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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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lbmaian said:
Eh, why?

I don't foresee threat going down until we finally start our war with the Cardassians. Our combat cap is currently 350. Even insane max combat build plans would barely touch that combat cap by 2320. And I expect our war to start by then.

Even then, our combat cap is likely to increase 40-60 points just from the 4-6 member ratifications I'm expecting in 2318-2320 once the moratorium expires (1 member = 10 extra combat limit). And, if we're really desperate, we can afford 9 point of militarization for 90 extra combat before the Council gives us the snake eyes (and interestingly, decreasing militarization is only 20pp more expensive than increasing threat).

I don't see the point.
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I'm not sure if the militarization handed out for going over combat cap is a one-time thing, or if we get +1 per year we spend over the cap. The latter would be ruinous.

Also, the idea behind pushing the combat cap upwards is that if the Cardassians don't attack and just keep spamming cruisers from the 15-20 berths they can afford to dedicate to the task by 2320, it won't take them long to build up a force that greatly outguns our combat cap. We'd have to draw massively on member world fleets to even the odds, but a lot of the member world fleets are very far from the frontlines, and we wouldn't be able to preposition them to defend against attack. The Apiata and Indorians might get crushed or at least crippled militarily before we could mobilize to defend them.

If the Cardassians can sustain this level of buildup (and six new cruisers a year sounds plausibly doable for them) indefinitely, we're going to HAVE to keep raising our combat cap to match the growing size of their fleet, and pile a mass of ships in the Gabriel and Cardassian Border Zones to blunt any attacks they launch with 100-Combat superfleets.

MTB said:
Seen from the Cardassian's point of view - how many ships is the Federation commissioning? Starfleet is not Federation, that's just the multinational part.
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The flip side is, the Cardassians are species-determinist nationalists who probably on some level believe that if they can just find the right weak spot the Federation will fall apart into its component species, because how can species as different as Vulcans, Rigelians, Apiata, and Earthlings ever really feel any loyalty to each other? So they probably don't seriously expect all the member world fleets to fight very hard in each other's defense, which will tend to lead them to discount those ships individually.

Plus, a lot of the member world ships are weaker than a gun Takaaki even with upgrade packages. If they go into combat without utterly overwhelming numbers, they're going to take heavy losses; I doubt the Cardassians expect member world fleets to have the stomach for that.

Nix said:
As far as I can tell raising threat is completely useless as a long term measure. Note how the events involving the Licori never raised threat, despite demonstrating a clear and present danger to the Federation of a level sufficient to issue an ultimatum in preparation of declaring war. The only plausible explanation is that threat was already at "significant risk of war" level anyway. If threat had been low it would definitely have been raised. It seems likely that the actual purpose of the mechanic is to convince the council of coming dangers earlier than they would otherwise acknowledge them, i. e. when the danger we warned about is confirmed by events that means we are proven right, but there won't be a second threat increase.
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The catch is that "well in advance" is exactly when we warn about dangers in order to get the ships we need to fight them built before they emerge. By the time the Council actually reacts it can easily be too late.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Also, the idea behind pushing the combat cap upwards is that if the Cardassians don't attack and just keep spamming cruisers from the 15-20 berths they can afford to dedicate to the task by 2320, it won't take them long to build up a force that greatly outguns our combat cap. We'd have to draw massively on member world fleets to even the odds, but a lot of the member world fleets are very far from the frontlines, and we wouldn't be able to preposition them to defend against attack. The Apiata and Indorians might get crushed or at least crippled militarily before we could mobilize to defend them.

If the Cardassians can sustain this level of buildup (and six new cruisers a year sounds plausibly doable for them) indefinitely, we're going to HAVE to keep raising our combat cap to match the growing size of their fleet, and pile a mass of ships in the Gabriel and Cardassian Border Zones to blunt any attacks they launch with 100-Combat superfleets.
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If you model it like I did a couple pages ago, this is alarmist talk.

