You will go mad if you try to fit every piece of canon information together into a consistent whole. Everything from the speed of the ships to the location of planets has changed by several, sometimes many orders of magnitude as necessary for the story. The original Enterprise has been from the center of the galaxy to the outer edge, which ought to take them decades, but happened within days or weeks.
As for the size of the Son'a empire, you don't have to be large to be militarily powerful. C.F. Japan, circa 1941.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
except that in this case, the information isn't actually contradictory.
or rather, the canon info isn't, but the STO info is.
as for the Son'a territory.. you are correct, but the issue is not size but rather location. the Son'a are big enough to produce a number of very powerful space craft. it uses weapons on its ships that are illegal in the federation. it produces drugs that illegal in the federation. it practices slavery, which is illegal in the federation.
all stuff that are in official federation records files we see troi and riker reading. so the federation knew all this stuff already, it was a matter of record.
so how the hell are we supposed to beleive that the Son'a territory is located deep within the border of the federation? why the heck would the federation accept such a "den of scum and villany" existing within its borders as an idependant state? no matter how small it is in terms of stellar geography?
heck, even the Orions at least pretended to follow federation rules when their world wound up inside the borders of the federation. their shady side just went underground. the Son'a don't even pretend to follow federation rules, they parade their violation of federation principles around for everyone to see. and unlike the orions, the Son'a don't even pretend toward neutrality.. they blatantly ally with the dominion during the dominion war.
not to mention that the Son'a as a 'race' didn't show up until the 23rd century... well after the federation had claimed and settled that region of space (given the the klingon nuetral zone was established before that time)
so with the current location, it's like a gang of inner city thugs and drug dealers taking over a block of a city, and declaring themselves as an independent nation. and then instead of sending in the cops and SWAT to bring down that gang, the city just lets it happen.
the only way the entire narrative of the briar patch and the Son'a works is if it is located on the edges of federation space circa the 24th century.. and was not federation space prior to that.
since the (non-canon) STO and starcharts location for "the briar patch" is the only contradictory info, and the canon info is consistent... the briar patch is in the wrong place.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
the starcharts book came out before season 4 "augments" came out and established the briar patch and Klach D'Kel Brakt are one and the same place. the location of Klach D'Kel Brakt in the starcharts book fits the canon information from the show.. the briar patch location does not.
the current location has the problem of being way too far inside the federation. by the time of TOS it would be deep inside federation territory, given the relative location of the klingon nuetral zone in game. it is also nowhere near the romlan empire.
which makes a major klingon/romulan battle occuring in 2271 rather hard to fit. i mean, it is hard to beleive that shortly before V'ger incident, a fleet of klingons passes through the nuetral zone and flies deep into the federation, meets a romulan fleet that travelled even farther to get there, the two meet, fight a major battle in or near the nebula.... and the federation didn't notice this major incursion into their territory by fleets of their two biggest enemies at all? fleets getting that deep inside the federation would imply a dominion war level military crisis, with the federation loosing heavily. yet we see no signs of a war footing or major conflict in TMP, which is only a year or so later..
and the Son'a, which were a sizeable independant empire, have to be close by for the events of insurrection to work. especially given that the Son'a are established as being aligned with the Dominion in both insurrection and DS9. (insurrection establishes they are producing ketracil white, and DS9: penumbra establishes the son''a and the dominion are allied when weyoun orders a group of dominion ships to a Son'a run ketracil white factory.. they are mentioned specifically in the episode.)
it seems highly improbable that there would be an empire existing deep inside the heart of the federation that is largely unknown, employs slaves, illegal subspace weapons, produces illegal narcotics, and allies itself with the federation's enemies.
the location on the other side of the klingon empire would allow such an entitiy to exist, although it would complicate the dominion angle slightly since it is far from the cardassians and the wormhole (though it could be explained as the dominion obtaining allies to distract the klingons closer to home.)
