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What Didn't Happen Next #5
by I Love Troi Anon All Paramount characters and trademarks belong to them, as do Decipher’s products and trademarks. I would certainly not intententionally infringe on these rights and the following is meant merely as idle speculation. However, just wait for the day when I discover a universe without copyright laws...... "So what was this game all about then?" said Barry Bridlington, 22nd Century Archaeologist. "It was a kind of game," said his younger companion. "Players spent loads of money collecting these little bits of cardboard and then played a game with them. It was based on Star Trek." "Are we talking about that cult programme on channel 53? It's on it's 14th incarnation now isn't it?" "Well yes, although back in the 21st Century there were only 3 incarnations, or 4 if you count the one called Voyager that fans don't recognize anymore." "And this book would be the manual to this game would it?" said Barry, studying the thin blue volume he was holding. "Do you have any of the cards to show me?" "Oh yes," replied the second Archaeologist (whose name was Trev). "This book was found in a 20th Century house along with thousands of the cards. However, many of the cards listed in the '50 Most Powerful Cards' section in the book look like they had never been used," said Trev, indicating the appropriate section. "In fact, many of them look like they had never left the binder. This was obviously not a very good player." "But do you have a copy of all the cards?" "Well... no," said Trevor, shuffling his feet. "Although we have found many of the cards from the Alternative Universe and Q-Continuum expansions detailed in this book, we have found none whatsoever from this 'Holodeck Adventures' expansion. I'm have no idea why that is." "That," said Barry, "is why I am the famous archaeologist and you are the trainee. These must have been the most powerful cards of all and so stored in a special safe place." "Of course!" exclaimed Trev. "Why didn't I think of that?!" "I'd get digging if I were you," said Barry with a knowing smile... So what happened? Decipher had confirmed that they will never release the expansion known as Holodeck Adventures. Many players in fact don't know that it ever existed in concept. But those who do wonder. Was it, as Decipher says, simply superceeded by better ideas brought about by the new Paramount contract? Or was there a more sinister explanation? To be honest I don't really care. We'll save that for the "Great Decipher conspiracy theories of our time" series (as soon as I can pursuade sombody to write it). Right now we'll just consider what would have happened if the the most famous product never to be released had not been left on the design table. Decipher was on the verge of signing a new three-year agreement with Paramount. It was what the staff and players had been waiting for for ages. Decipher would finally have access to the Star Trek films and the DS9 and Voyager series. However, on the eve of the agreement being signed, an industrial dispute offset by disagreements about Nana Visitor's hairstyle meant that Paramount had bigger problems to deal with. Although the deal wasn't scrapped it was delayed for six months. As the game was on the verge of collapse Warren Holland, Jason Winter (remember him?) and co. decided to rush out a new expansion as soon as possible. Having no better ideas, the expansion that had initially been planned for the next release was greeted by a gaming community hungry for new cards. Holodeck Adventures had arrived! As you might expect, this expansion contained an awful lot of holograms and cards to utilise them. It also contained magic bullets for the most powerful strategies of the time (Red Alert!) and counters for the most powerful cards (eeeer, Red Alert!). Unfortunately, this meant that holograms became incredibly powerful. They couldn't die and so a team made up entirely of holograms could breeze through missions (because all the vital skills missing from holograms in the first few sets had been introduced on the new holograms). Holograms became the only viable strategy and players became very bored. An online community called the Anti-Hologram Society (the names "Committee for Removal of All Photonics" and "Society for Holographic Image Termination" were rejected because of acronym problems) became vocal in expressing their concern for the way the game was going. Decipher, as always, listened to the comments, banned people from the BBS for typing in capital letters and then promised counters in the next expansion. The next expansion was not, as you may think, First Contact. The release of the film had come and gone and the hysteria for the best Trek film of all time had died down so Big D decided against buying the rights to the film. Therefore the next expansion to go ahead was Deep Space Nine. Coincidently, the ambitious plans for sites on Nors gave rise to the solution to the hologram problem. As well as on Nors, sites were also used on ships, most famously the Holodeck (by the time of Barry and Trev the most famous site was the Kebab Van on Voyager on that part of the bridge on stage left that you never see but that has no impact on this story whatsoever). Although holograms could still be carried on ships, they could not attempt missions except by use of special cards and were used instead to interact with "real" characters on the holodeck and give special bonuses. Balance had indeed been restored. In fact not only was balance restored but the game was a hell of a lot more tidy. All facilities, ships, and planets eventually had sites making new game mechanics possible such as ground transport and location combat on ships . However as a by-product the game could not be played on tables less than ten feet in length. The venue for the 2000 World Championships will be a snooker club in Glasgow. I Love Troi Anon
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