By 2320, under standard non-combat-maximizing build plans, Starfleet would match about 2/3 of Cardassian military production, and member fleets (possibly even just Apiata, Amarki, and Indoria alone) can easily cover the rest, even factoring in client state fleets that Cardassians could very dubiously bring to bear. Under a near-combat-maximizing build plan, Starfleet alone would match 4/5 of Cardassian military production.

Of course, after 2320, if the Cardassians can keep maximizing berth utilization, we could be in trouble. But I also find it quite likely then the Federation production capabilities will continue growing and continue outproducing the Cardassians in totality. I also find it likely that many of those new Cardassian berths will serve as repair berths, like the new berths that we're building in Apinae and Collie.

Even then, combat cap is NOT going to be our constraint. For the foreseeable future, it's going to be crew crew crew and SR.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
I'm not sure if the militarization handed out for going over combat cap is a one-time thing, or if we get +1 per year we spend over the cap. The latter would be ruinous.

Also, the idea behind pushing the combat cap upwards is that if the Cardassians don't attack and just keep spamming cruisers from the 15-20 berths they can afford to dedicate to the task by 2320, it won't take them long to build up a force that greatly outguns our combat cap. We'd have to draw massively on member world fleets to even the odds, but a lot of the member world fleets are very far from the frontlines, and we wouldn't be able to preposition them to defend against attack. The Apiata and Indorians might get crushed or at least crippled militarily before we could mobilize to defend them.

If the Cardassians can sustain this level of buildup (and six new cruisers a year sounds plausibly doable for them) indefinitely, we're going to HAVE to keep raising our combat cap to match the growing size of their fleet, and pile a mass of ships in the Gabriel and Cardassian Border Zones to blunt any attacks they launch with 100-Combat superfleets.

The flip side is, the Cardassians are species-determinist nationalists who probably on some level believe that if they can just find the right weak spot the Federation will fall apart into its component species, because how can species as different as Vulcans, Rigelians, Apiata, and Earthlings ever really feel any loyalty to each other? So they probably don't seriously expect all the member world fleets to fight very hard in each other's defense, which will tend to lead them to discount those ships individually.

Plus, a lot of the member world ships are weaker than a gun Takaaki even with upgrade packages. If they go into combat without utterly overwhelming numbers, they're going to take heavy losses; I doubt the Cardassians expect member world fleets to have the stomach for that.

The catch is that "well in advance" is exactly when we warn about dangers in order to get the ships we need to fight them built before they emerge. By the time the Council actually reacts it can easily be too late.
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A reasonable analysis, I am sure the Cardassians should add, mentally, an equivalent to: We'd be back by Christmas.
The issue here is, how do we dissuade them of those notions without getting into an expensive and lengthy war? and, of course, if we want to disabuse them of those notions, (assuming at all possible) since they might as well decide to change focus and find an arena they can compete with us.

Do note that if they start becoming a clear and present danger, if their buildups get big enough, odds are the council will raise our combat caps.
Though I am sorta skeptical at the Cardiassian ability to keep the build up, they are smaller than us, have been noted having resource bottlenecks and, given that, if they start squeezing their client states... they might end up with some trying to leave (and if one leaves...)
I think we might try and get in touch with most of the cardassian clients we *can* reach and cover, if the Cardassians attempt to compete with us industrially and technologically, they will need to squeeze their clients; though we might need an analysis backed by hard data, I am incredibly hesitant of them being able to compete against us in those fields, at the same time, but if they try...
 
UbeOne said:
The Federation is truly a gentle giant.
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It will hug you, and squeeze you, and call you George.



Night said:
The audit team is relentless.
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No one escapes the Space IRS!



Cornuthaum said:
I stop reading this quest for like, six weeks, and this is apparently a recurring enough issue to warrant a thread banner? Good grief, what is this madness!
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I think the turning point was when I martyred myself and got banned.
 
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Briefvoice said:
I keep forgetting what we're supposed to call Explorer-equivalents now. Was it "battleships" instead? I've got "frigate" and "cruiser" and even "light cruiser" and "heavy cruiser" down, but I can't seem to keep the biggest category straight in my head.
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Ours are explorers. Other species would probably call theirs as battleships, battlecruisers, capital ships, or also explorers.
 
