Archive through December 12, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 General Systems: Archive through December 12, 2005
By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 02:41 pm: Edit

I would also see a new doctrine applied to base construction. The pre-General War thinking seemed to hold that a groups of BATs supported by a Starbase can hold back any invader until reinforcements arrive. With their economies blasted, it's unlikely they can afford to rebuild their base defenses as before (I think the Feds had more bases than ships as of Turn 1 of the General War.

What kind of base building do you see after the Andro conquest?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 03:39 pm: Edit

Quote:

Trade Wars could be over exploitation of the LMC.

this is a very good idea.
This because the idea of a "Trade war" in itself is a troublesome concept. If I go raiding your shipping you will raid mine and soon you have a minor war, that could be quite big.
Or to put it another way: trade war is simply an aspect of ordinary wars.
But by Lorens idea we get out of that problem.
Good thinking Loren!

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 03:47 pm: Edit

Actually the "Trade wars" could be a conflict between the forces allready there in the MC after the succesful execution of OpU.
That way everyone fight but the battle doesn't spread to the rest of the quadrant.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Catching up on the conversation (sorry for the long post):

"About Orions. Hog heaven is right. So heavenly they went legit and stop pirating in many cases."
Loren, if I read you correctly you believe some Orions will "go legit" which I think might be the case. Some will see lucrative business opportunities that can be properly exploited through legal means. I also think there will be some Orions who will see those same lucrative business opportunities as exploitable by illicit means. That could create an interesting dynamic wherein you have Orion v. Orion battles, and the Fleet/Guard has to sail in to settle things down. Imagine that mix-up, especially if another nation becomes involved. Oh what fun . . . By the way, does anyone know if the Orion homeworlds maintain their own Police/National Guard forces?

Imagine a five-way fight: "good Orion" v. "bad Orion" v. Orion Police/Guard v. Federation v. Klingon, all fighting over either the piece of meat that fell off the truck (thanks John T. for the T&J memory) or fighting to make the peace. The "bad Orion" is trying to undercut the "good Orion" and gets caught in the act and fired on, the Federation starship happens to be in the area and flies in to make the peace because that's what they've always done, the Orion Police/Guard comes in to try to take over from the Fed because it's his job but ends up defending both Orions against the "bullying" Fed, and then the Klingon comes in to stir up the pot in order to sneak away with the piece of meat.
"The reason the neutral zone exists isn’t because some empire drew a line on a map, its because all the colony worlds in the neutral zone went independent. Left to their own devices for a generation they each built up what defenses they could. By the end of the Andro War, many of these fortifications were rather formidable."
Tos, I don't think the reason for the original Neutral Zone (i.e. the Romulan one) was because the colony worlds went independent. My understanding of the filmed background was that there was a war between Earth and the Romulans and that a cease-fire was reached and the NZ was established to maintain the cease-fire (or was there an actual treaty of peace mentioned in the episode?). That is, the NZ was created to keep the Earthers and Romulans from shooting at each other. Should either party enter into the NZ it could legally be considered an act of war. They weren't so much controlling empty space as they were enforcing a buffer (witness the asteroid listening posts that were attacked). Now the NZ set up between the Federation and the Klingons was probably more what you described. How this translates into the SFU may be beyond my experience.

I think in the end, the various nations more or less respect the areas of the former NZs but don't necessarily enforce them as NZs. There's a lot of wiggle-room there for all sorts of shennanigans in that part of space. And since they aren't "officially" recognized as NZs then the strips of space bordering those "neutral zones" might also be subject to the aforementioned shennanigans.

John T., as to one nation mounting a conquest against another, that's not really what I'm concerned about. I think the concern is that (for example) the Klingons had designs on Planet "X" in what the Federation clearly considered to be their territory, however that territory was right along the border area. They may one day decided to "do something about it" and see if the Federation is willing to defend "one little planet." It doesn't take a whole fleet to make that incursion, but it does take resources away from the Federation to stop the incursion, resources that could've been better used to rebuild the Federation and thus improve the Federation's economic and strategic posture. And what happens when you're "the only ship in the quadrant" and you have to choose between more than one local incursion?

And again this is all to say nothing of the "reconstruction" areas I suggested in my previous post, in which all sorts of things can be going on. Maybe the planets/systems in these areas have always had their own little fleet here and there (some potentially formidable on a local scale) but the General War, etc. rendered them irrelevant in the big scheme of things. Now that the major powers are broke, these smaller powers become big players in regional conflicts. You could have situations where a smallfry who respected a major nation now no longer does so and they get into a fight. What happens then? Do you conquer them, do you let them go, or do you buy them off?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Brodie,

You may be thinking too much from a god-eye perspective.

