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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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The sad thing about the Ares class is that I actually really like the look it has.
 
Still I'm interested in the personnel tech affiliate cause getting armor and personal weapons is one of the hardest sells in the federation and having an affiliate/member who does as a matter of survival makes it something more doable, we should really look into getting an actual marine force/hazard team for start fleet at some point, especially when the borg and dominion start to become a thing.
 
Erandil said:
You mean the same admirals we had to convince the Federation to allow us to replace one after another? If those guys ad been as radioactive as you make them out replacing them should have cost us far less pp (at least in my opinion). Rather than not liking him it seemed to me like the liked him a bit too much...
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Preserving continuity of the organization matters. If you replace everyone you lose a lot of organizational knowledge and skill. (As we are witnessing daily now in the US.) Also replacing everyone was something Rodgers did himself as part of what the Council found objectionable. They do not want to encourage a repeat performance of that sort, and they did not get one, as the continued service of Seruk shows.
 
TBH, the only reason to ax Seruk is the OOC one that he's not giving a bonus.
 
Night said:
Preserving continuity of the organization matters. If you replace everyone you lose a lot of organizational knowledge and skill. (As we are witnessing daily now in the US.) Also replacing everyone was something Rodgers did himself as part of what the Council found objectionable. They do not want to encourage a repeat performance of that sort, and they did not get one, as the continued service of Seruk shows.
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Seruk is only leaving that slot when the great personnel director in the higher planes of subspace gives Seruk his well deserved promotion and endless vacation days.

Also: I find it amusing that we'very essentially decided to lock ourselves out of a game mechanic because we like the idea of Seruk always being there. (That and laziness. But mostly amusement at Father Time sitting in that chair forever as his own character)

It's really quite neat.
 
AKuz said:
Seruk is only leaving that slot when the great personnel director in high planes of subspace gives Seruk his well deserved promotion.

Also: I find it amusing that we'very essentially decided to lock ourselves out of a game mechanic because we like the idea of Seruk always being there. (That and laziness. But mostly amusement at Father Time sitting in that chair forever as his own character)

It's really quite neat.
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Well it is possible we could get the [Old Guard] tag removed without replacing Seruk.
 
AKuz said:
Seruk is only leaving that slot when the great personnel director in high planes of subspace gives Seruk his well deserved promotion.

Also: I find it amusing that we'very essentially decided to lock ourselves out of a game mechanic because we like the idea of Seruk always being there. (That and laziness. But mostly amusement at Father Time sitting in that chair forever as his own character)

It's really quite neat.
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I actually find it annoying. Seruk has grown on me, and I'd like to be able to keep him and get at that mechanic.
@OneirosTheWriter
Is there some way to get [Old Guard] removed from Seruk? PP expenditure equal to what replacing him would cost?
 
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Omake - Back from Retirement Pt 1 - Leila Hann
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    • Omake: Back from Retirement (pt 1)


    A cold, sick chill oozed through Senmursh's flesh as he read the headline. There had to be some mistake. Some distortion of Federation propaganda. This was completely out of character.

    He looked up from the PADD and bit his thick, jade-colored lip - a bad habit he thought he had gotten over decades ago - and began pacing around the lounge. A few other passengers looked up at him, not a few narrowing their eyes in suspicion, or condemnation. Entirely by reflex, he straightened himself up to his full, broad shouldered, cybernetics-plated 2 meter height, and they looked away again. He could barely even acknowledge them right now.

    Selling two hundred thousand Amarki into slavery, or holding that city hostage for Federation concessions, those would make sense. He would think the Shodar responsible was being foolhardy, provoking the Federation like that with it already on the warpath, and quite possibly a liability to the entire Syndicate, but he at least would understand. But this? Sheer, malicious genocide without a strip of latinum in sight? Why would they do that? Why would anyone do that?

    He left the freighter's lounge and found a suitably dark and miserable corner between the mess hall bathrooms and the sickbay. Leaning against the bulkhead, Senmursh closed his eyes, pulling up years of old news articles on his HUD implant. The articles he had ignored when they came out, or rationalized away, or disregarded as Federation or Union slander. The ill-timed slave raid. The repeated use of Orion shields. Each of those could be explained away in isolation, but this was different, and it cast everything that came before it in an altogether different light.

