430 – Bringing Home Hardware | Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

This week on Priority One, we Trek Out Star Trek: Discovery’s new hardware – Saturn Awards and an Emmy! Then we hear what the CBS Chief Creative Officer has planned for Star Trek, Michael Dorn’s “Picard” future, and a Patrick Stewart DeepFake. In Star Trek gaming, we deep-dive Star Trek Online’s latest release, Awakening, and Looney Labs newest card game, Chrono Trek. We wrap it all up by hearing from YOU!

Of course, as always, before we wrap up the show, we’ll open hailing frequencies for your incoming messagess

 This Weeks COMMUNITY QUESTION is:

CQ: Do you think Star Trek needs to “Get Younger”? Why or why not.

Let us know on social media like Facebook, Twitter, or by visiting our website!

TREK IT OUT

by Jake Morgan

Star Trek: Discovery Starts Award Season Off With a Bang

On Friday, September 13th, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films hosted it’s 45th Saturn Awards. The awards,which streamed LIVE on several platforms – including Twitch and Pluto, honor the best in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror on Television and in Films. This year, Star Trek: Discovery racked up an impressive 5 Nominations in three categories. More impressive than that – they swept all three categories!

Discovery’s sophomore season took home the Saturn for Best Streaming Science Fiction, Action, and Fantasy Series, beating out impressive competition including “Black Mirror”, “The Expanse”,  and Russian Doll”. Sonequa Martin-Green earned the Saturn for “Best Actress in a Streaming Presentation”, and Doug Jones beat out co-stars Wilson Cruz and Ethan Peck for the “Best Supporting Actor in a Streaming Series” award.

Exciting news, right?  Well that’s not all! The 71st Emmys kicked off their own awards on Saturday September 14th, honoring the creative arts teams. Guess who won? Well, sure, “Game of Thrones” won a few, but WE are talking about Star Trek: Discovery!  The Makeup effects and prosthetics team took home the “Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Limited Series, Movie or Special” Emmy for their work on the season 2 episode, “If Memory Serves”. Go Disco!

We at Priority One would like to extend heartfelt congratulations to ALL of the winners. Well deserved!

CBS Creative Chief Talks Star Trek

On Thursday, September 12th, CBS Chief Creative Officer David Nevins addressed attendees of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Communications & Entertainment Conference in LA – and he had some things to say about Star Trek.

Nevins spoke about the soon-merged ViacomCBS, and its goal to nurture and cultivate our favorite IP. “What we’re trying to do right now with Star Trek is build that brand. We want it to get younger and more relevant to people”

Nevins continued, mentioning that a merged ViacomCBS could “create this virtuous eco-system between all of those platforms. If you’re smart about it you can create a lot of value “

Will Worf Be in Star Trek:Picard Season 1? According to CBS – NO

So. Picard has wrapped principle shooting, and Michael Dorn wants to be Worf again. The obvious question – Is Michael Dorn making an appearance on Star Trek:Picard’s first season? An eagle-eyed fan thought so!

On September 7th, Picard cinematographer Philip Lanyon posted a photo of a signed clapboard on his Instagram page, saying “That’s a wrap!! Thank you Jamie Felz for organizing the amazing, one of a kind gift – a signed slate from the cast of Picard, including some of the original #TNG cast. @sirpatstew you are a true legend and inspiration to us all. Your hard work and dedication to bringing something new to the screen is moving. I’m sure it will give Star Trek fans, old and new, something not only entertaining but also thought provoking and insightful to enjoy, in true Star Trek fashion. #makeitso #startrek #picard”

The aforementioned eagle-eyed fan, Alex@AleSTrek, retweeted the photo of the clapboard to Twitter, identifying several signatures. Then, Alex found one that looked curiously like Michael Dorn’s. The slate is posted next to a photo of Worf, signed by Dorn…and they look VERY similar.

BUT

If you were hoping for confirmation from Dorn or CBS, keep hoping. “a representative for Picard producers CBS Television Studios confirmed to Newsweek that Michael Dorn is not appearing in Picard, citing a conversation with the casting team.”

John Harrison.

Shinzon Gets a Patrick Stewart Deepfake

Whether you thought “Star Trek: Nemesis” should be hauling garbage, or you thought that it should be hauled away AS garbage, one thing is certain – Tom Hardy was in the movie. It’s not much, but it’s true. Or is it? Youtube has our heads spinning!

On September 7th, “deepfakes” Youtuber Deep Homage posted the scene from Star Trek: Nemesis in which Tom Hardy’s Shinzon reveals to Sir Patrick’s Picard that he is a clone of the decorated Starfleet Captain. The youtube video starts as it does in the theatrical release. Shinzon, face obscured by shadows, monologues at the crew of the Enterprise. The lights are ordered up, and the surprised crew lays their eyes upon – Patrick Stewart? The fake, which swaps out the young actors face for that of Patrick Stewarts, is very well done, and is slightly haunting in that Tom Hardy’s voice is coming from Stewarts mouth.

