Well this is Qte!

June 29, 2000 12:53 AM

Well this is Qte! I'm sure I'm probably the last to know about it. And it's probably not fashionable to admit to being a trekkie nowadays, but since when have I been fashionable? Finally they have come out with a Star Trek computer game that I enjoyed. Kinda like the card game. I suck at it, but it was still fun. And it's great for the ego. You get to pretend you're Q...
posted by ZachsMind (10 comments total)

Could you check your link? I don't see anything remotely resembling what you describe; rather I see a fairly standard 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) game being described. Where do you get to be Q?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:17 AM on June 29, 2000

The Trek merchandising machine has not been good to the Q. Their Q action figure doesn't look a thing like John DeLancie. But I still have him sitting on my desk, next to the Dwight Shultz as Barkley and Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan figures... my kind of TV toys.
(off off topic) I finally saw "Being John Malkovitz" on video tonight and I just thought: "Malkovitz action figure? With strings, of course!"
Anyway, I used to think a Star Trek series centerred around Q would be cool (or Q-l) until I realized the producers would probably turn him into a clone of Doctor Who, and that wouldn't be right...
posted by wendell at 2:22 AM on June 29, 2000

Speaking of unfashionable trekkie things, I've just confirmed my status as a total loser.

I downloaded a Star Trek book to my Palm yesterday.
http://www.peanutpress.com

What better literature for a device that already resembles a tricorder? Please don't spread the word about my utter geekness . . . I don't think I could live it down if people found out about the trek stuff, the comic books and those "National Geographics" I keep hidden under the bed.
posted by aladfar at 7:05 AM on June 29, 2000

Personally, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Red Alert tabletop space combat game. It's a miniatures-style game, but with collectible cardboard disks instead of miniatures.
posted by harmful at 8:12 AM on June 29, 2000

Malkovich. Malkovich. Malkovich.
Never post after 2AM.
posted by wendell at 12:39 PM on June 29, 2000

The link now showing obviously says "you get to be a member of the Q continuum". So, maybe not THE "Q", but A "Q". The name ConQuest is obviously intended Ever to evoke that other Quest. (Or is it actually a spinoff?)
posted by dhartung at 8:21 PM on June 29, 2000

OK, now I see the reference.

And as a result, this game concept makes no sense at all. I thought that a Q could essentially create anything he wanted with just a thought. Aren't they essentially deities?

What's to struggle for? Want a civilized planet? Snap your fingers and there it is. Need a billion ships? Wave your hand and send them on their way. Need a sphere of gold-pressed latinum a light year across? Wiggle your nose and observe it to apear.

Why would Q struggle for anything at all?

posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:27 PM on June 29, 2000

Well, that begs the question of why the original Q was interested in humans at all. But then, if you could, why not use people, planets, and the like as a giant game of The Sims? Why indulge in snap-your-fingers creation when roping dozens or millions of lesser beings into a giant multi-year project whose outcome is of little concern to you can be just as rewarding? (I might point out that mere humans have engaged in similar kinds of entertainment over the centuries, given the appropriate enforcement capability.) I think (starting to geek out here) that were there really a Q, the realness of people would indeed be endlessly fascinating.

That said, this game seems to be a pretty standard 4X game as pointed out earlier, just with a cute backstory.

[Plea: can anyone suggest to me a good Star Trek game for a ten-year-old? He was given Starship Creator which was wildly inappropriate in terms of complexity (not to mention IMHO a terrible game), even though it met the "nonviolent" quotient.]
posted by dhartung at 3:40 AM on June 30, 2000

Actually, and unfortunately, there has never been a "good Star Trek game" for anyone. It's something of a scandal in the computer game industry that every single game released in that franchise has been mediocre or worse. Some of them have been dreadful.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:39 AM on June 30, 2000

I don't understand the reference to "4X" but ConQuest is basically similar to the Star Trek Trading Card game that I saw sold in comic book stores a year or two ago. Same premise, just on computer. You have various people places things and stuff in your hand, and you play it on the table before an opponent.

I found it to be a lot of fun. Silly and cheesy, but fun. As close to good as I've seen from any of the Star Trek games which have hit the market. Most of them are pretty bad. Even the encyclopedia type computer programs which claim to have all the information about a given series in one CD, well I still prefer just reading my old ST paper books. Some things are just more enjoyable offline.

As for the concept of Q itself being hard to swallow, in the context of both the tv series and the game I get the indication that usually Qs are nothing more than an energy entity and bits of itself step out of the continuum to pretend to have an existence out of sheer boredom. It's why they all call themselves Q. The Q Continuum is where IT comes from. Not THEY. John De Lancie's character was both "a" Q and an extention of "the" Q. I didn't get the impression they were gods.

It's like all of reality is a game, and whatever Q was originally somehow got its hands on all the cheats, to borrow the allusion to The Sims that someone mentioned above. But Q is outside of reality looking in, and can only 'play' by slicing off pieces of itself and incorporating itself into the universe. Furthermore, once IT realized all of its slices have autonomy once in the universe and are simultaneously separate entities while still being a part of the whole, the Continuum set up rules and guidelines which all Q must adhere to, or they get stripped of their Qness and forced to become human or whatever. Sorta like being put into the penalty box. The ConQuest game is an attempt to illustrate that or virtualize it.

Actually come to think of it the entire idea is rather silly. Still fun though. You have to think omniscientally in order to grok it. =) I mean if you were omniscient, wouldn't you get bored?


posted by ZachsMind at 4:52 PM on July 1, 2000