lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Except the Sydraxians. And a partial success with the Amarki terrorism.
Yup, looks good. By "faded" I meant grayed out.
Yeah, thread's moving too fast :-/
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?
Except the Sydraxians. And a partial success with the Amarki terrorism.
Yup, looks good. By "faded" I meant grayed out.
Yeah, thread's moving too fast :-/
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Derp I forgot about the Syds.
But the Amarkian attack was a disaster. They failed in their goal of scaring affiliates away, and they burned all their contacts with the Orion Syndicate (They killed an Orion ship and lost them a station, why would they ever cooperate again?) and lost a Cruiser in the process. The Amarkian attack failed, it cost irreplaceable resources and failed to stop new members.
And anyone that was wavering over us not being able to defend them just watched Enterprise casually handle a Battlecruiser and a Cruiser in a "straight" fight.
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I believe this annual income is shorting us. Last year it was 365br/260 sr. Since then we've gotten a 20br mining colony going, a 5sr Apiata trade, and the Rigellians have started to contribute 20br/10sr.
That means we should be at an income of 405br/275 sr. Was the mining colony not added in?
PP is also short. Sol 10 + Betazed 2 + Vulcan 5 + Andor 5 + Tellar 5 + Amarkia 10 + Caitian 5 + Rigel 5 - Nash 5 + Sousa 5 + T'Lorel 2 = 49. Rigel was not added.
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
I would actually prefer member fleets retain their own ship designs, at least to a certain extent. It may not exactly be a Starfleet-ish thing, but it some competition between rival ship designs would be nice.
[X] Be given NCC registries following the creation of the Member World Coordination Office
Well initially, it was bad for us, since it was scaring affiliates. But the Council and Starfleet (aka us) responded beautifully and turned the situation around into a huge positive.
- Location
- USA
So I think good omake fodder is the Cardassians reaction to the fight. I can see this one of two ways, an in universe prospective of central command or a cardassians quest perspective
- Location
- Tulsa Oklahoma
You know, I would like if there was some way to have some way to aquire PP through infrastructure like we can for research and resources. because right now that seems to be our biggest bottleneck.
- Location
- somewhere
That whole section is unfinished, as you can see from not actually adding up the numbers anyway.
Our current income should be (see my detailed breakdown post):
415br
285sr
49pp
83rp
6.80/7.00/8.30
1.5/1.45/1.7(1.75 if there is a 0.05 bonus from somewhere I couldn't find)
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Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
That does raise the question of how much we want to publicize this incident. If we do, we're going to have people lobbying for us to declare war. This is basically a Lusitania moment in some respects. We need to think about how heavily we push it.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There are almost certainly knives out, and the Central Command and Obsidian Order are tossing blame and backstabs back and forth while the Detapa Council watches with interest, readying their own blades.
Yah, definitely needs a recalculation. The personnel pools also can't be right. We started with 25.1 O, we picked up 4 from scrapping the Soyuz, annual income is 6.8, and we did an explorer corps drive for -2. That should be 33.9, since we didn't pay any personnel costs this year. (The Endurance was crewed in 2306Q4.)
- Location
- the Moon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Alternatively:
[Gul Parad] I will not be your courier, temptress!
[Pause]
[Nash] Prepare a shuttle.
[Zarmaand] Captain?
[Nash] I'm going to carve 'Enterprise was here' into his bow. He'll deliver the message whether he likes it or not!
[X] Not be given NCC registries
Well, remember that starships in the Trekverse are planet-killers. The Constitution class could wipe out civilization (and probably cause a mass extinction) on a planet with a single photon torpedo spread.
This makes cloaking devices a devastating first-strike weapon against any foe who doesn't have ossum science.
And the Biophage crisis showed us that the Romulans don't have sensors as good as the Starfleet ships do. (Likely that means the Klingons are even worse off right now.)
I think it is safe to say that the Klingons and Romulans would go into a full-on panic if the Federation started to develop and deploy cloaking tech on the same level they do. (Which I think was what happened in canon. Didn't some Federation ship get a cloak in a few years in canon-verse and cause a full-on crisis as the rest of the galaxy collectively shat themselves?)
fasquardon
Yeah, remember the last intelligence report? The way the Federation is adding new members is making the Romulans really, really nervous. This is not the time to be pushing them on Cloaking technology. That's how you get a two front war, and no one wants that.
Also, something to point out to everyone:
Current Federation Affiliates:
Caitians 454/500
Rigellians 317/500
Apiata 212/500
Oh my. The Federation is within five years of uniting all of the middle-powers in the quadrant. The Amarki + Caitians + Rigellians + Apiata = Federation effectively doubling in size and industrial capacity.
