DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Races – Cardassians

Cardassian Logo

The Cardassian people are a ruthless race of humanoids in a military dictatorship, which rules their empire with a fist of iron. They have been involved in a bitter, extended conflict with the United Federation of Planets. An uneasy truce between the two adversaries was finally reached in 2366. Then in 2367, a historic peace treaty established a fragile armistice between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Among other things, the treaty provided that captives of either government would be allowed to see a representative from a neutral planet following their incarceration.

http://www.belgarath.net/?FramePage=/v5/xeno/bajorans.asp&

Cardassians prefer a darker, hotter, and more humid environment than Humans. (DS9: “For the Cause“) Like other humanoids, their evolution was influenced by the Ancient humanoids. (TNG: “The Chase“)

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

The Cardassians were allied with the Dominion during the Dominion war. Their hatred of the Federation is known throughout the galaxy

Ships

GALOR CLASS

Notes:     The Galor class is the largest part of the Cardassian military, but it isn’t the strongest ship in the galaxy.  A lone Galor class is easily out classed by most other Alpha Quadrant ships. To make up for this shortcoming Galors can often be found in large wolf packs.  It is believed that until the Cardassian Union joined the Dominion, the Galor class was the most technologically advance ship Cardassia could build.  Now the Galor class serves in a supporting role to more powerful Dominion ships.

KELDON CLASS

Notes:     The Keldon class is an enlarged and more powerful version of the Galor class.  It can be identified by the new upper decks and different tail section.

HIDEKI CLASS

Notes:   Hideki class ship are designed to patrol the Cardassian boarder and raid neighboring solar systems for resources.  The Hideki class has also been known to support larger Cardassian warships and Dominion fleets.

http://gostartrek.webs.com/cardassians.htm

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DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Races – Bajorans (1)

History

The Bajorans are a race of master artists, architects, and scholars whose lives are centered on their faith. Their deeply religious culture honors the ‘Prophets’ who guide the Bajorans.

Ships

 

 

Notes: Two man sailing ships used by the ancient Bajorans to explore space, four centuries before humans left the Earth. These ships had no impulse or warp drive; instead they used the power of the Bajor sun for propulsion. These ships were able to reach Cardassia when they discovered tachyon eddies in the Denorios Belt which propelled the ships beyond light speed.

The Bajorans (also known as the “Bajora“^[1])

were a humanoid species native to the planet Bajor in the Alpha Quadrant. The Bajorans had one of the oldest and richest cultures in the quadrant, though in the 24th century they suffered greatly at the hands of the Cardassian Union. With their liberation from the Cardassians and the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole in 2369, the Bajorans were thrust onto the interstellar stage.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Bajoran Lightship

Bajoran Fighter

Bajorans resembled Humans in appearance, and were distinguished by a series of four to seven horizontal creases across their noses. Bajorans also featured light and dark skinned variants, although the dark skinned Bajorans appeared to be a very small minority. (DS9: “The Homecoming“)

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/bajoran-assault-vessel/

DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads of Time (Genesis/Mega Drive) (4)

Oh right, I forgot about this bit. I have go systematically speak to every NPC on the station until one of them says something useful, then go do it all over again until one of them finally lets me go on a mission.

LATER.

Are you the one I’m supposed to be talking to now? No? Right, okay, moving on.

LATER.

AAAAAGGGGHHHH, this is driving me crazy!

EVENTUALLY…

Finally they let me have a little more gameplay! This time I’m flying a spaceship through a wormhole. I’m tasked with flying up, and sometimes down, to avoid hitting the… glowy strands of blue.

I’m sure this doesn’t actually go on for two hours, but that’s what it felt like.

Then I get to do five minutes of shooting against some asteroids and some poor ship that doesn’t fire back, and it’s back to the station.

And then it’s back to running around. Talking to every damn NPC. Again.

I know it’s a Star Trek game and everything, but I really wouldn’t have minded if there was less talking and more gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, if (for instance) Bethesda had actually made that Star Trek RPG they were thinking about before deciding they loved Fallout more I’d be all for talking to those NPCs. But this is just annoying.

LATER.

Level three at last!

I’m free, I’m finally free! Free to jump around these shitty looking wooden beams covered in thorns and evil fruit that jumps off and tries to kill me!

Oh fuck it, I’m just going to walk.

And then three steps later I fall down an invisible underwater pit and instantly die.

They’re putting me all the way back here again? Seriously? You know, if I’d started back at the beginning of the wooden beam planet I probably would have kept playing, but there’s no way I’m going through this NPC scavenger hunt again.

And then they never made another Star Trek platformer again. I hope.

