1. The timeline didn't go back to normal, by sheer dumb luck we ended up with a timeline vaguely resembling the old one. Nobody knows how this happened. They just tried to save Romulus and nearly restored the timeline somehow (note nearly, there were still changes).
2. Our ships' shields were all prpbably sabotaged, as Nog noted after the shields (which were all running separately seemingly) experienced a sudden drop in power for no apparent reason.
My personal conjecture: somebody saw what we were up to and manipulated the outcome. The chances of the shields on all the ships destabilising at the exact same time in the exact same way just as the new timeline was created seems far too coincidental for my liking. Factions manipulating history for their own ends... where have I heard that before?
Did anyone notice that the wiped out species were Sphere Builders?
I am baffled this went over everyones head apparently... or I am looking at the wrong threads.
No, I immediately thought of them as well. The likeliness is striking.
Maybe WE caused the war with the Sphere Builders, due to some Tuterians being unnaffected by the changes for... reasons.
Maybe we should've just run with assimilated Romulus. The Borg a the lesser of the two evils. At least we can deal with them conventionally.
I think you're on to something @ashrod63 with that sabotage theory.
Did anyone else notice Franklin Drake standing in the Krenim Lab?
I smell Section 31 all over this...
I think we are looking at someone beyond just Section 31. If anything this is the opposite of Section 31's tactics. There are repeated comments on "time fighting back" and it came up again in this mission. Is it "time" pushing us or somebody else behind it?
Did anyone notice that the wiped out species were Sphere Builders?
I am baffled this went over everyones head apparently... or I am looking at the wrong threads.
Maybe a remote cousin? She really looked like it, and even though it was stated the sphere builder come from another dimension, since they use solonae tech, maybe we see the STO-way of their birth as evil overlords. I mean, remodeling a part of space to something only they can live in... delta flight anyone?
- Erase an asteroid that affected the U.S.S. Yamato's mission, preventing them from rediscovering Iconia
- Creates a new timeline where the Borg assimilated the Romulan Star Empire (and probably the Federation and Klingon Empire) around 2390
- Erase a Borg transwarp conduit
- Creates a "close-enough" timeline, where the Iconians did invade and things played out more or less as we know them; compare to Annorax achieving a 98% restoration of the Krenim Imperium by erasing the Zahl homeworld
Things have definitely changed; we just don't yet know to what extent. And we still have the timeship, so hopefully we can undo whatever the changes were.
"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
Did anyone notice that the wiped out species were Sphere Builders?
I am baffled this went over everyones head apparently... or I am looking at the wrong threads.
No, I immediately thought of them as well. The likeliness is striking.
Maybe WE caused the war with the Sphere Builders, due to some Tuterians being unnaffected by the changes for... reasons.
My thoughts exactly.
The Tuterians experimented with Solanae tech to hide from the Borg in subspace or another realm. When we removed the rest of their species from the timestream, we could have trapped some of them in their new anti-Borg panic room.
The Tuterians experimented with Solanae tech to hide from the Borg in subspace or another realm. When we removed the rest of their species from the timestream, we could have trapped some of them in their new anti-Borg panic room.
And now they need to bring their dimension into ours because otherwise they'd dissappear in puffs of logic as soon as they step into our dimension.
It all makes sense now!
The sheer level of incompetence in the writing for this episode was... most impressive.
I can forgive the predictability of it, of course, and I can forgive introducing a character just to immediately kill them off... but the sheer level of plot hole the story left behind is gigantic.
I would submit that if you write a story about butterfly effects you should actually understand butterfly effects.
I can buy the Iconian delay somehow suping up the Borg, fine. But how in the holy mother of frak did erasing a transwarp conduit restore everything the way it was?
Did they not double check their own writing? Is the Yamato still out there now?
Now yes, this might all be answered cleverly in the next episode. But I somehow doubt it.
