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	Archive through August 24, 2005	25		08/24 09:22pm
	Archive through August 27, 2005	25		08/27 03:36pm

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Um, with a multi-system empire and a vastly larger fleet prepared for the job against a war torn and half willing galaxy.

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By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Charles Gray:

You are going to have to make up your mind.

Either you have so many ships that they can be everywhere doing everything, or you have so few ships that your freighters are being shot to pieces.

If you are sending task forces as far as Kzinti and Paravian space, those are your only options.

Federation and Empire makes it quite clear what the limits on supply are. You cannot escape those limits for the Tholian EGDF (Empire Growth Disruption Fleet).

If you are going to keep the Kzintis from expanding. That means a dedicated battle group in place near the Kzinti homeworlds.

If you are going to keep the Klingons from moving out, it means a dedicated task force at the Klingon Homeworlds.

Same for the Federation.

Same for the Romulans.

Same for the Gorns.

Same for the Hydrans.

Same for the Lyrans.

Lets not forget the expanding influence of Orion merchants making a profit off your convoys if they are not defended.

You are going to be no more effective stopping all these different races from conducting commerce raids on your logistics from their home systems than any one else has been. Even if the ships are slower, the economies of the Core regions are vastly larger then what the Tholians have if they do not start forcing planets to trade only with them.

All you are doing is make sure that most of the Empires grow larger going AWAY from "Tholian Dominated Space" initially. That the Lyrans expand as much as they can into the Far Stars, the Hydrans into the Old Colonies, and the Kzintis . . . well, you cannot stop them at all on the current Fed and Empire map.

The Paravians, as noted, are going to keep trying to kill Gorns. And will be enraged with the Tholians if the Tholians make any effort to stop them.

As a Deus Ex Machina it is implausible.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 07:15 pm: Edit

As to "War Weariness" at the end of General War, I am not sure how much of that there would be.

For the Federation, Gorns, Klingons, and Lyrans, the bulk of their populations would have been unaffected by the war (the core regions of these races were never really attacked, and it is established that the Federation did not use a Draft to man its ships or fill out the ranks of its marines).

For the Hydrans . . . their homeworld has been conquered twice, and their reaction seems to have been to spoil for the next war.

For the Kzintis, their Core Worlds were devastated (although obviously not as badly as the Romulans in losing Remus, and they were never occupied like the Hydrans), but that did not stop them from fighting the WYN, the ISC, or the Andromedans. You cannot necessarily compare Kzinti (or Andorian, or Vulcan, or Tellarite, or . . .) reaction to sustained warfare to what the human reaction seems to be.

The Romulans on the other had did lose a major planet, and that doubtless had some sort of societal shock. But it did not stop them from pounding on themselves (not unlike the Russians, who were exhausted by World War I, but were quite willing and able to fight a civil war and try to convert the outcome of that war into an effort at conquest, i.e., the Soviets invaded Poland once they had defeated the Whites, but were not then organized enough to whip the Poles who gave them a staggering defeat that allowed Poland to exist as a separate state until World War II started). Ultimately, they were not any less beligerent as a result.

Historically, the Gorn homeworlds were not touched by the Romulans, the Lyran homeworlds were not touched by the Kzintis or the Hydrans.

Both the Federation and Klingons homeworlds were "raided" (the Federation by the Romulans, the Klingons by the Federation), but neither suffered any significant damage as a result.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 08:55 pm: Edit

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Both the Federation and Klingons homeworlds were "raided" (the Federation by the Romulans, the Klingons by the Federation), but neither suffered any significant damage as a result.

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By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 03:40 am: Edit

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As a Deus Ex Machina it is implausible.

