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Worse than Devide et Impera

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    thay8472thay8472 Member Posts: 6,101 Arc User
    What happened to going back and being explorers?



    2gdi5w4mrudm.png
    Typhoon Class please!
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    duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited January 2016
    Someone in this thread did not think that Noye could fall in love with someone he only got to know through the logs. Maybe he did or maybe he fell in love with the idea of having a family, who knows and does that distinction really matter? Is it possible and believable?

    I don't think it's necessary to assume that he fell in love with the individual. Being denied the aspiration for happiness and family is definitely a common problem in life (without the sci-fi plot devices) and being presented with incontrovertible evidence that life should have been different (if it wasn't for the actions of those that you already resent) is a pretty good personal basis for antagonism. It's not the same flavor of Annorax's (Noyes can only imagine) but it's sufficient for him to finally turn against the Alliance.

    Then add on top of that the dramatic overtones (just who was lost and how), hugely important implications for the Krenim species (while Noyes is at it, he may as well prevent their destruction at the hands of the Vaadwuar), and direct connection this makes to other species involved in the conflict (ie. the Na'kuhl and the Sphere Builders themselves) and you have a great setup at every level.
    thay8472 wrote: »
    What happened to going back and being explorers?
    It got outsourced. :P
    Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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    theraven2378theraven2378 Member Posts: 5,986 Arc User
    Noye's irrational state of mind is now a threat, a threat that must be removed
    NMXb2ph.png
      "The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
      -Lord Commander Solar Macharius
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User

      valoreah wrote: »

      I just don't like the idea of time travel and being able to "fix" things that went wrong. It diminishes the realism that comes from living with the consequences of our actions. Time travel should be used very, very sparingly IMO.
      Well, to be clear it's the villains who are planning on using time travel to fix history, putting them in the same company as the Borg in First contact or Darvin in the DS9 tribble episode. There's unlikely to be any validation of the "we'll just fix it after the fact" mentality.
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      letsfadeawayletsfadeaway Member Posts: 110 Arc User
      @valoreah
      I agree with you, time travel arcs are bad and seldmly (if ever) done in a good way. but you questioned Noye's motivation not the story arc.

      Bringing in the Annorax and its erase-from-time weapon and now the temporal directive and their time-travelling ships was a major mistake as it opens up the can of worms that you mentioned and I do not believe that the writers will be able to resolve it in a consistent, logical, believable and entertaining way.
      The technology is out there, it is known and hand-waving it away with "GU timeships and their observation array guard the timeline and so no other renegades have access to it" is just bad and lazy.

      It's probably the problem of all stories that go on too long: Either you run out of ideas or your characters and enemies become too powerful or god-like. Who will be our next enemy? The Q-Continuum?
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      thay8472thay8472 Member Posts: 6,101 Arc User
      valoreah wrote: »
      Well, to be clear it's the villains who are planning on using time travel to fix history, putting them in the same company as the Borg in First contact or Darvin in the DS9 tribble episode. There's unlikely to be any validation of the "we'll just fix it after the fact" mentality.

      The Alliance had no qualms about using it against the Iconians.

      Or the whales.

      Or the Borg.

      Or against the Devidians.


      2gdi5w4mrudm.png
      Typhoon Class please!
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      semalda226semalda226 Member Posts: 1,994 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      Did you guys learn nothing from Year of Hell or the Annorax Test? 1 tiny thing like restarting that star could've wiped out trillions if the Na'Kuhl were a conquering species (given how unfriendly they are it's not unfeasible). Temporal mechanics get complicated very very fast and once you start a paradox trying to unravel what time does to keep itself intact is like taking a horribly tangled pile of yarn and pulling a string...you don't get very far without making it worse .
      Edit: also I had no qualms about divide as I kinda went with the mentality of "*insert expletive here* you! I'll do this the Romulan way and just put my disruptor in your back!
      tumblr_mxl2nyOKII1rizambo1_500.png

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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      valoreah wrote: »
      The Alliance had no qualms about using it against the Iconians.

      Actually the player had a number of occasions to question the use of time travel as a weapon and not everyone responded with a "kill them all, wooo!" attitude. The Alliance had plenty of qualms. And whatever the reluctant intentions were at one point in the story arc that wasn't validated by the ending or how protagonists have approach time travel subsequently. Avoiding the trap of trying to fix history is pretty much Star Trek's comment on the subject (except when whales are involved).
      Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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      hravikhravik Member Posts: 1,203 Arc User
      Is it just me, or does the voice actor for the Xindi rep seem to not know he wasn't playing a reptilian Xindi? The voice was so strikingly out of place.
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      hravik wrote: »
      Is it just me, or does the voice actor for the Xindi rep seem to not know he wasn't playing a reptilian Xindi?

      That or we're playing a mission with lots of placeholder objects (see. 28th century republic, FED, and KDF uniforms.)
      semalda226 wrote: »
      Temporal mechanics get complicated very very fast and once you start a paradox trying to unravel what time does to keep itself intact is like taking a horribly tangled pile of yarn and pulling a string...you don't get very far without making it worse .

      Hence the thing we were trying to get signed.
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      dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
      capnkirk4 wrote: »
      This is why temporal wars, and time cop story lines should be avoided. Temporal paradox story lines are hit or miss. Good Sci-Fi writers know this, and it's usually the latter, so they try to avoid them. As I've stated before the whole "right" timeline theme is a purely selfish principle, out of line with Starfleet's enlightened, liberal, attitude. Also, in order to have a "right" timeline, you have to imply there is both a start, and finish, to time itself, with some governing authority (a deity?) implementing it's creative vision over such. Apparently, it's the Starfleet time cops, who have taken it upon themselves to be that governing authority.

