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Divide et Impera Re-Design
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This mission is the worst one in-game.
It's not because of the mission design, combat, or anything like that... it's because at no point do we try to confront our obviously-Undine Zelle, or try to tell the Romulan commander at the end that this isn't what it looked like.
So in other missions are to be redesigned in the future, I recommand this one to be one of the first Fed ones. And I have a general outline in mind for that (so tell me what you think), with multiple ways the mission can go:
Worst Case Scenario:
When we talk with Zelle, say that she's equipping our ship with a cloaking device, so we can sneak past the romulans, but only if necessary (she says to kill them all). So we warp in and engage the romulan forces.
Now we're on the base, good. Zelle says to engage everyone we find, so they're are no witnesses. We come to the alleged weapon crates, where innocent romulans are working. You engage them, and inspect the crates.
At this point, you've inspected the crates, noting they're not really... military at all. Zelle says the romulans are full of tricks, and the weapons are on this station.
Afterward, you go find the command center, Zelle telling you to elimanate the working crews. You do so.
Then the romulan commander will beam in. You fight her, then confront the Admiral, who turns into an Undine. After the fight, the Undine takes the Romulan's place, and you have to fight your way out from the Romulans.
Side note for the above part: In most appearances, the Undine have always said some form of 'You are weak. And the weak shall perish.' This Undine never did, so to have some consistency, add that line somewhere.
Other Note: this is pretty much how the mission goes currently. This is the worst outcome.
Middle Ground:
Using the cloaking device, we warp into the system and use the cloaking device (or not), the choice is up to you.
Now on the base, you can choose to engage every mob, or sneak past them. {There can be an accolade for doing the sneaking one). We come to the weapons crates, where romulan workers are. Instead of engaging them, we walk up to them, triggering a talk about what we're doing here. The workers say they're doing peaceful research, while Zelle says not to believe them. You go with Zelle, and have to kill the workers.
Crates inspected, you realize there's nothing military, but Zelle says not to fall for this trick, so you move on toward the command center.
Inside the command center, Zelle says to kill the workers and get access to the computers. You have a choice: confront the Admiral; or kill the workers (the latter does a repeat of Worst Case Scenario).
Confronting the Admiral, your science officer reveals the Admiral is really an Undine, and a fight ensures. The Undine falls, but then the Romulan commander beams in, demanding why you're in here. You explain the situation, including the now-dead Undine, and she accepts that... but she's still angry at your intrusion of their space, and the dead innocents.
But at least you prevented the Undine from stopping their research.
Inflitration Averted:
You warp into the system, but avoid all romulan patrols, successfully detection.
On the base, you sneak past all mobs, and come to the romulan workers near the crates, and talk to them. With diplomatic choices, they relucantly allow you to inspect the crates without a fight. (bad ones will make you fight them, turning this into Middle Ground) With the realization that there's nothing military in the crates, you can confront the Admiral (believing Zelle goes into Middle Ground again).
Confront the Admiral, it's revealed by Science Officer what Zelle really is, and a fight breaks out, the romulans assisting you. Afterward, the commander beams in, demanded an explanation. You explain the situation, adding you're glad you caught this inflitration before innocent lives were taken (along with the loss of the romulan's anti-Undine efforts). The commander relucantly thanks you for exposing the Undine, then asks you leave, wiling to overlook the intrusion so long as you go now.
Crisis averted, Undine plan thwarted, and mission ended well.
General:
In short, the mission can go several ways. One is the way in-game right now, one prevents anything bad from actually happening, and the other is in-between this. There can be accolades for several things:
Sneaking Past the Mobs
Inflitration Averted (do you think there should be an accolade for the other two options in-mission?)
Tactical Option (cause a malfunction in the computer system, causing a problem off-map, calling all mobs away. This does not include the crate workers, or the command center workers)
Engineering Option (reprogram the security satellite to send a fake distress call, sending the romulan forces away)
Science Option (a technobabble way to extend the cloaking effectiveness at the beginning, from 5K to 10K)
There don't have to be any cutscenes with this redesign, or voice-overs (though there could be voices on the Undine/Zelle, and the Romulan commander), mainly just dialogue and the cloaking VFX. Plus while the quality isn't par with FE, it's definitely a step-up, and i believe it's very few resources involved to do so.