Its also mentioned in Insurrection that the Briar Patch is in Federation Space....IE why the Federation has given a go ahead on the operation to forcibly remove them.
EDIT: Found a more detailed map showing that the Son'a actually are completely surrounded by Federation space. Its a few light years from Klingon Space. Considering that the space in that region is very close to Klingon Space, in the past its likely that a battle between Klingons and Romulans could have happened there. Federation space seems to be like islands in a lake. They arent always connected to the larger Core Planets.
The Federation Space in that region is a bottleneck between Klingons, Cardassians and Romulan space. Making it the first place the Dominion would have struck in an attempt to divide and conquer the Federation. As well an area that would constantly be changing hands as the Romulans and Klingons are both in the neighborhood.
While there isnt any Canon evidence to prove this. I believe as long as Son'a ships werent transporting any of the Contraband the Federation considers illegal. Weapons, Drugs or Slaves. The Son'a would be allowed to come and go as they please in open space between star systems.
The Son'a arent the only ones that are completely surrounded on all sides by the Federation. So are the First Federation and the Kziniti.
except that in the current location in game, the romulans would have to travel almost a thousand lightyears through the heart of federation territory to get there. and the klingons would have to travel several hundred light years, right past major bases like K-7.
and all this just a year before The Motion Picture. and why would the klingons and romulans end up fighting a battle of a klingon/;romulan war (the war that ended their alliance), halfway to the center of federation territory?
nearly every map online uses the starcharts location.. and the star charts book doesn't match up with the shows, because it came out before season 4 of ENT, which established the location of the briar patch/Klach D'Kel Brakt as being the same thing (star charts made Klach D'Kel Brakt a planet)
if you move the nebula to where the starcharts book places the 'planet' of Klach D'Kel Brakt, all the stuff from the show works fine and no longer is inconsistant with the shows events. it puts the briar patch near places like Narendra III, along the klingon/romulan border, which is a natural place for a klingon/romulan war to occur.
and it also ends up in a small 'offshoot' of the klingon empire, which could easily have been ceeded to the federation after the federation-klingon war ended.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
I suppose if the story plays out well enough, the faction could evolve from KDF-centric to a more obvious power-sharing faction. Perhaps resulting in an actual rename of the player faction for the game? Perhaps like the Typhon Pact. But without mirroring it literally. Give the power-sharing faction an original name.
Assuming we get a story mission or two which brings the status of the Klingon High Council up-to-date, I would be happy with any other story missions being species-neutral. With five specific perspectives that need presented with any given mission. So you can play them through with insights from Lethean, Nausican, Ferasan, Gorn and Orion. If we can get some level 1 missions which awknowledge these other species, this may make the faction more attractive to new player's.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
I also dislike the idea of one "mega-faction" of "anti-federation".
As it is I can barely stand the current incarnation of the KDF (letheans, gorn really?), much less if every other faction was just one big stupid ball of bad guys.
It's a bad idea, and I think it devalues the IP (and further cheapens the Klingons).
You're argument isn't really all that strong when you consider that the STO Klingon Empire has already incorporated Gorn, Orions, etc. Who's more sleazy then an Orion pirate without honor? Plus, those races didn't want to be subjugated by the Empire either, but there they are.
I'm not saying I agree with stolviathan99 but you can't pretend the Klinks are purists that won't do X, whatever X may be, when they're clearly doing X all over the game.
The Orions joined as allies because they needed a strong militnary ally to help protect thier interests
The Gorn wjere subjecated by the Klingons and Orions during the beginings of the Undine hunt. Allowed to be allies afterwards.
The Nausicans basically came with the Gorn.
The KDF are certainly no longer purists but they are not the open armed federation iether. I believe the KDF would raid and truelly enslave the Romulans and Cardasians based of old hatreds rather than absorb them into yhe KDF.
The Orions joined as allies because they needed a strong militnary ally to help protect thier interests
The Gorn wjere subjecated by the Klingons and Orions during the beginings of the Undine hunt. Allowed to be allies afterwards.
