At the VERY least, the authors utterly failed to give nuance to the situation by showing us nothing that would even begin to explain the hamfisted insults the Feds started hurling at the Na'kuhl for no reason. I mean, what are we supposed to think, the galaxy freaked out because they thought the Na'kuhl were ugly and stinky when we were never shown anything in the episode that was anything but our own actions? The way things were going before the devs decided to hit everyone over the head with a political 2x4, it seemed like we were going to get at least a fairly rational buildup to the war between the Feds and the Na'kuhl, perhaps something that began to show the Na'kuhl in multiple factions, some just wanting to peacefully settle somewhere else, and some wanting bloodthirsty revenge, and spiraling the situation out of control in a manner that would actually seem like a logical buildup.
I mean, is the whole mercy mission that the Federation sent with a Lukari face on it, now retconned out? There was a whole plot thread there that was literally axed for NO logical reason and is now being ignored like it never happened.
Now we're supposed to believe that the ONLY reason ANYTHING ever happened in the Temporal Cold War is because "The Federation called the Na'kuhl bad names and flipped out on them because they smell?" Because that is seriously how "convincing" the way it is written was to me.
That is just bad writing. Period. That is not rational. That is trying to be "timely" in a way that doesn't even obey the basic laws of logic and broke whatever plot was supposed to have gone forward before getting on the campaign bandwagon.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Eek... It appears in STO, Section 31 is part of the official intelligence services of the Federation.
I reject this fiction and substitute my own.
Otherwise a nice read. Though it seems unlikely that Lwaxana is still around and in an important function. (It would actually have been fun if they had twisted things and made it "the other" Troi... )
I agree. However, I think this is just the afterglow of early STO, when the story writers actually confused Starfleet Intelligence and Section 31, like a lot of fans did and still do as well.
Considering your section 31 missions were "Get to a battle front. You found something worse than our war? Time to save the quadrant." And the Starfleet Intelligence was go check on a traitor and a second one to commit war crimes. I can see why we might have been confused on who the bad guys were.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Ferris has made valid points that need to be taken into consideration. It seems that the Federation government is hell bent on revisiting the general utopian malaise that gripped it in the 24th Century (a century that Troi is a product of). Everybody, except for a intelligent few, are ready to stick their damned heads back into the sand, since there are no obvious baddies directly threatening the UFP proper post-Iconia.
Let's review for a moment. From 2409 (the breakdown of the Khitomer Accords) to 2410 (the present in STO):
-The UFP clashed with the Klingon Empire, thanks to outside meddling by a race that was being meddled with themselves.
-The UFP clashed with the splinter elements of a dangerously fractured Romulan Star Empire (who were in that state because of outside meddling and plotting).
-The UFP has been clashing with dishonored Imperial Great Houses, Gorn seperatists, the forces of a disgruntled Klingon diplomat, Orion freebooters, ruthless Ferengi crooks, Nausicaan raiders, rogue scientists, hostile minor powers, and smugglers/pirates.
-The UFP lost a vital, strategic base of operations to a lost Dominion Fleet, which took the cooperation of two major powers (three if we count our RRF characters post-LoR) to take back.
-The UFP clashed with the Breen Confederacy.
-The UFP, along with most everybody else, has been clashing with a resurgent Borg Collective.
-The UFP, along with everybody else, has clashed with Undine.
-The UFP has clashed with a well funded, well equipped Cardassian terrorist organization and their rogue ex-Dominion allies.
-The UFP ran afoul of the Devidians, who were once again on the hunt.
-The UFP has clashed with, and is currently in a "brushfire war" with, the Terran Empire.
-The UFP has clashed with the Tholian Assembly
-The UFP has clashed with Hirogen hunting parties far from their traditional territory.
-The UFP is currently in a low level conflict with the Voth as part of an alliance of Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers.
-The UFP is currently in hostilities with a rogue Krenim scientist and his private army armed with temporal technology and weaponry.
-The UFP has clashed with a (still hostile) Vaadwaur Supremacy that has been bolstered by Iconian support and technology.
-The UFP has clashed with the Iconians' servitor races, and fought a destructive conflict with the Iconians themselves.
Now that's a pretty big freakin' list (some of which are POWERFUL entities). Especially in the timespan of just a decade. It is because of that, people like Ferris and his political allies, are understandably cautious and concerned. Concerns that need to be addressed, and not casually dismissed as the fear mongering of a bunch of paranoids.
