Plus, if I remember correctly, The Iconian which killed the high Council at the end of "Surface tension" was NOT T'ket. (looked much different) I'm not totally sure which one it was, but I really don't think it was T'ket.
That was M'Tara in the High Council. Wich is my beaf with the whole thing how this arc was handled. The whole mystery with The Other was soo forced.
She encounter the player 3 times: Council, Preservers Arhive and on her Flagship. And not even one time she wouldve thought "Ohh, that creature looks a bit familiar. How about I'll teleport him closer to take a better look". C'mon...
Same goes with their "The Whole" mantra rambleling on the Kayna moon or from the console info from T'Ket's intalation. I mean the player DIDNT played that big of a role in their society. And even as a saviour is debatable, becouse, even if The Other DID help, in the end THEIR technoloy, as in the Gateways, ultimately saved them. You, the player, dont even take them on your ship to provide their transport/escape. But w/e.
It's been 200,000 years for M'Tara. Entire civilizations get forgotten in that time, so I'll forgive her for not recognizing people who, for all she knew, would've died of old age if they survived the bombardment. She doesn't know you were a time traveler. L'Miren only puts it all together when you come back from the portal and show her the World Heart.
And the player clearly does rescue the Iconians. T'Ket is capable of fighting, but she doesn't try to save the others until the player persuades her. Without the player, everyone except maybe T'Ket would've died and the World Heart would've been stolen.
Speaking of T'Ket, since this hasn't been answered, since she's still at war with the Alpha and Beta quadrants, how much of a threat does she still command? Out of the stated "billions" of Heralds, how many are hers, and would M'Tara's former Heralds go with her? Even at a maximum sixth of the size it was, the Iconian army is still strong enough to wipe the floor with us, potentially. Then again, L'Miren seemed to think or indicate we could handle T'Ket.
She will be exactly as much a threat as the Heralds in gameplay need to be. Meaning not much at all.
Originally, the script had Sela shouting "For Romulus" as sort of a battle cry and that's how T'Ket knew.
That should've been left in. It was in the German version.
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Two tidbits to take away from Priority One's playthrough of it, accompanied by one of the designers of the mission:
The large structure that the Heralds were moving in at Jupiter Station was supposed to turn Jupiter into a dwarf star.
Originally, the script had Sela shouting "For Romulus" as sort of a battle cry and that's how T'Ket knew.
As has been said of the JJ Abrams movies, you don't get credit for what got left on the cutting-room floor.
"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"
Starsword...generally I would agree. Though we do have an odd case with the "For Romulus" thing, that it made the final cut of the German version's subtitles. Serious oversight for it to not make the English one though.
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I thought the climax was well written and in keeping with the best traditions of Star Trek.
Yes, I've read all of the previous posts.
Well let's test this based on the movies:
Star Trek TMP: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Wrath of Khan: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Search for Spock: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Voyage Home: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Final Frontier: Sort of both?
Undiscovered Country: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Generations: Belligerent jerk gets what he wants, then gets his comeuppance due to temporal shenanigans.
First Contact: Belligerent jerk gets her comeuppance.
Insurrection: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance, passive-aggressive jerks get what they want.
Nemesis: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
So, given this extensive and not at all satirical research we can conclude that Trek leans on the side of the belligerent jerks getting their violent and untimely comeuppance... unless they happen to be space gurus, eldritch abominations or smarmy hypocrites.
Therefore since the Iconians are all 3... yes, it fits Trek for them to get what they want despite being belligerent jerks.
I thought the climax was well written and in keeping with the best traditions of Star Trek.
Yes, I've read all of the previous posts.
Well let's test this based on the movies:
Star Trek TMP: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Wrath of Khan: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Search for Spock: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Voyage Home: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Final Frontier: Sort of both?
Undiscovered Country: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Generations: Belligerent jerk gets what he wants, then gets his comeuppance due to temporal shenanigans.
First Contact: Belligerent jerk gets her comeuppance.
Insurrection: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance, passive-aggressive jerks get what they want.
