- Location
- Patriarchova
Nah. I see the apiata as having evolved the way that they are naturally.
EDIT: well, as "naturally" as any other humanoid in a setting where they were all seeded by the Preservers.
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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
Nah. I see the apiata as having evolved the way that they are naturally.
EDIT: well, as "naturally" as any other humanoid in a setting where they were all seeded by the Preservers.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It would be nice to get an option next Snakepit to fix the "Internally+Externally obstructed" status of the Yrillians. That would be well worth the 30pp.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ehm. With all the 'let's spaghettify the timelines' I think most races have multiple origins.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The ambassador in question is reporting from the Licori capital, and we have virtually no explicit record of any direct contact between Federation officials and the Ked Paddah, while we have several instances of contact involving the Licori.
It seems very likely that the Licori have better PR exposure with us, among other things by virtue of being closer to our space. Until I get definitive indications that we're actually in contact with the Ked Paddah, I'm going to want to hold out the possibility that the Ked Paddah have complaints we don't know.
Like "the Licori were literally twelve hours from triggering the Hobus supernova eighty years early" or "yeah, a Licori-created biomonster ate one of our colonies a few years back" or "we spent three months trying to convince them to stop futzing around with polaric ion reactors an they wouldn't listen."
I'm not saying the Ked Paddah DO have something like that going on, but it's very plausible that they might, and we have to make allowances for "what if our diplomats just happen to have blown their first Gather Information check?"
If we declare the Licori to be victims of aggression, we're taking a very strong position that will compel us to take certain actions with respect to the Ked Paddah. I'd prefer not to take those actions prematurely.
I can sort of imagine Orions bioengineering something like the Apiata (matriarchal-eusocial, the egg-fertilizing sex being "drones" who exist mainly to reduce the pregnancy burden, putter around, and take care of the babies, lots and lots of optimized laborers). But I'm pretty sure the Apiata would know if that were the case and we've never gotten any indication of anything like that.
There is no possible way the Apiata handle that possibility gracefully. Their entire society is structured around very, very firmly defined gender roles (queen/drone/worker). And we know they don't really have the ability to cope with the concept of workers deviating from the 'worker' gender role. I'm pretty sure they don't really deal gracefully with "uppity" drones either.
When you need a random number in Star Trek, and the exact value doesn't matter, it's 47. It's traditional.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Leslie:
"So let me get this straight. You think that the Licori, one of the most inventive, uncontrolled species in the quadrant, are going around at night, planning experiments that can blow up stars and entire sectors. And your plan is to hand them Iconian technology?"
If the Ked Paddah have been directly harmed by the Licori already (with or without Licori knowledge), or if the Licori were likely to wreck the whole sector in the near future, the Ked Paddah may have decided that the risk is 'regrettably necessary.' I'm hoping that we can persuade them that having an outside force to sit on the Licori is preferable to war and broker a peace- but we're not going to be able to do that by labeling the Ked Paddah as aggressors before we're sure we've done our homework.
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- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Risky. We don't know Who's on the other end ...
I did vote earlier with "not enough info" for the "who's the aggressor" question.
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- Location
- Patriarchova
I'm also a little leery of the fact that the Licori are a Dune expie with the super science tacked on. The imperial society in Dune is extremely brutal; if the Licori are actually anything like that, then they'd be pretty dangerous neighbors to have even without the super science.
EDIT:
EDIT:
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Oh my god, it all makes so much sense.
This entire quest has been elaborate setup for her ultimate heist:
Stealing the Federation itself.
This entire quest has been elaborate setup for her ultimate heist:
Stealing the Federation itself.
