A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Unfortunately, Cryptic isn't able to do an "evil" faction for this game. I think Cryptic did City of Villains, but I'm not 100% sure. They don't have the writing capability, nor the manpower to do it any justice. Also the time of full factions that act independent of the Grand Galactic Alliance died when the Iconian popped into the Great Hall, blew out the candles of all the High Council and forced everyone into the same bed. There's no counter-alliance to join either, for those who are disenchanted with the current railroad path.
I'd play as a Terran, for that chaotic neutral aspect
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
> @ichaerus1 said:
> Unfortunately, Cryptic isn't able to do an "evil" faction for this game. I think Cryptic did City of Villains, but I'm not 100% sure. They don't have the writing capability, nor the manpower to do it any justice. Also the time of full factions that act independent of the Grand Galactic Alliance died when the Iconian popped into the Great Hall, blew out the candles of all the High Council and forced everyone into the same bed. There's no counter-alliance to join either, for those who are disenchanted with the current railroad path.
In all of the time video games have existed (cause I've been playing them since they began) I've never seen one where "playing evil" did anything but made the game harder. Not even in the games where it was well written and implemented such as Fallout 1 & 2.
It didn't make City of Villains harder. It didn't make Warhammer Online harder. Or Neverwinter Nights. Being full "darkside" didn't make The Old Republic harder, nor even in SWTOR. Didn't make it harder for Dawn of War, or Dawn of War 2. I didn't feel the game was harder by going evil for that Crusades clone of God of War. Dante's Inferno I think it's called.
didn't make starcraft - or starcraft 2 - harder...though by the time of the latter, blizzard was well on their way to making the bad guys 'misunderstood and in need of redemption'...thank dog by the time HotS actually came out, they backpedaled a bit on that and we got to play a fully badass faction
also didn't make EAW harder, or UAW or fable...in fact, being evil at the end of that game actually makes the afterplay EASIER, because without TLC, the most powerful weapon there massively outclasses any other weapon in the game and can ONLY be obtained by being an evil TRIBBLE
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Madran the Ferengi has been a thorn in the player character's side for quite a long while. Wouldn't it be satisfying if there was an option to just shoot him and/or arrest him the moment we meet him next time?
This is why we need a Terran faction.
Long live the Empire!
According to a live stream, Kael said the episode where you play the Tzenkethi, it made a lot of players feel.....bad.
Hence why no Terran faction, or other evil groups.
As for the question asked, Starefleet does not kill, only when they have to.
Well I hope people feel bad after that episode, that was clearly one of the goals. The problem I had with the episode was that it went past presenting the Tzenkethi as doing something arguably necessary and understandable for fighting a major threat to the galaxy to totally evil villains. Even that morally conficted traitor Tzenkethi didn't have the kind of moral fiber to really make a stand against the admiral. It was a major writing fail in what was otherwise an interesting story where arguably both sides were the good guys.
Of course it is also sad that people seem unable to handle feeling bad, and that is used as a justification to deny exploring more exotic themes.
The problem is now society gets so butt hurt over everything
> @ichaerus1 said:
> Unfortunately, Cryptic isn't able to do an "evil" faction for this game. I think Cryptic did City of Villains, but I'm not 100% sure. They don't have the writing capability, nor the manpower to do it any justice. Also the time of full factions that act independent of the Grand Galactic Alliance died when the Iconian popped into the Great Hall, blew out the candles of all the High Council and forced everyone into the same bed. There's no counter-alliance to join either, for those who are disenchanted with the current railroad path.
In all of the time video games have existed (cause I've been playing them since they began) I've never seen one where "playing evil" did anything but made the game harder. Not even in the games where it was well written and implemented such as Fallout 1 & 2.
It didn't make City of Villains harder. It didn't make Warhammer Online harder. Or Neverwinter Nights. Being full "darkside" didn't make The Old Republic harder, nor even in SWTOR. Didn't make it harder for Dawn of War, or Dawn of War 2. I didn't feel the game was harder by going evil for that Crusades clone of God of War. Dante's Inferno I think it's called.
Every time I play a 40K game, I play Imperium of Man just because it's fun purging Xenos and Heretics as the Space Marines or Imperial Guard (I refuse to use the term Astra Militarum).
