Star Con

[Sir Procestuous]

In the intro to Space Quest 6, Toolman mentions that Roger is being returned to his "former post with StarCon fleet". Was that a retcon meant to imply that Roger was always with StarCon, and perhaps that the Arcada and Xenon orbital station were vessels of the Confederacy?

 

Or could it be that Roger's former organization evolved into or was taken over by StarCon at some point? We have no idea how long Roger was frozen for at the end of SQ2,..

[Troels Pleimert]

Well, er, that's actually a pretty good question. Because even if it was a retcon to imply that "NucleoTherm Hazardous Substance Containment Services" (the guys who shot off the Arcada) was really a bit player in StarCon all along, Roger never had a position within the fleet before he became a captain. That would imply that he went to the academy, and he didn't do that until SQ5.

 

Or maybe it does. I always thought StarCon was a bit of a mistake, though, really. It worked great as a satire of Starfleet, but tying the whole Space Quest universe up in a federation of planets makes very little sense, in my opinion. It certainly wasn't implied that Xenon was part of any militaristic fleet back in The Sarien Encounter, and how far does StarCon stretch, anyway? Just the galaxy of Earnon, or all the way to Andromeda?

[pcj]

It worked great as a satire of Starfleet, but tying the whole Space Quest universe up in a federation of planets makes very little sense, in my opinion. It certainly wasn't implied that Xenon was part of any militaristic fleet back in The Sarien Encounter

But...Starfleet isn't a military organization. :o

[Troels Pleimert]

But...Starfleet isn't a military organization. :o

 

Well, that depends on your definition. It may not be an aggressive organization, but they do play with ranks and hierarchy: commanders, captains, lieutenants, admirals ... That sounds pretty militaristic to me. :)

[MusicallyInspired]

Yes, it was a retcon. One I happen to disagree with. I hate StarCon.

[Collector]

Well, that depends on your definition. It may not be an aggressive organization, but they do play with ranks and hierarchy: commanders, captains, lieutenants, admirals ... That sounds pretty militaristic to me. :)

 

And they were the ones that fought and died in the wars.

[Dat Engineer]

As has been pointed out numerous times, the creation of StarCon was an attempt to create a plot to join the Space Quest games together. While Space Quest 5 was the origin of this, one might suggest that Space Quest 4 first sowed the seeds of a plotline with the introduction of Beatrice Wankmeister at the end of the game (unless somehow Scott intended for that to be a parody).

 

It seems clear to me that StarCon is intended to be a military organization (the unnamed Admiral in Space Quest 5 scolds Beatrice Wankmeister, a civilian, for attempting to interfere with fleet protocol), though what we see from the player's perspective with regards to their actual workings really isn't much; Roger being a janitor has very little clout and thus not a lot of knowledge about what goes on. From what we can tell, however, they are pretty thoroughly corrupted all the way up to the top brass. Even if all of the planets in the quadrant are joined together in one large federation, StarCon probably doesn't give a toss either way about what their inhabitants are doing. Either that or they were paid off to keep quiet - I can imagine the Pirates of Pestulon doing something like that.

[Troels Pleimert]

SQ4 started the Bea plotline, but had no mention of StarCon or that she was an ambassador of anything. :)

 

I liked it better when Xenon was an autonomous world who gainfully employed incompetent janitors.

 

Also, you have to wonder, if Xenon was a part of a gigantic federation of worlds, what was the point of that harebrained Star Generator scheme, then? Why were they left to fend for themselves? Couldn't they just have asked StarCon for help?

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Also, you have to wonder, if Xenon was a part of a gigantic federation of worlds, what was the point of that harebrained Star Generator scheme, then? Why were they left to fend for themselves? Couldn't they just have asked StarCon for help?

Perhaps StarCon is similar to our own intergovernmental organizations (the UN, the EU, etc.); individual members retain sovereignty and tend to take the lead in certain policy areas. In fact, the technical use of the term "confederacy" -- as opposed to "federation" -- suggests an alliance in which most of the power still resides with the individual members rather than with the central organization. Even if Xenon were a member of the Star Confederacy at the time of SQ1, it's possible that the whole Star Generator project was a Xenonian operation. We might think of the Mars Curiosity rover as a point of comparison. Despite the fact that the United States is a member of the UN, Curiosity remains a NASA/US project.

