I'm still not sure how Burnham knew about Iconians
We told her when they appeared in the first part.
I meant more her remark that we survived a war with them...considering we ripped and tore through the heralds first time, she had no real reason to think they were a galaxy destroying threat logically
I loved this episode, as it drips with molten fanservice cheese galore. Especially that one bit in part 2. You know the bit I mean.
As someone a bit leery of Discovery's key conceit (one that even the showrunners seem to have acknowledged, namely that making it a prequel served no real purpose), I was pleasantly surprised by liking Burnham, more or less.
But.
I gotta say it.
As someone whose main character is a KDF-aligned Romulan, watching him rush to stop Obisek from shooting Hakeev in the head was HILARIOUS.
Even semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic powered aliens can't keep their holodecks from trying to destroy the universe? Really? How has Excalbian civilization survived?
And the moral? "Good is Dumb, but you blew up lots of stuff so we'll be Good." Hello, keyboard, would you like some face? fjo9382WUR0P9;W3JRFW;SOP9RUWP;9ORJWLI
The only good part was Jeri Ryan's performance. It's a good thing the Salt Monsters are extinct or she'd have summoned the entire race.
Oh, and inconsistencies like the assmilated T'ket being kind of meh can be explained: the whole thing was a sim and the Excalbian simulator was making it up as it went along from incomplete data. This was kind of lampshaded when someone pointed out that Iconians can't time travel right after an Iconian time traveled.
@Venture-1. @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that. Yes, that Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. You'll have to be specific; for me it was Tuesday.
Oh dear. Whilst am pleased to see Michael Burnham is to be in-game, this is going to cause some rage on those who literally said "they can't do that!".
I will echo your comments here as well, I'm also very glad they got Burnham in game, I always enjoyed her Character on Discovery, for both of Season 1 & 2. I often thought those that were 'upset' saying she was very opinionated, they never looked at her history, and regardless I found her character to very empathetic, warm, and she often weighted the impacts of the choices she made even knowing the cost.
These two episodes seem to FOCUS their MORAL on that very point, do you save a ally who perhaps makes a wrong decision in a moment of passion, or do you exclusively focus on the greater threat at any cost evil if it compromises your morality. Burnham realized that morality herself in Discovery when she risked it all by being exposed to the toxic elements and did it anyways for the 'greater' good--perhaps part of her Vulcan father's influence in her upbringing.
While we know in Discovery she survives, in Federation Lore she is mostly remembered as 'Lost', as they likely classified or covered up their Journey to the 31st Century. Still I'm very interested to see what the next season of Discovery will reveal but with the New Picard Series airing most is likely to focus on the Borg Influence in the Romulan Star going Super Nova. This too seems to mostly at least currently align with how STO has envisioned some of this, as Hakeev had interest in Borg technology to influence innovation though some was likely also influence by Iconians.
Regardless I'm still very excited to see Burnham's character created as a replicate so-to-speak though it's more clearly explained in the mission.
yeah the romulan bit was a nice touch, thumbs up for doing that
Yea I'd have to agree Romulan's are in fact my 2nd favorite Faction, even if in the 'eyes' of the STO they are a 'mini' version of one. My 3 Romulan character's I'd like to believe follow D'Tan and his teaching which was also largely influenced by Spock.
Again the "choices" are strictly the designers ideas of Fed(which Burnham supposedly exemplifies) and Klingon version of "Good". Burnham was annoying with her holier than thou attitude. She didn't know the history(except for the Red Angel thing where she was the expert) but thought she knew the better course than those who lived it? However i guess it does fit with her character.
Still as i said I'll replay, if only to get the other accolades, although agreeing with her every time for the Fed accolade will be annoying. It was a fun set of missions despite Burnham's presence...(im sorry she is just above Nelix on my most dislike characters in ST list)...
Thoughts on part one:
Playing as a LibBorg Romulan aligned with the KDF does not seem to give any interesting dialog. Burnham doesn't notice I have pointy ears, and Seven doesn't seem to care about how I have Borg bits.
Also... why would my character care if Hakeev or Noye die? I was quite literally trying to melt their faces with a Plasma Repeater Pistol. Which makes me wonder why the Control nanites can't be melted with plasma weapons... Oh and yes, I totally used Borg Neural blast on Control.... it does absolutely nothing as far as I could tell.
You tried plasma @marhawkman ? I tried the T2 solution of cryogenics and then electrifying the blob
Neither worked better than a good old knuckle sandwich (speaking of which, Nu7 gave me my first 20k+ crit melee finisher hit (burned ham set, traj bending, the tzenkethi aoe melee buff power and other boosts on my gorn)...that did nothing but move her on a stage, bah)
If they had said the assimilation was imperfect then it'd make sense but Assimilated T'ket should have been a lot more involved as a boss - even on adv she folded like paper.
