To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I think it just might earn us some militarization to comprehensively smash the Syndicate.

I just don't care. Our goal should not be to maintain zero militarization no matter the cost, just as it should not be to maintain infinity Science score no matter the cost. While Starfleet is not a 'military,' it does have the responsibility of doing what a military would do, of providing that necessary service for the Federation.

A military's core responsibility is to protect the nation from overt enemies.

The Federation uses Starfleet for that job. Starfleet exists in part to protect the Federation physically, from very real enemies. It does this whether those enemies are criminal syndicates, space fascists, or giant planet-eating monsters.

So we should not be afraid to protect the Federation from an overt enemy, one recognized as such by the Council, just because "if we did that we'd look a little more like a military!" We shouldn't go looking for excuses to label people as enemies (and some did that, when the Dawiar attacked the Polaris). We shouldn't start configuring our fleet primarily for war, as though war was the only thing we thought we needed to be good at.

But when a group like the Syndicate is crossing the line from "criminal activity" to "agent of a foreign power actively undermining and threatening us," we do need to take some measured, prudent steps to push them back across that line, and teach them not to cross it again.

 

[Iron Wolf]

Here I was getting shit for a blockade but, alright, let's go bloodthirsty. Let's wander into completely uncharted territory, mechanically, in order to fight organized crime that hasn't even attacked us.

It'll be a fun experiment!

 

[AKuz]

[x] BOOP

 

[Random Member]

[X] Briefvoice

 

[aeqnai]

[X] Briefvoice

Y'know, if they had done this sort of shit to the Rommies, they'd be getting a much harsher response even than this. We may not be the Rommies, but any nation worth the name of 'power' doesn't let things stand like this.

And yes, I say that even in acknowledgement of Fed ideals etc. We're not going to kill them all without chance of surrender or anything, after all.

 

[Leila Hann]

Here I was getting shit for a blockade but, alright, let's go bloodthirsty. Let's wander into completely uncharted territory, mechanically, in order to fight organized crime that hasn't even attacked us.

It'll be a fun experiment!

Click to shrink...

Um...

There's a huge, HUGE difference between issuing a blockade around a sovereign power beyond our own borders, and cracking down on a criminal group within our own borders.

There's also the fact that the blockade wouldn't have actually accomplished anything unless we were willing to fire on Cardassian transport ships, which we didn't want to do. Punishing the Syndicate for its actions here will make it less willing to perform such actions in the future, and if we roll very well might even end it as a major threat.

Either way, we will save lots of pretty green ladies from a life of slavery, and if we vote against that the fist of James T Kirk will emerge from the nexus itself to pulp our unworthy faces.

 

[Simon_Jester]

And my actual votes...

[X][INTEL] Accept the Resignation

I don't think it's especially fair, but this is a big enough torpedo that it's going to hit somewhere. Having zh'Rhashaan catch it is probably the least bad option. Losing her bonus will hurt but we can replace her with someone else comparably competent.

...

With the political cost weighting I'm going to abstain from the REPAIR vote. I'm torn between the small political will boost for letting the Gaeni work on it, and the downsides of letting the Gaeni poke around inside one of our explorers. Given that they may sell this technology, or that they may screw it up. Part of me thinks it should be a no-brainer and have us do the work at Utopia Planitia in the three-megaton berth vacated by a ConnieBee we can no longer afford to build.

...

Now, as to Council Plans, we have four major candidates in the past few pages that I noticed:

anon_user's Plan Boop
Briefvoice's Plan Rid Ourselves of the Syndicate
Nix's Plan Border Diplomacy.
pbluekan's Plan Mix and Match to Fix and Dispatch

All four plans sensibly (IMO) favor an Excelsior's worth of resources. No difference there.

Plan Boop does not involve campaigning against the Syndicate, which for me makes it a non-starter. I am dropping that plan from consideration, sorry anon_user. The three remaining plans all DO favor anti-Syndicate operations, so no difference there.

Nix favors diplomacy with Seyek, Qloath, Bajorans, and Dawiar. The other two plans drop Qloath diplomacy for Yrillian diplomacy. I slightly favor working with the Qloath, who seem better centralized, more organized, and more capable of helping us in an organized fashion. Bringing people like the Yrilians into the Federation is going to be hard work. Now, with that said, it's a close run thing in my mind, and the Yrillians ARE at a lower relationship so that we have reason to worry that the Cardassians might be able to set them against us. So this is, like, a tiny point in Nix's favor, but not a very big deal. So much for the diplomacy considerations.