Now, I'm all for making new friends, diplomacy, humanitarian missions, etc, etc. However, idealism must be tempered with a healthy dose of reality, Because of recent history, the UFP needs to play it safe, and drop the knee-jerk paternalism, in the name of plain old fashioned common sense. We know the Na'kuhl (or, at least, some of them) will attempt to bring down the Federation at some point with time traveling shenanigans, regardless of any olive branches the Federation might extent to them. Any Na'kuhl allowed sanctuary should be carefully vetted, because anguish and perceived injustice has a nasty tendency to breed radicalism. And having a bunch of pissed off individuals, with an ax to grind against you, inside your borders with free reign, is a clear sign of stupidity and a break with reality.
This is an impressive list and it does seem extreme. But let's look at a year in Jean Luc's time. Face off with two godlike beings one that put humanity on trial with the threat of erasing them from existence. One that got angry and annihilated an entire species. Faced Ferengi pirates and saboteurs, including mind control attempts on a captain. Rogue Klingons trying to restart a war. Cold sleep Klingons trying to win an old war. The list per year of major threats the Enterprise alone faced was staggering if just listed. And it kept going. Facing off against the re-emerged romulans. Whole colonies lost to what was later found to be the borg. Facing the borg on multiple occasions. Terrorist suicide bombers enroute to blow up negotiations. The ships stolen by a member race of the Federation. Rogues trying to steal weapons grade material from the ship during decontamination.
To quote Q. "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
I agree with caution. I also agree with being better than the pirates that just take things by force of arms. Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become. The events at the accords have already shown us that what happens with the nak'ghoul does not have to happen at all. Because for us, the future is still fluid.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
At the VERY least, the authors utterly failed to give nuance to the situation by showing us nothing that would even begin to explain the hamfisted insults the Feds started hurling at the Na'kuhl for no reason. I mean, what are we supposed to think, the galaxy freaked out because they thought the Na'kuhl were ugly and stinky when we were never shown anything in the episode that was anything but our own actions? The way things were going before the devs decided to hit everyone over the head with a political 2x4, it seemed like we were going to get at least a fairly rational buildup to the war between the Feds and the Na'kuhl, perhaps something that began to show the Na'kuhl in multiple factions, some just wanting to peacefully settle somewhere else, and some wanting bloodthirsty revenge, and spiraling the situation out of control in a manner that would actually seem like a logical buildup.
I mean, is the whole mercy mission that the Federation sent with a Lukari face on it, now retconned out? There was a whole plot thread there that was literally axed for NO logical reason and is now being ignored like it never happened.
I refuse to call something bad writing when the work is still incomplete. Time travel almost by necessity in these situations has to be a bit of a mystery. Especially when we have a Temporal Prime Directive saying we can't know or it will TRIBBLE with our decisions and what happens, and an attack on the signing of the Temporal Accords which was clearly off script.
I also don't see how this story piece is a hamfisted attempt to shoehorn modern politics in. It fits. While we're waiting for Walker to show up again, the Na'khul are still a species in peril. We are not the center of the universe so of course the Federation government is going to go over this. Yes there is the refugee crisis of the Syrians, but the Na'khul homeworld is freezing, of course there's going to be a refugee crisis of epic proportions. That's a logical progression.
A larger issue here is that it hasn't been addressed that the Na'khul have thrown us out of their system and said they don't want our help. That puts a Prime Directive sized wall between us doing anything. That is something that has been left out.
The Na'khul at the Temporal Accords signing spoke of insults but that was three centuries down the line. Of course we don't know what happened between now and then.
There's nothing here that indicates that there still won't be a war. But just like in Star Trek VI the Federation is caught between helping the Klingons or treating them as hostile as ever. There isn't anything that precludes the Na'khul splintering or going to military engagement.
Why would the Lukari mission be retconned out. It's clear that it failed or is ongoing as stealthily as possible.
Now we're supposed to believe that the ONLY reason ANYTHING ever happened in the Temporal Cold War is because "The Federation called the Na'kuhl bad names and flipped out on them because they smell?" Because that is seriously how "convincing" the way it is written was to me.
That is just bad writing. Period. That is not rational. That is trying to be "timely" in a way that doesn't even obey the basic laws of logic and broke whatever plot was supposed to have gone forward before getting on the campaign bandwagon.
I don't believe any of that.
We don't know how this spiraled out of control yet.
There are other things though that need answering. Why is the time travel genie out of the bottle for one? How is it that people are saying that everyone has time travel all of a sudden? Why wouldn't that be strictly an Alliance secret? Were scans of the Annorax disseminated throughout the quadrant?
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
The story certainly seems to have some allegories to the current refugee discussions in Europe. Probably not a coincidence.
It's not. In some ways, Star Trek has been about addressing current issues in a sci-fi setting. At least from ToS-DS9. I haven't watched enough of Voyager and Enterprise to see if the trend follows. They sometimes had better writing, or at least acting to make it not seem so hamfisted like several things in STO do. Considering how forced the "It's the current year!" thing has been online for the past several months, I can't take any writing that injects it into a story seriously. Then again, the writing is no less forced than the episode of TNG where Riker bangs the asexual alien who then wants to be a girl and then brainwashed into becoming "normal" again.
Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become. The events at the accords have already shown us that what happens with the nak'ghoul does not have to happen at all. Because for us, the future is still fluid.
I dunno... Did they actually lose their HW? It wasn't blown up. It's just a lot colder now.
Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become. The events at the accords have already shown us that what happens with the nak'ghoul does not have to happen at all. Because for us, the future is still fluid.
I dunno... Did they actually lose their HW? It wasn't blown up. It's just a lot colder now.
Sure the planet is still there, but the damage to its biosphere rendered it basically uninhabitable (well, maybe not for the Breen).
Remember the Dewans? Their world entered an ice age after that tectonic apocalypse triggered when they tried to play with an Iconian gateway. And the Dewans still had two stars to shine for them.
Now imagine what the Na'kuhl homeworld must be going through without no heat source at all.
Yeah. As far as the Na'kuhl are concerned, their world is pretty much lost to them. Especially with no known ways to reignite the star.
-- and yes, let's forget about the Tox Uthat (which was possibly damaged by the Tholians beyond repair anyway). It's buried on Risa so Picard can find it, and there it stays.
"Ad astra audacter eamus in alis fidelium."
-
"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
Of course the loss of the Na'kuhl star would create a refugee crisis, but it really looks as though the writers just pulled this whole business of the Feds calling the Na'kuhl all sorts of horrible names and such out of thin air. Prior to their deciding to get all "current events" with it, there was exactly zero to substantiate any other charge but the Na'kuhl being paranoid and extremely blunt. Zero. Nada. Niente. Nichevo. And on top of that we had some Na'kuhl actually willing to accept an attempt to help reignite their star.
Now ALL of that potential for subtlety is gone, replaced by "Let's rip the headlines from the paper, file off the names, and twist around whatever logic we have to, to make our political jabs." The Feds go from helpful and in character to screaming xenophobia with NO possible reason for the sudden change, no Na'kuhl acts on the record at that point to show why anyone might even begin to feel that way. It really makes the analogy incredibly shallow: the Na'kuhl were set up as angelic chew toys in demonic disguise, if you get down to it...almost a Mary Sue species, and then you get this Fed guy set up as a mustache twirler for no other reason but to be his own caricature. And not even good caricatures in either case...incredibly shallow and without even attempting to show any understanding of what makes people on the other side tick except for insults and stereotypes.
The change literally came out of nowhere with no grounding, compared to where the plot was headed before they decided to inject Tr--Ferris into it. And that obvious lack of groundwork, preplanning, and even an attempt at subtlety, really tanks the whole story arc. You cannot be reactive in writing something like this, especially with the kind of lead times required to produce a *good* episode, and expect it not to be full of a million plot, characterization, and other holes.
DS9 used to handle this kind of stuff a lot better. Take a look at an episode like "In the Hands of the Prophets," where you see all sides of an argument represented faithfully, without being insulting, and with good people on all sides of the debate, AND even, in Vedek Bareil, something one rarely sees on TV, and that is a well portrayed middle/moderate path. THAT is the caliber of writing I expect to see when you take on a major issue, not Kohms/Yangs level writing, which is what I have seen here.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become. The events at the accords have already shown us that what happens with the nak'ghoul does not have to happen at all. Because for us, the future is still fluid.
I dunno... Did they actually lose their HW? It wasn't blown up. It's just a lot colder now.
No, it's dying now.
Their ecosystem is starving. Any planet is going to evolve to take advantage of the conditions and will work only when those conditions are maintained. If you turned off the sun, then every plant on this planet would die, then every animal that eats plants would starve and die, and then every animal that eats animals that eats plants would starve and die. You can't get far enough up the food chain to escape, except animals that live around and derive their nourishment from thermal vents.
Since the Na'khul homeworld developed on a planet with a star, then it is reasonable to assume that the ecosystem relies on the sun to survive. Even without that the loss of temperature will create an eternal winter, a planet of permafrost. No more weather, no more day, also no more solar system scale magnetic field to keep out cosmic radiation, though mercifully that means they won't have to worry about solar radiation.
Replacing a star as the primary source of light and energy for a planet for any period of time would require Iconian/T'Kon level technology at a minimum.
Sure we could spot them an Omega Molecule from one of the Dyson Spheres...but even we don't know how to reliably use that technology. The people who built it got themselves blown to subspace. If the Na'khul experience a malfunction and an Omega detonation, then if you don't blow up their world, you lock them in from any spaceborne help by destroying the capacity for superluminal flight for at least five light years and likely the whole sector. Isolating them on a world with a dead star.
