Star Trek: Freelance which was slated to be an up and coming RPG style modification for Elite Force has announced that they are changing their project. Instead of being a modification, Freelance is now slated to be a stand alone fan game with its own engine and more!
Hailing Frequency originally reported on Freelance back in Janruary 2010 (see original article here) and in Episode 74 of our podcast, we interview the lead programmer for the mod, Griffin Endurance.
Since that time, the team behind the project decided that the limitations of the Elite Force Engine were simply too great, and have therefore decided to branch out onto a new engine and become a fully featured fan game.
On their website they said:
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Ber PerLee at Destructoid interviewed Executive Producer Dan Stahl earlier in the month. Give the interview a read here.
Visit our screenshot gallery to view the latest screenshot from Season Two: Ancient Enemies.
Walter Koenig, best-known to Star Trek fans as Pavel Chekov, will be writing a new four-issue comic miniseries which will be published in 2011.
The miniseries, titled Things To Come, will be published by Bluewater Productions and features a story set in a post-apocalyptic world where vampires have become the dominant species.
In Things To Come, the vampires are seeking identity in the harsh environment that remains after the destruction of the world by humans. “The one intelligent species that can survive in this post-apocalyptic world are vampires,” explained Koenig, “and they are a bridge from what has gone before, which is this self-destruction of the human race, and what will come after. They are in pursuit of their own meaning. Why are they there? Why have they been created?
“There are those among them who think it is an act of god, and those who thoroughly reject that idea.”
Koenig is aware of the current vampire craze, but he plans on offering a different version of the creatures than is already out there. “As pretentious as it sounds, I don’t want to mimic what has gone before,” he said. “My purpose isn’t to capitalize on a theme, but inject it with some fresh ideas. That’s what makes writing fun for me. It’s always been what makes writing fun for me.”
Back in the 1990s, Koenig was the author of Raver, a three-issue comic series which was issued by Malibu comics. Bluewater Productions plans on reissuing that series next year and Koenig plans on writing a brand-new story for the series, with a new “more topical” story that offers a “metaphor for our involvement in foreign lands.”
One twelve-year-old boy, known online as “Legohacker” has figured out the trick of turning official Star Wars Lego sets into Star Trek ships.
Some four-year-olds will create art with Play-Doh or use crayons to create artistic masterpieces, but Legohacker was a bit different than his age-contemporaries, according to his father, Jon Ippolito. “When I had kids I was eager to see what kind of creativity they would spill on a page full of crayon drawings or a lump of Play Dough or, in this case, a bunch of Legos,” he said. “I was pretty astonished to see how sophisticated the kind of thinking outside the box they did was.”
Legohacker appeared to show that “outside of the box” thinking. “In particular my son, when he was about four, started to put blocks together in ways that I didn’t even think were possible,” said Ippolito.
The son, who is now twelve, is still a fan of Legos. Legohacker uses the official sets, turning them into something else using only the pieces that were included in the box (hacking the set). His latest Lego hacking includes turning Star Wars sets into Star Trek ships.
One hack shows what happens when a Star Wars Corporate Alliance tank droid is turned into a Federation Starship.
Another hack shows a Klingon battlecruiser, made from a Star Wars Republic Walker set.
Legohacker has a website where his creations are displayed. His family, including his sister, helps him to find appropriate backgrounds against which to display his Lego artwork.
Jeri Ryan, Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine, found that her work on Voyager has helped her in learning her lines for her newest role.
Ryan, who plays Dr. Kate Murphy on ABC’s Body of Proof, now has to learn complicated medical jargon for her role as the boss of medical examiner Dr. Megan Hunt (Dana Delany).
“I haven’t had so much of that [medical dialogue] but it’s not that difficult,” said Ryan. “I did four years on Star Trek. I did technobabble for years, so if I can do technobabble I’m not that concerned about the medical stuff!”
Ryan is unconcerned about the science as well, having confidence in the real-life medical examiners that are on the set to advise and make sure that the show is authentic. “We’ve got technical advisers that will be with us on set,” Ryan explained, “so we can keep all of [the science] realistic.”
Body of Proof debuts on ABC this fall on Fridays at 9 PM.
Earlier this month, a Star Trek auction by Propworx was held at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel, as reported by TrekToday; featuring props, furniture, artwork, models and costumes.
Two pieces from the original series era commanded the highest prices, while a photo of Data’s cat Spot brought in more than ten times its estimated value.
An original series translight from the TOS bridge sold for the highest price, $16,800. The bridge translight shows the actual schematic of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
The second-highest price was for a Klingon Battlecruiser model, which sold for $12,000. The model was created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture but was never used in the movie. This model was based on an original model now in the National Air & Space Museum.
Robert Picardo (EMH) was in attendance to auction off the chair in which he sat during his time on Star Trek: Voyager. The chair sold for $3,000 and a translight that had been behind the doctor’s desk went for $4,000.
The surprise of the auction was the popularity of Data’s painting of his cat, Spot. Originally thought to be worth between $200-$400, the painting sold for $8,400, with three different bidders in attendance at the auction vying for the honor of taking the painting home with them.