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[HOUSE DIVIDED] "The Centre Cannot Hold" and "Khitomer Discord" Feedback and Discussion

ambassadorkael#6946 ambassadorkael Member, Administrator Posts: 2,674 Community Manager
Let us know what you think of the two new episodes here!
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments

  • tasshenatasshena Member Posts: 525 Arc User
    edited June 2020
    I love that another old bug is returned. Played Centre Cannot Hold, and after warping out at the end? it claimed I hadn't STARTED it yet.

    And I love how the Mo'kai computer virus from pre-TOS is still somehow more advanced than an ICONIAN probe, to be able to take the ship over fully instead of killing it. Grade A cow manure right there. Especially since your own missions established that Starfleet had been EXPOSED TO IT BEFORE.

    Or did your overlords at CBS demand that they be that strong by comparison to ANYTHING else?
  • tasshenatasshena Member Posts: 525 Arc User
    Also take notice everyone on the forum, how ViL was so well loved, then suddenly out of nowhere the Executive Producer 'stepped down' and we've gotten nothing but Discovery and highly overpowered Discovery rated stuff (remember, this game is set 150 YEARS AFTER DISCOVERY...) and nothing else. Makes me think more and more that Ricossa was dismissed for resisting Disco content.
  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    played house dividedCentre cannot hold... slog fest of time gates. 1 ground battle and 5 to 6 space battles with time gates... use ship with pets. wont play it a 2nd time.
    Post edited by tigeraries on
  • zateron#9297 zateron Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    Wish I could offer an unbiased opinion of the new episodes, but it is really hard with Summer Event snubbed to some unannounced date in August.
    As I've stated in other threads, Summer Event offered a change of pace from the usual shoot ships, shoot ground , shoot ships again, and again, and again in 6 sets of 3.
    Lots of really long episodes that I kept looking at my time for when it might be over, which felt not nearly short enough.

    Summer Event provided a nice break from the repetitive game play that is STO, which has been pushed aside with no real improvements in a long time. It is really difficult to look at the new content (given so much attention) without true animosity for what it pushed aside to make room for in a year that feels like lots of waiting, waiting, and MORE waiting. Had I had Rise Summer Event first maybe my opinion might have been different. I spent all of June waiting for Summer Event in July, especially July 4th weekend. Very disappointed with STO to bump something we looked forward to in favor of content we had absolutely no interest in seeing until after regular scheduled events like Summer Event happened on time first.

    So, visually the new episodes looked spectacular. Visually the best new content I've seen of the Klingons. Aside from the look the episodes were really long, and I hated it all so much. Every window message was a reminder - " WAIT LONGER FOR SUMMER EVENT" which really irritated me.

    So that's as best as I can do to compliment something that has delayed Risa Summer Event which I believe needs far more improvements since the removal of the day/night cycle because of lighting 2.0.

    Literally during every space battle I sighed thinking, when will this end? I can't wait, but have no other choice.
    Post edited by zateron#9297 on
  • westx211westx211 Member Posts: 42,206 Arc User
    After playing through the 2 episodes I didn't mind Centre too much. It was alright. But my brain hurt after playing Khitomer Discord. We are forced to side with Jula who wants to exterminate the federation and romulans, all the non klingon empire people and bring them to glory. We are forced to side with the woman who has done horrific things in the past and is one of the most dishonorable klingons. And the story just rolls with it? Martok doesn't say much about it, its like the mission is trying to make her out to be the "good" guy when clearly as we have seen in the game and the show, no she is not. She's pretty despicable. I found the mission difficult to play through because that stuff really hurts the story.

    In addition, the ending where we just leave and don't explain anything doesn't make sense. These are people we fought alongside in the Iconian war. A war based on our very extinction. None of them should ever have doubted our innocence and they all should have offered us the chance to speak regardless of our faction. And then when we disable them we just leave? Why don't we talk to them? They're disabled and we destroyed all other ships there is no threat, it would be logical to just speak and talk it out with them, show them the evidence. This mission feels poorly thought out overall.
    Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,276 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    okay...what the FLUFF just happened? why am i fighting on j'ula's side halfway through the second mission just because akaar went all t'kuvma and what the hell is jm'pok doing killing alliance personnel and his own ALLIES?

