I understand that it's possible for a lower-ranking officer to be in over-all command. Captain Sisko, acting as an adjutant to an admiral, was ordering the disposition of multiple fleets in the assault on Cardassia in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, for example. But that's not what I'm complaining about. It's the tone. The other officers address you as if you're junior to them. And, the odd thing about your character saying that they will file an objection, is that it implies your character isn't directly involved in the high-level decision-making process. You'd expect that all the senior leadership of the three factions would have been involved in such an important decision well before this moment. Maybe you could understand filing an objection as something with a gravity analogous to a supreme court justice writing a dissenting opinion, but there's nothing else really to justify that interpretation.
But more generally, there's been a shift in tone with the Iconian War, and this isn't really about rank, per se.
At least as far back as the Cardassian Struggle, the NPCs react to your character as a particularly respected person who has accomplished a great deal, without reference to your rank. Several important NPCs make a point of deferring to you, and asking you to take the lead: Captain Shon, Admiral Tuvok, Ambassador Worf. In some missions, you're asked to decide how to deploy other ships; in others, it's established that your character makes important decisions. Aside from easing the game mechanics, that's consistent with the TV series -- from TOS on, it almost always appeared that a Starfleet captain is generally considered a very important person; Kirk almost always got immediate responses from the heads of state of entire worlds, and was treated by them with respect. This remained the case with other series, and I also often got the impression that Picard was treated as effectively a peer by Starfleet admirals, whom he usually seemed to know personally.
By contrast, in the Iconian War episodes, your character seems to be getting ordered around, with no input. In "Broken Circle", you're assigned to a wing of ships -- without even the conceit that you're in command of the wing of ships. Someone unnamed announces that you're the last to arrive, and orders the wing into action. In "Time in a Bottle", the mission opens with you being treated like a nobody by Ferengi merchant. Perhaps that was intended to be comic. But generally, I got the feeling that the writer was after the feel of a CRPG, about the stage when a player character arrives in the Big Hub City but almost no one knows who they are. But narratively, we appear to be in the endgame, and it's well established that the player character is very important.
All you say is true, of course. But the thing to keep in mind, though, is that we're not really Fleet Admirals. Or, to paraphrase The Incredibles, "Everyone being a Fleet Admiral is just another way of saying no one is." We are, for most purposes and intent, just Starship Captains (and not just because the one in charge of the ship is always called 'Captain').
I know the higher rankings were necessary for the progression system, but it honestly just works best for me to simply see myself as a Starship Captain, and nothing else.
I understand that it's possible for a lower-ranking officer to be in over-all command. Captain Sisko, acting as an adjutant to an admiral, was ordering the disposition of multiple fleets in the assault on Cardassia in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, for example. But that's not what I'm complaining about. It's the tone. The other officers address you as if you're junior to them. And, the odd thing about your character saying that they will file an objection, is that it implies your character isn't directly involved in the high-level decision-making process. You'd expect that all the senior leadership of the three factions would have been involved in such an important decision well before this moment. Maybe you could understand filing an objection as something with a gravity analogous to a supreme court justice writing a dissenting opinion, but there's nothing else really to justify that interpretation.
But more generally, there's been a shift in tone with the Iconian War, and this isn't really about rank, per se.
At least as far back as the Cardassian Struggle, the NPCs react to your character as a particularly respected person who has accomplished a great deal, without reference to your rank. Several important NPCs make a point of deferring to you, and asking you to take the lead: Captain Shon, Admiral Tuvok, Ambassador Worf. In some missions, you're asked to decide how to deploy other ships; in others, it's established that your character makes important decisions. Aside from easing the game mechanics, that's consistent with the TV series -- from TOS on, it almost always appeared that a Starfleet captain is generally considered a very important person; Kirk almost always got immediate responses from the heads of state of entire worlds, and was treated by them with respect. This remained the case with other series, and I also often got the impression that Picard was treated as effectively a peer by Starfleet admirals, whom he usually seemed to know personally.
By contrast, in the Iconian War episodes, your character seems to be getting ordered around, with no input. In "Broken Circle", you're assigned to a wing of ships -- without even the conceit that you're in command of the wing of ships. Someone unnamed announces that you're the last to arrive, and orders the wing into action. In "Time in a Bottle", the mission opens with you being treated like a nobody by Ferengi merchant. Perhaps that was intended to be comic. But generally, I got the feeling that the writer was after the feel of a CRPG, about the stage when a player character arrives in the Big Hub City but almost no one knows who they are. But narratively, we appear to be in the endgame, and it's well established that the player character is very important.
