Xindi Reptilians, Primates, Arboreals and maybe Insectoids would be great additions.
Yridians and Suliban are long overdue as well.
Nausicaans, Gorn and Letheans are also still missing female options.
The Alien creator as a whole needs a massive overhaul/update.
suliban are DOA, because you introduce them and then the players whine that can't shape-shift. one of the reasons a playable Founder is a no go
Shapeshifting is one of the few Suliban powers that you can actually do easily in the game. What most people seem to forget (or never knew because the game is really bad at explaining things) is that you can change the character's whole look in the outfits slots, (including the body and face, which is quite versatile if you used the "Alien" tab) and use the quick change (left-clicking on your character portrait in the corner and selecting another "outfit"). I have a Kobali character built around that technique as "Antosian cellular metamorphosis" to shift back to her human when Kyn'steya makes her "homesick" for her original life, though she is most comfortable with the 'blended' form she usually uses instead of pure Kobali or pure human.
Also, lore-wise not all Suliban can shapeshift in that sense, most of their "shifting" seems to be to form things like claws, sucker pads, or gecko hairs or whatever to fight with or cling to things, and other utilitarian uses, and at least one of them can pull a sort of limited "Mr. Fantastic" style rubber-body trick but it seems to be a relatively rare thing like the full shapeshift ability is.
The reason the devs gave before for not making playable Founders is that they are protoplasmic and the full "Gumby" form in combat would take far too much time and effort to try and add as a player character option since the way they have to do it for NPCs isn't compatible with the coding for player characters. It might even make the Suliban stretch stuff impractical as well (and I doubt there is much they could do about the wall-crawling and whatnot either), but the shapeshifting itself is already available as long as you get by with the number of forms you can get as slots in the tailor (I don't know what that maximum is since I have a tight budget so the c-store expansion thing is not a viable option for me), all that is really needed is the sandpaper skin for the base Suliban form.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,075Community Moderator
We've technically already got psudo-Shapeshifter capability. Its a bit clunky but you can use an Alien, and use multiple costume slots to represent transformations. But this is purely from an RP standpoint.
Talaxians maybe, but no reason for Cardassians...they've been around, and as Worf and Nog have shown your race doesn't need to be part of the Federation to join Starfleet
Talaxians are already playable. They were added to the Lifer Sub.
We've technically already got psudo-Shapeshifter capability. Its a bit clunky but you can use an Alien, and use multiple costume slots to represent transformations. But this is purely from an RP standpoint.
Talaxians maybe, but no reason for Cardassians...they've been around, and as Worf and Nog have shown your race doesn't need to be part of the Federation to join Starfleet
Talaxians are already playable. They were added to the Lifer Sub.
I feel like I was hallucinating or reading one post and replying to another because the post I quoted definitely isn't the one my reply was for
Playable Lukari does sound like a distinct possibility; however, the Lukari are shown as only having recently achieved warp travel (New Frontiers arc), and thus allowing players to build Lukari toons kind of breaks kayfabe (a 2409 Starfleet Lukari would have joined Starfleet before the Lukari were able to actually reach out and join Starfleet).
Well, the same could be said about Talaxians to be honest. Or Cardassians. If we follow the storyline, they shouldn't really be around for the tutorials set in 2409 either.
And honestly, we can fly Baltim Raiders and Temporal ships right after creating a character anyway. Heck, we can even fly Borg ships that were never seen in the shows and do so right after the Borg's return at Vega. Those things shouldn't really be possible either as they make no sense chronologically.
Even if you decide not to fly such ships or create a toon of species you aren't supposed to have met yet, there's nothing preventing your character from running into them anyway if another player does create such a character or flies such a ship.
I think we're at the point where players' freedom and adding more unique experiences/choices are more important than whether something fits the game's narrative.
All very good points made.
The truth is, kayfabe has basically been thrown out the window via the inclusion of account-wide ships, which enables players to often reclaim said ships before they could ever be encountered in the story.
Then again, time travel exists and is heavily utilized throughout the game (for example: the whole Delta recruit and Temporal recruit campaigns). So it's possible time leaks and minor paradoxes have occurred, allowing anachronistic ships to be obtained.