That sound you just heard was the pants of the Klingons and the Romulans and the Cardassians going brown.
- Location
- somewhere
I already remarked on that when commenting on the attempted assassination at Amarkia. It's not quite as bad for them because Oneiros stated elewhere that the Sydraxians are also in that tier, so we are only getting 4/5.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I ran out of time to keep reading the thread after the end of year report card. This is literally nothing but my responses to stuff BEFORE the logs, and my comments on events IN The logs.
I loved the logs. Obviously Captain ka'Sharren getting trapped in a time loop took the first prize, but the others were worthy of it, and that is saying something.
Hm. If a groundhog goes looking for its shadow on Andoria, they're getting six more weeks of winter whether it finds it or not, aren't they...?
EDIT: Battle analysis- okay, that Cardie battlecruiser has a glass jaw once the shields go down. That helped. Also, we might actually have had a good chance of winning that one with a few techs in the Lone Ranger tree, because bonuses while outnumbered would have brought the situation close to parity. And yes, Enterprise-B got insanely lucky in the final iteration (OOC second, IC 27th) of the battle. But on the other hand they could have been significantly less lucky (i.e. getting hit four times more often) and still won the battle without noticeable hull damage.
This wasn't a hopeless fight the first time around, though it was a REALLY GOOD Cardassian ambush and had a good chance of working; our ship would have wound up in the hospital without ludicrous good luck, and I suspect the most probable outcome would be "lose Enterprise, heavy damage to both Cardassian ships, probably not taking either of them with us but maybe."
Captain ka'Sharren wound up having to iterate the time loop over and over until she "got it right," resulting in an outcome that doesn't end in the Enterprise's warp core blowing up, which then breaks the loop and allows the universe to go on as normal. Failure leads to re-iteration, until re-iteration leads to success.
This is reminiscent of both Generations the TNG episode "Cause and Effect," only funnier because she's the only one who knows she's caught in a time loop while everyone around her behaves normally.
Now, if we could figure out what the hell was going on with the warp core to make that happen, THAT would be great. Not likely, though I'm sure Nash will spend the next several days trying to find out.
Also, this vindicates the "humans are insane and design ships that do weird things nobody else's ships do" hypothesis, which in turn lowers my resistance ot the idea of, um, things. Yes. Things.
[walks away, whistling quietly and cheerfully]
========================
Moreover, this is a very bad time for us to adopt a "ten year rule" and plan our fleet around things that won't happen for ten years or more. Ten years from now the situation may look very different. We may end up fighting a war with the Cardassians in which most of our explorers get blown to hell and be scrambling to replace them. We may end up fighting a war with the Cardassians that results in recruits from the affiliate races flocking to our banner in such numbers that we can't build hulls fast enough to keep up with them. We may do both. We may do neither.
It's good for us to prepare in advance by designing good ship classes and making plans, and I am totally 100% behind the idea that we should remember the possibility of retiring Constellations to save on crew numbers.
But we also need to be mindful of what will be happening one, two, and five years down the road, not just ten to fifteen, and in this particular debate, the 1-5 year question is rather significant.
[snip ramble]
We can segregate a lot of the ship talk, including the parts that are burdensome to the mind of those who are not unusually interested in ship design. But we can't segregate ALL the ship talk in a quest that is literally all about the creation and deployment of ships.
Furthermore, the homeworld fleets of each member species will still be using Constellations, which will be delivered into our hands unmodified and un-refitted if we should ever need to call on them for reinforcements.
And above all this, your entire argument is predicated on the forty-point political will cost of the refit program. What would you do if that went down? Would your argument still be valid if the program cost thirty points? Twenty? Ten? Five? One? Where, approximately, do you draw the line?
Look, your point that the cost of the refit program(s) is excessive is well taken. I think everyone agrees with you on that point- given that we aren't likely to ever order another Constellation, the cost is excessive. It made sense for the Centaurs because we're actually building MORE Centaurs, so the payoff of making all future Centaurs stronger is significant. With the Constellations and Mirandas that is probably not going to be happening, so the cost-payoff dynamic is different.
But you still seem to be behaving as if the costs of the refits are significant while the costs of replacement are not.
Tell me with a straight face that that hasn't been worth it.
Moreover, upgrading ships is not a one-time benefit, because if the ship is employed correctly (and the Constellations have been), improved ship stats translate directly into long-term benefits such as improved interspecies relations, freebie resources and political will.
Otherwise, Romulan power plants would be so insanely unstable and unreliable and fuel-hungry that it stops making any sense why they use singularity-core power plants instead of matter-antimatter reactors.
The artificially stabilized singularity that you don't need to feed constantly and which is not in the process of rapid uncontrolled decay could more plausibly be used as a heat sink. And yes, there's no way to do that in the Standard Model, but again, in the Standard Model artificial gravity is not a thing.