- Location
- USA
... no it goes deeper.... who do you think Chekov works for in the future? How else could she steal objects from time? All of it was for preparing Earth to form the Federation. Her end goal: Steal the Continuum from the Q
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As I said before; there is an entire Directorate if the Tal Shiar entirely devoted to this sort of analysis. They are heavy /very/ drinkers > : V
Though I think the main explanation accepted my those that think about it is "Presumably the Humans are manipulating them or something" though TBG's increased diversity is probably making this increasingly untenable so now they're trying to figure out who "really" is behind it. (Human Augments maybe? Khan was a competitor kicked out of the ruling council and tried to steal a superweapon to regain power?)
Though, taking "Kindness through a dark lense" into account, a lot of those experts in the know have probably come to the horrific conclusion that the Federation is a social experiment that experienced containment failure and killed or replaced it's shadowbackers. This is mildly disturbing in a number of ways but it also indicates that Starfleet and the Federation is staffed entirely by idealists... which is worrisome because there is nothing more dangerous than a fanatic "doing the right thing". This might indicate that the Romulan attempt to expand at the expense of the Klingons is an attempt to get too big to get right to protected by a smiling Federation. (Giving me the amusing mental image of the Romulans providing support and Political and Diplomatic aid to the Pacifist faction)
I think you guys complicate the matter a bit too much - the Federation model, at least as I understand it, is not that radical/difficult to comprehend. It is a pretty simple federal system loosely based on democratic ideals, strong "local" autonomy and a comparatively high degree of agencification.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Great! Now try comprehending that from the point of view of an alien whose entire culture, stretching back for hundreds if not thousands of years, has never known democracy, has no tolerance for local autonomy that impairs the governing organs' control, and which prides itself on its willingness to succeed at any cost through a combination of sneakiness, ruthlessness, and self-sacrifice.
Suddenly not so easy or simple.
That is why Romulans and Cardassians struggle to analyze the Federation.
Suddenly not so easy or simple.
That is why Romulans and Cardassians struggle to analyze the Federation.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"What's a "Democratic ideal?""
We're waist deep in Orion Space right now. Sure we were "Invited in". But how hard is it to arraignot some useful collaborators? The Tal SHIAR could probably put together a Vulcan puppet government in a week and a Terran one in a couple of months if you asked them to.
aledeth
The Flesh is Weak
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Was the word order intentional?
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
The very idea of a "federal system" drives the Cardassian state to murder (and I am not speaking metaphorically), while the Romulan Star Empire is now in its most liberal form in centuries: an elected dictatorship driven by tradition, patronage, and being able to make political opponents disappear if they rock the boat too much.
If either government has experience with federalism or democracy it is buried centuries in their pasts.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I was trying to correct for phone Autocorrect and guess I got carried away. Whoops
> :' {
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It's like explaining color to someone who's not only blind, but has spent half a century carefully learning electromagnetism from an extremely anti-competent teacher. As such, not only do they not have sight themselves, not only do they not understand color intuitively, but even when you try to explain it in terms of purely abstract principles... They are very, very firmly convinced that ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY LYING!
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Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
More or less.
I'm sure both nations have experts who know more about how the Federation government functions than the average Federation Councillor, but their leadership and the majority of their decision-makers just don't have a frame of reference for how the Federation is even possible. It's like looking at an MC Escher drawing that's somehow part of the real world and watching someone navigate the part where the stairway flips from upside down to rightside up like that's normal.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There are probably a small handful of "Alarmist" Tal Shiar experts desperately calling for a return to isolation before the viral mimes of "General will", "Sapient Rights", and "Popular legitimacy" slip out of Federation containment and into the Romulan popular consciousness.
Most senators and senior military and Tal Shiar personnel literally can't picture that ever happening. And never will be able to. But then there is Romulan Kuznetsova screaming into the void about how "IT'S GOING TO GET INTO THE MEMESTREAM AND IN FIFTY YEARS WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE" and making little mashed spacepotato dams that overflow and get spacegravy all over the rest of the spacefood.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Looking at the Romulan Republic as per STO... the Romulan Kuznetsova is about as prophetic as the Earthling one is about the alien shapeshifters from the Gamma Quadrant.