Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
I am pretty sure its at least a hundred lightyears barring the occasional neighbor who is of similar size to the federation.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
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- 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?
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
"For you, the day you encountered Starfleet was the most important day of your life. But for us, it was Tuesday."So a regular Tuesday in Starfleet then
-Vice Admiral M. Bison
- Location
- Patriarchova
Hey now, don't go besmirching Tuesdays. The are a very important day in the Federation.
After all Tuesday is when everything useful gets installed.
harriman.gif
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Say, @OneirosTheWriter , when do the three explorers slated to receive crew from the Enterprise get their veterancy boosts?
The correct mental model for policy decisions in Star Trek isn't "you were fiddling while Romulus was burning." It's "there's plenty of time to finish our game of holo-bowling and beat the Cardassians both."
If we don't, then we need to reform the protocols of communications staff handling important messages. Fortunately, guess who's in charge as Starfleet's chief of staff?
The Cardassian affiliates on the other side of Cardassian space are significantly less than 100 light-years from our border.
To be fair, almost anything we do other than issue specific orders to the Explorer Corps captain already on the spot would take weeks. And Atuin isn't even in their chain of command, so those orders would come direct from Ainsworth anyway.
The correct mental model for policy decisions in Star Trek isn't "you were fiddling while Romulus was burning." It's "there's plenty of time to finish our game of holo-bowling and beat the Cardassians both."
Well, we do need to make sure we have efficient lines of priority communication from regular fleet ships to the top levels of command, that don't depend on someone waking up. I'd actually be surprised if we don't, but "the Sydraxians are having a civil war and it just got messy" isn't QUITE that kind of emergency. Realistically, a few hours one way or the other in the time of arrival of that message isn't going to matter. If it was the Cardassian fleet suddenly heading for Lapycorias at Warp Ten, I suspect we'd see a significantly faster response.
If we don't, then we need to reform the protocols of communications staff handling important messages. Fortunately, guess who's in charge as Starfleet's chief of staff?
Same way we can gain political will from the actions of the Stargazer. Starfleet bringing Starfleet-related bad news is bad for Starfleet's political leverage.
According to our official maps, a hundred light-years is ten map sectors. A fleet could take months to travel that distance. On our map, Lapycorias and Betazed, on literally opposite sides of the Federation, are no more than 100 light-years apart.
The Cardassian affiliates on the other side of Cardassian space are significantly less than 100 light-years from our border.
I know I am in the minority here but I really don't think that starting a war/coming into conflict with Hishmeri about this is a smart or necessarily justified idea. What they are doing to this minor civilization might be ethically inexcusable for us but it doesn't really affect us considering both the Hishmeri and the minor civilization are neither part of the Federation nor any other way associated with it and thus in no way beholden to follow our value systems (or were even warned that not following it would have negative consequences). It seems to be quite arrogant in my opinion to think that we have the right to enforce our own ideology over the rest of the galaxy. Plus it seems a bit dishonest to act now when we know that the Ittick-Ka (or Klingons and Romulans for that matter) do pretty much the same and nobody is proposing to invade them. In my opinion part of living in a galaxy like that is respecting the sovereignty of other nations, even in cases like that. And unlike the Arcadian nobody here can make the argument that the Hishmeri are an essential threat for the galaxy...
And then there is of course the problem of picking a fight with another power without knowing its capabilities while being in the middle of a cold war, a political crisis in one of our bigger neighbours spilling over into our own territory, having to police a recently defeated enemy as well as having our other two big neighbours/rivals being involved in a war that may or may not spill over into own territory yet.
I mean it is not like we don't have to do nothing but I think we would be better of with providing humanitarian aid for the attacked world than sending warships...
And then there is of course the problem of picking a fight with another power without knowing its capabilities while being in the middle of a cold war, a political crisis in one of our bigger neighbours spilling over into our own territory, having to police a recently defeated enemy as well as having our other two big neighbours/rivals being involved in a war that may or may not spill over into own territory yet.
