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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:
I hope we get the option of later turning repair yards into actual shipyards at some cost (engineering team & heavy industry time during crisis, political will during snakepits).
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I don't hope so.

Most of the time, when ships have been damaged in this quest, it's been a big pain trying to find someplace to fix them. The usual result has been that we need to make sacrifices and delay actual construction or pay favours to allies for access to their yards or something. This illustrates an actual need for dedicated repair berths, and actual consequences for not having them.

Sure, it would plausibly be less expensive to turn a repair yard into an actual shipyard... but then we wouldn't have a repair yard, and even if we didn't need that repair yard for repairing right in the moment when we converted it, we definitely will later.
 
lbmaian said:
Is this new? Don't recall seeing it when the update was first posted.

So Gaeni does have a major colony: Thunti. Unknown number of mining/research colonies, but estimating from known network details of member nations, probably around 5. Also have 5 minor non-mining/research colonies.
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They explicitly only had one colony total (possibly even just in their home system) when we made first contact with them 11 years ago, a fact that was noted as being unusual for their state of development (btw that's why their territory was so small on the map when I started with those). Since then they have at the very least colonized Agat/Idaran, but it seems likely that they still have fewer colonies than typical relative to the size of their economy.
 
Blackshard said:
I don't hope so.

Most of the time, when ships have been damaged in this quest, it's been a big pain trying to find someplace to fix them. The usual result has been that we need to make sacrifices and delay actual construction or pay favours to allies for access to their yards or something. This illustrates an actual need for dedicated repair berths, and actual consequences for not having them.

Sure, it would plausibly be less expensive to turn a repair yard into an actual shipyard... but then we wouldn't have a repair yard, and even if we didn't need that repair yard for repairing right in the moment when we converted it, we definitely will later.
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Shipyards can also repair ships - they have a superset of the capabilities of a repair yard.

We've generally planned on having a surplus of berths for repair capacity - we just were never sure how much we needed until very recently. It's also only recently that we were aware that repair yards were a thing.

Nix said:
They explicitly only had one colony total (possibly even just in their home system) when we made first contact with them 11 years ago, a fact that was noted as being unusual for their state of development (btw that's why their territory was so small on the map when I started with those). Since then they have at the very least colonized Agat/Idaran, but it seems likely that they still have fewer colonies than typical relative to the size of their economy.
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Given how early in the quest this was (2303, page 48), before minor colonies were apparently even a thing (first mentioned around 2308, page 339) or Oneiros started really modeling the TBG economy, this "one colony total" may have been their major colony Thunki. I don't see how the heck a major colony can spring up in a decade from first settlement.
 
Blackshard said:
This, pretty much. In sophont-rights terms, the Cardassians are almost certainly the biggest offender in the area. But they're too big and scary to deal with right now. That said, given that we're not busy trying to 'destroy' the Cardassians for this sort of thing, it seems a little strange to single out one particular faction of a minor race for such attentions.

For reference, the Orions had nasty slave-stuff going on, not too long ago. We didn't 'destroy' them; instead, with great effort, we went in and reformed their whole society. But that was a long time in coming, and it wouldn't have worked if there wasn't a big segment of their society that was willing to cooperate. Until then, we basically just ignored them... and that's probably exactly what we'll do with the Licori!Harkonnen, too.
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Well, what it comes down to is that the Federation doesn't have to hold itself responsible for civil rights violations committed outside its borders. It can, but it is under no obligation to do so, and realistically it is beyond the Federation's power to forcibly resolve ALL the sophont rights crises on its borders.

lbmaian said:
I hope we get the option of later turning repair yards into actual shipyards at some cost (engineering team & heavy industry time during crisis, political will during snakepits).
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If we don't get that opportunity, though, I for one won't complain. We do, objectively, need some designated repair berths to take pressure off our shipyard infrastructure. And we couldn't handle a massive influx of one-megaton construction berths right now even if we got them, unless we committed to a Miranda swarm. Although we could do worse than to try that, given that we anticipate a massive wave of new Cardassian construction. Based on our current intelligence, we're looking at the Cardies potentially adding something like twenty to thirty or so heavily armed escorts and cruisers to their fleet within the next 5-6 years. And possibly rolling out the first units of an uprated cruiser variant to supplant the Jaldun and match/overmatch the Renaissance by sheer bulk and combat-optimization. The uprated cruiser is pure speculation, but there are good reasons to think they'd be working on it. And if the improvement in question is a Jaldun refit instead of a new design, there wouldn't even be a prototype; they could just start spamming one-year refit projects in their... what, eighteen cruiser-sized ship berths?

lbmaian said:
Shipyards can also repair ships - they have a superset of the capabilities of a repair yard.

