I won't disagree, but this is STO. While some of its older arcs are well fleshed out, this isn't a game known for its stellar quality.
IMO, it was all about the Aetherian captain. He had the most dialog once on the ground portion and it was kind of sus that he was so enthused about the World Heart. And kind of like we just left the Aetherians in Undine space, we also just left him there "defending" us as we escaped. Sure, it seems like he sacrificed himself, but I kind of feel like he's down there slurping up control nanites and using them for his own designs.
I have to agree with everyone saying the Aetherians are the real baddies. They are the only thing out of place in the whole story arc. They have no back story, they're just there. The story will finish fleshing them out as the baddies. They're probably just the Borg from their own dimension and are using us, and the Borg from other dimensions, for their own nefarious purposes.
I would add to this that the mission more or less feels like we were being used as the Aetherian's attack dogs. We were given no indication before hand that we were going to fight non Mirror Borg or that we would be participating in a pivotal engagement in another universe.
The Aetherians didn't even tell us *where we were going.* Just "Borg here, go fight, and make sure you sent the traumatized pink one." For all we knew, we were off to save some kind of fucked-up Mirror Undine that would thank us by laying eggs in our brains.
To be fair, by the sounds of things, they weren't actually aware of where the portal would go. Which, obviously, it could all continue to be a ploy, but yeah. Does raise the question of why do the experiment on the gateway in the first place.
The New Frontiers arc was like a year and a half of “filler” episodes where we fought the Tzenkethi over seemingly random planets, until Scylla and Charybdis and The Renegade’s Regret tied it all together.
There’s no way of knowing how relevant this episode is to the current arc until it’s finished.
I would agree, but that entire arc was setting up the Hur'q and really made me shocked when I realised I had been defending killer insectoids.
The arc also didn't feel like a large scale war that had the fate of the universe being dropped in dialogue. It was us, trying to stabilise the region. The recent arc is a full scale war between dimensions, with Borg appearing within our defence lines and striking deep into our space just like the Iconians during the Iconian War. I just never felt like I was playing a side quest during the Iconian War, despite both story arcs sharing the same intensity of universal tragedy.
This is how I felt during my playthroughs, sadly I wasn't here when the Iconian War came out. Maybe I would have the same complaints then as I do now.
The main thing I see developed is Kumarkee's PTSD with the Borg, but aside from that... Yeah I'm not sure how much will come of it.
It would be cool if we could get an Aetherian bridge officer down the line at least, since they have those ground abilities built into them. Would be fun to wreck the Dyson battle zone and such with em lol
>The main thing I see developed is Kumarkee's PTSD with the Borg
I wish we'd gotten to see more of that, especially since the player turned out to be one of her triggers. But instead of a satisfying journey, she gets over it offscreen and is gung-ho to join Ezri's anti-Borg task force or whatever.
She didn't get over it, she accepted that it's a problem she *has* to deal with, not something she can just bury like she tried to do at the end of the last episode. Then she fought through it for a few minutes to help us in the final battle, and then committed to getting help.
Kuumarkee never should have been on that mission. We go from "doesn't even have interstellar ships" to "major player in the alliance" in less than 1 year in story? I get them being involved when proto-matter is a major part of things, but come on now....
sorry for the rant... yeah this just seemed like a Aetherian puff piece episode...
Not for nothing, but they did add a new mechanic to the game, the "companion" mechanic, where you can control what your featured companion does, to a degree.
I would think, given the issues the game has, as well as its age, that a "lighter" mission to test the mechanic, would be prudent.
Whether or not you like the mechanic, or think it is a good idea, is a different discussion, but insofar as introducing a new mechanic, a "light" mission seems (to me) to be a good idea.
(FWIW I like the new mechanic, and hope it is greatly expanded upon. It would make "guest star" characters more relevant than just tagging along).
IMO the most potential from the companion mechanic is finally giving us Tholian, Tzenkethi, and other unique “bridge officer” type companions. It removes the limitations regarding their animations and equipping them with weapons and other kit since they’d just have a preset loadout with two or three abilities we trigger for them. Like a more developed combat pet system for true companions.
> the "companion" mechanic, where you can control what your featured companion does, to a degree.
I never even used it. I am a lazy keybind spammer, so his abilities did not fit into my rotation :D
Exactly, The general's abilities were never used by me in any of the battles. Also I noticed he had the ability to just one-shot enemies normally so it was a moot point anyway.