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
> @ichaerus1 said:
> Unfortunately, Cryptic isn't able to do an "evil" faction for this game. I think Cryptic did City of Villains, but I'm not 100% sure. They don't have the writing capability, nor the manpower to do it any justice. Also the time of full factions that act independent of the Grand Galactic Alliance died when the Iconian popped into the Great Hall, blew out the candles of all the High Council and forced everyone into the same bed. There's no counter-alliance to join either, for those who are disenchanted with the current railroad path.
In all of the time video games have existed (cause I've been playing them since they began) I've never seen one where "playing evil" did anything but made the game harder. Not even in the games where it was well written and implemented such as Fallout 1 & 2.
It didn't make City of Villains harder. It didn't make Warhammer Online harder. Or Neverwinter Nights. Being full "darkside" didn't make The Old Republic harder, nor even in SWTOR. Didn't make it harder for Dawn of War, or Dawn of War 2. I didn't feel the game was harder by going evil for that Crusades clone of God of War. Dante's Inferno I think it's called.
Every time I play a 40K game, I play Imperium of Man just because it's fun purging Xenos and Heretics as the Space Marines or Imperial Guard (I refuse to use the term Astra Militarum).
I like the I-Guard because in many cases, I can relate to them. I also like playing my corrupted Sisters of Battle army, the Dark Eldar, Chaos, even the Tau. I don't like the Space Marines so much anymore.
> @westx211 said: > To be honest in 40k pretty much everyone is an evil little TRIBBLE
The only good in the universe of 40K is the Imperium of Man. Everything else is heresy.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
If that isn't exotic to you then I'm very concerned.
Most of the questions you asked are looking far too much into something the creators of the TV shows never expected you examine that closely. The point of the Mirror Universe was to show what would happen if we used our abilities for selfish purposes rather then positive ones.
That patently doesn't make sense. To presuppose that simply by being selfish one can create an evil intergalactic empire is absurd. It has far too many moving parts and requires too many people to be completely obedient. Yes fear and crushing dissent can help, but that then requires the survivors to subsume their own selfish desires to say, be free and self determinant, which countermands the initial assumption. I don't expect it to actually make sense, mind you, as you say it wasn't intended for a deep dive, but there is always someone who sees the ocean and thinks "I wonder what's underneath?"
Your answers to my questions don't make sense either. Lets be honest, there is no rational way to imagine the Terran empire exists just like the Federation in its own universe. They are fundamentally different. They cannot exist in the same way because they do not exist in the same way.
As for the Doffing answers, that is pretty useless if they are locked behind lockboxes. However even those ideas bring some fascinating questions. How is the Terran Empire fascist and why is socialism a thing in the MU when they have a post scarcity society just like the prime universe? If the state exerts implied control over all production when production is essentially limitless, then how do they manage that? And why would they tolerate murder for advancement which is inherently dangerous to the top down command structures of such a government?
The logistical implications are fascinating, because to run a state like that you need an inordinate amount of internal security. China today, apparently, spends more on internal security than on their growing military. Socialist economies are also not stable in the least, although given that its a post scarcity society, naturally you can't run out of other people's money as they would otherwise do so.
Obviously some people don't care to look that deep and understand the fine clockwork as it were, they are happy that the clock can tell the time, and that's fine. Some of us though, want to explore.
But I think you're missing the fundamental nature of the subject. This is fiction. It's not real, it doesn't need to be rational and writers can and do just make things exist in whatever way they want with no explanation. Fiction is usually created top-down and "what's underneath" doesn't exist until the plot demands it be written.
The writers that have created the Terran Empire and made it the way it is did not get paid to do deep sociological analysis of whether it makes any sense, they got paid to write "what if the heroes were evil" -stories. So that's what they wrote. Anything more is fan speculation.
Thus, the Terran Empire is full of torture, murder and slavery because those things are evil and the narrative purpose of the Terran Empire is to be evil.
Yes they are on the wiki which means if you don't get them via box, you don't realize they exist.
But yes everything you say is true. The Terran Empire is and was a throwaway alien of the week that isn't intended for a deep dive. And I do doubt Cryptic's ability to write it well.
That doesn't matter though.
