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ideology of the factions?
skollulfr
Member Posts: 5,407 Arc User
while i admit an mmo is going to have such watered down by actions of players just here for the game rather than any 'lore', but what could be done in game to provide the factions with clearer ideological identities in order to build the in-game world?
when im playing as kdf, a lot of the interactions seem, a bit caricatured rather than feeling like a defined group. we are presented with an alien society that makes a lot of noise about its honor, but what is that honour system? how does it work?
almost anytime i see players arguing about it, its anthropomorphised into earth chivalry, when, that is unlikely.
similar with the romulans. they feel like... federation- "other". presupposing a desire for 20th century earth foibles and ideas. unlike many other players, i have no ill feeling about torvan. what bugs me is more that he reminds me of xander harris from buffy TVS. and as a more developed character, doesnt give me a clue as to what romulan culture is.
and the federation? i honestly cant tell from what is ingame what is going on here. my knowledge of the conflicting fed idology from the shows(tos vs tng+) honestly just makes me hate them for being insipid, self aggrandising, duplicitous hypocrites. and im not sure what in game is supposed to say anything about them as a faction. as other than shons ... enthusiasm, the writing ingame seems to shy away from trying to communicate any sort of defined ideology to engage with.
even if that would result in a degree of dissonance.
im not even sure what oog sources to go to for filling this in, let alone having the creativity myself to suggest how. which is annoying me too.
when im playing as kdf, a lot of the interactions seem, a bit caricatured rather than feeling like a defined group. we are presented with an alien society that makes a lot of noise about its honor, but what is that honour system? how does it work?
almost anytime i see players arguing about it, its anthropomorphised into earth chivalry, when, that is unlikely.
similar with the romulans. they feel like... federation- "other". presupposing a desire for 20th century earth foibles and ideas. unlike many other players, i have no ill feeling about torvan. what bugs me is more that he reminds me of xander harris from buffy TVS. and as a more developed character, doesnt give me a clue as to what romulan culture is.
and the federation? i honestly cant tell from what is ingame what is going on here. my knowledge of the conflicting fed idology from the shows(tos vs tng+) honestly just makes me hate them for being insipid, self aggrandising, duplicitous hypocrites. and im not sure what in game is supposed to say anything about them as a faction. as other than shons ... enthusiasm, the writing ingame seems to shy away from trying to communicate any sort of defined ideology to engage with.
even if that would result in a degree of dissonance.
im not even sure what oog sources to go to for filling this in, let alone having the creativity myself to suggest how. which is annoying me too.
Post edited by skollulfr on
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On the Day of Honor/FIrst Contact Day event, you can talk to the crew of the Bortasqu' about honor. They have different ideas on what Klingon Honor is, from glory through battle to focused professionalism to living for an ideal instead of one's own interests. Dax in DS9 once remarked that the Klingons love the concept of honor, but often support pragmatic political leaders over honorable ones. Glory and the visible spoils of war are often conflated with honor, but other Klingons will draw distinction between the 'easy road' of self-serving cowardice and the 'hard road' of principle-serving honor. Individual interpretation often varies on whether it is more honorable to die in ritual conflict over a small personal slight, or to let it slide for the greater good of the Empire.
The Romulan Republic seems to eschew many of the 'old Romulan' values, such as duplicitiousness, in favor of cooperation for the betterment of the Romulan people as a whole. It seeks to improve the Republic's prospects and stature, such as through running the Dyson Sphere exploration, but will cooperate with other powers in good faith as long as it benefits the Republic.
The Federation is foremost about mutual protection, cooperation between worlds, and exploration and the pursuit of knowledge. It cares about consequences of interference and tries to not meddle with other cultures, though it does from time to time. The Federation believes cooperation is superior to violent competition or conflict, but will defend its principles with force. Tolerance of other cultures is a key belief, though it is often hard for the Federation to work with cultures that do not share this value.
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I can answer your question about honor since I've witnessed enough star trek episodes to say what it means for a Klingon. Klingons are warriors by nature and love the thrill of battle. An honorable act for example is someone risking their life for the life of a Klingon, such as what Temer does to save the conference on Khitomer, the sacrifice of the Enterprise-C to save Narendra III or Shon's willingness to sacrifice himself if it means the Klingons survive.
Dishonorable acts on the other hand are those that tend to threaten the very existence of the empire, most of the time dealing with enemies of the Empire. The Duras family and the Torg family are the best known cases of this. Ja'rod, the father of the TNG Duras conspired with the Romulans during the attack on Khitomer that killed Worf's family. The Duras family would later again conspire with Romulans when Lursa and B'etor, Duras's sisters, were trying to take control of the Empire and nearly caused a civil war to erupt into chaos. The last and probably best case of dishonor involves the House of Torg. They consipired with the Romulans to kill M'ven, a member of the House of Martok. Torg, the leader of the house, ended up receiving discommendation for his entire house (the discommendated are usually seen as dishonored klingons and most do not want anything to do with them).
