Both "Our priorities right now should be to determine the cause of Dawiar aggression, encourage the Caitians to give us time to find a diplomatic solution, and attempt to limit further Cardassian influence where possible." and "The Cardassians are attempting to control our politics and stall Caitian admittance to the Federation by starting a proxy war... if [we can't resolve this], we should back the Caitians quickly and overwhelmingly... letting things drag on will let the Cardassians further interfere and forestall Caitian membership." are literally very true and are probably accurate depictions of the strategic situation.
However, my priorities are a bit mixed and oddly balanced.
On the one hand, it's the admiral's job to inform the president of the military options. Advice that doesn't include that is by definition unsatisfactory.
On the other hand, there is clearly a lot going on here aside from the pure military situation, and the admiral is a competent strategic thinker with a good grasp of nuance, so the admiral's words should reflect that.
And so, while this may not be the perfect choice in my eyes, it's pretty good and I'm throwing my vote behind it:
[X][ADVICE] Advice
(AKuz's idea. If future tallies don't show me voting for her idea, I need to fix this)
Looking back at this, not only would this be the Starfleet doing a complete 180, but it is entirely outside Starfleet's remit as an organization. Our entire job is to look outwards, that is literally why Starfleet even exists- it's the exploratory and miiltary arm of the Federation government.
So settling that issue is someone else's job, and if they want to call for our assistance, they are very much free to do so at any time. Indeed, they are doing so; our ships are regularly going around responding to problems related to internal tension and separatism.
I suggest we leave that question up to @OneirosTheWriter. If he wants to post the rule in the threads on the first page he can. If he doesn't, none of us could make him do so, even if we were inclined to, which most of us aren't.
"Madame President, as head of Starfleet, it is my duty to inform you of all of our military options.
"In the time since the loss of the Polaris, Polaris has been working on plans for everything from full mobilization to gunboat diplomacy. Out of those plans, several stand out.
"The first is sending a diplomatic mission escorted by a wing of Excelsiors led by the Enterprise. This, according to Xenoanalysis, has a chance of forcing respect, though it can also be misconstrued as aggressive action. This is my preferred plan, as it allows space for the next.
"The second plan is blockade and containment. Under this plan, Starfleet would patrol the region, but leave interception to the Caitians. This plan, however, leaves space for Cardassian mischief.
"Other proposed plans have included indirect support through ship and munition sales and standing by.
"As a sworn defender of the Federation, and its ideals, I believe in diplomatic solutions over military. However, keep these plans in mind during council deliberations."
Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 22897.4 - Captain Nash ka'Sharren
We are taking part in a coordinated sweep of space beyond Dawiar territory, an area with which we are none too familiar. We are keeping a lookout for signs of Cardassian activity, anomalies, new species, and any signs of other pressures that may be pushing the Dawiar into these rash, dangerous actions.
Zaardmani has picked up a subspace wake originating from this system, heading up and rimwards on the galactic plane. We are attempting to track it now.
-
Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 22898.5 - Captain Straak
A distress call has been detected originating from a Seyek outpost that is located considerably closer to Federation territory than we had believed the Seyek to be. The Celesipos outpost is ten light-years south of Rethelia, and twenty light-years east. They are reporting a debilitating plague has infected the station and are requesting aid, particularly from non-reptilian species.
-
Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 22898.7 - Captain Michel Thuir
We are currently mapping out the 13 Epicurus system. A simple little system, a star, six planets, and some interesting responses to long range geological survey scans, 13 Epicurus is located between Rigel and Betazed.
-
Captain's Log, USS Courageous, Stardate 22899.1 - Captain Maryam Ajam
Shortly after the Sarek diverted course to aid the Seyek science outpost we received a further distress call from a Seyek colony world a day's travel beyond Celesipos reporting the same plague affecting them. We are making our way there now in an attempt to provide aid. We are already in contact with a small ship crewed by the Seyek's Fiiral client culture, who are welcoming our aid. They are attempting to pull together more all-Fiiral crews to help with this highly contagious disease.
-
Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 22899.5
Although it is not a geological structure, I believe there are ... interesting commonalities when examining viral structures. My Chief Medical Officer believes that I am, in her words, "a gross heretic" for having said so.
