The Dragon: Once per episode, at the beginning of combat place an Advantage on the field representing a cunning tactic or strategy devised by Danara Pel.
NAME
USS Voyager
PROF.
MULTIROLE
CLASS
Sovereign Class Heavy Exploration Vessel
CONST
2371
SHIELDS
13/13
RESISTANCE
6
SCALE
6
POWER
13/13
CREW SUPPORT
6
SMALL CRAFT
5
COMMS
ENGINES
STRUCTURE
COMPUTERS
SENSORS
WEAPONS
BREACHES
0/6
0/6
0/6
0/6
0/6
0/6
9
11
10
11
9
10
COMMAND
3
12
14
13
14
12
13
CONNING
2
12
14
13
14
12
13
ENGINEERING
2
11
13
12
13
11
12
SECURITY
3
13
15
14
16
13
14
SCIENCE
2
11
13
12
13
11
12
MEDICINE
2
11
13
12
13
11
12
TALENTS
Command Ship: Can give advantages using Command within range to Away Missions or to supporting ships.
EMH: Has an EMH!
Improved Warp Drive: When going to warp, roll 1cd on an effect, regain the power point.
Quantum Torpedoes: Can use Quantum Torpedoes! (60 total)
Secondary Reactors: +5 to Power
High Resolution Sensors: +1 momentum to out of combat sensor checks.
TRAITS
Federation Starship – A highly sophisticated and advanced vessel, with holodecks, replicators, and similar comforts, primarily designed to handle multiple operations. Highly sensitive and requiring constant maintenance, the vehicle is less rugged than other interstellar craft
Maquis Crew - a good chunk of the crew are former Maquis troublemakers. Expect discipline problems and unorthodox plans.
WEAPONS
Phaser Arrays
Power Cost: 1-3 | Range: Medium | Damage: 9cd [+1 per extra power spent]
Can Use Spread: Hit +1 time at ½ damage per effect OR Area: hit +1 ship per effect within close range.
Versatile 2: Gain 2 bonus momentum with a successful hit
Photon Torpedoes
Power Cost: 0 | Range: Long | Damage: 6cd
High Yield: If it causes 1 breach, it causes +1 breach
Quantum Torpedoes
Power Cost: 0 | Range: Long | Damage: 7cd (Vicious 1 - +1 damage on effects)
High Yield: If it causes 1 breach, it causes +1 breach
Calibrations: Requires 1 minor action to calibrate
Tractor Beam (Strength 5)
Power Cost: 0 | Range: Close | Damage: None
Effect: If successfully established, enemies face a diff 5 check to escape.
SCIENCE: Tuvok (Skilled: Science | Weakness: Emotionless)
COMMS: Lt. Bian T'are (Skilled: Communications | Weakness: Combat)
MEDICAL: The EMH (Skilled: Doctor | Weakness: Kind of a Dick)
ENGINEER: B'lanna Torres (Skilled: Engineering | Weakness: Also a dick)
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
Ensign Steve (Useless Security Goon)
Ensign Becky (plural fighter jock)
Petty Officer Third Class Jessie (Hard working engineer)
Crewman Billingsly (Dude, Billingsly!)
Crewman Chandra (Concerned Crewman)
Bifurcate (bidimensional robot girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Princess Lyan Positron (runaway daughter of magician most foul and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Soria Flyte (Pegasus girl and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Mirror Universe Trevor (he's fine!)
NAME
MRSS Val Jean
PROF.
TACOPS
CLASS
Keldon Class Heavy Cruiser
CONST
2370
SHIELDS
12/12
RESISTANCE
5
SCALE
4
POWER
7/7
CREW SUPPORT
4
SMALL CRAFT
3
COMMS
ENGINES
STRUCTURE
COMPUTERS
SENSORS
WEAPONS
BREACHES
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
9
9
9
8
7
10
COMMAND
3
12
12
12
11
10
13
CONNING
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
ENGINEERING
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
SECURITY
3
12
12
12
11
10
13
SCIENCE
1
10
10
10
9
8
11
MEDICINE
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
TALENTS
Electronic Warfare Suite: Whenever making a Jamming or Intercept communications check, can spend 2 momentum to select +1 target (repeatable.)
Fast Targeting Systems: No +1 diff for called shots
Improved Hull Integrity: +1 Resistance
Cloaking Device: Spend 3 power, and make a Control+Engineering + Engines + Security check with a diff of 2. If successful, gain the Cloaked Trait (impossible to detect, cannot attack, shields are down.) It takes a minor action to decloak.
TRAITS
Cardassian Ship – Durable, uncomfortable, close, cramped and cheap. Thinks creature comforts are for other people and technical sophistication is for people who haven't spent decades starving to death. The fact that the starving could have been avoided if the government were less...you know, monstrous doesn't seem to have occurred to that many of them.
Okampan Crew – the crew are bright, perky, cheerful, and incredibly psychically powerful. Individually, they're all better than Vulcans, and as a gestalt? Who knows!
WEAPONS
Phaser Arrays
Power Cost: 1-3 | Range: Medium | Damage: 7-9cd (Spread: Hit +1 time at ½ damage per effect OR Area)
Versatile 2: Gain X bonus momentum with a successful hit
Disruptor Banks
Range: Medium | Damage: 8-10cd (Vicious 1: Each effect adds +1 damage)
Crewman Stadi - Age 23, Betazoid, born Beta Colony-5 to Zani and Talwyn of the House of Riis, survived by her sisters Tari and Batri.
R'mor - age 182, Vulcan, burn on Romulus to R'tan and Leslali, survived by his twelve nieces and nephews across the Empire
Actually DC has stated the Type-11s haven't been introduced yet at this point in time and that he doesn't like how they look.