So basically, IF the Romulans have artificial quantum black holes they can use as shipboard power sources at all, I almost have to assume they have the ability to use those black holes as heat sinks, by artificially "denying" those black holes from radiating. It presumably can't last forever.
If you have the right artificial barrier in place, you CAN force a system to remain in a low-entropy state, at the cost of EVENTUALLY increasing entropy overall or having previously increased entropy to set up the barrier.
[snip part where I ramble for several paragraphs about this]
People understand that a big ice ball will continue to be a big ice ball even if you put a small heat source in its center. They may NOT understand that a big spherical balloon surrounding a 300K heat source may have a surface temperature of thirty, or three, kelvins.
The balloon trick is, I have learned from painful experience, surprisingly hard to explain to people whose knowledge of science doesn't extent to upper-level undergraduate physics. Unless I've gotten a lot better at explaining things than I used to be.
As to the details- I am using intensity i the most literal sense possible, to refer to the amount of energy radiated by an object in watts, divided by surface area in square meters. This is affected by a number of factors, including temperature (as per the Stefan-Boltzmann law), emissivity of the surface, and (as you alluded) the surface area of the object.
I loved the logs. Obviously Captain ka'Sharren getting trapped in a time loop took the first prize, but the others were worthy of it, and that is saying something.
Hm. If a groundhog goes looking for its shadow on Andoria, they're getting six more weeks of winter whether it finds it or not, aren't they...?
EDIT: Battle analysis- okay, that Cardie battlecruiser has a glass jaw once the shields go down. That helped. Also, we might actually have had a good chance of winning that one with a few techs in the Lone Ranger tree, because bonuses while outnumbered would have brought the situation close to parity. And yes, Enterprise-B got insanely lucky in the final iteration (OOC second, IC 27th) of the battle. But on the other hand they could have been significantly less lucky (i.e. getting hit four times more often) and still won the battle without noticeable hull damage.
This wasn't a hopeless fight the first time around, though it was a REALLY GOOD Cardassian ambush and had a good chance of working; our ship would have wound up in the hospital without ludicrous good luck, and I suspect the most probable outcome would be "lose Enterprise, heavy damage to both Cardassian ships, probably not taking either of them with us but maybe."
The explosion of the Enterprise's warp core wrapped her in a temporal anomaly that jumped her back to the moment just before the Cardassians ambushed her ship.
Captain ka'Sharren wound up having to iterate the time loop over and over until she "got it right," resulting in an outcome that doesn't end in the Enterprise's warp core blowing up, which then breaks the loop and allows the universe to go on as normal. Failure leads to re-iteration, until re-iteration leads to success.
This is reminiscent of both Generations the TNG episode "Cause and Effect," only funnier because she's the only one who knows she's caught in a time loop while everyone around her behaves normally.
Now, if we could figure out what the hell was going on with the warp core to make that happen, THAT would be great. Not likely, though I'm sure Nash will spend the next several days trying to find out.
Twenty-seven times, to be exact. Unless she lost count.
I could feel sorry for them, but I don't.
Also, this vindicates the "humans are insane and design ships that do weird things nobody else's ships do" hypothesis, which in turn lowers my resistance ot the idea of, um, things. Yes. Things.
[walks away, whistling quietly and cheerfully]
========================
I support mothballing Constellations IF NECESSARY, but I want them to be viable, functional ships that do what we need them to do. I don't want to just write them off and cry about how weak and stupid they are, when we really do need all our ships and need them operating at full effect.
Moreover, this is a very bad time for us to adopt a "ten year rule" and plan our fleet around things that won't happen for ten years or more. Ten years from now the situation may look very different. We may end up fighting a war with the Cardassians in which most of our explorers get blown to hell and be scrambling to replace them. We may end up fighting a war with the Cardassians that results in recruits from the affiliate races flocking to our banner in such numbers that we can't build hulls fast enough to keep up with them. We may do both. We may do neither.
It's good for us to prepare in advance by designing good ship classes and making plans, and I am totally 100% behind the idea that we should remember the possibility of retiring Constellations to save on crew numbers.
But we also need to be mindful of what will be happening one, two, and five years down the road, not just ten to fifteen, and in this particular debate, the 1-5 year question is rather significant.
I will be happy to do that when I have time later today (just keeping up with this thread is practically a full time job). But I thought at least the basic fact itself was something that deserved to become general knowledge.
[snip ramble]
We can segregate a lot of the ship talk, including the parts that are burdensome to the mind of those who are not unusually interested in ship design. But we can't segregate ALL the ship talk in a quest that is literally all about the creation and deployment of ships.