      Yeah, this is what I'm trying to start to wrap my head around:

      Who's ultimately making the call as to what timeline is "right"? Not Walker, as he's seeming to parrot the decisions of the "head" of Temporal Instigations...

      And are we going to be able to... mess... with this? As others are asking, why can't we go restart the Na'kuhl star, if not for the decisions of this... temporal instigator... that has elected to declare Dano's trip to allow the Tholians to do so as "right" and any attempts to fix this as "wrong"...
      Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...

      To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
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      letsfadeawayletsfadeaway Member Posts: 110 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      valoreah wrote: »
      @valoreah
      I agree with you, time travel arcs are bad and seldmly (if ever) done in a good way. but you questioned Noye's motivation not the story arc.

      I question his motivation because it doesn't make sense. Why get angry over it? We have a time machine. Just use it to find a better outcome for everyone. See? His motivation doesn't make sense.

      From what I gather the alliance stopped all Annorax-shenanigans after the two failed attempts that we got to see/play and probably banned its use.
      Possible reason: The Annorax is not a time-travel device, it erases whole civilisations or objects from time and once used it cannot be undone (that's how I understood it worked in "Year of Hell").
      As to why Noye's angry and cracked? See my previous posts and add the fact that NOONE is doing anything to bring those back that he/we lost.
      Everyone seems to be fine with all the losses and the timeline that we have, everyone wants to rebuild now, everyone is relieved that the war is over, everyone sees the dangers of further Annorax-deletions, everyone but Noye.

      And that is probably the major problem in STO story-telling: There is only one outcome and one possible resolution for every story. Our characters go through it on rails and have no choice at all.
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      dareau wrote: »
      And are we going to be able to... mess... with this? As others are asking, why can't we go restart the Na'kuhl star, if not for the decisions of this... temporal instigator... that has elected to declare Dano's trip to allow the Tholians to do so as "right" and any attempts to fix this as "wrong"...

      It's best to think about it in terms of greatest probability. Say you change something, but the universe that sets up leads to a different set of motivations. They try changing something else, and in some way that's even more radical than what you tried from the beginning. You (still with an eye on history) try to stop them, but that leads you into a back and forth of counter timelines. Eventually that settles into the one timeline that's most likely to keep itself going. That's the paradox and while bad things might still happen in it (even as a direct result of time travel) it's something that you can count on happening (which seems to be the objective of our end of the Temporal Cold War. It doesn't have to be right, it just has to work.)

      Basically, don't think about what happens next but how this will ultimately play out.
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      valoreah wrote: »
      We very much were trying to fix history in the arc.

      Mission, the arc resolves by refuting the idea.
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      letsfadeawayletsfadeaway Member Posts: 110 Arc User
      valoreah wrote: »
      From what I gather the alliance stopped all Annorax-shenanigans after the two failed attempts that we got to see/play and probably banned its use.
      Possible reason: The Annorax is not a time-travel device, it erases whole civilisations or objects from time and once used it cannot be undone (that's how I understood it worked in "Year of Hell").
      As to why Noye's angry and cracked? See my previous posts and add the fact that NOONE is doing anything to bring those back that he/we lost.
      Everyone seems to be fine with all the losses and the timeline that we have, everyone wants to rebuild now, everyone is relieved that the war is over, everyone sees the dangers of further Annorax-deletions, everyone but Noye.

      And that is probably the major problem in STO story-telling: There is only one outcome and one possible resolution for every story. Our characters go through it on rails and have no choice at all.

      I understand completely. This raises the question of who are we (the Alliance) to be determining the future for everyone else? We have the technology (banned or not) and all the time in the world to use it. Why not try?

      The answer to that will probably be:
      There was a Temporal War (be it the cold war that we saw in ENT or a different one) that nearly destroyed all of time and everyone set down and set up the Temporal Accords so that the timeline that we have now that leads to the Galactic Union is the "correct" timeline and it should not be messed with or else. It is the equivalent of the "Mutually Assured Destruction"-phase that Earth had to go through during the Cold War and that is still in effect in the Middle East.
      So in the future we have this big and powerful organisation that keeps watch over all timeline shenanigans and slaps everyone on the wrist if they act up.

      As to who the alliance is that they are determining what is right and what is wrong? They are the ones with the big stick who judiciously use violence to keep the status quo.


      Maybe we will see the repercussions of Noye's actions and how bad it gets so that we can appreciate the Temporal Accords, after all we only have just one mission in this arc out right now. I will not hold my breath as the STO storyline is already too convoluted and held together with baling wire and plot(black)holes.
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      valoreah wrote: »
      Mission, the arc resolves by refuting the idea.

      You're arguing semantics. The Alliance is happy to use the tech when it suits them, everyone else be damned.

      No I'm saying what actually happened, what the arc demonstrated and what its point was with specific examples (ex. the mission: Midnight.) At no point was the arc about fixing history. It was about why we shouldn't. The idea, as bad as it is, needs to be expressed in order for the story to work but under no circumstances can you interpret the "presenting of the other side", as it were, of improving history as the Iconian War's actual argument.

      Play through and pay attention to whole missions, not just select intro briefings. It very much seems like you got caught up with an idea mid-series.
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      duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
      edited January 2016
      valoreah wrote: »
      We use a time weapon that can change history as we see fit.

      Attempted to and failed. Read that: failed. What does that mean about the intention to change history? It was wrong. The entire arc is about presenting why trying to fix history is wrong.

      The game developed an idea and slapped it down. Now the villains are taking it up. Guess what's going to happen?
      Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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      legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,280 Arc User
      valoreah wrote: »
      Attempted to and failed. Read that: failed.

      Did the Iconians win? No. I don't see a failure here.

      yes, actually, they did, because we sued for peace​​
      Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

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