Archive through January 12, 2007
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: The Magellanic Cloud:
Magellanic Proposals:
Archive through January 12, 2007
SPP,
Thank you for answering my questions.
SVC,
Thanks for the overview. This is an interesting module which C5B could have some interesting scenarios with Alpha, Magellanic, and Andro forces.
SPP and SVC,
Could the Chomak be related to the Zosmans. I don't know if either race has been developed. In Omega One: Y148 Zosmans make an improvement to their stealth field and begin a new wave of raiding and piracy.
Both races are pirates and raiders. Whatever the stealth field is could give the Chomak, with their version, the ability to hold off the Andromedan forces until the Andromedans figure out how to counter the field. During the insurgency the stealth field, with further improvements, could make the hunt for Chomak raisers difficult. The Andromedan counter to it wasn't as successful as they hoped.
This is just a rough idea and if it doesn't fit or work no problem.
The Chomak could be anything. As for what the Zosmans are, I'm not entirely sure that Bruce ever told us or sent any SSDs.
Joseph R. Carlson:
The only extant information that exists on the Zosman that I am aware of is in the background data for the Bolosco Merchant Guilds (Page #53 of the Omega #4 rulebook) which says: "The primary enemies of the Bolosco proved to be the Zosman Marauders, who constantly raided their trade routes. The two fought bitterly whenever they encountered each other, even from their very first meeting. It is suggested by some that the Zosmans (who fled to the Omega Sector from some unknown region) may have been adversaries of the Bolosco in their old home territory, but this is unconfirmed and both parties appear to have little interest in discussing the matter."
A fast glance at Omega History says that the Measrons encountered the Zosman Marauders in Y107, and with that date, I do not think it is possible to link the Zosman and the Chomak, and I do not think the published Magellanic Cloud History in Module C5 supports the concept of the Chomak being "Pirates and Raiders".
SPP,
I am in error. I confused the Jumokian history with the Chomak race. Unless the Zosman race are brachiating warm-blooded reptiles then they couldn't be related to the Jumokians either (MR6.0).
One other way to relate the Chomak and the Zosman is for both races to have originated from some common origin like in the Greater Magellanic Cloud. They have similar technology but each race developed in different direction. The Zosman as raiders in the Omega sector. The Chomak as a race near the LMC.
Joseph R. Carlson:
Not consistent with known Chomak History in Module C5. The Chomak have been in their little cubby hole since
Y-7240
That is Seven Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Years BEFORE Year Zero.
The Zosman only start making a known nuisance of themselves in Y107 (that is one hundred and seven years after Year Zero).
With Seven Thousand plus years to play with on the Chomak, there is room to do all sorts of things with them. (No decisions made on my part). One is to allow them to be essentially X-Tech (this would be the first SVC has heard of this and does not mean it has his blessing, or that I intend to actually go this way at this juncture). Could be that they have risen to technological heights, collapsed, and risen again, maybe several times. Might be that the ships they have when they are first encountered by the Andromedans are all the ships they have and can ever have, i.e., they lost the ability to build new ships.
The only things that are absolutely rock solid about the Chomak (and the Yrol Septs) is what has been printed in Module C5.
Quote: Gary: I have too many things in line ahead of Magellanic F&E to think about it now. From what I know if Magellanics, the Jindarians don't need more elaborate rules. From what I know of Omega, they're a tiny little place that isn't even on the list of things to be done soon and can pretty much be ignored. Lots of those little one-hex thingies in Omega would never be anything in omega F&E other than a "do not go here hex". Omega isn't that popular, and while we might do a single Omega F&E pack someday, I do not see it (or Magellanic F&E) having the legs to support multiple expansions like alpha-F&E does
I understand your point, since the only real standout one-hex entity I can see being asked for in an Omega supplement will be the FRA (given their unique place in Omega's history, including their patrols in Maesron space during the Superpower Wars).
Hopefully by the time an Omega Fed and Empire supplement is considered, there will be more out there to help introduce new players into the setting.
And the LMC probably needs just the one supplement anyway - which I personally would love to see added to AndroWar. But that's another story...