The only thing that saves this poor showing is that for one brief moment I was in a timeline where the JJverse didn't exist. And that was glorious.
I actually like the FE, much more immersive than what we've seen so far. Not to mention the multiple Easter eggs.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Perhaps, but I'm still suspicious of anything when Drake shows up in person...
This. So much this.
The fact that Drake was present and my Fed Admiral didn't have the chance to say anything about him being there bothered be way more than anything else. Otherwise I actually enjoyed the episode.
compared to 'broken circle jerk' this episode rocked! The ending was.... 'WTF?!' and the fact that my Romulan character was treated like any other pink-skin fedrat was annoying. But overall this episode was TONS better. As for the sphere builders... that might be cool if that's what cryptic went for, but even if not... HOW MANY 1 shot aliens were used like that in TNG/Voy? Its one of the most Trek things they've done in years
Then again no option to shoot Temer or arrest him as a traitor was annoying too.... oh I mean *cough* Long Live the Republic -.-
this episode was BY LONG SHOT the most disappointing experience in STO. and i'm here for a while. i mean... SRSLY? messing with a borg is no big deal? i don't know what stuff the devs are on, but i want some too. so with this glorious victory, we gave the borg an opportunity to get their butt off the ground, and allow them to assimilate something that made them so powerful, that they can easily assimilate the friggin romulan star empire. and we've destroyed one of their transwarp gate. fabulous.
there is two briefly good things in this episode:
-as some mentioned before me, it will be easy to farm weekly. quick spec points for papa.
-MAYBE the borg will once again take their most deserved place as the main villians of STO - as they should be.
Defiant
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
Just hit the wiki and saw this in the upcoming content:
"Players will witness the origin of a canon "enemy" not yet featured in STO"
That's going to be happening in Season 11, perhaps we really are going to see the origins of the Sphere Builders. We're still quite a bit off the war starting timeline wise, but I'm sure they'll think of a way to deal with them without going into a full blown war.
The Tuterians experimented with Solanae tech to hide from the Borg in subspace or another realm. When we removed the rest of their species from the timestream, we could have trapped some of them in their new anti-Borg panic room.
And now they need to bring their dimension into ours because otherwise they'd dissappear in puffs of logic as soon as they step into our dimension.
It all makes sense now!
If this really is what intended by Cryptic then it's probably the best part of this episode:D
Overall I like this one, much more than the last two indeed.
From what I gathered the now superpowered Borg have simply been confined to the delta Quadrant, for now. After all, they did assimilate the redshirtians in the new timeline.
Maybe it's intended to hint at a future return to form for the borg, who have been steadily loosing credebility as a serious threat in STO.
-
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
Meet interesting new species, and Kill them!
2. Our ships' shields were all prpbably sabotaged, as Nog noted after the shields (which were all running separately seemingly) experienced a sudden drop in power for no apparent reason.
A'Dranna. Remember, she was poked and prodded before concerning the Gateway on New Romulus in "Sphere of Influence". I think they got to her again. Or even worse, she MEANT to do this.
One would think that if somebody wants to write a new story on the basis of a single Voyager episode that this person would at least WATCH said episode before starting to write. A temporal shield only has to be active during the temporal incursion. After that everybody aboard can no longer be affected by the new timeline even if the shield fails.
That being said I think the reason for this unintended outcome was my ship's and the Lleiset's temporal shielding. Voyager's temporal shielding completely disrupted Annorax' calculations. Instead of restoring the Krenim Empire it was set back into a pre-warp state if I remember correctly.
Also the temporal annihilation of a Borg transwarp conduit almost completely restoring the original timeline is a little far fetched in my opinion. The changes should be much more severe. If the Borg are still a lot more powerful than before yet trapped in the Delta Quadrant, indigenous species should definitly feel the effect. I doubt the the Delta alliance would still consist of the same species if it existed at all in this timeline.
compared to 'broken circle jerk' this episode rocked! The ending was.... 'WTF?!' and the fact that my Romulan character was treated like any other pink-skin fedrat was annoying.