In sixteen years that will give us enough extra Centaur-As to replace the last of the Constellations. Our overall fleet strength will be largely unchanged from what it was in 2307- this is a move that will take until some time around 2325 to break even.
Furthermore, the homeworld fleets of each member species will still be using Constellations, which will be delivered into our hands unmodified and un-refitted if we should ever need to call on them for reinforcements.
And above all this, your entire argument is predicated on the forty-point political will cost of the refit program. What would you do if that went down? Would your argument still be valid if the program cost thirty points? Twenty? Ten? Five? One? Where, approximately, do you draw the line?
Look, your point that the cost of the refit program(s) is excessive is well taken. I think everyone agrees with you on that point- given that we aren't likely to ever order another Constellation, the cost is excessive. It made sense for the Centaurs because we're actually building MORE Centaurs, so the payoff of making all future Centaurs stronger is significant. With the Constellations and Mirandas that is probably not going to be happening, so the cost-payoff dynamic is different.
But you still seem to be behaving as if the costs of the refits are significant while the costs of replacement are not.
We've spent numerous political will points on one-time benefits. We've spent thirty-five political will to date, and intend to go on spending more, purely to deal with the scandals created by Captain ka'Sharren, when literally all she does is provide a +1 to the stats of a single ship: the Enterprise-B.
Tell me with a straight face that that hasn't been worth it.
Moreover, upgrading ships is not a one-time benefit, because if the ship is employed correctly (and the Constellations have been), improved ship stats translate directly into long-term benefits such as improved interspecies relations, freebie resources and political will.
To be fair, I had sort of tacitly assumed that Star Trek has a technobabble way of "stabilizing" quantum black holes. I know it doesn't fit into the Standard Model, but neither do subspace communications.
Otherwise, Romulan power plants would be so insanely unstable and unreliable and fuel-hungry that it stops making any sense why they use singularity-core power plants instead of matter-antimatter reactors.
The artificially stabilized singularity that you don't need to feed constantly and which is not in the process of rapid uncontrolled decay could more plausibly be used as a heat sink. And yes, there's no way to do that in the Standard Model, but again, in the Standard Model artificial gravity is not a thing.
So basically, IF the Romulans have artificial quantum black holes they can use as shipboard power sources at all, I almost have to assume they have the ability to use those black holes as heat sinks, by artificially "denying" those black holes from radiating. It presumably can't last forever.
If you have the right artificial barrier in place, you CAN force a system to remain in a low-entropy state, at the cost of EVENTUALLY increasing entropy overall or having previously increased entropy to set up the barrier.
[snip part where I ramble for several paragraphs about this]
My original choice of an ice moon was fairly arbitrary, when I was pitching my explanation at a level that would make intuitive sense to people without an undergraduate STEM degree.
People understand that a big ice ball will continue to be a big ice ball even if you put a small heat source in its center. They may NOT understand that a big spherical balloon surrounding a 300K heat source may have a surface temperature of thirty, or three, kelvins.
The balloon trick is, I have learned from painful experience, surprisingly hard to explain to people whose knowledge of science doesn't extent to upper-level undergraduate physics. Unless I've gotten a lot better at explaining things than I used to be.
As to the details- I am using intensity i the most literal sense possible, to refer to the amount of energy radiated by an object in watts, divided by surface area in square meters. This is affected by a number of factors, including temperature (as per the Stefan-Boltzmann law), emissivity of the surface, and (as you alluded) the surface area of the object.
It... kind of did at first, but got better over time. I do get what you're trying to do.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh shit did they try to lure in Nash with the attraction of an illicit rendezvous with Gul Miran
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Okay, I have more comments than wtf Nash. (And I can't wait to see the Federation reaction and omakes)
Anyone else suspect foul play?
Straak, you might want to consider a career change...
Oh hey, it's the Sappho. Beach party?
Poor guy. He must be wondering if the Miracht name is just cursed. Glad it all worked out in the end.
Huh, too bad we didn't get a diplomacy boost for the Rigellians here.
Yay!
Anyone else suspect foul play?
Straak, you might want to consider a career change...
Oh hey, it's the Sappho. Beach party?
Poor guy. He must be wondering if the Miracht name is just cursed. Glad it all worked out in the end.
Huh, too bad we didn't get a diplomacy boost for the Rigellians here.
Yay!
- Location
- United States
Is this just a cosmetic thing, or does it have an impact on the way things operate?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Uh yeah I find it hard to believe a dwarf planet on a collision course was missed in the setting up of the colony. And that the timing would have it so the world-ending impact would take place less than a year after establishing it.
