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End of Iconian War?

thomaselkinsthomaselkins Member Posts: 575 Arc User
Today's post at mmorpg.com mentions that the Iconian War will be ending in the nearish future. After 5 years of building up this story arc, is it wise to conclude it so soon? This isn't a doom thread or anything because I can think of plenty of things to do after the Iconian War concludes, I just find it odd that it's concluding so quickly. I personally hope that it's more of a lull in fighting and while we move on to other things, the Iconian War is still technically going. The Federation-Klingon War for example doesn't end at the conclusion of the Klingon War arc.

While we move on to the Romulan Mystery and then mess with the Cardassians, Undine and the Mirror Universe, the Federation-Klingon War continues to rage on. It doesn't end until the Undine assault Earth and Qo'noS. I really think the Iconian War should be the same way. We've seen the Iconians argue with each other, so if we do meet up with them and sign a temporary cease fire or something, one of them could disagree and continue the fighting. The Heralds are fanatics so some of them should fight for this Iconian and keep the War going, even if it's not as important this time around. I can see T'Ket continuing the war for example.

Perhaps this way we could get a Herald Bridge Officer from the allied Iconians to help our crew attempt to make piece with T'Ket? Either way, if Cryptic is intent on ending this war permanently, then I hope the Iconians and their Heralds don't just disappear for good. Set up a neutral zone around Iconia and have them continue to occasionally interact with the community. Maybe if a new big bad appears in the future, the Iconians could lend assistance? Or maybe a new enemy can provide a distraction and the Iconians continue their plan without interference from us?

People are already complaining that it doesn't feel much like a war. Ending it all this year after 5 years of build up would make it even more disappointing.

Comments

  • warmaker001bwarmaker001b Member Posts: 9,205 Arc User
    Only two actual, active conflicts has lasted long "IRL" time with STO. The Federation-Klingon War, Borg "Invasion" with lots of content based on such events. Everything else was inconsequential or very short. The fights with the Mirror Universe, Tholians, RSE/Tal Shiar have been around for ages but in the overall scope of the game, too short to string anything meaningful together. More of a case of a fight here, a fight there. The highlight wars with the Voth, Species 8472, Vaadwaur were supposed to be a big deal but a few fights here and there and a few months go by, now they're has-beens. The Iconian War is basically going the same way as those Voth, 8472, Vaadwaur "wars."
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  • sheldonlcoopersheldonlcooper Member Posts: 4,042 Arc User
    I am as nervous as one can be about the future of STO, however I have heard plenty of hints and tidbits of things in the works. They are clearly planning well through 2016. I'm confident we will have many more adventures. I think they are looking to wrap the Iconians up quickly so we can move on - basically not make the game about the Iconians anymore.
    Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."

    "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

  • lordinsanelordinsane Member Posts: 274 Arc User
    I would say that given the build-up having the Iconian War be a 1-season thing seems odd. I'd have expected another season, at least (this being the 'beginning of the War' season and that one being the 'end of the War' season).
  • iconiansiconians Member Posts: 6,987 Arc User
    There is no benefit to protracted warfare. That being said, I find it unlikely Cryptic will get rid of the Heralds/Iconians entirely and simply make it part of the existing storyline in the episodes tab. Once the Cinematic Iconian War ends, I'm banking on the start of another storyline.

    Al Rivera says they want to get back into currently-existing storylines from the shows and movies (and likely the game itself), since the Iconian War was more or less an in-house thing, whereas the 2,800 (for example) was a hanging plot from DS9.

    The Iconian War ending does not mean anything else other than the conclusion of a story, and possibly the introduction of a new one. After all, we still have the Gamma Quadrant that deserves attention -- and the Andromeda Galaxy.

