The Prime Directive is designed to allow intervention in situations like this. In fact, one could easily argue that the Prime Directive or at least, the spirit behind it, would tell us to intervene.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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The Prime Directive is designed to allow intervention in situations like this. In fact, one could easily argue that the Prime Directive or at least, the spirit behind it, would tell us to intervene.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
The Riker/Voyager interp hasn't set in yet.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
I'd want at least a 90C as a show of force.
They live on their ships. They should have a decent fleet.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Bear in mind, they're probably not ALL going to that one planet, especially if they see a big hostile fleet gathering there. We're more likely to have to deal with a very scattered force. Furthermore, many of them probably live on civilian ships, if only because those are a lot easier to build.
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
Its going to be a bloodbath if we have to retake that planet. We would need to bring in troops to combat any forces that are on the ground that get left behind when the rest of them either are destroyed or retreat back to their fleet.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
Fair enough.
But I'd imagine that they believe in concentration of force, outside of the obvious scouts and likely raider groups.
I seriously doubt they have ground forces outside of the minimum necessary.
They're a spacefaring race, and explicitly nomadic.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We may have missed the chance to talk to the locals in advance, but our man on the scene Vol Chad and the crew of the good ship Atuin have First Contact training for a reason. I have the utmost confidence in his ability to handle the situation.
Even if Captain Chad has to use his phasers and photon torpedoes to send a diplomatic communique to any offending parties in orbit.
"We then negotiated the treaty in Klingon. See attached transcript."
Attached: Combat log Stardate...
I wasn't expecting an opportunity to send in the fucking SKY SHRIKES to arrive this soon!
e: that's actually funny, the snakes based on an XCOM enemy landing to destroy the ground forces of a hostile alien race........
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Go get 'em guys!
- Location
- USA
Poor Chad, yet another failed roll since he has joined the EC. Even gaining a level didn't help him.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You know what?
I honestly sort of want the pre-warp peeps to be generic Roswell style "Greys" just for the ironic lulz of it.
Vol Chad: I come in peace. Take me to your leader.
Rozweilian: I, uh. Wow.
Chad: You seem nervous.
Rozweilian: It's just that, you're tall, graceful, you have a face of an unnatural beauty, like a statue given life. You're like what, and I'm not sure this concept will translate, our species knows as elves. And that one there looks like our depictions of an ugly troll.
T'Arvit: :|
Rozweilian: It's unnerving, to say the least.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Thing is, the very name of their culture, "the Septs," indicates a division into clans or tribes of some kind. It is highly unlikely that they move in a single massive horde-fleet, since doing that would require coordinated leadership of a type it is implied that they don't have.
Furthermore, this is the lead wave of their migration, so we're almost certainly going to encounter small groups moving out in front of the main body- because those are the scouts and raiders you mention; independent tribes or bands that decide to take their ships and strike out in hopes of finding opportunities not already exploited by the bulk of the Hishmeri fleet.
Even if the whole main body decides to descend on this planet, they're limited to the speed of their slower-moving auxiliaries, which probably contain the majority of their species. Our ships, moving at Warp Nine or Ten, can probably get to this planet ahead of the main body.
@OneirosTheWriter please please please give us this this is wonderful.They turn out to be little green men.
Amarki Redshirt, smiling with absolute, profoundly sincere delight, even though he is probably considered a troll by extension too:
"Aye, this is exactly the way of it. Exactly the way."
I love how the universal translator just applies "elves" to everything in that descriptive vein.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Amarki have an odd variation of this problem. Their planet really was visited by Orions in its medieval period, so beguiling little (well, a bit shorter than average) green (literally) women (mostly) with round ears and exotic magic found their way into Amarki mythology.
From their point of view, most of the galaxy consists of "elves" of one kind or another, because they aren't pointy and gracile. But there are a few reassuring exceptions, like the Vulcans.
From their point of view, most of the galaxy consists of "elves" of one kind or another, because they aren't pointy and gracile. But there are a few reassuring exceptions, like the Vulcans.