He meets exciting rocks this way! He needs cool science rock pics to send back to his Horta boyfriend (it's a long-distance and nonphysical relationship but they both find it intellectually satisfying)
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- Location
- Patriarchova
Since I've been imagining all the captain's logs as actual Trek episodes, and Ka'Sharren's logs in particular, I decided to make some visual designs for the original ships so that my mind wouldn't keep putting anachronistic Galors in there. The Excelsior is for scale.
Work in progress.
Work in progress.
Omake - No Win Scenario - Iron Wolf
No Win Scenario
Kivaas smiled smugly at the tactical readings currently being displayed on his main viewscreen. A lone Seyek escort, bare defense for the three freighters it was guarding. They had the audacity to be moving through Cardassian space without prior notice to Central Command?
Now, there were some possibilities -- their navigational computer had glitched and they'd gone off-course, they had to make an emergency detour, or any number of minor mistakes or emergencies. However, the border was the border, and besides -- more likely these Seyek were trying to shave some time off the trip and hissing right in the face of the Cardassians. After the leniancy his people had shown them? Unacceptable.
He turned to his comms officer, "Hail them. Inform them they are in Cardassian space and are so in violation of all rights. Tactical, charge weapons and target the reactor on the escort."
He felt the presence of someone behind him, a single leather-gloved hand coming to rest on his shoulder, "A little bloodthirsty, no?" Kivaas suppresed a groan as his Obsidian Order minder, Glinn Tragess, butted his head into things again.
"Keep your eyes on the crew," he snapped, "The Seyek escort may or may not explode. If it does, then it will bring the other freighters in li--"
"SIR!" His sensors officer suddenly screamed.
Tragess pierced him with A Look, "This is not a cheap drama, Gorr Haut, I will ask you to kindly--"
The Comm Officer ignored him, "IT'S THE EH--ENTERPRISE! SHE'S HERE!"
The bridge was filled with silence. Tragess' jaw worked and Kivaas could feel his glove gripping his shoulder. Kivaas struggled to find words, his mouth suddenly dry, "Ch---" his weapons were already charged, "Hail? Hail them. And, send them a demand. That any further action will... result... in them being... fired upon."
Tragess swallowed, "Gul, you must show more resolve to the crew," he mock-whispered.
"DO NOT THINK TO CORRECT ME IN FRONT OF THE CREW!" Kivaas screamed, rising out of his chair and grabbing the Glinn by his lapels, "COMMS! HAIL THEM!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir." Tragess and Kivaas turned to see the Comms officer was holding a disruptor, aimed at them, "You see, I've been Nash's lover all along. This vessel will make a fine dowry... for our wedding." She threw her head back and laughed, blasting Tragess, who was thrown across the room. Kivaas ducked down in time to see the tactical and security officers were shot too. A red light blinked INCOMING FIRE on the tactical board, and soon the bridge was engulfed in explosions and flames, Cardassian bodies flying. Kiivas screamed and fumbled, grabbing Tragess' disruptor and throwing himself to the side, firing at the comms officer. But she was gone, beamed out. He climbed into his chair heavily, as smoke swirled around him, and accessed his chair console. He got one shot off at the Enterprise, a wild miss, before that too shorted out.
Abruptly, the klaxons cut out. The fires snuffed. Silently, through the main door, a medic came in and revived Tragess as the rest of the crew filed out. The viewscreen slid aside to reveal a figure, silhouetted through the smoke. Kivaas put his head in his hands as Tragess struggled to his feet, tiredly perching himself on the arm of Kivaas' chair. Kivaas was too afraid to speak to tell him off.
"An utter failure," said the figure, "Wouldn't you agree, neophyte?"
Kivaas nodded, "Yes, Legate."
They stalked around the bridge, still in shadow, "What were your failures?"
Kivaas sighed, "I failed to check for additional warp signatures in the area before moving power away from warp to weapons, ensuring I could not escape. I was too quick to move on the Seyek. I failed to maintain bridge awareness." He glared at his test partner, "And someone was delaying vital alerts!"
The figure stopped in front of the captain's chair. Kivaas could now see the woman's familiar visage -- a face that was expressive yet also cold, lips used to a certain haughty smirk.
Tragess sighed and put on a flattering tone, "Legate Dukat, I must say, the primary failure was assuredly in the failure to spot the Enterprise--"
Dukat turned to him, "You had three hours in the simulator, Neophyte Tragess! Your job is not to second-guess the Gul in charge but seek out disloyalty in the crew -- even had Kivaas identified the Enterprise, you would have been sabotaged by a conspiracy you could have easily found!"
Dukat turned from both of them, heels clicking, "You both failed the instant you did not even account for the Enterprise being here. The instant we leave our borders and fling ourselves into the void, you should expect Nash ka'Sharren to be there. To be anywhere!" To underscore that point, she walked over to the bridge weapons locker and opened it. Instead of disruptor rifles, there was a model of the Enterprise-B, wedged into the foam.
