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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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What are we going to do when Data shows up? On the one hand, enslaving and mass producing his kind would go against everything the Federation stands for and make a mockery of our ideals. But on the other, never dealing with crew shortages again.
 
Night said:
People tend not to remember this well but Picard was a hell of a political animal. He was a personal friend of all his time's EC panel and literally dropped everything to come back and talk to Starfleet Command and they were like "what's up bro, we were just going to have dinner, pull up a chair!"

Of course, dinner turned out to be mealworms because this was the Bluegill episode but nobody, including Picard, saw anything weird about him being able to just fly over and talk to his buddies at SFC because he was a bit worried about their orders lately and wanted to check up on them, or that time where he got props from Ambassador Sarek and the two seemed actually friendly when they met, or how whenever there's a diplomatic crisis or somebody who puts the ass in ambassador needs to be transported they call Picard. Kirk turning up at SFC would have gotten mocked for his insane mission reports. Sisko yelled at admirals regularly. Janeway was posted to some Admiralty Board thing that has no real power as soon as possible. Picard? He's smoother than silk. They literally ask him to sit down and have a drink.
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Nervos Belli said:
What are we going to do when Data shows up? On the one hand, enslaving and mass producing his kind would go against everything the Federation stands for and make a mockery of our ideals. But on the other, never dealing with crew shortages again.
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What @Alastor Mobius Toth said.
I mean, I literally don't see any choice other than to give full equal rights to the likes of Data.
 
Nervos Belli said:
What are we going to do when Data shows up? On the one hand, enslaving and mass producing his kind would go against everything the Federation stands for and make a mockery of our ideals. But on the other, never dealing with crew shortages again.
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We'll do exactly what they did in canon. Accept him into Starfleet, and do our best to replicate Soong's design without putting Data at undue risk.

I'm not sure that copying data would be the end of crew shortages, though. They might cost SR or something.
 
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Leila Hann said:
We'll do exactly what they did in canon. Accept him into Starfleet, and do our best to replicate Soong's design without putting Data at undue risk.
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We are going to unlock the Positronic Theory project by 2330 and could have it completed before 2340. That's how far the current tech tree goes so no way to tell how many successor projects need to be completed before we could start to produce Soognian androids.
 
Nix said:
We are going to unlock the Positronic Theory project by 2330 and could have it completed before 2340. That's how far the current tech tree goes so no way to tell how many successor projects need to be completed before we could start to produce Soognian androids.
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Rather fittingly, that means that Soong is somewhere between one and two decades ahead of everyone else when he first tries to build a complete positronic brain.
 
If you knowingly create an AI, that is the same as creating a child, from an ethical standpoint. You have the obligation to raise it and guide it as it starts self-determination. If people want to create positronic androids, that is fine. Child protective services are watching, and while we are glad to have AIs apply for Starfleet, we do not draft them or create them to serve.

High level simulation life model decoys are a whole different thing.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Presumably, giving them equal rights means they can choose other careers than Starfleet, and therefore won't do much for our crew pool anyways.
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Life Span: Yes and their range of superhuman abilities would seem to imply that they'd have an above-average population-to-crew ratio given that survivablity increases are mechanically implemented as increased crew gains and Soong-type androids are really, really hard to kill compared to organics.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Well, being inside the Nexus is sort of an approximation of heaven. ;)

They might not want to come back, you know.
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Well, given that Guinan was both inside and not... we could probably convince a few stalwart souls to return time and again and if not? well, it is the ultimate in retirement homes. no strain on the state (and while the Federation is mostly post scarcity, it is not there quite yet, so having Nexus retirement homes could ease up more resources for, say Starfleet. On the other hand, there is a limitation of space on planets, so a Nexus Retirement Home puts less strain on the local services)



KnightDisciple said:
I feel like the only thing Picard would not have a "High" ranking in would be Aggressiveness, which would be Medium. The man's not perfect, but he's a hell of a Captain.
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Except against the Borg... there his aggressiveness can go to "Are you sure you are not a Klingon?" levels

Simon_Jester said:
Picard is one of the few captains I can imagine being higher-Nerve than Michel Thuir.

Agreed. Though I could see a Medium in Politics, not because he lacks the skills but because uncompromising stands on principle are his signature, the way romancing space babes and talking computers to death is for Kirk.

I imagine there are a lot of political operators in the galaxy whose thoughts on Picard are "oh, great fellow, love the guy, but sometimes that ramrod in his spine shows and you just can't work with him." Very, very widely respected, very well liked even by his opponents within the bureaucracy. But not always the guy with the winning hand at the end of a political struggle within his own service.

That's because we've never seen Revak up close. He's spent his entire career tooling around in the background doing other stuff.

He could have a battery of quirks and personality traits as interesting as Straak's or T'Lorel's, but we wouldn't know because we voted NOT to get deluged with his Captain's Logs like we voted for them.
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That is the Thing Revak is largely a question mark to us, and that is in part the apprehension, he might be the second coming, for all we know, he might also be a political brownoser (or more likely he'll fall somewhere between both extremes) while his posting is not as critical as others, finding out his mettle first hand, in this one, makes me a little nervous...
 