We've generally planned on having a surplus of berths for repair capacity - we just were never sure how much we needed until very recently. It's also only recently that we were aware that repair yards were a thing.
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There's no point in paying time, effort, or resources to upgrade repair berths to construction berths if we don't actually plan to construct ships in the berths we're upgrading. Since construction is something we plan out years in advance, we know ahead of time whether it's going to be worth the effort. Right now it's probably not, because we're building as many cruisers and explorers as we can crew. That is, UNLESS we're planning to shift away from our current explorer/cruiser construction strategy to an escort-dominated strategy to maximize the number of fighting ships we can field.
 
Briefvoice said:
You really do still think we can talk our way out of this, eh?
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And why not? Every update encourages that idea. Stesk thinks so. The briefing on the houses encourages that idea. Without talking things over, we now explicitly lose support amongst the houses that would otherwise support us. Without support among one or more houses, we can't exit the war.

It's now looking to me that war is a failure condition. We're now not merely looking at regime change, we're looking at re-working Licori society from the top down while they oppose us at every turn. We aren't capable of conducting that kind of war.

The more we put off diplomacy the more we shove ourselves into a completely unwinnable situation.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
If we don't get that opportunity, though, I for one won't complain. We do, objectively, need some designated repair berths to take pressure off our shipyard infrastructure. And we couldn't handle a massive influx of one-megaton construction berths right now even if we got them, unless we committed to a Miranda swarm. Although we could do worse than to try that, given that we anticipate a massive wave of new Cardassian construction. Based on our current intelligence, we're looking at the Cardies potentially adding something like twenty to thirty or so heavily armed escorts and cruisers to their fleet within the next 5-6 years. And possibly rolling out the first units of an uprated cruiser variant to supplant the Jaldun and match/overmatch the Renaissance by sheer bulk and combat-optimization. The uprated cruiser is pure speculation, but there are good reasons to think they'd be working on it. And if the improvement in question is a Jaldun refit instead of a new design, there wouldn't even be a prototype; they could just start spamming one-year refit projects in their... what, eighteen cruiser-sized ship berths?
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Oh I'm aware. I did spend more effort than I should have coming up with a ridiculous frigate spam build optimized for max combat potential by 2319 (and estimating Cardassian production over that time frame): https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...-starfleet-quest.32005/page-1630#post-8177508

It's just that if we plan to upgrade shipyard capacity, we currently have 2 choices:
- build a new shipyard
- build more berths at a shipyard

I'm hoping that we get to add the option to upgrade a repair yard to a shipyard, since I'd imagine that would be the quickest way of crash-building as much frigate spam as we can in a war.

edit: Also repair yards sitting idle on the opposite side of conflict aren't going to be that useful as repair yards.
 
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lbmaian said:
Given how early in the quest this was (2303, page 48), before minor colonies were apparently even a thing (first mentioned around 2308, page 339) or Oneiros started really modeling the TBG economy, this "one colony total" may have been their major colony Thunki. I don't see how the heck a major colony can spring up in a decade from first settlement.
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Minor colonies have been a thing from the beginning of the quest (usually just called colonies then), it's major colonies (as something being tracked and considered when making strategic decisions) that initially weren't really a thing. That first mention of "minor colony" was to coin a term for those colonies it would be ok to continue to treat like colonies had generally been treated from the start.
 
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
And why not? Every update encourages that idea. Stesk thinks so. The briefing on the houses encourages that idea. Without talking things over, we now explicitly lose support amongst the houses that would otherwise support us. Without support among one or more houses, we can't exit the war.

It's now looking to me that war is a failure condition. We're now not merely looking at regime change, we're looking at re-working Licori society from the top down while they oppose us at every turn. We aren't capable of conducting that kind of war.

