Wow! I'm guessing the artists have NEVER READ ANY of the descriptions of the Tzenkethi in the books! They are NOT reptillian, NOT six-limbed, and look NOTHING LIKE what is shown here!
Big fail!!!!!
They probably have. But due to legal reasons, have created what we have now.
Wow! I'm guessing the artists have NEVER READ ANY of the descriptions of the Tzenkethi in the books! They are NOT reptillian, NOT six-limbed, and look NOTHING LIKE what is shown here!
Big fail!!!!!
here you go, from memory alpha: (ash352 provided a link earlier)
The Tzenkethi have never been seen on-screen. It was unclear if they were a humanoid race or not. The pronunciation of their species' name was "TSEN-keth-i" ("ts" as in "tsar"). [1]
Robert Hewitt Wolfe said, in December 2006, that he thought he had named the Tzenkethi by combining the name Kzinti (from Larry Niven's race of aliens that appeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon") with Tsankth, after a race from the RuneQuest and HeroQuest RPGs. Wolfe also said he did not picture them as cats like the Kzinti, but as being like the Hakazit from Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls novels. He saw the Tzenkethi as being "heavily-armored lizard things." [2]
So, it's the books that didn't do their homework or decided to take a different direction with them. I like the look of these guys ok. I do prefer a less menacing looking bad guy that has the whole "looks are deceiving" thing going on but, these guys are ok and similar to the original concept.
I look forward to defeating them in six to eight episodes like all the other new bad guys.
Not necessarily a bad thing. Its length is one of the major reasons people hate on Vaadwaur arc, and even though I'm in the seeming minority that actually likes it... I'm usually a bit burned out on it after I finish it on a new character.
Hmm, I like their look. There is something about the face that looks familiar but I can't quite put my finger on it.
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.
Wow! I'm guessing the artists have NEVER READ ANY of the descriptions of the Tzenkethi in the books! They are NOT reptillian, NOT six-limbed, and look NOTHING LIKE what is shown here!
Big fail!!!!!
here you go, from memory alpha: (ash352 provided a link earlier)
The Tzenkethi have never been seen on-screen. It was unclear if they were a humanoid race or not. The pronunciation of their species' name was "TSEN-keth-i" ("ts" as in "tsar"). [1]
Robert Hewitt Wolfe said, in December 2006, that he thought he had named the Tzenkethi by combining the name Kzinti (from Larry Niven's race of aliens that appeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon") with Tsankth, after a race from the RuneQuest and HeroQuest RPGs. Wolfe also said he did not picture them as cats like the Kzinti, but as being like the Hakazit from Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls novels. He saw the Tzenkethi as being "heavily-armored lizard things." [2]
So, it's the books that didn't do their homework or decided to take a different direction with them. I like the look of these guys ok. I do prefer a less menacing looking bad guy that has the whole "looks are deceiving" thing going on but, these guys are ok and similar to the original concept.
Yeah, that precisely.
Again, here's the link to the Memory Alpha page, the quote itself is in Background Information: memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tzenkethi
While I can understand people's disappointment with this rendering of the Tzenkethi, I'm gonna have to go with Cryptic on this one. Because while going off of books is one thing, I personally feel it's more appropriate to go with the ideas of one of the actual show writers, in that logically, a show writer is closer to what many would consider the "canon" of the series than a book writer is.
At the very least, it seems that Cryptic didn't completely forget about the books: their renderings of the Tzenkethi seem to have quite the psychedelic color scheme that the old novel ones had.
Surprised that there are so many novel fans out there that think that's a good look for an alien race.
I think we already covered the "attractive female alien" part sufficiently with Iconians and Orions.
Time for something else. I agree that they look a bit too "villainy" to my preference, though. Still interesting. And hey, there eyes look kinda nice. There might be a way to make them look a bit more sympathetic.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Its always nice to get another (semi) non-humanoid alien. Well done to Hector Ortiz and the rest of the design team for coming up with such an interesting setup. I can't wait to see them in the game and hope that you have sneakily added in a couple of dance emotes for them (dem Disco Balls)!
As for those grumbling that it doesn't match the novel version? As others have said: the novels are non-canon and are not subject to the same licence agreement that Cryptic has with CBS.
Accordingly, Cryptic is not under any obligation to adhere to any of the story/details set out in the novels. And even if they wanted to, there would be additional legal hoops to jump through to secure the rights to do so - which not only takes time, but may cost them money as well, for something of interest only to a very niche section of the playerbase.
