Well, on the one hand, it makes asking the Indorion for help a lot more appealing.
On the other hand, the arguments for sticking with Sydraxian diplomacy ARE still in force. It would be great if we could secure their neutrality or even just negotiate a quick end to the war after fighting a short sharp battle or two against them, rather than having to send in a big fleet and physically occupy their space.
We COULD just hope that the Indorions will listen to our polite requests anyway, and/or have enough good sense to know that it's a bad idea for them to abandon a Starfleet fortress and task force to be defeated in detail in the opening week of a war that's going to be fought on their doorstep. So I dunno. On the one hand I feel vindicated, on the other hand, I respect that people like Briefvoice have their own reasons for proposing what they do.
It probably depends on the kind of ally you're looking for.
My mobilization plan basically tells the Risans "Uh, yeah. Fleet should go to Minimum Chill condition. Be ready to help patrol Federation space while the rest of our ships are off doing something else."
I feel that something that does need to be kept in mind is that Amarkian ships trade off a bit of their combat for toughness. Combat oriented explorers are a rare and valuable breed, and the Amarki have three of them.
Not much for fighting but they sure get around. ba-dum tssssss....
Hmm.... Well, they'll need a way to know when it's just regular Chill and when it's Maximum Chill so they could use something like this:
Part of me would really love to have any prisoners we take go to Risa just for the sheer "mess with your poor spoony head" potential, but honestly, thousands of Cardassian POWs on a planet like Risa would probably just manage to escape. Like, seriously, it's kind of sad that they'd even want to, but some of them would anyway.
Yes please, and also make note of what @OneirosTheWriter just revealed of our affiliates in it
