably, I mean, sort of, you probably know where this is going to go, but as of this recording, you have finally watched the entirety of Star Trek Project season, oh, season two. - Yeah, as of last night, as of last night. And so I have been jonesing to talk to you about this for a while, and I'm just gonna keep this very brief for the sake of Audubon Court. You and I will talk lots more in the coming weeks, I'm sure about this, there's a lot to talk about. - Well, before we go, if you haven't, 'cause I know Michael has mentioned in the past that he is not gonna watch Prodigy until he has, he has a writing project. - Right, right. - Don't be like Michael. It's two, Prodigy season two has been out for long enough. But, okay, spoiler warning. - Yes, there you go. - Okay, thank you. I think we're past that point, but it never hurts. So, okay, so if you have not yet completed your watch of Prodigy season two, you should just stop the episode now. Go watch for a season two. - Just listen, just listen to us and feel guilty for not watching it and then go watch it. - That, even better, even better. So, I think, and I've been saying this now for weeks, but I think that season two of Prodigy is easily, truly, surprisingly, some of the absolute best trek that has ever been made. And here's Brad's giving me the look and that's fair because I didn't think-- - No, no, I'm giving you the fuck look. - You're pondering, right. So, I shouldn't say you're not giving me that look. You're giving me the other look. So, let me defend that. Because I say this as someone, as you know, who is a hardcore TNG and Picard season three fan, and all of these other things. And I went into Prodigy with season one, thinking, oh great, a show for kids, not interested, seeing the characters, thinking still not interested, obviously, loving Nami's music, loving the art direction, loving all these other things. And then getting hooked mid-season, mid-season one, by just the story itself, but season two is exceptional. And so, here's, we're gonna drop a whole bunch of spoilers, but I'm gonna keep this tight. This is a conversation for another day, because look, everybody, we realize that we talk about, in the past year, year and a half, Star Trek, more than anything else. Sorry, not sorry. We have lots of other things coming up, and many of them are not going, actually, most of them are not going to be Star Trek. It's just that we're into Star Trek adventures and now two E, and we're talking about it. Brandon, I talk about this all the time, offline, as it were. Don't worry, we are going back to our roots, which is RPG and RPG lit writ large, more to come. That said, season two, Star Trek Prodigy. I think, especially in the second half of this season, the way that the ethos, the value, sorry, Michael, but the values of the Federation and of Starfleet, but of the Federation, especially, were put forward at the forefront, and it's always been that way in the show, in the series. But I think, especially right, when the dice were down, the values were still put forward as this is inexcusable. For example, Janeway, pushing back against Star Fleet leadership, saying no, doesn't matter what's going on, these are not our values. The way that, over the season, all of these late 24th century threads were gently connected, if not tied. It's the first time, see, I'm getting that other, that other Zen look from Rad Now, he knows, it's that it's the first time, 'cause you and I, Brad, have been asking for this, you know, amongst ourselves, since the late '90s and then the early aughts, especially after Nemesis, of okay, but what happened? What happened to everything in the geopolitics and the people and the stories? So many threads were put together and done gently, and you had to know, right, if you know, you know, but they were there. And so now, like, being done with Prodigy, as we then hand off to Children of Mars and the start of Picard Season One, now the story of Trek and the galaxy and Trek at the very end of the 24th century, it makes so much more sense. But what really stood out, because we are guys of a certain age, so what got us into the podcast to begin with, that's why we're doing Dyson Mind, as one, well, actually, by the time this drops, we'll both be 50, but that's a little surreal. But by the time this drops, we will, well, Will Whedon is just a few years in our advance. And, you know, I've said this before, as a kid, as a teen watching TNG, like, you looked up, like I looked up to Picard and Data. Those are the ones I wanted to emulate because of what I saw. But I wanted to be Wesley Crusher, because he had the coolest deal in the known galaxy. And then, of course, we just leave his story completely unfinished. Now, with the beauty of what they did, with Wesley Crusher as the traveler in season two of Prodigy. And it was more than homage, though, I mean, it was more than any of us, I think, could have anticipated or asked for. And the fact that this was all thought out before season one of Picard even dropped. I mean, talk about respect. So that's what's been on my mind, like RPG-wise and sci-fi and fantasy, like all of that stuff. That's what's been on my mind more than anything. I did actually just read the second installment of "From a Certain Point of View," the "Empire Strikes Back," you know, the short story collection. I read that on my trip, right? And I really enjoyed that. But what's been on my mind has been Prodigy, and specifically getting to see Will Whedon as Wesley Crusher in, honestly, maybe the best role he's ever had in Trek. So that's what's been on my table on my desk. What about you? - I'll give you, I'll give you, 'cause I think we'll probably have to talk more at length, maybe in our episode when we're talking at Lit and everything like that about Prodigy. Just some really brief thoughts, because I am, it is 12 hours since I've finished. - Yeah, it's freshman. - Yeah, it's freshman. And it's very fresh because I binged in effect, what is it probably what, 12 episodes, one form or another? - I binged, I think, 17 or 18. Okay, I