Lets face it...regardless of the supposed peaceful exploration the federation tries to do...it always boils down to conflict...all the shows had an overarching bad guy to shoot whether its xindi, borg, klingons or eugenics. We are here to shoot things!
In the game there will be a need to shoot things indeed. But there already are plenty of things to shoot at. The addition of a peaceful season wouldn't remove all the content that is currently available where players can thus keep shooting things.
And they could always combine the two things like they have done to some extent in the Tzenkethi arc: some exploring, before we're facing an enemy. Or fighting the Tal Shiar first, before re-uniting them with the Republic (now that I'm thinking of it, a re-unification between Vulcans and Romulans or Caitians and Ferasans could also be interesting). Or, a third option would be to have the main storyline focus on re-integration of the Romulan states or (re)-establishing contact with some former enemy groups like the already mentioned Voth, the Elachi or Solonae, with some groups within those societies opposing such diplomatic efforts.
There could still be conflicts added to the storyline in many ways and thus options to release new types of weapons, kit modules and ships etc, without making conflict the main theme of the story.
Rebuilding (either in the physical sense or rebuilding relations with all former enemies in the diplomatic sense) could be the main theme while still allowing for some conflict, just not with entire species/civiliasations or entire species minus one individual.
The latest storylines have made a great change in terms of the balance between exploration and peaceful expansion on one side, and mindless fighting plus endless conflict on the other side, but I feel that it could shift even a bit more to the side of exploration and peaceful expansion/diplomacy.
It's a short lived escape since the Andromeda galaxy is currently on a collision course with the Milky Way and the Milky Way will be devoured by Andromeda in the future. This isn't science fiction by the way, it's really happening.
I wouldn't say "devoured", the Milky Way and Andromeda are close enough in size that I'd call it a "fusion". Which, apart from making some nasties close in, won't be as bad as it sounds.
Some projections indicate that the core of Andromeda may come close enough to Sol to gravitationally sling our entire system into intergalactic space. Sounds unpleasant to me.
However, again, we're talking about two or three billion years down the road - the odds of my being around to be dismayed by this are, if you'll pardon the expression, astronomical.
Well, the night sky might start to look more intersting if you realize that every dot you see is probably a whole galaxy, not just a star, but that's a few milion or billion years after that.
The real problem would be if it disrupts the planetary orbits around the sun significantly, then we're really screwed. Whether the sun has stellar neighbors or not is probably irrelevant.
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As a side note, the Hur'q arc could be extended past ViL. They've been teased as a significant player in events, and could start pulling remnants together
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
Well... we know the Hur'q may have had a hand in the Fek'ilhri attack on the Klingons.
Starfleet (officially) has had no contact with the Fek'ilhri, although there was a featured Foundry mission that had an encounter between Starfleet and the Fek'ilhri during the Klingon War.
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...helping the Romulan Star Empire defeat the Tal Shiar and merge it with the Republic.
After the founding of the Imperial State, and Sela's assumption of the throne of the RSE, the Empire is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tal'Shiar and seems to have no interest in merging with the Republic. Subsuming it as an Imperial province, sure, but since the RSE's official position is that the Republic is in rebellion against their proper sovereign, merging seems unlikely.
To borrow a real-world situation for comparison, it would be a bit like going back in time to the late 1980s to help the USSR "overcome" the KGB and merge with the Baltic states.
Actually, there's still an independent rump Romulan Empire separate from Tal'Shiar-controlled space, per "Uneasy Allies".
And if the writers are interested in that route, there's a ready-made hook in The Path to 2409. General Velal took over command of the Romulan military after Tomalak was killed (probably by Iconians, the description implies their computer virus was involved), and is said to have opposed Praetor Taris and joined forces with Sela to overthrow her. As khre'enriov of the Imperial Fleet, he would be in a good position to fill the power vacuum left by Sela, and he's been able to work amicably with the Khitomer Accords powers in the past (he was stationed at DS9 during the Dominion War).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
I don't know how that ties into the story of STO though. I was going by story missions. Starfleet probably heard about it but, as I said, OFFICIALLY no contact between Federation and Fek'lhri forces. Although I have a feeling that MIGHT change as it was hinted in the Klingon Fek'lhri arc that there was evidence of Hur'q tech or something behind the Fek'lhri attacks.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
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I don't know how that ties into the story of STO though. I was going by story missions. Starfleet probably heard about it but, as I said, OFFICIALLY no contact between Federation and Fek'lhri forces. Although I have a feeling that MIGHT change as it was hinted in the Klingon Fek'lhri arc that there was evidence of Hur'q tech or something behind the Fek'lhri attacks.
there used to be a story bit if you entered Big Dig from the galaxy map. I forget the specific wording, but it was Something about how the Feds were excavating mysterious ruins and Romulans tried to seize the dig site. I guess the Romulans thought it was valuable. Then after the Feds and Romulans fight over it for a while..... SURPRISE FEKLHR BOSS!
