I really don't see the problem with making one Romulan or Reman ship that looks like a warbird, but has a warp core and plays like a standard cruiser that everyone else gets to use. As much as I've been asking for a ship like that, I never said that all singularity cores had to go. My best character is Romulan, but the only ships that fit my play style are cross faction, Fed, or the Suliban ship. Those of you who want to be as Romulan as possible, have an all Romulan crew, Romulan uniforms and hand weapons, and a Romulan warbird complete with a singularity core, cloak and all plasma weapons can already do that. I'm sorry, but I hate singularity cores, and I won't fly a ship that has one. I never use the cloak, either.
So... stop playing a Romulan? Battle cloaks, singularities, and Romulan/Reman boff traits are the defining features of the faction. If you're using almost nothing from the Romulan faction, then that's just weird and seems like a waste.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been watching Star Trek and reading Trek novels. In TOS, the Romulans were more of a proud and honorable warrior race, and I've especially enjoyed the EU novels set in the TNG era which made the Romulan culture and personality more like they were in TOS. The TNG episode "Reunification" was one of my favorites. It presented a group of Romulans, the Underground, who wanted to be a more noble people than the Tal Shiar, and wanted to ally with the Federation, especially the Vulcans. So, it is canon that there was a division among the Romulans. Cryptic took this story to great lengths, giving D'Tan and his underground control of New Romulus. I love playing this story they've created. Now do you see why I play as Romulan? However, I do not love the game mechanics of the singularity core and cloak that they have given to every single Romulan ship. I've tried many Romulan ships. None of them work for me. If need be, I will continue to play my Romulan and fly cross faction ships and the Suliban ship. But it would be better if I had at least one ship, a cruiser with a warp core, that actually looks Romulan.
By the way, I do use Romulan crew. Your suggestion to stop playing Romulan is as ridiculous as me telling you to stop playing your favorite faction because you're not doing it the way I want you to.
The TOS Romulans are the honorable warrior types slowly disappearing in a rising tide of corruption. They were modeled after the real-world Roman Republic / Roman Empire transition and when seen in TOS they were at the point where the old guard kept up the honorable traditions but the devious snakes like Decius were cropping up more and more as the corruption of the senate into a self-serving oligarchy of the elite progressed.
The TNG Romulans represent the height of the corrupt period of the Roman empire where backstabbing and powerplays were everyday hazards, and probably would not have lasted too much longer even without the events of Nemesis or Hobus as grass-roots revolutionary groups like D'Tan's grew out of the oppression of the citizenry.
According to the female Romulan commander the Romulans were a poor people, and in TOS that meant a shortage of dilithium crystals since they were the only form of wealth that really meant anything on a large scale. That shortage would make a very significant cost penalty to for them to build and maintain warp core driven ships compared to singularity core ships, and stylistically it is actually a good thing that the game reflects that.
Anyway, in the overall scheme of things it is probably more cost effective in the long run for the Republic to tolerate that bottleneck shipping in singularity cores makes, and simply buying or borrowing foreign ships to address the short term problem. The game simulates that quite well by opening up allied ships to Romulan captains who decide to go out and work with them (which of course is all of the Rom player captains). The Romulans probably have their hands full keeping the Dewan toiletbrushs and Suliban ships running in their home fleets.
[snip]...Maybe I could have done better with the Romulan presentation...[/snip]
Always remember: all of the aliens in Star Trek are commentaries on the current condition of man. They're there as mirrors for us to see ourselves--and we're not as cute as we think we are. ╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻
[snip]...Maybe I could have done better with the Romulan presentation...[/snip]
Always remember: all of the aliens in Star Trek are commentaries on the current condition of man. They're there as mirrors for us to see ourselves--and we're not as cute as we think we are. ╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻
I thought it was a decent story told by sirboulevard, not flawless, but not terrible by any means neither. I found sirboulevard's Twitch modding back in June cringe-worthy & this wasn't this was pleasant to read regardless of any mistakes. It definitely had the feel of a scene out of a series or movie imo.
Totally agree with thetanine's statement & it is all too true.
@phoenixc#0738 I like your write up of Romulan history. I will admit that I didn't consider the dilithium issue, and it is a fair point. Still, there are easy ways around it. The Remans are excellent miners. If the devs wanted, they could have the Remans find dilithium on New Romulus or anywhere else in Republic space. Or, exchanging dilithium with the Federation or KDF could be a thing.
Personally, I think adding some Romulan ship (or even just one decent cruiser) with warp cores would be a good thing for the game. We players can argue all we want about that, but like I said, it all boils down to "if the devs wanted". I offer to agree to disagree on this. In the meantime, I will continue to hope.