All you say is true, of course. But the thing to keep in mind, though, is that we're not really Fleet Admirals. Or, to paraphrase The Incredibles, "Everyone being a Fleet Admiral is just another way of saying no one is." We are, for most purposes and intent, just Starship Captains (and not just because the one in charge of the ship is always called 'Captain').
I know the higher rankings were necessary for the progression system, but it honestly just works best for me to simply see myself as a Starship Captain, and nothing else.
Not the first 'The Incredibles' reference in this thread either: as I said earlier:
The Incredibles; Syndrome: Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can't believe it...
One of STO's lead villans displayed less intelligence than a Disney villan. Kinda says it all really.
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
And for the player characters - there is only one player character in the real story universe. Because there can be only one Romulan Admiral that shot Hakeev in the head. There can be only one Federation Cadet that saved this particular ship from the Borg. There can be only one KDF Second Officer that took charge after his Captain was proved a coward but his First Officer failed to challenge him successfully.
Event that Romulan Admiral can't co-exist with the former Federation Cadet or the former KDF Second Officer - because it can't have been both Obisiek and the RR officer that killed Hakeev.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
No, Incrediboy actually nailed it for the full 100%. His mom gave him the lame "Everybody is special." routine, and he swiftly made mince of that.
Special: distinguished by some unusual quality; especially, being in some way superior
If everyone's superior, no one is. Incrediboy is right on a mathematically irrefutable level. That he later turns out to become the villain is wholly irrelevant.
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
No, Incrediboy actually nailed it for the full 100%. His mom gave him the lame "Everybody is special." routine, and he swiftly made mince of that.
Special: distinguished by some unusual quality; especially, being in some way superior
If everyone's superior, no one is.
But the term used was "special".
If one guy can fly and the other has heat vision, they are both special, and they can do very different things.
If one gal is good at math and the other gal is good at story-telling, they are both special, but they will have very different careers.
And everyone being a Fleet Admiral has the same thing. Because realistically you would not be used for the same task or job. One Fleet Admiral might be in charge of the Cardassian/Federation border, another of Earth Space Dock, and another of a deep space exploration fleet.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The reason we aren't in charge is simple. None of us Admirals have been in a war. Now before you state "but the Federation and Empire were at war, the Republic was rebelling against the Star Empire", that's actually true. However, we ourselves, were doing specialized missions away from the front lines. Sure we assisted in specific events that were apart of the war, but very rarely did we participate on the front lines. The few times any of us did, it was to basically be the hero and make the save or rescue or our particular task got us to the "final battle", but it wasn't like we were supposed to be there. We just continued the mission.
Heck, in Broken Circle, we weren't on the front lines. We went into the Sphere, did a specific task and then got out. We're not the soldier, who's life is valuable but expendable. We're the specialist who does specific tasks, who's value far outweighs everyone else's. Command can't give us the top billing, because as mentioned previously, we are the Alliance's best "weapon". You don't let them anywhere near a situation that can get them killed.
If we did get command, we would turn around and try to be that soldier on the front lines, because we don't want to lose more people. We would sacrifice ourselves and the Galaxy would lose the best shot it has at saving everyone. Because guess what we're about to do? Go do a specific task to save everyone. Again.
We aren't like the other Captains whose footsteps we follow. We aren't the explorer like Kirk. We haven't gone anywhere new yet. We aren't an ambassador like Jean-Luc, we've rarely participated as the best to share what our race is to another. Sisko was a general, but we've rarely given orders outside our ship. We aren't a vagabond/drifter like Janeway, in that home is always someplace to be and aren't looking for ways back. Nor do we follow Archer's footsteps as we rarely have played the diplomat, unless specifically asked for.
So what type of role are we? The Hired Gun who has become The Figurehead. No, really. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense and explains why we're respected. We're always assigned complex and difficult missions that no sane person would want to do. It also is why we never get any power for giving orders. They had no choice but to promote us for all the awesome stuff we'e done. Think about how all of this stuff has been done in 2 years. It is either promote us or risk having a mutiny on your hands. So they promote us, yet keep us away from the power of responsibility. We're still a Captain, but have the "rank" of Fleet Admiral.
