I'd really love to get back to exploring strange new worlds and all that stuff.
I like time travel stories done well, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back to exploring strange new worlds and revisiting the unfolding history of old ST plots (that don't have to do with time travel).
Can't argue with that. Hopefully the next season/expansion moves on to something else. Looking forward to more hints about what's coming in 2016 (and 2410!)
Honestly, the biggest problem with "Butt-fly", besides it being forced on you by Captain Zapp Kagran jumping the gun on the Krenim weapon's construction and trying to zerg rush the freaking Herald Sphere (protip: human wave tactics don't work against orders-of-magnitude larger forces, especially when they have an entrenched position; that was the absolute stupidest plan in Star Trek history),
With the benefit of absolute clarity in hindsight... Kagran is like WWI generals, derided for stupidity while actually doing pretty well the only thing possible given a ridiculously bad situation.
Kagran, ironically, seems to be the exemplar of the "time manipulation is bad" school. He would do anything - up to and including a desperate gamble with every spare ship - rather than rely on time manipulation. And after that, in Midnight, he's effectively the one arguing not to disrupt the timeline. So who's the idiot?
Still Kagran. He's missing the forest for the trees with the Krenim Mary Sueperweapon. Ignore the wave motion gun for a minute and look at the rest of its features, like, I dunno, the temporal shielding that renders it invulnerable to enemy fire.
Just shield it, fly it into the Herald Sphere, and use it to launch a sunkiller weapon into the Iconian sun. Boom, no more enemy beachhead, no more enemy fleet, no more Iconians, no more invasion. Oh, and it's a non-time travel solution! And it's poetic justice for the billions of innocent people they murdered when they blew up Hobus. (And no, I don't give two TRIBBLE what the Iconians used to be like, I only care what they are now: the worst group of mass murderers in galactic history. The canon resolution is as bad as Kyp Durron in the Jedi Academy Trilogy, except he only killed 25 million people instead of tens of billions.)
@shevet and I both came up with variants of that plan independently. And in point of fact, you don't even need the Mary Sueperweapon for the plan: per "House Pratfall", cloaking devices work against the Iconians.
As for the mission? Yet again, our characters just stand there and let a hamtastic shithead rant at us and run away instead of shooting him in the face while he's babbling about how evil he is. GG, Craptic.
"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"
All I can tell is if the final mission doesn't give us the option to tell *redacted* "the Voyagers send their regards!", I'm out!
OK, seriously, I quite liked this mission. New Khitomer is breathtaking and the story doesn't take one side (I was mostly on the side of the Na'Kuhl because they get the shaft in this whole situation). But I found the ending or the lack of an ending very underwhelming. It didn't even feel like a cliffhanger like when we discovered the Andromeda Sphere jumped in the Beta Quadrant and we're left with this massive ship container dwarfing everything. Also, the fight against the main enemy was quite lame, I was expecting a cutscene where he tries to wipe us out of existence or something dynamic.
Oh and,
Ah, I knew the Tuterians actually weren't completely assimilated/killed by the Borg and became the Sphere Builders in this timeline. Too many similarities to just be a coincidence.
Unfortunately, the fact the story is going into this direction also leads to some foregone conclusions:
-unless there are more timeline changes and, due to the Sphere Builders' non-linear nature, Noye will succeed in freeing them before they're repelled in the 26th century at the Battle of Procyon V (unless he manages to free them and 5 minutes later you repel them back yourself, in the 26th)
-the Na'Kuhl will become more active in other missions (due to their actions and the next lockbox), so the Temporal Accords probably succeed and they decide to become more aggressive with messing with the timeline to try and make the Federation pay... again
-the story is gonna be so messy to follow, but when you're meddling with time travel and continuity between various medias, that's asking for it
Ok, so I would have started a new thread under "Acadamy" but I can't start new threads yet so here it goes: I did this mission, and when I went to claim the rewards, it said that a new one will open up on Feb 4th ( I could really use that tactical console). If I wait till then to claim my rewards, will that open up for me, or am I stuck because I didvthe mission too soon. Thanks, I have only been playing for a couple weeks.
Ok, so I would have started a new thread under "Acadamy" but I can't start new threads yet so here it goes: I did this mission, and when I went to claim the rewards, it said that a new one will open up on Feb 4th ( I could really use that tactical console). If I wait till then to claim my rewards, will that open up for me, or am I stuck because I didvthe mission too soon. Thanks, I have only been playing for a couple weeks.