The disease itself bears undeniable similarities in function to reports in the computer database from Sol III of infections called "Inclusion Body Disease" in reptilian species. Among the similarities, they both appear to have a retrovirus vector, and induce head and facial tumours.
-
Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 22899.6
After tracking back the unknown warp signature, we have encounter an inhabited world on the upper half of the galactic plane, located roughly at the center of Risa, Oriolis, and Rethelia. They call themselves the Qloath, and their homeworld is Arqeniou. Humanoids, without antenna but possessing a pronounced ridge that marks the start of the hairline, plus bony protective protrusions around their joints, they are a technologically advanced race of explorers.
-
Captain's Log, USS Vigour, Stardate 22900.2
While investigating systems in the proximity of Ord Grind Duk, we encountered some moons with strange metallic accretions across their surfaces. However, despite thorough investigation, nothing of particular interest was discerned regarding their use, makeup, or formation.
-
Captain's Log, USS Endurance, Stardate 22900.5 - Captain Rosalee McAdams
Senors on a United Earth outpost in the Joburg system discovered an unidentified ship moving at speed through the border zone from Rigel. As we prepared to intercept, we further detected a Rigellian Cutter also on an intercept course. After a little judicious navigational work, plus a phaser across the bow, we managed to get the freighter to surrender itself.
Lo and behold, to my great surprise, it was one of the ringleaders of the RDS Bronze Sky sabotage that myself and Victoria dealt with all those years ago, escaped from a Rigellian correctional facility. I oversaw his transport over to the waiting cutter personally.
[Gain +5 pp, +10 Relations with Rigel]
-
Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 22900.8
13 Epicurus IV has turned out to possess a notable deposit of tritanium. We have moved into orbit to properly assess and demarcate this site for exploitation by a Starfleet Engineering vessel.
[Gain +30br]
-
Captain's Log, USS Docana, Stardate 22901.3
While running a patrol sweep along the RBZ border of the Andor sector, we picked up an interesting sensor report near Solitude. Further investigation has revealed a handy supply of woznium ore! The MARA fabricators are always looking for this stuff.
[Gain +10sr]
-
Captain's Log, USS Enterprise, Stardate 22901.7
Our time meeting the Qloath leadership has been rewarding. They are an interesting culture, strong on both theatre and the sciences, but their whole republic is in great political turmoil. I've tried to get to the bottom of it, and managed to, apparently, inadvertently foil an assassination that would have toppled the entire government by preventing the senator from being where the conspirators expected her.
This was purely accidental on my part and in no way comprised an intentional intervention in another sovereign state.
Of interest, they have an embassy here from the Dawiar and the Seyek.
[Meet new race: the Qloath, starting 25/100 Relations]
-
Captain's Log, USS Courageous, Stardate 22903.4
We are being frustratingly hampered in our work. The Fiiral hospital and science ships they we are aiding are having to focus on the struggle to keep the Colonial Council afloat during this crisis. With bodies and disfigurements piling up, panic is taking over and attempts to organise a potentially self-destructive no-confidence vote in the local Council members is growing. In the meantime, we are coordinating with our sistership Sarek and the scientists at Celesipos.
-
Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 22903.6
A breakthrough has been achieved by my science staff. Working with the brilliant Seyek virologist Gesess, we have produced the first iteration of a working antivirus. Initial tests have saved a number of great scientists from a prognosis best described as "perilous". We have conveyed our new antivirus to the Courageous for duplication.
[Gain +10 rp, +25 Relations with Seyek]
-
Captain's Log, USS Courageous, Stardate 22904.5
To make use of the Sarek's antivirus we have had to carry out some substantial re-sequencing to adapt it for mass production by the synthesisers on the Seyek hospital ships. Thankfully, my science office has worked around the clock to carry the work out. He has sent it out to a number of production sites and the mortality of this disease is plummeting already.
[Gain +10 rp]
-
Captain's Log, USS T'Mir, Stardate 22908.3
Prolonged signals tracking has revealed a series of Cardassian settlements and outposts in our region. There are two settlements of particular interest. Far coreward, perhaps twenty to thirty lightyears of our position, lies Karadoc, a well-fortified world with apparently two billion Cardassians and a major shipyard complex. The other is a colony world that is much closer to Fed space than expected; found roughly in the middle of a triangle formed by Trangot, Rethelia and Indoria, named Balogot, home to several million colonists.