There was a bit more than that. There was a side mission to collect unidentified plants. The Romulans were trying to mess with certain artifacts at the dig site and you were there to place forcefields to stop them. Hmm... there was a daily mission you'd get from starting it, I wonder if I still have that?
Ok, found it, Captain N'Verix of the USS Phlox was doing archaeology in the Chulan system. Yeah, so the RSE dudes are there because it's near Romulan territory.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
Space kills its super easy. Especially with a Gravity Well build. But then again we don't know what's coming down the pipe in terms of both space and ground units. Swarmers are easy. Battleships most likely won't be. And who knows what we're gonna deal with on the ground.
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Although if the competence of the Alliance fleets is anything to go on the Hur'Q can have stormtrooper aim and still wipe out our forces.
NPC AI isn't going to be on par with player skill. So... not exactly a fair comparison. Also there is such a thing as SCRIPTED events. Just because a player can Leeroy Jenkins the entire Iconian fleet alone, events will play out the way the script calls for.
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I wouldn't really use "getting the accolades" as proof for or against the amount of threat an opponent poses. Indeed lately they tend to come faster, what with the hordes of Tzen ground forces we met as an example, still even the completion bonus makes them no insta-kill. As for the Hur'q, I am pretty certain they won't be using swarmers only for the whole arc.
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This. Oh, baby, a First Federation lockbox? Who wouldn't want to fly a disco ball?
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This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I don't want to fly a disco ball. The only use I have for disco balls in any game is in CO, where a disco ball serves as the head of the heroine Tiny Dancer.
Then again, I don't want to fly an office block or a titanic d6, yet the Breen ships seem popular and there are some clamoring for a Borg Cube, so maybe I'm just in the minority.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
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Going back to the Hur'Q, i think there is an iconian connection.
In one of the old blogs surrounding the Iconian war a new apex predator was mentioned.
The whole Fek'Ihri Invasion, which was supposed to be based upon the Hur'Q was supposed to be an Iconian plot to destabilize the Klingon empire.
Hence it makes sense that the iconians could have planted the Hur'Q seeds, but that the Iconian war simply came too soon for them to be included.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Going back to the Hur'Q, i think there is an iconian connection.
In one of the old blogs surrounding the Iconian war a new apex predator was mentioned.
The whole Fek'Ihri Invasion, which was supposed to be based upon the Hur'Q was supposed to be an Iconian plot to destabilize the Klingon empire.
Hence it makes sense that the iconians could have planted the Hur'Q seeds, but that the Iconian war simply came too soon for them to be included.
In the Butterfly mission, Nog mentions that simply removing the Iconians from history would be bad for a number of reasons, one of these being that doing so would mean the Hur'q wouldn't get warp drive, and thus, never attack the Klingons, and thus, the Klingons would never become the warrior race the are now. This sets off a large chain of events where the Vulcan Empire has conquered most of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and is in a life or death struggle with The Dominion.
While its never explicitly stated if the Iconians gave warp drive to the Hur'q directly, or if the Hur'q simply learned how to make warp drives from studying Iconian relics on their homeworld, or some nearby world, there is an established connection between them already in-game.
Also, one of the Delta recruit objectives was to retrieve an Iconian relic from the Shrine of Kahless.
Going back to the Hur'Q, i think there is an iconian connection.
In one of the old blogs surrounding the Iconian war a new apex predator was mentioned.
The whole Fek'Ihri Invasion, which was supposed to be based upon the Hur'Q was supposed to be an Iconian plot to destabilize the Klingon empire.
Hence it makes sense that the iconians could have planted the Hur'Q seeds, but that the Iconian war simply came too soon for them to be included.
In the Butterfly mission, Nog mentions that simply removing the Iconians from history would be bad for a number of reasons, one of these being that doing so would mean the Hur'q wouldn't get warp drive, and thus, never attack the Klingons, and thus, the Klingons would never become the warrior race the are now. This sets off a large chain of events where the Vulcan Empire has conquered most of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and is in a life or death struggle with The Dominion.
