To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

[UberJJK]

We need to show them that if they do commit to a full-scale war then the descending cloud of Excelsiors will contain very little glory indeed.

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While these numbers are probably out of date, they are undergoing a massive shipbuilding exercise, this is what the Sydraxians had back in 2310:

Sydraxian Hierarchy Fleet Strength

The Sydraxians operate two types of ship - one is an escort called a Hasque which we consider to be broadly similar to a Centaur or Centaur-A in terms of performance. The other is a Kalindrax, which is a heavy-weight cruiser, sort of like a more well-rounded, faster Jaldun-class that masses about 1.8mt.

7~10 Hasque Escorts
2~4 Kalindrax Cruisers

17 Civilian Ships
18 Cargo Ships
8 Freighter

We would add a cautionary note that the Sydraxians have recently undertaken a large expansion of their shipbuilding infrastructure, which may see their fleet numbers increase rapidly.

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If we go with the high end of 10x Escorts and 4x Cruisers we're looking at ~30C in Escorts and another ~12C in Cruisers for a total of ~42C.

The Explorer Corps, including Odyssey as a (hopefully) Blooded ship, alone meanwhile clocks in at 38C.

Of course if we were doing such a thing I'd recommend making sure it's sufficiently awesome by sending something more like 60C worth of ships. That would probably be enough to make the point clear. Although I'm not sure we could actually spare that much firepower in the near future; it depends upon how much the waves of ConnieBees coming up helps reduce our Defense woes.

 

[Algalon]

It's not clear whether the Apiata even asked for our help, so if so, they'd be blaming us for not helping them when they launch an attack on a warship that was clearly outmatched. If that is their mindset, then integrating them into the Federation is going to be difficult if not impossible anyway, so their displeasure isn't necessarily something we should be too worried about.

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Fair enough, but they aren't the only ones with such a mindset. The Amarki also believe in eye-for-an-eye and fuck the consequences. It's election year. I don't want to give the Hawks any fuel and there's a lot of resentment for failing to address the raids during the last few years, even though it's mostly out of our hand. I also don't want to alienate the Apiata any more than necessary.

Furthermore, are you serious about criticizing McAdams for 'allowing the Jaldun to flee?' Last time I checked, we were not the Apiata Navy's pursuit cavalry. It's not our job to chase down crippled ships fleeing their forces. And even if it were, it would arguably have been counterproductive to the Apiata's actual goals if we had done so.

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Where are you reading this? Read again what you just quoted, I literally say that I'm perfectly okay with letting the Jaldun flee. It's the standing by that irks me.

When the whole thing turned out to be a deliberately planned Apiata ambush, one which as far as we can tell the Apiata didn't even ask us to participate in... McAdams declined to participate in the planned ambush. I don't see the problem.

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Knowing McAdams, I have every reason to think that her actual words were courteous, measured, and civil, because she has never been anything less in the eleven years of gameplay that we've known her. Yes, an Apiata worker had to be restrained from assaulting her- but we already know that many Apiata workers are overzealous about the privileges and safety of their queens. Remember that Apiata colony ship we had to evacuate? There were workers rioting to get spaces on the evacuation transports, not for themselves, but for their queens- queens who were not even in threatened parts of the vessel!

We can't count on Apiata workers to be neutral or reasonable parties when they perceive a slight to their queens.

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My problem is McAdams giving the Queen what she herself calls "full-blooded serve". We know that many Apiata queens are unsatisfied with our handling of the situation. If we now have Starfleet captains criticizing them in the field for what they obviously perceive as defending their interest, it's going to push more queens away from us. I can't blame McAdams for her actions, but I wished she'd held herself back and left the Council and a Tribunal to do the public complaint.

I think McAdams had some understandable anger at being tossed into the situation without warning. It's unclear from the logs to what extent the Courageous might or might not have interfered in the battle. However if they chose not to intervene without an explicit invitation from the Apiata, that too would be understandable. After all, there was clearly some plan going on here that the Courageous wasn't privy to, and intervening might only have screwed it up. As for a trash-talking an allied captain in the field, everybody involved is a big girl. A few harsh words between command-level officers aren't really a matter for an official tribunal.

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I hope so. I dearly wish for this incident to just be a thing between the participants and quickly forgotten.

 

[Briefvoice]

To that end, I propose we request from the Council permission to conduct a show-of-force operation. The Syndraxi have shown they will not fight if they do not believe there is glory to be gained. We need to show them that if they do commit to a full-scale war then the descending cloud of Excelsiors will contain very little glory indeed.