    There's still an entire universe to get pissed off at us and decades of Star Trek story to be told within STO.
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  • anazondaanazonda Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
    Well, there's still "The Other"
    Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
    Let me put the rumors to rest: it's definitely still the C-Store (Cryptic Store) It just takes ZEN.
    Like Duty Officers? Support effords to gather ideas
  • alexraptorralexraptorr Member Posts: 1,192 Arc User
    To be fair, the Klingon Federation war was a conflict between fairly equally matched belligerents with traditional border skirmishes and raids into enemy territory.

    The iconians are an entirely different beast, an ancient enemy with vast technological superiority and numbers.
    Given how the Alpha Quadrant forces totally got their butts handed to them in the first engagements of the war, a prolonged conflict just isn't plausible.
    There are no frontlines with an enemy that can literally appear anywhere in the galaxy in an instant.
    "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
  • nathanielcapp01nathanielcapp01 Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    i can't seem play right now what is going on with the sto game.
    Is it still on maintenance or not
  • vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,336 Arc User
    i can't seem play right now what is going on with the sto game.
    Is it still on maintenance or not

    Maintenance was yesterday for the game. Whatever problem you're experiencing with the game is probably due to something on your end.

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 Arc User
    I'm supremely disappointed. This feels like what Berman and Braga tried to do to the Dominion War, and it's a d*mn good thing Ira Steven Behr and Ron Moore had the guts not to let them cut the war short: some of DS9's best episodes happened in those two seasons. This "war" already feels more like a minor border dispute than an actual war -- the Iconians have made a couple major incursions and otherwise pretty much left things alone, as if they didn't have enough ships to blot out the sun of a Dyson sphere.

    Let's see them gorram using those zillion ships. They shouldn't be shutting down the war, they should be ramping it up! Sector space random encounters! Red alerts! Ground battlezones! Planets getting glassed (Risa, please)!

    Or maybe Worffan101 and I are right, and the Iconians are just hammy idiots who have no idea what they're doing. Kinda like Cryptic's writing team.
  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    We've had 5 years of war with Iconians, they fight via Proxies, the Iconians don't fight directly, they simply aren't enough Iconians for that.

    The Klingon-Federation was caused by the Undine who were manipulated in doing so by the Iconians, which was the first blow agianst the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, without requiring direct invovlement by the Iconians, but still I'd argue it was the beginning of the war (actually the Klingon-Gorn war was, but we don't play in a part in that).

    Next was the Wars with the Undine (who aren't servitors, but unwitting pawns), Elachi (Servitors), Voth (unwitting pawns), Solanae sort of via they're swarmers (servitors), Talshiar (Servitors), Bluegills (servitors), Vadwaars (servitors), and via a betrayal the Kazon briefly, and finally the Heralds. Each race battled is a Chapter in the Iconian War, this is just the end threatre of the War. Even now for the most part the Iconians don't fight us directly, they use the Heralds, they're strongest servants, the ones they likely never intended the Alpha/Beta/Delta Quadrant races to even know about, the sledge hammers for a manipulative race that perfers to use scapels.

    The powerful as the Heralds are with they're own Dyson Sphere, the fact that the Iconians have had to turn to using them, they're last ace is a sign of how badly the war is going for the Iconians. Yes the Heralds are tough and they've had more successes then other servitors/pawns, but its the last card the Iconians have to play.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 Arc User
    lordgyor wrote: »
    We've had 5 years of war with Iconians, they fight via Proxies, the Iconians don't fight directly, they simply aren't enough Iconians for that.

    The Klingon-Federation was caused by the Undine who were manipulated in doing so by the Iconians, which was the first blow agianst the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, without requiring direct invovlement by the Iconians, but still I'd argue it was the beginning of the war (actually the Klingon-Gorn war was, but we don't play in a part in that).

    Next was the Wars with the Undine (who aren't servitors, but unwitting pawns), Elachi (Servitors), Voth (unwitting pawns), Solanae sort of via they're swarmers (servitors), Talshiar (Servitors), Bluegills (servitors), Vadwaars (servitors), and via a betrayal the Kazon briefly, and finally the Heralds. Each race battled is a Chapter in the Iconian War, this is just the end threatre of the War. Even now for the most part the Iconians don't fight us directly, they use the Heralds, they're strongest servants, the ones they likely never intended the Alpha/Beta/Delta Quadrant races to even know about, the sledge hammers for a manipulative race that perfers to use scapels.