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By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 08:41 am: Edit

Charles Gray:

I do not think the Tholians work because you need to establish the logistics to support their operations at such a distance from their sole source of supply, the Dyson Sphere. Once they start trying to do this, they have to maintain fleets everywhere for extended periods, otherwise other Empires rise and begin to expand and absorb the space the Tholians are trying to keep divided as buffers. As noted, eliminate the expansion of the Lyrans, and who knows what the Peladine would have become. Eliminate the expansion of the Lyrans and Kzintis, and the Carnivons become a big problem to be dealt with. Eliminate the expansion of the Gorns and Romulans, and eventually that peaceful juggernaut the ISC will encroach into the area, but be even bigger and more economically powerful. And the ISC would not likely respond well to stories from their newly assimilated Gorn and Romulan border states about the nastiness of the Tholians which would lead to the ISC building a fleet to protect itself from the Tholians deciding to knock them down.

I am not wild about the idea that I should provide you with a viable answer. It, in theory, would make me seem embedded in and thus supportive of your proposal. And I am not. My role is "honest observer". I neither support, or reject it. Neither encourage you to continue, or prevail on you to quit. I endeavor to point to the flaws and ask you to resolve them.

Sigh.

But if I had to come up with an explanation, I would tend to go with something that resolves the logistics problem and has the firepower. And then use "politics" to wrap it together.

In short, I would use the Jindarians.

Caravans generally do not operate jointly. Something keeps them divided. But what if that something was overcome. What if there were a messanic movement that started in one Caravan about 100 years before the nascent empires began to expand. In that preceding 100 years, it spread to other Caravans, leading to the desire to establish the Jindarian Kingdom? Caravans took root (more or less) around the key worlds, and the Jindarians (whose logistics are largely self-contained) maintained their hold.

Then, about 225 years after the founding, the messanic drive failed, and what ever it is that keeps the Jindarians divided again rose in ascendance, the Jindarians returned to their insular ways over the next 25-50 years. During this period, the various Empires began to reach out . . .

That off the top of my head.

But other options might involve remnants of "The Old Kings" (for another example).

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Quote from SPP:
________________________
You are going to have to make up your mind.

Either you have so many ships that they can be everywhere doing everything, or you have so few ships that your freighters are being shot to pieces.

If you are sending task forces as far as Kzinti and Paravian space, those are your only options.
--------------------------

I'm not sure that the Tholians in this alternate reality would need all that many ships to keep their logistics from being shot to bits. Their convoys will have comparable tactical and stratigic mobility to the warships of the early years fleets. If you assume that the Tholians park the Dyson Sphere in F&E hex 2916, about 8 logistics bases should be sufficient to allow for the necessary power projection. (hexes 2118, 2313, 1909 and 1406 in the west, 3513, 3805, 4110 and 4709 in the east) The prematurely independent Vudar keep the Klingons and Hydrans apart.

The Tholians now have a limited number of convoy routes to gaurd, and can keep reaction and strike forces stationed at each of the logistics bases. Any convoy detecting an approching alpha-power raiding group simply turns tail, runs, and calls for the nearest reaction group. Alternatively, the convoy just fights its way through. A force of F-AL, 3xF-AS, CPC, 2xPC is, at well over 300 BPV, more than most small EY squadrons will probably want to deal with.

The logistics bases themselves should be pretty well impregnable. Any attempt by an EY fleet to assault a 3-tier wedding cake is going to be suicidal. (I am assuming that the original author intends the Tholians to retain the ability to build "true" bases as part of their enhanced technology retention in this alternate reality.)

I do agree though that protecting the Paravians is a bit too much of a stretch, and would probably create an unreasonably long logistics tail in the east.

Cheers,
Jason

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Would they have to "protect" the paravians? The Gorn ability to interdict the Paravian homeworld is based (IMO) on the fact that they don't have any other serious tactical warp capable enemies-- thus they can afford to concentrate on offense. If instead, they have to worry about a new, dangerous enemy (and the tholians would count), mightent the redeployment of their fleet have that effect, making the Paravian's an unexpected side effect of the Tholians, rather than their intended outcome. (And I have to assume that after almost being locked in a bottle by Gorn forces, the Paravians might consider spreading out a bit.).