The approach they have taken not only save time/money, but has also led to the creation of an innovative new design, which broadly fits the original concept of the Tzenkethi as stated by their creator (which the novels significantly deviated from).
So, here's an interesting question: what will be our casus belli vis-a-vis the Tzenkethi? The obvious answer would be the extermination of a portion of the temporally-displaced K-13 crew (and everything else sharing that planet) via protomatter weapon, as noted in 'Echoes of Light'... something I recall theorizing might be a frame-up, with the Tzenkethi weapon being used specifically to leave the evidence 'finger' pointing at them. But, in such a case, who would the perpetrators be, and for what motive? Yes, 20 Draconis is deep in Breen space - near their home system, to be a touch more specific - but they wouldn't have bothered with such suberfuge. Also, if we're talking about a frame-up, one does wonder how these people acquired that protomatter weapon, as well as how many more they actually have.
On the other tendril, if we are looking at a genuine Tzenkethi operation, one then wonders about their choice of target. It is also apparent they'll end up butting heads with the Breen - does this mean we'll get to pick up on a plot thread or two that were brought up back in the relevant arc and since left derelict?
It will also be interesting to see just how their tech - both dirtside and in the Big Black - works out ingame. And I imagine the art people are having fun designing not only their ships, but what systems reverse-engineered from their tech might look like.
although it was allready mentioned by several others here, i too wonder why so many people are whining here, why the Tzenkethi dont look like described in the books/novels.....while they never showed up on screen, there still is a simple and short description of them by the CREATOR (Robert Hewitt Wolfe) of them itself ""heavily-armored lizard things." and that basically is EXACTLY what Cryptic did, so what we get is as close to canon as possible.
Going by the Novels and ignoring the creators Description would be - in my oppinion - disrespectfull, IF at all, than its the Writers of those books/novels who didnt do their homeworks, so go and complain to them, and not to cryptic, iam not someone who easily defends cryptics decision, but they did nothing wrong here - this time - so deal with it.
So... after all this hard work, you surely want to get the most out of it, right?
New playable species? Pretty pwease?
no, I'd rather a Lukari playable species. Or even Iconian or Cardassian. (however, all these, including the Tszen, suffer from the "impossible to start from the beginning of the story" problem, as they only appeared later on. Ok, maybe the Cardies could. Ish)
LUKARI GUERILLA GARDENING MILITIA - Glowing fingers are Growing fingers!
I'm having a hard time picture these guys as Tzenkethi, I mean everything I've seen ever mentioned about them speaks to a very different appearance. Don't get me wrong these guys that you've created are great looking but seem less like Tzenkethi and more like... and I hate to say this but, more like Halo Grunts all grown up...
on the cool side... these guys look like the original idea, they look bad TRIBBLE, highly detailed, not just another "forehead application" and sound interesting to fight...
on the down side Voth 2.0 and an enemy that will be barely utilized and thrown away like every other antagonist in sto ever
I don't care for the look of them, myself, but I'm not hung up on the hard-canon/soft-canon stuff. Since they never appeared onscreen, Cryptic can do whatever they like.
And of course, they do have to differentiate them from every other reptilian species we have in game, including the Gorn and the Voth. So I'm glad that they went the non-humanoid route but I really don't see the logic behind those scrawny lower arms* and the power armor stuff just looks awful in the blog rendering. Hopefully it will look better in play.
* In regard to those lower arms, most multi-limbed species in sci-fi would have sturdier lower limbs, enabling them to walk/run on the lower limbs if necessary. I would have loved to see an enraged Tzenkethi charging me on all four lower limbs while wielding weapons with the lighter upper arms. But alas, by the time we see this stuff it's all baked in and what we see is what we get.
So... after all this hard work, you surely want to get the most out of it, right?
New playable species? Pretty pwease?
Not gonna happen. You missed the point where they said they had to make entirely new gear and animations for these guys? They're not going to translate hundreds of different bits of playable ground gear into Tzenkethi.
Comments
New playable species? Pretty pwease?
There is one in the very last shot. They're about twice as tall as humans.
STO has diverged from the books in many cases, for all different kinds of reasons (because we want the Borg in the game, to name just one).
