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Midnight Spoilers: Can we finally kill Sela

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  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    The Trilithium idea is a nice idea for destroying the Dyson Sphere, but is that technology even available to us?
    The general principle may be known, but the Duras sisters stole the material for Soran's experiment fromfailed Romulan experiments. The Dominion seems to have the technology, as they tried to use it on the Bajoran sun, but the Dominion was not part of the Delta Alliance at the time of the Herald Sphere Assault.

    So I take from this that the technology is not available to the Delta Alliance.

    However, we know the Iconians have the technology to make a star go nova (even extra-special-super-duper FTL nova). One has to wonder - can they also undo it?
    And could they teleport the Herald Sphere without the sun in the center? Or could they leave the Herald Sphere with their fleet and abandon it? Would that affect their Gateway network?

    Mustrum "Dahar Master of the Kagran Defense Force" Ridcully
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    @protogoth : Way to completely miss the point. As you should have gathered from my statement regarding the time travel plot, I don't give a damn about the Past!Iconians, just the Present!Iconians. They might have been innocent a zillion years ago, but they are murderers in the present day. To borrow a line from Stargate SG-1, "Our reality is the only one of consequence." You cannot possibly tell me that obliterating the Present!Iconians is unethical; the only difficulty is doing it.

    @destroyer831642: Simple enough to solve the problem of penetrating the Sphere. Put a cloaking device INSIDE the torpedo. They've done that with mines twice (once in the Dominion War, once in the Klingon-Gorn War).

    If the Iconians had any idea how to actually USE the numerical advantage "Uneasy Allies" purports to give them, they would've skipped the entire infiltration plan and simply steamrolled the galaxy with sheer numbers. The attack on the Sphere in the STF whose name escapes me ATM should likewise have been stomped flat. But they didn't, and it wasn't, so clearly the Iconians and Heralds have limits that can be exploited.

    And even if we DO have to take the time travel deus ex machina, the World Heart can be used to force a surrender, but you have to think like a soldier. I doubt an antimatter bomb would do their precious MacGuffin any favors, especially when hooked up to a dead-man switch. They kill you, it blows. They try to take it from you, it blows. They jam the signal, it blows.

    @mustrumridcully0 : Soren developed his weapon with at most a fifteen-man team, whom he necessarily had to keep secrets from to get the project finished (because I rather doubt they would've gone along with him had they known the whole story). I'm reasonably sure Starfleet Science can crack it a lot faster, given the Federation had prior knowledge of the original Romulan project. For crying out loud, they built the temporal weapon ship off of partial schematics FROM AN ALIEN RACE, OF AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE inside of a few weeks! There's a reason that Vorta in "Rocks and Shoals" made that crack about "Federation engineers who can turn rocks into replicators".

    As for the Iconian ability to induce supernovae? If you will recall, the RSE had at minimum SEVERAL WEEKS of warning that Hobus was getting ready to blow. Per ST:G, trilithium warheads work in SECONDS. Not remotely the same technology. Besides, as a general rule it's a lot simpler to break something than to fix it, so you're ascribing abilities to the Iconians that are not in evidence.
    "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"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    starswordc wrote: »
    @protogoth : Way to completely miss the point. As you should have gathered from my statement regarding the time travel plot, I don't give a damn about the Past!Iconians, just the Present!Iconians. They might have been innocent a zillion years ago, but they are murderers in the present day. To borrow a line from Stargate SG-1, "Our reality is the only one of consequence." You cannot possibly tell me that obliterating the Present!Iconians is unethical; the only difficulty is doing it.