People who want to explore that idea want the deep dive and no matter how well it is done, it is an attempt to understand why people do evil things and how they can be okay continuing to do them. Most of the time when someone, including cops, kills someone in self defense, they end up crying because they just took a human life, and generally need therapy to deal with it despite knowing full well the alternative was them or someone else dying. Most people seem to be wired to abhor the idea of ending another human life.
I find this quite important to consider because, to invoke Godwin's law, the TRIBBLE were human beings too. They got dressed the same as you or I. They pet their dogs and cats, instead of kicking them. They brushed their teeth, told jokes, loved their kids, but also perpetrated some terrible murderous acts. Yet for some reason society rates their organized efficient evil as worse than the much more deadly communist evils.
Obviously both TRIBBLE and Communists are evil, but trying to understand what makes them do such things is important for trying to prevent more. IRL, they were largely based on controlling and distributing resources, including food. So how does a similar evil empire work in a post scarcity world?
No Cryptic probably wouldn't do a great job of it, but it would still be food for thought for those who want that. It isn't like we can explore that in the Foundry anymore. Yes its wishful thinking as well, afterall the Terran captains have to ultimately be able to play alongside prime captains, yet still probably will want to travel back to the MU for some ultraviolence now and then. That doesn't mean its a bad idea though it is sadly just not likely.
> @ichaerus1 said:
> Unfortunately, Cryptic isn't able to do an "evil" faction for this game. I think Cryptic did City of Villains, but I'm not 100% sure. They don't have the writing capability, nor the manpower to do it any justice. Also the time of full factions that act independent of the Grand Galactic Alliance died when the Iconian popped into the Great Hall, blew out the candles of all the High Council and forced everyone into the same bed. There's no counter-alliance to join either, for those who are disenchanted with the current railroad path.
In all of the time video games have existed (cause I've been playing them since they began) I've never seen one where "playing evil" did anything but made the game harder. Not even in the games where it was well written and implemented such as Fallout 1 & 2.
It didn't make City of Villains harder. It didn't make Warhammer Online harder. Or Neverwinter Nights. Being full "darkside" didn't make The Old Republic harder, nor even in SWTOR. Didn't make it harder for Dawn of War, or Dawn of War 2. I didn't feel the game was harder by going evil for that Crusades clone of God of War. Dante's Inferno I think it's called.
Every time I play a 40K game, I play Imperium of Man just because it's fun purging Xenos and Heretics as the Space Marines or Imperial Guard (I refuse to use the term Astra Militarum).
I like the I-Guard because in many cases, I can relate to them. I also like playing my corrupted Sisters of Battle army, the Dark Eldar, Chaos, even the Tau. I don't like the Space Marines so much anymore.
Death Korps of Krieg, all you have to say is anyone want to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the Imperium in a suicidal assault?
All you'd get is thousands of happy sounds from under the gasmasks.
The Imperial Guard being just ordinary humans (some abhumans as well) makes them an army that be related to.
I'd play Terran as the ordinary human in the Terran Empire facing down the horrors of a violent universe with a "Praise the Empire, may the Empire protect" before heading into a hard battle.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Many, if not most of the people arguing for a Terran Empire faction think that it would be poorly executed.
Yet some people still argue for it as a chance to "explore evil". That is stupid.
You want to "explore evil"? Read some books on psychology and crime and certain historical figures.
Playing a poorly written story in a video game isn't "exploring evil", it's looking for an excuse to be edgy and a reason to be happy about killing pixels.
And none of that would change Madran's fate. The devs say "let's make so-and-so a recurring villain" and so they are a recurring villain. Period.
Now I use villain generally here... Might be a nuisance, might be a "true" villain, might, at least for a while, depend upon your faction. Point remains; If so-and-so is supposed to come back for more then they will. The devs aren't likely to program an alternate path into the game for everyone that wants to just kill Madran or Sela or Obisek or whoever. Heck, if you want a Terran Empire then why not just let people kill anyone that they want, just for kicks? "Hey Cryptic, I just killed Daniels. What are you going to do about that temporal arc now? And Admiral Quinn? Incompetent. Needed to die for the betterment of the Federation. Sulu? I remember how much of a pain he was to find back in the day, so he dies, too. Remove them all from my version of the game, please".
As far as any claims of "censorship"?
The devs not making every faction playable is not "censorship".
The game has been, for a long time now, a shared-story game. Every faction has it's own stories that go for a little while and then they all come together.