As for the Federation, they're primary goal is to mainly have peaceful relations with other groups. This is most evident from the original series and all of the later series where they're trying to establish peaceful intentions with new or existing species they encounter. Enemies like the Iconians have tried to interrupt this primarily because they do not like the idea of a single political power other than their own.
The Romulans are probably the hardest to really get a grasp on since most of what we've know about them have dealt with underhanded tactics. What we do know is that they're an offshoot of the Vulcans whom left during the age of Surak, a time of the suppressing of emotions. Most of the actual things we know about the Romulans are that they are totalitarian and tend to also be xenophobic. However, as they showed deeper in some episodes, there are Romulans who do not like how things are run. This becomes more evident in the game when The Romulan Republic breaks away from the Romulan Star Empire, made up of a people whom wish to reunite with the Vulcans one day. At the very core, the Romuans are a passionate people whom we're still learning about to this day.
I hope this clears it up somewhat for you.
I could write a dissertation on the inconsistencies in the political philosophy and ethics of the Federation, not to mention that of the other races of the Star Trek universe, so I'll keep this brief. I think you have a very valid criticism. The real problem, though, isn't with the game's representation of different races' cultural philosophies (or lack thereof), it's with the lack of information on those philosophies in established canon. What little information the creators and writers of the TV series and films did impart on this extremely important subject is often vague, logically unsound, or even downright contradictory. Much of the blame for this I lay at Roddenberry's feet, as he had only very general ideas about the values of the Federation, and about the values of what, unfortunately, amounted to little more than foils of the Federation, e.g. the Klingons and Romulans. The depth and richness of the Trek universe allowed for much more potential in both exploring non-human cultures and in presenting a more meta-ethically neutral arena of competing philosophies and values, which would have made for a more sophisticated franchise with more interesting storylines. Roddenberry's ultimately simplistic and somewhat juvenile view both of the ideal future of humanity, and of the range of philosophical and moral variance within a single culture (this applies to the Federation as well but it is especially true for the other races that they are virtually all absurdly monolithic), ultimately limited, quite severely in my view, what the creative minds working within the franchise's universe could achieve. The rest of the blame I place at the doorstep of the writers and producers, and especially the networks which hosted and syndicate the Star Trek series, who undoubtedly exercised some level of creative control over the shows' staffs, and, I'm sure, asked them to tone down anything which was perceived to be too cerebral for the mass audience of network primetime TV.
Pure nitpicking here, but how can something be "anthropomorphised" into an intangible societal concept? :rolleyes:
Klingon society places a premium on selflessness in service to the Empire. From all species, not just those it commands. Going all the way back to Narendra III and the Enterprise-C, Klingons honor those who are willing to sacrifice in defense of the Empire. It differs from human honor codes in that it does not find extreme violence inherently dishonorable. If it is war, a true war, then anything less than the fiercest combat out of a Klingon warrior would be dishonorable. They are not going to go around deliberately killing women and children, but if women and children happen to be in the line of fire, they will not hesitate to shoot. It is the fault of their enemies, who by ignorance, cowardice, or malice did not remove those non-combatants from warzones.
Klingon justice is likewise uncompromising, unsubtle, and many might consider barbaric. It is the duty of every Klingon warrior to be ready to slay their superior before allowing them to dishonor their ship. Those who are not summarily executed find themselves in Rura Penthe. Interestingly, this harsh justice is not applied evenly to the other client species in the Empire. Klingons are more than capable of accommodating other cultures, though perhaps not very gladly, but they will always hold themselves to the highest standards, those set by Kahless.
The Republic on the other hand, is far more culturally similar to liberal Western ideology of the present era, mostly due to the heavy civilian influence. The Republic is comprised mostly of ordinary Romulan and Reman citizens, just trying to live out the "Romulan Dream" as it were. They want to be free, they want to be prosperous, and they want above all else independence. They are unafraid of conflict, though they would prefer to avoid it they know its necessity. The Reman influence on New Romulan culture is rather striking, though. New Romulans differ most from their Tal Shiar brethren in that they do not think themselves to be necessarily superior.