Next game!

http://superadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2011/12/star-trek-deep-space-nine-crossroads-of.html

DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads of Time (Genesis/Mega Drive) (3)

Shit! I’m not liking this inventory. I have to hold down the A button to bring it up and assign an item to my hand, and tap it to switch between assigned items. There’s two problems with this:

1. I can’t quick draw my phaser and gun down my enemies if I’ve forgotten to assign it to a hand.
2. I have to hold down A to use the lifts too. So half the time when I’m trying to move a lift around, I end up bringing my items up instead. And I can’t make a quick escape when my inventory screen’s open.

And every time I get killed I’m thrown back to the password screen and have to reassign my items.

Seven seconds left. Damn, I’m really cutting it close on some of these grenades. Plus I’ll probably have to spend three seconds trying to line him up with the ejection tube correctly so he’ll flush the thing.

Still, I’m just glad I found the damn tube for once. Half the time I end up totally lost and get blown up by the bomb in my hand.

On the next section they start throwing these tricorder jammers in too. I can’t tell where nearby bombs are on my radar until I find and break the jammers.

Yeah, the inventory popping up when I’m on a lift isn’t getting any less annoying. I’ve got a time limit here!

Okay I admit, it’s my fault. If I was properly centered on the lift the menu wouldn’t come up. But I don’t have time to properly center myself on every lift, I’ve got a time limit here!

I’ve finally reached the third section of the level, and it’s getting very Prince of Persia now. There’s no lift to ride here, so I have to jump from ledge to ledge to reach the bombs. Then back down again to flush them.

And every time I miss a ledge and fall I’m put all the way back at the start of the level again. Crap.

A FEW DEATHS LATER.

I don’t actually mind jumping between a maze of ledges over a fatal drop. I don’t even mind the time limit. The thing that’s really starting to annoy me though, is that I have to replay this huge level every time I fuck up. That’s two entire sections of bomb disposal I have to repeat, over and over and over.

I should probably quit now, but I can’t help being implausibly curious about what’s on the next level. It can’t all be bomb disposal to the end, right?

TWO AND A HALF SECTIONS OF BOMB DISPOSAL LATER.

Okay, made a jump. So far so good. I’ll have to keep throwing myself at ledges like this until I find the next bomb, and even a single missed jump is likely to get Sisko killed.

And then when I find the bomb I’ve got seconds to jump all the way back down again.

The SNES version’s still pretty similar, and no less annoying. Well I guess it doesn’t have the inventory/lift button problem, so it has that going for it.

The hero sprite seems a bit invisible in these shots, but he shows up pretty well in game thanks to the parallax scrolling background. These lift rails look way too much like platforms I can stand on though.

THREE MILLION MISSED JUMPS LATER.

I… don’t believe I actually did it. Hah!

Level complete and I NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN.

BUT THEN…

DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads of Time (Genesis/Mega Drive) (1)

When I found out that this was actually released for real I had to check it out. A Star Trek platformer? Seriously?

Apparently the lead designer wrote a Star Trek fan film, so I expect this is going to be fairly faithful to the franchise. The music sounds like the actual Deep Space Nine theme, and that looks like the right space station, so it’s doing well so far.

Some Trek games (like Starfleet Academy and Elite Force for example) put the player in the shoes of Lieutenant Bland, chiselled generic space hero, who gets to go on an adventure alongside everyone’s favourite heroes from the show.

But fuck that, I’m Commander Benjamin Sisko himself, and this is my office.

Dammit Odd, how many times have I told you not to call here and interrupt my kung fu? Odo, whatever.

Eventually I realise he’s not going to stop calling me, so I should probably go find ‘security’ and hear what he has to say. First step: leave office.

These graphics aren’t actually that bad at all, and Sisko moves fairly… gracefully. Okay, the faces are a little weird, but that’s what happens when you go for realism at this kind of resolution.

The music on the other hand, is nothing like the soundtrack to the series. For one thing it’s catchy and tuneful. Exactly what I want to be listening to when I’m playing my ridiculous Star Trek platformer. Okay, now where the hell is the way out of this place?

Damn, you can really tell these two are related.

This corridors looks like it’s supposed to be in a complete loop, but sadly it doesn’t wrap around at the edges. Nice parallax scrolling though.

Okay, I’m just going to watch him do this for a second or two. There’s nothing even up there, it’s entirely pointless.

Right, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, I’m looking for ‘security’.

A docking pylon you say? I think I passed the door to that on the way here.

Uhuh. So… what now? He mentioned that Doctor Bashir was treating the technician so I suppose I should go find him.

Right, now that’s done I can go start the first level.

Doctor Bashir didn’t give me any clues about what I’m supposed to be doing now, so I suppose I’ll have to go talking to people until one of them gives me the next part of the plot.

LATER.

http://superadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2011/12/star-trek-deep-space-nine-crossroads-of.html