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Romulans are too nice and goodie two shoes

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  • erei1erei1 Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Why are so many people unable to separate the RSE and Hakeev's Tal Shiar?

    I want to play RSE, not one of Hakeev's lackeys. If anything, RSE would be fighting Hakeev's group as the enemy within
    I agree. However, and I blame JJ For that, the RSE pretty much died when they destroyed both Romulus and Remus. I wish Hobus never happened.
    Just imagine having Romulus as a hub instead of New Romulus ? That would have been really cool.
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  • ursusmorologusursusmorologus Member Posts: 5,328 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    erei1 wrote: »
    the RSE pretty much died when they destroyed both Romulus and Remus.
    There are enough Romulan facilities still around in the game to establish a basic support network. The fed storyline goes through several of them, everything from medical research facilities to shipyards.

    Imagine, you are a frigate patrol captain who was sent to an outlying system for training and Hobus blows your empire apart. You and a few other captains try to establish contact with other ships and facilities, and piece together what happened, while defending the empire against enemies within and without who are trying to take advantage of its weakened state.

    Nurp, we got romulan jesus and a bunny petting farm
  • reathyrreathyr Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    erei1 wrote: »
    I agree. However, and I blame JJ For that, the RSE pretty much died when they destroyed both Romulus and Remus. I wish Hobus never happened.
    Just imagine having Romulus as a hub instead of New Romulus ? That would have been really cool.

    I wish CBS had done something with it, a new post Nemesis series, that had the Hobus event during series, or just before.
    Think about it, a major power that has been around for centuries just crumbles, because the capitol planet went boom, refugees everywhere, lawlessness, all kinds of generals that become warlords in their own right, the Tal'Shiar making power plays, the remnants of the RSE trying to reestablish themselves as the dominant force, Klingons making territory grabs, Ferengi swooping in to raid deserted military facilities and arm the different factions that sprout up.
    And the Federation in the midst of it all, trying to be a stabilizing factor, rendering aid, protecting it's own borders, and trying to influence a more pacifist, maybe unificationist government.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    protogoth wrote: »
    Why are there so many players who seem incapable of remembering the ORIGINAL presentation of the Romulans, the ones in TOS, the ones who, while they may not have shied away from war and may have been enemies of the UFP, were NOT fascists like the Tal'Shiar?

    Probably because not that many current STO players have actually watched TOS. All I've seen are snippets of episodes on MeTV and frankly, the over-the-top hammy acting made them painful to watch. The later series were a bit better at making the characters act like actual people.
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  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    @protogoth:


    While true on paper, there was much in the way of "cross membership" in the two branches of the SS. For example, concentration camp duty rotations were mandatory in some Waffen SS units. And others were formed from the concentration camp directorate (such as the early SS regiments that took place in the Polish campaign, many of which would go on to for the infamous 3rd SS Division "Totenkopf" under the guidance of Theodor Eicke).


    I may have oversimplified (it wasn't my aim to provide a fully detailed discourse on various government and military groups within the TRIBBLE regime), but the point I was making (which the nitpicking does not render incorrect, as it is a change in subject to what were essentially marginalia in the information I was presenting) was that both the Waffen SS and the Allgemeine SS were military forces, rather than a civilian intelligence and secret police force. That (civilian intelligence and secret police force) was the Gestapo.

    The Tal'Shiar, while not part of the Star Navy's chain of command, field their own military forces. Much like the NKVD and SS did in the 1930s and 1940s.


    Huh? The SS (Allgemeine or Waffen) was a military force.

    National Socialism wasn't truly a fascist ideology in the purest sense. That's a common misconception. It shared some of the principles of fascism. But it didn't embrace the fascist stance that the ideology was a "third position" between social conservatism and socialist state collectivism. The National Socialists under Hitler went out of their way to curry favor with the conservative elements in German society, such as the old Prussian traditionalists that ran the military establishment, the Junkers class, and the industrialists.


