- Location
- madison
I find it amusing within a day of someone asking how photon lances work we have 3 different explanations.
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?
People writing about your OC's weapons systems and you're sitting in the Too Busy corner like
But Surrender, Trager! indeed.
Oh shit, Freespace 2 ends with a star going supernova......
We're actually on the same page as for physical looks goes. Photon Lance is drawn from Stellaris-by-proxy: I am pretty sure @OneirosTheWriter picked it up from me mentioning how they were used in Stellaris in a Seyek-related private message. In Stellaris they're pretty generic red pew-pew beams; however as time has gone on and having considered @Leila Hann 's artwork I picture their firing sequence, sound, and look as being like the Freespace beam cannons. Indeed, I don't think Seyek ships are too off the design aesthetics of the Vasudans. However, I thought the Seyek would just get fuckhuge phaser cannons if anything, so don't look to me as to how photon lances are 'supposed' to function. For what it's worth, I assume they're a stepping stone to phaser arrays.
But Surrender, Trager! indeed.
Oh shit, Freespace 2 ends with a star going supernova......
- Location
- Germany
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
Our Linderly warns us of the consequences, we should listen.
We better not make the Council get used to refusing our ideas though... might make our work more difficult.
@Briefvoice Thank you for the omake! I like the interview style.
Our Linderly warns us of the consequences, we should listen.
We better not make the Council get used to refusing our ideas though... might make our work more difficult.
@Briefvoice Thank you for the omake! I like the interview style.
- Location
- Earth
This is the winning vote.
You can blame Briefvoice for the wording; although the only other version, by SynchronizedWritersBlock, didn't bother to include anything about purchasing ships either.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
That wasn't apparent in the wording: "Approach the Expansionists. Doubtless they have heard of pro-Cardassian leanings among the Yrillians that would have them siding with the Sydraxians in the event of a general war. The Council has also given frequent reminders of how squeezed Starfleet is for transports in its auxiliary fleet. Why not solve one problem with another? Yrillians are famous for building more ships than they strictly need. We would like to begin an outreach program by hiring Yrillian cargo ships and freighters to alleviate our temporary shipping crunch. Depending on availability, this could be extended to include other auxiliary ship work where the Federation's expansion has left us straining. The goal is to alleviate that strain and simultaneously to show ordinary Yrillian work gangs how working with the Federation aligns with their interests, thus increasing pro-Federation sentiment among the Yrillians at large."
Anyway, as is evident from all the voting, obviously the bandwagon vote for the Sousa deal failed for us this time. A pity, since there was a lot of discussion that lead up to it. Forgot who introduced the idea, probably BV or SWB from the snakepit voting, but it was an ambitious long shot that tried to brush off the security and political concerns.
Still, some silver linings. We did get some useful info out of it - that despite having to choose a particular faction to approach, the whole Council can get involved. If the approached faction is sufficiently enthusiastic about a proposal and no other faction has beefs with it - like our first two deals - then it'll fly through with minimal cost. But if the deal isn't well received or at least palatable to all factions, then we'll get the political wrangling that we're seeing now.
- Location
- Australia
I don't want people to be blamed over whether people consider something to have "worked out" or not. The proposals for Sousa are by their nature very tricky to get right. It's the reason I don't use votes that open ended elsewhere.
I leave it this tricky so Sousa has the maximum flexibility to work with to make use of her ability, and because the ability is honestly pretty powerful as is!
So no going salty at other voters about things like this.
I leave it this tricky so Sousa has the maximum flexibility to work with to make use of her ability, and because the ability is honestly pretty powerful as is!
So no going salty at other voters about things like this.
SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
All the reasons have been gone through already. It was a decent idea and in terms of affiliate politics could have been a potential masterstroke to get the Yrillians look at us favourably, but the costs (both explicit in terms of PP, and the barely-hidden espionage combined with the political *****storm) are just too high to accept.
Better cut our losses at this stage, and simply move to implement some of the better stuff ourselves (like building the starbases, the refit) at our own pace.
Preferably after we increase auxiliary fleet capability significantly.
All the reasons have been gone through already. It was a decent idea and in terms of affiliate politics could have been a potential masterstroke to get the Yrillians look at us favourably, but the costs (both explicit in terms of PP, and the barely-hidden espionage combined with the political *****storm) are just too high to accept.
Better cut our losses at this stage, and simply move to implement some of the better stuff ourselves (like building the starbases, the refit) at our own pace.
Preferably after we increase auxiliary fleet capability significantly.
On a more general note RE: photon lances: I liked @Leila Hann 's idea that they're actually Fiiral in origin and used primarily in ground facilities to counter the superior Seyek fleet.
Also @Night technically speaking phasers can't be fired easily at warp -- you have to perfectly match velocities and use some sort of jacketing as per the TNG tech manual. Meanwhile torps are good to go so long as you fire them while at warp.
I imagine you could add some lines of technowhatsit to the other two ideas for photon lances to have them capable of firing at warp.
