- Location
- Germany
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- He/Him
And that breakes down my SOD if you sent >3 ships per planet of a race that has a unified government.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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- Sci-Fi
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You may just have to find a way to put it on the same level as transporters, fast-than-light drives, and aliens who look like humans with forehead ridges.
The only reason this is the case is because of out-of-control game mechanics.
Maybe it is better off going for an almost as good translator and an almost as good EMH that did not also so much use as weapons, rather than go with the very best and risk the chance that the user isn't the best intentioned guy.
Finland had little ability to meaningfully resist the Soviet Union. And yet, despite fighting a war, the Soviets never conquered Finland. And the Finns certainly never went "the Soviets can easily conquer us, we should give their military freedom to move around our country". Indeed, quite the opposite.
fasquardon
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
May not, too. After all, we saw several cases in TNG where people showed concern over the firepower of the Ent-D while it was orbit and had to be reassured (or at least in one case, tried to blow it up).
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
Can I have a source for that?
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
The High Ground; First Contact (the episode); it's even discussed as early as the execrable Code of Honor. There are likely others I'm forgetting the name of, such as the time they visit a planet that's still not unified.
This bares repeating.
If we use my more conservative estimate of 78 ships, assume ships are roughly evenly distributed across all races being courted, and assume the focus on Licori+OSA vote wins then this will be the 2324 breakdown:
League of Independent Felis Colonies
0 Federation Starships
18 Interstellar Commonwealth Starships
42 Harmony of Horizon Starships (23 anti-ISC + 19 anti-Fed)
Total: 60 Foreign Starships
Outer Space Alliance
9 Federation Starships
20 Harmony of Horizon Starships
Total: 29 Foreign Starships
Arcadian Empire
10 Federation Starships
20 Harmony of Horizon Starships
Total: 30 Foreign Starships
Bolians
19 Harmony of Horizon Starships
Total: 19 Foreign Starships
So Harmony has basically dropped a Task Force equivalent to the entirety of Beyond at every target on top of their existing anti-ISC Task Force. Now we don't know what these government's internal navies look like, well aside from the OSA and Licori, but even the Amarkia only have 35 starships. So odds are the only nation whose navy isn't completely outnumbered would be the Bolians and they don't even have the reassurance of a second major power's fleet acting as a counterweight to potential Harmon agression.
Seriously though having run the numbers something needs to be done about that doom stick in Felis space. Sixty ships fighting over one race is just ludicrous. We have legitimately had wars with less ships involved. Now that I've realized just how big those two fleets are I'm really confused as to why the Felis aren't freaking the fuck out.
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- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Then it's no longer a game I can play because if there aren't at least narrative rules in effect, based on what should I make decisions? I mean, sure, I could just start a rng for the voting, but if I do that, I can also look for an hour at a white wall, that'd make the same sense and at least wouldn't cost power.
There's a negation missing, I think, and - perhaps they are fine with playing the majors? That would be an alien mindset, but, they are.
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- Location
- Australia
Right, finally caught up.
I would have probably preferred to let things proceed as they were, but it looks to me that is no longer an option. So changes to the Task Force system are coming. Principally - event generation is now shifting away from chance-per-ship. Now Task Forces will get their events generated from discrete list of sources - much as Captain's Log event generation keys on major worlds, the Task Forces will key on entities and factions within the target faction. We will convey what the range of possible event counts will be when the next round of voting comes up. As a result, I expect Task Forces will shrink in future in line with the potential event counts. These events will constitute opportunities/leads rather than events that require responses, so missing an event will hold no consequences ... unless an opposing force responds to it, of course.
There will be attachments (the FDS will probably transition to this) that will serve as extra event generators for pushing a bit harder.
For this quarter and next, the events for the Task Forces are already rolled, and for most of this quarter written up already. Therefore, we will keep these as is, and move to the changed system in Q3 and Q4. There will not be a new vote for deployment this year. Among other reasons, it gives us two quarters to tweak things before a vote goes up.
This will organically remove issues of overwhelming a local power, because if they don't generate the events, no one is entering their space anyhow.