    The fact of some individual political figure, or an entire political party, making appeals to a particular ideal ("patriotism," for example, or "traditional values," both of which were ideals to which fascists, including TRIBBLE, made appeals) and/or socio-economic group (the fascists, including the TRIBBLE, made appeals to the middle class) has nothing to do with their actual ideology and/or socio-economic status. In fact, "appeal to patriotism," "appeal to traditional values," and "appeal to the middle class" are salient features of fascism (see Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Roland N. Stromberg, for example). Rhetoric is not reality.

    A fairly common "misconception" these days is that the TRIBBLE were not "really" fascists (vide "No True Scotsman"). Those who started this claim tended to sympathize with the fascist perspective, and wished to dissociate themselves from the TRIBBLE in the public's psyche. In other words, this assertion is propaganda. Some have bought into this claim, as it has been presented with some polish, but it's revisionist and needs to be seen for what it is.

    In addition, ideologies are not monolithic. The expressions of fascist ideology in Italy were different from those in Germany, while those in Spain were different from both those in Italy and Germany, but minor differences do not make two things "wholly other" from one another.

    I agree that the U.S.S.R. and PRC were/are not "pure" communist societies as envisioned by Marx. However, they were "functional" communist states, that never advanced beyond the "dictatorship of the proletariat" phase when it was realized that Marx's ideals were just that. Ideals. Realistically, like any other ideal of utopia, they were a pipe dream that would not work. So a dictatorial state corporatist structure remained the order of the day. Unfortunately, the socialist system isn't all it's cracked up to be either. The U.S.S.R. never had the chance to really learn that lesson. The Chinese, on the other hand, have. And are embracing a free market economy out of necessity, since a capitalist system run by "leeches" as you put it, has proven to be the only viable economic system in the history of civilization. Without a viable (read:capitalist) economic system, you cannot become a serious player on the world power stage in the 21st Century.


    Marx's ideal is naive, yes. It's also impossible to actualize on a large scale (a nation-state the size of the USSR, for example, or a nation-state with a population as massive as that of the PRC, are far, far, FAR too large); collectivism of any type only succeeds on the small scale (and even then, there are challenges).

    The belief that the USSR was ever even intended to become a "'pure' communist" society, though, is incorrect, and somewhat simplistic. Trostsky would have liked to try that; Lenin wasn't interested, and Stalin certainly wasn't.

    There's also no such thing as "the socialism system." Socialism is a general idea which is most easily explained as "the means of production should be in the hands of the producers." There are many types of Socialism, of which Marxism was but one, and Fabian Socialism is yet another, but by no means are these the only two types, nor even the most widely used. The Scandinavian nations seem to be doing quite well with their type of Socialism, which is neither Marxism nor Fabian Socialism.

    Capitalism is a loooooooong way from being "the only viable economic system in the history of civilization", and it also is not something that's been around forever; tribalism worked quite well long before there was even feudalism (and feudalism was a precursor to mercantilism, which mutated into capitalism). These same tactics are used by the Unionists in an effort to intimidate the Scots into remaining within the Union; they're not true there, and they're not true here -- economic unions can be beneficial temporarily, but they can also outlive their usefulness, and they're not "necessary" once they've passed their "sell by" date, as their proponents assert (besides, the North Sea oil profits are far from exhausted, and the Union should, to be just, make some reparations for having used the majority of that profit in the past in order to benefit the South rather than Scotland); in the same manner, equating "capitalist" with "viable," when Capitalism has failed repeatedly and only been "saved" by the injection of minor aspects of socialist practice, is nonsense of a kindred order.

    As for the Romulan Star Empire, I would not characterize it as a fascist state. More like a curious mix of honor-oriented timocracy, classical oligarchy, Chinese legalism, and constitutional monarchy (the Empress is head of state and the Praetor head of government, much like the modern relationship between the Crown and Prime Minister in the modern day United Kingdom). The Tal'Shiar may come across as a pack of fascist thugs. But name one secret police force, both in fiction and real life, that doesn't act in such a manner.

    This last paragraph I will not dispute.


    Moving on, then, ...

    Why are so many people unable to separate the RSE and Hakeev's Tal Shiar?

