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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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Whether or not a refit Rennie can match a Constellation-A as a garrison responder depends on whether we need higher scores or more hulls more, and how much we're constrained by C-cap.

The Rennie already eats a bunch more C-cap than the Constellation-A, so 1 to 1 comparisons aren't necessarily correct.

Of course the Kepler's going to be better than both in all areas save price as a responder.
 
Leila Hann said:
But everybody has to know that there are dissenting opinions!
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Speaking of...
Vebyast said:
A small point: I didn't care about the political aspect of the N'Gir thing. I cared that that the people involved in it were all handed idiot balls for the duration.

edit: Corollary: I'd have been happy with a redo of core political question minus the idiot balls.
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Simon_Jester said:
Very, very much this.

Very much this. Sulu didn't get the chance to even investigate the claims being made to him by the councilors, so we were forced to vote 'yes' or 'no' on a proposal that we only later found out was being presented to our viewpoint PC in slanted terms. Then we got a meeting in which the president berates Sulu (and by extension, us) for "why do you hate me so much," on account of our voting 'no.'

So yeah, this.
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Honestly?

The only one with an idiot ball in that entire scenario was Sulu, mostly because due to a poor vote option we gave it to him. Like, if you look at it from N'Gir's perspective, 'assuming' she wasn't lying about the consultation process - and I put scare quotes there because it seems like, not a huge assumption:
  • You're President N'Gir and it's a busy day of legislation. After the last time Starfleet gave you advice it ended in political near-disaster, so you're going to make sure going to make you've done all your homework, come up with a solid plan for a peacekeeping, and then 'read Sulu in' -- ie, you're going to present him with your plans and get his feedback, although because you're the President, ultimately if you can get the votes it will go through, regardless of Sulu's feedback.
    • Conjectural: you probably know this is popular with undecided voters in one way or another, so you're in some fashion giving the people, not doubt kinda spooked by the Caldonian stuff, what they want. The member states are probably also mad about the logistics thing and you can probably rustle up some political support in an election from it.
  • The vote is sure to be contentious. Before you have the feedback, you send Sabek to go around and poll what support looks like for it. If it's really going down like a lead balloon you might be able to avoid wasting Sulu's valuable time and call the legislation off.
  • Looks like you have the votes! The Expansionists are basically the power-brokers here, but you're sure you can sell this as an essential capability to help the Federation expand.
  • Huh, the Amarki just visited Sulu's office.
  • Huh, Sabek's saying the vote has harshly turned against the both your logistics AND in particular, your Peacekeeper plan. Sulu apparently has voiced -- or leaked -- his opposition to Expansionist councilors. Which has given the Hawks a shot in the arm, suddenly leaving you without the votes. This makes you angry cat emoji.
  • You call Sulu into your office. He has, as an unelected official, directly meddled in the legislative process behind your back and before your consulted with him. You proceed to consult with -- or read in -- him as planned, expecting him to recommend a reduced force. Instead, he basically goes with your original plan after finally reading it and then quite surprisingly says he wants to expand it. On the logistics side he says he agrees but thinks Starfleet could better manage it's own priorities.
  • Meanwhile, his private displeasure has been noted by the Expansionists, and his meeting with you is probably known to them. Even if he reverses his statements earlier they're likely not to go ahead with the plan without some assurances, because they'll assume you threatened his job or something to bring him in line. Which, to be fair, you did.
  • In short: Sulu, your political appointee, kicks up a fuss over the proposed peacekeeper plan based on conjecture from the Amarki, flatly rejects your logistical plan, then walks into your office and says 'hey, I actually agree in principle with the logistics one and also I want a bigger peacekeeping force than was on the table."
  • You are very angry cat emoji.
BONUS ROUND: HOW THE AMARKI PLAYED US LIKE A FIDDLE.
  • You're the Amarki. You don't want to lose your status as the fightenist peacekeepers in the quadrant. In particular, you like the prestige that came with being the heroes of Celos. You want this to continue.
  • N'Gir is going to put in a peacekeeping force that will subsequently reduce your stature. This is unacceptable. Worse still, she has the votes.
  • Time for a Hail Mary play.
  • You go to Sulu before he meets with N'Gir and tell him about the plan. You may or may not exaggerate the plan, you may stretch the truth and say it's basically fixed in stone. You then say if he wants to fight this, behind the President's back, you can help him, but he has to move quickly.
  • This is basically a desperation move. However, it has low risks and high possible rewards. If Sulu does nothing, then you fight it out on the Council floor. If he does 'upset the apple cart' by defying the President, the Expansionists will likely congeal their support around their senpai and you win with a 20-minute chat.
  • Oh hey shit that actually worked.
  • Nice!!!
  • Then it got retconned and Sulu actually went along with it. Shit!!!
  • Then it got deleted because the vote was so contentious so your alternate-realtiy selves win by default.
  • Nice!!!
 
