The point is that the Voth will not stop until their government cannot continue to fight. They don't negotiate, they take what they want and kill or otherwise incapacitate whoever gets in their way.
I'm getting the impression that if you were in charge, you'd have a pretty hard time even starting to look for an end to the conflict. Signs of negotiation (outside of a game with STFs to blast them by the dozens of course) would be ignored, you'd assume their motives bluntly and kill or otherwise incapacitate them until your territorial needs were met, well beyond the Omega Directive.
If I am wrong I do apologise. But if that's a bit like your strategic approach, it would be counterproductive and only prolong the resource drain on the fleet that's already strained by a half dozen fronts elsewhere.
I'm getting the impression that if you were in charge, you'd have a pretty hard time even starting to look for an end to the conflict. Signs of negotiation (outside of a game with STFs to blast them by the dozens of course) would be ignored, you'd assume their motives bluntly and kill or otherwise incapacitate them until your territorial needs were met, well beyond the Omega Directive.
If I am wrong I do apologise. But if that's a bit like your strategic approach, it would be counterproductive and only prolong the resource drain on the fleet that's already strained by a half dozen fronts elsewhere.
And there you go with personal attacks again. We're talking about what is happening in the game.....
And there you go with personal attacks again. We're talking about what is happening in the game.....
Is it a personal attack to presume, based upon your statements, how the Voth are impossible to negotiate with (which is an in-game given, much like any NPC we blow up can not be negotiated with) and therefore must be exterminated?
You're reading too much into the limitations of an MMO with a heavy combat emphasis. Its well and good to play the fun space game (I like it too) but drawing lore and motivation ideas directly from the endless respawning waves of Voth we blow up every time we queue seems a bit of a stretch.
Yet you insist how impossible they are to reason with and all that. Of course that is true. But that'd be like saying the haggis in STO has no flavor because you can't taste it by licking the screen.
Is it a personal attack to presume, based upon your statements, how the Voth are impossible to negotiate with (which is an in-game given, much like any NPC we blow up can not be negotiated with) and therefore must be exterminated?
You're reading too much into the limitations of an MMO with a heavy combat emphasis. Its well and good to play the fun space game (I like it too) but drawing lore and motivation ideas directly from the endless respawning waves of Voth we blow up every time we queue seems a bit of a stretch.
Yet you insist how impossible they are to reason with and all that. Of course that is true. But that'd be like saying the haggis in STO has no flavor because you can't taste it by licking the screen.
Did you watch Distant Origin? The Voth have a superiority complex that causes their leaders to think of negotiation as being beneath them. It's well attested in game too. just read the Voth caches in the battle zone.
It's not that they are IMPOSSIBLE to reason with, it's that their government isn't interested.
It is quite awful actually.
Here we are the mighty knights in silver spaceships roaming the universe, exploring.
Lo and behold! A sphere! Let's explore! Oh, wait. There are dinosaurs here with frikkin lazors on their heads. Let us shoot them. They want Omega molecules. No need to ask them why, who their mighty enemy might be. Let us shoot down their non-attacking supportships. Let's suit up in their armours, so they can't pick us out that easily...
Scientists? Bah. Shoot them. Medics? Bah. Shoot them. Shoot them ginormous cityships out of the sky. Let us not speak of all the dinosaurial females and children. Oh, wait. Good idea. Let us use their children as pets!
:eek:
If kirk was here atleast he would have got a shag!
Where ever you go, there you are.......
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
Did you watch Distant Origin? The Voth have a superiority complex that causes their leaders to think of negotiation as being beneath them. It's well attested in game too. just read the Voth caches in the battle zone.
It's not that they are IMPOSSIBLE to reason with, it's that their government isn't interested.
Dismissing the dissent in their ranks may be a fatal mistake, were this an actual Trek episode.
At times, entire castes of underclass beings have risen up, sabotaged the plans and indeed even the devices of their overlords, and have formed new regimes in their place.
Simply blowing things up nonstop, yeah that's easier to imagine, I suppose.