Nix and Briefvoice both favor an academy expansion, pbluekan doesn't. I think this is probably important enough that I treat it as a priority, so I'm dropping "Mix and Match" from consideration. Sorry pbluekan.

Nix's plan contains a new tech team, Briefvoice's plan orignally banked some points that would otherwise go to that, as I recall. I'm a little concerned about not saving up for Betazoids later, but I trust him, so...

[X][COUNCIL] Plan Rid Ourselves of the Syndicate
-Request Allocation for an Excelsior's resources, one-off-infusion of an Excelsior's cost, 20pp
-Request Academy Expansion, 35pp (Gain +.5 Officers/Enlisted/Techs throughput)
-Attempt to muster support for large scale action against the Orion Syndicate, 35pp (Anti-Syndicate actions will occur each turn in Amarkia, Caitian, and Andor Sectors)
--The Yukikaze to be assigned to anti-Syndicate actions for the duration in whatever sector they happen in.
-Request expansion of Ana Font Shipyard, 10pp (9 with discount) (4 turns, gain 1 new 1m t berth)
-Request focused Diplomacy on Sayek, 10pp
-Request focused Diplomacy on Bajorans, 10pp
-Request focused Diplomacy on Yrillians, 10pp
-Request focused Diplomacy on Dawiar, 10pp
- Request new Tech Team to be added to your Ship Design Bureau, 20pp [Starbase Design/Starship Construction]

Now, that said, Briefvoice, no more getting me to vote for new berths on the cheap-and-easy!

[waggles finger sternly]

 

[Iron Wolf]

Also, another angle:

The actual option we are voting for and putting 35pp towards is not guaranteed. "Attempt to muster support" is the exact wording, emphasis mine. So that 35pp could poof into the air. And we know the Council is divided and quite heated as well, so if it fails it could really blow up.

If this goes exceedingly well, the outcome overall is merely 'okay' as we remove a persistent annoyance. If it goes bad, it goes really, really bad at multiple levels. Loss of ships, loss of PP, loss of support of the Council.

Um...

There's a huge, HUGE difference between issuing a blockade around a sovereign power beyond our own borders, and cracking down on a criminal group within our own borders.

Click to shrink...

We have no guarantees the Syndicate is limited to our borders. In fact, canon would show the exact opposite -- DS9 suggests their operations are mostly outside the Federation.

 

[Nix]

Gotcha.

In some of these cases (German, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, Vietnamese), the spelling simplifications coincide with the period I was talking about: the rise of mass literacy during the late 19th and early 20th century. As you move from a society where knowing how to read and write is the special property of, say, a quarter or a half of the population, to a society where it is normative for everyone to be functionally literate... you need a language that is reasonably easy to spell, to some acceptable standard of accuracy.

In others the decision may have been influenced by imperialism and the perception of Western cultural dominance (Vietnam adopting the Latin alphabet almost certainly did NOT happen just because the Vietnamese were feeling open-minded).

In the Far East, the simplification movements probably owe a lot to the fact that especially if you use Chinese characters or multiple systems of characters, these languages could be really complicated to write down, which is something that just plain has to go if you want the whole population to be literate.

Click to shrink...

I would argue that the reform of kana spellings in the Japanese case was quite similar in nature to a hypothetical spelling reform for English in that it changed spellings to reflect current pronunciation rather than that of 800 years ago, but didn't change the syllabrary itself at all (except that syllabogramms for two syllables that didn't exist anymore mostly fell into disuse, sort of like if the letters x and y happened not to be used by an updated English orthography anymore).

Also, when something happens in 8 of 10 known cases there is a limit to how plausible it is to explain them away as exceptions. I suppose we could investigate more langues, my guess is that most that have a written standardized form and a literary tradition long enough to have pronunciations diverging from spellings had a spelling reform at one time or another.

The French and German spelling reforms of the 1990s are the best counterexamples you've given me, in my opinion. How extensive would you judge them to be?

Click to shrink...

Moderate but noticeable. The spellings of thousands of words were changed, but most words were left untouched. About as big a change as switching from British to American spellings or the other way round perhaps?

 

[UbeOne]

I see nothing wrong with going after criminals like the Syndicate.

 

[Algalon]

[X][INTEL] Decline the Resignation (-25pp)

[X][REPAIR] Cancel the planned Constitution-B Build in Utopia Planitia Berth-C (3mt berth) and repair the Courageous there.