Quote:REPLY (by SPP): Likely it will deal with the Andromedan Conquest first, and that has to wait until the Andromedans are introduced formally (not in playtest version as they are now) into that Game Set. Until that is done, even conjecturing is a waste of effort. Once the Andromedan Conquest rules are done, that will set the stage to do early years (pre-Andromedan) operations within the cloud.
This would tie into my hopes for the eventual Andro War book for Fed and Empire, as mentioned above - if an LMC map and an Operation Unity scenario were added, it would mean that (should the room be available) the Magellanics could also be included. As you say, there would need to be rules which cover an Andromedan Conquest (placing the RTN, using it to strike enemy targets while working around the 2-DisDev limit when possible, trying to manage your resources once your opponents figure out that smashing SatBases is a good idea etc) and since such rules could in principle be designed to cover any target regions of space an Andro player is trying to hit (Alpha, Omega, the LMC... maybe even a non-historical hit on M81, if a Home Galaxy map is included in Civil Wars) the inclusion of a 'War in the Cloud' scenario would help new Andro players ready themselves for the challenge of hitting the Alpha Octant.
Quote:REPLY: Gary, I am not trying to be offensive or sarcastic, honestly. The following question is only conversational-curiousity in tone; Have you read the rules? The reason I ask is (MS1.1121) already says: "The Jindarians operate under many of the same conditions described for them in the Milky Way Galaxy in (R16.1F). The two Jindarian Caravans of the LMC never developed fighter technology, PFs, or X-ships." And (MS1.25) says "JINDARIANS: Jindarians in the LMC are under the restrictions specified in (R16.0) for their fleet deployments. See (MS1.1121) for restrictions on Jindarian technologies in the LMC." That pretty much says no fighters (hence no bombers), no carriers, no carrier escorts, no PF tenders, no PFs, no Interceptors. They are Jindarians, so they do have Warp-Augmented Rail Guns, phasers, Milky Way Galaxy Fire Control, Anti-Transporter Fields, and (however weak on their asteroid ships) Milky Way Style Shields. That does not mean that the Magallanic Ships are going to use any of that technology (they obviously did not prior to Contact with the Milky Way).
Yes, I am familiar with the rules in question - the point is that it seemed to be an interim solution for dealing with the issue of just what Magellanic Jindarian ships (rock or metal) would look like, and what they would be armed with.
Now, I don't have a copy of F1, so forgive me if the following question has already been answered there, but did the Jindarians develop phaser tech themselves, and if so for how long have they had it? (Other races in the SFU which have been around for a while, such as Omega's Loriyill, only developed phasers after capturing samples from enemy ships.)
My point is that perhaps the Jindarian caravans who decided, long ago, that they would set out for the LMC, had no phasers, and acquired (or developed) warp-tuned lasers (or perhaps Chomak Pulsars - if that race used these instead of WTLs) while in the Cloud, and perhaps have acquired other Magellanic weapons systems (such as Mass Drivers) for use on their ships.
Given that there are a number of examples of races being able to adapt different types of phaser technologies to their ships (the Drex and Iridani did it, too) it would seem unlikely that the Magellanics would have been completely unable to replicate the technology required - but if the LMC Jindarians had WTLs anyway, it would be irrelevant pre-Unity.
And when it came to the caravans throwing in their lot with the Triple Pact and Jumokian forces during the long decades of Andromedan Conquest, Jindarian ships and logistical centres which relied on Magellanic weapons and other systems would make it easier to pool the scant resources that the allied races would have to rely on out in the Fringe.
In my view (again, just my own take on things) it would fit better to have the LMC Jindarians swap their phasers for WTLs, and add to the distinctiveness of the race in that setting.
And when it comes to the role of the Chomak in the Conquest, my own thoughts are:
The Andromedans did not start building the RTN network in Alpha, Omega et al until after the Eneen and Baduvai had been conquered, and the Triple Pact remnants bottled up in the Core (which worked as a factor for both sides, as it made things easier for Andro garrisons pouncing on ships and fleets emerging from the radiation shell). According to the background in C5, the Andros did not deploy the bulk of their fleet assets to the Milky Way until after Y170, at which point there were enough forces in the Cloud to keep tabs on the Core and to hunt down the Chomak (who must have been deemed as not in a position to compromise the Andromedan hold on the Cloud).
