We are hanging back and guiding their approach, as we are under orders to avoid risk to the ship during the current crisis.
*sigh* High rule-abiding can be baaaad... it's just such a meh move in the situation. Helping each other is what Federation is about :(

Were it Klingon we would've got bad rep out of it.
 
It's a Crystalline Entity. The only Federation ship that ever fought one alone and lived was a Galaxy-class. And hanging back gives them more time to use their Science suite on it.
 
It's a Crystalline Entity. The only Federation ship that ever fought one alone and lived was a Galaxy-class. And hanging back gives them more time to use their Science suite on it.
Crystalline Entities being a credible threat to combat-capable ships is a STOism. The Enterprise-D was the only Starfleet ship to run into one period in primary canon, not the only one to run into one and survive.

And the Enterprise-D didn't so much fight it as just no-sell it - the entity was so badly outclassed that trying to figure out how to talk to it while it was actively attacking was reasonable because it couldn't actually do a thing.

So, somehow, I doubt that one equivalent to the TV series one would do well against an Excelsior that's actually firing weapons.
 
So, somehow, I doubt that one equivalent to the TV series one would do well against an Excelsior that's actually firing weapons.

You really suppose that the Crystalline Entities that scorched a bunch of colonies were never intercepted by Federation starships? Never engaged by colony defenses? That sounds ultra-unlikely.
 
Reducing travel times would be a massive Strategic Boon to the federation.. wonder if some of the techs under propulsion increases ship speed during crises?
 
You really suppose that the Crystalline Entities that scorched a bunch of colonies were never intercepted by Federation starships? Never engaged by colony defenses? That sounds ultra-unlikely.
It was a singular entity. It's kill count is in the thousands. That's FAR too low for it to have hit any place built up enough to have planetary shields.

The only way it's a threat to a capital is if the beam attack it uses either ignores or is no-sold by shields with nothing in between. Because if it works like almost every other energy weapon ever seen then the Enterprise-D was regenning shield damage faster than the thing was dishing it out.

Oh, yes, the beam's not even enough to instakill people in escape pods either.
 
It's a Crystalline Entity. The only Federation ship that ever fought one alone and lived was a Galaxy-class. And hanging back gives them more time to use their Science suite on it.
That's even more reason to tag-team it when you aren't alone dealing with it and not sit on your ass when other warship fights it.
 
So we may have had our first Crystalline Entity sighting and another point we can throw on the 'go fast' technique pile. *rubs hands* Good, good.
Especially if the subspace surges are caused by the solar flares instead of the flares being symptomatic. Inducing solar flares is, let's be honest, mostly just expensive.
I'm pretty sure you need to induce flares in a specific kind of star that contains exotic, non-Standard Model materials that generate naturally occuring tachyon pulses.

Er, which one? I don't recall this, and if it really was the case, then I should know about it. (Because this could invalidate my earlier claim that we'd historically always had the option of getting the logistics we'd need albeit at a price.)
Starfleet Corps of Engineers. They need ships specially allocated to carry them, which means either cutting into our transport assets for the Licori Border Zone fleet, or conscripting transport assets from member worlds.

In the end, I don't know if it matters that much.
I kind of doubt it does.

What I'm trying to avoid is a situation where each successive turn we say "diplomacy is more important than building stuff so far, so let us focus on mainly recruiting more diplomats," over and over.

Until three months from now we have a horde of diplomats, minimal or limited defenses under construction... and then it turns out that the situation really IS intractable. Or at least intractable enough that House Harkonnoid or whatever decides to try blowing up Betazoid/Gaen/wherever with a nova bomb to show off their resolve and teach us a lesson in 'manners' when dealing with Licori nobility.

Of course the converse is also something to avoid- a situation where we totally neglect diplomacy and concentrate entirely on the military buildup.

Expect me to push, next turn, for a much more diplomacy-

At least we have a point towards a working model now, and we can see about tinkering it down to something that doesn't need custom built stars.
Yes. Let us do that.
 
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Looks like we're going to be seeing the Konen much more frequently now. Yeesh, those Silence-class ships sound tough! These aren't any Betazoids when it comes to ship-building. I wonder how they stack up to an Excelsior-A.

Man, it's a real shame we can't get relations boosts with Cardassian clients anymore. Otherwise this could have been the start of a friendly relationship with the Konen.
 
...accelerated subspace...
I think.

All in all a nice turn though that Konen ship is worrisome both due its signalling increased Cardassian activity on yet another border of space (at a moment we can ill afford to garrison yet another hot borderzone) as well as the fact that it seem likely that the Cardassians might copy their design/technology which coupled with their splurge of shipyards as well as general military focus doesn't bode well for us..
 
