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Kobali vs Vaadwuar-are we on the right side? **SPOILER ALERT**
stonewbie
Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
Hey everybody,
First off **SPOILER ALERT** because i wanted to talk about stuff pertaining to the Kobali and Vaadwuar war.
So far i'm only up to Looming Shadows and i just finished my first ground mission with Harry Kim. I've watched the Voyager episode on the Kobali so i know what they are all about. In game i only have a vague idea of what is going on (space bar commando checking in) BUT i just started paying attention cause something didnt seem quite right.
So let me make sure i understand this:
-Kobali "reproduce" by taking dead bodies and doing some space magic. They've been doing this a long time so of course its natural and part of their culture.
-Vaadwuar are angry with the Kobali because it was revealed that Kobali are using Vaadwuar stasis tubes.
-BUT Kobali only use Vaadwuar dead bodies out of failed or broken stasis tubes.
-The Vaadwuar are upset that their dead bodies are being used by the Kobali to "reproduce"
-The Feds, KDF and Romulans are friends with the Kobali
Do i have it right so far? if so then what about the Vaadwuar stasis tubes on Kobali Prime that are still functional? Harry Kim mentions that some of those Vaadwuar could still be revived. If so why havent the Kobali given those functional stasis tubes back to the Vaadwuar? And now i'm on the story where i find out that the Vaadwuar are using some sort of chemical on themselves so that their dead bodies cannot be used by Kobali. When i confronted the Kobali General with this info some Benzite Captain comes up and Harry said that the Kobali shouldnt be using the Vaadwuar that way and that maybe the Feds should do something about it. And the reply from the Benzite Captain was something something Prime Directive Mr Kim. And that was pretty much when i stopped and said wtf is going on with this storyline?! am i on the right side?
If i were the Vaadwuar i think i would be pissed at the Kobali too. It's one thing to use a dead body, that maybe i could be ok with. But it sounds like they are basically holding the working stasis tubes hostage until they "malfunction" at which point i imagine the Kobali feign sadness and go ohh nooooooo they died! welp time to reanimate them i guess.
Another thing that kinda struck me as funny. The Kobali are willing to fight a war to preserve their way of life, so they dont become extinct. But in case nobody knew, in wars people from both sides and even casual bystanders have a tendency to you know...get killed. You know the Talaxians seem like very nice people. Maybe the Kobali should become allies with them? they can have a trade agreement...give us your dead bodies and we'll restock Neelixes kitchen. I'm kidding but i'm still serious...they've pissed off the Vaadwuar so i would think that maybe they would stop using their bodies and maybe start using another species. Find a culture that is receptive, find a culture that is weak and become their neighbors. Go start a war with the Kazon...they are technologically inferior, nobody in DQ likes them anyways, so what the hell?
First off **SPOILER ALERT** because i wanted to talk about stuff pertaining to the Kobali and Vaadwuar war.
So far i'm only up to Looming Shadows and i just finished my first ground mission with Harry Kim. I've watched the Voyager episode on the Kobali so i know what they are all about. In game i only have a vague idea of what is going on (space bar commando checking in) BUT i just started paying attention cause something didnt seem quite right.
So let me make sure i understand this:
-Kobali "reproduce" by taking dead bodies and doing some space magic. They've been doing this a long time so of course its natural and part of their culture.
-Vaadwuar are angry with the Kobali because it was revealed that Kobali are using Vaadwuar stasis tubes.
-BUT Kobali only use Vaadwuar dead bodies out of failed or broken stasis tubes.
-The Vaadwuar are upset that their dead bodies are being used by the Kobali to "reproduce"
-The Feds, KDF and Romulans are friends with the Kobali
Do i have it right so far? if so then what about the Vaadwuar stasis tubes on Kobali Prime that are still functional? Harry Kim mentions that some of those Vaadwuar could still be revived. If so why havent the Kobali given those functional stasis tubes back to the Vaadwuar? And now i'm on the story where i find out that the Vaadwuar are using some sort of chemical on themselves so that their dead bodies cannot be used by Kobali. When i confronted the Kobali General with this info some Benzite Captain comes up and Harry said that the Kobali shouldnt be using the Vaadwuar that way and that maybe the Feds should do something about it. And the reply from the Benzite Captain was something something Prime Directive Mr Kim. And that was pretty much when i stopped and said wtf is going on with this storyline?! am i on the right side?
If i were the Vaadwuar i think i would be pissed at the Kobali too. It's one thing to use a dead body, that maybe i could be ok with. But it sounds like they are basically holding the working stasis tubes hostage until they "malfunction" at which point i imagine the Kobali feign sadness and go ohh nooooooo they died! welp time to reanimate them i guess.
