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Old June 12th 04, 12:49 AM
OM
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On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 15:48:55 -0400, "Scott Hedrick"
wrote:

Still have mine. The Klingon supplement was once of the best RPG values
around. Then they started squeezing the product for money. The Romulan
supplement was a waste of money.


....A little background: one of the reasons the Klingons suppliment
worked as well as it did was that it was co-written by several people
involved in the writing of Mike Ford's _The Final Reflection_. Mike
was also involved in the suppliment, and the two were done basically
in the same fashion as Kubrick and Sir Art did _2001_. With one major
loudmouthed exception(*) the suppliment was well-received, and _TFR_
was a big seller that opened Paranoidmount's eyes to the possibility
that a Trek novel that didn't involve Kirk, Spock and/or McCoy could
sell and sell big. Ironically, they demanded that a "framer" sequence
featuring the Big Three be added to firmly explain to the "hardcore
trekkies" that this *was* a Star Trek novel, set in the Star Trek
universe. It wasn't necessary, but the mention of McCoy in diapers is
still pretty funny.

....However, something really bad happened to the production side of
Star Trek. TNG came along, and Gene hired a complete and utter dip****
by the name of Richard Arnold to act as his assistant. Arnold - aka
"Melakon" amonst most Trek fans due to his abusing Trek licensing
matters in Gene's name - wound up demanding complete and final say-so
over anything FASA produced. The suppliments started getting edited
for content, and anything that looked like it would be a good concept
for TNG was axed and then quietly passed on to the TNG writing
staff(**). Over a period of two years, Arnold totally devastated all
of the Trek licensing outlets, making changes that made no sense
whatsoever and/or done simply because he had personal issues with the
writer/creators. CIPs that come to mind a

* Arnold had a major problem with Peter Allen David, whom Arnold felt
was adding way too much satire and humor to Star Trek. To quote Arnold
"Star Trek is serious science fiction, and the fans don't want humor
save for maybe the jokes at the end of the show, and even then they
really don't like them." He was, as one would expect, unable to
explain why "The Trouble With Tribbles" was one of TOS' most beloved
episodes, and was quite frequently hit up on this at convention
appearances to the point where he finally refused to answer the
question and would simply go "Moving right along...".

....The best examples of how much interference he caused PAD were the
novels _Vendetta_ and _Q-In-Law_. Arnold tried to have the former axed
because it featured a female Borg when Arnold claimed the Borgs didn't
have females, while the latter he wanted tossed because it was way too
"funny" for his tastes. _Vendetta_ saw print because Pocket ran a
disclaimer in the front cover that most people ignored because the
novel was one of the best that's been written for TNG even to this
date. _Q-In-Law_ saw print with *no* editorial or Arnold-ordered
changes after PAD gave a copy of the manuscript to the one person on
the planet who could override Gene or anyone pretending to act in his
name - Majel, who fell in love with the book for reasons obvious to
anyone who's read the book and wished that the 'Noids would film the
damn thing just so we can all see Q getting the **** kicked out of him
by Lwaxana Troi.

....Shortly after this, however, Arnold had his revenge by forcing DC
Comics to dump him off of their TOS comic, which was selling far
better than the TNG one by worthless Trek hack Michale Jan Friedman.
For over two years, Arnold was butchering PAD's scripts and forcing
character name changes without giving explanantions, and finally
demanded that PAD be removed from the book. However, to prove a point,
PAD did one more script, and DC submitted it for approval. It came
back from Arnold with AbZero changes to it, and given a glowing stamp
of approval by Arnold, who stated this writer needs to be on the book
permanently. However, it was still PAD using a pen name.

The name? Robert Bruce Banner.

* Another example is Margaret Wander Bonnanno's butchering of her
original _Probe_ script following STIV. Margie's got it up online at
her website so you can see just how badly the script was raped at
Arnold's insistance. The original novel is far superior to what got
printed.

* FASA also got screwed. Arnold got involved in FASA's business
shortly after they came up with the TNG suppliment. He got ahold of a
copy and screamed bloody murder, claiming that there were "tons" of
inaccuracies and that an immediate correction release needed to be
done or the contract would be pulled. One did come out a few months
later, but the corrections made by Arnold were themselves contradicted
by the series itself - especially certain 'facts' about Data's
construction and Dr. Soong's true nature. Arnold went ballistic again,
but by this time FASA decided that despite the fact that the RPG was
selling really well still - third only to D&D at that time - there was
more money in Battletech, which despite the fact that it was a blatant
knockoff of every big mechwarrior anime slugfest since "Space Cruiser
Yamato", they got 100% of the profits and didn't have to pay licensing
fees to Paranoidmount.

* Speaking of FASA, remember that "tricorder" suppliment they made
that the entire gaming industry laughed at? It was reportedly made as
a joke to send to Arnold for approval after he asked for something
"different" with regards to gaming utils. He approved it, FASA
released it, and when harassed about it FASA reps would shrug their
shoulders and go "Hey, it's what Richard Arnold wanted, and he's the
boss. Go yell at him."

....And there were others, most of whom came forth after Arnold got
ousted following Gene's death in '91. Of those, thankfully only one of
them has refused to return. But considering Vonda McIntyre's novels
were the biggest piles of printed excrement this side of a certain SRB
conspiracy theorist's own piles, this was obviously no loss at all.

....As for the later versions, I thumbed through them a few years back.
Wasn't as impressed as I was with the original FASA stuff. Tepool &
McLimore did an excellent job in setting up an RPG that carried on the
TOS Trek universe without access to a lot of established "semi-canon"
material. Probably the most noticeable was the inability to use the
Franz Joseph _Star Flee Technical Manual_ designs thanks to Lou Zocchi
having those rights and refusing to part with them. But still, what
they concocted still has a lasting place in Trek fandom. There are
resin conversion kits for the Locnar-class vessels that keep the FASA
RPG memories alive, and they've recently been rescaled for the Polar
Lights TOS "E" kits as well.

....I still have most of those game books, but they're packed up with
my T&T manuals. One of these days I'll pull them out for grins :-{

(*) There was this one jerkoff who was a former FIDOnet moderator back
when usenet was barely weened off of DARPANet. Can't remember his
name, but he was so psychotically anti-FASA that he a) got banned from
most of the FIDOnet Trek groups for life, b) got banned from FIDOnet
for life, period, and c) actually had two or three peace bonds filed
against him because he made serious threats against some of the FASA
guys.

(**) Who promptly, to their credit, circular filed it. This was one of
the taboos and other signs & verities that Arnold violated quite
frequently that alienated him from pretty much everyone on the
Paranoidmount lot *except* for Gene - who was too sick and insulated
to notice - and Guy Vardaman, who was his buddy *and* Brent Spiner's
stand-in. When Gene died, Arnold was tossed off the lot before the
corpse was cold, along with Vardaman. However, Vardaman got let back
on the lot a day later when someone remembered that he was needed for
a scene with Data and Lore on the same set...

OM

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