I felt the same way like they were trying to get me to leave so I could do something, and did anyone see the temporal agent after the mission?
"..and like children playing after sunset, we were surrounded by darkness." -Ruri Hoshino
One would think that if somebody wants to write a new story on the basis of a single Voyager episode that this person would at least WATCH said episode before starting to write. A temporal shield only has to be active during the temporal incursion. After that everybody aboard can no longer be affected by the new timeline even if the shield fails.
That being said I think the reason for this unintended outcome was my ship's and the Lleiset's temporal shielding. Voyager's temporal shielding completely disrupted Annorax' calculations. Instead of restoring the Krenim Empire it was set back into a pre-warp state if I remember correctly.
Also the temporal annihilation of a Borg transwarp conduit almost completely restoring the original timeline is a little far fetched in my opinion. The changes should be much more severe. If the Borg are still a lot more powerful than before yet trapped in the Delta Quadrant, indigenous species should definitly feel the effect. I doubt the the Delta alliance would still consist of the same species if it existed at all in this timeline.
This exactly, the shields only have to be up to protect you from the "ripple" that changes time, not to mention I thought the episode said the intent was to crash a meteor into a dig site so that it delays discovery, but then we go and erase this meteor, or so it seems.
Erasing a single transwarp gate from existence, especially one that would have been built AFTER the borg assimilated romulus would not erase the assimilation of romulus, and if we actually erased the entire transwarp network, that'd obviously have much further reaching consequences and surely would not have restored the timeline.
The game has long held that the reason the borg do not use cloaking technology even though they have obviously assimilated romulans/romulan ships is because the tech is inherently incompatible with theirs, so the suddenly cloaking borg ships doesn't make much sense either. We could say that the assimilation of whatever supped up the borg made it compatible, but that seems a stretch.
I applaud the attempt made by the episode, but the execution was messy and just... no.
The Nebula-configured Odyssey needs to be a thing.
Erasing a single transwarp gate from existence, especially one that would have been built AFTER the borg assimilated romulus would not erase the assimilation of romulus, and if we actually erased the entire transwarp network, that'd obviously have much further reaching consequences and surely would not have restored the timeline.
That's not what happened.
They didn't stop the assimilation by destroying a gateway in the 'current time,' they made another 'Temporal Incursion' and used the Gateway as the target to focus the incursion.
We used the weapon, and saw that once we did, a large portion of the quadrant (or at least the Romulan section) was entirely assimilated by the Borg. This was due to something that happened in the 'new timeline' (which is now the current timeline) that made the Borg stronger. The weapon was then used a second time to do another incursion inside the current incursion that corrected the arrival of the Borg in Romulan space leaving Romulus destroyed just as it was, but the Borg now gone. The effect of this second incursion was the destruction of whatever race that Krenim leaders wife was part of.
They didn't destroy the gateway, they used it as a target for a 2nd incursion to fix an unforeseen mistake.
Personally, I enjoyed the episode. Sure, there are some holes, but there always will be anytime you do a story around time travel. I thought it was fun overall, and managed to stop (delay) the Iconian threat without doing something horribly drastic like removing them from the time stream. I also look forward to contending with the 'new and improved' Borg later on.
Um, if the Borg are still enhanced wouldn't that be automatically noticeable since after the shields fail you go back to the system the research facility is in, which is located in the Delta Quadrant close to Borg space judging by the map.
The overall story of the episode and the layout was sloppy to say the least. What irritated me most was how everyone was reminded that they needed approval from the Alliance governments before doing anything, especially since everyone at the research base has been banging their heads against the wall with all the simulations. And then one passable outcome had everyone at the research base go: "YOLO-Swag, let's save the day!" I was playing and just like, "wait, we're actually using the weapon now?!"
