#the star trek monopoly

[incorrectly-quoted-queers]

Me, sees Discovery and Lower Decks canceled and on their final seasons: Damn well maybe it'll be time to cancel my Paramount Plus subscription soon Also me, realizing I'm a millennial fool with no other way to access old Trek:... Dammit. Maybe not

[a-big-chicken-nerd]

JUST 1 MORE TO GOO

[hezigler]

I Talked To The Most Hated Person on Wall Street

Hasan does a friendly but brutal interview with Biden's FTC chair, Lina Khan (and gets in an obvious Star Trek reference).

[allstartrekgames]

Monopoly: Star Trek Limited Edition

Original Release: 2000

Developer: Hasbro

Publisher: Hasbro

Platform: Board Game

This is the same as The Next Generation Monopoly, but with an Original Series theme. It includes the rules for the “wormhole” mechanic where you set up the four Star Trek Monopoly boards (including the future Deep Space Nine and Voyager sets) as play across all four quadrants: TOS was alpha, TNG was beta, DS9 was gamma and Voyager was Delta. This essentially creates a tortuously long version of a game that is already far too long. The rules do state that “in the unlikely event that all four games aren’t released, play this with the available board”. The DS9 and Voyager versions were thankfully never released.

[monachopism]

my dad has a sticky note next to his computer that just says "autistic ?" and i find that very funny

[aspiringnexu]

They should have a Star Trek episode where a human Starfleet officer (who is normally very kind and pleasant and generally sweet) decides to introduce their alien friends to the antique and much-revered Earth game of Monopoly and said friends watch on in mounting horror as this sweet little human becomes the living embodiment of rage and capitalist greed, moving their small metal scottie dog with all the care of a petulant Klingon toddler and yet deftly avoiding what little property their friends rivals have managed to salvage.

The minute the game ends their paragon of Starfleet virtues materialises where this gremlin of chaos had sat, cackling atop their throne of acquisitions.

Unsurprisingly, the Ferengi get wind of this Earth game and it is a massive hit on Ferenginar.

[laney-rockin]

Reading Star Trek: TOS novels are so cool because wtf do you mean Captain James T. Kirk was allowing gambling on his ship against Starfleet Regs?

Not only that but he was like "gamble away, but cheat and I'll make you work so many double shifts you'll start wishing you never touched the roulette wheel in the first place"

Also the fact that SCOTTY helped set up the gambling? Very in character. I love it sm.

[thirstghosting]

stop. dumb. I know hed more likely and canonically be in space prison. but imagine if fucking. you got space 51/50d and that's where you met rick sanchez. reaching for the same 20yr old copy of galactic cosmographic. hes making snarky remarks in music-themed group-time because he didn't HAVE to pick that one but. he did. he can play space wonderwall from memory nbd 🙄😒he calls some guy named jerry like 5x a day from the community phone with actual buttons and mutters about it the entire time

[spacefinch]

Sulu: I’ve invited you here because I crave the deadliest game...

Chekov, nodding: Knife Monopoly.

Sulu: I was actually going to play Russian roulette, but now I'm really interested in whatever knife Monopoly is.

[gamingtradepost]

Won another auction. There's at least two item here and are very valuable. Hopefully I can pick this up by the weekend.

[aixelsyd13]

Is there still a Coke vs. Pepsi debate?

I don’t drink a whole lot of pop, or I try not to anyway. Friday, I ordered some Penn Station via their website. While hangry & waiting for the pickup, I externalized my internal dialogue via Threads, and boy did people get wound up. People were dropping facts about Pepsi being cheaper, calling out corporations for being complicit in everything from wars and genocide, referencing Pepsi Challenge…

[allstartrekgames]

Monopoly: Star Trek Continuum Edition

Original Release: 2009

Developer: Hasbro

Publisher: Hasbro

Platform: Board Game

The third Star Trek Monopoly game, covering all shows up to Enterprise. This doesn’t have the wormhole mechanic from The Next Generation Monopoly, and even just includes the basic house/hotel pieces from monopoly instead of custom ones.

[glimblshanks]

Star Trek economics are like, we're going to provide for all your wants and needs because we live in a post scarcity utopia. Also here's your monthly allowance so that you can go on playdates with the Ferengi - What is supply and demand? What is inflation? This is all monopoly money to us.

[alanfromrochester]

Are you this guy?