binged 19 in one sitting, so I hear you. - Yeah, so, one, you know, I watched a TNG, but not necessarily as it was coming out. You know, I was more of a rerun follower of TNG. You know, thanks to my mother and everything like that, I was kind of a TLS guy. That's really kind of what got me into Trek and we've talked about it. - Show or films, show? - Film, show and films. - Okay. - But show just because it was on television and when it was on-- - Same for me. - When it was on UHF TV here. - Right, it was on-- - You saw it in reruns, but we were raised on the films. - Yes, yeah. - But the films, absolutely. - But from my perspective, I didn't ever want to be willy, but having watched it, I always felt like, you know, he deserved kind of a, you know, he was supposed to be in-- - In Nemesis and they cut it-- - This and they cut it. - Oh, I'm sorry, not-- - First contact. - First contact, yep, first contact. - He was cut out in the "Dryker Troy" wedding. - Yep. - You know, so what's really happened to him was in a star pleating uniform, what was he, what was he not? So when he, and obviously I told you you could give me some spoilers because I was going to go read them anyway. But as I watched it, I'm like, okay, good. They've really completed-- - Yes. - A really good story for him. The only thing that I didn't necessarily like is, I always felt like as he aged as a character in TNG, you could really feel him mature as an adult. And as the adult traveler, he felt a little like skittish to me at times, you know, they played him as skittish. And I know that was what the point of the character was, but at some points I'm like, I think they probably, they probably didn't need to do that. Much like when you go to Picard season two and he shows up to-- - Season one. - No, that was-- - Oh, I'm sorry. Is that, I'm sorry, that season two. - You're right. - Yeah, season two. When he shows up in season two as a cameo, I think if they played him a little more like, if they played him just a little more like that, a little more in prodigy, I think it would have done him better. It didn't hurt anything. It's just for me, but seeing the whole kind of storyline arc and every time I heard Jane Way say Mr. Crusher, I'm like, that is just such a cool crossover to hear-- - Yes, yes. - To hear Voyager and T&G intersect that way. - Yes. - And to have Chikote and Crusher have conversations. And Jane Way to have conversations with him. And then to have spoiler alert, to have him connect with Gates McFadden at the end and spoiler spoiler alert to meet his baby brother at the end. - Who is soon going to be going to London because of the schooling? - Oh, that's right, yes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I think that's a fair, I think it's fair to call that a criticism though. - Yeah, I think, and I think they had to do that because, and looking at it, like he had said, all the other travelers had evacuated from that universe 'cause they're like, we're just not gonna deal with this. - Isn't that interesting? - So he was left to his own devices to save his own universe and his own family. He was moving as fast as he can. He found people and he found a way to do it. You know, so I know what they were doing. It's a choice of creative license. I don't think they did anything wrong. It was just a different, I think it's just a difference of opinion for me. - I say this with respect, if not actual affection. I think they wrote, and I think this is actually true with the cameo, although I agree less so. I think it seems as if they wrote the character for/as Wil Wheaton, not the other way around, right? Like in season three of Picard, like this was clearly written for Patrick Stewart, right? The character, the Wesley Crusher was clearly written 'cause that's who Wil Wheaton is, right? You watch the ready room, whatever. It's what makes it fun. That's who he is, he has, he, again, we're all about the same age. He has remained way goofier than we have, right? He still has that. - He's a genius. - Yes, he comes across, he's mature, but he just, he still has this, this quality that reminds me of what it was like to be young. - Yeah, well said. Also, it occurs to me, remember that, that this, this story arc, this is happening, so let me think for a second. I'll just look at my cheat sheet here. - 2382, 2384, I think. - Thank you very much. Okay, so 2380, so, okay, so 23, no, okay. So he's, as opposed to being like 50-ish, he's early 30s in that arc. We have to remember, he's, he is still, he's still young, absolutely. - But yeah, I agree. - He's still young, but, but, and also, he's-- - Well, we're still young, but go on. - Yeah, he's, yeah, he's, he's still very young. - But he's still very young. - Right. - And, and he's, he's, let's be honest, he's, you know, a decade or something off into being a traveler. All the other travelers, you know, pretty much abandoned him. - And how, how cool was that though? Talk about storytelling and talk, talk about, this is the single best time travel story I have ever seen anywhere. It actually works, it holds. I love this, the, right, and the travelers, they had enough, they went to a different dimension because they were burned out and they had lost too many from the temporal wars, which are still a century or two away. - Yeah. - To just double down on what Wesley Crusher can do and who he is, I mean, that's amazing. - Yeah, and I mean, even they even played it out a little bit like at the end, you know, like the, I mean, the doctor interacting with him in the sick bay saying, you know, any, you know, with everything that's gone through at, you know, you shouldn't, you know, I'm paraphrasing, you shouldn't be alive, but you're going to be okay. But, you know, it's, you're going to take a while, you're, you're, your skills and your powers, and they're going to take a while to heal. Although it seemed pretty okay that he was talking to his mom on the pad and then also behind, he was behind her the next minute at the end of the episode. So he seemed to be healing just fine. - I mean, for a guy who orchestrated