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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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Honestly, we have no compelling reason to assume the D7s were that bad for their era. Romulus may have gotten a fully modern, highly capable line of battle out of that deal.

Alastor Mobius Toth said:
Ooops, I missed that about Mars Councillor.

That said, it makes no sense for Mars to be also responsible for Luna; the Moon is close enough that people can shuttle in to and fro in matter of hours.
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It makes no sense, just looking at a geographic map, why Bangladesh and (today's) Pakistan were ever part of the same country- but they were. Political jurisdictions are often based on history and demographics. And I can imagine a lot of situations, especially in a period when warp travel was less ubiquitous and transporters were Not A Thing, in which Luna might decide its political interests were better served by alignment with Mars than with Earth.

Alastor Mobius Toth said:
If Mars is its own actual voting bloc and you have only like, 14 thousand votes, the question doesn't really matter, because Mars can simply outmass you either way. It's the question of "do I prefer to be Martian protectorate, or Earth's?". However, that's a bit outside of the point I was trying to make.
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The disparity between population sizes on the Moon and Mars, or between the aggregate population of 100 little habitats orbiting Jupiter and Mars, would tend to be a lot less dramatic than the disparity between any of those, and Earth.

The main argument is simply that space habitats collectively, and colonies around other star systems in general, will have very different interests from homeworlds and somewhat different from even major colonies. But inevitably the more remote and less populous colonies will be It's a reprise of the "big state, small state" argument from the drafting of the US Constitution, but with a very strong, very permanent reason behind it, especially in the context of the interstellar colonies.

I admit though, this is a big pet peeve of mine in science fiction - the colonies always have to be fractious and demand their own self-governance, which makes sense if technology makes travel and communication time-consuming or otherwise expensive. But the easier it is to move people, items and information, the less core-periphery dynamics are liable to create the same social forces that would make people consider breaking off with a distant polity, barring deliberate disruption. But that's maybe because I am not American :V
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It's not just communication, it's different living conditions and economic conditions. I mean, people who live in airtight domes on a planet with no biosphere and who find that 80% of their economy comes from dilithium mining or whatever, they're going to have very specific needs and policy issues arising. Trying to govern them from an M-class planet where their species evolved is going to create a lot of friction. And proportional representation of the colonists' needs in the M-class planet's legislature (or in a Federation-wide governing body) won't address that friction.
 
UbeOne said:
Still a rather short-term decision to me.

Why not make a bigger ship that's based on the Bird of Prey?
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It worked out for them in the (presumably non-canon) Kelvin-verse comics. They had they're Heavy Warbirds ready to have a go at the Klingons, only for the the Borg to follow Kirk back to the Alpha Quadrent like an evil puppy and try to assimilate Romulus.

Every bad thing to happen to the Romulans in the comics is the Federation's fault.
 
chriswriter90 said:
It worked out for them in the (presumably non-canon) Kelvin-verse comics. They had they're Heavy Warbirds ready to have a go at the Klingons, only for the the Borg to follow Kirk back to the Alpha Quadrent like an evil puppy and try to assimilate Romulus.

Every bad thing to happen to the Romulans in the comics is the Federation's fault.
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So? What's your point. I still can't bring myself to care about the Kelvin-verse Romulans.
 
Joshrand1982 said:
I don't think the Vulcan's will be very obstructionist once the war begins.
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The Cardassians have holes in their worldview, but they aren't stupid. They're going to try very hard to frame a war in the worst possible light for our internal consumption. I fully expect the Pacifists to disagree with the war unless the Cardassians discard all subtlety.

The Federation is a union of many different parts. The greatest weakness such a union has is that it will have a lot of fracture points to exploit. I expect the Cardassians to try very hard to exploit them.
 
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TyrialFrost said:
We need one of these breakdowns of fronts/objectives for a projected cardassian war immediately.

