Why can't you be a TOS Caitian?

[Duke Flapjack]

I'm watching the Animated Series on Netflix and there is quite clearly a Caitian bridge officer! How annoying. I don't WANT to be a human or vulcan.

Anyway, rant over. Honestly this is one of the only reasons I don't play the Starfleet alternatives. I rather had the same opinion about the Discovery start. I played through both mission chains and then went back to normal, boring Starfleet.

I wish I could have one faction that had the Romulan story, the Klingon's ships (with a T6 carrier), and the Federation's personel and customization.

[uni790]

There were Caitian's visible in at least one of the TOS movies as well (I don't know which one, never liked Kirk enough to care about his films), Cryptic is just too lazy to enable them I guess.

[Fedora01]

Or, more likely, Caitians simply weren't a notable race within the Federation at the time? While Cryptic does thier fair share nonsensical decision making, it's obvious they picked what would've been the most prominent races within the federation at the time.

[The Arkady]

I agree with Fedora01, AoD probably shouldn't be offering Caitians as a PC option. I would makes more sense to restrict it to the original Federation races like AoY.

Of course, that's not what they did. I really do wonder why there's no AoD Andorians. I mean, we all know the STO endgame is Space Barbie, and there's no green girls on the Fed side...

(Technically, I wonder about AoD Tellarites, too, but I guess about three people worldwide would even want to play one of those.)

[VoodooMike]

I suspect the issue is that CBS has been notoriously picky about how their IP is used... so rather than take a chance that someone over there might, for no particular reason, take exception to something they do... Cryptic just sticks to what they absolutely know won't ruffle any feathers because it was already agreed to.

Originally posted by "Fedora01":

Or, more likely, Caitians simply weren't a notable race within the Federation at the time?

In the animated series (which is considered canon) a caitian is in the post uhura held in TOS.. who hold the rank of lieutenant. The animated series used more aliens as part of the crew, which suggests the prevalence of humans and vulcans in TOS was more a matter of budget than lore.

Originally posted by "The Arkady":

I agree with Fedora01, AoD probably shouldn't be offering Caitians as a PC option. I would makes more sense to restrict it to the original Federation races like AoY.

Other than cover-their-butts reasons, there's never much reason to give players fewer options unless there is a specific canon reason for it (like having no female Jem'hadar).

[wickerrobot]

Caitians and Ferasan are Zen store races. You have to pay to use them. So giving them free in expansion or recruit events would maybe cause issues with the playerbase. I think that's why they were not included. otherwise maybe they plan to do the Animated Series expanion in STO after the Discovery one...=P

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by wickerrobot:

Caitians and Ferasan are Zen store races. You have to pay to use them. So giving them free in expansion or recruit events would maybe cause issues with the playerbase. I think that's why they were not included. otherwise maybe they plan to do the Animated Series expanion in STO after the Discovery one...=P

I'm pretty sure the people asking about Caitians have bought them in the ZEN store and are wondering why, even having paid, they can't make a AOD caitian.

If they were willing to add playable Edosians, I'd be all over a TAS update/expansion/whatever!

[Duke Flapjack]

Yep. My absolute first purchase way-back-when was the Caitians. I was rather disappointed when I could only use them in the faction with the most boring story.

[CBR JGWRR]

Because Caitians are TAS/TMP, and AoY was set purely in TOS...

[Duke Flapjack]

Originally posted by CBR JGWRR:

Because Caitians are TAS/TMP, and AoY was set purely in TOS...

I *guess.* That's honestly probably the actual reason. TAS is not generally as well known as the others. I honestly didn't know about it until I found it on Netflix.

[Fenrir Warsong]

Still hoping for Cryptic to add them to the AoY races. Making a TOS/TAS Caitian is an itch i have that just won't go away. And more hairstyles for Caitian/Ferasan wouldn't hurt either.

[uni790]

Originally posted by CBR JGWRR:

Because Caitians are TAS/TMP, and AoY was set purely in TOS...

As I mentioned earlier, there was a Caitian present in ToS. Taken from memory alpha (as I can't be bothered to watch the movies to double check)

As the Caitian homeworld was a Federation member, Caitians were known to have served in Starfleet and on the Federation Council, and were present as members in 2286. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

There is no valid reason for them not to be playable, other then just Cryptic being lazy.

[Duke Flapjack]

Originally posted by uni790:

Originally posted by CBR JGWRR:

Because Caitians are TAS/TMP, and AoY was set purely in TOS...

As I mentioned earlier, there was a Caitian present in ToS. Taken from memory alpha (as I can't be bothered to watch the movies to double check)

As the Caitian homeworld was a Federation member, Caitians were known to have served in Starfleet and on the Federation Council, and were present as members in 2286. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

There is no valid reason for them not to be playable, other then just Cryptic being lazy.

The first Caitian was M'Ress in TAS. The movies take place a bit after both TOS and TAS, to be fair. If Cryptic was going, strictly speaking, TOS without taking the later series/movies into account than the exclusion of Caitians is more-or-less logical. I sincerely believe TAS should be rolled into the TOS start, however. Of course that also means you should also be able to be that odd alien who takes the place of Chekov if you go that route. He was one of the few non bipedal (if not only) Starfleet officers and would be a cast-iron-♥♥♥♥♥ to model.

[CBR JGWRR]

Originally posted by uni790:

Originally posted by CBR JGWRR:

Because Caitians are TAS/TMP, and AoY was set purely in TOS...

As I mentioned earlier, there was a Caitian present in ToS. Taken from memory alpha (as I can't be bothered to watch the movies to double check)

As the Caitian homeworld was a Federation member, Caitians were known to have served in Starfleet and on the Federation Council, and were present as members in 2286. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

There is no valid reason for them not to be playable, other then just Cryptic being lazy.

That's TMP ("the motion picture", the films rather than the TV show) era, not TOS era. I don't like it either, but if they wanted to go for the TOS look, then they couldn't have them.