Omake - The Next Generation Pt 3 - Iron Wolf
"This is Captain Piten of the Cardassian Militia vessel CDF Ardok. How can we help you?" As soon as Piten had finished speaking, Rurlam leaned over from where she was standing and whispered something in his ear.
On the viewscreen, a Tellarite gave him a dour look, "This is Captain Pokar mev Zresh of the Federation starship Sa--"
"Saratoga, yes." Piten said, "My first officer had just finished identifying your vessel. I apologize if I put you off-balance there, Captain. It is considered polite among my people to properly address newcomers."
It was not.
Zresh's frown deepened, "It is considered rude to interrupt another in mine."
"I'm glad for this pleasant cultural exchange." Piten said. "Although I thought that was human culture? Interesting that their species' way of doing things is so prevalent. Suspicious, even."
"You are misinformed." Zresh's jaw worked, "And you are approaching one of our cargo vessels. Explain why."
"It's neutral space, Captain. I simply wished to inspect the vessel for any suspicious materials or weapons of mass destruction. We on Cardassia remain as committed to peace as ever, and the spread of weapons is a major stress on that peace."
Zresh's mouth was a hard line, "You are in neutral space. You have no jurisdiction."
"And neither do you," Piten retorted, his demeanor cool, "We want no quarrel with you. We simply wish to inspect your cargo vessel."
"And then you would find some objection and destroy it."
"How accusatory, Captain Zresh." Piten said, "You act like a man hiding something regrettable. What will we find on that ship, I wonder?"
Zresh's shoulders dropped slightly as he let out an exhale, "We will defend it. Either reverse your course now or we will use force to deter you."
Rurlam grinned predatorily. Kivaas hovered over the toggle to raise shields, but she had her hand up. Hold. So he did.
Piten gave Zresh a sad, distant smile, "Force is regrettable, Zresh. But we will not deviate from our course."
"That's too bad. You'll have time to reconsider. Zresh out."
"Saratoga is raising shields!" Kivaas said. Still Rurlam had her hand up. Hold.
"Maintain course, Gorr Xelcrush."
The ship rocked. Kivaas glanced down at his console, "They've fired phasers ahead of us, starboard bow quarter."
"There's the expected warning shot," Piten said.
"Combat Alert," Rurlam said as she dropped her hand. Kivaas' hands flew over the console before she reached the middle of combat.
"Shields online. Charging forward weapons array," he said, "Arming torpedos."
"Rurlam, assist Kivaas at Weapons. We're evenly matched with the Constitution, and we'll need every advantage we can get."
Rurlam turned briskly and joined Kivaas. She had a winning smile for the rest of the crew, but the hand tight on his shoulder said otherwise, "Let's see you put that engineering into practice," she hissed. Then, "Captain, our fire will be more effective if I coordinate navigation strategy from here."
"Agreed. Gorr Xelcrush, you will take your commands from Rurlam until directed otherwise."
The battle was a struggle from then out. The ships were rough equals, the Jaldun a little tougher, the Constitution's phasers more powerful, their torpedo guidance more sophisticated. But their Weapons -- Tactical -- officer wasn't quite as sharp as Kivaas. They fought like the Jaldun was another Constitution, hitting strong shield quarters, failing to modulate properly to put real stress on the generators.
Kivaas was surprised how accurate the simulations Dukat had put them through were, and gave her a silent thanks. He knew every weak point in their shields, in particular where the microcochrane field of deflector usage distorted coverage. The Federation loved their deflector dishes, and Kivaas turned that against them. They jammed his torpedos, and he sent powerful phaser blasts into the disruptions in the shield grid. He could see on sensors as their generators overheated as the tactical officer on the other side overcompensated.
Rurlam deserved credit as well. Blows that would have been powerful hits were turned to glancing blows as she directed Xelcrush personally, slewing and skidding the ship to avoid fire, rolling around torpedos. It was no surprise as between the two of them Saratoga's shield grid drained first, the bubble flickering as the generators tried to regenerate.
Kivaas immediately began picking off its sensor strips. The Saratoga's helmsperson was more skilled than their tactical officer, and was frustrating his and Rurlam's attempts to get on her ventral quarter and send a battle-ending shot into her antimatter pods. He silently sent orders down to the weapons team for torpedo modifications.