I... had the opposite experience with fighting T'Ket of Borg. I got mauled multiple times. Mostly from Drone Swarms.
And yes I have the Tommy Gun, but on the particular character I was running on it wasn't upgraded. It was Mk XI Blue, and I was barely scratching T'Ket, which annoyed me a bit. Also I admit for most of it I was avoiding going full Cryomancer due to Borg Adaptation, but I finally said "Frak it" and unloaded everything I had. Was still a very rough fight.
Note: This was not on my main, but my TOS Temporal Sci modeled after Sailor Mercury if she was a Starfleet Officer, hence Cryomancer (aka 4 cryo kit modules).
May have a different experience on my main that has a XV Gold Tommy Gun.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I like very much the missions. I had only troubles with the iconain on the roof at the end of the first part. I did the mission with my main and 1 of my sci captain. The borg are not a problem at all, not even borg Tket or Seven of Nine. I don't have special weapons (romulan store wide beam and Tos wide beam pistol). Most of the time, burham, seven and my boff took aggro, and I just had to clean the rest. Normal t'ket wasn't a problem, i did nothing until the last fight except use the consoles.
these missions are a challenge, and it is welcome in a too easy game. thx.
The fan-service is really fun and I don't generaly like the fan-service.
The first choice is a blatantly false dilemma. The game suggests that the player and only the player has to either help Obisek or chase Hakeev, which completely ignores the fact that there are 3 other people at the scene, more than enough to do both. Certainly the medical-trained science boff I had with me would've been more capable of treating Obisek than my tactical captain. Nevermind Hakeev is stuck in a dead end just around the corner, because we shut his gateway down during the fight. So he never actually gets away at all (the borg queen abducting him, which happens in both endings, is not part of the scenario).
The second choice is more plausible. The Noye fight is pretty much the same as the real history. Whether the outcome of "beat him senseless and then arrest him" is changed to "kill him" or "he surrenders" doesn't seem like a big deal. The major difference comes from the Female Changeling living or dying. Which, given that she's another villain that we'd have to eventually kill anyway, I'd say kill her now is the best option.
As for Control, that's more a Mass Effectish paragon vs renegade choice. The obvious, easy, only-way-to-be-sure way (delete) vs the hard, uncertain, but-its-the-right-thing way (inoculate). Since the outcomes are exactly the same except the "hard" way leaves us with the Sphere data and future!Burnham alive it's easy to see which is the better one.
Yarmok always prophesizes doom regardless of the outcome, while Lincoln approves, regardless of what we choose. Yarmok starts with wild speculation after the first choice (there's no way of knowing how the reman situation would've changed without Obisek, and Hakeev had pretty much outlived his usefulness to the iconians at that point already), proceeds with just making up stuff entirely opposite to reality after the second (the Female Changeling was never much help against the hur'q, on the contrary she was trying to cover up the threat to the last possible moment and the TLF was finished at that point "martyr" or no) and, as if running out of ideas, ends up impotently whining about irrelevant things after the third (there was no way for the player to destroy Control in that fight, the choice was only about keeping the Sphere data for ourselves or destroying it).
Overall, the theme of the moral choices was good, even with the first dilemma being very forced with the way the NPCs are inexplicably rendered unable to contribute. I was mildly disappointed the second part did not continue the moral dilemmas, instead turning into a straightforward kill-the-badniks. But all the bossfights were cool if not challenging, though I do think that making borg!T'ket weaker than Control!Seven was kinda unrealistic. Gotta give the head role to the famous voice I suppose.
On the other hand, Yarmok's inevitable turn from his obviously pre-selected advocacy of evil to good after we save his sorry butt from his own biased creations was hopelessly predictable from beginning to end.
I'm still not sure how Burnham knew about Iconians
We told her when they appeared in the first part.
I meant more her remark that we survived a war with them...considering we ripped and tore through the heralds first time, she had no real reason to think they were a galaxy destroying threat logically
Since she clearly knew nothing of them in the first part, we're left with the assumption that she had been informed of them off-screen between the missions. That or she's just THAT impressed with their architecture.
Again the "choices" are strictly the designers ideas of Fed(which Burnham supposedly exemplifies) and Klingon version of "Good". Burnham was annoying with her holier than thou attitude. She didn't know the history(except for the Red Angel thing where she was the expert) but thought she knew the better course than those who lived it? However i guess it does fit with her character.
Still as i said I'll replay, if only to get the other accolades, although agreeing with her every time for the Fed accolade will be annoying. It was a fun set of missions despite Burnham's presence...(im sorry she is just above Nelix on my most dislike characters in ST list)...