Assemble a fleet, centering on say two EC Excelsiors (any would do but the EC are the only ones that are really free most of the time) and including three or four other Starfleet ships, request member assistance from those whose colonies are at risk since free ships don't hurt, and park it in front of a Syndraxi colony for a day. Do nothing overtly threatening. Fire only if fired upon, and if they actually ask us to withdraw, do so. If they demand, well, tell them we'll leave in twenty-four hours. Vulcan officers preferable.

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Of course, if they attack and destroy/drive-off the fleet then the whole operation starts looking pretty dumb, doesn't it?

I must say, it seems like a lot of these theoretical chest-beating exercises are based on an arrogant assumption of complete superiority, that of course we could swat the Sydraxians like flies if we only wanted to. It's not so, though. They could make any victory very costly, and with sufficiently clever tactics they might be able to win a battle or two.

Fair enough, but they aren't the only ones with such a mindset. The Amarki also believe in eye-for-an-eye and fuck the consequences. It's election year. I don't want to give the Hawks any fuel and there's a lot of resentment for failing to address the raids during the last few years, even though it's mostly out of our hand. I also don't want to alienate the Apiata any more than necessary.

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I'm a little confused at how you're opposed to the idea of the Hawks winning seats, when the Hawks are most likely to authorize the sort of actions you want to take. Wouldn't the ideal outcome be that they win some seats and authorize some more aggressive actions?

 

[UberJJK]

I'm a little confused at how you're opposed to the idea of the Hawks winning seats, when the Hawks are most likely to authorize the sort of actions you want to take. Wouldn't the ideal outcome be that they win some seats and authorize some more aggressive actions?

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I suspect a number of players might have a reflexive dislike/distrust for the War Hawk faction simply because Star Trek generally portrayed them as being wrong. I know when I think of Star Trek hawks I think The Undiscovered Country and Admiral Leyton from DS9

 

[Algalon]

I'm a little confused at how you're opposed to the idea of the Hawks winning seats, when the Hawks are most likely to authorize the sort of actions you want to take. Wouldn't the ideal outcome be that they win some seats and authorize some more aggressive actions?

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I don't want for Starfleet, or any member fleet for that matter, to stage any actions like these, assuming that the Apiata truly provoked or forced the Cardassian's hands in some way as it appears to be. I'd much prefer it to be dealt in some other way.

Now would be a poor time to alienate those who wish for a stronger, more aggressive stance against Cardassian or Sydraxian raids. Elections are coming up and we are still in the middle of fighting the Syndicate. I don't want the pacifists to bleed seats to the Hawks any more than necessary. We need Stesk and his idealists to quite literally hold the other cheek and keep Cost in check.

The Amarki are up in arms due to the recent slave run and the frontier worlds in Sol aren't quite happy how we've been dealing with the Sydraxians. The Apiata are also soon going to join, provided nothing goes wrong. I don't want their councilors to go full Hawk because they feel estranged or neglected from Starfleet.

 

[Ato]

Did someone do an omake that laid out the history of this area of the galaxy, or at least the Orion Empire? I seem to remember something like that but can't find it.

 

[Night]

theoretical chest-beating exercises

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I imagine this is not familiar territory to you, but this is exactly how show-of-force works in reality. Every freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea in the last four years is based on this calculus. You don't send everything. You send a task force large enough to pose a serious challenge to whatever is local, not a doomfleet able to burn them from the skies if they have literally everything that can shoot and move available.

Because they won't. They have multiple commitments, and more than one planet to defend. If we send a force that can overwhelm their defenses at any one colony they have the option to reinforce their colonies, but that will also mean scaling back or even abandoning any notion of offensive operations against us. Or they can try to prioritize and leave some colonies under or even undefended. (This is the advantage of the attacker, and always has been; they decide where combat takes place, while the defender must disperse to cover their weaknesses.) Or they can decide that maybe this isn't working out the way they hoped and either commit to a full offensive (in which case we get a more active state of war and oh by the way we already have a fleet in the area ready to go) or they come to the table and talk it out.

You win a war by going to your enemy and removing either their means or their will to fight. We do not desire to destroy the Syndraxi's means. (For one thing it'd leave them vulnerable to Cardassian takeover.) We have to attack their will. If you have a better plan, let's hear it.

 

[pheonix89]

Of course, if they attack and destroy/drive-off the fleet then the whole operation starts looking pretty dumb, doesn't it?