Nemesis: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
So, given this extensive and not at all satirical research we can conclude that Trek leans on the side of the belligerent jerks getting their violent and untimely comeuppance... unless they happen to be space gurus, eldritch abominations or smarmy hypocrites.
Therefore since the Iconians are all 3... yes, it fits Trek for them to get what they want despite being belligerent jerks.
Or, the biggest belligerent jerks (M'Tara and T'Ket) get their comeuppance, and the others who are willing to make peace get what they want.
We failed. The bad guys won. The Iconians murdered innocent people until they got what they wanted. Cue fireworks.
"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"
^Pretty much, except replace the whale probe with the Reapers.
"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"
^Pretty much, except replace the whale probe with the Reapers.
The one difference is that I am not convinced the Whale Probe had sufficient capacity to understand its actions or negotiate. The Iconians, however, are 100% accountable for their actions.
(As far as ME...I have a bit of a weird view of it, as someone who has not played. I get why the endings are upsetting to people and I also understand that lack of consent is a major problem. That said, I am also one of the weird few intrigued enough by Synthesis that if it were a choice, I would be willing to hear arguments from a pro-Synthesis faction as to why I should consider having it done to myself.)
Post edited by gulberat on
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^Pretty much, except replace the whale probe with the Reapers.
The one difference is that I am not convinced the Whale Probe had sufficient capacity to understand its actions or negotiate. The Iconians, however, are 100% accountable for their actions.
Then it's the fault of whoever built the probe for making something that's capable of severely TRIBBLE over other species, ironically being guilty of exactly the attitude the movie tried to heavy handedly accuse humans of having.
We failed. The bad guys won. The Iconians murdered innocent people until they got what they wanted. Cue fireworks.
Did they now? They didn't attack us to get the world heart back, they wanted to take over the universe. Which they didn't get. We told them wouldn't they rather take this plot coupon and go home, which they did (except T'Ket). I say we won.
We failed. The bad guys won. The Iconians murdered innocent people until they got what they wanted. Cue fireworks.
Did they now? They didn't attack us to get the world heart back, they wanted to take over the universe. Which they didn't get. We told them wouldn't they rather take this plot coupon and go home, which they did (except T'Ket). I say we won.
The World Heart is clearly far more important to them than taking over the galaxy.
Apparently without it they can't progress or even reproduce. With it they can restore their civilisation and get Iconia back to the way it was..
... after all that genocide, terrorism, kidnapping, destruction and so on. Against the very people who saved them.
L'Miren even gets to act aloof about it, instead of begging for forgiveness as she should.
I mean yeah sure it isn't total capitulation and betrayal of every single thing we fought for like Mass Effect 3 because we don't end up actively doing the bidding of a genocidal maniac but it's still pretty iffy.
>Begging forgiveness from races she could easily destory
She has zero reason too.
Attacking and persecuting the very people who saved hers and her oh so precious world heart.
Bonus points if the 5 people who saved her were Romulans and Remans.
^Pretty much, except replace the whale probe with the Reapers.
The one difference is that I am not convinced the Whale Probe had sufficient capacity to understand its actions or negotiate. The Iconians, however, are 100% accountable for their actions.
Then it's the fault of whoever built the probe for making something that's capable of severely TRIBBLE over other species, ironically being guilty of exactly the attitude the movie tried to heavy handedly accuse humans of having.
Yeah the creators of the Whale probe were either morons or malevolent. that method of signaling was so inherently destructive that I can't visualize it being usable in a peaceful scenario.
^Pretty much, except replace the whale probe with the Reapers.
The one difference is that I am not convinced the Whale Probe had sufficient capacity to understand its actions or negotiate. The Iconians, however, are 100% accountable for their actions.
Then it's the fault of whoever built the probe for making something that's capable of severely TRIBBLE over other species, ironically being guilty of exactly the attitude the movie tried to heavy handedly accuse humans of having.
Yeah the creators of the Whale probe were either morons or malevolent. that method of signaling was so inherently destructive that I can't visualize it being usable in a peaceful scenario.
Would a cetacean-like, aquatic and technological species be adversely affected by what the Probe did? That, I think, is an open question.
