Starfleet Intelligence Report
2311.Q4
Get a report on Cardassian political in-fighting:
Cardassian political in-fighting was fierce up until the last few months. Many senior officials were purged, and a number of new personnel are in major portfolios in state, military, and Obsidian Order positions. Whether this leads to fresh thinking or inefficiency will remain to be seen; our estimation is that such periods of internal blood-letting are not uncommon and that the Cardassians have learned to become adept at hitting the ground running in new positions.
However, the level of in-fighting began to drop sharply after the Diplomatic Service began to make overtures to the Bajorans. Whether this was a coincidence and the in-fighting was dying down already at the time, or whether outreach to Bajor galvanised the Cardassian High Command is currently uncertain. The head of the Cardassian desk is of the opinion that the latter is the case. There are at least a few indications that the idea of Bajor entering Federation sphere of influence put, in her words, "a terrible shiver up the spines of the Obsidian Order." This is based on political communiques intercepted by the T'Mir, currently hiding out in the 44 Jotun system.
Cardassian Shipbuilding Report
We believe that they are currently producing:
6~7 Jaldun-class Destroyers
2~3 Escorts
2 State Freighter
3 State Cargo Ships
We double-checked to be sure but it does not appear that any Kaldar or Lorgot class starships are under construction. It is our belief that the Jalduns are currently composed as a rotating set, so that each year two are commissioned.
Romulan Shipyard Report
Romulus Fleet Yards (2x3000kt, 1x1000kt, 2x500kt)
Remus Fleet Yards (2x3000kt, 1x1000kt, 2x500kt)
Iberius Flet Yards (1x3000kt, 1x1000kt, 3x500kt)
Rator Shipyards (2x1000kt)
Terix Shipyards (2x500kt)
5 Colonial Shipyards, ea 1x500kt
Syndicate strength and how much Impact do we need?
However, we can and will see the degradation and eventually the elimination of the Syndicate as an interstellar actor of note. As they suffer impact, their overall ability to succeed in their tasks will drop, and the number of simultaneous projects they will be able to support will also reduce.
[80/200/400/800 Impact are thresholds to reduce the number of actions available to the Syndicate]
Klingon Fleet Strength Report
30~40 K'tinga-class Cruisers
50~80 Birds of Prey
12 Advanced Birds of Prey
The Relationship between the Sydraxians and the Gretarians
A less cynical person than myself might decline to point out that the Sydraxians are probably able to do this because they are most likely allies in at least some extent, and some component of the Gretarian protection fees are no doubt going to the government on Ethur II...
Report on Shield Penetration on USS S'harien, Action of 24510.0
Initial reports that this was an instance of shield burn-through were incorrect. Further investigation by the underway Intelligence team aboard the S'harien have identified that communications were made from within the ship, to the Orion Syndicate ship, identifying the precise shield modulation of the S'harien, thus allowing the proper alignment of the nadions to penetrate that shield. As a result, Petty Officer 2nd Class Lyth ch'Barrath has been taken into custody.
After further investigations, Petty Officer ch'Barrath has been transferred off the S'harien to a Starfleet Medical Facility on Thiak V for rehabilitation after it was determined this was an involuntary action brought on by conditioning.
It feels a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as it seems highly likely the Cardassians would have forcibly occupied the Bajorans sometime soonish anyway.So by pushing the Bajorans in an attempt to protect them from Cardassian occupation, we ended Cardassian political infighting and made sure they got occupied more quickly.
Nice job, us!
Definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Still. As someone pointed out, Starfleet probably needs to build some more yards that are in the "higher than 1million lower than 3" range, especially if we're going to end up having 1.5mt-ish designs running around. I don't think, at least going by the ship weights I've seen for our current crop, it's feasible to build sub-1mt berths, though the Starship Design number-crunchers are free to harrange me for being wrong here.So they have:
- 5 - 3mt
- 5 - 1mt
- 9 - 500kt
Starfleet has:
Plus of course member world shipyards, and we're building another 4 1mt berths in an auxiliary yard in Amarkia.
- 6 - 3mt
- 2 - 2.5mt
- 9 - 1mt
Going by canon, I'd bet the Klingons often do better at formation fighting, too. Those Birds of Prey are almost tailor-made for group strafing runs and the like. Yet they're strong enough to split off to do their own things, too. (They also look pretty cool, not gonna lie.)At a certain point quantity has a quality all its own. That's likely well over 200 Combat right there.