Tragess scoffed, "Legate, you cannot be serious--"
"I AM SERIOUS!" Dukat thundered, "DID YOU EVEN THINK TO CHECK?" She breathed, "This childish prank would have let you know instantly that there was a conspiracy on the ship. But you didn't check." She clasped her hands behind her back, "It is possible to beat Nash ka'Sharren, gentlemen. We do not believe in no-win scenarios on Cardassia. But you have not found it," She walked out the open viewscreen. As it slowly slid shut, the fake bridge crew came on, "So, do it again until you do.
Now, there were some possibilities -- their navigational computer had glitched and they'd gone off-course, they had to make an emergency detour, or any number of minor mistakes or emergencies. However, the border was the border, and besides -- more likely these Seyek were trying to shave some time off the trip and hissing right in the face of the Cardassians. After the leniancy his people had shown them? Unacceptable.
He turned to his comms officer, "Hail them. Inform them they are in Cardassian space and are so in violation of all rights. Tactical, charge weapons and target the reactor on the escort."
He felt the presence of someone behind him, a single leather-gloved hand coming to rest on his shoulder, "A little bloodthirsty, no?" Kivaas suppresed a groan as his Obsidian Order minder, Glinn Tragess, butted his head into things again.
"Keep your eyes on the crew," he snapped, "The Seyek escort may or may not explode. If it does, then it will bring the other freighters in li--"
"SIR!" His sensors officer suddenly screamed.
Tragess pierced him with A Look, "This is not a cheap drama, Gorr Haut, I will ask you to kindly--"
The Comm Officer ignored him, "IT'S THE EH--ENTERPRISE! SHE'S HERE!"
The bridge was filled with silence. Tragess' jaw worked and Kivaas could feel his glove gripping his shoulder. Kivaas struggled to find words, his mouth suddenly dry, "Ch---" his weapons were already charged, "Hail? Hail them. And, send them a demand. That any further action will... result... in them being... fired upon."
Tragess swallowed, "Gul, you must show more resolve to the crew," he mock-whispered.
"DO NOT THINK TO CORRECT ME IN FRONT OF THE CREW!" Kivaas screamed, rising out of his chair and grabbing the Glinn by his lapels, "COMMS! HAIL THEM!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir." Tragess and Kivaas turned to see the Comms officer was holding a disruptor, aimed at them, "You see, I've been Nash's lover all along. This vessel will make a fine dowry... for our wedding." She threw her head back and laughed, blasting Tragess, who was thrown across the room. Kivaas ducked down in time to see the tactical and security officers were shot too. A red light blinked INCOMING FIRE on the tactical board, and soon the bridge was engulfed in explosions and flames, Cardassian bodies flying. Kiivas screamed and fumbled, grabbing Tragess' disruptor and throwing himself to the side, firing at the comms officer. But she was gone, beamed out. He climbed into his chair heavily, as smoke swirled around him, and accessed his chair console. He got one shot off at the Enterprise, a wild miss, before that too shorted out.
Abruptly, the klaxons cut out. The fires snuffed. Silently, through the main door, a medic came in and revived Tragess as the rest of the crew filed out. The viewscreen slid aside to reveal a figure, silhouetted through the smoke. Kivaas put his head in his hands as Tragess struggled to his feet, tiredly perching himself on the arm of Kivaas' chair. Kivaas was too afraid to speak to tell him off.
"An utter failure," said the figure, "Wouldn't you agree, neophyte?"
Kivaas nodded, "Yes, Legate."
They stalked around the bridge, still in shadow, "What were your failures?"
Kivaas sighed, "I failed to check for additional warp signatures in the area before moving power away from warp to weapons, ensuring I could not escape. I was too quick to move on the Seyek. I failed to maintain bridge awareness." He glared at his test partner, "And someone was delaying vital alerts!"
The figure stopped in front of the captain's chair. Kivaas could now see the woman's familiar visage -- a face that was expressive yet also cold, lips used to a certain haughty smirk.
Tragess sighed and put on a flattering tone, "Legate Dukat, I must say, the primary failure was assuredly in the failure to spot the Enterprise--"
Dukat turned to him, "You had three hours in the simulator, Neophyte Tragess! Your job is not to second-guess the Gul in charge but seek out disloyalty in the crew -- even had Kivaas identified the Enterprise, you would have been sabotaged by a conspiracy you could have easily found!"
Dukat turned from both of them, heels clicking, "You both failed the instant you did not even account for the Enterprise being here. The instant we leave our borders and fling ourselves into the void, you should expect Nash ka'Sharren to be there. To be anywhere!" To underscore that point, she walked over to the bridge weapons locker and opened it. Instead of disruptor rifles, there was a model of the Enterprise-B, wedged into the foam.