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Can people please stop bringing up the retconned Politics updates if all they are going to do is salt? No one had fun, we get that. There is a reason they were erased from the story.

Can't we all just agree to let sleeping dogs lie?
 
Because the I'm feeling nerdy. Logistics. It helps me visualize the numbers if I crunch them myself.

I'm ignoring Civilian Ships as we don't have a good feel on how many of them that we need. Beyond more.

Current Starfleet owned shipping capability:
Cargo Ships: 23
Freighters: 8

Current Starfleet requirements:
- Shipping
Cargo Ships: 22
Freighters: 10
- Engineering
Cargo Ships: 9
Freighters: 6

Under construction:
Cargo Ships: 4
Freighters: 5

Counting currently being constructed short fall values:
Cargo Ships: 6
Freighters: 3

If we want to be at a status of 'No pressure' logistics, we need Double base shipping capability
Cargo Ships: need 44 on shipping - need 28 more
Freighters: need 20 on shipping - need 13 more

Each new Engineering team needs 3 Cargo Ships and 2 Freighters per team.
Add two more teams to the 'No pressure' numbers
Cargo Ships: 34
Freighters: 17

This then represents the numbers that Development in their wildest dreams would like us to have. Before we factor in any further increases in base need. Which potentially goes up with every ship/star base/outpost (shipping supplies), mine (shipping raw material), industrial locations/ship yards (manufactured goods) may increase or decrease it depending on where it lies in relation to the main shipping routes.
 
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Goat said:
Because the I'm feeling nerdy. Logistics. It helps me visualize the numbers if I crunch them myself.

I'm ignoring Civilian Ships as we don't have a good feel on how many of them that we need. Beyond more.

Current Starfleet owned shipping capability:
Cargo Ships: 23
Freighters: 8

Current Starfleet requirements:
- Shipping
Cargo Ships: 22
Freighters: 10
- Engineering
Cargo Ships: 9
Freighters: 6

Under construction:
Cargo Ships: 4
Freighters: 5

Counting currently being constructed short fall values:
Cargo Ships: 6
Freighters: 3

If we want to be at a status of 'No pressure' logistics, we need Double base shipping capability
Cargo Ships: need 44 on shipping - need 28 more
Freighters: need 20 on shipping - need 13 more

Each new Engineering team needs 3 Cargo Ships and 2 Freighters per team.
Add two more teams to the 'No pressure' numbers
Cargo Ships: 34
Freighters: 17

This then represents the numbers that Development in their wildest dreams would like us to have. Before we factor in any further increases in base need. Which potentially goes up with every ship/star base/outpost (shipping supplies), mine (shipping raw material), industrial locations/ship yards (manufactured goods) may increase or decrease it depending on where it lies in relation to the main shipping routes.
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TLDR:

Starfleet:
*Tries to build and expand and explore and explore and exterminate Starfleet*

Development:
Additional Supply Depots required!

Starfleet:
*tries to build a giant wave of auxiliaries*

Development:
You must construct additional pylons berths!

Starfleet:
*facepalm*
*Constructs additional berths*
 
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Goat said:
Because the I'm feeling nerdy. Logistics. It helps me visualize the numbers if I crunch them myself.

