Tag Archives: Gaming

Hailing Frequencies Open April 2025

Hailing Frequencies Open logo

It is with a sad heart that we announce that Star Trek Actor and friend of the Seventh Fleet, Craig Richard Nelson, passed away on March 3, 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 77 years old. He had made two Star Trek appearances on The Next Generation and Voyager. He lived in Utah and was a guest at the 2004 Seventh Fleet Admiral’s Banquet and at various local science-fiction conventions. He was very gracious to the local Star Trek fans and will be missed greatly. His online obituary can be found here.

Craig Richard Nelson speaking at the 2004 Admiral’s Banquet
Signing autographs for the Fleet Members.
Posing for photos with Fleet Members.

It’s time to start planning for the upcoming games at the 2025 Fleet Day. This will be held on Saturday, July 19th from 11:00am to 7:00pm. The location is The Queen’s Realm (5451 S. 1900 W., Roy, UT). We will be having a massive indoor gaming event this year with roleplaying games, board games, tactical games, card games and more. Yes, we will have the popular Liars Dice tournament. This will primarily be Star Trek games, but other science-fiction games will be present as well (such as a Stargate RPG). Instead of being catered this year, you can bring your own lunch from one of the many restaurants that are nearby. The Admiral’s Challenge will be the last event of the day. This Fleet event is open to all members and interested visitors.

The Utah Grizzlies Hockey Club will be holding a Star Wars night on Saturday, April 4th at the Maverik Center. They will be playing against the Tahoe Knight Monsters. A special group discount has been set up for Star Trek fans at this website. Star Trek costumes are being encouraged to see if there might be an interest in holding a Star Trek night next season.

Don’t forget that safety should be at the forefront when you start with your outdoor activities. One of the events that the State of Utah holds every April is the Great Utah Shakeout coming up on April 17th. This is a state-wide earthquake drill that starts at 10:15 am. Information on how to prepare for this drill and how you can protect yourself from earthquakes can be found at the link just posted above.

If the latest online rumors are true, the next season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be released on July 31st.

If you are looking for more information about us feel free to look around this website. Please visit our Online Interest Form (which is undergoing changes so you can also email us at Join@SeventhFleet.org) and let us know which chapter you would like to have reach out to you. You can also talk to us on our Facebook page, on our Discord server or by following us on our BlueSky account.

Welcome Aboard:
Crewman 2nd Class Astle Dusty who is joining the USS Ticonderoga
Crewman 2nd Class Sophia Kester who is joining the USS Ticonderoga
Crewman 2nd Class Pierce Kester who is joining the USS Ticonderoga
Crewman 2nd Class Libby Shelton who is joining the USS Ticonderoga
Crewman 2nd Class Michael Shelton who is joining the USS Ticonderoga

Star Trek Birthdays and Anniversaries:
April 1 Grace Lee Whitney (Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager)
April 4 Casey Biggs (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise)
April 15 Michael Ansara (Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager)
April 20 George Takei (Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager)
April 24 Jack Quaid (Star Trek: Lower Decks)
April 29 Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Prodigy)

Other Dates To Note:
April 1 April Fools’ Day
April 5 First Contact Day (2063)
April 5 Klingon Day of Honor
April 12 Frontier Day (2151)
April 15 Tax Day
April 20 Easter Day
April 22 Ancestors’ Eve
April 28 National Superhero Day
May 1 World Laughter Day
May 2 International Harry Potter Day
May 3 Free Comic Book Day
May 4 Star Wars Day
May 5 Cinco de Mayo
May 6 National Space Day
May 11 National Twilight Zone Day
May 11 Mother’s Day
May 22 Sherlock Holmes Day
May 26 Memorial Day

Other Items To Note:
The latest issue of the USS Kelly newsletter, Kelly Communique, has been released and can obtained by emailing the CO.

Upcoming Events:
May 10: OgdenCon (Ogden,UT)
May 17-18: Gem State Comic Con (Boise, ID)
July 19: Fleet Day (Roy, UT
August 6-10: ST-LV Trek to Vegas (Las Vegas, NV)
September 25-27: FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention
March 12-15: SaltCON (Layton, UT)

Hailing Frequencies Open is posted on the 1st of the month at SeventhFleet.org. If you have an entry that you would like to be included in a future HFO, please contact your Commanding Officer. The CO needs to have it submitted to the Admiralty by the 2nd to last day of the month for inclusion.

Review of Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition

Note: This article originally appeared on the private blog of Admiral Carl Stark on September 8th for Star Trek Day. He graciously allowed us to re-post this here.

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The hardbound Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Core Rulebook in packaging.

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Star Trek Day than reviewing the latest Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Core Rulebook that I just received. My daughter bought it as a gift for both Father’s Day (when she ordered it) and for my birthday (when she hoped it would arrive, which was a few weeks late). While I did have the PDF the moment the book was first released at GenCon, I only looked through it briefly in prepping for the 2nd edition game that I was going to run at SaltCON End-of-Summer. As I mentioned before, when I do a deep dive into RPG rules, I really prefer the dead-tree version of the book over the PDF.