The "Fed" accolade does not agree with Burnham every time. She recommends deleting the Sphere data, which is the "klingon" solution. Precisely because that's where she knew the danger personally.
Thoughts on part one:
Playing as a LibBorg Romulan aligned with the KDF does not seem to give any interesting dialog. Burnham doesn't notice I have pointy ears, and Seven doesn't seem to care about how I have Borg bits.
On the other hand, playing it as a custom alien from the romulan origin I did not get falsely identified as a romulan in it, unlike some other missions.
And Seven shouldn't suddenly notice your borg bits here anyway. Unless you're playing jem'hadar, she's met the player character before. Not that I believe it appropriate for officers to compare each others' alien bits while on duty anyway. It would be strange to get some kind of "hey look, it's a <race>" line from every character. Burnham is different, she mistakes the romulans for vulcans and wonders about their uniforms.
Speaking of jem'hadar, that's where the dialogue really should be different. The JH PC was not present at the events depicted the trials since he starts the game at the Gamma arc, and would at best have played simulations of them. Anyone played them with a jemmy?
Fantastic writing, very fun. Exceptionally well timed coming very soon after the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths, felt like it was the Star trek equivalent.
Only slight problem I noticed (besides server collapse and getting booted after spending an hour getting kicked from the character select screen) was none of the Borg ever adapted. I never used the frequency remodulator once and neither did my BOff.
I liked the episode, even though it was predictable we'd make the case for good yet - but I didn't realize that we're basically getting a Holodeck out of control episode with Excaliban tech.
The various ways the original stories were twisted was pretty cool. I kinda wished however that we had visited more original episode stories. And I kinda hoped for an episode with Gul Dukat.
But I think there was a bit too much shooting on ground. A bit mere variety in between the fights could have been nice.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Regarding President Lincoln..... yeah, I've only played this as a Federation character so far so genuine query, but is the dialogue different for KDF characters?
(I mean, I don't see any reason why a Klingon/Orion/Jem'Hadar etc would either know who he is or particuarly care.)
I can just about swallow a Starfleet Officer knowing of him, but the aforementioned races..... not so much.
In the original episode TOS S3 - "The Savage Curtain" Lincoln was there ONLY because he was Kirk's personal hero. It was done for the episode as an Easter Egg and link to the episode and an element a casual Trek fan might have remembered or at least heard about.
I suppose they COULD have gone with making Michael Burnham a 'personal hero' to yours (and my) character (although that wouldn't work for non-Fed races); but can you imagine the s***storm the players who are "TRIBBLE is the DOOOOOOM of the Trek franchise!!!!!" would have raised if the storyline was "Burnham is one of your character's personal heroes..."
So yeah, they went with an Easter Egg for effect.
And yeah, the idea that the Excalbians are still debating "Good vs. Evil" 150 years later is a bit ridiculous because Kirk did explain the difference at the end: http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/77.htm
ROCK: You are the survivors. The others have run off. It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me any other difference between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?
KIRK: You established the methods and the goals.
ROCK: For you to use as you chose.
KIRK: What did you offer the others if they won?
ROCK: What they wanted most. Power.
KIRK: You offered me the lives of my crew.
ROCK: I perceive you have won their lives.
But, Excalbians ARE `living rocks' so who knows if their lifespans are measured in terms of Geologic time - maybe 150 years to them equates to a 15 minute Carbon based lifeform discussion by comparison.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Again the "choices" are strictly the designers ideas of Fed(which Burnham supposedly exemplifies) and Klingon version of "Good". Burnham was annoying with her holier than thou attitude. She didn't know the history(except for the Red Angel thing where she was the expert) but thought she knew the better course than those who lived it? However i guess it does fit with her character.
Still as i said I'll replay, if only to get the other accolades, although agreeing with her every time for the Fed accolade will be annoying. It was a fun set of missions despite Burnham's presence...(im sorry she is just above Nelix on my most dislike characters in ST list)...
You don't agree with Burnham every time for Prime Selective, though. She wants you to delete the data, which would lead to The Best OnFence accolade. Getting Prime Selective is essentially choosing the same option that Picard would have chosen in each scenario in TNG.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
ROCK: You are the survivors. The others have run off. It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me any other difference between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?
KIRK: You established the methods and the goals.
ROCK: For you to use as you chose.
KIRK: What did you offer the others if they won?
ROCK: What they wanted most. Power.
KIRK: You offered me the lives of my crew...AND I WANTED POWER! I'M A SWAGGERING OVERBEARING TIN-PLATED DICTATOR WITH DELUSIONS OF GODHOOD!
Fixed.