    like...i'm seriously hoping the player character got knocked out during one of the fights or something and is actually in a mo'kai lab being brainwashed, because the only other alternative here is someone at cryptic seriously needs to be given the boot and replaced with a writer who can actually write a COHERENT plot!​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #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!"
    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.
  • tasshenatasshena Member Posts: 525 Arc User
    After thinking about the mission more I come back to one thing that J'ula was pushing, and I wonder if that won't be the 'real' narrative point for the arc. That Martok is the 'real' chancellor, and J'mpok took the title by fraud, since the duel was not 'to the death' like it should have been. Since they now have VAs, and have JG Hertzler to play Martok.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,973 Community Moderator
    Starting to wonder if J'mpok isn't content with being Chancellor of the Empire, but wants to rule the galaxy.
    While the epic curveball at the end of the second episode hits you out of left field... I have a feeling more will become clear as the story progresses. I'm not going to jump on the "WTF" bandwagon until I get the full picture and can judge the whole arc in full context.
    J'Ula is just an ally of necessity. I know my Discovery character is going to hate her guts, but... when you've been made out to be the enemy by one of the most powerful people in the quadrant... you kinda don't have very many options.

    The only thing I will rage against... IS THE GOD DANG CLIFFHANGER! ;)
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    I have to agree that J'mpok's turn seemed to come too soon, granted my justification for it is that J'mpok isn't as smart as he thinks he is and is played by Akaar.

    Edit: Regarding J'Ula becoming an ally she is an ally of convinience, our characters even fed ones outright state "this does not make us friends". Such things happen in real life too USA and USSR were allies during ww2 even though they were enemies before and after said conflict.
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,165 Arc User
    Got lost in the plot in the last area of the first mission. I was clear what was going off until that point. But really enjoyed the combat and liked the way we warped to multiple areas as part of the same mission. Would have been a great mission if not for the lag and bugs which ruined it.

    The lag and rubber banding caused me to die multiple times as I hit powers that went on cooldown but failed to work as I bounced out of range. Then hit heals that went on cooldown then failed to work from lag so I died. Then I had the well-known bug where the enemy disappear and reappear. The bug where the NPC is still firing just not drawn by the game engine until you get point blank range so you cannot target them. So, you have to guess where in combat to fly. Same bug we get a lot in Hive TFO.

    Remove the lag and bugs and I would have rated it 7 or 8 out of 10. With all the problems it’s a 2 out of 10.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    The Center Cannot Hold - A prime example of how I do not want to see content done. Started great and then the rest was just running the normal patrols as part of a 'featured episode.' Sorry, but that's lazy and the mission is a slog fest that I won't run a 2nd time. I had played the Patrols before doing this mission so to me it was just a waste of time with very little new content. We wait months for these episodes, to have one of them be nothing but a few patrols patched together was very disappointing.

    Khitomer Discord - Much better.. an actual REAL episode. Strong cut scenes, excellent voice acting, a good mix of story and action.. it was overall up to the high standards that Cryptic has established recently. The plot twist is a bit.. confusing, I have my issues with how quickly people that should have known better seemed to turn against me. I am going to let the rest of the story flesh out though before I make a full judgment on that. The story isn't complete, so I'll wait until I have that complete image to judge the overall storyline, but in general.. I liked this episode.


    The Center Cannot Hold. - 2/10. The story parts were good, but having us run a chain of patrols does not count as a Feature Episode. The rewards for this episode are not up to par, a Mark XI Blue item? Really?

    Khitomer Discord - 8/10. Parts of the story are a bit confusing but the overall episode structure was well done. Cut scenes and acting are top notch, scenery and art were great, the mix of action and story was on target. An overall fun episode and well done. Again, the rewards are not up to par, Mark XI Blue items are not the established norm with past episodes rewarding Very Rare and even Ultra Rare items of higher mark. This part should be adjusted.

    Insert witty signature line here.
  • questeriusquesterius Member Posts: 8,301 Arc User
    Reading this it is probably better to postpone playing his mission till i have more time during the weekend.
    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.
  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    Intresting little detail is that the flagship captain for your faction is the one doubting J'mpok's word here, Shon for fed, Koren for KDF. It does make a degree of sense that the captain you interact with the most goes "I know this person and they're no traitor something doesn't add up here".
  • korithian1korithian1 Member Posts: 82 Arc User
    Enough with the hypocrisy.

    I'm a KDF player and I'm already fed up with the Klingons. Speech after speech of honour and how it is a good day to die, an honourable death, a Klingon death and yet J'Ula has run from every engagement over the last year. Then she makes a speech about cowardice, its complete rubbish. Even after all this and hearing the Klingons carp on about honour I have no idea what they mean by the word, hell even my Cardassian seems to occasional starts shouting about it often followed by a Klingon word for no doubt honour.