Say the Klinks have designs on Planet "X" and ONLY X.

Four points:

1. If the Klinks want X badly enough to deploy warships, there has to be a reason. X is therefore likley to be strategic to the Feds also. If it's worth taking, it's probably worth re-taking.

2. There is the idea of not wanting to appease the Klingons. It might not be the startest play to "hope the Klingons will be satisfied with X" as Europe did with Hitler before WWII.

3. How do the Feds know that the Klingons only want X? The Klingons can tell them but would they be believed? How could the Feds be sure the attack on X wasn't the spearhead of another invasion? In line with #2, even if the Klingons *are* satisfied with just X today, they may want something else tomorrow.

4. War-weariness and not wanting to re-ignite the General War. Especially after 30 years of war, the smart money says if the Klingon want X or so much as a cubic meter of "Fed Space", they're going to have to pay in blood for it.

Is X's value worth its potential as a flashpoint for GWII?


Hence a treaty that sets recognized borders and stabilizes ship-building in order to stabilize the political situation.

I do agree with you about pre-General War neutral zones. IIRC, they were imposed by the Organian Peace Treaty, presumably to create buffer zones between warring empires. Not at all because there were lots of independent worlds in there that wouldn't assiumilate.

Nor do I see too many worlds staying out from under an empire's control. Such a world would have to be successful enough to assemble sufficient defenses to make themselves not worth the trouble to capture. Not many world would be able to do that. A vast majority would go voluntarily or invioluntarily back into the fold of whatever empire got claim to their space.

Not everybody is like the Feds who might say "well golly, if you feel that way about it you can stay independent"


Joe,

The big difference between "blurring zones" and wide neutral zones is where the individual empire borders are placed. A wize NZ says there's a lot of open, unclaimed space. A blurring zone says there are lots of ties and interpenetration that make a line on a map easy to draw but much more muddied in practice.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Strategically taking systems is not so much the goal as to control provinces (sectors of space containing many systems). Controlling F&E hexes and then controlling provinces so that you have secure space in which to set up commerce and safe supply/trade routes. This is the optimum approach.

However, I can see that in the Y205 era the Empires, for various reasons of contacting colonies and getting at the best resources first, might forgo the standard practice of securing large areas of space before exploiting resources. And similar to what Supp.2 stated some colonies might not be so quick to remain loyal and may even want to maintain their independence. So there might be a meshing of lines between Empires. A system here and a system there with independent worlds scattered throughout.

It is said that many pirates went legit because it was just some much more profitable in these areas than pirating. These Neo-Corporate leaders won't be interested in aligning with any Empire if they can help it.

I can see many war devastated worlds in desperate need of help and it's the pirates that first come to the rescue... for a price. But since any price is a bargain (if intelligently administered) they would be nearly heroes if not outright so.

The Trade War could be as much between these Neo-Corporate-Colonies as they are between the Empires. Even taking a clue from the Tholians in a plethora of "Let's you and him fight" scenarios.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 05:58 pm: Edit

Quote:

I don't think the reason for the original Neutral Zone (i.e. the Romulan one) was because the colony worlds went independent.

That misses the point. We aren't discussing why the NZ was created in Y46, that is established history. We are discussing the makeup of the NZ in Y205.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 07:18 pm: Edit

From a factual sense I agree. From a practical standpoint it only matters if you get caught in another races territory.

There are, in general, three areas that interact: political; military; economic/trade. Power for any of these areas is in a real sense determined by how much money (economic points) that entity has.

Simple example. Neo-Corporate-Colonies: Operate from the economic/trade position. They influence (buy) the political with money and buy the military it's weapons.

The race that will maintain a rigid boundary would be the Tholians. The Romulans can't control large parts of their Eastern empire.

Take a look at SH24 Constabulary patrol, In S1 Y187. ISC liberated the Fornax system (hex 3413). The Feds maintained patrols in the frontier areas to prevent piracy and other race from taking over. Fornax is one hex in from the NZ. Oxvind is in 3615 just across the NZ. Gordon's planet, Morkedia III, and Debrock are in this area also. Who controls what? Did they all get together and form a trade empire? All the border BATS in this area are gone.