@Venture-1. @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that. Yes, that Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. You'll have to be specific; for me it was Tuesday.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Is it me or are there way too many drones in the part of the mission on the borg ship? Between them and whatever is going on on the floor its damn near impossible to do anything without dying dozens of times. Took me over half an hour just to get past that part as I would get killed every few seconds. If I didn't happen to have a TR116 I would never have been able to progress past that part of the mission. I couldn't have stayed alive long enough to remodulate my weapon once let alone as many times as would have been needed. It needs another design and QA pass
If they had said the assimilation was imperfect then it'd make sense but Assimilated T'ket should have been a lot more involved as a boss - even on adv she folded like paper.
This was not on my main, but my TOS Temporal Sci modeled after Sailor Mercury if she was a Starfleet Officer, hence Cryomancer (aka 4 cryo kit modules).
My fed main is an electromancer with Jaylahs staff - my tactics involves maxxing out the run buff then dropping the integrated electrical field poles to create a huge killing zone (if you ever have seen some guy dropping poles with electricity sparking between them in gtfos, its likely me, lol) that I then lure the enemies into - a combination of melee and this killzone (amped with resistance debuffs and electrical dots) resulting in mass murder with style
My tactic with T'ket was to to set up this kill zone at an intersection then wait until she teleported into it to use her gravimetric blast - the kill zone preventing protodrones sneaking up - replant if needed (oddly, she barely damaged the poles) after the blast, unleash hell then melee until done - of course keeping an eye out for adaptation
My gorn was far more simple - engage run to T'ket, use the tzenkethi melee debuff aoe before with a heavily buffed gorn fist (and a gravity punch as why not) administer 1000ccs of pain, taking Secundus into the murder aoe as a bonus - before trading ranged with Lecks knife while getting into engage range for more punching
Overall it was a good pair of missions. There were some writing issues, plot contrivances, and weirdness, but I can chalk up most of that to it all being a concoction of the Excalbians. I took the chance to ask the other captains what they thought of it and got some strange dialogue.
Kirk: Spock, what are we looking at?
Spock: Fascinating. It appears to be a creature made of pure snark.
Picard: LaForge, report!
LaForge: Captain, the snark levels are off the charts down here. If I can't remodulate the shields, I'm going to have to eject the core!
Sisko: I'm glad the snark is on our side.
O'Brien: I'm glad its not a Cardassian.
Janeway: Seven, what is wrong with your future self?
Seven: It appears my implants are malfunctioning and causing me to display an overwhelming level of snark.
Janeway: Can we use it to make coffee?
Seven's snark was off the walls annoying to me. She seemed to maintain it all the way through, regardless of the situation. She took nothing seriously, nothing really worried her, she just set phasers to snark and had no range at all. I wanted to slap her. This could have been a fantastic mission for Seven to see her reactions to her CTRL-ALT-ssimilated self turn into something monstrous. Instead, we got Snark Wars: Revenge of the Seven.
Also it was a missed opportunity to throw in Sulu's Excelsior and some lines from him in UC with all the other nostalgia.
I loved the redesign of Iconia, short as it was - I'm still not sure how Burnham knew about Iconians (I may be wrong but I don't think pre tng had any contact with them) but anyway...
VARLEY [on viewscreen]: I know what you're thinking, what the hell am I doing here? Well, I had heard rumours about a couple of archaeological digs that started making the Iconians sound a lot less like legend. I did a little investigating, and I located their homeworld.
^^^
So yeah, they were an ancient race that the Federation knew of for quite a while - and hell given what happened in TRIBBLE S2 - the Feds might have gotten whatever info they had about the Iconians FROM the Sphere information the U.S.S. Discovery downloaded.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
First of all overall I enjoyed it. I thought these ones are some of the better missions and I really liked the space part. This first bit of feedback is only minor when an NPC is saying a reasonable length sentence, they shouldn’t repeat it multiple times 100% the same as it sounds very unnatural and jarring.
For example Picard giving his command to target the tractor beam and fire. It does sound great the first time but the 2nd time he gives the order there should be the slight variation in how he says otherwise he sounds like a robot and it sounds unnatural.
Same for the gateway it felt like she was stuck in a time loop. Saying the same thing is fine but it should be said a slightly different way. People don’t speak like that, it’s not natural.
I also thought the situation with Hakeev made no sense. All the while I was thinking my character is an established war hero and veteran who knows how to disarm someone and keep an eye on a villain that has gone down. They also also know Hakeev personally and knows what he is like. So why did all common sense and experience go out the window? Plus what happened to the personal force shields that suddenly failed under 1 shot after having had time to recharge to max. Then he escapes for no logical reason with various people standing around doing nothing instead of chasing after. Plus it always bugs me when my character has some random unrelated weapon in the cut screen that she wouldn't ever use. Its jarring against the overall story when weapons change for no reason. But thats always been a problem, I assume some sort of engine limitation?
