Starbase 11 - Classic Star Trek Sim

I recently heard about a Star Trek sim made in the style of the original series produced in the 1960’s. The announcement read, “... our friends from NERD CULTURE celebrate the opening of their dorktastically detailed realizations of the classic Star Trek's Starbase 11, the U.S.S. Enterprise, Deep Space K-7, Zefram Cochrane Homestead, and more!”

Beaming over, once out of the small welcome center, I was greeted by the sight of several unearthly buildings on the rocky surface of an alien world with a purplish sky. The only signs of native life were the odd plants that occasionally could be seen next to the sidewalk, which Trek fans might remember from an episode or two. And looking around, Trekkies would easily recognize the style of the desks and computers as that of the original series (TOS as it’s sometimes called). The area had a small shop named “Cyrano’s” after the con artist in the “Trouble with Tribbles” episode, and an art gallery at the top of one of the buildings.

Through the transporter (teleport) pads, one could go to other places. Deep Space K-7 was a space station of which one could look out the window and see ships drifting by. Then there was the USS Enterprise. Going down the halls of the ship, not all of the doors opened, but some did. There were individual living quarters, plus sickbay.

While at the sim, I ran into one of the people there, Alexander Chronowire. He explained that this “newest incarnation” was being finished after work over a few months, “although we've built other Trek sims over the past couple years, this is the culmination of all the ideas - not just a ship, but a starbase, space station, residential areas, and a second sim dropping any day for more stuff we've been building. ... It's been a lot of fun. All the other Trek sims are ‘ modern ‘ Trek. We're just all huge fans of the The Original Series style - that retro 60's look. (smile) ... The sim was built more as a work of art.”

Alexander mentioned some roleplayers were already making use of the sim, “it's not really set up as an roleplay sim, although people are already dropping by and taking over the Bridge for fun. ... There's a group that comes in during the morning a few days a week now. They run around the ship and do their thing - it's great. None of us who built this place are roleplayers, so it’s fun to watch people ‘play.’ “

Of the residential areas, “if you beam aboard the Enterprise, and head for a turbolift to Deck 6, there's about 18 cabins on the deck that are rentable. If demand dictates we'll add another residential deck. But for now, people are just learning about us and slowly moving in. (smile)”

Of the second sim due soon, “there will be another ship, styled in the Pike era of design, and we'll be moving K-7 over there as well. This will give us more room for rentals or other projects on this sim, which is a full, the 2nd is only a homestead.” I asked for more on the “Pike era,” which was the time of the pilot episode about fifteen years before the time of the classic series, “the first pilot of Star Trek had several design variations from the show we all know. So, we're building a ship we hear about and finally saw in the remastered version of The Original Series in Charlie X, the USS Antares - so we're using the visual look of Pike’s ship, the captain from the first pilot of Trek inside the Antares.”

Starbase 11 is owned by Jon Indianawood. Lora Chadbourne is the primary builder of the landscape. It is at the Cruzoria sim at (201, 190, 26)

Bixyl Shuftan