Another thought I had-- do the Tholians have the same ability the seltorians have to take essentially barren worlds (by Galactic standards) and turn them into the kind of resource points the Seltorians were able to?
Right now, I'm working up a matrix of ideas that could result in the large uncontrolled zones, but I won't post them until I have the idea and hte "pro and con" list as to it.

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 08:10 pm: Edit

One other thought-- what about Tholian hive ships-- or perhaps something equivelant to the Paravian Raid motherships? Certainly if the selts and Paravians could make them, the Tholian will could. If we asusme this faction can actually make warships (maybe the Dyson sphere was a sector base), then they might have those blueprints.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Much is possible if the Will plans it out. The Sphere is huge and capable of containing just about all you would want for just about anything. The given stats for a sphere are 25,000 KM with a 1000 KM thick shell. The inner area is four to five times that of an Earth sized planet. Yes, if you have a sphere you can prepare for a lot.

But that's the thing. Our Tholians didn't have time to prepare. They barely had time to get moving (a monumental task). They are not prepared for anything, have not all the things they would have like to have. They don't even have all the things they need to have. Their choices are limited to survival.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 11:47 am: Edit

Jason E. Schaff:

The last time I checked, there was nothing that said the Tholians had freighters better than the standard freighters used here.

The last time I checked, a standard small freighter had a top speed of 13, and that only if it used battery power for life support, did not operate its shields, was on passive fire control, and was not rearming its one phaser-3. This latter means it could only maintain that speed for two turns before it would have to drop to speed 12 for two turns to recharge the battery (a half point of impulse on each of two turns) while have to use power for life support (the other half point of impulse over those two turns).

Last time I checked, even an F3 or D3 was capable of maintaining a tactical speed of 17.

D4s and F4s are capable of speed 25.

Last time I checked, standard large and small freighters could not disengage by acceleration (i.e., they do NOT have the strategic mobility of the warships), which means they have to fight until the cavalry comes.

That takes you back to what I have already said.

Either there are so many Tholian warships that they are effectively everywhere, or the Tholian logistics network is going to be cut to pieces by all the enemies they are making.

You cannot have it both ways.

And you cannot simply say "Well, the Tholians only used freighters that could disengage by acceleration or were more heavily armed."

There is also the matter of the Tholian economy. The Dyson Sphere is defined as producing just twenty economic points on wartime economy, ten while economically exhausted, and if the Tholians try to build and maintain all these bases, they will ALWAYS BE ECONOMICALLY EXHAUSTED.

So you are back to their having to build an empire in order to do what Charles Gray wants. It is not just a matter of having the ships, it is having the support structure. And the Dyson Sphere by itself does not have the support structure. You have to build up the economy to support all the bases.

And down the road, all of the races that the Tholians suppressed are going to be looking for revenge and payback as their technology improves, and the Tholians technology does not.

And down the road, all of the races are likely to ally with the Seltorians when they arrive because all of them are mad at the Tholians. And all of them are going to be perfectly happy to tell any arriving Seltorians just where to find the Tholians. It would be a classic case of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Not to mention that the long term disruption of the entire sector will probably ensure that the Andromedan invasion is successful, but that is another story.

Charles Gray:

Tholian Hive ships. I do not know that they built any. At this juncture you are probably trying to convince Loren Knight to convince Steve Cole that they did as I have my doubts.

Tholians converting worlds unsuitable to galactic inhabitation into Tholian colonies. Obviously this was done to a very limited extent (the Tholians have ONE province in Fed and Empire that provides two economic points). But if the Tholians are "colonizing" more widely, then you are back to the concept of Tholian "Empire", and the Tholian encroachment is an "invasion". As the Tholians, having invested in building colonies to support their campaign of Empire Disruption would then work to keep the resources, leading inevitably to future wars.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 12:39 pm: Edit

The situation with Hive ships has been pretty fully worked out and it isn't what anyone thinks it is.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 05:33 pm: Edit

Well if you are willing to move away from the Tholians as the source of the mayhem, and don’t like Steve Petrick’s mirror universe Jindarians. You can have a new race explode on the scene into the power vacuum created by the disappearance of the progenitor races, i.e. Old Kings etc.

