Expanding Alien Lore

paradox

Now that STO is a seperate universe/timeline, we can start working on expanding STO's lore, there's 2 playable alien species we barely know anything about,

The Letheans a canon species with barely info about them, I doubt CBS and Paramount will do anything with these background aliens, so Cyptic could take the chance to expand upon their culture a bit,

The Ferasans, a STO Creation designed to get around the legal issues involving the Kzinti, we should see what more Cryptic could do to expand upon them and their clan dynamics a bit more.

fleetcaptain5

Most types of lore deserve some place in-game.

Ships, events, maybe even profiles or well-known characters: why can't our admirals (or even captains) consult a Starfleet database on these things in-game?

New Academy lore missions could also be built around them. Most of them only deal with events from before STO's launch and are literally as old as the game itself.

spiritborn

I wonder if part of it that Cryptic doesn't want to ask CBS/Paramount "can we expand the lore on these", since while CBS isn't likely to do anything with those there's the matter that Cryptic will still have to ask permission before they can add to the lore.

rattler2

The Ferasans are more likely since they are a Cryptic original species, that seems to be a rival of the Caitians. The Letheans less likely due to them being a Canon species and anything Cryptic does come up with may conflict with Canon.

phoenixc

There are also the Lukari and the Deferi who are STO originals iirc, though the latter are not particularly interesting. It would be great if the devs would do something with the First Federation since it takes up a rather large chunk of Alpha for nothing at the moment, and CBS is probably unlikely to do anything with them.

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rattler2

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

There are also the Lukari and the Deferi who are STO originals iirc, though the latter are not particularly interesting.

Yea... I think everyone has the opinion that if a species is WILLING to let themselves die or be assimilated... belief system or not that seems rather self destructive for any advanced civilization. While the whole concept of Balance is admirable and even interesting... the current depiction makes the Deferi not only very uninteresting, but semi suicidal under the right conditions. There really needs to be exceptions to the Balance belief that also allow for self preservation or something. Overall the Deferi probably need a major revamp or some serious work.

jonsills

rattler2 wrote: »

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

There are also the Lukari and the Deferi who are STO originals iirc, though the latter are not particularly interesting.

Yea... I think everyone has the opinion that if a species is WILLING to let themselves die or be assimilated... belief system or not that seems rather self destructive for any advanced civilization. While the whole concept of Balance is admirable and even interesting... the current depiction makes the Deferi not only very uninteresting, but semi suicidal under the right conditions. There really needs to be exceptions to the Balance belief that also allow for self preservation or something. Overall the Deferi probably need a major revamp or some serious work.

I have to agree. As currently constituted, the Deferi should be willing to fight against the Borg and the Iconians specifically because both groups seek to dominate, and thus to upset the Balance. If all must be in Balance, after all, then there must be chaos as well as order, freedom as well as restriction - and when one side offers only order and restriction, the Deferi should be ready to ally with chaos and freedom for as long as it takes to put that side back into Balance (and of course stop their temporary allies short of eliminating the "threat", as its existence is also part of the Balance). They should not stand ready to be sacrificed just because the Balance is being upset by one side.

fleetcaptain5

The Deferi are simply adhering to their ideals. If more people were like them, there wouldn't be a problem. It's not their fault that others upset the balance by waging war.

They're not that different from the average pacifist. Do you blame them for not wanting to add to the problem of war, or should you put blame on those who couldn't respect more peaceful values in the first place?

The problem isn't really with the Deferi.

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phoenixc

It depends on how you define "balance".

The reason the Deferi and not interesting is that what they use is probably the most passive and least interesting interpretation of balance in the spectrum of possibilities. It would not be that difficult to fix going forward though, all it would take would be a scenario that shakes them out of the complacency rut their society drifted into and towards a more survivable (and interesting) Gandi-like passive-resistance-where-necessary interpretation.

spiritborn

Yeah the reason Deferi are currently such a dead end in the narrative is the way they define "balance".

Like pacifism mentioned before as well there's multiple ways to define it, not all pacifist are willing to die in order to not fight and there's those who define pacifism as "I won't start a fight and avoid as much as it realistic to do so, but if fight is the only option I'll fight".

Honestly I'd say your average pacifist is more like this then "I'll sooner die then fight even to protect myself".
I mean Switzerland is whole country who policy has the "I don't like to do it but will fight if I have to" style pacifism for pretty much as long as they've existed.

jonsills

spiritborn wrote: »

I mean Switzerland is whole country who policy has the "I don't like to do it but will fight if I have to" style pacifism for pretty much as long as they've existed.

Switzerland is a good example of a line from Doctor Who: "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

I mean, there's a reason why the Pope's security detail is called the Swiss Guard...

rattler2

I'm kinda reminded of a line from Captain Sheridan in Babylon 5. "Never start a fight, but always finish it."

spiritborn

jonsills wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

I mean Switzerland is whole country who policy has the "I don't like to do it but will fight if I have to" style pacifism for pretty much as long as they've existed.

Switzerland is a good example of a line from Doctor Who: "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

I mean, there's a reason why the Pope's security detail is called the Swiss Guard...

Yeah the reason Switzerland has been able to stay away pretty much every conflict since pretty much as long as modern Switzerland has existed. The combination of the terrain and strong forces has made it so that Switzerland has been able to remain out of wars.

That's why I used them as an example of "I don't like to fight, but I will if I have to" style of pacifism, the Swiss don't want to get involved in wars (aka don't want to fight if they can avoid it) but will fight and fight as well as they can if they'll have to.