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Romulan factions
denizyuruk
Member Posts: 53 Arc User
Forgive me if someone else asked this before. I know that something was mentioned in old threads and sorry for my english too.
As a noob coming from fantasy games like Everquest 2 where you can choose an evil,neutral or good race ...I'd like to ask you:
1) do you think STO should have the choice to play also as a RSE romulan? And if that was possible,would you have chosen to stay with the Republic or against?
2) If there are players who roleplay as pro-RSE: how do you deal with the missions and game in general?
As a noob coming from fantasy games like Everquest 2 where you can choose an evil,neutral or good race ...I'd like to ask you:
1) do you think STO should have the choice to play also as a RSE romulan? And if that was possible,would you have chosen to stay with the Republic or against?
2) If there are players who roleplay as pro-RSE: how do you deal with the missions and game in general?
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I think they're pretty dead-set on the Romulan Republic being the only Romulan faction. However, they have been willing to give us uniform options and the IRW prefix (for most ships) for those of us who prefer the RSE.
I'm pro-RSE, and I play RR because I'm more or less forced to. I don't consider my gameplay of the Romulan missions as part of my headcanon -- if anything I just consider it like an alternate timeline where my character joins the RR. Or some other "What if" scenario. Best case scenario, I portray it as working with the RR for the greater good.
I also think of the Romulan Republic as the United States of America in that they are a unified Republic, but they have various states who are more liberal or conservative than others -- if I'm part of that Republic, I'd like to think of my character as a fascist lunatic who threatens to secede each time the Romulan Republic says something I don't like.
Like, maybe I'm part of Romulan Texas or Romulan Alaska. Sure, I'm part of the Republic -- and I enjoy all the benefits from it, but maybe I just like to be contrary because I can. I like to think of myself as an obstructionist.
I'm the guy who roots for Darth Vader in Star Wars. I'm the guy who thought Scar was given a bad rap in The Lion King. I'm the guy who hopes the Coyote catches the Roadrunner. I think Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons is dreamy.
To me, the Romulans are best when they're villains. And they've had no issues working with their enemies before if it's the means to an end.
I find heroes are best defined by the villains they face. A group of Romulan good guys without any dissidents makes for a pretty boring story.
I would like that option, though the deep Romulans of TOS or DS9, not the StateSec caricatures of TNG.
Also, it would have to be the actual RSE not the Iconian allied Tal Shiar.
I would have both characters, a Reman in the RR, and a Romulan in the RSE.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
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But the idea that Cryptic/PWE would grant an RSE faction (of any style) is highly improbable, if not outright impossible. We don't have the numbers (and the decision to do the Romulan faction as they did, with forced alliances, incomplete development, and even as a Republic instead of an Empire, may very well have something to do with lack of numbers; frankly, I can't see why anyone would make a Fed or Klingon character as their first choice if Romulans are available as a full faction -- secondary and/or tertiary characters, sure, but I've dreamed of being the Romulan commander on TEI -- and marrying Spock -- since I was like ... 4 years old, for oh so many reasons).
I figure it would be something like the current Starfleet. A blend of the Starfleet from all the shows/movies where nobody is happy because it isn't enough of one particular representation.
I'm fine with the Republic. It takes off of what was indicated in TNG, that the Romulan police state did not and does not enjoy the support of the Romulan people, which feeds into Roddenberry's hopeful vision of the future: that dictatorships and oligarchies will fall and prosperous democracies will rise. To borrow a line from another franchise, "There is no greater force in the universe than the need for freedom." With the disruption by Hobus of the Romulan police state, the Rihanh found its opening, and they seized freedom with both hands and held on tight. That's to be admired.