Dismissing the dissent in their ranks may be a fatal mistake, were this an actual Trek episode.
At times, entire castes of underclass beings have risen up, sabotaged the plans and indeed even the devices of their overlords, and have formed new regimes in their place.
Simply blowing things up nonstop, yeah that's easier to imagine, I suppose.
It's not like cardassia where most of the population is divided. The Voth make Rome look like amateurs operating out of their depth. Good what on a W.A.G. 80% of the population is lock stock with the government.
Dissidents are so few in number, it's good to get them out of harms way, but their actual ability to do something, EXTREMELY limited.
Only way to stop that war machine, topple the government in a show of strength and back them down.
Sorry I have to agree on this one. Not genocide, but to stop them, you have to rip the guts out of their war machine and crush their government and basically show them you are the stronger meaner dog and they don't want to EVER mess with you again.
Sometimes you gotta knock the school yard bully flat on his tail to get him to knock it off.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It's not like cardassia where most of the population is divided. The Voth make Rome look like amateurs operating out of their depth. Good what on a W.A.G. 80% of the population is lock stock with the government.
Dissidents are so few in number, it's good to get them out of harms way, but their actual ability to do something, EXTREMELY limited.
Only way to stop that war machine, topple the government in a show of strength and back them down.
Sorry I have to agree on this one. Not genocide, but to stop them, you have to rip the guts out of their war machine and crush their government and basically show them you are the stronger meaner dog and they don't want to EVER mess with you again.
Sometimes you gotta knock the school yard bully flat on his tail to get him to knock it off.
Well and good, though again, you sound awfully excited about the last-resort-oh-so-necessary-and-unfortunate thing, what with the visceral imagery and the repeated urgency of your post about how badly these guys need to be killed and blown up.
My point is I'm skeptical that, were you in charge, you'd even know when to stop. Good thing this is just a video game.
This tread just reminds me of how much I miss Star Trek on TV.
Why isn't there more exploration in STO? the answer is simply because it doesn't sell and STO is here to make money. Forget about drawing real life comparisons to this "We need new bad guys so the game seems more interesting and don't forget to add a rough story reason why three factions would be playing the same content" its just not worth it.
Try, like me, to see this game for what it really is, a generic MMORPG wearing a Star Trek Skant. It won't ever, ever replace the real thing but you may as well just turn off your brain and try and enjoy it anyway.
If that is not good enough I humbly suggest we start writing letters to CBS to try and revive a prime universe TV show.
It is quite awful actually.
Here we are the mighty knights in silver spaceships roaming the universe, exploring.
Lo and behold! A sphere! Let's explore! Oh, wait. There are dinosaurs here with frikkin lazors on their heads. Let us shoot them. They want Omega molecules. No need to ask them why, who their mighty enemy might be. Let us shoot down their non-attacking supportships. Let's suit up in their armours, so they can't pick us out that easily...
Scientists? Bah. Shoot them. Medics? Bah. Shoot them. Shoot them ginormous cityships out of the sky. Let us not speak of all the dinosaurial females and children. Oh, wait. Good idea. Let us use their children as pets!
:eek:
There was a point at which I thought STO was a game. It's a good thing I realized that it is, after all, real life.
There was a point at which I thought STO was a game. It's a good thing I realized that it is, after all, real life.
Yes yes we all know it's a game. Thing is, game mechanics are being used to explain motives, which is as weird as saying that Starfleet captains are EVE-like immortals because they respawn when they die and their ships reconstruct themselves only a few kilometers from where they explode, and then postulating from there in-setting how that works.
yes, the Voth are bad guys and we blow them up. Getting philosophical, or worse, introducing philosophy at this point is spitting in the wind.
Well and good, though again, you sound awfully excited about the last-resort-oh-so-necessary-and-unfortunate thing, what with the visceral imagery and the repeated urgency of your post about how badly these guys need to be killed and blown up.
My point is I'm skeptical that, were you in charge, you'd even know when to stop. Good thing this is just a video game.
It's not that I WANT to embrace it. Hell I'd be more happy just being an explorer going to find new things. I'd want to be more Johnathan Archer than Patton.
