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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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Oh yes, Mipek is from the other side of the galaxy.

Which means it's possible their creator was an Ancient Talaxian.
 
Simon_Jester said:
That depends on what 'yellow light' means. Why don't you go back and check how that was originally defined? We could probably use a quotation of that text as a reminder.
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Green Light = Fully Allowed, Red Light = Fully Denied, Yellow Light = Proceed on Own Recognizance

meaning yellow is, we do not think its a good idea but if you want too chance it, it is on your own risk (more or less, that we still get shit over it is an other thing)
 
Okay, if those are the exact words, fine- but again, when it comes to establishing civilian colonies, I'd believe something along the lines of what Oneiros said even if he hadn't said it. We're not going to be able to avoid responsibility for a thousand colonists getting swept off into a Cardassian prison camp, just because we say "well, we TOLD them it wasn't safe but they could go ahead anyway if they felt like it!"
 
I mean, aside from the desire to grab space clay, I'm not sure why we're even having the discussion at all. There's potentially huge risks, and the gains seem very marginal. I imagine we could potentially get a big PP sum, but the risk will then be we lose that PP or more in the event of an occupation. Nevermind the fact it anchors our forces in a way that I don't really like.

Basically there's a lot of potential downsides with very little upshot as far as I can see. My compromise is we consider making the system we want to settle a Starbase candidate and that's about as far as we go.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Okay, if those are the exact words, fine- but again, when it comes to establishing civilian colonies, I'd believe something along the lines of what Oneiros said even if he hadn't said it. We're not going to be able to avoid responsibility for a thousand colonists getting swept off into a Cardassian prison camp, just because we say "well, we TOLD them it wasn't safe but they could go ahead anyway if they felt like it!"
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i understand we get some shit just because, but it likely less shit then if we say.
no go right ahead there no problems at all

then again i am not totally on board for a border wide opening or anything like that
more like limited and with the understanding they it is most a big risk to do so (meaning they sure there own fleet too cover things as well)
yes we might lose some PP and if be tense but on the upside colony or 2 or more

also more interested in securing our new border before anything else
 
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The checklist of 'must be done first' could be used as an excuse to delay, and a way to strengthen the security of our area of the GBZ.

Edit: Or, alternatively, once those are in place, perhaps more people can be swayed into changing their minds about allowing the colony.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
Okay, if those are the exact words, fine- but again, when it comes to establishing civilian colonies, I'd believe something along the lines of what Oneiros said even if he hadn't said it. We're not going to be able to avoid responsibility for a thousand colonists getting swept off into a Cardassian prison camp, just because we say "well, we TOLD them it wasn't safe but they could go ahead anyway if they felt like it!"
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If we Green Light and the colonies are lost - it is bad.
If we Yellow Light and the colonies are lost - it is bad.

From a sematic point of view, Yellow Light becomes their fault.
From a political point of view, it won't make any appreciable difference and it will be our fault.

So we can only Yellow light those Miele M-Class worlds if we are reasonably sure that the Cardassians cannot sweep through the besiege them fast enough that time to evacuate becomes an issue. After all, look at what happened to the Syndraxians - they needed the Cardassains to threaten us in order to evacuate their small colony and their government still fell!

Now, once the Apinae have fortified Dorsata, and the Amkari lay in some more outposts, then it becomes much more viable, as there would be several layers of defensive installations between Cardassian space and Miele.

If we Yellow Light the whole GBZ, then some of those less viable colony sites may also get picked up - currently I would only recommend applying the Yellow to Miele only after more installations are placed.

Given time, the Apinae will turn Dorsata into the most fortified location outside of Homeworlds - they could well be receiving over half of all their mining income from this small area of space.
 
HearthBorn said:
The checklist of 'must be done first' could be used as an excuse to delay, and a way to strengthen the security of our area of the GBZ.

Edit: Or, alternatively, once those are in place, perhaps more people can be swayed into changing their minds about allowing the colony.
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Well, if it's defensible, then why not?