I would have probably preferred to let things proceed as they were, but it looks to me that is no longer an option. So changes to the Task Force system are coming. Principally - event generation is now shifting away from chance-per-ship. Now Task Forces will get their events generated from discrete list of sources - much as Captain's Log event generation keys on major worlds, the Task Forces will key on entities and factions within the target faction. We will convey what the range of possible event counts will be when the next round of voting comes up. As a result, I expect Task Forces will shrink in future in line with the potential event counts. These events will constitute opportunities/leads rather than events that require responses, so missing an event will hold no consequences ... unless an opposing force responds to it, of course.
There will be attachments (the FDS will probably transition to this) that will serve as extra event generators for pushing a bit harder.
For this quarter and next, the events for the Task Forces are already rolled, and for most of this quarter written up already. Therefore, we will keep these as is, and move to the changed system in Q3 and Q4. There will not be a new vote for deployment this year. Among other reasons, it gives us two quarters to tweak things before a vote goes up.
This will organically remove issues of overwhelming a local power, because if they don't generate the events, no one is entering their space anyhow.
It is actually slightly higher for the Federation if you take into account Federation garrisons. They do have a chance to answer events related to OSA and Licori. We don't know how how Harmony garrisons work but I wouldn't be surprised if they'll sometimes participate in diplomancing of OSA and Felis.
I mean, in the end, it's a ship game and setting. I don't know about other people, but I can accept that ships are the tools for almost everything, and the consequences of it.
I feel like this metaphor is running away from me. If you are talking about less combat focused ships, then I'm sure that HoH task force is stuffed with Scientists, among other things. If you are talking about not accepting as much ships, then, well, I already mentioned that it doesn't really matter in my cost-benefit analysis.
Since Finland didn't have a sizable portion of their society and persons of importance desiring to join Soviet Union or another great power greatly involved in their fate, Soviet divisions were not participating in trade summits and Finland army had far more ability to resist Red Army, I find the situations rather incomparable.
Effectively you did.
You were saying that if the Harmony tenders were flying empty it would alleviate the problem. Which it wouldn't unless we also knew in character that the HoH was sending empty tenders - otherwise, we have to assume they are full. (Heck, why would the HoH send empty tenders? It would make these expensive ships rather vulnerable and greatly reduce their power as taskforce ships.)
And even without swarmers, the HoH fleet is a hefty thing we should take seriously and I would expect to make waves, even if it wouldn't be nearly so alarming.
Um. OK. Sorry, not sure what you mean here.
It's not clear that they are breaking up their forces yet, and in any case, whether they are or not doesn't stop them being a grave military threat. It just changes the exact nature of the threat, reduces it somewhat and changes the response measures we'd need to take.
fasquardon
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
We might be explaining it wrong, but you have been repeatedly missing our points.
For myself, I give up trying to address your arguments and explain ours.
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Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
So you're saying that the problem is the Soviet Union didn't conduct mass subversion first, which is exactly what this could be seen as.
okay.jpg
Are people running on autopilot or some shit? Oneiros posted the solution, but the arguments continue.
I respectfully disagree. I think the number of ships we currently have operating in Task Forces is fine; any Task Force with fewer than 20 ships is just fine, more than 20 is where it starts getting excessive for me.
I'd bet people just wanna argue as a means to kill time until the next update.
Oh, that's just sort of jumped at me as a possible thing they might do. They wouldn't be empty, just half full.
That I don't think Lugis would rate the risk of HoH task force unreasonably and irrationally attacking much higher than he would the risk of our garrison forces unreasonably and irrationally attacking.
Well, we know that they are splitting their fleet in two, and I kinda assume they would send singular ships and small to different diplomatic events, since that's how it worked for years. And split singular ships and small groups don't really register as a grave threat to me - to do any applicable damage, they'd have to concentrate, and SFI would of course track that concentration. ~20 ships without corvettes does sound like an overkill for any given trade summit.
Of course, any war with us would be rather insane in the first place, and any sudden strike from beyond the borders just can't kick out enough of our industry to be worth it, but we do employ people to consider things like that.