    I want to play RSE, not one of Hakeev's lackeys. If anything, RSE would be fighting Hakeev's group as the enemy within

    It's a bit difficult to make a separation when the scattered remnants of the Tal'Shiar (after I shot Hakeev in the head) are, for all intents and purposes, the only thing left of the Empire apart from a handful of aging reactionaries.

    Was there ever a distinction? At one time, certainly. We see no hint of the Tal'Shiar in TOS, and the representatives we do see of the Empire in that series are not at all like one would expect an RSE dominated (or intimidated into submission) by the Tal'Shiar to be. That's not the only time we've seen members of the Empire who were not like the Tal'Shiar, and in fact, we've seen members of the Empire (especially within the military, and among the scientific community) who most definitely did not like the Tal'Shiar. It should be obvious that the Empire even in its last days was not wholly ruled by the Tal'Shiar; even the psychotic Pretender ("Empress" Sela) opposed them at times.

    However, the RSE was a hyper-centralized polity. The government was localized to Ki Baratan, and spread only a bit across ch'Rihan, with only overseers and their required staff exported to colony worlds within the Empire. When the Hobus supernova occurred, before the government could relocate itself, ch'Rihan was no longer anything but so much space dust. Obviously, a few individual members of the government were off-world at the time, but the body suffered a severe (and ultimately fatal) head wound, and the body cannot live without the head. Even before this, however, the Empire was dying from having poisoned itself for too long.

    As I've stated before, there will come a time when a new Romulan Empire will arise, because it's simply inevitable; history of societies tends to be cyclical (whether we remember the past or not, in part due to the rose-colored lenses of nostalgia, which filter out the flaws and allow sight of only the rosy aspects of the past), and republic devolves into dictatorship and then empire, which becomes fat until it is ripe for the plucking (and usually already at least beginning to rot from the inside) by outside raiders, who then may set one of their number up as a monarch over the territory of the former empire, and then eventually, revolution comes along in an attempt to actualize some ideal (which, if not a "republic" from the beginning, eventually becomes one, or something reasonably close, and then that turns into dictatorship, which then embraces imperialism, and the whole process recurs). So yes, "Romulan Empire" is not dead, but "Romulan Star Empire" is. Its eventual successor may adopt the identical name, but it will not itself be identical to the original, although it will invariably repeat most if not all of the mistakes of its predecessor, because, as Santayana famously wrote:

    "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

    -- The Life of Reason, by George Santayana (emphasis added)
  • daan2006daan2006 Member Posts: 5,346 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    protogoth wrote: »
    We see no hint of the Tal'Shiar in TOS,

    we to be frank we dont see a whole lot of a romulans to they where seen in what 2 EP maybe 3 cant recall out of 3 season and if you think back to the 2 parter EP in ENT you see very much TNG romulans imo
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    macronius wrote: »
    This! Their ability to outdo their own failures is quite impressive. If only this power could be harnessed for good.
  • sonnikkusonnikku Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    About the best they would be able to do is make it so that at the end of that particular quest, they succeed in indoctrinating you and have quest text explaining you're being "inserted" back into the republic as a spy, with the resulting bloody escape to make them think like they're rescuing you. For all practical purposes however it would be the same game.
  • wufangchuwufangchu Member Posts: 778 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    reathyr wrote: »
    Basically you want to split up the already small Romulan playerbase, cause lets face facts, most people want to play Federation, heck most people want to play Humans, why, because they are one, and they know what they're like, it's safe and it's comfortable.

    The "already small" romulan player base has already been split. we were split between being feds or klingons, both of which would make a romulan gag. No, "We" arent interested in splitting romulans any further, "We" are interested in uniting the Romulans under one faction and one flag, the romulan flag. I dont care if we're small ( which i dont believe we are ).. I believe that we deserve to be a full and sovereign faction just as the federation and KDF are. We were sick of being Fed and KDF lap dogs from before LOR was even released. and its just going to get worse.
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  • shaanithegreenshaanithegreen Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    If anything, RSE would be fighting Hakeev's group as the enemy within

    The RSE are completely 1-dimensional villains except for in The Defector - Reunificaiton 1&2 - Face of the Enemy. They would be exactly like Hakeev because they are bad guys who do bad things and are sneaky and mean and that's all there is to them.