They expect you to play the mission a second time next week, then a third, fourth, ect for all of the prizes.
Now the cat is out of the bag, i expect Noye to try wipe essential elements from time, nx-01, shran, sovaal, kronos one, USS enterprise as this where the most damage can be done. it would be quite an irony from noye and a cruel one at that, without the federation there would be no peace with klingons after 8472 there would be no republic as the peaceful romulans have no vulcans to look upto, there would be no one slowing down the iconians or even the construction of a krenim facility in the kyana system. so while noye is angry at starfleet, if he wiped all that out to get his wife back.. also the temperal shielding would have to remain up indefinately but i expect noye and his ship to be destroyed in an altered timeline, one where the protagnist is protected from the timeline until noyes ship explode's causing a temperal wave that resets everything back before the weapon was used.
then armed with that knowledge from a future that never happened but back on the original course before all the time manipulations, you manage to convince kagren and the krenim to instead target back to the iconian fall to recover the sphere of knowledge and gift it to the iconians in a sign of peace before they could mount their final charge in the beta quadrant. many lives are saved, noye no longer has a reason to be angry as clauda still lives with child and the iconian conflict ended. then fast forward to the signing of the accord without issue.
this is what i expect to see in future content :P.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Now the cat is out of the bag, i expect Noye to try wipe essential elements from time, nx-01, shran, sovaal, kronos one, USS enterprise as this where the most damage can be done. it would be quite an irony from noye and a cruel one at that, without the federation there would be no peace with klingons after 8472 there would be no republic as the peaceful romulans have no vulcans to look upto, there would be no one slowing down the iconians or even the construction of a krenim facility in the kyana system. so while noye is angry at starfleet, if he wiped all that out to get his wife back.. also the temperal shielding would have to remain up indefinately but i expect noye and his ship to be destroyed in an altered timeline, one where the protagnist is protected from the timeline until noyes ship explode's causing a temperal wave that resets everything back before the weapon was used.
then armed with that knowledge from a future that never happened but back on the original course before all the time manipulations, you manage to convince kagren and the krenim to instead target back to the iconian fall to recover the sphere of knowledge and gift it to the iconians in a sign of peace before they could mount their final charge in the beta quadrant. many lives are saved, noye no longer has a reason to be angry as clauda still lives with child and the iconian conflict ended. then fast forward to the signing of the accord without issue.
this is what i expect to see in future content :P.
Hey, that's a great idea. Hey, Noye! You want to erase NX-01? I'll help!
"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"
Now the cat is out of the bag, i expect Noye to try wipe essential elements from time, nx-01, shran, sovaal, kronos one, USS enterprise as this where the most damage can be done. it would be quite an irony from noye and a cruel one at that, without the federation there would be no peace with klingons after 8472 there would be no republic as the peaceful romulans have no vulcans to look upto, there would be no one slowing down the iconians or even the construction of a krenim facility in the kyana system. so while noye is angry at starfleet, if he wiped all that out to get his wife back.. also the temperal shielding would have to remain up indefinately but i expect noye and his ship to be destroyed in an altered timeline, one where the protagnist is protected from the timeline until noyes ship explode's causing a temperal wave that resets everything back before the weapon was used.
then armed with that knowledge from a future that never happened but back on the original course before all the time manipulations, you manage to convince kagren and the krenim to instead target back to the iconian fall to recover the sphere of knowledge and gift it to the iconians in a sign of peace before they could mount their final charge in the beta quadrant. many lives are saved, noye no longer has a reason to be angry as clauda still lives with child and the iconian conflict ended. then fast forward to the signing of the accord without issue.
this is what i expect to see in future content :P.
Hey, that's a great idea. Hey, Noye! You want to erase NX-01? I'll help!
You'll just wreak havoc with the timeline that way. Erase the scripts for Enterprise, instead, so they don't manage to introduce the inconsistencies in the first place.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Walker: *blah* *blah* benevolent use of time travel *blah* if misused *blah* even genocide *blah blah blah*
Me: *sweating* *eyes darting around the room* Yeah, can you imagine? Some people, huh? *whispering to First Officer* Elisa, *cough* orders from Starfleet Command regarding Iconians *cough* paper shredder.
Elisa Flores: Don't worry, Admiral. Clearly history has already forgotten our war with the Iconians.
Me: *rolling my eyes* If only I could forget that Season.