I suppose lacking specs for anything tougher than Type-9s is a reason to start up design work on a tougher shuttle. Granted I would rather design a dedicated fighter along the lines of a Valkyrie rather than the canon Delta Flyer but working out a way to toughen the shuttle fleet wouldn't be a bad idea. We'd get less crashing mini-vans for one.
(Also, smaller ships can't travel nearly as fast at warp as bigger ones, so we'd also need like, large warp-capable carrier drones, basically we'd become some sort of robot armada.)
While this is a general rule, it isn't strictly the case that smaller ships are slower than larger ships. Shuttles and runabouts are far too small to match in any way the performance of a full sized vessel yes, but smaller ships can keep up with their larger counterparts. The best example of this is the Defiant-class which in DS9's supplemental Technical Manual is stated as having a maximum Warp factor of 9.982 which, varying on your source, is greater than the claimed max Warp factor of Sovereigns.
The Defiant is a compact ship measuring only 170 meters in length. The Sovereign is listed as being 685 meters long and has the added benefit of greater height as well. Then of course there are the various Bird-of-Preys in use by the Klingons. They can be as small as 157 meters and still go as fast as Warp 9.6.
Of the two other similarly scaled Starfleet vessels of the era, the 190 meter long Saber has a maximum Warp factor of 9.7, though the larger Nova which comes in at 221 meters only tops out at Warp 8. These measurements by the way are those given by the effects artists. The Saber suffers from a misprint in the DS9 Technical Manual and the Nova isn't mentioned in one and Beta canon doesn't respect these stated lengths. As an aside if we take these figures in isolation along with those of the Defiant it funnily enough establishes a trend of smaller ships having higher warp factors.
That even smaller starships can be made to match the performance of larger vessels is why I kinda wanna see the Delta Flyer in the quest be a smaller escort rather than a, near, one-off high performance shuttle.
You cannot make runabouts! That requires the "Expanded Shuttlebay" feature - which also means you double the amount you can support at any one time (putting you to 13 total (10 from Voy, 3 from Val Jean.) The idea is that you can only support so many at any one time because they require crew, organization, coordination, and supplies that ships aren't equipped with normally. You can manufacture small shuttles, but larger runabouts take larger industrial facilities - it's technically possible for your ship to kitbash one together...buuuuuuuuut since you don't have the expanded shuttlebay feature, Starfleet didn't load you with the schematics. Like...why would they?
Perhaps we need to design our own shuttle, smaller than a runabout, but adapted for the conditions of the Delta Quadrant and able to effectively support Voyager.
While this is a general rule, it isn't strictly the case that smaller ships are slower than larger ships. Shuttles and runabouts are far too small to match in any way the performance of a full sized vessel yes, but smaller ships can keep up with their larger counterparts. The best example of this is the Defiant-class which in DS9's supplemental Technical Manual is stated as having a maximum Warp factor of 9.982 which, varying on your source, is greater than the claimed max Warp factor of Sovereigns.
The Defiant is a compact ship measuring only 170 meters in length. The Sovereign is listed as being 685 meters long and has the added benefit of greater height as well. Then of course there are the various Bird-of-Preys in use by the Klingons. They can be as small as 157 meters and still go as fast as Warp 9.6.
Of the two other similarly scaled Starfleet vessels of the era, the 190 meter long Saber has a maximum Warp factor of 9.7, though the larger Nova which comes in at 221 meters only tops out at Warp 8. These measurements by the way are those given by the effects artists. The Saber suffers from a misprint in the DS9 Technical Manual and the Nova isn't mentioned in one and Beta canon doesn't respect these stated lengths. As an aside if we take these figures in isolation along with those of the Defiant it funnily enough establishes a trend of smaller ships having higher warp factors.
That even smaller starships can be made to match the performance of larger vessels is why I kinda wanna see the Delta Flyer in the quest be a smaller escort rather than a, near, one-off high performance shuttle.
There are a lot of numbers floating around the internet, and Star Trek as a whole is not very consistent on this, as it is not very consistent on many things. (Dialogue in DS9 puts the Defiant's max speed at Warp 9.5, for example.) So to a certain extent, you have to sort of pick numbers which make sense to you. Larger ships generally being faster at warp than smaller ones, all things being equal, makes sense to me, as a general design rule - their engines will scale faster than the surface area of their warp bubble. It's also a plot point in a Voyager episode - the USS Equinox, a Nova-class science vessel, could only make Warp 8, and were forced fuel their engines with glowy energy aliens as a result.
Of course, "warp geometry" in the show seems to be a kind of black magic where there are "sweet spots" of high performance. Kind of evoking the evolving science of aircraft design in the 20th century where new designs would perform unexpectedly well, since Jet Age aesthetics are such a big inspiration for Star Trek. Indeed in canon Voyager, the Intrepid class seemed to be such a case, and was noted to be very fast at warp for a ship of its size, as well as incorporating neat little folding nacelles which didn't produce the subspace tears at warp that other Federation starships did. Probably starship designers deliberately try to find sweet spots of good warp geometry whilst trading off against other factors, producing the jumbled picture we see.
Purely in terms terms of what makes sense to me, the Defiant being faster at warp than a Sovereign seems incongruous in terms of what both classes are meant to do. The Sovereign is a frontline exploration cruiser, so speed at warp is a key design requirement, to cover expanses of space in less time. The Defiant is a small and extremely overpowered military design intended to fight the Borg and be produced in numbers - it needs to be fast enough to respond to an attack and keep up with a task force, but beyond that... So I'd peg the Defiant as maybe able to reach somewhere in Warp 9, as it's so overpowered it nearly tore itself in half, but not able to sustain top speeds for as long as a larger ship, or hit the really high decimals. This comports with what we see in DS9, but of course, if you prefer a different picture, go for it - it basically comes down to preference. I don't know if DC has a fixed view on this for the Quest or not.