I'm not sure there was a winning or losing option here. Cardassians were already drawing the Bajorans in when we found them. We could have done nothing and the Occupation probably would have happened anyways. We may have kicked it off early -- it's currently unclear if this is Full Occupation yet or just a prelude to full Cardassian control.The Cardassians reacted utterly predictably to the Federation snuggling up to somebody on their doorstep that could offer a staging area for an invasion. If the results of our actions were desirable in your eyes, you have no reason to regret anything. If you aren't happy with the results, maybe you could consider how the Federation's actions look like from a foreign viewpoint more carefully in the future and vote accordingly.
*Shrugs* We made the call we did. Time will tell if it was the better or worse option- though in my personal opinion the early indications are that it was a mistake. My earlier equivocation about 'if you're happy fine, if not do things differently next time' wasn't entirely tongue in cheek.I'm not sure there was a winning or losing option here. Cardassians were already drawing the Bajorans in when we found them. We could have done nothing and the Occupation probably would have happened anyways. We may have kicked it off early -- it's currently unclear if this is Full Occupation yet or just a prelude to full Cardassian control.
Klingon Fleet Strength Report
30~40 K'tinga-class Cruisers
50~80 Birds of Prey
12 Advanced Birds of Prey
Okay, so:Klingon
Bird-of-Prey 2270-Now [109m 30k t]
C1 S0 H1 L1 P1 D1
Cost [5br 10sr 1 Year], Crew[O-0 E-1 T-0]
K'tinga 2270-Now [246m 500k t]
C3 S1 H6 L4 P2 D3
Cost [50br 50sr 3 Years], Crew [O-2, E-4, T-1]
Okay, so:
K'tinga: 90-120 Combat
Birds of Prey: 50-80 Combat
Advanced Birds: ???
Total: 140-200 combat + ??? (Has to be atleast 12, since the Advanced Birds of Prey will have atleast 1 Combat, so a minimum of 152).
With our current Combat being 144, the Klingon fleet at its lowest level is already stronger than Starfleet.
That seems canonically accurate. Though you also have to take into account the member fleets and that the Klingons are building up to fite the Romulans
It feels a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as it seems highly likely the Cardassians would have forcibly occupied the Bajorans sometime soonish anyway.
I don't think being stronger militarily would have particularly dissuaded the Cardassians, even if we were completely overwhelming. Unless we could credibly establish that we would absolutely come to blows over Bajor, they knew that for all our fleet power, there was pretty much zero chance we'd actually use it to intervene. Maybe they would have backed off had we integrated the Seyek and Apatia as full members, but I suspect they would have done this anyways.I didn't want to push because I was afraid of waking the Cardassians up and cutting short the time we had to settle in and build ships without seriously worrying about a war. And now that the period of internal strife is over we're back to worrying about war again. Perhaps if Rwe were stronger militarily when they eventually moved in we could have somehow made the Cardassians back off.
It's not like the Cardassians would have not noticed us cozying up to Bajor. Furthermore, even if we'd pushed Bajor to 300+ relations or whatever, the Cardassians are so close to Bajor that they could have moved into Bajoran space with an overwhelmingly powerful fleet any time they wanted. And we couldn't stop them. Then the Cardassians could either force us to attack them while their affiliates snipe at our flanks and our own pacifists question the wisdom of going to war to protect such a remote and oligarchical society... Or take over Bajor and brag about how they made us back down.It feels a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as it seems highly likely the Cardassians would have forcibly occupied the Bajorans sometime soonish anyway.
Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but the way I was reading things (as someone who thread-binged, admittedly), the goal seemed to be carefully reaching out to them without being big and loud about it?
You're pretty much right. The next design we're likely to do is the Ambassadors, which go in our three million ton explorer berths, and after that a new escort... but looking fifteen or twenty years down the road, when we're likely to start thinking about a new cruiser class to replace the Renaissance and Constitution-B, we'll want the option of making it heavier than a million tons.Definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Still. As someone pointed out, Starfleet probably needs to build some more yards that are in the "higher than 1million lower than 3" range, especially if we're going to end up having 1.5mt-ish designs running around. I don't think, at least going by the ship weights I've seen for our current crop, it's feasible to build sub-1mt berths, though the Starship Design number-crunchers are free to harrange me for being wrong here.