So tell me, how much "exploration of evil" is happening when the Terran Empire is exploring the magical mushroom kingdom... Err, "Mycelial Realm"? Do you actually think that they write new dialog and have new lines for "Terran Stamets" to say? That the whole thing would change just for you and become an exploration into the feasibility of developing mushroom-powered doomsday weapons?
Why are they teaming up with Klingons and Romulans and Federation characters to fight the Borg invasion?
Why are they in the Undine Warzone?
Are they "exploring evil" there, too?
The Terran Empire is a cardboard cutout bad guy faction that no one should have ever tried to explain or rationalize because it all starts to seem silly when held up to the light of scrutiny.
Never mind that CBS would likely have their say, and while they seem to be happy to let their TV writers abuse Trek, I doubt that they would approve such a faction in the game.
At least not unless and until they decide to make a Mirror Universe series (please... No. Hasn't Trek suffered enough in recent years?).
yes, they definitely need to expand on the terran agonizer tech and create more TRIBBLE from it...the more different agony bits they come out with, the more i can steal for my version of A2 fleet ops
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
We need all the mirror skins for our ships and an account wide I.S.S. prefix
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I'd fly that, got plenty of names in mind (All named for RN dreadnoughts and Super dreadnoughts of WW1)
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Many, if not most of the people arguing for a Terran Empire faction think that it would be poorly executed.
Yet some people still argue for it as a chance to "explore evil". That is stupid.
You want to "explore evil"? Read some books on psychology and crime and certain historical figures.
Playing a poorly written story in a video game isn't "exploring evil", it's looking for an excuse to be edgy and a reason to be happy about killing pixels.
And none of that would change Madran's fate. The devs say "let's make so-and-so a recurring villain" and so they are a recurring villain. Period.
Now I use villain generally here... Might be a nuisance, might be a "true" villain, might, at least for a while, depend upon your faction. Point remains; If so-and-so is supposed to come back for more then they will. The devs aren't likely to program an alternate path into the game for everyone that wants to just kill Madran or Sela or Obisek or whoever. Heck, if you want a Terran Empire then why not just let people kill anyone that they want, just for kicks? "Hey Cryptic, I just killed Daniels. What are you going to do about that temporal arc now? And Admiral Quinn? Incompetent. Needed to die for the betterment of the Federation. Sulu? I remember how much of a pain he was to find back in the day, so he dies, too. Remove them all from my version of the game, please".
As far as any claims of "censorship"?
The devs not making every faction playable is not "censorship".
The game has been, for a long time now, a shared-story game. Every faction has it's own stories that go for a little while and then they all come together.
So tell me, how much "exploration of evil" is happening when the Terran Empire is exploring the magical mushroom kingdom... Err, "Mycelial Realm"? Do you actually think that they write new dialog and have new lines for "Terran Stamets" to say? That the whole thing would change just for you and become an exploration into the feasibility of developing mushroom-powered doomsday weapons?
Why are they teaming up with Klingons and Romulans and Federation characters to fight the Borg invasion?
Why are they in the Undine Warzone?
Are they "exploring evil" there, too?
The Terran Empire is a cardboard cutout bad guy faction that no one should have ever tried to explain or rationalize because it all starts to seem silly when held up to the light of scrutiny.
Never mind that CBS would likely have their say, and while they seem to be happy to let their TV writers abuse Trek, I doubt that they would approve such a faction in the game.
At least not unless and until they decide to make a Mirror Universe series (please... No. Hasn't Trek suffered enough in recent years?).
Its weird that you seem to be replying to my post yet didn't actually read all of it.
First of all, you're deliberately creating a strawman argument here. Romulans are in game, but no one gets to play Tal Shiar and has no choice but to ally with Fed/KDF as opposed to restore the Romulan Star Empire. I already acknowledged the obvious problem, so we have to understand the end of the Terran campaign is obviously already set: Defect/infiltrate the prime universe and ally with the Federation or maybe KDF, likely because you think Leeta is insane and a danger to the MU, if not just yourself and your crew. Dialogues would be as generic as they are for the differences between Fed/KDF.
And it isn't about exploring evil as you claim, its exploring the MU and what makes it tick. If you can't think beyond insane black and white broad strokes then obviously that sort of content isn't for you. Yeah there's going to be some evil there, but we already know the MU isn't all murder and eating babies.