It also is why we still get to go on these missions. We're the best at what we do. You send us in, we're almost always going to get the mission done. And even if we don't get a win, we get results that are far better than you'd expect. Basically the Alliance would love never to do that(you don't want a Figurehead to die), but they are never given a choice in the matter. You either send the best, or we all lose.
If any of you have read To Aru Majutsu No Index (English Title: A Certain Magical Index), we're exactly like Kamijou Touma. Well, except the downside of his luck. Or that he keeps getting members in his ever growing harem.
I've posted this in another thread, but I'm re-posting here as it's just as relevant:
The M’Tara scenario in this episode was one of the most un-Trek like things I’ve ever seen. We ran around making her weaker and weaker - arguably killing her slowly. And then, without a second thought, we just let her die. I kept thinking to myself “this is Star Trek – thinly veiled or not - someone will have a crisis of conscience and attempt to save her”. But we don’t. We just stand there, basically congratulating ourselves. FOR MURDERING SOMEONE! She dies in front of her ‘family’ and at no point do we question whether it was the right thing to do. No question of whether this act made us as bad as them. No guilt. No remorse. No thought for the consequences. Quite the contrary – we pretty much give ourselves a pat on the back for it.
So why are our characters suddenly so damned stupid? Why didn’t we, or someone, stop and say “Hey, wait a moment – killing her won’t achieve anything beyond making her ‘family’ angry – is that really what we want?” Well, apparently it was. Because we’re stupid. M'Tara was at least portrayed as being a 'voice of reason' to the Iconians; who the hell in our fleet of idiots thought that we'd be better off with T'Ket, who has more reason to hate us than any other Iconian, in charge?!
Yeah – sorry – this flat out ruined the episode for me. Fine, it was perhaps necessary, to the storyline, for her to die. That does not mean that we couldn’t have at least ATTEMPTED to save her. Hell, it might have given the Iconians something to think about
1. It worked, didn't it? You adapt your tactics to exploit your enemy's weaknesses.
2. It's isn't murder when you are at war, and you eliminate an enemy that tries to kill you. Which, I might add, M'Tara was just trying to do (along with her horde of summoned mooks).
3. In a war where you are taking serious losses in manpower and material, any significant victory is good for morale.
4. M'Tara was far from being the "voice of reason", as you put it. If I remember correctly, she was the one who wiped out the High Council without so much as a second thought, just because they were talking smack. She was the one who was responsible for the death of the only known Preservers left in the galaxy, including one she killed herself. If one bothers to listen to her dialogue, she considers her enemies barely above the level of insects. I have NO sympathy for such a MEGALOMANIAC. She had it coming.
5. T'Ket getting it's way (becoming a key decision maker) may be a blessing disguise. T'Ket comes across as a hot-headed, hot-blooded idiot who is all about RIP AND TEAR. This is the kind of commanding officer that leads to higher than acceptable losses, lost battles, and pyrrhic victories. The Alliance can very easily bleed the Iconians dry, and win a long-term strategic victory, with this idiot in charge, as opposed to the more intelligent and calculating M'Tara.
6. I firmly believe that people make the mistake to assume that L'Miren could've been be approachable, without all of the information. The only thing she advocated was CAUTION in their campaign against the Alliance powers. Whether or not she supported the war remains to be seen.
I've posted this in another thread, but I'm re-posting here as it's just as relevant:
The M’Tara scenario in this episode was one of the most un-Trek like things I’ve ever seen. We ran around making her weaker and weaker - arguably killing her slowly. And then, without a second thought, we just let her die. I kept thinking to myself “this is Star Trek – thinly veiled or not - someone will have a crisis of conscience and attempt to save her”. But we don’t. We just stand there, basically congratulating ourselves. FOR MURDERING SOMEONE! She dies in front of her ‘family’ and at no point do we question whether it was the right thing to do. No question of whether this act made us as bad as them. No guilt. No remorse. No thought for the consequences. Quite the contrary – we pretty much give ourselves a pat on the back for it.
So why are our characters suddenly so damned stupid? Why didn’t we, or someone, stop and say “Hey, wait a moment – killing her won’t achieve anything beyond making her ‘family’ angry – is that really what we want?” Well, apparently it was. Because we’re stupid. M'Tara was at least portrayed as being a 'voice of reason' to the Iconians; who the hell in our fleet of idiots thought that we'd be better off with T'Ket, who has more reason to hate us than any other Iconian, in charge?!