Nervos Belli said:
What are we going to do when Data shows up? On the one hand, enslaving and mass producing his kind would go against everything the Federation stands for and make a mockery of our ideals. But on the other, never dealing with crew shortages again.
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Obvious solution: heavily fund research projects, and politely request Data's cooperation. Treat new androids with respect, instead of regarding them as items of personal property the way it seemed like every Starfleet officer off the Enterprise wanted to do in TNG.

I mean, it's not like Data ever showed any sign of reluctance or disinterest in the idea of advancing Federation knowledge of computer or android technology. He even built himself a 'daughter,' once- who died in large part because of the asinine behavior of the vice admiral in charge of Starfleet R&D at the time.

aeqnai said:
Rather fittingly, that means that Soong is somewhere between one and two decades ahead of everyone else when he first tries to build a complete positronic brain.
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No, he's one to two decades ahead of current theory. He's about 20-30 years beyond that in terms of current practice, as illustrated by the fact that he had a high-functioning android prototype in the 2330s while nobody else was able to duplicate his work until the 2360s at the earliest.

[I regard self-aware Star Trek holograms as an interesting "brute force" alternative to the Soong-type android; presumably they rely on a shipboard computer bank that's too big to fit inside an android chassis. I don't even know how that squares with 'mobile emitter' technology, though]

Chaos Blade said:
Well, given that Guinan was both inside and not... we could probably convince a few stalwart souls to return time and again and if not? well, it is the ultimate in retirement homes. no strain on the state (and while the Federation is mostly post scarcity, it is not there quite yet, so having Nexus retirement homes could ease up more resources for, say Starfleet. On the other hand, there is a limitation of space on planets, so a Nexus Retirement Home puts less strain on the local services)
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Problem: putting someone into the Nexus generally requires the sacrifice of a spaceship that smacks into it and is destroyed. That doesn't sound so cheap compared to the operating costs of a retirement home.

Another issue is that the Nexus only 'opens up' every thirty-something years; you can't actually be sure who you're going to get.

Except against the Borg... there his aggressiveness can go to "Are you sure you are not a Klingon?" levels
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Yes, but that's personal, not a trait of his underlying character. Against almost anyone else, and even against the Borg until they tried to assimilate him, Picard is non-aggressive to the point where it becomes the subject of parody.

That is the Thing Revak is largely a question mark to us, and that is in part the apprehension, he might be the second coming, for all we know, he might also be a political brownoser (or more likely he'll fall somewhere between both extremes) while his posting is not as critical as others, finding out his mettle first hand, in this one, makes me a little nervous...
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He successfully managed Vulcan Sector for years, he managed the Cheron for quite some time, up through 2304, in a time period when that was one of the biggest, best ships we had (before the Excelsior-spam really kicked in). We've never had a single indication that he's incompetent.

Does he actively work to further his own career? Yes. Does he network? Yes. Does he have powerful friends? Yes. But by the same token, the friends in question are Vulcans. Not a species known for giving in to their personal biases when it comes to selecting people they deem to be competent to hold responsible positions.
 
Simon_Jester said:
[I regard self-aware Star Trek holograms as an interesting "brute force" alternative to the Soong-type android; presumably they rely on a shipboard computer bank that's too big to fit inside an android chassis. I don't even know how that squares with 'mobile emitter' technology, though]
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It doesn't square at all with mobile emitter tech, actually, and for good reason. Only emitter capable of transporting a sapient hologram off a major computer bank is explicitly from half a millenium downstream from the TNG era. Futuretech is hax and it's probably best left at that.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Obvious solution: heavily fund research projects, and politely request Data's cooperation. Treat new androids with respect, instead of regarding them as items of personal property the way it seemed like every Starfleet officer off the Enterprise wanted to do in TNG.

I mean, it's not like Data ever showed any sign of reluctance or disinterest in the idea of advancing Federation knowledge of computer or android technology. He even built himself a 'daughter,' once- who died in large part because of the asinine behavior of the vice admiral in charge of Starfleet R&D at the time.

No, he's one to two decades ahead of current theory. He's about 20-30 years beyond that in terms of current practice, as illustrated by the fact that he had a high-functioning android prototype in the 2330s while nobody else was able to duplicate his work until the 2360s at the earliest.

[I regard self-aware Star Trek holograms as an interesting "brute force" alternative to the Soong-type android; presumably they rely on a shipboard computer bank that's too big to fit inside an android chassis. I don't even know how that squares with 'mobile emitter' technology, though]

Problem: putting someone into the Nexus generally requires the sacrifice of a spaceship that smacks into it and is destroyed. That doesn't sound so cheap compared to the operating costs of a retirement home.

Another issue is that the Nexus only 'opens up' every thirty-something years; you can't actually be sure who you're going to get.

Yes, but that's personal, not a trait of his underlying character. Against almost anyone else, and even against the Borg until they tried to assimilate him, Picard is non-aggressive to the point where it becomes the subject of parody.