The Nausicans basically came with the Gorn.
The KDF are certainly no longer purists but they are not the open armed federation iether. I believe the KDF would raid and truelly enslave the Romulans and Cardasians based of old hatreds rather than absorb them into yhe KDF.
I think you could have a really epic story of a Romulan who is a second class citizen who rises to Captaincy in the KDF and loses his culture in the process.
But it gets harder to do in large numbers.
And it's not a substitute for a Romulan faction even if you could because, as I've alluded elsewhere, done properly, Romulans (or a Vulcanoid race) who make the sacrifices needed would cease to be Romulan.
And one of them COULD become Klingon-aligned while dealing with prejudice and what it means to adopt a culture.
But I'm curious if any of them would have the same branding clout as displaced Romulans. I don't know. I think they might work better and fill some of that itch without ruling out a longer term Romulan faction.
I'm still of the opinion that they rushed Klingons into the game. I don't think they should have delayed launch... but I do think it would have made more sense to delay Klingons as a post-launch addition.
I think a core problem is with the content design philosophy, which involved creating content for factions. And even now, that's how story content is created.
I don't think that's representative of the shows. The Klingon side of FEs feels too Starfleet... but I feel that the Starfleet content feels too Starfleet. It feels like you're being pulled along by command.
That's one reason why I deliberately stage my Foundry missions Fed-side as being personal requests or personal favors or situations where what you do in the mission falls outside the scope of your orders.
I think, sometimes, that games like WoW occasionally feel more "Trek" than STO. I mean, in WoW, you're a representative of an Empire but you're really just going around doing jobs that need to be done for people. It's not clear if you're in the service outside of PvP and player characters are routinely addressed in fantasy games as adventurers. That's closer to how I see being the captain of a ship in Trek, including Starfleet.
I suppose I see orders in Trek as the "breadcrumbs" quests whereas the core storylines MOSTLY are independent adventures. Being a captain means being free. It speaks to a very old idea of what life was like in imperial navies where people would sign up to find their fortunes.
I think, sometimes, that games like WoW occasionally feel more "Trek" than STO. I mean, in WoW, you're a representative of an Empire but you're really just going around doing jobs that need to be done for people. It's not clear if you're in the service outside of PvP and player characters are routinely addressed in fantasy games as adventurers. That's closer to how I see being the captain of a ship in Trek, including Starfleet.
I suppose I see orders in Trek as the "breadcrumbs" quests whereas the core storylines MOSTLY are independent adventures. Being a captain means being free. It speaks to a very old idea of what life was like in imperial navies where people would sign up to find their fortunes.
I agree. There are lots of ways we could introduce races to both sides, and still keep them viable for future factions.
As for the missions, there are many things Cryptic could do right now, using prexisting assets to make it feel more "Trek-like". For example we could have missions that pop up as weeklies, or even monthly missions.
Possibilities include:
"Starbase Inspection."
This would work like the "Officer of the Watch" Daily, only instead of being on your Starbase, it takes place on other social zones like Spacedock, K-7, Ganalda, Etc. It could have various objectives and special features depending on the station and the type of mission. An amusing Easter-Egg for K-7 would be "Inspect Perishable Stores on K-7" and there's a small chance you'll get bombarded with hundreds of mewling tribbles. :P
"Criminal Takedown".
This one would involve visiting certain "Contacts" and interrogating them in order to determine where a certain crime figure is hiding out. After figuring out where he (Or she) is, you could then move in to arrest them. I think it would be amusing to engage in a massive firefight right in Quarks Bar trying to take one of these guys down. (It would also be a nice chance to put the Orion Syndicate in the spotlight, they could be such interesting bad guys, but they always get the shaft in that regard. It's always just: "Green Women Jim!)
This wouldn't be a mission, but I think Klingons should be able to attack freighters and traders in sector space, and Feds should be able to respond to their distress calls.