I mean it is not like we don't have to do nothing but I think we would be better of with providing humanitarian aid for the attacked world than sending warships...
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Jenny
anonymous user
- Location
- maryland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd support you.
What's our endgame if we do go to war with the Hishmer? How many losses are we prepared to take? Are we ready to strip the garrisons, or the GBZ, again?
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
1. What Ittick-Ka do and what Hishmeri will most likely do are VERY different things. Vassalage/tribute in exchange for protection and genocide by stripmining their homeworld from under their feet are vastly different things after all. If it was just trade exchange or relatively minor tribute nobody in the thread nor Federation would give a single fuck about situation.
2. "Do not care" policy in this case is essentially nail in the coffin of non-involvement with pre-ftl species. It will give birth to ToBoldlyGo!Maquis that would try to uplift as many pre-FTL species as possible because Federation do not care to protect them and they can't protect themselves. And Federation would not be able to enforce against efforts of all concerned citizens.
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- Location
- Patriarchova
Think also of the political realities. If Stesk was unwilling to go to war with the Licori over them endangering the entire tailwards side of known space, I can scarcely imagine the stink he'd raise over our attacking the Hishmeri.
I'd be unwilling to attack the Hishmeri over this even if there wasn't a risk of pushing them into Cardassian orbit by doing so.
Again, the exception being if this pre-warp planet is actually within Federation space. If so, by claiming the surrounding area we've accepted responsibiity for it, and we shouldn't be letting the Hishmeri into our territory in the first place.
I'd be unwilling to attack the Hishmeri over this even if there wasn't a risk of pushing them into Cardassian orbit by doing so.
Again, the exception being if this pre-warp planet is actually within Federation space. If so, by claiming the surrounding area we've accepted responsibiity for it, and we shouldn't be letting the Hishmeri into our territory in the first place.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think even Stesk is going to view the enslavement and likely planetary scale theft of a prewarp civilization with a dim eye. The man is highly unrealistic in my view at times, but he does understand the need for limited force.l or the threat thereof.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
Just don't be surprised if Explorer Corps Excelsior or two will defect to the side of attacked planet. Well, not very likely* scenario but quite possible one.
*Though Nash as leader of TBG!Maquis would've been awesome sight.
But realistically, can it be as bad as you're imagining? The Hishmeri have limited room on their ships, if nothing else. Suppose they "just" enslave a million people and steal the equivalent of five or six major cities from a civilization like that of 1940's era earth. An enormous tragedy on a personal level... but still less than the civilization might destroy in a single internal war. They'd barely blink from a species perspective.
- Location
- Patriarchova
You mean like how he cared about the people living under the Kortennons?
Or how he cared about the untold number of societies, pre-warp and otherwise, that could have been caught within a mentat sunburst?
Yes, he'll take a dim view of it. Everyone in the Federation takes a dim view of these things. But being a Pacifist means not wanting to go to war whenever someone does something that you think is wrong.
I am really, really not seeing how this is different from letting the Ittik-Ka do their thing. Or how we tolerated (or at least didn't go full crusade against) the Orion Syndicate until they started colluding with our enemies.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The best case scenario is that the Hishmeri group responsible just swoops in, scoops up 50sr worth of raw materials, and moves on. This is more plausible than you might think, The Septs need to stay together for their model of nomadic space travel to work well, because an isolated Sept of Hishmeri that stays behind and lets the main fleet drift away out of mutual support range is easy prey for any local powers. Including local powers that are feeling vengeful and hostile over the actions of the other Septs.
The fact that the Septs have existed for an extended period of time suggests that they have adopted a stable method of interstellar nomadic lifestyle. Among other things, that means that the individual Septs must have some kind of cultural inhibition against settling down in one place for too long. Any groups that lacked such inhibition would either have stayed behind (and would no longer be with the fleet) or gotten picked off by some angry species in the fleet's wake.