The solution seems quite elegant, and would match the expectations of someone who doesn't dig into the mechanics. Thanks Oneiros and GMs.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Stop being snide. It is unworthy of you, and of us.
You know perfectly well that realistically the operations of any such task force will begin with diplomatic efforts to introduce oneself, establish one's bona fides, and obtain permission to enter the host nation's territory. Such expeditions and voyages were common enough in, for example, the Age of Sail.
The key point the people you mock have been making is that realistically, there are some limits on just how big and heavily armed a 'friendly visitor' that any given host nation will be prepared to tolerate.
Bear in mind that the Solaces have pretty much exactly the same statline as our un-refitted Excelsiors did. Our argument for why it was okay to send Excelsiors from the Explorer Corps (or for that matter the regular fleet) to visit foreign powers has never hinged on "Excelsiors are lightly armed, harmless, noncombatant vessels."
Furthermore, many powers have weakly armed scouts; they are defined as combatants. It is not perfidy to leave outsiders uncertain as to whether any one of your ships is a weakly armed scout or a heavily armed frontline combatant. The Geneva Convention prohibition exists because the Geneva Convention draws a hard, bright line between 'civilian' and 'combatant' ships during wartime... and the Scientist-class is on the 'combatant' side of that line.
Most nations will be naturally wary around a Scientist-class because it might turn out to have the same weapons outfit as, say, a 2310-era Excelsior. But then, they would be no more or less wary around a 2310-era Excelsior, and we used those regularly for all kinds of things.
I don't think this is a problem.
The Allupii are literally on the opposite side of Cardassian space from us, and our only contact with them has been from a single five-year mission (I think Rurliss's?) that flew around the backside of Cardassian space. We haven't befriended them because even reaching and communicating with them is a huge project very vulnerable to Cardassian interference. The reason not to spend a fifth diplomatic push on them is because it's almost always better to spend diplomatic pushes on affiliates, because doing so achieves four times as much relationship gain and/or tag clearance.
This, very much this.
It's disorienting (and, again, kind of insulting) to be told "wait, what? Why are you talking about how these large fleets of ships have military potential? Are you crazy? Stop behaving as if people should react realistically to the presence of very large and overwhelming armed task forces on their borders!"
And also kind of insulting when all this is interpreted as an attempt to seize advantage for the Federation, as opposed to a sudden spike of confusion about "hey, what are the rules anyway, is this realistic" caused by a sudden spike in the scale of fleets being deployed in this way.
I agree. I have no problem with the Harmony exerting great leverage and skill to win over some of these powers, I have no problem with them succeeding in winning over some or even all of them.
Well, all I was getting at is that a dozen ships is a dozen ships. What the ships are doing presently is kind of beside the point; the ships are generally multirole vessels that can do many things. If the Laio see 10-15 Federation ships flitting around their space, they're reasonably going to interpret that as a sign that the Federation seriously intends to maintain a presence in the region. Given that we are the Laio's friends, that means they will probably expect us to be willing to help them deal with their problems.
Now in fact we got no opportunity to do this because there wasn't a [We're Getting Pirated] tag for the Laio or anything. But again, this is about the separation between OOC mechanical knowledge and IC character knowledge.
The thing is, a dispersed force like theirs can concentrate fairly quickly. Their ships are not slow, and at sprint speeds they could muster a large fraction of their total 40+ capital ships in one place within a week or so.
The point here is not "this is a Harmony invasion fleet," it's "this would make it much easier for the Harmony to concentrate overpowering military force somewhere, and people will react accordingly." Like, again, if the Harmony has covertly arranged for revolts to break out on Licori worlds on a pre-scheduled date, they now have enough muscle to arrange for these revolts to succeed, simply by directing their ships to be in the right general region of space at the right time.