Of particular note, we have indications that the Cardassian homeworld is not far from Trangot...
Of course, it WOULD have the desired effect of minimizing the risk of confrontation.
I think in character, recommending to the president that we work with the Caitians, investigate the issue, and very seriously consider a blockade is just about right.
There are lots of more pacifist voices in the Federation. Our job is to provide the quasi-military angle, and part of that is being able to inform the president of just what we can and cannot do, and what we think might be a good idea.
Think about Worf on TNG. He's constantly saying "sir, I think these guys are a threat, let's raise our shields." And like 90% of the time they don't follow his advice... but somebody's got to say it. When you're dealing with armed starships and potentially hostile aliens, someone has to at least keep track of what our military options ARE. Even if we ultimately choose to defer exercising those options.
That's our job as head of Starfleet- if the entire Federation is modeled as the bridge of the Enterprise-D, our role is somewhere between that of Worf and Riker. And so the strategic equivalent of "I recommend we go to yellow alert and raise shields..." That's part of what the president expects us to tell her.
We're not proposing anything that is obviously wrong the way launching a huge invasion fleet to crush the Dawiar would be. We're proposing something that is maybe a firmer line than the Federation wants to take right now, but that could very easily be what the Federation wants to do a month from now, depending on how the situation evolves. We're providing her with a realistic palette of short term options.
Note that I phrased my suggestion as "we recommend that the Council seriously consider." That's us saying "yo, we're not saying this IS a good idea, but we think you should probably give it some thought, because it's just about the least aggressive action that constitutes a 'firm' response to the crisis."
EDIT:
I still haven't had time to read through all the options and consider them on their merits. That ironically takes me a lot longer than typing a 500-word post does.
You know, thinking on the institutional and bureaucratic perspectives that we'd want to convey, I get a plan more like:
[ ][Advice] Clearly this is a reason to increase Starfleet's budget
Short form: This incident reveals the weakness of Starfleet, you should fix that by giving both me and intelligence a larger budget.
Long form would look more like:
A response is going to be expected of you to both calm the fears of our affiliates and potential affiliates that we can protect them and to show that the Cardassians who are probably behind this that they can't push us around. However, Starfleet doesn't know enough to tell you the right choice and doesn't have the resources to afford wrong choices. You should fix the first eventually with diplomacy and a greater focus on Intelligence, but those results might not come soon enough.
We could fix the second right now only by declaring a state of emergency, but that is something that this incident should not merit. I say this because with the next generation of Centaur-class ships still under construction and the destruction of Polaris most of my fleet is tied down. Worse, most of what I can free up is more Constellations, but if there is anything this incident proved it's that the Constellation-class is currently obsolete. While there are upgrades on the drawing board, I don't have the spare berths to implement it. While the replacement is on the drawing board – and in fact I was planning to ask for that project to be started this year – it won't be ready for over half a decade. Yes I did notice that gap, which was why I asked for the approval of the Constitution-B class last year, but those ships haven't been started yet.
Anyways, I have enough spare ships for one attempt at resolving this, so make sure it's the right one.
Pretty sure the above is way to needy and weak to actually be a good way to address the current vote, but some sort of 'clearly you should increase my budget' is the traditional bureaucratic response to this sort of event. Further, we could probably use such a budget increase, so it might be worth sneaking a little bit of that into whatever our final answer is.
Oh nice! Could be an excellent way of getting to the bottom of what's going on with them.
Captain's Log, USS T'Mir, Stardate 22908.3
Prolonged signals tracking has revealed a series of Cardassian settlements and outposts in our region. There are two settlements of particular interest. Far coreward, perhaps twenty to thirty lightyears of our position, lies Karadoc, a well-fortified world with apparently two billion Cardassians and a major shipyard complex. The other is a colony world that is much closer to Fed space than expected; found roughly in the middle of a triangle formed by Trangot, Rethelia and Indoria, named Balogot, home to several million colonists.
Of particular note, we have indications that the Cardassian homeworld is not far from Trangot...