I would approve approving the Amarki colonies once my recommendations are carried out: outposts, and increased fleet presence.

Also, there's no point to adding defensive fortifications if it doesn't have importance, civilian or military.

Once Dorsata and Miele are fortified, yellow light.
 
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OneirosTheWriter said:
GBZ: Cardassian Strength Report

2 Kaldar
~10 Jaldun
2 Takaaki Sci
2 Isaamu
4~6 Takaaki Cmb

Auxiliary
8 Cargo Ship
4 Freighter

2 Passenger
4 Engineer
4 Prospector
2 Colony Ship

Aranyak (Starbase)
67 Gabriel (Starbase, Defences)
?66 Gabriel (Outpost?) - Mining Colony
?77 Gabriel (Outpost?) - Mining Colony
?45 Gabriel (Outpost?) - Mining Colony
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Here's something for the armchair admirals: if we did want to prosecute economic warfare in the GBZ to slow the Cardassian resource acquisition or cost them in some equivalent way, what would be the best way to do it?

They have approximately equivalent forces to our own, so we would have some difficulty attacking a colony directly. Neither would we be able to prevent resettlement even if we did blow up the outpost, the mining infrastructure, and beamed all the Cardassians into lifepods or something. Engaging the starbases is out of the question. In addition, we don't really have the ability to force a favorable deep space battle, due to relative parity in forces and their superior sensors with the two starbases.

Our best bet in my armchair admiral opinion would be to hit their auxiliary force when they're out doing things. Remove prospectors, colony ships, and engineering assets before they can lay outposts and minefields in new sectors. Fade before a larger response then just their escorting task forces arrives. There are risks with this strategy, but the risks are much bigger with almost every other strategy.

This is all predicated on wanting to fight or otherwise damage them in some way, which I don't really see as necessary at all, but just for the sake of argument.
 
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Omake - That Old Familiar Foe - Night
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    • IT'S OMAKE TIME!

    The Huáscar does not currently have an assigned captain, according to anything I checked. So I made one up.

    That Old Familiar Foe

    No one had expected pass the dogwatch in anything more than quiet and comfort aboard the Huáscar. Out near Risa, in transit on their assigned patrol route through the Ferasa sector. They'd sent the dogwatch update packet thirty minutes ago, and hadn't pinged a colony or starship they were passing near on comm in three hours. It was one of the areas that was just a "big empty", as happened with space. Perhaps the only unusual feature was the fact that Captain V'Ten was on the bridge, quietly doing PADDwork off to one side, and even that was only unusual to people who had not crewed on the Huáscar long. Captain V'Ten made such visits to the night watches at least once a week; the conn was still in the hands of Lieutenant Commander ap Grinn, with the Captain merely present to observe.

    "Lieutenant Commander, I may have something." The sensor operator was a human lieutenant, recently promoted. "Sensor anomaly, about a light-year, deep in our warp baffles." Starship sensors trying to peer through the warp field of their nacelles were at a natural disadvantage, like trying to see past a flashlight pointed at their face. Ships would frequently drop out of warp briefly or make long, slow turns to clear their baffles.

    ap Grinn briefly debated his response. A cloaked Klingon ship wasn't impossible out here, so he wouldn't just stop. Otherwise it might well just fly by, or worse yet if it was stalking them arrive immediately. It was always good to have a position of strength to negotiate from with Klingons. "Helm, give me a 45 degree port variation for three minutes and then bring us back to base course. Sensors, what do you have?"

    "High-frequency subspace point source, weak. Just white noise, no repeating patterns or strong discrete signal." A grimace. "I can hold it now that it's out of the baffles, it would fade in and out before. Otherwise, nothing changing."

    "Lieutenant." Captain V'Ten's voice spoke up. "How long has it been there?"

    "Ah, sir." A pause. "Slightly under an hour. Fifty-six minutes eighteen seconds." Everyone knew to be precise when making a report to a Vulcan.