Yeah – sorry – this flat out ruined the episode for me. Fine, it was perhaps necessary, to the storyline, for her to die. That does not mean that we couldn’t have at least ATTEMPTED to save her. Hell, it might have given the Iconians something to think about
6. I firmly believe that people make the mistake to assume that L'Miren could've been be approachable, without all of the information. The only thing she advocated was CAUTION in their campaign against the Alliance powers. Whether or not she supported the war remains to be seen.
Yeah, it's not a matter of if or who but how much and when. L'Miren seems like the sort that would rather plan then fight.
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
No, Incrediboy actually nailed it for the full 100%. His mom gave him the lame "Everybody is special." routine, and he swiftly made mince of that.
Special: distinguished by some unusual quality; especially, being in some way superior
If everyone's superior, no one is.
But the term used was "special".
If one guy can fly and the other has heat vision, they are both special, and they can do very different things.
If one gal is good at math and the other gal is good at story-telling, they are both special, but they will have very different careers.
And everyone being a Fleet Admiral has the same thing. Because realistically you would not be used for the same task or job. One Fleet Admiral might be in charge of the Cardassian/Federation border, another of Earth Space Dock, and another of a deep space exploration fleet.
But don't you get it?! *Everybody* in game being a Fleet Admiral is silly. It's like making every soldier on the field a General. Because then you might just as well say no one is.
"Okay, troops, you're all Generals now, but we're gonna give each of you a different job, so it's okay: you really *are* special."
Yeah, no. Seriously, all of the higher ranks really only work if not everybody else holds the same rank too. Which is why, for most purposes and intent, I just consider myself a Starship Captain: making me having to take orders from higher-up a lot more palatable and realistic.
But don't you get it?! *Everybody* in game being a Fleet Admiral is silly. It's like making every soldier on the field a General. Because then you might just as well say no one is.
"Okay, troops, you're all Generals now, but we're gonna give each of you a different job, so it's okay: you really *are* special."
Yeah, no. Seriously, all of the higher ranks really only work if not everybody else holds the same rank too. Which is why, for most purposes and intent, I just consider myself a Starship Captain: making me having to take orders from higher-up a lot more palatable and realistic.
This goes back to the discussion that Cryptic should have capped rank (not level) at Captain - the true Star Trek hero rank (with Fleet Leaders able to gain an Admiral title). Something I truly believe would have been good for the game.
But that horse has been beaten to death so badly that it is only so much goo anymore.
Once the Admiral genie was let out of the bottle, you can never put it back (and Cryptic blew their only chance at rectifying this when Free-to-Play was released.)
So as someone said above, if they are going to force being a Admiral down our throats, then, by god...TREAT US LIKE ADMIRALS!
But don't you get it?! *Everybody* in game being a Fleet Admiral is silly. It's like making every soldier on the field a General. Because then you might just as well say no one is.
"Okay, troops, you're all Generals now, but we're gonna give each of you a different job, so it's okay: you really *are* special."
Yeah, no. Seriously, all of the higher ranks really only work if not everybody else holds the same rank too. Which is why, for most purposes and intent, I just consider myself a Starship Captain: making me having to take orders from higher-up a lot more palatable and realistic.
This goes back to the discussion that Cryptic should have capped rank (not level) at Captain - the true Star Trek hero rank (with Fleet Leaders able to gain an Admiral title). Something I truly believe would have been good for the game.
But that horse has been beaten to death so badly that it is only so much goo anymore.
Once the Admiral genie was let out of the bottle, you can never put it back (and Cryptic blew their only chance at rectifying this when Free-to-Play was released.)
So as someone said above, if they are going to force being a Admiral down our throats, then, by god...TREAT US LIKE ADMIRALS!
I at least think that having the ranks go as high as Fleet Admiral was a mistake. They should have left it at Rear Admiral because at that rank it's far more reasonable to still be in the Captain's Chair, as opposed to a starbase office.
What's bothering me about this is that we are the same rank as Admiral Quinn. You know, the guy who's basically in charge of the entire fleet. We're the same rank, yet we're still for all intents and purposes Captains.
