The story is finally getting somewhere and now im starting to think how this will end. We are battling a vastly superior foe. Im starting to think this might end Mass Effect style where the badly injured player sacrifices him/herself to save the galaxy and to defeat the Iconians. Or will we manage to control the Borg and learn their origin? Honestly after playing the Mass Effect games I cant tell the difference between the Reapers or the Borg.
Now another way this can end is we just defeat the iconians with our high dps and live happily ever after
How do you think the game should end?
Captain Joseph Riker, U.S.S. Odyssey==General V'Mar, U.S.S. Blackwater-A==Admiral Laura Holmes, U.S.S. Forward Unto Dawn Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
It will be revealed when we finally defeat the Iconians that they were being controlled by Tribbles. Where we will eventually command a Dyson Sphere to battle the Tribble Emperor which is a Tribble the size of a Dyson Sphere. The Tribble Emperor is a Tribble which was influenced by that bug that kept on making Tribbles bigger and bigger that escaped from Beta.
Cryptic can keep pulling us along for years by introducing a new servitor race each season. So they don't actually require us to fight the Iconians.
Wesley Crusher will roll out of bed and wake up. This was all a nightmare he had after escaping the pedophilic clutches of the Traveler (seriously, the guy's come-on about how "special" Wesley was and how the parental figures in his life didn't appreciate him was maybe half a step up from a panel van with FREE CANDY spray-painted on the side).
I think I know how this will go *takes deep breath*:
Once we defeat the Iconians with our massive tier 7 dps layouts and ships, it will be revealed that the T'kon empire was not really extinct and they were controlling the Iconians by which time we will be flying tier 8 warships and have a war with the T'kon lasting three seasons and an expansion only for us to realize that they are a servitor race of a species from outside the galaxy but was originally from this galaxy but was betrayed by their servitor races which we will have to fight before fighting their servitor races that were fighting the other aliens so we destroyed our allies so we now have to unite all the powers in our galaxy to stop them which we do and we fly tier 21 ships that cost 7500 zen to buy by then. *breaths again*
I expect once we foil the Iconian invasion, the quadrant will be in disarray. The three factions will be much weakened from the fighting, and the various villain races will try to seize the advantage. We might even get a "Typhon Pact" alliance, like in the novels.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
In a perfect universe where i get to say it be tottaly badass,
Season 10 starts out with The Milky Way Alliance, composed of all major empires from the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants finally uniting against the looming Iconian Threat, however the iconians have the tech to see into the future and see that they loose, and seeing they loose due to the cunning of the main character (the player) they devise a way to send the main character and all flagships of each empire into a temporal timestream to the 35th century, where the iconians rule the entire Galactic Supercluster, then the player and others must plan their return to the 25th century, this picks up at Season 11 where we find ourselves barley surviving in the hell that is the 35th century, gearing a campaign to escape, by the end of season 11 we return to the battle where the iconians sent us forward in the first place, and we eliminate them from ever doing so
and then finally in Season 13 we drive down the final campaign to eliminate the Iconians ONCE AND FOR ALL, a MASSIVE BATTLE consisting of the forces of The Milky Way Alliance and the Iconian Empire and its slave races, at the end of the battle the slave races finally rebel against the iconians and join the good side, and in a last ditch effort the iconians warp in in a massive moon sized starship in witch the iconians live on (since their homeworld was destroyed) and the Alliance fires every little bit of gear they got left, destroying the ship, and ending the Iconian Threat ONCE AND FOR ALL, and BOOOM The End of this story
What if I said, I actually liked Delta Rising
These are the voyages of The U.S.S. Shadow Serpent, its ongoing mission, to enlist more misfits to its crazy crew, and to boldly destroy what has never been destroyed before
We will discover the Iconians are in reality the puppets of yet another alien race, the (insert name here). Who are bent upon complete domination of the (insert appropriate geographical term here). Because they used to rule everything prior to (place ridiculously far in the past number here). Only the desperate intervention of the Preservers, along with their allied races, the (insert name here, here, and here. And the sillier the premise the better - I'm thinking Pakled would be a good fit), prevented the fall of the multiverse as we know it today. Thanks to Deus ex machina tactics, the player is transported to each of the key parts of this titanic struggle of beyond mega epic proportions. Where he/she/it will be ably supported(more like frequently rescued) by the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701Y. Commanded by Fleet Admiral O.V.R. Powr, Ent-Y will be the first of the Tier 10 ships. 16 weapons forward and 8 aft, with room for twenty Consoles and ten BOffs. Ent-Y will also feature the newest weapon type, which players will be able to acquire via yet another Reputation System(By this time we'll be up to, oh, about twenty five or so), called the Mega Oblivion Cannon. This weapon is so powerful, players will be required to turn off both their video and sound cards to prevent lag when they fire it. :P
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
wonder if the kelvans have something to do with the iconian threat?