Lastly the Borg Frequency Remodulator, I am experienced at fighting Borg. It says optional so I wasted time running around trying to figure out how to move on, only I couldn’t. It doesn’t appear to be optional which is missleading. In the end I had to pick up a useless Frequency Remodulator which does nothing for my equipped weapon and then I have to waste time finding it in my inventory and destroying it to make space. Its not a major problem but it could be better.
I would have given out 8 out of 10 but due to above 7 out of 10.
Bonus points for the difficulty curve on Elite. This is how content should be. I loved the shear volume of enemy's and the fact they didn't die in seconds. The boss fights for a change felt like boss fights. Played though it all on Elite and it felt great.
Plus it always bugs me when my character has some random unrelated weapon in the cut screen that she wouldn't ever use. Its jarring against the overall story when weapons change for no reason. But thats always been a problem, I assume some sort of engine limitation?
In one of the 10 Forward weeklies... sometime last year, I don't remember which one, but yeah. The animations don't work right unless you make separate animations for the various weapon types. Which means the cutscene needs variables to work, and suddenly the animations are modular and work less fluidly... worse when it's a cutscene with boffs, where the boffs each have their own weird random thing.
The "Fed" accolade does not agree with Burnham every time. She recommends deleting the Sphere data, which is the "klingon" solution. Precisely because that's where she knew the danger personally.
Yeah i figured that out when i replayed picked Burnham's choices each time and didn't get the accolade. Should have checked here first, thanks for trying to warn me(even if that wasn't your intent).
Now I have to replay 2 more times so i can get the other accolades... and who knows how many times of part 2 so I can get that accolade, my log didn't have a x/y counter for it....
I've just tries the new Episodes and i am very frustrated. It is impossible to complete the 2nd episode with assimilated M'Tara. All enemies are standing at the respawn point and you have no chance to escape from it. I've just ended the stupid fight after half an hour with being killed more than 100 times. This is a new Kobayashi Maru scenario.
I think about never to play these episodes again. Its very frustating..
No Lincoln's Top Hat as an event award completely ruined it. 1/10
Indeed. I was looking forward to combining the top hat with the borg eyepiece from the lobi store and the ophidian cane to create an assimilated mr peanut character
For people saying "X doesn't make sense or is too contrived", I would agree with them had it been another mission.
Here, I accept it, because it rapidly becomes quite clear the trials are rigged to TRIBBLE you one way or another, canon, logic and continuity be damned.
Defeat Hakeev with no losses? He pulls a pistol out of his rear to shoot Obisek in such a way you're the only one who can save him.
Reach the gateway with L'Miren still alive and holding the World Heart? Bam, present!T'Ket showing despite her inability to travel through time (which your character points out). And I'm gonna guess Iconians can't be assimilated in the first place.
Noye's defeated? Bam, Female Changeling out of nowhere disguised as a character who only existed in a defunct timeline only Noye knew about!
It's clear Yarnek is already biased towards Evil, hence why no matter what you do, something very bad happens as a result of your actions, even if in reality this wouldn't happen (like how the TLF grows stronger with Noye's death and the loss of the Annorax while in reality, when it happened, it was the final nail in the coffin of the TLF, despite a few members still around but unable to do much). He's just making sure he has data to support his views.
And that's excluding what the Borg Queen simulacrum is doing behind his back.
That's why I call those missions better No-Win Scenarios than the TFO itself, because like the Kobayashi Maru in canon and novels, the program does everything in its power to make you lose, even TRIBBLE at any law of the universe if necessary.
EDIT: And this censorship is getting ridiculous if you can't even say the equivalent of "turning an avian creature upside-down" to express something.
Comments
I meant more her remark that we survived a war with them...considering we ripped and tore through the heralds first time, she had no real reason to think they were a galaxy destroying threat logically
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Some of my favourite parts were Seven's (Jeri Ryan's) snark and epic one liners. Wow did she ever get training in human comedy
I loved this episode, as it drips with molten fanservice cheese galore. Especially that one bit in part 2. You know the bit I mean.
As someone a bit leery of Discovery's key conceit (one that even the showrunners seem to have acknowledged, namely that making it a prequel served no real purpose), I was pleasantly surprised by liking Burnham, more or less.
But.
I gotta say it.
As someone whose main character is a KDF-aligned Romulan, watching him rush to stop Obisek from shooting Hakeev in the head was HILARIOUS.
"You can't do that! I DO THAT!"
