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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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I think when word gets out, there will be a big trend in write once data storage. The kind that starts costing Br and Sr to replace. Especially by Horizionites who find out about this and have the mental freedom to act.
 
ClawClawBite said:
I think when word gets out, there will be a big trend in write once data storage. The kind that starts costing Br and Sr to replace. Especially by Horizionites who find out about this and have the mental freedom to act.
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You really think there are going to be any who a) have the freedom and means to do that, b) don't have the idea 'forgotten' for them, c) don't get 'convinced' that the whole thing is a stupid conspiracy, or d) don't get visited by the Ministry of Peace Horizon peacekeepers and have the stuff taken from them?
 
uju32 said:
Delurking again...

One more point I'd like to make:
The Harmony are capital P paranoid about where they make their implants and who has access to even the finished implants, let alone design and production hardware. Note that despite the fact that they literally owned the Tauni, and then were forced out, the Tauni rebellion found no production sites for anything in their territory.

The idea that they are suddenly going to give the detailed schematics for it's production to covert operation agents to establish production sites in hostile territory of a peer power is lunacy. Consider the security levels of designs and production of capital ships are secured as a minimum starting point for how the Harmony secures this stuff.

This is the centerpiece of the Singer network.

An enemy who got hold of the designs could reverse-engineer the hardware and either disseminate an immunizing infection through Harmony space and it's citizens, or actively hacking the network and either going after the Singers themselves, or broadcasting conflicting instructions to Harmony citizens. Or just listen in, and gather intelligence.

And that's just off the top of my head.They are NOT cavalier about disseminating this stuff.
At worst, those big mother ships of theirs might have small production facilities. Everything else is buried deep in the Harmony and shipped from there.

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There are also a limited number of Singers, and even fewer who have covert ops experience. Look at the Singer interlude we just saw. Does whatsherface playing Barbie dolls look like she has the aptitude or patience to run a covert op in Federation space?

And all this assumes they even have the bandwith to control multiple people in Federation space. Instead of simply leave instructions and move on.
Seriously, don't overhype the Singer threat. They have significant limitations of operation outside HoH space without a Sanctuary in range.
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The Tauni are horrible at actually securing Harmony bases. It's how they blew up their moon that one time. Also, embassies. The Harmony has had them in Federation space since the time we contacted them. That's where the first conversion facilities and/or stockpiles of material were hidden. By now conversion facilities are probably dispersed to everywhere but the embassy, as Singers would direct their thralls to assemble them in secret wherever they could, and suitably rigged to self-destruct too.

Resources would also be supplied by groups across the Federation who'd have no clue what they were actually doing, see the OSA Headphones fiasco. Harmony mind control machines have already been manufactured in Federation space. Nothing says they couldn't make the real stuff instead of budget, wearable versions if they really wanted to, or maybe even something in between, that would be good enough for most purposes even if it lacked the finesse of the full implants.
 
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Alectai said:
Chen should have turned out into a martyr from that scheme, not just immediately have her legacy set on fire by her own side based on what amounts to being a pile of faceless data.
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Huh, that would've actually been a better ending to the removed updated, allowing the choice we made for Zara's recovered data to actually feel like it had impact. Somehow allowing Chen to survive the attack would've also been nice too.

Regarding the earlier Thuir omake...while I do give the QMs credit for a very well written piece of fiction...it's just not the right kind of tone for this setting or mode of storytelling. It's something that, if it had been posted as a standalone story, should come with giant NSFW and Trigger-Warning tags. While TBG doesn't have to answer to television network censors... well, I don't think most Trek fans tend to prefer extremely dark storytelling, especially in their Trek.
 
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ilbgar123 said:
You really think there are going to be any who a) have the freedom and means to do that, b) don't have the idea 'forgotten' for them, c) don't get 'convinced' that the whole thing is a stupid conspiracy, or d) don't get visited by the Ministry of Peace Horizon peacekeepers and have the stuff taken from them?
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I'm talking about long term aftermath, not next week. This is the kind of thing that even after it is resolved, assuming it is, will have generational lingering trauma, like Earth and Augments.
 