Call it the Formosa zone. The Feds support it because it isn't a miltary threat, don't have to patrol it, and they can trade and make money. The Romulans are incensed it is part of their sovereign territory, but they are too weak to to risk a war to take it back. So they unoffically support privateers that ambush Fed military ships, and prey on the shipping in the area. This is just a rough idea of what could be.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 07:45 pm: Edit

The wider neutral zones are not idle speculation...they are fact, at least up until Y205. The ISC invasion deliberately widened the zones to seperate the warring powers, and then the Andros further reduced everyone's territory in their invasion. The Federation, for example, was reduced to half it's former size. The questions becomes how much of their original territory everyone both wants to take back, and has the power to manage. Take the Klingons, for example. They are in pitiful economic condition, and while they may want to reclaim their old territory, they might not have the ability to do so. A former Klingon subject world "liberated" by the ISC might decide they like being independent...particularly if they are a world with something of value to trade.

Why the galactics decide to keep wider neutral zones isn't really that important...what is important is that they do, because it sets the stage for the trade wars and scads of multi-generational ship combat scenarios. The example world above might buy older ships from the Feds and Kzintis to defend their system. The Klingons could attack it with X1 or X2 ships, and the Feds might assist in defending with the same. The objective is to create a situation with lots of opportunity for fun games, and these wider neutral zones and newly independent worlds is an ideal way to achieve that.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 07:56 pm: Edit

I think it would help if we stop referring to the area between the empires as the Neutral Zone. This is a term that has a specific meaning pre-General War and its reinvention is causing confusion.

Consider the history of a low value Federation colony near the Fed-Klingon border. The colony fell in Y170 to the Klingon invasion. Was ruled from Y170-Y185 by the Klingons. The Klingon government bugged out when the ISC came. The colony sat isolated from any Empire from Y186-Y205. This formerly Federation colony hasn’t seen a Federation ship in 35 years and has been functioning independent from any Empire for 20 years.

In Y205 the Feds finally send a Frigate, announce that the colony has been liberated, and demand 35 years of back taxes. The Federation Council is still trying to decipher the colloquialism ‘bite me’.

The Klingons send a Frigate and announce that they would like to resume trade with the colony and pay a fair price for their goods. They support the colonies right to go independent and have offered as payment a squadron of slightly used D5s in addition to the spare parts necessary to get the colonies Klingon fighter, bomber and PF factories back on-line.

After 15 years of Klingon rule the colony is a hodgepodge Federation, Klingon and various subject races that have learned to work together, prosper and provide for their own defense. The colonists know that the Federation can’t and won’t protect them and no empire has the stomach to retake them by force. Do they rejoin the Federation? Do they request to become a Klingon protectorate? Or do they reach for independence? History indicates they reach for independence. It’s likely that many of their neighbors do the same.

The neutral zone isn’t drawn by negotiations, its drawn system by system. Some systems will rejoin either the founding or occupying Empire. Others will choose independence. What’s created isn’t a neutral zone, it’s a free trade zone. In the free trade zone are warships and warlords, corporations and trade cartels, colonies and colonial collectives, pirates and privateers, conflict and opportunity. A perfect SFB environment in which anything is possible.

Since we like to draw two-dimensional maps it is logical that the colonies most likely to rejoin the empire are those living closest to the center. After reuniting with these closest colonies, about one F&E hex out from the racial borders during the height of the Andro conflict, whatever is left is the free trade zone. In two dimensions this translates into very large uncontrolled regions of space now known as a free trade zone. The treaty we speak of can and should infer the right of self-determination for each colony planet.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 08:09 pm: Edit

Tos,

"colloquialism ‘bite me’". I needed a good laugh. Now just submit a scenario to SVC.

I like the way you have stated this "After reuniting with these closest colonies, about one F&E hex out from the racial borders during the height of the Andro conflict, whatever is left is the free trade zone". This sounds like it will produce a lot of fun scenarios and S8 patrol battles.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 10:33 pm: Edit

In Y205 the Feds finally send a Frigate, announce that the colony has been liberated, and demand 35 years of back taxes. The Federation Council is still trying to decipher the colloquialism ‘bite me’.

I see this as highly unlikely (and totally out of character) that the Feds would demand back taxes. The Klingons are more likely to do this but certainly not the Feds. They are the ones who would send aid first then establish trade (aid to ensure trade but also for humanitarian reasons).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 07:56 am: Edit

Quote:

Say the Klinks have designs on Planet "X" and ONLY X.

Four points:

1. If the Klinks want X badly enough to deploy warships, there has to be a reason. X is therefore likley to be strategic to the Feds also. If it's worth taking, it's probably worth re-taking.