Oh noes! [name redacted] has stolen the super-ship!
Whatever can we do about this? We can't go back in time half an hour and take the key out of the super-ship's ignition. We can't go back in time twenty years and book [name redacted] into a high-quality anger management course. We can't even go back in time five minutes and whack [name redacted] over the head with a length of lead pipe....
... wait a minute, actually we can do any and all of these things, because we have got *bleep*ing time machines.
This is the problem with time travel as a plot element; two minutes of thinking through the implications, and you can come up with ways to break the story.
You go run around doing what Captain Walker tells you. Me, I have a length of lead pipe and am shortly going to have an appointment with [name redacted]. (And if some skinny twerp pops up, ranting about "fixed point in time" and "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry", I'll just whack him over the head as well.)
Oh noes! [name redacted] has stolen the super-ship!
Whatever can we do about this? We can't go back in time half an hour and take the key out of the super-ship's ignition. We can't go back in time twenty years and book [name redacted] into a high-quality anger management course. We can't even go back in time five minutes and whack [name redacted] over the head with a length of lead pipe....
... wait a minute, actually we can do any and all of these things, because we have got *bleep*ing time machines.
This is the problem with time travel as a plot element; two minutes of thinking through the implications, and you can come up with ways to break the story.
You go run around doing what Captain Walker tells you. Me, I have a length of lead pipe and am shortly going to have an appointment with [name redacted]. (And if some skinny twerp pops up, ranting about "fixed point in time" and "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry", I'll just whack him over the head as well.)
Isn't that why the Annorax and presumably other Timeships have Temporal Shielding ? Basically exist in their own "moment" and can't be messed with by timeline shenanigans. Or the TIC's job would be far easier.
Oh, right, I was forgetting the temporal shielding! - which conveniently fails every time we need it, but remains indestructible and impervious when the script says the bad guys have got to succeed. That stuff. Yeah.
Time and Tide is a basically all about Noye blaming the Federation for not getting the chance to have a son who he can call a "dumbass" like Annorax. So much for Noye getting his own That 70's Show.
That being said, I did like the episode overall. I do wonder why Nog and the rest of the alliance team didn't report what was on the logs from the temporal shielded core. Nog sounded like he was going to be all over that information.
Still Kagran. He's missing the forest for the trees with the Krenim Mary Sueperweapon. Ignore the wave motion gun for a minute and look at the rest of its features, like, I dunno, the temporal shielding that renders it invulnerable to enemy fire.
And yet, that temporal shielding did such a great job keeping the Annorax "safe" during the "Borg Assault" portion of Butterfly.
Yeah, she held together, in one complete piece, under massive amounts of Borg Sphere fire, as it wiped the transwarp gateway to "de-assimilate New Romulus".
And since said temporal shields failed in both their job of keeping the KIS Annorax "safe" and keeping the crew aware of what they came from - we now have an oddball situation...
First off, I propose a name change from Temporal "Investigations" to "Instigations". Because it's pretty obvious that they don't just "investigate" what could go wrong with temporal shenanigans and fix them - they participate in creating temporal issues that need "new agents" to fix. Because is not the Temporal Shielded Core from the KIS Annorax a "dangerous bit of temporal information" that needed to be "sterilized" so that, oh, Noye didn't go ballistic?
Secondly, Why aren't we just rushing off to do just that? I just saw a log that says "Noye's entire manipulation of the Timeline / restoration of the Krenim to time-manipulator status, etc. etc. is caused 100% by his "love" for an "non-existant" person". Remove said information from his head (again), remove the rationale for this muck-up-the-timeline.
Obviously, Temporal Instigations thinks that leaving one item from an alternate timeline and allowing their carefully tracked timelines to "go bonkers" was what "needs" to happen.
Thirdly, I'd like to know who is in charge of deciding what timeline is the one that needs to be "maintained"? I have a bone to pick with him about letting Nero's "accidental incursion" fly... and/or how long they elected to "let it ride" before they reintegrated it into the "one true timestream" that's necessary to prevent a universe ending paradox caused by two timelines existing" in the same instant"...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
[quote="velqua;12838964"That being said, I did like the episode overall. I do wonder why Nog and the rest of the alliance team didn't report what was on the logs from the temporal shielded core. Nog sounded like he was going to be all over that information.[/quote]
he probably filed it with Starfleet, but then we beat the Iconians so it didn't matter much anymore. Probably some clerk would have read the memo in a few months
LUKARI GUERILLA GARDENING MILITIA - Glowing fingers are Growing fingers!
