The FASA STAR TREK Universe Explained! 

FASA was quite good with detailed, consistent universe building. The BattleTech game line was another example of their work. Losing the Star Trek license really hurt the company, and it never truly recovered. FASA Klingons were based on the Klingon-centered 1984 novel "The Final Reflection", by John M. Ford (who also wrote FASA's Klingon sourcebook). TFR was a very popular Star Trek book in that era, with a well thought out society which had reasons for being what it was. This contrasts with the Klingons as developed in ST:TNG. The tv series was going to have Klingon episodes from multiple writers. They wouldn't have wanted to have to do research into Klingon society before drafting their scripts. So we got a lowest common denominator culture. Space vikings. And a lot of talk about honor from writers with no idea what an honor culture is truly like.

FASA Trek was absolutely fantastic world-building! I miss it terribly. ~SIGH~

I grew up on the FASA material and it made both Star Trek 2 and 3 feel a great deal more fleshed out. I really appreciate that you covered this very well written game...

FASA's game was phenomenal. I played in two RPG groups, each with multiple ships. On each ship players would create department heads as well as several lower ranked players from medical, engineering, security, science, etc. These "bit players" would be used to fill in the away teams as it would have been stupid to always send the entire command staff of the ship down. It was fun having to switch personalities for different characters, with each playing differently. Then there were times when we had crossover adventures with a ship from each group participating for large marathon weekend gaming session. Characters were played for YEARS, advancing in rank and changing ships. The background provided by FASA gave you everything you needed.

This kind of reminds me of how much universe building was done by West End Games with the Star Wars license. They had done such a thorough job that it was the biggest source material after the original three movies for the Star Wars novels of the 90's. If they hadn't gone under due to factors not related to the game they probably would've held the license up until Disney bought Lucasfilm.

FASA really had their thumb on the pulse of Trek at that time. Still heartbroken the Starfleet Marines supplement never reached completion!

The FASA Trek universe was the best.. happy years playing that game in the mid 80s..

Worth noting FASA Klingons were codified by John Ford, very much based on his books 'The Final Reflection' and 'How much for just the Planet?'. This also affects the four years war, the triangle, and operation Grey Ghost.

Personally, this is my favorite era of Trek (II-the beginning of VII). The uniforms, the starship designs, the overall aesthetics are amazing. Gotta love this stuff.

FASA Star Trek was the best! Loved Trader Captain's and Merchant Princes. Lots of adventures in the Triangle.

I loved playing the FASA Star Trek RPG. I even had a collection of all the Starships from various books, modules, magazine articles, etc. in one big three ring binder. With the Starship Construction Manual I was able to convert some of the various ships seen in blueprints and tech manuals over to FASA stats. Loved it all. Some of the FASA ship designs ended up in the Star Trek comic run by DC Comics. One of the rumors I had heard was that Richard Arnold (the infamous assistant to Gene Roddenberry) had an axe to grind against FASA and contributed to the negative responses from the Paramount offices. This is the same "interference" that caused Peter David and other Star Trek writers to stop writing for the books and comics. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.

FASA was incredible...i still go back to that stuff....its the real trek as far as i,m concerned

I still have and play Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (STSTCS) so many years awesome tabletop game.

I ran a Klingon Role Playing Game for years, mostly using the FASA background which was an expansion of the Klingon setting in the Ford novel The Final Reflection. The reason FASA/Ford Klingons were so different from the TNG and later Klingons was that the FASA/Ford Klingons were consistent with TOS. The Klingons in TNG(and later) were nothing at all like TOS Klingons. FASA also had a plausible and interesting explanation for why Klingons in TOS didn't look like the ones in TNG. Compare to the completely ridiculous and internally inconsistent explanation given in ST-ENT. FASA ended up incompatible with today's canon because the creators at FASA were creative, knew something about world building and really cared about the original series. None of those things are true about the hacks that were hired to churn out scripts for the franchise properties.

Where else can you game on the tabletop a constitution-class trading fire with a D7. And something that FAFSA was always awesome about, just like in their BattleTech game, is they had multiple variants of different ships.

