The Perfect Villain to add in STO

[Aslan_chShran]

Armus.

Perhaps there are many who do not remember who this is, but if you watch the Next Generation episode Skin of Evil (season 1) you will see the seeds to a powerful adversary that could bring the entire Galaxy to its knees.

Armus is a being of great power, a being created by a race of Titans millenia ago who desired to shed themselves of evil. They were successful, bringing that evil out in a oily skin and then discarding it. Leaving it on the desolate planet Vagra II, they ascended, beings of absolute beauty free of evil. This concentrated evil has lain in solitude, boiling in its own anger until a shuttlepod carrying Councilor Troy crash landed on the planet.

To cut the story short, Armus is not as powerful as Q but he has the equivalent power of a demi-god. With a thought he killed an important Enterprise crewmember in a very emotional scene, and his powers kept the ship from teleporting anything Armus did not wish to land or leave. At the end of the episode, they trick Armus into falling into a pit of his own anger, and the angrier he got, the less he concentrated on a shield covering the area - Troy, a hurt pilot, and Captain Picard were able to escape, leaving Armus screaming in the heavens.

All he wanted to do is leave the planet and find his creators, to destroy them. To exact revenge that has been seething in him since his creation. The episode ended with the Enterprise torpedoing the shuttle on the surface so that there was no chance Armus could escape...

***

Cut to Star Trek Online, 30 years after Nemesis, probably 45 years after the events of "Skin of Evil" - its a simple idea, really. Another ship DID find the planet, Vagra II. Another ship DID land on Vagra II. And whether by free will or not, Armus found his way off his prison world and into space.

And now he is one of the unknown powers in the galaxy, moving players around like a master puppeteer his only mission to sow chaos to the galaxy and eventually find his creators, the TItan race that spawned him and destroy them all.

He would have his revenge.

***

Anyway, we have our typical enemies and we have to have our storylines that are imbedded in STO... I think having this being of absolute power, redone for modern times would be awesome. In the show, all he did was rise and fall out of a river of filth. Imagine in the game a being, more man shaped and focused, who could walk but his shape was hard to see, it was almost like staring at a black hole sucking in life... walking with black ooze spilling from him with every step...

[njdss4]

Actually, this is a pretty good idea. I'd like to see it as a planet-wide event, maybe an instanced planet for crews to go down and take care of. Let's say this "Armus" has been growing stronger over the years and he is poised to get himself off the planet without the need of a ship. Starfleet sends you and your friends to put him down for good.

Since his power has been growing so much over the past 40 or so years, he has been able to spawn smaller, less powerful versions of himself which you will have to fight to get to this foe. Once you get to him it should be more than just your typical "fire phasers" junk. Make it where you have to have someone constantly scanning Armus to know what frequency to tune your phasers to in order to hurt him. Then, once you've taken away most of his life, he falls down and doesn't attack for a minute. This is when you have to all get out your tricorders and sync them together and create some sort of disruption field that will kill him. If you don't sync the tricorders and get the disruption field going he will get up, back at full life forcing you to start from scratch.

That way it's still Trek-like, but also something that would be fun to do in a group in an MMO.

[Mad-Max]

Me...

Fixt. .

. . .

[jayrelo]

darn, you figure pikerd would drop a dang warning buoy on top of that sucker.

[Allardyn]

darn, you figure pikerd would drop a dang warning buoy on top of that sucker.

Or at least a tri-cobalt device.

[Cormoran]

Vagra II was declared off limits according to Picards Log at the end. I would imagine a warning bouy would be a part of that process.

[jayrelo]

i just thought of something better. what about those parasites from season1 that almost took over starfleet command, ya know, the one where riker and pickerd blew up a head? the ending was ominous, with data saying that they sent a signal to their part of space.

what if they returned and took over part of starfleet again? you couldn't trust anyone, there would be a conspiracy, gasp, now that is sexy right there.

[RyanRosco]

Yeah I do remember that episode. Thats would be a awsome planetside event. I hope that they put this in the game. Mabey even have him reproduce and create more of his kind. So there might be a colony of them now.

[Aslan_chShran]

i just thought of something better. what about those parasites from season1 that almost took over starfleet command, ya know, the one where riker and pickerd blew up a head? the ending was ominous, with data saying that they sent a signal to their part of space.

what if they returned and took over part of starfleet again? you couldn't trust anyone, there would be a conspiracy, gasp, now that is sexy right there.

Yes, after writing this I was thinking about that as well. It was a really cool storyline that was NEVER followed up. But it ended with a message being broadcast - a signal, into deep space. A beacon to come to Earth. Well, 30 years after Nemesis, they've arrived! Why not? ;)

[marscentral]

They're certainly both interesting enemies that are worth following up on I think. The parasites could have gained a foothold in an important Federation/Klingon colony and your intrepid crew has to figure out who they can trust in the colony as they race to prevent the "conspiracy" spreading to other worlds.

[cavilier210]

here's another one i read about.

Anyone heard of the Furies? If i remember right, they're from another galaxy/demension/quadrant. These guys were pure eveil, and someone had to use a shuttle to disrupt these guy's portal to federation space, and sacrifice himself in the process. Also, the furies ships were almost immune to the federations weapons and it took a whole fleet to keep a few ships at bay.

it's been awhile so i don't know much else other then they were horrifying to look upon.

[Rangerrob]

Three words...

Mirror Universe Invasion...