Scheduled vote count started by DragonCobolt on Jun 3, 2022 at 10:44 PM, finished with 37 posts and 4 votes.
[X] Plan Left Hook
-[X] What does the Voyager do?
--[X] Anchor a flank by heading to the Binar Star System (lots of asteroids and cover)
-[X] What does the Val Jean do?
--[X] Hit them in interstellar space, cloaked - classic submarine tactic, bleed em a litte.
-[X] Rough Battle Plan
-[X] If they bypass the binary system, then Voyager hits them from the side, and the Val Jean pounces. If they go for Voyager, the Val Jean hits them from the side.
-[X] What do your strike craft do?
--[X] Deploy all of them to support...
---[X] ...the Pod
-[X] What does the Pod do?
--[X] Provide a fire base - all guns, all torpedoes
--[X] Place a minefield around the Pod to protect it. (Diff 2 Check)
-[X] What is your plan to see through the jamming?
--[X] Try to use our superior speed to place sensor probes ahead of their position, but slightly "behind" them by the time we are about to engage, and bounce a signal off that.
--[X] Alternately, try bouncing a signal off of the pulsar, or have the Val Jean take a look from behind just before we engage.
[X] Plan: Deep Strike Protocol
-[X] Prep Phase:
--[X] Pod Station acts as a Firebase
--[X] Mine the approaches to the Pod Station
--[X] Use the Pod Station to saturate the direction of the approaching fleet in high energy particles to jam their sensors
-[X] Strike Phase:
--[X] Have Voyager mimic their trick to disrupt detailed scans at range while at warp
--[X] Have all shuttles riding in the wake of Voyager, to be as hidden as possible and fully armed.
--[X] The Val Jean following in parallel while cloaked, their sensor readings fed to Voyager to give as perfect timing as possible
--[X] Perform a interstellar drive by on the approaching fleet, Voyager and all craft using a full volley timed to broadside the Vidiian Fleets Warp Bubble
--[X] The Val Jean reacts to their change in formation to perform a follow up blow to bleed them, before dropping back into cloak and going to warp
-[X] Voyager, Val Jean, and strike craft make their way back to the Binary Star Flank Anchor Point at maximum warp
Purely in terms terms of what makes sense to me, the Defiant being faster at warp than a Sovereign seems incongruous in terms of what both classes are meant to do. The Sovereign is a frontline exploration cruiser, so speed at warp is a key design requirement, to cover expanses of space in less time. The Defiant is a small and extremely overpowered military design intended to fight the Borg and be produced in numbers - it needs to be fast enough to respond to an attack and keep up with a task force, but beyond that... So I'd peg the Defiant as maybe able to reach somewhere in Warp 9, as it's so overpowered it nearly tore itself in half, but not able to sustain top speeds for as long as a larger ship, or hit the really high decimals. This comports with what we see in DS9, but of course, if you prefer a different picture, go for it - it basically comes down to preference. I don't know if DC has a fixed view on this for the Quest or not.
The thing is, those roles are precisely why the idea of Defiants being faster than Sovereigns makes sense to me. Exploration is a game of endurance and of going the distance day in and day out. More so than having a high max Warp an exploratory ship would be better served by focusing on improving max cruising speeds.
The Defiant meanwhile is a warship and when it needs to get somewhere it is often because something has gone horribly wrong and the ship and its firepower is needed asap. Here max Warp speeds are more important. The Defiant is of little use after all if it always arrives to a fight well after it has ended.
As an anti-Borg ship, speed is doubly important because of how the hive mind approached conquering the Federation. Rather than slowly conquering the Federation from its edges and going inward they decided in favor of making a beeline straight for Sector 001. Any ship designed to protect the Federation from the Borg would have to take this into account and be fast enough to intercept and overtake a Borg cube.
I have discovered a very serious...like...unforseen consequence of me using these rules the way I like them (to have large fleets fighting.)
Going to Warp is a diff 0 check! So, when say, 4 ships go to warp after the Val Jean shows up and phasers one of them in half then cloaks again? What happens?
Oh, right, the Emergents get 14 fucking threat!?
That's...reeee god damn dicilous!
These rules work fine for two ships or even three brawling, but are kind of breaking down when fleets fight, hurmph.
EDIT: So, I've remembered, Threat and Momentum can only be spent on stuff that can be justified narratively - since there's little I can narratively justify for "retreating in good order" beyond getting away from the Val Jean, all that threat will be thrown away.
Aboard the ESS Phaxtor, the bridge crew were at their consoles, watching their readouts nervously. The parameters of their Warp Field had been checked rechecked by the physics zips, but...even so, if something went even slightly wrong, they would be flying directly into a FTL sandblaster that would rip their ships into ribbons. But...that wasn't really the reason why everyone was so attentive. Why everyone was so...
Nervous.
It wasn't the fact that they were going up against unknown aliens.
It wasn't the fact that Senior Podmaster Nurel himself, the eldest of the Nurel family, had decided to make this a personal thing for them.
It was...
The Dragon.
Tactical Handler Brixto glanced back over his shoulder at the empty command chair. He was the least nervous of the crew - because he was the newest transfer. He glanced over at the Conn Handler, a woman named Tashel, and whispered to her. "So...is it true what they say about the Dragon?"
"I don't know, Brix...what do they say about the Dragon?" Tashel murmured.
"That...that it's why we're all not sitting in a Borg charging station somewhere," Brixto said.
"Yeah, that's true," Tashel said, softly. "They say that that's why Podmasters, years ago, put it on ice."
Brixto opened his mouth to ask more - but then the door opened with a hiss.
"Pod Captain on the deck!"
Everyone came to attention - and Brixta gulped as...
