Also @Ato I did write a Romulan government brief a while back. I never touched on how they'd handle citizenship, but I suspect they'd have something like the Starship Troopers model. At minimum I suspect you need to have served militarily and/or had some sort of glory (football star!) to get anywhere politically.

I wonder how much of a problem that would be though since I would expect the Romulans to have conscription.
 
Also @Ato I did write a Romulan government brief a while back. I never touched on how they'd handle citizenship, but I suspect they'd have something like the Starship Troopers model. At minimum I suspect you need to have served militarily and/or had some sort of glory (football star!) to get anywhere politically.

I wonder how much of a problem that would be though since I would expect the Romulans to have conscription.

I don't think ST is the right model. I think it's more the old active/passive citizenship idea, which in turn goes back to the old Roman plebes/equestrian/Senatorial class divide.

You have your 'passive' citizens who are citizens with certain rights and responsibilities and at least in theory there are limits to what the government is allowed to do/demand of them. Then you have your property owners who have an investment in the community, and your Senatorial class made up of the wealthy elite. Those guys actually get to vote in elections. It's all very oligarchic and also tied in with family bloodlines. Military service is a way to advance from one class to another, but not necessary if you're just born to a high rank.

EDIT: I think we're too tempted to go to 'has conscription' as the default behavior for baddies. A lot of very nasty societies in history didn't practice conscription from the general population.
 
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*snip*

Honiani hold art fairs in high regard, and people compete to produce the most beautiful designs.

*snip*

The Kadeshi don't really play games any more.
I somehow have this image of a small group (2-5) of Honiani working on this elaborate, intricate, beautiful sculpture/diorama. Something like a huge, soaring, fortress-monastery with big stained glass windows, flying buttresses, marble-white statues, colored stones on the walkway, little people-figures all around it.

And the Kadeshi bit gives me a sad. Until I think that, maybe the adults don't, but perhaps the children do. If not now, then soon. Soon, the laughter of children will again lift the spirits of all who may hear, even as they journey onward through the cold of space...
 
I'm of the opinion that the humans are history/social science nerds sufficiently that things like historical reenactment clubs, 20th century Wall Street mock competitions and Student UN sorts, would probably end up pretty damn popular across Sol Sector.
 
Caitians chase that goddamn red dot?? (BAD KUZ. THAT IS SPECIST!)
Also it doesn't make sense either. According to what a specialist told me chasing red dot just makes cats depressed. Apparently they start to doubt their own hunting abilities since they just can't seem to catch that goddamn prey.

Not a good entertainment.
 
@Iron Wolf : Yay cool omake!

@AKuz : Yay cool Romulan remarks!

I am incredibly tempted to vote for Samyr Kanil. She's my character, after all. But I won't, because we've got more berths coming up next turn and I'd rather give her the Sarek if possible to stack +S bonuses.
I'll be happy to vote her in at some point in the near future, though come to think of it she may get 'promoted out' soon if she's been a captain since the BIophage.

I will note that stacking science bonuses isn't always such a helpful strategy with high-end Explorer Corps ships. They nearly always pass their event checks anyway, so the odds of an improvement in outcomes from another marginal bonus to science aren't so great.

The flat stat bonuses on some of our captains are probably most useful on the Green and Blooded ships, where failures are a higher risk.

-he says right after AKuz talks at length about the fact the Romulans are in Sol orbit negotiating a treaty.

:V
Well, if we wind up giving up cloaking devices, at least we're getting a better treaty deal out of that than the canon Federation did at Algeron. I hope so, anyway.
 
EDIT: I think we're too tempted to go to 'has conscription' as the default behavior for baddies. A lot of very nasty societies in history didn't practice conscription from the general population.
I actually had Sweden in mind when I was writing that. But fair point, I suspect the Romulans would rather draft slaves first.

Although a point of Starship Troopers was also that volunteer armies are better than conscripted ones, so we end up looping back to Heinlein a bit. :D

I don't know if it has to be as simplistic as ST's Federal Service = Citizenship, but I expect as it was for the ancient Greeks and Romans, if you want to get anywhere in Romulan politics you better make sure you have a military career.
 
Also @Ato I did write a Romulan government brief a while back. I never touched on how they'd handle citizenship, but I suspect they'd have something like the Starship Troopers model. At minimum I suspect you need to have served militarily and/or had some sort of glory (football star!) to get anywhere politically.

I wonder how much of a problem that would be though since I would expect the Romulans to have conscription.

I'd say either military or some other kind of demanding civil service is a must if you want to have any social influence at all. (EDIT: ninja'd)

Getting back to the topic at hand, an increasingly popular game for betazoids since their discovery of space travel is...standing in close proximity to aliens while they play their own games and inhaling those sweet, sweet emotions of excitement and exertion and victory. There are those on Betazed who warn their people against this sort of spectatorism for fear that it will lead to traditional Betazoid competitive games falling into disuse, and lead to the overall stagnation and pacification of betazoid culture.
 