I'm not saying that this is what WILL happen, but let's consider the distinct possibility that the Sept in question might well say "okay, we want to strip-mine this one deposit of extremely shiny rocks on your planet, the one you literally don't know what to do with. In exchange we're going to teach you how to make a fusion reactor and how to build a transporter." I mean, speaking about this as a member of a pre-warp civilization whose radio waves propagate some light-years out into space, if that happened to us I'd be pretty happy.
Or more cynically they might trade the equivalent of worthless glass beads for the extremely shiny rocks, or ally with one power bloc on the planet against another, or do any of a number of things that, in the grand scheme of things, are bad but not THAT bad. Things that the Federation should probably just stay out of.
AGAIN, I'm not saying this is necessarily what will happen. But we need to not assume in the absence of evidence that all Hishmeri Septs are raping murdering planet-wrecking scum. And to not assume that we have a Duty to Protect everyone else from them, including prewarp civilizations we literally wouldn't give the time of day to otherwise.
We urgently need to investigate this situation to find out what's going on, though.
The fact that the Septs have existed for an extended period of time suggests that they have adopted a stable method of interstellar nomadic lifestyle. Among other things, that means that the individual Septs must have some kind of cultural inhibition against settling down in one place for too long. Any groups that lacked such inhibition would either have stayed behind (and would no longer be with the fleet) or gotten picked off by some angry species in the fleet's wake.
I'm not saying that this is what WILL happen, but let's consider the distinct possibility that the Sept in question might well say "okay, we want to strip-mine this one deposit of extremely shiny rocks on your planet, the one you literally don't know what to do with. In exchange we're going to teach you how to make a fusion reactor and how to build a transporter." I mean, speaking about this as a member of a pre-warp civilization whose radio waves propagate some light-years out into space, if that happened to us I'd be pretty happy.
Or more cynically they might trade the equivalent of worthless glass beads for the extremely shiny rocks, or ally with one power bloc on the planet against another, or do any of a number of things that, in the grand scheme of things, are bad but not THAT bad. Things that the Federation should probably just stay out of.
AGAIN, I'm not saying this is necessarily what will happen. But we need to not assume in the absence of evidence that all Hishmeri Septs are raping murdering planet-wrecking scum. And to not assume that we have a Duty to Protect everyone else from them, including prewarp civilizations we literally wouldn't give the time of day to otherwise.
We urgently need to investigate this situation to find out what's going on, though.
Yes, but his idea of "necessary force" is very different from yours.
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- Location
- madison
or to avoid leaving an enemy behind them they finish up by exterminating the natives from orbit. We don't know there MO and given it's already really pointless to raid a prewarp civilization I would not be surprised if it was pointlessly cruel.
- Location
- alphen aan den rijn
lets all try and stay calm and not blow things out of the water please
yes the FED might feel some respone is needed but i do not see full on war being one of them
some of SF might not like it but i do not see a split over this coming?
lets not borrow trouble before we need to have it
personaly far more worried about what happing with the cival war then some planet we hardly know.
maybe we can diplo them of that planet
the on going war might just need a bit more of our focus then that
wow i feel like i had this convo before somewhere... wierd
yes the FED might feel some respone is needed but i do not see full on war being one of them
some of SF might not like it but i do not see a split over this coming?
lets not borrow trouble before we need to have it
personaly far more worried about what happing with the cival war then some planet we hardly know.
maybe we can diplo them of that planet
the on going war might just need a bit more of our focus then that
wow i feel like i had this convo before somewhere... wierd
- Location
- Central Standard Time
The civil war is out of our hands - we are bound by treaty to not attempt diplomacy. Our decisions are more administrative than policy, and this decision is a council-level decision.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
Well, yeah... it's possible that they'll go Stellaris Nomads and not Angry Stripmining Not!MongolsInSpace. So any decision without more information is pointless. Just if they are second staying out of it can do much more harm than good both IC and OOC (because amount of salt it would generate).
