Even if the DQ has undergone the kind of radical technological advancement that is necessary for even the Kazon to still be competitive (which is a meteoric rise in tech levels given what the AQ considers normal), what we see of the Kobali still isn't impressive. Their ships are easy prey for the Vaadwaur, their medical tech is suspect at best (after all, their reproduction requires dead bodies, and they've been shown to be unethical on multiple occasions, can you really trust their medical tech?), and they lie outright to us about mission-critical intel over and over and over.
The Vaadwaur have a legitimate grievance against the Kobali that the Kobali refuse to recognize. Given the state of the DQ and its state before Janeway the Butcher came through, the Vaads' reactions are not just completely understandable, they are a logical first response. The genocide from Gaul and his mind-controlled lieutenants is across the line, but attacking the Kobali to get their people back? Par for the course for the DQ, and it's better than what the Kobali do, because at least those Vaadwaur in stasis will be happy to be woken up and brought back to their families and friends, as opposed to the Kobali who run, who have to be dragged back kicking and screaming.
Frankly, the Kobali have not one single leg to stand on, morally. They're useless Stalin crossed with Space Netanyahu, and that's not a combination that is palatable to me.
Note that the above applies only to the Kobali government and current regime; the Kobali people probably have a greater respect for sentient rights.
Even if the DQ has undergone the kind of radical technological advancement that is necessary for even the Kazon to still be competitive (which is a meteoric rise in tech levels given what the AQ considers normal)
well...a lot of borg ships were disabled before they could self-destruct during the borg-8472 war; plenty of technology in those hulks for various races to salvage
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Also, do you really think the Vaad' would've ignored the Kobali if the did'nt have those stasis pods? Highly unlikely.
They would not have gotten nearly as much attention as they did.
Even the evil vaadwaur are having a WAR.
That still means they do not attack randomly, they use their resources on strategic targets.
So we don't know if the Kobali world has any remote strategic value I can't see which it should have.
So given that they after all had some deffinsive capabilities, and assumed the world has little or no strategic value.... Attacking them would be a waste of resources.
If it has any value that might be different but since we do not have any indication for that I'll assume it has none.
As far as Stalin goes, he had bodies and he had vast frozen lands to grind with. He didn't have enough tanks, combat aircraft and manufacturing capabilty until the US sent them, under Lend-Lease. If Hitler had been smart and held ground and not mounted an offensive in time to get mired in Russian Wintertime, without the outside supplies, Russias outcome would've been different.
The U.S. didn't support him out of the kindness of their heart. Helping them made their own war against Germany easier.
Helping the Kobali makes our war harder. Because we waste resources on defending a world ( probably) without strategic value.
Even if the DQ has undergone the kind of radical technological advancement that is necessary for even the Kazon to still be competitive (which is a meteoric rise in tech levels given what the AQ considers normal), what we see of the Kobali still isn't impressive.
Well I usually do not see game dynamics as indication for their tech level. We should not be able to mass destruct Borg cubes after all. Somehow everyone is exactly equally strong now^^
But for the.... They must actually gone through major technological advancements.
It seems to be that I'm the only one who is bothered by that..... But the kazon should not be in that area of space at all.
The delta quadrant is very big. Voyager made several jumps towards the series which shortcuted her voyage for more then 25 years, yet somehow kazon and ocampa end up appearing regulary in a part more 25 years of travel away from their encounter with voyager (where their actual home is, including colonies and stuff).... Which btw also had em passing through Borg space (although... Kazon are to worthless to be assimilated... And ocampa are probably even worst... so I'll ignore that part...)
I mean the travel alone takes about 3-4 generations for the ocampa...
Note that the above applies only to the Kobali government and current regime; the Kobali people probably have a greater respect for sentient rights.
I actually doubt that. It's their means procreation. It's completly normal for them.
well...a lot of borg ships were disabled before they could self-destruct during the borg-8472 war; plenty of technology in those hulks for various races to salvage
The Borg would've recovered them, and the Kazon are objectively stupid enough to kill themselves by plugging in a replicator. Their standard attack ships are blown up by heavily-damaged Federation shuttles with ease.
Their standard attack ships are blown up by heavily-damaged Federation shuttles with ease.
And that's ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO.
that only happened once in a single episode, and i've seen raiders take multiple bursts of phaser fire from voyager (whose phasers have a far higher output) without their shields collapsing in several episodes
given those two contradictory appearances, i'll go with the one shown more often, as that's more likely to be the correct one
as for the replicator...trying to integrate any kind of alien technology into a ship it may not be designed for is just asking for trouble; a similar thing happened with the sikarian trajector
the difference there is, b'elanna had the presence of mind to blow the thing up before it could destroy the ship
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
that only happened once in a single episode, and i've seen raiders take multiple bursts of phaser fire from voyager (whose phasers have a far higher output) without their shields collapsing in several episodes
given those two contradictory appearances, i'll go with the one shown more often, as that's more likely to be the correct one
as for the replicator...trying to integrate any kind of alien technology into a ship it may not be designed for is just asking for trouble; a similar thing happened with the sikarian trajector
the difference there is, b'elanna had the presence of mind to blow the thing up before it could destroy the ship
Two episodes, actually.
