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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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Guess we'll see how far that will extends to the current situation.

A hawkish government is the last one we need on our bingo card right? And conditions certainly seem fit for it.
 
I would be fine with the Harmony being recurring antagonists except for the fact that the Harmony is being led by a bunch of AI with god complexes.
 
It's worth noting that the UFP's "bottle them up and leave them be" habit also tends to come with a side order of 'keep trying diplomacy ad nauseam', so unless you believe that there is no possible solution to the Singers than beating up the Harmony until you can forcibly remove them from power then creating and enforcing a neutral zone of some sort with the HoH is not actually mutually exclusive with defeating the Singers.

Paraphrasing @Simon_Jester, sure the Singers are kinda dicks - but the idea that we're forced to invade the Harmony and kill a lot of innocent people as a result of that is just wrong.
 
Simon_Jester said:
It's like, the Klingons and Romulans aren't really the villains of Star Trek, not even in TOS; seriously, we hardly ever see them and as often as not the message is "sure the Klingons are kind of dicks, but the entire idea that you're locked in an apocalyptical death struggle with them is just wrong." The Cardassians are kinda-sorta- but note that in canon they do eventually go 'splat' under various pressures during DS9.
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I think you may be missing something here; while it certainly isn't satisfying the Federation's bottle them up strategy works. It may have taken over 200 years but the Romulan Star Empire did collapse through infighting (Shinzon) which lead to a real peace between it and the Federation; opening the way to the cessation of slavery. Similarly the Klingon Empire spent the latter half of the 24th century growing, in a two steps forwards one step back manner, closer to the Federation with Danial's (ST: Enterprise) future records showing they'd eventually join the Federation by the 26th century. As you yourself point out the Cardassian Union collapsed and would have collapsed even earlier without the Dominan's aid.

The Federation's strategy of bottling up enemies and waiting them out clearly works. It might be slow, unsatisfying, and cause issues but it does mean avoiding billions dying in "just" wars. It is a very Vulcan strategy really but it makes sense if you start with the assumption that your (the Federation's) way of life is superior to all these oppressive empires. Or even if you are just a student of history; every known empire in history has inevitably collapsed. Time is very much on the Federation's side.
 
UberJJK said:
I think you may be missing something here; while it certainly isn't satisfying the Federation's bottle them up strategy works. It may have taken over 200 years but the Romulan Star Empire did collapse through infighting (Shinzon) which lead to a real peace between it and the Federation; opening the way to the cessation of slavery. Similarly the Klingon Empire spent the latter half of the 24th century growing, in a two steps forwards one step back manner, closer to the Federation with Danial's (ST: Enterprise) future records showing they'd eventually join the Federation by the 26th century. As you yourself point out the Cardassian Union collapsed and would have collapsed even earlier without the Dominan's aid.

The Federation's strategy of bottling up enemies and waiting them out clearly works. It might be slow, unsatisfying, and cause issues but it does mean avoiding billions dying in "just" wars. It is a very Vulcan strategy really but it makes sense if you start with the assumption that your (the Federation's) way of life is superior to all these oppressive empires. Or even if you are just a student of history; every known empire in history has inevitably collapsed. Time is very much on the Federation's side.
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The containment tactic was only made to work by a ton of plucky adventures saving the UFP from the scheme of the week until, as you say, their enemies fall apart of their own accord. If one of the schemes had been successful before then the Federation could have been in trouble.

But even if we ignore that, it cannot work on the Harmony because they can't collapse from normal factors. Mind control has its advantages and the Singers are every bit as ruthless at dealing with dissent and thought-policing among themselves as they are with their subjects.
 
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065tdsa said:
But even if we ignore that, it cannot work on the Harmony because they can't collapse from normal factors. Mind control has its advantages and the Singers are every bit as ruthless at dealing with dissent and thought-policing among themselves as they are with their subjects.
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There is still internal dissident among the Singers, or we wouldn't even know about their existence. And the Federation standing up to them and being acknowledged as a peer power would undermine their internal narrative that the Singer mind control is necessary for a peaceful, utopian society to exist. I do not expect them to dissolve to backstabbing and plotting the way Cardassians or Romulans would, but don't assume they're perfectly unified. They are still people.
 
It is also worth noting that the Federation has a long history of covertly supporting political dissidents. We have Spock supporting the pro-reunification Romulans, Worf supporting the clone of Kahless as Emporer (a check on the Chancellor's power), and later directly appointing Martok Chancellor, and we have Kira's assistance to the Cardassian Rebellion. That is just off the top of my head.

I have no doubt that even if we bottle up the Singers we'll still have "rogue" agents like Shey helping people fight for freedom. The Singers can't be everywhere all the time and, as we saw with Zarael, even the Singers have their dissenters.
 
