To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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- Sci-Fi
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This is starting to sound just crazy enough to work. It might be possible to convince the Cardassians (since they're the ones who would blow the whistle on any deception to the Sydraxians) that we had snuck in a couple of extra Connie-builds in some backwater member shipyard. They only take 1mt berths, after all. The only trouble would be getting those old bones to hold together well enough to approximate a working starship. Hmmm... but if there were an actual motivation to develop an an imperfect version of that annealer device Leslie was talking about... and they only had to get to one lousy Hull point, enough not to crumble to powder...
I mean, it wouldn't be cheap. We'd probably have to put in a real warp core, even if if it was an undersized one sufficient to crawl them around. But it would be considerably less expensive than sacrificing real Connie-Bs. You'd have to figure out how to get the skeleton crew off safely.
Hmmm.
But his help would be critical to making this work.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
How good are their sensors?
- Location
- madison
we might not need deception. Given how the war has probably been something of an embarrassment for the Sydaxians they might be ok with a symbolic gesture. Though on the more pragmatic hand, a chance to knock out their ship building capacity would make future dealings with Cardassia less dangerous.
You have to remember that there's an entire year between snakepits. Even if the Cardassians are focused inwards, how long will that go for? I do agree that this is an opportunity we can't really let pass.
- Location
- Austin, TX
The current non-affiliate species are listed below, totalling eight. Two of them are in the negatives, so I don't... think?... we can do diplomatic pushes on them. The Sotaw we are leaving alone, expecting them to become Romulan affiliates. Of the remaining five, I'd like to see four pushed. Is there any particular one we should pass on in preference to the others? Each have reasons to push now, while the Cardassians are looking inwards. I'm tempted to skip the Kadeshi, but they are finishing that ship of theirs, and might vanish soon if we don't push now.
Algalon
Herald of the Titans
- Location
- Celestial Planetarium
Talking about the snakepit; Any ideas as to how we can deal with our overstretched supply lines? The Development faction is likely to do something about it, but we might want to double on it or contribute our own ideas.
- More freighters and trading vessels?
- Hospital ships (there seem be plagues popping up every now and then...)
- Build some industry on the frontier worlds?
- Redundancy of critical installations was something we wanted since Kadak-Tor
There was some talk about trading Starfleet mineral resources since we have an abundance of BR and a member world was looking for more of it during the MWCO panel. Maybe we could make something out of it?
- More freighters and trading vessels?
- Hospital ships (there seem be plagues popping up every now and then...)
- Build some industry on the frontier worlds?
- Redundancy of critical installations was something we wanted since Kadak-Tor
There was some talk about trading Starfleet mineral resources since we have an abundance of BR and a member world was looking for more of it during the MWCO panel. Maybe we could make something out of it?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
[Raises hand] Uh yeah, I was saying that...
The Sydraxians will probably get suspicious if they 'destroy' a ship that dissolves in a puff of iron filings at the first blow, and it turns out there were no bodies aboard.
If we go for this, by the way, just to clarify, IF we are using the These Old Bones canon...
The problem with the ships is massive microfracturing and embrittlement of the hull metal. If you keep a structural integrity field turned on, the ship will hold together- but only because of the SIF. As soon as that fails, I suspect the hulls would spontaneously rupture under atmospheric pressure.
If we have to not have a USS Potemkin as a ConnieBee, then I want it to be for this reason.
No, it's okay. He's already mourned those ships.
Just keep the SIF switched on. That provides most of the hull strength on a regular Trek starship anyway. The problem with them is that in long term service, they'd leak air, the machinery would start coming apart, any accident would be disproportionately likely to cause damage, simple thermal expansion or micrometeoroids would cause severe damage, and of course they'd be massively unsafe.
But for one last night at the opera? It could work.
Especially if you wrap the hull in an outermost layer of cladding or something that at least has enough structural strength to keep air pressure inside.
We could dust off the M-5 blueprints. Park them in a system with the warp coils disabled as the Sydraxians close on, remotely switch on the M-5s.