It's a slow death, but without intervention, a certain one.
Of course the loss of the Na'kuhl star would create a refugee crisis, but it really looks as though the writers just pulled this whole business of the Feds calling the Na'kuhl all sorts of horrible names and such out of thin air. Prior to their deciding to get all "current events" with it, there was exactly zero to substantiate any other charge but the Na'kuhl being paranoid and extremely blunt. Zero. Nada. Niente. Nichevo. And on top of that we had some Na'kuhl actually willing to accept an attempt to help reignite their star.
Now ALL of that potential for subtlety is gone, replaced by "Let's rip the headlines from the paper, file off the names, and twist around whatever logic we have to, to make our political jabs." The Feds go from helpful and in character to screaming xenophobia with NO possible reason for the sudden change, no Na'kuhl acts on the record at that point to show why anyone might even begin to feel that way. It really makes the analogy incredibly shallow: the Na'kuhl were set up as angelic chew toys in demonic disguise, if you get down to it...almost a Mary Sue species, and then you get this Fed guy set up as a mustache twirler for no other reason but to be his own caricature. And not even good caricatures in either case...incredibly shallow and without even attempting to show any understanding of what makes people on the other side tick except for insults and stereotypes.
The change literally came out of nowhere with no grounding, compared to where the plot was headed before they decided to inject Tr--Ferris into it. And that obvious lack of groundwork, preplanning, and even an attempt at subtlety, really tanks the whole story arc. You cannot be reactive in writing something like this, especially with the kind of lead times required to produce a *good* episode, and expect it not to be full of a million plot, characterization, and other holes.
DS9 used to handle this kind of stuff a lot better. Take a look at an episode like "In the Hands of the Prophets," where you see all sides of an argument represented faithfully, without being insulting, and with good people on all sides of the debate, AND even, in Vedek Bareil, something one rarely sees on TV, and that is a well portrayed middle/moderate path. THAT is the caliber of writing I expect to see when you take on a major issue, not Kohms/Yangs level writing, which is what I have seen here.
I disagree.
They have our report about the events in the 29th century where a Na'khul told us what we called them in the intervening 300 years. We have people on these boards who call them terrorists and what not without differentiating. Not intending to lump them all in, but it's a normal thing that comes out with events like these. One group of rogues can get an entire group labeled, Enterprise highlighted that with the Suliban. Ferris was basing this off of our future report and information from Section 31 of all places whose statements I wouldn't trust implicitly if they said space was black. Reports of what they are capable of today, and reports of things they could possibly do in the future from a future where they actually did them.
On the same note, clearly the President of the United Federation of Planets and one of its longest tenured diplomats are against this overly defensive position Ferris has taken, so while he will surely have his backers, it's not the whole Federation suddenly turning on its own principles. There is a disagreement between people of principles and positions. Ferris isn't the first, he just happens to be a higher ranked Cartwright. You are going to have people who gain positions of power and care about our own people first and anyone else never. The Pactons, the Cartwrights, the Pressmans, the Leytons, the Alexander Marcus'es.
This is the type of thing where you can either portray the Federation as an enlightened Utopia, or you portray it as a normal benevolent honest organization with billions of individuals whom any individual one or group can still behave stupidly or aggressively and make mistakes and then we as a whole work to avert the mistake or repair the damage after the fact. Roddenberry preferred the former, the DS9 team preferred the latter.
And again, this is a single installment. This is a single scene from a multi-part episode. We won't know if it "tanks" the arc or is just a setup for "salvaging" the arc later.
This is far above the "Omega Glory" there's no need to be needlessly insulting.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Personally, I don't much care for this time travel fad. Everyone and his dog can time travel now. It makes it almost impossible to have a single timeline, and it can be used as a plot device to change pretty much anything in the game.
Cheap parlor tricks.
No, it's actually that Cryptic was given a heads up by CBS that a new sequel to TNG is coming out, and STO needs to transition to the new canon. Therefore, we need to go through timeline shenanigans striving to right what once went wrong, hoping each time the next leap will be the leap home.
Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become.
You mean like how the Federation has let countless civilizations die horribly for the rather arbitrary reason that they had not yet invented warp drive?
"No, it's actually that Cryptic was given a heads up by CBS that a new sequel to TNG is coming out, and STO needs to transition to the new canon. Therefore, we need to go through timeline shenanigans striving to right what once went wrong, hoping each time the next leap will be the leap home."
"No, it's actually that Cryptic was given a heads up by CBS that a new sequel to TNG is coming out, and STO needs to transition to the new canon. Therefore, we need to go through timeline shenanigans striving to right what once went wrong, hoping each time the next leap will be the leap home."
And you got this info where?