As the Dragon walked past him. It didn't glance at him - instead, it took the seat that it had left vacant for the entire trip thusfar. It sat back and Brixto looked into its face and tried to see anything Vidiian there at all. But there wasn't. Just a cold, distant, detatched kind of blandness that was almost scarier than if it had been actively fierce and fearsome. Though the pronoun was hard to keep straight because...if it had smiled, or just frowned, or...had any emotion at all, then it would have been one of the prettiest women that Brixto had ever seen. She was clad in a uniform without rank or insignia or decoration - save for a small necklace around her throat that had what looked like a red gemstone set in it.
The Dragon of the Binary Stars leaned back in her seat and spoke past Brixto. "TH, report."
Brixto sat back down. "We're approaching the midpoint of the distance. All signs are looking good on the forward-"
"CH, time," she said, without even waiting for him to finish his sentence. Brixta shut up, while Tashel said, her voice blunt and clipped - almost like she was a zip herself.
"13 katars," she said.
"Within parameters," the Dragon said, quietly, her eyes focused ahead of her. "Movement."
Brixto, who had been about to call it out, coughed and stammered. "Y-Yes, ma'am, the, that is, uh Dragon-"
"If you will not deliver me information in a timely manner, the protocol is to have you executed," the Dragon said, her voice not even...cold. It was less a threat and more a statement of fact.
Brixto's tongue felt like it was tying itself in knots.
"Voyager is departing for Pod-3, heading for the binary starsystem."
The Dragon didn't not. She didn't say 'good.' She didn't even blink. Instead, she...it... ignored him utterly.
***
Harry Kim felt like he was about to be sick. His battle plan - well, okay, his and Tuvok's battleplan - was going into motion. It had only a few moving parts, and he knew that they'd need to adjust on the fly...but it was still terrifying to know hundreds, no, thousands of lives were riding on his ideas. "Fifteen seconds to the system," he said, his voice tight. "The enemy fleet shows no sign of having slowing down, and-"
They dropped from warp at the edge of the binary star system. Planets had never formed here - instead, massive asteroid belts existed, full of tumbling rock and dust. It was far thicker than SOL's positively barren solar system, but...even so, Harry hadn't expected to see an immediate string of red flares on his contact radar.
T'are figured it out before him.
"Mines!"
"Evasive action, Mr. Paris!" Janeway said.
The whole ship groaned as they banked, hard, to the right and Harry immediately began to ping local space, his eyes widening.
"Captain! There's a...there's a space base here! Powered to minimum, undetectable from a distance - I'm picking up a skeleton crew, maybe...twelve people." He shook his head. "No way they could run anything as sophisticated as this minefield unless...they..."
"Focus," Janeway growled.
An asteroid tumbled by overhead as Tom threw the elegant bulk of the USS Voyager into a slow corkscrewing spin - its impulse engines flaring bright, leaving behind shimmering contrails of reaction mass as they banked using their inertial dampening systems...and behind them swept the glittering, bright red spheres of dozens of photon mines.
***
Seska was still faintly stunned she had been given this console. She kept glancing at Captain Wacoche, as if she was worried he was going to pull out a phaser and open fire on her for doing something wrong. He seemed to notice, and he smiled at her. "You look nervous, Seska. Isn't this what they trained you for."
"Yes," she said, then looked forward.
To her right, the Okampan conn officer was looking just as nervous as she was. That did not comfort her at all.
The tachyon sensors - the only way they could see anything with the cloak field around them - showed the grainy bubbles of the enemy warp fields as they streaked forward. They were in range. Oh! They were in-
"Drop the cloak...now!" Wacoche said. "Seska, full power to the forward arrays. Target the frigate...fire!"
Seska threw the delightfully chunky leaver - much better than the modular touch screens of the Voyager - and felt the whole of the Val Jean shudder as the forward phaser arrays began to fire. The conning officer even knew what he was doing. He banked and swept them past the Vidiian formation, using their warp bubble to make sure they kept at pace with them at FTL. The phaser beams streaked along the sleek, narrow Vidiian frigate. It was long and spindly, built around their spinal railgun, meaning that the phasers only had to slice and bite for a short time before they were exposing vital components to space.
The entire Vidiian fleet stopped on a dime to protect them from any further attacks.
"Reading a core breach!" Seska said. "We got them!"
The frigate, reacting faster than she thought possible, fired their impulse drives on battery power, flipped themselves so hard that their inertial dampeners had to have failed in several decks, and dropped core at the same time. The momentum sent the core whipping towards the Val Jean like a glowing bolt of lightning.
"Withdraw to pulsar system immediately," the Dragon said.
"But-" Brixto said, turning back - but Tashel was already bringing them about.
Space stretched - and put warp folds between them and the enemy. Brixto shut up as he realized that the Dragon had some kind of plan...and then waited for her to pull out her disruptor or needler or something and shoot him dead. His shoulder blades knotted and he tensed, ducking his head forward.
Instead, she didn't say anything at all.
It was if she hadn't even noticed him speaking out.
Brixto decided to take the lucky break.
***
"Tom, I have the mine lock! Bring us past the station!" T'are shouted.
"Got it!" Tom Paris said, his teeth clenched tight. The picket station's energy weapons - phasers by the look of them - were already beginning to pepper space with searing beams of light. Some struck the asteroids that Tom put between them and the ship. Others seared past the prow and the nacelles. The shields were left buzzing with a few close calls.
"This better work, T'are," Tom Paris said.
"You can say that again," Janeway muttered.
The USS Voyager plunged towards the picket station, then banked hard away. A beam seared past their aft - and then the mines slammed into the station. Shields flared with white bursts of energy and the station rocket as T'are jerked her arm in a little excited fist pumping motion. "Hah! Take THAT minefield! We're clear for the field!"
"Captain," Tuvok said. "We're receiving subspace signals from the Val Jean."