Remember that staredown over Khalt where rebels overthrew House Manan and our frigate Aurora encountered the Licori battleship with Halkh aboard? In that situation, Halkh had the more powerful ship and was in a good position to assert control of the situation in the name of the Licori government. By contrast, if we'd had an Ambassador present, we'd have a power that Halkh could not easily defeat with what he had on hand, and HE would have to defer to US. He would not be able to assert control of the situation without our permission. If the Federation captain on the spot had decided to protect the rebels, and was willing to fight to protect the rebels, he would have no way to do anything about it- except to fight, lose, fail, and probably die.
A Harmony carrier battlegroup that just happens to arrive within a day or two of a major uprising on a Licori world "to help restore order" by setting up a "compromise government" that looks however the Harmony wants it to... Puts the Licori in that position. It doesn't even have to be their whole fleet; even one heavy tender plus half a dozen or so parasite corvettes plus a few of their well-armed Solaces is already a force so strong the Licori can't counter it without a full mobilization that would chew up their military severely. Especially given that much of their frigate and cruiser force is actually owned by the Houses, not by the Emperor himself.
I mean, even a single C40 stack in the right place at the right time, with the credible ability to threaten war with the Harmony if the stack is attacked, can be very disruptive. It doesn't take the full C250+ 'doomstack' to be a threat, especially when combined with the Harmony's gift for soft power, infiltration, and subversion.
[This is not so much me disagreeing with you, just me expanding on what you say]
Yes. This.
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I disagree, but I don't think it is fair to clutter the thread with discussions of Finnish history when we've had a QM resolution announced.
I must say though, the history of Finland in the first half of the 20th Century is fascinating, and it's worth finding some detailed histories on it.
This sounds awesome.
I can see lots of potential for interesting things to emerge from this mechanic.
fasquardon
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It depends. 20 ships is enough to intimidate just about any minor-nation navy, so it's too many for some purposes. But a reasonable number for other purposes, like when the task force's mission is spread across numerous species or when you're there at the invitation of the minor nation to help them solve a problem.
Please don't be snide, it's unbecoming and unworthy of both you and of us.
In real life, people who care about their security don't reason that way.
"If he wanted to kill me he could, so he must not want to kill me or I'd already be dead" is not a commonly accepted reason to put yourself in a position to be more easily killed. It's sometimes used when there's already a person making demands of you at gunpoint, or when you are the weaker side walking into the space of a stronger side.
But for example, a walled city does not just let a foreign army march inside the walls and lounge around, just because 'hey, if that army wanted to besiege the city, it could.' The fact that the enemy could, with some effort and advance warning, overpower your defenses, does not mean you're going to blithely let them stroll into a position where they can instantly and effortlessly overpower you by surprise.
Task Force Beyond would be deeply problematic if it were concentrated on a single species, because it WOULD be big enough to threaten any one species. The thing is, it's been dividing its efforts and interactions among like 3-5 different species, with most of its force flitting around in deep space in between all these different worlds and people. That makes it a lot less intrusive.
The new Harmony reinforcement wave means they have about as many ships as the entire TF Beyond, to put on each of the target species. At which point a line is crossed between "hey that's a lot of ships" and "hey that's so many ships this could credibly be the preparations for a sudden coup/sneak-attack combo."
We pushed the line; the Harmony is pushing it a lot harder.
I am very happy to hear all this. It will greatly fix the problem if there's a rational upper limit on how many ships can usefully be sent to work on a given problem.
Though you may want to consider some kind of event/crisis related to the sheer size of the forces deployed in and around Felis space. That is a LOT of ships, and the confrontation is between the Harmony (which is prone to narcissistic rage when people don't do what they want) and the ISC (which remembers back when the Harmony deployed a bioweapon on their core planets, assassinated key ISC political figures, tried to subvert and take over their government, and then refused to leave and fought their ships rather than leave peacefully when told to do so).
The opposing harmony fleet for beyond is now 20 capitals, 30 if you include the ISC mission.
- Location
- Belgrade, Serbia
@agumentic
Regarding the garrison forces that we have around the Licori: they are really not comparable to the HoH task force. Disregarding the arguments about intent or trustworthiness, let's focus on logistics. If we were for some reason to use our garrison forces to attack them it would be nothing like if the HoH were to use their TF.