Even so, the number of ships that would have been sent to the Galaxy would still have been not all that high, just enough to build up the RTN over th e course of 30 years or so.
But before the big push on the Milky Way took place, the Andros wanted to make sure that the Core and Chomak were out of the picture.
So, they send a Dominator or two into the Core in Y183, and so something similar to the Community two years later.
Only then, once no Magellanic race is left standing, does the galactic invasion truly begin.
Perhaps the Chomak made some difference to the overall timeline by holding out for the 13 years between Y172 and Y185 - maybe the Alphas would have been hit in Y187 instead of Y188 - but no more.
However, two provinces, plus the stockpiled EPs from the Chomak's former occupation of the northern Cloud, may not be enough to last them that long against even those relatively few Andro ships sent agaisnt them pre-Y182 (the year the Andros really started their big move against them) - that Dyson Sphere would have been an interesting place to have a last stand over...
Gary
Doing AndroWar for F&E would open the door to doing Magellanics, but we would almost certainly not include Magellanics in AndroWar. Although, we might. I'd have to actually figure out what the components cost, and (to avoid a backlash) include some non-historical rules to use the mag counters for minor powers on the main F&E map.
Gary Carney:
The Jindarians are Jindarians. The background in Module F1 establishes that they had phasers and Warp Augmented Rail Guns always, and have been in space for up to 100,000 years (longer even than the Chomak by a factor of more than 10). Given that they did not adopt disruptors or photon torpedoes or drones, I do not see the Caravans in the Cloud doing so. Given their lack of communications (no fighters or PFs), I consider it likely that they might have developed "Metal Ships" that looked different from those used in the Milky Way. But I do not see them arming themselves with Magellanic weapons, and see no reason to replicate Jindarian Asteroid Ship SSDs with Warp Augmented Lasers in place of phasers.
As to the Magellanics replicating Jindarian Phasers, we will have to agree to disagree. Nothing says that they had to do so, and they may certainly have considered their laser adequate to their needs and not pursued the idea of phasers. Nothing says they ever acquired a look at how phasers operated (just because they saw a Jindarian ship fire a phaser that does not mean that they understood just what it was).
With the exception of the Dyson sphere, your thoughts are pretty much the published history. Were you trying to make some point? I am not trying to be mean here, I am just saying that pretty much everything you wrote about the Andromedans versus the core and thhe Chomak is the published history in Module C5.
The issue I wanted to resolve had to do with your problems with the published history from C5 (which you say you would have substantially re-written had the Crawford Box Plague been in effect...).
My question is, despite the problems with the timing of events in the C5 timeline, do you still consider the layout as is to be viable?
For example, you state that the Andros would not have left the LMC unconquered before launching the galactic invasion - but would that mean you would have had both the Chomak and the Core cracked (not just contained) before the galactic RTN was established at all? Or does your point simply refer to the actual launch of the invasion, which did not take place until after both remaining LMC strongholds were dealt with?
As regards the Jindarians, I had assumed (possibly incorrectly, of course) that they would have had considerable contact with first the Jumokians, and eventually the other Magellanic remnants which fled to the Fringe, so that contact with one another's technology would be less infrequent. I'm not about to ask for Jumokians to get the option of taking Phaser-1s or railguns, but it might be possible that at least one of the two Caravans in later years decided to switch to WTLs, as a means of allowing for parts redundancy with their Magellanic allies (and perhaps managed to build metal-hull ships with the multi-layer shields and Magellanic systems, as well).
Gary
Gary Carney:
Hunh?
If I did not consider it to be viable I would have done my best not to publish it, and I am sure SVC would have backed me up.
There was nothing strategically wrong with establishing the RTN network and conducting a few probes in the Milky Way to gather intelligence on the races they would attack there while keeping their major fleet elements engaged in destroying the Cloud forces, and building up more combat power (arrivals from Andromeda) during the same period.