Here, the Klingon Birds-of-Prey are the tiny ships like the one Kirk and friends hijacked at the end of Star Trek III. So small that about half a dozen people can operate one, and very lightly armed. Their stat line consists of "all ones." Whereas a balanced modern escort tends to have a stat line more like "all threes," and a good cruiser would have stats more like "all fours" or "mix of threes and fives."Going by canon, I'd bet the Klingons often do better at formation fighting, too. Those Birds of Prey are almost tailor-made for group strafing runs and the like. Yet they're strong enough to split off to do their own things, too. (They also look pretty cool, not gonna lie.)
I will note that we have vastly superior science and presence capability, and that our good ships (explorers and the new cruisers) have superior Defense. We have the potential for higher warp-speed maneuverability in wartime, and in peacetime our ships' noncombat stats are letting us rack up huge economic and diplomatic benefits that enable us to build ships at a remarkable rate and recruit new members who will replenish our ranks even if the Klingons were to defeat us in battle.Huh am I reading that right that upper end Klingon are at around 300 combat total... which is twice starfleet.
That probably wouldn't have helped much here. The Syndicate had an agent onboard in a position to tell them the ship's shield frequency. If we kept changing it, the Syndicate would simply have adjusted accordingly. It reminds me of Generations, when the Duras sisters hacked Geordi's visor so they could see whatever he was doing, including his efforts to stop them from shooting right through the Enterprise's shields...I suspected as much. That's pretty much the only way to pull off that stunt, short of matching shield frequencies and overlapping the shields to make a gap. Time to initiate random frequency modulations, methinks.
In canon, the Cardies waited about 5-7 more years before occupying Bajor... we think. It's a bit vague. It seems likely, especially with the intel confirmation, that the Cardassians decided to move in with force to forestall us from turning Bajor into a Federation affiliate through our diplomatic charms. Therefore, by pushing Bajor diplomatically, we wound up accelerating the timeline of the Occupation by 5-7 years....have we become abuse victims of the Cardassians now? Cardassians do something shitty and we think its our fault?
How did this happen? We're the ones giving THEM black eyes all the time.
To be fair to us, if we'd done nothing, Bajor would end up occupied anyway. The Cardassians hurried up because they were worried about us stopping them- but our positive relations with Bajor at least give us some contact with their people, and we may be able to avoid the bizarre, total hands-off policy adopted by the Federation up through the 2360s of tolerating the Occupation even when actively at war with Cardassia.
Right now, that's true. But Nash is forty-one. She has, in all probability, another three decades' worth of active service left in her, maybe four.I'd rather not. She's not cut out for a job like that and would probably self-destroy in less than a year.
...Wowsers.Klingon Fleet Strength Report
30~40 K'tinga-class Cruisers
50~80 Birds of Prey
12 Advanced Birds of Prey
~3 Super Freighters
~4 Civilian Research Cruisers
~4 Hospital Ships
~7 Colony Ships
~6 Prospector ships
~8 Engineering ships
~5 Troop Transport ships
20~25 Freighters
50~70 Cargo Ships
40~50 Civilian Ships
Well, that both is and is not a relief. It would hardly surprise me if the Syndicate were once in a while able to punch through a shield to cause light hull damage. The good news is they don't have a reliable shield-piercing weapon; the bad news is that they have some method of conditioning people that reliably, well enough that it continues to work on people well after they leave the Syndicate's direct control, so that you can get them to transmit data off an Explorer Corps ship that's presumably been isolated in space for days or weeks.Report on Shield Penetration on USS S'harien, Action of 24510.0
Initial reports that this was an instance of shield burn-through were incorrect. Further investigation by the underway Intelligence team aboard the S'harien have identified that communications were made from within the ship, to the Orion Syndicate ship, identifying the precise shield modulation of the S'harien, thus allowing the proper alignment of the nadions to penetrate that shield. As a result, Petty Officer 2nd Class Lyth ch'Barrath has been taken into custody.
After further investigations, Petty Officer ch'Barrath has been transferred off the S'harien to a Starfleet Medical Facility on Thiak V for rehabilitation after it was determined this was an involuntary action brought on by conditioning.
That probably wouldn't have helped much here. The Syndicate had an agent onboard in a position to tell them the ship's shield frequency. If we kept changing it, the Syndicate would simply have adjusted accordingly. It reminds me of Generations, when the Duras sisters hacked Geordi's visor so they could see whatever he was doing, including his efforts to stop them from shooting right through the Enterprise's shields...