Our forces do not have unified command structure, and even if we limit ourselves just Starfleet ships they are assigned to different sectors and locations. Grouping them will take time, which would allow the Licori to notice and start preparing for it. It would take some time to group, organize and reach their worlds. They would be able to mobilize their fleets, ask for an intervention from HoH or the Romulans, the Emperor would be able to go to safety/hiding. In contrast if they allow the entire ~20 ship HoH task force in their borders they would not have any such warning. If the HoH were to straight up attack them(let''s ignore more likely subversion/rebellion for simplicity's sake) they would have no time to prepare. It would probably start with a decapitation strike on the Emperor and other Great Houses. Probably accompanied by total signal blocking(they are second only to us in the science department). By the time we would hear the actual story of what is going on(some escaped ships) there would already be a new government that would be thanking the HoH for liberating them from their oppressors and announcing the intent to join.
In addition: Our garrison forces have clearly defined roles and jobs that they perform and have been performing for years. The KP had their ships in their territory longer than they have known each other. They are a known factor. A known threat even if you prefer. The HoH task force isn't. It is a new and overwhelming force in their local space. Even outside their borders it would be something to watch and plan for. To invite them inside their borders!? I can get inviting a few ships, and then negotiating for the rest for them over time as the benefits and trust build, but just letting all of them in...
In short: our garrison forces are nowhere near as big of a threat as the HoH task force. It is not about intent but about ability to commit violence. They have no reason to put themselves to mercy of a foreign polity, at least not that fast. There simply aren't enough benefits even then for a force that big to be inside their borders.
Regarding the garrison forces that we have around the Licori: they are really not comparable to the HoH task force. Disregarding the arguments about intent or trustworthiness, let's focus on logistics. If we were for some reason to use our garrison forces to attack them it would be nothing like if the HoH were to use their TF.
Our forces do not have unified command structure, and even if we limit ourselves just Starfleet ships they are assigned to different sectors and locations. Grouping them will take time, which would allow the Licori to notice and start preparing for it. It would take some time to group, organize and reach their worlds. They would be able to mobilize their fleets, ask for an intervention from HoH or the Romulans, the Emperor would be able to go to safety/hiding. In contrast if they allow the entire ~20 ship HoH task force in their borders they would not have any such warning. If the HoH were to straight up attack them(let''s ignore more likely subversion/rebellion for simplicity's sake) they would have no time to prepare. It would probably start with a decapitation strike on the Emperor and other Great Houses. Probably accompanied by total signal blocking(they are second only to us in the science department). By the time we would hear the actual story of what is going on(some escaped ships) there would already be a new government that would be thanking the HoH for liberating them from their oppressors and announcing the intent to join.
In addition: Our garrison forces have clearly defined roles and jobs that they perform and have been performing for years. The KP had their ships in their territory longer than they have known each other. They are a known factor. A known threat even if you prefer. The HoH task force isn't. It is a new and overwhelming force in their local space. Even outside their borders it would be something to watch and plan for. To invite them inside their borders!? I can get inviting a few ships, and then negotiating for the rest for them over time as the benefits and trust build, but just letting all of them in...
In short: our garrison forces are nowhere near as big of a threat as the HoH task force. It is not about intent but about ability to commit violence. They have no reason to put themselves to mercy of a foreign polity, at least not that fast. There simply aren't enough benefits even then for a force that big to be inside their borders.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes, and those fleet numbers combined with ISC presence in the region have already been enough to cause sporadic outbreaks of concern. With dramatically more Harmony ships showing up in Felis space, the appropriate level of concern about conflict breaking out is higher.
I mean, I'd like to remind everyone that this has even been present in GM posts; the ISC has reason to think of the Harmony as an enemy who just happens not to be shooting at them at the moment, and is actively making military preparations in the full expectation that the Harmony will begin shooting again, or otherwise compel them to "protect who we need to protect."
The ISC has ample fact-based justification for accusing the Harmony of atrocities. And even if they have not done so publicly, every citizen of the ISC knows the Harmony is guilty of these atrocities, even if it was indeed a hundred years ago.
It's something to consider.