If we get to, say, 400 Impact and then announce that as far as Starfleet's concerned the main threat of the Syndicate has been dealt with, can we set it up so that local law enforcement continues to increase Impact (with maybe a few Starfleet assets remaining to help) without the Cost continuing to accrue for us politically? Or without our constant vigilance, is it more likely the Syndicate will hold the line, or even claw back what they've lost?
Well, how about you look at what fraction of our Impact comes from Starfleet actions and what fraction comes from Orion actions. If we take the Starfleet actions out of play then implementing the second half of the Impact is going to take a lot longer than the first half. Which means that while the costs may be lower, they'll also be more protracted, adding up over a greater length of time.
To make matters worse, the Union government's actions tend to be the ones with high Cost even when they succeed, so in effect we'd be delegating the second half of the war to the part of our forces most likely to make it an
expensive war.
Also, what SWB said about the idea of us landing on an
Excelsior with a "Mission Accomplished" banner. Let's not do that. The second half of the anti-Syndicate campaign is likely to be the
easy half of it because we'll have the most resources in place, the Syndicate's resources will be lessened, and their ability to take offensive actions is going to be reduced to something like 1/4 or 1/3 of what it's been through 2310-12. That is not a good time for us to back off, that's a good time for us to get cheap shots in and follow up with our finishing move.
Not having been here for fleet disposition discussion, if we have any ships near Solitude (C,-4) is it safe to treat them as defending both borders? I can't imagine a scenario where the two empires sizing each other up for war would both attack us simultaneously - if one did, the other would surely hope that would land us on their side by default.
You're missing something. Our ships aren't there to
defend the border against invasion. If either side actually invaded us that force would be a puny tripwire. Those ships are there to
ensure our neutrality and
monitor the border. Because the Klingons and the Romulans both have cloaking devices, both have temptations to try and hit their enemy in the flank by sneaking through our space, and may be tempted to try bringing us into the war on their side by faking an attack from their enemy.
Especially since the Klingons and Romulans actually operate at least one class of nearly identical ship, the TOS-era D7 battlecruiser.
DURING NORMAL PEACETIME, most of our fleet is and should be spread out throughout our space. However, as you saw if/when you read the "Grey October" event back in early 2310, we are quite capable of rapidly mobilizing and shifting our fleets to the Cardassian border. During normal times, we merely keep
a lot of our forces over in that area; we've been building it up rapidly for the past year or two and are continuing to do so. We've got this. [nods]
That wasn't what I meant. I meant every ship that could be spared and wasn't needed elsewhere. and that included the Romulan and Klingon border zones. IE leaving the ships there and only transferring a ship if it could absolutely be spared but leaving it if we couldn't afford to spare the ship.
The thing is, we've already done that. It's down to the point where taking more ships off that border is likely to cause problems of some kind, especially since war between the Klingons and Romulans is getting
more likely over time, not less.
The common Bajoran's can't be too happy about the Cardassians routing their mineral wealth away from Bajor toward Cardassia either.
Well, no. Historically they were very unhappy as Cardassian rule got worse and more oppressive. You might even say there was some... Resistance.
Our challenge is that we basically started the Bajoran Occupation seven years early because the Cardassians muscled in on Bajor to stop
us from making it an affiliate. Hopefully we can also make it
end seven years early.
Yeah Sousa's the person we need to take in the Syndicate. If and when we have to fight the Cardassians Sulu's the person we neeed.
The only thing that worries me is that we haven't identified people to serve as the Nimitz, Spruance, Halsey to Sulu's King.
We may have to raid the anti-Syndicate task force for fleet commanders because we've concentrated a lot of talent there (Uhura, Eaton, Nash, T'Lorel). Harriman comes to mind and I love the idea of him charging out of the background to achieve glorious badassery. Assuming Thuir recovers from his bout of depression or whatever messed up his statline in this last vote, he's available. T'Faer was mentioned by others.
