So we're going to use it

picard51

Judging by the name of the new FE, we're using the weapon. I mean, I knew we probably would but still. It's irritating that we're going to have to do something this immoral.

darkbladejk

To put it in context, war is hell. in a war you must do whatever it takes to survive. sometimes things such as this. is it really immoral to do whatever it takes to protect those you love? I don't like the thought of using the time weapon either but sometimes it's necessary to do "the unthinkable" if you want to stay alive. it's not the first time the Federation has messed with time to stay alive and it most certainly won't be the last.

thegrandnagus1

Oh please. This entire game is about killing things.

bloodyriz

darkbladejk wrote: »

To put it in context, war is hell. in a war you must do whatever it takes to survive. sometimes things such as this. is it really immoral to do whatever it takes to protect those you love? I don't like the thought of using the time weapon either but sometimes it's necessary to do "the unthinkable" if you want to stay alive. it's not the first time the Federation has messed with time to stay alive and it most certainly won't be the last.

This, EXACTLY this.

lianthelia

People do things when pushed to the edge, look at the Equinox...not like this is anything new.

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rmy1081

valoreah wrote: »

darkbladejk wrote: »

To put it in context, war is hell. in a war you must do whatever it takes to survive. sometimes things such as this. is it really immoral to do whatever it takes to protect those you love? I don't like the thought of using the time weapon either but sometimes it's necessary to do "the unthinkable" if you want to stay alive. it's not the first time the Federation has messed with time to stay alive and it most certainly won't be the last.

Not sure I recall an episode where the Federation used time travel to wipe out an entire race. Can you cite the episode(s) please?

we don't know if that's how it will be used.

devilzaphan

TNG Enterprise crossed over and met the Enterprise-D during the Fed-Klingon war.

lilchibiclari

When the situation is "kill or be killed", only the most dedicated pacifists would choose the death of their own entire society over destroying the enemy. The Iconians' anger at the end of "Broken Circle" established that nothing short of the fear of their own destruction is going to convince them not to massacre every one of our worlds that they can. Ww have essentially arrived at a Hiroshima Moment (appropriate since this is the seventieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing)--either we use the unthinkable weaoon, or else we run the meat grinder hoping that their tolerance for it runs out before ours does. And unlike the Pacific War, the Iconians have the advantage in numbers, technology, and production over the Allies.

sysil84

I really hope Cryptic has another solution for the Iconian war. Just the fact that the Federation is building the thing pisses me off.

is it really immoral to do whatever it takes to protect those you love?

Genocide is still genocide, however you try to justify it.

I don't like the thought of using the time weapon either but sometimes it's necessary to do "the unthinkable" if you want to stay alive.

The problem is that the weapon will still exist after the first time you use it. If the Klingons decide to go on the warpath and start attacking why not make them disappear too. And the Borg, the Breen, the Tholians... Why not anyone that does not accept the Federation? Genocide with no risk to yourself. Perfect weapon of mass destruction.

I thought Federation and especially Starfleet people were better than this. That's why I did not like DS9 past season 2. I don't like the "I don't give a **** about anything but winning" mentality.

I remember watching "I, Borg" and learning it's lessons. But I guess I'm just old fashioned in believing Star Trek's humans are better than we are.

gulberat

rmy1081 wrote: »

valoreah wrote: »

darkbladejk wrote: »

To put it in context, war is hell. in a war you must do whatever it takes to survive. sometimes things such as this. is it really immoral to do whatever it takes to protect those you love? I don't like the thought of using the time weapon either but sometimes it's necessary to do "the unthinkable" if you want to stay alive. it's not the first time the Federation has messed with time to stay alive and it most certainly won't be the last.

Not sure I recall an episode where the Federation used time travel to wipe out an entire race. Can you cite the episode(s) please?

we don't know if that's how it will be used.

This, plus it is still possible to walk right up to the brink and make "the hard decision" (to use the trailer's words) NOT to fire, or to use the ship for something else--and I believe "Year of Hell" shows the potential to do other useful things with the ship without firing its main weapon. The fact that you can transport people aboard with the temporal shielding up means it could be possible to beam the Iconians in, destroy their memories, and send them back with whatever brainwashing we want them to remember. A dirty trick but well above using the time weapon. I likely will wind up disappointed but we'll see.

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rmy1081

valoreah wrote: »

rmy1081 wrote: »

we don't know if that's how it will be used.

