Look at the damage dealt numbers. Stingers and the Apiata doctrine of putting them first is
insane. I'll have to chew the battle log but I do suspect they don't have the endurance for longer fights. Also
@OneirosTheWriter maybe you still need up tweak the numbers for Apiata doctrine, the Queenships are about 1/4 of damage dealt, shots, and damage taken, which is perhaps too much. 1/2 would be perfectly acceptable.
The Apiata doctrine seems to be designed around the idea that attritional losses to Stingers is acceptable as long as they do enough harm to the enemy to compensate, which in this case they did.
The serious problem with the Stinger design and the overall concept is that the Shield:Hull ratio is so high that even a few burnthrough shots can cause serious damage. The Queenships staying out of battle may be hampering them a little, but it also means that even when they're in danger of losing a battle, they usually won't suffer significant damage to their hard-to-repair Queenships. They have plenty of berths to build and repair more Stingers, after all.
Tweaking the odds on Queenship engagement levels wouldn't hurt, but really, the Apiata doctrine will work fine,
given the Apiata willingness to expend a few small ships for the sake of the fleet as a whole, once they refit or upgrade to a Hull 2 Shields X stinger design.
This is good, but I'd also like to send the A'Tuin or another nearby 5YM ship. Our fleet to counter their fleet, and our wacky protagonist hijinks to counter their mentat superweapons.
I'd like to send
more than one. Especially if the one we send is
A'Tuin, whose crew is inexperienced. They'd be fine for normal Explorer Corps operations, but it's entirely possible that they're going to be in "top ten weirdest days of Eddie Leslie's life" territory here.
We
didn't send the Explorer Corps into the Gabriel Expanse precisely because numbers and firepower mattered more than the art of dealing with the
weird over there. In Licori space, we're going to need the weird.
As I said before - I don't think that we have so far established that a) the Mentat was actually under the control of the Licori government and not a rogue agent b) I don't think the Licori have had the intention to hurt us/attack us.
Remember the part where
it doesn't matter anymore because the politicians in question have made up their minds...
That said... this is really awful timing. Ideally, I'd want to sit this one out entirely, and let the KP+Gaeni fight it out. Alternatively, I'd look at a map, and then discreetly pass word to the Romulan Ambassador that the Licori would probably be best off as a Romulan client, where their dangerous tendencies can be kept in check via the use of measures which we ourselves are reluctant to take.
Alternatively, this results in the Romulans getting their hands on supernova bombs.
That is not going to end well. Nor can we sit out the war, because even if the Gaeni and Ked Peddah have equal firepower and put together outgun the Licori 2:1...
A victory at 2:1 odds can be slow but sure, or fast and risky. Fast and risky is bad for us in this context, but slow and sure is a recipe for disaster because it buys the Licori too much time. The Council has already decided that we
HAVE to push the Licori because
even when we didn't push them they triggered two astronomical disasters within our space during about a year or so of time. And we weren't even fighting them at all back then, indeed we were on better terms with them than with the Ked Peddah!
That being said, if the Federation has decided it wants this to be a war, the Federation had better take it seriously. If we are planning to defeat the Licori and prevent them from doing those things that scare us, we need to go in expecting an existential threat, because they have already demonstrated that they have that kind of capability. Against any argumentation on that point, have Astrometrics compile a list of aging stars in the area, and the blast radius should any of them be induced to go supernova via application of already-demonstrated Licori capabilities. Given that level of threat, I would insist that a state of war between the Federation and the Licori constitutes a State of Emergency, and that if we do not take the appropriate precautions (including the full mobilization and support of the Federation's scientific establishments in countering Licori superweapons), we can expect wildly disproportionate losses.
I think a state of emergency might well be an appropriate response, or at least a localized one including Sol, Rigel, and Vulcan sectors, which are most directly threatened by (literal) fallout from the conflict.
Oh I agree I think she did a beautiful job so far (though her low people skill resulted in us losing out in some opportunities) and was indeed the perfect choice for commander but I think the strategic situation has changed to a significant degree, especially if we get heavily involved in the Licori campaign. A aggressive campaign like that is a great idea if you have a big enough reserve to deal with any unexpected loss and deal with an unorganised enemy but less so if you deal with somebody prepared and can ill afford to replace losses.
I see no evidence that Ainsworth
doesn't know how to scale back her operational tempo when she knows we can't reinforce her. Furthermore, if you're worried about her doing something stupid
right this minute you're probably out of luck, because finding a new slot for her and moving her to it will take time anyway.
You make personnel decisions like this to manage
time-averaged risk, not to manage short-term 'spikes' of risk brought on by sudden developments.