    So enough with honour being the buzz word for every time a Klingon does anything, even they must see its hypocritical and just makes them look stupid. Nobody is going to buy your talk of honour when you run from engagement after engagement and use cowardly computer viruses to set off warp core breaches. Yes fight to win but then don't make anyone sit through a boring rant about honour which then has people cheering as it makes the story have no connection to the game.

    Speaking of which, I don't know if there is some deep secret smarter part of the story but it seems the guy that pops up on my view screen and starts the majority of my missions has in the course of one single story episode gone and declared you public enemy number 2. I just played the story and it felt like I had no control or agency in what was going on.

    You have a captain that for most people has killed more people that the borg, saved the galaxy 2 or 3 times lead the fight in 15 or so campaigns and then cant think their way out as soon as a transporter isn't available and may or may not be totally expendable, I stopped caring when the big bad we have been hunting for a year can in defeat outsmart my Cardassian Intelligence Officer into forcing me to work with her.

    Can we at some point have our captains as little more than a bruiser that stands on the side line while events unfold and then follow along with whatever named individual tells them what to do then off to go beat up someone as that is our entire role in the story then back to standing at the side listening to long rants that really don't mean anything.
  • questeriusquesterius Member Posts: 8,301 Arc User
    I think i just broke Kithomer again. 3rd time i cannot progress on that mission.
    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.
  • mikeblackwolfmikeblackwolf Member Posts: 64 Arc User
    tasshena wrote: »
    Also take notice everyone on the forum, how ViL was so well loved, then suddenly out of nowhere the Executive Producer 'stepped down' and we've gotten nothing but Discovery and highly overpowered Discovery rated stuff (remember, this game is set 150 YEARS AFTER DISCOVERY...) and nothing else. Makes me think more and more that Ricossa was dismissed for resisting Disco content.

    YES, totally agree. I did not hate disco, it was a generic scifi show wearing the skin of Star Trek. Enterprise worked for me as a prequel as it respected the show's bible and I loved the gradual introduction of equipment and such we were used to in TOS and TNG+
    Just finished it, it's all kind of a blur now. I'll comment more when I've played it again, but these are my first impressions.

    First, good use of cutscenes, and it was wonderful seeing Robert O'Reilly back. More, and better, his voice work was excellent, as was JG Hertzler's (as usual).
    Second, the story was fairly good. I always enjoy a bit of political machination, but it did seem a bit forced at times, particularly near the end.
    The new environment for the Alliance chambers was gorgeous, and what I've seen of the new Klingon updates looked nice.

    However, it was not without frustrations. Most of them were in the last two phases of the second mission.

    It begins when you go back upstairs. You're met with a vast army of enemies, many of which are Swordmasters, each one of which is able to oneshot your whole team with a disruptor shotgun, or twin pistols or what have you. Expect 50 or so respawns.
    Then, there's a nifty sequence where you have to save injured civilians while the energy wall approaches. That would likely have been enough, but no, they also spawn a million Elachi all over the place, and take your away team away, so the Elachi will all blast you. Expect another 100 or so respawns if you actually try to save the civilians.
    Finally, you go into space, where you're met by another 5000 enemy ships, including some that are more or less invulnerable to harm and also capable of instantly oneshotting you, either with a spread of torpedoes that ignore shields, or a tractor death ray that ignores shields and that also recycles so fast it will be used again as soon as your polarized hull wears off... and does around 25k damage per second, so... you're dead in about 5 seconds at best. Expect another 50 or so respawns.

    So, it was enjoyable until those last two phases where it was respawn, get oneshotted, respawn, get oneshotted, etc. for the remainder of the mission while the NPCs actually finish things off for you. It left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

    There was one other thing. The game has become SO difficult to play because of the endless impenetrable flashy, glowy, explody effects. It's impossible to SEE anything. Until now, it's been pretty well just in space, but now it's on the ground as well. As an example, the Shield Generator shield effect is now so bright and invasive, that you won't be able to see anything if you use it. Add in the Healing Generator with it's giant glowing green circle... then explosions, and electric effects, Tachyon Harmonics and on and on... just unplayable.

    So, those are my thoughts. I may add to them once I've done the missions again.

    Again I agree, some mission have just become a total uninteresting grind (Illusions of communications final battle comes to mind) but as for the visual pew pew, that again bugs me, I have reduced vision so most of the time I just have to hope Tab works for me to target stuff.


  • dongemaharudongemaharu Member Posts: 544 Arc User
    I liked the game play of Khitomer Discord, but really, J'Ula helps your character up and clutches her pearls at Aakar's violence? Seen this template before in many episodes: male and female comrades, guy gets way too evil, lady chastises typically over the top male blood lust. Just sayin'...it's a regular thing in STO.
    Wish I could offer an unbiased opinion of the new episodes, but it is really hard with

    So that's as best as I can do to compliment something that has delayed Risa Summer Event which I believe needs far more improvements since the removal of the day/night cycle because of lighting 2.0.
    Removing the day/night cycle was such a huge step backwards, making the game less dynamic. I used to love hanging out on Risa and Bajor.