The more we put off diplomacy the more we shove ourselves into a completely unwinnable situation.
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Personally, I think we probably can't talk our way out of all fighting, unless we are luckier than we have a right to expect and the Licori are much luckier than they deserve.

But we definitely can and should talk ourselves out of an insanely difficult fight (as you describe) into a much easier fight (say, a war of regime change that reshuffles the power structure among the Houses and leaves the winning coalition declaring restrictions on mentat activity to reinforce their own power base).
 
Simon_Jester said:
Personally, I think we probably can't talk our way out of some kind of a fight, but we definitely can and should talk ourselves out of an insanely difficult fight (as you describe) into a much easier fight (say, a war of regime change that reshuffles the power structure among the Houses and leaves the winning coalition declaring restrictions on mentat activity to reinforce their own power base).
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That would be acceptable, but we have people in this thread who are convinced that no diplomacy can happen until we smack the houses around a bit, which is very much wrong.
 
I think their assessment is both right and wrong at the same time.

There are houses that will almost certainly not reform their ways until they've been smacked heavily.

There are houses that will almost certainly not reform their ways after they've been smacked heavily.

Things are going to get complicated.
 
Hazard said:
How much is that 'willing to talk' and not 'trying to stall for time while they get their ducks in a row?'
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They've been at war for five years. Their ducks can't get any more in a row than they already are.

That the briefing we received says that certain houses would be receptive to talks, presuming our intel people are not incompetent (which we have had zero sign of). Even if that's all smoke and mirrors, the Council and FDS are not going to cut off talks while they're happening. So whether it's stalling or not is irrelevant.

But it's more that the unwillingness to make the attempt has me incredulous. Going "oh, it's going to be bad later" or "oh, it probably won't work" is silly when we have the opportunity to change that right now. And if we don't act now, we lose the opportunity.

We can all see the consequences of doing nothing, but if so then WHY choose to do nothing? What else can that be called but insanity? This is the militant brain bugs in action to me right now.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
They've been at war for five years. Their ducks can't get any more in a row than they already are.

That the briefing we received says that certain houses would be receptive to talks, presuming our intel people are not incompetent (which we have had zero sign of). Even if that's all smoke and mirrors, the Council and FDS are not going to cut off talks while they're happening. So whether it's stalling or not is irrelevant.

But it's more that the unwillingness to make the attempt has me incredulous. Going "oh, it's going to be bad later" or "oh, it probably won't work" is silly when we have the opportunity to change that right now. And if we don't act now, we lose the opportunity.

We can all see the consequences of doing nothing, but if so then WHY choose to do nothing? What else can that be called but insanity? This is the militant brain bugs in action to me right now.
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I agree diplomacy is worth a try, but I think the best we could possibly get is one or two houses considering our proposed reforms might be better than prolonged war. I'm extremely sure we're going to end up in combat with at least some of the Licori at this point, so I think we need to be preparing for that end of things as well as the diplomacy. I don't think there's anyone saying diplomacy is bad, but some of us think it won't be enough.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
We have a far better chance of getting blood out of these stones if we try now rather than during or after a war. It's madness to think otherwise. They are here on Earth right now and willing to talk!
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They're willing to talk, but they aren't willing to give us what we want. Let me quote the update.

The Arcadian approach is full of promises, but the FDS is ruthless in pointing out the various ways that their promises are toothless. The last year of working in the palaces of Morshadd, and the estates of various Houses, has taught them much about the dysfunction of the Imperial political system. They're trying to mollify you with a gift of exotic resources and empty promises, and the FDS are quick to point out that it isn't a case of active malice: they simply are not capable of controlling this matter without systematic political reform.
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Personally, I think your fixation that this could be solved if only Starfleet spends war support on external diplomatic teams is misguided. The Federation Council and FDS are doing the negotiations directly, and pass or fail they're basically in NPC hands. The Starfleet can only approach external diplomacy from a war-fighting perspective. "Hey, want to ally with us. Hey, are you ready to surrender now."

I believe it's madness to assume that this is in the hands of the players, that if only we vote for the right decisions that will somehow avoid the war. That would be crazy and frankly kind of unfair.

Our votes on preparing for the war cannot and should not be able to create systematic political reform in the Licori.
 
