[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.

Tentatively going for this. Think of it not as trying to shut out the Cardassians, but opening ourselves in.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
You might want to ask why Cardassia is happier with our member fleets patrolling the Access Zone, and why the Expansionists are upset with it.

I have no idea why.
They probably live in fear of us assigning Nash to the access zone or something. To be fair, if she was still a Commodore, we totally would.

Cardassia has had the luck of it's crisis coinciding with our crisis.

It would be nice if we could time these decisions when Cardassia is having a crisis or somesuch.
Actually, we kinda did. We only won in the GBZ because a lot of Cardassian forces were busy fighting some new client on the other side of their territory.


As for the vote:

[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.

Will the AZ count for mutual support? If so, isn't that actually helpful to staffing for events in the regions that includes Orion?
 
Last edited:
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.

Do it for the SR
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
The real question is, how much does intelligence estimate the Pact will be able to trade in terms of BR and SR?

If that's close to or less than 50, it might be worth it to open up the Straits.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, rely on the member fleets to patrol it. (There will not be a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+25 BR/SR a year each to Seyek and Qloathi, limited trade open). Hawks and Expansionists angry (-35 pp). Cardassia will accept this arrangement.

The Seyek and the Qloathi could use the extra BR/SR to build more ships for their fleets. I am going to vote for opening the straits.
Adhoc vote count started by Thors_Alumni on Oct 18, 2017 at 12:49 PM, finished with 43 posts and 18 votes.

  • [X][MED] Rear Admiral T'Kora
    [X][GBZ] Gorac Crogan
    [X][CREW1] Crew with Standard Crew
    [X][CREW2] Crew with Standard Crew
    [X][CREW3] Crew with Standard Crew
    [X][CREW4] Crew with Standard Crew
    [X][NAME1] Discovery
    [X][NAME2] Zarayet
    [X][NAME3] Lakota
    [X][NAME4] Frontier
    [X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
    [X][THEMIS] Close the Straits of Themis entirely. Pacifists and Mercantilists upset (-19 pp), Cardassians livid. (Risk of alliance with Hayant, risk of escalation in GBZ)
    [X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, rely on the member fleets to patrol it. (There will not be a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+25 BR/SR a year each to Seyek and Qloathi, limited trade open). Hawks and Expansionists angry (-35 pp). Cardassia will accept this arrangement.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, rely on the member fleets to patrol it. (There will not be a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+25 BR/SR a year each to Seyek and Qloathi, limited trade open). Hawks and Expansionists angry (-35 pp). Cardassia will accept this arrangement.
 
The real question is, how much does intelligence estimate the Pact will be able to trade in terms of BR and SR?

If that's close to or less than 50, it might be worth it to open up the Straits.

Remember, Starfleet ships tend to be much better at event response than Cardassians ones. So we can take that 50 BR/SR and convert it into ships that give us more resources, where they can only convert it into warships. I'd be okay with Cardassia making more than 50 from this. Plus there's the chance for a softening of relations we should try to take, no matter how unlikely.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, rely on the member fleets to patrol it. (There will not be a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+25 BR/SR a year each to Seyek and Qloathi, limited trade open). Hawks and Expansionists angry (-35 pp). Cardassia will accept this arrangement.

The Seyek and the Qloathi could use the extra BR/SR to build more ships for their fleets. I am going to vote for opening the straits.
The Seyek and Qloathi also have better things to do than to patrol even more space. And I think our ships our better at handling something like this. No garrison also means we won't generate events.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange,Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry,Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will beunhappy, but may accept this arrangement.

Guys. They wont be making more br/sr from this. Every option we have hurts them as they are already making 100% from those routes. Option 1 murders the route and may effectively isolate the dawiar (at oeast trade-wise). Options 2 and 3 merely put tariffs on the trade. Either way is good for us, bad for them.

And as for the reason why the cardies like member patrols more than starfleet ones, its probably because our gear is just flat out better and harder to sneak shit past.
 