Who knows, we might accidentally the Sydraxian fleet.
Now now, there's lots of people out there who still know how to run a Connie. He just happened to be in the role of Cassandra when the rest of Starfleet was saying "just dust off the old Connie hulls!"
Probably best to wait to see what Development does. They'll be eating a lot of our political will to do it with. If we want to double down on it a year or two later, then we can.
- Location
- Austin, TX
I'd love to see a favor (pp) out of trading some bulk resources, although it would depend on the exchange rate, similar to sr.
Edit: @Simon_Jester correctly noted that we can get an Excelsior's worth of resources for 20pp, so getting 10-15pp for the br side of things is a quite fair exchange.
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Yeah, and it would be such a shame if we never grabbed them. Such a shame.
So what I'm hearing is that we want Gaeni warpdrives, since those would probably suffer spontaneous existence failure, thus leaving nothing behind to investigate?The Sydraxians will probably get suspicious if they 'destroy' a ship that dissolves in a puff of iron filings at the first blow, and it turns out there were no bodies aboard.
If we go for this, by the way, just to clarify, IF we are using the These Old Bones canon...
The problem with the ships is massive microfracturing and embrittlement of the hull metal. If you keep a structural integrity field turned on, the ship will hold together- but only because of the SIF. As soon as that fails, I suspect the hulls would spontaneously rupture under atmospheric pressure.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
"Admiral, I have a cunningly stupid plan."
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
What have I done?
What have I done?!?
<Shatner> What... Have I... Done?</Shatner>
What have I done?!?
<Shatner> What... Have I... Done?</Shatner>
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Are you kidding? 10 bulk resources for one political will would be great. We pay 20pp to get 230 bulk and 150 special resources as a routine option. Heck, 10:1 would be so disproportionately good it'd create potential for arbitrage: we could create a perpetual motion cycle by taking the resources from the Council in the snakepit, then giving them back afterwards.
I'd be happy to get something more like 30:1 on bulk resources and 20:1 on special, to tell the truth. That'd be a good exchange rate, given that we could then pay 20pp to get about 15pp worth of resources, and that perpetual motion is bad and things aren't perfectly fungible in politics.
And if you don't want to do that? Well, it just goes to show that resources aren't perfectly fungible, and that maybe sacrificing our whole resource stockpile in exchange for more pp isn't a good idea.
There will never be a less bad time to do it than now, and I do recognize the validity of "prevent the Occupation" as an argument. It may still not be the best thing to do, but it's not as bonkers a notion as it would have been to do the same thing two years ago.
That is... an entirely appropriate reaction to this plan, I fear.
I do not propose sacrificing Connies lightly, although if they have to die, dying for peace is far from the worst fate they could experience.
[SNIP BUNCH OF VERBIAGE THAT WENT INTO MY NEXT POST]
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Omake critique
nit: quite -> quiet
Er, Tales Har is a colony world. Did you mean Corlin Korielis, the Councillor of Tales Har and the Hawks party leader?
(Source)
Not strictly true. We're going to be running into various resource/crew constraints over this decade, and in any case, we generally want to keep at least one large berth open for emergency repairs.
Her name is Somo sh'Viarriq, so should be referred to as either "Somo" or "sh'Viarriq".
You mean a "councillor" - huge difference.
"Sousa"
The Miranda-A is actually a nearly ideal patrol and warship for member world fleets.
C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
Cost[60br, 45sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-1]
It's really cheap, including crew. It's geared for combat, and has enough science for standard policing inspection duties. It's slower than the Centaur-A, but for a ship primarily geared for patrolling local systems, that's fine. It'll make a decent wartime escort for main fleets (not necessarily wolf packs) for the 2310s, and unless crew requirements get revamped, may still be relevant in the 2320s.
I'd actually prefer to let member worlds design their own ships and follow their own priorities and doctrines. I'm not a fan of homogeneous Federation starships, and I think it would be wonderful if the Amarki can continue with their martial designs, and the Apiata to continue with their swarm-focused designs. And that if member worlds need ships of one type or another, they could trade ships or actual designs with each other.