I do wonder why Nog and the rest of the alliance team didn't report what was on the logs from the temporal shielded core. Nog sounded like he was going to be all over that information.
IIRC, going over the files in the temporally shielded computer core was a project given to Noye. After he found Clauda's files, it was only a matter of filtering information in his reports to Nog and Alliance Command.
The characters had no way to suspect Noye was going to turn on them:
Remember, when the temporal shielding collapsed the Annorax crew's lives conformed to the changes made as they reintegrated into this new, altered reality. After the second incursion they had no clue that the Tuterians ever existed. They also had no idea (Noye himself included!) that Noye had a Tuterian wife that acted as a counterbalance to his... uh... a-Noye-ing attitude... The revelation that his calculations cost him his family was probably too much to bear, so he decided to blame us instead.
Administrator Traala should have listened to that security officer sooner... she's lucky to be alive after Noye rigged that console and got her zapped.
Post edited by kelettes on
"Ad astra audacter eamus in alis fidelium."
-
"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
He could even not known what really happened at the end - they did the calculations, and then immedatelly after it tried to 'fix' the timeline back to the orginal one - i doubt they had time (heh) to leave long logs entry for themselves (if any, it would be short note or something like that).
And with Noye attitude to Federation, (and as you noted - not balanced by Claude) it's not that strange, that he blamed Federation for any possible failure...
That was even noted, when they finished that mission - there was talk with Noye, when he says something like "You must make some error..." - Yep it was all ours fault, not his... right ...
Oh noes! [name redacted] has stolen the super-ship!
Whatever can we do about this? We can't go back in time half an hour and take the key out of the super-ship's ignition. We can't go back in time twenty years and book [name redacted] into a high-quality anger management course. We can't even go back in time five minutes and whack [name redacted] over the head with a length of lead pipe....
... wait a minute, actually we can do any and all of these things, because we have got *bleep*ing time machines.
This is the problem with time travel as a plot element; two minutes of thinking through the implications, and you can come up with ways to break the story.
You go run around doing what Captain Walker tells you. Me, I have a length of lead pipe and am shortly going to have an appointment with [name redacted]. (And if some skinny twerp pops up, ranting about "fixed point in time" and "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry", I'll just whack him over the head as well.)
No argument. That mission was disappointing on a number of levels. Visually outstanding, but a hot mess plot-wise. Worst of all, it's far too long and the combat is repetitive and tiresome. That last sequence chasing the Annorax was completely unnecessary. Can't say that Noye going supervillain was totally unexpected, though somehow I managed to miss seeing the Sphere Builder connection.
So most of the last couple of years has been about tying up loose threads from "Voyager". Apparently now it's "Enterprise"'s turn... while I agree there are a lot of loose ends to choose from there, I can't say I'm happy about it. Because it pretty much signals that we're in for a long stretch of "Back to the Future" missions and the time traveling shenanigans are already starting to wear thin because as Shevet says, the implications of time travel are being ignored.
The fact that we know exactly when Noye makes his move and how, because he's dumb enough to tell us, means that it should take all of five minutes or less in real time to neutralize him by showing up in his past at a time of our own choosing.
The lesson learned from the Temporal Cold War and from the DTI novels -- and even from "Back To the Future, Part II" -- is that you only have an advantage in a time war when you can keep your enemies in the dark about who you are and what you manipulate. Once the secret is out and they can pin you down to a particular time and place, a patient time traveler WILL find you and wreck your plans and if he/she is really good you'll never remember they did it. Though to be fair, the bad guys always have an advantage because they know the history you're trying to protect while the good guys don't always know what the bad guys are trying to change.
In this case, we know exactly what Noye wants, how he plans to do it, and that the Annorax is a vital part of his plan. We know when and where the Annorax will be in the past and he can't stop us from derailing his plan before he finishes dreaming it up. He, on the other hand, can't afford to destroy the Federation too early because of the Iconians, who would end up targeting the Krenim sooner or later in any timeline, and the Annorax would never be built.