    It was an unquestioned fact, in the poorest slums of Alukk, that Mama Syndicate was the only one looking out for you. Sure, you had to pay her for it; nothing in this galaxy comes for free. You had to fight for her, pay protection money, and occasionally sell her a cousin who you never much liked anyway. But the important truth was that this was a transaction. Both parties benefitted. The urban poor were able to feed themselves without having to rent out their bodies for Hypercorp medical experiments.

    Senmursh reread the point that the first article had made, comparing this to something from Human history. An organization of religious fanatics who had deliberately antagonized the most powerful nation-state of their day to provoke a harsh response against their own countrymen, in order to improve their popular support against an outside aggressor. Senmursh had never been one for history, let alone alien history, but even an unschooled former-dirtbait like him could see the parallels, and couldn't dispute them. It wasn't the Amarki who the bomb had been meant to kill, not really. It was Zerysh. Morlun. Mother. Aunt Senzal. And all the other family members whose existence he actually acknowledged.

    Just so that the one or two who survived the reprisals, the people Senmursh had so long ago sacrificed everything to lift from penury, would be impassioned to do the same as him.

    Some transaction.

    "Is everything alright, my good sir?"

    Senmursh looked up. A slim, athletic-looking Human woman stood before him, eyebrows slightly raised. There was some faint scarring on her forehead and neck. Semnursh had the strangest feeling that he had seen this face before, but he couldn't for the life of him recall where.

    "Do I know you?" He straightened himself up, giving his huge, metal-flecked shoulders a little intimidating flex. Just in case.

    "I don't think so," the Human replied, "at least, not by name. But I have long prided myself on never, ever forgetting a face."

    He knew it was coming. Saw it in her eyes before it happened. But he was still saving up for that combat reflex genemod, and she was just too damned fast. A bony, tan fist cracked into his neck, contracting his chin downward and filling his throat with blood. He tried to raise the wrist that held his flechette launcher, but she must have scanned him before approaching; her very next, lightning fast motion cracked his fingers against the bulkhead beneath her foot, and the next brought both her fists together into the one unarmored spot on his sensitive belly.. He heaved, nearly spilling his guts, as the tiny-by-comparison woman moved around behind him and put a knife to his throat.

    "My apologies for the discomfort; they didn't let me bring my phaser onboard. Now, I wonder what the background check they run when I bring you to the brig will turn up?"

    "Sta...wait..." Senmursh choked out, somehow managing to speak despite the number this crazy Human had done on his neck, "I can...there's..."

    The blade pulled itself tighter against his neck. "Oh? This had better be good."

    The bulkheads seemed to be closing in. A hundred voices were yelling at Senmursh inside his head, over each other. He felt as if not one knife was pressing itself to his throat, but many, held by so many different men and women. A single image rose above it all, though. His family back on Alukk, Zerysh and Morlun and all the others, cowering beneath the phaser rifles of a bloodlusted Amarki gendarme.

    "I...planted a bomb. Sedative gas in the freighter's...air ducts. My ship..." he coughed, spitting out blood as the nano-sutures in his neck slowly did their work, "...will ambush the freighter in less than an hour."

    "Why would you be telling me this? If it were true, you'd have only to wait in the brig until your shipmates rescued you."

    Senmursh squeezed his eyes shut, daring himself to say the words. "I don't want them to rescue me."


    (part two)
     
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    • AKuz said:
    Seruk is only leaving that slot when the great personnel director in the higher planes of subspace gives Seruk his well deserved promotion and endless vacation days.

    Also: I find it amusing that we'very essentially decided to lock ourselves out of a game mechanic because we like the idea of Seruk always being there. (That and laziness. But mostly amusement at Father Time sitting in that chair forever as his own character).
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    I mean, we haven't actually decided to that. There have been several votes were we came near to making Seruk retire, and I think we're only waiting on the Snakepit where we can spare the pp. I'm all for encouraging him to resign next time we have enough political will to get to third tier priorities.
     
    @Leila Hann
    Eyup. That's probably a problem that the syndicate is having. People realizing that their loved ones are getting statistically sacrificed to try and create propaganda and going rogue.
     
