And then right in the next story post we have TWO Centaur-As doing fantastically well in really important events that involve (the threat of) combat and presence. I'd say that arguably the entire Centaur-A class would have been redeemed just by the Zephyr event even if it HAD been a failure until now. That was really critical and could easily make the difference between bringing the Sydraxians to our side and them slipping back into Cardassian client status.
The
Centaur-As are very solid ships, and if we were still staring down the throat of a major crew shortage and
didn't have the 'pacifist'
Constellation-A refit as an option, I would be strongly in favor of building more of them. I don't regret a single ship of the production run, and I don't think any of us should. They're successful by all reasonable metrics.
TBG's Hypatia is shaping up!
Pray expound?
So it looks like the end of the Federation's expansion is coming closer. Assuming the ISC and Harmony of Horizon are about the same size as the other Major Powers we've encountered then almost the entire Corewards region is blocked to us. About the only route left to expand that way is Corewards-Spinwards diagonal through the GBZ and above the Cardassians.
The ISC is
really compact, a dense, heavily fortified garrison state, based on everything we've heard about them from either Oneiros or their original creators. The 'Harmony' may or may not be, dunno.
Seeing as our Spinwards growth is already blocked by the Cardassians and our Tailwards growth blocked by the Romulans and Klingons that only leaves the Rimwad area free.
Yes, and it's likely to be a pretty 'squishy' frontier for some time to come. Notice that the Ittick-ka are able to get away with being aggressive isolationist bullies down there, and that the Hishmeri came right through and don't show any signs of being in bad shape from clashing with a major power down there. Both of these data points
suggest a power vacuum down that way, for a fair distance beyond our present frontier.
I have to say that it are parts like that that really stretch my suspension of disbelief... I get that the Hishmeri are supposed to be the bad guys/space pirates but actions like that seem not only stupid but also so pointless. Why the hell would anybody halfway sane risk angering the "superpower" of this part of space, especially for something unimportant like a research vessel (I mean if it had been a merchant/transport vessel it would have still been stupid but at least somewhat understandable) and after seeing just how much force the assembled to protect a non-affiliated non-revelant primitive world? I think you stretch the mongol/hun analogy a bit to far here since unlike those the Hishmeri have no chance of escaping/disappearing into space after their attacks and do indeed have a very vulnerable "centre".
In my opinion by resorting to such a caricature villain behaviour you do yourself and your quest a disservice...
The Hishmeri
SEPTS are not a centralized faction. It is entirely possible that some of the Hishmeri have gotten the memo "the United Federation of Planets has a big fleet and isn't afraid to use it," while others have not, or are listening to Lecarre/Cardassian/whoever bullshittery about the Federation being a juicy target.
Alternatively, the Hishmeri may figure they can do a 'hit and run' on a lone Federation ship and simply escape into the depths of space before anyone figures out what happened. Things like that have happened before, especially outside our space.
@Simon_Jester, I'll let you field this one.
Well, in this case
@Iron Wolf appears to be attributing the word "PAAPist" to the disagreeable Cardassians, Lecarre, or others who might attribute weakness to us. That said, it
is a slur-acronym I rather dislike, being as how it gets much of its derogatory power from sounding identical to a traditional English anti-Catholic slur.
... And this is why I wanted the fleetball.
Aggressive deterrence with a fleet the size of their civ.
The problem is, the fleetball would still only just have begun to even arrive in the region, and it would still take time for information to propagate. The main obstacle here isn't "instill an 'avoid Federation ships' meme into the Hishmeri" it's "wait until the 'avoid Federation ships' meme propagates throughout their scattered and decentralized fleet."
From the sound of the
Bull's logs, we're halfway there: the Hishmeri raider (which must be a pretty heavy powerhouse of a frigate or a light cruiser) knew to avoid Federation task forces,
and knew our task forces might be in the area... But they were still willing to opportunistically prey on weak, not-obviously-Federation ships in the area if they thought we weren't watching.
That's progress from where we would be without the 40C fleet, and I'm not sure the 100C fleetball would have made MORE progress in the time available.
However, they would be a lot more cautious, and more inclined to believe that we can retaliate with a large fleet.
Not that we would, but the shock and awe treatment is super effective when their entire civilization could be damaged almost to the point of extinction with a force of that size.
Thus, less stupid.
The Hishmeri are probably old hands at encounters with large interstellar powers, unless the density of such powers immediately around Federation space is VERY atypical. They HAVE to understand on some level that naval warships of major powers are like roaches; for every one of them you actually
see when loitering around their borders, there are several more that you don't see because they haven't made kicking your ass their top priority.
The bare fact that we could assemble a 40C fleet
that fast is going to give them reason to assume the 100C fleetball is a realistic possibility. If we sent a 100C fleetball they might posit a hypothetical 250C fleetball instead... but from their point of view, a clash with a hypothetical 250C fleetball is little or no worse for them than a 100C fleetball.
Unless they are
really stupid, the 40C fleet will at least begin to have the desired effect. If we
have to reinforce it, we can.