If we can anchor our lanes with starbases and outposts it will give us the time we need to ramp up to full mobilisation, and that could take some time because of the space hippi^C^C^C Vulcans.
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I'm actually working on a large-scale wargame Omake.

Fronts: GBZ (Dorsata, etc), CCBZ (Atuin, That one Apinae colonies), RCBZ (Lapycorias, Seyek planets that I don't know, Qloathi planets that I don't know)

TLDR: on Seyek and Qloathi ratification, establish a RCBZ: Rimward Cardassian Border Zone.

I'll go more in detail in the Omake, but I believe the best points for attack are at Atuin and Lapycorias. Especially Atuin. Even as a diversionary attack, it would draw forces from Lapycorias or the GBZ.

A flank attack via RCBZ would also be troublesome, and may render Lapycorias untenable.

Basically, pincer.
 
chriswriter90 said:
Every bad thing to happen to the Romulans in the comics is the Federation's fault.
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Section 31 Agent: "This chriswriter90 person keeps spouting nonsense that nonetheless has a grain of truth. Should I upgrade him to a CAT 2 for surveillance purposes Sir?"

Section 31 Officer: "Not quite yet as of now he's merely another paranoid forum poster. But for now, keep tabs on them."

Section 31 Agent: "Aye Sir. Still, though I find it quite humorous how close and yet so far off the mark they are."

Section 31 Officer: "True the Borg are meant to soften the Klingons. What is the status of Operation Spartacus by the way?"
 
Forgothrax said:
The Cardassians have holes in their worldview, but they aren't stupid. They're going to try very hard to frame a war in the worst possible light for our internal consumption. I fully expect the Pacifists to disagree with the war unless the Cardassians discard all subtlety.

The Federation is a union of many different parts. The greatest weakness such a union has is that it will have a lot of fracture points to exploit. I expect the Cardassians to try very hard to exploit them.
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The problem with that plan is that unless something truly bizarre happens they're going to be the aggressors and there's very little they can do to frame a war where they attacked first such that there's serious opposition.
 
AlphaDelta said:
I'm actually working on a large-scale wargame Omake.

Fronts: GBZ (Dorsata, etc), CCBZ (Atuin, That one Apinae colonies), RCBZ (Lapycorias, Seyek planets that I don't know, Qloathi planets that I don't know)

TLDR: on Seyek and Qloathi ratification, establish a RCBZ: Rimward Cardassian Border Zone.

I'll go more in detail in the Omake, but I believe the best points for attack are at Atuin and Lapycorias. Especially Atuin. Even as a diversionary attack, it would draw forces from Lapycorias or the GBZ.

A flank attack via RCBZ would also be troublesome, and may render Lapycorias untenable.

Basically, pincer.
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Do you mean Aelin? Atuin is an EC ship.

Because it's just a research colony. Even if it was lost, I wouldn't particularly care. Fleets have to supply from somewhere. A research colony isn't likely to have the necessary facilities to provision a fleet, so they have to carry their infrastructure with them. But the places to supply from all draw from Balogot anyway, two grid squares away, so they don't have a genuine pincer by extending a fleet there. Basically, they try it, our forces at Lapycorias or Indoria or Apinae can get the jump on isolating any ships used without actually extending beyond their designated area farther than the Cardassians would extend. Draw the lines from Balogot/Kamey to Aelin and then draw a line from Apinae/Indoria to intersect that, you'll see that our interception distance is actually less than how far the Cardassians would have to sortie to counter us. And we have Vintus as a fall-back, and the trade routes that supply Vintus can go through Themis instead.

There aren't many vulnerable places in the border zone given typical travel times. We have a definite advantage in that our first set of crucial infrastructure and logistics hub is all the way back at Amarkia. I wouldn't be opposed to a Grrizzi starbase mind you, and if we had Deep Space bases I'd probably put one in the middle there.

EDIT: The most vulnerable place we have is probably Risa. The Lecarre/Dawiar have a straight run to her without even the most basic defenses.
 