    Briefvoice said:
    I mean, we haven't actually decided to that. There have been several votes were we came near to making Seruk retire, and I think we're only waiting on the Snakepit where we can spare the pp. I'm all for encouraging him to resign next time we have enough political will to get to third tier priorities.
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    That's sorta what I meant by the laziness thing. We don't really care enough about him for Seruk to move up from third their priority. Enough people are amused by his antics that we don't care enough to really push.

    The best solution is to find a way to remove that [Old Guard] tag
     
    Briefvoice said:
    The Licori are not the safest neighbors in the galaxy, are they? I mean apart from being an autocratic empire. One begins to understand why the Ked Peddah felt they had to launch their war.
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    Pity Straak wasn't there; he would have found a way to tame it.

    Leila Hann said:
    My take on Rogers is that he never grew out of the pre-khitomer mentality, and the growing gulf between him and the council led to some ugly developments.

    He wasn't actually plotting a coup, but he gave them reason to suspect that he was.
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    It's worth remembering that during the events of Khitomer there really was a terrorist conspiracy among Starfleet to keep up a war with the Klingons (e.g. the entire plot of The Undiscovered Country). We never actually find out all the people involved, but it included "Fleet Admiral" Cartwright, who going by his rank may have actually been "Commander, Starfleet," especially in the more... 'petite' version of TBG's Federation.

    With that as their background from 2294, it's easy to imagine why the Council of 2300 has strong reasons to doubt the political trustworthiness of yet another Starfleet admiral who wants to build up the fighting side of the fleet to pre-Khitomer levels in the absence of an obvious threat. Especially if said admiral DOES have some secrets, like (as per @Ato's omake) secretly funneling resources from Excelsior production to the Ares prototype.

    Briefvoice said:
    That's probably about right, but the extra irony is that in less than a decade after he left we're back to the pre-Khitomer mentality... only with the Cardassians instead of the Klingons. And with an actual Hawks faction in the Council that could have been his patron. You have to think that Rogers considers himself to be "right man, wrong decade".
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    Agreed- but, well, everything I just said. ;)

    Jrin said:
    Just curious is the red colour aspect of the uniform is Starfleet tradition or homage to the TV series?
    Honesty I find that much red tacky same with the skin tight uniform.
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    It's a homage to the movie-era uniforms currently worn by our crews (think Wrath of Khan or The Undiscovered Country). The idea being to preserve the 'look' of the old uniforms, on a new generation of uniform that's a bit tighter and trimmer (but still pants/undershirt/shirt and not a jumpsuit or whatever).

    [I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason they switched over to the red jacket uniforms is because they were shooting a cast of TOS-era actors who were now well into middle age, so they needed somewhat looser-fitting clothing :p]

    AKuz said:
    Yey! Docana had a time adventure!

    : D
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    Yaaay adventure!

    =>( =D )

    [Hey, it's my best ASCII Constellation]

    Although I would really like to see the unexpurgated version of that log. We got to see Nash's time travel log, after all. :p

    DarknessSmiles said:
    so maybe i missed the post detailing some changes to the turn order, but what happened to the Master of Orion posts?
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    They're being shifted to a quarterly basis.

    Random Member said:
    Yay, new species! Deciding who to diplopush next Snakepit got alot harder now.
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    It sounds like they're far enough from Cardassia that pushing them may not be so urgent. That said, some species are blocked and we can only approach them covertly, which complicates matters.

    Leila Hann said:
    One of these days we will make first contact with a species that ISN'T in the middle of a political shitstorm.

    I'm surprised Rosalee thinks fluffy puffy-equivalent monsters are anything to worry about. Wasn't she the one who discovered the giant psionic death starfish?
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    I think she does consider them something to worry about, she's just such a badass it doesn't get into her reports. :p

    Briefvoice said:
    A Connie-B passed a Presence test! Who needs a 4P, eh Renaissance?
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    Leslie:

    "Just because the lounge furniture comes from an old warehouse from the '60s doesn't mean the old girls can't play host-est with the most-est."

    AlphaDelta said:
    Can I just comment on how Awesome Rosalee is? Walking through a hallway, and whistling while an assassin with a personal shield follows.

