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[PC] The Tzenkethi Are Coming
ambassadorkael
Member, Administrator Posts: 2,674 Community Manager
The Tzenkethi are coming to Star Trek Online on PC. Learn about this dire new enemy force from the people who created them.
Full details here:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10340523-the-tzenkethi-are-coming
Full details here:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10340523-the-tzenkethi-are-coming
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I want that power armour suit/costume/outfit/thingy.
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so this is kind of a good cop bad cop thing ...
On Friday I was really frekkin delighted to hear about the appearance of my 3rd favourite full-blood Klingon to STO (1st would be Martok and 2nd Kor of course ...)
- And now I just want to slam something against the nearest wall reading about THIS introduction of the fascinating Tzenkethi you guys came up with ...
Sorry, but I really don't understand this. Granted, they were NEVER shown on screen so this IS a challenge, but there is a ton of references in the Novelverse -- FFS there is at least one novel essentially about them (I think it was one of the Typhoon Pact novels), and I'm pretty sure there was no mention of reptilian-ish appearances. Quite the opposite: From what I read it's common sense that
(a) most humanoid species do find them to be quite attractive (in an rather odd way), so I guess the femme-fatale approach wasn't entirely wrong ...
(b) they don't seem to have any kind of bones in their (tall) bodies so they can bend around in a near impossible fashion and
(c) they use every surface in a house ... meaning floor, ceiling, walls - this should pose a real challenge ;o) (!)
All of this should lead to an result which won't even remotely look and probably also not feel the way your approach does ...
I sincerely hope you'll reconsider your current approach and try something more in line with the pretty awesome novelverse, since I'm sure there's a lot of Trekkies out here which rely on that as 'canon' source ...
Greetings, Daddel!
Agreed. Taking poetic licence / filling in the gaps from available 'soft canon' is one thing. Just making it up is a step too far.
Having read the Typhon Pact novels recently I recall their biology and society were desribed in some detail. A quick search of Memory Beta identifies that "Their physiology is externally humanoid, but internally quite different. Their skeleton is made up of several fluid-filled sacs, which can be contracted and expanded at will...Their internal anatomy contains bones only along their spines... They have ovoid-shaped eyes, voices that sound like bells, and are described as being very tall and visually attractive to most other races, even non-humanoid ones."
As a new race these Dragon-Turtles would be very interesting. Ignoring 'soft canon' is somewhat irritating...
The problem with the "novelverse" descriptions is that they are protected by copyrights. They would need to get approvals from the publisher and writer(s) of those novels before they could use them. Assuming that CBS/Paramount sign off that it's alright too. Doing it from their own designs means they don't have all of that red tape to get through and do what ever they want at that point. And what they have created still conforms to canon, because very little was in canon in the first place.
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Welcome to licensing issues. STO doesn't necessarily have the rights to everything Star Trek. While we'd like to believe they do - and recently the first two reboots were made available to STO - the simple truth is Star Trek licensing is more complicated than that.
First off the novels have never been accepted by the licensees or CBS as canon. Sometime we shout a lot and they get an item here or there like the Vesta. From their developers comments over the years the process to get the Vesta was problematic. Whether its the length of the licensing process, perhaps the cost, or maybe the story elements just don't fit, it's not really that easy to take the novels at face value.
Most notably absent: stasis boxes, Kzinti - both elements that are owned by Larry Niven's estate and cannot be used in Star Trek even though they are onscreen. Note: I'm not gonna argue if the animated stuff is cannon. But we do have lockboxes and Caitians.
By creating their own materials, even if it's based on the conversations about the Tzenkethi, STO has it's hands free to develop for the games needs. The did a great job on other well known episodic aliens. I think by the looks of the artwork, they will give us an alien race we can have fun with.
My Two Bits
Lootcritter
i guess the reason they didn't go by the (semi-canon) descriptions of them is they would end up looking like pre-war iconians. (which would be preferable to Voth or Undine 2.0 tbh)
but this i just dont get it i don't see how this can be taken seriously,just like with species 8472 and that horrible design another ridiculous alien but i don't comment much since i don't feel i have anything to say i felt compelled to comment that although im intrigued to be doing something with the Tzenkethi i must endorse what @daddel4sto said about the novels and already having kinda established their appearance and while i haven't read many i do know that its the closet thing to canon we have, and i always felt they were humans or humanoid since there government structure and etc all sounded very similar to the federation and they just didn't wanna be apart of it so im disappointed in this direction.
im sure your not gonna change it now since all the work that's gone into it i just really dont get the choice to go this route did u think there wasn't enough non-humanoid type aliens or something? cause four arms? and their design really is hard for me to take serious and i know im 1 player and my view is meaningless in the grand scheme but im just very baffled im a Trekkie first which is why i play your game so how u guys handle the lore is kinda important to me and in closing i must say this is one choice i must disagree with i just cant take these things seriously and cant believe they are the same race that's been described and talked about since TNG and the books.