They would need to be a mobile race, to avoid the creation of a huge empire, living in convoys similar to Jindarians with base sized mobile Mother-ships for civilians and other ships to provide their industrial needs. The Interstellar Resource Syndicate (IRS). Have them rove the galaxy to raid worlds and harvest resources, as they grow they can spin off new Mother-ship groups like the Jindarians, but much more war-like with complete disregard to other species welfare, and to the environmental impact of their raiding. They will hit a world, ravish it and leave dead civilizations in their wake.

But since they rove in small groups they wouldn’t be powerful enough to hit the new empire’s core worlds, leaving them intact but making colonies prohibitively expensive due to increased protection required to hold off the IRS. This would create dead zones around the core worlds and require long trade routes to the other empires. An IRS convoy could have attacked the Gorn blockade in the Paravian home world and set them free before their sun was destroyed.

In the normal time line, they would have roamed space that is now claimed by the Romulans, leaving dead civilizations behind to be found by the Romulans, then at some early point while only having 1 Mother-hip, have their first contact with Jindarians, running into a large band of Jindarians (Well what would appear to be a small band of Jindarians in an asteroid field). Who destroy the IRS to the benefit of the rest of the galaxy. However in the other timeline they don’t meet up with the Jindarians, and continue to grow and become a head ache for everyone.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 05:33 pm: Edit

I didn't think the Tholians had freighters?? I thought they just used CPC's and cargo packs on standard warships. The only freighter hull we know they have is the Web Tender and it specifically states that it was a purchased Fed hull (as I recall).

Can the Tholians build any hull but the PC and it's variants and combinations? I haven't seen a scenario where they did so involving their freighters. Also the fact that no Orions plague the Holdfast leads me to believe their ships are hard to catch (i.e. CPC's)

Admittedly the Tholian Logistics network is so weak historically that perhaps they didn't build freighters due to the simplicity of the Holdfast and on a galactic scale the # of CPC's available to be produced would outstrip production.

By Seth Iniguez (Sutehk) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 05:40 pm: Edit

There are a couple odd things out there, like Tholian monitors (much better web-tender for almost the same points).

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 05:58 pm: Edit

I would suspect the Tholian Monitor was also bought from the Feds during a Klingo-Tholian 'incident' that called for a Planetary defense unit.

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 06:11 pm: Edit

One thought I had, which would avoid the problem of a race at all, was to (stealing shamelessly from James P. Hogan), have a "race" of reproducing robots move into the Alpha sector in Y80, and start interdicting intersteller commerce. They build bases and production facilities in asteroid belts, etc, and start attacks on convoys, etc. While the core areas manage to hold on, nothing else really does, reducing long range commerce to dangerous missions, and keeping many worlds localized to thier own system or a few other systems.
The Quadrant braces for the invasion....
which never comes. It turns out that these robotic ships were mainly designed to soften up a region for the true invasion by thier masters, which evidently have either lost interest, come to grief, or have discoverd that they like the region secured by Invasion Fleet #232 better. The ships aren't "Intelligent" they just did what thier programming said, secure space, and are now sitting down waiting for orders. Had they invaded during the General war, they wouldn't have even been a footnote, but in the EY period, ships armed with P-1's and drones, along with energized armor (new rule), were very, very powerful and only thier failure to follow up on thigns saved the quadrant.
Fast forward to Y170+ The various empires have been cleaning out this infestation over the last twenty or so years, opening up regions to commerce and trade. Bases and STarbases are still pretty rare, as the robots WILL concentrate on them (it's in their programming) so many worlds have little or no space infrastructure, but lots of heavy weapons and fighters on teh ground.
Of course, now that the clean up is well underway, the questoin rises as to who will enjoy the spoils.
As to the Jindarians-- I don't have the revised rules to them yet, so I can't really say-- did their background change a lot?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 06:51 pm: Edit

The Tholians had many types of utility vessels in the old galaxy and many were easy to construct. It is much easier to construct something that is NOT ever entering high warp nor meant for combat. That can weld PC together and add the needed hull plating I'm sure they could slap together a tube with warp engines and a bridge. These are vessels that you wouldn't really ever see as they only operate deep insie the Holdfast (this is speculation derived from my own logic at this point).