I think it is possible such a species could not conceive of sentience on land. That said, they may have taken a dangerous gamble considering that if the extreme cloud cover went on too long, it would start to disrupt Earth's plankton, and trigger a chain reaction that would damage the aquatic ecosystem as well as the land-based one.
Without knowing a) whether its creators had ever conceived of the possibility of land-based sentience or b) whether the Probe would've stopped before undersea ecological damage could seriously set in, I can't say for sure if they were morons, malevolent, or neither. I do, however, consider it possible they were either morons or malevolent. To my mind there are good arguments either way.
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Consider the effect it had on starships. The signal it was putting out scrambled the circuitry of Federation and Klingon technology alike..... I think it may be where the devs got the idea for the EMP probe Intel power.
Consider the effect it had on starships. The signal it was putting out scrambled the circuitry of Federation and Klingon technology alike..... I think it may be where the devs got the idea for the EMP probe Intel power.
Perhaps someone with greater engineering/physics knowledge could step in here, but that raises two questions for me:
1) What are the effects of an EMP underwater, versus a land/space scenario? Is the EMP mitigated or heightened underwater?
2) Why were the Federation and Klingon ships not shielded against EMP considering that on Earth we've known the possibility since the 20th century, and in canon multiple worlds have actually had a nuclear war? (And Earth got hit in the 19th century by the Carrington Event.) Were they just flat-out unshielded, or did the Probe cut through EMP shielding they did have in place?
The answers to these questions speak to the Probe creators' mindset and may increase or decrease the likelihood they deliberately engineered it as an offensive weapon as opposed to an unintended side effect.
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Not a fan of the ending. It was the easiest way for the devs to end the series though......The feds could not loose and they could not beat the iconians so logic dictates that they go back in time since they were developing a weapon of sorts and kill/befriend the Iconians..... What would I have liked to seen? A stalemate then an introduction into more STF's that capture epic battles that the series story could not cover. Finally an epic series arc that shows the demise of the Iconians......sigh the Feds cant loose because this is an mmo........that forces the devs hands....
Today we fight the GAULS......monstrous and HAIRY beyond reason.
The World Heart is clearly far more important to them than taking over the galaxy.
Apparently without it they can't progress or even reproduce. With it they can restore their civilisation and get Iconia back to the way it was..
... after all that genocide, terrorism, kidnapping, destruction and so on. Against the very people who saved them.
L'Miren even gets to act aloof about it, instead of begging for forgiveness as she should.
I mean yeah sure it isn't total capitulation and betrayal of every single thing we fought for like Mass Effect 3 because we don't end up actively doing the bidding of a genocidal maniac but it's still pretty iffy.
Almost makes it feel like one of those Robot Chicken parodies where the bad guys go, "ew, sorry."
Consider the effect it had on starships. The signal it was putting out scrambled the circuitry of Federation and Klingon technology alike..... I think it may be where the devs got the idea for the EMP probe Intel power.
Perhaps someone with greater engineering/physics knowledge could step in here, but that raises two questions for me:
1) What are the effects of an EMP underwater, versus a land/space scenario? Is the EMP mitigated or heightened underwater?
Well, certain frequencies(coincidently the same ones that do the most damage to electronics) are absorbed by water, but otherwise it's the same. There's nothing I can think of that would make it worse.
2) Why were the Federation and Klingon ships not shielded against EMP considering that on Earth we've known the possibility since the 20th century, and in canon multiple worlds have actually had a nuclear war? (And Earth got hit in the 19th century by the Carrington Event.) Were they just flat-out unshielded, or did the Probe cut through EMP shielding they did have in place?
The answers to these questions speak to the Probe creators' mindset and may increase or decrease the likelihood they deliberately engineered it as an offensive weapon as opposed to an unintended side effect.
Well, the second one, sort of. IIRC the Probe wasn't an actual EMP and it was broadcasting on subspace channels as well as normal space.
Consider the effect it had on starships. The signal it was putting out scrambled the circuitry of Federation and Klingon technology alike..... I think it may be where the devs got the idea for the EMP probe Intel power.