Could Cryptic have done a better job writing their villains? Absolutely: Hakeev makes me roll my eyes every time he appears, and Sela... well, actually Sela's pretty well in line with how she was written in the show, that being as a borderline incompetent, narcissistic clinical psychopath with good publicity. Would I then want to play as those villains? Hell no. By all means, enjoy a well-written villain, but never forget that they are the villain, which many of the Tal Shiar partisans and Dukat fans I've seen on this board have apparently done.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Unfortunately, I think most of those Dukat fans are focusing on the few redeeming qualities Dukat had and ignoring the fact that he was quite insane. I'm not sure I have seen any redeeming qualities to the Tal'Shiar.
it has been asked before but its something that will surely be asked again
1)Originally yes I think they should have made it a choice between RSE and RR. However when they decided to plop Sela as Empress and then make a terrible caricature of every cartoon villain be the exemplars of the remnants of the RSE and Tal Shiar, they pretty well destroyed any desire I had to align with that disaster. I would have aligned with the RSE and purged the ranks on my way up of all these brain washed and cartoon-ish terrible fools to resurrect the Empire to mean something again.
2)I gave up on any Imperial RP 1/2 way through my first Romulan character's run through the plot. I was almost willing to give the Republic a go then they decided to turn on the gate. -.-
That gate business is a red herring, too. We now know that pseudo-Cooper the Undine was there using his psionic abilities to influence the Romulans involved (this is stated explicitly), so stop blaming D'Tan and Kererek for it.
Really? I never saw ANYWHERE that was stated and it sure as hell seemed like that mission was done BEFORE cooper went to fluidic space where he becomes an Undine. Also considering D'Tan shows up right after you secure the thing and his first real question was 'can you turn it on?' to which A'drala(before being altered by the iconians/solanae/whatever) was quite hesitant about the idea and answered 'maybe'. So no Cooper, even if he was an Undine, had nothing to do with the decision to turn it on. At BEST he might have been the reason that buffoon Kererek was so insistent that it HAD to be turned on NOW!
nice try but not this time proto
It was stated. Very clearly. That A'dranna had been influenced to open the gate and to sabotage it, so that the whole thing would fail. (IIRC it were the Iconian servitors who did that, not Coopundine, but my memory is rubbish, so I could be wrong here.)
Sure, D'Tan was excited and wanted it to be something, but it were the scientists, who were overconfident. A'dranna and the other scientists kept repeating that everything was fine, and dismissing Worf's concerns without a second thought.
If D'Tan and Kererek are guilty of anything, it's trusting the scientists. But who could they trust, if not people who are supposed to be specialists? I doubt they'd push for anything, if the scientists said "nope, we can blow New Romulus in process". But they didn't. They insisted no danger was possible, all was cool and dandy, so why not turn it on?
I'm furious at those reckless scientists every time I replay the episode. They are arrogant and blind, not D'Tan and not Kererek.
"You open the Iconian gateways with the scientists you have, not the scientists you wished you had." -- D'Donald Rhumsfeld
note that I made reference to A'Dranna's being mentally altered in the post you quoted and it was AFTER the incident I mentioned. You are also ignoring that the project's chief engineer and OTHERS on the team expressed grave concerns and wanted more time. This in ADDITION to ignoring the "expert" they specifically invited to give his advice and opinions. Kererek couldn't stand to have set a timetable, invited representatives and promise a big show, then say 'sorry there are safety concerns, we need to postpone.' A little egg on his face was too much for him to bear so by damn he'd make the timetable!
edit:
I'll have to replay it again but iirc Cooper there, again I believe pre-undine, says something to the exent of that he'd feel better/safer if they had more time to study before activating it.
Cooper's pretty strongly indicated to have been replaced in "Fluid Dynamics", which is set before "Sphere of Influence".
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
yeah but that mission also can be done before fluid dynamics and pre-dates the borg revamp so its a little wonko. The thing for me is in that mission, his voice lacks the whiney tone and chicken ***** streak he picks up in fluid dynamics and everything later. Its more in line with the mission you're introduced to Cooper in where he's confident, if a little scared, and not constantly whining about how weak everything is :P
In the gate activation, he's right next to A'dranna.