Chakotay easily destroyed a Kazon raider in "Initiaions" with one shot despite getting hit multiple times before he even gave the Kazon a warning. In "Basics", Paris dogfights and destroys multiple Kazon raiders with a heavily-damaged shuttle.
I'm calling Bad/Lazy Writing again.
You do have a point there, but the Kazon were also shown to be incapable of even the most basic military tactics, requiring a Cardassian to literally hold their hands through the entirety of a basic pincer maneuver. That's beyond stupid.
i don't remember any raiders being destroyed by a shuttle in 'Basics' and i just saw that a week ago
besides, as i recall, a runabout was once able to destroy a trio of jem'hadar attack ships, or at least critically damage them - and those are a hell of a lot more durable than kazon raiders
You do have a point there, but the Kazon were also shown to be incapable of even the most basic military tactics, requiring a Cardassian to literally hold their hands through the entirety of a basic pincer maneuver. That's beyond stupid.
eh, i don't know about that...the kazon-ogla train their men, at the very least - that was THEIR training moon in 'Initiations'
the kazon as a species are still pretty dumb compared to most other races, but a small portion of that can easily be explained away thanks to them never receiving proper educations thanks to the trabe, and as a nomadic and exceedingly warlike culture, they still wouldn't have gotten much education even after the uprising
the rest of the stupidity is just due to lackluster writing - most of the main cast considered them nothing more than dumb brutes, and braga referred to them as 'half-baked klingons'
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
i don't remember any raiders being destroyed by a shuttle in 'Basics' and i just saw that a week ago
besides, as i recall, a runabout was once able to destroy a trio of jem'hadar attack ships, or at least critically damage them - and those are a hell of a lot more durable than kazon raiders
eh, i don't know about that...the kazon-ogla train their men, at the very least - that was THEIR training moon in 'Initiations'
the kazon as a species are still pretty dumb compared to most other races, but a small portion of that can easily be explained away thanks to them never receiving proper educations thanks to the trabe, and as a nomadic and exceedingly warlike culture, they still wouldn't have gotten much education even after the uprising
the rest of the stupidity is just due to lackluster writing - most of the main cast considered them nothing more than dumb brutes, and braga referred to them as 'half-baked klingons'
Let me put it this way. The Borg refused to assimilate the Kazon into it, because doing so could only degrade it.
That is BEYOND pathetic, to have even the Borg reject you.
i think the borg would be a little more willing to assimilate the kazon now, even if they can't add anything to the collective they don't already possess (which is how i always interpreted that line) as they've taken heavy losses in recent years between the alpha quadrant alliance, voth, undine and now the vaadwaur and cooperative
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
And honestly I don't know what's to discuss here. The kazon were constantly shown and explicitly said to be technologicaly massively inferior.
They were only a remote thread to one isolated science ship through superior numbers.
And even then they did not really dare openly attack the voyager....
What makes me wonder all the more how they end up in the region in space we are now....
i think the borg would be a little more willing to assimilate the kazon now, even if they can't add anything to the collective they don't already possess (which is how i always interpreted that line) as they've taken heavy losses in recent years between the alpha quadrant alliance, voth, undine and now the vaadwaur and cooperative
You do know that the Borg can procreate more or less naturally? (More "naturally" then the Kobali..... They are breeding children/drones in incubators)
i think the borg would be a little more willing to assimilate the kazon now, even if they can't add anything to the collective they don't already possess (which is how i always interpreted that line) as they've taken heavy losses in recent years between the alpha quadrant alliance, voth, undine and now the vaadwaur and cooperative
No, you don't understand. Seven of Nine said that Talaxians make "Excellent drones". When your species is rejected by the Borg, who value Neelix and his species, you are so far beyond pathetic and useless that you barely qualify as sentient life. The Kazon are physically unimpressive, severely intellectually limited, tactically inept, technologically inferior, and have terrible senses. They're beyond useless. Assimilating them isn't even pointless, it would actively degrade the Borg.
You do know that the Borg can procreate more or less naturally? (More "naturally" then the Kobali..... They are breeding children/drones in incubators)
An infant Borg, as originally observed by CommanderWilliam Riker in 2365, was speculated to be the Borg's natural offspring, with the augmentation of artificial implants beginning immediately after birth. It was not until subsequent encounters that Starfleet learned that the Borg do not procreate amongst themselves and youths taken by the Collective were placed in maturation chambers to accelerate their growth into adult drones.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
An infant Borg, as originally observed by CommanderWilliam Riker in 2365, was speculated to be the Borg's natural offspring, with the augmentation of artificial implants beginning immediately after birth. It was not until subsequent encounters that Starfleet learned that the Borg do not procreate amongst themselves and youths taken by the Collective were placed in maturation chambers to accelerate their growth into adult drones.
In theory the Borg might be able to create new drones via a form of artificial fertilization.
An infant Borg, as originally observed by CommanderWilliam Riker in 2365, was speculated to be the Borg's natural offspring, with the augmentation of artificial implants beginning immediately after birth. It was not until subsequent encounters that Starfleet learned that the Borg do not procreate amongst themselves and youths taken by the Collective were placed in maturation chambers to accelerate their growth into adult drones.