[X][COUNCIL] Plan Mix and Match to Fix and Dispatch

Politicians are quick to throw blame and harsh words. Rash did nothing that isn't included in her mandate. The Cardassians are working with the Syndicate. The Syndicate are criminals and pirates of the worst sort. Hit the latter and get info on the former. In theory a pretty good idea. The dice just happened to refuse to cooperate. Shit happens.

I'm not trusting the Gaeni to blow something up in the attempts of Science Institutes sabotaging each other from getting any data on the Excelsior.

 

[Iron Wolf]

PS if a Romulan warbird managed to Mr. Magoo its way into a mine during a special ops mission, killing half its crew, I guarantee the response would be cover up and then an Admiral disemboweling himself on the floor of the Senate, not some armed intervention.

Criminal groups are not a military. There are no shipyards to destroy, no territories to occupy. You blow up one of their ships, they get better at hiding their activities in civilian traffic. Unless the difficulties are really softballed this should realistically be a either a dedicated, decade-long effort to strangle the Syndicate, or a quick and flashy shock and awe that doesn't do anything except make ourselves feel better and slow them down in the short term. Or worse, provoke terror responses.

 

[10ebbor10]

[X][COUNCIL] Plan Rid Ourselves of the Syndicate

The actual option we are voting for and putting 35pp towards is not guaranteed. "Attempt to muster support" is the exact wording, emphasis mine. So that 35pp could poof into the air. And we know the Council is divided and quite heated as well, so if it fails it could really blow up.

Click to shrink...

If it could fail to work, it would be noted explicitedly just as with the budget increases. But it explicitedly states those events will occur. Not may occur.

I mean, a lot of our other options are labelled "Request", and you wouldn't argue that implies they can be denied.

 

[Gear]

[X] Briefvoice

 

[Leila Hann]

Also, another angle:

The actual option we are voting for and putting 35pp towards is not guaranteed. "Attempt to muster support" is the exact wording, emphasis mine. So that 35pp could poof into the air. And we know the Council is divided and quite heated as well, so if it fails it could really blow up.

If this goes exceedingly well, the outcome overall is merely 'okay' as we remove a persistent annoyance. If it goes bad, it goes really, really bad at multiple levels. Loss of ships, loss of PP, loss of support of the Council.


We have no guarantees the Syndicate is limited to our borders. In fact, canon would show the exact opposite -- DS9 suggests their operations are mostly outside the Federation.

Click to shrink...

In this quest, they've been operating mostly in the Amarki sector, and in the Orion Union space. Maybe they have more assets outside of that, but if they do then that's not our problem. We'll decimate every part of the organization that does fall within our jurisdiction, as those that don't were never really the problem to begin with.

PS if a Romulan warbird managed to Mr. Magoo its way into a mine during a special ops mission, killing half its crew, I guarantee the response would be cover up and then an Admiral disemboweling himself on the floor of the Senate, not some armed intervention.

Criminal groups are not a military. There are no shipyards to destroy, no territories to occupy. You blow up one of their ships, they get better at hiding their activities in civilian traffic. Unless the difficulties are really softballed this should realistically be a either a dedicated, decade-long effort to strangle the Syndicate, or a quick and flashy shock and awe that doesn't do anything except make ourselves feel better and slow them down in the short term. Or worse, provoke terror responses.

Click to shrink...

The Syndicate aren't just criminals, they're pirates. Pirates need ships to operate. Ships require shipyards, or at least "safehouses" to dock and unload the loot at. We also know that the Syndicate has de facto control of several Orion planets, which gives us even more targets for military action.

 

[Algalon]

PS if a Romulan warbird managed to Mr. Magoo its way into a mine during a special ops mission, killing half its crew, I guarantee the response would be cover up and then an Admiral disemboweling himself on the floor of the Senate, not some armed intervention.

Criminal groups are not a military. There are no shipyards to destroy, no territories to occupy. You blow up one of their ships, they get better at hiding their activities in civilian traffic. Unless the difficulties are really softballed this should realistically be a either a dedicated, decade-long effort to strangle the Syndicate, or a quick and flashy shock and awe that doesn't do anything except make ourselves feel better and slow them down in the short term. Or worse, provoke terror responses.

Click to shrink...

The Syndicate is a profit based organization. All we have to do is not make it worth it for them. We already learned in the assassination attempt during the Amarki ratification that the Syndicate won't fight to the death. Terror responses would not only bring the wrath of the entire Federation upon them, but all nearby polities who suffer of their dealings.

Also, so far we haven't really done any significant effort to even combat them. If we happened to run into them we of course dealt with them, but nothing proactive.