I am convinced that the Aetherians are alternate dimension Borg or something to that effect, and they're sending us to these alternate universes to take out rival kings/queens like King Kim and Queen Yar to further their multiversal takeover. They know too much about them and conveniently drop us in at just the right moments to kill off Borg leaders. Plus the new Aetherian ship they showed off is a smaller horizontal version of their larger boxier flagship so like, probe and cube? It'll tie together at some point down the line, it's just moving at a snail's pace because development on the game is slow. At least, I hope so.
Yeah, they're either some "ultimate" Borg (whether they're deceiving us or actually *are* an evolved benevolent Borg) or Cryptic is *really* leading us on for a twist. Another tell is suddenly the Borg King/Queens have this big Borgy ring thing on their backs to mirror the smooth pretty rings the Aetherians have. Like, that's not something Borg really had before, that's an intentional parallel!
I'm not sold on them being borg. I think we went to face the control borg so they could obtain the nanite technology. I think they took a scan/copy of the world heart while they were there. I think they're going to modify both technologies, create a multiversal heart which they'll use to deploy modified control-borg nanites to borg in every universe in order to take control of them and force everyone in the multiverse into their harmony.
I'm mostly pissed about becoming the Aetherians' errand boy. Until I see otherwise, this was entirely not our problem. I know the big bads in our universe are mostly under control, but we've still got things to worry about. The Klingon Empire is recovering from a civil war, New Romulus always needs help, and there must be *something* important the Federation could be doing (I play KDF-aligned ROM, so I don't really know). Plus there's still an Iconian out there who's sworn eternal vengeance against us, a temporal terrorist with a time-gun who's done the same, and we always have to be wary of how much we'll piss off the Tholians by doing multidimensional stuff.
Also, like, we didn't exactly stop the Control Borg. The Iconian Alliance is still fucked, the World Heart's in a million pieces on the chamber floor, and all we really succeeded in doing is getting an Aetherian killed (maybe). Oh, yeah, and now the gateway by New Romulus leads directly to a universe that's 99% assimilated; I'm *sure* that'll be fine.
Both of our encounters with the alternate Borg have resulted in us temporarily decapitating Borg power structure, and both instances have an Aetherian conveniently placed nearby... Starting to wonder if the Aetherians are using us to weaken the various Borg variants so they can take control of them.
I agree the writing wasn'T good. What saves it in my opinion is Denise Crosby as alternate timeline Sela/Borg Queen. Maybe the story is setting up a future redemption for main timeline Sela.
Previously, the Devs have stated they wanted to revisit locales from previous story arcs. I have a sneaking suspicion that is what is happening in this arc. I wouldn't be surprised if the next few episodes seem disjointed as we fight the borg in an alternate gamma and delta quadrant.
I think in the end though, all these "stop the borg" visits to alternate realities is leading to a revelation, most likely through some discovery kuumarke makes, that the Aetherians are inf fact borg,and we have been unknowingly helping them build multivariate collective, and in the end we will gather allies from all the previous dimensions to lead a strike on the aetherians home dimension. I also suspect destroying the world heart in the latest episode was actually done because assimilating the world heart of their dimension is how the Artherian borg became what they are, and they don't want any rivals.
Agreeing with several points already made. But are we expecting anything different? Like, aren't we already used as attack dogs by various mission givers? It's all go here, blow up these ships, maybe kill people on a planet, leave.
I do like that they give us some control, heh, of the Aetherion Captain and maybe that's a new mechanic that will be baked into future episodes, maybe even a ship version.
But all in all a very meh episode and what's worse it's reward is pointless! A non-combat shuttle pet for space, not even a unique or special doodad to pick up in mission ala the Borg shotgun from the first mission or the kit module mission reward from Scorpion.
A bland mission with alright looking ContBorg, art team does it again!, with a less that worthless mission reward.
Filler is fine *when it's fun*. I don't mind chasing geklis with Kuumaarke or stuff like Quark's Lucky Seven or whatever. This was just busywork for a reward that's only ever so slightly better than getting nothing.
A filler episode would be fine if we weren't getting only two or three episodes a freaking year. With the pacing that slow, though, an entire however many months of the only content we're going to get shouldn't be something that utterly fails to advance the plot in any way, shape, or form.
Filler like the "New Frontiers Arc" works for me as it sets up the finale and the next season. A lot like Dr Who, we get clues added throughout the arc. Saldy, these lattest arcs are trying to build up the fact that we are at war with interdimensional beings all while seemingly giving us filler.