Even memory alpha isn't always right but I my knowledge on voyager stuff isn't that precise so.... May it be so.....
In theory the Borg might be able to create new drones via a form of artificial fertilization.
In practice they should be. I mean not only did the certainly assimilate the necessary technology and also the biological components for that..
...the borgs perfection quest would be futile if not.
Think about it: even Borg drones age. They need to be replaced.
Imagine the Borg would actually manage to assimilate the entire galaxy.... Well minus the kazon... So let's say everything they deem worthy of assimilation. How would they procreate then? They'd just wait and die? They need their biological components after all.
Also in terms of the perfection they look for.... A geneticly designed beeing getting rid of any flaws would be part of it...
In theory the Borg might be able to create new drones via a form of artificial fertilization.
They use corpses as well. The nanites pump fluids and stimulate electrical responses as needed, re-animating dead tissue.
They could just replicate living tissue and cobble it together. It's not like there's all that much living tissue on the aged borg. They're more metal substructure than anything else. Maybe nerves on a spine. Bone replaced with metal, etc.
Of course this really beggars belief, since all the nonstop effort and development that went into that in the first place would have been a million times easier if they just created metal limbs. No need for tissue. You'd have machine shops and forges instead of incubation pods. Borg assimilation is just... inefficient!
They use corpses as well. The nanites pump fluids and stimulate electrical responses as needed, re-animating dead tissue.
They could just replicate living tissue and cobble it together. It's not like there's all that much living tissue on the aged borg. They're more metal substructure than anything else. Maybe nerves on a spine. Bone replaced with metal, etc.
Of course this really beggars belief, since all the nonstop effort and development that went into that in the first place would have been a million times easier if they just created metal limbs. No need for tissue. You'd have machine shops and forges instead of incubation pods. Borg assimilation is just... inefficient!
Probably a technology from assimilated kobali^^
But seriously that only works for a limited time, from some degree of decompensation on this won't help much..
Also I think nobody is questioning the Borg beeing bad guys...
In practice they should be. I mean not only did the certainly assimilate the necessary technology and also the biological components for that..
...the borgs perfection quest would be futile if not.
Think about it: even Borg drones age. They need to be replaced.
Imagine the Borg would actually manage to assimilate the entire galaxy.... Well minus the kazon... So let's say everything they deem worthy of assimilation. How would they procreate then? They'd just wait and die? They need their biological components after all.
Also in terms of the perfection they look for.... A geneticly designed beeing getting rid of any flaws would be part of it...
Enh by the time the Borg finish with this galaxy they'd have worked out how to start invading others.
But yeah... I do have to wonder why the Borg haven't started to work on making better organic parts for their drones.
It isn't clear IF Borg age though. It's possible the nanites keep the organic parts from aging.
They use corpses as well. The nanites pump fluids and stimulate electrical responses as needed, re-animating dead tissue.
They could just replicate living tissue and cobble it together. It's not like there's all that much living tissue on the aged borg. They're more metal substructure than anything else. Maybe nerves on a spine. Bone replaced with metal, etc.
Of course this really beggars belief, since all the nonstop effort and development that went into that in the first place would have been a million times easier if they just created metal limbs. No need for tissue. You'd have machine shops and forges instead of incubation pods. Borg assimilation is just... inefficient!
The Borg are just doing what they're programmed to do. Trying to understand them with any analogy other than a botnet that's accumulated a few programming errors (to explain the weird superstitions the Collective gets sometimes, like Omega molecules and the Undine) misses the point IMHO.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
The Borg are just doing what they're programmed to do. Trying to understand them with any analogy other than a botnet that's accumulated a few programming errors (to explain the weird superstitions the Collective gets sometimes, like Omega molecules and the Undine) misses the point IMHO.
Freaking Omega Molecules...that whole concept drove me nuts, and it still bugs me quite a lot.
The best way to get through this game is forget about Star Trek Federation rules and just play the game. The writer's don't seem to know or care about the real meaning of Star Trek at all. Its always about killing because that's what the kiddie's want.
I agree with everything that precedes. From my point of view, the Kobali are far from being the poor victims the storyline would want you to relate to. I do not hate them per say, but i certainly cannot relate to them either.
I'm confused by the sentiments in this thread. I thought the whole point of this storyline was to finally expose the Kobali for what they were--an arrogant, selfish race that explained what it was doing as doing their victims a "favor", when in reality they were really reclaiming dead people to bump up their numbers and add to their "family." It wasn't somehow to suggest that they were victims or to have the player relate to them. Not even close.
How could that be the case? It's clear from the storyline that we were supposed to completely identify with Captain Kim and his revulsion over what the Kobali had done to Ensign Kim--not identify with the Kobali. That was the whole point in the first place of using a well known character from the Voyager to be the center of the story instead of some random, made up character with no history. If you were a Voyager fan, you would immediately have been heartsick, if not revolted to know that this is what happened to the "other" Kim, that the poor SOB had been walking around confused for 32 years still thinking that was part of the crew and imprisoned. There is no way you would've completed the storyline thinking, "Oh, the Kobalis are just helpless victims." You would've been thinking, "OMG, they killed and resurrected Harry! The TRIBBLE!"
