Judgment Rites – I hope you like to click on computers a lot.

 by Will Moczarski

Last time I promised to take a look at the manual with you and walk you through it before starting my first mission in Judgment Rites. However, the manual is quite long (36 pages) and takes a no-nonsense approach to explaining the game, meaning it is far more informative and much less entertaining than the manual for, say, Pepper's Adventures in Time.

Two pages stand out, though. Firstly, there is a cute little text from the team about what it means to be a Trekkie and that it has been a great privilege to work on a Star Trek game (shown above). And then there is this beautiful black & white picture of the team: 

What looks like a "T" located near the middle of the team is actually an "I".

There's also some information about the factions that are likely to bother you at some point in the game (Elasi, Romulans, Klingons). And of course it contains an in-depth explanation of the interface which is truly necessary if you've never before played one of Interplay's Star Trek adventure games. It's very similar to the one used in 25th Anniversary as there are two main areas that work a bit differently. You start out on the bridge which is where you can be pulled into bothersome space fights or consult Mr. Spock's computer using a keyword system not unlike, say, conversations in some of the earlier Ultima games, meaning if you get it wrong even just a little bit the fancy 23rd century computer won't know what the hell you're asking it about. If you navigate to the correct section of the star map (more on that below) you will advance the main plot – if you go just about anywhere else, it's more space fights for you. 

You access most of the functions by clicking on the responsible officer. Uhura will handle the communication between your ship and other ships, space stations, planets etc. Spock will be hunched over his computer and respond with snarky remarks if you consult him instead of the database. Scottie will prepare the ship for space combat in various ways while Sulu and Chekov will split the navigational functions between them.

Enough space for both of them.

And then there is the adventure game proper that starts after you find yourself in orbit and are thus able to beam down a landing party. In the first episode the party is made up of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I don't know whether that will change later or of it's our distinguished gentlemen's threesome all the way.

The controls take a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it they are quite intuitive. There are hotkeys for almost any possible action but the accessible way to play the game is to just use the mouse. A right-click will open up an image of a person and you can click on their mouth (talk to), their right hand (use), their left hand (pick up) or their eyes (look at) for your typical adventure game prompts. Clicking on the symbol of the Federation will open up the meta functions like save or load or quit the game. Because this is a Star Trek game, it is vital to use both tricorders (Spock's is for science, while McCoy's is for medical examination) a lot. They work like a secondary layer of possible examination and often provide hints on how to approach a puzzle. And you will "use" your crew members a lot. Dealing with computers is clearly Spock's domain so there's a lot of "use Spock on..." involved which works just as you think it would. All buckled up and ready for the ride? Let's head straight into "FEDERATION", the first episode of the seri...er, game.

They really went for the whole series/episodes look.

The episode is called "FEDERATION" because the Federation is at stake. And, you see, the game doesn't mess around. Before I even get to take control of Captain James T. Kirk, a battered starship, the U.S.S. Alexander, appears on my viewscreen, mere moments before blowing up. Its captain, one Luke Rayner, looking much like the ship he commands, manages to contact the Enterprise mere seconds before that happens. He tells me he comes from the near future and that in eight days the proud United Federation of Planets will be all but destroyed. Just when he tries to tell me why and how and possibly even who's responsible he gives me the old VGA scared-to-death look (remember Rapp Scallion?) and the U.S.S. Alexander opens a fireworks business. 

It's my Rapp Scallion childhood trauma all over again!

If you ever find yourself without any hints to go on it's time to consult the computer. If any of you have decided to play along and only skimmed over the manual: the TAB key is your friend. The game actually lets you start in combat mode and I think it is because I deactivated regular combat by picking the appropriate difficulty ("Federation Cadet" for wimps like me) but the game may still think I need to deal with some wayward Elasi pirates first. It's not a bug but will test your resolve to read the manual properly right away. Pressing TAB switches from combat controls to bridge controls. 

Fortunately, we get a little bit more exposition. Captain Kirk fills his log with the information that the Enterprise succeeded in tracking the Alexander's course to Espoir Station which is located in the Omega Maelstrom sector. This is where the star map comes in handy. The star map is part copy protection and part...no, it's just copy protection, really. They could have labeled the in-game map, no problem. If you don't know where exactly you want to go, you will be entangled in endless space fights, turning Judgment Rites into a very different game. I find it really interesting that this method of navigating the game world actually harks back to the very first Star Trek computer game of the early 1970's. In it, you also had to travel to different sectors, shoot the baddies there, and go somewhere else. In other words, if you want 22 years of adventure game evolution, you gotta pay for your copy. Also, it's funny that you are likely to fight pirates (get it?) if you don't have the copy protection handy. 