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Baseball, only you have to beat off the players trying to tag you out with the bat and foul balls can lead to honor duels between the pitcher and the batter.
In Klingon baseball, stealing plates is dishonorable literally impossible under the game rules, and the team trying to score points advances via baseball bat duels as you describe, one at a time. Getting your team's warriors onto the bases requires some really tough batters, but once you've got people on, say, first and second base, you can start using your punier or less experienced batters to 'push' forward and hope to beat the the enemy's third baseman by attrition.

EDIT:

Assuming you hit the ball... there is SOME challenge in getting from one base to the next before the ball makes it back into play; the Klingons play on much bigger diamonds than Earthlings do. The main challenge, of course, is in fighting the duel for possession of the base once you get there, since usually the players do make it there unless they had a very, very puny hit.
 
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In Klingon baseball, stealing plates is dishonorable and the team trying to score points advances via baseball bat duels as you describe, one at a time. Getting your team's warriors onto the bases requires some really tough batters, but once you've got people on, say, first and second base, you can start using your punier or less experienced batters to 'push' forward and hope to beat the the enemy's third baseman by attrition.

It is a long-standing debate whether to position your best warrior on first base, in order to eliminate the enemy before they gain a footing, or to act as a final guard on third, where the greatest honor can be defended in preventing the enemy's victory. It is considered particularly dishonorable to make your finest warrior your catcher, but weaker teams sometimes use such a strategy in order to surprise stronger ones. Such a "pinch hitter" usually hits from surprise as the enemy believes their victory is assured.
 
Getting back to the topic at hand, an increasingly popular game for betazoids since their discovery of space travel is...standing in close proximity to aliens while they play their own games and inhaling those sweet, sweet emotions of excitement and exertion and victory. There are those on Betazed who warn their people against this sort of spectatorism for fear that it will lead to traditional Betazoid competitive games falling into disuse, and lead to the overall stagnation and pacification of betazoid culture.
The phrase "I'm a sports addict" also takes on a very different connotation.
 
In Klingon baseball, hitting a home run (with the fences moved back outward to account for Klingon strength) entitles you to take multiple bases if you so choose, and you can singlehandedly score a point for your team in this way- if you can manage to win three duels in succession.

They sing songs about the baseball warriors who accomplish this feat.

:D
 
I can't think of any societies past the age of sailing who used conscription for their navy. Impressment of a neutral's merchant marine, sure; but that's still taking skilled sailors, not unskilled farmers

Edit, wow missed the mark on this post
 
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I can't think of any societies past the age of sailing who used conscription for their navy. Impressment of a neutral's merchant marine, sure; but that's still taking skilled sailors, not unskilled farmers

Edit, wow missed the mark on this post

TBG space armadas seem to employ only a few thousand crew, despite representing interstellar polities with populations in the tens of billions. Conscripts are going to be used as ground forces, as there will always be enough careerists to fill that tiny number of crew positions.

The only reasons Starfleet is having crew problems are a) because we're only getting the people who don't join their member fleets, which is probably a minority of those of military inclination, and b) we have ridiculously high standards (which pays off with our blooded/elite crew mechanic).
 
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TBG space armadas seem to employ only a few thousand crew, despite representing interstellar polities with populations in the tens of billions. Conscripts are going to be used as ground forces, as there will always be enough careerists to fill that tiny number of crew positions.

The only reasons Starfleet is having crew problems are a) because we're only getting the people who don't join their member fleets, which is probably a minority of those of military inclination, and b) we have ridiculously high standards (which pays off with our blooded/elite crew mechanic).
What ground forces? There's not enough transport capacity around to conquer a world. If you hold the orbit and demand surrender, and don't get one, you either start using the orbital bombardment, sent specialists for key locations/personnel, or go home.
 
I'm probably in the minority but I think these two captains make the cut.

[X][FYM1] USS S'harien Captain Demora Sulu

[X][FYM2] USS Atuin Captain Samyr Kanil
 
[X][FYM1] USS S'harien Captain T'Rinta
[X][FYM2] USS Atuin Captain Vol Chad

Torpedo Fairy.

What ground forces? There's not enough transport capacity around to conquer a world. If you hold the orbit and demand surrender, and don't get one, you either start using the orbital bombardment, sent specialists for key locations/personnel, or go home.

Ironically it turns out that if you actually want to do something with a planet, you usually need its population, and starship weapons have limited applicability in counterinsurgency. If you want to control something, enforce your laws, etc. then it comes back to sending in infantry and rifles followed by police. It always does.
 
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It shouldn't be too hard to build troopships with carrying capacity on the order of ten thousand soldiers in TBG; you could launch a pretty large invasion army. They'd still be very, very outnumbered by the opposition on the ground, though, IF the opposition on the ground is united and IF the planetary population is in the billions as you might expect from an Earthlike planet at or near carrying capacity.
 
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