We already know from the shows themselves that not only can MU people survive in the prime universe, but vice versa. Most Terrans are not the exaggerated cartoon villain that Leeta is, for example. Lorca apparently managed just fine, didn't he? Kirk managed to handle himself just fine in the MU didn't he? Not only is it plausible for someone from one universe to survive and blend in while in the other without a serious problem, it is canon. Our MU captains would be among those people.
Finally my complain on censorship should have been extremely obvious as to what it was referring to if you actually read my post and noticed certain oddities.
Obsidian did some excellent Dark Side (not evil) writing and design for KOTOR 2, including one quest that made the dark side choice very attractive even to light siders (another light saber when you really wanted it), and companion influence that let you bring them down to (or close to) dark side mastery. Bioware had some good dark side moments in KOTOR 1 but it was mostly shallow mustache-twirling. Good dark or evil content is hard.
However, you don't need a mirror tutorial episode to create a MU defector or infiltrator, any more than you need it for a Cardassian or Liberated Borg.
I already have a Liberated Romulan captain, and a Terran defector who escaped with his Paradox ship, crew, and re-programmed holo-Leeta executive officer.
I've never been particularly impressed with Bioware's writing myself.
You are right though, and I already do have some captains from the MU. That is easy enough to do, but since Cryptic destroyed the Foundry, I can't go make more episodes involving explorations of a mirror universe.
I've never been particularly impressed with Bioware's writing myself.
You are right though, and I already do have some captains from the MU. That is easy enough to do, but since Cryptic destroyed the Foundry, I can't go make more episodes involving explorations of a mirror universe.
It's too bad they are a small company without the resources to maintain it, the Foundry was a great place for stories that had too small of an audience to be story episodes. Things like being a mercenary, trader, or the mirror universe.
It's funny though, I just realized that with as many people as my federation captains are forced to kill because "there's no other choice" the STO story episodes fit pretty well with a hardened Terran defector or conscience-free infiltrator. "Real" native Federation citizens ought to be appalled by the rivers of blood, mountains of bodies, and armadas of ships they've destroyed.
Obsidian did some excellent Dark Side (not evil) writing and design for KOTOR 2, including one quest that made the dark side choice very attractive even to light siders (another light saber when you really wanted it), and companion influence that let you bring them down to (or close to) dark side mastery. Bioware had some good dark side moments in KOTOR 1 but it was mostly shallow mustache-twirling. Good dark or evil content is hard.
However, you don't need a mirror tutorial episode to create a MU defector or infiltrator, any more than you need it for a Cardassian or Liberated Borg.
I already have a Liberated Romulan captain, and a Terran defector who escaped with his Paradox ship, crew, and re-programmed holo-Leeta executive officer.
My Vorta is actually a Mirror universe genetics experiment. I went in a weird way with it and decided to say the genetic tinkering changed the frequency she sees the world in, so she's fully color blind because she just doesn't see that part of the EM spectrum. She sees multiple colors... just not the RGB spectrum. She wears goggles that can create a false color overlay on what she's seeing to simulate color vision.
Many, if not most of the people arguing for a Terran Empire faction think that it would be poorly executed.
Yet some people still argue for it as a chance to "explore evil". That is stupid.
You want to "explore evil"? Read some books on psychology and crime and certain historical figures.
That is like saying go to church if you want to 'explore being good'. It's a game. It's purely for entertainment purposes and to experience a different flavour other than "Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, ALLIANCE! I WILL SAVE YOU!" Who wouldn't want to explore a alternate universe? Anyways I don't think I would want to play another Fed faction either way, evil or not unless they treat it like Victory Is Life and let you start at lvl 65 with 2-3 specialisation trees completed. I'd be happy for just space barbie skins AKA I.S.S. Prefix! (you think this one would be the easiest too) and maybe MU paint job skins with the pincer and sword earth decals on the hull (probably the most work seeing as it's a model texture).
Playing a poorly written story in a video game isn't "exploring evil", it's looking for an excuse to be edgy and a reason to be happy about killing pixels.
What wrong with that? Our characters are already mass murders anyways as the 'GOOD' guys. Makes zero difference what organisation we kill for. I have quite liked the two recent MU episodes we have been given so far and would welcome a chapter of 6 episodes with them, faction or no faction.