I liked how it touched upon the dyson sphere as the place the Romulan Republic is using to construct, or finish, new ships. I'm not sure if I've ever fully appreciated the capabilities of the sphere let alone what it can do for the Alliance (or the Voth) if it were ever to be fully utilized.
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do a mirror take on it then or from a defector.
"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
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do a mirror take on it then or from a defector.
Well those aren't "this exact form" now are they. That said I doubt an interview by the Terran version would work, since dictatorships aren't known for their support of freedom of the press.
That said there's ways to do similar exposition for the Terrans, for example an intercepted trasmission or a story from a PoV "omnicient narator".
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do it from a Terran PoV?
The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do it from a Terran PoV?
The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
Then do it from a military briefing or a conversation between Leeta and Killy? The Emperor?
That was cool. Are there going to be more of these for the other factions? Terran Empire ftw!
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do it from a Terran PoV?
The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
Then do it from a military briefing or a conversation between Leeta and Killy? The Emperor?
those are possible or thru intelligence reports. I talked about publications as that was the part of my post you quoted.
Okay I logged into the game and saw an interesting "news release" in the launcher. But Page Not Found came up when I tried to read more. Now with a Rom as one of my alts, this is quite interesting. Is Cryptic teasing us about opening up Romulan ships to all species, including Fed humans and KDF Klingons and Jem'Hadar? Or does the interview with Admiral Kererek hide that the RRW is in much better shape than we are led to believe?[
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey ... stuff. --the Doctor, "Blink"
Okay I logged into the game and saw an interesting "news release" in the launcher. But Page Not Found came up when I tried to read more. Now with a Rom as one of my alts, this is quite interesting. Is Cryptic teasing us about opening up Romulan ships to all species, including Fed humans and KDF Klingons and Jem'Hadar? Or does the interview with Admiral Kererek hide that the RRW is in much better shape than we are led to believe?[
While I don't know what that screen means either, I suspect it wasn't intended to be put into the launcher yet, thus the missing page. So we'll probably have to wait and see what it means. (There is 1 Romulan ship that can be flown by any faction right now, the Kohlr.)
Why do we have factions at all now? The ship locks were one of the the last standing pieces of faction identity.
EDIT: I'm also now wondering if this is a sign of things to come in Picard? Otherwise it seems weird to make such a drastic change to the Romulans in-game, given Picard is supposed to feature the Romulans heavily and we have yet to see the show.
Fed Whales funding interest in Romulan Ship designs likely means more Romulan ships down the road.
RP where it counts can keep the factions good enough for those that actually care about the lore.
- While the extra whale spending from feds collecting Romulan ships means that the corporate overlords might sign off on more Romulan hulls being released for play for true Romulan players to enjoy.
Win/win.
Finally decided to make a sig.
I see allot of them with a character, and ship.
though I'm not sure which ship to put on there...
I'll think about it. This will do for now.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Honestly I look at this as a means for them to focus less on the Romulan faction and sort of put the Romulan faction on the shelf.
I don't think that is the reason. I think some of it might be the picard show.
The Picard show won't be a major starfleet focused show. It has former starfleet but the show will be set outside of starfleet. It will a big romulan focus. So whatever picard stuff they will do will obviously be heavily Romulan and Borg Focused. By doing this they could open up Romulan ships to the other factions from the picard show. As there is bound to new romulan ships from the picard show and possibly more Romulan ship's then Starfleet Vessels that haven't already not been seen from the other shows like ds9 and tng. I think this could be a possible reason. Cryptic seems to have this thing about not leaving players behind. Even if they don't make ships for a certain faction like romulan and jems, all those ships could still be used by romulans and jems. This might be reason why they didn't rerun the temperial recruit event and the reason why they don't want to rerun it unless they make it so it everyone can do it. Along with the amount of time it takes to code and make such an event I imagine. Kael did say that the recruitment events was one of the most difficult things that they do.
So yeah I think its do to them not wanting to leave players out of new picard show content when they start releasing that. Along with with players maybe buying more romulan ships with the new changes or maybe they don't consider it fair romulans can use all those allied ships but the other factions can't use their ships. We will most likely find out more next livestream. Have to wait and see.
Seems the Romulan ships may now be flown by Federation or Klingon Character's, so this occurred prior to Awakening going Live. So do claim your extra Romulan ships for Admiralty or to begin testing Romulan Technology with your Federation or Klingons today.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
> @spiritborn said:
> (Quote)
>
> The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
>
> Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
>
> Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
>
> Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
Correction,Georgiou is currently onboard Discovery in the 33rd century.