Oh, and then there's the matter of the player automatically respawning upon death (which kind of renders the Paradox Corrector redundant). Maybe the player character is in fact a Q, but one with limited powers (as a condition for aiding one of the three factions). Makes ya think... 🤔
I've had some thoughts about adding new races to STO. And, I know especially right now, it's not the easiest thing to do. Especially since a lot of the more requested races are extremely difficult to add based on different reasons. So, I'd like to discuss what I believe is an acceptable and easier race to add that might be nearly as well recieved as the more wanted races.
TLDR: Races with unique rigging is a no. Races that are already a BOFF, maybe yes? Plus, have there been talks about Hologram players? (Obviously after things calm down.)
When thinking of races, my first major wish is to add Tholians to playable characters. This, is extremely difficult for 2 reasons. First, narratively it's not super easy to make it work, but it is possible. Development wise, it's hella difficult to do. Reason being, they would need to totally need to recreate bones for a multi-legged creature. Heck, even digitigrade legs would be difficult I believe, as much as I'd like that. The next biggest race I'd want that would be easier than Tholian, is changeling. But, we already have that as "Alien" with changeling options in there. I even made one! haha. Anyway, since we already have the parts to make a changeling minus the animations to change our outfits or our melee being all, changeling themed, it's highly doubtful we could see this as a race added. So, now on to the race I think COULD be added relatively easily that's probably more well received.
Holograms. At the current timeline in STO, we've already passed the events that would allow holograms to be categorized as living if they obtain self awareness. Heck, maybe even Androids could be playable as we're passed (?) the point where Androids are considered a race. Anyway, here's where my down and dirty questions. Could we see Holograms as playable? Has this ever been discussed internally? If so an was denied, could I ask what the reason was? Obviously, I'd prefer a developer's response to this question but, the likelihood of that happening is pretty low haha. Still, perhaps food for thought?
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I've had some thoughts about adding new races to STO. And, I know especially right now, it's not the easiest thing to do. Especially since a lot of the more requested races are extremely difficult to add based on different reasons. So, I'd like to discuss what I believe is an acceptable and easier race to add that might be nearly as well recieved as the more wanted races.
TLDR: Races with unique rigging is a no. Races that are already a BOFF, maybe yes? Plus, have there been talks about Hologram players? (Obviously after things calm down.)
When thinking of races, my first major wish is to add Tholians to playable characters. This, is extremely difficult for 2 reasons. First, narratively it's not super easy to make it work, but it is possible. Development wise, it's hella difficult to do. Reason being, they would need to totally need to recreate bones for a multi-legged creature. Heck, even digitigrade legs would be difficult I believe, as much as I'd like that. The next biggest race I'd want that would be easier than Tholian, is changeling. But, we already have that as "Alien" with changeling options in there. I even made one! haha. Anyway, since we already have the parts to make a changeling minus the animations to change our outfits or our melee being all, changeling themed, it's highly doubtful we could see this as a race added. So, now on to the race I think COULD be added relatively easily that's probably more well received.
Holograms. At the current timeline in STO, we've already passed the events that would allow holograms to be categorized as living if they obtain self awareness. Heck, maybe even Androids could be playable as we're passed (?) the point where Androids are considered a race. Anyway, here's where my down and dirty questions. Could we see Holograms as playable? Has this ever been discussed internally? If so an was denied, could I ask what the reason was? Obviously, I'd prefer a developer's response to this question but, the likelihood of that happening is pretty low haha. Still, perhaps food for thought?
If Photonic player-characters were (or would be) rejected I suspect it would be a CBS/Paramount/whatever-they-are-calling-themselves-this-week ban like they did with androids. They probably would ban synths as well if they could, but there is nothing model-wise to differentiate them from humans so all it takes is to say a character is a synth in the bio and roleplay one. I am not sure if the ban on androids was because CBS wanted to keep Data unique for possible later shows (which they eventually did with PIC) or if an executive somewhere in CBS had the "uncanny valley" revulsion that some people seem to have at the thought of "artificial" people.
Unless the flicker effect is done in some way that would be difficult to implement for player-characters (there are some things that are, mainly because NPCs have a fixed look, but PCs can change theirs) it would just be a matter adding it and making the Superior Photonic Lifeform trait available to the new species.
Heck, even digitigrade legs would be difficult I believe, as much as I'd like that.
I'm not actually sure that would be all that difficult, as they're in Champions Online (the character creator calls them "Beast Legs"). I've frequently proposed a swap - the Riker-style trimmed beard from STO, for the Beast Legs from CO. As an example, this is Wolfwere, a wolf who was bitten by a lycanthrope during a Blood Moon event:
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,075Community Moderator
I wouldn't mind getting some of the hairstyles from Neverwinter. My old Hunter/Ranger had a nice hairstyle that isn't available in STO.