Perhaps someone with greater engineering/physics knowledge could step in here, but that raises two questions for me:
1) What are the effects of an EMP underwater, versus a land/space scenario? Is the EMP mitigated or heightened underwater?
Well, certain frequencies(coincidently the same ones that do the most damage to electronics) are absorbed by water, but otherwise it's the same. There's nothing I can think of that would make it worse.
Assuming a species launched a starship with a water "atmosphere" as opposed to air, could we safely assume that their sensitive electronics would be better shielded than they are in a land dweller's ship? Would energy across all frequencies be absorbed/mitigated more by water than by air?
If that's the case, and the Probe creators never thought land dwellers could become sentient, I do wonder if they would never have anticipated such "poorly" shielded electronics as to kill starships in their tracks.
That said, they could still have done it out of malice--I don't rule that out by any means.
2) Why were the Federation and Klingon ships not shielded against EMP considering that on Earth we've known the possibility since the 20th century, and in canon multiple worlds have actually had a nuclear war? (And Earth got hit in the 19th century by the Carrington Event.) Were they just flat-out unshielded, or did the Probe cut through EMP shielding they did have in place?
The answers to these questions speak to the Probe creators' mindset and may increase or decrease the likelihood they deliberately engineered it as an offensive weapon as opposed to an unintended side effect.
Well, the second one, sort of. IIRC the Probe wasn't an actual EMP and it was broadcasting on subspace channels as well as normal space.
That is one question I have too. Have we established anywhere what the nature of the signal is?
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I enjoyed it but the writing seemed poorly put together like a jigsaw puzzle that didn't match.
Like at the beginning Kagran is a sensible pragmatist saying stuff like what good is honor if we're all dead. Then just two weeks with the Iconians and he's ready to consent to the destruction of all the alliance races just because he feels bad about killing a couple of Iconians. Seriously who in their right mind would do that?
Was also annoying it kept asking us if we should kill the Iconians but in the end there wasn't really a choice at all.
Not to mention the story seemed a little too much like the Dominion war , like if they changed the name of the actors but the story was essentially the same.
Klingon is not about killing is about killing with honor, we dont kill for pleasure like other races do, we fight and died with honor. Kagran explained that in the several exchanges with Sela, you dont kill innocent people. At that particular time in history the Iconians were a peaceful race.
Seek and ye shall find. Ask and ye shall receive. Rabboni
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" (Benjamin Franklin).
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
Comments
And the player clearly does rescue the Iconians. T'Ket is capable of fighting, but she doesn't try to save the others until the player persuades her. Without the player, everyone except maybe T'Ket would've died and the World Heart would've been stolen.
She will be exactly as much a threat as the Heralds in gameplay need to be. Meaning not much at all.
The large structure that the Heralds were moving in at Jupiter Station was supposed to turn Jupiter into a dwarf star.
Originally, the script had Sela shouting "For Romulus" as sort of a battle cry and that's how T'Ket knew.
That should've been left in. It was in the German version.
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As has been said of the JJ Abrams movies, you don't get credit for what got left on the cutting-room floor.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
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Yes, I've read all of the previous posts.
Well let's test this based on the movies:
Star Trek TMP: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Wrath of Khan: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Search for Spock: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Voyage Home: Belligerent jerk gets what it wants.
Final Frontier: Sort of both?
Undiscovered Country: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
Generations: Belligerent jerk gets what he wants, then gets his comeuppance due to temporal shenanigans.
First Contact: Belligerent jerk gets her comeuppance.
Insurrection: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance, passive-aggressive jerks get what they want.
Nemesis: Belligerent jerk gets his comeuppance.
So, given this extensive and not at all satirical research we can conclude that Trek leans on the side of the belligerent jerks getting their violent and untimely comeuppance... unless they happen to be space gurus, eldritch abominations or smarmy hypocrites.
Therefore since the Iconians are all 3... yes, it fits Trek for them to get what they want despite being belligerent jerks.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
So basically the ending of Voyage Home.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The one difference is that I am not convinced the Whale Probe had sufficient capacity to understand its actions or negotiate. The Iconians, however, are 100% accountable for their actions.
