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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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Shard said:
What was that strategy the US used in WW2 for their navy? 'For every ship destroyed, build two more?'
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AlphaDelta said:
Not on the table. We have a crew shortage, and we don't conscript.

We see their escort spam, and reply by spamming the same number of Cruisers.
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Ironically, we could crew two escorts for each cruiser we build, and three or so for each explorer...

fasquardon said:
Do we need them to respect us?

I don't think you are wrong, but I also see the counter-argument in favor of playing it safe until we have the power to absolutely crush the Cardies.
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The problem is that if we keep looking afraid to fight, the Cardassians (who are much less understanding of alien psychologies than the relatively diverse Federation) will interpret that in terms that make sense to them. In particular, they're likely to look at our inaction and assume we have hidden weaknesses that make us afraid to push them the way they push us. In which case they may expect that by hitting us as hard as they can, they can destroy us.

Which means they have an incentive to take their best shot to actually break the Federation now, while they still can. Instead of waiting until later when our sheer economic strength has overpowered them.

The basic problem with "wait until we can absolutely crush them" strategies is that they treat the enemy as a purely passive object. Crushing a walnut is easy- but that's because walnuts don't jump into action to break the nutcracker by planting demo charges on its perceived weaknesses before it can come down on them. Cardassians do.

Steven Kodaly said:
Honestly. I'd be satisfied with an independent Bajor acting as a buffer between Cardassia and the UFP, much as we've been considering a similar arrangement with the Sotaw in the Romulan Neutral Zone. The Bajorans get their independence from outside domination, the Cardassians deny us a forward operating base against them, and the Federation gets to feel morally superior.

Everybody wins!

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Hell, given how much at risk the system has turned out to be, we could even hand Lapycorias and Starbase 9 over to the Bajorans, making them a much tougher customer overall.
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If Bajor is made a de-militarized zone for both powers, Starbase Nine isn't under nearly as much threat. A big part of the problem there is that Bajor is as close to Starbase Nine as Indorion is (roughly). Well, that and we only have about Defense 15-20 on that border, which is nowhere near the fighting power a "real fleet" would need. Between those two factors, we just can't get reinforcements to the starbase anywhere near as fast as the Cardassians can hit it with a huge invasion fleet.

But we'd have that problem with ANY defenses ANYWHERE on our border. And if we set up NO defenses, then we'd just be giving our affiliates the same problem Starbase Nine has- being very exposed in the event of war.

Basically, we have to have some level of defense there in order to at least present an obstacle to Cardassian attack, and to reassure our allies in that region that we're not just going to let them get chewed up and spat out without putting up a fight.
 
I wonder where exactly the Cardassians would talk with the Celosians? Like, they don't even hold the Celosian capital building anymore and are fighting to regain one city.

So what? The Cardassians beam down and talk with Garita in a bombed out apartment block somewhere while under orbital fire and Aerocommando and Amarki assault?

Yeah they'll show how dominant they are as Cardassians powerlessly watch a legitimately evil and unpopular government crumble in weeks.
 
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fasquardon said:
Considering how extreme the Federation was shown to be about the Prime Directive in some books and episodes, it is quite possible we WOULD face opposition on this. Councilors might say "but starfleet lets non-warp capable species nuke themselves into oblivion all the time, why are these Bajorans so special?"

Though really, I hope the TBG UFP is a bit more sensible than that. Picard's Enterprise was shown secretly interfering in order to save pre-warp species from extinction at least once, which makes for a far better precedent for us.

fasquardon
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Also, the Bajorans were a warp-capable civilization well before we met them. They had interstellar colonies, fasquardon...
 
Simon_Jester said:
If Bajor is made a de-militarized zone for both powers, Starbase Nine isn't under nearly as much threat. A big part of the problem there is that Bajor is as close to Starbase Nine as Indorion is (roughly). Well, that and we only have about Defense 15-20 on that border, which is nowhere near the fighting power a "real fleet" would need. Between those two factors, we just can't get reinforcements to the starbase anywhere near as fast as the Cardassians can hit it with a huge invasion fleet.

But we'd have that problem with ANY defenses ANYWHERE on our border. And if we set up NO defenses, then we'd just be giving our affiliates the same problem Starbase Nine has- being very exposed in the event of war.
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Part of the idea of the Forward Defense doctrine is to fix that by putting such a large portion of our forces in border zones that they are a "real fleet". Though it's hard to say what that even is. What's a "real fleet"? You're probably right that 15-20 isn't enough... is 30? 40? The Cardassians have less territory to defend than we do, but they can't send all their ships. The Apiata would swing around and attack their worlds freely.

Eh, just musing.
 
AKuz said:
The Bajorans are probably one of the oldest Starfaring worlds in the quadrant. They probably watched the Old Orion Empire rise and fall and the HurQ blow by.
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Yeah, I think fasquadron knows that. I read his point as being more about moral equivalency. If it's okay not to intervene in genocides of pre-warp civilizations because the cost would be too great to them, maybe there are circumstances where it's okay not to intervene in genocides with interstellar powers because the cost would be too great to us.
 