Copy protection done right.

I think we could consult the map and head right for Espoir now. On the other hand, we have got some keywords now we might want to check out first. What do we want to know? Let's start with Luke Rayner. Who is he, anyway? Typing...Luke...Rayner. Nothing? Let's try Rayner. Ah, it's family names only with this one. Rayner's a hotshot Federation captain (thrice decorated for bravery!) just like yours truly. He worked on the U.S.S. Typhoon before taking command of the U.S.S. Alexander. Hmm, what about the Typhoon? I bet there's some juicy backstory waiting to be discovered? Nope, no entry. No entry?? On a Federation starship? You got to be kidding me! Well, what about the Alexander? It's a Constitution-class starship (hey, just like the Enterprise!) commanded by Lucas Rayner, and its current missions are classified. Hm, that doesn't go anywhere, either. What about Espoir Station? ...headed by Dr. James Munroe from New Texas, Earth, conducting scientific research near the Gravity's End Proto-universe phenomenon. Okay, and what is that? ...the only known proto-universe phenomenon with an energy level exceeding one hundred type-G suns... sounds like something that could be used to blow up a Federation, right? Now what about Omega Maelstrom...it's an uninhabited system with proto-planetary debris scattered throughout the plane of the elliptic. Cool, trek babble! I'd translate it as: a smattering of asteroids that may one day go on to form planets together. Finally, what about Dr. James Munroe? He graduated from Princeton with a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics. Look at you, Jimmy! However, the title of his doctoral thesis was, and the spelling error is not mine, "Temporal Anamolies in Type B Warp Fields". Munroe seems like a bit of a hack, doesn't he? Also, sadly, there's no entry on New Texas.

Anamolise this!

Without any further ado, let's get things rolling! This in-game Wikipedia is fun and all but I want to see some landing party action. After a truly beautiful cinematic of the Enterprise arriving at Espoir station, we are hailed by James Munroe who tells me that he's happy to see a starship in the neighbourhood. Oh, and there's another game mechanic I haven't yet told you about. Captain Kirk always gets some (usually three) dialog options ranging from competent diplomacy to unhinged aggression. Some puzzles hinge on these options but I won't go back and check out every one of them, sorry. I'm sure that somebody has already done that and I'll be able to hit a FAQ for comparison once I've beaten this game and need not worry about spoilers anymore. I pick the first option with Munroe and outright ask him if we could beam down to check out his station. He doesn't object and showers me with compliments which is always a bit fishy in the Star Trek universe. I try to get Scottie to beam me down before I realise that I need to click on Kirk himself instead. That makes sense because he's the one giving the order to assemble a landing party but I was thrown off course there for a second. 

Simply stunning.

We reappear in the central control room of the station but Dr. Munroe does not even get up to greet us but rather remains seated facing the other direction. Kirk is unfazed by this and introduces himself but something is fishy here. Munroe is already a bit less friendly than before and proceeds to lock the Enterprise with a potent tractor beam as can be witnessed on the viewscreen. Our eloquent captain reacts in style ("What the..."), and Dr. Munroe suggests our immediate surrender lest he crack our ship like an egg (his words). When I question his loyalty Dr. Breddell suddenly pops up on the screen and reveals himself to be the mastermind behind this devious plot that has yet to be unraveled. Breddell, as you may remember or want to read up on instead, was presumed dead at the end of the previous game. Guess what, he's alive and threatening to destroy the entire Federation. Best villain comeback since Khan? 

"BRED-DELLLLLLLL!!!" doesn't have such a nice ring to it, I have to admit.