From logic, like any good Vulcan. CBS has announced a sequel to TNG coming out next January. STO is a sequel to TNG endorsed by CBS. The TV show will almost definitely not follow the STO storyline. Both stories can't be true. CBS & Paramount are already straddled between two separate timelines. Either STO or the new Star Trek series has to go. It won't be the series. Therefore, STO will be assimilated or shutdown. I highly doubt a cheap and historically unambitious, money-hating conglomerate like Viacom (owner of CBS & Paramount) will contract out new devs for a new Trek MMO to capitalize on the new series. They wouldn't even do that for their JJ films. The obvious logical conclusion that leaps off the screen upon reading this information is that STO will be retconned into the new TNG sequel by means time travel. It therefore comes as no surprise to see the new seasons leading up to next winter gearing up for a 'Year of Hell'-style erasure and reboot. The fortunate thing is that Cryptic doesn't have to remove any of the old missions because it's all a time travel story. And more likely than not, the new series will take place a lot farther in the future, conveniently leaving the events taking place during STO's era ambiguous, for ease of rectonnery. But it won't be too far ahead, since they will surely milk every single TNG era actor by the bucketful.
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say there's a 60% chance they'll retconn the hell of out STO, and a 40% chance CBS will pull the plug. We live in scary times! STO depends on an online streaming series, and Biff is about to become president of the United States.
Both CBS and Viacom are owned by National Amusements. The new series is almost certainly a sequel to TNG because nothing else could possibly catch on. People hate Star Trek.
Both CBS and Viacom are owned by National Amusements. The new series is almost certainly a sequel to TNG because nothing else could possibly catch on. People hate Star Trek.
All I can say is, Thank Goodness YOU are not the one making any of the decisions for the next series.
It sounds to me like you hate Trek, I certainly don't and would appreciate it in the future if you only speak for yourself.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
(...) Either STO or the new Star Trek series has to go.(...)
Why?
STO is just a licensed game, like the dozens of other Trek games that exist and don't follow canon.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Too bad nothing of this actually happens in the game
Foundry authors, get to it.
That wouldn't change a thing as foundry missions are "non canonical" for STOs lore. And it wouldn't have to be amission, it'd just be sufficient if those blogs were somehow in-game, but they are just make-believe that STO follows some sort of narrative when in truth it's just loose missions chained one after the other.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Both CBS and Viacom are owned by National Amusements. The new series is almost certainly a sequel to TNG because nothing else could possibly catch on. People hate Star Trek.
All I can say is, Thank Goodness YOU are not the one making any of the decisions for the next series.
It sounds to me like you hate Trek, I certainly don't and would appreciate it in the future if you only speak for yourself.
How did you interpret my statement of fact to mean that I hate Star Trek? I love real Star Trek. But the current owners of the franchise hate the franchise for goodness sake.
(...) Either STO or the new Star Trek series has to go.(...)
Why?
STO is just a licensed game, like the dozens of other Trek games that exist and don't follow canon.
Wrong, sir! Wrong! STO is a licensed MMO in an environment already saturated with spinoffs and an entire alternate universe now. MMOs have a long-term presence, unlike single-player games. New humans go play MMOs based off of popular new shows they like. If the new Trek catches on, kids will want to play the official Star Trek MMO. And how do you think they will react if the MMO bears absolutely no resemblance to the show they enjoy? Confusion kills off new fans during gestation. The only reason STO did not conform to JJ Trek was because of the corporate politics that forced JJ Abrams to walk away from the franchise. Do you honestly believe they will allow Star Trek to exist as 3 different universes at once? Nobody will know what the frell is going on anymore. Ergo, either STO will conform to the new canon or discontinue.
That being said, I can only predict the logical course of action, but whoever said the human race (especially CBS&Paramount) is logical?
Dey foeget about us Klengons we has people already told us about the future so we just laughing as the "coalition" tries to piece things together. The fight is over destroying the first targ blood pie to destroy our universe but we already ate it so they can't do nothing the end.
Wrong, sir! Wrong! STO is a licensed MMO in an environment already saturated with spinoffs and an entire alternate universe now. MMOs have a long-term presence, unlike single-player games. New humans go play MMOs based off of popular new shows they like. If the new Trek catches on, kids will want to play the official Star Trek MMO. And how do you think they will react if the MMO bears absolutely no resemblance to the show they enjoy? Confusion kills off new fans during gestation. The only reason STO did not conform to JJ Trek was because of the corporate politics that forced JJ Abrams to walk away from the franchise. Do you honestly believe they will allow Star Trek to exist as 3 different universes at once? Nobody will know what the frell is going on anymore. Ergo, either STO will conform to the new canon or discontinue.