I fear I vehemently disagree that the Jindarians would adopt Magellanic weapons. Parts commonality with the Magellanics is irrelevant to the Jindarians. What is relevant to them is parts commonality with other caravans. Jindarians separate, and rejoin, and while governments differ, technology does not. Both Caravans would be looking to a future when they would spin off new Caravans, and both would be looking to a future when they might absorb part of one another's Caravans, or part of a the new Caravns later on.
Fair points - the Jindarians under normal circumstances would stick to their own, and rely on technologies that were transferrable between the two Caravans (or could be granted to new ones).
However, the state of the Cloud in the Andromedan era is anything but.
I had thought that perhaps the two Caravans were on opposite sides of the Cloud, and that perhaps one such Caravan had more contact with the Jumokians (or whoever) than the other, and decided to make the switch. But if both Caravans switched, they could kill two birds with one stone.
I guess we are approaching this issue from different directions - I'd see both caravans making the switch, at least during the time of the Conquest, and subsequent 'new' Caravans would have commonality both between themselves and with the pre-existing Caravans, and their Magellanic allies.
But I'm not the designer, and it's not that big a deal in any event...
Gary
I would think a Magellenic F&E module, would need to add a lot of new rules to the game. Once the Andro's crush the Magellenic powers, the normal F&E infrastructure is gone.
The former powers are going to need to have some kind of economy, or the game ends. But without the normal economic sources of planets, bases, or provinces, all of which the Andro's will destroy and or capture. The former powers will be unable to do anything.
So I think they will need to setup an underground economy, using small outposts to produce raw materials and or food. They would need to be too small for the Andro’s to either notice or bother with initially. To make it work I think they would need to have hidden records of hex location, and the Andro’s would then need a method to discover the income sources or disrupt the trade/smuggling.
The only other source of revenue I think of, for the former powers, would be trade with none space faring races, which the Andro’s would also have initially ignored as not a current threat to the conquest. They might get various materials and manpower from this source. But the Andro’s would also need a method to locate and capture/destroy these races.
Lots of new things
Gary Carney:
To be clear, what needed to be done to make it (the timeline) viable was done. Part of that was that Chomak had to fall because the Chomak were embedded in the history as having intruded, and had a presence, all through the cloud, and a demonstrated capability to intrude at will into the cloud even during the Andromedan Conquest.
If Chomak did not fall, it meant a large Andromedan force tied down watching Chomak, and periodically reinforcing that force because of the threat of the Chomak building up in their fortress.
That in turn meant repairing Desecrator #2 because the Chomak could intrude into the cloud to attack the Desecrators.
That in turn meant historically making the Andromedan Invasion Fleet Far Larger than it historically was (to conduct their actual invasion of the Milky Way while also guarding against intrusions by the Chomak), which in turn meant more Andromedan Forces available to oppose Operation Unity during its advance (the Andromedans would have drawn from the forces watching the Chomak when faced with the threat of an ongoing Alliance offensive, and those forces would not be cut off in the Milky Way as Andromedan forces were when the three offensives started).
Another option was to revise the timeline so that the Chomak NEVER, EVER come out of their Star Cluster. At which point why would anyone play them and what would be the point of publishing them? The Chomak needed to be something that you could play, not "Take two Andromedan Dominators with Satellite Ships of your choice and attacks Chomak Defenses. Roll one die:
1: All Andromedan Ships Destroyed.(Andromedan Devastating Defeat)
2: One Dominator Survives Crippled, all other Andromedan ships are Destroyed. (Andromedan Crushing Defeat)
3: Both Dominators survive Crippled, all Satellite ships destroyed. (Andromedan Brutal Defeat)
4: Both Dominators survive Crippled, half of all Satellite ships survive Crippled, other half destroyed.(Andromedan Tactical Defeat)
5: All Andromedan ships survive Crippled. (Andromedan Marginal Defeat)
6: All Andromedan ships survive but one ship (it does not matter if it is a Dominator or a satellite ship) is not crippled, the Chomak Lieutenant Junior Grade in charge of the Defenses in that sector is humiliated and sent to bed without his supper. (Tie)"
The Fall of Chomak lets the Chomak "play". Have ships, fight battles where they may win, or may lose. Participate in the game. Not squat in their fortress playing pinochle. It also means the existing Andromedan History does not have to be changed, Ken Burnside gets his destroyed Desecrator and crippled and never repaired Desecrator, the Andromedans do not have a large reserve of ships in the Cloud that can be diverted to stop Operation Unity, etc., etc., etc.