Also when I tried Champions I had a Kitsune Commando basically. Just gave her ears and a tail, and said it was part of a military experiment.
Xindi Reptilians, Primates, Arboreals and maybe Insectoids would be great additions.
Yridians and Suliban are long overdue as well.
Nausicaans, Gorn and Letheans are also still missing female options.
The Alien creator as a whole needs a massive overhaul/update.
suliban are DOA, because you introduce them and then the players whine that can't shape-shift. one of the reasons a playable Founder is a no go
Shapeshifting is one of the few Suliban powers that you can actually do easily in the game. What most people seem to forget (or never knew because the game is really bad at explaining things) is that you can change the character's whole look in the outfits slots, (including the body and face, which is quite versatile if you used the "Alien" tab) and use the quick change (left-clicking on your character portrait in the corner and selecting another "outfit"). I have a Kobali character built around that technique as "Antosian cellular metamorphosis" to shift back to her human when Kyn'steya makes her "homesick" for her original life, though she is most comfortable with the 'blended' form she usually uses instead of pure Kobali or pure human.
Also, lore-wise not all Suliban can shapeshift in that sense, most of their "shifting" seems to be to form things like claws, sucker pads, or gecko hairs or whatever to fight with or cling to things, and other utilitarian uses, and at least one of them can pull a sort of limited "Mr. Fantastic" style rubber-body trick but it seems to be a relatively rare thing like the full shapeshift ability is.
The reason the devs gave before for not making playable Founders is that they are protoplasmic and the full "Gumby" form in combat would take far too much time and effort to try and add as a player character option since the way they have to do it for NPCs isn't compatible with the coding for player characters. It might even make the Suliban stretch stuff impractical as well (and I doubt there is much they could do about the wall-crawling and whatnot either), but the shapeshifting itself is already available as long as you get by with the number of forms you can get as slots in the tailor (I don't know what that maximum is since I have a tight budget so the c-store expansion thing is not a viable option for me), all that is really needed is the sandpaper skin for the base Suliban form.
It's how I'm managing my Faux Changeling experiment, I'm working on it it on a separate PSN, Once I get cross flying, they can get their dominion ship and their Jemmies can com from Facility 4028, first Form is based off of Captain Shon, they were made before PIC season 3 came out, so the whole infiltration of Starfleet was planned ahead of time, however I'm still working on them,
Now that we know what they look like what about a Breen race?, you can try to recreate them in alien gen now, but as a result you don't get the cold dwelling trait,
Now that we know what they look like what about a Breen race?, you can try to recreate them in alien gen now, but as a result you don't get the cold dwelling trait,
Discovery's flub of a reveal shows that the "cold dwelling" trait is irrelevant, since they apparently don't need refrigeration suits.
So I looked up the Breen at Memory Alpha and I'm both intrigued and disappointed.
Disappointed because the solid form of the Breen gives them such ordinary looks. Intrigued because their liquid faces are kind of cool.
I think they should have kept the mystery. 30 years of maintaining it, only for DIS to reveal them and not making it totally epic. They new shows should stick to doing original things, which they did well with the Ba'ul and Kelpiens for example. No need to take decades old stuff and twist it in one direction or the other.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,075Community Moderator
Well... we knew next to NOTHING of the Breen in alpha canon (on screen). Honestly I find the Breen to be interesting. It also implies that perhaps people HAVE seen a Breen before but didn't know it.
Discovery's flub of a reveal shows that the "cold dwelling" trait is irrelevant, since they apparently don't need refrigeration suits.
I wouldn't call it a flub as we knew next to nothing of the Breen, so what was there to mess up? And its possible that the suits are more accomodating for that more gelatinous form. Could mean less energy being used up on the more solid form.
I don't think it was ever mentioned on-screen that the Breen wore refrigeration suits...
Suits of some description, but I don't think we ever got an explanation of what they were.
- - - - I n f e r i o r i t y - C o m p l e x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Also IIRC what little we did know about the Breen before prior to Discovery implied they were very secretive about their looks so it's possible that "refrigeration" suits were always nothing more then a bluff to prevent others demanding they take them off.