For what it's worth I really like all three proposals! I think @random_npc 's is the most unique, @tryrar 's the more obvious photon torpedo replacement, and @Night 's is more consistent with stuff we've seen from say, the Romulans. On a bonus round Tryrar and Night seem more Freespace while NPC's seems more Stellaris. At the same time, none of them quite synch with my thinking that they're related to phaser arrays.
Also, none of y'all made sure to mention the Akira class has a warp core that is oriented to run lengthwi---
Also @Night technically speaking phasers can't be fired easily at warp -- you have to perfectly match velocities and use some sort of jacketing as per the TNG tech manual. Meanwhile torps are good to go so long as you fire them while at warp.
I imagine you could add some lines of technowhatsit to the other two ideas for photon lances to have them capable of firing at warp.
For what it's worth I really like all three proposals! I think @random_npc 's is the most unique, @tryrar 's the more obvious photon torpedo replacement, and @Night 's is more consistent with stuff we've seen from say, the Romulans. On a bonus round Tryrar and Night seem more Freespace while NPC's seems more Stellaris. At the same time, none of them quite synch with my thinking that they're related to phaser arrays.
Also, none of y'all made sure to mention the Akira class has a warp core that is oriented to run lengthwi---
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
Well that's just obvious. We can team up to write the omake where the first Akira takes out an enemy ship by ejecting their warp core into it after the other weapons malfunction.
- Location
- Patriarchova
The reason I'm salty is because getting Yrillian help with our logistics was originally my idea, but then it got mutated into something completely different from what I intended and which the council (rightly, I think) shot down.
The name "photon lance" suggests some kind of laser to me.
I had actually been planning on suggesting my own explanation of the photon lance, fairly similar to @random_npc's, except that instead of actually firing a subspace bubble at the target it just uses one to amplify a laser beam which is then shot at the enemy conventionally. Its invention was a product of the latest fiiral energy weapon research and the latest seyek warp theory, combined into a single project by the brilliant Feer-Ssae engineering team on Rethelia.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think that reflects negotiating with people with their own agendas quite nicely.
Chaos Blade
Procrastinating Writer
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
- Location
- Patriarchova
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
I think I'll reiterate what I said while the vote was under discussion:
Don't vote for something different than what you intend.
Or in other words, for Sousa Deals, that's incorrect - the Just So wording is part of what we're expected to develop with a Sousa Deal.
I think I'll reiterate what I said while the vote was under discussion:
Don't vote for something different than what you intend.
Or in other words, for Sousa Deals, that's incorrect - the Just So wording is part of what we're expected to develop with a Sousa Deal.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
[wakes up]
Welp, looks like I'm in a small minority again.
Looking at the Pacifist proposal, a fair chunk of it is stuff we'd want to buy anyway, even if we might not have decided to buy it next year.
The starbase at New Seoul presumably gives us +5D in Sol sector (one of the few places where we're stuck keeping a substantial garrison fleet no matter what, and just parking an explorer doesn't satisfy the defense requirements). Combined with the Betazed starbase it gives us very heavy fortifications in Sol and frees up multiple ships to be deployed where needed. Getting this starbase built would normally cost us 15+12+12 political will, totalling 39pp.
The "Pacifist Constellation" refit is really very good, uprating the Constellations into cruisers whose event response is very much on par with the Constitution-B and Renaissance. I'd say it's easily worth the 18pp we'd normally spend on a Constellation refit (frankly we were planning to do this anyway). Maybe even a little more because it's in many ways a better deal than the refit options we already had.
So about 60pp of the Pacifists' price is stuff we might reasonably have wanted anyway.
Development's deal has two starbases that would cost 27pp each, and the extra auxiliary berths are easily worth enough to make up most of the balance even if many of us didn't want that many auxiliary berths that soon... but OW the mining colony option is a bitter pill to swallow. Depending on how many mining colonies are discovered in the next few years we could be writing off the pp, rp, and potentially sr trickles of several colonies.
[X] Accept the Pacifist Proposal (Earmarks 100pp)
-New Member World 3mt berth to be built at Chelok-An (Vulcan)
-New Member World 1mt berth to be built at Rixx Loxhanda DY (Betazed)
-New Nacelle Assembly Facility to be built at Sar Alpha -Tellar Sector (between Tellar and Vulcan)
-New Starbase at New Seoul - Sol Sector (Next to Gaeni on the eastern edge of Sol sector)
-New Pacifist Spec Constellation refit [+2 S, +1 P,L,D, for 25br 25sr, 4 turns, new unit cost of 70/50]
Welp, looks like I'm in a small minority again.
Looking at the Pacifist proposal, a fair chunk of it is stuff we'd want to buy anyway, even if we might not have decided to buy it next year.
The starbase at New Seoul presumably gives us +5D in Sol sector (one of the few places where we're stuck keeping a substantial garrison fleet no matter what, and just parking an explorer doesn't satisfy the defense requirements). Combined with the Betazed starbase it gives us very heavy fortifications in Sol and frees up multiple ships to be deployed where needed. Getting this starbase built would normally cost us 15+12+12 political will, totalling 39pp.