Later, in one of the Delta Rising missions, the Undine are revealed to have been influencing the Romulan scientists who were working on the gate.
Also, predating anything is irrelevant. You can try to claim something was retconned, but the Devs are working on things well in advance of their release, and neither you nor I know that they didn't already have this plot twist in mind before the gate activation went live.
You first meet Cooper in "A Gathering Darkness", where he is shown to be a rather courageous man, willing to put his life on the line to help fix his mistake instead of letting the demigodlike entity that is the player character fix everything for him.
Younext meet him in "Fluid Dynamics". He is onboard the USS Venture. The ship is destroyed by Undine vessels. After it, he suddenly turns cringy and whiny/ Of note is "How can we fight them? They're so strong, are we're so weak." Given its similarity to the Undine's favorite catchphrase, its clearly Cooperdine not-so-subtly indulging in some undercover chest beating.
I looked in "Sphere of Influence", his next appearance. His line is too short and he's not in any evident danger, so no reason to be cringy. A'dranna is pretty clearly under Iconian influence, given the exposition from the various Iconian logs. Its quite possible that she may have been implanted with a bluegill as well, now that we know who created them. And...the prescense of Cooper, who was pretty clearly replaced by an Undine already, cannot be ignored. The chances that an Undine placed in such a significant project and NOT trying its level best to influence everyone around it psionically are so small as to be infinitesimal.
And of course, we know how hte rest of hte song and dance goes.
Whatever you may have seen is a far cry from what I saw. I saw D'Tan simply saying what a great find it was, and asking IF it could be turned on. Could be simple curiosity. Also....the person talking to D'Tan in hte subtitles is named Adria. As it says on STOwiki, it could be A'dranna has a twin sister (Though its somewhat more likely to be a typo). I however, prefer to ask "How could this be?" rather than state "I cannot be, so it isn't". And....I never saw Kererek pushing to GO GO GO. He was simply there watching. It was A'dranna who was hot to turn it on, and we know who was "whispering in her ear".
Folks saying that this was in some way 'inevitable' because of CBS are being disingenuous. yes, the game takes place chronologically after the destruction of Romulus, but that in no way precluded the possibility of playing RSE. Again, the RSE still existed in the game, Romulus or no. And even in the post Legacy of Romulus storyline we ended up getting, the Republic achieves it's current status as a galactic power from even lesser beginnings. The entire Romulan storyline is about the 'underdog' Republic defeating the bigger and better equipped Star Empire, so the entire premise that the Star Empire was in no shape post Hobus disaster to be a faction is-quite frankly-preposterous .
We know the reason why Cryptic made the Romulans the way they were-and it wasn't because CBS said they had to. They are on record saying that they made the Romulans 'good guys' because 'bad guy' factions don't sell as well...so they set out to make the Romulan faction as generically appealing as possible.
Sadly, we have to make do with what we have.
It's the definition of a retcon. No doubt in response to the great number of people pointing out that the Republic's actions in that episode were insane and self-destructive.
This isn't exactly new for Cryptic, they Retcon things all the time-the entire Romulan storyline being the most obvious example.
1. You do NOT speak for "everyone," so do not presume to declare what "everyone" expected.
2. By your reasoning, TNG's and later series' RSE is more like a retcon, having indulged in revisionism to turn the Romulans into something they had not been before. Why? The movies stole the "Honorable Warrior" routine the Romulans had from their original portrayals and gave it to the Klingons. That was retcon as well, by your reasoning, because in TOS and TAS, the Klingons were more like pirates in their mentality. Here you have a retcon, by your reasoning, which is revisionism blatantly changing two species into something they were never shown to be previously, with little or no canonical explanation, even if those responsible did not go back to TOS and TAS and change them to reflect their revisionism. But the situation was never explained in canon to any extent other than the vague hint that the augment virus might have played a role in the Klingon's previously more savage and less honorable behavior. There is a deuterocanonical explanation for the change in the Romulan, and that is the story that the Tal'Shiar was founded by Devoras tr'Narviat in 2344 and that he was assassinated in 2373, after which the Tal'Shiar became more and more unbridled and already by the time of the first TNG episode, set in 2364, it had usurped enough authority to have had an adverse effect on the Imperial Star Navy and to terrorize the people. And guess where that story comes from? If you actually liked Romulans, you would not advocate their being cowed into an oppressed people under the thumb of a secret police force.