Comments
As for the size of the Son'a empire, you don't have to be large to be militarily powerful. C.F. Japan, circa 1941.
or rather, the canon info isn't, but the STO info is.
as for the Son'a territory.. you are correct, but the issue is not size but rather location. the Son'a are big enough to produce a number of very powerful space craft. it uses weapons on its ships that are illegal in the federation. it produces drugs that illegal in the federation. it practices slavery, which is illegal in the federation.
all stuff that are in official federation records files we see troi and riker reading. so the federation knew all this stuff already, it was a matter of record.
so how the hell are we supposed to beleive that the Son'a territory is located deep within the border of the federation? why the heck would the federation accept such a "den of scum and villany" existing within its borders as an idependant state? no matter how small it is in terms of stellar geography?
heck, even the Orions at least pretended to follow federation rules when their world wound up inside the borders of the federation. their shady side just went underground. the Son'a don't even pretend to follow federation rules, they parade their violation of federation principles around for everyone to see. and unlike the orions, the Son'a don't even pretend toward neutrality.. they blatantly ally with the dominion during the dominion war.
not to mention that the Son'a as a 'race' didn't show up until the 23rd century... well after the federation had claimed and settled that region of space (given the the klingon nuetral zone was established before that time)
so with the current location, it's like a gang of inner city thugs and drug dealers taking over a block of a city, and declaring themselves as an independent nation. and then instead of sending in the cops and SWAT to bring down that gang, the city just lets it happen.
the only way the entire narrative of the briar patch and the Son'a works is if it is located on the edges of federation space circa the 24th century.. and was not federation space prior to that.
since the (non-canon) STO and starcharts location for "the briar patch" is the only contradictory info, and the canon info is consistent... the briar patch is in the wrong place.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
Its also mentioned in Insurrection that the Briar Patch is in Federation Space....IE why the Federation has given a go ahead on the operation to forcibly remove them.
EDIT: Found a more detailed map showing that the Son'a actually are completely surrounded by Federation space. Its a few light years from Klingon Space. Considering that the space in that region is very close to Klingon Space, in the past its likely that a battle between Klingons and Romulans could have happened there. Federation space seems to be like islands in a lake. They arent always connected to the larger Core Planets.
The Federation Space in that region is a bottleneck between Klingons, Cardassians and Romulan space. Making it the first place the Dominion would have struck in an attempt to divide and conquer the Federation. As well an area that would constantly be changing hands as the Romulans and Klingons are both in the neighborhood.
While there isnt any Canon evidence to prove this. I believe as long as Son'a ships werent transporting any of the Contraband the Federation considers illegal. Weapons, Drugs or Slaves. The Son'a would be allowed to come and go as they please in open space between star systems.
The Son'a arent the only ones that are completely surrounded on all sides by the Federation. So are the First Federation and the Kziniti.
and all this just a year before The Motion Picture. and why would the klingons and romulans end up fighting a battle of a klingon/;romulan war (the war that ended their alliance), halfway to the center of federation territory?
nearly every map online uses the starcharts location.. and the star charts book doesn't match up with the shows, because it came out before season 4 of ENT, which established the location of the briar patch/Klach D'Kel Brakt as being the same thing (star charts made Klach D'Kel Brakt a planet)
if you move the nebula to where the starcharts book places the 'planet' of Klach D'Kel Brakt, all the stuff from the show works fine and no longer is inconsistant with the shows events. it puts the briar patch near places like Narendra III, along the klingon/romulan border, which is a natural place for a klingon/romulan war to occur.
and it also ends up in a small 'offshoot' of the klingon empire, which could easily have been ceeded to the federation after the federation-klingon war ended.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
Assuming we get a story mission or two which brings the status of the Klingon High Council up-to-date, I would be happy with any other story missions being species-neutral. With five specific perspectives that need presented with any given mission. So you can play them through with insights from Lethean, Nausican, Ferasan, Gorn and Orion. If we can get some level 1 missions which awknowledge these other species, this may make the faction more attractive to new player's.