(for the uninitiated, Star Trek species with a hypercapitalist culture, referencing something from the original movies where a Klingon said Shakespeare was best understood in the original Klingon)

my friends don't play monopoly with me anymore because i invented swaps and used them to technically keep people in the game as long as possible while i effectively owned all their properties

[dandelionjack]

it’s really sad for me to discover that the recent-ish mcu features so much time travel/alternate variants of characters/parallel universes/paradoxes etc because it feels like doctor who + star trek and co should have the monopoly on these kinds of stories. irrational and petty i know. But i don’t think billionaire blockbusters have the right to pretend to be cerebral and interesting. it should be about idiots in weird costumes punching each other and shooting lasers from their eyes for 12 years old boys to gawk at . you will not subsume the coolest science fiction concepts into yourself. go bankrupt

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 109 (Mar. 14, 1993) - “Move Along Home”

Teleplay by: Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci Written by: Michael Piller Directed by: David Carson

This is the episode where…

Sisko makes first contact with a game-obsessed species, so they make him and his crew hopscotch for their lives, while Quark places bets because it’s his fault. No one thinks this is funny, and it is treated with the utmost seriousness, but also it’s fine for some reason.

The Breakdown

It’s an auspicious day on DS9 as Sisko and his chief staff (Kira, Dax, & Bashir) prepare to make first contact with an official delegation from ‘the Wadi’, a new species from the still-mysterious-and-exciting Gamma Quadrant. Naturally Sisko rolls out the red carpet, but his guests have little interest in diplomatic formality, and ask to be taken directly to Quark’s bar so they can play his games of chance. What could go wrong?

Initially, not as much as you’d think. …Initially.

The Wadi are quite taken with Quark’s Dabo table (essentially, Space roulette), much to Quark’s chagrin, because they keep winning. Since Sisko is also kinda bummed that his new guests seem to have no use for him, he selects Quark for babysitting duty, leaving express instructions to keep the Wadi happy. Unfortunately, Quark is… well, Quark, so he promptly orders his staff to start cheating so he can win his money back. Predictably, the Wadi call bullshit on Quark's scam, and insist that the only way to reconcile their grievance with him is to play “an honest game,” and they’re not talking about monopoly!

…because they’re aliens and that’s a human thing, but they did bring their own board game, called ‘chula’. With the opening of a box, Quark’s Dabo table magically scientifically transforms into another gaming surface [It’s hard to describe so feel free to reference the weird triangle frame, with multiple bridging levels, pictured above]. Basically, the game starts Quark off with four pieces which are placed near the top of the “board,” and then he rolls the space-dice in order to get them safely down to the lowest level, while placing bets. Simple enough, right? If you said yes, then …come on. Really? This is Star Trek, so clearly there’s gonna be a catch.

You see somehow the game has simultaneously transported Sisko, Kira, Dax, and Bashir (who were all asleep in their quarters) into some kind of virtual/alternate plane of existence (it is never explained). It turns out that the pieces on the board are all avatars representing Sisko and the gang, who are made to participate in a series of increasingly difficult (and seemingly dangerous) tasks. Of course all of this is unbeknownst to Quark, who unwittingly chooses the difficulty-and-nature of each new challenge, while placing wagers on their success.

Eventually Odo figures out that something is wrong when Sisko and his team fail to show up for work the following morning. His investigation leads him to Quark, who is finally brought up to speed, but unfortunately it’s too-little-too-late. The Wadi explain that the only way for Quark to get his people back is to safely navigate them to the end of the game. Naturally, this goes poorly, and Bashir is evaporated (he was kind of being annoying though, so honestly no big loss), and the others all fall down a bottomless cave shaft to their doom. Quark loses. The end.

Just kidding.

I mean, Quark does lose, but Sisko and co. are all perfectly fine, and instantly transported back into the bar safe and sound (somehow). Upon Quark’s realization that his friends (using the term loosely here) were never in danger, the Wadi are like “well duh, it’s just a game, man. But also you’re a douche,” and make their exit. Since a major diplomatic scandal has presumably been avoided on the grounds that no one died, the Wadi are free to go; likewise Quark is also off the hook for... reasons, I guess.

The end. For real this time.

The Verdict

There are a not-insubstantial number of fans who would regard this as the worst episode of the series, and I can see why, but I honestly can’t entirely bring myself to hate on it that much either. The main point of contention for most folk seems to be that the Wadi’s game is ultimately revealed to be harmless after 45 minutes of implying the severity of the situation. It’s a fair criticism, and certainly a part of the reason I won’t be giving this one a high rating, but I think the greater sin is that ‘move along home’ is mostly kinda boring.