freespace 2 and mass effect both share a similar story about their main enemies, a thoery that they were constructed and they changed from their original purpose. in a sense x3 with the xenon as well. in all three cases these robotic enemies are limitless and without remorse. perhaps the iconians are a construction of sorts and the iconians themselves are just that yellow energy in what appears to be the torso, but they decided to break their programming which results in the destruction of their race, now they are being rebuilt and now have enough numbers to threaten the quadrants, to borrow from assassins creed with those that came before, these consoles are like pieces of eden and one iconian comes through and activates them, then control their favored species for their status as servitor, eventually leading to new husks or ground warfare troops that 100% believe the iconians.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
the mass effect and star trek universes really are the same, except trek is a few million years early, and the protheans are actually descendants of genetically engineered voth. and their earth is the result of using the genesis system.
Okay then here it comes...
In Season 11 we battle the Iconians in a battle so big devs just had a blank space for space and the players had to turn down the graphics. The Iconians are losing the battle, retreat to the Citadel and as a last ditch effort they release the Reapers who destroy the Iconians except for one who becomes the Catalyst. The mass relays was a upgraded Iconian version of the transwarp network and the alliance takes heavy losses fighting the Reapers, retreat, and they start finding ways to combat them. As every advanced race in the galaxy is slowly exterminated the remnants of the alliance construct the Crucible but the Reapers attack the alpha quadrant and destroy the Crucible, the players ship ONCE AND FOR ALL, and all three factions and the grand cycle begins... Which is stopped by Shepard who sacrifices himself to stop the Reapers. Then a cryotube is found and it contains the player...
Captain Joseph Riker, U.S.S. Odyssey==General V'Mar, U.S.S. Blackwater-A==Admiral Laura Holmes, U.S.S. Forward Unto Dawn Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
The story is finally getting somewhere and now im starting to think how this will end. We are battling a vastly superior foe. Im starting to think this might end Mass Effect style where the badly injured player sacrifices him/herself to save the galaxy and to defeat the Iconians. Or will we manage to control the Borg and learn their origin? Honestly after playing the Mass Effect games I cant tell the difference between the Reapers or the Borg.
Now another way this can end is we just defeat the iconians with our high dps and live happily ever after
How do you think the game should end?
This is an MMO. The way the story is structured means that there will never be an end in the same way there was in a single player game. I suspect they will save the Iconians defeat for an episode where we end up making peace with them in some typical star trek style way. I would hate to see it left to just a pve queue where we defeat the Iconian boss. It deserves to have an emotional pay off. possibly a star trek characters could die? Maybe its Tuvok that has to make the ultimate sacrifice.
But the story will continue onto the next arc. the dominion perhaps. nothing bad will happen to our characters though.
The story will ultimately end whenever the game shuts down. Hopefully it wont be right in the middle of another story.
Even after the Iconian invasion is done, our knowledge of gateway controls and technology is seriously lacking, so there'll be a race for that. And we'll probably be digging out Iconian hold-outs, Iconian slave-races, lost Iconian superweapons for a while.
Then we can start taking on the other local godlike aliens, grind our way up to Q.:P
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Just as the Iconians are on the brink of defeat, the borg queen will show up in an assimilated Iconian dreadnought and push the Iconians into extinction. Then we'll finally have borg that live up to the shows.
freespace 2 and mass effect both share a similar story about their main enemies, a thoery that they were constructed and they changed from their original purpose.