2. There is the idea of not wanting to appease the Klingons. It might not be the startest play to "hope the Klingons will be satisfied with X" as Europe did with Hitler before WWII.

3. How do the Feds know that the Klingons only want X? The Klingons can tell them but would they be believed? How could the Feds be sure the attack on X wasn't the spearhead of another invasion? In line with #2, even if the Klingons *are* satisfied with just X today, they may want something else tomorrow.

4. War-weariness and not wanting to re-ignite the General War. Especially after 30 years of war, the smart money says if the Klingon want X or so much as a cubic meter of "Fed Space", they're going to have to pay in blood for it.

Is X's value worth its potential as a flashpoint for GWII?


Remember the Feds don't need to fight for planet X ( Is that a Duck Dodger's reference!?! ), three DWs, an FFB, a CLa+ and an NCLa+ sold real cheap will probably be all it takes to keep that planet neutral.
Unfortunately if the Feds want it also, they just made their own job much harder, especially if they managed to puchase a pair of WE+s in a stock run-out sale!


On a Different matter, I've just finished a bit-map of a Fed XCL and can't remember which J.T. to send it to.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 08:52 am: Edit

Mike,

Quote:

Why the galactics decide to keep wider neutral zones isn't really that important...what is important is that they do,


On the contrary; it's only plausible reasons that can lead a to believable history.
If we just invent things for the fun of it we end up with disneyland in space, IMHO.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 09:08 am: Edit

Carl,

We have plausible reasons. Arguing over nitpicky details isn't getting us anywhere. The focus should remain on what creates good game play...not forcing through someone's personal vision of SFB history. Those widened zones are already there, so endless debate over why, or if they should be there at all, is pointless.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 10:41 am: Edit

By the way, guys, this conversation really ought to be in the X2 timeline thread.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 12:53 pm: Edit

I've been thinking about this notion that the various major powers would sell old GW era ships to independent planets, and I'm not sure that I buy it. Most of these planets simply wouldn't have the economy or the technical infrastructure to be able to keep such a ship running. The O&M costs would be prohibitive. You might point to the National Guard ships, based on EY hulls, as a counter example. I don't think this suffices because those planets operating National Guard ships were still parts of their respective empires, and could expect assistance from the Federation/Empire/Hegemony for maintenance, training, technology refresh, etc.

I'm not saying it would never happen. But I think an independent world actually owning a GW era warship would probably be extremely rare. To the extent that Skiffs and Police Ships couldn't do the job, auxilliaries and Monitors are probably more likely than warships.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 01:46 pm: Edit

Mike, i think I must have missunderstood you.
If you mean the NZ systemm was a mess at end of the Andro war... sure.
But it won't remian that way.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Quote:

Most of these planets simply wouldn't have the economy or the technical infrastructure to be able to keep such a ship running. The O&M costs would be prohibitive.



The technology GW ships are based on is 75 years old. By Y205 the colonies have been acting as logistic networks and emergency repair centers for 35 years.

In many cases a garrison force of Frigates may have been assigned to the planet. This is a war, having a police ship and some bombers protecting your one-billion inhabitants from an Andro raid just doesn’t cut it. The colonies will have some limited way to maintain and repair non-X ships.

As to the economy, my F&E friends will have to help me out here but if the central government can maintain a fleet of several hundred ships while being reduced in size to only a few F&E hexes then it should not be a stretch for a colony planet, not directly attacked or forced to pay taxes for 20 years, to have sufficient economy to operate a squadron of D5s. What is an empire’s economy other than a collection of colonial taxes?

In my mind I have been using the example of the break up of the Soviet Union. One super-power goes bankrupt and breaks into independent nations while a single core nation, Russia, survives. Can Ukraine build an aircraft carrier? I don’t know, but with a little help they could certainly figure out how to service one. Could their economy support one? Sure, no problem. Service a Frigate? No problem. Build nuclear weapons and ICBMs? If they wanted to I’m sure they could.

Just because a break away colony/Soviet-republic has declared independence does not mean that they don’t have mutual interests and a shared history. In some cases these bonds run deep, in others less so. Both will find it mutually beneficial to remain helpful and on good terms.

Until now I have been thinking of a colony as a planet. It might be more useful to think of them as states. For example, what if we said each F&E hex or sector was a cooperative group of colonies?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 06:26 pm: Edit

Quote:

Ukraine build an aircraft carrier?