The old "Star Fleet Command" games did pretty good at capturing the feel of the Star Fleet Battles board game.

I own a copy of the orginial star trek game....the idea that FASA could keep it's cannon straight is amazing...in battletech and shadowrun they struggled to keep their spelling ..um..accurate.

I still have all the supplements and most of the ships from the ST:TCS and early Star Fleet Battles. Both were great fun, but FASA’s game felt so much more like Star Trek.

I loved writing about the FASA verse, especially when it came to the intelligence manuals. FASA Fleshed everything out.

Thanks for this! The FASA Star Trek RPG will always be close to my heart, full of memories playing in that world and with that system. I still think their starship battle system is the best and most cinematic feeling of them all.

I love FASA !

“Although I had slain a thousand foes... Less one. The thousandth knife found my liver. The thousandth foe said to me, “Now you shall die. And, none shall know.” And, the fool looking down at me believed this. Not seeing above his shoulder The Naked Stars. Each one remembering.” Man, I LOVE FASA Trek! Even today, after TNG, Voyager, DSS9, Kelvin and everything else, if someone asked me what I considered Trek Canon, I would immediately point to FASA Trek. The sheer amount of effort that was put into fleshing out that world- a world relegated to mediocrity in the 80s- just can’t be denied.

I played both FASA and Star Fleet Battles. Enjoyed them both. It was nice to see the Starships on the game board.

I played the FASA Star Trek game when it first came out with a group of my friends from church. Those were some of my best memories of my college years. I was really looking forward to some of their releases they announced but never released because of losing their contract, especially the marine expansion. A marine corps in Star Trek is so totally needed. A single starship, no matter how powerful, cannot handle a wide spread pandemic or hostile takeover or treaty negotiations or terraforming operation. I always thought it was sort of lame that we didn’t get long arching stories where the crew of Enterprise had to work at resolving the problems of an alien society. Ah, FASA. I miss you.

I loved playing the Star Fleet Battles game, the tabletop version and the computer version. They were both terrific and fun to play. FASA material was good too.

SFB got me into role-playing as a kid. Bought a box of minis n all the books n tapes at a garage sale in 1990. Still got em! 👍

I played both the FASA ST RPG and Starship Combat Simulator, both the original and Star Trek III releases in my high school years and thought it played well and felt true to Star Trek TOS era. Still have the boxed games and all their components. Also liked their Battlestar Galactica combat game, which played similarly to the Starship Combat Simulator. Great video, brought back great memories. Would love to find a group to play it with now, if I could.

FASA got screwed art almost every turn they made, which was a real shame because they had some top notch developers and writers. Their Star Trek stuff was every bit the equal of anything crapped out today and costing three times the price. I miss the old days of gaming when quality was important and products had heart.

The Ford/FASA universe will ALWAYS be my Trek. By far the coolest and most consistent interpretation of the Star Trek universe out there. The Ford/FASA Klingons are the definitive interpretation as far as I'm concerned (instead of the "space barbarians" of TNG). It's to my great regret that the license was pulled before they could complete the "Star Fleet Marines" ground forces supplement and "Operation: Armageddon" strategic naval game.

I loved Star Fleet Battles as a kid. I never played the FASA games. I also had the Star Fleet Command computer game that was based on Star Fleet Battles.

I spent hours playing FASA Trek with my best friend. We even rewrote some of the rules to make things more TNG friendly. It will always be special to me.

At 45, I am fortunate enough to have grown up with the original broadcast run of TNG, and re-runs of TOS via WZTF Fox 17 out of Nashville, once dad put up a UHF antenna and booster. My cousin and I, being only a year apart, were neighbors and, essentially, brothers. We got into the FASA stuff for a time, but mostly for the ship design. The lead/pewter models were pretty fragile, and needless to say our paint/artistic skills were very limited at that age, lol. But I've always maintained a massive respect for FASA and their world building. I can't tell you how much imagination it evoked from us as children. Someone at FASA most definitely deserves a hand shake for making our childhood that much more fun!

