Yes, indeed. This thread has gotten about as far off topic as it can get while barely keeping a toe on the original premise.
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Back to topic - Honestly I find it quite strange how some missions are still unskippable in the first place, when newer ones can be skipped without issues. I used to think it's due to some legal contracts regarding guest-star appearances or what not, but that wouldn't explain why it now seems quite random...
The morality debate is the most fascinating thing about it. Four out of five times, people who hate the Kobali the most are the ones who can't or won't attempt to see things through anything other than their human lens. It really highlights who was paying attention to Star Trek and who wasn't. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean those people are wrong - though of narrow view, the cultural importance of concepts such as bodily autonomy after death and the philosophical question of who really comes back when a dead body (that is to say, all brain function ceased, whoever was in there is objectively gone) is reanimated by the process of Kobalification are not inherently invalid. For instance, I disagree with starswordc's insinuation that the recycling of a corpse is tantamount to grape, but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong, merely that we place different value on the corpse and whatever rights we think it has.
But I've already gone on too much.
On topic, I actually like the Kobali missions. I do agree the respawn rate is a touch excessive, but a properly kitted out player/away team can typically survive most inopportune respawns pretty handily.
Ah, the Kobali arc ... can't say I'm a fan myself. I won't comment on the morality of the matter, but I've plenty to say on the tedium! XD I've ran through it with my AOY toon, and I can't say I'm looking forward to seeing it all again. x.x And I saw my share of "Dust to Dust" back when it was a featured mission, enough to where I'd be happy to never see it again.
Ah, the Kobali arc ... can't say I'm a fan myself. I won't comment on the morality of the matter, but I've plenty to say on the tedium! XD I've ran through it with my AOY toon, and I can't say I'm looking forward to seeing it all again. x.x And I saw my share of "Dust to Dust" back when it was a featured mission, enough to where I'd be happy to never see it again.
The only mission arcs I hate being forced to do is Future Proof and Yesterday's War.
I do like those, though I will say I'm less than pleased with the way elements of "Yesterday's War" are implemented.
I didn't say I hate those, the problem is the skip button is not available on most of them unlike the other arcs, when doing a new toon and wanting to do the later missions you still have to do them beforehand. Ragnarock is too tedious for me to want to redo on multiple toon.
> @tyler002 said: > I think we're going a bit off topic... the thread was about skipping the arc, not the morality of the situation.
Well, I can kinda understand that considering it's the immorality of the situation that makes the OP want to skip it:
> @lexusk19 said: > Why are we forced to do the Kobali ground missions? Im lvl 60 and trying to skip the the Iconian war arc, but am stuck playing the Kobali ground stuff... I dont care about them at all, wish the Vaadwaur would wipe them all out. >.>
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I'm pretty sure I have skipped the Kobali ground missions on several of my alts.
If you complete 'The Kobali Front' which consists of simply talking to the NPC, that should give you the mission 'Kobali Crisis Act 1' which should be skippable.
I have several alts that completed the Delta Arc without doing those missions. When I look back through their journal, all the Delta missions have the reply option except for the 3 ground missions which have a 'hail' option because I never did them.
I tend only to do that last two parts of Act III, the rest is meh
"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
I'm pretty sure I have skipped the Kobali ground missions on several of my alts.
If you complete 'The Kobali Front' which consists of simply talking to the NPC, that should give you the mission 'Kobali Crisis Act 1' which should be skippable.
I have several alts that completed the Delta Arc without doing those missions. When I look back through their journal, all the Delta missions have the reply option except for the 3 ground missions which have a 'hail' option because I never did them.
Yep, you can skip all but Kobali Front and obviously the intro mission Escalation. After that you can skip right to the Iconian War.
I remember when delta grinding was new you had the first section of ground missions end at a camp but didnt get allowed to use the transmat pad so when the doctor pestered you for help it dragged you away and were forced to slog through the excessive spawns just to resume the grind many levels (& beta quad patrols) later.
I avoid that whole arc like the plague because of how poorly conceived the whole "biggest ever" expansion was with not enough content to hit the new cap by story never mind the 100+ levels brought in by the specs. Probably why the new gamma cap is only 65.