Star Trek Online and Gaming News

by Anthony Cox

Star Trek Online Awakening Review

Well, Captains, Star Trek Online Awakening has arrived on PC, and while we gave you our initial impressions last week, we wanted to dive in a little deeper and discuss all of the new content. Let’s start with the new mission episode “Beneath the Skin.” With J’ula and the forces of house Mo’kai weaponizing classified spore technology, you must resurrect the best Astromycologist in Hologram form to help combat them. With a shiny new photonic Paul Stamets in tow, you head into the Mycelial realm to stop J’ula from harvesting more spores. While in there you need the help of something more than a database of Stamets’ research and logs. With the help of the Jah’sepp, you combine the memories of the real Paul Stamets with the technology of the mobile holographic emitter. After fending off some crazed Elachi and luring some friendly Tardigrades to a spore tea party, you’re able to eventually deactivate J’ula’s harvesting probes and close the Mycelial rift. 

TFO: Mycelial Realm

Basically the ground portion of Beneath the Skin, but with a tri-boss fight.

Patrols:

The Ninth Rule

Daimon Madran is at it again. This time he’s trying to steal spores for black market sales. 

Within the Briars

Defend spore colonies against House Mo’kai forces in the dangerous Briar Patch.

Rescue and Search

Assist a fleet of Lukari from some Mo’kai attackers.

Ruins of Doom

Mo’kai, mo’ problems.

Sentinels

Deploy satellites to defend a spore research station from raiders.

an active ability that massively reduces weapon cycle time.

Events

PC

Bonus Marks Weekend: Now until September 23rd

Dilithium Weekend: September 26th to September 30th

Console

Phoenix Prize Pack Returns: Now until September 24th

Weekly Top Tip

Combat pets can be very handy. It’s always nice to have an extra team member out there dealing damage. Encrusted Hortas, Ripping Tardigrades, and Laser Dinos are just a few, and if you happen to have more than one, then you can have your own army of minions. Turns out your Bridge Officers also know how to wrangle your pets. Equip each of your BOffs with its own Combat pet and the next time you beam into battle on the ground, you’ll have an animal force Ace Ventura would be jealous of. If you’re not sure where to find more combat pets, the Phoenix Prize store has a few for Uncommon tokens.

Other Gaming News

Star Trek Chrono-Trek Review

Over the past year Looney Labs has published Star Trek versions of its most popular game, Fluxx. Now they’ve taken their love of Trek to the space-time continuum with a new card game, Star Trek Chrono-Trek. Which is based on their previous time traveling adventure, Chrononauts. In, Chrono-Trek, you take on the role of your favorite Star Trek character who’s trapped in an alternate reality or who wants to make some adjustments to the current timeline. You must use iconic time traveling technology to change events in the past, present, and future to preserve your own existence.

The timeline is made up of a 36 card grid based on famous events in Trek lore. Some of these cards are Linchpin Events which when changed will affect Ripplepoint events. For instance, saving Edith Keeler from being killed in 1930 means the Allied Forces lose World War II, the Apollo-8 mission never happens, and is one of two Linchpins that prevents the Federation from being founded. Players will use Inverters, Actions, Tools, and Artifact cards to attempt to change events in their favor.

Completing assignment cards will also give you advantages throughout the game. However, beware, there is an anti-time anomaly in Devron system growing backwards in time. When it reaches primordial Earth and prevents life from evolving, the game is over and everyone loses. That is, unless you’re playing as Q.

The game features 32 characters from every Star Trek time travel episode or story, each with their own time event goals. Including the Animated series episode, “Yesteryear.” There’s even a Younger Janeway and an Older Janeway from the Voyager series finale, “Endgame.” The characters are split up into four levels of difficulty, so it’s easy for veterans and cadets of Chrono-Trek to play together.

If you’re familiar with Fluxx you can expect a small amount of chaos with this game as well. Once you understand the cause and effect style of game mechanics, the fun really begins. And even though some of the characters’ goals don’t quite make sense, it is fun to travel through the Star Trek timeline, visiting famous events and changing Trek history. I actually found it more fun to play as the villains in this game. Like Arne Darvin or The Xindi.

As with Star Trek Fluxx, just playing in this universe is it’s own reward. This fun, whimsical tabletop game set in the Star Trek universe will add to the diversity of anyone’s board game collection. Star Trek Chrono-Trek is for 2-6 players, suggested age range of 11 years and up, plays in about 15-45 minutes, and has a suggested retail price of $25.

Tagged as: Awakening, saturn, nemesis, deepfake, STO, looney, trek, chrono-trek, emmy, picard, cryptic, worf, MMo.