pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh yes.
We just can't give it the full saved the federation fanfare.
Though we did get it back fully operational so another Lion will have to wait.
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?
We just can't give it the full saved the federation fanfare.
Though we did get it back fully operational so another Lion will have to wait.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Interestingly, I just rediscovered that the Romulan Navy's internal military Intelligence department (What We've been calling the "Department of Naval Recconaissence") exists in the beta canon as a group known as the "Tal Diann" they dont get along well with the Tal Shiar.
Chaos Blade
Procrastinating Writer
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
[X][CARD] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Interstellar Commonwealth Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] Ship Analysis Report: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Mk. II
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Interstellar Commonwealth Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] Ship Analysis Report: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Mk. II
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
Kolar
Is Not A Robot
On a scale of IJA/IJN to 10 how 'not along' to they get?
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X][CARD] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Dawiar Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Report on Ongoing Sydraxian Civil Strife
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Dawiar Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Report on Ongoing Sydraxian Civil Strife
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
Interesting, and not even a contradiction since "Directorate of Naval Reconnaissance" was always a translation. "Tal" is obviously some variation of Division or Directorate or Department or Bureau, possibly with additional connotations towards security and/or espionage.
Googling "Tal Diann" let me into the Memory Beta link hell, where I found a couple of other interesting tidbits under the category of "Intelligence Agencies".
Imperial Intelligence is the Klingon intelligence agency, founded for the Imperial House to spy on the other Great Houses.
V'Shar is the Vulcan intelligence agency... and not just pre-Federation either. Lends support to my idea that Starfleet Intelligence is the only Federation intelligence agency, but all of the member worlds maintain their own individual espionage agencies.
- Location
- somewhere
Sounds like Shiar and Shar are cognates.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Not surprising considering that Rihannsu is a Vulcan conlang.
It's like some Spanish speakers worked backwards to get to a form of latin and then "reaged" the language to get French.
That's what the Romulan language is compared to the Vulcan language.
Also: Have I told you yet that Romulan religion is apparently Internet Memes that people started taking way too seriously?
I would suspect that agencies like V'Shar, particularly how it seems to be portrayed in TNG, are more internal intelligence groups like the FBI or MI5 then a full-fledged foreign intelligence agency like Starfleet Intelligence.
That being said I would be very surprised if there wasn't a lot of collaboration between the various agencies.
Kolar
Is Not A Robot
Please, regale us with this no doubt fascinating tale kind madam.
for FBI/CIA in the US. Although the US is complicated, you could get the Defense Intelligence Agency as being a more direct SFI counterpart, with a Federation Intelligence in the CIA role, possibly.
MI5/MI6 is also another big touchstone.
[X][CARD] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Interstellar Commonwealth Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] Ship Analysis Report: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Mk. II
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Interstellar Commonwealth Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] Ship Analysis Report: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Mk. II
[X][REPORT] Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
The distinction is bound to be a little blurry. Is it "internal" if the V'Shar is monitoring the activities of, say, the Andorians? Or even of Vulcan colony worlds that aren't in lockstep with the homeworld?
But probably you're right that they don't do much work outside the Federation's borders. Except when they do.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From memory beta:
"The idea of the Elements originated during the early years of the Sundering as a discussion board joke among the proto-Romulans on the Vulcan equivalent of the Internet. The joke proved popular and enduring enough that various idioms began to derive from it, such as that a particularly stubborn person "had too much Earth in him". Even S'task took part in these discussions on occasion.
The fact that this was a joke was gradually forgotten, and by the time the survivors of the Romulan colony fleet reached Romulus it had become the primary spirituality of the Romulan race."
I'll note that the Romulans reached Romulus while the first generation that had left Vulcan were still alive and active.
I suspect that they let the younger generations turn the memes into a religion "for teh lulz"
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I think the tendency to take things that really should not be mysticism, and turn them into mysticism, is somehow built into the Vulcan species and its offshoot.
I mean, they managed to turn logic into a religion, as far as I can tell.
What I'm doing is questioning some of your other priorities. I think some of your other reports are equally an example of us seeking out information or opportunities that we have no way of benefiting from.
Ship stats are one of the pieces of information we are most likely to get through means other than intelligence reports, and one of the least important to know. We're not going to design any new ships soon in the near future except the Kepler, and the Kepler isn't going to be designed with an eye to countering any foreign design. What exactly do you expect us to do with the ship design reports on the Klingon ships, that you consider to be more important than knowing whose side the Yrillians are on or things of that nature?
The class of information we're most hurting for is "where do our potential rivals and enemies stand, what is their posture, what are their capabilities?" The Cardassian tactics report is weakening our ability to know this information and has been for years, but there are other ways for us to sacrifice that information- and Klingon ship reports are one of them.
So actually? A report like the one you describe would be good news, because a Yrillian species that fights its own internal war paralleling our larger war would be a great improvement over a Yrillian species that mostly falls into line on the Cardassian side of the war.
You are painfully correct.