> @jexsamx said: > The morality debate is the most fascinating thing about it. Four out of five times, people who hate the Kobali the most are the ones who can't or won't attempt to see things through anything other than their human lens. It really highlights who was paying attention to Star Trek and who wasn't. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean those people are wrong - though of narrow view, the cultural importance of concepts such as bodily autonomy after death and the philosophical question of who really comes back when a dead body (that is to say, all brain function ceased, whoever was in there is objectively gone) is reanimated by the process of Kobalification are not inherently invalid. For instance, I disagree with starswordc's insinuation that the recycling of a corpse is tantamount to grape, but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong, merely that we place different value on the corpse and whatever rights we think it has. > > But I've already gone on too much.
The thing is I think cultural relativism has its limits. It's one thing if the weird stuff is innocuous or at worst hurts only themselves. Like if it's your culture to wear a duck on your head... Well, I'm not going to lie, I'll probably laugh at you when the duck flies away or poops down the back of your neck. But the thing is you're not hurting anything except your dry-cleaning bill by doing it (the duck gave as good as it got ). But if your culture is that you think you have a god-given right to take whatever you want from the guy next door without consequence, we're gonna have problems.
And the thing is, in this particular case it's not just postmortem bodily autonomy, it's bodily autonomy PERIOD, due to the simple fact that by being brought back the individual becomes capable of expressing their opinion on the subject. And the Kobali seem to think anybody who rejects them is delusional and in need of being dragged back home for reeducation at gunpoint.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Then you have to consider what would likely happen if you DIDN'T let the Kobali do their thing with these Vaadwaur. It probably involves shooting them. Then they're dead, and may or may not be suitable for zombie-time.
Just reanimating dead bodies by itself would be okay in my book - The Kobali just needed a bit of common sense to realize that maybe asking first would be nice. It is also my understanding that it is not common to have memories of the previous life after the transition. If rare enough, it would be understandable for the Kobali to treat it as something that deviates from the norm (so like a mental illness of sorts), but even that is something they could work on, as a culture.
Basically, as long as they would only use bodies from willing donors (or through a cooperation with some other race) and stopped dismissing the residual personalities in some of their newly converted, giving them proper personal space and freedom to figure things out, they wouldn't invite nearly as much conflict.
Or, you know, they could use vat-grown bodies and avoid any of those conflicts altogether. But I guess that would be too easy
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,099Community Moderator
If I remember correctly, the Kobali were forced into reanimating the bodies of the dead because of a virus they accidentially created in their distant past. Essentially they couldn't reproduce on their own. Now they are pretty much dependant on the Rebirth process.
Is it possible that working with the Alliance may lead to the means to reverse this? Possibly. While there will be major pushback over such a significant change to their culture, the possibility exists that the Kobali may someday not have to do that anymore.
As for memories of the past life... so far it seems like its more common with Kobali who were once human. Something about humans doesn't play well with the Rebirth process. While it works, memories remain intact.
I could have swore the Kobali officer said their ancestors "meddled with forces they shouldn't have", or something along those lines.
Genetic engineering for transhumanist reasons is illegal, the Federation uses it all the time for medical purposes. Not that they should even need to in this case, a race that can change one species to another should already be capable of removing whatever flaw originally screwed up their reproduction.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,099Community Moderator
Not that they should even need to in this case, a race that can change one species to another should already be capable of removing whatever flaw originally screwed up their reproduction.
The problem with that is... its possible that the Kobali CAN'T because they're either unable to or the cause is so buried or something...
Getting fresh eyes on it might help. Also... it could also be tied to their Rebirth process, which... is a pretty deeply ingrained part of their culture. For all we know the very virus they use to reanimate the dead... is a variation of what neutered them in the first place. We don't really know for sure.
