To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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It's not just make-up. Humans are easier to relate to, as opposed to aliens where you have to make everything up.
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The existence of transporters is entirely down to special effect budgets, but that doesn't mean transporters aren't canon. And it's not like it's not acknowledged in-universe either, what with people using the terms humans and federation citizens almost interchangeably or calling the Federation a "homo sapiens only club".
I'm not saying that humans constituting a majority or large plurality of federation citizens is the only possible interpretation of canon, just that it's perfectly consistent with all evidence and much more plausible than humans not even being a clear majority in their own home system.
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Raw number or combat weighted number for side firing?
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
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Well, transporters don't also make the whole thing feel pretty hypocritical and like a veneer on a human empire >_>
Homo sapiens only club is said from an extremely biased source. I never got any feeling of resentment you'd expect if humans actually unfairly dominated Starfleet. It might hint at some uncomfortable slanting in the Fed - whataboutism style - but I'm not going to super trust the rhetoric of a Klingon launching a coup as accurately reflecting the situation
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But that's the thing, if humans are actually the majority then they wouldn't "unfairly" dominate Starfleet, they'd just have fair representation.
AKuz
Been Better
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I have no idea why Humans would make up the plurality of the Federation, or even anything other than a fraction defined by the number of member species. I refuse to believe that Humans went from "lol we almost killed ourselves to death" all the way to "Half of EVERYONE" in a mere century and a half. The Vulcans have had colonies for centuries and they live for centuries. Andorians and Tellarites have been around just as long and are probably just as fecund as humans (Ignoring the EU "lol they're going extinct because Andorian genetics forgot how to genetics")
Humans being these weird inferiority complex overachievers makes sense for how much we see humans: We see them on Earth (The center of Starfleet) and we see them in the frontiers (Where they are trying to build up colonies to match the established powers)
Humans being these weird inferiority complex overachievers makes sense for how much we see humans: We see them on Earth (The center of Starfleet) and we see them in the frontiers (Where they are trying to build up colonies to match the established powers)
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My personal headcanon is that Humans are about a 30-35% plurality because of the sheer number of colonies, and the existence of large off-world colonies. Alpha Centauri, etc.
That, plus the Constitution push plus a relative reluctance to participate in Starfleet for the other three means that Starfleet is currently Human dominated, though it's starting to fade as the wave of Connie Ensigns are starting to retire (See: Grey Lady).
That, plus the Constitution push plus a relative reluctance to participate in Starfleet for the other three means that Starfleet is currently Human dominated, though it's starting to fade as the wave of Connie Ensigns are starting to retire (See: Grey Lady).
- Location
- Australia
The other thing to consider is that with Starfleet's space going numbers such a tiny percentage of the population, you only need minor cultural trends to swamp it.
If you want to go a little 50's/60's sci-fi (and where else does Star Trek emerge from) then the 'elder races' were simply tired and worn out, unable to grow because Reasons. Then fresh, brash, humanity showed up on the scene with daring do and human spirit and exploded in population and territory. If anything, the other races of the Federation get invigorated by human example.
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- Mid-Atlantic
Okay.
But the main cause for concern wasn't just that the Stinger did most of the shooting, it's that the heavy ships didn't contribute to the battle at all until the escort on their own side has already died. The Centaur-A took ALL the fire first, while the Excelsior did not contribute anything noticeable (aside, apparently, from changing the odds of the Centaur-A even getting to fire from 33% to 50%).
Did you hand the Federation and Apiata identical "explorer hangs back, escorts do the fighting" doctrines to see what would happen? That would explain what we saw.
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On the other hand, that raises some issues.
I begin with the assumption that the base probability of scoring a hit was 67% for the Stinger, on account of being part of the side with two ships. Which is consistent with the Excelsior getting a shot off about 25 times in the 80 combat rounds. However, the result is that the Excelsior averaged less than one hit point of damage per round against the Stinger even on the turns it got to attack the Stinger at all. This helps to explain why the Stinger was able to inflict roughly 65 HP of damage (50 to shields, 15 to hull) to the Excelsior while taking only 25 damage in return.
The problem this raises is that the result in the combat engine is extremely unfair compared to the reality it's modeling. The Stinger benefits from the Queenship's "presence" in terms of increasing its hit probability greatly, and decreasing the hit probability of the two ships opposing it. But the Queenship is not at risk until the Stinger is destroyed, and the Stinger gets to inflict roughly twice as much damage upon the enemy as it receives, due to the Queenship's presence. Despite the fact that in theory the Queenship is 'hanging back' and not even participating in the battle, which is why it is immune to being targeted.
This creates a balance problem where any doctrine that lets you tell one or more of your ships to "hang back" out of the fight becomes extremely powerful. It increases your fleet's hit probability (and thus greatly extends their lifespan)... but it cannot be targeted. Thus, one explorer and one escort with total Combat 8 and 140 HP become easily capable of defeating one explorer and one escort with total Combat 9 and 140 HP, almost deterministically so, with the Apiata explorer barely even taking any damage. And this result is achieved, counterintuitively, by NOT having the Apiata explorer participate in combat directly, until such time as the Stinger has been destroyed.
So now I have to ask a few questions.
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Can we expect realistic doctrines to result in certain types of ships being deterministically targeted first, every single time? Or to make certain types of ships immune to enemy action? Because either of these results would result in doctrines becoming extremely overpowered. And in the interaction of two fleets with different doctrines becoming extremely unpredictable.
Hopefully, that isn't an issue. What I'm hoping is that the "100% effective" doctrines we see in the recent combat log were something you set up just for this one test, purely as a test of whether doctrine-based target weighting was working. Whereas realistic doctrines available in gameplay merely weight an otherwise random distribution of hits. Is that closer to the truth?