Can't speak to Freespace 2, but in the Mass Effect series, the Reapers are doing exactly what they were originally designed to do by the Catalyst - they're reaping, removing the older civilizations from the galaxy so that new life can grow (and also because the Catalyst is convinced that synthetics and organics must inevitably fight to the death, even if you disproved that at Rannoch). Of course, the civilizations of the galaxy don't want to be reaped, but that's none of the Reapers' concern - they're clearing the board, as it were, and if the current players don't like it, too bad. They'll gain a new perspective when they become a Reaper, right?
The Reapers are more akin to the Borg, in that they seek to convert others into themselves, although the Borg don't retreat into intergalactic space in between cycles (the Reapers clear the galaxy of technological civilizations every fifty thousand years, leaving only those technologies that will lead the next cycle into developing the way they want in order to make the harvest easier).
I expect once we foil the Iconian invasion, the quadrant will be in disarray. The three factions will be much weakened from the fighting, and the various villain races will try to seize the advantage. We might even get a "Typhon Pact" alliance, like in the novels.
A very good possibility. STO has to maintain it's adherence to canon. So this would require the big three to somehow survive. This in turn would require either some kind of super strategy, super weapon or sheer numbers to finally overthrow the Iconians.
One would have to ask oneself whether or not the Romulan people would be able to hold out enough to still be a people after this final battle since their numbers have been so greatly reduced due to the Nova event along with the attacks by the Tal Shiar.
I wouldn't be a bit suprised if we see some Temporal warfare take place in certain key points along the way with this war against the Iconians. I would say that time travel would be the one thing that the alliance would have going for it. Possibly the discovery of the Temporal Impeller used in the future.
Also one would expect an enlargement of the Federation boundries of exploration to include much more of the Alpha Quadrant and run-ins with our old-not so chummy-friends, the Tholians. That's where I would fore see counter-alliance that would include the Tholians the, Breen, Tezagethi and possibly the remnants of the Tal Shiar along with other Alpha Quadrant Species that distrust the Federation. Another words back to business as usual. :cool:
Can't speak to Freespace 2, but in the Mass Effect series, the Reapers are doing exactly what they were originally designed to do by the Catalyst - they're reaping, removing the older civilizations from the galaxy so that new life can grow (and also because the Catalyst is convinced that synthetics and organics must inevitably fight to the death, even if you disproved that at Rannoch).
explain harbinger and it's own desire? explain what purpose the original makers of the reapers had in mind before realizing their own mistake as the reapers destroyed them?
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The Iconians are not prepared for war. They've been pushed into it. For whatever sets of reasons, they have chosen now to act because they feel they have an advantage that can be exploited.
They see unity as a threat. In disorder, they see opportunity. The Iconians are in this for the long term. The more unified we become, the less likely they can exist, 'cause lets be honest, the bigger think we are, the deeper we stiick our noses in dark places.
The creators of the Catalyst built it in order to solve their own war with their synthetics (which, like the quarians and geth, they had built, treated as slaves, then freaked when their creations gained sapience). The Catalyst resolved the situation - by building the Reapers, which proceeded to harvest the creating race and their servants, using them to make more Reapers to store the genetic patterns and society of the creators. The Reapers, as I said, are functioning precisely as designed.
Harbinger had identified Shepard as a hazard to the plan. Shepard was to be either harvested or eliminated immediately, in order to ensure the success of the plan (since their standard plan, to use the Citadel as their mass relay to invade the galaxy in force, was foiled by mutation of the Keepers and the efforts of Shepard). However, Harbinger was only interested in Shepard in particular when he/she ran afoul of its operations. (It almost certainly believed it had terminated Shepard in the initial encounter, at the very beginning of ME2, not counting on the resources and sheer stubbornness of the Illusive Man.) Other than that, its harvesting of humans (who seemed to be the keystone to the whole affair) was quite impersonal.
The Iconians are not prepared for war. They've been pushed into it. For whatever sets of reasons, they have chosen now to act because they feel they have an advantage that can be exploited.
They see unity as a threat. In disorder, they see opportunity. The Iconians are in this for the long term. The more unified we become, the less likely they can exist, 'cause lets be honest, the bigger think we are, the deeper we stiick our noses in dark places.