I was actually upset by this s/l because to me, Kim being turned Kobali was about 1000x worse than what happened to him in that Voyager episode. I was even hoping beyond hope that he was finally "killed off" in Dust to Dust" and was disappointed that he not only lived but would now spend the rest of his life as a Kobali being tortured by the lingering memories of his life as a human.
Even the dialogue towards the end hammers home the point that the Kobali are the bad guys. There are pieces of dialogue where your character is clearly hostile towards Jhetlaya when she keeps babbling her quasi-cult like nonsense about how Kim is part of her "family" and blah blah blah. Your character is like, "No, Kim can go wherever he wants." Then she backs off and is like, "Oh, of course he can. He can even rejoin Starfleet if he wants."
I can't believe that given all that, that people got out of this s/l this feeling that the Kobali were portrayed as innocent victims. Even worse is the conclusion that the Federation was helping the Kobali with full knowledge of their actions, when it was said repeatedly that they are a deceptive race who frequently lie about their intentions. Not to be harsh, but these rash conclusions suggests that many players don't really become invested in the mission episodes; they just sort of rush through the dialogue and don't take the time to really understand what's going on.
My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
I'm confused by the sentiments in this thread. I thought the whole point of this storyline was to finally expose the Kobali for what they were--an arrogant, selfish race that explained what it was doing as doing their victims a "favor", when in reality they were really reclaiming dead people to bump up their numbers and add to their "family." It wasn't somehow to suggest that they were victims or to have the player relate to them. Not even close.
How could that be the case? It's clear from the storyline that we were supposed to completely identify with Captain Kim and his revulsion over what the Kobali had done to Ensign Kim--not identify with the Kobali. That was the whole point in the first place of using a well known character from the Voyager to be the center of the story instead of some random, made up character with no history. If you were a Voyager fan, you would immediately have been heartsick, if not revolted to know that this is what happened to the "other" Kim, that the poor SOB had been walking around confused for 32 years still thinking that was part of the crew and imprisoned. There is no way you would've completed the storyline thinking, "Oh, the Kobalis are just helpless victims." You would've been thinking, "OMG, they killed and resurrected Harry! The TRIBBLE!"
I was actually upset by this s/l because to me, Kim being turned Kobali was about 1000x worse than what happened to him in that Voyager episode. I was even hoping beyond hope that he was finally "killed off" in Dust to Dust" and was disappointed that he not only lived but would now spend the rest of his life as a Kobali being tortured by the lingering memories of his life as a human.
Even the dialogue towards the end hammers home the point that the Kobali are the bad guys. There are pieces of dialogue where your character is clearly hostile towards Jhetlaya when she keeps babbling her quasi-cult like nonsense about how Kim is part of her "family" and blah blah blah. Your character is like, "No, Kim can go wherever he wants." Then she backs off and is like, "Oh, of course he can. He can even rejoin Starfleet if he wants."
I can't believe that given all that, that people got out of this s/l this feeling that the Kobali were portrayed as innocent victims. Even worse is the conclusion that the Federation was helping the Kobali with full knowledge of their actions, when it was said repeatedly that they are a deceptive race who frequently lie about their intentions. Not to be harsh, but these rash conclusions suggests that many players don't really become invested in the mission episodes; they just sort of rush through the dialogue and don't take the time to really understand what's going on.
First, Keten wasn't walking around for 32 years thinking he was still Kim. Kim was still dead all that time; the Kobali only revived him just before the events of "Dust to Dust". (Also, at the end of the last mission of the Kobali arc, there is a tacked-on cutscene in the temple that shows Jhet'leya looking over the duplicate Kim's body still in its pod, suggesting that "Dust to Dust" occurs around the tail end of the DR storyline.)
Second, the Kobali have never made a secret of the real purpose of reanimating the dead: Since they are not capable of conventional procreation, they are doing it in order to survive as a civilization. Nothing more, nothing less. All the talk about family and doing dead people a favor by reanimating them are just so much window dressing for that much more basic imperative.
Third, Starfleet has known this ever since Voyager first encountered the Kobali in "Ashes to Ashes". They already knew at least the basics about the Kobali and their practices going into Operation Delta Rising. So why would they knowingly help the Kobali anyway? Simple: Because the Kobali weren't the ones wreaking all kinds of havoc across the six sectors of Delta Quadrant accessible in-game. That would be the Vaadwaur Supremacy, and they had already invaded Kobali Prime as part of that, so the Kobali became our allies pretty much by default. (Think of it this way: Suppose hostile aliens invaded Earth, but began by attacking, say, North Korea or ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East. Should the US military come to those governments' aid - or would they really have any choice not to?)
It's pretty much classic lesser-of-two-evils stuff - and the Kobali arc reflected that. The story never struck me as being particularly sympathetic to the Kobali, at least not beyond the fact that DR's already-established villains were invading their homeworld and had to be stopped. Any issues Starfleet or anyone else has with the Kobali could, and indeed did, wait until after the Vaadwaur were kicked out.
Having just finished up the Kobali war missions (I'd been ignoring act 2 and 3 while I finished up the rest of Delta rising) I'm now certain that the storyline is too light on the Kobali.