Keeping the strait open means we can always (threaten to) close them again or adjust the tariffs either way at a later date if the Cardassians start anything or we need to exert pressure on them, doesn't it? Though ideally we'd use this opportunity to renegotiate Celos instead of trading for the resources.

In other words, it gives us options that we previously didn't have for engaging the Cardies on our favourite battlefield, diplomacy, other than either dropping in battlefleets, or lodging strongly-worded protests.
 
Last edited:
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange,Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry,Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will beunhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
[][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, rely on the member fleets to patrol it. (There will not be a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+25 BR/SR a year each to Seyek and Qloathi, limited trade open). Hawks and Expansionists angry (-35 pp). Cardassia will accept this arrangement.

The other Access Zone option needs to be looked at very carefully. Why does it make the expansionists angry? Why are the Cardassians guaranteed to accept it? Both answers are pretty obvious and dangerous.
  • Expansionist Anger: Specifically because this essentially lets the Qlothi and Seyek continue as they are separate from the Federation. In effect, we are saying that we will not support them and guard our border as our charter states is part of our mission. It is not the job of the Seyek or Qlothi to patrol the border. We have specifically set up tactical research to guard our borders. The safety and security of the Federation as a whole is our job.
  • Cardassian Acceptance: Aside from the cheaper BR/SR costs, this deal specifically allows and condones Cardassian interaction with our member worlds. This places a direct loophole in the Treaty of Celos that forbids diplomatic overtures to each entities' client species rather than to the Federation alone. Granting the Cardassians diplomatic access in this manner is directly counter to the policy we have maintained since we encountered them, which is to affiliate species as fast as possible to preclude Cardassian influence. This should not be done and diplomatic contact with the Cardassians should continue to be exclusively mediated through the FDS.
All this aside, I don't think Starfleet can afford to actually anger the Expansionists. They are our most ardent support and the single largest faction(or second largest) in the council. Angering them is counterproductive as is spending 35pp on an option that is so obviously flawed. Thus, if we are not going to simply deny the Cardassians access and force them to go the long way around, we should at least be smart about how we allow them access.

I would rather deny them access entirely and hope to force the Dawiar out of the Ashalla Pact through isolation. However, I'm not sure we can take an escalation in the GBZ just now. I would rather those listening posts and the starbase be functional before we begin any escalation within the zone. Furthermore, restricted and expensive trade should do quite a lot to force the Dawiar out of the Pact.

[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
Last edited:
You might want to ask why Cardassia is happier with our member fleets patrolling the Access Zone, and why the Expansionists are upset with it.

I have no idea why.

Number of reasons. They're probably most afraid of Starfleet because of how much asskicking has been at our hands. They probably, for reasons of face, don't want to pay reparations to those who caused them to lose face. Or they (likely reasonably) feel they can get away with more if it's the Seyek and Qloathi monitoring them than Starfleet. Iirc Starfleet ships are better.

Actually, we kinda did. We only won in the GBZ because a lot of Cardassian forces were busy fighting some new client on the other side of their territory.

Technically, they started things simultaneously with us as well as a subjugation. We beat their GBZ force up and probably the remainder of their reserves. What's in the GBZ now is whatever ships they can spare, including their subjugation fleet and remaining reserves. Ironically, from a strategic perspective this is the ideal time to start shit, as the Cardassians can only resist us to a certain degree before they need to start stripping other obligations. Their reserves are in play, ours are not. And as the GMs have remarked before, becoming weak when you're a polity that expands by military force opens you up to foreign problems.

It's also possible to make a moral argument that stirring up Cardassians problems is a net good. If we equivalent colonial-like behavior involving conquest of smaller polities as an evil behavior due to how the Cardassians treat those conquered (see: Occupation of Bajor), preventing this from happening is a moral good. We have seen recently that exerting military pressure and winning victories in the GBZ forces the Cardassians to use their conquest fleet as a GBZ reserve. Therefore, militant behavior in the GBZ that maintains tensions and forces the Cardassians to keep a large fleet there is a net positive, because it prevents conquest and subjugation of innocent people.