And the moral? "Good is Dumb, but you blew up lots of stuff so we'll be Good." Hello, keyboard, would you like some face? fjo9382WUR0P9;W3JRFW;SOP9RUWP;9ORJWLI
The only good part was Jeri Ryan's performance. It's a good thing the Salt Monsters are extinct or she'd have summoned the entire race.
Oh, and inconsistencies like the assmilated T'ket being kind of meh can be explained: the whole thing was a sim and the Excalbian simulator was making it up as it went along from incomplete data. This was kind of lampshaded when someone pointed out that Iconians can't time travel right after an Iconian time traveled.
I will echo your comments here as well, I'm also very glad they got Burnham in game, I always enjoyed her Character on Discovery, for both of Season 1 & 2. I often thought those that were 'upset' saying she was very opinionated, they never looked at her history, and regardless I found her character to very empathetic, warm, and she often weighted the impacts of the choices she made even knowing the cost.
These two episodes seem to FOCUS their MORAL on that very point, do you save a ally who perhaps makes a wrong decision in a moment of passion, or do you exclusively focus on the greater threat at any cost evil if it compromises your morality. Burnham realized that morality herself in Discovery when she risked it all by being exposed to the toxic elements and did it anyways for the 'greater' good--perhaps part of her Vulcan father's influence in her upbringing.
While we know in Discovery she survives, in Federation Lore she is mostly remembered as 'Lost', as they likely classified or covered up their Journey to the 31st Century. Still I'm very interested to see what the next season of Discovery will reveal but with the New Picard Series airing most is likely to focus on the Borg Influence in the Romulan Star going Super Nova. This too seems to mostly at least currently align with how STO has envisioned some of this, as Hakeev had interest in Borg technology to influence innovation though some was likely also influence by Iconians.
Regardless I'm still very excited to see Burnham's character created as a replicate so-to-speak though it's more clearly explained in the mission.
Still as i said I'll replay, if only to get the other accolades, although agreeing with her every time for the Fed accolade will be annoying. It was a fun set of missions despite Burnham's presence...(im sorry she is just above Nelix on my most dislike characters in ST list)...
Playing as a LibBorg Romulan aligned with the KDF does not seem to give any interesting dialog. Burnham doesn't notice I have pointy ears, and Seven doesn't seem to care about how I have Borg bits.
Also... why would my character care if Hakeev or Noye die? I was quite literally trying to melt their faces with a Plasma Repeater Pistol. Which makes me wonder why the Control nanites can't be melted with plasma weapons... Oh and yes, I totally used Borg Neural blast on Control.... it does absolutely nothing as far as I could tell.
My character Tsin'xing
Neither worked better than a good old knuckle sandwich (speaking of which, Nu7 gave me my first 20k+ crit melee finisher hit (burned ham set, traj bending, the tzenkethi aoe melee buff power and other boosts on my gorn)...that did nothing but move her on a stage, bah)
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I... had the opposite experience with fighting T'Ket of Borg. I got mauled multiple times. Mostly from Drone Swarms.
And yes I have the Tommy Gun, but on the particular character I was running on it wasn't upgraded. It was Mk XI Blue, and I was barely scratching T'Ket, which annoyed me a bit. Also I admit for most of it I was avoiding going full Cryomancer due to Borg Adaptation, but I finally said "Frak it" and unloaded everything I had. Was still a very rough fight.
Note: This was not on my main, but my TOS Temporal Sci modeled after Sailor Mercury if she was a Starfleet Officer, hence Cryomancer (aka 4 cryo kit modules).
May have a different experience on my main that has a XV Gold Tommy Gun.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
these missions are a challenge, and it is welcome in a too easy game. thx.
The fan-service is really fun and I don't generaly like the fan-service.
The second choice is more plausible. The Noye fight is pretty much the same as the real history. Whether the outcome of "beat him senseless and then arrest him" is changed to "kill him" or "he surrenders" doesn't seem like a big deal. The major difference comes from the Female Changeling living or dying. Which, given that she's another villain that we'd have to eventually kill anyway, I'd say kill her now is the best option.
As for Control, that's more a Mass Effectish paragon vs renegade choice. The obvious, easy, only-way-to-be-sure way (delete) vs the hard, uncertain, but-its-the-right-thing way (inoculate). Since the outcomes are exactly the same except the "hard" way leaves us with the Sphere data and future!Burnham alive it's easy to see which is the better one.
