I like 'em they look cool. Even if they basically look like sci-fi Shokan. They're even half dragon like Goro was described.
Now there's a species I hadn't heard mentioned in a while; thank you for the flashback... and ensuing mental imagery of how the kit we've seen so far might be adapted to actual Shokan.
I just had a pleasant thought of Sheeva in high tech gear.
Hurrah the Elites are back! Bigger and Badder than before! Wait... dammit I thought this was for Halo 6...
On another note the Tzenkethi look interesting though they just look like another big bad alien race that rah rah... is a threat to the federation... rah rah has help from the future rah rah... with a couple more graphically overdone and laggy pve queues and a rep system that we have to grind out. Gosh cryptic slow down I havent even finished the terran rep. *sigh*
Considering the expansion of the Alpha Quadrant is in the direction of their space I'm hoping they'll be ongoing story enemies and we'll get to explore their culture a bit.
When the Voth hit I was hoping we would actually interact with them and help to finally pierce the Doctrine through the heart. Make a story mission where their constructed history was actually shown to be detrimental to their civilization and the reason they were being hemmed in by the Borg. Alas it was not to be.
That said they've already been shown on DS9 to be if not militant and aggressive, hostile to the Federation, if civil.
The culture was the most interesting thing to me in the books anyway, it being the main reason they butted heads with the federation. Eugenics, espionage, rigid caste system, etc.
None of that is canon
In this instance canonically, they're basically a Tabula Rasa.
"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"
Cryptic wholeheartedly had his chance to create not just a civilization(like they did for the Kobali) but to go so far as finally putting a face onto an entire race!
And they did exactly that, choosing to stay true to the creator's description over, as you put, "what you may subscribe to as canon" from the novels, which I needn't remind you are only soft canon. Cryptic is well within their creative power to disregard basically anything that isn't hard canon as they see fit. Whether this is the right thing to do is situational, of course, but it's something they absolutely have the option of doing.
The Tsenkethi as described in the books would be a bit too close to the design of the Iconians, I think. Yet Another Lizard Race (YALR) may not be particularly original in concept, but the end result they've shown is not only close to the creator's description, but visually distinct from pretty much everything except the Voth mechs that are rarely seen outside the Voth Ground Battlezone. Right choice? Debatable. Good choice? Definitely.
I just had a pleasant thought of Sheeva in high tech gear.
Special bonus: she'd be entirely at home in a setting like Shadowrun, which takes the old question 'tech or magic?' and counters with 'both!'.
Considering the expansion of the Alpha Quadrant is in the direction of their space I'm hoping they'll be ongoing story enemies and we'll get to explore their culture a bit.
Seconded. Okay, a revamped exploration mechanic wouldn't be unwelcome, but in the meantime if you're going to be adding things to this branch of Trek lore, the least you can do is properly flesh them out.
When the Voth hit I was hoping we would actually interact with them and help to finally pierce the Doctrine through the heart. Make a story mission where their constructed history was actually shown to be detrimental to their civilization and the reason they were being hemmed in by the Borg. Alas it was not to be.
That would be interesting to explore; the challenge, I imagine, would be how to write it in such a way as to be more a case of the Voth coming to that conclusion as a group than us simply telling them they're wrong. Perhaps, for all we know, that might be happening off camera and could be brought up when the Voth show up again... come to think of it, does anyone recall seeing them represented at the New Khitomer conference?
Yes lets go hack these rip offs from other well known franchises! Rather than go with the more original and interesting description:
"The Tzenkethi are a flexible race of humanoids, or near-humanoids, with no bones other than a spine. They’re instead supported by fluid-filled sacs, which can be contracted and expanded as needed. They’re beautiful and ethereal, glowing with natural light and giving off a noticeable electrical charge. Psychologically, they like enclosed spaces and make use of ceilings and walls as often as they do floors, thanks in part to artificial gravity envelopes. Their ships are sleek, organic-looking vessels armed with plasma weapons."