If the Dev team is smart, they will shift gears and focus more heavily on the Na'Khul... they're the real threat. The history that turns them into a time-travelling enemy of the Federation is history that the Federation's temporal agents can't afford to tinker with, while the Na'Khul have nothing to lose. This should be a cat-and-mouse game, a cloak-and-dagger affair. A series of events trying to figure out their strategy while doing damage control and a well-planned operation to defeat it by driving the Na'Khul into the events of "Stormfront" that ultimately destroy them. THAT could be a heck of a story arc. I now fear that is not the story arc we're going to get.
just boring: Annorax is back with an other name. the lack of imagination is pitiful
I will admit that tying the Krenim in with the Sphere Builders is a bit of a twist, that could end up as a good plot if it were executed well. But until and unless they fix the holes in their time travel cause-and-effect and make it more convincing, it's going to be dicey.
My only problem with that mission, oddly enough, is that the future wasn't futuristic enough. Technology didn't seem to be any more advanced (we can take out a 28th century Na'Kuhl warship in a 25th century vessel), and all of the major factions present at the conference were exactly the same as they are in 2410. They even wore the same uniforms for the most part! Apparently not one of those cultures underwent changes in four centuries.
"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
Ok, so I would have started a new thread under "Acadamy" but I can't start new threads yet so here it goes: I did this mission, and when I went to claim the rewards, it said that a new one will open up on Feb 4th ( I could really use that tactical console). If I wait till then to claim my rewards, will that open up for me, or am I stuck because I didvthe mission too soon. Thanks, I have only been playing for a couple weeks.
Don't worry about it. Open the rewards. Just play it again next weekend, you'll get new options next week. Hit 'l' to open your log panel, flip to the 'episodes' tab. Select the 'featured episode' arc, and replay the mission. You can replay it as often as you like, with the usual 30 minute cooldown between runs.
You know, i wonder if devs checked the mission for this possible situation:
after 18th Febr. my 15th level toon will choose Admirality Bundle reward... oops - my Admirality is still not unlocked... possible effect: i do not get the Pastak ship card, but system will remember, that i choose it, and will not allow me to get it when i hit level 52 ... oww!
You know, i wonder if devs checked the mission for this possible situation:
after 18th Febr. my 15th level toon will choose Admirality Bundle reward... oops - my Admirality is still not unlocked... possible effect: i do not get the Pastak ship card, but system will remember, that i choose it, and will not allow me to get it when i hit level 52 ... oww!
I think you can (theoretically) get Admiralty cards early, just not mission slots or missions. Might be misremembering, though.
It's possible that it won't let you open the box until level 52.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
You know, i wonder if devs checked the mission for this possible situation:
after 18th Febr. my 15th level toon will choose Admirality Bundle reward... oops - my Admirality is still not unlocked... possible effect: i do not get the Pastak ship card, but system will remember, that i choose it, and will not allow me to get it when i hit level 52 ... oww!
I think you can (theoretically) get Admiralty cards early, just not mission slots or missions. Might be misremembering, though.
It's possible that it won't let you open the box until level 52.
with Doffs, you can actually acquire doffs through mail or exchange before getting to level 10.
Comments
I like time travel stories done well, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back to exploring strange new worlds and revisiting the unfolding history of old ST plots (that don't have to do with time travel).
Can't argue with that. Hopefully the next season/expansion moves on to something else. Looking forward to more hints about what's coming in 2016 (and 2410!)
Just shield it, fly it into the Herald Sphere, and use it to launch a sunkiller weapon into the Iconian sun. Boom, no more enemy beachhead, no more enemy fleet, no more Iconians, no more invasion. Oh, and it's a non-time travel solution! And it's poetic justice for the billions of innocent people they murdered when they blew up Hobus. (And no, I don't give two TRIBBLE what the Iconians used to be like, I only care what they are now: the worst group of mass murderers in galactic history. The canon resolution is as bad as Kyp Durron in the Jedi Academy Trilogy, except he only killed 25 million people instead of tens of billions.)
@shevet and I both came up with variants of that plan independently. And in point of fact, you don't even need the Mary Sueperweapon for the plan: per "House Pratfall", cloaking devices work against the Iconians.
As for the mission? Yet again, our characters just stand there and let a hamtastic shithead rant at us and run away instead of shooting him in the face while he's babbling about how evil he is. GG, Craptic.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
OK, seriously, I quite liked this mission. New Khitomer is breathtaking and the story doesn't take one side (I was mostly on the side of the Na'Kuhl because they get the shaft in this whole situation). But I found the ending or the lack of an ending very underwhelming. It didn't even feel like a cliffhanger like when we discovered the Andromeda Sphere jumped in the Beta Quadrant and we're left with this massive ship container dwarfing everything. Also, the fight against the main enemy was quite lame, I was expecting a cutscene where he tries to wipe us out of existence or something dynamic.