Jim Cummins:
For all practical purposes the Magellanic Races are going to be defeated. Their surviving ships are going to be eeking out an existence in the fringe. Scavenging from destroyed colonies, conducting their own "mining" operations, and every once in a while a few getting together to attack something Andromedan.
They are not going to be attacking Andromedan Battle Stations or Base Stations, they will not have that capability any more, because assembling that many ships in one spot is simply too risky.
Asteroid shipyards provided with the raw materials from salvage of old battle sites, devastated colonies, and colonies not yet found by the Andromedans, as well as what ever else the resistes can find, and ships deemed too worn down to be further repaired will be the source of repair parts. As the years pass, there will be fewer and fewer ships (despite the Jumokians showing the others how to hide, and the Jindarians helping with the supply of materials and etc.), and the ones still operting will not be 100% operational. Surrender to the Andromedans is inevitable, but unthinkable (as they have access to what happens on Andromedan occupied worlds).
Then, one day they look up and notice that they have not been dodging as many Andromedan patrols as before. They do not know why (the concept that the Andromedans were simply using the Cloud as a stepping stone/forward base to invade the Milky Way would have been unknown to them). Emboldened, they gather and attack a Satellite Base. The Andromedan response is feeble at best (the Andromedans are concentrating on trying to turn back Unity).
Take it on from there.
Basically a Federation and Empire Version of the Cloud will have to deal with "The Fall" of the Cloud. The Andromedans arrive, sperad out, conquer. It will not deal with the aftermath of Andromedan occupation. (What would be the point? Roll a die, the Andromedans found a hidden base, remove Hidden Base from map, roll another die, that many Resistance ships are crippled or destroyed?) There might be a set up that allows the Magellanics to play a role in the Arrival of Unity and the reconquest of the Cloud as a separate game. But the period of the Andromedan occupation is not going to be a game worth playing for the Magellanics.
I don't think it would be too difficult to handle the special rules for LMC F&E. I'd bet many of the required rules could also be applied to Orion Pirates as a player race.
There are already survey rules. There could be salvage rules alowable when a race in conquered. In order to use these rules you would have to use ALL your available ships, a commitment no healthy race would make for such small gains. Jindarian Trade rules could be interesting and apply to all races (with random results, possably one negative).
Going into hiding could be an option, even though F&E has no secrets. The idea is that a race with NO public infrastructure could do such a thing (like Orion Pirates). Movement would be vastly reduced for hidden units, probably one for operational movement and no stratigic movement at all.
The enemy finds you by surveying a hex. If he finds you you can do battle and/or retreat. If you adiquately retreat he won't know which surrounding hex you retreated to unless he already occupies it.
In the mean time you try to build resources for the eventuallity of Unity on turn whatever.
That could be a fun process in itself if made to be fairly fast. If the Andro player chooses not to hunt you much the turns could go by very fast (fifteen minutes each for the basic accounting?).
Plus, the forces that are out there in the Fringe do seem to help the Chomak out in the early Y180s (the Maghadim Task Force in Exile, in particular - perhaps the remnants of the force that once ocupied Sleern and couldn't make it back through the Core radiation shell after the Eneen and Baduvai fell). Having rules for those forces could help if a kill-the-Chomak (or crack the Core) scenario was written up.
Plus, there would have been new ships emerging from the Core that would have fled to the Fringe - such as the ships which survived the failed assault on the second Desecrator.
