#star trek resurgence spoilers

[vexingvorta]

Carter Diaz and Nili Edsilar are mlm/wlw solidarity

(i also really like the aspec Carter Diaz headcanons)

[crazymammoth]

As a trekkie I love Star Trek Resurgence! 9/10 from me but Ali Hillis' character goes from adorable to murderhobo kill them all real quick

[deepspacedukat]

wait I just found out about star trek resurgence and commander chovak, I’m losing my mind I love him ??? grumpy king of engineering, he deserves more attention

YES OMG. CHOVAK IS AMAZING. (Also, if anyone wants my thoughts, spoilers or spoiler-free on Resurgence, I'd be more than happy to talk about it!!)

I got so incredibly busy that I've only been able to continue Resurgence recently, and istfg this man is going to MAKE ME write an enemies-to-lovers fic about him. He really is such a good, grumpy engineer Vulcan mans, and I just...

I need him.

I was looking at my choices on the resurgence website just to see where I stood with various characters' approvals of the 2 characters you play as, and he approves of one of my characters and not the other. My poor, rotted brain is over here like "Ah, a Before and After for an enemies-to-lovers arc..."

I just. Sir. Can you not look like this?? Because you're too hot. It's illegal:

[dgcatanisiri]

We did get that PS5, and I dove in to Star Trek Resurgence, managing to burn through its story. It does help that it's a Telltale style choice game, so it's shorter to account for the choices.

I'm pleased about this game in general, because I definitely wanted one of these for a while, that I think that the format works well for Star Trek in video games, and I think it's a good standalone story that non-fans could enjoy all the same.

Obviously, as a Trek fan in general, I recommend it, but I am going to throw up a cut for spoilers if anyone is going to seek it out.

I like the use of the Tkon as antagonists - they're among the many underutilized ancient civilizations in the franchise, I think the only other significant time they've appeared since they were introduced was the Q Continuum trilogy, featuring the fall of their civilization dovetailing into the antics of Q's history. So worth revisiting in general, and nifty to see them in action.

I genuinely enjoyed all the characters - Rydek and Diaz are interesting protagonists and it's fun to see their journey. The reason I burned through the game as I did was because I was interested in see their story go through to its conclusion.

On a writing level, I do understand the story choice to put Diaz in the position where he can end up functionally dead, but I was disappointed that my game ended with him not getting a happy ending, and that getting a happier ending involves sacrificing Edsilar.

Speaking of Edsilar, she probably was the standout of the NPCs. Especially with her alternate view on Trill joining. She's the kind of character I absolutely want to see in further Trek adventures, be it a sequel or screen.

I do have to give some knocks to Bedrosian, though, mostly because I think she fails to really accept the reality of being a Starfleet officer, though I'm sure that there's some allowance to be made on her suffering as she does in the course of events. But her resignation over saving the Tkon crystals is one of those things that feels like her putting her personal feelings over the oaths of a Starfleet officer - blind destruction is not the way of Starfleet. Again, I offer some concession about her having been traumatized, probably in a position where she really shouldn't be fit for duty, but the crisis forces her back on her feet early. All the same, it's a character critique I have.

Honestly, I think my biggest complaint really is the whole plotline with Miranda as a possible romance. I mean, we have NO concept of her as a person before she dumps the "I want to be with you" on Diaz all of a sudden, and then you get like one scene afterwards before she's bioformed by the Tkon.

Admittedly, I'm always opposed to heteronormativity in general, so there was never going to be me jumping on board this attempt at romance, but... I had no reason to take that step, and never really felt like the story gave me reason to be invested in the idea of Miranda and Diaz.

I was also kinda disappointed that Chovak and Urmott were kinda non-entities in the course of things - Chovak felt like he should have featured more in Diaz's story, and Urmott in particular should have had more to do, because he functionally disappears between the crisis at the Starbase and the confrontation with Captain Solano. It kinda makes it all the easier to tap Westbrook for first officer, and then makes his complaint about Westbrook getting that promotion come across as petty jealousy instead of a genuine concern.

Still, in the overall scheme, I consider these minor issues and, again, I enjoyed this game. I would eagerly pick up a sequel, and not just because I want more Star Trek video games. Or, if not a direct sequel, then something else in the spiritual successor vein.

It's a good way to start off my PS5 gaming.

