A lot of people (myself included) like to theorise about potential future factions. Most of these
theories are completely ridiculous/ludicrous/idiotic. e.g. "I wanna play a borg drone, flying a cube!"
So, keeping in mind cryptic don't plan to let anybody play any bad guys, and that most ideas are infeasible/impractical:
What could they do, and of those, what would you like them to do?
As for my thoughts: As may be apparent, I want Cardassians. Since in STO, they are Feds allies, they meet the "good guy" criteria, unfortunately they are lacking in capabilities at present. Although this could make for some good story telling opportunities.
This would of course be a small faction, with limited options - and the Galor may conflict with existing rules/content. But I'd be happy with that.*
* "happy" in the sense that actually is, unlike all those folk who said "all I want is to be a romulan in a D'Deridex and now just rage about every ounce of content
Comments
BORG!
Who wouldnt like to assimilate words, maybe an adaptation mini game in combat to improve your damage resistance to weapon types.
Would make for interesting PVP
PWE/Cryptic could also get away with "Legacy of The Mirror Universe" and give us the Terran Empire. It can be a sort of Fed side with a KDF touch.
Beyond that, there is not much. Borg and Undine are just too weird IMO. It would not feel right.
It also needs to be able to fit into the Two-Faction structure that Cryptic wants to go with. Meaning you would need to have a Fed and a KDF version of the Faction.
If you could imagine Fed Cardassians and KDF Cardassians, then yeah, Cardassians could work. If you're expecting Cardassians to stand as their own Faction then it probably wouldn't work for you. Thouch Cardassians are probably the 4th most popular Faction in the genre.
From a canon aspect - not that it matters in this game - I would think Xindi or Liberated Borg are better fits into the Two-Faction system - as I can see them working with Feds and KDF.
They could get around the problems in offering the Galor/Bug/JHEC/JHDC by having the lockbox versions be the "refit" versions.
I think the Borg Cooperative would be interesting, have them fly various Delta Quadrant ship types and be a sort of nomadic group.
Xindi would be another interesting mini-faction.
I think in terms of the Dominion and Borg, we're more likely to see races threatened by them than we are are themselves, repeating the pattern we've already seen twice with the Deferi. But, the Dominion already does have a splinter faction - the New Link is still there and has some level of peace brokered with the Federation and Klingon Empire.
I talk about it in this thread I started a week or two ago, but I'll post the summary of it here:
Faction: The Typhon Pact
So a lot of faction talk happened after the launch of LoR. Everyone's getting in on it. People are tossing around ideas like Cardassians, Jem'Hadar, or Borg and Undine.
All things considered, weak ideas.
The Cardassians would be too much like angrier and more egotistical Romulans at this point. The Jem'hadar (in the Alpha Quadrant at least) are neither numerous enough nor compelling enough to warrant factionhood, and.... guys, let's leave the Borg and Undine as enemy factions, okay? Be serious.
Like how serious this idea is! I did some reading on it, and essentially, the Typhon Pact is a coalition of the more recognizable Breen, Tholian, Imperial Romulan, and Gorn races, with the somewhat more obscure Tzenkethi and Kinyasha playing second banana. These races banded together also to fight the Borg and to kinda try and one-up the Federation in therms of power consolidation.
This idea would require a lot of work, however. Like.... a lot a lot.
Firstly, they wouldn't be sharing any of the missions that current Starfleet, Klingon, or Republic Romulans do. Their goals are simply too different as are their concerns. Every mission would essentially have to be new and original.
Secondly, some of those races, while in-game already, would require a lot of work to make playable (I'm lookin' at the Tholians here). The Tzenkethi, while mentioned on DS9, have never been seen (it is assumed they are large monstrous felinoids, more bestial than even Caitians or Ferasans). The Kinyasha are completely unique to the novels, and also quite large and monstrous.
Thirdly, reconciling the fact that several of these species' ships have been made available to players as lockbox or prize ships. The short and sweet solution would be to simply offer potential Typhon Pact players an appropriately analogous Federation/KDF starship. But it may not be quite that simple, y'know?
And a lot of the Reputation trees currently available would have to be reworked a bit to reflect the Typhon Pact flavoring.
However, what could give the devs an interesting avenue to introduce the idea of the Typhon Pact are, oddly enough, the Gorn and the Imperial Romulans.