This sounds very much like the Romulan Star Empire's plan in the 2150s--prevent unity among the local powers through false-flag operations intended to create infighting. It will probably work out about the same in the end, too--the manipulators hoist by their own petard, with their manipulations having scared the locals into forming exactly the alliance that they had wanted to prevent.
I do eventually see an alliance victory over the Iconians. What happens next is that the alliance forged in blood will break apart and the Federation and Klingons will have it out with the Romulan Empire. The Republic will object... and probably be conquered by the Alliance in one form or another. The Dominion will just bugger off, not wanting another bloody nose from the Federation.
I love the mass effect stories you guys are giving out, lol
The creators of the Catalyst built it in order to solve their own war with their synthetics (which, like the quarians and geth, they had built, treated as slaves, then freaked when their creations gained sapience). The Catalyst resolved the situation - by building the Reapers, which proceeded to harvest the creating race and their servants, using them to make more Reapers to store the genetic patterns and society of the creators. The Reapers, as I said, are functioning precisely as designed.
Harbinger had identified Shepard as a hazard to the plan. Shepard was to be either harvested or eliminated immediately, in order to ensure the success of the plan (since their standard plan, to use the Citadel as their mass relay to invade the galaxy in force, was foiled by mutation of the Keepers and the efforts of Shepard). However, Harbinger was only interested in Shepard in particular when he/she ran afoul of its operations. (It almost certainly believed it had terminated Shepard in the initial encounter, at the very beginning of ME2, not counting on the resources and sheer stubbornness of the Illusive Man.) Other than that, its harvesting of humans (who seemed to be the keystone to the whole affair) was quite impersonal.
Was the catalyst a Leviathan?
From what i know from the game of countless replay;, the reapers were created by the Leviathan race in their image as a sort of peacekeeper force, who then built harbinger in the image of the Leviathan race and that was the basis of the reapers from that point on. somewhere after the reapers destroyed the Leviathans when they rebelled. however somewhere along the way the catalyst took over the reaper control (which may have started the rebellion? or completely coincidental), however harbinger had free control over its own operation and that of the reapers themselves, clear evidence is the collectors, their general, harbinger control towards a goal, which means they can think for themselves but still under some sort of influence of the catalyst.
the reapers created tools for their purposes for races to find and use. however the underlying logic your getting at is the 50k year cycles of destruction each time ordered by the catalyst, either directly or more subtly (like the reapers own indoctrination, but far more advanced?).
as for harbinger itself, when shepard took down sovereign, harbinger was already aware of shepard as a hero that took out a vanguard of destruction, an advanced scout that attempted to activate its one big tool, the citadel and its keepers. harbinger clearly had a personal stake in seeing to the end of shepard, but the fact harbinger wanted shepards body and that humanity was chosen over the other races for the next reaper construct clearly meant a lot more then you think, an obsession to see humanity pay for stopping the reapers in general and shepard for starting it and finishing it. harbinger had many other races to chose from, why humanity speciifically? could it be that harbinger was making some perverse/ironic joke that humanity will be the key to destruction of another massacre in 50k years time and they had potential as becoming the next reaper?
my point in all that is that the reapers rebelled and they had control over their own actions, what degree of actions was later influenced by the catalyst and its direction is unclear. it is a lot of assuming without hard evidence to connect any of it, but that is what i think and some of what i know.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Comments
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
In fire.
Cryptic can keep pulling us along for years by introducing a new servitor race each season. So they don't actually require us to fight the Iconians.
Once we defeat the Iconians with our massive tier 7 dps layouts and ships, it will be revealed that the T'kon empire was not really extinct and they were controlling the Iconians by which time we will be flying tier 8 warships and have a war with the T'kon lasting three seasons and an expansion only for us to realize that they are a servitor race of a species from outside the galaxy but was originally from this galaxy but was betrayed by their servitor races which we will have to fight before fighting their servitor races that were fighting the other aliens so we destroyed our allies so we now have to unite all the powers in our galaxy to stop them which we do and we fly tier 21 ships that cost 7500 zen to buy by then. *breaths again*
I saw what you did there...