But sometimes to go be Archer, gotta embrace Patton. I'd stop as long as I'd assured the safety of atleast 3 governments and trillions. Either negotiated or defeating the Voth lock stock and barrel.
If that means I make peace I do it. If it means I destroy their government and leave the rest alone, I do it. If it means total extermination, bad as it sounds I do it.
I'll worry about my soul later, I'll worry about the billions or trillions of futures that particle can destroy by simply mishandling it.
and somebody else said, "Medics kill'em." They pick up a weapon and point it at you, they are no longer a non-combatant. They are a combatant and you take them down unless they surrender.
See I'm not above taking prisoners giving quarter and preserving lives. What I won't do, is stand by and allow Warp to be completely destroyed. Sorry too much riding on it. Plus the fact the Voth are hell bent on conquering? Not the people I would have[in game] swore to protect and serve.
Yes I'd know when to stop, when the other side says "I surrender" or "Ok lets talk peace."
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It's not that I WANT to embrace it. Hell I'd be more happy just being an explorer going to find new things. I'd want to be more Johnathan Archer than Patton.
But sometimes to go be Archer, gotta embrace Patton. I'd stop as long as I'd assured the safety of atleast 3 governments and trillions. Either negotiated or defeating the Voth lock stock and barrel.
If that means I make peace I do it. If it means I destroy their government and leave the rest alone, I do it. If it means total extermination, bad as it sounds I do it.
I'll worry about my soul later, I'll worry about the billions or trillions of futures that particle can destroy by simply mishandling it.
and somebody else said, "Medics kill'em." They pick up a weapon and point it at you, they are no longer a non-combatant. They are a combatant and you take them down unless they surrender.
See I'm not above taking prisoners giving quarter and preserving lives. What I won't do, is stand by and allow Warp to be completely destroyed. Sorry too much riding on it. Plus the fact the Voth are hell bent on conquering? Not the people I would have[in game] swore to protect and serve.
Yes I'd know when to stop, when the other side says "I surrender" or "Ok lets talk peace."
Archer had a mean streak that he showed during the Xindi campaign, especially before he realized the Xindi weren't just a bunch of planet-destroying space terrorists, but a diverse assembly of peoples that were being directed malicious by the sphere-builders.
There's something to be learned from that: what seems like an impossibly inhuman monstrous enemy can at some point be reasoned with, both in real life and in fiction. It may involve conflict before, or even after, such times, but dismissing them altogether is not only unfortunate but also potentially weakens both peoples involved in the long run. After all, it is said that the Xindi joined the Federation eventually and even helped fight the sphere builders in the future with the Enterprise-J.
Fighting is one thing, but I'm still seeing the leap from "can't negotiate" to "kill em all" seeming a little too eager here.
My point is there's a middle ground here, even between "talk to em" and "kill em all". Sometimes battles are fought until one side is exhausted and sues for peace, or something else like that. Not seeing much of that here, but maybe you just really, really like the last-ditch-no-other-choice-lets-kill-em-all-thing.
This thread may be getting a little long in the tooth.
I think we can mostly agree on the common ground of "bad people want to do bad things, so we defend ourselves".
I don't think anyone said harshly written letters will deflect incoming torpedoes.
Nor do I think there's too many people (maybe a few) that take wartime to mean "kill em all YEEHAW".
Yes, there's a good deal of resentment both ways. Some Trek fans like the exploration, the discovery, the diplomacy, and even then like a good space battle from time to time (LOVED the Wrath of Khan slug-out between Enterprise and Reliant), but aren't all that nuts about turning Trek into yet another gritty BSG clone.
And some really hate all that hippy/socialist/whatever stuff and want to see lots of war and survival-at-all-costs grimdarkness and to some extent even I can admit that can be entertaining. But if that's all you see in Trek, it's not a very good fit.
I assume you've heard of the concept of a "Mary Sue", and the prototype of much of the concept was the Piper character.