Space Friend! I am so glad to find others that fondly remember the FASA universe. As a kid, I read and re-read all of the starship and Culture content FASA put out until the books were falling apart. This was before the Internet and the video/movie Overlord of a fictional universes' cannon, and as such the money-making black hole "planet killer" they have become. When ideas rule, not images..this requires the attention and painstaking detail the FASA content and Pocket Novels written at the time. Fans were not spoon fed content with screen flare special effects (JJ looking at you). They paid attention to detail and continuity because the fans would, not just conveniently dismiss or forget detail to get the next huge movie out in time. I'm not judging contemporary fans, but we paid attention and held onto detail because we loved it. We wanted the same actors to play our characters, no matter how much they aged... Because to us the past matters. I know I'm sounding like an old cynic, but it's this lack of attention to detail and the past that leaves the new movies and series a hollow shadow to what was. We like the new because it's Star Trek and we watch the next on and the next one hoping some of that will come back... I hope they pay attention to that or my patience holds out.

A LOT of credit for the FASA games and its version of the ST universe belongs to the late author and game designer John M. Ford, particularly the Klingons. His ST novel The Final Reflection gave his vision of the Klingon Empire, and evidendtly was Gene Roddenberry's favorite Star Trek novel. When gearing up for Next Generation, Roddenberry apparently instructed the series writers to use The Final Reflection as their unofficial bible when writing about the Klingons.

Depending on how one regards things which are "canon", according to Star Trek The Animated Series, apparently the Klingons had cloaking technology. Perhaps this was a result of the Klingon/Romulan tech alliance where Romulans had gained Klingon battlecruiser designs (as seen in "The Enterprise Incident" from TOS). In The Animated Series, apparently the Klingons had started implementing (Romulan?) cloaking tech onto their D-7 battlecruisers. Something interesting to note about Gene Roddenberry's take on StarFleet: Captain Picard, in the TNG episode "Peak Performance" declares quite authoritatively that StarFleet is *not* a military organization. Clearly that was a line edicted by Roddenberry himself, since Roddenberry did not deem StarFleet a military force, but an organization of peaceful exploration, with the means to defend itself and its protectorates, if necessary. However, if you read the novel of Star Trek The Motion Picture, which the novel was written by Roddenberry, based on Alan Dean Foster's screenplay, Roddenberry has Admiral Kirk thinking that the designation "heavy cruiser" was not suitable for a ship like the refit U.S.S. Enterprise. Kirk thought the Enterprise deserved the designation of "battleship"! How ironic is that? I've never heard of "battleships" serving in a non-military force. There is also, of course, the whole naval rank hierarchy system. (And before anyone says: "Well, it's more in line with something like the U.S. Coast Guard if you think about it.", think about this: Remember the old advertisement: "The Coast Guard is an Armed Service too"? ) The Coast Guard is considered a branch of the Armed Forces, ergo, military, based on some U.S. Naval standards. Also, in "Errand of Mercy", Kirk says to the Organians, "I'm a soldier!" Food for think?

Fasa knew their stuff. I *still* miss them. Battle tech, MechWarrior, Star Trek... All good games. Too bad those guys are not on charge of the Star Trek movies and series. It wouldn't be a dying franchise right now.

I had that box set. Their version of the Klingons lines up with TOS a lot more than the honorable warrior hat they became.

I played this with a few mates for years.One of my mates created programs for our Atari 520 computers to take the place of the counters and board.Mine displayed visuals,the others had the weapons board and the 3rd ,engine board.He added sound effects too and a self destruct sequence.Great fun ☺

