All posts by BeRKA

P-O "BeRKA" Bergstedt is the Zhodani Ambassador. :-) BeRKA started the Zhodani Base in 1994.
Adventures, Starships, The Base, Traveller

Zhodani Base Awards 2017

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Zhodani Base Awards 2017Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2017! 2017 has been another amazing year for Traveller products. Lots of new stuff from the small publishers (and Mongoose).

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The first category is “Best Cover“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: A Life Worth Living from Stygian Fox.

There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers. A cool action image and an otherwise well designed cover was what won this year.

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Next category is “Best Fanzine or Online Magazine“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Fanzine/Online Magazine” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: Freelance Traveller

Freelance Traveller has once again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing bimestrial issues with lots of good contents for free.

Freelance Traveller has won this category every year since 2011!

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Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: The Pirates of Drinax from Mongoose.

There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. But The Pirates of Drinax was outstanding.

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Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: DeVass Class Private Starship from Moon Toad Publishing.

There were lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. Moon Toad Publishing made a TTA inspired one for this category and won.

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Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: Mindjammer from Modiphius.

This category always make me happy since you can always find so many cool ideas.

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Next category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: The Great Rift from Mongoose

Mongoose continues to produce good quality products for the OTU.

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A final bonus category this year is “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2017 is: The Encyclopedia of Dagudashaag from Signal-GK and GDW.

The Encyclopedia of Dagudashaag wins because it is an amazing fan produced product.

Reviews, Science Fiction

Dune – House Harkonnen

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A few years ago I read Dune – House Atreides. Now I have read the next one of the prequels. Dune – House Harkonnen.

We get to know more about the Harkonnen family and a few new characters are introduced. Not all are bad.

But the bad and stupid ones do what could be expected of them.

There are also the expected side stories about the Atreides and other important Houses.

A few concepts are introduced a bit too early here. Things that didn’t exist until later in the original series. That is a bit annoying. But other than that, I thought the book was quite good. (But don’t read it until you have read all of the original Dune books first. The originals are a lot better.)

Harkonnen flag – Image from wikimedia – CC-BY-SA-4.0 license
Aliens, Science Fiction

Valerian Movie

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We went to see the Valerian Movie. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. After reading some initial reviews, I was a bit worried that it wasn’t very good.

 

But it was good. Not as good as I hoped it would have been, but still good. Luc Besson has made his own version of the comic Ambassador of the Shadows. In Luc Besson’s version some things have been simplified. Some new elements have been added. There are also some surprises that is quite different from the comic.

 

The Shingouz doesn’t look like they did in the comic. I liked their double trunk in the comic better. But Rihanna as a Suffuss (Glamourpod) shapeshifter was a positive change.

 

Luc Besson avoided the complications of having time travel as an option in this film. (It was necessary for the new plot to avoid it.) But that also changed Laureline’s background.

The origin of Point Central (Alpha) was also changed. But that was a really cool addition and was explained in a very nice way in the beginning of the film.

A strange addition was the trans-dimensional market. There is nothing like that in the comic.

But changing the Shadows into the Pearls. That was a great idea.

So overall, there was some bits I liked a lot and some bits that I wasn’t very fond of. I also thought that Dane DeHaan as Valérian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline were too young. There was no good explanation in the movie why they were galactic agents. The CGI was fantastic. I have nothing else to say about that.

But you must also read the comic if you haven’t already done that. Even though this was a good and fantastic film, I like the comic better.

So what can be useful for Traveller?

1: The aliens. There are lots of alien races to be inspired by.

2: The space-station Alpha. That could be an interstellar United Nations in an ATU. (It is like Babylon 5, but bigger.)

3: The Astroship (Alex) that Valérian and Laureline use is a great scoutship for any setting.