I didn't get that much of a mary Sue vibe off the character seeing as half the time all her accomplishments are undercut by Kirk setting things off because that how he knew things would turn out.
As to the debate in this thread things the federation does in this game are easier to accept if you just realize thats how the TOS federation operated and stop comparing it to the TNG federeation.
Ignoring dissidents?! That would be the greatest level of ignorance.
Just because we meet one ingame, who has said there are noone else out there?
And, uh. Stating that one dissident cannot create change...
Take a look at this list, and reconsider why a diplomatic (with some help from Section 31 (as they afterall are the experts of covert ops))... ...solution is plausible.
Fighting the Klingons? J'mpok started it. And the only alternative is to let J'mpok go on a witchhunt looking for people he suspects of being Undine in disguise. Do they exist? yes. do we have reason to believe they are as big a threat as J'mpok claims? No.
Pah! The Federation still twiddles its thumbs and does nothing to oppose the Undine threat, something the Klingon Empire took seriously. There were Undine infiltrators in the Gorn government, there are Undine infiltrators in the Federation government, and there are even Undine in the Klingon Empire's government. Yet this is clearly not enough evidence to make the Undine a big threat. Hmph.
The Klingon Empire acted to defend itself against the Undine, and the Federation denounced the Klingons for it. THAT is why the two are fighting.
Ignoring dissidents?! That would be the greatest level of ignorance.
Just because we meet one ingame, who has said there are noone else out there?
And, uh. Stating that one dissident cannot create change...
Take a look at this list, and reconsider why a diplomatic (with some help from Section 31 (as they afterall are the experts of covert ops))... ...solution is plausible.
Your list makes me think the name Martin Luther requires the bearer to work for change.
On Op, it occurs to me that one weakness of the game is that all fights are to the death. There really is no cripple a ship and capture the crew. No surrenders, and no real stun setting for not killing NPCs.
Is the morality of the Federation here because they are callous or because the design can be humane?
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Zilch. The Omega particles are just Cryptic's half-assed justification for shoehorning Jurassic Park IN SPACE!
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Zilch. The Omega particles are just Cryptic's half-assed justification for shoehorning Jurassic Park IN SPACE!
Yes yes I know, the "dinosaurs with laser beams on their heads" thing will be ammunition for angst against Cryptic for years to come.
But we have to work with what we got here. This is, after all, a forum about said game, even if you don't like certain parts of it. It's being discussed already, even with a few derails.
According to a cut scene Kirk would have definitely done it.
I know for some reason they have it confused with The Next Generation, I really don't know why.
I didn't get that much of a mary Sue vibe off the character seeing as half the time all her accomplishments are undercut by Kirk setting things off because that how he knew things would turn out.
As to the debate in this thread things the federation does in this game are easier to accept if you just realize thats how the TOS federation operated and stop comparing it to the TNG federeation.
It's actually a pretty common "sugar for the medicine" tactic to have a Mary Sue hinge upon the whims and powers of a canon character (in this case, Kirk), making most of their little adventures efforts to impress the canon character (which was just about the entire narrative of that "Dreadnought!" book. The painfully long winded "the Enterprise crew are so awesome and especially the captain omg!" thing). Critics of the book, its followup, and its author have penned the notion of "Mary Sue" quite directly for the entire thing.
If I made a half-wizard half-Uruk-Hai in Lord of the Rings in some imagined novel spinoff that was painfully beautiful and even angelic yet all she wanted to do was impress Gandalf and Gandalf sometimes taught her lessons on how to use her awesome powers in a better way, you bet that's still a Mary Sue.
Ignoring dissidents?! That would be the greatest level of ignorance.
Just because we meet one ingame, who has said there are noone else out there?
And, uh. Stating that one dissident cannot create change...
Take a look at this list, and reconsider why a diplomatic (with some help from Section 31 (as they afterall are the experts of covert ops))... ...solution is plausible.
Did you watch Distant Origin? The Voth have a superiority complex that causes their leaders to think of negotiation as being beneath them. It's well attested in game too. just read the Voth caches in the battle zone.