"What are you doing?" Rurlam hissed. Kivaas pointed at something on the sensor display, and Rurlam's eyes widened.
"Is there a problem, Glinn?" Piten asked.
"No, Gul." Rurlam replied, "I'm just putting a new tactic into action."
"Saratoga's roll rate appears to be affected," Kivaas said, "We can cripple her now with the right maneuver." Rurlam nodded, and the Ardok dived in. But the Captain of the Saratoga was smart. He knew how eager Kivaas was to get a direct shot in, and had been faking it. Now the Saratoga slewed and dived under the Ardok, raking the her with dorsal phaser fire and sending two torpedos from the aft launcher into her shields as she overshot. The bridge rocked and sparks flew.
"Shields collapsing, Gul." Kivaas said, "Attempting to bring them online."
Both ships were circling each other now, like two stars swirling into a black hole, the space between them bright with radiation and the deadly lines of beam weapons. But the Saratoga was flagging. Rurlam tugged the ship tighter into the turn and banked her up; Kivaas used the forward array to stitch a yellow line of destruction across the top of the saucer, blowing apart phaser arrays, then drilling another shot deep into the hull, blowing a critical EPS junction by firing through the flight deck. Sympathetic orange detonations along the ship's flank. Hundreds would have been in those sections, Kivaas processed.
But the Saratoga was tenacious. Kivaas hadn't been able to take out the more powerful saucer ventral phaser cannons, the ones with a more direct tap to the warp core, nor the torpedo launchers. Despite Rurlam's best efforts, hits were landing, craters blown in the hull by torpedos, phasers boiling away armor.
But no major fatalities, yet. Kivaas sniped the last sensor palette he wanted. He moved to order the two special torpedos loaded and prepared to fire, but Rurlam stayed his hand.
"Let me get the trajectory right," she said, as she ordered Xelcrush to put them in a head-to-head intercept. "We want to give you the best chance," She said with a grin.
Kivaas narrowed his eyes but let her proceed. The Saratoga flicked away at the last second, the hot glow of a major blaze on the flight deck showing on thermals. Rurlam nodded at Kivaas, "Fire now."
Two hot red photon torpedos streaked over the top of the Saratoga's saucer. Unguided. A huge miss.
Piten twisted his chair, turning away from a smoke-blackened Gil giving him a damage report, "That is a level of incompetence I would next expect from a crew under your direct supervision, Rurlam."
"Wait, sir." Rurlam said, "The plan is coming together."
Slowly, the torpedos curved downward on their pre-programmed flight path, distant red specks underneath the Saratoga. Then the special emissions sensors in their heads clicked on. Against the background of space, the active pulses of the ship's sensor dome and remaining ventral sensor pallets glowed to the warhead seekers. The curved up and streaked towards their targets, and Kivaas held his breath.
Rurlam had fired the torpedos early, and the trajectory wasn't quite right. Kivaas didn't see the ship go up in a ball of light as the torpedos blasted a channel right to the AM pods. But what he did see was an explosion on the saucer, as one torpedo blew up through the sensor dome, the computer core, and the sickbay, a hot-white fountain of vaporized metal (and bodies) erupting just in front of the bridge module.
The ship shuddered, the fire from the phasers absent for a moment as the Ardok passed in front of the Saratoga. When they resumed, Kivaas was pleased to see they had distinctive jerky motion of weapons under manual firing control. And that the weapons were firing in uncoordinated bursts. Command and control on the Saratoga was breaking down.
A torpedo slammed into them, shaking the ship. Annoyed, Kivaas sent his reply, a torpedo blowing apart the blocky launcher in the Saratoga's neck. Then, for good measure, he bored into the part of the secondary hull with the backup bridge. He noted, with satisfaction, that there were no readings of plasma activity in her port nacelle. She was without warp.
Saratoga dived away, engines glowing bright red. Her deflector let off a burst of strange particles, and then she disappeared from sensors.
"Where have they gone, Rurlam?" Piten barked.
"They appear to have... temporarily charged a natural radiation belt in the system," Rurlam said.