While its never explicitly stated if the Iconians gave warp drive to the Hur'q directly, or if the Hur'q simply learned how to make warp drives from studying Iconian relics on their homeworld, or some nearby world, there is an established connection between them already in-game.
Also, one of the Delta recruit objectives was to retrieve an Iconian relic from the Shrine of Kahless.
Easily resolved when you pay attention to how time travel traditionally works in Star Trek: new stuff overwrites old stuff.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Comments
In the game there will be a need to shoot things indeed. But there already are plenty of things to shoot at. The addition of a peaceful season wouldn't remove all the content that is currently available where players can thus keep shooting things.
And they could always combine the two things like they have done to some extent in the Tzenkethi arc: some exploring, before we're facing an enemy. Or fighting the Tal Shiar first, before re-uniting them with the Republic (now that I'm thinking of it, a re-unification between Vulcans and Romulans or Caitians and Ferasans could also be interesting). Or, a third option would be to have the main storyline focus on re-integration of the Romulan states or (re)-establishing contact with some former enemy groups like the already mentioned Voth, the Elachi or Solonae, with some groups within those societies opposing such diplomatic efforts.
There could still be conflicts added to the storyline in many ways and thus options to release new types of weapons, kit modules and ships etc, without making conflict the main theme of the story.
Rebuilding (either in the physical sense or rebuilding relations with all former enemies in the diplomatic sense) could be the main theme while still allowing for some conflict, just not with entire species/civiliasations or entire species minus one individual.
The latest storylines have made a great change in terms of the balance between exploration and peaceful expansion on one side, and mindless fighting plus endless conflict on the other side, but I feel that it could shift even a bit more to the side of exploration and peaceful expansion/diplomacy.
Well, the night sky might start to look more intersting if you realize that every dot you see is probably a whole galaxy, not just a star, but that's a few milion or billion years after that.
The real problem would be if it disrupts the planetary orbits around the sun significantly, then we're really screwed. Whether the sun has stellar neighbors or not is probably irrelevant.
Perhaps they finally learned something without using Assimilation.
Don't frak with Starfleet.
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Starfleet (officially) has had no contact with the Fek'ilhri, although there was a featured Foundry mission that had an encounter between Starfleet and the Fek'ilhri during the Klingon War.
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Actually, there's still an independent rump Romulan Empire separate from Tal'Shiar-controlled space, per "Uneasy Allies".
And if the writers are interested in that route, there's a ready-made hook in The Path to 2409. General Velal took over command of the Romulan military after Tomalak was killed (probably by Iconians, the description implies their computer virus was involved), and is said to have opposed Praetor Taris and joined forces with Sela to overthrow her. As khre'enriov of the Imperial Fleet, he would be in a good position to fill the power vacuum left by Sela, and he's been able to work amicably with the Khitomer Accords powers in the past (he was stationed at DS9 during the Dominion War).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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There was a bit more than that. There was a side mission to collect unidentified plants. The Romulans were trying to mess with certain artifacts at the dig site and you were there to place forcefields to stop them. Hmm... there was a daily mission you'd get from starting it, I wonder if I still have that?
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
I'm hoping that we see some more Fek'lhri with the Hur'q so that Fed Romulans and Feds can get the kill accolades without resorting to the Foundry.
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NPC AI isn't going to be on par with player skill. So... not exactly a fair comparison. Also there is such a thing as SCRIPTED events. Just because a player can Leeroy Jenkins the entire Iconian fleet alone, events will play out the way the script calls for.
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<Raises Hand>
Then again, I don't want to fly an office block or a titanic d6, yet the Breen ships seem popular and there are some clamoring for a Borg Cube, so maybe I'm just in the minority.
Oh god... I can already see a certain fleet parading them around ESD...
And I thought the Vomph in Club 47 was bad enough...
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In one of the old blogs surrounding the Iconian war a new apex predator was mentioned.
The whole Fek'Ihri Invasion, which was supposed to be based upon the Hur'Q was supposed to be an Iconian plot to destabilize the Klingon empire.
Hence it makes sense that the iconians could have planted the Hur'Q seeds, but that the Iconian war simply came too soon for them to be included.
My character Tsin'xing
Easily resolved when you pay attention to how time travel traditionally works in Star Trek: new stuff overwrites old stuff.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/