This sounds like it would force our ships to spend more tonnage on shield generators to achieve the same amount of protection. Two little generators are probably not as efficient as one big one. So we'd end up with a less capable ship.Should we try to modify our ships to have two layers of shields, which can be tuned to different frequencies when needed?
If we were going to be voting on that here, he'd have asked us to vote on it, so no.Do we need to include a ship in this plan to send with the Kadeshi, or will that be a separate vote later?
The problem is not the extra resources for Cardassia. Though they are resource-limited, and more resources for the Cardies almost certainly translates into more ships to shoot at us in the near future.The problem isn't that they occupied Bajor a bit earlyearly. 10 extra years of occupation doesn't make much of a difference besides giving the Cardassians some extra BR and SR to play with, but tying down extra military forces.
The problem was that we not only wasted a diplomatic push that could have been used on some other species or on another small shipyard berth, but also possibly provided the external threat that ended Cardassian Union infighting.
See, that's the thing- five years from now the Syndicate will hopefully be trimmed down pretty far. And we'd have proportionately more ships (and not so many brand-new sectors to garrison). We're turning out like 1.5 Excelsiors a year, plus about nine to sixteen cruisers plus some light escorts coming out in the next 5-6 years.Bajor was like, the perfect planet for the Cardassians to bully. We could have held off on further diplomatic pushes, and they'd be free to waltz in anyways. The only viable way to protect Bajor was to make it an affiliate, and I'm not sure that was really a possibility. I suppose we could try to go hardline now, but I suspect fighting the Syndicate and manning a new sector or two will require too many resources to allow us to commit to a standoff.
Nah, I'm much more broken up about the first two.The problem is not the extra resources for Cardassia. Though they are resource-limited, and more resources for the Cardies almost certainly translates into more ships to shoot at us in the near future.
The problem is certainly not the 10pp we spent.
No, the problem is that some ten-digit number of Bajorans are now going to have Cardassian goon squads stomping on their faces about five to ten years ahead of schedule.
All fair points. I'm hoping we can end up doing something to avoid the canon scenario, which was "about one-quarter of a step below the Holocaust, and only just barely".It's not like the Cardassians would have not noticed us cozying up to Bajor. Furthermore, even if we'd pushed Bajor to 300+ relations or whatever, the Cardassians are so close to Bajor that they could have moved into Bajoran space with an overwhelmingly powerful fleet any time they wanted. And we couldn't stop them. Then the Cardassians could either force us to attack them while their affiliates snipe at our flanks and our own pacifists question the wisdom of going to war to protect such a remote and oligarchical society... Or take over Bajor and brag about how they made us back down.
Basically, unless we were totally prepared to fight the Cardassians over Bajor, trying to push them was somewhat risky. And given how tightly our defense requirements are stretched, I don't think we're ready. Maybe if we'd let the situation develop for five more years we would be. Then again, maybe not.
.........................................
In canon, the Cardies waited about 5-7 more years before occupying Bajor... we think. It's a bit vague. It seems likely, especially with the intel confirmation, that the Cardassians decided to move in with force to forestall us from turning Bajor into a Federation affiliate through our diplomatic charms. Therefore, by pushing Bajor diplomatically, we wound up accelerating the timeline of the Occupation by 5-7 years.
This outcome was foreseen, and warned about, by quite a few people, myself included.
To be fair to us, if we'd done nothing, Bajor would end up occupied anyway. The Cardassians hurried up because they were worried about us stopping them- but our positive relations with Bajor at least give us some contact with their people, and we may be able to avoid the bizarre, total hands-off policy adopted by the Federation up through the 2360s of tolerating the Occupation even when actively at war with Cardassia.
Although I do think that this vindicates the many people (myself included) who expressed misgivings about pushing Bajor. We were hoping NOT to have this happen while we were still dealing with the Syndicate and the Sydraxians. If the Cardassians had waited another five years or so (as in canon), we'd be in a much better position to act quickly and decisively to stop them, if we had the will to do so.
Okay, so just so I'm a bit clearer, generally speaking our goal has been, is, and will be a 3-tier ship design setup (Explorer, Cruiser, Escort)? Obviously specific classes get created, refitted, and eventually phased out in stages, but broadly speaking 3 types of ships?You're pretty much right. The next design we're likely to do is the Ambassadors, which go in our three million ton explorer berths, and after that a new escort... but looking fifteen or twenty years down the road, when we're likely to start thinking about a new cruiser class to replace the Renaissance and Constitution-B, we'll want the option of making it heavier than a million tons.