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
We definitely need more information about what the Hishmeri are doing in that region of space- which is exactly the mission the Atuin was involved in. The only real catch is that one explorer can't possibly map out an entire region as fast as a whole fleet of Hishmeri scouts can... which is why the Hishmeri beat us to the punch.
Firstly, by definition a prewarp civilization can't chase your interstellar nomads, and by the time they invent FTL travel you'll be long gone and out of their reach. No one like the Hishmeri should ever be worried about "leaving an enemy behind them" that way. You're trying to cram an Evil Idiot Ball down the Hishmeri's throats here, and while that may fit some preconceived notion of how they "should" behave, it's not necessarily how they do behave.
Secondly... There are a host of reasons why a Hishmeri Sept might VISIT- not raid, visit- a prewarp planet. Maybe they detected dilithium or some other valuable material on the planet. Maybe they want fresh food. Maybe they just want to get out and stretch their legs on a planet with pretty flowers and clouds and things you can't get while flying around the galaxy in a big tin can. Maybe the Hishmeri are a multi-racial collective and they routinely stop by people's planets and say "hey, do you want to come with us on our space road trip?"
All we really know is that the Hishmeri have gone to the planet. We do not know what they're doing on the planet, or what their motives are. Their motives could be horrible, or relatively mundane and harmless. The actions they take to fulfill those motives could likewise be horrible, or mundane and harmless. We know that the Hishmeri Septs sometimes use violence to get what they want, but that doesn't mean they always use violence. In a case like this, they might even threaten violence to get something relatively minor (like a hundred thousand tons of shiny rocks), and just move on, and the pre-warp civilization might well comply with the threat because, well, giant orbiting battleships are pointing mountain-incinerating beam cannons at them.
If we come back a quarter later and it turns out the Hishmeri have taken a hundred thousand tons of shiny rock from the locals at disruptor-point then moved on, but otherwise left the locals basically unharmed... do we need all out war to the knife against the Hishmeri species because of this?
That doesn't make any sense.
Firstly, by definition a prewarp civilization can't chase your interstellar nomads, and by the time they invent FTL travel you'll be long gone and out of their reach. No one like the Hishmeri should ever be worried about "leaving an enemy behind them" that way. You're trying to cram an Evil Idiot Ball down the Hishmeri's throats here, and while that may fit some preconceived notion of how they "should" behave, it's not necessarily how they do behave.
Secondly... There are a host of reasons why a Hishmeri Sept might VISIT- not raid, visit- a prewarp planet. Maybe they detected dilithium or some other valuable material on the planet. Maybe they want fresh food. Maybe they just want to get out and stretch their legs on a planet with pretty flowers and clouds and things you can't get while flying around the galaxy in a big tin can. Maybe the Hishmeri are a multi-racial collective and they routinely stop by people's planets and say "hey, do you want to come with us on our space road trip?"
All we really know is that the Hishmeri have gone to the planet. We do not know what they're doing on the planet, or what their motives are. Their motives could be horrible, or relatively mundane and harmless. The actions they take to fulfill those motives could likewise be horrible, or mundane and harmless. We know that the Hishmeri Septs sometimes use violence to get what they want, but that doesn't mean they always use violence. In a case like this, they might even threaten violence to get something relatively minor (like a hundred thousand tons of shiny rocks), and just move on, and the pre-warp civilization might well comply with the threat because, well, giant orbiting battleships are pointing mountain-incinerating beam cannons at them.
If we come back a quarter later and it turns out the Hishmeri have taken a hundred thousand tons of shiny rock from the locals at disruptor-point then moved on, but otherwise left the locals basically unharmed... do we need all out war to the knife against the Hishmeri species because of this?
We have no fucking idea what the Ittick-Ka do to their vassals (and not much about how the Klingons or Romulans treat theirs either) and I am a bit astonished by how quickly you jump from "raiding" to stripmining and ecological devastating the homeworld of a minor civilization to make it inhospital. Unless that Homeworld is sitting on the mother-load of rare resources that course of action would make very make very little sense. Some simple raiding and slaving seems far more likely (if it even is an aggressive action we are talking about and not some other visit)...