Another thing that kinda struck me as funny. The Kobali are willing to fight a war to preserve their way of life, so they dont become extinct. But in case nobody knew, in wars people from both sides and even casual bystanders have a tendency to you know...get killed. You know the Talaxians seem like very nice people. Maybe the Kobali should become allies with them? they can have a trade agreement...give us your dead bodies and we'll restock Neelixes kitchen. I'm kidding but i'm still serious...they've pissed off the Vaadwuar so i would think that maybe they would stop using their bodies and maybe start using another species. Find a culture that is receptive, find a culture that is weak and become their neighbors. Go start a war with the Kazon...they are technologically inferior, nobody in DQ likes them anyways, so what the hell?
Post edited by stonewbie on
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Maybe the Kobali should talk to the Ocampa- they only live 6 or so years, plenty of bodies to 'harvest'.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
My character Tsin'xing
There's your issue OP.
Is it "a sort of" prison? or is it an actual prison? During the dialogue i thought i heard someone mention that the people in the stasis tubes were part of some Vaadwuar elite society or something. Was it a Vaadwuar prison? or a Kobali prison? or were they just Vaadwuar stasis tubes for regular people that the Kobali happened to acquire somehow and now they use it for their own purposes?
And i wouldnt go so far as to say that the Vaadwuar deserve it. I'd have to look at how the normal Vaadwuar are portrayed in the Voyager episode (if that even happens). I have all 7 seasons on dvd and i know the Kobali from memory. I dont know her name but the Kobali is a female, was Harry Kims friend from the academy, the doctor made her look like her old self, and she had dinner with the captain too. And there was also some arc about Sevens daycare service. So i remember the Kobali episode, but i only remember the Vaadwuar word/name, i dont remember the actual episode, what happened in it or how the species acted. So without knowing how their entire population acted i dont think it would be fair to say that these guys in the tubes deserved what is happening to them (assuming they arent convicts). Do normal everyday Romulan farmers deserve the same fate as theTal Shiar or Hakeev?
I'm leveling two toons side by side, my other one is still on the Neelix reunion phase. On the second one i plan on listening to all the storyline so i have a clear understanding of exactly what is going on. But the breaks in storyline due to not meeting the level requirement for the next mission makes the story hard to follow and hard to stay interested in. Or maybe i'll just repeat all the episodes on my first 60 and do it all continously so there are no breaks in the storyline.
Maybe
Are we on the right side?
Absolutely
The Vaadwuar have launched a massive offensive, taking over the Entire territory of the Krenim for instance, and presumably more territory beyond that, with the intention of taking yet more territory.
And they have been considering alliances with the Heirachy and the Kazon-Nistrim as you find out by tapping their comms, , both of which are clear threats to stability in the region, and enemies to the Delta Alliance in their own right ( From the mission With Freinds like these )
This is a dangerous, expansionist faction that will not stop until it has dominated all territory within its grasp.
The Kobali by contrast, are acting for subsistence, they want the deceased for reproduction, but I've seen no indication of an expansionist ambition to kill others and make them Kobali, just to recycle the already dead
My character Tsin'xing
So, here's where we stand.
--The Vaadwaur are an aggressive, racist, and expansionist species with incredibly powerful tech likely provided by the Iconians (I'm level 57 on my main so I don't have all the details yet). Their leadership, likely including Gaul, is infected with neural parasites that make them even nastier. Gaul himself is a dangerous psychopath and a Hitler-style tin-pot dictator.
--The Kobali reproduction procedure is an abomination to the Vaadwaur; that's like a Human tearing apart and defecating on a corpse. To the Vaadwaur, it's unforgivably vile. It is heavily implied that the Kobali, prior to the end of their story arc, are sabotaging Vaadwaur stasis tubes, effectively murdering the Vaadwaur within.
--The Kobali aren't exactly trustworthy--just look at that clone of Harry they have in their little temple.
--The Vaadwaur response to the Kobali is genocide.
--In a nutshell, the Vaadwaur, or at least those loyal to Gaul, are seriously bad dudes. However, the Kobali are NOT innocent victims; on some level, they MUST know that what they are doing is wrong, and they are placing their cultural considerations above those of the Vaadwaur, and forcing their culture into what is fundamentally an internal Vaadwaur matter that does NOT harm members of Vaadwaur society. This is fundamentally evil in a big, big way, not to mention a serious breach of the Prime Directive if we look at it askew.
--On the other hand, the Vaadwaur really kind of are bad dudes. Even those who are willing to work with us are ruthless killers.