    I saw what you said about the time travel plot. That plot, however, was the hand we were dealt, whether any of us like that fact or no. Prior to that, I was agreeing (as I stated here) with the plan proposed by Dahar Master Rrueo of the KDF (and since someone among the Site Engineers keeps messing up links in these fora, for no justifiable reason ... :# ... I had to go through the trouble of using the dubious search feature in order to find the original post in which it was originally stated, and just so there's no loss of the thing this time, I'm going to quote it in its entirety):
    shevet wrote: »
    Incidentally, I will pass along a proposed solution for the whole Iconian problem. It's not a very Starfleet sort of solution, so I'll hand over to the person whose idea it is, Dahar Master "unusually articulate for a Ferasan" Rrueo of the KDF:-

    We haz Krenim temporal hiding-things gizmo nao, yes? Iconianz an heraldz no can c us wen we use dis. So, we folo Iconianz in2 Herald sfee sphaea big round ting, an we taeks wid uz big doomsday wepn, like mayb trilithium warhed or Federation entirely peaceful Genesis Device. We taeks dis 2 central sun ov big round ting, set timr, go back aout, waet 4 timer 2 caount daown, big bang, baibai heraldz. Maybe we no get aksual Iconianz, but who kairs? Dey no gots huge spaes armada any moars, iz not enuff ov dem 2 conker galaxy by demselvez, we set fat Klingonz on dem if dey try. Iz eazy plan, much saefer den messin wid timelinez. Kitteh wil du it 4 u if Fedz are 2 wimpy. Kitteh wil blow up big round ting an b back in tiem 4 tea.

    OK. Apart from the actual, y'know, ethics of genocide (and my own ethics get a bit flexible if it's coming down to them or me)... anyone see a practical problem with bad kitty's idea? We can enter the sphere, we can conceal ourselves from the Iconians, we have a whole bunch of sun-destroying weapons that will, in some cases, fit inside a handy knapsack. Where's the problem?

    It's brilliant, and it was a FAR better plan than anything Kagran ever came up with! And the question of "genocide" is one I dealt with in the several posts I made back when the Krenim weapon had yet to be used, by arguing that, just as there is such a thing as "justifiable homicide," there can also be "justifiable genocide," certainly in the case of the Iconians of 2387-2410, who are 12 in number (not that the total population being small makes genocide any less serious, mind you), who are all on board with plans to exterminate several species and enslave the others, and who are all political/military figures (and therefore cannot be considered civilians, innocent or otherwise).

    HOWEVER!!!

    Following the events of "Midnight," we are now at peace with the Iconians (with the exception of T'Ket, and while L'Miren said that they won't rein T'Ket in, she also did not say that they'll try to stop us from dealing with T'Ket in whatever means should be necessary). You don't make peace with someone and then turn around and take advantage of the cessation of hostilities in order to cheat them (unless, of course, you are the US Federal Government and the people you made peace with were Native Americans and someone finds gold or oil or the like on their land ...) and still claim to be dealing fairly with others. Justice requires Fairness. Ethics is about Justice. Therefore, having made peace with the Iconians and then turning around and violating that peace would be unfair = unjust = unethical.

    Tada.

    Happy now? I can keep going, if you like -- but not till after lunch, because I am an-hungered now. *wanders off to roast a travit*
  • destroyer831642destroyer831642 Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    starswordc wrote: »
    @protogoth : Way to completely miss the point. As you should have gathered from my statement regarding the time travel plot, I don't give a damn about the Past!Iconians, just the Present!Iconians. They might have been innocent a zillion years ago, but they are murderers in the present day. To borrow a line from Stargate SG-1, "Our reality is the only one of consequence." You cannot possibly tell me that obliterating the Present!Iconians is unethical; the only difficulty is doing it.

    @destroyer831642: Simple enough to solve the problem of penetrating the Sphere. Put a cloaking device INSIDE the torpedo. They've done that with mines twice (once in the Dominion War, once in the Klingon-Gorn War).

    If the Iconians had any idea how to actually USE the numerical advantage "Uneasy Allies" purports to give them, they would've skipped the entire infiltration plan and simply steamrolled the galaxy with sheer numbers. The attack on the Sphere in the STF whose name escapes me ATM should likewise have been stomped flat. But they didn't, and it wasn't, so clearly the Iconians and Heralds have limits that can be exploited.