Let me know when I can make a Tzenkethi Captain and I will make one.
At least give us a Tzenkethi BOff. Please?
Anyway, I look forward to seeing these behemoths in action.
Oh yeah, does the timing of this mean that they could be introduced some short time after the Anniversary event? It is almost time for a new season after all.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Most Star Trek novels and Comics are little more than fan-fiction that has been approved by CBS/Paramount in exchange for a share of the profits. But in no way are said novels in any shape or form "canon".
The Tzenkethi are fine, their appearance as a species is "officially" a clean slate, so nothing wrong with what Cryptic is doing here.
Because, like it or not, they don't HAVE to take ANYTHING from the novels as canon for their game. People may want them to, but the novels are not considered canon by CBS and as such you're gonna have to deal with the fact that unless you see something on screen don't try and complain that it's not how you or some random author imagined it.
They were only mentioned on screen. Cryptic wanted to use the aliens who had no actual visual description in the canon universe as the next bad guys. That's really where these arguments die. Funny enough the opposite is also true. If Discovery wants to use the "Silent Enemy" and give them a name other than "Elachi" and use different designs for larger ships there's really nothing Cryptic or the players can do about it except accept that.
STO is a self contained universe, using the Star Trek IP, and you should treat it as such. If they can fit in some references here and there or get the rights to something then be happy for that. If they can't then you're gonna have to deal with it. I treat the books and all other supplemental material as from one of the many other quantum realities that Worf hopped through in the episode of TNG, I suggest you do the same and save yourselves the frustration.
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I would have expected to see something more novel than monsters in futuristic powerarmor. Also the design, could be very well from any other game out there. I feel like the art department should look beyond armor and glowing elements and really mean looking enemies.
There is really enough of that in the game...
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tzenkethi
So, in all actuality the guy who NAMED THEM thought that they would be more in line with the STO version than the book versions. The book versions got the species wrong going by the person who made them where as STO artists took the time to get them right. So, my original point of "deal with it" stands even more true now.
But, no, we get...This.
In my opinion, this is a fail, just like the original design for the Rigelians. I hope the content to go with is far better than the concept. Thuggish brontosauri in armor? Really?
Eve
This actually hits the nail on the head for my image of them, perhaps save for the six-eyed aesthetic. That said, I welcome the iteration we have, and giventheir few canon details and the conflicts that have been fought with them, I soppse it makes some sense to have what we see in the blog.
As for 2.0, they vaguely look, to me, like herald 2.0
More important to me would be how their mechanics work and whether or not the AI is good...looks can be somwhat set aside for me if this group is worth fighting.
Looks awesome
Apparently they are also very close to what their creator envisioned them to be which makes that double awesome in my book.
edit:
Also; what he said
Even though I understand that even if they did it,there's no way its anywhere near as developed as the game's humanoid rig, and absolutely no way to make it work with all the uniforms, at least not before we develop for-real warp drives... I'm still wondering if...
As for canonicity... In my non-lawyer understanding, there actually aren't any licensing issues as such: This isn't a patent, trademark, or visual media copyright: only the exact literal text of a novel is copyrighted or could be the grounds for accusations of plagiarism (which is a different thing.)
Just generally following the concepts described should be OK, as long as there weren't any drawings by copyright holders, their names aren't mentioned* and as long as the trademark rights to Tzenkethi and any other relevant proper names in the context of Trek belong to CBS (they probably don't for Vesta.) It would still probably be unwise to follow with it if the author actively objects to it, but that's another matter.
But even if there aren't any issues... It's called "soft canon" for a reason. If the STO devs don't want to adopt it, they don't have to. And following those descriptions we'd probably get a combination of ceiling-grabbing Undine with changelings. These Tzenkethi are cool in their own unique way,
* That's publicity rights, another different thing, Another case where they could be relevant is something like using a hit song in a political ad: even if you have a copyright licence, you still can be sued if the performer doesn't in fact support your cause, but this seems to be unlikely here.
Big fail!!!!!