> @jexsamx said: > The morality debate is the most fascinating thing about it. Four out of five times, people who hate the Kobali the most are the ones who can't or won't attempt to see things through anything other than their human lens. It really highlights who was paying attention to Star Trek and who wasn't. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean those people are wrong - though of narrow view, the cultural importance of concepts such as bodily autonomy after death and the philosophical question of who really comes back when a dead body (that is to say, all brain function ceased, whoever was in there is objectively gone) is reanimated by the process of Kobalification are not inherently invalid. For instance, I disagree with starswordc's insinuation that the recycling of a corpse is tantamount to grape, but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong, merely that we place different value on the corpse and whatever rights we think it has. > > But I've already gone on too much. > > On topic, I actually like the Kobali missions. I do agree the respawn rate is a touch excessive, but a properly kitted out player/away team can typically survive most inopportune respawns pretty handily.
So in other words, humans (and others) should let the Kobali desecrate the corpses of their loved ones because Political Correctness? Nonsense. As far as the Varduaar in stasis, what the Kobali are doing wouldn't be tolerated if they were Feds....and I shudder to think what would happen if they were Klingon or Romulan.
BOFFs opening fire and aggroing mobs does not help, too many times I've been done in like that
"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
If I remember correctly, the Kobali were forced into reanimating the bodies of the dead because of a virus they accidentially created in their distant past. Essentially they couldn't reproduce on their own. Now they are pretty much dependant on the Rebirth process.
Which is one of those sci-fi things that'll probably NEVER get explained because it's dumb and no possible explanation will make sense.
As for memories of the past life... so far it seems like its more common with Kobali who were once human. Something about humans doesn't play well with the Rebirth process. While it works, memories remain intact.
Why are we forced to do the Kobali ground missions? Im lvl 60 and trying to skip the the Iconian war arc, but am stuck playing the Kobali ground stuff... I dont care about them at all, wish the Vaadwaur would wipe them all out. >.>
Have to agree with you on this one, pal! I would much prefer to have an option to skip all battlezone areas, if nothing else at least after the first time that you play through those damned things. I don't mind repetitive trips through much of the story content in this game and have over a dozen lvl 60 characters to prove it; but the battlezone areas are frankly a pain in the TRIBBLE.
Why are we forced to do the Kobali ground missions? Im lvl 60 and trying to skip the the Iconian war arc, but am stuck playing the Kobali ground stuff... I dont care about them at all, wish the Vaadwaur would wipe them all out. >.>
The only thing I hate about the Kobali ground missions is that I agree with the Vaadwaur. I would rather kill the Kobali than help them...
What's ironic really is that humans keeping their memories after Kobalification would actually be a selling point in a campaign to get volunteers......lots of folks would consider looking like a Kobali a small price to pay to have a second lifetime. Of course, they might not be interested in adopting Kobali culture.......
I'd evict the Kobali off their planet and hand the world over to the Vaadwuar. The Kobali would be left with nothing and exposed to the entire quadrant. Them being evicted would be an example to others
"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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But I've already gone on too much.
On topic, I actually like the Kobali missions. I do agree the respawn rate is a touch excessive, but a properly kitted out player/away team can typically survive most inopportune respawns pretty handily.
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The Kobali ground missions are the lowest point of the worst arc in STO.
I can't even begin to describe how much I hate doing these missions, there is nothing in STO that I hate more.
I do like those, though I will say I'm less than pleased with the way elements of "Yesterday's War" are implemented.
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> I think we're going a bit off topic... the thread was about skipping the arc, not the morality of the situation.
Well, I can kinda understand that considering it's the immorality of the situation that makes the OP want to skip it:
> @lexusk19 said:
> Why are we forced to do the Kobali ground missions? Im lvl 60 and trying to skip the the Iconian war arc, but am stuck playing the Kobali ground stuff... I dont care about them at all, wish the Vaadwaur would wipe them all out. >.>
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
If you complete 'The Kobali Front' which consists of simply talking to the NPC, that should give you the mission 'Kobali Crisis Act 1' which should be skippable.
I have several alts that completed the Delta Arc without doing those missions. When I look back through their journal, all the Delta missions have the reply option except for the 3 ground missions which have a 'hail' option because I never did them.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Yep, you can skip all but Kobali Front and obviously the intro mission Escalation. After that you can skip right to the Iconian War.
I avoid that whole arc like the plague because of how poorly conceived the whole "biggest ever" expansion was with not enough content to hit the new cap by story never mind the 100+ levels brought in by the specs. Probably why the new gamma cap is only 65.