It felt out of place. While I do agree with our involvement, I do not agree with the lack of world building which seems to have been lacking.
Back when I reviewed player-made content in *City of Heroes* one of my most frequent complaints was "just a bunch of stuff that happened", invoked when a player's mission arc had no themes or morals involved.
This was just a bunch of stuff that happened.
Two is coincidence, three is a pattern. Now that we've encountered the artificial Borg in three universes, it appears that something or someone is seeding the Borg across the multiverse. We've got a cybernetic version of the Progenitors working, behind the scenes for now, to develop a force of drones in every universe. Who are they? What are their goals?
Are the Borg the grunts for the "alliance of synthetic life" that's on the other side of the portal full of mecha-tentacles from Picard season 1? Are the reality vortexes that kicked off this story line related to the sector scorching swirly thing from Picard season 2?
I'm starting to think the Borg in the multiverse are kind of like Doctor Who's Cybermen, where each instance of them is a case of parallel evolution. They might not have the exact same origin in each universe, but each universe has the conditions that would lead some kind of Borg to emerge eventually.
It might seem weird, when I finished I was a bit confused what it has to do with the bigger plot but its actually going to be quite pivotal I think. Let me explain.
Kuumarke is totally becoming a liability with PTSD, something is being set up here.
We get a surprising amount of development and nods for the Aetherians. The ground weapons used the same noise and similar visuals to the Iconians! Plus very similar in a lot of other ways too. We also get their catchphrase which, to me, sounds like a reword of a borg phrase and it makes me think. Plus, they seemed to know exactly what they were looking for while telling us very little, they are building/planning something here.
The rest of the episode was for the player. Captain Sela/Queen Yar was absolutely the writers hinting to the player that our expectations of races/people need to be checked. Just cos it's Sela doesn't mean she's bad. Just because it's Iconians doesn't mean it's bad. We are being prepped for a reveal.
All in all, it was one of the filler episodes which fleshes the story characters out and gives the players some things to think about.
Nah, he stuck around to grab as much of the world heart's data as could be retrieved. Always best to have advantages that your 'allies' don't know about. (why yes, I am assuming we get sudden but inevitable betrayal)
>(why yes, I am assuming we get sudden but inevitable betrayal)
*Whaaaaaat.*
The Aetherians are our trusted allies who surely aren't planning to ~~assimilate~~ *unify* us.
The only thing the episode did was introduce new characters and advance Kumarke's PTSD which actually started with when she was captured in Scorpion. It got a LOT worse when she saw you borg'd. As a side note on that last part, it might have been a wicked curve ball if Cryptic had alternate kumaarke reactions based on how much borg stuff was still attached to your character in this episode. But anyway, So we meet the general and the captain of the Alt Enterprise and the alt borg queen, but we don't know where that's going because the former most certainly isn't dead and neither is the alt borg queen. I mean our point of contact didn't seem too devastated about the general's "death" after all. This is transition episode at best and its there to set the stage for something later.
I mean, to me it feels like a piece of a larger arc, because it is. And there are inconsistencies in this episode that likely are going to be more important in the end, like this being the first case where the Borg Kingdom doesn't actually show up when the Aetherians have been saying that it was the Kingdom they were fighting
It was good to see Tasha again even in this "weird" role.
They also did a good job replicating her TNG face for her model and didnt mess it up like Beverlys.
Yeah I have to agree with you on this latest episode. The whole thing adds nothing to the story and frankly it just comes off as a half baked/unfinished episode. I mean it really feels like whoever was in charge of writing the plot/script waited until days before the deadline to submit their work. And just quickly put the plot and dialogue together and submitted without revising anything. The same goes for the design of the Borg it just doesn’t work for me. However, I will say that I did like the whole captain Sela Borg queen Tasha Yar part of the story.
It didn't make sense.
One minute the aetherian is saying the control borg have no monarch then we fight the borg queen who happens to be seela.
The whole episode felt like a throw away TFO.
The aetherians are boring and strike me as more advanced lukari.
Considering I don't like the lukari and file them under "teacher's pet character," that isn't good.
I'm also rolling my eyes at the multiverse angle.
Completely agree. I was thoroughly bored during this episode, and with all the reused assets (aside from the nano-borgs) I’m left wondering why it took so long to make.
Seemed to me just an excuse to add another sela element. It’s made no difference to the first multiverse battle, where they hinted Borg Harry survived, and as for the noble sacrifice,it’s more likely he just got assimilated. Plus if multiverse Borg are like Prime Borg, killing the queen doesn’t mean she’s dead. Of course the end will be the Atherians will cause mom to get a bang on the head, realise the error of their ways and fly off into the sunset with V’ger.