Tragess scoffed, "Legate, you cannot be serious--"
"I AM SERIOUS!" Dukat thundered, "DID YOU EVEN THINK TO CHECK?" She breathed, "This childish prank would have let you know instantly that there was a conspiracy on the ship. But you didn't check." She clasped her hands behind her back, "It is possible to beat Nash ka'Sharren, gentlemen. We do not believe in no-win scenarios on Cardassia. But you have not found it," She walked out the open viewscreen. As it slowly slid shut, the fake bridge crew came on, "So, do it again until you do.
***
"YES!" Kivaas yelled, as the Enterprise blossomed into flame. The gambit with the corona of the star had --
"Sir," his science officer said, "That -- was a quantum shadow." They sounded tired, resigned. "The Enterprise is in our weakened shield arc. Impact time one sec--"
The bridge filled with flames.
"Sir," his science officer said, "That -- was a quantum shadow." They sounded tired, resigned. "The Enterprise is in our weakened shield arc. Impact time one sec--"
The bridge filled with flames.
***
Tragess smirked as he gunned down the last of the Starfleet boarding party, "I am dissappointed that Starfleet would resort to such underhanded tactics as posing as a distressed freighter carrying orphans," he turned back to Kivaas, "But also impressed that they'd--"
Kivaas looked resigned and furious at the helm console. Sitting there was a crewman, a fake Andorian mask over their head, holding a pistol, "Too bad I was here all along," they said in a passable imitation of ka'Sharren, before gunning him and Tragess down.
Kivaas looked resigned and furious at the helm console. Sitting there was a crewman, a fake Andorian mask over their head, holding a pistol, "Too bad I was here all along," they said in a passable imitation of ka'Sharren, before gunning him and Tragess down.
***
"I am surprised that we're practicing parade formation," Kivaas muttered to Tragess.
"MAINTAIN ROLE-PERFORMANCE WHILE IN THE SCENARIO," came Dukat's stern voice.
"Right," muttered Kivaas, "Helm, come about to mark one-point-eight and continue to follow the lead vessel."
"SIR, CONTACT, DROPPING OUT OF WARP, IT'S -- THE ENTERPRISE."
Kivaas barely had time to groan before the bridge was filled with flames.
"MAINTAIN ROLE-PERFORMANCE WHILE IN THE SCENARIO," came Dukat's stern voice.
"Right," muttered Kivaas, "Helm, come about to mark one-point-eight and continue to follow the lead vessel."
"SIR, CONTACT, DROPPING OUT OF WARP, IT'S -- THE ENTERPRISE."
Kivaas barely had time to groan before the bridge was filled with flames.
***
This time, Kivaas was pleased to note that their simulated vessel was the powerful Lorgot class. According to orders they were holding position just outside a system, waiting to spring a trap with the assistance of a Jaldun class-- Oh no.
No, no no.
He gave Tragess a side glance and the other man immediately checked the weapons locker. Everything was in place. Over the next few hours he tensely triple-checked everything. Until --
"Sir, ship warping in! They're hailing us!"
"On screen," said Kivaas. Immediately, the view of the opposite bridge came on.
"Heeeeeeeey dudes," drawled a clearly inebriated Tellarite, "Wanna come over for a kegger on behalf of the Sapp--"
Kivaas sighed, "Karnack, destroy that vessel." In a few moments the transmission had gone blissfully silent. Kivaas leaned back in satisfaction. Nice bait and switch, Duk--
"SIR, EXCELSIOR CLASS WARPING IN, IT'S THE-"
In a flash Tragess, waiting by the weapons locker, sprung it open and had a rifle in his hands. Kivaas ducked as the Obsidian Order trainee blasted the Tactical and Science officers and Kivaas' yeoman. "THAT ONE HAD ANDORIAN PERFUME, THAT ONE WAS LOOKING AT PICTURES OF ANDORIANS IN VARIOUS STATES OF DRESS, AND THAT ONE HAD DISSIDENT LITERATURE SO I DIDN'T RISK IT," he said, seemingly to no one in particular.
Of course Dukat had changed the parameters. If it was the exact same scenario every time, people could just keep trying everything until something stuck, and that would never apply in the real world. Cardassian students were impossible gossips, and while it was apparently considered 'cheating' to do so in the Federation, it was encouraged for students to sneak behind their teacher's backs with optimal solutions. Cheating was of course, punished when caught, but not getting caught was considered a more important skill.
The Enterprise had already battered their shields. They were out of position. They could probably not win in a stand-up fight. The only thing...