> The morality debate is the most fascinating thing about it. Four out of five times, people who hate the Kobali the most are the ones who can't or won't attempt to see things through anything other than their human lens. It really highlights who was paying attention to Star Trek and who wasn't. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean those people are wrong - though of narrow view, the cultural importance of concepts such as bodily autonomy after death and the philosophical question of who really comes back when a dead body (that is to say, all brain function ceased, whoever was in there is objectively gone) is reanimated by the process of Kobalification are not inherently invalid. For instance, I disagree with starswordc's insinuation that the recycling of a corpse is tantamount to grape, but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong, merely that we place different value on the corpse and whatever rights we think it has.
>
> But I've already gone on too much.
The thing is I think cultural relativism has its limits. It's one thing if the weird stuff is innocuous or at worst hurts only themselves. Like if it's your culture to wear a duck on your head... Well, I'm not going to lie, I'll probably laugh at you when the duck flies away or poops down the back of your neck. But the thing is you're not hurting anything except your dry-cleaning bill by doing it (the duck gave as good as it got
And the thing is, in this particular case it's not just postmortem bodily autonomy, it's bodily autonomy PERIOD, due to the simple fact that by being brought back the individual becomes capable of expressing their opinion on the subject. And the Kobali seem to think anybody who rejects them is delusional and in need of being dragged back home for reeducation at gunpoint.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
Basically, as long as they would only use bodies from willing donors (or through a cooperation with some other race) and stopped dismissing the residual personalities in some of their newly converted, giving them proper personal space and freedom to figure things out, they wouldn't invite nearly as much conflict.
Or, you know, they could use vat-grown bodies and avoid any of those conflicts altogether. But I guess that would be too easy
Is it possible that working with the Alliance may lead to the means to reverse this? Possibly. While there will be major pushback over such a significant change to their culture, the possibility exists that the Kobali may someday not have to do that anymore.
As for memories of the past life... so far it seems like its more common with Kobali who were once human. Something about humans doesn't play well with the Rebirth process. While it works, memories remain intact.
Genetic engineering for transhumanist reasons is illegal, the Federation uses it all the time for medical purposes. Not that they should even need to in this case, a race that can change one species to another should already be capable of removing whatever flaw originally screwed up their reproduction.
The problem with that is... its possible that the Kobali CAN'T because they're either unable to or the cause is so buried or something...
Getting fresh eyes on it might help. Also... it could also be tied to their Rebirth process, which... is a pretty deeply ingrained part of their culture. For all we know the very virus they use to reanimate the dead... is a variation of what neutered them in the first place. We don't really know for sure.
> The morality debate is the most fascinating thing about it. Four out of five times, people who hate the Kobali the most are the ones who can't or won't attempt to see things through anything other than their human lens. It really highlights who was paying attention to Star Trek and who wasn't. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean those people are wrong - though of narrow view, the cultural importance of concepts such as bodily autonomy after death and the philosophical question of who really comes back when a dead body (that is to say, all brain function ceased, whoever was in there is objectively gone) is reanimated by the process of Kobalification are not inherently invalid. For instance, I disagree with starswordc's insinuation that the recycling of a corpse is tantamount to grape, but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong, merely that we place different value on the corpse and whatever rights we think it has.
>
> But I've already gone on too much.
>
> On topic, I actually like the Kobali missions. I do agree the respawn rate is a touch excessive, but a properly kitted out player/away team can typically survive most inopportune respawns pretty handily.
So in other words, humans (and others) should let the Kobali desecrate the corpses of their loved ones because Political Correctness? Nonsense. As far as the Varduaar in stasis, what the Kobali are doing wouldn't be tolerated if they were Feds....and I shudder to think what would happen if they were Klingon or Romulan.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
My character Tsin'xing
Have to agree with you on this one, pal! I would much prefer to have an option to skip all battlezone areas, if nothing else at least after the first time that you play through those damned things. I don't mind repetitive trips through much of the story content in this game and have over a dozen lvl 60 characters to prove it; but the battlezone areas are frankly a pain in the TRIBBLE.
The only thing I hate about the Kobali ground missions is that I agree with the Vaadwaur. I would rather kill the Kobali than help them...
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius