Foundations

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'Star Trek: Foundations'

Star Trek: Foundations Website

telnet://bdv.foundationsmush.com:1701

Star Trek: Foundations (bDv2) is a Star Trek-themed MUSH set in the year 2164, approximately 10 years after Enterprise. We are the first and only Trek MUSH that has taken the Star Trek theme to new places that create some really interesting roleplay possibilities, and that was our goal. 90% of Trek games have the same groups, UFP, Romulans, Klingons, Ferengi, Cardassians... while some throw in their own elements that often end up overtaking the game and relegating the Star Trek elements to second banana, minor players in the vast chess game between superpowerful NPC empires.

On Foundations, you can choose to be a dour and logical Vulcan in the Vulcan Federation, exploring and charting new star systems, attempting to bring rationality to a galaxy that seems half the time to be close to going mad, while still defending yourselves from the aggressive actions of the Andorians.

You can be an Andorian, a servant of the Imperium raised on the icy wastes of Andoria, now an elite military officer, scouring the spacelanes in your Kumari class cruiser, putting an end to the treacherous spying of the Vulcans, while maintaining an erstwhile alliance with the Pink-skins.

You can be a Terran, a Starfleet officer, ready to explore, chart out new worlds, and establish colonies and far-flung Deep Space Outposts. Your technology level isn't always up to the levels of your neighbors, but your will to get into space and make a difference is what separates you from them in the first place, and you maintain good relations with almost every group you meet, though you will not stand up to bullying like that received from a Klingon.

You can be a Klingon! Your warships are powerful, your empire is strong under the leadership of your Qang! Others are weak, if they stand in your way, destroy them. If they submit, then others will resist, and therein you shall find glorious battle.

Our goal on Foundations is to allow the players to determine the course of their Empire. We do not allow admins to control their orgs with NPCs, and most orgs have either democratic or other means of gaining leadership. We have systems for colonization of planets by organizations, and are in the process of coding a 1st class economy that will allow actual competition for resources as well as a factory-mode production scheme. With dozens of ship classes, a hundred planets, 75% of which are unowned and unexplored, and more coming in every day, as well as navigation based on stars, which planets actually orbit around rather than simply existing in space. Planets with populations representing your race, as well as containing resources and hence, things to fight over.

We pride ourselves upon not interfering with player interaction. We have not formed the Federation here even though canonly it would have formed simply because our players have not decided they wish to yet, or rather those who have, have simply been unable to reconcile the differences between those who would wish to join. Neither do we demand they form the Federation at all, or if they do, what form it should take. An alliance between the Klingons and Andorians forming into some sort of militaristic Federation would merely be an interesting development, not a threat to 'balance'. Andorians have taken over Vulcan worlds in the past, and may do so again. No one will step in to preserve some sort of mystical balance unless it seriously threatens the viability of the game, the world is literally as you make it.

Unlike other MUSHes, we're utilizing the full extent of our code to draw in elements that are enjoyable by people in other game types. If no one is running a TP at 2 am when you happen to be on and you feel like grabbing the rest of your Klingon crewmembers for a trip to boretlh to hunt targ, you'll have fun doing so, no admin interference necessary. Likewise things like colonization and planet capture are dealt with by coded systems rather than begging admins, so that there is no possibility for bias. If you can do it in the game, it's done. Our goal is to eventually not require things like rules of engagement because it will all be taken care of by code, leaving our admins to focus on plots and building rather than babysitting and fulfilling trivial requests.

We have an established player base, generally more than 30 people on per night at peak times, but we still do need help filling out some organizations, especially with people familiar with ASpace. Foundations is a MUSH in progress and always will be; though the progress we're trying to make is behind the scenes more than anything else, to develop a style of gameplay that allows players the freedom and independence to do as they like in our world. We allow players to take part in the development of the game as a whole, our vital suggestions forums where new ideas are debated and developed, allowing players who wish access to builders where they can design planets for people to later explore or colonize, becoming helpers who shepherd new players through their beginning time in the game, and for those who have proven themselves over time, admission to our administrator team.

I honestly do hope that people who are interesting in roleplaying in an original Star Trek game will come try us out. We try our best to be different from the others while still maintaining the essence of what Star Trek is, trying to avoid pitfalls like cliques of powerful characters who control everything or admin-controlled NPCs, and we try to be as open as possible to new players, especially those who are mature and willing to learn (in fact recently a low-ranking non-commissioned officer was elected President of the Terran Confederation, this was not an old player, merely a newer one who was smart and ran the best campaign)