The devs aren't likely to program an alternate path into the game for everyone that wants to just kill Madran or Sela or Obisek or whoever.
They could within the specific episode. Though it would probably be easier for them to just set up another character or if they're going to die in future episode give a different option/ending cut scene to players that are malicious [insert terrans/klingons/roms] when their death occurs. You know they did it to Hakeev for Romulan characters.
Do you actually think that they write new dialog and have new lines for "Terran Stamets" to say? That the whole thing would change just for you and become an exploration into the feasibility of developing mushroom-powered doomsday weapons?
Why not? They made unique dialogue for the other factions. My Disco character is noticed by other Terrans. It is pretty fun when the devs take their time to include these little things and much appreciated.
Do I expect do go ahead and be doing evil things for them all the time? No, I expect to do the usual vanilla "I am good guy" for old content. The Jem'Hadar h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶a̶r̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶m̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ faction are exactly the same.
Why are they teaming up with Klingons and Romulans and Federation characters to fight the Borg invasion?
Why are they in the Undine Warzone?
Are they "exploring evil" there, too?
Why not? Maybe we are acting as undercover agents spying on the weak Federation on behalf of Imperial Starfleet Command or like Killy looking for new advanced weapons to further our own agenda or trying to buy time in order to find a way back to our universe.
The Terran Empire is a cardboard cutout bad guy faction that no one should have ever tried to explain or rationalize because it all starts to seem silly when held up to the light of scrutiny.
You can pretty much say the same thing about the United Federation of Planets. We can barely tolerate our own neighbours much less coexist with 100-1000 of alien worlds. Remember it's a game and not historical documents...
Never mind that CBS would likely have their say, and while they seem to be happy to let their TV writers abuse Trek, I doubt that they would approve such a faction in the game.
At least not unless and until they decide to make a Mirror Universe series (please... No. Hasn't Trek suffered enough in recent years?).
I doubt they would allow any player playing the bad guys in any game. In today's society everything is PC and people seem to think they have the right to be offended about anything no matter how small it is.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
Heck, if you want a Terran Empire then why not just let people kill anyone that they want, just for kicks? "Hey Cryptic, I just killed Daniels. What are you going to do about that temporal arc now? And Admiral Quinn? Incompetent. Needed to die for the betterment of the Federation. Sulu? I remember how much of a pain he was to find back in the day, so he dies, too. Remove them all from my version of the game, please".
Heh why not! That is a great idea! Maybe that can be the intro for MU temporal agent characters. They come across their version of Daniels and kill him causing a temporal incursion into the prime universe! Daniels can even whimper his last words: "W-wait! T---imeline is changi-..." 💀
I'd settle for just the I.S.S. Prefix though. I think most have been begging for Cryptic to add one to the store for years, not sure if it's on their radar.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
yeah but writing them though... You have to write a very specific form of evil. It needs structure otherwise there'd be no society, and everyone would be killing each other all the time.
Comments
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
It didn't make City of Villains harder. It didn't make Warhammer Online harder. Or Neverwinter Nights. Being full "darkside" didn't make The Old Republic harder, nor even in SWTOR. Didn't make it harder for Dawn of War, or Dawn of War 2. I didn't feel the game was harder by going evil for that Crusades clone of God of War. Dante's Inferno I think it's called.
also didn't make EAW harder, or UAW or fable...in fact, being evil at the end of that game actually makes the afterplay EASIER, because without TLC, the most powerful weapon there massively outclasses any other weapon in the game and can ONLY be obtained by being an evil TRIBBLE
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
The problem is now society gets so butt hurt over everything
Every time I play a 40K game, I play Imperium of Man just because it's fun purging Xenos and Heretics as the Space Marines or Imperial Guard (I refuse to use the term Astra Militarum).
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I like the I-Guard because in many cases, I can relate to them. I also like playing my corrupted Sisters of Battle army, the Dark Eldar, Chaos, even the Tau. I don't like the Space Marines so much anymore.
> To be honest in 40k pretty much everyone is an evil little TRIBBLE
The only good in the universe of 40K is the Imperium of Man. Everything else is heresy.
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
Yes they are on the wiki which means if you don't get them via box, you don't realize they exist.
But yes everything you say is true. The Terran Empire is and was a throwaway alien of the week that isn't intended for a deep dive. And I do doubt Cryptic's ability to write it well.