[heroofthreefaces]

Preview panel only. Click here for full cartoon. Or see the on-site navigation tutorial. Or see this tumblog’s FAQ. Cartoons may contain unmarked spoilers. Cartoons linked at about 10:00 Central US are new and link posts are pinned to the top of the blog. Cartoons linked at about 22:00 are from the archive and are only pinned during annual summer hiatus of new cartoons. Thanks for reading.

[Image description: Preview panel for the comic strip at the link. Captain Kirk of the Star Trek new movies and Spike of Angel The Series stand talking on the Enterprise bridge. Spike is holding the talisman that indicates travel to this fiction plane by means of the spell Willow Rosenberg invented. Kirk is looking at a pad and saying, "There's a resurgence in the popularity of ancient Greek drama going now but no one seems interested in Philoctetes.” Unfortunately there are not image descriptions at the main Hero Of Three Faces site. End description.]

[pixelpoppers]

Minor design decisions and immersion in Star Trek: Resurgence

I finally played Star Trek: Resurgence, which I'd had my eye on for some time. It's an interesting game in its own right, but also significant as the first game from Dramatic Labs (a studio formed by Telltale Games veterans) and as part of a new wave of licensed Star Trek games during an exciting time for that franchise.

So naturally I'm here to ignore all of that and instead discuss a specific design decision that most people would probably ignore instead of fixating on. (What can I say? You come to my house, you get my bullshit.)

Okay, so. Resurgence is mostly a game about making choices. There are a few other flavors of gameplay including stealth/combat sequences, shuttlecraft piloting, walking around and investigating areas, a handful of minigames and QTEs, and so on. But the core is making dialog choices that have various effects on the characters and the relationships between them.

Correspondingly, those choices are the foundation of the game's achievements/trophies. There aren't any for, say, clearing a combat section without taking damage. None of them are skill-based (except inasmuch as you need to be able to complete all previous parts of the game to reach the particular decision the achievement is for) and I think that's absolutely the right call. Those more-active parts of the game are for pacing and immersion; it'd be weird to turn them into things the player has to master for full completion.

What seems like a less-right call to me is that the achievements aren't for passing decision points, but for making specific choices. Like at one point there's a crisis, both your science officer and security officer have recommendations for getting through it, and you have to decide which one to follow. There isn't a trophy for getting through the crisis: there's one for following the science officer's recommendation and one for following the security officer's. Almost all the achievements are like that. (On PlayStation, there is additionally the Platinum trophy for getting all other trophies; on Xbox, there are additionally three progress trophies for getting through the three "acts" of the game.)

Now, that does mean that a player's achievement list for the game becomes a reference for the choices they made, which is kind of a cool thing to have and to be able to share with other players (though the achievements have pretty explicit descriptions so the list is full of GIANT SPOILERS until you finish a playthrough). But the game's website already provides a mechanism for this, and achievements are particularly poorly-suited to this goal.

By positioning all the alternative choices as items in a completion checklist, the game signals that you should see them all before you can consider yourself truly done. This isn't as obnoxious as it was in Q.U.B.E. 2, because the game is at least about the choices and there is new stuff to see on a replay, though I still think it smacks of insecure design. But it does mean that anyone who replays the game to make other choices and get all the achievements renders their list useless as a reference for their "actual" choices--and it turns those choices from ones that allow the player to express something about their values to obligatory ones that are just checked off a list with no personal meaning. And the more effective the game has been at creating a real-feeling world and characters, the less interested I am in doing that.

(It's the same reason I was so relieved to see that Resurgence didn't have secrets or collectibles. Hunting through all corners of the map to find golden ships or research data would destroy immersion instantly; I was really happy I could just go where my character would go and not worry that I would be mechanically punished for it.)

Resurgence wasn't a perfect game, but it did a better job than anything else ever has at making me feel like a Starfleet officer. I loved the scenarios it put me in and the opportunity to make decisions that best reflected Federation values and balanced protecting my crew with advancing our mission. I recognize that I'm more sensitive to this than others, but I resent feeling nudged to go back and make different decisions that will turn Resurgence from a world populated with people to a series of arbitrary levers to pull.

[traxanaxanos]

So Star Trek Resurgence is made by a team comprised of a lot of people who worked at the now shuttered Telltale Games, and the game follows Telltale’s traditional game style - heavy on dialogue options and branching choices. I think the format is generally ideal for a Star Trek game, and that the game does a good job overall of making the choices and dialogue seem like not only real choices, but choices that a Starfleet officer would be faced with, where either option is something that is justifiable or that makes sense within the setting of Star Trek.