Oh sure, we have quite a few opportunities to call them out on their actions being immoral, and Captain Kim finally wins the argument against the Benzite captain (whose name I still can't remember), and is rightfully indignant during Dust to Dust. But it's not enough.
For example, when a Kobali commander finally mentions that they're using fallen Vadwaur to bolster their numbers, you can say "Wait, what?!" and "Don't you think They think this is dishonorable?" But he brushes you off, gives you a (frankly half-hearted and ineffectual) rebuttal and you're forced into "Okay, moving on. What's the next mission?"
And while various people say that the Kobali have learned their lesson at the end - and they probably are supposed to have done so - there is still plenty of room for doubt. And it is undercut by all of their earlier secracy - if they did keep doing the same things, how would we ever know?
On the other hand, if Ensign Kim could steal their flagship and run away... well, it would seem that they aren't really that good at keeping new Koballi that don't want to be.
First, Keten wasn't walking around for 32 years thinking he was still Kim. Kim was still dead all that time; the Kobali only revived him just before the events of "Dust to Dust". (Also, at the end of the last mission of the Kobali arc, there is a tacked-on cutscene in the temple that shows Jhet'leya looking over the duplicate Kim's body still in its pod, suggesting that "Dust to Dust" occurs around the tail end of the DR storyline.)
I stand corrected. But I just want to emphasize that error withstanding, it doesn't negate my larger point, that the reason why Ensign Kim from Voyager was used was to have players identify with his plight and feel the same revulsion that Captain Kim did regarding the Kobali, whether he was reanimated 32 years ago or recently. It wasn't to get us to identify with them or see them as victims. I had to put that out there because I didn't think it was fair for people to complain about the storyline with the observation that the Kobali were being portrayed as sympathetic victims when they clearly weren't.
In fact, that whole "sympathetic victim" angle was actually a twist in Dust to Dust. In the beginning you were supposed to think, "Oh, we have to rescue the poor Kobali from these big, bad evil Vaadwaur." But then when Ketan's pod is discovered, it goes from "Poor Kobali victims" to "Stupid morons whose abhorrent reanimation practices just bit them in the TRIBBLE and is causing the crisis that brought us to their aid in the first place AND is endangering Tuvok and Voyager," lol.
Second, the Kobali have never made a secret of the real purpose of reanimating the dead: Since they are not capable of conventional procreation, they are doing it in order to survive as a civilization. Nothing more, nothing less. All the talk about family and doing dead people a favor by reanimating them are just so much window dressing for that much more basic imperative.
Isn't this a contradiction? If the Kobali have never made a secret of their intentions, why the "window dressing" in the first place? Isn't the window dressing itself the act of the Kobali hiding their intentions to those who disagree with their practices?
But let's say for the sake of argument that according to ST canon, Starfleet always knew what the Kobali were all about. It's a moot point in terms of this discussion, because in the end, we're discussing "Dust to Dust" as the writers had intended. Some people think that the writers portrayed Starfleet aiding the Kobali against the Vaadwaur knowing full well the evils of reanimation (and not caring).
However, I thought the writers made it clear that according to their s/l, the Kobali have never been honest with Starfleet due to their shady stance of keeping secrets and that there was a possibility that SF never really understood the "truth" behind their reanimation until Captain Kim experienced it firsthand. Or maybe it had been sweet-talked somehow into believing that reanimation was, indeed, a wonderful thing and didn't really get the full implication of how emotionally traumatic it was to the victim. (According to the s/l, I repeat, not canon.)
Third, Starfleet has known this ever since Voyager first encountered the Kobali in "Ashes to Ashes". They already knew at least the basics about the Kobali and their practices going into Operation Delta Rising. So why would they knowingly help the Kobali anyway? Simple: Because the Kobali weren't the ones wreaking all kinds of havoc across the six sectors of Delta Quadrant accessible in-game. That would be the Vaadwaur Supremacy, and they had already invaded Kobali Prime as part of that, so the Kobali became our allies pretty much by default. (Think of it this way: Suppose hostile aliens invaded Earth, but began by attacking, say, North Korea or ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East. Should the US military come to those governments' aid - or would they really have any choice not to?)
No disagreement here. That's what SF's intervention amounted to. Starfleet wasn't really rushing to the Kobali's aid in terms of this black and white notion that they had to rescue the sweet, wonderful reanimating aliens from the big, bad evil wolves. Nor was it ignoring the morality of either the Kobalis or the Vaadwaurs. Regardless of whether one feels that the Vaadwaurs were in the right concerning the "temple" and the Kobalis wrong, the fact is that they were acting aggressively in settling a dispute with the Kobali by launching a full-on assault. All SF was doing was stopping an aggressive party.
Unfortunately, this meant having to finally contend with the fact that the people they were defending from the Vaadwaurs were problematic in their own right and--sorry to say--wouldn't really much of a "loss" if they were destroyed.
My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
Most races don't need their body after death. Next of kin or offspring wont starve if they don't consume you. For those races that have an afterlife - is their soul/ka/whatever still bound to their remains after they are dead?
Should Kobali should use corpses from races that will remember their past life?