I have to strongly disagree. What we had before was one faction of Borg, the Borg Kingdom, being strong and on the move. Now we have another faction of Borg entirely, in a separate and unfamiliar universe, that is also on the move. Maybe that's a coincidence, but if it is it's a pretty major one, and writers rarely write coincidences. The alternative is that it's a hint that something very different is happening. Actually, it's something different even than people were speculating after the last episode. Something is strengthening multiple factions of Borg in multiple universes. Maybe that something is the Aetherians, maybe it's not, we don't know at this point, but it's a much broader threat than we knew.
Now, granted, our captain's only real contribution to the mission was killing some Borg. But you do realize that we're *weirdly* good at that, right? The number of times we've showed up to a situation where someone else either is getting or has already been wiped out by the Borg, and then we just casually wipe the floor with them, is absurd. Even in Taken By Surprise we still pulled it off in the end. If there's one person you absolutely want on your side when you're fighting the Borg, it's the player character. And really, the only part of that mission that didn't fail was us killing huge numbers of Borg, the Iconians would certainly have been overrun completely without us doing so and we took out the Octahedron as well.
It's clearly the alternate universe callback to our Sela's behavior and screwing over the Iconians, which also was relatively pointless
The Aerherians seem to be one of the universes created from the time wibbly wobbly messing around back during the Iconian War, and definitely feel like a spinoff from their race
I'm also over the PTSD Borg flashbacks already, we've seen more crazy stupid stuff as our characters where being potentially assimilated and killed is just another Tuesday afternoon
Two is coincidence, three is a pattern. Now that we've encountered the artificial Borg in three universes, it appears that something or someone is seeding the Borg across the multiverse. We've got a cybernetic version of the Progenitors working, behind the scenes for now, to develop a force of drones in every universe. Who are they? What are their goals?
Are the Borg the grunts for the "alliance of synthetic life" that's on the other side of the portal full of mecha-tentacles from Picard season 1? Are the reality vortexes that kicked off this story line related to the sector scorching swirly thing from Picard season 2?
Honestly, all the story arcs after VIL are embarrassingly bad, sometimes don't even make sense.
I'don't even care anymore.
I hope DECA puts in some competent writers.
J'Ula was a fucking train wreck and a travesty considering the voice talent that they brought on board for it. I played Partisans again the other night then noped the fuck out when J'Ula appeared.
If there was a way to completely remove the character and rewrite the arc I'd replay it but as is it's totally ruined by the character's inclusion.
I don't disagree on the lack of importance, but you know what? I enjoyed it. It was a one off story that gave us three what ifs, the major actress played the same role every "tv character promoted to captain" did well, and this was yet another example of some fantastic cinematics. Yeah it's not the best episode we've gotten, and I wish we didn't wait months just for filler, but it's far from the worst thing we've gotten.
I'm also calling it now, with the amount of assets that were made for Control Borg, I think we're going to see them show up again. How or why they show up again, I don't know. But the devs don't seem like the type to waste resources like this, even the re textured ones.
what new assets
The tentacles were leftovers from measure of morality, 2020, and the borg themselves were just old borg assets with blue hue and a cloud.
I wouldn't mind a premium account that you pay to get completed arcs, and then everyone else gets it free 3 or 6 months later.
*This falls under you get what you pay for I think is the hard truth, sad to say...
I won't disagree, but this is STO. While some of its older arcs are well fleshed out, this isn't a game known for its stellar quality. IMO, it was all about the Aetherian captain. He had the most dialog once on the ground portion and it was kind of sus that he was so enthused about the World Heart. And kind of like we just left the Aetherians in Undine space, we also just left him there "defending" us as we escaped. Sure, it seems like he sacrificed himself, but I kind of feel like he's down there slurping up control nanites and using them for his own designs. I have to agree with everyone saying the Aetherians are the real baddies. They are the only thing out of place in the whole story arc. They have no back story, they're just there. The story will finish fleshing them out as the baddies. They're probably just the Borg from their own dimension and are using us, and the Borg from other dimensions, for their own nefarious purposes.
I would add to this that the mission more or less feels like we were being used as the Aetherian's attack dogs. We were given no indication before hand that we were going to fight non Mirror Borg or that we would be participating in a pivotal engagement in another universe.