The issue of Bajoran warp travel is actually pretty complicated! Technically the Bajoran Lightship achieved warp but I don't think that really counts because it's an uncontrolled accident. That was in the 1500's, so at minimum they didn't have warp travel at the same time as the Vulcans and probably weren't contacted either. However, given that it was the 1st Bajoran Republic around that time that then collapsed, I guess they did have a unified planet? Go figure. Anyways, there's no explicit confirmation they were actually warp capable by the time of occupation.

That being said they seem to have been well-known on the galactic stage so I'd guess they were insular but had active warp ships around ~1600-1700, so they would have missed most of the major ancient drama.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Ironically, we could crew two escorts for each cruiser we build, and three or so for each explorer...
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Speaking of wartime applications of escorts. For those who thought the Miranda-A was impressive at:
Miranda-A Now-Now [277m, 655k t]
C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
Cost[60br, 45sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-1]​
then the Wartime Escort SWB came up with in the SDB:
The Dictator's Choice [???m, 437kt]
C3 S1 H3 L3 P1 D3
Cost[45br, 40sr, 0.5 years], Crew [O-1, E-1, T-1]​
is amazing. If we loaded up our 1mt bays with them we could have +54C per year. The downsides being that it would chew through our crew like crazy and is completely useless, to the point of being an active hindrance, in peacetime. Which incidentally means that despite not tripping any of the built in flags this would definitely give us serious Militarization points.
 
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OneirosTheWriter said:
2 Constitution-B class @ San Francisco Fleet Yards (ETC 2312.Q4 - Crews deduct 2311.Q4)
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OneirosTheWriter said:
2 Constitution-B @ 40 Eridani A Berth 1, 2 (ETC 2313.Q1 - Crews deduct 2312.Q1)
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OneirosTheWriter said:
1 Constitution-B @ Lor'Vela OCF (ETC 2312.Q2 - Crews deduct 2311.Q2)
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OneirosTheWriter said:
1 Constitution-B @ Ana Font Shipyard Berth 1 (ETC 2314.Q1 - Crews deduct 2313.Q1)
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OneirosTheWriter said:
2 Consitution-B @ Utopia Planitia Berth C, 2 (ETC 2312.Q2 - Crews deduct 2311.Q2)
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OneirosTheWriter said:
1 Excelsior-class @ Utopia Planitia Berth
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These are the ships that will be commissioned soon, or will be commissioned.

Note the lack of Escorts.
 
AlphaDelta said:
These are the ships that will be commissioned soon, or will be commissioned.

Note the lack of Escorts.
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Note that the plan is to switch to crash-building Miranda-As to stall till the Rennie comes out. The problem with escorts is that they're of very limited use in peacetime.
 
Iron Wolf said:
I think at minimum they're good for getting more Captains time in the chair, which should help Seruk's promotions flowchart work better.
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This is something he has previously commented on:
OneirosTheWriter said:
Rear Admiral Seruk has commented that the number of new captains, sector commanders, Berth and Shipyard Superintendents, and other positions, is causing the average age and experience level of Captains and Commodores to drop. In particular, the necessity of assigning some officers into command of major fleet units such as Excelsiors with almost no opporunity to learn the ropes of command in smaller, less volatile roles, is distressing, if understandably unavoidable.
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but I think this problem will be helped by the waves of Renaissances we plan on building. While they are significantly larger commands (11 Crew vs 5) they are far smaller then Excelsiors (16 Crew) or the larger Ambassador designs (21 Crew) and should be common enough that there will always be a Renaissance in some out of the way system, like Vulcan, a newbie captain can command.
 
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so... she can write her name on the side of a home, but can't clip the wings off a fly from orbit?
 
Steven Kodaly said:
Eh, some of us - myself included - saw a diplomatic opportunity to pry another minor player out of the Cardassian camp, one we weren't going to see again. So we rolled the dice.
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Yes, but- youse were warned. :p

Shard said:
I suppose the proper diplomatic attitude towards the Cardassians would be an aggressive one, with an appearance of dominance of superiority, even in the lack of one?

That's what I feel about them, so far, anyhow.

Like, instead of offering concessions for Celos, demand concessions to allow the Cardassians to wash their hands of Celos.
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Honestly, that seems likely to be the case.

Steven Kodaly said:
If we wind up at war with the Cardassian Union, how do we intend to prosecute such a conflict? What's our endgame for such a war?
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I recommend, in broad outline:

1) Clear our flanks of the Dawiar and Sydraxian military threats by whatever means necessary, preferably diplomatic.
2) Defeat the Cardassian fleet in open battle to the point where their ability to resist Federation offensives is in doubt.
3) Capture the orbitals of one or more major Cardassian worlds.
4) Engage in destruction of space-based infrastructure open to our forces.

Once the Cardassians are willing to seek terms, I would say our minimal war aims would be:

1) Recognition of Apiata/Federation rights in the Gabriel Expanse (negotiating Sydraxian/Cardassian rights in the Expanse is an acceptable compromise).
2) Bajor to be, at minimum, rendered into a demilitarized zone neither power is allowed to send ships into, with Bajoran independence to be restored in the hands of a completely new government selected by plebiscite among Bajoran citizens.
 
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