"How are they?" Janeway asked as Tom took them past the range of the picket station's phasers.
"Minor damage from a near hit from a warp core," Tuvok said. "What is more important is they've...detected something."
***
"And they said they didn't have anything cool in the Federation," C'nola said, touching the console with a loving palm as she brought her swift, zippy little Type-9 shuttlecraft in a banking arc around the Pod, waggling her nacelles a bit.
"...no one ever said that," Amy said over the communicator. "And stay frosty, everyone. The enemy fleet looks like its not coming straight here, but-"
"Lt. Strong!" The voice of Alpha-3, a former Maquis pilot named Rebecca, said. "I'm picking up something coming dead out of the ecliptic!"
C'nola swore - and then laughed. "Well, it's only three hundred meters long," she said, casually.
"Only?" Becky sounded confused.
"Evasive manuvers!"
The Vidiian ship had emerged from warp and accelerated as fast as it damn well could. But that wasn't all it was doing. It was built like a three pronged weapon, and each of the three forward swept prongs had opened up their noses and were now spitting out photon torpedoes. C'nola swore as she swung her fighter - sorry, shuttlecraft - in a curving arc to evade the first of the searing white explosions. Alerts screamed as the shields soaked up more than their fare share of radiation. Then she heard a squealing alert as something locked on. "I've got a torpedo on my ass!" she shouted.
"Got it!" Alpha-4, some guy who's name escaped her, said. A second later, a pair of phaser beams swept behind her and the photon that had been tailing her exploded with a flare of white light.
"Thanks Alpha-4," C'nola said, scowling as she looked up at the Vidiian ship.
She had to admit...in a tiny shuttle...
It did look pretty damn big.
***
"How did we miss this?" Janeway asked, her voice quiet.
"It appears the Vidiian used a cold black mirror of incredible size to render the vehicle undetectable from the angle of observation we'd have. It would take a preposterous skill with navigation and tactical planning to do it - and even so, the success seems unlikely," Tuvok said. "However, the opening has been made. Currently, the Vidiian fleet has withdrawn to the Pulsar system. The radiation there will prevent the Val Jean from approaching without being revealed. The Val Jean is currently recovering from their impact - they won't be able to assist for approximately five minutes. In that time, the Pod may be destroyed."
Janeway nodded, curtly.
"But if we warp there, then the Picket station will warn the fleet," Harry said. "And they might hit us in the flank."
"That is correct, Mr. Kim," Tuvok said.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 3 (Thanks to various rolls n' stuff)
CURREN TRUTHS: "Picket station", "The Dragon", "Flank Attack!!!"
What do you do!?
[ ] Charge the Pulsar system and hope to scatter the fleet with a direct assault. Hope the pod can survive with the fighters.
[ ] Withdraw to the Pod to secure it with the fighters.
[ ] Write In
There's two sides! EMERGENTS and STARFLEET!
MOMENTUM: 3
THREAT: 1 (2+2, -4 for the picket station, +3 for a second action, -2 for retaining initiative
Emergent Prime Fleet: 3 ionic frigates, 2 torpedo corvettes [1 frigate down by Val Jean]
Emergent Flank: 1 destroyer
Ionic Frigates have 4 resistance, 12 shields, 8 power and do 6d with ionic arrays (Piercing 2, Light Impact, this is a rule I have INVENTED that reduces breaches by -1 if they cause any) and 7d for their railguns (calibrations, vicious 1, no damage if they hit shields)
Torpedo Corvettes have 3 resistance, 10 shields, 8 power, and do 6d with their torpedoes and have fast racks (re-roll one d20 for their shooting.)
Destroyers have 5 Resistance, 14 shields, 8 power, and 8d in disruptor banks (Vicious 1) and 6d with photons (normal rules.)
As the PCs, y'all go FIRST!
STARFLEET
Voyager (5 actions remain) spends 3 power (10/13) to warp to hit the binary star system. It's a diff 1 check (0, +1 for the truth of The Dragon.) They get 2, 20, 20. Jesus. Okay. That's 2s versus diff 1, giving you +1 momentum, +2 for the bonus power, which puts you at 4 momentum. You spend 2 to retain the initiative and behold the Complications: "The Asteroids are Mined" and "Ziphead Picket Station" - the second adds +2 threat, allowing me to spend 4 to spawn a scale 4 station - it will be on par with a destroyer but with +1 resistance and no mobility.
STARFLEET
Val Jean (3 actions remain) spends 3 power (4/7) to warp to the enemy fleet and gets 2s versus a diff of 2 (+1 for dragon, +1 for picket station.) That's a success with 2 Momentum for a total of 4. With a minor action, we decloak We shall spend 3 for a second action, and 1 for another minor action to raise shields. Fore Phaser Arrays...FIRE! (1/7 power) That's 2s to hit...and a nat 20. The diff is 2, no modifiers for the situation (the Dragon's good, but she's not THAT good.) That's a hit with 0 momentum, +2 for phasers, for a total of 9d damage. Since they're "stretched out" at warp, their resistance is effectively 0.
Spending 1 momentum for +1d and 1 momentum for a re-roll. End result 10+6 effects, for 10/6/6/6/6/6/6 against one of the frigates! 1 breach for 5+ damage, then 2 breaches for each of the rest for a total of 13 (!!) breaches! 7 Hits to structure, 3 to engines! So, their scale is 3 - meaning 4 hits destroys their structure, the remaining 3 hit the engines for 6 breaches to the engine. Breaches 4, 5 and 6 force them to roll 1d6 to see if their core breaches. The frigate has lost containment!
EMERGENTS
The Dragon orders the wounded frigate to drop core as a makeshift weapon. The crew spend +2 power to boost it and get 2s. The base diff is (treating it as harder than normal torpedo launches by 1 step), -1 for The Dragon. They get 2s...and a complication. The core explodes while between them and the Val Jean, hitting both for 6d, pierce 2, doing 7 damage and ignoring 2 soak. The Val Jean takes 5 damage (1 breach to the sensors) dropping their shields to 7 and the Vidiian ship takes 2 breaches to the Structure which I am ruling will crack it completely in half.
STARFLEET
Val Jean is up (2 actions left) and they try to reroute power so they can bring their cloak back up! They get 3s! That's success +1 momentum, putting them at 2 power, +1 for the extra momentum. 3 in total! They will take 3 threat to take a second action to cloak - They spend 3 power (putting them at 0) and get 3s! Success with 1 momentum. They cloak!
EMERGENTS
The Dragon orders her fleet to withdraw, starting with the second of her destroyers. It spends 1 power and gets 4s against a diff 0 check. She spends 2 threat to retain initiative.
EMERGENTS
The third destroyer withdraws with 3s! They zip off as well, and the Emergents get 3 more threat.
STARFLEET
Voyager is up (4 actions left.) T'are attempts to defuse the mines with hacking, a diff 4 check (2+1 for zipheads, +1 for surrounded by mines.) She gets 4s and I will allow her to count that as a photon torpedo attack against the base, using their own mines against them! That's 10 damage + 3 effects, for 10/5/5/5 damage! The base drops that to 5/0/0/0 damage, and takes a breach to their structure.
EMERGENTS
The first Corvette withdraws and gets 4s! They spend 2 threat to retain the momentum.
EMERGENTS
The second Corvette withdraws and gets 5s!? I have decided that the threat gained by these rules can only be spent to augment what can be explained by them doing it - which is how threat is SUPPOSED to work. Right? So, like, there is a limit to what they can get out of retreating in good order!
STARFLEET
Val Jean is up (1 action left) and is going to be coaxing power out! They get 2s, putting them at 1 power!
EMERGENTS
The Picket Base will fire on Voyager! They get 2s, at +1 diff for being at long range. Voyager evades!
STARFLEET
Val Jean is up (no more actions!) and is going to be coaxing power out! They get 3s! That's +2 power, putting them at 3!
EMERGENTS
The Emergent flank attack will act - arriving in system and engaging their impulse engines to accelerate towards the Pod. They get 2s against a diff of 0 - allowing them to retain the initiative
EMERGENTS
The Emergent flank attack will fire their full spread of photons at the strike craft screen around the base! That gives you +3 momentum! They get 2s - but the diff is 3 thanks to the small size of the fighters, even with their chance to re-roll dice!
STARFLEET
Starfleet...must make a choice...
CURRENTLY: Each of the Vidiian Main Fleet has 2 actions left (for a total of 8 actions.) The Destroyer has 2 actions left. The Val Jean is out of actions. Voyager has 4 actions left. The Picket Base has 3 actions left.
Hm, fleet engagement. Not familiar enough with Trek to make some calls here, but is Val Jean able to go in with minor damage, and it's regulation keeping them from assisting, or are damage control crews working to frantically restore functionality? Because, right now, we need a ship engaging that other ship, unless the station can take it out.
Meanwhile, that Picket Station is a problem. One that, ideally, we'll want to commandeer or destroy. Obviously, we don't want to give up initiative either. Is there any way we can mimic a jump towards the station (which I imagine they'll expect) and then hit them while they're trying to hit our sensor ghost?
Where are our mines? Is the Viidian ship keep far enough away that they aren't triggering?
I don't know if we want to fight the Viidians in the Pulsar system. The radiation for the star will dampen sensors and shields which I see hurting us more than the Viidians. I say we drive-by the picket or technobabble the deflector to jam local comms and head back to relieve the pod.
Type 9s have tractor beams right? How crazy stupid of an idea would it be for the shuttles to lock onto a number of the mines, fly at the Viidian ship, then let loose allowing the built up momentum to carry the mines into the Viidian Destroyer?
There could be a Borg connection here but she's been described as Viidian so I doubt that it's Seven. My suspicion is that the Dragon is the end result of the Phage gone horribly right.
Her beating the Borg could mean bad things for us, but then we know the Borg for all their intellect rely excessively on brute strength over tactics. Here's hoping that means the Dragon is overhyped.
Type 9s have tractor beams right? How crazy stupid of an idea would it be for the shuttles to lock onto a number of the mines, fly at the Viidian ship, then let loose allowing the built up momentum to carry the mines into the Viidian Destroyer?
There could be a Borg connection here but she's been described as Viidian so I doubt that it's Seven. My suspicion is that the Dragon is the end result of the Phage gone horribly right
Though it could also be cosmetic, the viidians do have biotech up the wazoo. Just like the podmasters to make it seem like they're more competent than they are. I just thought it was neat and not what I was expecting at all! Love it either way.
Anyhoo, the pod has it's own phasers (particle beams?) and torpedos right? I feel like it oughtta be able to handle point defense and return fire. If the ship attacking the pod can't close and use other weapons due to the minefield, the pod oughtta have more torpedos than it does right? If we have the fighters assis with point defense and Harassment, then it's more or less neutralized. That gives us the advantage as val jean and voyager can move to pen in the fleet at the pulsar and pick at their edges. Sitting in that radiation has to wear them down, so the longer they're there the worse off they'll be. It'll be on them to make a move at that point from a position of disadvantage.
My suspicion is that the Dragon is the end result of the Phage gone horribly right.
Her beating the Borg could mean bad things for us, but then we know the Borg for all their intellect rely excessively on brute strength over tactics. Here's hoping that means the Dragon is overhyped.
This is going to be one of those episodes where we have to win by doing something completely batshit that no reasonable tactician would've called ahead of time.
Wrote up my idea as a plan. Feel like it's solid, both mechanically and story wise. If the destroyer can't close to engage the pod then it's stuck using torpedos which give us momentum that we can use to neutralize the torpedos, I think?
[x] Plan Your Move
-[x] Pen the fleet in at the Pulsar alongside the Val Jean when it recovers
-[x] have the fighters fall back behind the minefield and focus on destroying the destroyers torpedos, keeping the minefield between it and the pod
**Edit: slight rewording of plan**
Pulsars give me anxiety after having played Starsector, even if they aren't as bad for ships in this setting…
The issue right now is that the destroyer is currently focusing on the shuttles. That the pod hasn't engaged the destroyer suggests the Emergent vessel is sitting beyond the range of its weapons to try and deal with the shuttles first. If we pull the shuttles back that would force the destroyer to come within range of the pod's guns to continue its attack. Once it has engaged the pod the shuttles could rejoin the fight.
However if we let the destroyer get too close it may attempt a boarding action against the pod not too dissimilar to the one Nurel and Dar attempted against Voyager and that would likely lead to loads of casualties. The boarders may even win and hold the pod hostage or turn its weapons against us. Alternatively they could send over a bomb and blow up the pod.
If the Emergent are thinking the Type-9s are like Kazon fighters they might not know to suspect that the shuttles are Warp capable. We could pull the squadron back and then when the pod opens up on the destroyer, causing the ship to divert the majority of its shield strength forward to deal with the oncoming firing, have the squadron make a short jump into Warp and hit the destroyer from the rear in its weakened shields.
Could we knock their shields down long enough to then teleport Space Beth QueensGambit into the brig/open space? She seems to be literally calling all the shots, so remove the shot caller
Could we knock their shields down long enough to then teleport Space Beth QueensGambit into the brig/open space? She seems to be literally calling all the shots, so remove the shot caller
However if we let the destroyer get too close it may attempt a boarding action against the pod not too dissimilar to the one Nurel and Dar attempted against Voyager and that would likely lead to loads of casualties.
That would require them to be in physical contact with the pod though, so they won't be able to without disabling the pods weapons, and bringing their shields down. At which point transporting boarders on makes more sense.
The issue right now is that the destroyer is currently focusing on the shuttles. That the pod hasn't engaged the destroyer suggests the Emergent vessel is sitting beyond the range of its weapons to try and deal with the shuttles first. If we pull the shuttles back that would force the destroyer to come within range of the pod's guns to continue its attack. Once it has engaged the pod the shuttles could rejoin the fight
So here is my thoughts. The Dragon and the Vidiians already know we are at the Binary system because they already mined it and have the picket station in place. The strategic value of this area is lost to us and can only exist as a means of denying it to the enemy, which is a really dumb hill to die on or expend resources. The Dragons withdraw to the Pulsar is a heavily defensive maneuver which avoids a pincer or flank attack, but at the cost of time which is something we need as we need to get the Val Jean in working order- and time is always a commodity when you have access to industrial replicators as we can tap energy and resources to produce gear, where ships without that technology in the end run on supplies.
So what the Dragon wants us to do, and the tactically sound dilemma it has placed us in, is that by using a long range bombardment from the destroyer to threaten the station it pins the fighters in place, places the station in check, and demands action from Voyager in a manner to deny us the time that the Dragons withdraw otherwise provides. The false dichotomy places Voyager in the need to either act or face loss by attrition, and openly acting places Voyager at risk of the Dragon moving in to threaten. So long as the single destroyer isn't strategically important to any actions after using it to place the station in check, it can force a loss of either position or resources by it's calculations and if it is wrong and has made an incorrect assessment then it can use the data of how we deal with the threat to otherwise overcome whatever new measures we put in place. All while neutralizing any advantage the Val Jean can provide us in this moment.
Of course this all is a house of cards the moment you recognize the insane amount of automation in play with both Starfleet and Cardi ships. The tactically sound response to this situation if we were a Vidiian ship, or of a similar tech level, would be to focus the fighters on a picket defense of the station and engage the destroyer in a long range bombardment as it has done as done to the station. This move locks the Dragon out from being able to engage with the primary fleet from any sort of tactical advantage, at the cost of escalation of the battle and the expenditure of valuable torpedoes.
But torpedoes don't matter to us, because we have replicators. I think we should do what the Dragon expects (such as moving out to engage in a long range bombardment,) use tricks the Dragon would already have data on (like dumping junk data to the station's focused,) and use technobabble to create moments of sensor blindness which we use new tricks (like the Picard Maneuver, since they don't have the automation to use FTL in that fashion safely) to hold momentum and hit the destroyer with overwhelming firepower.
So what the Dragon wants us to do, and the tactically sound dilemma it has placed us in, is that by using a long range bombardment from the destroyer to threaten the station it pins the fighters in place, places the station in check, and demands action from Voyager in a manner to deny us the time that the Dragons withdraw otherwise provides. The false dichotomy places Voyager in the need to either act or face loss by attrition, and openly acting places Voyager at risk of the Dragon moving in to threaten. So long as the single destroyer isn't strategically important to any actions after using it to place the station in check, it can force a loss of either position or resources by it's calculations and if it is wrong and has made an incorrect assessment then it can use the data of how we deal with the threat to otherwise overcome whatever new measures we put in place. All while neutralizing any advantage the Val Jean can provide us in this moment
Of course this all is a house of cards the moment you recognize the insane amount of automation in play with both Starfleet and Cardi ships. The tactically sound response to this situation if we were a Vidiian ship, or of a similar tech level, would be to focus the fighters on a picket defense of the station and engage the destroyer in a long range bombardment as it has done as done to the station. This move locks the Dragon out from being able to engage with the primary fleet from any sort of tactical advantage, at the cost of escalation of the battle and the expenditure of valuable torpedoes.
This is true, but still holds true for the station. It doesn't have replicators, so presumably has a finite amount of torpedoes. Maybe the dragon wants us to expend them all on this destroyer so that the station is essentially dry when the main fleet moves to engage? This seems a little ridiculous though as a station presumably has a nearly bottomless supply of torpedoes compared to even a fleet of ships.
I'm somewhat concerned by the false dichotomy bit that you mentioned. This situation seems like it's pretty straightforward, we have this destroyer and the fleet and we're being angled to direct our forces to respond to both. Is there something that we might be missing? A third ship coming to attack the station perhaps? Maybe I'm being paranoid…
I have a slightly different theory as to what happened here. The Dragon I think realized as we did the vulnerability of her main fleet traveling at Warp and decided to leave static defenses where she figured Voyager would be waiting to both keep the ship preoccupied and provide early warning. She picked the binary star system with the assumption that Voyager wouldn't want to dull its technological edge by stationing itself by a pulsar which would degrade its shields and sensors. The Dragon's educated guess would pay off and Voyager was engaged.
Just in case Voyager turned out to be tougher than first anticipated though the Dragon also deployed one of her destroyers to reach the pod ahead of the main fleet. If things went as planned it would be able to join the attack from yet another angle and further divide the defender's fire. If however Voyager managed to deal with the trap laid for her the destroyer would attack the pod and its defenders to force Voyager to come to its defense.
A destroyer had to be the ship to do this. Anything lesser wouldn't have been able to threaten the pod and provide an adversary that could only be defeated by the intervention of Voyager. Given the nature of Voyager's intervention and the states goals of its crew it would be a reasonable assumption to make that the Voyager crew would prioritize the lives of those aboard the pod.
Either Voyager would move to save the station thereby leaving it vulnerable to a flanking attack from the main fleet or it could not in which case the Emergents take the pod and use the lives of the rebels as leverage over Voyager.
It makes sense to me that the Dragon wouldn't commit to a plan that involved taking on Voyager with the majority of her forces with it being an unknown. The pod she could plan for and I'm fairly certain because of that the forces she committed to it will be able to defeat it unless something she did not account for happens. Something like getting ambushed by a cloaked Keldon-class cruiser.
I don't think the Dragon's plan accounted for the degree of stealth the Val Jean displayed in the fight. The moment it hit she immediately went about pulling her ships back. Besides the makeshift Warp core bomb she had the doomed ship launch she made no other attempt to counter attack or hunt the Val Jean. That heavily implies, at least to me, that the Dragon's plan was to keep Voyager occupied so that she could bring her fleet to bear undamaged.
It is after Val Jean's ambush of the Dragon's main fleet that the destroyer sent towards the pod begins its attack and that attack achieves what it was originally intended to do which is to force Voyager to make a decision between engaging it and leaving herself exposed to a possible flanking attack or not responding and allowing the pod to be taken hostage.
However unlike originally where the main fleet would have conducted a flanking attack if Voyager would choose to intervene I don't think the Dragon intends to try for a flanking attack if Voyager bites, because Val Jean is out there somewhere waiting and able to launch the perfect flanking attack on her no matter how she leads her fleet.
Voyager the Dragon could track in open space and predict what systems it might choose to set up in. Val Jean though could be in any point in space and she wouldn't know. It could attack her fleet from any feasible angle which is not something anyone can prepare for. On top of that, the Dragon has no guarantee that the one cruiser that attacked her was the only cloaked ship accompanying Voyager.
So, good news, I think we utterly shattered the Dragon's plans and are forcing her to come up with a new one on the fly.
Bad news, I fear the destroyer attacking the pod will be sufficient to defeat it without additional assistance or the shuttles managing to cause it far more damage than anyone might expect. The Dragon wouldn't waste one of her more powerful ships and the pod is the one target she would know the capabilities of and would be able to plan the defeat of.
[ ] Plan: All of them have arrow insignias!
-[ ] Voyager will finish disabling the Picket station in order to cut off the Emergent fleet's access to the station's zipheads.
-[ ] Val Jean will lie in wait beyond the Pulsar system to ambush any ships leaving it.
-[ ] The fighters will fall back to the pod. When the Emergent destroyer comes under fire of the pod's weapons the squadron will make a short range warp jump and attack the destroyer from the rear.
The above plan is a WIP. It gets a bit fancy with the fighters but C'nola seems like the kinda gal to pull off mute psychopath levels of crazy and come out on top. Voyager is set upon the Picket station because while the station and its weapons can't move that processing power can still be of use to the Dragon. Val Jean continues to masquerade as a space U-boat, because knowing an enemy is out there doesn't automatically translate out to being able to do anything about it.
Edit:
I forgot to specify but I think the Dragon had the destroyer attack the pod to draw off Val Jean and keep Voyager from being tempted to follow her so as to secure her main fleet's retreat.
As the Dragon walked past him. It didn't glance at him - instead, it took the seat that it had left vacant for the entire trip thusfar. It sat back and Brixto looked into its face and tried to see anything Vidiian there at all. But there wasn't. Just a cold, distant, detatched kind of blandness that was almost scarier than if it had been actively fierce and fearsome. Though the pronoun was hard to keep straight because...if it had smiled, or just frowned, or...had any emotion at all, then it would have been one of the prettiest women that Brixto had ever seen. She was clad in a uniform without rank or insignia or decoration - save for a small necklace around her throat that had what looked like a red gemstone set in it.
"If you will not deliver me information in a timely manner, the protocol is to have you executed," the Dragon said, her voice not even...cold. It was less a threat and more a statement of fact.
It's a relief everyone thinks I'm being smart becuae the hard part of writing "someone who is a tactical genius" is you then have to actually be good at that too. Anyway, yes, Skippy! Two momentum can create an advantageous truth!
The main restriction is it has to be narratively sensical!