Nix said:
Minor colonies have been a thing from the beginning of the quest (usually just called colonies then), it's major colonies (as something being tracked and considered when making strategic decisions) that initially weren't really a thing. That first mention of "minor colony" was to coin a term for those colonies it would be ok to continue to treat like colonies had generally been treated from the start.
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At this point, this is quibbling over wording and how established the universe modeling was early in the quest. Fact is, somehow Gaeni has 1 major colony, 5 minor colonies, and at least a handful of mining/research colonies about a decade after first contact. Whether Oneiros was talking about a sole major colony, or was speaking in (retconned) error, or the Gaeni were just hiding their colonies, or the Gaeni are such miraculous colony builders and mass migrators, it doesn't really matter at this point.

Anyway, another thing missing from the map is the location of Clover. Which unfortunately Oneiros hasn't elaborated more on other than "Centre of the LBZ", which may refer to more rimward/coreward center rather than spinward/tailward center. The most probable location for it, given that constraint, and the fact it must be closer to Licori territory than any vulnerable colonies like Costaun, is probably somewhere within the triangle of Costaun, Kappa Tau, and Gaeni's Agat/Idaran.

edit: typos
 
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
But it's more that the unwillingness to make the attempt has me incredulous. Going "oh, it's going to be bad later" or "oh, it probably won't work" is silly when we have the opportunity to change that right now. And if we don't act now, we lose the opportunity.

We can all see the consequences of doing nothing, but if so then WHY choose to do nothing? What else can that be called but insanity? This is the militant brain bugs in action to me right now.
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If this is some kind of a trick where the players are supposed to do the exact opposite of what we're being asked to do (prepare for a war) in order to find a 'correct' solution, then I wash my hands of it. I don't want to play that head game, and you should refuse to as well.

EDIT: This part is a completely out-of-game argument what I think is 'fair' in playing; please don't answer it with in-game arguments.
 
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Nervos Belli said:
I agree diplomacy is worth a try, but I think the best we could possibly get is one or two houses considering our proposed reforms might be better than prolonged war. I'm extremely sure we're going to end up in combat with at least some of the Licori at this point, so I think we need to be preparing for that end of things as well as the diplomacy. I don't think there's anyone saying diplomacy is bad, but some of us think it won't be enough.
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So could you please point me to where we take actions to try talking to them? Because we have done all of nothing right now.


Briefvoice said:
Personally, I think your fixation that this could be solved if only Starfleet spends war support on external diplomatic teams is misguided. The Federation Council and FDS are doing the negotiations directly, and pass or fail they're basically in NPC hands. The Starfleet can only approach external diplomacy from a war-fighting perspective. "Hey, want to ally with us. Hey, are you ready to surrender now."

I believe it's madness to assume that this is in the hands of the players, that if only we vote for the right decisions that will somehow avoid the war. That would be crazy and frankly kind of unfair.
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It's completely fair that a quest turns on decisions made in the quest. We don't do all the negotiating, but we can do some of it.

Even if we only include things that are under Starfleet's purview, we can talk about computing technology or the failures of augment research or the similarities between stellar disasters caused by uncontrolled mentats and disasters caused by uncontrolled AI. Or we can assign teams or consultants to support Council members. That might be a good use of Kahurangi, actually.

But I see no reason to artificially limit ourselves. The entire point of the State of Emergency is to draw on resources we wouldn't otherwise be able to draw upon, which explicitly includes diplomatic teams. Was it within our purview to give diplomatic advice to the President? Because Councillors asked us to do exactly that, and we did it. The fact is that Starfleet's wide-ranging mandate includes diplomacy with outside powers.

e: didn't catch your edit, here:
Briefvoice said:
If this is some kind of a trick where the players are supposed to do the exact opposite of what we're being asked to do (prepare for a war) in order to find a 'correct' solution, then I wash my hands of it. I don't want to play that head game, and you should refuse to as well.

EDIT: This part is a completely out-of-game argument what I think is 'fair' in playing; please don't answer it with in-game arguments.
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It's entirely fair to me. Remember when Oneiros released a bunch of political and intel stuff to us because we had guessed it? Clearly, it was supposed to surprise us, and he even said as much. None of the things in that update were things to do with war preparations, they had to do with resolving this crisis in ways that did not have to do with warfare.