"High levels of energetic radiation is being given off. That will not be good for whomever is in the outer hull sections," Kivaas said, "But it has made it difficult to gain a sensor lock. We have a vague return with magnetics, but..."
"We should go in after them and engage in close-quarters battle," Rurlam said, cutting Kivaas off.
"No," Piten replied, "Take us around the edge of the belt. Based on these readings they will have to come out eventually to go to warp, or they'll die as the ship irradiates. If we go in we will be just as blind and putting the crew at unnecessary risk. I do not want to fall prey to the same sort of deception that Kirk sprung in Mutara."
Rurlam bowed her head in deference. The next few minutes were relatively quiet, as Kivaas tracked the heading of Saratoga's fuzzy sensor returns. Then, his eyes widened in surprise as it made a sudden turn towards them. Rurlam saw it too and swung the Ardok around as the Saratoga burst into full sensor resolution, firing wildly with her remaining weapons, phasers glowing so bright on thermals they must have been close to melting through their bearings.
Kivaas' saw in a split second Saratoga had warp capabilities again, and he hit the racing ship with a full spread of torpedo and disruptor fire, pounding into her engineering section in an attempt to stop the warp core, but she flashed by undeterred, trailing flame and debris. Her shuttlebay opened and a storm of plasma and metal were vented, followed by a pair of torpedo detonations that reduced Kivaas' sensors to total static. He quickly ran them through a restart and decontamination procedure, but it was too late. The Saratoga was at warp, and he was having trouble getting an exact vector on her through the interference.
"Gul," the sensors officer said, "We're showing enemy reinforcements inbound at high warp. Appears to be another Constitution and a lighter corvette, probably the Centaur-type."
"Break off pursuit," Piten said, "We've bloodied them enough for one day." He looked around the bridge, "They built those things to counter a Jaldun and we sent them packing, and based on these initial reports, without losing any of our own. Damn good show, everyone."
Kivaas smiled as Rurlam, maybe a little too hard, slapped him on the back as a cheer went up. Rurlam turned and smiled at Piten, who gave her a firm nod.
The Federation would now know they wouldn't be able to push the Cardassians around in Gabriel.
(Part 4)
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UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
How do they know that?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Nash's antics may have caused some of Cardassia's sharper tacticians to question the official story that the public accounts the Federation spreads of Kirk's exploits are pure propaganda?
As a recent omake pointed out, the prevailing attitude towards 'unauthorized information' in Cardassia is that you ARE allowed to know and think things that are officially 'banned' or 'wrong,' but only if it "makes you more canny." Which in this case, it did.
A few years ago. Saratoga took a beating in a duel with a Cardassian cruiser while on convoy escort duty. Very heavy goldshirt/blueshirt casualties.
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I figure that's publically available knowledge.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Honestly, given that Saratoga didn't manage to evade even a single shot in that battle (and I'm pretty sure ConnieBees have nonzero evasion), and that it took them 45 turns to bring down the Jaldun's shields compared to 34 for the Cardassian ship to knock down Saratoga's... I wouldn't call this one a particularly good performance for either helm or gunnery on Saratoga.
In the first forty turns (about as far in as you can go in the cruiser duel before Saratoga's damage becomes a factor in her damage output), Saratoga took 43.83 points of damage and inflicted 37.13, despite having a higher Combat value and therefore greater firepower. This is well within the range of explicable results due to "bad luck," but given that we normally choose to interpret the random outcomes of the combat engine as reflecting actual narrative stuff happening in the battle... It is reasonable to conclude that the crew of the Ardok had Saratoga's command team outclassed as a fighting unit.
In the first forty turns (about as far in as you can go in the cruiser duel before Saratoga's damage becomes a factor in her damage output), Saratoga took 43.83 points of damage and inflicted 37.13, despite having a higher Combat value and therefore greater firepower. This is well within the range of explicable results due to "bad luck," but given that we normally choose to interpret the random outcomes of the combat engine as reflecting actual narrative stuff happening in the battle... It is reasonable to conclude that the crew of the Ardok had Saratoga's command team outclassed as a fighting unit.