Depends on that races cultural preference and the individuals own choice.
Unfortunately most races don't seem to carry a card with "my preferred body handling after death in case a Kobali finds it".
This should be a great business opportunity for the Ferengi - it is almost to the point where one could see the diplomatic "trading" mission for a Kobali-Ferengi joint venture business. The Ferengi would most likely be very keen on procuring and providing any transportation of deceased for a modest fee.
"Sign up to sell your remains and enjoy the platinum now."
Comments
The Vaadwaur have a legitimate grievance against the Kobali that the Kobali refuse to recognize. Given the state of the DQ and its state before Janeway the Butcher came through, the Vaads' reactions are not just completely understandable, they are a logical first response. The genocide from Gaul and his mind-controlled lieutenants is across the line, but attacking the Kobali to get their people back? Par for the course for the DQ, and it's better than what the Kobali do, because at least those Vaadwaur in stasis will be happy to be woken up and brought back to their families and friends, as opposed to the Kobali who run, who have to be dragged back kicking and screaming.
Frankly, the Kobali have not one single leg to stand on, morally. They're useless Stalin crossed with Space Netanyahu, and that's not a combination that is palatable to me.
Note that the above applies only to the Kobali government and current regime; the Kobali people probably have a greater respect for sentient rights.
minus daddy jhet'leya, of course
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
They would not have gotten nearly as much attention as they did.
Even the evil vaadwaur are having a WAR.
That still means they do not attack randomly, they use their resources on strategic targets.
So we don't know if the Kobali world has any remote strategic value I can't see which it should have.
So given that they after all had some deffinsive capabilities, and assumed the world has little or no strategic value.... Attacking them would be a waste of resources.
If it has any value that might be different but since we do not have any indication for that I'll assume it has none.
The U.S. didn't support him out of the kindness of their heart. Helping them made their own war against Germany easier.
Helping the Kobali makes our war harder. Because we waste resources on defending a world ( probably) without strategic value.
Well I usually do not see game dynamics as indication for their tech level. We should not be able to mass destruct Borg cubes after all. Somehow everyone is exactly equally strong now^^
But for the.... They must actually gone through major technological advancements.
It seems to be that I'm the only one who is bothered by that..... But the kazon should not be in that area of space at all.
The delta quadrant is very big. Voyager made several jumps towards the series which shortcuted her voyage for more then 25 years, yet somehow kazon and ocampa end up appearing regulary in a part more 25 years of travel away from their encounter with voyager (where their actual home is, including colonies and stuff).... Which btw also had em passing through Borg space (although... Kazon are to worthless to be assimilated... And ocampa are probably even worst... so I'll ignore that part...)
I mean the travel alone takes about 3-4 generations for the ocampa...
I actually doubt that. It's their means procreation. It's completly normal for them.
And that's ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO.
There are human abusers, too. I hold out hope that there are some Kobali who aren't absolute scum.
that only happened once in a single episode, and i've seen raiders take multiple bursts of phaser fire from voyager (whose phasers have a far higher output) without their shields collapsing in several episodes
given those two contradictory appearances, i'll go with the one shown more often, as that's more likely to be the correct one
as for the replicator...trying to integrate any kind of alien technology into a ship it may not be designed for is just asking for trouble; a similar thing happened with the sikarian trajector
the difference there is, b'elanna had the presence of mind to blow the thing up before it could destroy the ship
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Two episodes, actually.
Chakotay easily destroyed a Kazon raider in "Initiaions" with one shot despite getting hit multiple times before he even gave the Kazon a warning. In "Basics", Paris dogfights and destroys multiple Kazon raiders with a heavily-damaged shuttle.
I'm calling Bad/Lazy Writing again.
You do have a point there, but the Kazon were also shown to be incapable of even the most basic military tactics, requiring a Cardassian to literally hold their hands through the entirety of a basic pincer maneuver. That's beyond stupid.
besides, as i recall, a runabout was once able to destroy a trio of jem'hadar attack ships, or at least critically damage them - and those are a hell of a lot more durable than kazon raiders
eh, i don't know about that...the kazon-ogla train their men, at the very least - that was THEIR training moon in 'Initiations'
the kazon as a species are still pretty dumb compared to most other races, but a small portion of that can easily be explained away thanks to them never receiving proper educations thanks to the trabe, and as a nomadic and exceedingly warlike culture, they still wouldn't have gotten much education even after the uprising
the rest of the stupidity is just due to lackluster writing - most of the main cast considered them nothing more than dumb brutes, and braga referred to them as 'half-baked klingons'
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Let me put it this way. The Borg refused to assimilate the Kazon into it, because doing so could only degrade it.
That is BEYOND pathetic, to have even the Borg reject you.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Oh look another sf debris viewer...
And honestly I don't know what's to discuss here. The kazon were constantly shown and explicitly said to be technologicaly massively inferior.
They were only a remote thread to one isolated science ship through superior numbers.
And even then they did not really dare openly attack the voyager....
What makes me wonder all the more how they end up in the region in space we are now....