That being said, I did like/appreciate what we got out of the episode, both game play and arc progression. We got to see what the research process was like, and with it understand how delicate things are. The combat was good, which is always a plus. And the end result had everyone doubting if using the time weapon is a good idea, which they should've been this whole time. And it does create a little suspense as to how the end of the war will play out.
It was a sloppy episode, much like the rest of the Iconian War arc has been. But it was good for the story arc, and a solid lead in for the next episode.
99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer...
I enjoyed it as a change from the previous episode which I did not care for. I agree that we are heading for the creation of the sphere builders. As a big Enterprise fan I look forward to that. The sphere builders were a nicely sinister villain that got left incomplete by the show. I think they're an excellent choice for 11.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
1. The timeline didn't go back to normal, by sheer dumb luck we ended up with a timeline vaguely resembling the old one. Nobody knows how this happened. They just tried to save Romulus and nearly restored the timeline somehow (note nearly, there were still changes).
2. Our ships' shields were all prpbably sabotaged, as Nog noted after the shields (which were all running separately seemingly) experienced a sudden drop in power for no apparent reason.
My personal conjecture: somebody saw what we were up to and manipulated the outcome. The chances of the shields on all the ships destabilising at the exact same time in the exact same way just as the new timeline was created seems far too coincidental for my liking. Factions manipulating history for their own ends... where have I heard that before?
And the dominion. Now, that would make an epic battle. Not the small skirmish the klingon idiot sent us to.
Did anyone else notice Franklin Drake standing in the Krenim Lab?
I smell Section 31 all over this...
I am baffled this went over everyones head apparently... or I am looking at the wrong threads.
Maybe WE caused the war with the Sphere Builders, due to some Tuterians being unnaffected by the changes for... reasons.
Maybe we should've just run with assimilated Romulus. The Borg a the lesser of the two evils. At least we can deal with them conventionally.
I think we are looking at someone beyond just Section 31. If anything this is the opposite of Section 31's tactics. There are repeated comments on "time fighting back" and it came up again in this mission. Is it "time" pushing us or somebody else behind it?
Maybe a remote cousin? She really looked like it, and even though it was stated the sphere builder come from another dimension, since they use solonae tech, maybe we see the STO-way of their birth as evil overlords. I mean, remodeling a part of space to something only they can live in... delta flight anyone?
Another story for cryptic to ungloriously fail...
- Erase an asteroid that affected the U.S.S. Yamato's mission, preventing them from rediscovering Iconia
- Creates a new timeline where the Borg assimilated the Romulan Star Empire (and probably the Federation and Klingon Empire) around 2390
- Erase a Borg transwarp conduit
- Creates a "close-enough" timeline, where the Iconians did invade and things played out more or less as we know them; compare to Annorax achieving a 98% restoration of the Krenim Imperium by erasing the Zahl homeworld
Things have definitely changed; we just don't yet know to what extent. And we still have the timeship, so hopefully we can undo whatever the changes were.
"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
My thoughts exactly.
The Tuterians experimented with Solanae tech to hide from the Borg in subspace or another realm. When we removed the rest of their species from the timestream, we could have trapped some of them in their new anti-Borg panic room.
The rest is ENT-history.
It all makes sense now!
I actually like the FE, much more immersive than what we've seen so far. Not to mention the multiple Easter eggs.
This. So much this.
The fact that Drake was present and my Fed Admiral didn't have the chance to say anything about him being there bothered be way more than anything else. Otherwise I actually enjoyed the episode.
Then again no option to shoot Temer or arrest him as a traitor was annoying too.... oh I mean *cough* Long Live the Republic -.-
there is two briefly good things in this episode:
-as some mentioned before me, it will be easy to farm weekly. quick spec points for papa.
-MAYBE the borg will once again take their most deserved place as the main villians of STO - as they should be.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
"Players will witness the origin of a canon "enemy" not yet featured in STO"
That's going to be happening in Season 11, perhaps we really are going to see the origins of the Sphere Builders. We're still quite a bit off the war starting timeline wise, but I'm sure they'll think of a way to deal with them without going into a full blown war.