The question of really why there is no Orions operating in the Holdfast isn't for lack of desire. The answer came from a long discussion between SPP and I regarding how many Tholian ships I had involved in the CL28/SSJ2 story. A later discussion tied it in when SPP debunked a plan for another story with the fact that there are NO incursions over the Tholian border not met with resistance. It hit me that if the Tholians have so few ships then how do they seal their border. Can't add more units that would change the balance but and they don't need something mighty to stop ships from entering at high warp. Also long ago my sucker punch tactic was disallowed (which was to hide and hit a ship going by at high warp since ships at high warp are super vunerable). Ships at high warp NEVER approach anything when at such a speed, not even a random asteroid and certainly not another unknown ship. I put these three things together and wrote a proposal to SVC that the Tholians needed a small unit to cover their borders. It didn't need but a phaser and to be fast to force any invading unit to tactical warp. It then needs only to keep its distance until a larger force arrives. This unit was published in R8, SSD by SVC and background by me.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 09:39 pm: Edit

SPP:

Certainly, Y-era ships can run down _civillian_ frieghters without much problem, but that has absolutely no bearing upon their ability to disrupt the hypothetical Tholian _military_ resupply network. An F-AL can maintain speed 31 indefinitely, an F-AS can maintain speed 22 indefinitely, and both are allowed to disengage by acceleration. How will your hypothetical Y-era convoy raiders catch them before the local Tholian fleet detachment arrives to cook their bacon?

As for the economic burden of maintaining the logistics for the proposed empire separation: what burden? The historical Tholians maintained a network of eight bases just fine. Suggesting that adding one base base to this total (the eight listed previously plus one at the Dyson sphere) would force the Tholian economy into collapse seems a bit of a stretch. Even if you suppose a "hard" limit of eight Tholian bases, it would be possible to construct a network sufficient to cover the necessary territory. If you doubt this, I would be happy to do a more thorough supply network plot, but I probably wouldn't be able to get to it for the next week or so.

Keep in mind that, at least as I understand the author's proposal, the alternate reality Tholians are _not_ trying to conquer anything more than 1-2 provinces on the F&E map. They are merely trying to _deny_ ownership of certain areas to the various major powers.

Cheers,
Jason

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 09:52 pm: Edit

One comment on Tholian freighters: The Web Tender (R7.10) is described as being

"... initially built on hulls provided by the Federation."

Though it doesn't say so outright, I had always assumed the "initially" meant that later Web Tenders were built on Tholian-produced hulls.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 10:23 pm: Edit

Jason A. Schaff:

Military resupply for every race is based on CIVILIAN freighters. There are not very many armed freighters. Not even a purported Tholian Military force would have the numbers of Armed Freighters needed to subsist solely on them.

The Collapse is caused by the movement of the supplies FURTHER. Bases at the end of long extended tethers subject to attack from all sides (the Tether is) will not last long. The tight grouping of the Holdfast is one thing, running supplies long distances is something else. You are trying to do the Red Ball express (which itself eventually did break down simply because the trucks could not keep running at the pace and maintain operations at the end), but you are trying to do it entirely through hostile territory.

It is not going to work.

Denying ownership requires PRESENCE. They will not accomplish it by having a Destroyer pass through a hex every six months. They would have to do it by maintaining existing forces in being. Doing that will require a heavy logistics burden.

Consider that the various empires had their "Core Worlds" to expand from, but did not simply jump too and establish their border bases even though each of them had a equal to or larger than the Dyson Sphere represents by itself.