It's not that they are IMPOSSIBLE to reason with, it's that their government isn't interested.
I say you're extrapolating a lot from very little, and then turn it all into a huge hyperbole.
All we saw in Distant Origin is the religious leaders of the Voth not taking kindly to total outsiders uprooting the very core of their Doctrine. And, like Galileo having to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, their scientist was finally forced to recant before their 'Pope' too. Distant Origin -- as so much other moralizing in ST -- was meant to have us re-examine some of our own religious intolerance, by having us look at a Sci-Fi version of our own history. Nothing more.
That little episode is a far cry from concluding the Voth, as an entire species, cannot be reasoned with. In point of fact, I found that scientist quite reasonable and open to new ideas. If we are to condemn and exterminate an entire space-faring race, just because he has jerks for bosses, then God forbid someone ever comes along to judge *us* in like fashion!
How many dissidents has the Voth government silenced already? How many more will they silence before their tyrannical regime is overthrown?
If you're going to milk that to death I really don't have more to say. Claim victory if you like, but you might have failed to notice I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you quite the way you think I was, apart from the "RAAAAGH KRUSH SPACE TERRISTS" thing. Defensive actions are one thing and don't justify any and all actions.
I say you're extrapolating a lot from very little, and then turn it all into a huge hyperbole.
All we saw in Distant Origin is the religious leaders of the Voth not taking kindly to total outsiders uprooting the very core of their Doctrine. And, like Galileo having to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, their scientist was finally forced to recant before their 'Pope' too. Distant Origin -- as so much other moralizing in ST -- was meant to have us re-examine some of our own religious intolerance, by having us look at a Sci-Fi version of our own history. Nothing more.
That little episode is a far cry from concluding the Voth, as an entire species, cannot be reasoned with. In point of fact, I found that scientist quite reasonable and open to new ideas. If we are to condemn and exterminate an entire space-faring race, just because he has jerks for bosses, then God forbid someone ever comes along to judge *us* in like fashion!
Considering how some here can take the word "Flagship" spoken in TNG and extrapolate that "omg the Enterprise is a warship and fights wars as a warship" and abandon about 90% of TNG's storyline and setting because of it, it may be a lost cause even arguing anymore.
As I said in the past, people with a hammer see everything else as a nail. They want their blood-soaked moral relativism and they want it everywhere.
If you're going to milk that to death I really don't have more to say. Claim victory if you like, but you might have failed to notice I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you quite the way you think I was, apart from the "RAAAAGH KRUSH SPACE TERRISTS" thing. Defensive actions are one thing and don't justify any and all actions.
Who said they did? The problem with expecting dissent to change the world, is that dissidents are common. Revolutions are few. The Lollard movement was largely futile until it was endorsed by Henry the 8th. Which took about 2 centuries.... Sure it was (apparently) started by one man(John Wycliffe), but it took a lot more than just spreading ideas around to change things.
I say you're extrapolating a lot from very little, and then turn it all into a huge hyperbole.
All we saw in Distant Origin is the religious leaders of the Voth not taking kindly to total outsiders uprooting the very core of their Doctrine. And, like Galileo having to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, their scientist was finally forced to recant before their 'Pope' too. Distant Origin -- as so much other moralizing in ST -- was meant to have us re-examine some of our own religious intolerance, by having us look at a Sci-Fi version of our own history. Nothing more.
That little episode is a far cry from concluding the Voth, as an entire species, cannot be reasoned with. In point of fact, I found that scientist quite reasonable and open to new ideas. If we are to condemn and exterminate an entire space-faring race, just because he has jerks for bosses, then God forbid someone ever comes along to judge *us* in like fashion!
Which is pretty much what I just said, except that I never suggested that exterminating the Voth was a viable option. I don't know where you got an idea that horrible from...
Who said they did? The problem with expecting dissent to change the world, is that dissidents are common. Revolutions are few. The Lollard movement was largely futile until it was endorsed by Henry the 8th. Which took about 2 centuries.... Sure it was (apparently) started by one man(John Wycliffe), but it took a lot more than just spreading ideas around to change things.Which is pretty much what I just said, except that I never suggested that exterminating the Voth was a viable option. I don't know where you got an idea that horrible from...
