I am the universe

Opening the box

An info screen appears: “The wound is infected.” 

My surgeon tells me, via our MyChart message chain, that the photo I sent him doesn’t look good. The surgical incision he made two months ago is now cause for concern. He wants me to come into the office as soon as possible. 

I feel myself losing control of my body, of my life. Beings much smaller than me and doctors much more learned than me are the ones selecting my next move. 

Inserting the disc

Things were neither better nor simpler for me in 1999, but it was easier to play Star Trek: The Next Generation - Birth of the Federation back then. The turn-based strategy game was released that year by Microprose, the same company responsible for Sid Meier’s successful Civilization series. Like Civilization, BOTF directs the player to establish, manage, and expand an empire — but inside the imagined universe of Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi hit, Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

The game was released on CD-ROM, the scratch-prone file container we were happy to lose. Other technical specifications for the game are equally antiquated. I’m far too futuristic for Star Trek these days. 

Game loading

“Those who don’t have patience for micromanagement might call the exponentially complex gameplay tedious.” BOTF is a game of bureaucracy, as Elliot Chin points out in his May 2000 review.