In the game, McCoy provides a bit of a recap for those who haven't played or forgotten about 25th Anniversary ("Jim, isn't he that maniac who wanted revenge on you, and...?"). I get some more dialog options and next thing I know my proud landing party is in detention. I look around some and find that a part of the wall is less solid than the rest. There must be a way to interact with it but I can't get it done. Maybe I'm missing an item. The security guard, however, is quite polite and even introduces himself. Is that a hint that I may be able to sweet-talk him into letting us go? It is! Time for our first dialog puzzle. Menao Sheme is the son of a friend of Kirk's. Now it's important to understand for the plot that Breddell is a lone villain who somehow convinced a crew of Vardaine to help him with his cause. He is such a lousy and uncharismatic leader, though, that his helpers cannot stand him. The Vardaine follow quite the strict warriors' code themselves meaning you can appeal to their essentially just nature. It does help in this first situation that Kirk knows that Menao Sheme's father was betrayed and thus ultimately died for a lost cause. His son will let us go after some back-and-forth and even give us back all of our equipment. I pick it all up and leave the cell with the nagging feeling that I should have done something with that loose bit of wall. Fortunately, it doesn't come back to haunt me in the end.

Sheming with Menao

Now the game opens up quite a bit. I can enter the turbolift and although the map is really confusing I find out after a bit of trial and error that I can travel to three new locations - the left part of the station where I will find the central control room (we already know this one), the security room, the computer room, and the transporter room. The right part is made up of the executive quarters, the crew quarters, a special project area, and Breddell's quarters. I can also access Docking Bay 1 (there's a Docking Bay 2 but I won't be able to go there until the end of the episode so I guess it's just there for symmetry. The map indicates it's under construction.) but that seems to be a dead end: two guards are waiting for me and if I don't surrender they kill the three of us right away with no time to react and pull my own phaser. Speaking of which, there are two phasers in my inventory - one is set to stun and one is set to disintegrate. I remember from 25th Anniversary that you should use the latter only sparingly and opt for the more peaceful stun gun instead. Seeing that the Vardaine crew members are reluctant villains at best I see no reason to kill them on sight. But worry not, we will disintegrate something before the credits roll.

Good idea that saves the player quite some fiddling.

I decide to travel to the left part of the station first and am approached by two guards right away. They are not particularly fast but Friday got me fumbling with the interface, and it's hard to win when you're in space. Err, never mind. They manage to stun both McCoy and Spock (indicated by a green beam which is a great idea to let the player know what kind of threat they are facing) but I manage to stun them first before they shoot me. Don't mess with Captain Kirk! My crew members get back up quickly enough and I try to loot the guards but to no avail. I can't even interact with the little pixel weapons they dropped. Well, at least no pixel hunting appears to be involved in this game...so far. Of course, that will possibly change in the other episodes. 

I enter the central control room and while Munroe is still turned away from me, staring out at space, there are two more guards that need stunning. They helpfully call out "phasers on stun" before shooting, giving me a clue what kind of force I need to apply here. Once again, I'm too slow and McCoy and Spock go down before I manage to stun both of the guards. And I do have to admit that it gives me a perverse sense of pleasure, too. The falling animation is just too funny and I don't find it out of character for Kirk to pull the wool over his crew members in an unharmful way.

Like this but in space...

Munroe is the only lackey of Breddell's that can't be convinced by our insistence that the chief villain is up to no good. Even the technician turns friendly toward us. Our little shoot-out puts him under great duress causing his allergies to act up but McCoy is there for the rescue, and he appreciates it. Now that I have resumed control of the station (but have I really?) I try to contact the Enterprise with my communicator. It doesn't work and my transmission attempt is detected by the systems, triggering an automatic call  for more security guards to converge on central command. Time to move on - but fortunately the game only suggests that you're on a timer. I've got plenty of time to let Spock take a look at the two computer consoles, and he proceeds to disable the weapons control as well as the communications network. I can now contact the Enterprise and tell Uhura that we're safe for the moment. Our transmission is still detected, though, and I'll need to find a way around that.

Will the real McCoy please stand up?

Next I head to the computer room. A technician is standing there and once again I underestimate his shooting prowess because he doesn't look like a guard. He tells us that we're too late because he has set the computer on a continuous auto-diagnostic and we'll never be able to get it back on-line. This is represented by flashing laser beams in the centre of the room where there's a three dimensional chess set, and the computer appears to be playing against itself. How quaint! I try to talk to the technician but he just tells me that I won't succeed, happily gunning down McCoy while talking. I realise belatedly that he's a threat and neutralise him, but not without letting him take down Spock again first. Call me a sadist but I'm having fun!