The Federation Core by itself is 51 points (about 2.5 times the Tholians).
The Klingon Core by itself is 41 points (just under double the Tholians).
The Romulan Core worlds are 26 points (about equal).
The Kzinti Core by itself is 36 points (about 1.5 times).
The Gorn core worlds are 21 points (about equal).
The Hydran Core by itself is 21 points (about equal).
The Lyran Core by itself is 30 points (about 1.5 times)

Just "denying ownership" would require a huge a fleet and large logistics burden over a very narrow front to support it.

It is one thing to build a base (before there were things like Mobile Bases) three hexes from your Capital/principle shipyard, it is quite another thing to build one 16 hexes away at the end of a long supply line.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 10:45 pm: Edit

Jason E. Schaff: The proposal was to limit all the races to their core areas. Now, this was done by the ISC sure but they had 20 years and a vast empire to support the attempt. The Andros stepped in and wiped them out.

The Tholians do not arrive all chipper and ready to conquer. They are barely hanging on in fact. They just pushed their sphere about 100 times further than any Tholian had ever considered and amazingly made it through the galactic barrier. Yes they had some ships and those were tactically superior but they could never have started this thing in the time period given. They don't know their way around, they don't have any supply system set up, no mining operations to even plant on a system to get started, no ifrastructure, no plan, no friends, no intel on what else is out there (sure they are superior to the Klingons but who else is out there that might be far superior. Everything in the Milky Way is totally forign to them. Heck, both the ISC AND the Andros had to scout ahead for decades before they could conduct their plans.

SOmething that is missed often is the fact that while movement is fairly transparent in SFB and F&E there is really quite a lot to it. Since the Empires have exsisted for quite some time and have had years and hundreds of units doing survey work all their ships have accurate star charts so movement is conducted normally. But the Tholians have none of this. All they have got is the data from their trip over here and the data on the initial surveys of the Holdfast province. If the Tholians attempted to just shoot out and start conquering and killing what ever they find they would quickly find nothing. The Tholians don't even know where the core areas are to push the races back to. The Tholians a vurtually blind to galactic terrain and events.

They would know where to find the enemy and the enemy would know all the best places to put up a defense. They know all the bad places you don't go, they know where all the nebulas, asteroid fields, black holes etc are.

I submit that the Tholians could not move at full speed to anywhere but only in retreat where they know where they've been.

The galactics have a MAJOR home field advantage.

I remind everyone here also that SVC has put down that when ships are flying at very high warp they are flying vurtually blind and must be traveling on predetermined routes (of which there are pleanty in pre-established empires)except for perhaps short distances in emergencies. The Tholians have no stratigic travel nodes and no surveys of enemy territory.

They would never make it to even begin to set up a long supply system.

The only way to for them to expand is A) expand evenly conquering territory and developing it as they grow or B) once they have a large Empire they can use tactics similar to what the ISC attempted.

Either way the other races are advancing technologicly and soon the Tholians will have nothing but powerful enemies.

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 04:19 am: Edit

I'm beginning to think the THolians are a bad idea-- I can see ways they could do what I want--if they were able to make numbers of warships, or Hive/support ships that obviated the need for a logistics net-- but then, you're talking about a pile of SSD's to make the setting work-- when the point is supposed to be the setting, not how you got there.
I.E., I think I could make it work, but if it's a choice between building a rube goldberg machine and just going back and trying something else, I'll try B. every time. The Von Nuemann machines are my current idea, with the "Great Monster migration" running second.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 06:40 am: Edit

The only way you are going to divide and maintain the peace in this way is through trade. IF the Tholains can expand betweem the races *before* those areas are occupied, they could set up a trading network that would be a very strong economic powerhouse. As the races expand, the tholians hold on to rump, isolated areas of space that have their SBs/other bases. As long as the races are freindly to the tholians (by and large), this will be fine. And if the tholian bases are centered around "hot" tholian-freindly colonies, it's not as if the other races will benefit much from taking these tremendous tholian defences out - they will benefit much more by trading.