You've bought into that we are "supposed" to fight a war, but as shown repeatedly and especially in the update linked above, that's not actually true. We're supposed to resolve a crisis. The President rushed into a war situation without considering if it was a war that she actually wanted.
 
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
You've bought into that we are "supposed" to fight a war, but as shown repeatedly and especially in the update linked above, that's not actually true. We're supposed to resolve a crisis. The President rushed into a war situation without considering if it was a war that she actually wanted.
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All I can say is that I hope very much that you are wrong, because if the rug is going to pulled out from under us like that it will be very frustrating for me. I won't enjoy it or feel that it's been a fun part of the quest.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
It's completely fair that a quest turns on decisions made in the quest. We don't do all the negotiating, but we can do some of it.
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The problem is that the internal politics of the Arcadians make a violent conflict more or less inevitable. About the only way Starfleet can avoid a war is if the Arcadians themselves decide to more or less abolish the Mentat system, and their R&D group can't do that. And they know that. Because then they have to use computers, which are at best unreliable and at worst active threats to the Arcadian Empire. And if they can't produce and use mentats they're going to fall behind the tech curve.

Now, in the face of the Federation that's not so terrible, the Federation would be entirely willing to leave them alone so long as there's no mentats running around. But they might not know that, they're also on the Romulan border, and the Ked Paddah and the IT of Gaen have already declared war on them and might not be as willing. Giving up their entire R&D department or being forced to break with hundreds of years of tradition founded on well supported fears of an AI rebellion and as such an existential threat anyway, fighting the war that lets them keep their mentats is just about their only option, even if it risks destroying their nation. Because if they don't fight that war they're going to see their nation destroyed.


Starfleet can't turn this situation around on its own. Part of this is on the FDS, the Council, the Gaen, the Ked Paddah and the Arcadians themselves. Trying to say otherwise is arrogance at best.

There is however something Starfleet can do. And that's being the beat stick that convinces the Arcadians that accepting limited mentat development under stricter controls is better than having Starfleet flatten their entire interstellar economy by destroying every ship they've got. If Starfleet can convince them of that, or the FDS, or anyone else, the situation can be handed off to the Arcadians with some FDS and Starfleet Intelligence observers to see how the thing is resolved. I'd estimate violently because House Ix won't accept these demands quietly, as they are the most vulnerable to these demands.
 
Hazard said:
The problem is that the internal politics of the Arcadians make a violent conflict more or less inevitable. About the only way Starfleet can avoid a war is if the Arcadians themselves decide to more or less abolish the Mentat system, and their R&D group can't do that. And they know that. Because then they have to use computers, which are at best unreliable and at worst active threats to the Arcadian Empire. And if they can't produce and use mentats they're going to fall behind the tech curve.

Now, in the face of the Federation that's not so terrible, the Federation would be entirely willing to leave them alone so long as there's no mentats running around. But they might not know that, they're also on the Romulan border, and the Ked Paddah and the IT of Gaen have already declared war on them and might not be as willing. Giving up their entire R&D department or being forced to break with hundreds of years of tradition founded on well supported fears of an AI rebellion and as such an existential threat anyway, fighting the war that lets them keep their mentats is just about their only option, even if it risks destroying their nation. Because if they don't fight that war they're going to see their nation destroyed.


Starfleet can't turn this situation around on its own. Part of this is on the FDS, the Council, the Gaen, the Ked Paddah and the Arcadians themselves. Trying to say otherwise is arrogance at best.

There is however something Starfleet can do. And that's being the beat stick that convinces the Arcadians that accepting limited mentat development under stricter controls is better than having Starfleet flatten their entire interstellar economy by destroying every ship they've got. If Starfleet can convince them of that, or the FDS, or anyone else, the situation can be handed off to the Arcadians with some FDS and Starfleet Intelligence observers to see how the thing is resolved. I'd estimate violently because House Ix won't accept these demands quietly, as they are the most vulnerable to these demands.
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Absolutely, I get that this is a joint effort with the major part of that effort going through the FDS and the Council. But with Starfleet can push that effort over the top. And if all we're doing is stomping on one or two houses while the Emperor and the other houses shuffle their feet nervously then we're in a much better place than a full on war. That, I feel, is achievable if we put diplomatic effort into it.
 
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