I must say, it seems like a lot of these theoretical chest-beating exercises are based on an arrogant assumption of complete superiority, that of course we could swat the Sydraxians like flies if we only wanted to. It's not so, though. They could make any victory very costly, and with sufficiently clever tactics they might be able to win a battle or two.

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You do realize that Sydraxians can't actually take us, right? You do realize that to match the combat rating of two EC explorers, two Connie-Bs, a Riala and three centaur-A's the Sydraxians would have to commit more that half their fleet? To do it safely they'd have to commit everything?

Everyone is assuming total superiority because if decide we want that on a strike op, we have it and they can't do a thing about it. We can, if we so chose, hit them with 70 odd points of Combat of our own and 45+ from member fleets. If they commit literally everything they have they still get curbstomped because we just hit them with half again as much combat power and there's an exponential term favoring the larger C score in the engine. And that's deploying well less than half our forces to curbstomp them literally no matter what they do.

There are reasons why forming a strike group of Starfleet forces backed by units from the members bordering them, driving up to Kar Akar, burning away all their military/dual-use orbital infrastructure and then dictating terms is not an option at the present. They are NOT military or logistical reasons. They are political reasons. We have the military ability to just decide that the war is over, the Sydraxians lost, and not give them a vote. That it's politically non-viable to actually USE our absurd superiority like that for now doesn't mean it's arrogance to assume that we possess it.

Look at the incident that sparked this: Sydraxians had to commit something like a third of their fighting power to go after Endurance, and they ran the minute reinforcements showed up anyway.

 

[pheonix89]

I don't want for Starfleet, or any member fleet for that matter, to stage any actions like these, assuming that the Apiata truly provoked or forced the Cardassian's hands in some way as it appears to be. I'd much prefer it to be dealt in some other way.

Now would be a poor time to alienate those who wish for a stronger, more aggressive stance against Cardassian or Sydraxian raids. Elections are coming up and we are still in the middle of fighting the Syndicate. I don't want the pacifists to bleed seats to the Hawks any more than necessary. We need Stesk and his idealists to quite literally hold the other cheek and keep Cost in check.

The Amarki are up in arms due to the recent slave run and the frontier worlds in Sol aren't quite happy how we've been dealing with the Sydraxians. The Apiata are also soon going to join, provided nothing goes wrong. I don't want their councilors to go full Hawk because they feel estranged or neglected from Starfleet.

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Could you please decide if you support or oppose the hawks? You're saying you don't want to alienate them, then you condemn a sting operation?

No, the Apatia didn't do a damn thing to provoke the cardassians. Civilian/support ships operating without an escort in neutral space isn't provocation. The Jaldun saw a non combat vessel in neutral space and decided to attack it. This is generally known as piracy when done outside a state of war. Then the Jaldun ran into an EC Excelsior followed by three Stingers and had a pucker moment.

 

[Leila Hann]

Did someone do an omake that laid out the history of this area of the galaxy, or at least the Orion Empire? I seem to remember something like that but can't find it.

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There have been bits and pieces in various omakes. I'm thinking about something that ties it all together, but I don't want it to seem like I'm imposing my interpretation of the entire Boldlyverse on everyone else.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Regarding the Syndraxians:


...To that end, I propose we request from the Council permission to conduct a show-of-force operation. The Syndraxi have shown they will not fight if they do not believe there is glory to be gained. We need to show them that if they do commit to a full-scale war then the descending cloud of Excelsiors will contain very little glory indeed.

Assemble a fleet, centering on say two EC Excelsiors (any would do but the EC are the only ones that are really free most of the time) and including three or four other Starfleet ships, request member assistance from those whose colonies are at risk since free ships don't hurt, and park it in front of a Syndraxi colony for a day. Do nothing overtly threatening. Fire only if fired upon, and if they actually ask us to withdraw, do so. If they demand, well, tell them we'll leave in twenty-four hours. Vulcan officers preferable.

Demonstrate that while our patience is wearing thin, we are not going to start burning their faces off. But we are fully capable of doing so.

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Uh... problem.

You're proposing to send... let's translate the force you're describing as two Explorer Corps ships, three Constitution-Bs, and a scattering of escort-weight vessels from ourselves and the member worlds. Call it about Combat 40 or so.

Have you thought about what happens if the Sydraxians go "AT LAST, A WORTHY OPPONENT" and choose to treat that as an invasion fleet and respond by mobilizing their full forces in response?