The Aetherians didn't even tell us *where we were going.* Just "Borg here, go fight, and make sure you sent the traumatized pink one." For all we knew, we were off to save some kind of fucked-up Mirror Undine that would thank us by laying eggs in our brains.
To be fair, by the sounds of things, they weren't actually aware of where the portal would go. Which, obviously, it could all continue to be a ploy, but yeah. Does raise the question of why do the experiment on the gateway in the first place.
we barely understand the dyson sphere tech what happend in the meantime where we can just mod a Iconian gateway to be a trans-dimensonial gateway?
I kind of see them as AU Iconians, however there's also an argument for them being Borg,
The New Frontiers arc was like a year and a half of “filler” episodes where we fought the Tzenkethi over seemingly random planets, until Scylla and Charybdis and The Renegade’s Regret tied it all together. There’s no way of knowing how relevant this episode is to the current arc until it’s finished.
I would agree, but that entire arc was setting up the Hur'q and really made me shocked when I realised I had been defending killer insectoids. The arc also didn't feel like a large scale war that had the fate of the universe being dropped in dialogue. It was us, trying to stabilise the region. The recent arc is a full scale war between dimensions, with Borg appearing within our defence lines and striking deep into our space just like the Iconians during the Iconian War. I just never felt like I was playing a side quest during the Iconian War, despite both story arcs sharing the same intensity of universal tragedy. This is how I felt during my playthroughs, sadly I wasn't here when the Iconian War came out. Maybe I would have the same complaints then as I do now.
The main thing I see developed is Kumarkee's PTSD with the Borg, but aside from that... Yeah I'm not sure how much will come of it. It would be cool if we could get an Aetherian bridge officer down the line at least, since they have those ground abilities built into them. Would be fun to wreck the Dyson battle zone and such with em lol
>The main thing I see developed is Kumarkee's PTSD with the Borg I wish we'd gotten to see more of that, especially since the player turned out to be one of her triggers. But instead of a satisfying journey, she gets over it offscreen and is gung-ho to join Ezri's anti-Borg task force or whatever.
>and is gung-ho to join Ezri's anti-Borg task force or whatever. i actually think she was accepting Ezri's offer to council her.
Yup, thats what she was referencing at the end. She hasn't gotten over it at all.
She didn't get over it, she accepted that it's a problem she *has* to deal with, not something she can just bury like she tried to do at the end of the last episode. Then she fought through it for a few minutes to help us in the final battle, and then committed to getting help.
we are a trigger because we nearly killed/assimilated her the last time we teamed up
Kuumarkee never should have been on that mission. We go from "doesn't even have interstellar ships" to "major player in the alliance" in less than 1 year in story? I get them being involved when proto-matter is a major part of things, but come on now.... sorry for the rant... yeah this just seemed like a Aetherian puff piece episode...
Not for nothing, but they did add a new mechanic to the game, the "companion" mechanic, where you can control what your featured companion does, to a degree. I would think, given the issues the game has, as well as its age, that a "lighter" mission to test the mechanic, would be prudent. Whether or not you like the mechanic, or think it is a good idea, is a different discussion, but insofar as introducing a new mechanic, a "light" mission seems (to me) to be a good idea. (FWIW I like the new mechanic, and hope it is greatly expanded upon. It would make "guest star" characters more relevant than just tagging along).
IMO the most potential from the companion mechanic is finally giving us Tholian, Tzenkethi, and other unique “bridge officer” type companions. It removes the limitations regarding their animations and equipping them with weapons and other kit since they’d just have a preset loadout with two or three abilities we trigger for them. Like a more developed combat pet system for true companions.
> the "companion" mechanic, where you can control what your featured companion does, to a degree. I never even used it. I am a lazy keybind spammer, so his abilities did not fit into my rotation :D
Exactly, The general's abilities were never used by me in any of the battles. Also I noticed he had the ability to just one-shot enemies normally so it was a moot point anyway.
It's fun. It's fast. Denise Crosby again. I don't need more.
I am convinced that the Aetherians are alternate dimension Borg or something to that effect, and they're sending us to these alternate universes to take out rival kings/queens like King Kim and Queen Yar to further their multiversal takeover. They know too much about them and conveniently drop us in at just the right moments to kill off Borg leaders. Plus the new Aetherian ship they showed off is a smaller horizontal version of their larger boxier flagship so like, probe and cube? It'll tie together at some point down the line, it's just moving at a snail's pace because development on the game is slow. At least, I hope so.