Another great essay. I loved FASA Trek. A couple friends and I even abused the rules of the Star Trek Starship Construction Manual for the Starship Tactical Combat Simulator board game, and made some really outrageous ships. (We even managed to make a sort of Next Generation addendum to the Construction Manual for our own purposes.) FASA's influence carried over into other publications for Trek. A lot of the novels that were released at the time FASA had the license used information created by FASA....right down to their version of the Klingon language, which was only loosely based on Marc Okrand's official take. My favorite Trek novel from the FASA era was "How Much for Just the Planet?" That novel had me in stitches. One of the biggest Trek publications to make use of the FASA Trek info was "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise". If I recall correctly, there was an orginal version, and then a version that included content from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I think MSGttE got one more publication release after that, but this time, the FASA data was removed, and replaced with something, I think, a bit more corporately canonical. Yeah, it is pretty ironic that Paramount and Roddenberry snatched the rights from FASA, largely because of all the combat material that FASA had released which ran contrary to Roddenberry's "vision" of Star Trek, and that now (as some fans might say) Star Trek is indistinguishable from Star Wars. Star Wars had much to do with the success of the resurrection of Star Trek back in the 70's.

I have fond memories of the Starship Combat game, 2 AM at the YMCA Hall with 20+ guys who have been there since the morning of the day before with YMCA management telling us for about the last 4 hours we need to wrap it up lol. We modified the rules somewhat, if my memory is correct so as to make the game a bit harder.

I was 5 years old when ST premiered on NBC. WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS STUFF UNTIL NOW?! After more than 50 years of watching ST there are a lot of things I don't know about the franchise. Live and learn. Excuse me now, I've got to check Ebay and see if I can acquire some of this FASA material.

I recall buying an old Starlog magazine as a kid just because it had that killer advertisement for the FASA miniatures! I stared at that photo forever.

Honestly, I cannot for the life of me understand how a spacefaring civilization can go to war without having some form of ground combat and planetary assault. No matter how far technology advances, you can't replace a man on the ground with a rifle in his hand. The fact that the original producers of Star trek didn't like a planetary assault module memes that they didn't understand how War works, and I think it would have made an excellent addition to the Star trek universe.

I played the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator game a lot in the late 80's and early 90's. It was the game that at the time was most advanced. Before that I was playing games like Chinese chess and chess. This video brings back a lot of memories. I still have my game material from back then. I stopped liking that game because there were just things in the game that doesn't feel like a cinematic battle I see in movies and TV. There were some ships whose shields are so crappy, that it is not worth raising them. It is better to put that power towards shields and movement. Shields also seem not so useful because a single photon torpedo from the more powerful launchers would be able to penetrate the shields and deal damage to the ship. Still I enjoyed playing that game for years. I have moved on as there are better space combat game systems developed later.

Oh this brings back the memories. When i was a kid this was Star Trek Canon as far as i was concerned. I approached the show with aspects from the FASA universe like some history (klingon romulan exchange) and tech explanations (the rescale warp speeds). As time went on and i entered adulthood FASA knowledge faded. However there were times when i was asked for sources for stuff i was saying and i had to go back and think about it. I'd realize that the FASA knowledge had been ingrained and mixed in with show. And you know what, i'm ok with it. A lot of it is better than what superseded it. FASA ST was so intertwined in my childhood, i'm sad its mostly forgotten or irrelevant. I will always have fond memories of those times.

Have you considered doing a video for the Star Fleet Universe? Both systems have influenced Trek to one degree or another

Paramount v FASA was about TNG not being part of the FASA license to "Star Trek". The TNG Officer's Manual and First Year Sourcebook were thus violations. The was also the timeframe of Paramount v. Amarillo Desogn Bureau & Task Force Games. TFG & ADB were sublicensed by Franz Joseph, not desilu. Paramount essentially replaced that with a direct license, again, solely to TOS & TAS, ADB still operates under that revised license. Remember, Paramount bought out Desilu; Desilu did not disclose the sublicensed parties, and during Paramount v. FASA, discovered TFG & ADB. The was much editorial in TFG's Nexus magazine.

Wouldn't It be great to get a Re-print of Fasa Trek with a 2019 upgrade :) New Graphics etc, the Game mechanisums in Fasa Trek are so much better than anything produced after :)

Excellent. Never played it but do have many FASA books just because the content is so great for any Trek fan

FASA Star Trek was pretty detailed and awesome. I had a good deal of the material for it back in the 80's and even allot still up till about four years ago when I finally took the last of my gaming manuels to Half Priced books. But I got tremendous enjoyment out of it for at least three decades from what I had of it!!

