 February 1, 2014 - 11:06am |
<!--[if gte mso 9]> Watching an old silverscreen film: “Stretching north and south of the equator in West Africa, a vast area of dense forests and swamp lands as yet unexplored by white man, a virgin territory penetrated by the great Congo river and it’s tributaries. In this wild steaming portion of the dark continent is home to pongo the native name for gorilla, it was here on the fringe of gorilla territory in a nameless native village inhabited by a tribe of fierce negro souls an incident occurred which was destined to startle the civilized world.” – Introduction from the Movie White Pongo <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So I Sci-fied and Star Frontiered it up... “Stretching North and South of the Equator on Starmist is the Shekar Rift, a vast area of dense forests and swamp lands as yet unexplored by the civilized races, a virgin territory penetrated by the great Segnag river and it’s tributaries. In this wild steaming portion of Starmist is home to zongo the native name for a terrifying beast, it was here on the fringe of zongo territory in a nameless native village inhabited by a tribe of fierce heliope souls an incident occurred which was destined to startle the civilized races.”
"Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 February 1, 2014 - 2:33pm | Hmmm... ! Oh, I could do things with that! |
February 1, 2014 - 8:32pm | In the movie the basic plot is anthropologists looking for the missing link (of course it was a white gorilla with a thing for white chicks) and of course in the cut throat world of anthropology there where anthropologists willing to kill other anthropologists. So I couldn't help but think about Vrusks and Clikks... Two main ideas I have are 1) the Sathar fiddled around with Vrusk DNA and accidentally de-evolved the DNA to a pre-divergence point between the Vrusk and the Clikks that escaped and is scary... 2) Starmist was once a life bearing planet before it went wandering... and the life that should have been killed was in fact Arked inside it, deep in it's bowels, and Starmist is the archaic home-world of the ancestors of the Vrusk/Clikks and possibly other Insectoid races. So the Ancients have slumbered or perhaps there is a huge AI cloning machine that has started releasing either clones or awakening sleeping creatures and releasing them on Starmist. Maybe the AI computer is capturing the "new" life forms to study them, and collect cloning samples? Either way I can't help but imagine a big scary furry white Vrusk/Clikk with huge mandibles and scary compound eyes kidnapping a Vrusk biologist, 'cause they be pretty... If the Vrusk Yeti/Bigfoot is an ancient race that remembers it's past it could have weird mad science reasons for abducting Vrusks, if a primitive well they look pretty... Or maybe Clikk Morlocks? Maybe some Clikks where left behind too, now inbred and reclusive they have de-evolved to a primitives. Maybe these Insectoids have a weird biology, or weird bio-chemical controlled society, maybe there are all sorts of creatures appearing that are clearly related but no one knows how? Just a side observation Vrusk seem to have things in common with Humanx Thranx, yet different. (I am sure other folks have noticed this too). Deep in the Dark Rifts of Starmist... Heliopes speak in hushed words about the Demons, they have killed many warriors. The Human biologist asks what the Demons look like and the village priest points to the Vrusk zoologist and says like him, but covered in white fur and huge face claws! I also am figuring the rift in the module is named after Maximillian Malligigg. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
February 4, 2014 - 2:16am | Vrusk are based on the Thranx, and Yazirians are based on the Tran. TSR just changed a couple minor things. It's OK with me, though. I certainly don't mind - "borrowing" goes both directions! |
 February 4, 2014 - 4:55am | Vrusk are based on the Thranx, and Yazirians are based on the Tran. TSR just changed a couple minor things. It's OK with me, though. I certainly don't mind - "borrowing" goes both directions! I think is was Schick that revealed that the SF aliens were based on the fractured human phsyche. Perhaps the same was done for these other aliens by their designers and hence it looks like someone borrowed but the reality is each set of designers chose the same process which lead to similarities. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 5, 2014 - 1:50am | So each alien represents a part of the gestalt id? |
February 5, 2014 - 6:07am | So each alien represents a part of the gestalt id? A while back a group of fans held a Sci-Con two years in a row and got Lawerence Schick and Kim Eastland to be guest speakers using a conference phone on speaker. Matt Crymble has the tape of the interviews but its stored somewhere in a box somewhere in a basement or storage unit in America. If it turns up we've left him with an invitation for its audio file to be hosted on the FE site. What we did get our hands on are the notes for those interviews and you can see them here: http://frontierexplorer.org/book/sci-cons-i-ii-1999 Yazirians were the embodiment of the ID. The Sathar were originally to be known as the S'sessu, and they were to be a PC race. (Later this occurred) [Ed. Note: See the interview Tom Verreault did with Dave Cook that was published in the Star Frontiersman Magazine, issue 18] Schick created the insectoid Vrusk, the ideal of teamwork and cooperation. Vrusk had a hive-like society in which the group came first, and players could play off of that angle; interestingly, the vrusk also were obsessed with aesthetics - ugly objects or living things could literally send them into an "artistic frenzy" in which the vrusk would mindlessly destroy the offending objects/beings. Schick also created the wormlike S'sessu, a wormlike race best described by Schick himself as the ultimate "amoral libertarians". The S'sessu are the diametrical opposites of the group-oriented vrusk; the worms only cooperated for mutual gain, and treachery among them was common. When Alien Worlds was sent to TSR, it was decided the game needed a black and white background and therefore an enemy - and so it was the amoral S'sessu became the diabolical Sathar. Dave "Zeb" Cook was responsible for the Yazirians and Dralasites. Like Schick's species, they were exaggerated fragments of the human psyche. The Yazirians were flamboyant and high-strung, given to great emotion. The Dralasites by contrast were the jokesters of SF, with an odd sense of humor as described in the books. Said Schick: "Dralasites are big on shape humor. A dralasite would find a tube very funny." This led to no end of dral jokes among the Con crowd.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 12, 2014 - 5:36am | But interestingly the aliens in SF have counter parts in Star Probe and Star Empires... it seems dral like beings and insectoids are at least that old in TSR idea box. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 February 12, 2014 - 7:55am | I wonder if the frontier could be found on the star empires map? -iggy |
February 12, 2014 - 10:54am | I am wondering the same Q. If nothing else it would be good to have full scans of the maps, counters and rules of the games. So we can look things over, It seems TSR recycled things abit. I do not think it is an ancident they went with Star Frontiers versus Alien Worlds as the name. Also they seemed to really like the word Alpha in their Sci-fi stuff. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 February 12, 2014 - 12:33pm | Here's the map: http://starfrontiers.info/data/StarProbeColorMap.jpg Good luck finding the Frontier.  P.S. I have those full scans you speak of. Although I haven't had a chance to read them. PM me with your e-mail and I'll send them to you if you desire. It's not something I really want to post on-line. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