    "It could be a wake artifact. We've been steady on for a bit over an hour." ap Grinn mused. "Bit of dust or something we're pulling along."

    "At a light-year? Be serious," admonished Captain V'Ten. "We are not making high enough warp for our subspace wake to be that long."

    "If it is, it will start losing energy soon with our course deviation." ap Grinn replied. "That will settle the issue. But let's be thorough. Lieutenant, a focused scan, if you would."

    "No returns-it's changing bearing!"

    The Captain set his PADD down. "Lieutenant Commander, I have the conn."

    Lieutenant Commander ap Grinn nodded, standing from the captain's chair. "You have the conn, sir. Shall I sound yellow alert?" Natural phenomenon had become exceedingly unlikely. A changed course implied the ability to respond to stimuli and at least rudimentary intelligence.

    Captain V'Ten did not take the chair yet, moving to stand near Helm. "Not yet. Signal Sector Command we are investigating a possible cloaked starship. Sensors, project a course track onscreen." The contact had stayed behind them, but when they deviated from course it had not. It had started to deviate from its own course at the exact moment of the sensor probe. The timing was too close; even a cloaked shuttle with one person in the decision loop would still take a few seconds to decide. Veering away, no less. "Helm. Pursue the contact. Close to five light-minutes and maintain. Tactical, does this match any known pattern of cloaking interference?"

    "Checking." A couple of minutes passed, and the Huáscar closed to five light-minutes with a brief burst of higher warp. "No, sir."

    Suggestive, but only suggestive. The Klingons were a people given to cunning. "Sensors, prepare for a focused active scan with targeting sensors. Maximum rated power. Initiate on my say-so." A starship's targeting sensors, at maximum focus and power, were actually dangerous to use at close range. That was part of the point of the old pre-Khitomer hold-down exercises, closing a cloaked craft and lashing it with the most powerful sensor sweeps possible until it decloaked, an activity intended to make clear Starfleet's displeasure with the infiltration attempt. And break the confidence of the Klingon crew in their cloak and their captain. These days...well, it was still on the books, if they didn't respond to hails.

    "Contact is slowing down and the signal is losing power. Bearing changing."

    "Executive Officer, Yellow Alert. Tactical, raise shields. Comms, inform Sector Command that we are tracking a positively identified cloaked starship." Any two of those things might be innocent. All three together could not be anything but an attempt to evade the Huáscar. Captain V'Ten assumed a parade rest position, hands at the small of his back, and listened to the Yellow Alert signal for several long moments. "Comms, hail them."

    "Contact is dropping out of warp-contact lost." The sensors officer sounded frustrated. "I've got nothing, sir."

    "No response." Comms added a moment later.

    "Helm, bring us to one-light second of the location contact was lost and drop us out of warp. Sensors, give me a wide sweep at maximum power." They would play the old game, then.

    "Bird-of-Prey decloaking at four million kilometers! Weapons powering up!"

    "Tactical, show him our guns. Arm two torpedoes. Executive officer, Red Alert." Captain V'Ten raised an eyebrow. Odd. They were inside Risan claimed space, which the Klingons knew well. "Hailing frequencies?"

    "Open, sir."

    "Unidentified Bird-of-Prey, this is the Federation starship Huáscar. You have entered Risan space under cloak. State your intentions."

    The answer was quick, audio-only. "Huáscar. Ah, now there is a worthy name. You hearten me, Captain."

    For just a moment, the reference confused him. But...Klingons always had a fine sense of history. Even the history of others. "Your intentions, Captain."

    "A glorious death in battle." They sounded whimsical, not hostile. But the Bird-of-Prey, it was an old model, massing far less than Huáscar and outclassed in almost every dimension, had its weapons fully charged and its torpedo launcher primed for action.

    "You have a war on for that." V'Ten replied. "Why come here to seek it?"