That being said, I can only predict the logical course of action, but whoever said the human race (especially CBS&Paramount) is logical?
I'm not a Sir, I'm a Targ. Get your facts straight
Regarding the rest, unfortunately there's nothing supporting your theory. The fact that it's an MMO doesn't mean anything, STO is not a continuation of canon. It's just licensed work like Star Trek Timelines or Starfleet Academy or some novel (which are longer around than any game) or audio play.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Anytime an author has to use a character that is devoid of any redeemable qualities as the supporter of the opposing viewpoint to the one that the story is presenting as the right one, wreaks of poor writing.
This story could have been a good one but the author had to make a villian out of the person with the different viewpoint, thus bad writing.
Hehe, I think it's just that reality made a villain out of the person with the different viewpoint, and the authors failed to tone him down enough when they plagiarised him from the newspapers. OK, I'm sure the Mighty Hairdo does have redeeming features, but he does do a great job of looking at first blush as though he hasn't.
@whamhammer1 makes a great point. Setting up a fight against a straw man doesn't have the desired effect of making the "good guys" look stronger. It instead makes them weaker because everyone realizes they are not facing a real and credible challenge. It's actually one of the marks of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character or group, when you take the online Mary Sue Litmus Test, and rightly so.
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I mean, is the whole mercy mission that the Federation sent with a Lukari face on it, now retconned out? There was a whole plot thread there that was literally axed for NO logical reason and is now being ignored like it never happened.
Now we're supposed to believe that the ONLY reason ANYTHING ever happened in the Temporal Cold War is because "The Federation called the Na'kuhl bad names and flipped out on them because they smell?" Because that is seriously how "convincing" the way it is written was to me.
That is just bad writing. Period. That is not rational. That is trying to be "timely" in a way that doesn't even obey the basic laws of logic and broke whatever plot was supposed to have gone forward before getting on the campaign bandwagon.
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If not, then he is Hassan the Dead.
Yes, Ferris spoke of beaming in from Boston as though he had simply ridden a bus or commuter train.
Considering your section 31 missions were "Get to a battle front. You found something worse than our war? Time to save the quadrant." And the Starfleet Intelligence was go check on a traitor and a second one to commit war crimes. I can see why we might have been confused on who the bad guys were.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
This is an impressive list and it does seem extreme. But let's look at a year in Jean Luc's time. Face off with two godlike beings one that put humanity on trial with the threat of erasing them from existence. One that got angry and annihilated an entire species. Faced Ferengi pirates and saboteurs, including mind control attempts on a captain. Rogue Klingons trying to restart a war. Cold sleep Klingons trying to win an old war. The list per year of major threats the Enterprise alone faced was staggering if just listed. And it kept going. Facing off against the re-emerged romulans. Whole colonies lost to what was later found to be the borg. Facing the borg on multiple occasions. Terrorist suicide bombers enroute to blow up negotiations. The ships stolen by a member race of the Federation. Rogues trying to steal weapons grade material from the ship during decontamination.
To quote Q. "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
I agree with caution. I also agree with being better than the pirates that just take things by force of arms. Assisting people who have lost an entire world should be done and must be done. Or we are no better than what they supposedly will become. The events at the accords have already shown us that what happens with the nak'ghoul does not have to happen at all. Because for us, the future is still fluid.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I refuse to call something bad writing when the work is still incomplete. Time travel almost by necessity in these situations has to be a bit of a mystery. Especially when we have a Temporal Prime Directive saying we can't know or it will TRIBBLE with our decisions and what happens, and an attack on the signing of the Temporal Accords which was clearly off script.
I also don't see how this story piece is a hamfisted attempt to shoehorn modern politics in. It fits. While we're waiting for Walker to show up again, the Na'khul are still a species in peril. We are not the center of the universe so of course the Federation government is going to go over this. Yes there is the refugee crisis of the Syrians, but the Na'khul homeworld is freezing, of course there's going to be a refugee crisis of epic proportions. That's a logical progression.
A larger issue here is that it hasn't been addressed that the Na'khul have thrown us out of their system and said they don't want our help. That puts a Prime Directive sized wall between us doing anything. That is something that has been left out.
The Na'khul at the Temporal Accords signing spoke of insults but that was three centuries down the line. Of course we don't know what happened between now and then.
There's nothing here that indicates that there still won't be a war. But just like in Star Trek VI the Federation is caught between helping the Klingons or treating them as hostile as ever. There isn't anything that precludes the Na'khul splintering or going to military engagement.
Why would the Lukari mission be retconned out. It's clear that it failed or is ongoing as stealthily as possible.
I don't believe any of that.
We don't know how this spiraled out of control yet.
