Forum > Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion
Star Trek RPG... What if there is no time travel?
GeekyBugle:
--- Quote from: HappyDaze on May 03, 2022, 09:48:36 PM ---I was looking at running a Star Trek RPG (system undecided, but probably Decipher's CODA) but was wondering how the setting would be altered if time travel were not possible. Perhaps the laws of the universe just don't allow it, or perhaps beings from beyond the universe (Q or such) choose to prevent it, but either way, what would the Star Trek setting be like if time travel is eliminated? I'm thinking that this happens from the beginning of time, not as in in-game event.
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This is but one of the many reasons why I don't run/play in stablished IPs anymore (and I got my start playing WEG Star Wars).
I would preffer to play/run a totally not Star Trek because then I have a blank slate.
As someone already said Earth would be barren because no whales.
HappyDaze:
Let's go with the assumption that none of the events that have previously required time travel to overcome required it in this universe. For example, perhaps a brilliant Xindi-Aquatic linguist was able to communicate with the probe from ST III and make it go the fuck away.
The big thing I'm looking for is to be able to start in year X with most events having the same outcomes expected without having to rely on time travel to get to those outcomes. Obviously, some events (like the Temporal Cold War) that depend upon time travel will just be eliminated from this universe. So in this universe, the Suliban and Xindi both attacked pre-Federation Earth on be half of mysterious patrons for reasons that did not involve beings from the future.
Mishihari:
--- Quote from: This Ends Tonight on May 03, 2022, 10:59:30 PM ---If Roddenberry in the 1960s had said, "Time travel is dumb, we will never do it," the shows would generally be the same, it isn't integral to the setting so much as it's a lazy way to create a plot and film on sets that look like current day Earth.
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If only. A famous SF writer once said "In SF you get one impossibility for free, the rest you have to work for." Trek never put in the work to make time travel plausible, at least not to me. Space travel is more than enough to base the show on. Adding time travel just makes it weirder without contributing anything.
migo:
--- Quote from: HappyDaze on May 04, 2022, 12:03:45 AM ---Let's go with the assumption that none of the events that have previously required time travel to overcome required it in this universe. For example, perhaps a brilliant Xindi-Aquatic linguist was able to communicate with the probe from ST III and make it go the fuck away.
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But the Xindi only got involved because of the temporal cold war. So would the pre-Federation have had Xindi contact without it?
jeff37923:
--- Quote from: HappyDaze on May 03, 2022, 09:48:36 PM ---I was looking at running a Star Trek RPG (system undecided, but probably Decipher's CODA) but was wondering how the setting would be altered if time travel were not possible. Perhaps the laws of the universe just don't allow it, or perhaps beings from beyond the universe (Q or such) choose to prevent it, but either way, what would the Star Trek setting be like if time travel is eliminated? I'm thinking that this happens from the beginning of time, not as in in-game event.
--- End quote ---
You get Star Trek episodes where the writers actually have to come up with good scripts.
Then again, you also don't get a great episode by Harlan Ellison.
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