  • sennahcheribsennahcherib Member Posts: 2,823 Arc User
    I don't really play anymore at STO, not interested by all these events; I waited for new episodes.
    I did the 2 missions yesterday, and i'm really disappointed. why?

    - they are too long only because the missions don't have a real timing.
    - too many useless fights
    - boring stories without interest
    - fights are too easy, no challenge at all.

    the old missions were better: shorts missions in taller episodes

    the way of they make missions should be modified and they should use other games as example.

    but the devs have done a really good job for the revamp of the maps and characters.

    It is hard to come back to STO after playing intensely at Mass Effect 3, a game with choices, very good fights and well writen stories, so cya, maybe for the next episode or if Risa has been improved; have fun.
  • redwatchmanredwatchman Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    I love the first mission. I'm about to play the second. Thank you! It was fun.

    I noticed a typo the dialogue of one of the first Klingons you talk to. She says Nuqneh in the text instead of nuqneH.
  • kyle223catkyle223cat Member Posts: 584 Arc User
    I enjoyed the first episode till I played the new patrols and realized it was just a group of three patrols back to back. The second episode was fantastic overall, the plot twist was a little crazy though.
    da84303d8bc4080b9860968f634f98682215bbe5.gifv
  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,331 Arc User
    Firstly, the models and updated environment are pretty spectacular. Klingon hair with real detailed 'weight' and the Halls looked amazing.

    For 'Centre', it was a reasonable episode to set-up the second, but there could've been more meat on the story-telling bones. As it's mostly fighting this gets a solid 6/10. The first act needed more klingon showboating in the chambers and the 'patrol' stages could've had a bit more in storyset as happened in the next episode.

    For 'Discord', well this has more curve-balls than a game of Baseball!! It all seems convoluted, but it has an insidious streak worthy of the Tal-Shiar and Obsidian Order. Left thinking 'what the holy hell is going on?'. Episode has some great cut-scenes and leaves you with 3 sides to a Civil war. 9/10 for this.

    All-in-all played fine with no issues.
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • redwatchmanredwatchman Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    Regrettably, the same "Nuqneh" typo appears in the second mission from Garku, but the voice acting also pronounces it wrong. In the previous mission the voice acting pronounced the "H" correctly.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,973 Community Moderator
    As stated during the mission, J'mpok was going to use the weapon to destroy Khitomer, blame it on J'Ula(since its her weapon), and then proclaim he killed J'Ula, to force the Klingon Empire to rally around him more, while also eliminating most of his enemies in one fell swoop.

    He was false flagging a known terrorist, to make her out to be an even worse terrorist then she actually is, so he can look like the big damn hero when he announces he killed her.

    I have a feeling he also planned on both the player and Martok not surviving either. Maybe he feels the player's becoming a bit of a threat due to all the victories the player's racked up, and Martok is still technically a threat to his power. And with how friendly the player is with Martok... if they ever had reason to speak against him, their words would have more power.

    The fact J'mpok barely gives us a chance to explain says to me he was caught off guard by our survival and had to improvise in order to paint us as traitors. I mean technically we achieved our objective in "capturing" J'ula... but we survived when we weren't supposed to.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,973 Community Moderator
    Yup. That's my theory. All we can do is wait and see how it plays out.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
  • disqord#9557 disqord Member Posts: 567 Arc User
    I have to be honest, I kinda hate the new missions. The environment art was phenomenal, and I loved the VAs and setpieces, but story wise the whole thing is one gigantic pile of garbage. There's constantly some new McGuffin pulled out of left field the second we come close to winning, and the player is forced into a position of such powerlessness that they can't even open a door.

    Starting off, we find everyone in the great hall acting a fool. J'Ula cries and whines about her honor and how J'mpok is a coward over the Hur'q crisis, even though J'Ula has constantly been running away from every fight she starts. She talks about how Martok is the true chancellor, even though he himself has said he didn't really care; if he did, he would have done something about it. Then J'Ula calls everyone useless for being friends with the Federation, even though that alliance is what saved the entire galaxy. Then we get the random patrols cut and pasted into the mission. Apparently this old Klingon virus is good enough to completely turn Federation ships against us, even though the player interact takes 2 seconds and purges the virus completely. Then the Starbase is destroyed, and J'Ula gloats about how fun it is to kill humans. That Starbase probably had a few hundred civilians onboard, but whatever. Then, she launches an attack on the Quvat civilian shipyards (Specifically stated in the mission to be civilian shipyards). She's basically evil in every regard. Then they blow up an entire city.