I suppose you're implying militarily forced "regime change" has a much higher success rate and doesn't result in making problems worse, ever. :rolleyes:
This thread's getting very long in the tooth. It's seeming like same arguments coming up and down like a game of Whack-A-Mole, with moles labeled "ITS US OR THEM" and "DIPLOMACY NEVER WORKS" and the like.
I suppose you're implying militarily forced "regime change" has a much higher success rate and doesn't result in making problems worse, ever. :rolleyes:
This thread's getting very long in the tooth. It's seeming like same arguments coming up and down like a game of Whack-A-Mole, with moles labeled "ITS US OR THEM" and "DIPLOMACY NEVER WORKS" and the like.
I say don't follow the orders. If it's going against the guiding principles of the Federation the very core and all that, do not follow these illegal directives. Starfleet wants thinking captains, not the type of captain that will vaporize a world because some Politician says so.
Comments
I'm getting the impression that if you were in charge, you'd have a pretty hard time even starting to look for an end to the conflict. Signs of negotiation (outside of a game with STFs to blast them by the dozens of course) would be ignored, you'd assume their motives bluntly and kill or otherwise incapacitate them until your territorial needs were met, well beyond the Omega Directive.
If I am wrong I do apologise. But if that's a bit like your strategic approach, it would be counterproductive and only prolong the resource drain on the fleet that's already strained by a half dozen fronts elsewhere.
My character Tsin'xing
Is it a personal attack to presume, based upon your statements, how the Voth are impossible to negotiate with (which is an in-game given, much like any NPC we blow up can not be negotiated with) and therefore must be exterminated?
You're reading too much into the limitations of an MMO with a heavy combat emphasis. Its well and good to play the fun space game (I like it too) but drawing lore and motivation ideas directly from the endless respawning waves of Voth we blow up every time we queue seems a bit of a stretch.
Yet you insist how impossible they are to reason with and all that. Of course that is true. But that'd be like saying the haggis in STO has no flavor because you can't taste it by licking the screen.
It's not that they are IMPOSSIBLE to reason with, it's that their government isn't interested.
My character Tsin'xing
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
Dismissing the dissent in their ranks may be a fatal mistake, were this an actual Trek episode.
At times, entire castes of underclass beings have risen up, sabotaged the plans and indeed even the devices of their overlords, and have formed new regimes in their place.
Simply blowing things up nonstop, yeah that's easier to imagine, I suppose.
It's not like cardassia where most of the population is divided. The Voth make Rome look like amateurs operating out of their depth. Good what on a W.A.G. 80% of the population is lock stock with the government.
Dissidents are so few in number, it's good to get them out of harms way, but their actual ability to do something, EXTREMELY limited.
Only way to stop that war machine, topple the government in a show of strength and back them down.
Sorry I have to agree on this one. Not genocide, but to stop them, you have to rip the guts out of their war machine and crush their government and basically show them you are the stronger meaner dog and they don't want to EVER mess with you again.
Sometimes you gotta knock the school yard bully flat on his tail to get him to knock it off.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Well and good, though again, you sound awfully excited about the last-resort-oh-so-necessary-and-unfortunate thing, what with the visceral imagery and the repeated urgency of your post about how badly these guys need to be killed and blown up.
My point is I'm skeptical that, were you in charge, you'd even know when to stop. Good thing this is just a video game.
Why isn't there more exploration in STO? the answer is simply because it doesn't sell and STO is here to make money. Forget about drawing real life comparisons to this "We need new bad guys so the game seems more interesting and don't forget to add a rough story reason why three factions would be playing the same content" its just not worth it.
Try, like me, to see this game for what it really is, a generic MMORPG wearing a Star Trek Skant. It won't ever, ever replace the real thing but you may as well just turn off your brain and try and enjoy it anyway.
If that is not good enough I humbly suggest we start writing letters to CBS to try and revive a prime universe TV show.