    And even if we DO have to take the time travel deus ex machina, the World Heart can be used to force a surrender, but you have to think like a soldier. I doubt an antimatter bomb would do their precious MacGuffin any favors, especially when hooked up to a dead-man switch. They kill you, it blows. They try to take it from you, it blows. They jam the signal, it blows.

    @mustrumridcully0 : Soren developed his weapon with at most a fifteen-man team, whom he necessarily had to keep secrets from to get the project finished (because I rather doubt they would've gone along with him had they known the whole story). I'm reasonably sure Starfleet Science can crack it a lot faster, given the Federation had prior knowledge of the original Romulan project. For crying out loud, they built the temporal weapon ship off of partial schematics FROM AN ALIEN RACE, OF AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE inside of a few weeks! There's a reason that Vorta in "Rocks and Shoals" made that crack about "Federation engineers who can turn rocks into replicators".

    As for the Iconian ability to induce supernovae? If you will recall, the RSE had at minimum SEVERAL WEEKS of warning that Hobus was getting ready to blow. Per ST:G, trilithium warheads work in SECONDS. Not remotely the same technology. Besides, as a general rule it's a lot simpler to break something than to fix it, so you're ascribing abilities to the Iconians that are not in evidence.

    Another interesting way to take them down is Red Matter. It might take a while to mine some more decalithium, (as we don't have the jellyfish anymore) but we could stockpile it should the war re-ignite. (which I do see as probable) But...here's a question. What happens when they do try to take the world heart? Also, considering what the World Heart actually does, it's actually kind of useless in OUR hands, and what happens after the world heart blows? They might be remorseful, but more than likely, the war will re-ignite. Now, they said they will not help either side in the T'ket vs the universe question, but what happens if we actually manage to kill her? I don't deny you have to think like a soldier when it comes to actions, but when it comes to potential consequences, you have to think like a storyteller. What's going to happen when we kill T'ket? Maybe nothing, but given what happened when we killed M'tara, more than likely, the war would re-ignite and we would probably lose.

    As I have said before, this war is far from over, all we can do is prepare for it.
    9621eea4-a1f5-4e30-bb61-da044da2a5a7_zps2t6tasgd.png


  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    ^Sometimes the best you can do is make sure that if you lose, so do they. Maybe they call your bluff and kill everyone, but now they rule an empty galaxy with no way to rebuild their society.

    As it stands, this is not peace, unless you're using the early TNG definition. This is an incomplete ceasefire on terms dictated by the murderers of billions, who get to walk away without any reparations or justice for the innocents they put to the sword. And I trust them to keep their end of this diktat about as far as I trust Sela, which not coincidentally is the distance I can punt one of the Dyson spheres.

    We failed. The bad guys won.
    "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"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    starswordc wrote: »
    ^Sometimes the best you can do is make sure that if you lose, so do they. Maybe they call your bluff and kill everyone, but now they rule an empty galaxy with no way to rebuild their society.

    As it stands, this is not peace, unless you're using the early TNG definition. This is an incomplete ceasefire on terms dictated by the murderers of billions, who get to walk away without any reparations or justice for the innocents they put to the sword. And I trust them to keep their end of this diktat about as far as I trust Sela, which not coincidentally is the distance I can punt one of the Dyson spheres.

    We failed. The bad guys won.
    That is a needless extremist view.
    We also lived. The fighting stopped. Billions of lives were not extinguished or enslaved.

    Wars doesn't always end in unconditional surrender of one side. Especially not in Star Trek. The Earth-Romulan war didn't end with any Romulan in human custody. The Cardassian war didn't end like this. The Dominion War ended with a single member of the Dominion government being imprisoned, and everyone else being send back through the wormhole.
    Or the real world: The Falkland War didn't end with Argentian government in British custody.​​
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    starswordc wrote: »
    ^Sometimes the best you can do is make sure that if you lose, so do they. Maybe they call your bluff and kill everyone, but now they rule an empty galaxy with no way to rebuild their society.