Prolonged signals tracking has revealed a series of Cardassian settlements and outposts in our region. There are two settlements of particular interest. Far coreward, perhaps twenty to thirty lightyears of our position, lies Karadoc, a well-fortified world with apparently two billion Cardassians and a major shipyard complex. The other is a colony world that is much closer to Fed space than expected; found roughly in the middle of a triangle formed by Trangot, Rethelia and Indoria, named Balogot, home to several million colonists.
Of particular note, we have indications that the Cardassian homeworld is not far from Trangot...
That's useful to know, still odds are the Cardi are going to flip if they find out we're even close to finding their home world, likely by ramping up all anti-us actions especially the Kitty mess they've gone through so much trouble to make. Were gonna need to ramp up our own counter intel ops again, *sigh* god i wish we had cloaks and actual stealth tech we need it to avoid getting caught in this poker match cause it's only a matter of time till we are.
Still I wonder how thing are going to go with the Qloath they might be a great middle man for the Kitty mess we're having
It's because they are the people she deals with the most, also she probably does have a thing for self confident personalities, and you tend to finds those at that level.
The Canonity of this piece is tied entirely to this one by @random_npc. The random idea I had after reading it got lodged in my brain and wouldn't come out short of writing it. So I did.
Admiral Nash zh'Rhashaan has had a long day. Between the admission of Betazed, the Polaris crisis and the ongoing Cardassians worries, she's been running from sun up to sundown from meeting to meeting, and now two hours after that sundown she's finally returned to her office for a temporarily stop before returning home.
As she steps away from the well lit active and inhabited areas of the Starfleet Intelligence Command and into her outer office the lights snap on, illuminating a Human male in an ill-fitting Starfleet uniform and a female of indeterminate species dressed like a shaman with a pointy hat.
The Andorian rests her hands on her sidearm - if this is how the Cardassians want to kill her she can at least give them points for originality.
Nash stops when the woman hops up and down excitedly and the Starfleet ID flops out from the folds of her robes: 'Lieutenant Commander Alexandria Kuznetsova''.
Oh.
Her.
The Admiral begins to raise her communicator to call for security again.
Alexandria pushes the floppy brim of her hat up and out of the way,"Admiral zh'Rhashaan!!!" she waves around a thick tome with mythical creatures on the cover in one hand and an official Starfleet Intelligence PADD in the other, "I have something! I know why the Dawiar attacked Polaris and how we can talk to them about it, and make them listen!"
The communicator freezes in mid flip, "Ms. Kuznetsova, could you not just leave a message with my Staff?"
"Um, they don't do that anymore ma'am. Not after you told them not to take anything from me through non-official means."
The Admiral remembers the order clearly, "So why are you here then?"
"Because Captain Zebes used to say 'In a crisis; an hour gained is a life saved' and I believe that ma'am. I am serious."
"Even though she doesn't look it," the male added hastily; his misfitting uniform top chafing uncomfortably.
Against her better judgement the Starfleet Intelligence Admiral motions for the human in the pointy hat to continue, "At least explain the get-up."
-----------
Anne Usha peers uncertainly over the top of her DM screen; this is her first time behind it, and her first D and D game in five years. Why did she let Alexandria talk her into this?
The neophyte DM shuffles her PADDs around to get the players attention as she tries her best to put on a smile.
"Uhm, I think that, uhhhh…" Usha watches Camille Alexander chat with Han Seung while Lieutenant Wolfe holds up a single piece of flimsy in front of him as if it were his only defence against a cruel world. Alexandria is…. Doing her own thing, excitedly tapping away at her PADD.
Anne clears her throat loudly and slams a thick book reading "Dungeons and Dragons 2300!" on the table. Her four players look at her.
"So, I thought that we would introduce our characters now. I mean you would. I mean -" She gestures frantically with her right hand at Camille Alexander to start.
He clears his throat as well. "My character's name is 'Camille the Dutiful' and he's a Human Paladin."
"You know that you can name your character whatever you want right?" Anne says with her eyes closed in resignation. "You don't have to name them after yourself. Often people like thinking up exotic names."
Lieutenant Wolfe silently curses and reaches for his PADD as Camille shrugs, "Camille is a Human Paladin for the Star Pantheon. I just took all the healing things."