    The Romulan faction is better off focusing on the Reunificationists because there is nothing to the RSE in actual canon at all. If you want to play villains with a culture, a history, and comprehensible viewpoints, ask for a Cardassian faction.
  • darthstormstrikedarthstormstrike Member Posts: 771 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    The RSE are completely 1-dimensional villains except for in The Defector - Reunificaiton 1&2 - Face of the Enemy. They would be exactly like Hakeev because they are bad guys who do bad things and are sneaky and mean and that's all there is to them.

    The Romulan faction is better off focusing on the Reunificationists because there is nothing to the RSE in actual canon at all. If you want to play villains with a culture, a history, and comprehensible viewpoints, ask for a Cardassian faction.


    QFT.

    People need to just accept the Roms are not going to amount to anything more in this game because their story was neutered and killed by JJ. Cryptic was handed a bleak Roms and can only do so much. They're dead, Jim.
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  • kain9primekain9prime Member Posts: 739 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    TL,DR

    Join the KDF

    End of line...
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  • wufangchuwufangchu Member Posts: 778 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    QFT.

    People need to just accept the Roms are not going to amount to anything more in this game because their story was neutered and killed by JJ. Cryptic was handed a bleak Roms and can only do so much. They're dead, Jim.

    JJ has nothing to do with cryptic CBS or STO. CBS and Cryptic are the only two entities that have any enfluence on this game at all.. Therefore, Roms arent dead. Far from it. We're only getting warmed up.
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  • darthstormstrikedarthstormstrike Member Posts: 771 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    wufangchu wrote: »
    JJ has nothing to do with cryptic CBS or STO. CBS and Cryptic are the only two entities that have any enfluence on this game at all.. Therefore, Roms arent dead. Far from it. We're only getting warmed up.


    STO history takes from JJ's movie. So it has something to do with it.
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  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    STO history takes from JJ's movie. So it has something to do with it.

    The Hobus supernova and destruction of ch'Rihan and ch'Havran comes from a comic book before J.J. Abrams' reboot of the TOS story ...
  • darthstormstrikedarthstormstrike Member Posts: 771 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    protogoth wrote: »
    The Hobus supernova and destruction of ch'Rihan and ch'Havran comes from a comic book before J.J. Abrams' reboot of the TOS story ...

    Comic that's an OFFICIAL tie-in to the movie. It's not like that was done years ago before the movie was in development. That was a tie-in for the movie.

    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Countdown

    And if it wasn't then it would be just soft canon. Fact is, it's not soft canon that the nova happened. Romulans have been reduced to being the homeless bag ladies of the galaxy.
    ___________________

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  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Comic that's an OFFICIAL tie-in to the movie. It's not like that was done years ago before the movie was in development. That was a tie-in for the movie.

    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Countdown

    And if it wasn't then it would be just soft canon. Fact is, it's not soft canon that the nova happened. Romulans have been reduced to being the homeless bag ladies of the galaxy.

    Homeless? The largest territory shown on the galaxy map in-game is Romulan territory. Numerous colony worlds still exist; the Romulan player character comes from one of them. On top of that, the Romulan player character rediscovers Dewa-III, which becomes ch'Mol'Rihan ("[planet] of the New Romulans"). Homeless? Are you trying to be disingenuous?
  • darthstormstrikedarthstormstrike Member Posts: 771 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Just means there are more of the bums of the Galaxy.

    They have to get support from the Fed and KDF on New Romulus. (plot hole and all)

    Large map just means they are found in more areas with their star signs that say, "Will Mine for Food".

    And they were never considered #1 antagonist in the Trek universe. So being second fiddle at best is nothing new for the Romulans.
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Way I see it, how different you will be if your home just blew up. Leaving only a fraction of your people left. Then your own your planet trying to make a new life. Got caught up with your ex-military gone nuts. Sending these aliens to kidnap you. If you didn't die, you was changed to join their ranks to fight.