Secondly, "Go back to bed, Starfleet Intelligence will wake us up if one side or the other wins the war" isn't a good policy. It may result in us not learning about some important development until it's too late to do anything.
Seriously, this is basically what David Weber had the Solarian League do about the Manticore-Haven War. Ignore it, on the assumption that if anything REALLY important happened, they would automatically notice.
Weber's Sollies are morons. Let's not be the Sollies.
Adding +5% Combat in the Gabriel Expanse is about like sending a Miranda-A or two extra there, at best. Is it worth remaining clueless about the progress of the biggest war in the quadrant since the TOS era, for that? Is it worth not knowing whose side the Yrillians are on? Is it worth not knowing if we've got an opportunity to shift the Dawiar or the Sydraxians out of the Ashalla Pact?
I think a number of us are overvaluing the combat bonus because it's mechanical, while neglecting that we can't make intelligent gameplay decisions or exploit opportunities that arise in-game if we lack information. Having mechanically powerful fleets is useless if we don't know what to do with them.
Like, if Captain Kirk had filed a report to the CO of Starfleet back in his day, detailing his observations of the Enterprise-B... that would very probably have resulted in acceleration of the Excelsior project. Excelsior would have launched earlier or been in better shape when she did launch, causing butterfly effects that would probably in turn have changed the Enterprise-B or resulted in her never even being in the Aga Carmide system in the first place. Paradox. By contrast, if some bureaucrat in Temporal Affairs finds out about the Excelsiors AND KEEPS IT SECRET, the problems are minimized.
Of course, there's always Scotty's Self-Consistency Conjecture: "For all we know, he's the guy who invented the stuff." But the point remains. I can easily see temporal affairs being a setting where mid-ranking officers are cleared to know more than high-ranking ones not already part of the organization.
I mean, they managed to turn logic into a religion, as far as I can tell.
I agree about not getting the Cardassian tactics report, and I've said so in the past. The benefit we gain from other strategic information is much greater than the benefit we get from a +5% combat bonus we don't know if we're going to get a chance to use.
What I'm doing is questioning some of your other priorities. I think some of your other reports are equally an example of us seeking out information or opportunities that we have no way of benefiting from.
Ship stats are one of the pieces of information we are most likely to get through means other than intelligence reports, and one of the least important to know. We're not going to design any new ships soon in the near future except the Kepler, and the Kepler isn't going to be designed with an eye to countering any foreign design. What exactly do you expect us to do with the ship design reports on the Klingon ships, that you consider to be more important than knowing whose side the Yrillians are on or things of that nature?
The class of information we're most hurting for is "where do our potential rivals and enemies stand, what is their posture, what are their capabilities?" The Cardassian tactics report is weakening our ability to know this information and has been for years, but there are other ways for us to sacrifice that information- and Klingon ship reports are one of them.
I, for one, do not. I consider the Hishmeri a serious threat likely to have a great many armed ships. The reason I am opposed to seeking a report on their fleet strength isn't because I consider that information undesirable, it's because I don't expect us to be able to learn it this year.
We were explicitly told last time we sought such a report, or around that time, that in the event of war the Yrillians would side with the Cardassians with at most a minority of pro-Federation defectors.
So actually? A report like the one you describe would be good news, because a Yrillian species that fights its own internal war paralleling our larger war would be a great improvement over a Yrillian species that mostly falls into line on the Cardassian side of the war.
To be fair, and speaking as one who doubted you...
You are painfully correct.
For one, Oneiros tends to factor in what we've gotten intelligence reports on as a way of determining what to apply mechanical bonuses to. If we stop seeking information on the war, this may penalize us if-and-when we wind up somehow involved in the war. Say, because one side is losing, or because we're trying to negotiate a cease-fire but one side is trying to pull a fast one on us by banking on our ignorance of the conflict. Or because the war triggers political shifts in one or both empires that change the postwar political calculus, and we didn't see it coming.
Secondly, "Go back to bed, Starfleet Intelligence will wake us up if one side or the other wins the war" isn't a good policy. It may result in us not learning about some important development until it's too late to do anything.
Seriously, this is basically what David Weber had the Solarian League do about the Manticore-Haven War. Ignore it, on the assumption that if anything REALLY important happened, they would automatically notice.
Weber's Sollies are morons. Let's not be the Sollies.
We've been making that assumption again and again for years. Consequently, we've sacrificed several intelligence reports worth of information, including subjects many people are curious about and subjects where we are woefully out of date in our information. All for a bonus we've hardly ever used.
Adding +5% Combat in the Gabriel Expanse is about like sending a Miranda-A or two extra there, at best. Is it worth remaining clueless about the progress of the biggest war in the quadrant since the TOS era, for that? Is it worth not knowing whose side the Yrillians are on? Is it worth not knowing if we've got an opportunity to shift the Dawiar or the Sydraxians out of the Ashalla Pact?
I think a number of us are overvaluing the combat bonus because it's mechanical, while neglecting that we can't make intelligent gameplay decisions or exploit opportunities that arise in-game if we lack information. Having mechanically powerful fleets is useless if we don't know what to do with them.
