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Where is Kai Winn?
Torias327
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
We have Vedek Winn, and crazy Finale Winn, but where in the multiverse is golden robed, love to hate her Kai Winn? Since I got my Fury Kes it’s time to push for the Kai, she was utterly vital to DS9 and made a perfect Sisko foil.
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Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
Agree 100%
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
COM - 1250+(250-450)
DIP - 900+(50-700)
MED - 500+(150-400)
Traits: Bajoran, Kai, Cultural Figure, Spiritual
Ship ability “Walk With The Prophets” - +9 Evasion, 4s initialize, 8s duration, 12s cooldown, bonus 35% attack speed (trigger on Position), passive bonuses of +100 accuracy, +275 crit rating, +50 crit bonus, +800 evasion.
IMO, she is arguably the most diplomatic character in Star Trek history. I think you are on the right track here, but the DIP score absolutely needs to be the big one, not COM.
Now that I think about it, I'd almost think she should be high DIP, med-high MED, low COM. She was never the type to bark orders, she FORCED people to do her bidding through shrewd manipulations and force of will, all while keeping the people of Bajor spiritually "healthy" by making sure they were not forgotten.
I'd question that - she's involved in diplomacy as a career, but I feel like her success came from authority, not persuasiveness, which in terms of our six stats lines up much more with Command. I'll give you her election as Kai coming from diplomacy (in the sense of being a shrewd operator, rather than being persuasive) but 'Life Support' shows her reliant on Bareil for doing the actual leg work in the diplomatic area of the job, in 'Shakaar' she mishandles the situation so badly that Shakaar goes from a political nobody to the guy who stops her becoming First Minister herself, and any time she calls Kira "child" it's solely the fact that she's Kai and Kira's devout that keeps her from winding up in five separate unmarked graves with no witnesses. I feel like pretty much all of everything she accomplishes once she's got the gold hat comes from her wielding the authority of her position like a club, not convincing anyone it's in their best interests to agree with her.
Give her Diplomat as a trait, though, and a fairish stat score, but I'd definitely make Command the high stat. (Is 'ruthless' a trait? I mean as a defining characteristic it's pretty front and centre. Unless we can introduce a 'condescending' trait. Damn I wanted to punch her in the face. Louise Fletcher really brought her A game in every scene.)
...I view them in terms of Star Trek as basically being two paths to the same goal. Command is about force, diplomacy is the path of "firing no shots".
I see command as using words backed by the threat of force to accomplish a stated goal, something like...
CAPTAIN: Hey, LT. Go do this thing.
LT: No, I don't want to.
CAPTAIN: I am demoting you to ensign, you report to Wesley Crusher now.
LT ENSIGN: NO! If only I had done the thing!
I see diplomacy as using words to accomplish a stated goal by using various manipulations (not always bad, it can also be a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" scenario), something like...
PERSON 1: Hey jerk, move your car.
PERSON 2: No, jerk.
PERSON 1: OK, well you have just uninvited yourself from my wholly mammoth BBQ party this weekend, jerk.
PERSON 2: Curses! If only I had moved my car!
Kai Winn did a LOT of damage in her reign, and she did it all (except for the one example you gave from the episode 'Shakaar' (which BTW could be ANOTHER awesome potential Winn card!) without ever having any actual authority to enforce any of her threats, she did it ALL by manipulating EVERYONE for her own goals. She made backroom deals, built coalitions, and used all of her influence to get people do do what she wanted.
Just my point zero two dollars' worth.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking. She flexes the power of her office to get things done rather than talking to people and winning them over to her side (thinking about that artifact Sisko beamed up and then broke open, where Winn was threatening to end Bajor’s diplomatic relations with the Federation if he didn’t send it back to the surface). She has her moments of diplomacy - hence the high max proficiency - but is defined by her prickly, paternalist demeanor and inability to truly get along with anyone except Anjohl Tennan...which is not a good look and why the minimum DIP proficiency was so incredibly low.
Valid points. It's difficult to really nail down for me, since so much of her Kaiship happened off-screen, in terms of the day to day exercising of the powers of the role - but Winn was just so consistently awful to everyone who didn't bow to her whenever we saw her that it seems like she was generally getting her way because of the gold hat at that point far more than by swaying people to her side. Vedek Winn is definitely Dip first, but my instinct would be to flip it for Kai Winn, I really see "Because your Kai says so" being her go-to reason for anything she wants done, and it works because Bajorans are pretty devout for the most part and really will do things (to a point) because their Kai says so.
I mean it's not that there's no Dip in her at that point, I just feel like it's become her second stat once she's actually got the gold hat of Command to use.
You have PERFECTLY encapsulated the EXACT problem very succinctly; I think I am taking into account stuff we never saw but must have happened, and you are using what we actually saw on screen, which is how I think we are both on the right path, despite not being in lock step. And you know what, I'm OK with that. It would perhaps be better to just base it on what we see on screen, it would certainly be easier to justify.
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Dilithium Causes Cancer, maxed Starbase level 134
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You are definitely winning at forum today.
Sonofa...well played!
I'll be happy either way - I mean I love to get into discussions like this just for their own sake but I really don't much care what her stats are, I make all my game decisions just on the art and the character.
Would be nice. Although I was thinking about it, and where my brain went right away was a mega event where she wasn't the villain, but just someone our heroes really don't like but need to work with anyway (which was most of what she was as Kai, before going into Rogue Kai mode), and the main villain could be Pah-Wraith Emissary Dukat. I mean the wraiths were planning on burning up the whole galaxy if they got loose, that's a pretty major threat that could involve everyone from every series to defeat if it really kicked off. Could still have Kai Winn as the recurring reward, I don't know that it has to be the big bad in that spot.
Or hey, another idea that I literally just had now, make it the Avengers Endgame of Star Trek gods: Pah-Wraith Dukat pops up from a timeline where Sisko didn't win, and it takes literally every other deity and mythic figure in the game banding together to stop him. Kortar, Kahless, Lucien, Apollo, maybe Armus (he was kind of on that level), Q, Sarah, maybe Ardra tries to get involved so she can steal something when nobody's paying attention, it'll be fun.
Edit: @Kaitee seems we were thinking very similar things at the same moment. Must be our Paghs in alignment.
Just saying....
You gotta warn people first before dropping a savage joke like that, people may be drinking a beverage!
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
I'm of the mind that Winn majored in CMD and ended up double majoring in DIP by happenstance. She became exceptionally good at it, certainly; she outmaneuvered Bareil, Shakaar, Kira, and Sisko at times. I believe she would have bested Picard, Sarek, and anyone else except maybe J.R. Ewing. But that DIP was only ever in service of her lust for more CMD to abuse.
Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that she needs sound clips of her saying in that deliciously condescending tone of hers, "You may go now, my child" and "Walk with the Prophets, child. I know I will."
You are a genius, I endorse this 1,000,000%!
To make her a Gauntlet exclusive I propose the following:
Medium Com base with an above average proficiency range, medium Dip base with an above average proficiency range, and a low Med base with a wild proficiency range (think Defensive Phlox with a really low min but crazy high max).
What about a gauntlet legend with only 2 skills, both exorbitant, but not necessarily as meta altering as Caretaker and Armus became. Minuet, but better, or at least more consistent? Or replace Med with Security and have it be a wildly spread range, since she wielded her skills as a weapon 90% of the time, and quite aggressively but not as often effectively. I think we have enough crazy roll medical peeps though.
....and according to memory alpha Winn did all of this in JUST 14 EPISODES!!
is that a testament to great writing, acting, or both?