IMHO, the best solution to these knuckleheads is peace through superior firepower. Fly a Scimitard dreadnought into Kobali Prime orbit, point the supergun at the planet, set up a blockade, and say that either both sides make nice and come to an agreement that leaves everyone reasonably happy or we kill them all. Sure, the Kobali are probably better than the Vaadwaur, but they're still arrogant, supercilious little slimeballs who deserve to be taken down a few pegs.
Short version, both sides are whiny kids who need to be put in time-out while the more mature species fight the Iconians.
Thats why i asked a question...not made a statement
1) are we on the wrong side?
2) we are on the wrong side!
get what i'm trying to say, eh?
The story is fixed...and plays out. Was simply a case of saying the question was being asked too soon, so to speak. It's actually a question that comes up as part of the story as it progresses.
Though i cant cite specific instances in some of the pre-DQ chapters i do sometimes get this same feeling. The one where you go 'wait this doesnt make sense? why and i doing this again'. A lot of times i chalk it up to sloppy or poor story writing. At my point in the story progression the scorecard reads Vaadwuar - 1 (gaul going nutso) and Kobali - 1 (trying to hide secrets). The stuff Kim said and the Kobali admitting they were hiding something. Though with their way of life being the way it is i can kinda understand why they are secretive towards outsiders.
They don't "use them like cattle"
They genuinely love their adopted children, what they do may seem perverse but theres no malice in their actions.
The only examples of malice I can find, are projected onto them by people who find their concept distasteful
To add to this
The Kobali use dead bodies, Vidians harvest organs from live ones and usually in the process the donor ends up dying. Borg are the same way...they take a live person unwillingly to join them. What people find distasteful about the Kobali is all about taboos. But if you look at it from a scientific perspective...its taking someone dead and giving it a chance to live again. Without the Kobali that lump of flesh and bones is gone. With them it can become something again. The only thing that i think sucks about the whole thing is that the Kobali transform them to be "members" of their "species". Supposedly the rezombification process causes the person to come back with a lot of their memories lost. But some of them like the one from Voyager had most of her memory intact. But she wasnt allowed to stay with Voyager, her Kobali friends convinced her or maybe she convinced herself (havent watched the episode in a while) that she should leave Voyager. Seven brought Neelix back from the dead after 18 hours but he didnt have to go live with her in the cargo bay after that. :P
Well, Gaul's a pretty typical genocidal psychopath. Think Garrtisch from "The Great Dictator", or Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope, from "The Wheel of Time". He hates basically everyone else with a cold, vicious passion, and he is willing to do anything to first make everyone else like him and then destroy them.
He's a monster.
The Vaadwaur are just ordinary people who've been brought up in a profoundly racist culture. They are not good people, but they are not monsters.
The Kobali are sanctimonious, self-centered hypocrites who do appalling things to others in the name of love. I wouldn't call them actively malicious, but I wouldn't call them good either.
To use a Once Upon A Time reference, Gaul is like Cora, the Vaadwaur people are kind of like...well, someone with no example of proper behavior--and the Kobali are even more hypocritical and whiny than Snow White (who seriously needs to grow up).
Running out of references here, but...Avatar: The Last Airbender reference. Gaul is like Ozai or Azula. The Vaadwaur people are like the Fire Nation armed forces. The Kobali are like......the Northern Water Tribe prior to the siege at the end of season 1.
You've got racists led by a monster on one side, and hypocritical whiny fools on the other. Best option is to metaphorically bang their heads together and make 'em go to time-out.
And give Harry Kim a promotion to Admiral, he deserves it and he's like my new favorite adventure buddy.
I've just finished that story arc myself and at the end of that cutscene my jaw dropped haha. Like WTF!?
I do have some theories (though I hadn't considered clone);
1 - Has he been replaced by an Undine? (Not so likely, but you never know with those sneaky bas**rds)
2 - (This one is wacky, but possible) In the Voyager episode 'Deadlock', Harry did die. He was sucked out into space when trying to seal a hull breach and then the Harry from the other Voyager came through and replaced him... That does mean there was a dead Harry Kim floating around in space which in theory could have been recovered by the Kobali at some point. Again, not hugely plausible but it's possible.
2. The Vaadwuar government being hostile to us doesn't excuse murdering and assimilating them in their sleep.
3. Yes, its murder. Whether the Kobali are standing by waiting for the people in the worn-out stasis pods to die when they should be helping, or actively pulling their plugs, its premeditated murder.
4. Valuing culture over life is a canon failing of the Federation, but I was disappointed my Romulan captain did not have the option to tell that self-righteous preacher of a Starfleet captain to shove their prime directive where the sun don't shine.
5. Those Vaadwuar in the working stasis pods better get released at some point in the plot, or I'm going to be seriously pissed at being forced to support the undead in their assimilation plot.
