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Alien Space Battle Manual

1973 board wargame published by Gamescience

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 16, 2025
Entity authorityQ48997214 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alien Space is a science fiction board wargame published by Gamescience in 1973 that simulates space combat as seen in the Star Trek television show.

Gameplay

Alien Space is a two-player game in which each player chooses one of eight different ships and engages in space combat. Each ship has a secret weapon that the other player is unaware of until it is used. There is no map. Instead, ship counters are placed on any flat surface, and the physical distance between the counters is measured for movement and combat effects.

Publication history

In 1972, Lou Zocchi designed and released Star Trek Battle Manual, a space combat game based on the Star Trek television show that featured an illustration of the iconic USS Enterprise on the cover. However, Zocchi did not have a license from the trademark holder Paramount Pictures; when Paramount objected, Zocchi was forced to recall all unsold copies of the game. Zocchi revised the rules to omit all references to Star Trek, increased the number of ship models from 3 to 8, and released Alien Space Battle Manual through his publishing company Gamescience in 1973.

Several years later, Zocchi identified a loophole in Paramount's trademark and successfully acquired a license through Franz Josef Designs to utilize Star Trek ship designs and certain Star Trek races, including the Klingons. Zocchi proceeded to revise the rules of the game Alien Space Battle and rebranded it as the Star Fleet Battle Manual, which was released in 1977.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Alien Space Battle Manual” as 1973 board wargame published by Gamescience. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alien, Space and Battle.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1973, 1972, 1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1973. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Alien, Space and Battle providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Alien Space Battle Manual”, the useful work is to connect “1973 board wargame published by Gamescience” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q48997214. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1972 and 1977.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Alien Space Battle Manual primary sources, Alien Space Battle Manual archive and Alien research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alien Space Battle Manual” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.