    Well, this is why she had the personal combat bonus.
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    :D

    This is why she always had the personal combat bonus. And retains it, despite being 55 years old.

    Erandil said:
    You mean the same admirals we had to convince the Federation to allow us to replace one after another? If those guys ad been as radioactive as you make them out replacing them should have cost us far less pp (at least in my opinion). Rather than not liking him it seemed to me like the liked him a bit too much...
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    We never or hardly ever actually spent pp on the Old Guard officers, we just waited for them to retire. Which they all did, except for like one guy that we 'rehabilitated' by giving him a new job. What would have cost 20pp is forcing those people into retirement. You shouldn't be asking "why was getting the Council to pressure those admirals into retirement so expensive?" You should be asking "why was it even possible?"

    Plus if they really wanted to bring in an outsider they could have easily gone to the "local" navies instead of picking a Vice Admiral (which even on sabbatical is not that far removed from power as we have seen multiple times in this quest)
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    They picked a vice admiral who had herself been pressured into going on sabbatical by the Rogers admiralty. In other words, someone not connected with Rogers.

    Ato said:
    Ironically around about now there are likely more than a few mid-level officers who came up during Rogers term who are beginning to think he might have been right. There was a new threat, and Starfleet had required a new capable cruiser, and was forced to scramble to develop one all the whilst under threat of war
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    That said, the Rennie is turning out to be a much, much more economical and practical ship than the Ares appeared to be, and it has Science/Presence stats that are up there with anything else we have. Whoever our chief designer on the Rennies was, they did a much better job than their predecessor fifteen years earlier.

    AKuz said:
    Also: I find it amusing that we'very essentially decided to lock ourselves out of a game mechanic because we like the idea of Seruk always being there. (That and laziness. But mostly amusement at Father Time sitting in that chair forever as his own character)

    It's really quite neat.
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    I like it too.

    Headcanon: Seruk is providing us with a bonus, we just haven't noticed because he's been in that chair so long no one can remember the 'before time' when the bonus did not apply. :D
     
    THIRD AND LAST OF THE SERUKIAN OMAKES! Probably. I reserve the right to revisit this subject.

    The Old Man

    The longest-serving Rear Admiral in Starfleet Command. The constant, the one who did not change, whose presence could be relied upon. Rear Admiral Seruk would even admit to a few people he could be candid with that he liked that role. The threats that Tactical tracked were ever-changing. Operations constantly shifted to meet new demands. The only certainty in Starfleet Command was change and finding Seruk in his office. Kahurangi had understood the value in that, in a fixed point that gave a reference to others. Sousa, more dynamic and outward-focused, seemed to take him for granted.

    Rather than a sign of being underappreciated, that seemed like a victory. Never doubt, it said, that Seruk will be there. Rely upon that fact as you do gravity and the other properties of matter. High praise in its way, showing a certain trust. Not the highest he had been paid in his opinion, though.

    All things fear Time, one of his subordinates had quipped, but Time fears the Rear Admiral. Seruk will out-wait eternity in that office, the ever-reliable Old Man. No one would be sure what to do if the name on the doorway changed.

    Called indispensable in a roundabout way, but called it nonetheless. The highest praise.
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    All I want for Christmas is a chance to get Seruk a bonus, Onerios.
     
    Briefvoice said:
    I mean, we haven't actually decided to that. There have been several votes were we came near to making Seruk retire, and I think we're only waiting on the Snakepit where we can spare the pp. I'm all for encouraging him to resign next time we have enough political will to get to third tier priorities.
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    I have become... opposed. He's like a mascot for Starfleet's bureaucracy.
     
    It would be amusing if it turns out that Seruk's bonus has been the default state of affairs in some way.

    And yeah, the Rennie is way better than the Ares. Using the projected design spec (which was apparently technologically unworkable, mind) It's down one point of C and D, for two points of S, and half the size. If we were to design a pure war cruiser off the Rennie hull I'd expect it to be overall better, because I'm pretty sure we could get more that just a point of C and D if we wrote off two points of S and 3 points of P. The result is NOT a ship we'd ever be able to deploy for independent operations, however, so it's problematic from any non-militarist perspective.
     
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