Chaos Blade said:
A reasonable analysis, I am sure the Cardassians should add, mentally, an equivalent to: We'd be back by Christmas.
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Actually they may be thinking the opposite, because the Cardassian mindset is the archetypical Hard Men Making Hard Decisions culture. They may be utterly convinced that a long war will cause some of the Federation member races to 'flake off' rather than risk their sons and daughters fighting a long way from home against an enemy that poses no urgent, realistic threat to them. They may be further convinced that we'll never get political support for an offensive that would cut deep enough into Cardassian space to do more than mildly inconvenience their war effort.

They may even be right.

The issue here is, how do we dissuade them of those notions without getting into an expensive and lengthy war? and, of course, if we want to disabuse them of those notions, (assuming at all possible) since they might as well decide to change focus and find an arena they can compete with us.
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I'd rather have the latter problem than a war. As to the former problem, the war in the Gabriel Expanse is probably the best way to accomplish the goal. While the Sydraxians' performance indicates that they're something of a junior varsity opponent, the trouncing Admiral Ainsworth gave them tends to suggest to the Cardassians that it's not just the Explorer Corps that can put up a tough fight.

Do note that if they start becoming a clear and present danger, if their buildups get big enough, odds are the council will raise our combat caps.
Though I am sorta skeptical at the Cardiassian ability to keep the build up, they are smaller than us, have been noted having resource bottlenecks and, given that, if they start squeezing their client states... they might end up with some trying to leave (and if one leaves...)
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Bajor in particular is explicitly listed in canon as mineral-rich and we pretty much know the Cardassians will squeeze the place. Some of the other Cardassian clients not so much... but they have a straight-up peaceful trading relationship with the Dylaarians and they can make truly improbable amounts of wealth by gaming the Dylaarian approach to IP rights. Plus I'm pretty sure the Dylaarians themselves are free to expand themselves.

The Goshawnar are at the moment a military reserve that they don't seem to have a problem with using as attack dogs; they could very easily call them up into the Gabriel Expanse and promise them a share as a way of offsetting the breakdown of the Sydraxians and cancelling out the fast attack craft advantage of the Apiata.

The Konen are the really tricky point, because everything about their background suggests that they would rebel if they could get away with it. Plus, they possess a power the Cardassians cannot duplicate or take away from them, and which the Cardassians must fear even if they happen to have unusual resistance to telepathy.

I think we might try and get in touch with most of the cardassian clients we *can* reach and cover, if the Cardassians attempt to compete with us industrially and technologically, they will need to squeeze their clients; though we might need an analysis backed by hard data, I am incredibly hesitant of them being able to compete against us in those fields, at the same time, but if they try...
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Yeah. I'd actually be interested to get diplomatic posture reports on the Yrillians and/or Dawiar, because those are the two species we're most likely to be able to "flip." We also very much need to push diplomacy on the new species we just discovered, both to prevent the Cardassians from recruiting them and to keep pushing out our buffer zone against the Goshawnar and Konen.

Briefvoice said:
I keep forgetting what we're supposed to call Explorer-equivalents now. Was it "battleships" instead? I've got "frigate" and "cruiser" and even "light cruiser" and "heavy cruiser" down, but I can't seem to keep the biggest category straight in my head.
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To me they're still, and will always be, explorers. If they're clearly for fighting I call 'em battleships or battlecruisers sometimes.
 
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Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by UbeOne on Mar 30, 2017 at 1:10 PM, finished with 40809 posts and 37 votes.
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ThoughtMaster said:
How can dropping a F bomb be considered to be martyrdom? It wasn't in any way eloquent and, to me at least, didn't have much of a point to it, just an insult for no reason other than to insult another individual.
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Alright, you raise a good point. From my perspective, people were joking about releasing a bioweapon and something needed to be said.

I may have responded with considerably less tact than I should have.
 
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