Due to finances, my daughter ordered the standard edition of the STA2e core rulebook. There were three special editions that were also released with bookmark ribbons and special uniform colors. I don’t know how many other differences the special editions have.

For the standard edition, there are 377 color pages inside. Both the front inside cover and the back inside cover contain information for the game. A galactic map on the front and several timelines on the back. The ISBN number (for those of you looking for the dead-tree version) is 978-1-80281-223-7 with an internal product code of MUH0142401 (I just notice that it says “Phase II Core Rulebook Standard Edition” next to the ISBN number. Star Trek Phase II was the original name of the revived TV series that was planned for the late 70’s that got turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture after the success of Star Wars.) The 2d20 system designer is Nathan Dowell with the Project Manager being Jim Johnson. There are a lot of names next to the writers and artists credits as it takes a lot of people to put a book like this together. I hope they know their efforts are appreciated. There is one thing missing from my book that I noticed while I was using it this past week. The Klingon core book and a few others had ribbon bookmarks that made it easy to use. This standard edition did not have one and I could have used it.

There is a forward, ten chapters broken up into three sections, a character sheet (personnel file), starship character sheet (starship registry entry), a personal log and an index. An interesting tidbit is that the three sections mentioned above have color coded text in the footer with blue (for background information), red (for character creation, the RPG system explanation and social/persona/starship conflicts) and gold (for the game master).

The three blue chapters are a Star Trek primer (in universe, not real-world), information on Starfleet and details/dangers about space (this is a space exploration game). This consisted of about eighty pages and I took two evenings to sit down after work and dive through the bulk of this. If you know Star Trek, most of this will be pretty cut and dry. With my Melllvar level of knowledge there was one item that made me raise an eyebrow when page 25 noted that “the Romulans taught the Vulcans how controlling emotions might lead to a more fulfilling existence.” on Ni’Var. I don’t recall that from the Star Trek Discovery episode Unification III, but I didn’t have time to dig in deeper on this. I enjoyed the section about the Nyberrite Alliance and the various side nuggets that were pieces of a story about a subspace transmission. As I was reading through this section, I remember getting to the topic of lifecycle about stars and I wondered why I was learning about this instead of the actual rules themselves, so I skipped a few pages ahead. When I was running STA2e at the last SaltCON, I had one player who didn’t have a lot of knowledge of the show, but he knew enough to play the game. As the GM, I felt confident enough to drop tidbits to the players of in-universe knowledge that their characters would know and the players took it from there. As a GM, I’d recommend reading these sections, but you don’t have to memorize them. Most players will have a common knowledge of wormholes, warp drive, Klingons and Starfleet to get the gist of the game. Those that don’t can easily be coached by the GM and other players. Who knows, perhaps it would interest them into watching more of the show to help them with future game sessions. I will say I liked how it was organized (a massive improvement from the 1st edition, I went back and re-looked at it while reading the 2nd edition book and I started having bad flashbacks). I also appreciated how the different eras had suggestions like “Run this era if the group would like…” since the GM would know their players better than the writers would.

Page 85 is where the red section starts and we get into the meat and potatoes of the Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition system. These chapters consist of Reporting for Duty (character creation) which includes a lifepath summary on page 98. Your Home Among the Stars (starship creation), Technology and Weapons (equipment). Operations (game mechanics) and Conflicts (which covers social, combat and starship combat). As someone who loves Star Trek quotes (and uses them for the values in past STA characters) I did notice that the sample values on page 96 were pulled from various Star Trek episodes. This is where GMs and players are going to live when opening this book. Like the first three chapters, the presentation and organization has been vastly improved. A good example is the Attempting a Task step-by-step guide (with pages numbers for more details) on page 257. I’ve also posted another photo of a guide for starship creation below. Two really good changes from 1st edition is the addition of a Species Ability (freeing up one of the ability slots during character creation) and the addition of Pastimes. I think this took a strength from the FASA Star Trek RPG. In that game there was a skill called “Trivia” where the player could place skill points in something trivial that made the character unique. I recall one player selecting “Kurosawa Films”. While it may never come up in a gaming session, it did make the character unique. It also challenged me as a GM to try to include something that the skill could be used in. Another new item added to 2nd edition is that the character creation gives more options than just Starfleet. Now your character can be a civilian scientist, a diplomat, or even part of another space navy for the Klingons, Romulans or other races.

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A very good example of a process that I hope other publishers will follow.

On page 315 we enter the gold section for the game master. Chapter 9 itself is called “Gamemastering” and talks about managing the rules and extended tasks and challenges. There is a narrative flowchart on page 316. Chapter 10 has an introductory adventure called “The Gorgon’s Gaze” and the last chapter gives various stats for NPCs, creatures and starships that the GM may find useful.

I didn’t really cover all of the rules in this blog post, but I will say that one rule change that I did like was the dropping of the challenge dice. When I ran the 2nd edition quickstart a few times, when there was a rare combat encounter, we didn’t even miss the challenge dice.

Another item that caught my attention. The description box for “Enlisting in Other Organizations” on page 13 was the exact same description box with the same title on page 42. I was wondering if this was intentional or a mistake?