Can you refresh me (as someone who archive-binged the threadmarked updates and skipped a lot of the discussion in between) what all the various ship stats are? (The Design spreadsheets make my eyes spin.)Here, the Klingon Birds-of-Prey are the tiny ships like the one Kirk and friends hijacked at the end of Star Trek III. So small that about half a dozen people can operate one, and very lightly armed. Their stat line consists of "all ones." Whereas a balanced modern escort tends to have a stat line more like "all threes," and a good cruiser would have stats more like "all fours" or "mix of threes and fives."
They're definitely an industrial powerhouse. And they're definitely not stupid in a fight.I will note that we have vastly superior science and presence capability, and that our good ships (explorers and the new cruisers) have superior Defense. We have the potential for higher warp-speed maneuverability in wartime, and in peacetime our ships' noncombat stats are letting us rack up huge economic and diplomatic benefits that enable us to build ships at a remarkable rate and recruit new members who will replenish our ranks even if the Klingons were to defeat us in battle.
So it's not a one-sided thing, though we should definitely bear in mind that the Klingon fleet is NOT to be taken lightly. Even right now, when they've had to spend the past fifteen years dealing with a massive ecological crisis on their homeworld.
No wonder they were winning in the alternate timeline resulting from 'no Narendra III.'
And for all that some like to paint them as stupid, they really aren't....Wowsers.
That is a LOT of warships. The good news is, there are 70 or so Birds-of-Prey with a statline of "all ones;" it would take about three of them to reliably beat one of our escorts- two would have to get lucky. The 35 or so K'tingas are more of a problem, since each of them is a match one-on-one for any of our older starships, though it would probably take two working in unison to handle one of our new cruisers reliably. Come to think of it, two of them could probably take one of our Excelsiors.
The advanced Bird-of-Prey is interesting; the real question is, does it have a statline more like a typical escort? Or just a slightly enhanced version of the existing Bird-of-Prey, with a statline more like a Soyuz?
I would casually estimate, with some rounding, that the total combat of the Klingon fleet as 70(1)+35(3)+12(2) = 190 or so. Impressive but not quite as terrifying as their raw fleet numbers would indicate. Although it must be remembered that K'tingas are so tough that their combat performance is a bit disproportionate to their combat score.
Also, we should probably expect the Klingons to use Swarm doctrine. They'd be idiots not to, with a fleet mix like that.
Yeah, lots of smaller berths sounds quite plausible. They're probably really good at spitting out their Birds of Prey, too. Honestly they probably tinker with designs less than Starfleet/The Federation does, as my own speculation..I would definitely like to know more about the Klingon shipyard infrastructure; they presumably have a whole lot of megaton or sub-megaton berths.
And, hm. They have a hundred ships, and about six of them are on our border. While clearly a lot of their fleet must be facing the Romulans. But it seems unlikely that they're so not-worried about us that they'd split their forces so that only 6% of the fleet faces us while 90% or more handles internal matters and the Romulans. Even we have a bit larger fraction of our overall strength facing them, although admittedly not by that great of a margin.
Speculatively, the Klingons may very well have armed borders facing off against another, unknown alien empire.
I have a valid Lion design (C4 S2 H2 L4 P1 D2, 80br/65sr/759kt/2yr, O2 E2 T2)It feels a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as it seems highly likely the Cardassians would have forcibly occupied the Bajorans sometime soonish anyway.
Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but the way I was reading things (as someone who thread-binged, admittedly), the goal seemed to be carefully reaching out to them without being big and loud about it?
Definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Still. As someone pointed out, Starfleet probably needs to build some more yards that are in the "higher than 1million lower than 3" range, especially if we're going to end up having 1.5mt-ish designs running around. I don't think, at least going by the ship weights I've seen for our current crop, it's feasible to build sub-1mt berths, though the Starship Design number-crunchers are free to harrange me for being wrong here.
Going by canon, I'd bet the Klingons often do better at formation fighting, too. Those Birds of Prey are almost tailor-made for group strafing runs and the like. Yet they're strong enough to split off to do their own things, too. (They also look pretty cool, not gonna lie.)