Having established self-sufficient (at least in everything except shipbuilding) colonies at strategic points in the galaxy, each with a starting garrison of 5-10 ships, the tholians *may* be able to indulge in a little "tinkering" to maintain the balance of power without making themselves unpopular. This will mostly be by political effors, and occasionally be backed up by a reminder of what the Tholian navy is all about.

It would only take a few bits of carefully-chosen action for the tholians to maintain the status quo. And most of the supply problems will vanish if the individual colonies each have a SB and/or planet, as they will form their own supply grids. The only difficulty will be moving between Tholia and the colonies, which would only need to be a military excercise, with perhaps a few tugs carrying critical and valuable components (NO civilian convoys). Even under current F&E rules, this should not be too difficult, especially if you allow the tholians a supply cargo-pack or whatever.

The thing that makes this possible is the sheer strength of proper-tech Tholian web defences against EY ships. Entire EY navies would have severe difficulties against a Tholian SB, and they would have little reason to attack anyway.

By Tom Carroll (Sandman) on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 09:23 am: Edit

I don't understand what the big deal over this is. It's for Stellar Shadows, right. SSJ#1 says on the first page, second paragraph "...a place where nobody cared if it was impossible as long as it was fun to play." Who cares if it's impossible (like anything in real SFB is reality anyway), is it or would it be fun to play!?!?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 11:41 am: Edit

It might be possible for the Tholians to have taken a large area to begin with. They would have to have arrived with a larger fleet but I could imagin an area of up to the Orions and following the hex lines to the galactic edge which would taake the bottom of Klingon and a portion of Romulan territory.

The real world issue with this is the stuff I mentioned above but these might not have been such an issue IF the Tholians had been better prepared. If the Tholians had time or a different mission at the time when the picked up their shop and ran they might have had the proper supplies to take a larger area. A more millitary mission might have seen them equipped with construction engineers and the equipement to build additional weapons and perhaps even a shipyard. After establishing a solid but smallish empire they could start expanding into a V up the edge of Klingon and Romulan space. The great Klingo-Tholian war might have seen the Klingons the first to be pushed to their core with perhaps a bit more territory to the north. The Kzinti would then try to take advantage but the Klingons would gain Lyran assistance and the Lyran border would move up to and between them. The Lyrans and Klingons would then battle the Kzinti early and the Tholians would let them.

When the Tholians encounter the Hydrans they would fight for a time but end up leaving them alone having successfully separated them from the Klingons. The Hydrans expand backwards.

I expect that the Orions would not have mutinied but would remain a semi-independant state making their own deals with the Tholians. They might leave the Federation only to rejoin when the Tholians turn against them.

The Romulans have been slowly pushed back unable to stop the Tholians in any real way. The only reason the Tholian advance is slow is because their main attention has been else where and Romulans territory isn't all that productive (and the Romulans are less of a threat). Fighting the Tholian advance the Romulans have no time to attack the Gorns and are able to finally create their own warp engines. The great Tholian war begins and the Romulans and Federation and Orions strike straight to the middle of Tholian territory. The Lyrans and Klingons keep pressure on the North-west wile the Gorns half heartedly keep watch in the north-east with the other half of the Romulan fleets.

Paravians history has gone on as normal. The great war above starts in about Y150 so there are no Paravians left.

The great war pushes the Tholians back to about 2/3 their previous size but then the Tholians dig in hard and little advance can be made and the Galactic Allies exhaust themselves against the web. About Y170 the war ends and come about Y175 the Tholians begin advancing again, this time more capable of surounding the enemy. Each race is now fightng on it's own. First the Orions fall, then the Feds a centralized, the Romulans are as well. The Klingons are on the front line of the Lyran-Tholian war.

The Gorn take matter more seriously and make contact with a distant race they've been observing, the ISC. Gorn, Federation and Romulan represenative practically beg the ISC to assist them against the Tholian opressors. The ISC agrees if the will then be allowed to actively "Maintain the Peace" after the war. Five years later having been well prepared with all the intell the Alpha sector races could provide and a huge fleet the ISC sweeps in at maximum warp. The Second great war begins.