    "The Empire has changed, Captain. The Romulans are deadly foes, to be sure, but they were never my foes. Such honorless curs do not deserve the glory." The Bird of Prey turned a lazy circle. "It is entirely fitting that a Connie should be here. Tell me, do you remember when we were enemies?"

    V'Ten made the classic throat-slash gesture to cut the comms. ap Grinn looked horrified. "He's talking about committing suicide by Starfleet, sir."

    "Tactical, prep tractor." People were arriving to man their stations now. Another gesture reopened the hailing frequency. "I was an ensign with the fleet that came to Organia just before the peace, aboard the Dauntless."

    "And I, a lieutenant aboard the Kortar, with the fleet that tried to seize Organia."

    "Can you say it was not better this way? To destroy an empire to win a war would have been no victory, and when Praxis came..." V'Ten resisted the un-Vulcan urge to shake his head. How does one talk a Klingon out of violence?

    "I should not be surprised that a Vulcan would read Kahless. And you speak truly. But this ship was decommissioned years ago. My crew represents no one but themselves. And now, Captain, defend yourself."

    "Hit! Shields at ninety-" "Channel cut-" V'Ten's voice override the others. "Helm, evasive. Tactical, tractor them and amputate their guns."

    "Tractor lock-" The Bird-of-Prey fired a torpedo. The lock, still provisional, cycled to the new fast-moving object, interpreting it as an attempt to break away. Two seconds later Huáscar rocked violently. "Tractor's out of action!"

    "Shields." V'Ten demanded. "Damage report."

    "Seventy-two percent and rising."

    ap Grinn looked up. "No reports beyond the tractor. Misalignment, shock damage. The detonation was close." Skilled. Using the logic of the tractor system against it, in a way that sentient intervention was prevented by speed and a lack of bearing change to tip them off. Very skilled.

    "Bird of Prey closing at high speed, on collision." The helmswoman looked up. "Sir...they're more maneuverable and faster at sublight."

    "Try, lieutenant. Spool up the warp drive." V'Ten replied. The Huáscar lashed the Bird-of-Prey's shields with phaserfire, cutting through; a wing and its associated disruptors came off. The Bird-of-Prey wobbled in flight, struggling. But its impulse engines were intact and somehow it held course. V'Ten had a moment to marvel. They were indeed skilled, long veterans, to keep a ship working with that kind of damage. The other disruptor was still firing, and the torpedo launcher fired again. A clean miss, passing a hundred meters over the Huáscar's saucer. The one disruptor alone was not enough to outpace their shield regeneration.

    "One hundred thousand klicks. Captain, we're not going to evade them." ap Grinn warned.

    "Warp drive?" V'Ten asked.

    "Not before impact, sir."

    The next command would be odious. It was also all that was left. "Fire torpedoes."

    In the two seconds before the torpedoes crossed the distance, the Bird-of-Prey's last vestiges of shielding disappeared. Perhaps disabled by combat damage. Perhaps dropped deliberately. Then it was free molecules. The silence on the bridge of the Huáscar was deafening.

    "They broadcast a data packet, before they shut down the channel. I'm scanning it to make sure it's safe." Comms reported, after a few moments.

    "It will be, Lieutenant. Complete your check, but I will be surprised if it contains anything beyond text and perhaps a few images." V'Ten walked to the Captain's chair and sat heavily. "I will review it in my quarters. Later. Secure from Red Alert. Update Sector Command." He already knew what the packet would contain, at least in part.

    An image of old men. Old men, with smiling faces. An image he did not desire to see.
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    • SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
    Here's something for the armchair admirals: if we did want to prosecute economic warfare in the GBZ to slow the Cardassian resource acquisition or cost them in some equivalent way, what would be the best way to do it?

    They have approximately equivalent forces to our own, so we would have some difficulty attacking a colony directly. Neither would we be able to prevent resettlement even if we did blow up the outpost, the mining infrastructure, and beamed all the Cardassians into lifepods or something. Engaging the starbases is out of the question. In addition, we don't really have the ability to force a favorable deep space battle, due to relative parity in forces and their superior sensors with the two starbases.