    Second mission, my ship is in orbit of the Alliance Headquarters, with absolutely no defensive satellites or stations or anything. We beam down and go through no security checks, and find out that J'Ula is suspected to be on the planet. We threaten to torture and murder a random guard with Martok (I'm a starfleet officer, what the heck?!) unless he tells us what we need to know. We find J'Ula and she's shouting at Aakar for blowing up a city of innocents, despite trying to blow up a civilian shipyard and successfully blowing up a starbase, and also trying to use the superweapon to blow up Starbase 1 (by the way, the starbase commander mentions the Klingons are targeting evac ships and the HABITAT RING) and constantly trying to launch a campaign to kill everyone in the Federation. But hey, they just have to use the magic H-word and suddenly they can do no wrong.

    Then Aakar joins J'mpok somehow? As if that would help either of them? Also you're locked in a basement, and you can't just override the door controls like you've done millions of times in the past? We hail our ship, but DON'T tell them to stop J'mpok before he uses the weapon? J'mpok has a fleet in orbit now, and beams in a million troops to start murdering everyone there, including Romulan and Federation security teams and even their delegates? But no alarm sounds and the CHAIRMAN OF THE ALLIANCE doesn't know what's happening outside his door? Also he sold out the Alliance to J'Ula (the person who criticized the alliance and hates the Federation) to stop J'mpok from...doing something, even though there is no evidence he had done or would do something heinous. Reminder that 1 week ago in game time J'mpok was in a somewhat stable position with the Alliance backing him and his only threat being an old man who doesn't even want the chancellorship, and a wild terrorist hellbent on destroying the empire's greatest ally. But sure, instead of just waiting for J'Ula to leave the planet surface, or even just sending the same troops down but telling them to not murder their allies is a bad decision, and he instead wants to kill...everyone, including the many people who support him, as if Alliance headquarters is such an easy place to raze (Which it is, what the flying frick?!)

    So the player is suddenly great chums with J'Ula (Again, we still hate her, but her character feels like it's someone else entirely). And we go talk to the traitorous Chairman. Then J'mpok blows up the entire HQ. With the weapon on his ship. In orbit of the Alliance Headquarters. With a full fleet of ships alongside him. And my ship. The player character decides now is a good time to grab a vulcan meditation sesh, and just stares at the wall of death as if this was something we hadn't seen before (I've faced down imminent doom plenty of times, why am I just standing here?!) Then we trip walking up a flight of like 2 stairs. And then we keep sitting there, even though standing up takes two seconds and the wall of death is slower than a Pakled's train of thought. But then J'Ula comes to the rescue! "This is no way for a warrior to die." (She tried to use this same weapon against a shipyard and an entire starbase, alongside poisoning the elachi and creating numerous rifts across the galaxy) We stare longingly into each other's eyes, because we have all the time in the world I guess, then finally WE STAND UP AND MOVE! We get to the stupidly tiny transporter room (this is a massive conference hall, right?) and stand around for a few years waiting for the wall of death to approach from the other end of the continent. Why didn't we use the front door? I dunno.

    We finally get into our ship, which has just been sitting there for a while at this point, and immediately we have to blast our closest comrades out of the sky. Even though my ship was almost certainly running sensor sweeps and would have obviously tried to investigate the massive buildup of mushroom energy on the chancellor's ship that then hit the planet like some kind of weapon. And there was an entire supposed fleet alongside J'mpok. Nobody saw it? At all?

    We try to talk our way out of things, considering we're supposed to be trusted companions to these captains, but they don't listen to us. We turn our friends' ships into swiss cheese, and now that there's nobody to stop us, we can send them all the evidence to show we're not guilty, including sensor data, firsthand witnesses, and the very obvious logic of "I'm Starfleet. Not only do I have no interest in Klingon Empire affairs, J'Ula also wouldn't trust me in a million years. Plus, I have a service record longer than the Lord of the Rings from just the last 2 years in the fleet, so it's reasonable to assume I can be trusted over a man who has the mycelial weapon on his ship right now."

    And you know what we do? We run away. Despite insurmountable evidence and a ship strong enough to take on 3 fleets and multiple flagships, we run.

    We run like honorable Klingons.
  • disqord#9557 disqord Member Posts: 567 Arc User
    I'm just going to assume J'mpok has been replaced by the Female Changeling. How else could this story make sense?
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