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pheonix89 said:
The problem with that plan is that unless something truly bizarre happens they're going to be the aggressors and there's very little they can do to frame a war where they attacked first such that there's serious opposition.
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I'm sure they'll go for a Red Storm Rising-esque maskirovka, but given it will come from Cardassian sensibilities I'm dubious as to its effectiveness.
 
Well, they'll TRY, and they may have more subtle angles to play than "oh, we were attacked!"

Like "is it really worth bloodshed to liberate Bajorans who don't want to be liberated?" Or "Indorians, if you declare neutrality we'll give you [cookies] and stop raiding your infrastructure!"
 
Cardassians are like Soviets. I think that, like the Romulans, they know their way around maskirovka.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Do you mean Aelin? Atuin is an EC ship.

Because it's just a research colony. Even if it was lost, I wouldn't particularly care. Fleets have to supply from somewhere. A research colony isn't likely to have the necessary facilities to provision a fleet, so they have to carry their infrastructure with them. But the places to supply from all draw from Balogot anyway, two grid squares away, so they don't have a genuine pincer by extending a fleet there. Basically, they try it, our forces at Lapycorias or Indoria or Apinae can get the jump on isolating any ships used without actually extending beyond their designated area farther than the Cardassians would extend. Draw the lines from Balogot/Kamey to Aelin and then draw a line from Apinae/Indoria to intersect that, you'll see that our interception distance is actually less than how far the Cardassians would have to sortie to counter us. And we have Vintus as a fall-back, and the trade routes that supply Vintus can go through Themis instead.

There aren't many vulnerable places in the border zone given typical travel times. We have a definite advantage in that our first set of crucial infrastructure and logistics hub is all the way back at Amarkia. I wouldn't be opposed to a Grrizzi starbase mind you, and if we had Deep Space bases I'd probably put one in the middle there.

EDIT: The most vulnerable place we have is probably Risa. The Lecarre/Dawiar have a straight run to her without even the most basic defenses.
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×checks map×

... I can definitely read maps.

Still, Atuin Aelin is a possible beachhead if they can hold it.

And if they somehow breach Lapycorias, it's a straight run to Indoria.


Keep discussing please; I need ideas
 
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Remember the Cardassians false-flagged the Sydraxians with epic success. I expect they'll try to destroy an EC ship and claim it was doing [insert hideous thing]. Or they'll claim that we broke the Treaty of Celos somehow therefore justifying the war. Etc.

No matter what, there will definitely be a serious question as to the legitimacy of any war me might wage. They are likely to offer us peace for concessions often as well.
 
Iron Wolf said:
They strike me as pretty modern Russian actually, but with a more soviet style authoritarian structure. Complete with a borderline useless civilian government apparatus. :V

North Korea would be the Sydraxians if the Graduates win.
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The Sydraxians don't strike me as totalitarian. Their culture of song and argument would make that difficult.

Their diplomatic posture might become Nork-esque under the graduates, but not their society overall.
 
Looking at the map, the Cardassians are more or less forced to launch two separate prongs of any offensive, one trying to hit us near Apiata space and the other trying to hit us via Indorian/Seyek space. They have excellent staging bases for attacking on the rimward side of their border (Indoria or Rethelia), with a probable strongly defended forward base at Bajor even if the Bajorans no longer have armed starships of their own, and with a reasonable selection of repair and industrial bases too far back for us to hit easily, especially Galundun.

For Apiata space, not so good; they either have to fight a grinding, battering campaign through the Gabriel Expanse, or they have to cut through the flank into Apiata space directly while relying on another force (possibly affiliates) to hold their own flank against our Gabriel Expanse fleet.

The combined strength of the Lecarre and Dawiar is mostly going to be needed just making enough trouble that we can't roll up to the spinward front with entire member species fleets any time soon. "Fleet in being" tactics are going to be the order of the day unless they manage something unexpected like, oh, getting the Hishmeri on-side in the near future or the Ittick-ka in the longer term.