    Our best bet in my armchair admiral opinion would be to hit their auxiliary force when they're out doing things. Remove prospectors, colony ships, and engineering assets before they can lay outposts and minefields in new sectors. Fade before a larger response then just their escorting task forces arrives. There are risks with this strategy, but the risks are much bigger with almost every other strategy.

    This is all predicated on wanting to fight or otherwise damage them in some way, which I don't really see as necessary at all, but just for the sake of argument.
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    Introduce cloaked listening posts near the edge of their expansion, task a allied state with 'harassing' shipping (Not very trek-like). Alternatively explore just outside their current borders and lay down mines at points of interest.

    Neither of these options would be palatable to the federation... but I'm surprised the cardasians are not doing it.
     
    The Cardassians do not (currently?) have viable cloaking devices.

    They did have their hands on an advanced cloak in bad repair for a period of time, but they have not, as far as we know, gotten their hands on any current generation Klingon/Romulon cloaking systems.
    And even if they did, the original reason for the high S score on our ships was cloak detection ...
     
    Cloak based tactics are a thing we know how to do.

    Mines in space are worthless outside of defending installations or boobytrapping a wormhole.
     
    pheonix89 said:
    Mines in space are worthless outside of defending installations or boobytrapping a wormhole.
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    Depends on the accuracy of your intelligence and the degree to which your opponents adhere to their scheduling. The Cardassians like tight centralized control. If their freighters, for example, are rigidly controlled enough...

    Or as it was once put, think like a bomber, not a demolitions expert. If you know where the people go, and their movements are sufficiently predictable, the rest is just a delivery issue.
     
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    Redhead222 said:
    i understand we get some shit just because, but it likely less shit then if we say.
    no go right ahead there no problems at all

    then again i am not totally on board for a border wide opening or anything like that
    more like limited and with the understanding they it is most a big risk to do so (meaning they sure there own fleet too cover things as well)
    yes we might lose some PP and if be tense but on the upside colony or 2 or more

    also more interested in securing our new border before anything else
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    More punctuation would make this a lot clearer and easier to understand. As it is, I'm not sure what you want to happen or why you expect it to have desirable outcomes.

    Night said:
    Depends on the accuracy of your intelligence and the degree to which your opponents adhere to their scheduling. The Cardassians like tight centralized control. If their freighters, for example, are rigidly controlled enough...

    Or as it was once put, think like a bomber, not a demolitions expert. If you know where the people go, and their movements are sufficiently predictable, the rest is just a delivery issue.
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    I would be very surprised if their centralized control was so stupidly rigid that their supply convoys pass through literally exactly the same spot in deep space every single time. Among other things, they're not morons when it comes to military tactics, and having your supply ships fly extremely predictable, tightly scheduled routes opens you up to all kinds of military disasters.

    EDIT: I liked the story, by the way.
     
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    Simon_Jester said:
    I would be very surprised if their centralized control was so stupidly rigid that their supply convoys pass through literally exactly the same spot in deep space every single time.
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    So would I, but it's more about how closely they adhere to their future schedules, not their past ones.

    It's also worth pointing out that defended checkpoints have their advantages, but also present a target for offensive mine warfare. Just put in a minefield of your own outside their minefield.
     
    Night said:
    So would I, but it's more about how closely they adhere to their future schedules, not their past ones.

    It's also worth pointing out that defended checkpoints have their advantages, but also present a target for offensive mine warfare. Just put in a minefield of your own outside their minefield.
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    As I understand it, placing a mine field is an extended job (measured in weeks/months) by an engineering team. It is not a case of throw some warheads out the back of the Centaur as it does a fly-by.
    There is also stats on the mine field, indicating size, density, size of the warheads etc. You want quick, then you get a small, light field with tiny warheads that a freighter could possibly sail through without even noticing - and even if they are hit, they may survive it.
     
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