During this time the Seltorians arrive and first meet with the Hydrans. The Hydrans have not been conquered by the Tholians as an agreement was met early on. The Hydrans for the most part traded with the Tholians and have prospered (Tholians plan on possibly adopting the Hydrans as a most trusted race once their conquest is complete). The Hydrans quickly halt the Seltorians once they realize who they are. They are supposed to destroy them on contact but craftier minds prevail. After some consideration the Seltorians are allowed a colony between the Old Colonys space and the Lyran Far Stars. The Hydrans gain Web Breaker technology in exchange. The Seltorians build strength. The Lyrans discover the Selts and after some initial tension bring the Selts to the Tholian front when an all out attack begins and makes headway like no other time in history.

The Tholians are fighing major wars now on two fronts and the Feds have broken out to the north and now control space from the Kzintis to the Gorns. The Seltorian, Lyran and Hydrans are crushing the Tholians lines to the west. The ISC and Romulans with some Federation and Gorn support are pounding with great sacrafic on the eastern border and making slow but undenyable progress.

The Tholians are in the fight ofr their lives. Thank the stars for the Andromedans!

Not quite what the original intent was but one of many possabilities I suppose.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 05:49 pm: Edit

Quote from SPP:
________________________
Military resupply for every race is based on CIVILIAN freighters. There are not very many armed freighters.
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?!? Proving once again that you can learn something new every day. I had always thought that "normal" frieghters were pretty much exclusively civillian / commercial ships, and that armed frieghters represented the bulk of the various fleet trains. (allowing of course for CRAF-style emergency call up of commercial ships into fleet duty) If that is not the case, then I entirely agree that the proposed alternate Tholian history really can't be made to work as described.

HMM, has there ever been any official material issued regarding the organization and composition of the fleet trains for the various powers? If not, it might make a good CL item.

Cheers,
Jason

By Michael Gonzalez (Nathan_Brazil) on Thursday, December 01, 2005 - 07:04 pm: Edit

"We will never let the Seltorian Lesson happen again."

Since the goal is to achieve an alternate universe with many of the familiar elements from the standard SFB universe, how about altering some more of the initial conditions? They do not change how any SFB scenario would work, but can provide additional support for this different universe.
Since the original thread alters "history" by the Tholians making different decisions if not in their mentality to start with, can we not alter more elements? This premise is based on more energetic, supplied Tholian and less a "let's you and him fight" conservative Tholian afraid to expend resources. I assume that Tholian lifespans and intelligence are comparable to our own. Then again, Tholians with this much intiative might not have gotten in trouble in the first place back in the home galaxy.


Decades of Planning
After several initial years of paranoia about being followed, sulking, bemoaning their fate and whatnot, they might get into the mind frame of "We will never the Seltorian Lesson happen again". If not out of survival, perhaps out of sheer boredom (don't know if they hibernate or not). The Tholians have about 196 years or so to think about it how things will be different when they settle down.

Reverse Engineering and Nobody Can Be This Dumb
What if the "Decades of Planning" called for canibalizing a Neo hull it in order to learn how to make more? I have seen discussions in other boards about how technology would be difficult to reestablish, and I agree with the general premise. The one fact never discussed is time. They have almost 200 years to figure things out. The military crews on those few remaining military ships would form the core of skilled trainers and instructors for the next generation. The would know about the theory about how things worked and relate it to others. There would be a resistance to canibalize any of the remaining Neo hulls on the part Tholian military leaders. But they must so "The Seltorian Lesson" never happens again.

Resources For The Trip
You still need a manufacturing base and supplies to make ships. What resources are available in the Sphere, how much was used during the 196 year trip and how much was left? In the standard SFU, the Tholians appear to be spent after their long voyage. What if they were they had more resources stockpiled, enough to have LOTS of ships, even if it is just PC's and welded hull designs?

I cannot speak about the logistics in F&E. While I have the game, I have not played or examined it sufficiently to comment.