Ok ok...I know that the Imperial "Federation" didn't survive until the time of TNG/DS9/VOY...But hey it is 30 years later so maybe they are making a comeback. Would probably be better as a major weekend event.
But if the Devs could code it so that NPC version of player ships started attacking various places. Yeah that would be a lot of coding...but it might be fun.

[cavilier210]

what about the 1st federation? weren't they bad dudes?

[Trekkie]

I actually like "Skin of Evil" quite a bit, so I wouldn't mind seeing Armus introduced as an adversary in a mission or something like that.

[Duras]

Lets not forget the real villians, the ones that will try to fiol Federation missions, kill you for your technologies and basically hold back the spread of Federation principles...

I mean, lets face it...

I'll be out there... ;)

[jayrelo]

Lets not forget the real villians, the ones that will try to fiol Federation missions, kill you for your technologies and basically hold back the spread of Federation principles...

I mean, lets face it...

I'll be out there... ;)

touche good sir. touche.

[Duras]

Only on the tacticle console... ;)

[THORN74]

i would second the parasite conspiracy story line ....that was one of the better written storylines in the TNG era

[jayrelo]

i would second the parasite conspiracy story line ....that was one of the better written storylines in the TNG era

i know, its sad they didn't do anything with it. i don't read star trek books, well, i've read a couple, but anyone know if that was ever tackled in other cannon?

[Duras]

cavilier210 ... I read an article about those furies.
They called the Alpha Quadrant heavon. They where forced out by an unknown leaving us species to develope as we should.
They use a fear projector to reduce us to quivvering wrecks and used our races for slaves. There are some books on them, I never saw them in the series so dont know about the cannon aspect.

[marscentral]

i know, its sad they didn't do anything with it. i don't read star trek books, well, i've read a couple, but anyone know if that was ever tackled in other cannon?

I vaguely remember seeing them in the comics from around that time, but I don't remember much about it. I've not seen them in any books, but my knowledge there is a bit (okay, very) limited.

[jayrelo]

I vaguely remember seeing them in the comics from around that time, but I don't remember much about it. I've not seen them in any books, but my knowledge there is a bit (okay, very) limited.

still, it seems like this untapped story resource. i mean, conspiracy, conflict, evil alien parasites, its just too darn sexy...

[cavilier210]

cavilier210 ... I read an article about those furies.
They called the Alpha Quadrant heavon. They where forced out by an unknown leaving us species to develope as we should.
They use a fear projector to reduce us to quivvering wrecks and used our races for slaves. There are some books on them, I never saw them in the series so dont know about the cannon aspect.

ya, i wouldn't know either. i know that they're named after greek mythology, or norse mythlogy. they'd be fun to fight

(remembers warlocks on WoW with "Fear") o ya, I HATE THAT, lol

anyway, i think that could be an interesting villain to make canon if it isn't and then expand upon it

[jayrelo]

ya, i wouldn't know either. i know that they're named after greek mythology, or norse mythlogy. they'd be fun to fight

(remembers warlocks on WoW with "Fear") o ya, I HATE THAT, lol

anyway, i think that could be an interesting villain to make canon if it isn't and then expand upon it

well, this idea, and others, including my parasite one, should at the very least be easter eggs or nice little o'mage. it would just add to the feel of trek, ya know?

[jayrelo]

aha, i found some episode video

see, this is what i am talkin about, we need treats like these in this game. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_7SHRr408k (with a lil space ball humor, always needed in life, ahem, that and some python's grail. neeeeeeet!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6rzX3Cgk_w&feature=related

[cavilier210]

that episode creeped me out when i first saw it. i was like, 7 then, lol

[Duras]

Conspiracy was set 40 years ago, acording to the STO timeline, so maybe that subspace message got there during this time and maybe there comming back. Worth a long grouped ingame mission I think.

[Duras]

I remember an episode where Data, Troy and Riker beam down to the planet habited by the spirits of bad dudes. They try to take over the Enterprise D and wanted to bring their crewmates aboard to invade the bodies of the other ship crew.
Dianna said. "There comming, there carried on the wind.!"

A good mission for STO would be if you beam down to a planet with a landing party, this happens and one of your NCP crewmates pulls his disruptor and starts a party of his own...
The mission would be for Klingons - would be to kill him, but if your Federation, you have be nice and talk his spirit out of him to complete it...

By the way, Galaxy Quest is in my top TEN films...

[jayrelo]

I remember an episode where Data, Troy and Riker beam down to the planet habited by the spirits of bad dudes. They try to take over the Enterprise D and wanted to bring their crewmates aboard to invade the bodies of the other ship crew.
Dianna said. "There comming, there carried on the wind.!"

A good mission for STO would be if you beam down to a planet with a landing party, this happens and one of your NCP crewmates pulls his disruptor and starts a party of his own...
The mission would be for Klingons - would be to kill him, but if your Federation, you have be nice and talk his spirit out of him to complete it...

By the way, Galaxy Quest is in my top TEN films...

yeh, gq is teh sexy.

i remember that episode, it was that alien species trapped on the planet, lost souls who tried to fool the peeps and pikerd that they were a crashed federation ship full of the undead.

see, this is the beauty of treklore. i need things like this to happen at random. i need a creepy alien race, or that one time that the enterprise was haunted, when crusher wasn't paying attention and all those dead bodies stood up? creepy shizo.

its the little things that are going to make this game great if they do it right.

here's hopin...