We all know that there are pretty heavy allusions to the Gorn Hegemony's dissatisfaction with being annexed by the Klingons. And the Romulan Star Empire is in complete disarray in several points throught the game. If a mission series that deals with Gorn Independence ever pops up, it could easily be established at the end of that arc that the newly emancipated Gorn seek protection from the Klingons by taking part in this crazy idea the Tholians and Breen thought up, in the form of the Typhon Pact's mutual protection.
And the Romulan Star Empire, absolutely at the end of it's ropes thanks to Sela and Hakeev's chicanery, along with significant numbers of their dissatisfied Romulan and Reman population splitting off to form the Reman Rebels and New Romulan Republic, may see the alliance as incredibly beneficial to them, at least in the short term.
It'd require a lot of work, on multiple fronts. But I think it'd definitely be the coolest "new faction" idea there is.
There's a couple of other faction ideas in that thread of mine, but the Typhon Pact idea is potentially the best one.
You ignored the question, didn't you...
Jem'Hadar, Vorta & founder = Dominion. Dominon =/= Cardassian
You know, I think you're the only person that give a sensible response regarding borg...
No reason why they couldn't increase the rift
As I stated in the original post, I believe the cardassians would be incapable of being a major faction.
We already have liberated borg working with the federation and KDF...
& You could do Xindi quite nicely - Say the Reptillians and Insectoids split off and join the KDF, while their more docile members continue to wimp-it-out with their silly fed alliance... That I would approve of.
I'm not fond of the idea of tossing in Dominion stuff, since they're no longer really affiliated with Cardassia. Plus KDF hate the dominion a lot more than the Fed do
The Xindi and Cardassians are both Fed friendly, so it would make some sense to include them as a fed only ally - this would no doubt annoy many people...
You imply I said they would.
Please note: I'm aware I offer some conflicting statements in there (mostly regarding Xindi), This is due to replying to people individually, not everybody as a whole. So, My favourite of them is the Militant Xindi > KDF, wimpy xindi > Fed. This obviously wouldn't go down well with some people.
The day will not save them. And we own the night.
If faction can either go to ally, neutral, friend of the UFP then any faction can go in the 2 faction system then the following can be added :
Cardassian.
Imperial Romulan, I really like the idea of the Republic being allied with the Federation and The Empire allied with the Klingon (that is a rational as the Federation is stealing world from the RSE). Imperial Romulan are not more (I would say less actually) than the Klingon Empire.
Faction that can be added but does not fit are :
Tholian (lots of ship and in alternate history they are allied to the Federation. Their mind set is really strange)
Borg (every one want them) I don't think the Borg rate as evil, they do what they consider correct. They rate as no way to discuss with them (player should be forbidden to do joke or speak with non borg) and they are the ultimate antagonist in that they consider every one there enemy (well actually they comme to help them evolve, share technology to help them adapt to new challenge, infinite race combine in one, I don't think they are really different from the federation and all drone are equal.).
Dominion (lots of race)
I think that Borg and Tholian could be interesting if the players can play the antagonist inside Borg/tholian open map and Pve que. Each Borg/Tholian player coming will reduce the number of NPC drastically though it will make the pve more random.
As I have address it : The Klingon Empire is Evil (according to Christian morality or DnD alignement system) so we already have an evil faction.
Skanvak Drakken
http://lamaisondesdrakkens.clan-box.com/index.php
How about a "faction" that is not associated with any of the other ones?
The ides of a "civilian" faction as in "non-aligned" is actually more appealing to me personally.
Xindi as similon mentioned would also work. I could see Aquatics, Arboreals and Primates going Fed while Reptillians and Insectoids went KDF. Of course Daniels points out in Enterprise that the Xindi joined the Federation, so would the KDF Xindi be rebels? Also how would you implement away teams for Aquatics? Portable Goldfish bowl?
As for Borg. Thats a potential minefield. We have Liberated Borg for Gold Members. If you let everyone roll one I can see the mobs with pitchforks storming the forums.
Plus how would you implement Borg sensibly? We have a Borg gear rep system in place with Omega. So how would you create unique ships? Maybe go the way of Enterprise episode "Regeneration" and have makeshift Borg ships or a single Tier 1-Tier 5 that gradually improves with upgrades over time.
The other option is playable Borg themed rebels like those that followed Hugh in the Next Generation. A Collective Borg would be pretty bad since you'd have to follow the Queen's commands and agree to work together. Thats a major problem in itself.;)
My worry with a playable Borg race is that the game would be filled with people using Borg Tac Cubes. Not a good idea, however cool some of you might think it is.