The above is an extremely grey trending towards black argument, and I don't fully support it. But it is part of my consideration in choosing to close the Straits.
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.
 
The Ship Designer Webapp

When in the course of sophont events the user interface turns into molasses and Google starts giving away people's real names and the developer gives up on the ship designer because doing application logic in a spreadsheet is possible but insanity provoking and halfway to impossible, it becomes necessary to reimplement everything as a webapp.

THIS IS A BETA. IT IS MISSING IMPORTANT FEATURES. THINGS WILL BREAK. IT WILL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN, EAT THE LAST OF THE POTATO CHIPS, AND PUT THE EMPTY POTATO CHIP BAG BACK ON THE SHELF WHERE IT WILL DISAPPOINT YOU.

Features:
  • Use the wide dropdowns in the component column to build a ship. The dropdowns only show frames and components that are valid for that component and that ship. For example, if you have a Frigate Frame selected, the subframes will only show Frigate-class subsystem suites.
  • Use the dropdowns in the quantity column to select the count of the part. For fast editing you can use the mousewheel to scroll the numbers. The dropdowns only provide valid values.
  • You can rename the design by clicking on the name in the design final stat row at the top in black.
  • Things that aren't valid will either turn red (too much weight, changing a subframe or frame in a way that invalidates parts, etc) or you won't be able to do them in the first place (too many of a part, choosing frames in the wrong weight class, etc).
  • To share a design, right-click the "link to this design" link in the bottom-left corner and select "Copy link address". Paste it into tinyurl to get a link that will open your design in the editor.
  • You can save your current design by clicking the "Save current design" button in the bottom-right. This will store your current design into your browser's local storage for later retrieval. You can load a design from storage by selecting it in the list of saved designs to the left and clicking "Load save", which will overwrite your current design with the selected saved design.
  • There is a part builder that you can use to view and edit the available parts. Sharing edited parts lists is currently technically possible but in practice not working due to data size problems. The buttons at the top allow you to view different slices of the parts list.
Current limitations that I'll be trying to fix:
  • Sharing parts lists is current impractical.
  • Sharing designs requires a trip to an external service (tinyurl).
  • People using non-Starfleet parts lists aren't quite supported yet because we don't have a save-load system or functional sharing for parts lists. This is the next feature I'll be working to support.
  • Militarization points are still missing.
  • Reliability calculations were a huge pain and not particularly valuable, so they haven't been implemented yet.
  • The webapp doesn't yet have a refit mode.
  • A tool to translate ships in the spreadsheet designer into webapp designs.
  • A tool to translate parts lists in the spreadsheet designer into webapp parts lists.
The TBG Ship Designer Webapp

You can read the code on github. Users, please submit a bug report or feature request if you find something that isn't already on the issues page! If you want to ask questions, I'm available in the ship design thread or the TBG discord, channels #sdb-informatics and #sfa-coding. I'm a bit behind on the actual TBG thread right now due to real life shenanigans.

Since this webapp has a much better usability story and is available to a larger audience, we're hoping that we'll get more participation in the Ship Design Bureau and will be pleased to welcome newcomers to it's ranks. To help get people started, @Forgothrax and @SynchronizedWritersBlock have written a nice FAQ and quick tutorial for the ship design system.

Ship Design Bureau Frequently Asked Questions
 
[X][THEMIS] Open the Straits of Themis to limited commerce. Set up an Access Zone, patrolled by Starfleet. (This will act as another border zone, and will have a garrison requirement). In exchange, Cardassia must accept economic concessions (+50 BR/SR a year, limited trade open). Hawks angry, Expansionists annoyed (-26 pp). Cardassia will be unhappy, but may accept this arrangement.

A part of me wants to close the straits and see if we can use that to starve out the Ashalla Pact, course if we do that they can always go for the open war option, and gamble it all there.

So, we try to squeeze them a big, and with starfleet patrolling the strait, well, we are winning a political battle there, and if the cardies shot down the idea? they either need to declare war or leave the Daiwar on their own...
 
Back
Top