Mostly they are wounded, though. They have immense pride in their culture and their legacy, and will fight to the bitter end to see the glory and honor of the Romulan people restored, be that in fighting alongside their allies, liberating and living on equal terms with the Remans, seeking reconciliation with the Vulcans, they have perhaps the strongest cultural identity of any society in STO. With the Federation's extreme egalitarianism, the Republic is fiercer, hungrier. They have something to prove.
New Romulans realize that the sins of their fathers and crimes of the Star Empire do not invalidate or diminish the greatness of their people. They are reclaiming what it means to be Romulan, and proudly showing the galaxy at every opportunity they receive.
Except that the depth and richness of startrek is largely based on the inconsistency of the writing and inability to fully explore the social implications of what could often be a convenient plot device. And both of those faults are entirely attributable to the television show format, not a special weakness of the team behind this one project, because while literary sci-fi is able to achieve deeper introspection and more meaningful commentary on the human experience it is because that format allows a single individual a direct channel to their audience. With star trek you have many dozens of writers working across 5 series and the only way that can achieve any degree of consistency is for there to simply be less to be consistent about. One person for example may have been able to write an episode that fully explored the dynamics between the great klingon houses with a very particular point to trying to explain a facet of human social groups but to follow that up you would have needed another writer, or the same guy contracted on as the KDF expert, who had the same appreciation for the fictional material and goals of it.
Its hard to find an example even in literary sci-fi where an established universe could be as adequately handled by a subsequent writer and as a show ST requires transitions of that same scale with nearly every new episode. While you are certainly free to complain about the results, you should question why you were expecting something else (since to my mind there's not a show out there that doesn't suffer from the same weaknesses at some level.)
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I'm not clear on what you mean when you write that the depth and richness of the ST universe is "largely based on the inconsistency of the writing and inability to fully explore the social implications of what could often be a convenient plot device". If this statement was intended to say that the internal contradictions that sometimes appeared between different episodes touching on similar subject matter somehow helped advance the plot of a given episode (which I don't think was your point), then I don't see how that makes any sense at all, and I'd clarify that the contradictions I was referring to were contradictions in in-universe continuity, e.g. the writers of DS9 Season X Episode Z didn't go back and check if what they were writing about how Romulan Kali-fal is supposed to taste fit with previously-established canon on Kali-fal's taste, and so ended up writing an internal inconsistency on Kali-fal into canon material. If you mean that the writers had more freedom to script inventive plots due to the lack of complexity in the universe's sociopolitical context, i.e. that not being tied to already well-established cultural texture enabled them to play more freely by painting that texture themselves, then I think you're creating a false dichotomy. Not every episode has to add new elements to a race's culture. TNG and DS9 especially had significant divergences in episode content in terms of establishing or even just referring to unique in-universe moral or philosophical themes. Besides, I'd argue that a well-established culture offers plot and setting opportunities as opposed to limiting them.
As I said earlier, I lay the blame for the objects of my criticisms at the feet of the series creator, the writers and production staff (a large part of whose job it is in a long-running franchise with deep lore to ensure that any additions they make to that body of lore are consistent with what's already been established), and the networks. It's hard to pinpoint exactly who is at fault for what and assign percentages of responsibility, especially between the writing staff and the network, but I feel quite confident in what I attributed to Roddenberry based on both his own statements about his intentions with Star Trek and on the statements of those who worked with and for him.
You and I might disagree on this next point, and I don't really think there's a right answer to this, because it's an extremely subjective matter, but I'm not of the opinion that Star Trek should have been consciously attempting to make statements about human history, culture, and social relations on a regular basis. I think the overriding desire to do this is part of what led to such lazily one-dimensional, monolithic characterizations of entire sectors' worth of peoples. I understand that other people might vehemently disagree with me here and say instead that the cultural commentary is one of the things that made Star Trek great. I understand and sympathize with that viewpoint, and I agree with it to a degree (as I agree with what you said about sci-fi in general and its ability to offer insightful commentary on contemporary issues); my position on this is just that, as I said, I don't think the franchise benefited from such a concerted effort to give every episode a "moral" or a contemporary social point.
I'm quite sure I never said that I expected anything at all from Star Trek, let alone that I expected something altogether different from what I think the franchise could have been. I'm only about 30 years old: I was a kid when TNG was running and I grew up with it and grew up understanding TNG as the archetype for Star Trek in general. As to how Star Trek stacks up against other sci-fi series, I think most of us would agree that it's one of the best, if not the best sci-fi franchise of all time, full stop. That's certainly my view. There's a reason why I play STO and not any of the Star Wars MMOs, and a reason why I'm intimately familiar with Star Trek canon. The fact that ST is better than everything else, though, really has no bearing on whether or not I'm justified in thinking that it could have been much better. I won't let how laughably childish and utterly Manichean Star Wars is set the standard for Star Trek and drag it down.