Kira and someone else at least know what Breen look like because in one episode they knocked out a pair of them and stole their suits as a disguise. It was one of those little points that always bugged me about the spinoffs, but a minor one.
As for the refrigeration, maybe they use it to keep their faces from running off the front of their heads if the temperature got too high or whatever and the Breen just played it like it was a constant thing for some reason of their own. More like peacekeepers' heat sensitivity in Farscape than Mr. Freeze.
It's true that we knew little of the Breen before - but that's exactly why they shouldn't have done a face reveal unless they were going to make it epic. Sometimes it's better to keep the mystery.
The people working on the newer shows have this tendency to take stuff from older shows and either twist it, or add their own story on top of it like this face reveal thing - seemingly - without trying to give it their absolute best.
In such cases they'd better stick to their own original creations as they tend to handle those things much better.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
It's true that we knew little of the Breen before - but that's exactly why they shouldn't have done a face reveal unless they were going to make it epic. Sometimes it's better to keep the mystery.
The people working on the newer shows have this tendency to take stuff from older shows and either twist it, or add their own story on top of it like this face reveal thing - seemingly - without trying to give it their absolute best.
In such cases they'd better stick to their own original creations as they tend to handle those things much better.
I think we haven't ruled out the Typhon Pact, however the Discovery ones might just be either a secret subspecies or Amoniri ones but with some changes to them, the Amoniri are the closest to the ones in discovery at least, I mean the Breen wouldn't be the first aliens with a subspecies, we had multiple Gorn, Orion and Xindi subspecies too,
It's true that we knew little of the Breen before - but that's exactly why they shouldn't have done a face reveal unless they were going to make it epic. Sometimes it's better to keep the mystery.
The people working on the newer shows have this tendency to take stuff from older shows and either twist it, or add their own story on top of it like this face reveal thing - seemingly - without trying to give it their absolute best.
In such cases they'd better stick to their own original creations as they tend to handle those things much better.
I think we haven't ruled out the Typhon Pact, however the Discovery ones might just be either a secret subspecies or Amoniri ones but with some changes to them, the Amoniri are the closest to the ones in discovery at least, I mean the Breen wouldn't be the first aliens with a subspecies, we had multiple Gorn, Orion and Xindi subspecies too,
There's also the description from the 2003 Aliens sourcebook for the old Star Trek D20 RPG, where the Breen are described as, quote, "walking sacs of ammonia and gelatin".
Thing is, if their blood is ammonia-based, wouldn't their skin be bluish similar to Andorians? (or am I getting the chemical composition of Andorians wrong?)
Thing is, if their blood is ammonia-based, wouldn't their skin be bluish similar to Andorians? (or am I getting the chemical composition of Andorians wrong?)
Correct. In the RPG book, they were described as having purplish "skin" with blue veins. What they have though isn't "blood", but a semi-solid gelatin that's pushed through the permeable chambers within their body structure. It basically transfers chemicals around the body and performs a myriad of functions. If a Breen is wounded, the wound almost immediately calcifies with hardened gel and doesn't bleed.
This tells me that if the Discovery folks were indeed aping from this concept from the RPG book (and part of me thinks they were, along with the concept of the Amoniri from the Typhon Pact novels), they either forgot that or simply didn't care (Either wouldn't surprise me).
I guess they had L'ak "bleed" for the sake of storywriting...? And the fact that a Breen's skin should be bluish/purplish, not green. That is, if they have ammonia-based physiology. There were definitely some plot holes in the latest DSC episode. That being said, they're fairly minor and don't really impact the story writ large.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,075Community Moderator
Guys... RPG and Video Game references are not Alpha Canon. On Screen we barely knew anything. The only species known to have subspecies really is the Xindi in Alpha Canon. Multiple Gorn species was not confirmed in any show and still remains in the realm of Beta Canon. Unless something from Beta Canon is confirmed by the IP Holder as Alpha Canon, its not On Screen Alpha Canon.
So until we learn more... we can only speculate on how they compare to other sources.
I for one like the fact we now know what the Breen look like, and they really do look alien. When I saw L'ak the first time I wondered what species he was. The fact they actually brought back a canon species from DS9, to me, was a good thing. It adds to the lore in a way that doesn't conflict with established Canon. And we have the tech to pull it off today.
Now I will say that I would prefer the Origins of the Borg to remain a mystery. We got so many versions of different Origin Stories that, frankly... no one would be happy at this point because its going to contradict Game A or Novel B. Leave their Origins a mystery.