True, however we don't know that it won't be used that way either.

yep, and as @gulberat pointed out, there's still a lot of open story.

mustrumridcully0

Genocide is still genocide, however you try to justify it.

And homicide is still homicide, however you try to justify it. Still, you probably think that killing in self-defense is acceptable.

What's so special about a race that is actively perpetrating genocide on several species that it can't possibly be acceptable to kill off that species first?
Have you not played through "Sphere of Influence", and have you not read the Iconian reports? Do you want to wait until the killed off all Romulans or all Humans before you decide that killing them might be acceptable? Or would you say that even then it's better if they kill off a few species rather than we kill off one species so that doesn't happen.



And speaking of the things you might not have read, didn't you read the Tales of War? Particularly the one where they talk about how they are trying to prevent the destruction of New Romulus?

They are not actually working on a plan to commit genocide. The Krenim weapon could be used for that, sure, but that is not what they are actually trying to do. They are trying to find a way to win the war with time travel. They are not targeting a species for extinction.


The same thing that happened several times in Star Trek. Whales, the Enterprise C, the Borg. They are just using a particular tool for it. Quite possible because while the Krenim weapon may be very specific in the way it alters time (removing things from existence), the ability to fine-tune it on a target is much better than sending a ship back in time and having to deal with an extra ship and its crewmen affecting the time stream.

Chaos Theory suggests that a butter fly might alter the weather pattern on the other side of the planet, but it does not suggest that sending 20-2,000 people and millions of tons of mass do not alter the weather pattern on the other side of the planet!

thegrandnagus1

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Genocide is still genocide, however you try to justify it.

And homicide is still homicide, however you try to justify it. Still, you probably think that killing in self-defense is acceptable.

Homicide is the unlawful killing of another person. If someone kills someone else in legally justifiable self defense, that is not unlawful, therefore that is not homicide.

taylor1701d

Use it or lose it as they say, or in this case Use it and lose it (The Iconians that is).

I was hoping the 29th century tech stripped from the Wells and Mobius by the Tholians, would in some way be used to avoid using the Krenim weapon...but alas.

I guess this will have to do.

zarato4218

I've never been sure why there was even any debate about whether or not we would use the weapon nor why anyone is surprised now. I'm not talking about the moral ambiguity, which is a reasonable argument against it, but rather that a certain "famous source," now long since dead, already layed out approximaetly what was coming. One, myself included, did not even have to actually use the "source" as despite certain rules the information (Given without spoiler tags or warnings I might add, which I hate and is why I am trying to be ambiguous) was all over this and other forums months ago. I'm looking forward to this episode, despite my trepidation about its "morality," but its announcement really should not have been surprising "news" to anyone who spends enough time around STO related sites and forums.

maskedmarvel1

didn't i read somewhere that they are going to use this time travel device to send us back to the time when the iconians were on the brink of extinction and defeat so that we can become this OTHER the iconians spoke of , the one who saves them , then when we come back the iconians will remember us , that we were their saviour , and we will all be pals , and the war will be over , or did i just imagine that .

mustrumridcully0

thegrandnagus1 wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Genocide is still genocide, however you try to justify it.

And homicide is still homicide, however you try to justify it. Still, you probably think that killing in self-defense is acceptable.

Homicide is the unlawful killing of another person. If someone kills someone else in legally justifiable self defense, that is not unlawful, therefore that is not homicide.

That is not the word's origin. It is just about "causing the death of another human being". At least that is what Wikipedia and the latin root of the word says. THe form of homicide you are talking about is "criminal homicide".

If all homicide was criminal, then we would need a new, general term for "causing the death of a human being" that does not imply it's automatically criminal. And then the variant that says "causing the death of a species" that also does not imply it's automatically criminal. You can of course always argue that "there is no non-criminal form of causing the death of a human being" or "there is no non-criminal form of causing the death of a human being", but that still means we need the word for it.


Also, if you worry about commiting genocide, you have to realize we probably already fall under that definition:

Genocide is the systematic elimination of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious, cultural or national group.

I'd say we did systematically eliminate 1/12 of the Iconian race! I mean, once we realized that we were weakening T'Mara and might be able to defeat her, we systematically disabled those energy thingies and shot at her until she was dead.

sirmayday

Using the Krenim weapon isn't automatically genocide, or even necessarily immoral. Despite its size, it is a scalpel. Misapplied, it severs arteries and major nerves and the patient (the timeline) dies (is worse off). But, wielded just so, the cancer (the Iconian War) is removed, and the patient recovers, better than before (millions, maybe billions, of lives restored, having never been lost). 'course, the lesson of Year of Hell appeared to have been that no amount of care can make this particular scalpel safe to use.