Babylon 5 reference for those that don't know.
Yes, I fly a Dreadnought cruiser. Deal with it.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Season 10 starts out with The Milky Way Alliance, composed of all major empires from the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants finally uniting against the looming Iconian Threat, however the iconians have the tech to see into the future and see that they loose, and seeing they loose due to the cunning of the main character (the player) they devise a way to send the main character and all flagships of each empire into a temporal timestream to the 35th century, where the iconians rule the entire Galactic Supercluster, then the player and others must plan their return to the 25th century, this picks up at Season 11 where we find ourselves barley surviving in the hell that is the 35th century, gearing a campaign to escape, by the end of season 11 we return to the battle where the iconians sent us forward in the first place, and we eliminate them from ever doing so
and then finally in Season 13 we drive down the final campaign to eliminate the Iconians ONCE AND FOR ALL, a MASSIVE BATTLE consisting of the forces of The Milky Way Alliance and the Iconian Empire and its slave races, at the end of the battle the slave races finally rebel against the iconians and join the good side, and in a last ditch effort the iconians warp in in a massive moon sized starship in witch the iconians live on (since their homeworld was destroyed) and the Alliance fires every little bit of gear they got left, destroying the ship, and ending the Iconian Threat ONCE AND FOR ALL, and BOOOM The End of this story
freespace 2 and mass effect both share a similar story about their main enemies, a thoery that they were constructed and they changed from their original purpose. in a sense x3 with the xenon as well. in all three cases these robotic enemies are limitless and without remorse. perhaps the iconians are a construction of sorts and the iconians themselves are just that yellow energy in what appears to be the torso, but they decided to break their programming which results in the destruction of their race, now they are being rebuilt and now have enough numbers to threaten the quadrants, to borrow from assassins creed with those that came before, these consoles are like pieces of eden and one iconian comes through and activates them, then control their favored species for their status as servitor, eventually leading to new husks or ground warfare troops that 100% believe the iconians.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Okay then here it comes...
In Season 11 we battle the Iconians in a battle so big devs just had a blank space for space and the players had to turn down the graphics. The Iconians are losing the battle, retreat to the Citadel and as a last ditch effort they release the Reapers who destroy the Iconians except for one who becomes the Catalyst. The mass relays was a upgraded Iconian version of the transwarp network and the alliance takes heavy losses fighting the Reapers, retreat, and they start finding ways to combat them. As every advanced race in the galaxy is slowly exterminated the remnants of the alliance construct the Crucible but the Reapers attack the alpha quadrant and destroy the Crucible, the players ship ONCE AND FOR ALL, and all three factions and the grand cycle begins... Which is stopped by Shepard who sacrifices himself to stop the Reapers. Then a cryotube is found and it contains the player...
Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv
Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
This is an MMO. The way the story is structured means that there will never be an end in the same way there was in a single player game. I suspect they will save the Iconians defeat for an episode where we end up making peace with them in some typical star trek style way. I would hate to see it left to just a pve queue where we defeat the Iconian boss. It deserves to have an emotional pay off. possibly a star trek characters could die? Maybe its Tuvok that has to make the ultimate sacrifice.
But the story will continue onto the next arc. the dominion perhaps. nothing bad will happen to our characters though.
The story will ultimately end whenever the game shuts down. Hopefully it wont be right in the middle of another story.
DING!!
Drat. I'm afraid my cultured experience doesn't extend to poetry, even the more well-known modern ones.
Then we can start taking on the other local godlike aliens, grind our way up to Q.:P
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
The Reapers are more akin to the Borg, in that they seek to convert others into themselves, although the Borg don't retreat into intergalactic space in between cycles (the Reapers clear the galaxy of technological civilizations every fifty thousand years, leaving only those technologies that will lead the next cycle into developing the way they want in order to make the harvest easier).
A very good possibility. STO has to maintain it's adherence to canon. So this would require the big three to somehow survive. This in turn would require either some kind of super strategy, super weapon or sheer numbers to finally overthrow the Iconians.
One would have to ask oneself whether or not the Romulan people would be able to hold out enough to still be a people after this final battle since their numbers have been so greatly reduced due to the Nova event along with the attacks by the Tal Shiar.