    The powerful as the Heralds are with they're own Dyson Sphere, the fact that the Iconians have had to turn to using them, they're last ace is a sign of how badly the war is going for the Iconians. Yes the Heralds are tough and they've had more successes then other servitors/pawns, but its the last card the Iconians have to play.

    You're missing the point. The Heralds may indeed be the Iconians' last line of defense, but they have jillions of them. Using the measurements of the Solanae Sphere as a baseline, an Iconian Dyson sphere has a radius of 1 AU, or about 150 million kilometers. That's a volume of 1.402×10^34 cubic meters, a frankly absurd volume by any ordinary measure, albeit still small in astronomical terms. And the Herald fleet fills this incomprehensibly huge volume to the brim.

    So why in God's name aren't they being used properly? This should look like the Reaper War in Mass Effect 3, but instead you wouldn't even know there's a war on if you skipped the featured episodes. For that matter, why did the Iconians even bother with all the running around in the shadows for the past half-century when their fleet is so huge they'd roflpwn all the major powers of the galaxy combined with sheer numbers?

    Answer: Because Cryptic has a worse sense of scale than the jackass who managed to put Qo'noS in the Sol system Oort cloud in ENT.
  • lordinsanelordinsane Member Posts: 274 Arc User
    My feeling here is that the Iconian War should be a short but intense war. 'Intense', going by the seasons I've been here for thus far (including Season 10 does far) seems to require more than one season
    lordgyor wrote: »
    We've had 5 years of war with Iconians, they fight via Proxies, the Iconians don't fight directly, they simply aren't enough Iconians for that.

    The Klingon-Federation was caused by the Undine who were manipulated in doing so by the Iconians, which was the first blow agianst the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, without requiring direct invovlement by the Iconians, but still I'd argue it was the beginning of the war (actually the Klingon-Gorn war was, but we don't play in a part in that).

    Next was the Wars with the Undine (who aren't servitors, but unwitting pawns), Elachi (Servitors), Voth (unwitting pawns), Solanae sort of via they're swarmers (servitors), Talshiar (Servitors), Bluegills (servitors), Vadwaars (servitors), and via a betrayal the Kazon briefly, and finally the Heralds. Each race battled is a Chapter in the Iconian War, this is just the end threatre of the War. Even now for the most part the Iconians don't fight us directly, they use the Heralds, they're strongest servants, the ones they likely never intended the Alpha/Beta/Delta Quadrant races to even know about, the sledge hammers for a manipulative race that perfers to use scapels.

    The powerful as the Heralds are with they're own Dyson Sphere, the fact that the Iconians have had to turn to using them, they're last ace is a sign of how badly the war is going for the Iconians. Yes the Heralds are tough and they've had more successes then other servitors/pawns, but its the last card the Iconians have to play.
    What that would suggest is a short but intense war. Personally I don't feel that last part is something we've really gotten with the Iconian War, at least not outside exposition. That's one reason why I think another season would've been good - not just to advance to the end of the war but also to fill out the entire war and give more time and resources to having the content to make this the kind of conflict it supposedly is.
  • swamarianswamarian Member Posts: 1,506 Arc User
    You're missing the point. The Heralds may indeed be the Iconians' last line of defense, but they have jillions of them. Using the measurements of the Solanae Sphere as a baseline, an Iconian Dyson sphere has a radius of 1 AU, or about 150 million kilometers. That's a volume of 1.402×10^34 cubic meters, a frankly absurd volume by any ordinary measure, albeit still small in astronomical terms. And the Herald fleet fills this incomprehensibly huge volume to the brim.