Annorax spent 200 years failing to save the one person who mattered to him, but his obsession caused him to disregard outcomes as favorable as a 98% restoration of the Imperium. Nog doesn't need to save a specific person, just make this whole damn mess palatable. We've seen that that's doable with this 'weapon.'

stobg2015

maskedmarvel1 wrote: »

didn't i read somewhere that they are going to use this time travel device to send us back to the time when the iconians were on the brink of extinction and defeat so that we can become this OTHER the iconians spoke of , the one who saves them , then when we come back the iconians will remember us , that we were their saviour , and we will all be pals , and the war will be over , or did i just imagine that .

The Krenim weapon is not a time travel device.

It's more like throwing a rock upstream and changing the pattern of ripples that flow downstream. Even that is not a good analogy, but good enough for this discussion.

anazonda

Did you really think they'd put this much efford into the Krenim, and not involve it into the story...

So far, we know that we will use the weapon, save romulus and wreck havoc on the timeline.

josephdridgeway

stobg2015 wrote: »

maskedmarvel1 wrote: »

didn't i read somewhere that they are going to use this time travel device to send us back to the time when the iconians were on the brink of extinction and defeat so that we can become this OTHER the iconians spoke of , the one who saves them , then when we come back the iconians will remember us , that we were their saviour , and we will all be pals , and the war will be over , or did i just imagine that .

The Krenim weapon is not a time travel device.

It's more like throwing a rock upstream and changing the pattern of ripples that flow downstream. Even that is not a good analogy, but good enough for this discussion.

This. We won't be using the device to travel in time, but we will be 'manipulating' time to fit within standards that we set.

sunfrancks

I really hope it isn't ending with the endgame weapon.

Not sure Cryptc has really grasped just how the game would have to radically change to suit the Iconians not existing!

It's like bad comedy....

lilchibiclari

Since the weapon removes things completely from the timestream, it is less like throwing a rock INTO a river than it us like pulling an existing rock OUT of the river. Of course, being a time travel plot, we are going to get a "for want of a nail" scenario.

zarato4218

reyan01 wrote: »

josephdridgeway wrote: »

stobg2015 wrote: »

maskedmarvel1 wrote: »

didn't i read somewhere that they are going to use this time travel device to send us back to the time when the iconians were on the brink of extinction and defeat so that we can become this OTHER the iconians spoke of , the one who saves them , then when we come back the iconians will remember us , that we were their saviour , and we will all be pals , and the war will be over , or did i just imagine that .

The Krenim weapon is not a time travel device.

It's more like throwing a rock upstream and changing the pattern of ripples that flow downstream. Even that is not a good analogy, but good enough for this discussion.

This. We won't be using the device to travel in time, but we will be 'manipulating' time to fit within standards that we set.

It could easily backfire somehow....

Yes, you might even say that trying to alter time this way could end up being, shall we say, futile...

architect13

Use what? Real thread titles?

anazonda

architect13 wrote: »

Use what? Real thread titles?

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9497013-star-trek-online:-new-featured-episode

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maskedmarvel1

they cant just cut the iconians out of the timeline , it would change too much , will all the people and ships that have died be restored back to life again , there would be no delta rising since we used the iconians dyson sphere's to go there , would we be back at the beginning , the klingon war , since there wouldn't be an alliance , would romulus be back since its destruction was instigated by the iconians , i doubt this rock could navigate through such a river of time removing the iconians but leaving everything else as it is .

jbmaverick

valoreah wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

....They are not actually working on a plan to commit genocide. The Krenim weapon could be used for that, sure, but that is not what they are actually trying to do. They are trying to find a way to win the war with time travel. They are not targeting a species for extinction....

Certainly sounds like they are....

Then I learned their weapon doesn’t just alter the timeline, it erases things from ever having existed! The Krenim don’t seem to care, but… it’s terrifying to a lot of people, with good reason.

Of course I could be wrong, yet it seems to me the weapon was constructed to "erase" the Iconians.

IMO this whole fiddle with time thing stinks from a story standpoint. What was the point of building up the the alliances if ultimately together we couldn't defeat the Iconians?

That's like saying the people making guns are planning on the death of all humanity. Just because you build a weapon doesn't mean you intend on using it on everything you could possibly use it on. The strategic removal of a single individual could potentially undo the entire war, leaving the Iconians alive but not a threat.