Based on Starfleet Intelligence's best estimates as of 2310, by the time your armada shows up in Sydraxian space, they will probably have three or four (hopefully not five) heavy cruisers comparable to a Constitution-B, and anywhere from eight to twelve Hasques, which are probably 'balanced 3' escorts in the same vein as the Centaur-A or the Takaaki.

It's bad enough that if the Sydraxians react to our fleet as an invasion, or as an invitation to ritual combat, there would be a battle.

The really alarming prospect is that if we commit force on 'only' the scale you propose, there would be a battle, and the Sydraxians might win. What would we do then?

Of course if we were doing such a thing I'd recommend making sure it's sufficiently awesome by sending something more like 60C worth of ships. That would probably be enough to make the point clear. Although I'm not sure we could actually spare that much firepower in the near future; it depends upon how much the waves of ConnieBees coming up helps reduce our Defense woes.

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Mustering a Combat 60 fleet under present conditions would basically require the Council to explicitly give us permission to go to "High Alert" levels of readiness, reducing our Defense requirements so that we could draw extra ships away from various parts of Federation space. Moreover, you'd be gambling the entire Explorer Corps on the outcome of the battle. That made sense in the context of the biophage war, but it seems extremely drastic here.

I proposed something similar when dealing with the Dawiar, but in that scenario we were a LOT more confident that the Dawiar had no military technology capable of coping with our explorers, due to the fact that their overall tech base was pretty much stuck in the 22nd century. Even given Cardassian torpedoes as an equalizer, we had more cause to be confident that the Dawiar couldn't beat a massed line of explorers.

The Sydraxians... can actually do that. A big cage match between all our ships and all of theirs would be end quickly in our favor. But all of their ships versus the ships we can pry loose conveniently for an optional operation... that is not a certain proposition.

Fair enough, but they aren't the only ones with such a mindset. The Amarki also believe in eye-for-an-eye and fuck the consequences. It's election year. I don't want to give the Hawks any fuel and there's a lot of resentment for failing to address the raids during the last few years, even though it's mostly out of our hand. I also don't want to alienate the Apiata any more than necessary.

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The thing is, you're proposing to limit Hawk power in the Council by pursuing Hawk actions in Starfleet. As far as I can tell, your criticism of McAdams is that:

1) She didn't spontaneously attack the Cardassians when she saw that the Apiata were doing the same, and
2) She criticized an Apiata queen (one of many) for keeping her in the dark about an aggressive action that arguably endangered McAdams' command.

This isn't you moving to reassure voters that the Hawks aren't their only option. No, you're proposing to behave as if the Hawks already won the election, and to do what they'd ask you to do anyway.

Where are you reading this? Read again what you just quoted, I literally say that I'm perfectly okay with letting the Jaldun flee. It's the standing by that irks me.

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My apologies; I misread your post and we appear to be in agreement on that specific point.

I don't want for Starfleet, or any member fleet for that matter, to stage any actions like these, assuming that the Apiata truly provoked or forced the Cardassian's hands in some way as it appears to be. I'd much prefer it to be dealt in some other way.

Now would be a poor time to alienate those who wish for a stronger, more aggressive stance against Cardassian or Sydraxian raids. Elections are coming up and we are still in the middle of fighting the Syndicate. I don't want the pacifists to bleed seats to the Hawks any more than necessary. We need Stesk and his idealists to quite literally hold the other cheek and keep Cost in check.

The Amarki are up in arms due to the recent slave run and the frontier worlds in Sol aren't quite happy how we've been dealing with the Sydraxians. The Apiata are also soon going to join, provided nothing goes wrong. I don't want their councilors to go full Hawk because they feel estranged or neglected from Starfleet.

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Okay, but exactly how do we make you happy here?

You criticize our captains for being restrained. Or for publicly dissenting from the Apiata 'loose cannon' faction that is currently headed in the direction of unilaterally drawing us into a war with Cardassia. It's honestly not clear what you want our policy to be regarding the Sydraxians. And on the one hand you seem to be pro-Pacifist, but on the other hand you want to push harder and act more aggressively on our borders so that the Hawks "don't win," even though that is exactly the kind of policy the Hawks have been arguing for.

Could you please outline exactly:
1) What you think we should do,
2) How you think we should do it,
3) WHY you think we should do it, and
4) What you think the likely consequences of the actions you advocate would be?

If you want, you can even backdate and answer those questions in the context of the encounter between the Apiata and Courageous. It would be nice to know what you really think McAdams should have done.