They probably have. But due to legal reasons, have created what we have now.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Not to mention several major Fed homeworlds and Risa...(IIRC)
here you go, from memory alpha: (ash352 provided a link earlier)
The Tzenkethi have never been seen on-screen. It was unclear if they were a humanoid race or not. The pronunciation of their species' name was "TSEN-keth-i" ("ts" as in "tsar"). [1]
Robert Hewitt Wolfe said, in December 2006, that he thought he had named the Tzenkethi by combining the name Kzinti (from Larry Niven's race of aliens that appeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon") with Tsankth, after a race from the RuneQuest and HeroQuest RPGs. Wolfe also said he did not picture them as cats like the Kzinti, but as being like the Hakazit from Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls novels. He saw the Tzenkethi as being "heavily-armored lizard things." [2]
So, it's the books that didn't do their homework or decided to take a different direction with them. I like the look of these guys ok. I do prefer a less menacing looking bad guy that has the whole "looks are deceiving" thing going on but, these guys are ok and similar to the original concept.
Not necessarily a bad thing. Its length is one of the major reasons people hate on Vaadwaur arc, and even though I'm in the seeming minority that actually likes it... I'm usually a bit burned out on it after I finish it on a new character.
This was my first thought...
http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Mondoshawan
Yeah, that precisely.
Again, here's the link to the Memory Alpha page, the quote itself is in Background Information:
memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tzenkethi
While I can understand people's disappointment with this rendering of the Tzenkethi, I'm gonna have to go with Cryptic on this one. Because while going off of books is one thing, I personally feel it's more appropriate to go with the ideas of one of the actual show writers, in that logically, a show writer is closer to what many would consider the "canon" of the series than a book writer is.
At the very least, it seems that Cryptic didn't completely forget about the books: their renderings of the Tzenkethi seem to have quite the psychedelic color scheme that the old novel ones had.
I think we already covered the "attractive female alien" part sufficiently with Iconians and Orions.
Time for something else. I agree that they look a bit too "villainy" to my preference, though. Still interesting. And hey, there eyes look kinda nice. There might be a way to make them look a bit more sympathetic.
As for those grumbling that it doesn't match the novel version? As others have said: the novels are non-canon and are not subject to the same licence agreement that Cryptic has with CBS.
Accordingly, Cryptic is not under any obligation to adhere to any of the story/details set out in the novels. And even if they wanted to, there would be additional legal hoops to jump through to secure the rights to do so - which not only takes time, but may cost them money as well, for something of interest only to a very niche section of the playerbase.
The approach they have taken not only save time/money, but has also led to the creation of an innovative new design, which broadly fits the original concept of the Tzenkethi as stated by their creator (which the novels significantly deviated from).
On the other tendril, if we are looking at a genuine Tzenkethi operation, one then wonders about their choice of target. It is also apparent they'll end up butting heads with the Breen - does this mean we'll get to pick up on a plot thread or two that were brought up back in the relevant arc and since left derelict?
It will also be interesting to see just how their tech - both dirtside and in the Big Black - works out ingame. And I imagine the art people are having fun designing not only their ships, but what systems reverse-engineered from their tech might look like.
Going by the Novels and ignoring the creators Description would be - in my oppinion - disrespectfull, IF at all, than its the Writers of those books/novels who didnt do their homeworks, so go and complain to them, and not to cryptic, iam not someone who easily defends cryptics decision, but they did nothing wrong here - this time - so deal with it.
no, I'd rather a Lukari playable species. Or even Iconian or Cardassian. (however, all these, including the Tszen, suffer from the "impossible to start from the beginning of the story" problem, as they only appeared later on. Ok, maybe the Cardies could. Ish)
on the cool side... these guys look like the original idea, they look bad TRIBBLE, highly detailed, not just another "forehead application" and sound interesting to fight...
on the down side Voth 2.0 and an enemy that will be barely utilized and thrown away like every other antagonist in sto ever
And of course, they do have to differentiate them from every other reptilian species we have in game, including the Gorn and the Voth. So I'm glad that they went the non-humanoid route but I really don't see the logic behind those scrawny lower arms* and the power armor stuff just looks awful in the blog rendering. Hopefully it will look better in play.
* In regard to those lower arms, most multi-limbed species in sci-fi would have sturdier lower limbs, enabling them to walk/run on the lower limbs if necessary. I would have loved to see an enraged Tzenkethi charging me on all four lower limbs while wielding weapons with the lighter upper arms. But alas, by the time we see this stuff it's all baked in and what we see is what we get.
Not gonna happen. You missed the point where they said they had to make entirely new gear and animations for these guys? They're not going to translate hundreds of different bits of playable ground gear into Tzenkethi.
I'm hoping for a really sharp design and very unlike anything we've seen before.
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