Basically, I'm advocating for the MWCO to facilitate a ship and ship design cross-Federation "marketplace" that Starfleet may seed with their own ship designs, but let member worlds contribute their own ships and ship designs.
nit: quite -> quiet
Er, Tales Har is a colony world. Did you mean Corlin Korielis, the Councillor of Tales Har and the Hawks party leader?
(Source)
Not strictly true. We're going to be running into various resource/crew constraints over this decade, and in any case, we generally want to keep at least one large berth open for emergency repairs.
Her name is Somo sh'Viarriq, so should be referred to as either "Somo" or "sh'Viarriq".
You mean a "councillor" - huge difference.
"Sousa"
The Miranda-A is actually a nearly ideal patrol and warship for member world fleets.
C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
Cost[60br, 45sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-1]
It's really cheap, including crew. It's geared for combat, and has enough science for standard policing inspection duties. It's slower than the Centaur-A, but for a ship primarily geared for patrolling local systems, that's fine. It'll make a decent wartime escort for main fleets (not necessarily wolf packs) for the 2310s, and unless crew requirements get revamped, may still be relevant in the 2320s.
I'd actually prefer to let member worlds design their own ships and follow their own priorities and doctrines. I'm not a fan of homogeneous Federation starships, and I think it would be wonderful if the Amarki can continue with their martial designs, and the Apiata to continue with their swarm-focused designs. And that if member worlds need ships of one type or another, they could trade ships or actual designs with each other.
Basically, I'm advocating for the MWCO to facilitate a ship and ship design cross-Federation "marketplace" that Starfleet may seed with their own ship designs, but let member worlds contribute their own ships and ship designs.
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- Location
- Austin, TX
Fair enough. Modifying earlier post.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wait...
Are we actually considering giving the Syds some fake spaceships to blow up....?
Are we actually considering giving the Syds some fake spaceships to blow up....?
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Real spaceships, but useless ones that will probably never be truly functional again no matter what we do with them. Trouble is...
THIS USED TO BE PART OF MY PREVIOUS POST:
Honestly, there is one HUGE problem with this [sacrificial Connies] plan, though.
Sooner or later, the Sydraxians will find out. Probably sooner.
If we were Cardassians or Romulans with tight control of internal information, we could lose a couple of ships and hush it up. No one would be surprised that there wasn't massive internal news that we'd just lost a couple of Constitution-As (or Bees) on the frontier.
But in the Federation, an incident like that would make the news. We'd HAVE to publicly claim we lost the ships. Everyone in Starfleet or a Starfleet family would be panicking and wondering if their friends or loved ones had been aboard. Even if the Council (having been told about the ruse in advance) was chill about it, there'd be political pressure and problems.
So how do we get around that part? For internal purposes we could fake the crews by taking a bunch of our existing people, briefing them on the ruse, and telling them to claim they'd been aboard the Potemkin and, oh... Farragut. But the Sydraxians, who presumably DID destroy the ships, would know if survivors got away, wouldn't they? I'm not sure we could plan for that.
We'd have to somehow stage an extremely elaborate deception, for both internal and external consumption.
THIS USED TO BE PART OF MY PREVIOUS POST:
Honestly, there is one HUGE problem with this [sacrificial Connies] plan, though.
Sooner or later, the Sydraxians will find out. Probably sooner.
If we were Cardassians or Romulans with tight control of internal information, we could lose a couple of ships and hush it up. No one would be surprised that there wasn't massive internal news that we'd just lost a couple of Constitution-As (or Bees) on the frontier.
But in the Federation, an incident like that would make the news. We'd HAVE to publicly claim we lost the ships. Everyone in Starfleet or a Starfleet family would be panicking and wondering if their friends or loved ones had been aboard. Even if the Council (having been told about the ruse in advance) was chill about it, there'd be political pressure and problems.