    I don't see them as goodies. I see them fighting for their very existence. The role I play with my Romulan, is a kick butt / not going to push me around role. You pushed me to the brink now you will pay. And will help anyone I come across that I can trust. Since I will need friends to survive.
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  • sirboulevardsirboulevard Member Posts: 722 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    I view the RR as being what happens when an autocratic and oppresive gov't goes on for too long: they are a rebellion. They're the civilians who were chafing under the RSE and the Tal Shiar.

    As for those saying the RSE wouldn't have collapsed like it has because of colonies: remember some of these colonies need specific resources that they could only get through organizations that are now gone. Hhifhar is a great example, one of the colonists mentions that the RSE hasn't sent any of the relief supplies the Federation offered to their colony simply because they wanted it for their military.

    Under the circumstances the RSE should have shrunken abit, given up useless sectors of space to focus on rebuilding, but that hasn't happened. Look at Brea III's description in Sector space, that planet was their RISA. Now its a Tal Shiar base in a polluted worn down city. The RSE never bothered to stop by and say hi to colonists of Virinat to remind them they were around prior to L.O.R. It's been 20 years and they decide now is a good time to destroy the colony.

    But they never did any of that. No, the RSE cared more about its territories and military strength in loss of its Nobility and leadership.

    I'm also reminded of D'Tan when we met him in Unification. He showed some Vulcan Draedles and books to Spock who mentioned that they were illegal and dangerous to possess. D'Tan responded that no matter what the RSE said, his family wanted to simply remember their heritage. We saw in "Face of the Enemy" Not-Taris complained that the Tal Shiar were destroying Romulan freedom and desire and that they would be the downfall of their society eventually. We saw in "The Defector" that even members of the military cared more about Peace than constant warmongering, and Admiral Jarok ultimately paid with his life for that.

    The fact is, the Romulans were a fractured people in the old RSE. With a loss of leadership and the struggles for political power that rose up following, the fact the Romulan Republic rose up is not a detriment or disgrace for the race. It makes them more Dynamic. These people in the RR were part of the RSE at some point. Some were merchants, some were teachers, some were farmers, some were soldiers. And all of them hated what their government was forcing upon them.

    Yes, these Romulans are not as mustache-twirling villians as the old Romulans were. But they're not entirely nice guys either. Go replay the new FE and listen to A'adrana threaten to cut the alliance with the Federation if they blow the gateway. Talk to our new Romulan Flagship Commader, Commander Jarok, the daughter of the old Admiral from Defector and listen to her want to spit on the RSE for judging her for her father's actions and unilaterally making her life hell.

    The desire to play a villian? Ok, that's fair enough. But Trek is not the right IP for that, I mean it. The Klingons are classic villians of TOS. They're not inherently evil. The Borg were the classic villians of TNG and VOY, they assimilate out of the misguided belief that they are making you better: bringing you closer to perfection and into a hive mind where you'll never be alone. The Cardassians? How often in DS9 did we see Cardie dissidents. And they're almost identical in political make up to the old RSE. The Xindi? Hell, Degra, the man who built the Xindi Weapon was haunted by the murders he enabled by building the prototype and the final weapon. Hell, the Federation, the "good guys" lets planets of sentient beings die off because of the prime directive, as some have pointed out, allowing Xenocide simply by doctrine. Trek has always been about morality tales, and even in the darkest villians or lightest good guys there was always a spark of good and evil or at the very least good intentions with bad results. The Trek universe is about Grey morality.

    The RR is not RSE, yes. But they're not hippies, they're oppressed people who took a chance for freedom and fought against an oppressor and won. If you want to play a purely bad guy, go play SWTOR because Trek is not the place for it.
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  • stonewbiestonewbie Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    The desire to play a villian? Ok, that's fair enough. But Trek is not the right IP for that, I mean it. The Klingons are classic villians of TOS. They're not inherently evil.