Some of my favourite Star Trek episodes are also the most ridiculous, and they succeed specifically by leaning into that silliness. As alluded to in the opening paragraph, one of the games Sisko is forced to play does legitimately involve playing a game of hopscotch while reciting a children’s rhyme. Historically speaking, none of that is inherently out-of-place for Star Trek, and a perfect opportunity for some comic relief, but the scene falls flat, and feels kind of cringy, almost as if everyone involved was embarrassed (except Avery Brooks. That guy always commits). The rest of the episode tries to lean more heavily on traditional life-and-death drama, but even that feels stifled by (I’m guessing) budgetary constraints. Likewise, the sequence with the most impressive set piece (the rocky cliff that everyone except Bashir falls over), drags on for way too long, with the aforementioned lack of pay-off.

But it’s not all bad either. We do get a chance to see a little bit of Quark’s humanity (for lack of a better word) shine through when he believes that he’s responsible for the safety of the players. It’s also nice to see the dynamic between Sisko and his officers in an unconventional situation, and there are a handful of other character moments (which I’ll touch on below) that were enjoyable, if not enough to save the episode outright. Ultimately, there’s no denying this is a ‘growing pains’ episode, but there is something to be said for watching the creative process unfold as the show finds it’s legs, even as it stumbles.

Less “Bleh,” and more “Meh.” I’m giving this…

2 stars (out of 5)

Parting Thoughts

Super-Tech: We need to talk about the Wadi’s technology for a second, because these guys seem pretty stacked, and it’s just sort of brushed over. For starters, they activate the “game board” by opening a small box, that instantly replaces/reconstitutes Quarks Dabo table into an entirely different structure (and then returns it to it’s original state, after they’re done). Then we have Ready-player-Sisko and his team, who are all transported from their bedrooms, and into… somewhere. We know their physical bodies are no longer on the station, and that’s about it. Are they in a holodeck of some kind? Has their consciousness been uploaded into a virtual plane? Are they in some sort of alternate quantum-game-realm? At one point Odo tries to beam over into the Wadi’s ship, hoping to find the missing crew, but he’s thwarted by a bright flash of light that just transports him back into Quark’s bar. However the Wadi do what they do, it’s clear they’re technologically advanced enough to give the Federation a run for it’s money. Bearing in mind, we’re only ever shown how these people apply their technology towards recreational games, but it doesn’t take much to imagine some fairly awesome (and potentially horrifying) alternative applications. At the very least, you’d think they would have made a valuable ally against the Dominion (I mean, who?), but this is the last we’ll hear from the Wadi; Well, at least on this show (they make a brief cameo on ‘Lower Decks’).

Diplomatic Cover-up: I feel like Quark would have faced considerably more severe consequences over scamming the Wadi if this had happened on the Enterprise, but upon further consideration it kind of makes sense that Sisko would let this one slide. After all, the Commander did abandon his guests (who he was responsible for establishing good relations with) just because he was bored; worse yet, he left them alone with Quark! Sure, he’s a lying-capitalist-scumbag, but Sisko knew all that when he blackmailed Quark* into staying on the station! So I figure ol’ Benny decided to keep things quiet, in order to avoid having Quark snitching to Starfleet about how their newly appointed Commander shit the bed on his first major diplomatic assignment. [*it happened in the Pilot, although I failed to mention it in my review]

Parental Guidance may be advised: The closest thing this episode has to a B-Plot, is when Sisko finds out that Jake and Nog spend their downtime together, scoping out the young Bajoran ladies. Sisko has misgivings over this, on the grounds that Nog is both a troublemaker and a Ferengi. Interestingly, I’ve seen a few online threads with people arguing that Sisko is being intolerant towards Nog’s cultural upbringing, but I’m more-or-less with him on this one. Amongst other things, the Ferengi tend to be deeply misogynistic (let’s just say, they got problems, as the show will go on to highlight), so I think it’s reasonable for Sisko to express some concerns about his son taking dating advice from a young man who was raised to believe that women shouldn’t have rights (or clothing). This also nicely plants a seed for Sisko’s own relationship with Nog, as that character becomes further developed.

Security Breach: The previous episode introduced us to Lieutenant Primmin, who was brought in as Starfleet’s Chief security officer (but second to Odo as “head of security” under the Bajoran Provisional Government; gotta love Politics). Primmin shows up again in this episode, when Odo goes up to ops in search of Sisko and Kira. Primmin’s main contribution is when he reluctantly (because regulations) beams Odo into the Wadi ship, and then he’s never heard from again. Like, ever. I’m assuming the original intention was for him to return as a recurring foil for Odo, and was then forgotten/dropped in favour of more pertinent characters and storylines. But according to my headcanon, he was quietly fired (aka “transferred”) due to his critical lack of care and initiative over the disappearance of four chief staff. The dude hardly even sat up in his chair when Odo brought the situation to his attention, which is not a great look. So long Primmin! I’d say you’ll be missed, but I’d largely forgotten you existed in the first place.