Not looking at a map at the moment so I think to myself; "isn't Ukraine landlocked?"

Some Colony worlds will band together to form unions of ecconomic and capability which helps them be more able to actually purchase a vessel.
Furthermore, if you don't sell your aging ( and that's something you want; to give them a ship with a ten year life span so that you can still invade `em in eleven years ) ship to those colonoy worlds and someone else does (Orions might even set up Legit' Maintainance & Supply Units that maintain "Non-local" weapons for plants that would otherwise be too far from an empire to get supplied parts for said weapons although the original supplier will be able to ship parts by freighter in the neutral zone (whether the nearby Empire likes this or not could also be a new scenario trigger)), then you'll have a tougher time "reintergrating" that planet into your Empire.
If you don't recognise both the need for and the right to; organised local defence (can anyone say militia???) of these newly independant worlds then the other Empires will use it as part of their advertising package to sell their left over hulls to that colony world, specifically that you are putting their lives in danger so that you can more easily "reintergrate" them.
If you do sell your ships to them and have their crews study at you accademies and have their maintance companies/divisions make purchases from ( and therefore visits to ) you then you can build up good will that might cause them to gladly reintergrate or you can gain reintergration through the treat of withdrawal of supplies and/or training.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 06:56 pm: Edit

I checked before I posted. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/ukraine_rel93.jpg

It works out reasonably well. They are not an ocean power, but do have a major port on the black sea.

Regarding ships and economics, used ships just aren't as expensive as some of you purport. The Orions could never have existed if it were otherwise and the Empires would have never been wiling to throw them away by the thousands unless the colonies they hoped to capture would more than make up for the loss.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 06:58 pm: Edit

And all the other reasons world powers sell weapons to third world powers on Earth.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 06:59 pm: Edit

Tos;

Your comment about the technology being 75 years old is part of the problem. Technology gets more expensive and difficult to maintain (frequently drastically so) as it nears the end of its service life.

Many real world military systems get retired not because they can't do the job any more but because it has become too expensive and time consuming to keep them operating. Newer weapons systems will have the big upfront procurement costs but as the technology matures the O&M costs go down, while they would be rapidly increasing if you tried to keep the older systems working. That is exactly what happened to the F-111s. By the time the last U.S. (Australia still uses them for different reasons) Varks had gone to the boneyard, it cost more in both dollars and maintenance manhours per flight hour to keep the F-111 operational than any other fighter in the USAF inventory.

You talk about these colonies having "... a squadron of D5s" but I just can't see it. Neither the ISC nor the Andromedans would have tolerated it in areas under their control. Those ships would have been destroyed. The ISC might have ignored planets with bombers and ground-based phasers since those are defensive only and don't threaten the planet's neighbors. The Andros might have ignored such a planet because they had higher priority targets elsewhere and as long as the planet had no power projection capability the Andros could attend to it later. But any real warships would have been destroyed in areas under ISC or Andro control, along with associated support capabilities.

So - to the extent that these colonies served as logistics nodes/repair centers during the GW, it was only has an appendage of the central Federation/Empire/Hegemony/whatever government, rather than an inherent capability. And any residual capability would have been destroyed by the ISC/Andros because it would indicate power projection capabilities. And once that capability is destroyed, it would not (with perhaps the occasional rare exception) be possible to re-establish it without help from aforementioned central government. Any such help would undoubtedly have strings attached and wouldn't be offered to truely neutral colonies.

That, at any rate, is how it seems to me.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 07:12 pm: Edit

Tos,

Regarding your statement about used ships not being as expensive as some of us purport, I believe that misses the point. It's not the acquisition that's expensive, it's the operations and maintenance. Many, many, manymanymanymany 3rd world nations have technologically advanced weapon systems that are worth very little in actual combat because the state in question can't keep them running, and can't train with them. Most 3rd world air forces meet this description, as do (these days) some European air forces. You could in fact count the technically proficient air forces of the world on your fingers. For most of the rest however, their F-16s/Mirages/MiG-29s are more status symbols than real weapons.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 07:27 pm: Edit

There may be some Frigates unmolested during the ISC and Andro wars, but I agree that a squadron of D5s would draw a reaction. The squadron of D5s I was referring to was sold in Y204 as war surplus to pay off the war debts of the Empire.

Look, instead of finding ways to tear apart the framework, seek ways to shape it to your liking. A trade war is history. We want to build a fun game. Forcing the empires to compete for trade with well-defended independent planets creates a historical framework for nearly any scenario. This is good.

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