If this really is what intended by Cryptic then it's probably the best part of this episode:D
Overall I like this one, much more than the last two indeed.
Maybe it's intended to hint at a future return to form for the borg, who have been steadily loosing credebility as a serious threat in STO.
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
Meet interesting new species, and Kill them!
A'Dranna. Remember, she was poked and prodded before concerning the Gateway on New Romulus in "Sphere of Influence". I think they got to her again. Or even worse, she MEANT to do this.
Can we shoot her out an airlock?
That being said I think the reason for this unintended outcome was my ship's and the Lleiset's temporal shielding. Voyager's temporal shielding completely disrupted Annorax' calculations. Instead of restoring the Krenim Empire it was set back into a pre-warp state if I remember correctly.
Also the temporal annihilation of a Borg transwarp conduit almost completely restoring the original timeline is a little far fetched in my opinion. The changes should be much more severe. If the Borg are still a lot more powerful than before yet trapped in the Delta Quadrant, indigenous species should definitly feel the effect. I doubt the the Delta alliance would still consist of the same species if it existed at all in this timeline.
If it was, they failed. I blew threw them without effort.
That. From Kagran. Omg.
I can't even
Mine Trap Supporter
I felt the same way like they were trying to get me to leave so I could do something, and did anyone see the temporal agent after the mission?
This exactly, the shields only have to be up to protect you from the "ripple" that changes time, not to mention I thought the episode said the intent was to crash a meteor into a dig site so that it delays discovery, but then we go and erase this meteor, or so it seems.
Erasing a single transwarp gate from existence, especially one that would have been built AFTER the borg assimilated romulus would not erase the assimilation of romulus, and if we actually erased the entire transwarp network, that'd obviously have much further reaching consequences and surely would not have restored the timeline.
The game has long held that the reason the borg do not use cloaking technology even though they have obviously assimilated romulans/romulan ships is because the tech is inherently incompatible with theirs, so the suddenly cloaking borg ships doesn't make much sense either. We could say that the assimilation of whatever supped up the borg made it compatible, but that seems a stretch.
I applaud the attempt made by the episode, but the execution was messy and just... no.
The Nebula-configured Odyssey needs to be a thing.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
That's not what happened.
They didn't stop the assimilation by destroying a gateway in the 'current time,' they made another 'Temporal Incursion' and used the Gateway as the target to focus the incursion.
We used the weapon, and saw that once we did, a large portion of the quadrant (or at least the Romulan section) was entirely assimilated by the Borg. This was due to something that happened in the 'new timeline' (which is now the current timeline) that made the Borg stronger. The weapon was then used a second time to do another incursion inside the current incursion that corrected the arrival of the Borg in Romulan space leaving Romulus destroyed just as it was, but the Borg now gone. The effect of this second incursion was the destruction of whatever race that Krenim leaders wife was part of.
They didn't destroy the gateway, they used it as a target for a 2nd incursion to fix an unforeseen mistake.
Personally, I enjoyed the episode. Sure, there are some holes, but there always will be anytime you do a story around time travel. I thought it was fun overall, and managed to stop (delay) the Iconian threat without doing something horribly drastic like removing them from the time stream. I also look forward to contending with the 'new and improved' Borg later on.
That being said, I did like/appreciate what we got out of the episode, both game play and arc progression. We got to see what the research process was like, and with it understand how delicate things are. The combat was good, which is always a plus. And the end result had everyone doubting if using the time weapon is a good idea, which they should've been this whole time. And it does create a little suspense as to how the end of the war will play out.
It was a sloppy episode, much like the rest of the Iconian War arc has been. But it was good for the story arc, and a solid lead in for the next episode.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Well there is no such thing as coinsidences. But does Cryptic have everything in Star Trek tie into it as a cause and effect?