At the very least, there should be some dialogue that explains our player's role. Something that explains, why, despite the highest rank, our role doesn't change. I can't stress this enough, if someone outright said why I'm not sitting in an office on a Starbase commanding multiple ships around, then I'd be alright with everything. Seriously, just do what they did with Kirk, "commanding a starship serves us better than you being an Admiral", except don't demote us (because you can't go back now, Cryptic).
99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer...
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
No, Incrediboy actually nailed it for the full 100%. His mom gave him the lame "Everybody is special." routine, and he swiftly made mince of that.
Special: distinguished by some unusual quality; especially, being in some way superior
If everyone's superior, no one is.
But the term used was "special".
If one guy can fly and the other has heat vision, they are both special, and they can do very different things.
If one gal is good at math and the other gal is good at story-telling, they are both special, but they will have very different careers.
And everyone being a Fleet Admiral has the same thing. Because realistically you would not be used for the same task or job. One Fleet Admiral might be in charge of the Cardassian/Federation border, another of Earth Space Dock, and another of a deep space exploration fleet.
But don't you get it?! *Everybody* in game being a Fleet Admiral is silly. It's like making every soldier on the field a General. Because then you might just as well say no one is.
No, you is the one not getting something:
Every player character becomes a Fleet Admiral: But there is only of those.
There are not a thousand different fleet admirals that once watched Obisiek shoot Hakeev, there are not thousand different Romulan Admirals that shot Hakeev. Because that wouldn't make sense.
Only one Fleet Admiral was directly present when T'Mara died. Or maybe no one, and instead it was a Dahar Master that was there.
Capping our rank at Captain or not having levels be related to ranks might have been the better choice, but even if we only ever got to Captain - there cannot be that many Captains or rather Commanders that shot Hakeev as there are player character.
At best it might help think of all the different characters of the game all persons in different timelines that take a similar role, but might have a very different background and personality. In one reality, it was a blond male Vulcan that had to save his fellow cadets after their Captain died, in another it was a red-skinned bald alien, in another it might have been a female Human with oversized TRIBBLE.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I will say I can agree with some of the criticisms leveled here but:
Starfleet Admiral != Starfleet Command.
Starfleet Command is like the Pentagon or, really, like the Joint Chiefs.
It's a subset of admirals and we have admirals going back to Commodore Decker who have no sway over Starfleet Command aside from favors owed, if that.
Starfleet Command is a narrow and insular subset of admirals, not something that being ranked admiral makes you a part of.
That said, everyone we've seen ranked Fleet Admiral in canon was a part of it but up until STO there had been an assumption that Starfleet only had one person ranked Fleet Admiral at a time.
But I think that you pretty much have to surrender active command of a starship to be part of Starfleet Command and that the admirals we see running ships are almost never part of Starfleet Command. At most, they might have a ship that is parked in the garage kind of like the Defiant was for Captain Sisko on DS9 but most upper leadership doesn't appear to have their own ships.
The admirals I can think of with their own ship:
Riker (AGT), Kirk, Decker.
And of those three, Riker was actually stationed to Starbase 247 with an aging Enterprise he was allowed to keep as what was presumably a Defiant style mission vessel for the starbase.
If you wanted accuracy, we'd probably be transitioning into individual player owned starbases now, maybe with our ships displayed like trophies and deployable on assignments with captains under our command. (That doesn't preclude a fleet starbase as well. But we would probably be living on our own starbase with all of our ships in drydock there being tended to by captains underneath us and Starfleet Command still over us.)
With regard to Kirk, I gathered he was BOTH Admiral and captain (the position, not the rank) in TMP. In any case, he pulled rank like he did with Spock and the whole thing was presented as a problem interfering with his ability to command a ship which was happily resolved through his demotion in IV. He even alludes to that later when talking to Picard.
Riker may well have "owned" the ship but, like you say, it was obsolete. Your impression was that he borrowed it. Mine was that it was basically gathering dust in the Starbase 247 shipyards with Riker using it like the Defiant on DS9.
Re: Decker, a commodore is an admiral. Rear Admiral Lower Half. They're the same rank and, I think, the case could be made based on that for admirals commanding ships. Honestly, we don't see too many admirals who aren't crazy or evil.
Pressman and Ross are both cases as well although like you say, they're tenuous and I believe Ross at least also had a starbase command assignment, Starbase 375.