The whole thing though would not stop the war as the numbers are too great and the technology too high to be anything to do with the Kobali. There are undoubtedly more temples and somebody who is manipulating the vaadwar to continue their 900 year old campaign so..
..To sum it up we are on the right side.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
My character Tsin'xing
Oh, so the random soldiers in the German armies in WW2 should've been exterminated and had their bodies used to make hypocritical peaceniks? North Korean people who think the US is a satanic monstrosity that wants to conquer the world should be killed and turned into arrogant, whiny monks because they've been force-fed propaganda since the days they were born?
Gaul is a psychopath and must be stopped by any means necessary (although I'd let him kill the Talaxians, since they too are dangerous monsters that must be exterminated), but as Eldex proves, the Vaadwaur aren't monsters.
They're ruthless jerks, yes. But they don't LIKE murdering all these little people who dare resist their might. In the ideal Vaadwaur universe, they'd rule everything and everyone would be happy below them.
They are NOT good people, but they also do NOT deserve to be murdered and resurrected as whiny, self-centered hypocrites.
And notwithstanding the propensity of science fiction to depict aliens as racial stereotypes lacking individuality, they don't actually deserve to be judged by the actions of other people just because those other people happen to be the same species.
EXACTLY!!!
Even though Gaul is a psychopathic monster, the Vaadwaur are PEOPLE, with hopes and dreams and loves and culture and society and IDENTITY.
If they don't want to be resurrected or have their comrades murdered and resurrected, DON'T FREAKING RESURRECT THEM!!!!!
Both factions are guilty of what 21st Century Earth would deem as genocide, or in this case xenocide.
This all feels like the Eastern Front of WWII. And the battle of Kobali Prime might be the 25th Century equivalent of the Siege of Leningrad.
The problem though is that the Vaadwaur have already wiped out several species, or at least most of the Krenim and others. So for me, their military is still the equivalent of the Wehrmacht.
Of course then we come to the tragedy once civilians on both sides are involved and become victims.
N.C.C. 171867
Sovereign Class
Saint John Fleet Yard
"A Mari Usque Ad Mare"
1: I agree. Even the Borg Queen believes what she is doing is for the improvement of all species, as diluded and self-agrandizing as it sounds.
2: I agree. Which is why I judges individuals on their merits regardless of culture or sterotypes, and a society by its culture as praciticed my the majority WITHOUT condemning the individual. Needs of the one should never be unwillingly sacrificed for the needs of the many.
3. In a sense, it is like euthnasia. The Kobali justify it to themselves by saying they didn't kill them, but by refusing to give the people back and holding them hostage until they die and interfering with those who are trying to repair the stasis pod, they might as well be the ones pulling the trigger for their actions directly lead to death. Voluntary manslaughter as it were.
4. Agree. The Republic and the Empire are separate entites not beholdened to Federation Law. The Prime Directive is just a convent excuse to hide behind when captains make bad decisions.
5. Agreed. Which is why I would consider defecting to the other side and restarting the Fed-KDF War.
It is cliche, but I kind of see it already. One word sums up the Vaadwaur's rapid technological rise and agressiveness: Iconians.
I don't trust the Kobali and I certainly don't like Gaul's Vaadwuar either. The Alpha quadrant powers really should have stayed neutral in all this.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
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Ok, we've seen a number of replies saying that we can't stop the Kobali from committing these acts which are considered by some as abhorant. It's true according to the underlying story arc the greatest law of the federation is the Prime directive. that law which prevent the starfleet characters from interfering with the culture of a non-Federation member.
The point that has been neglected, however, is that a lot of players feel forced to come in on the side of the Kobali. For those who feel that (and I'll admit that I did for a while) we're not forced but I'll get to that in a minute.
According to the same Prime Directive, we also can't fight the Vaadwaur on behalf of the Kobali. It's still interfering.
We were asked to help... we came in and got to work... we learned things that we probably didn't want to know and how did we react... we continued helping the Kobali.
Ok We're technically at war with the vaadwauron other fronts, but this case doesn't come into that. Kobali Prime is an internal matter and we can only act as mediators if both sides agree or request it.
We're not actually informed of the choice that we have to make and here's where the idea of force can be dispelled. The choice is this. come in on the side of the Kobali and essentially break the Prime Directive, a choice that every captain has to make at some point during their career or wash your hands and walk away.
Though it's only a game, we do have the oprtion of saying "This is not my fight, I'm going to beam up now". Don't get the mission rewards but you don't HAVE to take sides. The only real drawback is that you don't get to swap sides and force the Kobali to give back the pods.
For the sake of points of view, yes, I have played through every mission in this story arc.