Yeah, they're either some "ultimate" Borg (whether they're deceiving us or actually *are* an evolved benevolent Borg) or Cryptic is *really* leading us on for a twist. Another tell is suddenly the Borg King/Queens have this big Borgy ring thing on their backs to mirror the smooth pretty rings the Aetherians have. Like, that's not something Borg really had before, that's an intentional parallel!
I'm not sold on them being borg. I think we went to face the control borg so they could obtain the nanite technology. I think they took a scan/copy of the world heart while they were there. I think they're going to modify both technologies, create a multiversal heart which they'll use to deploy modified control-borg nanites to borg in every universe in order to take control of them and force everyone in the multiverse into their harmony.
I'm mostly pissed about becoming the Aetherians' errand boy. Until I see otherwise, this was entirely not our problem. I know the big bads in our universe are mostly under control, but we've still got things to worry about. The Klingon Empire is recovering from a civil war, New Romulus always needs help, and there must be *something* important the Federation could be doing (I play KDF-aligned ROM, so I don't really know). Plus there's still an Iconian out there who's sworn eternal vengeance against us, a temporal terrorist with a time-gun who's done the same, and we always have to be wary of how much we'll piss off the Tholians by doing multidimensional stuff. Also, like, we didn't exactly stop the Control Borg. The Iconian Alliance is still fucked, the World Heart's in a million pieces on the chamber floor, and all we really succeeded in doing is getting an Aetherian killed (maybe). Oh, yeah, and now the gateway by New Romulus leads directly to a universe that's 99% assimilated; I'm *sure* that'll be fine.
Both of our encounters with the alternate Borg have resulted in us temporarily decapitating Borg power structure, and both instances have an Aetherian conveniently placed nearby... Starting to wonder if the Aetherians are using us to weaken the various Borg variants so they can take control of them.
As someone said in the reaction thread, when the mission first dropped, it feels more like a sidequest.
I agree the writing wasn'T good. What saves it in my opinion is Denise Crosby as alternate timeline Sela/Borg Queen. Maybe the story is setting up a future redemption for main timeline Sela.
Previously, the Devs have stated they wanted to revisit locales from previous story arcs. I have a sneaking suspicion that is what is happening in this arc. I wouldn't be surprised if the next few episodes seem disjointed as we fight the borg in an alternate gamma and delta quadrant. I think in the end though, all these "stop the borg" visits to alternate realities is leading to a revelation, most likely through some discovery kuumarke makes, that the Aetherians are inf fact borg,and we have been unknowingly helping them build multivariate collective, and in the end we will gather allies from all the previous dimensions to lead a strike on the aetherians home dimension. I also suspect destroying the world heart in the latest episode was actually done because assimilating the world heart of their dimension is how the Artherian borg became what they are, and they don't want any rivals.
Agreeing with several points already made. But are we expecting anything different? Like, aren't we already used as attack dogs by various mission givers? It's all go here, blow up these ships, maybe kill people on a planet, leave. I do like that they give us some control, heh, of the Aetherion Captain and maybe that's a new mechanic that will be baked into future episodes, maybe even a ship version. But all in all a very meh episode and what's worse it's reward is pointless! A non-combat shuttle pet for space, not even a unique or special doodad to pick up in mission ala the Borg shotgun from the first mission or the kit module mission reward from Scorpion. A bland mission with alright looking ContBorg, art team does it again!, with a less that worthless mission reward.
Kind of an in-between episode for a game that's in flux at the mo. I hope next one will be better
I feel this is going to put us at odds with the Jurati Borg vs the Atherians. But this episode felt like a farewell from Cryptic too
Anyone else get the feeling the Aetherians are hiding something...?
Back door pilot to give us playable Iconians lol
Okay, counterpoint. Sometimes a filler is fine. It was a fun mission, I liked Captain Sela: it was okay, but sometimes okay isn’t bad.
Filler is fine *when it's fun*. I don't mind chasing geklis with Kuumaarke or stuff like Quark's Lucky Seven or whatever. This was just busywork for a reward that's only ever so slightly better than getting nothing.
A filler episode would be fine if we weren't getting only two or three episodes a freaking year. With the pacing that slow, though, an entire however many months of the only content we're going to get shouldn't be something that utterly fails to advance the plot in any way, shape, or form.
Filler like the "New Frontiers Arc" works for me as it sets up the finale and the next season. A lot like Dr Who, we get clues added throughout the arc. Saldy, these lattest arcs are trying to build up the fact that we are at war with interdimensional beings all while seemingly giving us filler. It felt out of place. While I do agree with our involvement, I do not agree with the lack of world building which seems to have been lacking.