I know that but as far as Starfleet in 2410s is conserned she's MIA (and will remain so unless the section 31 series changes that). MIA stands for "missing in action" after all and being on a ship that was flung 1000 years into the future should count as "missing".
> @spiritborn said:
> (Quote)
>
> The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
>
> Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
>
> Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
>
> Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
Correction,Georgiou is currently onboard Discovery in the 33rd century.
I know that but as far as Starfleet in 2410s is conserned she's MIA (and will remain so unless the section 31 series changes that). MIA stands for "missing in action" after all and being on a ship that was flung 1000 years into the future should count as "missing".
Kinda problematic for a Section 31 show. Unless they plan on having that be in the far future. I'm not even sure Section 31 would even exist that far in the future without having at least been found out lost to history and then long forgotten even by history hundreds of years later. I'd imagine they would have to time travel her back to the 23rd century if that was going to be the time period for the section 31 show. Anyways back on topic.
I wouldn't mind a follow up blog on how the romulans feel that their ships are being flown by federation personal and klingon personal. Now that they can fly romulan ships.
I don't think so, a ludicrous temporal trick will be used, as usual. in discovery, there are already a temporal costume, temporal stones; then why not a temporal f.rt!! (put "a" instead of the "." )
I don't think so, a ludicrous temporal trick will be used, as usual. in discovery, there are already a temporal costume, temporal stones; then why not a temporal f.rt!! (put "a" instead of the "." )
True, DSC writing tends to be rather like old pulp action serials. I keep expecting the old "interrupted story" schtick to crop up. That one is a kind of "take it back" move where the writers put the hero in an impossible cliffhanger they failed to think though and cannot come up with a plausible way out.
They way it goes is the hero and some other party are talking about the cliffhanger and the hero says something like "I thought it was hopeless but then--" and just at that point in the sentence the alarm goes off or something else happens so the story never gets finished. It is the cheapest of cheap tricks writing wise, though it can be rather funny if done right.
Comments
The TOS Romulans are the honorable warrior types slowly disappearing in a rising tide of corruption. They were modeled after the real-world Roman Republic / Roman Empire transition and when seen in TOS they were at the point where the old guard kept up the honorable traditions but the devious snakes like Decius were cropping up more and more as the corruption of the senate into a self-serving oligarchy of the elite progressed.
The TNG Romulans represent the height of the corrupt period of the Roman empire where backstabbing and powerplays were everyday hazards, and probably would not have lasted too much longer even without the events of Nemesis or Hobus as grass-roots revolutionary groups like D'Tan's grew out of the oppression of the citizenry.
According to the female Romulan commander the Romulans were a poor people, and in TOS that meant a shortage of dilithium crystals since they were the only form of wealth that really meant anything on a large scale. That shortage would make a very significant cost penalty to for them to build and maintain warp core driven ships compared to singularity core ships, and stylistically it is actually a good thing that the game reflects that.
Anyway, in the overall scheme of things it is probably more cost effective in the long run for the Republic to tolerate that bottleneck shipping in singularity cores makes, and simply buying or borrowing foreign ships to address the short term problem. The game simulates that quite well by opening up allied ships to Romulan captains who decide to go out and work with them (which of course is all of the Rom player captains). The Romulans probably have their hands full keeping the Dewan toiletbrushs and Suliban ships running in their home fleets.
Always remember: all of the aliens in Star Trek are commentaries on the current condition of man. They're there as mirrors for us to see ourselves--and we're not as cute as we think we are. ╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻
I thought it was a decent story told by sirboulevard, not flawless, but not terrible by any means neither. I found sirboulevard's Twitch modding back in June cringe-worthy & this wasn't this was pleasant to read regardless of any mistakes. It definitely had the feel of a scene out of a series or movie imo.
Totally agree with thetanine's statement & it is all too true.
Personally, I think adding some Romulan ship (or even just one decent cruiser) with warp cores would be a good thing for the game. We players can argue all we want about that, but like I said, it all boils down to "if the devs wanted". I offer to agree to disagree on this. In the meantime, I will continue to hope.
I liked how it touched upon the dyson sphere as the place the Romulan Republic is using to construct, or finish, new ships. I'm not sure if I've ever fully appreciated the capabilities of the sphere let alone what it can do for the Alliance (or the Voth) if it were ever to be fully utilized.
While that's possible (I might even they probable) I doubt they'll take this exact form, since while it's believeble that leaders or major figures in some factions would be interviewed by Federation press, others not so much. It would probably be next to impossible to get Admiral Leeta (aka mirror Leeta) to sit down for an interview.
Do a mirror take on it then or from a defector.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
That said there's ways to do similar exposition for the Terrans, for example an intercepted trasmission or a story from a PoV "omnicient narator".