    The RSE isnt as evil as say the Sith Empire of SWTOR. But the RSE/Tal Shiar are different enough from the Fed and KDF that even if they werent a pure villian, it might still have given us unique opportunities for stories and content. But then it might not have made sense for a Tal Shiar faction to join the Fed or KDF, story-wise. And they might not have worked as a standalone faction either. Evil faction, added after initial release? would it have population issues? would people not want to play it for certain reasons?

    I know that some people say that the Tal Shiar or the 'bad Romulans' are only the minority of the whole Romulan population. But i dont think people wanting to play bad guy romulans is all because of ignorance or they just choose to ignore the good romulans. I think people just want to play the bad guy romulans...period. I played SWTOR on release and i thought to myself 'neat i can play a Sith and totally be a jerk'. I wasnt making a political statement, i wasn't trying to oppress the Republic, i just wanted to see what they did with the bad guy storyline.

    Another thing too is that someone mentioned Romulans in the old ToS. I used to watch reruns of ToS pretty much all episodes, some multiple times. If i ever did watch an episode with Romulans in it they werent memorable. I remember seeing ships that looked like the Tliss (i even had a model of one) but back then it was just a ship flown by random species #547. Now if they had been in a memorable episode like the Kling-gens in Trouble with Tribbles maaaybe i would remember them. My first recollection of the word Romulan was in Star Trek V when the 3 delegates introduced themselves on Nimbus 3 (bow chicka). In TNG it was because they had a big effing ship that was bigger then the Enterprise. And i finally remembered them as a species because they were completely different from the Feds or even the Klingons (who in early TNG were now sorta friendly). And same thing in TNG...watched a lot of episodes, but if there were 'good romulans' they just werent as memorable as the 'bad romulans'. I actually cant even remember an episode where there were good romulans.
  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    stonewbie wrote: »
    The RSE isnt as evil as say the Sith Empire of SWTOR. But the RSE/Tal Shiar are different enough from the Fed and KDF that even if they werent a pure villian, it might still have given us unique opportunities for stories and content. But then it might not have made sense for a Tal Shiar faction to join the Fed or KDF, story-wise. And they might not have worked as a standalone faction either. Evil faction, added after initial release? would it have population issues? would people not want to play it for certain reasons?

    I know that some people say that the Tal Shiar or the 'bad Romulans' are only the minority of the whole Romulan population. But i dont think people wanting to play bad guy romulans is all because of ignorance or they just choose to ignore the good romulans. I think people just want to play the bad guy romulans...period. I played SWTOR on release and i thought to myself 'neat i can play a Sith and totally be a jerk'. I wasnt making a political statement, i wasn't trying to oppress the Republic, i just wanted to see what they did with the bad guy storyline.

    Another thing too is that someone mentioned Romulans in the old ToS. I used to watch reruns of ToS pretty much all episodes, some multiple times. If i ever did watch an episode with Romulans in it they werent memorable. I remember seeing ships that looked like the Tliss (i even had a model of one) but back then it was just a ship flown by random species #547. Now if they had been in a memorable episode like the Kling-gens in Trouble with Tribbles maaaybe i would remember them. My first recollection of the word Romulan was in Star Trek V when the 3 delegates introduced themselves on Nimbus 3 (bow chicka). In TNG it was because they had a big effing ship that was bigger then the Enterprise. And i finally remembered them as a species because they were completely different from the Feds or even the Klingons (who in early TNG were now sorta friendly). And same thing in TNG...watched a lot of episodes, but if there were 'good romulans' they just werent as memorable as the 'bad romulans'. I actually cant even remember an episode where there were good romulans.

    PRATT:

    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12103741&postcount=128

    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12105851&postcount=129

    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12125481&postcount=138

    Just a few examples.
  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,460 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    stonewbie wrote: »
    Another thing too is that someone mentioned Romulans in the old ToS. I used to watch reruns of ToS pretty much all episodes, some multiple times. If i ever did watch an episode with Romulans in it they werent memorable.
    "Balance of Terror" - a T'liss sent across the Neutral Zone to test out the new cloaking technology against Starfleet sensors, and when possible to test the new plasma torpedo against Starfleet defenses. It was the episode where we learned about the Romulan War, and that nobody from the Federation had ever seen a Romulan - until Spock managed to tap into their intership communications to image the bridge, and the commander. The commander notes, before dying, that in another reality, he and Kirk could have been friends.