 

[Iron Wolf]

@Ato the Orion sphere brief back near the start has a section on the ancient Orion history

Canon wise a guy came up with a medical treatment in the 2200's based on Orion ruins

 

[Ato]

@Ato the Orion sphere brief back near the start has a section on the ancient Orion history

Canon wise a guy came up with a medical treatment in the 2200's based on Orion ruins

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Thanks, thats what I was looking for. I'm doing a peice on the history, or at least my interpretation, of Rigel.

 

[ThoughtMaster]

… oh, I just realized something. If we assume that the Pride is moving in a straight line from their gardens to their origional homeworld, and said route passes through Earth, than it is likely that said trajectory takes them perilously close to Syndraxian space. If their goal was to destroy the greatest possible amount of tonnage of Federation and affiliate vessels, then the Pride would be a very attractive target for them. We need to deal with the Syndraxian situation rapidly else they may end up wiping out the Kaddesh people.

 

[Night]

Have you thought about what happens if the Sydraxians go "AT LAST, A WORTHY OPPONENT" and choose to treat that as an invasion fleet and respond by mobilizing their full forces in response?

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This will take them time. And we will just withdraw ahead of them and deny them a battle if it looks like they're going to have an equal force handy. What we are sending is somewhere in the range of a third of their overall fleet strength, even if we just fly by one of their colonies with that much it's a good statement. And it's unlikely they'll have a third of their fleet just lying around a colony world.

Realistically our options are "escalate war of nerves to a level that may make the Syndraxi blink" or "accept status quo ante indefinitely and hope the Syndraxi follow suit while not blowing up anything we like". Both options have risks. The difference is that the latter lets the Syndraxi define the risks, while the former lets us define the risks. Right now they have been allowed to set the tone and the pace of their little war, which is also the only way they can realistically gain from it. We have to convince them that is not going to continue if we want to resolve this without further bloodshed.

 

[AKuz]

… oh, I just realized something. If we assume that the Pride is moving in a straight line from their gardens to their origional homeworld, and said route passes through Earth, than it is likely that said trajectory takes them perilously close to Syndraxian space. If their goal was to destroy the greatest possible amount of tonnage of Federation and affiliate vessels, then the Pride would be a very attractive target for them. We need to deal with the Syndraxian situation rapidly else they may end up wiping out the Kaddesh people.

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That would be one way to get me to go from 0 to "FUCK ALL SYDRAXIANS FOREVER"

"These Fuckers just exterminated an entire race out of pure malice. Out of a brused ego. They can get fucked. I bet we can get the whole galaxy to have a hoe down on their skulls. Klingon and Romulans and all our other friends. And the Cardassians can get a face kicking too if they try to defend them."

....

I hope that doesn't happen.

 

[Briefvoice]

This is generally known as piracy when done outside a state of war. Then the Jaldun ran into an EC Excelsior followed by three Stingers and had a pucker moment.

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It's commerce raiding when done by a government. Also, the Jaldun apparently fought past the point of reason. I suspect the captain felt like she had to prove to Central Command that she hadn't retreated prematurely.

 

[Briefvoice]

… oh, I just realized something. If we assume that the Pride is moving in a straight line from their gardens to their origional homeworld, and said route passes through Earth, than it is likely that said trajectory takes them perilously close to Syndraxian space. If their goal was to destroy the greatest possible amount of tonnage of Federation and affiliate vessels, then the Pride would be a very attractive target for them. We need to deal with the Syndraxian situation rapidly else they may end up wiping out the Kaddesh people.

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You know, they aren't slavering monsters.

In fact, one detail that we've overlooked about the recent Endurance ambush. The Sydraxians actually contacted the Endurance and called for surrender rather than go in guns blazing. That is actually different from previous behavior and an encouraging sign. If they're going to start accepting surrenders rather than destroy cargo ships outright I'll be much less annoyed with them.

 

[Glassware]

You know, they aren't slavering monsters.

In fact, one detail that we've overlooked about the recent Endurance ambush. The Sydraxians actually contacted the Endurance and called for surrender rather than go in guns blazing. That is actually different from previous behavior and an encouraging sign. If they're going to start accepting surrenders rather than destroy cargo ships outright I'll be much less annoyed with them.

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Well, on the other hand they're using faked distress calls which is pretty damned horrifying. And not even their own, they're making the Gretarians do it, presumably because they don't care if rescue ships avoid Gretarian distress calls from now on...