 

It's also likely that I'm over-thinking this. ;)

 

Regardless, count me as someone who really enjoyed the whole StarCon angle. After Roger went traipsing through the timeline and saved the future in SQ4, seeing him continue to embrace his role as hero by enrolling in the Academy and ultimately captaining a starship (albeit modest) felt like a natural outgrowth of what had come before in the series. Then again, I'm a diehard SQ5 fan, so I probably would say something like that.

 

Jess

[Cosmic Castaway]

Right on, Jess. Good explanation about the whole "confederacy" business (leave it to the political scientist to define it, eh?), and props for being another SQ5 and Star Con fan. I never really minded Star Con, I actually thought it was kind of a neat idea. And as for the Star Generator, I always envisioned that as Xenon pulling out all the stops and throwing everything they had at saving their planet; their ships and equipment just happened to be part of the Star Con fleet (hence the triangular patch on Roger's uniform).

[Irishmile]

pfff... nerds.... oh wait... DAMNIT!!!

[Dat Engineer]

Hey, this is nothing like the time I got to discussing what ranks the chevrons on the StarCon officers' uniforms in SQ5 represented...

 

Or the name of the "Admiral" in the SQ5 meeting room...

 

Or Admiral Toolman's motives for getting rid of Roger...

 

Or...

[MusicallyInspired]

Lol!

[Troels Pleimert]

Well, whether you liked StarCon or not is probably a matter of personal taste. It's in the series now; it's been in two games. We can't deny it. We just have to deal with it.

 

Like many others here, I thought it worked well for one game for satirical purposes, but it's turned into kind of a dead weight around the series, in my opinion. If anything was going to be done with StarCon post-SQ6, I think Datadog did it best -- turning StarCon into a borderline fascist, militaristic shithole that was just about to collapse under its own weight. :)

[Capn_Ascii]

Toolman mentions that Roger is being returned to his "former post with StarCon fleet"

Perhaps the confusion here is the result of a phrasing issue. It's possible that what he actually meant was "we are returning you to your former post (janitor) while retaining you as Starcon personnel", rather than implying that Roger was a Starcon janitor before. This would allow the writers to keep Roger in the Confederacy without forcing a retcon on previous games, although I don't know if that was the actual intent or not.

 

We have no idea how long Roger was frozen for at the end of SQ2

Not *that* long, actually. In SQ5, Bea asks Roger if he's "that guy who stopped the Sariens a few years back". This implies that SQ5 takes place only a few years after SQ1, which makes sense when you look at the series timeline and make a few guesses.

 

-SQ1 happens. Roger gets famous for a while, but eventually is forgotten. Let's say, maybe a year total of this.

 

-SQ2 happens. Roger gets kidnapped and effectively disappears from known civilization. He stops Vohaul, but is forced into cryosleep to survive. An indeterminate amount of time passes; let's say maybe another year or two.

 

-SQ3 happens. Roger wakes up in the middle of nowhere - the galactic boonies, if you will. He saves the Two Guys, dumps them in a parellel universe, and returns to tell the tale.

 

-SQ4 happens, apparantly not very long after SQ3. Roger is still on his way back home to Xenon after having dealt with the whole SQ3 business. Future Vohaul tries to kill him at this point in time¹ - the first time since SQ2 that Roger's been seen in civilized space (which would give the Sequel Police a historical reference on where to look for him). Roger survives and returns to that same point in time.

 

-Roger returns home, presumably discovering that while he's been gone, everyone has written him off as dead and he's lost his old job. He decides to enroll in Starcon Academy to try and make something of himself. After an unspecified amount of time - let's say, one year's worth of classes at minimum - SQ5 happens.

 

Obviously, these estimations of mine have no in-universe basis, but the numbers seem reasonable to me. Time obviously passes between SQ1 and SQ2, SQ2 and SQ3, and SQ4 and SQ5. Bea's comment indicates maybe 3-5 years total, split up to some degree between the games in question.