I think it's funny in some ways that Cryptic has discussed a first officer system because our rank makes us more suited to having an adjutant (ie. admiral's aid) than a first officer.
I know from some threads that pulling the rug on starship command OR admiral titles is (or was with the playerbase
at the time) tricky and likely to be contentious with players. I also gather that and fully custom titles are difficult to implement.
After recent re-play of this mission suddenly had another wtf moment.
Why M'Tara didn't just send those Heralds we're fighting to re-activate the power junctions we disabled earlier ? We didn't leave anyone to guard them, we didn't destroy them. So she could have had us running between those junctions in circle, laughing her energy backside off. We disable the junctions in the so-called "command centre" (why is it a command centre apart from increased number of junctions is still a mystery to me)... ups, the junctions in the first two halls are re-activated and already guarded by bunches of Heralds.
I had wondered that myself... and why didnt they just disable the consoles we're using? Why not lock them, then as soon as there is someone tampering with it gate in a horde?
After recent re-play of this mission suddenly had another wtf moment.
Why M'Tara didn't just send those Heralds we're fighting to re-activate the power junctions we disabled earlier ? We didn't leave anyone to guard them, we didn't destroy them. So she could have had us running between those junctions in circle, laughing her energy backside off. We disable the junctions in the so-called "command centre" (why is it a command centre apart from increased number of junctions is still a mystery to me)... ups, the junctions in the first two halls are re-activated and already guarded by bunches of Heralds.
Yeah, why these power junctions are just in the middle of their hallways, for us to stumble upon, is still a huge mystery to me.
So we go from a fat bragging Klingon who insists on a battle he shouldn't and then wastes his one shot he didn't even earn...
...to M'Tara who can't kill anybody but who despite the famous ability to travel anywhere at whim insists on trying again and again to the point of freakin' suicide. She doesn't even put up a serious fight against my character.
I swear, STO has the worst storylines of any MMO I've ever played and that's dunking under a rather low bar.
Can we add that replays are impossible for some players?
M'tara stops showing up entirely after the first encounter.
M'tara stops showing up entirely after the first encounter.
Lol, looks like you've got the decent version of episode on your client, where M'Tara got the hint that she'll die if she continues to act along these lines and just stays away as she should have done in the initial episode script.
Comments
All you say is true, of course. But the thing to keep in mind, though, is that we're not really Fleet Admirals. Or, to paraphrase The Incredibles, "Everyone being a Fleet Admiral is just another way of saying no one is." We are, for most purposes and intent, just Starship Captains (and not just because the one in charge of the ship is always called 'Captain').
I know the higher rankings were necessary for the progression system, but it honestly just works best for me to simply see myself as a Starship Captain, and nothing else.
Well, the monologing thing might be apt, but.. The "If everyone is special, no one is" - people should remember that it's a villain saying it. Villains tend to tell you things they believe to be true and sound true so they seem plausible and you understand how they came to that position of villain - but they are not actually right.
And for the player characters - there is only one player character in the real story universe. Because there can be only one Romulan Admiral that shot Hakeev in the head. There can be only one Federation Cadet that saved this particular ship from the Borg. There can be only one KDF Second Officer that took charge after his Captain was proved a coward but his First Officer failed to challenge him successfully.
Event that Romulan Admiral can't co-exist with the former Federation Cadet or the former KDF Second Officer - because it can't have been both Obisiek and the RR officer that killed Hakeev.
No, Incrediboy actually nailed it for the full 100%.
Special: distinguished by some unusual quality; especially, being in some way superior
If everyone's superior, no one is. Incrediboy is right on a mathematically irrefutable level. That he later turns out to become the villain is wholly irrelevant.
If one guy can fly and the other has heat vision, they are both special, and they can do very different things.
If one gal is good at math and the other gal is good at story-telling, they are both special, but they will have very different careers.
And everyone being a Fleet Admiral has the same thing. Because realistically you would not be used for the same task or job. One Fleet Admiral might be in charge of the Cardassian/Federation border, another of Earth Space Dock, and another of a deep space exploration fleet.
Heck, in Broken Circle, we weren't on the front lines. We went into the Sphere, did a specific task and then got out. We're not the soldier, who's life is valuable but expendable. We're the specialist who does specific tasks, who's value far outweighs everyone else's. Command can't give us the top billing, because as mentioned previously, we are the Alliance's best "weapon". You don't let them anywhere near a situation that can get them killed.