 

[Derek58]

[Capt Chekov] Very well, I accept your surrender. Lower your shields and-

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Oh snap Chekov! Excellent burn

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

The show of force won't achieve anything. It's an expensive waste of resources that will have little effect and that cannot be sustained. I fail to see how it in any way deters or encourages the Sydraxians from just going back to raiding after it's over. Nor do they have any real incentive not to just ignore our ships. Frankly, comparing the South China Sea strategy doesn't work because the Chinese aren't actively engaged in piracy against SEA and American shipping.

The right way to do things is to up and take things from them, like the Gretarians, and force them into the open where we defeat them on our chosen battlefields. You want an insult that cannot be ignored? Take on the Gretarians as a willing protectorate. Establish well-defended colonies near their borders. Build outposts right in their face. Do "arms inspections" on their trade coming in from Cardassia. Then when you detect their response thanks to superior intelligence, mass your battle fleet.

The Sydraxians have shown that they comprehend cost. If they cared enough about face they would not have withdrawn from the ambush (or even set it in the first place). Tactics that don't work against an insurgency like the Syndicate will work against a state actor like the Sydraxians. But similarly, the show of force which might cow the Syndicate or win hearts and minds doesn't do anything up here.

 

[KnightDisciple]

*snip*
The right way to do things is to up and take things from them, like the Gretarians, and force them into the open where we defeat them on our chosen battlefields. You want an insult that cannot be ignored? Take on the Gretarians as a willing protectorate. Establish well-defended colonies near their borders. Build outposts right in their face. Do "arms inspections" on their trade coming in from Cardassia. Then when you detect their response thanks to superior intelligence, mass your battle fleet.
*snip*

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The Gretarians aren't things. They're people. If we bring the Gretarians into the fold it should be because both they and the Federation want to do so on its own merits, not to fight a proxy war of posture and politics.

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

The Gretarians aren't things. They're people. If we bring the Gretarians into the fold it should be because both they and the Federation want to do so on its own merits, not to fight a proxy war of posture and politics.

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Certainly. I've emphasized willingness in every post on the subject. But I doubt your reaction would be a typical one for a Sydraxian fleet commander, for example.

e: And to add to that, the Gretarians are already involved in a proxy war, through entirely the fault of the Sydraxians. Which is why I am suggesting intervening on their behalf (if they want such an intervention) in the first place.

 

[Night]

The right way to do things is to up and take things from them, like the Gretarians, and force them into the open where we defeat them on our chosen battlefields.

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There are rules we live under imposed by the Council. One of them is likely an escalation of force protocol. If you want to have a good argument to go in and defend the Gretarians with lethal force from a possible Syndraxi takeover, you need to have exhausted some other options first. What you propose is a good next step after a show of force operation. It is not a good first step because we have to consider our political maneuvering from both sides; not just the Syndraxi, but the Council as well.

And despite your outright dismissal, there is really no reason not to believe that they won't get the message we can scrape a third of their fleet off the kitchen sink and we don't even consider this a real war yet, so think carefully.

 

[pheonix89]

It's commerce raiding when done by a government. Also, the Jaldun apparently fought past the point of reason. I suspect the captain felt like she had to prove to Central Command that she hadn't retreated prematurely.

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Only in a state of war. There's no declared state of war.

I mean, regardless of what term you want to use the Jaldun got blow to bits because they attacked civilians in neutral space.

… oh, I just realized something. If we assume that the Pride is moving in a straight line from their gardens to their origional homeworld, and said route passes through Earth, than it is likely that said trajectory takes them perilously close to Syndraxian space. If their goal was to destroy the greatest possible amount of tonnage of Federation and affiliate vessels, then the Pride would be a very attractive target for them. We need to deal with the Syndraxian situation rapidly else they may end up wiping out the Kaddesh people.

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I'm not sure if they could actually pull that off. The mothership fleet's not remotely a soft target. I'm figuring the fleet as a whole is in the 50 combat ballpark. They'd need to throw most of their fleet at it to win, and I don't think they're remotely dumb enough to commit their fleet to a risky engagement on the far side of us for no gain. If I thought they had a decent psych profile on us I'd be certain because then they'd know that regardless of result they now have our full, undivided, hostile attention.

If they do try, that's it, though. We're declaring state of emergency and dealing with them, because they'll have attempted a genocide for no reason but pissing us off. LIke, if they try that I literally don't care if declare SoE and kick ass Sydraxian isn't an option I'll write it in. If they're so bugfuck nuts as to go for a genocide because they're butthurt we're not taking them seriously then the current Sydraxian government is too crazy to be allowed access to pocket knives much less warships.

Yeah, yeah, the feds don't usually use R2P logic, but the feds in canon never had someone attempt a genocide because the Feds were playing nice either.