    "The Enterprise Incident" - Kirk seems to have gone insane, ordering the Enterprise into Romulan space. Spock takes command and surrenders when the ship is surrounded by three Romulan-owned Klingon D7 cruisers. He flirts Vulcan-style with the female commander of the task force, pretending to consider deserting and joining the Empire after appearing to kill Kirk with the Vulcan Death Grip. (There is, of course, no Vulcan Death Grip.) Kirk gets surgically altered to look Romulan, then sneaks aboard one of the ships and steals its cloaking device. The Enterprise uses this to escape; Spock is seen to be obviously drawn to the commander, but of course his duty to the Federation comes first.

    Two pretty memorable episodes, and if you haven't seen them, hie thee to Netflix or CBS.com and watch them.
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  • stonewbiestonewbie Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    jonsills wrote: »
    Two pretty memorable episodes, and if you haven't seen them, hie thee to Netflix or CBS.com and watch them.


    I'm not saying that they dont exist...if they did and i watched them (which i did since i do remember the Tliss) then they weren't memorable to me. I was watching these as a kid so i was around 9-12 years old. So as a kid i wasnt really interested in Star Trek politics, i was more interested in watching Kirk karate chop somebody. I remember Kling-gens, tribbles and bar fights, Spock laughing, TRIBBLE, an old air force base, the shape of an iconian gate (though at the time i didnt know who iconians were). But as a kid the only thing i knew of Star Trek politics was Kirk=good, klingons and everyone else=bad.

    Same thing for friendly Romulans in the TNG series. I'm trying to think but i may vaguely remember one episode where they were worshiping Data and were gonna sacrifice Troi, but i dont even know if those were Romulans. But i do remember Data foiling blonde-Yar in her stealth Romulan fleet, the suspicious freighter captain in Voyager, and Geordie getting brainwashed by Romulans. Those are the guys i remember...and even though there were good romulans which i also wont deny, i want to play the guys i remember.

    It's kinda like Star Wars...not every single person in the Empire can be evil can they? Han Solo used to be an Imperial and he seems like an ok guy. But still people see Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Boba Fett and think that this is what the Sith is all about (though SWTOR does give you good as well as bad dialogue options).

    EDIT: maybe its just me? or maybe other people are the same way. But to me bad behavior is just easier to remember then good.
  • sirboulevardsirboulevard Member Posts: 722 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    stonewbie wrote: »
    The RSE isnt as evil as say the Sith Empire of SWTOR. But the RSE/Tal Shiar are different enough from the Fed and KDF that even if they werent a pure villian, it might still have given us unique opportunities for stories and content. But then it might not have made sense for a Tal Shiar faction to join the Fed or KDF, story-wise. And they might not have worked as a standalone faction either. Evil faction, added after initial release? would it have population issues? would people not want to play it for certain reasons?

    I know that some people say that the Tal Shiar or the 'bad Romulans' are only the minority of the whole Romulan population. But i dont think people wanting to play bad guy romulans is all because of ignorance or they just choose to ignore the good romulans. I think people just want to play the bad guy romulans...period. I played SWTOR on release and i thought to myself 'neat i can play a Sith and totally be a jerk'. I wasnt making a political statement, i wasn't trying to oppress the Republic, i just wanted to see what they did with the bad guy storyline.

    The issue is that just wouldn't work for the story they're telling. Splitting the faction up like that would be a storytelling nightmare. Either the RR would collapse back into the RSE eventually or the RR would (as it has) replace the RSE for it to work. Otherwise you end up with TWO Romulan factions. Eeeh. I don't think either side of the debate would be happy with that.

    This story is about the fall of the RSE and the rise of a more open Romulan government, which I would argue comes from the story line thread that was left from Nemesis: after so many years the Romulans are open to discussion and relationships beyond their borders. Sadly, JJ-Trek killed that when Romulus got blow'd up, but STO has salvaged that plot thread and made it into an interesting story.