There are other things though that need answering. Why is the time travel genie out of the bottle for one? How is it that people are saying that everyone has time travel all of a sudden? Why wouldn't that be strictly an Alliance secret? Were scans of the Annorax disseminated throughout the quadrant?
It's not. In some ways, Star Trek has been about addressing current issues in a sci-fi setting. At least from ToS-DS9. I haven't watched enough of Voyager and Enterprise to see if the trend follows. They sometimes had better writing, or at least acting to make it not seem so hamfisted like several things in STO do. Considering how forced the "It's the current year!" thing has been online for the past several months, I can't take any writing that injects it into a story seriously. Then again, the writing is no less forced than the episode of TNG where Riker bangs the asexual alien who then wants to be a girl and then brainwashed into becoming "normal" again.
Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.
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My character Tsin'xing
Sure the planet is still there, but the damage to its biosphere rendered it basically uninhabitable (well, maybe not for the Breen).
Remember the Dewans? Their world entered an ice age after that tectonic apocalypse triggered when they tried to play with an Iconian gateway. And the Dewans still had two stars to shine for them.
Now imagine what the Na'kuhl homeworld must be going through without no heat source at all.
Yeah. As far as the Na'kuhl are concerned, their world is pretty much lost to them. Especially with no known ways to reignite the star.
-- and yes, let's forget about the Tox Uthat (which was possibly damaged by the Tholians beyond repair anyway). It's buried on Risa so Picard can find it, and there it stays.
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"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
Now ALL of that potential for subtlety is gone, replaced by "Let's rip the headlines from the paper, file off the names, and twist around whatever logic we have to, to make our political jabs." The Feds go from helpful and in character to screaming xenophobia with NO possible reason for the sudden change, no Na'kuhl acts on the record at that point to show why anyone might even begin to feel that way. It really makes the analogy incredibly shallow: the Na'kuhl were set up as angelic chew toys in demonic disguise, if you get down to it...almost a Mary Sue species, and then you get this Fed guy set up as a mustache twirler for no other reason but to be his own caricature. And not even good caricatures in either case...incredibly shallow and without even attempting to show any understanding of what makes people on the other side tick except for insults and stereotypes.
The change literally came out of nowhere with no grounding, compared to where the plot was headed before they decided to inject Tr--Ferris into it. And that obvious lack of groundwork, preplanning, and even an attempt at subtlety, really tanks the whole story arc. You cannot be reactive in writing something like this, especially with the kind of lead times required to produce a *good* episode, and expect it not to be full of a million plot, characterization, and other holes.
DS9 used to handle this kind of stuff a lot better. Take a look at an episode like "In the Hands of the Prophets," where you see all sides of an argument represented faithfully, without being insulting, and with good people on all sides of the debate, AND even, in Vedek Bareil, something one rarely sees on TV, and that is a well portrayed middle/moderate path. THAT is the caliber of writing I expect to see when you take on a major issue, not Kohms/Yangs level writing, which is what I have seen here.
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No, it's dying now.
Their ecosystem is starving. Any planet is going to evolve to take advantage of the conditions and will work only when those conditions are maintained. If you turned off the sun, then every plant on this planet would die, then every animal that eats plants would starve and die, and then every animal that eats animals that eats plants would starve and die. You can't get far enough up the food chain to escape, except animals that live around and derive their nourishment from thermal vents.
Since the Na'khul homeworld developed on a planet with a star, then it is reasonable to assume that the ecosystem relies on the sun to survive. Even without that the loss of temperature will create an eternal winter, a planet of permafrost. No more weather, no more day, also no more solar system scale magnetic field to keep out cosmic radiation, though mercifully that means they won't have to worry about solar radiation.
Replacing a star as the primary source of light and energy for a planet for any period of time would require Iconian/T'Kon level technology at a minimum.
Sure we could spot them an Omega Molecule from one of the Dyson Spheres...but even we don't know how to reliably use that technology. The people who built it got themselves blown to subspace. If the Na'khul experience a malfunction and an Omega detonation, then if you don't blow up their world, you lock them in from any spaceborne help by destroying the capacity for superluminal flight for at least five light years and likely the whole sector. Isolating them on a world with a dead star.
It's a slow death, but without intervention, a certain one.
I disagree.
They have our report about the events in the 29th century where a Na'khul told us what we called them in the intervening 300 years. We have people on these boards who call them terrorists and what not without differentiating. Not intending to lump them all in, but it's a normal thing that comes out with events like these. One group of rogues can get an entire group labeled, Enterprise highlighted that with the Suliban. Ferris was basing this off of our future report and information from Section 31 of all places whose statements I wouldn't trust implicitly if they said space was black. Reports of what they are capable of today, and reports of things they could possibly do in the future from a future where they actually did them.