"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon, taH pagh, taH be"
Cryptic doesn't want more than Two-Faction PvP, which is what limits how all future Factions can join the game. Either Cryptic creates two mini-Factions at a time: one for Feds and one for KDF, or they create a Faction that chooses Fed or KDF like the Roms do.
There's no way around that and still maintain the PvP restrictions they want.
I'm very sorry but your premise is highly flawed...Do you think Cardassians and Romulans are "good" guys?...using your own logic and words: ridiculous/ludicrous/idiotic. e.g.
Sorry but true if you don't think they are antagonistic enemies of FED and KDF then you don't know much about Trek Universe. You can come up with any excuse not to play as Borg but these (Cardassians or even Romulans) are far from "good" guys in the core of Trek culture.
If Devs don't want to make a Borg race that is their call and choice since they own STO but hey shouldn't come up with ridiculous/ludicrous/idiotic excuses to substitute for just mere laziness
If we went along these lines with folks starting neutral and then picking sides at 10 then we pretty much have any Delta quadrant faction available which would give a lot more scope for Cryptic to go overboard on ship designs. In this case though it is likely Kazon will stay as a zone wide enemy faction in the same vein as the Naussicans are. Of course if we had kazon reps and had to choose one of (several) sides then that is a rudimentary territory control system as that is what they are all about.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
its literally one species and 3 ships. cryptic would have to do a lot with them.
I guess they could include the species they use as allies. The ferengi, the Lessepians, the Kressari etc. Maybe throw some others in like the Miradorns and try to create a new cardassian alliance.
The Dominion could be a good faction but they do tend to fall on the 'bad guy' side and im not sure how well they would fit into the current content thats been made.
The 'Alien' race notwithstanding. They are like the 'Worfs' of the galaxy.
It makes more sense imo, to have that free-spirit approach to add a little context to each player character by means of choice.
Unless at some point you plan on uniting the Romulans, which make for the best and most appropriate 3rd faction at this time.
The Romulan Republic has never had hostile contact with the Federation or KDF, except for two incidents involving its Reman component (The Vault and Frozen), both of which are instigated by the player (in one case you're not even required to do so but can engage the Tal Shiar instead), and which appears to occur before Obisek's open support of New Romulus anyway (Romulans characters end up having the same hostile contact).
The current legitimate Cardassian government is under Federation protection and has its economy almost completely in Ferengi pockets. Its military is shackled by the Treaty of Bajor, their involvement in Task Force Omega is mostly just to let them know that other people are going to be blowing up Borg in their space. And we know of proponents of a full Federation alliance if not membership, as well as opponents who wish the Union to seek other allies.
Well, I thought about that a bit and just like for the FE missions you might have to decide which major faction you'd like to do some covert operations/investigaions for...:P
I was thinking "non-aligned" means you don't start out as the member of any of the groups in the game but somehwere on a world that has nothing to do with the Feds, Klings, Roms, Cards, Thol etc. But might get bullied by some of them like the True Way or some Nausicaan Raiders. I know in the end the player will have to decide which side of the PvP conflict he'll support but he'd start out as someone who does not belong to any of the major or even minor powers in the galaxy.
What you've done there is ignore STO and base your statements on events up to 160 years in the past
The Romulans you play are in no way evil, and the Cardassian Union in STO is a federation ally.
Therein lies a problem i referenced before - cryptic have said they'd never make faction specific ships lock-box, and since there's already Jem'Hadar & cardassian ships, they'd either have to ignore some of there most iconic designs, or just break their rules. Which, there's absolutely no reason why the couldn't, but moral fibre damn it!!
No bad guys! Naughty
Aquatics [/i]couldn't[/i] be playable. You could happily use their beautiful ships though
The way I see it, a borg faction could never really work. Even the ones in Regeneration made a small atmospheric craft capable of matching some of the best ships in the quadrant in under a week.
Plus the other reasons everyone loves to discuss, so I don't need to cover them.
Nothing larger than a sphere could be implemented with any semblance of balance and/or accuracy...
The day will not save them. And we own the night.
Wookies !
...........
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
We actuall don't know that as a fact.:) It only happened in one of the alternate futures where the sphere builders were not defeated by Archer and his crew in the 22nd century.
To be fair, Daniels did strongly imply that that specific future was the one he was trying to safeguard.
The Xindi have had many internal disputes - no reason why some couldn't wonder off again.
Please define "feasible"
The day will not save them. And we own the night.