Guys... RPG and Video Game references are not Alpha Canon. On Screen we barely knew anything. The only species known to have subspecies really is the Xindi in Alpha Canon. Multiple Gorn species was not confirmed in any show and still remains in the realm of Beta Canon. Unless something from Beta Canon is confirmed by the IP Holder as Alpha Canon, its not On Screen Alpha Canon.
So until we learn more... we can only speculate on how they compare to other sources.
I for one like the fact we now know what the Breen look like, and they really do look alien. When I saw L'ak the first time I wondered what species he was. The fact they actually brought back a canon species from DS9, to me, was a good thing.
I suspected L'ak might be one due to his name. Unfortunately, I was proven right. To me, with the Breen being my favorite species and seeing how other content had interpreted them, the reveal was extremely mediocre.
It may be Beta canon, but the Typhon Pact novel series take on the Breen being an actual multi-species Confederacy that took the name and wore the suits as a mark of cultural unity (and for actual environmental adaptation in some cases) was far more interesting and better thought out than what the canon presented us with in the end.
Maybe they'll reveal more by the end of the season, but for now it makes me wish the appearance of the Breen had just been left a mystery.
Guys... RPG and Video Game references are not Alpha Canon. On Screen we barely knew anything. The only species known to have subspecies really is the Xindi in Alpha Canon. Multiple Gorn species was not confirmed in any show and still remains in the realm of Beta Canon. Unless something from Beta Canon is confirmed by the IP Holder as Alpha Canon, its not On Screen Alpha Canon.
So until we learn more... we can only speculate on how they compare to other sources.
I for one like the fact we now know what the Breen look like, and they really do look alien. When I saw L'ak the first time I wondered what species he was. The fact they actually brought back a canon species from DS9, to me, was a good thing. It adds to the lore in a way that doesn't conflict with established Canon. And we have the tech to pull it off today.
Now I will say that I would prefer the Origins of the Borg to remain a mystery. We got so many versions of different Origin Stories that, frankly... no one would be happy at this point because its going to contradict Game A or Novel B. Leave their Origins a mystery.
Lower Decks Gorn are definitely not the same species as SNW's Xeno Gorn, Both LD and SNW are both canon but their Gorns contradict eachother biologically speaking, LD female Gorn had mammary glands while SNW made them Xenomorphs lite,
Lower Decks Gorn are definitely not the same species as SNW's Xeno Gorn, Both LD and SNW are both canon but their Gorns contradict eachother biologically speaking, LD female Gorn had mammary glands while SNW made them Xenomorphs lite,
The design of the Lower Decks Gorn was based on the TOS Gorn. As for the Gorn Booba... I blame Rutherford's overactive imagination to differentiate male from female Gorn. If I recall, the instance you bring up was a recollection under duress by Rutherford. And all four of them had wildly different stories regarding an event. So the... authenticity of his recollection should honestly be taken with a grain of salt. Or a cargo hold full of salt. Your choice.
Also... we haven't seen a confirmed female Gorn either. We don't really know much about them. While I would lean more towards a more Reptilian dimorphism, until its confirmed in Canon it could go either way honestly. And we do have female Saurians in STO with Booba. *shrug*
Comments
Shapeshifting is one of the few Suliban powers that you can actually do easily in the game. What most people seem to forget (or never knew because the game is really bad at explaining things) is that you can change the character's whole look in the outfits slots, (including the body and face, which is quite versatile if you used the "Alien" tab) and use the quick change (left-clicking on your character portrait in the corner and selecting another "outfit"). I have a Kobali character built around that technique as "Antosian cellular metamorphosis" to shift back to her human when Kyn'steya makes her "homesick" for her original life, though she is most comfortable with the 'blended' form she usually uses instead of pure Kobali or pure human.
Also, lore-wise not all Suliban can shapeshift in that sense, most of their "shifting" seems to be to form things like claws, sucker pads, or gecko hairs or whatever to fight with or cling to things, and other utilitarian uses, and at least one of them can pull a sort of limited "Mr. Fantastic" style rubber-body trick but it seems to be a relatively rare thing like the full shapeshift ability is.