Do it from a Terran PoV?
The issue from a terran PoV is that it'll be biased as all hell, Leeta nor any other Terran leader would not ever allow the true stated of the Empire to be revealed to the public.
Any Terran publication would be about as truthful as the announcements from the Iraqi ministry of information during the second gulf war and pretty much for the same reason.
Only way I could see a terran publication showing anything close to truthful state of the empire at this point would be if the imperial goverment desided to metaphorically throw Leeta under the bus and blame her for all their recent set backs.
Only person who has the motive to tell about the state of the Terran Empire in detail and honestly would be Mirror Philippa Georgiou and even her info would be accurate only for the 2250s and she's currently MIA.
Then do it from a military briefing or a conversation between Leeta and Killy? The Emperor?
Okay I logged into the game and saw an interesting "news release" in the launcher. But Page Not Found came up when I tried to read more. Now with a Rom as one of my alts, this is quite interesting. Is Cryptic teasing us about opening up Romulan ships to all species, including Fed humans and KDF Klingons and Jem'Hadar? Or does the interview with Admiral Kererek hide that the RRW is in much better shape than we are led to believe?[
While I don't know what that screen means either, I suspect it wasn't intended to be put into the launcher yet, thus the missing page. So we'll probably have to wait and see what it means. (There is 1 Romulan ship that can be flown by any faction right now, the Kohlr.)
EDIT: I'm also now wondering if this is a sign of things to come in Picard? Otherwise it seems weird to make such a drastic change to the Romulans in-game, given Picard is supposed to feature the Romulans heavily and we have yet to see the show.
RP where it counts can keep the factions good enough for those that actually care about the lore.
- While the extra whale spending from feds collecting Romulan ships means that the corporate overlords might sign off on more Romulan hulls being released for play for true Romulan players to enjoy.
Win/win.
I see allot of them with a character, and ship.
though I'm not sure which ship to put on there...
I'll think about it. This will do for now.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't think that is the reason. I think some of it might be the picard show.
The Picard show won't be a major starfleet focused show. It has former starfleet but the show will be set outside of starfleet. It will a big romulan focus. So whatever picard stuff they will do will obviously be heavily Romulan and Borg Focused. By doing this they could open up Romulan ships to the other factions from the picard show. As there is bound to new romulan ships from the picard show and possibly more Romulan ship's then Starfleet Vessels that haven't already not been seen from the other shows like ds9 and tng. I think this could be a possible reason. Cryptic seems to have this thing about not leaving players behind. Even if they don't make ships for a certain faction like romulan and jems, all those ships could still be used by romulans and jems. This might be reason why they didn't rerun the temperial recruit event and the reason why they don't want to rerun it unless they make it so it everyone can do it. Along with the amount of time it takes to code and make such an event I imagine. Kael did say that the recruitment events was one of the most difficult things that they do.
So yeah I think its do to them not wanting to leave players out of new picard show content when they start releasing that. Along with with players maybe buying more romulan ships with the new changes or maybe they don't consider it fair romulans can use all those allied ships but the other factions can't use their ships. We will most likely find out more next livestream. Have to wait and see.
According to August 29th patch notes:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1250753/pc-patch-notes-for-8-29-19
yes, that's...MIA, for all intents and purposes
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I know that but as far as Starfleet in 2410s is conserned she's MIA (and will remain so unless the section 31 series changes that). MIA stands for "missing in action" after all and being on a ship that was flung 1000 years into the future should count as "missing".
Kinda problematic for a Section 31 show. Unless they plan on having that be in the far future. I'm not even sure Section 31 would even exist that far in the future without having at least been found out lost to history and then long forgotten even by history hundreds of years later. I'd imagine they would have to time travel her back to the 23rd century if that was going to be the time period for the section 31 show. Anyways back on topic.
I wouldn't mind a follow up blog on how the romulans feel that their ships are being flown by federation personal and klingon personal. Now that they can fly romulan ships.
I don't think so, a ludicrous temporal trick will be used, as usual. in discovery, there are already a temporal costume, temporal stones; then why not a temporal f.rt!! (put "a" instead of the "." )
True, DSC writing tends to be rather like old pulp action serials. I keep expecting the old "interrupted story" schtick to crop up. That one is a kind of "take it back" move where the writers put the hero in an impossible cliffhanger they failed to think though and cannot come up with a plausible way out.
They way it goes is the hero and some other party are talking about the cliffhanger and the hero says something like "I thought it was hopeless but then--" and just at that point in the sentence the alarm goes off or something else happens so the story never gets finished. It is the cheapest of cheap tricks writing wise, though it can be rather funny if done right.