    I think this game's story simply doesn't have a place for a villianous angle. The Iconians are bad guys to every faction in STO, so we're all heroes. The Chosen Many if you will.
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  • kojirohellfirekojirohellfire Member Posts: 1,606 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    stonewbie wrote: »
    It's kinda like Star Wars...not every single person in the Empire can be evil can they? Han Solo used to be an Imperial and he seems like an ok guy.

    Wait... what?

    Is this something from the Expanded Universe? Because I seem to recall Han simply being a smuggler.
  • stonewbiestonewbie Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    The issue is that just wouldn't work for the story they're telling. Splitting the faction up like that would be a storytelling nightmare. Either the RR would collapse back into the RSE eventually or the RR would (as it has) replace the RSE for it to work. Otherwise you end up with TWO Romulan factions. Eeeh. I don't think either side of the debate would be happy with that.

    This story is about the fall of the RSE and the rise of a more open Romulan government, which I would argue comes from the story line thread that was left from Nemesis: after so many years the Romulans are open to discussion and relationships beyond their borders. Sadly, JJ-Trek killed that when Romulus got blow'd up, but STO has salvaged that plot thread and made it into an interesting story.

    I think this game's story simply doesn't have a place for a villianous angle. The Iconians are bad guys to every faction in STO, so we're all heroes. The Chosen Many if you will.

    I wasnt talking about how the story is now and how it would progress with bad guy romulans. I was talking about how it could have been. Obviously they took a different direction and gave us good guy romulans instead. But i dont think it would have been impossible to write a bad romulan storyline.

    But what i'm saying is would that have been popular? and also would it have been possible to have the bad guy Romulans become allies of the federation/kdf? most likely not, but remember the bad romulans from the TV shows show up as your friend, even accept your aid while at the same time they are plotting to kill you. Remember the episode with Geordie and Ro and the damaged Romulan cruiser? the enterprise was helping the Romulans who were secretly developing technology. But they didnt want the Feds to find out about it so they tried to destroy the Enterprise, the whole time they were getting help from the enterprise. Shinzon approaches the federation with talk of peace, but he really had plans to destroy the federation. How would that work with a bad guy romulan being allies with fed/kdf in STO? If that were made to work that would be some creative story telling. A little different from the good federation doing good deeds, or the honorable klingons being honorable. It would have been an interesting story for the devs to tell, and it would have been hard for them to tell it but i dont think it's impossible.

    The problem with it all is at the end of the story what do you do? do your bad guy romulans come to their senses and suddenly become good romulan-feds? or at the end they become honorable romulan-kdf? it would be an interesting story, but the ending of it would be really tricky. And if it doesnt work then you are looking at making your bad romulans a faction by itself and that has its own problems. Not only are they an evil faction which might not appeal to a lot of players, its also a faction added several years after game release.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Wait... what?

    Is this something from the Expanded Universe? Because I seem to recall Han simply being a smuggler.

    Purely EU thing as far as I can tell, but it's a major part of his expanded background (he and Chewie originally hooked up after Han stopped his CO from killing him and was dishonorably discharged).
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  • pingas5pingas5 Member Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Maybe because umm.. I don't know... ROMULUS EXPLODED AND MANY PEOPLE DIED?
  • aveimperatoraveimperator Member Posts: 319 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    This again? Really?

    You are playing AVERAGE ROMULAN PEOPLE, not Tal Shiar.
    It's like the difference between a German citizen and the SS.

    Also, your friggin' planet exploded and your people are an endangered species. It might not be in the best interest of your long-term survival to go around making enemies of everyone, especially now that you're one of the smallest fish in the pond and you're now missing most of your teeth.

    You want to be evil because "omg evul is sooooooo cooooool!", play a Klingon. They're chock full of that kind of blind stupidity and 14-year-old bravado.
  • captainskybladecaptainskyblade Member Posts: 57 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    i guess you could have side faction but can only unlock them by either reaching lvl 50 or tier 5 of one of those point things such as omega force or something mabey the borg one for the borg faction or teir 5 of the romulan to become a tal sheir
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