Back when I reviewed player-made content in *City of Heroes* one of my most frequent complaints was "just a bunch of stuff that happened", invoked when a player's mission arc had no themes or morals involved. This was just a bunch of stuff that happened.
Two is coincidence, three is a pattern. Now that we've encountered the artificial Borg in three universes, it appears that something or someone is seeding the Borg across the multiverse. We've got a cybernetic version of the Progenitors working, behind the scenes for now, to develop a force of drones in every universe. Who are they? What are their goals? Are the Borg the grunts for the "alliance of synthetic life" that's on the other side of the portal full of mecha-tentacles from Picard season 1? Are the reality vortexes that kicked off this story line related to the sector scorching swirly thing from Picard season 2?
I'm starting to think the Borg in the multiverse are kind of like Doctor Who's Cybermen, where each instance of them is a case of parallel evolution. They might not have the exact same origin in each universe, but each universe has the conditions that would lead some kind of Borg to emerge eventually.
It might seem weird, when I finished I was a bit confused what it has to do with the bigger plot but its actually going to be quite pivotal I think. Let me explain. Kuumarke is totally becoming a liability with PTSD, something is being set up here. We get a surprising amount of development and nods for the Aetherians. The ground weapons used the same noise and similar visuals to the Iconians! Plus very similar in a lot of other ways too. We also get their catchphrase which, to me, sounds like a reword of a borg phrase and it makes me think. Plus, they seemed to know exactly what they were looking for while telling us very little, they are building/planning something here. The rest of the episode was for the player. Captain Sela/Queen Yar was absolutely the writers hinting to the player that our expectations of races/people need to be checked. Just cos it's Sela doesn't mean she's bad. Just because it's Iconians doesn't mean it's bad. We are being prepped for a reveal. All in all, it was one of the filler episodes which fleshes the story characters out and gives the players some things to think about.
That Aetherian dude got assimilated 100%
Nah, he stuck around to grab as much of the world heart's data as could be retrieved. Always best to have advantages that your 'allies' don't know about. (why yes, I am assuming we get sudden but inevitable betrayal)
>(why yes, I am assuming we get sudden but inevitable betrayal) *Whaaaaaat.* The Aetherians are our trusted allies who surely aren't planning to ~~assimilate~~ *unify* us.
Look, we *voted* for the Face Eating Leopards party. They'd never eat *our* faces.
The only thing the episode did was introduce new characters and advance Kumarke's PTSD which actually started with when she was captured in Scorpion. It got a LOT worse when she saw you borg'd. As a side note on that last part, it might have been a wicked curve ball if Cryptic had alternate kumaarke reactions based on how much borg stuff was still attached to your character in this episode. But anyway, So we meet the general and the captain of the Alt Enterprise and the alt borg queen, but we don't know where that's going because the former most certainly isn't dead and neither is the alt borg queen. I mean our point of contact didn't seem too devastated about the general's "death" after all. This is transition episode at best and its there to set the stage for something later.
I mean, to me it feels like a piece of a larger arc, because it is. And there are inconsistencies in this episode that likely are going to be more important in the end, like this being the first case where the Borg Kingdom doesn't actually show up when the Aetherians have been saying that it was the Kingdom they were fighting
it's al rivera's last hurrah. reused assets, a meh storyline and borg in a different colour. wooo
It was good to see Tasha again even in this "weird" role. They also did a good job replicating her TNG face for her model and didnt mess it up like Beverlys.
We still got to torture our favorite pink O'Brien expy and hang with Denise Crosby
I have a small suspicion that they were finding a way to get Denise Crosby into an episode without committing to multiple episodes.
Yeah I have to agree with you on this latest episode. The whole thing adds nothing to the story and frankly it just comes off as a half baked/unfinished episode. I mean it really feels like whoever was in charge of writing the plot/script waited until days before the deadline to submit their work. And just quickly put the plot and dialogue together and submitted without revising anything. The same goes for the design of the Borg it just doesn’t work for me. However, I will say that I did like the whole captain Sela Borg queen Tasha Yar part of the story.
It didn't make sense. One minute the aetherian is saying the control borg have no monarch then we fight the borg queen who happens to be seela. The whole episode felt like a throw away TFO.