I think.

All in all a nice turn though that Konen ship is worrisome both due its signalling increased Cardassian activity on yet another border of space (at a moment we can ill afford to garrison yet another hot borderzone) as well as the fact that it seem likely that the Cardassians might copy their design/technology which coupled with their splurge of shipyards as well as general military focus doesn't bode well for us..
That's the second peaceful encounter with a Konen ship, right?
 
The first one was, uh... less than perfectly peaceful, even if no shots were fired.

Also, hm. Given the state of Cardassian shipyard infrastructure I doubt they can duplicate the Silence-class, which it sounds like is built to the same scale as our explorers. The largest capital ship design we've ever seen them build were the Lorgots at 1.8 megatons, and I strongly suspect their largest berths are two-megaton rather than three-megaton facilities. This would make sense given that all their existing designs and all likely upgrades on same* are almost certainly going to be 1.8 megatons or less.

That restricts them from throwing battleships at us, sure- but arguably that isn't good news. It means the Cardassians' heaviest combat units take only three years to build instead of four, and they can afford to build more berths, and they can still perform well in a fight except in the very specific circumstances of a one-on-one duel between one of their line combatants and one of ours.
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*Say, a notional 1.5-megaton cruiser built with modern tech instead of 2280s/90s tech, which would almost certainly outperform the Renaissance-class and beat the stock Excelsior design, which is what I expect the Cardassians to build next.
 
I suspect that the Silence-class is A: engineering based on the war with Cardassia, B: sent out here so the Cardassians can hold the Konen hostage more easily, and C: not very happy about either.
 
Kill it! Kill it with fire! Kill it with phaser fire!
... that explains certainly why the Mentats keep playing with star cores. They are working up for efficient pest control. We should show them our fluffy puffys, perhaps that would make them inclined to stop ...

I suspect that the Silence-class is A: engineering based on the war with Cardassia, B: sent out here so the Cardassians can hold the Konen hostage more easily, and C: not very happy about either.
Peaceful encounters with the big bad Federation aren't very conducive to the Caradassian war propaganda I presume.
 
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That's the second peaceful encounter with a Konen ship, right?

True, the meetings were peaceful so far but I think their presence alone is enough to force us to heavily fortify that border relatively soon, especially once the Seyek join us.

I suspect that the Silence-class is A: engineering based on the war with Cardassia, B: sent out here so the Cardassians can hold the Konen hostage more easily, and C: not very happy about either.

Eh, It is a relatively natural region for the Konen to expand into and nothing we have seen so far suggest they would be that unhappy about getting a chance to prove their superiority over a bunch of other aliens...

And I think that if the Cardassian have anything to do with the Konen presence it is far more likely intended as a measure to draw resources away from the GBZ.
 
Expect me to push, next turn, for a much more diplomacy-

Thanks for the warning! I can see it's going to be a tough fight to stop us from overloading on diplomatic teams.

That restricts them from throwing battleships at us, sure- but arguably that isn't good news. It means the Cardassians' heaviest combat units take only three years to build instead of four, and they can afford to build more berths, and they can still perform well in a fight except in the very specific circumstances of a one-on-one duel between one of their line combatants and one of ours.

Your analysis never delivers any good news on the Cardassian front.
 
*Say, a notional 1.5-megaton cruiser built with modern tech instead of 2280s/90s tech, which would almost certainly outperform the Renaissance-class and beat the stock Excelsior design, which is what I expect the Cardassians to build next.
Clearly we need to -- sorry @Briefvoice -- pull T'Rinta off EC duty and get her back to building super-torpedos.

"Behold the Mk IV High Yield Torpedo."

"T'Rinta this is just two regular torpedos welded together."

"Correct. But if you press that button, you will see the LEDs on this one turn blue."

*silence, then wild applause, cheering*

"... I miss the S'harien. :("
 
So, some (more?) bad news, I kind of messed up the engineering hull of the Renaissance...
I was planning the deck layout for window placement, so I placed an MSD graphic from the same source in the background and got this:

You see, this part was occluded by the nacelles in the view I had originally, so I eyeballed it based on some extrapolations (basically, it seems the top view isn't quite right). Anyway, I did some calculations, and the shuttlebay isn't really big enough as is (door is only about 4m tall, so that's smaller than on a Constitution). :facepalm: Going to have to refactor that whole area.
(I know the Galaxy's bay is about that size, but we only ever saw Shuttlebay 2, which was smaller than the main one).
 
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