Y'know, I can't help but wondering what our actual
ships are doing right now. Did they all stay in their sectors when the High Alert was declared, including the ones in places like Rigel, Vulcan, and Andor that won't be accomplishing much of anything where they are in the event of war? Or did they go towards the borders? Are reinforcements headed for Lapycorias? Or are the Cardassians free to mass fleets close to that isolated position while our reinforcements sit around drumming their fingers being generically 'alerted?'
I recognize that all this 'present us only with clear options to vote on and don't waste any energy actually making mobilization plans' stuff is designed to be more accessible to the players. But it also means we don't have an accurate picture of
what might happen if the war started, even based on the information Sousa ought to know like the physical whereabouts of our own forces. Because while Sousa's got a lot of big uncertainties and X-factors right now, I'm very sure she knows and has already approved of the distribution of her ships- she knows what her own forces are doing even if she doesn't know what anyone else is doing.
I don't see much point in debating the Cardassian negotiations because that's not going to be up for a vote. We've already been told how we can affect this. If the Enterprise succeeds in its mission then we'll get a good deal (or at least as good as possible) and the diplomats will press hard. If the Enterprise fails in its mission then our diplomats will be cautious and yield on more points than they otherwise would. We'll certainly give away Bajor and might even give up the Gabriel Expanse. (Which I would hate to see.)
We MIGHT have some further leverage over the situation. Starfleet has come through for the politicians over and over in the past ten years, and I
think we've built up some credit with them, although it may well be that most of that credit burned up even faster than it accumulated due to the stresses of the anti-Syndicate campaign. But almost certainly, that influence will be exerted after and only after
Enterprise's mission.
Caitians have been members longer though. Though I suppose that would be more an argument for the Amarki or Betazoids to get a shipname...
They have
Salnas and
Avandar, respectively. Then we went and named the next two ships after abstract concepts (
Stargazer and
Odyssey). That leaves the Caitians and the Rigellians.
Rru'adorr is actually the name of the flying palace. Not the philosopher King himself.
Oh. That actually works too.
I had actually come up with the myth based on the beta canon that Caitians were actually a lost colony of another felinoid race. (which I think was actually the Kzin, because there was some sort of official crossover there) And that there is actually some truth to it.
Though in TBG it could be anything from just a myth, to based onon actual alien visitors to ancient Ferasa.
I like the idea that it really is a myth, it's such an
awesome myth. I actually want to avoid tipping us over towards an "alien astronauts built the pyramids" mindset in which all the achievements of ancient low-tech species were somehow brought about by ancient high-tech species interfering in their cultures. For one, it makes the Federation and its Prime Directive seem like even more of a joke than it would be otherwise. Hence Tisana Bessle's comments to Dill chim Clunn after the Lironh bombing:
I know a man who's spent half his life trying to prove that Orions built the tombs of the Twelve Kings in the Vale of Selessaya."
"Did they?"
She shook her head. "No, though they did sell the Kings a set of tritanium-bladed rock saws."
Trying to strike a balance there...
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How about M'Ress? She was Caitian and served on the Enterprise with Kirk in the Animated series. She might be a good choice for a non human ship name and its probably been long enough.
Edit: Sorry I messed up and just now noticed my mistake. sorry about that.
I like the idea, but a lot of TOS-era people are still alive and M'Ress may be one of them, so it might be kind of... excessive aggrandizement to name a ship after now.
Or maybe Ferasa is still the lost colony, and the modern Caitians are aware of it. They know the original Caitian Homeworld is out there somewhere, but don't know where.
Though that would make the ancient starfaring exodus origin quite common, given that we already have the Kadeshi and the Romulans.
To be fair, ancient lost homeworlds being common is arguably
reasonable in a galaxy where interstellar travel has been around for a long time. You'd almost expect planets inhabited by intelligent species that actually evolved on the planet they occupy to be the exception, rather than the rule. Because that would demand the question of what happened to all the farflung colonies and outposts founded by past generations of star travellers. Did they all die out so we never found them? If so, mega-depressing, and even in Star Trek most disasters don't totally wipe out interstellar civilizations.
Then again, when you have a species that is physiologically unusual, like the Andorians or the Caitians, significantly different from any other known humanoid species, "they evolved here and are not an offshoot of some existing species" becomes more credible.
You know, I've never been all that into Leaniss as a character. Maybe I've missed it, but I don't ever recall her ever really grappling with something. She's done some shit, won some duels, but I have no idea what makes her break out in cold sweat.
What do you all think makes her cool?
I'm not sure we've ever seen much of anything from her point of view, which probably explains a lot. She's been a secondary character in someone else's story. This is a common problem with the medium- in this quest we only
really see characters break out and become fully alive for us when someone writes an omake, or when they absolutely shine in a captain's log. And we only have so many omaketeers and so many captain's logs.
If this were a TV show, you'd have seen Leaniss's character interacting with Nash dozens of times in dozens of episodes, and contributing to dozens of missions. And you probably wouldn't need to ask this question.
Personally I've always figured her as kind of slotting into the same ecological niche served by Counselor Troi, only with political savvy in place of the telepathy, and a lot less getting written as a helpless victim of events whenever the writers decide to use her as a chew toy.
Well I agree she has an interesting history, but what is her personality? I don't have much of a sense of it.
I guess I'm pushing back against the idea of, "Oh boy, can't wait to read more adventures of Leaniss we totally need her as an EC captain." I'm more like, "Well if she's not much fun yet, when will she ever be fun?"
When she gets a day in the limelight of her own
for the first time since the game started?
I mean heck, I took a character whose only interesting feature is that he showed up in the background of a lot of TOS episodes. Who got as I recall ONE line of dialogue in all of TOS (and that while under mind control). And I made him someone the players seem to like, a character they have a sense of. And I'm one of like ten people who write omakes for this thing. We could very easily do that with Leaniss, just as Mbeki was starting to get good characterization before he got his ship shot out from under him one year into a five year mission. Just as Thuir did, just as Eaton and T'Lorel and McAdams did.
[Saavik hasn't gotten it so much, sadly.
]
Basically, all that's required is for the character to have a chance to directly express that which gives them greatness.
So I'm not sure we need her as an EC captain. I want to see her dealing with sociological frontiers rather astro-graphical ones. Finding a way to compromise the beliefs of the Licori with our own as they get closer into the Federation's orbit, dealing with the Cardassians when they're sword rattling, etc...
I don't disagree, but she's
in Starfleet, and frankly, Explorer Corps captains sometimes seem to handle more of our external diplomacy than the diplomatic service does, anyway. At least, it doesn't seem like anything ever happens out there until Starfleet convinces it to happen...
Heck, we got a pretty darn good idea of Picard as a diplomat, dealing with sociological frontiers at least as often as astrographic ones, wouldn't you say?
