So it turns out that these inexplicable conflicts with the Federation are centered on this mystery prisoner that I had neglected to mention before, since really he was just another source of skippable dialogue, and what dialogue I did read didn’t offer much of an explanation since the game was wanting to keep this little bit of intrigue as a hook to get people to finish the tutorial. From memory, I’ll try to reconstruct a conversation Kur’P Ud Wakk had with this NPC:
Kur’P Ud Wakk:
“Haha, I have you in the brig. Why is the Federation after you?”
Prisoner:
“Haha, I will only answer you with a vague foreboding of future events, hinting at wide-spanning politics of which you know nothing about.”
Kur’P Ud Wakk:
[Something Klingonese]
Prisoner:
“I’m also going to escape, like 3 friggin times.”
I mention this now because apparently I was recapturing this guy and picking him up from a penal colony. So I do that, and we have another variation of the above conversation. Then I leave, hopefully to get hammered in-game, because the dragging tutorial was killing my real bourbon-induced buzz.
I was then instructed to go to another planet, which I presumed was the Klingon homeworld, because although I might be a bit of a nerd, I really don’t remember the name of the Klingon homeworld. I beam the prisoner down to the prison. In fact, the cutscene showed me beaming him down between two guards, immediately outside of a holding cell. He then walks 5 feet into the cell and the forcefield activates. That seemed unnecessary.
Now, I do remember from a TNG episode where they were beaming a prisoner between holding cells, and they had to drop the forcefield and energize at the same moment, because the forcefield interferes with that. But that doesn’t explain why I couldn’t beam him into the cell when its forcefield was deactivated. Star Trek seems to struggle to maintain their technological canon, like if you can beam into a ship when its shields are up, or fire weapons from a cloaked ship. I guess when things interfere with a plot device, the technology changes.
Anyway, prisoner delivered, I needed to talk to him again, which was another variation of the above conversation. Then, having received no further information on the mysterious prisoner plot, I got to leave the prison and enter the station proper. Now I was free from the eternal shackles of Tutorial, right?
Nope. Now I had to go to the proving grounds or something. Apparently, even though I had violently usurped the captain’s chair, I had to prove my worthiness through…more violence. Were the Klingons always this single-minded?
The proving grounds was a raised platform in the middle of the station, where during Klingons’ much needed downtime, in order to relax, they hack at each other with bat’leths. The ringmaster informed me that in order to challenge someone to a spar, I needed to talk to them. Thanks, ringmaster. You just advised me that in order to communicate intent to another being, to use our shared language to do so. I’m not sure if the game’s regressing, or if it’s just always going to treat me like an idiot. Then again, I did fly the Bile Hurk directly into an asteroid cloud twice, so maybe this treatment is justified.
First, however, I noticed a passing Orion in the 20 feet between the ringmaster and the ring, so I had to stop and take a gander:
That isn’t my screenshot, but it is a true rendering of a Star Trek Online Orion. Is that their work attire or casual evening wear? If the game mechanics allowed it, Kur’P Ud Wakk was about to bury his bat’leth into a giant lizard’s face and then go grab that Orion (they don’t).
Back to the sparring now. So, I walked up to any number of giant lizards who apparently just hung out around the ring, waiting to be challenged, even though I had to talk to 3 of them in order to find one open to accept. Guess how I talked to them? That’s right! I pushed “A”.
Then something unexpected happened. When battle initiated, I was given a mini tutorial inside the main tutorial, which explained how to use a bat’leth. And no, it wasn’t “A” or the right trigger alone. There were combinations, involving patters of the right trigger and the right bumper. I failed to commit the extensive list of commands to memory however, so when battle began, I fell back on my Soul Calibur experience, and with the deft dexterity of a master gamer, proceeded to button mash as quickly as possible.
Kur’P Ud Wakk responded by having a seizure. The giant lizard, uncertain what to make of the apparently break-dancing Klingon, must have figured he was simply getting served, for he stood motionless and made no attempt to decapitate his foe. That would be his undoing, for in the midst of Kur’P Ud Wakk’s flailing, enough blows landed upon the lizard that he tapped out. Victorios, Kur’P Ud Wakk returned to the ringmaster, who congratulated him. But, not one, but two matches were required for arbitrary reasons. As with the asteroid debacle, the game must have figured I needed more practice, so I ran back to the ring for one more challengee. But there were no takers. Apparently the lizards, not having the sweet moves to match Kur’P Ud Wakk, honorably declined.
This is about the time that Joe, playing through his own tutorial in tandem, announced that he just got an achievement for completing the tutorial, thus confirming first that it was indeed a tutorial, and that it was almost over. Also, the moment he completed it, his character’s isolated spirit form popped into a commonspace corporeal existence, for he could see Kur’P Ud Wakk, though I couldn’t see him.
To expedite the process, I simply asked how the fuck do I complete a second spar, and he advised to talk to the ringmaster again. It would seem that I hadn’t mashed the “A” button enough times, and for some reason I needed her blessing first in order to wail on strangers who have the audacity of being in my vicinity.
As before, I completed the mad skillz break-dance routine and emerged victorious, if not with a lessened reputation. One more talk (AKA pressing “A”) with the ringmaster, and the angelic ding of Xbox Live achievement recipiation indicated my own tutorial completion. I too immediately underwent corporeal transference, and in an instant I could see Hugh Janus–an alien of some sort, 4 feet in stature. And so, Kur’P Ud Wakk and Hugh Janus–an amusing irony of juxtaposed statures, became instant besties and for the first time contemplated a joint course of action.
–Simon