The "Pacifist Constellation" refit is really very good, uprating the Constellations into cruisers whose event response is very much on par with the Constitution-B and Renaissance. I'd say it's easily worth the 18pp we'd normally spend on a Constellation refit (frankly we were planning to do this anyway). Maybe even a little more because it's in many ways a better deal than the refit options we already had.
So about 60pp of the Pacifists' price is stuff we might reasonably have wanted anyway.
Development's deal has two starbases that would cost 27pp each, and the extra auxiliary berths are easily worth enough to make up most of the balance even if many of us didn't want that many auxiliary berths that soon... but OW the mining colony option is a bitter pill to swallow. Depending on how many mining colonies are discovered in the next few years we could be writing off the pp, rp, and potentially sr trickles of several colonies.
[X] Accept the Pacifist Proposal (Earmarks 100pp)
-New Member World 3mt berth to be built at Chelok-An (Vulcan)
-New Member World 1mt berth to be built at Rixx Loxhanda DY (Betazed)
-New Nacelle Assembly Facility to be built at Sar Alpha -Tellar Sector (between Tellar and Vulcan)
-New Starbase at New Seoul - Sol Sector (Next to Gaeni on the eastern edge of Sol sector)
-New Pacifist Spec Constellation refit [+2 S, +1 P,L,D, for 25br 25sr, 4 turns, new unit cost of 70/50]
I don't think this idea was as ill-conceived as some here are afraid of, overall; I recognize that there are problems but I'd rather deal with the problems in hopes of getting an unusual "in" with someone. Also, I don't think that minor changes in wording would have done much to make this less expensive or more favorable, though major changes might have done so.
I don't think a purely outreach deal would have fallen on so many deaf ears in the Council.
Keeping the cargo part was necessary to the maneuvering to get votes in the thread (ha), but it was always the most problematic part of the whole thing to me.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, we're going to be best off just stating what our end goal is. It might not be as good as a good write-in, but if we fail then we end up with a situation like this.
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
[X] Retract the proposals (0pp)
- Location
- Australia
Well, the major point to keep in mind is that in terms of these deals with the Council:
The people you are bargaining do have specific philosophies that I consider when evaluating any proposal (these are the straight up ideological concerns).
A specific strength on the council - I attempt to map your path to 23 as best I can.
Has specific worlds in their parties.
In this case, the Development faction had broader intentions, so that's what they wanted from the deal. The Mercantilists were perfectly fine with all of this, so they asked for nothing. The expansionists were on board, though not with any great enthusiasm. The Hawks had zero intention of allowing Yrillians directly into the tradelanes. The Pacifists had few strong feelings either way, so you would have to pork-barrel for them specifically to convince them to come along.
In the event you stuck with a purely ship-purchasing approach, the Mercantilists would have been reluctant, because they'd rather that sort of long-term purchase stay within the Federation to give industry things to do, the Pacifists would have still been totally ambivalent, the Development faction would be a little more mollified on the idea that you were shirking your logistics shipbuilding, the Expansionists would be ambivalent, and the Hawks would be ambivalent. The costs would be relatively low, but so would the rewards.
In the event you stuck with a pure diplomatic outreach approach, you'd face modest opposition from the Development faction, support from the Pacifists, modest interest from the Expansionists, ambivalence from the Mecantilists, and the Hawks would be a toss-up, probably come down to how you worded it. You'd need to pork-barrel the Mercantilists to get it through.
The people you are bargaining do have specific philosophies that I consider when evaluating any proposal (these are the straight up ideological concerns).
A specific strength on the council - I attempt to map your path to 23 as best I can.
Has specific worlds in their parties.
In this case, the Development faction had broader intentions, so that's what they wanted from the deal. The Mercantilists were perfectly fine with all of this, so they asked for nothing. The expansionists were on board, though not with any great enthusiasm. The Hawks had zero intention of allowing Yrillians directly into the tradelanes. The Pacifists had few strong feelings either way, so you would have to pork-barrel for them specifically to convince them to come along.
In the event you stuck with a purely ship-purchasing approach, the Mercantilists would have been reluctant, because they'd rather that sort of long-term purchase stay within the Federation to give industry things to do, the Pacifists would have still been totally ambivalent, the Development faction would be a little more mollified on the idea that you were shirking your logistics shipbuilding, the Expansionists would be ambivalent, and the Hawks would be ambivalent. The costs would be relatively low, but so would the rewards.
In the event you stuck with a pure diplomatic outreach approach, you'd face modest opposition from the Development faction, support from the Pacifists, modest interest from the Expansionists, ambivalence from the Mecantilists, and the Hawks would be a toss-up, probably come down to how you worded it. You'd need to pork-barrel the Mercantilists to get it through.
The problem was that for some people, the end goal was temporarily replacing some of our cargo with Yrillian cargo. For other people, it was buying Yrillian ships. For other people, it was doing better diplomacy with the Yrillians. For others, it was getting a leg up on the Sydraxians and Cardassians.
Any attempt to focus on one goal met immediate push-back from people focused on the other goals, myself included. Perhaps myself especially.
Jenny
anonymous user
- Location
- maryland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Silly suggestion: mollify them by suggesting hiring Yrillian privateers to harass Sydraxian shipping!
[Stesk frown]