 

Then, of course, we have Incinerations, which explicitly takes place at least a decade after SQ6, by which point Starcon has essentially collapsed. Ah, well, nothing lasts forever. :P

 

 

1) Vohaul can't try to kill Roger at any point prior to this - if he kills Roger before SQ2, then Vohaul will cause a time paradox that prevents him from ascending to power in the future. He also logically can't kill him between SQ2 and SQ4 because Roger is MIA and Vohaul has no idea where to look for him.

[Cosmic Castaway]

*Insert Joker slow clap gif here* Thank you, Cap'n, for reminding me how much I missed you. Lovely speculation, I'd say it jives quite well with the established canon. Also, I really must reply the series and get my mitts on SQ: INC. It sounds like it's exactly the sort of take on SQ that I'd enjoy...

[Troels Pleimert]

I won't say too much, but Scott and I figured out a way to bypass the whole StarCon thing for a potential SQ sequel (effectively nullifying SQ5 and SQ6). Just for fun. It's really, REALLY obvious when you think about it ... ;)

[Akril]

Another in-game mention of StarCon implying that there was some ret-conning at work is the soliloquy Roger launches into when you try talking to the golden mop in his quarters. One thing he says to the mop is, "You were a symbol of my bravery, of my importance to StarCon." I never thought too much about this before, but this does seem to imply that Roger was working for StarCon in SQ1, and that StarCon has been ret-conned to have existed since the very beginning of the series.*

 

The SQ wiki's page on StarCon says that the SQ Companion mentioned StarCon existing as early as Roger's account of SQ1 (the first edition of the book covered SQ1-4, but the authors were getting information about SQ5 from the Two Guys (mostly Mark) while the game was being developed). I'm still not putting much stock in the accuracy of the SQC, though -- it says that Roger was adrift in the sleep pod for 100 years, yet Beatrice's first remark upon seeing him in SQ5 is, "Aren't you the guy who defeated the Sariens some years back?" If he really was MIA for more than a century, you'd think she'd say something like, "Hey...you look a lot like this guy named Roger Wilco I heard about on an old documentary about the history of Earnon. Are you his grandson?"

 

*Which makes me wonder if all the time traveling in Space Quest IV somehow resulted in a major change to a time zone many years prior to SQ1 so that by the time Roger returned to his present time, he actually ended up in an alternate version of the timeline (the original timeline had no StarCon, and Roger somehow avoided the Sequel Policemen, meaning that SQ4 actually took place during the SQ4 time zone). (This wasn't what you were hinting at, was it, Troels?)

[Troels Pleimert]

*Which makes me wonder if all the time traveling in Space Quest IV somehow resulted in a major change to a time zone many years prior to SQ1 so that by the time Roger returned to his present time, he actually ended up in an alternate version of the timeline (the original timeline had no StarCon, and Roger somehow avoided the Sequel Policemen, meaning that SQ4 actually took place during the SQ4 time zone). (This wasn't what you were hinting at, was it, Troels?)

 

Well, there are a few assumptions along the way that we've always sort of taken for granted, but which could be explained away by the very ambiguous ending to SQ4. Actually, we need to start calling the SQ4 we know "time-travel SQ4" or something, because, where the timeline is concerned, SQ4 never actually happened.

 

The big thing we always take for granted is that Roger was transported back to Magmetheus or Xenon in the "present" of SQ4 after the events in "time-travel SQ4" and presumably joined the StarCon Academy ... which, somehow, has come into existence, despite never being mentioned in any of the previous games.