3. What a retcon is actually is going back to an earlier work and altering it to make it consistent with a change made in a later work. THIS DID NOT HAPPEN WITH REGARD TO COOPER. You not knowing where the Devs were headed with him, what they intended for the game storyline, and what they had in mind does not equate to "the definition of a retcon." It equates to you being ignorant of things which you were supposed to be ignorant about. They didn't change anything in the earlier story just to shut you up (and indeed, they did not change the story at all in any sort of retcon, because they had no need to do so); I get the impression they don't much care about your "Urgh, must be brain-damaged Tal'Shiar-led RSE drone!" perspective, nor your criticism of the Republic (if they really wanted to shut you and your ilk up, they would have done what they should have and opened the Capitol up to RRF players to show (a) it's a city and not a "grand imperial palace" -- although this should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to the dialogue and looks at the construction, and (b) there's a Senate -- although the existence of a Senate building would likely still not shut some of you up, because you have yet to concede the numerous other times you've been shown to be wrong, probably because of the ludicrous examples of anything remotely akin to even debate which your real-world political figures provide to you, because, you see, sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending that black is white even in the face of overwhelming evidence is not debate, and it's certainly not logic, but what it is in fact is unthinking and incorrigible dogmatism, blind "faith," Orwellian DoubleThink, or outright propaganda, none of which are admirable and only serve to encourage me to think of you in sincerely unflattering terms).
I think you need to replay them then, because actually there were no undine really near where he was, and he stated they were close enough they would eventually find him if we didnt hurry our asses up. And as Tolmarius said he had some balls to him. He doesn't turn into a whiny coward until fluid dynamics. Now he thinks coopers dialogue line is too short to really tell, but I disagree. Mostly because even during his scenes where he thinks he's in charge dominating Tuvok mentally his voice work has a whiney quality to it we dont hear when meeting him or during step between the stars. I don't recall any delta mission stating the Undine had anything to do with the gate activation and Ive played all the delta missions twice to the end and have a couple more lv57-59 that have done most of them. Please name it. It was shown during your run through the subspace solanae facility that THEY had modified her.
If the name of the character is different ok, same terrible voice actress so I did make an assumption there. And yes you and I apparently saw two very different things there, imo, D'Twerp's tone held a LOT more than 'simple curiosity'. How you missed Kererek I don't know... he ignores Worf, he ignores his own chief engineer, and his dialogue shows he's brushed aside any and all concerns because there's a schedule to keep.
Other people remember it, so since you're the only one who doesn't, ...
Tolmarius is my daughter, not a he.
I don't remember all the names of these missions, especially with the headache I currently have. This is why I referred to "the one where ..." as if they were episodes of Friends or something.
Kererek was there under influence as well. Still yet, the truly gung-ho were the ones like white-headed dude who got pumped full of a synthetic polymer and A'dranna, who is standing right next to Cooper for most of the mission prior to escaping through the gateway. And curiously enough, I don't remember Cooper being among those who had to flee through the gateway, almost as if he already knew what was going to go down or something ...
tolmarius=she.. noted
and now I know you need to replay.. "the white haired dude who got pumped full of a synthetic polymer" was the chief engineer that agreed with worf, wanted more time, was uneasy, felt the readings from the gate were 'off' and was rather happy to see you strapping spatial charges onto the gate.
and if you remember the name of it at some point, please post it cause I dont recall ANY DR mission that did that, and they honestly suck to much to play them through agaom randomly lookin for a line or two of dialogue.