Oh and,
Unfortunately, the fact the story is going into this direction also leads to some foregone conclusions:
-the Na'Kuhl will become more active in other missions (due to their actions and the next lockbox), so the Temporal Accords probably succeed and they decide to become more aggressive with messing with the timeline to try and make the Federation pay... again
-the story is gonna be so messy to follow, but when you're meddling with time travel and continuity between various medias, that's asking for it
My character Tsin'xing
The Admirality card is:
34 TAC
66 SCI
18 h maintenance
+8 SCI per EngShip or TacShip
They expect you to play the mission a second time next week, then a third, fourth, ect for all of the prizes.
then armed with that knowledge from a future that never happened but back on the original course before all the time manipulations, you manage to convince kagren and the krenim to instead target back to the iconian fall to recover the sphere of knowledge and gift it to the iconians in a sign of peace before they could mount their final charge in the beta quadrant. many lives are saved, noye no longer has a reason to be angry as clauda still lives with child and the iconian conflict ended. then fast forward to the signing of the accord without issue.
this is what i expect to see in future content :P.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Hey, that's a great idea. Hey, Noye! You want to erase NX-01? I'll help!
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
You'll just wreak havoc with the timeline that way. Erase the scripts for Enterprise, instead, so they don't manage to introduce the inconsistencies in the first place.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Me: *sweating* *eyes darting around the room* Yeah, can you imagine? Some people, huh? *whispering to First Officer* Elisa, *cough* orders from Starfleet Command regarding Iconians *cough* paper shredder.
Elisa Flores: Don't worry, Admiral. Clearly history has already forgotten our war with the Iconians.
Me: *rolling my eyes* If only I could forget that Season.
Whatever can we do about this? We can't go back in time half an hour and take the key out of the super-ship's ignition. We can't go back in time twenty years and book [name redacted] into a high-quality anger management course. We can't even go back in time five minutes and whack [name redacted] over the head with a length of lead pipe....
... wait a minute, actually we can do any and all of these things, because we have got *bleep*ing time machines.
This is the problem with time travel as a plot element; two minutes of thinking through the implications, and you can come up with ways to break the story.
You go run around doing what Captain Walker tells you. Me, I have a length of lead pipe and am shortly going to have an appointment with [name redacted]. (And if some skinny twerp pops up, ranting about "fixed point in time" and "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry", I'll just whack him over the head as well.)
Isn't that why the Annorax and presumably other Timeships have Temporal Shielding ? Basically exist in their own "moment" and can't be messed with by timeline shenanigans. Or the TIC's job would be far easier.
That being said, I did like the episode overall. I do wonder why Nog and the rest of the alliance team didn't report what was on the logs from the temporal shielded core. Nog sounded like he was going to be all over that information.
And yet, that temporal shielding did such a great job keeping the Annorax "safe" during the "Borg Assault" portion of Butterfly.
Yeah, she held together, in one complete piece, under massive amounts of Borg Sphere fire, as it wiped the transwarp gateway to "de-assimilate New Romulus".
And since said temporal shields failed in both their job of keeping the KIS Annorax "safe" and keeping the crew aware of what they came from - we now have an oddball situation...
Secondly, Why aren't we just rushing off to do just that? I just saw a log that says "Noye's entire manipulation of the Timeline / restoration of the Krenim to time-manipulator status, etc. etc. is caused 100% by his "love" for an "non-existant" person". Remove said information from his head (again), remove the rationale for this muck-up-the-timeline.
Obviously, Temporal Instigations thinks that leaving one item from an alternate timeline and allowing their carefully tracked timelines to "go bonkers" was what "needs" to happen.
Thirdly, I'd like to know who is in charge of deciding what timeline is the one that needs to be "maintained"? I have a bone to pick with him about letting Nero's "accidental incursion" fly... and/or how long they elected to "let it ride" before they reintegrated it into the "one true timestream" that's necessary to prevent a universe ending paradox caused by two timelines existing" in the same instant"...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
he probably filed it with Starfleet, but then we beat the Iconians so it didn't matter much anymore. Probably some clerk would have read the memo in a few months
IIRC, going over the files in the temporally shielded computer core was a project given to Noye. After he found Clauda's files, it was only a matter of filtering information in his reports to Nog and Alliance Command.