But tell me what you all think.
And if possible, get a Dev to see this thread (reply optional).
It's not because of the mission design, combat, or anything like that... it's because at no point do we try to confront our obviously-Undine Zelle, or try to tell the Romulan commander at the end that this isn't what it looked like.
So in other missions are to be redesigned in the future, I recommand this one to be one of the first Fed ones. And I have a general outline in mind for that (so tell me what you think), with multiple ways the mission can go:
Worst Case Scenario:
When we talk with Zelle, say that she's equipping our ship with a cloaking device, so we can sneak past the romulans, but only if necessary (she says to kill them all). So we warp in and engage the romulan forces.
Now we're on the base, good. Zelle says to engage everyone we find, so they're are no witnesses. We come to the alleged weapon crates, where innocent romulans are working. You engage them, and inspect the crates.
At this point, you've inspected the crates, noting they're not really... military at all. Zelle says the romulans are full of tricks, and the weapons are on this station.
Afterward, you go find the command center, Zelle telling you to elimanate the working crews. You do so.
Then the romulan commander will beam in. You fight her, then confront the Admiral, who turns into an Undine. After the fight, the Undine takes the Romulan's place, and you have to fight your way out from the Romulans.
Side note for the above part: In most appearances, the Undine have always said some form of 'You are weak. And the weak shall perish.' This Undine never did, so to have some consistency, add that line somewhere.
Other Note: this is pretty much how the mission goes currently. This is the worst outcome.
Middle Ground:
Using the cloaking device, we warp into the system and use the cloaking device (or not), the choice is up to you.
Now on the base, you can choose to engage every mob, or sneak past them. {There can be an accolade for doing the sneaking one). We come to the weapons crates, where romulan workers are. Instead of engaging them, we walk up to them, triggering a talk about what we're doing here. The workers say they're doing peaceful research, while Zelle says not to believe them. You go with Zelle, and have to kill the workers.
Crates inspected, you realize there's nothing military, but Zelle says not to fall for this trick, so you move on toward the command center.
Inside the command center, Zelle says to kill the workers and get access to the computers. You have a choice: confront the Admiral; or kill the workers (the latter does a repeat of Worst Case Scenario).
Confronting the Admiral, your science officer reveals the Admiral is really an Undine, and a fight ensures. The Undine falls, but then the Romulan commander beams in, demanding why you're in here. You explain the situation, including the now-dead Undine, and she accepts that... but she's still angry at your intrusion of their space, and the dead innocents.
But at least you prevented the Undine from stopping their research.
Inflitration Averted:
You warp into the system, but avoid all romulan patrols, successfully detection.
On the base, you sneak past all mobs, and come to the romulan workers near the crates, and talk to them. With diplomatic choices, they relucantly allow you to inspect the crates without a fight. (bad ones will make you fight them, turning this into Middle Ground) With the realization that there's nothing military in the crates, you can confront the Admiral (believing Zelle goes into Middle Ground again).
Confront the Admiral, it's revealed by Science Officer what Zelle really is, and a fight breaks out, the romulans assisting you. Afterward, the commander beams in, demanded an explanation. You explain the situation, adding you're glad you caught this inflitration before innocent lives were taken (along with the loss of the romulan's anti-Undine efforts). The commander relucantly thanks you for exposing the Undine, then asks you leave, wiling to overlook the intrusion so long as you go now.
Crisis averted, Undine plan thwarted, and mission ended well.
General:
In short, the mission can go several ways. One is the way in-game right now, one prevents anything bad from actually happening, and the other is in-between this. There can be accolades for several things:
Sneaking Past the Mobs
Inflitration Averted (do you think there should be an accolade for the other two options in-mission?)