Yes I'd say it was definitely an issue with Star Wars; even more dramatically so than with Star Trek, and it can't simply be chalked up to the fact that Star Wars has far less material in its body of canon than does Trek. Honestly, though, I wouldn't consider myself informed enough on Star Wars to make any meaningful comparisons with Trek or even to offer any detailed commentary on it. I've seen the films and I've read one canon anthology (Tales From Jabba's Palace or some such title), and I might consider myself slightly more familiar with Star Wars' universe than the average person who has seen the films, but only just.
Well more so I'm referring to the tendency of writing new background material for the sake of providing a particular episode with the appropriate narrative structure (ex. the first Cardassian war with the Federation) to the writer's interests rather than exploring previously established facets of the universe to tell a more organic story. In Star Trek there is a tremendous amount of radition in cultures, traditions, and so on but many of these aspects are associated with providing plot points along a single characters development. For example, in Worf you have someone with a deep sense of personal honor. However that can easily be interpreted as a mere foil for other characters as he provides the immediate response that self respect would demand to counterpoint Picard/Rikers decision to take a more moderate or reasonable approach in line with ST's main ethos. In that sense he is a character device (particularly so in the early seasons). Later on when the need to write more elaborate episodes for him arose (as he slowly evolved into a more independent entity) the production chose those story lines that created the greatest dramatic contrast, but this time with less honorable or less stoic behavior in other Klingons to encourage Worf to rise above those social influences. The focus here was to tell a personal story about self-motivation, with the larger political landscape of the Klingon Empire falling into place to provide the necessary setting for that narrative. So, you can ultimately trace back whatever political commentary there was with those related episodes to the incidental function of one character in the First/Second season of TNG.
In this discussing the nature of human social systems was at best secondary to the other needs of the production. That left a loose network of political relationships (one that DS9 took particular advantage of with the evolution of the Cardassian government) that subsequent episodes were able to work their way into or remold entirely based on the intended route of their characters' development (providing feedback to the problem if you could strictly call it that.) There was certainly continuity and universe building, both of which can certainly be used to provide even more depth and texture to the IP, but the format of Star Trek limited the amount of objective discussion that could take place because it had to occur around personal story telling. The alternative would have been to put the focus on the background universe and simply use the characters as a way of assessing and presenting the topic (which is observed in some epsiodes, particularly in the original series) but Star Trek quickly became a personality driven show much like most other productions (if they didn't start there) perhaps because that is at the root of the story telling tradition (which relates to how we experience life.)
Therefore, I personally can't put the blame for ST's broader weaknesses on any particular individual. It seems to be more systematic to how we present this style of entertainment.
I think I see your point there, and I actually agree with it. The need to provide that simplistic moral can probably be best observed working against Voyager where the shape and character of the delta quadrant was frequently bent in almost a cartoonish fashion in order for Janeway (most of the time( to be vindicated on her first lecture of principles (the failed alliance with the Kazons springs particularly to mind here.) You can say her point of view was argued for with contrived plot developments and arbitarily "evil" counterparts (such as the first Malon captain) which in themselves lowered the quality of story telling in that show (and others.) However where I might disagree is simply in Gene's original vision of an optimistic future. If you simplify it, it is commendable though perhaps in how it found expression throughout the run of the show there's something to be desired.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
not quite. in fact not at all, that is more a star trek thing. and their are rules, granted the don't work any more, that make canon alot easier to sort from fanon.
stars wars is actually alot better then star terk about lore...except when george lucas starts changing thinks to suit his newest thing. though at the very least it's mostly the small things in star wars that get screwed up. i.e. no "pacifist" groups with orders for glassing a planet. though they do tend to got killed... alot.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Any nation's ideals are always at variance with the way that they practice them. Ideals are a dream to pursue and try to get close to, but practicality forces us to engage in Realpolitik. Take the USA for example--we pride ourselves on being founded upon ideals of liberty and equality-before-the-law, but in practice there have always been marginalized groups who often even had special legal restrictions against them (slavery and institutionalized segregation being a prime example that I won't get into further detail of since it would be flamebait). A nation's ideals tell its people what they "should" do, but only the most loyal are likely to remain uncompromising even in the face of death.
And so it is with the factions. The Federation has lofty ideals but compromises under pressure (DS9). The Klingons espouse Samurai honour but often fall short of the mark. The Romulans, as much as anything, quote the good of the state as their motivator, yet still fall prey to horrific internal strife.
As for the Klingons, most of the best stuff is tucked away in their novels - those by John Ford and Keith Decandido are the standouts.