By Jim Johnson, Star Trek™ Adventures Project Manager
Art by Marc Bell
The last several blog posts have talked about the new Technical Manual from a game perspective—understandably, since the book is primarily a reference tool for the Star Trek ™ Adventures roleplaying game.
However, the Technical Manual has an additional potential audience: the new or casual Star Trek fan who may have never picked up a role-playing game or may not even be aware of, or interested in, playing the game.
So, what could a non-gamer Star Trek fan or potential Star Trek fan get out of reading the Technical Manual? Let’s talk about it.
Star Trek, since its beginning in 1966, has grown steadily over the past 60 years, as new series, movies, books, comic books, toys, and games of all kinds have been added to the franchise’s massive tapestry. Among the thousands of books published about Star Trek are many amazing technical manuals. Here are just a few of them:
There’s not enough space in this blog to extoll the virtues of each of these technical manuals, along with many others not pictured. Suffice to say that, collectively, from the Franz Joseph Star Fleet Technical Manual, to the Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, to the four Illustrated Handbooks Hero Collector released (original Enterprise, Enterprise-D, Deep Space 9, and Voyager) and so many more, fans of the legacy Star Trek series have been well-served with technical information about the gear and technologies presented in their beloved series.
Starting in 2017, a new generation of Star Trek series began release, starting with Star Trek: Discovery and continuing on with Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Other than a handful of excellent publications, there hasn’t been a technical manual that covered the technologies of these five series to any significant degree, much less one that also included technology from all the legacy series and movies.
That brings us to the new Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual. This Technical Manual is the first non-fiction Star Trek publication that bridges all canon Star Trek together under one cover. The Technical Manual covers technologies from the earliest years of Star Trek: Enterprise all the way out to the 32nd century as depicted in Star Trek: Discovery. As a result, the Technical Manual is a worthwhile addition to any Star Trek fan’s library. Who knows, it might even one day stand among the others as a useful reference for future generations of Star Trek writers, series developers, and game creators, just as all the previous technical publications served as references for the development of this book.
In addition, there are a whole bunch of readers and gamers who enjoy picking up game books and reading them just for the sake of reading them. The concept of “RPG as literature” has been discussed at length online (search for the Continuing Conversations and Dice in Mind podcasts), where you can hear from RPG designers and developers across the industry about their games, and learn how many gamers approach reading and using their books.
Who else might enjoy the Technical Manual? Share your ideas with us in the Star Trek Adventures channels on the official Modiphius Discord server. Until then, happy reading!
Preorder the print edition of the Technical Manual now and receive the final digital edition right away.
Thanks for reading this article, and thank you for your interest and support of Star Trek Adventures! Keep frequencies open for news about other upcoming Star Trek Adventures product releases. Live long and prosper!
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