The Death House: Intro

I admit, I do like writing villains.  And this story is... umm... pretty well supplied with them.

The Kobali started out as a weird-alien-of-the-week species on VOY; their gimmick is their "reproduction" system, which involves infecting the dead of other species with a virus that brings them back to life, but as a Kobali.  It's a disturbing enough idea.... When STO brought out its Delta Rising content update, the Kobali became an important background element, and they quickly made themselves very unpopular indeed.  This is because the storyline requires the player to cooperate with and support the Kobali... while also making it clear that the Kobali are, well, basically lying to the player throughout their entire storyline.

Untrustworthy body-snatching ghouls are easy to cast as villains.  So are corrupt and ambitious Klingon High Councillors, and unprincipled Orions and Letheans, and weird militaristic humans.  And so, of course, is the affably evil Kalevar Thrang, last seen in "The Wrong Box", and back again with another devious and overcomplicated plan to take over the universe.

This time, he's starting with the Klingon Empire, which of course puts him up against my KDF characters - Shalo, R'j Bl'k', and Rrueo, none of whom is exactly a paragon of virtue either.

In fact, after "Noonday Sun", with all its Starfleet high-mindedness, this one is quite a change in pace.  It's hard to find a single decent person in it.

I had fun writing it, though.