That doesn't matter though.
People who want to explore that idea want the deep dive and no matter how well it is done, it is an attempt to understand why people do evil things and how they can be okay continuing to do them. Most of the time when someone, including cops, kills someone in self defense, they end up crying because they just took a human life, and generally need therapy to deal with it despite knowing full well the alternative was them or someone else dying. Most people seem to be wired to abhor the idea of ending another human life.
I find this quite important to consider because, to invoke Godwin's law, the TRIBBLE were human beings too. They got dressed the same as you or I. They pet their dogs and cats, instead of kicking them. They brushed their teeth, told jokes, loved their kids, but also perpetrated some terrible murderous acts. Yet for some reason society rates their organized efficient evil as worse than the much more deadly communist evils.
Obviously both TRIBBLE and Communists are evil, but trying to understand what makes them do such things is important for trying to prevent more. IRL, they were largely based on controlling and distributing resources, including food. So how does a similar evil empire work in a post scarcity world?
No Cryptic probably wouldn't do a great job of it, but it would still be food for thought for those who want that. It isn't like we can explore that in the Foundry anymore. Yes its wishful thinking as well, afterall the Terran captains have to ultimately be able to play alongside prime captains, yet still probably will want to travel back to the MU for some ultraviolence now and then. That doesn't mean its a bad idea though it is sadly just not likely.
Edit: Censorship is moronic.
Death Korps of Krieg, all you have to say is anyone want to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the Imperium in a suicidal assault?
All you'd get is thousands of happy sounds from under the gasmasks.
The Imperial Guard being just ordinary humans (some abhumans as well) makes them an army that be related to.
I'd play Terran as the ordinary human in the Terran Empire facing down the horrors of a violent universe with a "Praise the Empire, may the Empire protect" before heading into a hard battle.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Yet some people still argue for it as a chance to "explore evil". That is stupid.
You want to "explore evil"? Read some books on psychology and crime and certain historical figures.
Playing a poorly written story in a video game isn't "exploring evil", it's looking for an excuse to be edgy and a reason to be happy about killing pixels.
And none of that would change Madran's fate. The devs say "let's make so-and-so a recurring villain" and so they are a recurring villain. Period.
Now I use villain generally here... Might be a nuisance, might be a "true" villain, might, at least for a while, depend upon your faction. Point remains; If so-and-so is supposed to come back for more then they will. The devs aren't likely to program an alternate path into the game for everyone that wants to just kill Madran or Sela or Obisek or whoever. Heck, if you want a Terran Empire then why not just let people kill anyone that they want, just for kicks? "Hey Cryptic, I just killed Daniels. What are you going to do about that temporal arc now? And Admiral Quinn? Incompetent. Needed to die for the betterment of the Federation. Sulu? I remember how much of a pain he was to find back in the day, so he dies, too. Remove them all from my version of the game, please".
As far as any claims of "censorship"?
The devs not making every faction playable is not "censorship".
The game has been, for a long time now, a shared-story game. Every faction has it's own stories that go for a little while and then they all come together.
So tell me, how much "exploration of evil" is happening when the Terran Empire is exploring the magical mushroom kingdom... Err, "Mycelial Realm"? Do you actually think that they write new dialog and have new lines for "Terran Stamets" to say? That the whole thing would change just for you and become an exploration into the feasibility of developing mushroom-powered doomsday weapons?
Why are they teaming up with Klingons and Romulans and Federation characters to fight the Borg invasion?
Why are they in the Undine Warzone?
Are they "exploring evil" there, too?
The Terran Empire is a cardboard cutout bad guy faction that no one should have ever tried to explain or rationalize because it all starts to seem silly when held up to the light of scrutiny.
Never mind that CBS would likely have their say, and while they seem to be happy to let their TV writers abuse Trek, I doubt that they would approve such a faction in the game.
At least not unless and until they decide to make a Mirror Universe series (please... No. Hasn't Trek suffered enough in recent years?).
Long live the Empire!
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
We need all the mirror skins for our ships and an account wide I.S.S. prefix
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Yeah! Mirror Typhoon too please!
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Its weird that you seem to be replying to my post yet didn't actually read all of it.