You do know that the Borg can procreate more or less naturally? (More "naturally" then the Kobali..... They are breeding children/drones in incubators)
No, you don't understand. Seven of Nine said that Talaxians make "Excellent drones". When your species is rejected by the Borg, who value Neelix and his species, you are so far beyond pathetic and useless that you barely qualify as sentient life. The Kazon are physically unimpressive, severely intellectually limited, tactically inept, technologically inferior, and have terrible senses. They're beyond useless. Assimilating them isn't even pointless, it would actively degrade the Borg.
THAT is what "unworthy of assimilation" means.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
My character Tsin'xing
Even memory alpha isn't always right but I my knowledge on voyager stuff isn't that precise so.... May it be so.....
In practice they should be. I mean not only did the certainly assimilate the necessary technology and also the biological components for that..
...the borgs perfection quest would be futile if not.
Think about it: even Borg drones age. They need to be replaced.
Imagine the Borg would actually manage to assimilate the entire galaxy.... Well minus the kazon... So let's say everything they deem worthy of assimilation. How would they procreate then? They'd just wait and die? They need their biological components after all.
Also in terms of the perfection they look for.... A geneticly designed beeing getting rid of any flaws would be part of it...
They use corpses as well. The nanites pump fluids and stimulate electrical responses as needed, re-animating dead tissue.
They could just replicate living tissue and cobble it together. It's not like there's all that much living tissue on the aged borg. They're more metal substructure than anything else. Maybe nerves on a spine. Bone replaced with metal, etc.
Of course this really beggars belief, since all the nonstop effort and development that went into that in the first place would have been a million times easier if they just created metal limbs. No need for tissue. You'd have machine shops and forges instead of incubation pods. Borg assimilation is just... inefficient!
Probably a technology from assimilated kobali^^
But seriously that only works for a limited time, from some degree of decompensation on this won't help much..
Also I think nobody is questioning the Borg beeing bad guys...
Dunno. The drones aren't discrete entities, just appendages for the Borg mind. Could be, depending on how you look at it.
But yeah... I do have to wonder why the Borg haven't started to work on making better organic parts for their drones.
It isn't clear IF Borg age though. It's possible the nanites keep the organic parts from aging.
My character Tsin'xing
The Borg are just doing what they're programmed to do. Trying to understand them with any analogy other than a botnet that's accumulated a few programming errors (to explain the weird superstitions the Collective gets sometimes, like Omega molecules and the Undine) misses the point IMHO.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Freaking Omega Molecules...that whole concept drove me nuts, and it still bugs me quite a lot.
Check your email, btw.
I'm confused by the sentiments in this thread. I thought the whole point of this storyline was to finally expose the Kobali for what they were--an arrogant, selfish race that explained what it was doing as doing their victims a "favor", when in reality they were really reclaiming dead people to bump up their numbers and add to their "family." It wasn't somehow to suggest that they were victims or to have the player relate to them. Not even close.
How could that be the case? It's clear from the storyline that we were supposed to completely identify with Captain Kim and his revulsion over what the Kobali had done to Ensign Kim--not identify with the Kobali. That was the whole point in the first place of using a well known character from the Voyager to be the center of the story instead of some random, made up character with no history. If you were a Voyager fan, you would immediately have been heartsick, if not revolted to know that this is what happened to the "other" Kim, that the poor SOB had been walking around confused for 32 years still thinking that was part of the crew and imprisoned. There is no way you would've completed the storyline thinking, "Oh, the Kobalis are just helpless victims." You would've been thinking, "OMG, they killed and resurrected Harry! The TRIBBLE!"
I was actually upset by this s/l because to me, Kim being turned Kobali was about 1000x worse than what happened to him in that Voyager episode. I was even hoping beyond hope that he was finally "killed off" in Dust to Dust" and was disappointed that he not only lived but would now spend the rest of his life as a Kobali being tortured by the lingering memories of his life as a human.
Even the dialogue towards the end hammers home the point that the Kobali are the bad guys. There are pieces of dialogue where your character is clearly hostile towards Jhetlaya when she keeps babbling her quasi-cult like nonsense about how Kim is part of her "family" and blah blah blah. Your character is like, "No, Kim can go wherever he wants." Then she backs off and is like, "Oh, of course he can. He can even rejoin Starfleet if he wants."
I can't believe that given all that, that people got out of this s/l this feeling that the Kobali were portrayed as innocent victims. Even worse is the conclusion that the Federation was helping the Kobali with full knowledge of their actions, when it was said repeatedly that they are a deceptive race who frequently lie about their intentions. Not to be harsh, but these rash conclusions suggests that many players don't really become invested in the mission episodes; they just sort of rush through the dialogue and don't take the time to really understand what's going on.
First, Keten wasn't walking around for 32 years thinking he was still Kim. Kim was still dead all that time; the Kobali only revived him just before the events of "Dust to Dust". (Also, at the end of the last mission of the Kobali arc, there is a tacked-on cutscene in the temple that shows Jhet'leya looking over the duplicate Kim's body still in its pod, suggesting that "Dust to Dust" occurs around the tail end of the DR storyline.)
Second, the Kobali have never made a secret of the real purpose of reanimating the dead: Since they are not capable of conventional procreation, they are doing it in order to survive as a civilization. Nothing more, nothing less. All the talk about family and doing dead people a favor by reanimating them are just so much window dressing for that much more basic imperative.