Conclusion:

When I got the book, my daughter with the art degree immediately opened up the plastic and started looking at the art credits (she wants to work on something like this). She LOVED the fact that the artist name was next to every illustration (she was hunting for the art by Steve Stark for some reason). When she finished her flip-through I handed the book to my geek wife (and Captain of a local Star Trek fan club) who flipped to page 266 and 267 which contains the Treknobable and Medical-Babble and was immediately impressed.

As for myself, I wish I could have had the book a few days earlier as several attendees at SaltCON came up to me to ask about STA2e. I wished that I could have pulled the book out then to show them some of the kewl items contained within. I loved seeing the references to FASA and the other past Star Trek RPG publishers. But as I was reading the book throughout the week in preparation for this review, I suddenly had a good flashback. In my early D&D days, I never went anywhere without one of my game books. I wanted to study it, I wanted to understand it, I wanted to prepare, I wanted to write my own homebrews for the game. I realized that when I packed the STA2e core rulebook to take to work, to take to the park to read while my youngest roller-skated, etc. I noticed that I was keeping the book near me, like those older D&D books, because I wanted to absorb this system for use. I wasn’t really doing that with the first edition game, but I was now. I’m glad that my daughter got this for me as a gift. After the very-successful one-shot at SaltCON, I may have to start a campaign for my local Star Trek fan club. Thank you to Jim and all of the people who poured a lot of time into putting this book together. I think that you guys succeed in putting together a Star Trek episode simulator RPG. I think this will give fans a chance to “play” their own episodes, and perhaps make a few new Star Trek fans as well.

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Two ships for Star Trek Adventures

Captain Roger Taylor of the USS Essex has submitted several new articles for the Seventh Fleet blog with items for the role-playing game, Star Trek Adventures. Today’s entry gives two different ships that can be used in the game.

This is a ship for the Romulan Star Navy. It could be used in a Romulan campaign or commandeered by Starfleet or Klingon agents.

This entry covers a Ferengi smuggling ship and the NPC that would fly it. The SS Latinum Dust is run by Frump.

The Seventh Fleet blog is accepting submissions (please keep it family friendly) by any fleet member. If you have an article, cartoon, puzzle, photos or anything in particular, send it to Webmaster@SeventhFleet.org and perhaps you’ll see your works posted here.

RPG Adaptation for Star Trek Adventures: Doomsday World

Captain Roger Taylor of the USS Essex has done it again. He was inspired from reading the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel #12 “Doomsday World” to adapt it into an adventure module. This can be used with the Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius.

This 29 page adaptation includes three new races that can be used in the game. There are also several NPCs, a planetary profile, a vehicle profile and several handouts.

Warning: if you want to play in this adventure, do not read the PDF file below.

The Seventh Fleet blog is accepting submissions (please keep it family friendly) by any fleet member. If you have an article, cartoon, puzzle, photos or anything in particular, send it to Webmaster@SeventhFleet.org and perhaps you’ll see your works posted here.

A starship for Star Trek Adventures: Cochrane Series-500 Scout Spaceframe

Captain Roger Taylor continues to send in a wave of wonderful articles taking various elements of Star Trek and adapting them for the Star Trek Adventures role playing game.

For this entry, we have the Cochrane Scout Spaceframe that was (barely) seen in two Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes. Once Upon a Planet and Mudd’s Passion. Details about this ship on screen can be found at Ex Astris Scientia and the Guide to Animated Star Trek (see question 29). Captain Taylor used information from the USS Enterprise Officer’s Manual by Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler.

As a bonus, Captain Taylor also included a “hero” ship the Molly B.

The Seventh Fleet blog is accepting submissions (please keep it family friendly) by any fleet member. If you have an article, cartoon, puzzle, photos or anything in particular, send it to Webmaster@SeventhFleet.org and perhaps you’ll see your works posted here.

A PLAYABLE RACE FOR STAR TREK ADVENTURES: THE ELTHAN

Here is another article submitted by Captain Roger Taylor of the USS Essex. The Elthan is a race that appeared in the Star Trek story “Night Whispers” by Diane Duane. This story appeared in the Star Trek: Enterprise Logs anthology.

These statistics can be used for the Star Trek Adventures role playing game by Modphius. Just a reminder that members can submit articles for any Star Trek gaming system.

The Seventh Fleet blog is accepting submissions (please keep it family friendly) by any fleet member. If you have an article, cartoon, puzzle, photos or anything in particular, send it to Webmaster@SeventhFleet.org and perhaps you’ll see your works posted here.

Beware the Space Monkeys

Captain Roger Taylor of the USS Essex submitted this article (plus a few cartoons) for a blog post. The primary portion of the article is a creature/obstacle for the Star Trek Adventures role playing game by Modiphius.

And just to add to the silliness, here is two cartoons about Space Monkeys.

The Seventh Fleet blog is accepting submissions (please keep it family friendly) by any fleet member. If you have an article, cartoon, puzzle, photos or anything in particular, send it to Webmaster@SeventhFleet.org and perhaps you’ll see your works posted here.

Hmm… I wonder where all the bananas went?