    So why in God's name aren't they being used properly? This should look like the Reaper War in Mass Effect 3, but instead you wouldn't even know there's a war on if you skipped the featured episodes. For that matter, why did the Iconians even bother with all the running around in the shadows for the past half-century when their fleet is so huge they'd roflpwn all the major powers of the galaxy combined with sheer numbers?

    Answer: Because Cryptic has a worse sense of scale than the jackass who managed to put Qo'noS in the Sol system Oort cloud in ENT.

    My guess is that the in game justification has something to do with the "Other." In "Time in a Bottle," one of the Iconeans wants to just wipe us out, and the others decide to stick to the plan. Watch Sela come riding in with a bunch of Iconean males and save the day.
  • foolishowlfoolishowl Member Posts: 102 Arc User
    I was puzzled in that episode that there was a line about how the forces of the Alpha and Beta quadrant had neutralized the forces in the Dyson sphere. When and how did that happen? That'd be kind of a big deal.

    As was said above, it really seems as if Cryptic has a terrible sense of scale. I have to assume they didn't bother to do the math on the scale of the fleet they described in the Dyson sphere -- the *mass* of the fleet of ships they describe would exceed the mass of all the worlds inhabited or explored by the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, excluding aside the Dyson spheres themselves. They don't seem to even consider how incredibly massive the Dyson spheres are. (Larry Niven had a pair of novels about a ringworld, in which he makes it clear how incomprehensibly huge such a structure would be -- and a Dyson sphere is orders of magnitude more vast).

    So yes, as described, the Herald fleets should have been able to conquer the known universe almost without effort. Compare how the Delta Alliance spent a huge amount of effort to defeat the Vaadwaur, despite the fact that they were a tiny group, massively outnumbered and outgunned.

    In a way, the scale of the threat is so overwhelming that it kind of makes sense that they'd have to have some plot expedient to close it down.

    The problem is, in the first place, almost everything in STO has been tied into the Iconian storyline. There's still unfinished business on several fronts, but at the moment, with the exception of the Voth, everyone is either effectively allied against the Iconians, or neutral and officially at peace with the antagonists. In the second place, for better or for worse, STO has in fact methodically mined the entire Star Trek canon, so when almost everything in STO has been tied to the Iconian storyline, it means that almost everything in Star Trek has been tied to the Iconian storyline.

    It could be a good thing, to finally step back from the perpetual escalation and have some storylines on more reasonable scales -- although that's still a bit odd with our characters who became fleet admirals a few months out of the academy, and with the Federation/Klingon/Romulan alliance now mastering time as well as space. The scale is still way off.
  • thomaselkinsthomaselkins Member Posts: 575 Arc User
    edited July 2015
    foolishowl wrote: »
    I was puzzled in that episode that there was a line about how the forces of the Alpha and Beta quadrant had neutralized the forces in the Dyson sphere. When and how did that happen? That'd be kind of a big deal.

    Perhaps that's how they see "The Herald Sphere" PvE map? The continued assault on their sphere could be how they've been neutralized. It's pretty dumb to assume we chipped away at so many ships over such a small amount of time but this could be how they see it.
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,284 Arc User
    edited July 2015
    While we move on to the Romulan Mystery and then mess with the Cardassians, Undine and the Mirror Universe, the Federation-Klingon War continues to rage on. It doesn't end until the Undine assault Earth and Qo'noS. I really think the Iconian War should be the same way. We've seen the Iconians argue with each other, so if we do meet up with them and sign a temporary cease fire or something, one of them could disagree and continue the fighting. The Heralds are fanatics so some of them should fight for this Iconian and keep the War going, even if it's not as important this time around. I can see T'Ket continuing the war for example.

    any cease-fire made with the iconians will not be involving m'tara, at least, since
    she's going to be leading an assault on earth within the next episode or two

    that blue one from TiaB, however, seemed fairly reasonable and moderate for an iconian - s/he even gave us 'sentients' a backhanded compliment
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