The reason the devs gave before for not making playable Founders is that they are protoplasmic and the full "Gumby" form in combat would take far too much time and effort to try and add as a player character option since the way they have to do it for NPCs isn't compatible with the coding for player characters. It might even make the Suliban stretch stuff impractical as well (and I doubt there is much they could do about the wall-crawling and whatnot either), but the shapeshifting itself is already available as long as you get by with the number of forms you can get as slots in the tailor (I don't know what that maximum is since I have a tight budget so the c-store expansion thing is not a viable option for me), all that is really needed is the sandpaper skin for the base Suliban form.
Talaxians are already playable. They were added to the Lifer Sub.
I feel like I was hallucinating or reading one post and replying to another because the post I quoted definitely isn't the one my reply was for
All very good points made.
The truth is, kayfabe has basically been thrown out the window via the inclusion of account-wide ships, which enables players to often reclaim said ships before they could ever be encountered in the story.
Then again, time travel exists and is heavily utilized throughout the game (for example: the whole Delta recruit and Temporal recruit campaigns). So it's possible time leaks and minor paradoxes have occurred, allowing anachronistic ships to be obtained.
Oh, and then there's the matter of the player automatically respawning upon death (which kind of renders the Paradox Corrector redundant). Maybe the player character is in fact a Q, but one with limited powers (as a condition for aiding one of the three factions). Makes ya think... 🤔
I've had some thoughts about adding new races to STO. And, I know especially right now, it's not the easiest thing to do. Especially since a lot of the more requested races are extremely difficult to add based on different reasons. So, I'd like to discuss what I believe is an acceptable and easier race to add that might be nearly as well recieved as the more wanted races.
TLDR: Races with unique rigging is a no. Races that are already a BOFF, maybe yes? Plus, have there been talks about Hologram players? (Obviously after things calm down.)
When thinking of races, my first major wish is to add Tholians to playable characters. This, is extremely difficult for 2 reasons. First, narratively it's not super easy to make it work, but it is possible. Development wise, it's hella difficult to do. Reason being, they would need to totally need to recreate bones for a multi-legged creature. Heck, even digitigrade legs would be difficult I believe, as much as I'd like that. The next biggest race I'd want that would be easier than Tholian, is changeling. But, we already have that as "Alien" with changeling options in there. I even made one! haha. Anyway, since we already have the parts to make a changeling minus the animations to change our outfits or our melee being all, changeling themed, it's highly doubtful we could see this as a race added. So, now on to the race I think COULD be added relatively easily that's probably more well received.
Holograms. At the current timeline in STO, we've already passed the events that would allow holograms to be categorized as living if they obtain self awareness. Heck, maybe even Androids could be playable as we're passed (?) the point where Androids are considered a race. Anyway, here's where my down and dirty questions. Could we see Holograms as playable? Has this ever been discussed internally? If so an was denied, could I ask what the reason was? Obviously, I'd prefer a developer's response to this question but, the likelihood of that happening is pretty low haha. Still, perhaps food for thought?
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If Photonic player-characters were (or would be) rejected I suspect it would be a CBS/Paramount/whatever-they-are-calling-themselves-this-week ban like they did with androids. They probably would ban synths as well if they could, but there is nothing model-wise to differentiate them from humans so all it takes is to say a character is a synth in the bio and roleplay one. I am not sure if the ban on androids was because CBS wanted to keep Data unique for possible later shows (which they eventually did with PIC) or if an executive somewhere in CBS had the "uncanny valley" revulsion that some people seem to have at the thought of "artificial" people.
Unless the flicker effect is done in some way that would be difficult to implement for player-characters (there are some things that are, mainly because NPCs have a fixed look, but PCs can change theirs) it would just be a matter adding it and making the Superior Photonic Lifeform trait available to the new species.
Also when I tried Champions I had a Kitsune Commando basically. Just gave her ears and a tail, and said it was part of a military experiment.
It's how I'm managing my Faux Changeling experiment, I'm working on it it on a separate PSN, Once I get cross flying, they can get their dominion ship and their Jemmies can com from Facility 4028, first Form is based off of Captain Shon, they were made before PIC season 3 came out, so the whole infiltration of Starfleet was planned ahead of time, however I'm still working on them,
also the same PSN I have a Kentari alt on,
Discovery's flub of a reveal shows that the "cold dwelling" trait is irrelevant, since they apparently don't need refrigeration suits.
"[GARBLED ELECTRONIC NOISES]"
- Thot Gar - Commanding Officer of the Braaktak Kaan
Disappointed because the solid form of the Breen gives them such ordinary looks. Intrigued because their liquid faces are kind of cool.