Yarmok always prophesizes doom regardless of the outcome, while Lincoln approves, regardless of what we choose. Yarmok starts with wild speculation after the first choice (there's no way of knowing how the reman situation would've changed without Obisek, and Hakeev had pretty much outlived his usefulness to the iconians at that point already), proceeds with just making up stuff entirely opposite to reality after the second (the Female Changeling was never much help against the hur'q, on the contrary she was trying to cover up the threat to the last possible moment and the TLF was finished at that point "martyr" or no) and, as if running out of ideas, ends up impotently whining about irrelevant things after the third (there was no way for the player to destroy Control in that fight, the choice was only about keeping the Sphere data for ourselves or destroying it).
Overall, the theme of the moral choices was good, even with the first dilemma being very forced with the way the NPCs are inexplicably rendered unable to contribute. I was mildly disappointed the second part did not continue the moral dilemmas, instead turning into a straightforward kill-the-badniks. But all the bossfights were cool if not challenging, though I do think that making borg!T'ket weaker than Control!Seven was kinda unrealistic. Gotta give the head role to the famous voice I suppose.
On the other hand, Yarmok's inevitable turn from his obviously pre-selected advocacy of evil to good after we save his sorry butt from his own biased creations was hopelessly predictable from beginning to end.
Since she clearly knew nothing of them in the first part, we're left with the assumption that she had been informed of them off-screen between the missions. That or she's just THAT impressed with their architecture.
The "Fed" accolade does not agree with Burnham every time. She recommends deleting the Sphere data, which is the "klingon" solution. Precisely because that's where she knew the danger personally.
On the other hand, playing it as a custom alien from the romulan origin I did not get falsely identified as a romulan in it, unlike some other missions.
And Seven shouldn't suddenly notice your borg bits here anyway. Unless you're playing jem'hadar, she's met the player character before. Not that I believe it appropriate for officers to compare each others' alien bits while on duty anyway. It would be strange to get some kind of "hey look, it's a <race>" line from every character. Burnham is different, she mistakes the romulans for vulcans and wonders about their uniforms.
Speaking of jem'hadar, that's where the dialogue really should be different. The JH PC was not present at the events depicted the trials since he starts the game at the Gamma arc, and would at best have played simulations of them. Anyone played them with a jemmy?
Only slight problem I noticed (besides server collapse and getting booted after spending an hour getting kicked from the character select screen) was none of the Borg ever adapted. I never used the frequency remodulator once and neither did my BOff.
The various ways the original stories were twisted was pretty cool. I kinda wished however that we had visited more original episode stories. And I kinda hoped for an episode with Gul Dukat.
But I think there was a bit too much shooting on ground. A bit mere variety in between the fights could have been nice.
In the original episode TOS S3 - "The Savage Curtain" Lincoln was there ONLY because he was Kirk's personal hero. It was done for the episode as an Easter Egg and link to the episode and an element a casual Trek fan might have remembered or at least heard about.
I suppose they COULD have gone with making Michael Burnham a 'personal hero' to yours (and my) character (although that wouldn't work for non-Fed races); but can you imagine the s***storm the players who are "TRIBBLE is the DOOOOOOM of the Trek franchise!!!!!" would have raised if the storyline was "Burnham is one of your character's personal heroes..."
So yeah, they went with an Easter Egg for effect.
And yeah, the idea that the Excalbians are still debating "Good vs. Evil" 150 years later is a bit ridiculous because Kirk did explain the difference at the end:
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/77.htm
But, Excalbians ARE `living rocks' so who knows if their lifespans are measured in terms of Geologic time - maybe 150 years to them equates to a 15 minute Carbon based lifeform discussion by comparison.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
You don't agree with Burnham every time for Prime Selective, though. She wants you to delete the data, which would lead to The Best OnFence accolade. Getting Prime Selective is essentially choosing the same option that Picard would have chosen in each scenario in TNG.
Fixed.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
My fed main is an electromancer with Jaylahs staff - my tactics involves maxxing out the run buff then dropping the integrated electrical field poles to create a huge killing zone (if you ever have seen some guy dropping poles with electricity sparking between them in gtfos, its likely me, lol) that I then lure the enemies into - a combination of melee and this killzone (amped with resistance debuffs and electrical dots) resulting in mass murder with style
My tactic with T'ket was to to set up this kill zone at an intersection then wait until she teleported into it to use her gravimetric blast - the kill zone preventing protodrones sneaking up - replant if needed (oddly, she barely damaged the poles) after the blast, unleash hell then melee until done - of course keeping an eye out for adaptation
My gorn was far more simple - engage run to T'ket, use the tzenkethi melee debuff aoe before with a heavily buffed gorn fist (and a gravity punch as why not) administer 1000ccs of pain, taking Secundus into the murder aoe as a bonus - before trading ranged with Lecks knife while getting into engage range for more punching
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Kirk: Spock, what are we looking at?
Spock: Fascinating. It appears to be a creature made of pure snark.
Picard: LaForge, report!