 

So yeah. Alternate timeline. Because regardless of where Roger got spat back after "time-travel SQ4," it creates a paradox where there's now a Roger in the Magmethean space bar, drinking with aliens, not getting interrupted by Sequel Policemen. Meaning, the Roger that got spat back after "time-travel SQ4" occupies an alternate, redundant timeline (the one SQ5 and SQ6 takes place in), and the real Roger is still in that bar somewhere, or possibly outside, trying drunkenly to find the keys to the Mallard. Alan Luckachina figured it out first, though. ;)

[Troels Pleimert]

This also means that Space Quest: Incinerations and every fan fic that mentions StarCon takes place in the "alternate timeline." :)

 

For good measure, I just want to reiterate that SHOULD The Two Guys reclaim the rights to Space Quest and actually go ahead and make Space Quest 7, this does not necessarily mean that StarCon will be ret-conned right back into the black hole from whence it came. It was just part of a fun conversation I had with Scott.

[Dat Engineer]

The big thing we always take for granted is that Roger was transported back to Magmetheus or Xenon in the "present" of SQ4 after the events in "time-travel SQ4" and presumably joined the StarCon Academy ... which, somehow, has come into existence, despite never being mentioned in any of the previous games.

 

If you check the SQ4 transcript, Roger Jr. outright says this, so it's hard to assume that Roger could have ended up anyplace else when he had gone through the Time Rip. As for StarCon Academy, since that was a Mark Crowe retcon, it's a bit difficult to view any of the previous Space Quest games from the perspective of StarCon ever existing. ;)

[Akril]

So yeah. Alternate timeline. Because regardless of where Roger got spat back after "time-travel SQ4," it creates a paradox where there's now a Roger in the Magmethean space bar, drinking with aliens, not getting interrupted by Sequel Policemen.

Wow. I didn't think I was that --

Alan Luckachina figured it out first, though. ;)

Oh... :unsure:

Well...that feeling of smug satisfaction was good while it lasted.

 

The big thing we always take for granted is that Roger was transported back to Magmetheus or Xenon in the "present" of SQ4 after the events in "time-travel SQ4" and presumably joined the StarCon Academy ... which, somehow, has come into existence, despite never being mentioned in any of the previous games.

If you check the SQ4 transcript, Roger Jr. outright says this, so it's hard to assume that Roger could have ended up anyplace else when he had gone through the Time Rip. As for StarCon Academy, since that was a Mark Crowe retcon, it's a bit difficult to view any of the previous Space Quest games from the perspective of StarCon ever existing. ;)

 

I guess you could explain StarCon's sudden existence in both the present and past of the "new" SQ timeline by postulating that Roger being sent so far into the future caused some sort of 4D "ripple effect" that altered events in the distant past, setting off a chain reaction of other events that led to the creation of StarCon many years prior to SQ1.

[Cosmic Castaway]

When one takes a look at all the games prior to Space Quest 5, there's really no reason for Star Con to be mentioned. In none of them is Roger really interacting with anyone of consequence from his own corner of the universe (or timeline, in the case of Space Quest 4). Their sudden inclusion in Space Quests 5 and 6 doesn't feel all that jarring, perhaps because it seems a natural progression of the series. We've never even seen Roger on Xenon, aside from the ending scene of SQ1; what's to say that flying the Mallard didn't spurr him on to seek out bigger and better things when he finally got home at the end of Space Quest 4?

 

And then there's the whole dark concept of just what it was like when he did arrive home. Gone for several years and you're reduced to a "Whatever Happened To" column in a galactic tabloid magazine. The delinquent rent on your Xenon City townhouse is probably through the nose, the last job you held was years ago and you were a step away from getting fired before you disappeared for a rather lengthy period of time...Roger'd be hard pressed to find a job that wasn't flipping Monolith Burgers, and we all know how much he enjoys that. Joining the "military" seems like a pretty natural step to me.

[Capn_Ascii]

*Insert Joker slow clap gif here* Thank you, Cap'n, for reminding me how much I missed you.

.....is this meant to be sarcastic, or genuine? If the latter, thanks. :D If the former...ow, my feelings. :unsure:

 

*falls headlong into the Sarchasm*

 

Which makes me wonder if all the time traveling in Space Quest IV somehow resulted in a major change to a time zone many years prior to SQ1

 

I doubt it. Roger himself didn't go any further back than SQ1, so unless Vohaul sent his Sequel Police back to intentionally screw around with time, I don't see how anything Roger did could have effected the past prior to SQ1.