I remember the wonderful FASA Star Trek stuff. I still have the little metal Klingon bird of prey I put together and painted. I did a really good job on it. I had a handful of others that have not survived. FASA really expanded the Trek universe back then when there wasn't much else than the movies. It was a lot of fun and stimulated my imagination.

I LOVED FASA's stuff! As far as Star Trek and continuity, the terms are mutually exclusive. Personally, I prefer FASA's and Diane Duane's Rihannsu series to just about anything that came out of Next Generation, Enterprise, DS 9, or Voyager. I don't even bother with Discovery or Picard.

I loved this game as a role-playing game, and you could play a merchant or rogue or do Starfleet intelligence or Klingon or Romulan campaign using specific content and was amazing for mechanics.

Just discovered this and am wondering how I missed it for so long. Thank you!! It was a sad day when FASA lost the the license. FASA Trek was, and is, my Star Trek. Still have almost all the games and supplements FASA produced for Star Trek and am hunting down the ones I lack. If someone already brought it up and I missed it my apologies, but FASA modeled quite a bit of their version of the Klingons after John M Ford's novels, (in particular "The Final Reflection"), which were fantastic and gave the Klingons a very rich history and defined their culture quite a bit. While I liked TNG's take on the Klingons, I MUCH prefer John M Ford/FASA's version.

I owned and played the FASA game. I remember the owner of my local flgs, stating the reason FASA lost the license was because Roddenberry was upset about the ST:TNG sourcebook having rules for android pc's.

great video! I had this "Romulan Winged Defender" miniature and had no idea where it was from

Never really played the games, but collected the ships and books.

I loved playing the FASA games in the 80s. There was nothing else like it. I still have a number of the miniature lead ships. I wish I could have afforded bo buy them all back then. Hahaha.

i do the same!!! fasa and jackills ship recognition manuals!!

This is a great video - very interesting and informative. I've always been interested in the FASA Trek content but never delved into it.

I was vaguely aware as a kid that this was a game series, but I only had two books, and none of the actual game parts. The original Federation and Klingon ship recognition manuals were two of my favorite books. I was so nerdy that I memorized a lot of the ship classes and their specifications. Lucky enough to have found PDF versions of the whole FASA series to view whenever my nostalgia bone is tweaked.

I loved FASA's ST:RPG. I found the character creation to be very in depth and a good way to start out a start ship crew. Still one of the best game engines to use for Star Trek (and I've looked over a few others that followed after FASA).

I see Chandley-class renders. :)

I had a lot of the FASA Star Trek content but played the Tactical Combat Simulator more than the RPG. I sold all the RPG stuff years ago but still have the TCS and the Recognition Manuals. Pity the metal ships weren't widely available in the UK.

Was the first RPG I played. Started collecting it some years after it was cancelled.

I still remember seeing this in a hobby shop as a little kid in the 1980s. I had no idea what a "role playing game" was but loved what I saw and thought it was cool as all get out.

I had played the Star Fleet Battles back in the day. I had the old glue together models as a kid too. Crazy walk down memory lane lol

oh... and that boxed fasa star trek rpg is a treasure for any fan. deck plans. lore. diagrams of everything. really makes you feel like you could just build the darn thing!

I grew up with FASA and still have many of those old game supplements. I've even reviewed them for my personal YT channel.

I love your FASA content. Keep up the great work.

Really well done video m8. I only played a bit of Star Fleet Battle, but a lot of Battletech. Thanks for the FASA background comments, good stuff for a Sci Fi age before the Internet

9:23 Starfleet, Klingons, and the Death Star peacefully united in one still life. Nice.

I never knew there was content specifically for old trek. It awesome!

I am now 50 years old and I still have my FASA Star Trek Deluxe Edition...... I also still have my 2nd edition of Axis & Allies. Yes.... I'm that geek.....

Extremely underated channel.

Very nice compilation.

Another History of the Federation was the chronology of Earth Star travel. The book was published right after the first film. It was created by two brothers named either Goldstein or something like that. The drawings were used in the first episodes of TNG. Then it was declared non cannon.