He successfully managed Vulcan Sector for years, he managed the Cheron for quite some time, up through 2304, in a time period when that was one of the biggest, best ships we had (before the Excelsior-spam really kicked in). We've never had a single indication that he's incompetent.

Does he actively work to further his own career? Yes. Does he network? Yes. Does he have powerful friends? Yes. But by the same token, the friends in question are Vulcans. Not a species known for giving in to their personal biases when it comes to selecting people they deem to be competent to hold responsible positions.
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IIRC the mobile emitter is future tech from the space year 2800.
 
My weird, going theory RE: holograms is they actually run on an entirely different principle from positronic brains and the normal ship's computer, the actual computing for them and data storage being done on the photons making up the holograms themselves [somehow]. That's why when you shut a hologram off, it's off; and why the Doctor has to physically manifest in order to run Voyager as the ETH.
 
Iron Wolf said:
My weird, going theory RE: holograms is they actually run on an entirely different principle from positronic brains and the normal ship's computer, the actual computing for them and data storage being done on the photons making up the holograms themselves [somehow]. That's why when you shut a hologram off, it's off; and why the Doctor has to physically manifest in order to run Voyager as the ETH.
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This is how it always seemed to work.

I don't know WHY they would have designed it that way, of course, but...

Simon_Jester said:
Problem: putting someone into the Nexus generally requires the sacrifice of a spaceship that smacks into it and is destroyed. That doesn't sound so cheap compared to the operating costs of a retirement home.
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Not really. You can put the people in space suits and just launch them into the ribbon's path from a safe distance. Judging by what happened to Kirk, even the destructive-to-starship-hulls energy tendrils at the ribbon's leading edge seem to absorb people rather than killing them.

Or you could blow up a sun to change the ribbon's course. That might be easier.
 
So, adding up the additional votes since Random Member's tally, unless a bunch of people haven't voted or change their votes, it looks like we are going to have the following:

[X][FLEET] Rear Admiral Rachel Ainsworth
[X][TF1] Commodore Jessica Rivers
[X][TF2] Commodore Revak
[X][AUX] Commodore Alejandro Suarez - Expanded Field Repair capacity

This should be interesting. Long rambling speculation on what this could mean below.


Rear Admiral Rachel Ainsworth is the only choice with high aggression, and she doubles down on that by having low diplomacy. All her other rating's are mediums. So it looks like she's going to go for maximum expansion and won't having many issues with ordering our ships to engage others in order to claim territory.

This seems to make her the most likely Rear Admiral choice to actually grab enough territory to prevent the Sydraxians from linking up with the Cardassians. In return though, she does seem to carry the greatest risk of setting off a all out war.


Moving on, Jessica Rivers has a medium rating in all areas, with the rather interesting exception of nerve which is high. From quickly looking at the couple of other times she's showed up in the thread, she by all rights looks to be a prime example of the best Starfleet can offer, and doesn't seem to have the sort of issues or personality quirks that others have had over the years.

She successfully lead the Yukikaze (Miranda) through an event back in 2304, and when we were offered the chance to make her a EC captain, she was noted as "An aggressive but also a perceptive one, with a great sense for danger." and had a survival hull test bonus. As Commodore of Sol sector, she gives a evasion bonus and a re-roll for failed shield DC's to all ships.

All in all, it seems like we can expect her to be a very competent, perhaps with luck even truly exceptional, leader for the Vanguard Element forces since it seems like she can and will be aggressive or defensive as the situation demands.


Next, Revak is a pretty uninteresting choice, but only at first glance. He has a low aggression and high politics rating, with everything else being medium. I don't have much to say about his personality, we haven't seen much of him.
His rating's suggest that he will try to keep the Protective Element forces on task and carrying out their duties without unduly risking them.

It's worth noting that he has managed to become a Sector Commodore where quite a few others have not despite us not picking him for assignments. This seems to indicate that he is either rather competent but uninteresting, or actually truly good at whatever job he's put to since he's still keeps getting promoted, and put up for important assignments. It should be interesting to see which will be the case.

I will also note that he is the only one who is in any sort of danger of not being picked, with 23 votes vs Thuir's 16 if my counting was correct.


Finally, we have Alejandro Suarez who has both a high rule-abiding and politics rating, while his nerve is medium. His other ratings are low. He also appears to be new to this vote(a google search confined to this site got nothing), so I have nothing to say about him personality wise.

His ratings suggest that he will be a competent leader of the Auxiliary Elements, and will probably get along well with any member world organizations he has to deal with since he has a high politics rating. Beyond that, he gives us a useful bonus to keeping our ships repaired in the field which will help prevent us from having to send a damaged vessel all the way back to a Starfleet or member world shipyard berth for repairs.


So, in general it seems like we should expect our leader choices to go with a strategically aggressive policy of expansion carried out by competent leaders who aren't too aggressive themselves, backed up by a logistics element that can manage a greater ability to repair ships in the field.
 
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