They used to have a similar option on the coreward side of our space, but with the Sydraxians gravely weakened and the Yrillians maybe about to switch sides or at least cease to be reliable allies of Cardassia, that jaw of their vise has broken.

...

Honestly, their best hope is just a brute-force collision between us and them, relying on their own (assumed) greater ability to keep the lid on a war economy and absorb social pressure until some of our members start defecting from the war and either exerting pressure to sue for peace, or dropping out and diminishing our strength. There's not a lot of easy low-hanging fruit for them to seize in a lightning campaign, and the sheer distances and size of the fronts involved prevent either side from striking directly at the other's core territory without being detected and intercepted. It's worse for them than for us, though.
 
Leila Hann said:
Cardassians are more like a competent version of North Korea than anything else.
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No, Cardassians are pretty much...well, I hate to be that guy, but they're Nazis. Or at least generalized fascists. Subsuming everything into the state, except for the family, which should serve the state too but is the one thing that has importance absent its contribution to the state.
 
A brute force clash in the next year or two is unlikely to go well for them. Their fleet mainstay is outdated. Their flagship heavy cruisers are only slightly better. Their combat frigates are better than ours, but that just isn't an answer to our fleet of excelsiors and now rennies. Assuming our spinward member and affiliate fleets are a match for their clients, a brawl between Starfleet and the CDF isn't looking good for the latter.

I expect the cardassians will be refitting their jalduns and/or rolling out a new ship within that time frame, but until they've done that the advantage is ours.
 
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Forgothrax said:
Remember the Cardassians false-flagged the Sydraxians with epic success. I expect they'll try to destroy an EC ship and claim it was doing [insert hideous thing]. Or they'll claim that we broke the Treaty of Celos somehow therefore justifying the war. Etc.

No matter what, there will definitely be a serious question as to the legitimacy of any war me might wage. They are likely to offer us peace for concessions often as well.
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The first gambles that they can kill an EC ship that's not operating near them, THEN get Federation members to believe their faked bullshit story over our not bullshit story.

The second requires them being able to get the Federation to believe them over the FDS.

These are NOT solid plans.

False-flagging is not viable when the other guy has incontrovertible proof it's bullshit and the target audience is going to believe said other guy in he said she said.
 
Night said:
No, Cardassians are pretty much...well, I hate to be that guy, but they're Nazis. Or at least generalized fascists. Subsuming everything into the state, except for the family, which should serve the state too but is the one thing that has importance absent its contribution to the state.
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In some ways they certainly are. The totalitarianism, jingoism, and social conservativism on crack aspects.

But they aren't obsessed with genetic purity like the nazis (that's more of a Romulan thing). They don't have the almost messianic view of their role in history. And, as far as we know, they haven't committed genocide.*


*Gul Darhil tried, but he lacked the means to actually put a meaningful dent in Bajor's population.
 
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They do have an initial advantage in a lightning campaign, and that's that they can muster a fleet and strike much faster than we are allowed to because we have to keep our fleet scattered. Like, let's say that today 80C sallied forth from Bajor while their GBZ force danced with ours to tie it up. That would be a small force, within the realm of one that could catch us by surprise, but how quickly could be pull together a force at Indoria that matches it? Two weeks? Three? What if the Dawiar and Sydraxians menace enough to force us to not ignore them? And without stripping Rethelia? It's more of a challenge than we realize given the spread of our garrison.
 
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ISC Report Pt 1 - aeqnai
  • Informational

    • The Interstellar Commonwealth
    We Stand As One

    ​
    Admiral: enclosed is a summary of findings from our ongoing analysis of the First Contact packages and other data gathered on the ISC, for your eyes only.

    Signed,

    Cpt. Sabrina Victoria
    Cdr. Adam Lorentz
    Cdr. Cristina Zitlal

    Commonwealth Desk (pending)
    Coreward Desk, Starfleet Intelligence
    ​
     
  • Informational
    • Reader mode
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