I think Humanoid shaped jellyfish are more interesting.
I don't. Because visually, they are humanoids. You can all pretend that they are totally alien inside, but visually, they still happen to be shapend like a human with rubber foreheads. We have seen those.
Hahahahahaha, yeah because an army of Kif Kroker's is TERRIFYING!
Watch out, they might sigh despondently in your general direction. The entire premise of those humanoids was laughable when the books introduced them and I'm glad they're being relegated to the bin.
I kinda like the idea of a "cute" alien race being extremely dangerous. (Kinda like Tribbles, except the Tribbles are just ecological dangers, not personal threats. )
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
What I meant to say was Star Trek at its best, because the show was at its best when It got more speculative and creative. Yes I enjoyed that political intrigue and social interaction that came with basically having different kinds of humans interacting, but we already have that in the game in spades! We get only glimpses into the side of Trek that was more exploratory and diverse, and they could have done that here (The creator's description of them was in an interview/offhand comment, which is about as cannon as the novels, so yeah they had plenty of choice in the matter). They had an opportunity to try for a little of that and they didn't take it. As to you assertion that "None of those would be feasible in a game setting due to the lack of a rigid form" that is just a lack of imagination. There is plenty of totally normal ways that something without bones can be rigid (talk to your **** for further evidence) which doesn't even go into the more out there speculative out-there treknobabble excuses they could use (like tk as I mentioned)
But here is the thing, in a game called Star Trek Online, going off and doing these things, which have no real relation to show, or the universe the shows established, would make it NOT Star Trek Online.
Star Trek is
-99% humanoids
-.5% gas/cloud/whisp/energy hologram beings
-.5% other
The only races in Star Trek Lore that really fit the description of amoeba like things are the Kelvans in their natural form, and the Nacene, and both of them comes from outside the galaxy. Indeed, they only look that way BECAUSE they come from outside the galaxy, and thus, didn't have the Preservers to influence the way they looked.
Asking why they didn't make an alien that is from the galaxy like that doesn't make sense, as its fundamentally counter to the very foundations of the Star Trek unvierse.
An interesting story idea I had was that humanoids are seen with suspicion in other Galaxies, since the Preservers did basically poison galaxies with their DNA, making evolution of other lifeforms hard. Maybe some Preserver remnant or Preserver seed species went on a killing spree in the Andromeda galaxy or the Pegasus galaxy and the non-humanoids had to keep them down. (This preserver seed species could be the Iconians...)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Tzenkethi design isn't my cup of tea. But if they managed meet everyone else's flavor so that the game's prospering I'm all for it.
______________________________________
"I went outside once. The graphics and audio were amazing but the gameplay and storyline sucked."
(The above is a quote but I forgot to copy the name of the quoted.)
I hope that it doesn't become player usable. Seeing a human in Voth gear is bad enough.
I've seen that; the big problem with the Dyson armor visuals...
...is how the legs (and especially the boots) are molded - they look closer to what you might expect on Sangheili (concept art) than the humanoid races seen to date in STO. Come to think of it, perhaps I should point this out in one of the costume-related threads...
Dyson armor reminds me more of Turian armor from Mass Effect.
Wow! Where is John Carter? If you are going to create a new race for STO, at least be original. The four arms, 2 short & 2 long has already been created for Sci-fi movies & show. This creation is a bomb.
Wow! Where is John Carter? If you are going to create a new race for STO, at least be original. The four arms, 2 short & 2 long has already been created for Sci-fi movies & show. This creation is a bomb.
For Star Trek, this is pretty innovative.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I dont care for new content, I wish they would finally fix the blacked-out items in slotted kits and mails, reported and ignored to fix for months now...