The characters had no way to suspect Noye was going to turn on them:
Remember, when the temporal shielding collapsed the Annorax crew's lives conformed to the changes made as they reintegrated into this new, altered reality. After the second incursion they had no clue that the Tuterians ever existed. They also had no idea (Noye himself included!) that Noye had a Tuterian wife that acted as a counterbalance to his... uh... a-Noye-ing attitude... The revelation that his calculations cost him his family was probably too much to bear, so he decided to blame us instead.
Administrator Traala should have listened to that security officer sooner... she's lucky to be alive after Noye rigged that console and got her zapped.
-
"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
And with Noye attitude to Federation, (and as you noted - not balanced by Claude) it's not that strange, that he blamed Federation for any possible failure...
That was even noted, when they finished that mission - there was talk with Noye, when he says something like "You must make some error..." - Yep it was all ours fault, not his... right ...
No argument. That mission was disappointing on a number of levels. Visually outstanding, but a hot mess plot-wise. Worst of all, it's far too long and the combat is repetitive and tiresome. That last sequence chasing the Annorax was completely unnecessary. Can't say that Noye going supervillain was totally unexpected, though somehow I managed to miss seeing the Sphere Builder connection.
So most of the last couple of years has been about tying up loose threads from "Voyager". Apparently now it's "Enterprise"'s turn... while I agree there are a lot of loose ends to choose from there, I can't say I'm happy about it. Because it pretty much signals that we're in for a long stretch of "Back to the Future" missions and the time traveling shenanigans are already starting to wear thin because as Shevet says, the implications of time travel are being ignored.
The fact that we know exactly when Noye makes his move and how, because he's dumb enough to tell us, means that it should take all of five minutes or less in real time to neutralize him by showing up in his past at a time of our own choosing.
The lesson learned from the Temporal Cold War and from the DTI novels -- and even from "Back To the Future, Part II" -- is that you only have an advantage in a time war when you can keep your enemies in the dark about who you are and what you manipulate. Once the secret is out and they can pin you down to a particular time and place, a patient time traveler WILL find you and wreck your plans and if he/she is really good you'll never remember they did it. Though to be fair, the bad guys always have an advantage because they know the history you're trying to protect while the good guys don't always know what the bad guys are trying to change.
In this case, we know exactly what Noye wants, how he plans to do it, and that the Annorax is a vital part of his plan. We know when and where the Annorax will be in the past and he can't stop us from derailing his plan before he finishes dreaming it up. He, on the other hand, can't afford to destroy the Federation too early because of the Iconians, who would end up targeting the Krenim sooner or later in any timeline, and the Annorax would never be built.
If the Dev team is smart, they will shift gears and focus more heavily on the Na'Khul... they're the real threat. The history that turns them into a time-travelling enemy of the Federation is history that the Federation's temporal agents can't afford to tinker with, while the Na'Khul have nothing to lose. This should be a cat-and-mouse game, a cloak-and-dagger affair. A series of events trying to figure out their strategy while doing damage control and a well-planned operation to defeat it by driving the Na'Khul into the events of "Stormfront" that ultimately destroy them. THAT could be a heck of a story arc. I now fear that is not the story arc we're going to get.
I will admit that tying the Krenim in with the Sphere Builders is a bit of a twist, that could end up as a good plot if it were executed well. But until and unless they fix the holes in their time travel cause-and-effect and make it more convincing, it's going to be dicey.
"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
Don't worry about it. Open the rewards. Just play it again next weekend, you'll get new options next week. Hit 'l' to open your log panel, flip to the 'episodes' tab. Select the 'featured episode' arc, and replay the mission. You can replay it as often as you like, with the usual 30 minute cooldown between runs.
"Holy [bleep]! It's the Annorax!"
"I bet Noye's over there saying 'Oh [bleep], it's Borealis and Shogun."
"... Yeah, I'm _sure_ he's saying that."
(I am soooo watching Top Gun this weekend.)
after 18th Febr. my 15th level toon will choose Admirality Bundle reward... oops - my Admirality is still not unlocked... possible effect: i do not get the Pastak ship card, but system will remember, that i choose it, and will not allow me to get it when i hit level 52
I think you can (theoretically) get Admiralty cards early, just not mission slots or missions. Might be misremembering, though.
It's possible that it won't let you open the box until level 52.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
This is likely. Usually how it ends up working with level-restricted stuff like spec points.
My character Tsin'xing