On the same note, clearly the President of the United Federation of Planets and one of its longest tenured diplomats are against this overly defensive position Ferris has taken, so while he will surely have his backers, it's not the whole Federation suddenly turning on its own principles. There is a disagreement between people of principles and positions. Ferris isn't the first, he just happens to be a higher ranked Cartwright. You are going to have people who gain positions of power and care about our own people first and anyone else never. The Pactons, the Cartwrights, the Pressmans, the Leytons, the Alexander Marcus'es.
This is the type of thing where you can either portray the Federation as an enlightened Utopia, or you portray it as a normal benevolent honest organization with billions of individuals whom any individual one or group can still behave stupidly or aggressively and make mistakes and then we as a whole work to avert the mistake or repair the damage after the fact. Roddenberry preferred the former, the DS9 team preferred the latter.
And again, this is a single installment. This is a single scene from a multi-part episode. We won't know if it "tanks" the arc or is just a setup for "salvaging" the arc later.
This is far above the "Omega Glory" there's no need to be needlessly insulting.
No, it's actually that Cryptic was given a heads up by CBS that a new sequel to TNG is coming out, and STO needs to transition to the new canon. Therefore, we need to go through timeline shenanigans striving to right what once went wrong, hoping each time the next leap will be the leap home.
You mean like how the Federation has let countless civilizations die horribly for the rather arbitrary reason that they had not yet invented warp drive?
And you got this info where?
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From logic, like any good Vulcan. CBS has announced a sequel to TNG coming out next January. STO is a sequel to TNG endorsed by CBS. The TV show will almost definitely not follow the STO storyline. Both stories can't be true. CBS & Paramount are already straddled between two separate timelines. Either STO or the new Star Trek series has to go. It won't be the series. Therefore, STO will be assimilated or shutdown. I highly doubt a cheap and historically unambitious, money-hating conglomerate like Viacom (owner of CBS & Paramount) will contract out new devs for a new Trek MMO to capitalize on the new series. They wouldn't even do that for their JJ films. The obvious logical conclusion that leaps off the screen upon reading this information is that STO will be retconned into the new TNG sequel by means time travel. It therefore comes as no surprise to see the new seasons leading up to next winter gearing up for a 'Year of Hell'-style erasure and reboot. The fortunate thing is that Cryptic doesn't have to remove any of the old missions because it's all a time travel story. And more likely than not, the new series will take place a lot farther in the future, conveniently leaving the events taking place during STO's era ambiguous, for ease of rectonnery. But it won't be too far ahead, since they will surely milk every single TNG era actor by the bucketful.
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say there's a 60% chance they'll retconn the hell of out STO, and a 40% chance CBS will pull the plug. We live in scary times! STO depends on an online streaming series, and Biff is about to become president of the United States.
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All I can say is, Thank Goodness YOU are not the one making any of the decisions for the next series.
It sounds to me like you hate Trek, I certainly don't and would appreciate it in the future if you only speak for yourself.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Why?
STO is just a licensed game, like the dozens of other Trek games that exist and don't follow canon.
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Foundry authors, get to it.
That wouldn't change a thing as foundry missions are "non canonical" for STOs lore. And it wouldn't have to be amission, it'd just be sufficient if those blogs were somehow in-game, but they are just make-believe that STO follows some sort of narrative when in truth it's just loose missions chained one after the other.
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How did you interpret my statement of fact to mean that I hate Star Trek? I love real Star Trek. But the current owners of the franchise hate the franchise for goodness sake.
Wrong, sir! Wrong! STO is a licensed MMO in an environment already saturated with spinoffs and an entire alternate universe now. MMOs have a long-term presence, unlike single-player games. New humans go play MMOs based off of popular new shows they like. If the new Trek catches on, kids will want to play the official Star Trek MMO. And how do you think they will react if the MMO bears absolutely no resemblance to the show they enjoy? Confusion kills off new fans during gestation. The only reason STO did not conform to JJ Trek was because of the corporate politics that forced JJ Abrams to walk away from the franchise. Do you honestly believe they will allow Star Trek to exist as 3 different universes at once? Nobody will know what the frell is going on anymore. Ergo, either STO will conform to the new canon or discontinue.
That being said, I can only predict the logical course of action, but whoever said the human race (especially CBS&Paramount) is logical?
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Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
By the way, your sig is awesome. He really is the most interesting man in the world.
I'm not a Sir, I'm a Targ. Get your facts straight
Regarding the rest, unfortunately there's nothing supporting your theory. The fact that it's an MMO doesn't mean anything, STO is not a continuation of canon. It's just licensed work like Star Trek Timelines or Starfleet Academy or some novel (which are longer around than any game) or audio play.
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This story could have been a good one but the author had to make a villian out of the person with the different viewpoint, thus bad writing.
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