It's a bit bland, but he is a new player, and Anne decides to move on to the other new player at the small square table in her apartment, "Okay. Um. Aarom."
"It's Aaron, Ms Usha."
"Okay, Aaron. Who've you got for us tonight?"
Wolfe holds up his character sheet. Who knew sucking up to the boss via her odd hobbies would be so much work? Or rather, networking. Networking is what it's called.
"My Bronze Dragonborn Cleric of-"
"Wait, you're a DRAGON!?!" Seung interrupts, brow tangled up in a thick knot of confusion. "I didn't know we could be Dragons!"
"Dragonborn. You know, like a seven foot tall scaled dragon man. The setting guide said that they were one of the default races?"
The freighter captain still seems skeptical. "Well, we used to use 2250 back on ol' Hanamura, so…"
Alexandria stops tapping her elbow impatiently. "2250? Wow, that's old school!" She raises a hand for a high five that is hesitantly returned after a moment. "Nice!" she says as the bangles on her wrist jingle cheerily.
Wolfe continues in the following awkward silence, "Anyway, he's a Cleric of the Earth Pantheon, specifically the demigod Tewel. So he's good at books and he's not very adventurous. And he's from the Grand Mountain Library at Stalwar, and his Stalwar journey is to collect fifty unique tomes." By Sol if he's going to participate in his boss's odd hobbies, he's going to go all in, like he did at Enterprise's junior officer strategy game nights.
Anne tries not to light Wolfe on fire with her mind, the last thing she needs is a serious roleplayer, "Thank you Aarom" she shuffles something behind her screen, "Seung?"
"Okay, I updated my old character from the ol' SS Hanamura, moved him from the 2250 system to 2300," he carefully pulls out a battered PADD, ancient, and covered in coloured weld lines that give it an artistic air, "Meet Rexam Lone, he's a dual-gun spec scoundrel class from Cornet City with two blasters, a run down old rustbucket of a YT-1200 and his best girl at his side" he says, looking at Anne with a smile.
Anne sinks behind her screen blushing. "...Um… Seung, that's from Galaxy Far Far Away…. It's a different fantasy setting - I was planning to use the Ascension Realms, Pantheon Era setting."
Seung looks at Alexandria Kuznetsova accusingly, "You said this was going to be 2300! GFFA is right there in the index!"
Anne mentally throws away half her notes, "Yes, Han, 2300 is the system, I wanted to use ARPE for the setting." She takes a deep, calming breath. "But you know what, It'll be fine. I'LL deal with it. Okay? You can use Rexam, It'll work him in, it's not like GFFA isn't a low magic fantasy setting anyway, okay?"
Anne comes to the last member of the party, and the only to have dressed up for her role, which is why Usha already suspects some sort of magic user. Probably some sort of wizard, "Okay Alex, do your thing."
Kuznetsova stands up, her seat sliding back with whoosh, "I am the Half-Elf Shialla Augustula the Magnificent, I know the Six Elemental Paths, have trained with the Sorcerers of Zund on the Plane of Zendala, and possess the ancient Elvhen art of Blade dancing and the subtle armoured arts of the Ice Pantheon." She's really enjoying chewing the scenery and letting go, the Polaris incident has been stressful for anyone doing analysis for Starfleet.
Anne mutters to herself, selecting harder monsters on her PADD, "Any farm punk with a pointy stick can take you- WAIT WHAT?!?" Anne's hand leaps out over the screen to snatch the character sheet from Alexandria's hand.
Kuznetsova starts excitedly, waving her hands in the in arcane gestures, the jewelry on her robes chiming, "See I started with the regular 2300 book then went into the Campaign setting for ARPE, then realised the synergy with the Blade dancers and the Zundian path from PlaneRace and then-"
Anne taps her PADD to add more levels to the monsters, and tosses the sheet back, "Yeah. It's technically legal. Have fun," she adds a custom feat 'Favorite food: Half-Elf' to all the monsters for good measure.
"AND NOW FOR THE DICE!"
Anne buries her head in her hands, how did she forget about this?
Wolfe places his on the table carefully, "So, ho-"
Kuznetsova talks right over him, "Forged in the great Dicesmitheries of Earth in the oldentimes before the Eugenics Wars, these dice have been passed down from generation to generation for three hundred years."