LaForge: Captain, the snark levels are off the charts down here. If I can't remodulate the shields, I'm going to have to eject the core!
Sisko: I'm glad the snark is on our side.
O'Brien: I'm glad its not a Cardassian.
Janeway: Seven, what is wrong with your future self?
Seven: It appears my implants are malfunctioning and causing me to display an overwhelming level of snark.
Janeway: Can we use it to make coffee?
Seven's snark was off the walls annoying to me. She seemed to maintain it all the way through, regardless of the situation. She took nothing seriously, nothing really worried her, she just set phasers to snark and had no range at all. I wanted to slap her. This could have been a fantastic mission for Seven to see her reactions to her CTRL-ALT-ssimilated self turn into something monstrous. Instead, we got Snark Wars: Revenge of the Seven.
Also it was a missed opportunity to throw in Sulu's Excelsior and some lines from him in UC with all the other nostalgia.
From TNG S2 - "Contagion":
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/137.htm ^^^
So yeah, they were an ancient race that the Federation knew of for quite a while - and hell given what happened in TRIBBLE S2 - the Feds might have gotten whatever info they had about the Iconians FROM the Sphere information the U.S.S. Discovery downloaded.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
For example Picard giving his command to target the tractor beam and fire. It does sound great the first time but the 2nd time he gives the order there should be the slight variation in how he says otherwise he sounds like a robot and it sounds unnatural.
Same for the gateway it felt like she was stuck in a time loop. Saying the same thing is fine but it should be said a slightly different way. People don’t speak like that, it’s not natural.
I also thought the situation with Hakeev made no sense. All the while I was thinking my character is an established war hero and veteran who knows how to disarm someone and keep an eye on a villain that has gone down. They also also know Hakeev personally and knows what he is like. So why did all common sense and experience go out the window? Plus what happened to the personal force shields that suddenly failed under 1 shot after having had time to recharge to max. Then he escapes for no logical reason with various people standing around doing nothing instead of chasing after. Plus it always bugs me when my character has some random unrelated weapon in the cut screen that she wouldn't ever use. Its jarring against the overall story when weapons change for no reason. But thats always been a problem, I assume some sort of engine limitation?
Lastly the Borg Frequency Remodulator, I am experienced at fighting Borg. It says optional so I wasted time running around trying to figure out how to move on, only I couldn’t. It doesn’t appear to be optional which is missleading. In the end I had to pick up a useless Frequency Remodulator which does nothing for my equipped weapon and then I have to waste time finding it in my inventory and destroying it to make space. Its not a major problem but it could be better.
I would have given out 8 out of 10 but due to above 7 out of 10.
Bonus points for the difficulty curve on Elite. This is how content should be. I loved the shear volume of enemy's and the fact they didn't die in seconds. The boss fights for a change felt like boss fights. Played though it all on Elite and it felt great.
My character Tsin'xing
Yeah i figured that out when i replayed picked Burnham's choices each time and didn't get the accolade. Should have checked here first, thanks for trying to warn me(even if that wasn't your intent).
Now I have to replay 2 more times so i can get the other accolades... and who knows how many times of part 2 so I can get that accolade, my log didn't have a x/y counter for it....
I think about never to play these episodes again. Its very frustating..
Indeed. I was looking forward to combining the top hat with the borg eyepiece from the lobi store and the ophidian cane to create an assimilated mr peanut character
Here, I accept it, because it rapidly becomes quite clear the trials are rigged to TRIBBLE you one way or another, canon, logic and continuity be damned.
Defeat Hakeev with no losses? He pulls a pistol out of his rear to shoot Obisek in such a way you're the only one who can save him.
Reach the gateway with L'Miren still alive and holding the World Heart? Bam, present!T'Ket showing despite her inability to travel through time (which your character points out). And I'm gonna guess Iconians can't be assimilated in the first place.
Noye's defeated? Bam, Female Changeling out of nowhere disguised as a character who only existed in a defunct timeline only Noye knew about!
It's clear Yarnek is already biased towards Evil, hence why no matter what you do, something very bad happens as a result of your actions, even if in reality this wouldn't happen (like how the TLF grows stronger with Noye's death and the loss of the Annorax while in reality, when it happened, it was the final nail in the coffin of the TLF, despite a few members still around but unable to do much). He's just making sure he has data to support his views.
And that's excluding what the Borg Queen simulacrum is doing behind his back.
That's why I call those missions better No-Win Scenarios than the TFO itself, because like the Kobayashi Maru in canon and novels, the program does everything in its power to make you lose, even TRIBBLE at any law of the universe if necessary.
EDIT: And this censorship is getting ridiculous if you can't even say the equivalent of "turning an avian creature upside-down" to express something.