I'm tired of being on a war front!!, I would like to explore the galaxy! the galaxy!!! actually use fleet starbases as form of commerce for the fleet, which the fleet can setup in the galaxy which we can explore, with an ESD not being needed anymore [after reaching a certain level], ships that can be slightly repaired by doff's but to be fully repaired, you have to use a starbase npc or fleet, meet new life and new civilizations to boldly go where...oh forget it! the Tzenkethi will no doubt have 'beef' with someone in the alpha, beta, delta quadrant, start kicking up a fuss, then we'll have to kick their arses too, just to get a dialog, then have another massive lull, shed load of pointless ships or ugly designs [what's with the bloated necelles on T6 intel assault cruiser!?!] or gear with useless stats [Acc?] that everyone avoids like the plague, stf's that lose their snazz, rinse and repeat! I have played a sto from since 2010 and you know what, if I have to be on war front then I would like classic battles, an stf called the Battle for Sector 001 which is a ship 'raid', 20 ships verses and powerful cube decked to the hilt with weapons, everybody gets one respawn and there's a timer on the arrival of the Enterprise-E, which provides the the correct targeting to destroy the cube, where everyone has a vital role Science-healers/debuff, Cruisers-tanks/aggro pull/light buff, Tatical-dps/mass fighter deployment/heavy buff. Instead taking on new races, use what you have, get rid of sector space and just have normal space we do missions in for all travel, full control of warp speed going into and coming out of, and have sector map as stellar cartography for long distance travel confirmation, have ship specific weapons positions [phaser strips, array points, cannon positions instead 3's, 4's and 5's weapons slots on the wrong size ships], with separate bloody torpedo bays!!! is it too much to ask?
> @daddel4sto said: > Hi there, > > 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!
Actually their design is very consistent with what Robert Hewitt Wolfe had conceptualized for DS9. 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."
I would rater have seen them use both version of the description, both the reptilian tech-users, and a humanoid race with no bones that uses fluid-filled sacks in place of skeletal structure. They could be either a pair of races that are sub-races of the whole of the Tzenkethi, or a alliance of two races that evolved in close proximity, while each would than evolve to be of use in specific areas. Like that the squid-like kind might be more of the diplomatic intellectual side of the Tzenkethi, while the reptile kind might be more of the combat an construction side of the race, which might even mean we could see a third version that is completely unique. I doubt though that we would see this happen an that more so we will see them staying as just techno-lizards, either way I like either variation of how the Tzenkethi could have turned out.
I don't really have much of an opinion of the way they were designed, I just want the opportunity to get one as a boff.
Ship combat, however......from what little we were given about them becoming stronger the more there are in close proximity it pretty much sounds like it's going to be "F-U Gravwell, go FAW!"
As true as that might be that grav-well with them might be good, and I could see most players using it alot with the current meta, it might be counter-intuitive based on what kind of effects they have. Like if they have a stacking buff to both their defensive an offensive stats based on how close they are to each other, and you add in something like an effect that gives off a hull/shield healing effect to other nearby Tzenkethi ships when they heal themselves or others it might work that keeping them apart could be better off. Imagine if a group of five tzenkethi ships are grav-welled together an gained something like a 15-60% damage resistance/reduction buff, and also began to have their shield/hull heals chain to each other from being so close by to each other. Also I think it would be interesting if each of their ship types gave a different buff to other Tzenkethi ships nearby, like that escorts might give a boost to damage output, cruisers a buff to damage reduction, science might give a buff to shield/hull healing an cause their heals to naturally chain to each other. While also that when downed these ships would remain active giving their buff to the other shield nearby, but also using their weapons (maybe not their boff abilities) on targets within range.
Ship combat, however......from what little we were given about them becoming stronger the more there are in close proximity it pretty much sounds like it's going to be "F-U Gravwell, go FAW!"
Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon would like to say hi; cherry with the Cryonic Siphon trait and Drain Infection.