There was a point at which I thought STO was a game. It's a good thing I realized that it is, after all, real life.
Yes yes we all know it's a game. Thing is, game mechanics are being used to explain motives, which is as weird as saying that Starfleet captains are EVE-like immortals because they respawn when they die and their ships reconstruct themselves only a few kilometers from where they explode, and then postulating from there in-setting how that works.
yes, the Voth are bad guys and we blow them up. Getting philosophical, or worse, introducing philosophy at this point is spitting in the wind.
It's not that I WANT to embrace it. Hell I'd be more happy just being an explorer going to find new things. I'd want to be more Johnathan Archer than Patton.
But sometimes to go be Archer, gotta embrace Patton. I'd stop as long as I'd assured the safety of atleast 3 governments and trillions. Either negotiated or defeating the Voth lock stock and barrel.
If that means I make peace I do it. If it means I destroy their government and leave the rest alone, I do it. If it means total extermination, bad as it sounds I do it.
I'll worry about my soul later, I'll worry about the billions or trillions of futures that particle can destroy by simply mishandling it.
and somebody else said, "Medics kill'em." They pick up a weapon and point it at you, they are no longer a non-combatant. They are a combatant and you take them down unless they surrender.
See I'm not above taking prisoners giving quarter and preserving lives. What I won't do, is stand by and allow Warp to be completely destroyed. Sorry too much riding on it. Plus the fact the Voth are hell bent on conquering? Not the people I would have[in game] swore to protect and serve.
Yes I'd know when to stop, when the other side says "I surrender" or "Ok lets talk peace."
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Archer had a mean streak that he showed during the Xindi campaign, especially before he realized the Xindi weren't just a bunch of planet-destroying space terrorists, but a diverse assembly of peoples that were being directed malicious by the sphere-builders.
There's something to be learned from that: what seems like an impossibly inhuman monstrous enemy can at some point be reasoned with, both in real life and in fiction. It may involve conflict before, or even after, such times, but dismissing them altogether is not only unfortunate but also potentially weakens both peoples involved in the long run. After all, it is said that the Xindi joined the Federation eventually and even helped fight the sphere builders in the future with the Enterprise-J.
Fighting is one thing, but I'm still seeing the leap from "can't negotiate" to "kill em all" seeming a little too eager here.
My point is there's a middle ground here, even between "talk to em" and "kill em all". Sometimes battles are fought until one side is exhausted and sues for peace, or something else like that. Not seeing much of that here, but maybe you just really, really like the last-ditch-no-other-choice-lets-kill-em-all-thing.
In fiction anyway.
I think we can mostly agree on the common ground of "bad people want to do bad things, so we defend ourselves".
I don't think anyone said harshly written letters will deflect incoming torpedoes.
Nor do I think there's too many people (maybe a few) that take wartime to mean "kill em all YEEHAW".
Yes, there's a good deal of resentment both ways. Some Trek fans like the exploration, the discovery, the diplomacy, and even then like a good space battle from time to time (LOVED the Wrath of Khan slug-out between Enterprise and Reliant), but aren't all that nuts about turning Trek into yet another gritty BSG clone.
And some really hate all that hippy/socialist/whatever stuff and want to see lots of war and survival-at-all-costs grimdarkness and to some extent even I can admit that can be entertaining. But if that's all you see in Trek, it's not a very good fit.
According to a cut scene Kirk would have definitely done it.
I know for some reason they have it confused with The Next Generation, I really don't know why.
I didn't get that much of a mary Sue vibe off the character seeing as half the time all her accomplishments are undercut by Kirk setting things off because that how he knew things would turn out.
As to the debate in this thread things the federation does in this game are easier to accept if you just realize thats how the TOS federation operated and stop comparing it to the TNG federeation.
Just because we meet one ingame, who has said there are noone else out there?
And, uh. Stating that one dissident cannot create change...
Take a look at this list, and reconsider why a diplomatic (with some help from Section 31 (as they afterall are the experts of covert ops))... ...solution is plausible.
link over known worldwide dissidents that changed our history, for good or worse.