the timeline and sacrificed himself so that it would work, not bad, not bad Mr. Crusher. - Yeah, and the end, you know, so good. The end when they gave a protostar class ship, the name Prodigy. - That was, and you know that hat to have been the plan for the beginning. - Yes. - That was so well done. - That was so well done. - Well done. I think the idea of Gwen as a, the acting captain, perfect because of who she was developed, who, how they developed her as a character. - Yeah. - And the idea of Dao as a, you know, someone who wanted to be a captain and who wanted to be a fast flyer, kind of like a Tom Parris by the seat of your pants type of guy. - We won't get into the fact that she was probably sufficiently considerably older than him that their ages should have been an issue. But we'll just let that say. - Yeah, but there's also timeline considerations and all that. So I don't think anyone's really, I mean, there's, you know. - It's a little brother uncle, but we're going to let that happen. - We'll let that, we'll let it fly. We'll let it fly. But point being, it's Nickelodeon, who cares? Or now Netflix, right? - Oh, both. 'Cause it's, what, Paramount Nickelodeon on Netflix. - Yeah. - Right. - Let's see what happens. - I really hope, I am now. - Do you want us to say something to me? - I will say that with GenCon and Star Trek Las Vegas and San Diego Comic Con, all these things going on and overlapping and everything, I felt like our Twitter slash X-feed was a little track heavy. - You notice? - Yeah. And so I was doing a little bit of adding some marvel, some official like-- - Okay, that's good. That's why I keep seeing more marvel. I've been adding Star Wars to balance it out. - Yeah, and I'm adding like official stuff. I'm not just adding random people, but-- - Oh, no, no. - But, you know, all of a sudden now I'm like, oh yeah, I need to jump on this. We need another season of Prodigy because I really want to see now what they could, what, I want to see what at least one more season they would do with this time period now, which is now parallel to Picard season one, post since, while Picard and them are off doing their thing, what's going on with the, from a geopolitical perspective, what could they get involved with? - Oh yeah. - You know, from a federation perspective, so selfishly, I would love to see Prodigy as a vehicle for us to see other parts of the federation. So selfishly, that's why I want to see-- - Wouldn't that be interesting? - Another season of it. That's my Prodigy thing. The only other thing I'll say before we wrap it up is-- - Yeah, what's on the desk? - Yeah, is the, you know, my son and I went and saw Deadpool versus Wolverine, which I thought was-- - I am. - It is, it is, it is well done. The way that maybe I was reading it out to be was that they were going to just stuff it as full as possible of, you know, cameos and everything they could to try to-- - I haven't seen it yet. - And it isn't, there are, there are. - Yeah, I've read that. - You know, and you've seen them out there. I mean, I'll, again, spoiler warning, you can go and, you know, they brought Wesley Snipes back as Blade for-- - A classic show such a good soundtrack. - Which I thought was awesome. I mean, the whole beginning, and you've seen this, the whole beginning of it is Blade, not Blade, is Deadpool dancing to buy, buy, buy, and sink, using the bones of Wolverine, killing off-- - Oh, I saw a couple of that. - Yeah, killing off adversaries. We'll just leave it at that. - Yeah. - It's, it's-- - See, I haven't seen the second movie yet. - So, yeah, that's fun. You gotta, you gotta watch that one. And the character, the character, I think the, I think the best character in that whole movie is Dabono, in the second movie. - Okay. - So, if you go into that and you watch Dabono as a character, I think it makes the movie even better. - Okay. - When you have time. - Very good. - But that you don't have to see the second movie. - Yeah, that's what I heard. - Yeah, I would like to see this one. - But point being, I came back home, I was in the car with Trent, and my son, and I came back home and I'm like, I really need to, you know, I'm really, you know, the Marvel vibe, I'm just, I, so I pulled out my Marvel RPG game from the bookshelf from Matt Forbeck, who's been on our show. And there is a, and I took a picture of it, I posted it out on Twitter, it's out there, of the one-off Deadpool adventure. - You saw that, that's funny. - And Trent has agreed to play it. And I think he has a friend that will do it as well. - Well, let's effing go. - So, yeah. So, one of these days. - That's great. - I think I'll get his two, I think I'll get his friend and we'll do it down here in the basement where I record. - Nothing pulls a family together, like want and fictional violence. - Yes, yes, and I don't know if one of them will wanna be Deadpool or if I'll have him as an NPC PC or what the case may be. But he paged through the book. He paged through the Ted, I noticed he, he came out from his room when I talked to him about it and he paged through the Deadpool adventure. Which is comic book size. It's really neat when it came out. It's like a comic book in a way, in terms of its size and paperback. And then a little bit later, he came out and while I was watching something on TV, he took the Marvel corn rule book and he was paging through that over sitting on the couch while I was doing something else. And so, which he normally doesn't do. - Here we go. - So, very good. - So, I think, yeah, we'll see. I think that is, that's coming down the pike. And we'll have to see. - We'll have to report in an upcoming episode how that goes. - Yes, yes. - So, very good. All right, everybody. Thanks as always for being with us. We have a bunch of interesting conversations coming up this month and next already on the docket. Not a whole lot of trek, but a whole lot of other things. Some returning guests, some new guests, stay tuned. As always, be well, stay well. We will see you in a couple of weeks. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
