The title of this page makes me think “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”. If you understand that reference, and why it’s relevant, you are a big, smart, fucking nerd.

My back is starting to heal, but it’s at the point where I’m still having a lot of trouble sleeping because it hurts to lay down in many positions. A combination of pain, lack of sleep, general stress, and eating poorly, have made me feel just ill enough to notice exactly how ill I feel. The pinched nerve in my back sometimes makes me feel nauseous, so I don’t want to eat or drink, thus I am dehydrated for lack of drink. Honestly not eating doesn’t do me any harm but not drinking does. I’m empathizing much more with my mother when she was struggling to drink anything for so long before she went to the hospital.

We took mom all of her genealogy papers and things so she could work on them in the physical therapy haunted hotel. She is not interested in doing group activities and it bothers the staff very much. They are not accustomed to her aptitude for solitude. She wants to do her stuff and playing games is not a priority.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered.

Temba, his arms wide.

When Star Trek The Next Generation first started Galoob made a toy line to go along with it. The figures were about 3 inches tall. More or less in scale with the classic Star Wars figures or GI Joe A Real American Hero figures. It would have been 1988, so… that predates Power Of The Force 2 by seven years or so. The first wave of figures were 6 Enterprise crew members: Picard, Riker, Worf, Geordi, Data, and Tasha Yar. They all had 7 points of articulation: Neck, shoulders, hips, and knees. So two more points than a Star Wars figure and three less than a GI Joe. They all had a phaser sculpted onto one hand and the other hand was a closed fist at the end of a bent arm. It was a strange set of design choices for the time, but you could see the sense of it. A lot of Star Trek is the cast sitting at consoles or tables. It makes sense to plan for a playset where they will sit and boldly go. Unfortunately no such set ever materialized. The line did poorly and the second wave of figures were not well distributed. They are significantly more valuable than the first six figures on the secondary market now. The original figures have a Ferengi listed as part of the first wave on the back of the card, but as far as I know it was part of wave 2. The only vehicles to be released were a Ferengi ship and a federation shuttle. There was a die cast Enterprise you could purchase for wide shots of the ship as you played though.

Star Trek generally struggled as a toy line because fighting is not really the point of the series. With Star wars its a lot easier to sell toys because it’s a pretty straightforward good guy bad guy dynamic. Not a lot of kids sit down to play high stakes diplomacy with their action figures. How do you sell toys based on a series where the overarching ethos is conflict resolution through measured communication? Well, up until Playmates got the license, you didn’t. The Galoob line lasted until 1989 and then faded into obscurity. It wasn’t until 1992 that Playmates changed the fortunes of Star Trek as far as collectible figures was concerned. But that’s as may be. What of the original toy line in this day and age? Well, you can get the first 6 figures on card easily and pretty cheaply. The second wave is harder to track down and more expensive, but not to the point that you couldn’t gather a set on card without going broke.

When I was a kid I’m pretty sure I had Geordi and Riker. I actually can’t remember for sure, which really bothers me because I usually remember things like that very clearly. I must admit that my memory is not what it used to be though. I know for a fact I had at least one of these figures. That is not up for debate. I’m reasonably certain that I had Riker because I recall not liking the sculpt of his head very much. Beardless Riker was just not correct. In any case It has bugged the shit out of me for decades that I never had all six crew members. I have ZERO use for the things at this point, but the death of Patrick Stewart got me thinking about the toys again. Foolishly I went on ebay to see what they were going for. I’ve done this on and off every so many years since ebay started and they’ve always been too expensive. It just so happened that someone had a set of all six figures for $40. The cards were shitty but the figures looked safe in their blisters so I just bought them. That’s significantly lower than anyone else was selling carded versions for, and in fairness it looked like they may have been recarded. Since I open stuff I didn’t care as long as the figures were intact and not paint worn in the blister.

I freely admit that this was a bad use of my money. I did it simply to make myself feel good. It was something I’ve wanted to do since 1988 and now I’ve done it. What will I do with the figures now? I don’t know. Talk about them here at the very least. I forgot to mention that all six figures come with a little tricorder on a strap. None of them can hold it. The best you can do is sling it over one shoulder. It is a terrible accessory, but also sort of necessary. It would actually make more sense in the framework of the show if the tricorder was sculpted into their hands and the phaser was the accessory. Of course that would mean that everyone would lose the phaser and they’d be even less action oriented figures than they already are, but still. I get it. Sculpting the phaser in makes sense at least in so far as the crew will never be caught unarmed. The other side of that is that every meeting is a lot more tense when everyone is packing heat.

The choice of characters makes sense as far as an action figure line goes, but I have to admit it’s sad that there is no Troi or Dr Crusher. There was a prototype made of Wesley Crusher, so if the line had continued we had that little asshole to look forward to. The second wave consisted of an Antican, a Ferengi, as stated earlier, a Selay, and Q. All of those are nominally aliens, including Q, even though he’s physically indistinguishable from a human. I really want Q because he’s so pivotal to the series in general but also because he appears prominently in the first and last episode of the series in the judge costume they dressed the figure in. The Ferengi I want just because the first version of the Ferengi had basically nothing to do with the version that came to define their portrayal in Deep Space 9. The last two I just want to complete the line. I couldn’t even tell you what episodes they appeared in.

Anyway, that’s one of the many poor life choices that have defined my existence. What are we if not our choices. You can bet I will choose to be back on Wednesday with another page of this ongoing questionable life choice. Until then please sign up for my Patreon so I can offset this ridiculous purchase with your money, and go boldly wherever you go.

Posts authored by Jackie

3062 Grandpa Simpson Dot GIF.