Pah! The Federation still twiddles its thumbs and does nothing to oppose the Undine threat, something the Klingon Empire took seriously. There were Undine infiltrators in the Gorn government, there are Undine infiltrators in the Federation government, and there are even Undine in the Klingon Empire's government. Yet this is clearly not enough evidence to make the Undine a big threat. Hmph.
The Klingon Empire acted to defend itself against the Undine, and the Federation denounced the Klingons for it. THAT is why the two are fighting.
Your list makes me think the name Martin Luther requires the bearer to work for change.
On Op, it occurs to me that one weakness of the game is that all fights are to the death. There really is no cripple a ship and capture the crew. No surrenders, and no real stun setting for not killing NPCs.
Is the morality of the Federation here because they are callous or because the design can be humane?
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
Zilch. The Omega particles are just Cryptic's half-assed justification for shoehorning Jurassic Park IN SPACE!
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Yes yes I know, the "dinosaurs with laser beams on their heads" thing will be ammunition for angst against Cryptic for years to come.
But we have to work with what we got here. This is, after all, a forum about said game, even if you don't like certain parts of it. It's being discussed already, even with a few derails.
It's actually a pretty common "sugar for the medicine" tactic to have a Mary Sue hinge upon the whims and powers of a canon character (in this case, Kirk), making most of their little adventures efforts to impress the canon character (which was just about the entire narrative of that "Dreadnought!" book. The painfully long winded "the Enterprise crew are so awesome and especially the captain omg!" thing). Critics of the book, its followup, and its author have penned the notion of "Mary Sue" quite directly for the entire thing.
Example: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/mary-sue-fights-fascism-diane-careys-dreadnought-and-battlestations
If I made a half-wizard half-Uruk-Hai in Lord of the Rings in some imagined novel spinoff that was painfully beautiful and even angelic yet all she wanted to do was impress Gandalf and Gandalf sometimes taught her lessons on how to use her awesome powers in a better way, you bet that's still a Mary Sue.
One "minor dissident" during the Cold War prevented the start of World War III and we may have him to thank for even being around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
My character Tsin'xing
I say you're extrapolating a lot from very little, and then turn it all into a huge hyperbole.
All we saw in Distant Origin is the religious leaders of the Voth not taking kindly to total outsiders uprooting the very core of their Doctrine. And, like Galileo having to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, their scientist was finally forced to recant before their 'Pope' too. Distant Origin -- as so much other moralizing in ST -- was meant to have us re-examine some of our own religious intolerance, by having us look at a Sci-Fi version of our own history. Nothing more.
That little episode is a far cry from concluding the Voth, as an entire species, cannot be reasoned with. In point of fact, I found that scientist quite reasonable and open to new ideas. If we are to condemn and exterminate an entire space-faring race, just because he has jerks for bosses, then God forbid someone ever comes along to judge *us* in like fashion!
If you're going to milk that to death I really don't have more to say. Claim victory if you like, but you might have failed to notice I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you quite the way you think I was, apart from the "RAAAAGH KRUSH SPACE TERRISTS" thing. Defensive actions are one thing and don't justify any and all actions.
Considering how some here can take the word "Flagship" spoken in TNG and extrapolate that "omg the Enterprise is a warship and fights wars as a warship" and abandon about 90% of TNG's storyline and setting because of it, it may be a lost cause even arguing anymore.
As I said in the past, people with a hammer see everything else as a nail. They want their blood-soaked moral relativism and they want it everywhere.
My character Tsin'xing
I suppose you're implying militarily forced "regime change" has a much higher success rate and doesn't result in making problems worse, ever. :rolleyes:
This thread's getting very long in the tooth. It's seeming like same arguments coming up and down like a game of Whack-A-Mole, with moles labeled "ITS US OR THEM" and "DIPLOMACY NEVER WORKS" and the like.
I say don't follow the orders. If it's going against the guiding principles of the Federation the very core and all that, do not follow these illegal directives. Starfleet wants thinking captains, not the type of captain that will vaporize a world because some Politician says so.