 

[Iron Wolf]

@Alagon

Terror responses would not only bring the wrath of the entire Federation upon them, but all nearby polities who suffer of their dealings.

Click to shrink...

Who says they bomb the Federation? What if they conduct a campaign of terror to pressure the Orion Union to close its borders to armed Starflert vessels? Then they operate freely while you're in a real Prime Directive pickle.

This simply isn't worth the effort.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I would argue that the reform of kana spellings in the Japanese case was quite similar in nature to a hypothetical spelling reform for English in that it changed spellings to reflect current pronunciation rather than that of 800 years ago, but didn't change the syllabrary itself at all (except that syllabogramms for two syllables that didn't exist anymore mostly fell into disuse, sort of like if the letters x and y happened not to be used by an updated English orthography anymore).

Click to shrink...

That reflects some things that dropped from Old English, yes. On the other hand, it's far from clear to me whether all those 'ough' endings reflect a change in pronunciation.

Also, when something happens in 8 of 10 known cases there is a limit to how plausible it is to explain them away as exceptions. I suppose we could investigate more langues, my guess is that most that have a written standardized language old enough to have pronunciations diverging from spellings had a spelling reform at one time or another

Click to shrink...

I'm sure of it- and English has had such reforms. I question whether pronunciation has diverged enough over the past 200 years or so to merit another one, or whether pronunciation is likely to evolve that much in the near future.

I think that modern technology has somewhat changed the rules of linguistic evolution, to be perfectly honest. Mass literacy requires much greater standardization in spelling, and mass media tend to cause a lot of 'smearing out' of language, replacing a lot of little dialects that can easily be short-lived and small in spatial extent with a much broader "standard" dialect. Hollywood pronounces words pretty much the same way now that it did when the first talkies came out, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is still doing so in 2116 too.

Moderate but noticeable. The spellings of thousands of words were changed, but most words were left untouched. About as big a change as switching from British to American spellings or the other way round perhaps?

Click to shrink...

...Come to think of it, that actually presents another issue with English spelling changes. There is no one body capable of implementing such changes!

The US certainly doesn't have a national organization in charge of monitoring or controlling the 'standard received' grammar and spelling of American English. I'm not sure the British do. Whereas France has the Académie française, and so on.

Now, in pre-modern, less literate times, a decentralized language would tend to experience more drift in spelling, not less. But with the evolution towards a collectively self-"correcting" community of written language users that tend to pressure and train one another to accept a single received spelling (further exaggerated by things like privately manufactured spell-checking software)...

I think languages like English may actually be rather more vulnerable to getting 'fossilized' than languages like French, that are predominantly spoken within a single nation that has a tradition of employing academics specifically to exercise control over the 'official' version of its language.

PS if a Romulan warbird managed to Mr. Magoo its way into a mine during a special ops mission, killing half its crew, I guarantee the response would be cover up and then an Admiral disemboweling himself on the floor of the Senate, not some armed intervention.

Click to shrink...

Falling on his sword would be the relevant admiral's equivalent of resigning his post, which our admiral did.

And while there might well be coverups and fingerpointing, the point remains that neither the Klingons nor the Romulans would feel willing to tolerate the existence of a well-armed faction well within their space that flaunts their laws, aids their enemies, and is both willing and able to cripple their strongest starships.

They might not attack the Syndicate in response to losing a heavy explorer on a special ops mission against a Syndicate base... but that's only because they would already have done so earlier, before the mission was even launched!

Criminal groups are not a military. There are no shipyards to destroy, no territories to occupy. You blow up one of their ships, they get better at hiding their activities in civilian traffic. Unless the difficulties are really softballed this should realistically be a either a dedicated, decade-long effort to strangle the Syndicate, or a quick and flashy shock and awe that doesn't do anything except make ourselves feel better and slow them down in the short term. Or worse, provoke terror responses.

Click to shrink...

The Syndicate has some very large, semi-permanent assets that we can blow up right off the bat. Then the nature of our campaign will shift to a more law-enforcement approach, which we can pursue in coordination with the member fleets and with the Orion Union itself.

I would, by the way, advocate combining this with outreach- trying to make it clear to the Syndicate leaders that this is the price they are paying for repeated cooperation with the Cardassians. And that if they want to do business in Federation space ever again, then at a bare minimum they need to be more restrained in aiding the Federation's enemies.

 

[Algalon]

@Alagon


Who says they bomb the Federation? What if they conduct a campaign of terror to pressure the Orion Union to close its borders to armed Starflert vessels? Then they operate freely while you're in a real Prime Directive pickle.

