[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 212: "Ship Salad"

midniteshadow7

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 212: "Ship Salad" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from:

http://bit.ly/tribbles212

Timber Wolf joins the Tribbles in Ecstasy crew this week to discuss the new ships and skill planner along with all the other news from Star Trek Online, Star Trek Timelines, the latest Star Trek and even Science news and more.

The topics discussed this week are:

• Star Trek Online giveaways, news and events,
• LootCritter's opinion on STO's Public Queues
• STO's New Skill Planner,
• Star Trek Timelines updates,
• Star Trek Continues,
• Star Trek Axanar,
• Stars, Planets and Rockets!,
• and more!

Our community question this week is:
Do you have any build questions for Timber Wolf for episode 214?


Please reply to this post with any feedback you have about any topic we've covered or even about the show in general, we'd love to hear what our listeners have to say.

Please help friend of the show and fellow Star Trek Online player and podcaster Mav with donations to support his recovery with his current health situation here: http://www.gofundme.com/tomsrecovery.

LLAP

alex1ger

Mmh? Oh. Hey there, tribbles. I didn't notice you. That new FE just sucked all life out of me. I think Cryptic might just be trolling me at this point. *shrug*
Hmm? What? No, don't worry. I won't go into spoilers or details. I should do that next week. Although I really don't want to. *headdesk*

*drools on the desk*

Mmh? Oh. You expect feedback? Uhm... Let's see what I can muster up.



Feedback:
I got nothing. Sorry.



STOrytime part 3: "Please, sir, I want some more."

Remember when we talked about the tutorials? Like I mentioned before, I would have liked some more detail here and there. I understand why Cryptic shied away from it after the Tovan Khev "outrage", but let's face it, if you hate Tovan because of that one BOff slot, I think (this is an opinion, not a "fact") you might be taking this game too seriously.

But let's get back to the story...
Like I said before, rescuing D'Vex didn't "feel" epic enough to me. I wanted more of a payoff there. (Maybe if I had known a little more about him before...)

On a related note, during the romulan story arc, we were supposed to infiltrate the Tal Shiar and we met Charva. A former friend of Tovan (I always got the vibe they might have been more than "just friends", but I might misremember it.) who wants to help us find Rinna to convince us of the Tal Shiar's "trustworthiness". That doesn't really work out since her superiors have apparently tried to trick all of us (including Charva).
At the end Charva is taken into republic custody, still believing that the Romulan Republic is a bunch of liars and terrorists and the Tal Shiar is watching over and protecting all romulans. That's the last we see of her.
I would like to visit her in her prison cell on New Romulus every now and then. I would like to talk to her. Did the Tal Shiar condition her? Brainwash her? Does she ever come around? Is there a good counselor visiting her, trying to diminish the Tal Shiar's influence on her?
Besides, depending on where you would be going with that, it might be a nice opportunity for her voice actor to do some... you know... voice ACTING.
Did she even survive the Iconian War? I mean, according to one of the RP blogs, the Elachi abducted people on New Romulus left and right, why did they never free their Tal Shiar "allies" (even if it was just to use them as cannon fodder)? Or did they?

Speaking of Tovan's sister, by mere coincidence we stumble upon Installation 18 on Nimbus and guess who just happens to be there... Rinna Khev. And we rescue her! Hooray! Yes, she's not the only one we rescue, but she was the one we were supposed to care about, weren't we?
And then we never see her again. I mean, we watched some of the surveillance cam footage, but what exactly happened to Rinna? Has she been subjected to all of those terrible things? Was she "just" tortured/interrogated? How does she cope with those experiences? Where is she now? Did she survive the Iconian War? Where's my payoff, Cryptic?

And you're probably sick and tired of hearing this, just as I am sick and tired of mentioning it... but what about Lt. Cmdr. Kyla VanZyl? At the end of "Uneasy Allies" we get the information that because of her Trill physiology she's supposed to make a recovery after that Bluegill takeover. But what was that like? Was it anything like Picard's borgification? He didn't just shrug that one off.
Where is she? What was it like? How does she deal with it? I'm pretty sure if you gave her something to work with, Laura Bailey could make some magic happen.

See? There are still a few loose ends from the Iconian War, but instead of resolving anything, we just jump into the next damn war.
This is madness! Is this Star Trek?

Star Trek was never afraid to dive into some serious issues, unfortunately the writers were not always up to the task.
I mean, TNG had some really good episodes for the male cast. And then there were the episodes revolving around Troi. I do not actually remember any good Troi episode, do you?
And you might remember the Beverly Crusher episode "Sub Rosa". *facepalm*
Or let's go back to TOS... The Doomsday Machine. Commodore Decker. I would make the argument that he was traumatized. I'm not sure whether that was an actual PTSD, but instead of giving him a heroic sacrifice, I would have asked a counselor to talk to him.
Or let's look at DS9. When Nog just lost his leg and suffered from... phantom pain and I would argue some form of PTSD.
Can you really do worse than that TNG episode about the "genderless" aliens that had one of them identify as a female and develop a crush on Riker (because he's Riker...) and at the end she was "cured"... That episode could be considered insulting to all people who (in some way, shape or form) don't conform to "the norm". (Whatever "the norm" is.)

Having one of these characters (Charva, Rinna or Kyla...) develop some sort of psychological issue because of what they went through? Doesn't sound that farfetched to me. And let's face it, there are people out there who suffer from depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder... A good friend of mine has been fighting depression for... half her life now.

You wanna be Star Trek? Then be Star Trek!

sisteric

I take it that you didn't even enjoy the FE or the Red Alerts at all. I at least, enjoyed them for what they are. And when I look at them through the Lens of what Cryptic has done before. I find this to be one of their better efforts.

STOrytime....

Yes, so many characters are introduced through the game and then never followed through as to what happened to them. I can understand that they don't tell everyone's story in every episode, but there should be something about each of the characters we are supposed to be concerned about.

The so-called Tovan Khev debacle is not really an issue to me. I find him effective enough for what I do. So he really is still an asset for me to use.

D'vex....they way they have him in the game now he really is a forgettable bit character. They could have not named him and he would be just as important to me. I think they either rewrite his story so that he plays a bigger more important role to us, or just drop him.

Charva....I always thought she was Tovan's ex. And that she became his ex because of their ideological differences over the Tal Shiar. CHarva was taken into custody, but it would be nice to know her legal status. Or, at least, have a means to find out if we want to know. In fact, I think it would be a great idea to use the captain's ready room as a means to access records on any person with that governments prevue. SO the Republic would be able to pull up personell files on D'Vex, Charva and Rinna.

Rinna Khev....would think as much has Tovan talked about her when she was missing, he would at least speak about her once he knows she is safe. They missed out on personalizing Tovan a bit in this manner. But that is something they can still rectify.

As for LCdr VanZyl, my idea above would be the perfect way to keeps tabs on her, if we so desired. And if we ever talked with Tuvok again, I think he would have told us something about her too. But we haven't even seen him.

Each faction, if they had that ready room computer console setup, could then keep us apprised of the non-confidential information about the status and whereabouts of the those individuals important to that faction.

I would really like to know just what were the losses, casualties, and damage that the "Iconian War" inflicted upon the factions. It would be useful for immersion to know what was the effect of the so-called war on the various factions as such. But all of it is very disconnected in impact upon the player as it is not present or portrayed in any real tangible manner.