There are a few points of interest in the room - apart from the chess set there's the main memory bank and the CPU. In order to access the computer itself we need to interrupt its game of chess by sneaking in our own input, which means: it's time to play chess! The fine people at Interplay wisely decided against a minigame here and I can solve the puzzle through dialog as Spock asks me for our next move. The trick is to not pick the most aggressive options but also not play too defensively as we want to break the computer's pattern. I get it right on the first attempt and manage to end the game, enabling Spock to access the computer now. It takes me a bit of fiddling to find out that I need to use the tricorder to achieve anything, and thankfully Spock then gives me the vital hint that McCoy's medical tricorder should also be connected to the computer. This worked well as an implicit tutorial teaching you to use your tricorders often. 

He has a soft spot for chess, though.

I check out the transporter room next but it smells badly there. Spock concludes that it must be Wanaka gas, frequently used in gas traps to knock out intruders. The game gives us a few seconds to leave and I can take a hint. I am probably lacking an item to solve this puzzle at this point. The door to the security room is locked, so there's nothing more to see here. I return to the turbolift and head over to the right part of the station. 

I check out the executive quarters first and find some items but nothing pertinent. There's a large machine in the corner that Kirk identifies as a Kikilean, a cross between a musical instrument and a mood-inducer. Is this an obscure reference to Philip K. Dick's "mood organ" from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It may well be. Kirk can play the Kikilean, causing McCoy to feel pain (as I'm role-playing Kirk as a sadist already, you may have guessed that I repeat the process a few times) and Spock - logically - to feel nothing at all. There are some more objects, and all of them are hinting at the fact that these are the quarters of the technician we helped with his allergies earlier, e.g. some illegal drugs that have a medical use for the treatment of strong allergies as well as an air filter. 

"Sorry", Bones!

Next stop: the crew quarters. A crew member is asleep here, and he wakes up when I fiddle around with the food synthesizer for no reason. He is quite irritated but tells us that he won't attack because he's sick. I get McCoy to "heal" him but this time he only prolongs his unconsciousness. Works for me, too. There are three martial arts training dummies lumped in the corner and surprisingly it's possible to pick them up. I think right away that we may use them as a decoy (we're a party of three, after all) at some point, possibly beam them somewhere to cause confusion but to test that theory I need to get rid of the Wanaka gas first. The other items in the room are not worth mentioning but much of the descriptive dialog between the members of the landing party paints the Vardaine in a rather unfavourable light, even comparing them to the (gasp) Klingons. The mission will let us learn that they are much better people than we thought they were which is a nice sub-plot to the whole pirate uberfoozle threat. 

The special project area is rather unsettling. There are two impenetrable force fields, one of which is holding back a genetically "improved" maneater, quite the menacing monster. The other one is protecting a computer. There are two more consoles but Spock doesn't find it necessary to access them. We only gather some data by examining them with our tricorders and move on. The door to Breddell's quarters is locked and I don't have the access code (yet) so I'm a bit stuck here. I go back to the docking bay and get shot and killed once more. Maybe I do need to surrender there after all? 

Fascin-

I go over all of the rooms once again and find out that I didn't quite interact with all of the consoles in the computer room. Indeed, Spock turns up an access code to Breddell's quarters this time and though it feels a bit too endgamey too soon to go there now it's definitely a lead. The access code works, too, so I save my game and boldly go where...you know the drill...angels fear to tread and all that. 

Breddell is of no mind to surrender and he, too, shoots to kill. I die once and try different dialog options the next time but the result is the same except this time I'm faster than him and manage to stun him before he can harm my crew. With Breddell indisposed I can rummage through his stuff. There's a dart board with a picture of me that catches my eye (naturally) and surely enough there's a secret console hidden behind it. However, another access code is necessary. I find one in the book that's lying on Breddell's desk but of course that must be too good to be true. Spock is able to enter the code but it turns out to be a fake. The computer accepts it but lets him know that he got punked.

Don't be jealous, McCoy. You can have another kip later.

Time to take a break and look at everything again with fresh eyes. When I'm back in the executive quarters I notice that I never tried to pick up the air filter. To my defense, it looks as if it was embedded in the wall (well, maybe, sort of, nah, you're right, it really doesn't) but it turns out to be portable. And I know just the place for it, too! In the transporter room I have ample time to click it on some of the consoles, and finally Kirk manages to integrate it in the control panel seamlessly. Curious. Is it supposed to be stand-alone or modular? The future is a wild place. 