This simply isn't worth the effort.

Click to shrink...

Lol. Terror is a shitty political tool. Look how well it's doing in real life.

The Union hates their guts, whenever we went against the Syndicate we ended up improving relationship with the Union. You think a little bit of terror is enough for the Union to bend over and let them gain control? How come they aren't already in control of all Orion planets if all it takes is some fear? They're pretty ruthless as is, why haven't they already done so if it is so effective?

Even so, let's assume they do so. Now we lost entry into Orion Space. But hey! Since the Syndicate gets shot down anywhere else, they stay within in. The Orion Syndicate is now properly contained. Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

 

[pbluekan]

Snip

Click to shrink...

Sadly, the compromises in my plan were there to keep the Rear Admiral in place and the gaeni out of our tech.

In the last few pages I've seen the arguments concerning the gaeni berth fall away. IMO it is one of the more important decisions of this post. Far and above most of the pieces in the snake pit. OpSec anyone? Or even just a little bit of national security and state secrets? Putting an excelsior into an affiliate's, much less a sub 300 affiliate's, berth is a terrible exchange for 5pp.

The gaeni have routinely shown that they will literally do anything for the sake of progress or advantage over one of the other institutes. undoubtedly, the cardassians know we're down an excelsior. Excelsior blueprints for cardassian Torp tech, anyone?

 

[Nix]

...Come to think of it, that actually presents another issue with English spelling changes. There is no one body capable of implementing such changes!

The US certainly doesn't have a national organization in charge of monitoring or controlling the 'standard received' grammar and spelling of American English. I'm not sure the British do. Whereas France has the Académie française, and so on.

Now, in pre-modern, less literate times, a decentralized language would tend to experience more drift in spelling, not less. But with the evolution towards a collectively self-"correcting" community of written language users that tend to pressure and train one another to accept a single received spelling (further exaggerated by things like privately manufactured spell-checking software)...

I think languages like English may actually be rather more vulnerable to getting 'fossilized' than languages like French, that are predominantly spoken within a single nation that has a tradition of employing academics specifically to exercise control over the 'official' version of its language.

Click to shrink...

Yes, that was one of the main reasons I said that such a reform would be more likely after unification.

 

[Leila Hann]

And while there might well be coverups and fingerpointing, the point remains that neither the Klingons nor the Romulans would feel willing to tolerate the existence of a well-armed faction well within their space that flaunts their laws, aids their enemies, and is both willing and able to cripple their strongest starships.

They might not attack the Syndicate in response to losing a heavy explorer on a special ops mission against a Syndicate base... but that's only because they would already have done so earlier, before the mission was even launched!

Click to shrink...

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Like I said before, I'm still confused about why we didn't get to go after the Syndicate after the Amarki bombing. Or even before then.

 

[Jrin]

[X][INTEL] Accept the Resignation (+5pp)

[X][REPAIR] Gaeni Manufacturing Coop (+5pp, Gaeni closely study the Excelsior design)
-[X] Delay/cancel a Connie-B in Q4 as necessary to avoid a resource shortfall

[X][COUNCIL] Plan Rid Ourselves of the Syndicate

 

[Iron Wolf]

Lol. Terror is a shitty political tool. Look how well it's doing in real life.

Click to shrink...

You're being ignorant of history. Colombian traffickers out and out killed members of the government and stoked anti American sentiment to have extradition outlawed. Worked out for them. And thats just the most relevant example.

 

[lbmaian]

@Simon_Jester you need to include the "[REPAIR] Gaeni Manufacturing Coop (+5pp, Gaeni closely study the Excelsior design)" in your vote, or else the whole thing doesn't add up pp-wise.

Ugh the vote tallying is going to be a clusterfuck. The problem is that there are multiple tasks (INTEL, REPAIR, COUNCIL) operating on the same scarce resource (pp), yet some people are not voting on a full plan that involves all tasks. What's going to happen if "[COUNCIL] Plan Rid Ourselves of the Syndicate" wins, yet "[INTEL] Decline the Resignation (-25pp)" or "[REPAIR] Cancel the planned Constitution-B Build in Utopia Planitia Berth-C (3mt berth) and repair the Courageous there" also wins?

...actually, thinking about it more, why the heck is the Gaeni repair option giving us pp. Is the Council really that gung-ho about it? I mean, it would make sense if Gaeni were a 300+ affiliate with pp influence to throw around, but they aren't. Do they have odd allies in the Council?