"Ops! Lock onto the Enterprise with a tractor beam! Tragess, order the Karnack to disrupt any attempts by the Enterprise to break our hold!"
Ops nodded briskly, "Done sir!" The ship rocked again with the angry impact of the Enterprise's weapons, "What now sir?"
"Shields to maximum in our rear arc. Helm," he let out a deep breath, excited somehow, "Set a course for the sun, maximum impulse."
Minutes later the bright orb was filling his viewscreen. He didn't bother to adjust the brightness, rising out of his chair as bright white light filled the bridge, blinding everyone. He could feel Tragess' hand again on his shoulder, the other man cackling madly.
"Shields failing!," ops reported.
"AND THE ENTERPRISE?"
"Still snared, sir!"
Kivaas clenched his fist in victory as the bridge burst into flames and smoke. Seconds later, the light cut out. The crew filed out, and the viewscreen slid aside.
"Excellent work, Neophytes, although perhaps a touch too much metagaming from you, Tragess," she said, "For the cost of one battlecrusier you eliminated an entire Excelsior and the most dangerous Captain in their fleet -- oh, and one of their lesser cruisers. I would say that is a fair sacrifice." She nodded and turned, "Come along, Neophytes. I am sure your classmates are excited to hear how you bested ka'Sharren." She smiled, "You are, after all, the first to beat the scenario."
Kivaas and Tragess grinned at each other and finally, finally, walked out through the viewscreen. The victor's exit.
No, no no.
He gave Tragess a side glance and the other man immediately checked the weapons locker. Everything was in place. Over the next few hours he tensely triple-checked everything. Until --
"Sir, ship warping in! They're hailing us!"
"On screen," said Kivaas. Immediately, the view of the opposite bridge came on.
"Heeeeeeeey dudes," drawled a clearly inebriated Tellarite, "Wanna come over for a kegger on behalf of the Sapp--"
Kivaas sighed, "Karnack, destroy that vessel." In a few moments the transmission had gone blissfully silent. Kivaas leaned back in satisfaction. Nice bait and switch, Duk--
"SIR, EXCELSIOR CLASS WARPING IN, IT'S THE-"
In a flash Tragess, waiting by the weapons locker, sprung it open and had a rifle in his hands. Kivaas ducked as the Obsidian Order trainee blasted the Tactical and Science officers and Kivaas' yeoman. "THAT ONE HAD ANDORIAN PERFUME, THAT ONE WAS LOOKING AT PICTURES OF ANDORIANS IN VARIOUS STATES OF DRESS, AND THAT ONE HAD DISSIDENT LITERATURE SO I DIDN'T RISK IT," he said, seemingly to no one in particular.
Of course Dukat had changed the parameters. If it was the exact same scenario every time, people could just keep trying everything until something stuck, and that would never apply in the real world. Cardassian students were impossible gossips, and while it was apparently considered 'cheating' to do so in the Federation, it was encouraged for students to sneak behind their teacher's backs with optimal solutions. Cheating was of course, punished when caught, but not getting caught was considered a more important skill.
The Enterprise had already battered their shields. They were out of position. They could probably not win in a stand-up fight. The only thing...
"Ops! Lock onto the Enterprise with a tractor beam! Tragess, order the Karnack to disrupt any attempts by the Enterprise to break our hold!"
Ops nodded briskly, "Done sir!" The ship rocked again with the angry impact of the Enterprise's weapons, "What now sir?"
"Shields to maximum in our rear arc. Helm," he let out a deep breath, excited somehow, "Set a course for the sun, maximum impulse."
Minutes later the bright orb was filling his viewscreen. He didn't bother to adjust the brightness, rising out of his chair as bright white light filled the bridge, blinding everyone. He could feel Tragess' hand again on his shoulder, the other man cackling madly.
"Shields failing!," ops reported.
"AND THE ENTERPRISE?"
"Still snared, sir!"
Kivaas clenched his fist in victory as the bridge burst into flames and smoke. Seconds later, the light cut out. The crew filed out, and the viewscreen slid aside.
"Excellent work, Neophytes, although perhaps a touch too much metagaming from you, Tragess," she said, "For the cost of one battlecrusier you eliminated an entire Excelsior and the most dangerous Captain in their fleet -- oh, and one of their lesser cruisers. I would say that is a fair sacrifice." She nodded and turned, "Come along, Neophytes. I am sure your classmates are excited to hear how you bested ka'Sharren." She smiled, "You are, after all, the first to beat the scenario."
Kivaas and Tragess grinned at each other and finally, finally, walked out through the viewscreen. The victor's exit.
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On the other hand, dwarf planets are hard to see and it's hard to believe that the colony would have missed the massive display of ships necessary to aim a dwarf planet at another planet. Look how much effort it took to shift it just a bit.