I'm ignoring Civilian Ships as we don't have a good feel on how many of them that we need. Beyond more.

Current Starfleet owned shipping capability:
Cargo Ships: 23
Freighters: 8

Current Starfleet requirements:
- Shipping
Cargo Ships: 22
Freighters: 10
- Engineering
Cargo Ships: 9
Freighters: 6

Under construction:
Cargo Ships: 4
Freighters: 5

Counting currently being constructed short fall values:
Cargo Ships: 6
Freighters: 3

If we want to be at a status of 'No pressure' logistics, we need Double base shipping capability
Cargo Ships: need 44 on shipping - need 28 more
Freighters: need 20 on shipping - need 13 more

Each new Engineering team needs 3 Cargo Ships and 2 Freighters per team.
Add two more teams to the 'No pressure' numbers
Cargo Ships: 34
Freighters: 17

This then represents the numbers that Development in their wildest dreams would like us to have. Before we factor in any further increases in base need. Which potentially goes up with every ship/star base/outpost (shipping supplies), mine (shipping raw material), industrial locations/ship yards (manufactured goods) may increase or decrease it depending on where it lies in relation to the main shipping routes.
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I'm pretty sure we don't actually need that much. (That hurt to say. You have no idea.)
Starfleet doesn't have an economy selector like the member governments. Wartime economy diverts the resources away from expanding and maintaining the civilian economy, which Starfleet simply doesn't have.
Now, a buffer is something we do want, but we can probably get by with 50% (3 freighters for every 2 in the minimum) instead of a full 100% spare, (4 for every 2) as a long term goal.
As for the civilian ships, I think we mainly use those for Intel missions, and Betazed is noted for using some to help fill in their shipping.
That takes your numbers from:
Cargo: 34 to 20
Freighters: 17 to 11
Still ugly. About 25 years for build time on a set of three berth yard ugly. (Your numbers are more like 40 years) But fixable eventually. First things first though, we start meeting expected baseline increases, then we find berths to build down the backlog by hook or by crook.
 
What this all sounds like is an excuse for a wacky heist episode where we steal a whole bunch of Cardassian freighters, repaint them, and put them into our service.
 
Briefvoice said:
Wenlai is a man doomed to be disappointed by the state he serves.
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Hey Wenlai, how about you join up with Starfleet? We're a lot saner.

Iron Wolf said:
You're President N'Gir and it's a busy day of legislation. After the last time Starfleet gave you advice it ended in political near-disaster, so you're going to make sure going to make you've done all your homework, come up with a solid plan for a peacekeeping, and then 'read Sulu in' -- ie, you're going to present him with your plans and get his feedback, although because you're the President, ultimately if you can get the votes it will go through, regardless of Sulu's feedback.
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Bolded for emphasis, emphasis mine. The problem lies here; you don't read in your top official who's going to be handling this, you send him a draft of the proposal. Regardless of if it gets dropped off at the office of some administrative policy drone, you make sure that he's informed during the writing process so that either he or experts in his employ can advise you and start thinking about what position to fill with which personnel. That's not what you do when you read someone in, that implies the plan is already finalized and he's expected to get along with the program or else.

Iron Wolf said:
You call Sulu into your office. He has, as an unelected official, directly meddled in the legislative process behind your back and before your consulted with him. You proceed to consult with -- or read in -- him as planned, expecting him to recommend a reduced force. Instead, he basically goes with your original plan after finally reading it and then quite surprisingly says he wants to expand it. On the logistics side he says he agrees but thinks Starfleet could better manage it's own priorities.
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Correction, the Commander of Starfleet has exercised the power of his office to point out that the manner in which the President attempts to shape policy does not result in sound, implementable policy. When you repeatedly force your bureaucracy to make major policy decisions without checking with the bureaucracy if it's a good idea, or even possible, you get an angry, unwilling to cooperate bureaucracy working for you. Which often means you get to deal with people whose entire job is handling the red tape deciding to be as slow and exacting in the requirements of said red tape as possible. This will make running the country far more difficult and frustrating, and limit the legislature's ability to pass laws.