Heck, in-game even, the Orion homeworld is deeper in Federation space than the Briar Patch is.
My character Tsin'xing
I also dislike the idea of one "mega-faction" of "anti-federation".
As it is I can barely stand the current incarnation of the KDF (letheans, gorn really?), much less if every other faction was just one big stupid ball of bad guys.
It's a bad idea, and I think it devalues the IP (and further cheapens the Klingons).
Star Trek already has a faction, The Dominion, that was created as the 'anti-federation'.
My character Tsin'xing
The Orions joined as allies because they needed a strong militnary ally to help protect thier interests
The Gorn wjere subjecated by the Klingons and Orions during the beginings of the Undine hunt. Allowed to be allies afterwards.
The Nausicans basically came with the Gorn.
The KDF are certainly no longer purists but they are not the open armed federation iether. I believe the KDF would raid and truelly enslave the Romulans and Cardasians based of old hatreds rather than absorb them into yhe KDF.
R.I.P
I think you could have a really epic story of a Romulan who is a second class citizen who rises to Captaincy in the KDF and loses his culture in the process.
But it gets harder to do in large numbers.
And it's not a substitute for a Romulan faction even if you could because, as I've alluded elsewhere, done properly, Romulans (or a Vulcanoid race) who make the sacrifices needed would cease to be Romulan.
There is a laundry list of Vulcanoid species:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Vulcanoid
And one of them COULD become Klingon-aligned while dealing with prejudice and what it means to adopt a culture.
But I'm curious if any of them would have the same branding clout as displaced Romulans. I don't know. I think they might work better and fill some of that itch without ruling out a longer term Romulan faction.
I'm still of the opinion that they rushed Klingons into the game. I don't think they should have delayed launch... but I do think it would have made more sense to delay Klingons as a post-launch addition.
I think a core problem is with the content design philosophy, which involved creating content for factions. And even now, that's how story content is created.
I don't think that's representative of the shows. The Klingon side of FEs feels too Starfleet... but I feel that the Starfleet content feels too Starfleet. It feels like you're being pulled along by command.
That's one reason why I deliberately stage my Foundry missions Fed-side as being personal requests or personal favors or situations where what you do in the mission falls outside the scope of your orders.
I think, sometimes, that games like WoW occasionally feel more "Trek" than STO. I mean, in WoW, you're a representative of an Empire but you're really just going around doing jobs that need to be done for people. It's not clear if you're in the service outside of PvP and player characters are routinely addressed in fantasy games as adventurers. That's closer to how I see being the captain of a ship in Trek, including Starfleet.
I suppose I see orders in Trek as the "breadcrumbs" quests whereas the core storylines MOSTLY are independent adventures. Being a captain means being free. It speaks to a very old idea of what life was like in imperial navies where people would sign up to find their fortunes.
I agree. There are lots of ways we could introduce races to both sides, and still keep them viable for future factions.
As for the missions, there are many things Cryptic could do right now, using prexisting assets to make it feel more "Trek-like". For example we could have missions that pop up as weeklies, or even monthly missions.
Possibilities include:
"Starbase Inspection."
This would work like the "Officer of the Watch" Daily, only instead of being on your Starbase, it takes place on other social zones like Spacedock, K-7, Ganalda, Etc. It could have various objectives and special features depending on the station and the type of mission. An amusing Easter-Egg for K-7 would be "Inspect Perishable Stores on K-7" and there's a small chance you'll get bombarded with hundreds of mewling tribbles. :P
"Criminal Takedown".
This one would involve visiting certain "Contacts" and interrogating them in order to determine where a certain crime figure is hiding out. After figuring out where he (Or she) is, you could then move in to arrest them. I think it would be amusing to engage in a massive firefight right in Quarks Bar trying to take one of these guys down.
This wouldn't be a mission, but I think Klingons should be able to attack freighters and traders in sector space, and Feds should be able to respond to their distress calls.
My character Tsin'xing