Third, Starfleet has known this ever since Voyager first encountered the Kobali in "Ashes to Ashes". They already knew at least the basics about the Kobali and their practices going into Operation Delta Rising. So why would they knowingly help the Kobali anyway? Simple: Because the Kobali weren't the ones wreaking all kinds of havoc across the six sectors of Delta Quadrant accessible in-game. That would be the Vaadwaur Supremacy, and they had already invaded Kobali Prime as part of that, so the Kobali became our allies pretty much by default. (Think of it this way: Suppose hostile aliens invaded Earth, but began by attacking, say, North Korea or ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East. Should the US military come to those governments' aid - or would they really have any choice not to?)
It's pretty much classic lesser-of-two-evils stuff - and the Kobali arc reflected that. The story never struck me as being particularly sympathetic to the Kobali, at least not beyond the fact that DR's already-established villains were invading their homeworld and had to be stopped. Any issues Starfleet or anyone else has with the Kobali could, and indeed did, wait until after the Vaadwaur were kicked out.
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Oh sure, we have quite a few opportunities to call them out on their actions being immoral, and Captain Kim finally wins the argument against the Benzite captain (whose name I still can't remember), and is rightfully indignant during Dust to Dust. But it's not enough.
For example, when a Kobali commander finally mentions that they're using fallen Vadwaur to bolster their numbers, you can say "Wait, what?!" and "Don't you think They think this is dishonorable?" But he brushes you off, gives you a (frankly half-hearted and ineffectual) rebuttal and you're forced into "Okay, moving on. What's the next mission?"
And while various people say that the Kobali have learned their lesson at the end - and they probably are supposed to have done so - there is still plenty of room for doubt. And it is undercut by all of their earlier secracy - if they did keep doing the same things, how would we ever know?
On the other hand, if Ensign Kim could steal their flagship and run away... well, it would seem that they aren't really that good at keeping new Koballi that don't want to be.
I stand corrected. But I just want to emphasize that error withstanding, it doesn't negate my larger point, that the reason why Ensign Kim from Voyager was used was to have players identify with his plight and feel the same revulsion that Captain Kim did regarding the Kobali, whether he was reanimated 32 years ago or recently. It wasn't to get us to identify with them or see them as victims. I had to put that out there because I didn't think it was fair for people to complain about the storyline with the observation that the Kobali were being portrayed as sympathetic victims when they clearly weren't.
In fact, that whole "sympathetic victim" angle was actually a twist in Dust to Dust. In the beginning you were supposed to think, "Oh, we have to rescue the poor Kobali from these big, bad evil Vaadwaur." But then when Ketan's pod is discovered, it goes from "Poor Kobali victims" to "Stupid morons whose abhorrent reanimation practices just bit them in the TRIBBLE and is causing the crisis that brought us to their aid in the first place AND is endangering Tuvok and Voyager," lol.
Isn't this a contradiction? If the Kobali have never made a secret of their intentions, why the "window dressing" in the first place? Isn't the window dressing itself the act of the Kobali hiding their intentions to those who disagree with their practices?
But let's say for the sake of argument that according to ST canon, Starfleet always knew what the Kobali were all about. It's a moot point in terms of this discussion, because in the end, we're discussing "Dust to Dust" as the writers had intended. Some people think that the writers portrayed Starfleet aiding the Kobali against the Vaadwaur knowing full well the evils of reanimation (and not caring).
However, I thought the writers made it clear that according to their s/l, the Kobali have never been honest with Starfleet due to their shady stance of keeping secrets and that there was a possibility that SF never really understood the "truth" behind their reanimation until Captain Kim experienced it firsthand. Or maybe it had been sweet-talked somehow into believing that reanimation was, indeed, a wonderful thing and didn't really get the full implication of how emotionally traumatic it was to the victim. (According to the s/l, I repeat, not canon.)
No disagreement here. That's what SF's intervention amounted to. Starfleet wasn't really rushing to the Kobali's aid in terms of this black and white notion that they had to rescue the sweet, wonderful reanimating aliens from the big, bad evil wolves. Nor was it ignoring the morality of either the Kobalis or the Vaadwaurs. Regardless of whether one feels that the Vaadwaurs were in the right concerning the "temple" and the Kobalis wrong, the fact is that they were acting aggressively in settling a dispute with the Kobali by launching a full-on assault. All SF was doing was stopping an aggressive party.
Unfortunately, this meant having to finally contend with the fact that the people they were defending from the Vaadwaurs were problematic in their own right and--sorry to say--wouldn't really much of a "loss" if they were destroyed.
Should Kobali should use corpses from races that will remember their past life?
Depends on that races cultural preference and the individuals own choice.
Unfortunately most races don't seem to carry a card with "my preferred body handling after death in case a Kobali finds it".
This should be a great business opportunity for the Ferengi - it is almost to the point where one could see the diplomatic "trading" mission for a Kobali-Ferengi joint venture business. The Ferengi would most likely be very keen on procuring and providing any transportation of deceased for a modest fee.
"Sign up to sell your remains and enjoy the platinum now."