Now that I've got rid of the gas I use the dummies on the transporter and kind of solve a puzzle I didn't really know of beforehand. Spock immediately assumes that we want to beam over to the security room (the one with the locked door) and use the dummies as a decoy. Sure, why not? It works like a charm, too. The guards only get the chance to stun the dummies (and McCoy) before I strike back and win another round of gunplay. After some back and forth I get Kamed, the chief of Vardaine security (who truly appreciates my trick) to side with us against Breddell. It comes in handy that Spock is carrying some evidence of his wrongdoing. He must have pulled that from one of the computers but I was actually unaware. 

Of course the McDeCoy didn't fool anybody.

Siding with Kamed and his guards grants me access to three security consoles. One is a bit hidden away at the side of one of the chairs and I stumble upon it while looking for a different hotspot but it's probably not small enough to qualify as grounds for pixel-hunting. One of the consoles deactivates the gas traps for good. Another one deactivates the transmission tracker and I can now communicate with the Enterprise freely. The third one lowers the force fields in the special project room and I'm a bit worried now. Remember the maneater? 

It is thus no surprise to find the beast free of his constraints, standing menacingly in the corner, facing the camera (only one sprite necessary, way to save some space!). This must call for some deadly force, I think, and it's the one time in the first episode that I shoot to kill without hesitation. My crew doesn't scold me which is a good sign, and I am now free to access that final computer in the corner...but forget all about it, still pumped because of my Rambo ways. 

They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five.

Because I feel I have run out of things to do I save my game and go back to the docking bay instead, this time to surrender. Maybe they will lock me up somewhere new? To my surprise, they don't lock me up at all but right before they grab us, Spock uses his special grip on them and calls them off to dreamland. I proceed to check out the four interfaces in the room but Spock tells me that it's too risky to fiddle with the airlock, and McCoy agrees. Instead, we can muck about with the console on the left, either removing the atmosphere from the airlock (which seems unnecessarily cruel) or sabotaging it entirely, presumably to keep Breddell from fleeing? (I should at least go back and check this one out, it seems important but I never thought of it again after the fact.) I'm a bit confused that I have to do it twice but later in my recording I notice that there are actually two consoles and you can even pick different actions for each of them. At that point it was really routine to click on every computer (with Spock) I came across, and it's maybe the only game mechanic I have to criticise as being a bit repetitive in the first episode. 

But then I was stuck again until I remembered the computer in the special project room. I interacted with that one, too, and it stopped the tractor beam. The Enterprise was now free but Breddell's Federation-breaking secret weapon was still primed. There had to be another clue. I decided to rummage through his room again because where else would he keep something like that if not in a place that was completely under his control? When I wanted to read the book again to see if anything changed I accidentally picked it up this time. I was sure that I'd tried that before and it didn't work but I remembered wrong as my own footage revealed. And what do you know, a bookmark fell out, containing some imprint of a computer circuit pattern. Spock decoded it as a base 64 number with four digits, and I was finally able to enter the correct code but...nothing happened. Spock remarked that there appeared to be fail-safe back-up in the central control room that needed to be deactivated. Did I miss something?

Hard to say when the Espoir goes all style over substance.

The short answer is yes, another computer. And it's well hidden, too. There are actually two different computers on the back wall, and I had overlooked the station's systems console earlier. Spock does his thing one last time and NOW I can enter the correct code into Breddell's private interface causing the proto-event weapon to decloak. Kirk orders him to broadcast the weapon's coordinates to the Enterprise and have Scottie destroy it. One more cute cinematic, and that's that. 

"I hope they don't pull that dummy prank on me."

Scottie looks like the most hard-working man in space business when he beams us back up, and then there's some predictable post-mission chatter between our lads. Luke Rayner also makes an appearance and introduces himself, unaware that Kirk "met" him in an alternate future already. Thus concludes the first mission of Judgment Rites, and I enjoyed it a great deal. This was fun! Admiral Richards evaluates my performance at 88% and we receive commendation points. That's good enough for me considering my slowhand performance in the initial shoot-outs. Coming up: the second mission which is called "SENTINEL". 

Hang it in the Louvre.

Session time: 1.5 hours
Total time: 1.5 hours