As true as that might be that grav-well with them might be good, and I could see most players using it alot with the current meta, it might be counter-intuitive based on what kind of effects they have. Like if they have a stacking buff to both their defensive an offensive stats based on how close they are to each other, and you add in something like an effect that gives off a hull/shield healing effect to other nearby Tzenkethi ships when they heal themselves or others it might work that keeping them apart could be better off. Imagine if a group of five tzenkethi ships are grav-welled together an gained something like a 15-60% damage resistance/reduction buff, and also began to have their shield/hull heals chain to each other from being so close by to each other. Also I think it would be interesting if each of their ship types gave a different buff to other Tzenkethi ships nearby, like that escorts might give a boost to damage output, cruisers a buff to damage reduction, science might give a buff to shield/hull healing an cause their heals to naturally chain to each other.
This might well be what is going on; to my knowledge, however, while there are videos in the wild showing off the new queues and battlezone, none of them really talk about this mechanic.
While also that when downed these ships would remain active giving their buff to the other shield nearby, but also using their weapons (maybe not their boff abilities) on targets within range.
Which would, I think, be simple enough to add in... the problem with this is that, given the current implementation of the 'downed' mechanic (see: Voth ships; , there's no way for players to finish off such a ship.
As true as that might be that grav-well with them might be good, and I could see most players using it alot with the current meta, it might be counter-intuitive based on what kind of effects they have. Like if they have a stacking buff to both their defensive an offensive stats based on how close they are to each other, and you add in something like an effect that gives off a hull/shield healing effect to other nearby Tzenkethi ships when they heal themselves or others it might work that keeping them apart could be better off. Imagine if a group of five tzenkethi ships are grav-welled together an gained something like a 15-60% damage resistance/reduction buff, and also began to have their shield/hull heals chain to each other from being so close by to each other. Also I think it would be interesting if each of their ship types gave a different buff to other Tzenkethi ships nearby, like that escorts might give a boost to damage output, cruisers a buff to damage reduction, science might give a buff to shield/hull healing an cause their heals to naturally chain to each other.
This might well be what is going on; to my knowledge, however, while there are videos in the wild showing off the new queues and battlezone, none of them really talk about this mechanic.
Yeah t is more of just a suggestion of how a mechanic that works based on making them harder to kill the more they group up could actually make gravity well less appealing to use, because grouping them could cause the ships to become even stronger an harder to kill. Hell if you made the strength of the buff they gain is based on how close they are to other Tzenkethi ships.
While also that when downed these ships would remain active giving their buff to the other shield nearby, but also using their weapons (maybe not their boff abilities) on targets within range.
Which would, I think, be simple enough to add in... the problem with this is that, given the current implementation of the 'downed' mechanic (see: Voth ships; , there's no way for players to finish off such a ship.
Well what if it is not that you have to finish off the ship, as it can only remain active after being downed for certain period of time, and then it explodes. Based on how long the downed state lasts might work as a factor of having to down them in certain areas as they would than be an area denial type mechanic. Both of the ideas given if they did use them could make for interesting stf an other content that would still appeal to many players.
*sigh* I don't see why so many people are preaching some out-of-continuity comments by writer Robert Wolfe as being some kind of gospel on the characters.
As far as I remember, the Tzenkehi were only mentioned in a single throw away line in DS9 with no background to them. Wolfe's unofficial comments are no more canon than anything the officially licensed novels have done. It doesn't really matter what his intentions were as nothing made it into the show.
Personally I'm more concerned with how they are going to explain their sudden shift from a minor trivial power to a powerhouse that can threaten the alliance of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans.
Personally I'm more concerned with how they are going to explain their sudden shift from a minor trivial power to a powerhouse that can threaten the alliance of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans.
Those protomatter weapons probably help...
And even in DS9, they seemed to a reasonably powerful faction; otherwise there'd be no reason for the Founders to try to provoke a war between them and the Federation.
"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
Comments
I just had a pleasant thought of Sheeva in high tech gear.
Considering the expansion of the Alpha Quadrant is in the direction of their space I'm hoping they'll be ongoing story enemies and we'll get to explore their culture a bit.
When the Voth hit I was hoping we would actually interact with them and help to finally pierce the Doctrine through the heart. Make a story mission where their constructed history was actually shown to be detrimental to their civilization and the reason they were being hemmed in by the Borg. Alas it was not to be.
