Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
Short answer? Yes.Also, are there really people who address their parents so formally?
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- 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?
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
What's our latest intel on Cardassian fleet strength in the GBZ? The last one I could find in the Intel posts was from 2315, so who knows what it looks like now. I'm worried we're running blind into a major battle.
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
Fog of war is a pain isn't it? But I am fairly sure that we have the latest Cardassian fleet strength report.
Incredibly there are even people who don't want to update that estimate in this year's Intel. I mean yes, it's too late for this campaign, but seriously? Keep fleet strengths up to date ffs.
I would have thought our "one quarter surge" demonstrates that fleet strengths for a limited geographic area have only limited usefulness.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes. We can probably get a good track of how many ships the Cardassians put there under specific conditions, but they will always be able to heavily reinforce on one or two quarters' notice. For practical purposes their overall fleet numbers only tell us two things. One, whether they can seriously contemplate a major offensive without bringing in reinforcements, and two, whether we might profit from a surprise offensive.
Since two is basically irrelevant as we were never likely to launch such an offensive... it limits the utility more than a little.
Since two is basically irrelevant as we were never likely to launch such an offensive... it limits the utility more than a little.
Jenny
anonymous user
- Location
- maryland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Y'know, for a people who'd 'never' conduct such an offensive, we sure did conduct a lightning offensive against the Sydraxians.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Silly anon. That wasn't an lightning offensive that was aggressive friendship! We even helped them move their stuff!
- Location
- alphen aan den rijn
depending on who you ask did we really take much of an offensive action against the sydraxians? or just those OO type`s that set them against us
If the option to delay hadn't come up, the lightning offensive option was winning. Also, we blitzed the Sydraxians. And the Licori. Actually, this would be the first offensive we've ever undertaken that hasn't been a lightning offensive.
Plus fleet strength reveals enemy priorities and thinking. It's crucial in several ways.
Ainsworth deliberately went to smash them the moment she found them. Twice.
Plus fleet strength reveals enemy priorities and thinking. It's crucial in several ways.
lol what
Ainsworth deliberately went to smash them the moment she found them. Twice.
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- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So - SF is SC in disguise?
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Eh, we've not done anything about the Bajorans, and we didn't invade the Licori because of how they treat their people. We never tried to keep the Sydraxians from exploiting Gretaria. Despite knowing the Ittick-Ka attack and extort non-spacefaring races, we've not shown any desire to change that. While we did block the Hishmeri septs from raiding near us, we didn't try to force them to free the slaves they already had. All in all we've been fairly passive, at least when it comes to military actions.
Every piece of information is crucial if you end up needing it and not crucial if you don't end up needing it. One reason we might not want to bother looking into GBZ fleet strengths this year is that we're about to find out the hard way. This is going to be a real "show me what you got" moment.
Personally I'd rather spend the amount of reports I'm willing to spend on the Cardassians* on those refit stats.
*Got to keep a certain portion back for entertainment value.
- Location
- Infraspace
Not really. Contact would be a better parallel, but the Culture doesn't really bear much resemblance to the Federation in its political or military (such as it is) structure.
Yet!
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SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
Ah yes. The Nanoha Takamachi methodology.
For hearts long lost and full of fright
Those who caused the blackest night
Listen to me, or meet your maker
I'll befriend them all!
Starlight Breaker!
- Location
- Australia
If the Cardassians live in fear of Nash, the Sydraxians warn their children to eat their Kranak Sprouts or else Admiral Ainsworth will jump out of subspace and eat them.
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I kinda want to see what the Sydraxians would make of Ainsworth's Mirror Universe counterpart.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Probably be wearing a latex bodysuit, an eye patch, and a goatee.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Probably be wearing a latex bodysuit, an eye patch, and a goatee.
Plus she'd have robot arms with a disruptor rifle built into one of the hands.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Oh, you misunderstand. I'm not saying "we were never going to launch a lightning offensive to push the Cardassians because we're too gosh-darn nice."
I'm saying "the Cardassians are too big to knock over this way."
With the Sydraxians, two big thwacks from a Combat 40-60 fleet was enough to effectively wipe out their presence in the Gabriel Expanse and wreck so much of their navy that they couldn't re-establish that presence. Even if they'd wanted to, we could have just kept doing it over and over until they ran out of ships. We could fairly easily bring more ships to every battle than them, so the Lanchester Laws were on our side. We could rack up a favorable rate of attrition until their fleet was just gone, so minimal that they could no longer pose a threat in the Expanse while retaining even minimal self-defense capability.
We can't do that to the Cardassians. Their fleet is just about the same size as Starfleet, and their other commitments aren't a lot heavier than ours. While we have the member world fleets as an emergency backup, we can't just throw 100% of Starfleet into the Gabriel Expanse, blow up 50% of the Cardassian navy, and force the Cardassians to give up occupying the Expanse themselves. We'd need a bigger fleet than we physically have, to do to the Cardassians what we did to the Sydraxians.
And that's been the case ever since we went into the Expanse in the first place. Realistically we were never going to hammer the Cardassians hard enough to drive them out of the Expanse entirely, not in a single overpowering lightning offensive. Even doing it gradually, a step at a time, would probably run us up against the limits of our political support. Because the Council, and for that matter the playerbase, probably isn't going to unanimously agree on being willing to keep fighting and sacrificing indefinitely. Not just for the cause of keeping the Cardassians from getting ANY of the Gabriel Expanse's resources.*
________________________
*It's like, if the Cardassians just straight-up talked to us and said "okay, let's sign a partition agreement and rename the contested region the "You mine your side, we mine our side, and nobody mine in the middle Expanse," the Council would probably agree to that if the partition proposal itself were reasonable.
Again, to clarify my stance, what I'm saying is that we were never realistically going to plan a campaign in which we amassed overwhelming force and wiped out the Cardassian military presence in the Gabriel Expanse. Even now, we're talking about driving them out of a single subsector.
It's important, but it's not the only important thing we have to think about in a given year. The overall economy of the Cardassians matters too, so does their overall fleet strength, their diplomatic posture, their ship classes and shipyards...
The amount of information we need is too large for us to single out any given thing for a report every year.
Leslie:
"Tell it to the Klingons. We pried a fair number of planets out of their clutches on the border, don't get me wrong, but we were never going to go crusader on them and we wouldn't if we could. You kids sometimes forget, when I was born we didn't think we could stop the Klingons if they tried to conquer the whole Federation and just kept pushing as hard as they could. We could make it expensive, we could hold out until the Klingons started fighting among themselves, we could set them up to get torpedoed from behind by the Romulans or whoever else. But we weren't even one bit sure we could fight a war with the Klingons and stalemate 'em for very long. They're tough, and they were getting stronger fast back in those days."
"And nowadays? Hell, the Licori got their monarchy kicked down because that monarchy decided to play with firecrackers on our front porch. Not exactly "de oppresso liber." Same goes for the Sydraxians."
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ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
She is on the Wheeties box. Clearly she cares not about Kranex Sprouts.Well, do you have any proof she won't?
Also, why jump out when she can beam in right behind them? She has access to starfleet tech after all.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
Ship mottos once more updated with assistance and suggestions from the redoubtable @anon_user.
I was a little disappointed my looking through the Biophage arc did not produce a good quote for some ship or another.
I was a little disappointed my looking through the Biophage arc did not produce a good quote for some ship or another.
- Location
- Australia
As a heads up, I'll be taking about a week or so to chill out and relax, and hopefully refresh some of my creativity.