Tactical Option (cause a malfunction in the computer system, causing a problem off-map, calling all mobs away. This does not include the crate workers, or the command center workers)
Engineering Option (reprogram the security satellite to send a fake distress call, sending the romulan forces away)
Science Option (a technobabble way to extend the cloaking effectiveness at the beginning, from 5K to 10K)
There don't have to be any cutscenes with this redesign, or voice-overs (though there could be voices on the Undine/Zelle, and the Romulan commander), mainly just dialogue and the cloaking VFX. Plus while the quality isn't par with FE, it's definitely a step-up, and i believe it's very few resources involved to do so.
But tell me what you all think.
And if possible, get a Dev to see this thread (reply optional).Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
in my plan above, it's remastered with little resources (at least as far as i know), and allows the player to decide what to do. you can decide to play the fool and have the romulans be inflirated easily, or confront the 'Admiral' early on and stop things from going terribly wrong. with my plan, there's replay value to a degree, the career options, less mobs... and so on.
i definitely think it's a good idea
1. Why didn't my transporter office detect the Undine beaming aboard?
OR
2. If the "Admiral" insisted on coming by shuttle, why didn't a red flag fly after the incident at P'Jem?
ANYONE, yes even Admiral McCoy would have made me suspicious after that incident.
1. Transporters may take use of an individual's specifics, but they're not highly-refined sensors... so if an individual's signature matchs the one from the records exactly, that's perfect as far as the transporter is concerned.
a tricorder is another matter...
2. the mission specifically states us to go to Starbase 39 to pick up the Admiral... meaning she traveled with us on the ship. probably knew the shuttle wouldn't get her far
Unless T'nae is one, too.
it's definitely something that's gotta be looked at closely
Exactly!
And frankly, even if you can't detect her with scanners, or detect her by way of Telepaths acting off (remember the P'jem mission? All the other Vulcan priests didn't trust the undine replaced guy?), you should be able to turn her in/turn against her for the CLEARLY NOT STARFLEET actions.
I mean, "Kill everybody, leave no witnesses. The scans showing zero subspace weapon parts is a ruse by the romulans!" Yeah, that's a starfleet admiral huh?
(Was very facepalm when my romulan character did the mission. I know, techincally she'd labeled alien but she's a romulan.) First, admiral goes to my characters face "You can never trust a romulan, let's do black ops ****!". Then, she tries convincing my romulan this station is a weapons lab (in character, my romulan has military access codes still valid and is fully able to check the claims.).
I mean, it's just a massively, and utterly cringe-worthy fail of a mission in terms of story on all accounts. A betazoid would notice somethings up instantly, as they are more telepathic then vulcans. It's one of few missions that I just hate playing due to it's storyline and it making no sense. Thoughout the entire thing, you keep going "Where's the button to call in the admiral and Drake to arrest this TRIBBLE? Or to stun her and alert the romulans?"
Hell, a brand new player (who also was playing a romulan char *half-romulan, IIRC*) started hating it at the begining because the line by Zelle. Then, as it went on she just kept saying "When do I get to kill her? Clearly I should get the chance cause this is crazy."
At the least, let us Kill Zelle, instead of her beaming out and escaping without a trace
i think my idea is a good one, but all the missions could use a little touch-up
Just a bit of text reworking and the removal of the admiral from your party. Done.
That sounds a lot like "Under the Cover of Night".
I really think if they aren't fighting, they should follow at a greater distance. It's just creepy, stupid, and weird to have Zelle standing less then 2 feet (it seems) behind you at ALL TIMES, doing nothing. Even during a firefight,
I think this is a great idea. Love your rework of the episode. I would love to see this and a lot of other rewrites with a similar "tree" choices available, both good and bad, with different results. I would just add this. In the event you choose the worst case scenario and kill all those innocent Romulans then the Federation hands you over to the Romulan authorities where you are tried for mass murder and sentenced to life in a Romulan penal colony...
Maybe a mini-mission where you gather evidence to prove that you were fooled, and not acting on your own, or breaking out of the facility (Different methods for the 3 Professions). It shouldn't take too long to make, at least I think not, and it would give a reason for players to go back and take the worst route.
=/\=USS Lindsey Stirling =/\= NCC-116747 =/\=
=/\= Liberty Task Force =/\= Diplomatic Advisor =/\=