(As far as ME...I have a bit of a weird view of it, as someone who has not played. I get why the endings are upsetting to people and I also understand that lack of consent is a major problem. That said, I am also one of the weird few intrigued enough by Synthesis that if it were a choice, I would be willing to hear arguments from a pro-Synthesis faction as to why I should consider having it done to myself.)
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Then it's the fault of whoever built the probe for making something that's capable of severely TRIBBLE over other species, ironically being guilty of exactly the attitude the movie tried to heavy handedly accuse humans of having.
Did they now? They didn't attack us to get the world heart back, they wanted to take over the universe. Which they didn't get. We told them wouldn't they rather take this plot coupon and go home, which they did (except T'Ket). I say we won.
The World Heart is clearly far more important to them than taking over the galaxy.
Apparently without it they can't progress or even reproduce. With it they can restore their civilisation and get Iconia back to the way it was..
... after all that genocide, terrorism, kidnapping, destruction and so on. Against the very people who saved them.
L'Miren even gets to act aloof about it, instead of begging for forgiveness as she should.
I mean yeah sure it isn't total capitulation and betrayal of every single thing we fought for like Mass Effect 3 because we don't end up actively doing the bidding of a genocidal maniac but it's still pretty iffy.
Attacking and persecuting the very people who saved hers and her oh so precious world heart.
Bonus points if the 5 people who saved her were Romulans and Remans.
My character Tsin'xing
Would a cetacean-like, aquatic and technological species be adversely affected by what the Probe did? That, I think, is an open question.
I think it is possible such a species could not conceive of sentience on land. That said, they may have taken a dangerous gamble considering that if the extreme cloud cover went on too long, it would start to disrupt Earth's plankton, and trigger a chain reaction that would damage the aquatic ecosystem as well as the land-based one.
Without knowing a) whether its creators had ever conceived of the possibility of land-based sentience or b) whether the Probe would've stopped before undersea ecological damage could seriously set in, I can't say for sure if they were morons, malevolent, or neither. I do, however, consider it possible they were either morons or malevolent. To my mind there are good arguments either way.
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My character Tsin'xing
Perhaps someone with greater engineering/physics knowledge could step in here, but that raises two questions for me:
1) What are the effects of an EMP underwater, versus a land/space scenario? Is the EMP mitigated or heightened underwater?
2) Why were the Federation and Klingon ships not shielded against EMP considering that on Earth we've known the possibility since the 20th century, and in canon multiple worlds have actually had a nuclear war? (And Earth got hit in the 19th century by the Carrington Event.) Were they just flat-out unshielded, or did the Probe cut through EMP shielding they did have in place?
The answers to these questions speak to the Probe creators' mindset and may increase or decrease the likelihood they deliberately engineered it as an offensive weapon as opposed to an unintended side effect.
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Almost makes it feel like one of those Robot Chicken parodies where the bad guys go, "ew, sorry."
My character Tsin'xing
Assuming a species launched a starship with a water "atmosphere" as opposed to air, could we safely assume that their sensitive electronics would be better shielded than they are in a land dweller's ship? Would energy across all frequencies be absorbed/mitigated more by water than by air?
If that's the case, and the Probe creators never thought land dwellers could become sentient, I do wonder if they would never have anticipated such "poorly" shielded electronics as to kill starships in their tracks.
That said, they could still have done it out of malice--I don't rule that out by any means.
That is one question I have too. Have we established anywhere what the nature of the signal is?
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Like at the beginning Kagran is a sensible pragmatist saying stuff like what good is honor if we're all dead. Then just two weeks with the Iconians and he's ready to consent to the destruction of all the alliance races just because he feels bad about killing a couple of Iconians. Seriously who in their right mind would do that?
Was also annoying it kept asking us if we should kill the Iconians but in the end there wasn't really a choice at all.
Not to mention the story seemed a little too much like the Dominion war , like if they changed the name of the actors but the story was essentially the same.
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy