The heck of it is, things like this actually work. For example, real world naval battleships had their fuel tanks at the outer edges of the ship, next to (and just below) the waterline. Reason being, that way if a torpedo exploded underwater against the hull, one of the first things it'd exploderize would be one of the gas tanks. Having a fuel tank rupture is inconvenient, but nowhere near as bad as having hundreds of tons of seawater pour into your engine room.
Basically, the problem with a saucer is that if you try to armor the upper and lower surfaces uniformly, you expend a disproportionate amount of extra weight to protect the outermost edge of the saucer (as in, 50% of the mass of armor goes on the outermost 30% or so of the circular saucer, and 10% of the armor goes to the outermost 5%). Moreover, that part of the saucer is also very thin. So all that mass of armor plate isn't actually protecting very much of the ship's volume, unless you just happen to be getting shot at from "edge on," with the enemy's ship being in the plane of the saucer*
It'd be much better from a defensive point of view if you could just skip armoring that part entirely, and use the same mass to:
1) Thicken the protective dish of armor covering the central part of the saucer from shots fired 'above' and 'below,' and
2) Put in an internal "tuna can" of armored hull somewhere inside the ship, encircling the really critical parts of the saucer**.
Sort of like how with city walls (your analogy), you don't put JUST ANY city function inside the walls. Only the ones you foresee actually needing during a siege. Because the more area you enclose with a wall, the more expensive the wall as a whole becomes, and the more you have to reduce its protection in order to be able to afford a complete enclosure.
Although with city walls you have a problem a spaceship's armor belt doesn't have, because the enemy can theoretically use the city walls as cover to approach and scale the walls. There's no equivalent to that IN SPAAAAACE, of course.
______________________________
*(Now in that specific case the armor works GREAT because it's so heavily sloped compared to the incoming fire... but big chunks of ablative hull material that don't matter to the ship's combat performance would also work pretty well for that purpose, especially right up against the rim. Plus, the enemy is under no obligation to stay right where you want them to be if they're shooting at you, especially not in three dimensions if there are multiple ships involved)
**Weapon systems, any reactors and propulsion systems the saucer has, any antimatter stored in the saucer (there may be none), key sensors, the main computer, shelters for dependents and noncombatant science personnel to crowd into during battle, and so on. The less critical stuff includes crew quarters, holodecks, big multipurpose rooms like movie theaters or the ship's gymnasium, deuterium tankage for the fusion reactors, cargo bays, a lot of the science labs, and so on.
I like it.
Leslie: [grunts] "Yeah, it's held together by the structural integrity field and prayer... and most of our officers aren't exactly what you'd call religious."
No, because during alert conditions, the redshirts are all inside the armored hull manning important systems. They're not off sleeping in their bunks.
In the unlikely event that the ship is attacked while not at alert and with most of the crew not manning their battle stations... well, that's a very deadly situation to be in no matter what happens.
Leslie: "Hey, I don't know about you, buddy, but when the Enterprise got attacked I was always on the bridge manning that one station, or the transporter room, or doing something important. I wasn't asleep. So I'd rather have the armor protecting the parts of the ship I'm standing in, instead of the parts of the ship I'm NOT in, on account of not lying down on the job."
I agree. It optimizes the placement of your vital systems (which are clustered at the center) and your armor (which protects the vitals) so that your ship gets the most protection for the least weight.
Amarkia doesn't seem to like that idea. At this point more talking is unlikely to change their minds.
On the plus side, they seem to be putting the screws to them in a manner that we can approve. I was worried that several of the accused would have 'committed suicide' before the trials were underway.
"Now look here, I don't care whether you pray to the Tellarite god of arguments, the Ice Nymphs of Andor, or the Amarkian Star Goddess - there are no atheists in foxholes, and no atheists in the Enterprise's main engineering!"
"Now look here, I don't care whether you pray to the Tellarite god of arguments, the Ice Nymphs of Andor, or the Amarkian Star Goddess - there are no atheists in foxholes, and no atheists in the Enterprise's main engineering!"
I'm sure battle bridge is well protected. And, well.
If it were up to me, and I were captain of a TNG ship, I'd have one of the holodecks repurposed as a CIC facility. It seems an obvious use of the technology. It's not a substitute for having the bridge well protected- but then again, the bridge on wet navy warships wasn't heavily armored either.
For one thing, what they were doing as financial backers may be technically legal in Orion Space but still evil and immoral as hell, and fully worthy of prosecution in Amarkia. The Scrutineers have followed blood trails to those who are 'guilty as sin' and found evidence of obvious crimes, but money men may keep their hands clean of actual murder while investing in evil.
Like, seriously. Extradite a billionaire or two back home to Thailand IRL. See what charges you can make stick in their courts.
wait a tick. the government isn't setting price caps, they are just providing access to sources of credit. The banks and predatory loan places are going to get pissy, but why are the people who own the places where this is going to enable more spending getting pissy?
I think the Emergency Credit stores are stores that sell on credit at reasonable prices, which would make sense given the loans. Otherwise, the Retail Council wouldn't have any reason to complain.
If it were up to me, and I were captain of a TNG ship, I'd have one of the holodecks repurposed as a CIC facility. It seems an obvious use of the technology. It's not a substitute for having the bridge well protected- but then again, the bridge on wet navy warships wasn't heavily armored either.
I am against having the bridge disappear if we lose power.
I know the LCARS controls aren't considered an issue there because there's no good solution to run a ship without juice, but at least the chairs are still there when that happens on a regular bridge.
I'm sure battle bridge is well protected. And, well.
If it were up to me, and I were captain of a TNG ship, I'd have one of the holodecks repurposed as a CIC facility. It seems an obvious use of the technology. It's not a substitute for having the bridge well protected- but then again, the bridge on wet navy warships wasn't heavily armored either.
Usually wasn't protected at all. In WW2 ships (last time there was significant naval combat), there were command facilities in the armored conning tower, but most captains and admirals did not use them (equivalent of the battle bridge perhaps). The commanding officers mostly preferred the windowed bridge which had a good view of the ship.
In Bismarck vs Prince of Wales, for example, the armored conning tower was hit and penetrated but the command team unaffected as they were standing on the compass deck above. The only significant action that was commanded from inside the tower was Washington vs Kirishima, as the radar screens were inside the conning tower and Rear Admiral Lee was an early adopter of radar in his tactics.
That said, modern naval vessels have an internal Combat Information Center and also a windowed Bridge. Electronics and command spaces are usually armored with kevlar to stop fragments. But modern naval vessels have basically given up on armor as a defense.
What armor scheme works for Star Trek vessels depends on the function of the armor. In this quest, attacks against Hull cause crew losses, which implies that strong hull does not stop damage like battleship armor does but is more analogous to structural integrity. More like the concepts used in modern naval vessels, in other words. The shields would be analogous to battleship armor and the hull being more like compartmentalization to prevent the vessel from sinking.
A CIC is mainly an integration station for sensors and communications, takind diverse sorts of information, filtering it and...wait a second, this sounds like on a Starfleet ship, we would have a battle-station for the science staff. Use one of the labs in an alternate configuration, get a few coms officers to help out, and bada-bing, you got yourself a bitching CIC.
On a Starfleet ship, I suspect that nearly every bulkhead and wall can be 'armor' in a pinch, though normally thin and bearing only what SIF can do to it. We do have rather expensive ships after all, no reason to get cheap on a few internal subdivisions. One of the key pieces of the boarding-kit in the personal tech tree might be a bulkhead or door cutting device that nullifies a SIF in the area it's pressed up against, allowing it's relatively feeble cutting phaser to push through a solid Durranium-Tritanium structure.
Well, the thing is, hull as structural integrity rather than as armored plating makes more sense to me. Maybe back in the days of NX-01 it was different because they had to have an outer layer to pretend to be shields, but these days if you fully lose hull integrity, the ship blows up. So armored tubs may not make any sense, because the function of strong hull is to maintain integrity even despite part of it being missing from damage. Compartmentalization, internal structure, flexibility of the SIF and responsiveness to damage, and so on may make a hull good and strong, not ability to deflect weapons.
I'm surprised there aren't extra secondary shield generators around the bridge, though. Or the sickbays. Or the warp core. I suppose those would prevent beam-out.
Make a note, everyone. The next time Taggart's name crosses our desk regarding a promotion or reassignment, we should all refer to her as "The Toilet Lady" in votes.
I will seriously do that.
Captain's Log, USS Courageous, Stardate 24897.6
Negotiations are slow-going. The Federation may be much larger than the Sydraxian Hierarchy, but the Sydraxians have their whole strength on Ethur II's doorstep, and are much more likely to use it. Nonetheless, the Yrillians we have spoken to have indicated that they would like to see a warming of relations on this border. Like the Gretarians, they are no great fans of the idea of becoming the battlefield to a Federation-Sydraxian war.
Of course, unlike the Gretarians, the Yrillians have disrupters of their own. They just have some difficulty getting them all pointed in the same direction at once.
It looks like the diplomatic solution is going through OK. Even if the Sydraxians don't warm up to us, the Yrillians and Gretarians may and that's a victory in and of itself. It also looks like defusing the Sydraxians will be what lets us affiliate the Yrillians, too...
Six impact is nice too, considering the lack of action last MoO.
Yrillian questions for the Federation before affiliating.
1. Could the Federation possibly become a little more democratic?
2. If, hypothetically, one of the Federation's affiliates bombs itself back to the pre-interstellar level in a massive civil war, would those worlds then be considered to fall under the Prime Directive? Asking for a friend, and anyway after the first three civilization-destroying wars or so we definitely think worlds shouldn't be counted as "pre-warp" until they can build starships again, that would be ridiculous, we do it all the time.
For one thing, what they were doing as financial backers may be technically legal in Orion Space but still evil and immoral as hell, and fully worthy of prosecution in Amarkia. The Scrutineers have followed blood trails to those who are 'guilty as sin' and found evidence of obvious crimes, but money men may keep their hands clean of actual murder while investing in evil.
Like, seriously. Extradite a billionaire or two back home to Thailand IRL. See what charges you can make stick in their courts.
The problem is that the backers' crimes were not committed in a region of space where Amarkia has jurisdiction. And since the slave auction never actually took place, they have at most conspired to commit crimes against Amarki citizens.
The Orion Union pretty clearly has laws against slavery like that which was practiced against the Amarki captured in the raid, and their government really wants to punish some high-profile Orion criminals.
So frankly, I'm not as worried about the outcome of releasing some of the backers captured at the auction as you are.
I am against having the bridge disappear if we lose power.
I know the LCARS controls aren't considered an issue there because there's no good solution to run a ship without juice, but at least the chairs are still there when that happens on a regular bridge.
Remember, I'm proposing to use the holodeck as CIC, not as the bridge. Its function is to use the advanced display capabilities of the holodeck to permit a dedicated team of tactical officers to collectively examine the overall situation, analyze the enemy's weaknesses, keep track of distant potential targets that might otherwise be ignored in favor of nearby ones, and so forth. Moreover, they're able to focus on that specific task, rather than worrying about operations and engineering responsibilities that are also handled by the command team on the bridge.
The bridge only has console space for one or two tactical officers. One or two people cannot necessarily keep track of everything that's going on during a space battle. And even if they can, why have only one or two people responsible for analyzing the weaknesses of that Cardassian cruiser, when you could have five or eight or ten?
Also, we have considerable evidence that the holodeck has an independent power supply, or at least one that is very hard to cut off from the rest of the ship, given how many times bizarre things have happened inside the holodeck without anyone being able to easily solve the problem by cutting the power.
It's not so much that this is optimal compared to a dedicated combat information center. But given the character of Starfleet ships, it seems fairly likely that they don't have such a facility. Since the holodecks don't actually HAVE much of a function in combat, they might as well be made useful for this purpose.
[I'd also mandate a LOT of holodeck training, for a wide variety of roles, everything from redshirt safety drills for away team operations to engineering courses letting people practice work on simulated systems, and having the various shifts of bridge officers engage each other in ship-on-ship tactical exercises]
[X] Plan Steady Goings
-[X] Generic Team 3 : Hospital Ship Research Project
-[X] Daystorm Institute : 2330s Colony Cores
-[X] Starfleet Science Academy : 2310s Message Networking
[X] [BOOST] Office of Naval Architecture, Admiral Lathriss
[X] [BOOST] Office of Naval Architecture, Federation Broadcast Service
[X] [VSA] Vulcan Science Academy : 2320s Targeting Sensors
Amash Hagan: 2320s Research Centers
Generic Team 4 : Primitive Isolinear Computers
40 Eridani A Shipyards : 2310s WarpCores
Yoyodyne : 2320s EPS Safety
Office of Naval Architecture : 2310s Starship Frames
Caitain Frontier Police : 2310s Equipment
Generic Team 1 : 2310s Long -Range Sensor
Weapons Fabrication Division: Early ToC Weapons
Andorian Academy: Shield Regeneration Project
Federation Broadcast Service : 2310s Communications
Starfleet Science Academy:
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science : 2310s Special Resources
University of Betazed: 2310s Affiliates Research
Spock: 2310s Diplomacy
Starfleet Medical : 2310s Intensive Care
Taves Nar Orbital Engineering : ToC Starbase Design
Generic Team 3: 2310s Escort - Engineering
Utopia Planitia : 2310s Explorer Combat
San Francisco Fleetyards : 2310s Explorer - Science
Generic Team 2: 2310s Explorer - Engineering
Generic Team 5: Klingon Research
Starfleet Tactical Command - Games & Theory Division: Cardassian Research
230 / 8 = 28 rem 6
26 Tech Teams Activated, 2 Boost Applied
2rp carries over, 228 used
Generic Team 3 : Hospital Ship Research Project
1+2+1
8/20 Design & Modelling Work
Amash Hagan Research Office: 2320s Research Centers
+4
14 / 60 Type-14 Duotronic Mainframe (Data Analysis Center III) (-0.5 RP required to activate Tech Team (7.5))
16 / 60 Wolff-T'Par B-Type Portable Mainframe (Portable Analysis Center II) (+1 rp annually from research colonies)
Daystorm Institute: 2330s Colony Cores
+10
10 / 40 Colony Mainframe (Colony Mainframe I) (+2 rp/year per non-Research Colony)
15 / 40 Tellarite Process Engineering (Core Systems I) (+1 pp/year per Colony)
Generic Team 4: Primitive Isolinear Computers
+1
18 / 80 Prototype Isolinear Computer (Isolinear Tech I) (Required to progress computing to Isolinear-Era)
40 Eridani A Shipyards: 2310s Warp Cores
+6 60 / 60 Improved Injector Throttling (Warp Core Scaling II) (Warp Core Min Multiplier reduced by .5/1/2)
Frame Complete
T2 Warp Core unlocked!
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: 2320s EPS Safety
+8
16 / 40 EPS Conduit Mag Failsafes II (Reliability for all stats improved by 0.1)
26 / 40 Secure Console EPS Taps (EPS Console Taps I) (+0.2 all crew types due to reduced operational injuries)
Office of Naval Architecture: 2310s Starship Frames
+4
25 / 40 San Francisco 2 Pattern Away Team Kit (Away Team Equipment II) (reduce crew losses on away missions) 20 / 20 Academy Away Team Annex (Away Team Training I) (Only Requires 7 turns instead of 8 to increase first experience level)
20 / 20 Type-I Transport Pattern Enhancer Band (Safety Devices I) (Reduce ship destroyed penalty to crew losses)
30 / 40 Miniaturised Molecular Scanner (Tricorder II) (Nothing yet) 20 / 20 Low-Radiation Emitter Units (Portable Shield Systems I) (Nothing Yet)
[Progress Boosts from Anti Orion Syndicate Actions]
[Progress also assigned to 2310s Personal Protection]
Vulcan Science Academy: 2310s Short-Range Sensors
+8
8 / 40 Targeting Sensors III (2% power use for combat)
8 / 20 Torpedo Homing Packages I (+1% combat weight, -4% combat power savings for Escorts)
8 / 20 Phaser Tracking Sensors I (+1% combat power, -2% combat weight for Explorers )
13 / 20 Tactical Command Sensors I(-1% combat weight/power for Cruisers)
Generic Team 1: 2310s Long -Range Sensors
+1
47 / 100 Large-Scale Sensor Array I (Starbases Gain +1 Defence)
Weapons Fabrication Division: Early ToC Weapons
+6 20 / 20 Early Nadion Theory (Phasers I) (Lead to Phaser Development)
20 / 20 Advanced Torpedo Theory (Torpedo I) (Lead to Torpedo Development)
20 / 20 Type-IV Heavy EPS Manifold ( Phaser Power Conductors I) (-1% Combat Power/Use)
20 / 20 Type-VI Torpedo Warhead (Torpedo Yield I) - (-2% combat power use for Escorts)
Frame Complete
T1 Phasers (Single and Twin Banks) and T1 Torpedo systems unlocked
Andorian Academy: Shield Regeneration Project
+8
25 / 40 AAI-4 Shield Distribution System (Shield Regeneration III) (+1 to Shield Regeneration)
Federation Broadcast Service : 2310s Communications
+6 40 / 40 SFT-10 Fleet Comm System (Fleet Comms II) (Give a 2% bonus to Federation Combat values in multi-ship battles)
[Bonuses applied from Orion Syndicate Operations]
Frame Complete
Starfleet Science Academy: 2310s Message Security
+8
21 / 40 DataNet 2.0 (Research Net II) (Gain +5 RP/year)
28 / 40 Regional DataNet (Colony Research Net I) (Research Colonies cost -1 pp)
[Bonuses applied from Orion Syndicate Operations]
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science : 2310s Special Resources
+6
32 / 40 Special Resource Extraction III (+5sr on Resource Extraction missions)
30 / 40 Special Resource Identification III (boost to SRs found on Resource Extraction missions) 40 / 40 Special Refining Techniques II (+5 to Mining Colony annual production)
University of Betazed: 2310s Affiliates Research
+6
44 / 60 Recruiting Campaign III (Increase Academy intake from Federation Affiliates to 0.15 each)
34 / 60 Diplomatic Analysis III (+2 to the -Annual- Diplomacy Rolls)
34 / 60 Public Media I (Leads to further tech)
[Bonuses applied from additional Affiliates]
Spock: 2310s Diplomacy
+10
45 / 60 Universal Translator IV (Nothing yet)
55 / 80 Extended Diplomatic Reach I (Apply an Annual Roll for a Random Non-Affiliate with Positive Relations)
40 / 60 Extended Profiles I (+1 to all Diplomatic Rolls)
Starfleet Medical Command : 2310s Intensive Care
+8
35 / 40 Infectious Diseases Lab II (Improve Plague handling rolls)
31 / 40 Chelok-Gar Method Radtherapy (Radiation Treatment II) (Improve Crew Survival Rolls in Warp Core Breaches or some Science Mission mishaps)
40 / 60 Mk 1 Multi-Spectrum Bioscan (Medical Sensors I) (+1 to Science Rolls regarding new non-sapient creatures)
San Francisco Fleet Yards : 2310s Explorer - Science
+8+2+1 40 / 40 Explorer Science Design II (-1% to Explorer stat weights)
40 / 40 Explorer Presence Design II (-1% to Explorer stat weights)
20 / 20 Sensor Power Efficiency I (-1% to Explorer science power use)
20 / 20 Explorer Presence Efficiency I (-1% to Explorer presence power use)
Frame Complete
T2 Explorer Operations Frames Unlocked
Utopia Planitia Design Group: 2310s Explorer Combat
+1+2+1 40 / 40 Explorer Hull Design II (-1% to Explorer stat weights)
20 / 20 Ultra-High Throughput EPS Core Tap I (+2% Explorer Power Generation)
Frame Complete
T2 Explorer Engineering Frames Unlocked
Taves Nar Orbital Engineering: ToC Starbase Design
+4
16 / 20 Macro Sensors I (+1 S to installations)
12 / 20 Large Phaser Banks I (+1 C to installations)
17 / 20 Large Torpedo Arrays I (+1 C to installations)
20 / 20 Large Scale Armour I (+1 H to installations)
12 / 20 Large Scale Shields I (+1 L to installations)
Generic Team 5: Klingon Research
+1+3
12 / 30 Tactical Analysis I (+1% Fed Combat Power v Klingons)
22 / 30 Doctrinal Analysis I (-1% Klingon Combat Power)
17 / 30 Attack Pattern Analysis I (+2% chance of dodging a hit)
12 / 30 Intelligence Analysis I (Improved counter intel)
Lt-Cdr Kuznetsova's Tiger Team: The Mission Unending
+8+3
27 / 75 Explorer Esteem (+5pp from Every Explorer Built)
32 / 75 Dual-Mission (All Explorers Count as -1 Combat)
[Bonuses applied for sending Stargazer with Kadesh]
Admiral Lathriss : Forward Defence
+6+3
43 / 50 Forward Defence
[Bonuses applied for War Games]
Starfleet Tactical Command - Games & Theory Division: Cardassian Research
+6+3
28 / 60 Tactical Analysis II
33 / 60 Doctrinal Analysis II
33 / 60 Attack Pattern Analysis II
48 / 60 Intelligence Analysis II
Research Skill Increases
40 Eridani A Shipyards -> 4
Vulcan Science Academy -> 5
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science -> 4
Admiral Lathriss -> 4
University of Betazed Research School -> 4
Taves Nar Orbital Engineering -> 3
Well, the thing is, hull as structural integrity rather than as armored plating makes more sense to me. Maybe back in the days of NX-01 it was different because they had to have an outer layer to pretend to be shields, but these days if you fully lose hull integrity, the ship blows up.
This has more to do with warp cores and M/AM then anything else; eventually we'll have automated ejection for them and then the ship doesn't blow up so much, which is how you get the Wolf 359 Graveyard. Hull is less "structural integrity" and more "cumulative damage to ship systems". Too much of it can make you blow up, but it could also render you a drifting hulk.
Remember, I'm proposing to use the holodeck as CIC, not as the bridge. Its function is to use the advanced display capabilities of the holodeck to permit a dedicated team of tactical officers to collectively examine the overall situation, analyze the enemy's weaknesses, keep track of distant potential targets that might otherwise be ignored in favor of nearby ones, and so forth. Moreover, they're able to focus on that specific task, rather than worrying about operations and engineering responsibilities that are also handled by the command team on the bridge.
Well, the thing is, this ends up rather like the scenario where CIC ultimately usurped Bridge as the nerve center of the ship in World War 2; this is the place where the largest amount of useful information for fighting the ship is available so the Captain moves in, we'll put in an engineering and a science station to make reports on those two because the Captain moved here, and then...
EDIT: Generic Teams 3 and 4, I am very disappointed in you.
What armor scheme works for Star Trek vessels depends on the function of the armor. In this quest, attacks against Hull cause crew losses, which implies that strong hull does not stop damage like battleship armor does but is more analogous to structural integrity. More like the concepts used in modern naval vessels, in other words. The shields would be analogous to battleship armor and the hull being more like compartmentalization to prevent the vessel from sinking.
My view is that Starfleet ships with their 'balanced' statline have relatively light level of armor plating. They have enough that small stuff hitting the hull doesn't immediately start causing severe compromise to the ship's structural integrity... but Star Trek weapons fire is powerful enough that it tends to shear through plating that would do a great job of shrugging off meteoroid impacts or radiation from a solar storm.
[Note that a hard-held structural integrity field can act as armor; anything that prevents destructive energy from penetrating the outer hull will tend to serve that function]
But how does one explain ships like those of the Klingons, that have drastically higher Hull values for similar tonnage? To me, that signals a design philosophy where the bare metal of the ship's hull is significantly more capable of surviving a beating. This, in turn, suggests rather more in the way of armor.
Furthermore, ships that take hull damage don't always take heavy crew casualties, which suggests to me that there is at least some degree of armoring and baffling in place. Not enough to stop everything, but enough to reduce the effect of enemy fire.
Remember, this isn't quite the same as World War-era naval combat, where battleship armor will tend to outright 'bounce' shells that lack the impact energy to drill right through the plate, reducing their effect to almost nothing. Given the energies involved in soft-SF combat, ALL kinds of armor are effectively ablative, designed to reduce the effectiveness of incoming fire so that it expends as much energy as possible on the 'outer shell,' with little or none penetrating the outer hull to do serious damage to the interior.
The shields present an outer layer of 'armor' that is entirely impenetrable (or nearly so) until it is knocked down. But given that shields aren't up all the time, and that the ships have fairly large mass budgets, some degree of armor protection seems likely though not certain.
Make a note, everyone. The next time Taggart's name crosses our desk regarding a promotion or reassignment, we should all refer to her as "The Toilet Lady" in votes.
I won't, but mainly because her life was suffering for long enough when she served on the Sappho. She deserves better than to be stuck with "the toilet lady."
2. If, hypothetically, one of the Federation's affiliates bombs itself back to the pre-interstellar level in a massive civil war, would those worlds then be considered to fall under the Prime Directive? Asking for a friend, and anyway after the first three civilization-destroying wars or so we definitely think worlds shouldn't be counted as "pre-warp" until they can build starships again, that would be ridiculous, we do it all the time.
I think the Federation would try very, very hard to prevent Yrillians from internal fighting while in the Federation. And an attack by Yrillians that haven't voted to join the Federation, on those who have, would be an act of war against the Federation proper, not just against the Yrillians personally involved.
This might actually be one of the things Starfleet has to offer the (old and well-established, if rather dysfunctional) Yrillian interstellar civilization: an overarching framework that allows them extreme flexibility in their own internal living arrangements, while preventing open warfare and permitting the Yrillians to coexist peacefully even when they disagree about what is to be done.
And to address the other point... One way that the Federation might make itself more democratic would be to simply have more councillors- so that each species is represented by a larger number of individuals, with more planets getting direct representation rather than being covered by someone who is de facto elected by another planet.
I kind of agree; if a Yrillian civil war breaks out, yes, the Federation may be loathe to intervene...but on the other hand if it's on the verge of destroying a significant chunk of their civilization, I don't think the Council is going to stand on the Prime Directive and say they're not going to do something about it. We're not going to let affiliates blow themselves up if we can help it.
Well, one thing the Federation isn't going to stand for is Federation citizens being attacked by other Federation citizens. You can't just have your own private little war inside the Federation.
The flip side of that is that the Federation will let you govern your planet pretty much as you please, and it controls so much territory that there are many prospects for founding a new colony to get away from neighbors you just can't tolerate.
Some gains from events are nice, forward defense finishes next turn which is great.
@OneirosTheWriter under ToC Starbase the hull research finished and should be marked as such.
Overall we finished up:
2310 Warp Cores
2310 Starship Frames
Early ToC Weapons
2310s Communication
2310-Explorer Science
2310-Explorer Engineering
2310-Explorer Combat
So 7 nodes free.
Also finishing next turn without boosts:
ToC Starbase Design
Forward Defense
2310 Special Resources
With Boost:
Shield Regen Project
2310 Intensive Care
Hospital Ship
Though some of the projects may get boosts to push them into range to finish next year depending on how many points the events give. (Personal for example if Anti Syndicate actions give at least 4 points to each tech next year). Several techs are in the 2 to 3 year range so looking good.
Edit:
Fixed mistakes (2310 Special Resources does not need a boost, 2310 Escort team was pulled for hospital ship design
Political will permitting, and if Oneiros and the Shipyard Design people think they're ready to offer us designs soon, yes.
The research program we are now engaged in was set up specifically with the intention of having lots of key explorer techs finish this year, so we'd be able to start a good Ambassador design in 2313.
Political will permitting, and if Oneiros and the Shipyard Design people think they're ready to offer us designs soon, yes.
The research program we are now engaged in was set up specifically with the intention of having lots of key explorer techs finish this year, so we'd be able to start a good Ambassador design in 2313.
I like it.