Thanks for bringing back the memories of my adulecance.

I can only imagine that after the Klingon-Federation war, cloaking devices became obsolete because the Federation found ways to look past them. Then the Romulans created a new superior form of cloak where the old sensor methods wouldn't work on. There is a constant technology race between those who create cloaking devices and those who create sensors. Even Spock said something like this in "The Enterprise Incident".

Thank you very much for this video. Very informative. I will definitely keep an eye for the game system cause looks like a blast.

My friend and I had many of the books and we played a campaign (He was the GM and I was the player) that many of the films later had similar elements as well as the TV shows.. With small tweaks here and there you could easily make it cannon. I have always been fascinated by that.

I found most FASA rules systems clunky, but boy were they ever masters of word building. Their take on Star Trek was no exception.

Bravo! You honored the FASA Universe with this video.

I miss FASA, i only got Renegade Legion and Battletech but they were awsome, good old days🤔🤔😧😧😢😢🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Thank you for the wonderful memories.

We played this back in the 80s and it was great fun. The original series is still my favourite. I dont think I will ever find an online group to do this again. I still have the original box and the enterprise deck plans LOL

This was my first tabletop RPG and was a huge part of my high school years. The system was too complicated compared to others I played later but the lore and universe building more then made up for it.

I remember watching people playing this or the FISA version at a GenCon in 84. The table was large enough for at least 30 players, each controlling one or more ships in a giant battle with four or five sides. Each ship was a miniature on a stand and completely painted and detailed. Just looking at the board with a hundred or so ships on it was awesome.

I definitely want to look more into this. The FASA explanations seem to make way more sense. I like the idea of the BoP being Romulan with the avian look to it, and the explanations for the Klingons being after power at all costs instead of being honor bound. I've always wondered, how can you be all about battlefield honor while using cloaked ships lol

I still own all those FASA Star Trek books, lol, they are amazing. It was a crime the license was taken from them when they produced so much excellent content for Star Trek and, in my opinion, are one of the reasons Star Trek survived so long. As to the whole transwarp thing, Kirk himself states in The Search for Spock that the Excelsior is 'the great experiment'. I had always thought it failed and all ships after just used normal warp drive, if tweaked and improved, which was why in Voyager warp 10 is impossible because you would be literally in every place in the universe at once and why the Borg are the only ones to have cracked transwarp travel.

You're missing a few key points from how FASA lost their license... which also led to their demise. FASA had rights to Star Trek; but, did not have rights to Star Trek: The Next Generation. When they released the Season 1 TNG Sourcebook, they violated IP rights. And Paramount took them to task for it. They got sued for all the money they made on said sourcebook and lost their IP licenses rights because of it.

Thank you for all your hard work. To me FASA is the cannon.

As much as I love the Romulan War fan film. I refuse to accept that the Romulans had a working and practical cloaking device prior to Balance of Terror.

Starfleet Battles ruled! By the Nine, I loved that game.

Awesome video, you really know your trek

Great vid!! Love the information...I'm a bit late to the party BTW!

My game group played the crew of the Imperial Klingon Ship _Mistress of Pain_ . Good clean fun.

Thanks for the video. I still have my first edition set and have many fond memories of FASA in the pre-TNG days. For me one of the greatest things about the FASA rpg was the artwork. Especially the full color covers on the expansion modules. As a kid I used to stare at them for hours and visualize adventures based on the art. I loved to alternate ship designs and the plastic and pewter ships you could get, usually covered in a great ad on the inside back cover of many Starlog issues. Thanks for the memory lane trip. One question. I understand FASA lost the license in '89 but I remember local shops carrying the pewter miniatures until at least 1993. My question is did they continue making miniatures past '89 or was it another company? Why would they keep making ships for a "dead" game? Were they just selling off backstock? I can't find much info on this so any help from anyone is greatly appreciated.

Star Trek starship tactical combat simulator and a .30cal ammo can full of micro machines starships and d10s.

I have all the FASA Books and most of the Mini's. I loved the game. And maybe some day will find people that want to play again.