However, there is one choice that shows the seams of the game too much - its a choice for choice’s sake, with one understandable option, and another that is completely out of left field and inscrutable. I think this issue has its roots in the first Telltale game, The Walking Dead.

There is a choice early on in The Walking Dead between which of two characters to save and have join your group - woman with a gun or guy who is knowledgeable about home electronics like remotes and tvs. Overwhelmingly, people chose woman with gun, in a game where most of the choices had a more even division, and I remember reading something from one of the developers/writers saying they hadn’t done enough to telegraph why the guy would have been helpful, because he was always meant to be just as helpful and “correct” a choice as woman with gun.

Resurgence has a similar choice option, where one option seems far and away the “right” choice, while the other choice has virtually no framing as to why you should ever pick it, especially within the context of being a Starfleet officer. However, the stakes for this choice are exponentially higher than The Walking Dead’s “pick which of two people die,” in a way that it is a little mind-boggling.

Resurgence is also, after Lower Decks, one of the new Trek properties that engages with Deep Space 9 the most, in my opinion. One of the two main playable characters is intrinsically tied to the show and the world-building it establishes. The game is set after the Dominion War, and certain characters mention it, albeit somewhat offhandedly, and the effects it had on them. If the game had leaned into the post-Deep Space 9 setting a little more, leaned a little heavier on references to the show, I think it would have not necessarily have justified the second of the two choice options but made it a little more understandable why a Starfleet officer would be advocating for something so heinous.

I’m going to talk about this choice and why a little more leaning on Deep Space 9, could have made it make more sense story-wise below the cut, for spoilers. While I don’t think spoilers inherently ruin a work, some of the fun of Resurgence was the discovery of certain things and the realization of how deep in Star Trek lore the game actually is, and in order to talk about the choice, I necessarily have to talk about one of the reveals.

Araxi Bedrosian is a character I initially thought might be a Betazoid, but the game never actually establishes this, so I think she’s meant to just be a human with dark-colored eyes. Bedrosian, probably a human, wants you to destroy the in-stasis consciousness of the long-extinct Tkon, thus committing genocide against what remains of a civilization, with an orbital bombardment, to keep them out of the hands of the surviving extremist Tkon. Alternatively, you can just beam the conscious-holding crystals onto your ship and evade the extremists. 

This is an insane choice, and the game in no way makes an argument for why the Bedrosian option would be necessary, or even why she is suggesting it - the Tkon who are attacking you are framed as extremists by the Tkon who is helping you, and that they were extremists even to other Tkon thousands of years ago, so there’s no risk of them willingly helping the extremists. The only threat the saved Tkon consciousnesses could cause is in being uploaded, without their consent, into unwilling hosts. But this wouldn’t be their fault, and simply keeping them out of the hands of the extremist Tkon is enough to stop this act. 

There is no justification for wiping out the Tkon consciousnesses when other options are available. It doesn’t seem likely that beaming the crystals to your ship will fail, or that the extremist Tkon will be able to stop you. Furthermore, there is no explanation for why Bedrosian is foaming at the mouth for you to commit genocide, to the point that she resigns her commission if you don’t. How the fuck did this woman get into Starfleet? How did no one notice her murderous tendencies before?

I want to be clear that what I am proposing does not mean I think offering the choice to do a genocide at all, but especially in a Star Trek game, is good. I think including it was a mistake, and was the writers and developers leaning too heavily on the Telltale formula. “Well there has to be a choice, the player has been watching a cut scene for too long let’s give them something to do, we have to put a choice here.” The choice is bad writing and unnecessary, especially without further re-framing or better writing - if ALL of the Tkon explicitly wanted to steal other people’s bodies to reform the empire, then the choice is at least placed in “I, Borg” territory where you have to weigh wiping out a whole species against the fact the species wants to do immeasurable violence against everyone it comes across (complete, even with similar framing of the possibility of rescuing the people who were assimilated like Hugh, with the possibility, however faint, or rescuing the people who were bioformed). As is, I don’t think the choice makes any sense in the setting of Star Trek - destroy what are functionally hundreds of thousands of sleeping civilians because this may give you a tactical advantage is not something I could see any of the existing captains even considering.

However, without reframing the choice to make it more Star Trekian, I think from a character standpoint, they could have made it at least make sense why Bedrosian wants you to do this, why she would immediately jump to advocating doing a war crime.

And it’s by making her explicitly a Betazoid.

