Why'd you come up with combat 15 as a number? The task force, even reduced as it is, already has more than that in combat.
Regardless, you're just repeating what the post you're replying to, yet cherry-picked a single statement out of.
To make it sane to attack an enemy force you need a significant margin of combat superiority over them. A Strength 20 fleet would be foolish to attack a base defended by another Strength 20 fleet; it is unlikely to accomplish anything decisive by doing so, and is very likely to take heavy losses. Remember that we had roughly a 3:2 margin of superiority at Deva IX,
and that is why we won, that is why we inflicted more harm on the enemy than we received in turn, and were able to drive the enemy off before they could finish off our badly damaged ships. If we'd gone in with a weaker force (say, left one of the ConnieBees behind), then the outcome might have been quite different- we'd be talking about whether losing
Shield and
Endurance was a worthwhile trade for three
Hasques.
With the loss of an
Excelsior and a
Miranda, Rivers' squadron is down to 7+10+3 = Combat 20. As such, an enemy force with Combat greater than 15 or so is more than she would be wise to tackle. Given that even the Sydraxians are likely to reinforce their squadron back up to Combat 15 or so within a few months, that means we've effectively written Starfleet out of offensive operations for the next several quarters unless we provide significant reinforcements.
I just came to a different conclusion: I think we're being overly reactive and having the collective equivalent of attention deficit disorder, by treating the Gabriel Expanse campaign as more important than the Syndicate campaign. And I already explained why I don't believe that the ASTF ships aren't needed anymore in the post you replied to.
Basically, I compared the marginal benefit between a C6 H4 L5 ship (Avandar) + smaller ASTF versus C4 H3 L4 ship (Yukikaze) + keeping ASTF same size and actually better equipped (Stalwart), and I weighed the latter to be superior.
As noted by Briefvoice, juggling the ships as described
does act to keep up pressure on the Syndicate, but from different directions and with different emphasis.
Yukikaze continues to fight the Syndicate, but as an event response ship in Ferasa Sector (where her good Science/Presence stats matter more and her low Enlisted rating matters less).
Man, this isn't secret information. Current deployments and sector requirements are on the front page.
But I will say this. We could send the Avandar and not replace it with anything.
The reason that Ferasa sector has a D15 requirement is that we took the "Flooding the Sector" anti-Syndicate option where ships in that sector make a roll once per quarter for potential Impact. If you want to give that up for Ferasa sector (and lose maybe 12 impact over the course of a year) then the Cheron is perfectly capable of holding down the Sector's "real" D9 requirement in conjunction with the Ferasa starbase.
So when I'm breaking the Yukikaze loose, I'm actually doing it to preserve anti-Syndciate Impact.
Agreed.
There's that. But I'm actually sort of worried about what might happen if she wins.
The Cardassians oddly enough might be fine-ish if we attack and destroy their entry base, their reactions sort of point more towards shock that we are being aggressive rather than anger about us being so. They don't seem to be inclined towards futile vengeance.
The Sydraxians on the other hand seem to be pissed off already, and I can't see them taking Ainsworth destroying their entry base well at all. I'm rather afraid that we might end up making them a permanent enemy with this rather than encouraging them to discretely come to the negotiating table.
The problem is that the Treaty of Celos severely limits our diplomatic options. We are now
violating that treaty by continuing to covertly approach the Sydraxians. Among other things, that means that the Sydraxian version of the Hawks can threaten us with war against Cardassia if they even
find out we've been negotiating with the Sydraxian version of the Pacifists.
In which case we're not even going to be able to safely negotiate with the Hawks until they've been reduced to political irrelevance within Sydraxian space... which is probably going to require further military defeats.
But everyone is bandwagoning behind giving Ainsworth more combat power so I figured I might as well support it as well while hoping that perhaps giving her the transport capacity she wants might keep her too occupied to do anything till next year when we will have more combat power in case things go pear shaped.
"Give her nothing" actually picked up a lot of bandwagon votes this morning before Briefvoice's post, so I'm not sure. Plus, it doesn't make sense to lend your support to something you think is a stupid idea.
Trust your feelings, buddy.
Well to
parallel history...
Bajor Pact? Maybe Borandt or Kharhazad Pact?
I'm gonna go with Bajor Pact. Calling it that underlines the fact that ultimately the Cardassians are likely to use it as a way to impose tyranny over their client states.
We are stealing Cardassian clients and curb their access to an area they are interested in and kill their military. I agree with "They don't seem to be inclined towards futile vengeance." But for the next few decades, I bet, they will look into successful vengeance plots.
The problem is that the Sydraxians don't seem to have a Federation-esque mindset of "peace is inherently better than war, so any peaceful solution that isn't a disaster for us is better than a war."
If they succeed in hurting us? They take it as a sign that they should try harder because it lets them profit from their victories. If we hurt them? Suddenly they're vengeful! If neither side manages to hurt the other? They stew in their hostility and plan further attacks!
The only way we're going to change this situation is if we somehow convince the Sydraxians that continued hostility towards the Federation is simply unwise, and that a peaceful normalization of relations is to their advantage. But our ability to do that via diplomacy is crippled by the Treaty of Celos which treats the Sydraxians as wards of the Cardassian state who we're not allowed to talk to. Which basically leaves the option of pounding their military hard enough that they turn and say to the Cardassians "we don't want to be your attack dogs anymore."
Maybe I worded that poorly. I meant to say that I wouldn't expect the Cardassians to immediately declare open war if we take out their entry base. Try to sabotage us, continue skirmishing with us, ect; but not to start a war with us right now.
The Sydraxians on the other hand don't seem like they're taking our attack on them well at all emotionally. I'm worried that we might end up with a permanent enemy enlodged in the middle of Federation space in later years, depending on how they react.
Of course, events could play out differently and they could instead decide that since force isn't going anywhere, maybe they should try diplomacy. But I'm cautious/skeptical about assuming that they will just stop hating our guts if we constantly beat them in battle and destroy their stuff. That hasn't exactly been a winning assumption to make if you look at history.
Edit: I'll be very happy to be wrong about that though.
The thing is,
we don't control their minds. We can't even negotiate openly with their government, both because their dominant political faction doesn't want to (negative diplomatic relations) and because we signed a treaty agreeing that the Sydraxians are a vassal state of the Cardassian Empire that we're not even allowed to openly talk to.
We already tried going lightly on the Sydraxians and abstaining from damaging their bases,while waiting for them to decide that it was worth talking to us instead of fighting us. We tried that for about
five years. It didn't work. The Sydraxians continued to build up armed forces, attacked us repeatedly, took advantage of other crises to hit us from behind, forced us to redraw our very map in order to bolster our defenses against them, and literally never stopped being a problem this entire time up until the Treaty of Celos.
We can't say "by NOT launching this attack, we signal to the Sydraxians that they should relax and abandon violence against us and don't need more revenge." Or rather, we can say that, but it isn't true. The Sydraxians do not receive that message the way you/we might intend.
We have already NOT launched a dozen attacks against Sydraxian space and territory and defenses and bases. In effect, every quarter that went by from the time of their initial raid on Vega up to the present was a conscious decision on the Federation's part NOT to attack them. The Klingons, Romulans, or Cardassians would have attacked them repeatedly in that time, even assuming their first offensive didn't just bulldoze right over them.
But the Sydraxians never took our
inaction as a sign that they were 'supposed' to calm down. They just kept attacking us.