Gary
In Y185, "...the remaining Chomak ships are scattered...". It doesn't say how many remain, where they scatter to, how they do it or what happens to the home system. It's possible that they had some technology that enabled a large proportion of their population, ships and wealth to escape covertly to somewhere well out of the way (ie, some 5000+ parsecs outside the LMC).
They then spend the next 10-20 years rebuilding in time to return when the Galactics purge the Andros. This is hinted at in (or is at least consistent with) Y195-6 and Y203+.
If they had some manner of precognition technology, they might have known about the Andro invasion in Y67 and retreated for that reason, in order to prepare for a peaceful bailout. I'm envisaging a largely pacifist and isolationist society with internal political divisions (some who wanted to fight, some who wanted to save the civilians), hence the ships that remain after Y185. Or maybe they just had to fight a rearguard action to allow the evacuation.
In the seven or so thousand years the Chomak could have developed a shield technology, that as side benefit, has an anti-tractor effect. This made it harder for the Andromedans to displace the Chomak ships. Perhaps it could also make it harder for an Andromedan ship to be displaced when within 2-3 hexes of a Chomak ship.
This would make Chomak combat formation more resistant to Andromedan tactics. The special shielding is limited to SC3 and SC4 ships; doesn't work for bases or ground bases; is difficult to manufactor so ship losses are diffcult to replace. The Andromedan attrition war would deplete the Chomak ships with this type of shielding over time.
This is just a rough idea and don't know if it would work i.e. what are the interactions with other rules etc.
You know if the Chomak have been around for 7000 years they might well know what's become of the Old Kings et al. Or the origins of the Juggernauts. Stuff like that.
regards
Stacy
Hey, we should ask them. 
(seriously meant for a laugh)
Maybe the Chomak are partially noncorporial after 7000 years in space and not having built a huge galactic empire. Either that or they are REALLY slow developers.
I figure a race has two way it can expand, either outwardly or inwardly.
Maybe the Chomak were able to stand up to the Andromedans directly, face to face and neither cared to bring it to a real fight. The Chomak knowing they would lose in the long war and the Andros were not willing to make personal sacrafices.
Hence the Chomak limited involvement.
It's interesting that the mere mention of a racial name brings calls for a full racial work up. A fact I'm counting on for PDT. 
Loren Knight:
There is no "Chomak Limited Involvement". We are not issuing new rulebooks with the history changed to "The Andromedans decided to leave the Chomak alone". The rule book says the Chomak were conquered, their remaining ships scattered.
Deal with it.
I am not explaining why Ken Burnside's History made Andromedan ignoring of the Chomak impossible again.
We are not issuing a new rulebook excising references to Chomak wandering around within the Lesser Magellanic Cloud at will, and imposing their will on the Magellanic Races as they saw fit (Chomak stopping an Eneen advance).
Thank you.
The Chomak could be like Britain was to Europe for a long time. They had no interest in conquering the continent, but wanted to make sure that no one other country dominated Europe. Likewise the Chomak could be a basically non-aggressive race, but didn't want any other single race to dominate the LMC (stopping an Eneen advance), as that could be a danger to them. The policy worked well until the Andromedans showed up.
Since the Chomak are old and not like the other LMC races, their technology could be advanced and quite different from the other LMC powers. Question: do you already have Chomak SSDs and their technology decided? (Sorry if this has already been answered and I missed it.)
SPP: Silly me. I should have thought about my passing comment before posting. Appologies.
Frankly, I'm not that well read on the LMC (I have the module) and I think I should refrain from commenting here until I know better of what I speak (instead of commenting on comments).
Sorry everyone.
I can't speak for the others, but in my book you'll be forgiven once you give feedback on my LGU ideas at the PD boards... [only kidding!]
The idea that the Chomak (or at least some within their society) were attempting to ascend into Organian-like energy beings is a fascinating one - it might explain a few of the Chomak expeditions to other parts of the Cloud, to seek 'answers' or some such.
And since we know the Souldra were in the LMC at one point (according to CL35), maybe a Loriyill scout was around some time or other to stir the pot further? (The Loriyill aren't ascended beings themselves - apparently - but their 'magic' tech could be intriguing for the Chomak to consider.)
Gary