Anne closes her eyes. Seriously, how did she forget this? Still, her friend deserves and needs the break from reality.
"These dice have felled Orcus in a single stroke, have laid waste to Klingon battle cruisers and Covenant Elites. When my parents taught me the noble arts, these dice were my reward."
Her parents!?! The three men in the room look at each other with complex facial movements that essentially say: "This explains sooo much"
Anne looks at her RNG program, "Thanks Alex." she clears her throat, "So the three of you that are not Seung are in a tavern-"
"Why? What's my motivation here?" Wolfe asks.
It's going to be a long night, Anne thinks to herself, glaring at this serious roleplayer.
------------
"There was nothing else to do on Ceres station," Anne says, stuffing a slice of Orion pizza into her mouth, "We jush playee E en E the hoe, Ahh, time"
Camille nods, his own stay on Ceres training station was just as boring, which most Cadets assume is the point of the training.
The other three are deep in discussion.
"So these Dwarves of the Steel Pantheon can repair the Hyperdrive motivator?" Seung says, eyeing another aluminium can of synthale.
Wolf thinks deeply for a moment, "Yes. The tome of The Old Dwarf said they can repair anything made by mortals. But they never forget a favour or a grudge. Trade carefully with them stranger."
Something in the back of Alexandria's mind tickles and she tries to drown it with a can of synthale. It is a work tickle and after all the time she's put into watching the Polaris explode over and over again, she'd rather try to forget about work even harder than usual.
Aaron draws on his memory more, he studied the lore, in the same way he once crammed for Academy finals. He hopes that's it's impressing his boss (And he had to admit, this is kinda fun if silly) "Why once they even threw their entire kingdom away to avenge a single slight from an Elven prince. Fifty thousand stout warriors died winning a single apology."
The tickle in Kuznetsova's brain becomes a full on electric tingle and she opens up her copy of the setting sourcebook. A moment later she bolts from the table to find a Classified information cleared PADD from Anne's sock drawer. The adrenaline rush of realisation having swept the cobwebs of synthohol from her mind.
The Lieutenant-Commander runs back out ten minutes later, and everyone at the table recognizes the look on her face, she's got something, "We need to go Cam. Starfleet Intelligence. They won't read it until the morning at the earliest if I put it in the regular packet."
Lieutenant Camille Alexander nods seriously, then looks down at himself; regular civilian wear, not exactly presentable. He looks at Wolfe sitting in the Officer's white undershirt, "Aaron. I need to borrow your jacket."
Wolfe is more used to odd requests from Alexandria than Camille, but there's nothing else for it, except for him to shrug and lightly toss over his crimson uniform jacket, "Godspeed officers" he says to quickly moving forms of a wizard multiclass and a Paladin.
-----------------
"I didn't need the entire context" says the Andorian Admiral impatiently.
Alexandria looks at her confused, she did ask? She waves the PADD in the air, "Aside from my combat analysis indicating that something is off; It's the 125th Tragedy specifically. That's how we get across that happened was a miscommunication. Even if it's not an exact match, it's close, they'll be bound to realise the analogy. The sooner we start the better, even an hour's time head start could save lives."
Admiral zh'Rhashaan studies the human carefully, trying to evaluate her analysis independent of her ridiculous robes and shiny jewelry, "Alright. I'll issue orders to begin work along this line of inquiry." she slowly shakes her head back and forth, hoping that she doesn't end up regretting encouraging the energetic Human woman, "Just, please, stop sending me conspiracy theories Ms Kuznetsova"
Our time meeting the Qloath leadership has been rewarding. They are an interesting culture, strong on both theatre and the sciences, but their whole republic is in great political turmoil. I've tried to get to the bottom of it, and managed to, apparently, inadvertently foil an assassination that would have toppled the entire government by preventing the senator from being where the conspirators expected her.
This was purely accidental on my part and in no way comprised an intentional intervention in another sovereign state.
Of interest, they have an embassy here from the Dawiarand the Seyek.
Way to go Nash! If we end up needing a mediator for the Dawiar situation, the Qloath are it.