I am pretty sure we are okay we are okay with pre-ftl species destroying themselves due to natural catastrophes, war, disease or any other number of other effects so I think it a bit strange that alien raiders should be treated that differently, especially since as I said we are more than okay if other races violate our Prime Directive in pretty much every other case.
And even if we decide to protect those FTL races the correct course would be to claim their region of space as ours and make it clear to others that we act as protectors before we start punishing other races for violating something that they had no idea was wrong (hell, you are proposing that we punish them for violating something which at this moment in time doesn't even exist in the first place which seems like a very dubios proposal to me)
This would be very different if it happened in our space/territory (and ideally the Hishmeri were notified of our thoughts/rules on that matter) but it didn't so I don't think it makes sense for us to treat every pre-FTL race as staying under our protection...
Hell, it is not like I am that happy about doing nothing but I don't think punishing the Hishmeri now is the right course of action. In my opinion the most Starfleet thing would have been for the captain to act without waiting for orders and then tender in his resignation afterwards, perhaps even willingly serving as an (political) sacrifice to avoid a war between us and the Hishmeri. I mean those captains are supposed to be filled by such strong morals and convictions as well as being more than just military officers following orders so I think it would have fit very well with Starfleet...
Granted, I am happy that it didn't happen since it would have caused a far more complicated mess than what we got but that would have been a course of action I could understand.
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Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
A great deal rests on their location; if they are inside Federation space in then we do have such a duty, spelled out in our own laws.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
...
Did you read what you quoted? Because...
Oh, we got over it. I'm sure they have too.
That would be hilarious!
They're a major power so we can't 'om nom nom' them.
Mind if I borrow this and post it in the Star Trek Fanfiction threads?
Everything is on Fire!
The Pacifists won't be happy about the Sydraxians joining us after bathing in their own blood.
Look at the bright side, this is how we introduce XCOM into the game!
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The full text is:
Now see, the tricky bit is the 'most likely part.'
As in, "the Hishmeri will most likely kill vast numbers of this prewarp species by stripmining their homeworld." That is what you strongly implied, if not actually what you said.
To which I reply, maybe they will, maybe they won't. Maybe they're only interested in a few specific sites where they can work quickly to pick up resources with a high rate of return on their investment of time, and after that they'll just move along.
Imagine a species passing through the Gabriel Expanse, prospecting each planet and picking up those one-shot 15br and 35sr and 25-of-each awards we sometimes get when we discover new planets. They don't HAVE to strip-mine anything in order to end up greatly enriched. And indeed, strip-mining would take more time.
You'd need to set up heavy permanent mining facilities and hang around for years while all that material was extracted from the ground. And you'd need vast fleets of cargo ships to carry away all the material. We know that mining colonies can turn out ten or twenty units of a resource indefinitely. So you'd be talking about many hundreds, maybe even thousands of units of resources to carry away. Even if "strip-mining" is much faster than what we normally do to mine (even on planets with no biosphere to pollute?), that's still likely to take years.
And given the Hishmeri's modus operandi, it doesn't seem likely that this sept seriously intends to spend five years hanging around on the planet.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
The Prime Directive exists to protect other species, not the Federation. There is strong historical evidence within the Federation that messing around with pre-warp civilizations goes badly for those civilizations. Between that and a strong belief in self determination, we don't just act that way ourselves, we advocate for it.
At least from my TOS/TNG impressions, stopping people from trying to mess with such planets is something we are happy to send a ship to discourage, and to try to negotiate a solution, but not something we start wars with other stellar powers with. This was demonstrated on the Federation-Klingon border, and was a source of tensions.
At least from my TOS/TNG impressions, stopping people from trying to mess with such planets is something we are happy to send a ship to discourage, and to try to negotiate a solution, but not something we start wars with other stellar powers with. This was demonstrated on the Federation-Klingon border, and was a source of tensions.