Honestly, the people at the very top of the organization are arguably the LAST people you want to inform about time travel that might clue them in about future events. Because even a small amount of information about the future will cause major butterfly effects if the people in charge know about it.
Like, if Captain Kirk had filed a report to the CO of Starfleet back in his day, detailing his observations of the Enterprise-B... that would very probably have resulted in acceleration of the Excelsior project. Excelsior would have launched earlier or been in better shape when she did launch, causing butterfly effects that would probably in turn have changed the Enterprise-B or resulted in her never even being in the Aga Carmide system in the first place. Paradox. By contrast, if some bureaucrat in Temporal Affairs finds out about the Excelsiors AND KEEPS IT SECRET, the problems are minimized.
Of course, there's always Scotty's Self-Consistency Conjecture: "For all we know, he's the guy who invented the stuff." But the point remains. I can easily see temporal affairs being a setting where mid-ranking officers are cleared to know more than high-ranking ones not already part of the organization.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd also like to note that the top secret heart names that Romulans only share with their most loved and trusted friends, lovers and family......
Are descended from Early Romulan Internet Forum handles.
Yes. A Romulan would rather dox herself than tell you her internet handle.
Are descended from Early Romulan Internet Forum handles.
Yes. A Romulan would rather dox herself than tell you her internet handle.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Okay, trying to digest the tally consensus into something useful. Current frontrunners, with number of votes...
ROM:
34 Romulan Fleet Strength Report
CARD:
32 Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
26 Cardassian Shipyard Report
REPORT:
31 GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
27 Status of Klingon-Romulan War
26 Dawiar Diplomatic Posture Report
24 Hishmeri Fleet Strength Report
22 Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
There are no runners-up with even half as many votes as the front-runners in their respective categories.
...Hm. Basically I agree with the consensus on most of this stuff, which is unsurprising; most people agree with the consensus or it would not BE a consensus.
I'm still not convinced we should be getting a Hishmeri fleet report since I suspect the answer will contain too many "I dunnos," but I could be wrong.
The one thing I think SHOULD be on our list is the "Report on Ongoing Sydraxian Civil Strife" issue. I would like to strongly argue for our continuing to get information on that, because IF something happens in 2316-17 to result in a political shakeup in Sydraxian space, our ability to react to it in a timely manner could prove really important. Like "cause the Ashalla Pact threat on our flanks to shrivel up and blow away in the wind" important.
The problem is, at this point about 11 people who didn't vote for it would have to switch their votes to it, giving up something like the GBZ report or the Hishmeri fleet report. I suspect that's a non-starter.
ROM:
34 Romulan Fleet Strength Report
CARD:
32 Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
26 Cardassian Shipyard Report
REPORT:
31 GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
27 Status of Klingon-Romulan War
26 Dawiar Diplomatic Posture Report
24 Hishmeri Fleet Strength Report
22 Yrillian Diplomatic Posture Report
There are no runners-up with even half as many votes as the front-runners in their respective categories.
...Hm. Basically I agree with the consensus on most of this stuff, which is unsurprising; most people agree with the consensus or it would not BE a consensus.
I'm still not convinced we should be getting a Hishmeri fleet report since I suspect the answer will contain too many "I dunnos," but I could be wrong.
The one thing I think SHOULD be on our list is the "Report on Ongoing Sydraxian Civil Strife" issue. I would like to strongly argue for our continuing to get information on that, because IF something happens in 2316-17 to result in a political shakeup in Sydraxian space, our ability to react to it in a timely manner could prove really important. Like "cause the Ashalla Pact threat on our flanks to shrivel up and blow away in the wind" important.
The problem is, at this point about 11 people who didn't vote for it would have to switch their votes to it, giving up something like the GBZ report or the Hishmeri fleet report. I suspect that's a non-starter.
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
I have changed my vote to get the Sydraxian Civil Strife report.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
This sounds weirdly like the way L5R has infiltrated my daily conversation with friends after we played it. "Air was his dump stat."
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
[X][CARD] Cardassian Tactics Report (Gain +5% combat vs Cardassian fleets for the next 12 months)
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipbuilding Report
[X][REPORT] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
I'm with nix on this one. We need all three of these Cardassian reports and the GBZ report. So much of our fleet strength is tied up there, I'm reticent to leave them short on intel.
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipbuilding Report
[X][REPORT] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to
I'm with nix on this one. We need all three of these Cardassian reports and the GBZ report. So much of our fleet strength is tied up there, I'm reticent to leave them short on intel.
That's way better worded than my previous vote.
[X][CARD] Cardassian Fleet Strength Report
[X][CARD] Cardassian Shipyard Report
[X][ROM] Romulan Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Report on Ongoing Sydraxian Civil Strife
[X][REPORT] Dawiar Diplomatic Posture Report
[X][REPORT] Hishmeri Fleet Strength Report
[X][REPORT] Status of Klingon-Romulan War
[X][REPORT] GBZ: Determine what projects other factions are up to