I wouldn't be a bit suprised if we see some Temporal warfare take place in certain key points along the way with this war against the Iconians. I would say that time travel would be the one thing that the alliance would have going for it. Possibly the discovery of the Temporal Impeller used in the future.
Also one would expect an enlargement of the Federation boundries of exploration to include much more of the Alpha Quadrant and run-ins with our old-not so chummy-friends, the Tholians. That's where I would fore see counter-alliance that would include the Tholians the, Breen, Tezagethi and possibly the remnants of the Tal Shiar along with other Alpha Quadrant Species that distrust the Federation. Another words back to business as usual. :cool:
explain harbinger and it's own desire? explain what purpose the original makers of the reapers had in mind before realizing their own mistake as the reapers destroyed them?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
They see unity as a threat. In disorder, they see opportunity. The Iconians are in this for the long term. The more unified we become, the less likely they can exist, 'cause lets be honest, the bigger think we are, the deeper we stiick our noses in dark places.
Harbinger had identified Shepard as a hazard to the plan. Shepard was to be either harvested or eliminated immediately, in order to ensure the success of the plan (since their standard plan, to use the Citadel as their mass relay to invade the galaxy in force, was foiled by mutation of the Keepers and the efforts of Shepard). However, Harbinger was only interested in Shepard in particular when he/she ran afoul of its operations. (It almost certainly believed it had terminated Shepard in the initial encounter, at the very beginning of ME2, not counting on the resources and sheer stubbornness of the Illusive Man.) Other than that, its harvesting of humans (who seemed to be the keystone to the whole affair) was quite impersonal.
This sounds very much like the Romulan Star Empire's plan in the 2150s--prevent unity among the local powers through false-flag operations intended to create infighting. It will probably work out about the same in the end, too--the manipulators hoist by their own petard, with their manipulations having scared the locals into forming exactly the alliance that they had wanted to prevent.
I do eventually see an alliance victory over the Iconians. What happens next is that the alliance forged in blood will break apart and the Federation and Klingons will have it out with the Romulan Empire. The Republic will object... and probably be conquered by the Alliance in one form or another. The Dominion will just bugger off, not wanting another bloody nose from the Federation.
I love the mass effect stories you guys are giving out, lol
Star Trek and Mass Effect (I call it TrekEffect) go together like macaroni and cheese , and im guessing we're all fans
Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv
Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
Was the catalyst a Leviathan?
From what i know from the game of countless replay;, the reapers were created by the Leviathan race in their image as a sort of peacekeeper force, who then built harbinger in the image of the Leviathan race and that was the basis of the reapers from that point on. somewhere after the reapers destroyed the Leviathans when they rebelled. however somewhere along the way the catalyst took over the reaper control (which may have started the rebellion? or completely coincidental), however harbinger had free control over its own operation and that of the reapers themselves, clear evidence is the collectors, their general, harbinger control towards a goal, which means they can think for themselves but still under some sort of influence of the catalyst.
the reapers created tools for their purposes for races to find and use. however the underlying logic your getting at is the 50k year cycles of destruction each time ordered by the catalyst, either directly or more subtly (like the reapers own indoctrination, but far more advanced?).
as for harbinger itself, when shepard took down sovereign, harbinger was already aware of shepard as a hero that took out a vanguard of destruction, an advanced scout that attempted to activate its one big tool, the citadel and its keepers. harbinger clearly had a personal stake in seeing to the end of shepard, but the fact harbinger wanted shepards body and that humanity was chosen over the other races for the next reaper construct clearly meant a lot more then you think, an obsession to see humanity pay for stopping the reapers in general and shepard for starting it and finishing it. harbinger had many other races to chose from, why humanity speciifically? could it be that harbinger was making some perverse/ironic joke that humanity will be the key to destruction of another massacre in 50k years time and they had potential as becoming the next reaper?
my point in all that is that the reapers rebelled and they had control over their own actions, what degree of actions was later influenced by the catalyst and its direction is unclear. it is a lot of assuming without hard evidence to connect any of it, but that is what i think and some of what i know.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.