So how do we get around that part? For internal purposes we could fake the crews by taking a bunch of our existing people, briefing them on the ruse, and telling them to claim they'd been aboard the Potemkin and, oh... Farragut. But the Sydraxians, who presumably DID destroy the ships, would know if survivors got away, wouldn't they? I'm not sure we could plan for that.
We'd have to somehow stage an extremely elaborate deception, for both internal and external consumption.
- Location
- madison
I though most other escorts were significantly better than it was as warships?
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Yeah, I think we should have the Games & Theory Division research team [Skill 3 Foreign Analysis/Offensive] work on Klingon analysis starting next year, now that we've wrapped up all the T2 Lone Ranger techs. That extra intel report is low hanging fruit.
Well we could use them to grab new ship stat lines.
This reminds me: @OneirosTheWriter, with the analysis of the Kadak-Tor, do we get the confirmed stats of the Kaldar? We're like 90% sure the stat line is C5 S3 H4 L4 P3 D5, but we don't know the resource or crew costs (latter should be greater than Jaldun's [O-3, E-4, T-3]).
I would really like a diplo push on Kadeshi.
Then there are 3 nations that are affiliates or near-affiliates of Cardassians that we can push: Dawiar, Yrillian, Bajor
And then the Gretarians which are starting to get bullied by Sydraxians.
I was planning to vote for the following for diplo pushes: Kadeshi, Dawiar, Yrillian, Gretarian
But unless I'm convinced this would be a really bad idea, I'd be amenable to swapping for: Kadeshi, Dawiar, Yrillian, Bajor
IIRC, our votes were pretty similar back then and too late for the bandwagon.
The Sydraxians will probably get suspicious if they 'destroy' a ship that dissolves in a puff of iron filings at the first blow, and it turns out there were no bodies aboard.
If we go for this, by the way, just to clarify, IF we are using the These Old Bones canon...
The problem with the ships is massive microfracturing and embrittlement of the hull metal. If you keep a structural integrity field turned on, the ship will hold together- but only because of the SIF. As soon as that fails, I suspect the hulls would spontaneously rupture under atmospheric pressure.
Right, go ahead and put a dampener on a stupidly awesome idea, why don't you
We could dust off the M-5 blueprints. Park them in a system with the warp coils disabled as the Sydraxians close on, remotely switch on the M-5s.
Who knows, we might accidentally the Sydraxian fleet.
That's the spirit!
Actually, that snakepit option cost increased to 25pp this year (2310).
And 10:1 br:pp isn't as good as the snakepit option even at 20pp. 20pp would just get us 200br, and that's about half of 230br+150sr from the snakepit option.
Er, I think you're going the wrong way with the ratios. 30:1 br:pp and 20:1 sr:pp would mean 300br and 200br for 20pp, which is better than the original 20pp snakepit option, and probably still better at its current 25pp cost.
edit: typos
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Sci-Fi - Starfleet Ship Design Bureau ("To Boldly Go...")
Check the first post of this thread, it has every known starship statline in the galaxy.
WE have no escort in a fight likely to outperform the fully refitted Miranda-A, although the Centaur-A might have a higher evasion chance in combat and thus be slightly tankier.
The Cardassians have an escort that is slightly tankier, but only slightly, compared to a Miranda-A. And the only other ships in the Miranda-A's weight class that are superior are ships with wacky stats that predate the design spreadsheet and got their stats grandfathered in (like the K'Tinga and the Romulan Bird of Prey.
All in all, the Miranda-A isn't literally the best escort in the galaxy, but it's about as good as any competitor in a fight, and it's much more economical for the homeworld fleets to build in quantity.
No, you misunderstand.
That's the rate for (hypothetically) us trading our resources for political will. The point is, we'd have to give away 300 and 200 to regain enough political will to "buy back" 230 and 150 at the next snakepit. Which is good for game balance. Because it means there's no perpetual motion machine process by which we can turn political will into resources into MORE political will. Or turn resources into will into resources and get more resources.