The...
Sarek? As distinct from any other ship, including explorers that are a lot closer like
Salnas and
Avandar? Do we need Rock Whisperer powers? Or is it because they have the best-trained bombardment gunners because of T'Lorel's time aboard the ship seven years ago? I mean, T'Lorel personally is already
with the task force and she's had years to work up to speed with
Yukikaze, several months with
Lexington.
I'm confused.
We know of Cardassia + 6 major colonies, we just don't know the location of Todamak so it's not on the map. Todamak is probably somewhere in the rimward-spinward region because it's the hub Noldon Torkad belongs to, but that leaves about half a dozen possible subsectors.
Also normal speed was stated to be 1 subsector per 2 weeks, high alert speed 1 subsector per week. Consider how the Kadak-Tor took six weeks to cover the 6 subsectors to Hophos.
The
Kadak-Tor was proceeding under cloak, most ships aren't. I'm not sure its speed is representative of what we can expect, and I AM sure that in almost all our prior fleet movements we never got "it will take eight weeks to get from here to there," which is what you'd expect given the size of the Federation and a rate of one week per one map grid square.
I am
pretty sure that ship movement rates were "one week one square" under normal conditions and "one week two squares" at high alert.
@OneirosTheWriter, am I mistaken? We're going to be ordering fleets around again soon, so... kind of need that.
Looks quite good so far. Relevant to specific issues raised...
1: I'm inclined to feel that Starfleet isn't short on flag officers. Looking at the orgchart, there should be an actual Rear Admiral in charge of Starbase 9, where Fifth Fleet is mobilizing, though there's no name listed for that officer. Is there any reason why that fleet shouldn't be under that flag? Especially since there's a very real possibility that we'll be sacrificing that Starbase in the event of a Cardassian attack?
Well, it's fairly clear that
normally the starbase admirals don't take command of the mobile task forces in their sector. But yes, I actually tried to look up who the commander of
Shallow Space Starbase Nine was as possible candidate to take command of Fifth Fleet. But I have no idea who that person is or even if we appointed one.
Given that Fifth Fleet will (hopefully, given a chance) grow into a very big formation, I totally agree with you- I just don't have any
known flag officers to commit to the task, so I didn't want to make assumptions.
3: I'm inclined to think that we should have Fifth Fleet sit on Starbase 9, as per the vote. If that fleet is going to be outgunned anyways, we may as well extract our pound of flesh with our fixed defenses. There's an advantage to keeping the fleet intact, but I'm not sure it's worth giving the Cardassians a free shot at our Starbase.
It really depends on what the Cardassians do. If they roll up with a fleet that outmatches our squadron and its fortifications, well before we can do anything about it, then they do, that's all. In that case, I'd rather lose the starbase to a scuttling charge than lose the starbase to Cardassian boarding parties
AND lose the CBZ squadron to Cardassian phasers. Also, the strongest thing in the area isn't Shallow Space Nine, it's the Indorion navy, so that is where any small Starfleet task force
really wants to go if it's trying to make a last stand against a heavier opponent.
Also, I don't want to order any formation to "hold the line, die in place" in a war like this. That kind of military order was a bad idea when Stalin did it and a bad idea when Hitler did it and I'm liking the company it puts me in less and less with every person I think of who did it. We definitely have the option of trading space for time, and I'd much rather trade space for time than ships for time. Because to borrow from
@Iron Wolf , who got it from Leslie's sister the folk singer... space is wide, and good friends are too few.
I agree with Blackshard. I don't see anything that obviously needs to be changed bar 1 small error. Under Fleet Concentration, Third Fleet, Week 2 should have 10 Combat instead of 5 Combat as both Korolev and Saratoga should arrive at the same time.
Noted. Will correct.
No battle plan is going to survive contact with the enemy anyway.
You're not wrong. This plan is basically intended not as a
battle plan but as a
mobilization plan, telling all the ships where to move, and leaving our options open about what to do with them when they get there. Because regardless of what happens when we make contact with the enemy, we want our fleet concentrated into a small number of striking units when it happens. Not scattered out all over our space.
The only part of this plan that is
LIKELY to not go according to plan due to enemy action is the Fifth Fleet issue, which is why it's been the center of so much debate about exactly what movement orders to issue.
Well, I did notice one typographical error:
Request that Andor NOT withdraw forces currently deployed against the Syndicate in Orion space;
Earthling participation is critical to the sustainability of the campaign.
*Insert snarky comment about
Homo Sapiens Only club here*
DAMMIT.
That could equally well have turned out the other way, with United Earth being told how critical Andorian participation was. Copy-paste for the
win fail. I'll fix that.
We probably shouldn't rely on lower-ranked affiliates giving us too much-anybody below 300 relations probably won't loan us ships.
Yeah, I'm going to tweak my wording accordingly When I was doing Epsilon-2-B earlier in the year I think I sort of lost track of which affiliates were which. That said, there are only two low-rank affiliates right now. One is strongly, directly threatened and has a powerful incentive to coordinate with us by default, and the other is the Kadeshi.
Agreed that the Rear Admiral at SB9 is most qualified to take command of Fifth Fleet.
I am strongly in favor of this assuming said rear admiral actually exists; I have only circumstantial evidence for their existence.
I am not worried about any of our EC captains in command of a fleet. They are all very cool cucumbers. I would trust any of them with this task.
Yeah. I figure any of the four Explorer Corps captains would be
qualified, so I just picked the fightingest one. It was that or hand the command to Straak on grounds of seniority, but that would involve Straak getting flag rank at least temporarily (which he dreads) and he honestly doesn't strike me as the guy you put in charge of a battlegroup. He's brilliant at all sorts of things and I have no doubt he'd
perform well in battle, but it's not what he does best.
I suspect that we will see results from SFTF2 next MOO. Celos may kick over a beehive in Orion Space, if it does not, then it signals the Syndicate does not have the will to go geopolitical. That itself will signal to Cardassia that Celos is too temporary to back.
Agreed- but if Task Force Two needs a month or two to show results, then we won't
get those results if we pull them for the sake of the mobilization plan. Hence my not ordering them to move.
Wow Ferasa sector is getting big.
Maybe it would be a good idea to carve parts of Amarkia sector and Ferasa Sector off to make an Orion sector when the Union does join us. It would prevent the major territory of a member being divided between two sectors, and having a sector to themselves might help assauge any Orion fears that they are being helplessly subsumed into the Federation.
I agree. Sol Sector is
also getting big, again because we've integrated multiple member races in.
There are strong astrographic grounds for designating a "Risa Sector," too, among other things because if the Dawiar ever do join us they are purely going to HATE the idea of joining "Ferasa Sector."
