No, this post isn’t about 2009 turning into 2010, ti’s about the memories that are fresh and vibrant in my head that have turned out to be 25 years old.
Way back in 1985 I was playing in a Starfleet Battles campaign. For those not in the know, Starfleet Battles is a game of ship-to-ship combat set in the Star Trek universe.
The game was a large and complex affair that just cried out for computer management. Sadly the makers of the game never seemed to understand that each addition, supplement, and rule errata contributed to making the game less and less playable. When I quite it had become the game you could not teach to new players.
Anyway in this campaign, players took on the roles of running star spanning empires, many that were in the original series and some that were created just for the game itself. (The game was a product of that time after the series was canceled but before the movies had gotten started. A curiously licensed product somehow outside of the control of Paramount.) I was the Gorn player. (Check the season one episode, Arena, to see the Gorns.)
Twenty five years latter I still remember the games, the players, the battles, and the man who ran all of it the incomparable Jimmy Diggs. Jimmy was man of great energy, fun, and vitality. When I knew him he was a security guard, but he went on to write scripts for episodes of Star Trek DS9, Star Trek Voyager, and other works.
How good were those times. No matter how good my times are now, and they are good, nor how much better they may grow, I’ll never have times like that again.