President N'Gir is actually quite lucky Sulu believes in Starfleet and the Federation. He might've just stood his ground out of sheer stubbornness otherwise. It'd have meant his dismissal, but the N'Gir administration would've suffered a major political blow.
 
Hazard said:
Bolded for emphasis, emphasis mine. The problem lies here; you don't read in your top official who's going to be handling this, you send him a draft of the proposal. Regardless of if it gets dropped off at the office of some administrative policy drone, you make sure that he's informed during the writing process so that either he or experts in his employ can advise you and start thinking about what position to fill with which personnel. That's not what you do when you read someone in, that implies the plan is already finalized and he's expected to get along with the program or else.



Correction, the Commander of Starfleet has exercised the power of his office to point out that the manner in which the President attempts to shape policy does not result in sound, implementable policy. When you repeatedly force your bureaucracy to make major policy decisions without checking with the bureaucracy if it's a good idea, or even possible, you get an angry, unwilling to cooperate bureaucracy working for you. Which often means you get to deal with people whose entire job is handling the red tape deciding to be as slow and exacting in the requirements of said red tape as possible. This will make running the country far more difficult and frustrating, and limit the legislature's ability to pass laws.

President N'Gir is actually quite lucky Sulu believes in Starfleet and the Federation. He might've just stood his ground out of sheer stubbornness otherwise. It'd have meant his dismissal, but the N'Gir administration would've suffered a major political blow.
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Tl;dr "N'Gir please"
 
Hazard said:
Bolded for emphasis, emphasis mine. The problem lies here; you don't read in your top official who's going to be handling this, you send him a draft of the proposal. Regardless of if it gets dropped off at the office of some administrative policy drone, you make sure that he's informed during the writing process so that either he or experts in his employ can advise you and start thinking about what position to fill with which personnel. That's not what you do when you read someone in, that implies the plan is already finalized and he's expected to get along with the program or else.
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Except this is not what happened at all. They did give him a draft of the proposal; and the end of it all we got a chance to change it around, it it was implied we'd have had the option if we went along. Ultimately the peacekeepers were happening, and ultimately the thread voted to support it and expand it.

Correction, the Commander of Starfleet has exercised the power of his office to point out that the manner in which the President attempts to shape policy does not result in sound, implementable policy.
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There is a way that senior bureaucrats shape policy. Directly dicking in the legislative process is not one of them, and it is that way for a reason. What Sulu did would have been fucked up if he was the Chief of Defense Staff or the head of the Parks service -- it's only "worse" because his defiance comes with the fact his department has guns. If he's a Minister he absolutely would have lost his job, and in fact I'm not even sure if there's precedent for that.

Again, he endorsed and expanded that policy once he actually read it. But before that he didn't wait for open questioning or anything, he just reacted and whispered stuff in Expansionist ears. Then when he got to look at it, as N'Gir planned him to, he totally agreed with it and said, "Actually, more."


Like if we were talking that Sulu made a principled stand against the Peacekeepers, that would be one thing. But once the thread was made aware of the full political implications of saying no, we folded like a house of cards. This makes Sulu either look like he was trying to put N'Gir in her place before he arrived, which is incredibly toxic and more the speed of struggling democracies, or he is actually a crazy man.

Hence it's deletion.

#N'GirDidNothingWrong

E: I am really tired about people getting fundamental facts about the situation wrong, and how power flows in a representative democracy. To sum it up, N'Gir is our boss and was elected by the people of the Federation to be our boss. What we did was grossly insubordinate at best. I know people might not like the idea of being subordinate to her, but stop being rah-rah technocrat, this is a fucking cornerstone of represenative democracy. This is the last I'll say on this. Don't @ me.
 
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The Sandman said:
Unfortunately, a critical part of Yang Wen-li is that he's fundamentally a better man than Reinhard, and dooms his own cause because of it.
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Yes...but he's a Romulan, and there is every indication that the Romulans have at least a somewhat Romanesque system in regards to service to the state, where admirals transition into senators and back as required.