Thinking on it, the Thuir-mindrape omake seems especially problematical considering the whole thing of "you're completely aware of what Harmony is doing, but are powerless to do anything to stop them as they do whatever they want" being what ZaraQuest was intended to address about Harmony as it has existed in the quest. Only for the last two chapters of Dark Horizon and the Admiral Vote update to completely turn that on its head, with that omake there just being the very essence of Harmony's influence on the quest.

Excellent horror piece, horrible timing for posting.

(Really, if it was poorly written, it wouldn't have had as much of an affect on people. Curse you for good writing? :confused:)
 
065tdsa said:
The Tauni are horrible at actually securing Harmony bases.
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That is wrong.

One Tauni secret group, operating without official backing and trying to avoid notice, blundered and got blown up. That does not translate to the rest of their society being shit at securing stuff. The Courageous blundering over a Syndicate minefield does not make the rest of Starfleet bad at stealth. Thuir getting kidnapped doesn't make Starfleet Security bad.

Furthermore, you can't hide stuff like that.

Even if the Tauni did not secure the production facilities, there would be records. Both of the massive supply network required to support the production facilities required to infest a nation of billions, the logistics required to disseminate it's products, and of the Harmony going out of their way to blow up those facilities when they left Tauni space.

Hell, just a captured shipment of cyber implants would have given the game away.

And the idea you can run any sort of production facilities in an Embassy, ship in raw materials and ship out finished product without notice is not plausible. The UFP is friendly, not stupid. If you think HoH embassies, ALL embassies, are not some of the most heavily monitored real estate in the Federation, I don't know what to tell you.

065tdsa said:
Resources would also be supplied by groups across the Federation who'd have no clue what they were actually doing, see the OSA Headphones fiasco
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I don't think you grok the logistical requirements for any sort of significant production.
The need to ship raw material in, and finished product out. The need for significant computer support. Industrial power supply. Pharmaceutical levels of cleanliness. And so on.

And having to do this in the middle of Federation territory without tripping sensors, or anyone going "That's odd...."
Using Federation industrial tech, NOT dedicated Harmony tech. Even in Star Trek, you don't just wave your hands to produce cutting edge stealth nanocyberpsionic implants. Even the Borg have limits to what they can kludge.

And your examples the headphones fell into Federation hands within a couple months of the Feds actually beginning to look at the OSA corporations. That's the very real risk that happens when a peer power begins to flex it's intelligence resources.

If that was Singer cybernano they were using, the Harmony would be fucked right now because the Singer network would be compromised. Instead they simply shrugged their shoulders. They might lose the OSA, but that's all.
 
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Alectai said:
Chen should have turned out into a martyr from that scheme, not just immediately have her legacy set on fire by her own side based on what amounts to being a pile of faceless data.
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Yeah, The update as written, but a line from the president making it clear they are furious at the Harmony, and not at all fooled and it would have worked. Make it clear the smear job is not fooling people, so it comes off less as the Harmony fooling everyone forever as usual.
 
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As someone who wasn't on SV for the past few hours, it was really damn weird to suddenly see everyone freak out over a post that doesn't exist anymore. There's an invisible line where the deleted post was, and across that line lies utter madness. :o Even now I only have a spotty picture of what the deleted post was about, and not really much of an idea about the details of the vote. :???:

I don't want to upset anyone, but would @Iron Wolf please consider posting the deleted posts somewhere? The post featuring Thuir I saw was very well done and while I understand it's non-canon now, I did like reading that dark piece of psychological horror. From what everyone's saying, the post I didn't see was of excellent writing quality as well.
 
Derpmind said:
As someone who wasn't on SV for the past few hours, it was really damn weird to suddenly see everyone freak out over a post that doesn't exist anymore. There's an invisible line where the deleted post was, and across that line lies utter madness. :o Even now I only have a spotty picture of what the deleted post was about, and not really much of an idea about the details of the vote. :???:
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Harmony murdered a few important and major characters and some of the Council were skepical about Zara's data, but the Council was ultimately not fooled. As predicted, the current leader of Starfleet resigned and we had a vote to pick a new one which got a few write-ins that had little to do with what the vote was supposed to be about.
 