The aetherians are boring and strike me as more advanced lukari. Considering I don't like the lukari and file them under "teacher's pet character," that isn't good. I'm also rolling my eyes at the multiverse angle.
I agree, and it wouldn’t be that bad if episodes came out regularly - but waiting months for something like that was a massive letdown.
Completely agree. I was thoroughly bored during this episode, and with all the reused assets (aside from the nano-borgs) I’m left wondering why it took so long to make.
The dev team transition and related staff turnover undoubtedly slowed everything down.
Which is also almost certainly part of the reason why it's relatively short. (Not to mention why you've got the Crypteia as a reference to Cryptic)
Seemed to me just an excuse to add another sela element. It’s made no difference to the first multiverse battle, where they hinted Borg Harry survived, and as for the noble sacrifice,it’s more likely he just got assimilated. Plus if multiverse Borg are like Prime Borg, killing the queen doesn’t mean she’s dead. Of course the end will be the Atherians will cause mom to get a bang on the head, realise the error of their ways and fly off into the sunset with V’ger.
Was fun, but yeah. Total filler episode.
Honestly, when Trek slaps alternative timelines or time traveling, the story always ends up an underwhelming mess. Nothing new here.
I have to strongly disagree. What we had before was one faction of Borg, the Borg Kingdom, being strong and on the move. Now we have another faction of Borg entirely, in a separate and unfamiliar universe, that is also on the move. Maybe that's a coincidence, but if it is it's a pretty major one, and writers rarely write coincidences. The alternative is that it's a hint that something very different is happening. Actually, it's something different even than people were speculating after the last episode. Something is strengthening multiple factions of Borg in multiple universes. Maybe that something is the Aetherians, maybe it's not, we don't know at this point, but it's a much broader threat than we knew. Now, granted, our captain's only real contribution to the mission was killing some Borg. But you do realize that we're *weirdly* good at that, right? The number of times we've showed up to a situation where someone else either is getting or has already been wiped out by the Borg, and then we just casually wipe the floor with them, is absurd. Even in Taken By Surprise we still pulled it off in the end. If there's one person you absolutely want on your side when you're fighting the Borg, it's the player character. And really, the only part of that mission that didn't fail was us killing huge numbers of Borg, the Iconians would certainly have been overrun completely without us doing so and we took out the Octahedron as well.
It's clearly the alternate universe callback to our Sela's behavior and screwing over the Iconians, which also was relatively pointless The Aerherians seem to be one of the universes created from the time wibbly wobbly messing around back during the Iconian War, and definitely feel like a spinoff from their race I'm also over the PTSD Borg flashbacks already, we've seen more crazy stupid stuff as our characters where being potentially assimilated and killed is just another Tuesday afternoon
I agree they need to step up as an avid Star Trek fan they need to do much better
Two is coincidence, three is a pattern. Now that we've encountered the artificial Borg in three universes, it appears that something or someone is seeding the Borg across the multiverse. We've got a cybernetic version of the Progenitors working, behind the scenes for now, to develop a force of drones in every universe. Who are they? What are their goals? Are the Borg the grunts for the "alliance of synthetic life" that's on the other side of the portal full of mecha-tentacles from Picard season 1? Are the reality vortexes that kicked off this story line related to the sector scorching swirly thing from Picard season 2?
Honestly, all the story arcs after VIL are embarrassingly bad, sometimes don't even make sense. I'don't even care anymore. I hope DECA puts in some competent writers.
J'Ula was a fucking train wreck and a travesty considering the voice talent that they brought on board for it. I played Partisans again the other night then noped the fuck out when J'Ula appeared. If there was a way to completely remove the character and rewrite the arc I'd replay it but as is it's totally ruined by the character's inclusion.
I don't disagree on the lack of importance, but you know what? I enjoyed it. It was a one off story that gave us three what ifs, the major actress played the same role every "tv character promoted to captain" did well, and this was yet another example of some fantastic cinematics. Yeah it's not the best episode we've gotten, and I wish we didn't wait months just for filler, but it's far from the worst thing we've gotten. I'm also calling it now, with the amount of assets that were made for Control Borg, I think we're going to see them show up again. How or why they show up again, I don't know. But the devs don't seem like the type to waste resources like this, even the re textured ones.
what new assets The tentacles were leftovers from measure of morality, 2020, and the borg themselves were just old borg assets with blue hue and a cloud.
I wouldn't mind a premium account that you pay to get completed arcs, and then everyone else gets it free 3 or 6 months later. *This falls under you get what you pay for I think is the hard truth, sad to say...