He initially was rather annoyed to see you strapping spatial charges to the gate pylons, and then realized it was probably a good precaution. He was also at that moment some distance away from Cooper, who was otherwise occupied with some console over near A'dranna. Undine psionic abilities are strong, but they do not seem to be able to exert constant influence on multiple persons at varying distances from them and interact with consoles simultaneously; Tuvok was not constantly under Cooper's influence, either.
And if you are willing, I'll play through the DR missions with you again so we can both know the name of the episode and see the statement and I can screen shot with you present so I can remind you later. :P I have both KDF- and Fed-allied Romulans of appropriate level. In fact, I have at least one of each who are currently in the DQ (except that they're right now on Risa being vigilant while others play in the festival).
As for the rest, I didnt figure he was annoyed specifically by the bombs so much as saw you TRIBBLE with something extremely complicated and sensitive, then realized you were strapping bombs on. Hence the 'WHAT ARE YOU.... ahhh good idea." Seemed more like a literal, 'wtf u doin', followed by realizing what. Not a 'why u strapping bombs on.... oh ya know..'
I havent actually been PLAYING sto for months now, unless you count dailies on risa playing, barely been doffing. The stories in the DR were half blah and too broken by bad patrols. I have one character thats not even done with the cardi arc but has tier5 rep for everything but iconian :P Which is another reason why I find coopers existence there problematic... you can quite easily do that mission before fluid dynamics, and most of my characters HAVE done it before the borg chain. This is why, imo, they didn't give him more lines.
And if that doesn't settle the question, I'll replay the mission myself and take video of all the dialog early on.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
edit:
lol forgot cooper's appearance changed too
DR was improved in several ways since the initial release. Argala is no longer a black hole sucking the life out of your FPS, for example. Vaadwaur OP ships are no longer OP. A lot of stuff has been cleaned up and made compatible with more vid/graphics cards than NVIDIA, which seems to be what the whole release was originally aimed at.
Come on. I won't bite you.
... unless I get thirsty enough or am exposed to too much UV radiation (which does bad things to a vampiress' skin, you know, so ...)
LOL you aint the only vampire runnin round here hun.. and yeah my Delta Recruit I made for the Romulan fraction is about 60% through it but then again I have an nvidia card
Interesting reply
Well said, that is why I am also supporting the Republic, not the Star Empire Remnant and would do so, even if there was a choice in game.
The Romulan Republic stands for freedom. Power to the people. All that garbage.
The people never have the power, only the illusion of it. The Republic is united by a common cause now, but when the conflict is finished -- then each of the leaders of the Romulan Republic will decide how to interpret what freedom means, and how best to ensure control and cement their "Legacy".
As someone previously (and likely accurately predicted), this will lead to internal struggles and strife as the current leadership begins entrenching themselves in this New Romulan Order. Right now they are beating the war drums. They are giving the same old song and dance over shrugging off oppression and tyranny.
Romulans will always be Romulans. We're chanting "Death to the RSE!" now, but give the Romulan Republic a good solid decade, and you will simply see the D'Tanists turn into the thing they so desperately tried to eradicate.
Because it is never about "freedom" or "justice". It is about power. When they think they may lose their power -- they will take steps to ensure it remains in their grasp.
The freedom New Romulus wants. The peace and self-determination Mol'Rihan wants will never exist. There will always be opportunists in the ranks, and the people who desire power very seldomly are deserving of it.
Those of us who support the RSE are simply realists. We know the nature of the raptor. We know it can't be tamed. It can't be broken. And just like Jurassic Park, when the Romulan Republic think they have control -- that is when the illusion will very quickly fade and we'll see D'Tan hiding in a bathroom from a Voth dinosaur-like creature with lasers attached to its forehead...
... I was going somewhere with this. Anyway. The RSE will always exist in the Republic because there will always be those who recognize it is necessary to make all equal.
Freedom isn't a right. It's a liability.