If we did get command, we would turn around and try to be that soldier on the front lines, because we don't want to lose more people. We would sacrifice ourselves and the Galaxy would lose the best shot it has at saving everyone. Because guess what we're about to do? Go do a specific task to save everyone. Again.
We aren't like the other Captains whose footsteps we follow. We aren't the explorer like Kirk. We haven't gone anywhere new yet. We aren't an ambassador like Jean-Luc, we've rarely participated as the best to share what our race is to another. Sisko was a general, but we've rarely given orders outside our ship. We aren't a vagabond/drifter like Janeway, in that home is always someplace to be and aren't looking for ways back. Nor do we follow Archer's footsteps as we rarely have played the diplomat, unless specifically asked for.
So what type of role are we? The Hired Gun who has become The Figurehead. No, really. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense and explains why we're respected. We're always assigned complex and difficult missions that no sane person would want to do. It also is why we never get any power for giving orders. They had no choice but to promote us for all the awesome stuff we'e done. Think about how all of this stuff has been done in 2 years. It is either promote us or risk having a mutiny on your hands. So they promote us, yet keep us away from the power of responsibility. We're still a Captain, but have the "rank" of Fleet Admiral.
It also is why we still get to go on these missions. We're the best at what we do. You send us in, we're almost always going to get the mission done. And even if we don't get a win, we get results that are far better than you'd expect. Basically the Alliance would love never to do that(you don't want a Figurehead to die), but they are never given a choice in the matter. You either send the best, or we all lose.
If any of you have read To Aru Majutsu No Index (English Title: A Certain Magical Index), we're exactly like Kamijou Touma. Well, except the downside of his
1. It worked, didn't it? You adapt your tactics to exploit your enemy's weaknesses.
2. It's isn't murder when you are at war, and you eliminate an enemy that tries to kill you. Which, I might add, M'Tara was just trying to do (along with her horde of summoned mooks).
3. In a war where you are taking serious losses in manpower and material, any significant victory is good for morale.
4. M'Tara was far from being the "voice of reason", as you put it. If I remember correctly, she was the one who wiped out the High Council without so much as a second thought, just because they were talking smack. She was the one who was responsible for the death of the only known Preservers left in the galaxy, including one she killed herself. If one bothers to listen to her dialogue, she considers her enemies barely above the level of insects. I have NO sympathy for such a MEGALOMANIAC. She had it coming.
5. T'Ket getting it's way (becoming a key decision maker) may be a blessing disguise. T'Ket comes across as a hot-headed, hot-blooded idiot who is all about RIP AND TEAR. This is the kind of commanding officer that leads to higher than acceptable losses, lost battles, and pyrrhic victories. The Alliance can very easily bleed the Iconians dry, and win a long-term strategic victory, with this idiot in charge, as opposed to the more intelligent and calculating M'Tara.
6. I firmly believe that people make the mistake to assume that L'Miren could've been be approachable, without all of the information. The only thing she advocated was CAUTION in their campaign against the Alliance powers. Whether or not she supported the war remains to be seen.
My character Tsin'xing
But don't you get it?! *Everybody* in game being a Fleet Admiral is silly. It's like making every soldier on the field a General. Because then you might just as well say no one is.
"Okay, troops, you're all Generals now, but we're gonna give each of you a different job, so it's okay: you really *are* special."
Yeah, no. Seriously, all of the higher ranks really only work if not everybody else holds the same rank too. Which is why, for most purposes and intent, I just consider myself a Starship Captain: making me having to take orders from higher-up a lot more palatable and realistic.
This goes back to the discussion that Cryptic should have capped rank (not level) at Captain - the true Star Trek hero rank (with Fleet Leaders able to gain an Admiral title). Something I truly believe would have been good for the game.
But that horse has been beaten to death so badly that it is only so much goo anymore.
Once the Admiral genie was let out of the bottle, you can never put it back (and Cryptic blew their only chance at rectifying this when Free-to-Play was released.)
So as someone said above, if they are going to force being a Admiral down our throats, then, by god...TREAT US LIKE ADMIRALS!
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
I at least think that having the ranks go as high as Fleet Admiral was a mistake. They should have left it at Rear Admiral because at that rank it's far more reasonable to still be in the Captain's Chair, as opposed to a starbase office.