I think they should have kept the mystery. 30 years of maintaining it, only for DIS to reveal them and not making it totally epic. They new shows should stick to doing original things, which they did well with the Ba'ul and Kelpiens for example. No need to take decades old stuff and twist it in one direction or the other.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
I wouldn't call it a flub as we knew next to nothing of the Breen, so what was there to mess up? And its possible that the suits are more accomodating for that more gelatinous form. Could mean less energy being used up on the more solid form.
Suits of some description, but I don't think we ever got an explanation of what they were.
As for the refrigeration, maybe they use it to keep their faces from running off the front of their heads if the temperature got too high or whatever and the Breen just played it like it was a constant thing for some reason of their own. More like peacekeepers' heat sensitivity in Farscape than Mr. Freeze.
The people working on the newer shows have this tendency to take stuff from older shows and either twist it, or add their own story on top of it like this face reveal thing - seemingly - without trying to give it their absolute best.
In such cases they'd better stick to their own original creations as they tend to handle those things much better.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
I think we haven't ruled out the Typhon Pact, however the Discovery ones might just be either a secret subspecies or Amoniri ones but with some changes to them, the Amoniri are the closest to the ones in discovery at least, I mean the Breen wouldn't be the first aliens with a subspecies, we had multiple Gorn, Orion and Xindi subspecies too,
There's also the description from the 2003 Aliens sourcebook for the old Star Trek D20 RPG, where the Breen are described as, quote, "walking sacs of ammonia and gelatin".
"[GARBLED ELECTRONIC NOISES]"
- Thot Gar - Commanding Officer of the Braaktak Kaan
Correct. In the RPG book, they were described as having purplish "skin" with blue veins. What they have though isn't "blood", but a semi-solid gelatin that's pushed through the permeable chambers within their body structure. It basically transfers chemicals around the body and performs a myriad of functions. If a Breen is wounded, the wound almost immediately calcifies with hardened gel and doesn't bleed.
This tells me that if the Discovery folks were indeed aping from this concept from the RPG book (and part of me thinks they were, along with the concept of the Amoniri from the Typhon Pact novels), they either forgot that or simply didn't care (Either wouldn't surprise me).
"[GARBLED ELECTRONIC NOISES]"
- Thot Gar - Commanding Officer of the Braaktak Kaan
So until we learn more... we can only speculate on how they compare to other sources.
I for one like the fact we now know what the Breen look like, and they really do look alien. When I saw L'ak the first time I wondered what species he was. The fact they actually brought back a canon species from DS9, to me, was a good thing. It adds to the lore in a way that doesn't conflict with established Canon. And we have the tech to pull it off today.
Now I will say that I would prefer the Origins of the Borg to remain a mystery. We got so many versions of different Origin Stories that, frankly... no one would be happy at this point because its going to contradict Game A or Novel B. Leave their Origins a mystery.
I suspected L'ak might be one due to his name. Unfortunately, I was proven right. To me, with the Breen being my favorite species and seeing how other content had interpreted them, the reveal was extremely mediocre.
It may be Beta canon, but the Typhon Pact novel series take on the Breen being an actual multi-species Confederacy that took the name and wore the suits as a mark of cultural unity (and for actual environmental adaptation in some cases) was far more interesting and better thought out than what the canon presented us with in the end.
Maybe they'll reveal more by the end of the season, but for now it makes me wish the appearance of the Breen had just been left a mystery.
"[GARBLED ELECTRONIC NOISES]"
- Thot Gar - Commanding Officer of the Braaktak Kaan
Lower Decks Gorn are definitely not the same species as SNW's Xeno Gorn, Both LD and SNW are both canon but their Gorns contradict eachother biologically speaking, LD female Gorn had mammary glands while SNW made them Xenomorphs lite,
The design of the Lower Decks Gorn was based on the TOS Gorn. As for the Gorn Booba... I blame Rutherford's overactive imagination to differentiate male from female Gorn. If I recall, the instance you bring up was a recollection under duress by Rutherford. And all four of them had wildly different stories regarding an event. So the... authenticity of his recollection should honestly be taken with a grain of salt. Or a cargo hold full of salt. Your choice.
Also... we haven't seen a confirmed female Gorn either. We don't really know much about them. While I would lean more towards a more Reptilian dimorphism, until its confirmed in Canon it could go either way honestly. And we do have female Saurians in STO with Booba. *shrug*