If there had been a scene where she explains that she was on Betazed when it was conquered and occupied by the Dominion, or that she had been off-planet at the time but joined in liberation efforts, her reaction would be a little more understandable. She has experienced occupation, she has experienced her people being conquered. How frightening then, after their hard-won liberation, to be faced with the threat of a species that wants to literally conquer and occupy people’s bodies, to take them over and puppet them, subsume their consciousness into their own. And how doubly frightening for Bedrosian, just coming off the occupation of her people, to be faced with a species who have the technology to steal other people’s very consciousness, as a member of a psychic species who are so in-tuned with the minds of others. While she would still be advocating for a war crime, it would then be legible as her reacting from a a place of deep trauma, rather than the game simply deciding its time for an other choice section.

I think the main issue I have with Resurgence is there is no downtime. There is no time to just talk to your crew, you are bouncing from mission to mission too quickly. Giving a little scene with Bedrosian, where she clarifies that yes, she is a Betazoid and not just a human woman with dark eyes, and that yes, she was on Betazed when it was attacked and conquered, would go miles to explain why she jumps immediately to orbital bombardment of the Tkon consciousnesses.

[z025]

Home Comics News Star Trek Just Made Geordi La Forge's Holodeck Romance Even Creepier Star Trek: Resurgence #2 revisits one of Geordi La Forge's most embarrassing moments in Star Trek: The...

[vexingvorta]

I started playing Star Trek: Resurgence. New blorbo just dropped. I love Tylas with all my heart and soul and i will singlehandedly fix the severe lack of Tylas content (and Jara/Tylas content, at that) if i must.

[kyredperspective]

Best of 2016 - Movies

While not the best year for movies, nonetheless it's list time. The top 6 would be guarantees on any year end list, so with that in mind on with the show.

1. Rogue One – The story, the action, the acting, the Easter eggs, the Donnie Yen, all superb. I'm not sure yet where this falls on the overall Star Wars list yet, but for this year it grabs number one. It was an excellent capper to the year of Disney box office dominance.

2. Deadpool- The most surprising of all the year's superhero flicks, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. The perfect casting helped make it the big ball of crazy fun that it was. Here's hoping to many more instalments of Deadpool's unique adventures.

3. Zootopia-  A Disney adventure that rivals any of the Pixar tales, this was great for adults too. I'm a big fan of buddy cop movies and this belongs alongside the greats, with its perfect mix of action and comedy.

4. Captain America: Civil War- Another year, another great Marvel movie. Arguably the best series going for Marvel, this chapter showed no decline in quality. Some franchises have trouble balancing that many characters without having to introduce some majors, but amazingly everyone gets their time to shine.  

5. Doctor Strange- The trippiest Marvel film yet, proved to be an excellent origin story. The openinig sequence hooks you with its stunning visuals and the entire cast do an excellent job handling the ever shifting tone.

6. Headshot- TIFF Midnight Madness selection, action variety. Plot? Who cares. It's a showcase for Iko Uwais (The Raid) to fight a whole bunch of people. Awesome bloody gruesome fights.

7. Message From The King- An early TIFF view, this is a noirish detective tale starring Chadwick Boseman as a man searching for his sister. Boseman's character is an outsider in LA, having just arrived from South Africa and he must navigate the twisted LA world to seek answers. Well acted with good action and twists.

8. Star Trek Beyond – Simon Pegg's Star Trek is the first of the new series not tied to the originals and is a fun ride. Scotty and Jaylah make an excellent team and the rest of the supporting cast get their due too.

9. Arq- TIFF seen, Netflix produced, Arq was a cool Canadian apocalyptic sci-fi version of Groundhog Day. Not too much else could be said for fear of spoilers, but it's well worth a watch.

10. X-Men: Apocalypse- Needless to say the third instalment of this series is light years better than the third of the last series.

11. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 12. The Nice Guys 13. London Has Fallen 14. Birth Of The Dragon 15. Below Her Mouth 16. Belko Experiment 17. Goldstone 18. The Limehouse Golem 19. (re)Assignment 20. City of Tiny Lights 21. The Unknown Girl 22. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates 23. The Brothers Grimsby 24. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping 25. Suicide Squad 26. Central Intelligence 27. Independence Day: Resurgence 28. Prevenge 29. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 30. Ride Along 2

I normally don't single out a worst movie, but when one is as bad as Salt & Fire it needs to done. Disappointingly bad.

From just looking at the trailers, 2017 looks to be a superior year to '16 in terms of quality. Here is a chronological list of the films I'm most looking forward to.