Captain's Log, USS T'Mir, Stardate 22908.3
Prolonged signals tracking has revealed a series of Cardassian settlements and outposts in our region. There are two settlements of particular interest. Far coreward, perhaps twenty to thirty lightyears of our position, lies Karadoc, a well-fortified world with apparently two billion Cardassians and a major shipyard complex. The other is a colony world that is much closer to Fed space than expected; found roughly in the middle of a triangle formed by Trangot, Rethelia and Indoria, named Balogot, home to several million colonists.
Of particular note, we have indications that the Cardassian homeworld is not far from Trangot...
We should do our best to keep our knowledge of this place a secret. When and if things go hot with the Cardassians, we should try to draw their fleet to our more traditional engagement area and then launch a surprise attack against the Karadoc shipyard.
The political and strategic situation in that part of space is getting really interesting...
I haven't touched the territory layer yet.
I think I need to start using different colors for independents, but probably also reuse colors (or at least similar colors) between groups far away from each other? Distinct colors not yet used would be pretty much only orange and brown. I think for now I could go with orange, purple and a non-romulan green for the Qloath/Dawiar/Seyek? And then something similar for the Sydraxians/Gretarians/Yirillians.
Some 3d representation of territorial claims is probably going to be needed between the Seyek and the Qloath as well. Neither of the options tried out before really works with fading out to represent uncertainty so I guess that would have to wait until we have a better idea what the claims are.
My only question about the map is the relative positions of Klingon and Cardassian space. In DS9 the two go to war with each other, but on that map the two powers are both on the far side of the Federation from each other. Does that mean that the two had battle fleets flying through Federation space without the federation doing anything about it? I'd ask if they went around, but by that time the Federation should probably have expanded significantly in all directions.
Or is this a two-dimensional map limitation thing?
The political and strategic situation in that part of space is getting really interesting...
I haven't touched the territory layer yet.
I think I need to start using different colors for independents, but probably also reuse colors (or at least similar colors) between groups far away from each other? Distinct colors not yet used would be pretty much only orange and brown. I think for now I could go with orange, purple and a non-romulan green for the Qloath/Dawiar/Seyek? And then something similar for the Sydraxians/Gretarians/Yirillians.
Some 3d representation of territorial claims is probably going to be needed between the Seyek and the Qloath as well.
For neutrals in the CBZ, I recommend a gradient of blue-yellow shades to indicate their relations with us and the cardies.
It's also pretty clear, now, what the Cardassian strategy from the very start has been, and it makes sense. Its completely ass-backwards from our perspective, but it makes sense.
The Datapa Council knows that their empire isn't going to appeal to most prospective clients, and they also know that their black ops agents are much better than their diplomats. As soon as they met the Federation, they decided to USE us to create a situation in which the neutral races would be in fear for their continued existence due to being caught between two warring superpowers. Fascism becomes more appealing when people are scared.
That was why they chose to be hostile to us from the beginning. It wasn't just to give their own people an outside enemy, it was to force the CBZ polities to pick a side.
I'm fairly confident that they plan to continue doing this until every power in the CBZ is solidly either a client of theirs or an affiliate of ours, and then suddenly open diplomatic relations with us and agree to a clear border. From that point on, they will desire to have nothing more to do with us unless we look weak enough to be conquered; we've served our purpose.
My only question about the map is the relative positions of Klingon and Cardassian space. In DS9 the two go to war with each other, but on that map the two powers are both on the far side of the Federation from each other. Does that mean that the two had battle fleets flying through Federation space without the federation doing anything about it? I'd ask if they went around, but by that time the Federation should probably have expanded significantly in all directions.
Or is this a two-dimensional map limitation thing?
This was discussed before, I decided early on to ignore DS9 as far as the map is concerned because every single pair out of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians has a border there, which means either discontinuous territory, or at least two out of really weird borders, needing a 3d representation and everyone being on the same side of the Federation, more or less. Except for everyone being on the same side of the Federation all other options are still there, so the map isn't really any more inconsistent with DS9 than DS9 already is with itself.
The three greatest weapons in the Federation's diplomatic arsenal: the allure of joining a post-poverty society, the understanding and insight born of multiculturalism, and Nash KeSharren's vagina.