In fact, the Romulan system may arguably be corrupt, but it is exactly the sort of corrupt that causes the Praetor to place someone on the Continuing Committee because they're an uncomfortably famous but ultimately loyal war hero and you want to get them out of the public eye for a bit. (The fact they receive immense political power by their input in the day-to-day operation of the government is okay; they are ultimately loyal to Romulus.) The Senate also typically selects from its own when electing the Praetor...but it has elected admirals before. If the war goes badly enough, his election to the Praetorship with a mandate of "Save Romulus by any means necessary" is not impossible.
 
For fuck's sake, people, I just wanted to say that I was okay with politics as long as the people involved weren't dipshits about it. But if we're going to have this shitstorm again...

@Iron Wolf: If Sulu was being grossly insubordinate, then that should have been part of the narration or the basic voting information, or N'Gir's opposition shouldn't have come to us and we shouldn't have even had that as an option in the vote. If N'Gir was going to get our input on this, she should've gotten to us ahead of her opponents and made it clear that she had goals rather than plans, especially since she should've figured out that we had a poor opinion of her and that she was vulnerable to gambits like this. Sulu shouldn't have stuck to his genius know-it-all plot and given himself the space to tell N'Gir's opposition something other than YES/NO RIGHT NOW NOW NOW NOW. The N'Gir situation was a fundamental and blinding fuckup by someone and it should not have gone forward.

I'd be fine with having those ideas presented again, the federation peacekeepers vote and the how logistics ships vote, because I think that only the details were an issue. And while we can disagree to the end about which details were wrong, it is obvious that we should not have been presented with those votes because those votes could only have happened if multiple characters were handed idiot balls.
 
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Night said:
Yes...but he's a Romulan, and there is every indication that the Romulans have at least a somewhat Romanesque system in regards to service to the state, where admirals transition into senators and back as required.

In fact, the Romulan system may arguably be corrupt, but it is exactly the sort of corrupt that causes the Praetor to place someone on the Continuing Committee because they're an uncomfortably famous but ultimately loyal war hero and you want to get them out of the public eye for a bit. (The fact they receive immense political power by their input in the day-to-day operation of the government is okay; they are ultimately loyal to Romulus.) The Senate also typically selects from its own when electing the Praetor...but it has elected admirals before. If the war goes badly enough, his election to the Praetorship with a mandate of "Save Romulus by any means necessary" is not impossible.
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See, one of the other things is that Yang's bosses don't actually believe he's that loyal. Being venal men willing to sell out their own grandmothers if it increased their power, they're incapable of comprehending that Yang doesn't want political power and would much rather retire to teach history as soon as the war is over. Therefore, they'd never let him get that close to actual control over the government under any circumstances.

As for our getting him on our side, the only way I can see it happening is if he leads the remnants of the Romulan military to seek asylum with us in the event of total Klingon victory and the outright annexation of the Romulan state.
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
Edit: I have this feeling I've missed a threadmark somewhere. Anyone missing a threadmark?
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Old Soul, New Daughter, Interlude by Simon_Jester
Report: Orion Executive Update by Iron Wolf
The Next Generation: Final by Iron Wolf

Iron Wolf said:
BONUS ROUND: HOW THE AMARKI PLAYED US LIKE A FIDDLE.
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Right I'll happily avoid the N'Gir bomb, but I got the feeling that most of the voters were voting to "upset the apple cart" because a) the Pacifists were against it, and b) we wanted to discuss a compromise that all parties were happy with. And our vote should've accomplished that, since we were bringing the Pacifists onboard, not taking away the Amarki niche of elite gendarmes, and using the Caitian brand of peacekeepers that the Developmentists likely favor. Saying that the Amarki "played us like a fiddle" is a gross (and N'Gir-provided) mischaracterization of what actually happened.

edit: To be clear, the whole narrative did make Sulu look like an idiot. But the narrative also made it all look like a huge pile of misunderstandings and unfair characterizations.
 
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