We have Saavik coming off her five year mission at the end of 2314 and McAdams at the end of 2315, both captains who already have considerable prior staff experience so that (unlike Nash) they don't need extra time to 'round out their career'). I'm sure Chekov has sufficient seniority in grade to promote to commodore any time we like. This new SBZ guy, Crogan, seems pretty solid.
One thing about your question is that the answer to it doesn't really reveal itself until after a war is already underway. It would have been hard to predict in advance, for example, which of the US's great WWII admirals and generals would take command in 1939. There were a few officers with strong reputations in the peacetime army (like MacArthur), but it would be hard to nail down who would wind up doing what (Eisenhower was a lieutenant colonel in 1939).
It's safe to assume that if the war lasts more than one round of battles, either the people we now have running formations will prove very satisfactory, or new and obviously talented people will rise into their positions.
Hmm. I think we should shift Chen to Tactical, then SF Ops while Sulu is Admiral. I'd like to give Chen experience at the strategic and operational view.
Then, we have our next 10 year Admiral, unless Sulu gets there first.
We should be thinking in terms of admirals lasting more like five years and less like ten; that seems to be more in line with the norm and more what the political system wants. That said, Chen
has prior experience in operations; she commanded the Explorer Corps for the first five years, remember? Bouncing her sideways to Starfleet Tactics might or might not 'round her out,' but honestly she's doing such a marvelous job in Starfleet Operations that I'd rather not. It's generally not a great idea to move people
sideways when there are so few available slots at the vice admiral level.
Hmm
T'Lorel-Spruance (calm, level headed)
Nash-Halsey (aggressive, loves Enterprise)
Somewhere in the background,
an unusual squee
We don't need Chen to be an awesome tactician. Starfleet needs all types in the higher ranks. I wouldn't put Kahurangi out to lead a fleet or plan battles when we have people like Uhara, T'Lorel, T'Faer, ka'Sharren, Eaton, or Sulu. Or even people like Lachlan Ablett out on sabbatical. That doesn't mean Kahurangi shouldn't be Admiral in a crisis. Same goes for people with talents in logistics like Chen - they're needed, and they're needed in admiralty positions.
True, although we
know Chen can hack it tactically. Remember, her blurb twelve years ago was:
[] ... Patricia Chen, who is one of the most daring commanders I know, and one of the great escape artists.
(Female Human, 44, re-roll failed Hull checks, increasing chances of your explorers escaping destruction)
That doesn't mean we put Chen in field command of a fleet, though. You're right about that.
From: Shey ch'Tharvasse (CICGAB)
To: Rear Admiral Uhura
WHERE IS REPEAT WHERE IS TASK FORCE 34 THE QUADRANT WONDERS
"Lieutenant, you included the crytographic spoof by mistake. It's a good thing I know about so much about communications protocol because another Admiral could have been quite offended."
Enterprise: "...Teehee."
Uhura: "Also, Task Force 34 is... [checks watch, looks out viewport]
[THOOM PEW PEW PEW ZAP ZAP SOUND OF CARDASSIAN TEARS]
"...Right on schedule, sir."
Seriously, Uhura very much proved her chops on the CBZ, and her coordination skills are probably a really, really great help to high-level fleet operations- she leveraged them pretty well in the founding days of the CBZ.
If she weren't already doing something of comparable importance I'd list putting her out there in a fleet command as like the most important thing we could do with her.
If war starts soon, we're going to have to be careful raiding the anti-Syndicate force for leaders so we don't weaken it too much in a short time.
Edit: Moreover, see the "this is not an Empire Quest" tag. We don't hold 100% control of Starfleet. We appoint subordinates who do things like exact placement of ships and their patrol routes. Hell, we don't often remove or prosecute subordinates personally; the prime expample being a Captain who had a pretty cut and dried case of insubordination combined with cowardice in the face of the enemy during the Biophage crisis. We didn't get to decide his fate, either.
I still disagree about the cowardice thing. Insubordination, yes, cowardice, no. Among other things, O'Hara was taking the risk of accidentally beaming a chunk of biophage into his transporter rooms... because saving refugees off an infected transport was
just that important to him.