What's bothering me about this is that we are the same rank as Admiral Quinn. You know, the guy who's basically in charge of the entire fleet. We're the same rank, yet we're still for all intents and purposes Captains.
At the very least, there should be some dialogue that explains our player's role. Something that explains, why, despite the highest rank, our role doesn't change. I can't stress this enough, if someone outright said why I'm not sitting in an office on a Starbase commanding multiple ships around, then I'd be alright with everything. Seriously, just do what they did with Kirk, "commanding a starship serves us better than you being an Admiral", except don't demote us (because you can't go back now, Cryptic).
Every player character becomes a Fleet Admiral: But there is only of those.
There are not a thousand different fleet admirals that once watched Obisiek shoot Hakeev, there are not thousand different Romulan Admirals that shot Hakeev. Because that wouldn't make sense.
Only one Fleet Admiral was directly present when T'Mara died. Or maybe no one, and instead it was a Dahar Master that was there.
Capping our rank at Captain or not having levels be related to ranks might have been the better choice, but even if we only ever got to Captain - there cannot be that many Captains or rather Commanders that shot Hakeev as there are player character.
At best it might help think of all the different characters of the game all persons in different timelines that take a similar role, but might have a very different background and personality. In one reality, it was a blond male Vulcan that had to save his fellow cadets after their Captain died, in another it was a red-skinned bald alien, in another it might have been a female Human with oversized TRIBBLE.
Starfleet Admiral != Starfleet Command.
Starfleet Command is like the Pentagon or, really, like the Joint Chiefs.
It's a subset of admirals and we have admirals going back to Commodore Decker who have no sway over Starfleet Command aside from favors owed, if that.
Starfleet Command is a narrow and insular subset of admirals, not something that being ranked admiral makes you a part of.
That said, everyone we've seen ranked Fleet Admiral in canon was a part of it but up until STO there had been an assumption that Starfleet only had one person ranked Fleet Admiral at a time.
But I think that you pretty much have to surrender active command of a starship to be part of Starfleet Command and that the admirals we see running ships are almost never part of Starfleet Command. At most, they might have a ship that is parked in the garage kind of like the Defiant was for Captain Sisko on DS9 but most upper leadership doesn't appear to have their own ships.
The admirals I can think of with their own ship:
Riker (AGT), Kirk, Decker.
And of those three, Riker was actually stationed to Starbase 247 with an aging Enterprise he was allowed to keep as what was presumably a Defiant style mission vessel for the starbase.
If you wanted accuracy, we'd probably be transitioning into individual player owned starbases now, maybe with our ships displayed like trophies and deployable on assignments with captains under our command. (That doesn't preclude a fleet starbase as well. But we would probably be living on our own starbase with all of our ships in drydock there being tended to by captains underneath us and Starfleet Command still over us.)
Riker may well have "owned" the ship but, like you say, it was obsolete. Your impression was that he borrowed it. Mine was that it was basically gathering dust in the Starbase 247 shipyards with Riker using it like the Defiant on DS9.
Re: Decker, a commodore is an admiral. Rear Admiral Lower Half. They're the same rank and, I think, the case could be made based on that for admirals commanding ships. Honestly, we don't see too many admirals who aren't crazy or evil.
Pressman and Ross are both cases as well although like you say, they're tenuous and I believe Ross at least also had a starbase command assignment, Starbase 375.
I think it's funny in some ways that Cryptic has discussed a first officer system because our rank makes us more suited to having an adjutant (ie. admiral's aid) than a first officer.
I know from some threads that pulling the rug on starship command OR admiral titles is (or was with the playerbase
at the time) tricky and likely to be contentious with players. I also gather that and fully custom titles are difficult to implement.
Why M'Tara didn't just send those Heralds we're fighting to re-activate the power junctions we disabled earlier ? We didn't leave anyone to guard them, we didn't destroy them. So she could have had us running between those junctions in circle, laughing her energy backside off. We disable the junctions in the so-called "command centre" (why is it a command centre apart from increased number of junctions is still a mystery to me)... ups, the junctions in the first two halls are re-activated and already guarded by bunches of Heralds.
Yeah, why these power junctions are just in the middle of their hallways, for us to stumble upon, is still a huge mystery to me.
Can we add that replays are impossible for some players?
M'tara stops showing up entirely after the first encounter.