1. Underworld: Blood Wars 2. XXX: Return of Xander Cage 3. Lego Batman 4. John Wick 2 5. Fist Fight 6. Logan 7. Trainspotting 2 8. Kong: Skull Island 9. Fate of the Furious 10. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 11. Baywatch 12. POTC: Dead Men Tell No Tales 13. Wonder Woman 14. The Mummy 15. Transformers: The Last Knight 16. Despicable Me 3 17. Spider-Man Homecoming 18. Dunkirk 19. Blade Runner 2049 20. Kingsmen: The Golden Circle 21. Thor: Ragnarok 22. Justice League 23. Star Wars: Episode VIII 24. Jumanji

[placetobenation]

Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or, occasionally, profound. Views expressed in the Wednesday Walk do not necessarily reflect those of anyone but the writer.

Approximately everyone has been buzzing about the high school drama club that presented Alien: The Play, and deservedly so, as it’s an amazing idea. The photos that’ve gone around make me think of Mr. P, who built all of the sets for my high school’s productions back when I was but a surly teen. Mr. P was kind, resourceful, and hypercompetent — and yet I can’t help but think that even good ol’ Mr. P would’ve found the prospect of building the space jockey rather challenging.

You know, everything in the world is horrible and we’re all going to die, but at least the next Bill & Ted movie is finally happening before most of us do. I’m really curious what it’ll look like, though, since they ought to be in the future rock utopia by now. One note: let’s perhaps not approach the idea of a CGI George Carlin.

Speaking of, the constant remakes of and sequels to any movie that might possibly carry any name recognition is an indicator of the essential lack of imagination that you get when the only thing Hollywood executives care about is the safest way to wring money out of things they already own — hold the phone, I’m getting word that 9 to 5 2 might actually be happening and I am HERE FOR THIS.

The newest season of Queer Eye came out recently, and I’ll just say I felt extremely called out by each episode in different ways, from people who felt overwhelmed and people who gave up to one guy whose hair seemed to have the same texture as mine. So (in the realm of minor spoilers) it’s heartening to hear that the Jones sisters are thriving and Jess is going back to college thanks to the fanbase.

Speaking of feeling called out by media, let’s all hope our internet friends understand how we feel about each other.

Translating anything from one language to another presents challenges — different languages develop under different circumstances, among different people who had different particular experiences they needed to describe and contexts in which they had to describe them. Translating from an ancient, dead language to a modern one augments those challenges, leaving us with completely technically faithful translations that make no sense.

NASA recently canceled a proposed all-women’s spacewalk because they don’t have safe spacesuits available in the right size for their astronauts. The explanation in this thread makes sense, but doesn’t exactly let NASA off the hook, as it shouldn’t.

This Week in Radical Recontextualization: “All Star” is now an English madrigal. It was always destined thus, and I am so glad that we finally got here.

This Week in Neural Net Processors, Learning Computers: If you’re heading out on the lake with the fam, you need a name for your boat, and neural nets are ready to provide a host of ideas. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put another coat of wax on my trusy ol’ Back Shark.

Instagram, like every other social network, is beset by neofascists, right-wing conspiracy theorists, and multidirectional bigots of every stripe, who for some reason don’t understand that the platform is for posting photos of your food, selfies with your sweetums, and updates on the status of your cat.

This series of snapshots showing how millennial Jews relate to their Jewishness offers a nice variety of perspectives. I definitely find myself agreeing with the people who found themselves identifying more with Judaism in the context of the resurgent antisemitism we’re experiencing — the week after Charlotesville I was still a little dazed and found myself showing up for a Shabbat service for the first time in a long time. Plus, tikkun olam remains an incredibly important ethical principle on a basic level, and one I’d have a hard time with were I a goy.

Anyway, if you’re ever confused about Jewish holidays — and some of them are confusing! — just consult this handy guide.

This Week in Rankings We Needed: Every Major Female “Star Trek” Character, Ranked By Lesbianism. I can argue with no part of this.

Speaking of which, Captain Marvel really needs to acknowledge how gay it was.

Esports are now getting dedicated arena facilities. I get that I’m the boring fuddy-duddy who’s fine watching whatever sports I watch on TV because the camera angles are going to be better than the view from whatever seat I get, but like…isn’t esporting even more naturally suited to streaming?

The newest esport, of course, is sex, as long as you want to wear it on your strap-on and/or dong. Best of luck!

[traxanaxanos]

I think I may just be live-blogging Star Trek: Resurgence now. Will tag so people can avoid spoilers