That said they've already been shown on DS9 to be if not militant and aggressive, hostile to the Federation, if civil.
In this instance canonically, they're basically a Tabula Rasa.
And they did exactly that, choosing to stay true to the creator's description over, as you put, "what you may subscribe to as canon" from the novels, which I needn't remind you are only soft canon. Cryptic is well within their creative power to disregard basically anything that isn't hard canon as they see fit. Whether this is the right thing to do is situational, of course, but it's something they absolutely have the option of doing.
The Tsenkethi as described in the books would be a bit too close to the design of the Iconians, I think. Yet Another Lizard Race (YALR) may not be particularly original in concept, but the end result they've shown is not only close to the creator's description, but visually distinct from pretty much everything except the Voth mechs that are rarely seen outside the Voth Ground Battlezone. Right choice? Debatable. Good choice? Definitely.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Seconded. Okay, a revamped exploration mechanic wouldn't be unwelcome, but in the meantime if you're going to be adding things to this branch of Trek lore, the least you can do is properly flesh them out.
That would be interesting to explore; the challenge, I imagine, would be how to write it in such a way as to be more a case of the Voth coming to that conclusion as a group than us simply telling them they're wrong. Perhaps, for all we know, that might be happening off camera and could be brought up when the Voth show up again... come to think of it, does anyone recall seeing them represented at the New Khitomer conference?
A non-humanoid jellyfish - sure, I'd take that.
I kinda like the idea of a "cute" alien race being extremely dangerous. (Kinda like Tribbles, except the Tribbles are just ecological dangers, not personal threats.
An interesting story idea I had was that humanoids are seen with suspicion in other Galaxies, since the Preservers did basically poison galaxies with their DNA, making evolution of other lifeforms hard. Maybe some Preserver remnant or Preserver seed species went on a killing spree in the Andromeda galaxy or the Pegasus galaxy and the non-humanoids had to keep them down. (This preserver seed species could be the Iconians...)
Source
"I went outside once. The graphics and audio were amazing but the gameplay and storyline sucked."
(The above is a quote but I forgot to copy the name of the quoted.)
... and of course, I'd love to have a T5/6 Kamarag, like there is a T5/6 Ambassador.
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> Hi there,
>
> 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!
Actually their design is very consistent with what Robert Hewitt Wolfe had conceptualized for DS9. 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."
Ship combat, however......from what little we were given about them becoming stronger the more there are in close proximity it pretty much sounds like it's going to be "F-U Gravwell, go FAW!"
This might well be what is going on; to my knowledge, however, while there are videos in the wild showing off the new queues and battlezone, none of them really talk about this mechanic.
Which would, I think, be simple enough to add in... the problem with this is that, given the current implementation of the 'downed' mechanic (see: Voth ships; , there's no way for players to finish off such a ship.
Yeah t is more of just a suggestion of how a mechanic that works based on making them harder to kill the more they group up could actually make gravity well less appealing to use, because grouping them could cause the ships to become even stronger an harder to kill. Hell if you made the strength of the buff they gain is based on how close they are to other Tzenkethi ships.
Well what if it is not that you have to finish off the ship, as it can only remain active after being downed for certain period of time, and then it explodes. Based on how long the downed state lasts might work as a factor of having to down them in certain areas as they would than be an area denial type mechanic. Both of the ideas given if they did use them could make for interesting stf an other content that would still appeal to many players.
As far as I remember, the Tzenkehi were only mentioned in a single throw away line in DS9 with no background to them. Wolfe's unofficial comments are no more canon than anything the officially licensed novels have done. It doesn't really matter what his intentions were as nothing made it into the show.
Personally I'm more concerned with how they are going to explain their sudden shift from a minor trivial power to a powerhouse that can threaten the alliance of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans.
Those protomatter weapons probably help...
And even in DS9, they seemed to a reasonably powerful faction; otherwise there'd be no reason for the Founders to try to provoke a war between them and the Federation.
"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