 

And, as I said above, Vohaul has an excellent reason to *not* do this - any attempt to change history prior to SQ2 runs the risk of preventing his own death and subsequent ascension to power in the SQ12 era. Which in turn prevents him from using the Super Computer's power to invent time travel in the first place, which causes all sorts of paradox-related problems and gives poor Doc Brown a headache. ^_^

 

Actually, we need to start calling the SQ4 we know "time-travel SQ4" or something, because, where the timeline is concerned, SQ4 never actually happened.

Sure it happened - it just only lasted about 5 minutes. :P Roger stops for a beer, the SPs show up and Vohaul has his little gloat time. Junior arrives, throws Roger through a portal, and is captured and hauled away. About 30 seconds later, Roger falls out of another portal and lands next to the Mallard, suffering from an unspecified form of brain-wipe-itis that he mistakes for a booze-induced blackout. He shrugs and shuffles off to his ship to take off, all the while with this nagging feeling like he's forgotten something important.

 

Roll credits.

 

The big thing we always take for granted is that Roger was transported back to Magmetheus or Xenon in the "present" of SQ4 after the events in "time-travel SQ4" and presumably joined the StarCon Academy ... which, somehow, has come into existence, despite never being mentioned in any of the previous games.

As was stated above, Junior pretty much explicitly states that he's sending Roger back to where he was before the whole time-travel mess started. That was the entire point of the mindwipe, after all - to *prevent* alteration of the timeline. I think the original hope was that Roger wouldn't remember anything at all, either now or in the future, and thus the timeline as Junior knew it would be preserved.

 

Except Roger *does* remember. Not at first, of course...but when he first meets Beatrice in person, his subconcious remembers her face (and other parts) from the hologram and sparks his dormant memories back into place. This is easy to confirm by looking at Bea's ship in the Academy central hangar - there are two different messages for it, one before the meeting on the crest and one after. The first has Roger finding Bea's name 'familiar', but not enough to attach any real meaning to it; the second explicitly mentions his exploits in SQ4 and how he now fully remembers both her and Junior.

 

As a result, now we *do* have an altered timeline - one that starts at SQ5 and moves forward from there. The Roger we know, from this timeline, has knowledge of his future fate that he wasn't originally supposed to have. Who knows how SQ5 and SQ6 might have been in the original timeline? ;)

 

Maybe this was *why* Roger joined Starcon Academy in the first place...perhaps a part of his brain rembered the fact that he was going to romance a beautiful woman and nudged him into trying to better his station in life to try and impress her...

 

Meaning, the Roger that got spat back after "time-travel SQ4" occupies an alternate, redundant timeline (the one SQ5 and SQ6 takes place in), and the real Roger is still in that bar somewhere, or possibly outside, trying drunkenly to find the keys to the Mallard.

Meh. Sounds too much like trying to overlap 'time travel' with 'alternate dimension'continuity', a concept I've never really trucked with. Don't get me wrong - alternate continuities are a fine idea for writing fiction, one that another of my favorite franchises has been using for years. Heck, they even *incorporated* the idea into the fiction itself - Transformers now officially exists in a Sliders-style multiverse, which means the writers can write any darned thing they please without worry of continuity conflict by setting it in its own universe. Personally, I'd take the same approach with SQ - if you want to write a 'what if' story, just do it - if anyone complains, point out that it's not the SQ they know, it's the SQ that happened Somewhere Else. ;)

 

Besides, there can't be two Rogers, even as a result of time travel - one of them would be doomed to a horrible, violent death.

 

...oh, wait...

 

SHOULD The Two Guys reclaim the rights to Space Quest and actually go ahead and make Space Quest 7

Okay, *now* you're just talking crazy. ;)

[Sir Procestuous]

Well...that feeling of smug satisfaction was good while it lasted.

 

Hey Akril, Just popping in to say it doesn't matter who got there first,,,great minds think alike! :D I mean it's not like you originally thought it up and I stole your time machine and went back in time and chatted with Troels before you initially posted on the forum....no no, not me never :P