    As it stands, this is not peace, unless you're using the early TNG definition. This is an incomplete ceasefire on terms dictated by the murderers of billions, who get to walk away without any reparations or justice for the innocents they put to the sword. And I trust them to keep their end of this diktat about as far as I trust Sela, which not coincidentally is the distance I can punt one of the Dyson spheres.

    We failed. The bad guys won.
    That is a needless extremist view.
    We also lived. The fighting stopped. Billions of lives were not extinguished or enslaved.
    Small comfort to the loved ones of the billions lying dead while the Alliance shoots off fireworks.
    Wars doesn't always end in unconditional surrender of one side. Especially not in Star Trek. The Earth-Romulan war didn't end with any Romulan in human custody.
    No, you're right, it ended in the Treaty of Alpha Trianguli. Which over the next two centuries the Romulans proceeded to violate whenever they damn well felt like it. I think Lieutenant Robert Tomlinson and Crewman Angela Martine would disagree with you that the Alpha Tri peace agreement was worth the paper it was printed on. Ditto Saavik's mother, who was TRIBBLE by a Romulan during one of their cross-Neutral Zone raids. For crying out loud, at one point they sent a warbird to destroy a Federation starbase on completely the opposite side of the Federation.
    The Cardassian war didn't end like this.
    And per "The Wounded", the Cardassians were breaking the ceasefire before the ink was dry. And after the treaty was signed they promptly began arming their colonists in the DMZ to fight the Federation in a proxy war. The only thing that kept there from being a second Federation-Cardassian War was that the Obsidian Order picked a fight with the Dominion first and the entire Cardassian dictatorship collapsed.
    The Dominion War ended with a single member of the Dominion government being imprisoned, and everyone else being send back through the wormhole.
    Yes, which is exactly my point: They punished the perpetrator of multiple crimes against sentience. The rest of the Dominion forces in the Alpha Quadrant were Jem'Hadar and Vorta, which quite frankly have insufficient free will to be tried in court. And notice what else we sent the Founders: Odo, to break up their groupthink.

    And I note a distinct lack of any remorse on the part of the female Changeling in "Facility 4028": she still thinks solids are pond scum.

    I'll throw another example of TNG-style pursuit of peace at any cost: The Khitomer Accords. All they did was put off the next Federation-Klingon War for a while. It took a mere 51 years to bring the Federation and Klingons back to the brink of war, a war that was only averted because Captain Rachel Garrett threw a spanner in the works by dying heroically and getting the rest of her crew enslaved by the Romulans. Which is where Sela came from, if you will recall: one of the Romulan generals made her his sex slave in exchange for everyone else's lives.

    From there it was only 28 years before the Klingons started trouble again; the Dominion War was the only thing that ended that conflict. Then we have the STO Federation-Klingon War, only this time the Klingons have the Space Mafia for allies and commit even worse sentient rights violations than before. It took the Iconians to put a stop to that one.
    Bush-Mission-Accomplished_thumb3.jpg

    That's your idea of "peace" in action, mustrum. I'd rather fight the war once and and make it permanent by winning a decisive victory than take these "peaces" and continually fight the same war over and over again.
    Or the real world: The Falkland War didn't end with Argentian government in British custody.​​
    That analogy would only hold up if the war had begun with Argentina carpet-bombing England with nuclear weapons. The Falklands War isn't remotely in the same league: it was a shoving match over a couple of borderline-useless rocks in the middle of the South Atlantic.
    "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"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
  • bltrrnbltrrn Member Posts: 1,322 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    Once I heard of the auspiciousness of the Iconians before their ruination, I thought great ill of them. I have had a change of heart. I was briefly in charge of many. Great Civilisations are often brought to their darkest and most violent by past hurts, whether great or small. For my peoples, the worst of our leaders caused this war, both in the distant and recent past, and I hope the remnants of the Romulan Star Empire, and those who still believe in the vision of Donatrism, find the gumption to unite with the New Romulan Republic, to bring it back to a Galactic Superpower again. Do not, however, act like the Klingons and the Romulans are all at fault for this war. We all made mistakes, the Federation is among these mistaken.
    Post edited by bltrrn on
    R E M A I N

    Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.

    https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7403/13262502435_5604548f2c_o.png
  • protogothprotogoth Member Posts: 2,369 Arc User
    Sela is not the source of all of our woes, but she has certainly multiplied those woes, repeatedly. And she is the cause of the Iconian War, "predestination paradox" or not.
  • destroyer831642destroyer831642 Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    protogoth wrote: »
    Sela is not the source of all of our woes, but she has certainly multiplied those woes, repeatedly. And she is the cause of the Iconian War, "predestination paradox" or not.
    Yes, because if the Iconians were TRULY peaceful, they could have, I don't know, let it go and moved on instead of building up a big doom ball to destroy the galaxy in 200,000 years.
    9621eea4-a1f5-4e30-bb61-da044da2a5a7_zps2t6tasgd.png


  • vorwodavorwoda Member Posts: 694 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    Hey, kids,

    While you guys argue philosophy and ethics, I'm using the Guardian of Forever to go back and cap Sela with my plasma repeater the moment she beams down to Iconia. I do, after all, know exactly when and where she beamed down, since I was there last time.

    Grateful, peaceful, rescued Iconians - Psychotic, backstabbing, T'ket-aggravating Sela = Peaceful Iconians handing out free ice cream to all for 200,000 years!

    Plan B: And if that doesn't work, I'll go back and drop that cloaked trilithium bomb in the Iconian sun FIVE hundred thousand years ago, before the Iconians were even a power. See how they like THEM apples! :)

    Toodles!

    P.S. Sela isn't Romulan, she's half-human. If T'Ket could figure out the Romulan part, why not the rest? Blonde hair is a dead giveaway. REAL Romulans don't use peroxide! :)
  • destroyer831642destroyer831642 Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    vorwoda wrote: »
    Hey, kids,

    While you guys argue philosophy and ethics, I'm using the Guardian of Forever to go back and cap Sela with my plasma repeater the moment she beams down to Iconia. I do, after all, know exactly when and where she beamed down, since I was there last time.

    Grateful, peaceful, rescued Iconians - Psychotic, backstabbing, T'ket-aggravating Sela = Peaceful Iconians handing out free ice cream to all for 200,000 years!
    And no reason to go back in time to save them! Congratulations, through temporal mechanics, you just let these "Peaceful" Iconians die by saving them.
    9621eea4-a1f5-4e30-bb61-da044da2a5a7_zps2t6tasgd.png


  • bltrrnbltrrn Member Posts: 1,322 Arc User
    vorwoda wrote: »
    Hey, kids,

    While you guys argue philosophy and ethics, I'm using the Guardian of Forever to go back and cap Sela with my plasma repeater the moment she beams down to Iconia. I do, after all, know exactly when and where she beamed down, since I was there last time.

    Grateful, peaceful, rescued Iconians - Psychotic, backstabbing, T'ket-aggravating Sela = Peaceful Iconians handing out free ice cream to all for 200,000 years!

    Plan B: And if that doesn't work, I'll go back and drop that cloaked trilithium bomb in the Iconian sun FIVE hundred thousand years ago, before the Iconians were even a power. See how they like THEM apples! :)

    That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.
    R E M A I N

    Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.

    https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7403/13262502435_5604548f2c_o.png
  • vorwodavorwoda Member Posts: 694 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    Meh, you can't have everything. :) I prevented Hobus, JJTrek, The FED/Klink war, the Undine infiltration, the...

    At least I haven't invalidated all of STO's storyline and reset us all to level 1 ens- .

    Um.


    Oops.

    Meh, you can't have everything.

    *NOTE: This post and my previous one are intended as comic relief, in an otherwise increasingly tense thread. The maker of these posts wishes it known that no real Iconians (or, unfortunately, Selas) were harmed in their posting.
    Post edited by vorwoda on
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