If the final culmination of the "Hey, there's someone fucking around with you, but you can't do anything because we won't let you" plot that is Harmony winds up being "Hey, you can't do anything because we won't let you", then that'd mean the only 'mistake' the GMs made in their handling of Harmony was that somehow the players got upset about it. It'd prove all of the worst things people were saying about the GMs during the saltstorm completely true, and frankly, would see me not only drop the quest, but actively recommend against anything written by the GMs elsewhere, because that's a level of gaslighting/abuse of your players that shouldn't be tolerated.

I don't see that as being a likely course of events.
 
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Godwinson said:
I don't see that as being a likely course of events.
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Could we not have speculation on "but what if the GMs were actually terrible?" If you want to accuse the GMs of something, either day it straight or say nothing at all. And if you don't want to accuse the GMs of something, why are you even bringing it up at all?

The GMs don't run this quest to torture their readers. No one does that. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face, or however that expression goes. The GMs aren't some distant, souless corporate entity. They're right here in the same "room" with us. Take your outrage culture somewhere else, please.
 
Hm, I think the fundamental problem with a Horizon Border Zone is that, much like the Mentats, the Singers are an active threat to everyone who isn't part of their collective, and depending on where you draw the line on personality editing after the original instance in regards to it qualifying as harm/murder, their extant collective. In many regards, they're worse than the Mentats, who were by-and-large stereotypical 'Prioritizes SCIENCE! over empathy or the lives of others.' mad scientists and not actually malicious in the way the Biophage was. The reverse is the case here, where, not unlike the Biophage, the Singers are concerned with spreading out and controlling everything and very little else. The Romulan and Klingon BZs worked because they at least made a pretense of keeping to them. The Singers would actively attempt to get around those restrictions, and likely not even pretend to follow them, relying on editing to ensure the obedience of their agents.

Basically, the Singers cannot be trusted, because they don't consider anyone but themselves people. I still maintain that they are more akin to Nurgle's followers than anything else, but since we can't just kill them, I just think that means we should 'Box them with the intent of releasing them approximately never.' since we can't just dump them on the Organians (we wouldn't want that done to us) both because we can't be sure they'd accept and because dumping your problems on somebody else is inherently kind of shitty, but we also aren't equipped to give them therapy. God Complex combined with infomorphic abilities is a recipe for disaster, since a split second breach in containment means we might never find them again before they've pulled a Borg and nanite-d a planet.

About the only way I can see the Singer get redeemed is if they meet the Borg and get scared straight, and I consider that a longshot proposition, both because of the inherent risks, and because of the risk of them deciding 'Screw your 'Free Will' I was right all along!' because hey, the Borg seem to make it work from a logistical standpoint, so the Singers' moral one is the only roadblock there, and it's not that major a step from them to the Borg.
 
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Can we not go 5 minutes/1 page without someone else deciding we need to be Hard Sapients Making Hard Decisions While Hard in regards to the Singers?
 
ilbgar123 said:
Hm, I think the fundamental problem with a Horizon Border Zone is that, much like the Mentats, the Singers are an active threat to everyone who isn't part of their collective, and depending on where you draw the line on personality editing after the original instance in regards to it qualifying as harm/murder, their extant collective. In many regards, they're worse than the Mentats, who were by-and-large stereotypical 'Prioritizes SCIENCE! over empathy or the lives of others.' mad scientists and not actually malicious in the way the Biophage was. The reverse is the case here, where, not unlike the Biophage, the Singers are concerned with spreading out and controlling everything and very little else. The Romulan and Klingon BZs worked because they at least made a pretense of keeping to them. The Singers would actively attempt to get around those restrictions, and likely not even pretend to follow them, relying on editing to ensure the obedience of their agents.
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See the bit I bolded? It's been made very clear before that the strategic overall goal of the Federation in this conflict is to convince the Singers to come out in the open and negotiate with the Federation on a level playing field, acknowledging who they are and what their goals are. To make an agreement with terms and then "pretend to follow them".

Of course they'll try to cheat and get around their promises. So did the Romulans, the Klingons, and the Cardassians. But they won't be able to openly violate it without risking a war.

Put all your fantasies of "boxing" or otherwise removing the Singers from power to the side. Whatever they might deserve, we have no more practical capability to do that then we do to remove the leaders of the Obsidian Order from power. If the Singers are ever fully toppled, it will be by internal rebellions (which of course we will try to enable and support so that it can happen at all), not by Federation force. I mean, in the real world there's certain authoritarian leaders who deserve to be put in prison as well, but we're not going to start a nuclear war to do it.
 