First of all, you're deliberately creating a strawman argument here. Romulans are in game, but no one gets to play Tal Shiar and has no choice but to ally with Fed/KDF as opposed to restore the Romulan Star Empire. I already acknowledged the obvious problem, so we have to understand the end of the Terran campaign is obviously already set: Defect/infiltrate the prime universe and ally with the Federation or maybe KDF, likely because you think Leeta is insane and a danger to the MU, if not just yourself and your crew. Dialogues would be as generic as they are for the differences between Fed/KDF.
And it isn't about exploring evil as you claim, its exploring the MU and what makes it tick. If you can't think beyond insane black and white broad strokes then obviously that sort of content isn't for you. Yeah there's going to be some evil there, but we already know the MU isn't all murder and eating babies.
We already know from the shows themselves that not only can MU people survive in the prime universe, but vice versa. Most Terrans are not the exaggerated cartoon villain that Leeta is, for example. Lorca apparently managed just fine, didn't he? Kirk managed to handle himself just fine in the MU didn't he? Not only is it plausible for someone from one universe to survive and blend in while in the other without a serious problem, it is canon. Our MU captains would be among those people.
Finally my complain on censorship should have been extremely obvious as to what it was referring to if you actually read my post and noticed certain oddities.
However, you don't need a mirror tutorial episode to create a MU defector or infiltrator, any more than you need it for a Cardassian or Liberated Borg.
I already have a Liberated Romulan captain, and a Terran defector who escaped with his Paradox ship, crew, and re-programmed holo-Leeta executive officer.
You are right though, and I already do have some captains from the MU. That is easy enough to do, but since Cryptic destroyed the Foundry, I can't go make more episodes involving explorations of a mirror universe.
It's too bad they are a small company without the resources to maintain it, the Foundry was a great place for stories that had too small of an audience to be story episodes. Things like being a mercenary, trader, or the mirror universe.
It's funny though, I just realized that with as many people as my federation captains are forced to kill because "there's no other choice" the STO story episodes fit pretty well with a hardened Terran defector or conscience-free infiltrator. "Real" native Federation citizens ought to be appalled by the rivers of blood, mountains of bodies, and armadas of ships they've destroyed.
My character Tsin'xing
That is like saying go to church if you want to 'explore being good'. It's a game. It's purely for entertainment purposes and to experience a different flavour other than "Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, ALLIANCE! I WILL SAVE YOU!" Who wouldn't want to explore a alternate universe? Anyways I don't think I would want to play another Fed faction either way, evil or not unless they treat it like Victory Is Life and let you start at lvl 65 with 2-3 specialisation trees completed. I'd be happy for just space barbie skins AKA I.S.S. Prefix! (you think this one would be the easiest too) and maybe MU paint job skins with the pincer and sword earth decals on the hull (probably the most work seeing as it's a model texture).
What wrong with that? Our characters are already mass murders anyways as the 'GOOD' guys. Makes zero difference what organisation we kill for. I have quite liked the two recent MU episodes we have been given so far and would welcome a chapter of 6 episodes with them, faction or no faction.
They could within the specific episode. Though it would probably be easier for them to just set up another character or if they're going to die in future episode give a different option/ending cut scene to players that are malicious [insert terrans/klingons/roms] when their death occurs. You know they did it to Hakeev for Romulan characters.
Why not? They made unique dialogue for the other factions. My Disco character is noticed by other Terrans. It is pretty fun when the devs take their time to include these little things and much appreciated.
Do I expect do go ahead and be doing evil things for them all the time? No, I expect to do the usual vanilla "I am good guy" for old content. The Jem'Hadar h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶a̶r̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶m̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ faction are exactly the same.
Why not? Maybe we are acting as undercover agents spying on the weak Federation on behalf of Imperial Starfleet Command or like Killy looking for new advanced weapons to further our own agenda or trying to buy time in order to find a way back to our universe.
You can pretty much say the same thing about the United Federation of Planets. We can barely tolerate our own neighbours much less coexist with 100-1000 of alien worlds. Remember it's a game and not historical documents...
I doubt they would allow any player playing the bad guys in any game. In today's society everything is PC and people seem to think they have the right to be offended about anything no matter how small it is.
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
Heh
I'd settle for just the I.S.S. Prefix though. I think most have been begging for Cryptic to add one to the store for years, not sure if it's on their radar.
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
My character Tsin'xing