OK, so I read the Thuir update on my phone and saved it when I realized it got taken down here. Does anyone have the other one? I'd like to see what all the fuss was about.
 
Oshha said:
Harmony murdered a few important and major characters and some of the Council were skepical about Zara's data, but the Council was ultimately not fooled. As predicted, the current leader of Starfleet resigned and we had a vote to pick a new one which got a few write-ins that had little to do with what the vote was supposed to be about.
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That part was most assuredly not clear from the update.
 
Okay, I was TRYING to get caught up around 5:00-5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time or so, and now I come back to learn that the Thuir Horrorlove Story Update has been deleted, along with another post, apparently including entire vote options that had everyone enraged and upset.

I feel like "hey guys, I'm back with the pizza..."

​

"...oh."

Can someone please explain to me what happened, because it looks like the QM(s) deleted posts containing critical components of the sequence of events.
 
Oshha said:
Really? I got a clear impression from the update that the president and the majority of the council believed the info about the Singers.
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Your life is not particularly easier. You have evidence in hand of Harmony activities -- that still needs to be fully decoded. And so far, the information gleaned from the data is overshadowed by the massive controversy that Chen's death has launched. A death that your old Scrutineer instincts are telling you has to have been caused by the Harmony. But without proof...

Indeed, the potential near-coup activities of the late Patricia Chen seems to occupy members of the Council in almost equal measure with the accusations levelled against the Harmony of Horizon. Part of the problem is some of the evidence is still forthcoming, the other part is that the most lurid accusation -- that the Harmony of Horizon is a mind-controlled puppet state, beholden to powerful artificial constructs, has little more than the wild-eyed accusations of an Intelligence Captain and the psychedelic testimony of Zara ka'Athnon. There is some footage of two ensigns screaming the name of Ni-Lakhept, admittedly, but an initial investigation has found evidence that seems to corroborate both were ardent followers of the religion, though practising it in secret to avoid attention. Of course, if the Harmony is as capable as ka'Athnon says, and you have little reason to doubt her, then fabricating such evidence would be child's play.

There is just enough to muddy the waters, and the intentions of the Harmony are harder to decide than ever.
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In that post, they didn't know, and about half of their attention was focused on Chen's "coup".
 
Simon_Jester said:
Can someone please explain to me what happened, because it looks like the QM(s) deleted posts containing critical components of the sequence of events.
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Thuir got murdered and raped in a terrifying effective horror omake while several characters got murdered by the Singers including Patricia Chen. The council, well, I'm not sure what happened with the council anymore. The current admiral resigned as predicted by some and we got a vote on the replacement.

Edit: To clarify, Thuir got his personality rewritten by a Singer and was being set up to have sex with someone as part of the Singer's story writing using real people. I personally count that as death of personality (murdered) and non-consensual sex (raped).
 
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Oshha said:
As predicted, the current leader of Starfleet resigned and we had a vote to pick a new one
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I got the impression that there was some sort of plan that each different candidate had?
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Pure mathematics seems to disqualify both Harriman's goal and T'Faer's. A approx-5-year tenure isn't enough to research 2 doctrine tiers or complete 15mt of shipyard builds. You could still vote for them on intangibles but we will never see their goal completions.
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Simon_Jester said:
Can someone please explain to me what happened, because it looks like the QM(s) deleted posts containing critical components of the sequence of events.
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Thuir was murdered and then mind raped by Singer shippers.

The following vote was basically Chen getting blown up and implicated as an augment planning to overthrow the Federation. Linderley got murdered in his room and The Head of Starfleet resigning when he found out about his son and all the other stuff.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Can someone please explain to me what happened, because it looks like the QM(s) deleted posts containing critical components of the sequence of events.
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Oh and that time Qute stopped someone from trying to seduce Thuir, that was Qute protecting Thuir from the Singers and he got kidnapped by the Singers when they realised that Qute wasn't actually going to physically stop them from going after Thuir.
 
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