Briefvoice said:
Put all your fantasies of "boxing" or otherwise removing the Singers from power to the side. Whatever they might deserve, we have no more practical capability to do that then we do to remove the leaders of the Obsidian Order from power. If the Singers are ever fully toppled, it will be by internal rebellions (which of course we will try to enable and support so that it can happen at all), not by Federation force. I mean, in the real world there's certain authoritarian leaders who deserve to be put in prison as well, but we're not going to start a nuclear war to do it.
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Internal rebellions can't happen to Singers for the many reasons that have been outlined already. Any such rebellion would have to be a Singer rebellion, and those are impossible due to the main consensus of Singers reprogramming dissenters as a matter of course. The main consensus of Singers also chooses which people from the Harmony will be uploaded, and therefore can ensure ideological purity on a level us meatbags could never aspire to.

There's also the fact that the entire purpose and way of life of the Singers is controlling other people. We've seen one Singer who was old enough to decide to go on a fundamentally suicidal attack against a system she grew disgusted in, a good base for rebellion such sentiments do not make because they're just not common enough. For a rebellion to become strong you need selfishness and tax issues and angry mobs of the poor to absorb casualties.
 
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Let's take a different tack. How will surrounding non-Federation people react to the announcement?

ISC: Immediate jump to HAP-CON 3, it's going to happen any second.
Klingons: Generally meh, be distrustful of augmented people. Perhaps a good fight to be had?
Romulans: We thought about trying to warn you! You should have let us make you listen!
Breen: *cryptic space suit noises*
Cardassians: Quick, while the Federation is looking the other way, take everything you can!
 
065tdsa said:
Internal rebellions can't happen to Singers for the many reasons that have been outlined already.
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If the Federation can find and distribute a reliable method of blocking their control, then an internal rebellion movement becomes a possibility as dissidents and believers come across the information and decide to take a chance.

The Singers can't control everyone at the same time all the time. Doing the really sophisticated "programming them to act in certain ways after we remove active control" is a time-consuming process that takes the attention of an Singer for some amount of time, not something they can mass roll-out for a population of billions.
 
065tdsa said:
Internal rebellions can't happen to Singers for the many reasons that have been outlined already. Any such rebellion would have to be a Singer rebellion, and those are impossible due to the main consensus of Singers reprogramming dissenters as a matter of course. The main consensus of Singers also chooses which people from the Harmony will be uploaded, and therefore can ensure ideological purity on a level us meatbags could never aspire to.

There's also the fact that the entire purpose and way of life of the Singers is controlling other people. We've seen one Singer who was old enough to decide to go on a fundamentally suicidal attack against a system she grew disgusted in, a good base for rebellion such sentiments do not make because they're just not common enough.
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Please reconsider the evidence we've seen. Singers do, even in their normal course, have differences of taste and opinion. Singers, as individuals, and the Singer consensus in particular, are neither omnipresent nor in constant contact. It is definitely possible to treat Singers as individuals and conduct diplomacy with the Singers. The problem is getting the Singers to come to the table, not that such a table can't exist.
 
Briefvoice said:
If the Federation can find and distribute a reliable method of blocking their control, then an internal rebellion movement becomes a possibility as dissidents and believers come across the information and decide to take a chance.

The Singers can't control everyone at the same time all the time. Doing the really sophisticated "programming them to act in certain ways after we remove active control" is a time-consuming process that takes the attention of an Singer for some amount of time, not something they can mass roll-out for a population of billions.
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I hope you realize that even if you are right, the sort of conflict you describe would be fought primarily on the ground by desperate irregulars who would be forced to resort to terrorist tactics just to fight the Harmony Navy. It'd be a whole order of magnitude bloodier than any Federation invasion that didn't insist on landing troops everywhere. Also, I do not know how you envision them going to ground after their attacks, when every Singer is looking for people with blocked control connections.

If we're going to foment violent insurgency, I'd rather we do it in Cardassian space, it'd be cheaper.
 
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Himmelhand said:
Please reconsider the evidence we've seen. Singers do, even in their normal course, have differences of taste and opinion. Singers, as individuals, and the Singer consensus in particular, are neither omnipresent nor in constant contact. It is definitely possible to treat Singers as individuals and conduct diplomacy with the Singers. The problem is getting the Singers to come to the table, not that such a table can't exist.
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We had a whole multi-update subplot about a radical rebel Singer who was explicitly trying to help us.

It's not a huge stretch to think there are other Singers who might be sympathetic to that viewpoint?
 
KnightDisciple said:
We had a whole multi-update subplot about a radical rebel Singer who was explicitly trying to help us.

It's not a huge stretch to think there are other Singers who might be sympathetic to that viewpoint?
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And they died. More or less immediately after they got discovered. Not to mention they did not mention anything about a group of like-minded Singers. Fact is we ran into an authentic Lone Wolf, with no outside inspiration or assistance.
 
Briefvoice said:
The Singers can't control everyone at the same time all the time. Doing the really sophisticated "programming them to act in certain ways after we remove active control" is a time-consuming process that takes the attention of an Singer for some amount of time, not something they can mass roll-out for a population of billions.
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Sounds like a technical problem.
 
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