Because again, while I fully recognize this was a test run, it's a test run that suggests there are some serious underlying balance problems unless those balance problems were the result of deliberately tweaking the parameters of the battle to give an unusual and excessive advantage to the Apiata. Since it resulted in a Combat 4, 50 HP escort being able to duel and blow up a Combat 3, 50 HP escort, then inflict 65 HP of damage to a Combat 6, 90 HP explorer, before itself being destroyed.
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- Australia
Okay, so I'm out and about and suffering from a headache. Rolls have been made for the Captain's Logs, but some battles are incoming so I want to get the combat engine calibrated.
Things to do:
Add in verbosity level for the log output to restrict it to noteworthy things.
Fine tune the level of weighting to apply for picking attackers/targets.
Test out the retreat points
Build the UI (lower priority since I'm using a console app to build and run scenarios).
Edit:
I see the point on the ship hanging back contributing fully to the combat decision. I'll see what I can do about it.
Things to do:
Add in verbosity level for the log output to restrict it to noteworthy things.
Fine tune the level of weighting to apply for picking attackers/targets.
Test out the retreat points
Build the UI (lower priority since I'm using a console app to build and run scenarios).
Edit:
I see the point on the ship hanging back contributing fully to the combat decision. I'll see what I can do about it.
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I honestly find the fixation with the Fed being human dominated in the fandom weird. It's antithetical to the philosophy of the creator of the show and central ideas of it going forward. It's called out maybe once by a hugely biased character. It's explained by production issues. I get the transporter comparison but they also talk about it, explain how it works. They don't do that with the humans.
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- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah.
Basically, the transporter exists in universe. The "98% of everyone is human" issue does not exist in universe, in the sense of being a thing that people discuss and show evidence of believing in.
Furthermore, we see that the further into the show canon we got and the higher the production values became, the more aliens we saw.
As far as I can tell, Spock was the only nonhuman even present on the ship in the original series.
The Next Generation featured two or three nonhumans in the command team (depending on how you count Data), and several more extras who got varying levels of overall attention ranging from 'high' to 'that Bolian we saw giving haircuts.'
Deep Space Nine had, off the top of my head, Odo, Kira Nerys, Dax, and Worf, plus numerous well-developed nonhuman secondary characters like Quark and Elim Garak.
Voyager kind of circled back a bit from DS9's high water mark, but you still saw at least TNG-era levels of aliens in the cast, but you still had, hm. Tuvok, Neelix, Kes, Seven of Nine... B'Elanna is a borderline case. Am I forgetting anybody?
Basically, the big argument for "lol Federation all human" is TOS (which had cheap production values) and the overwhelmingly human population of extras. But it's precisely the extras who will get the least attention in terms of makeup, because they're only appearing once. Who wants to shell out 300 dollars to have an Andorian strolling down the promenade on Deep Space Nine when you could have a human doing the same thing in the same costume for half that, or less?
Basically, the transporter exists in universe. The "98% of everyone is human" issue does not exist in universe, in the sense of being a thing that people discuss and show evidence of believing in.
Furthermore, we see that the further into the show canon we got and the higher the production values became, the more aliens we saw.
As far as I can tell, Spock was the only nonhuman even present on the ship in the original series.
The Next Generation featured two or three nonhumans in the command team (depending on how you count Data), and several more extras who got varying levels of overall attention ranging from 'high' to 'that Bolian we saw giving haircuts.'
Deep Space Nine had, off the top of my head, Odo, Kira Nerys, Dax, and Worf, plus numerous well-developed nonhuman secondary characters like Quark and Elim Garak.
Voyager kind of circled back a bit from DS9's high water mark, but you still saw at least TNG-era levels of aliens in the cast, but you still had, hm. Tuvok, Neelix, Kes, Seven of Nine... B'Elanna is a borderline case. Am I forgetting anybody?
Basically, the big argument for "lol Federation all human" is TOS (which had cheap production values) and the overwhelmingly human population of extras. But it's precisely the extras who will get the least attention in terms of makeup, because they're only appearing once. Who wants to shell out 300 dollars to have an Andorian strolling down the promenade on Deep Space Nine when you could have a human doing the same thing in the same costume for half that, or less?
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aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
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- She/Her
Seska, Lon Suder, Naomi for another borderline, Icheb and the Borg kids...
- Location
- Australia
Mentioned this discussion to the wife.
"Well, because all the other species wanted a meat shield and humans were reckless enough to do it with a smile."
Some paraphrasing.
"Well, because all the other species wanted a meat shield and humans were reckless enough to do it with a smile."
Some paraphrasing.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Suder was more or less a one-off character, so I didn't count him. Seska counts but she was only around for a couple of seasons, so likewise. Not sure how to count Icheb and the Borg kids.
[EDIT: To clarify, basically I'm only counting people we think of as 'main cast,' and specifically protagonists. I didn't count Gul Dukat for Deep Space Nine either, or people like Sarek and Kor for the original series.]
Very insightful, she is.
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aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
- Pronouns
- She/Her
...It would seem that we occupy the same role as the Amarki in this timeline.
This can only go well.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
You use the Amarki as a meat shield in a fight. You use humans as a meat shield if you want to poke a spatial anomaly.
And no, we can't use the Gaeni for that in this timeline, because if a Gaeni pokes a spatial anomaly, it will become even anomalier in short order.
And no, we can't use the Gaeni for that in this timeline, because if a Gaeni pokes a spatial anomaly, it will become even anomalier in short order.
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
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- She/Her
Who would you use as a meat shield in diplomacy?
- Location
- Central Standard Time
Betazoids
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
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- She/Her
Risans.