Kludge is quite right. The reason the Borak never got formally submitted...lots of work still needs to be done to make them right, and I've never got to it. Even then, I might have missed something major, and the whole idea can fall on its face after a review with SPP. Its hard enough to get a ship design to pass muster and make it into a published product - a whole race is a very tall order.

My impression is SVC and SPP want things like fiction and scenarios more than anything else, and while a ship or race might work too, they are lower priority. Me, I'm not fiction writer, but if anybody out there can, I'm sure they would very much like to hear from you.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, November 22, 2007 - 10:40 pm: Edit

Heh,

For a few years now I have worked with the idea of the Early Warp Romulans. Unfortunately, I have never really been satisfied with the various results.

One would think it would be trivial. Just take a WE (and WVL, BH, and Snipe-A), "back-date" it to EY levels, and there you go. But it isn't that simple.

So, before anyone runs off and makes a brand new race with brand new weapons, keep in mind what Jeremy and I are saying. We both were working with existing technology. We were not adding any new weapons; just using existing stuff. And just that is harder than it looks.

Perhaps Jeremy and I are just idiots. Or, perhaps it really isn't that easy.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 02:10 am: Edit

Believe me adding new races and technology is even harder. Things (including working 60-70h a week) have kept me from pursuing a new race module.

I will share the best advice I was given.

Open your MRB on page one. Then go page by page working out each and every possible interaction. (then do it for Omega/LMC)

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 09:25 am: Edit

And realize that the last 2 races introduced (Jindarian and Vudar) are both broken to a greater (Jindo sit-and-spin) or lessar (Vudar ISG) degree.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 10:52 am: Edit

Thats pretty subjective Gary .... you just have to adapt to them or use them historically .... they just are broke in Campaign play

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 11:29 am: Edit

Mike, I didn't even see him ask for fiction. He said he had some well-written fiction stories that didn't need much work and some that needed a lot of work. So I have a feeling that fiction is not what would be needed to flesh out SSJ#3. He did say that if we could find big chunks of pages that don't need a lot of SPP/SVC/Playtest/Staff work, it would help make SSJ that much more plausible for 2009. So, we would probably have to look at what was in the last SSJ and see what was in there beside the fiction. Just my input.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 11:52 am: Edit

Randy,

I think you are misreading his second post. He does need fiction, and has asked for it in numerous other venues.

SSJ fiction is a very interesting beast. The primary consumer of fiction is CL. So, to be considered for SSJ, the fiction has to be interesting, well written, require little modification, BUT has to have something "wrong" with it so that it can't be used in CL.

However, your idea of looking at the previous two SSJs to see what non-fiction, non-SSD, non-rules items are used is a good one.

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 02:04 pm: Edit

I probably am misreading it Mike. His comment- John: Yes, and no. There are submissions that don't need a lot of work (some well-written fiction stories), and submissions that do need a lot of work (some badly-written fiction stories)... was probably a comment meant to apply to all the Captain's Log, not SSJ as I was reading it.

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 08:13 pm: Edit

I got an ok to ask for some help today by SVC. I need a playtest group, if possible, to look at a SSJ story I wrote and develop a scenario for it. Note that the next issue of SSJ is not even on the schedule yet, and even if it was, this fiction has not been selected to go into it. However, in keeping with our "the more we can do to help ADB out with this project, the more likely it will get done and the more they can do on their current projects" idea, this is at least a faltering step in what could be the right direction. Am I gaining any converts? ;) I also don't want to delay any playtest groups from their assigned work by ADB. That said.. if anyone is interested, let me know.

Oh yeah. The fiction is based on the material from SSJ#2 that Petrick came up with involving the alternate history GW Paravians. The scenario would be an Orion vs Paravian battle, with late arriving Feds to chase everyone away.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 10:12 pm: Edit

Randy, email inbound to the address in your profile.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 10:54 pm: Edit

I can help with that as well. E-mail in my profile.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 05:57 am: Edit

Same here. E-mail in my profile.

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 01:06 pm: Edit

All done.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 05:48 pm: Edit

Over here, Dale!

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Thanks Steve!

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 06:55 pm: Edit

OK, what I was referred here to mention was, the possibility of Y-era "Early Warp" Romulans for a SSJ article. Basically a "what if" the Gorn had not used lightning raids to wipe out the Romulan TacWarp development labs.

Has anyone done any work on this, or given it any thought?

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 07:45 pm: Edit

Well, to get this conversation going, the Romulans wouldn't have developed the Sparrowhawk/Skyhawk series of ships. The Roms designed the SP/SK series along the Klingon type of "warp bubble". Their "homegrown" type of warp bubble would have probably started along making it fit the hull of their sub-light classes and would not have resulted in the better Klingon turn modes. At best their turn modes would look like Fed ships even with newer ship designs.

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 07:52 pm: Edit

Well, I figured that having "early" Romulan Y-era warp doesn't preclude them getting "better" warp tech from the Klingons at Smarba someday.

I read the archives and saw Mike West had some ideas for speed-8 "W" ships and speed-16 "Y" ships, which sounds promising. I would imagine in this era we're talking strictly Eagles here.

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 07:59 pm: Edit

I'm also very interested in seeing General War era Carnivons, and more SSDs for GW era Paravians (expanding on what we've seen in CL 28).

By John A Schneder II (Keltner) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 08:28 pm: Edit

I'll second the GW Carnivons, along with more Paravians as well. And I think the 'non-Klingon' Romulans would be pretty slick. A whole issue of "What if this never happened..."
Possibly even ships of the Federation, assuming the Federation did not coalesce as we know it. Perhaps something from the Federation Civil War (complete with Confederation ships:-) The Fed Civil War would also give a venue for those member-race ships that fall into the conjectural category from the Y2/3 thread.

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 08:30 pm: Edit

John: I think many of the ships you're imagining for a Fed Civil War will be in Y2, based on the thread.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 09:14 pm: Edit

The Romulans wouldn't need most of the Treaty of Smarba as they would already have warp technology. Although they would probably sign the treaty anyway because of what the treaty meant: extra ships to harass/attack the Feds with. The Klingons may have emptied the Klingon mothball fleet to get them to sign however.

It might make an interesting start to the GW by having the entire Klingon MB fleet already active and in the Romulan Fleet of the West. However, in this case I think all of the KRs would be consolidated into the Fleet of the West, the "old" ships into the Fleet of the North, the new ships into the Home Fleet, and put the Patrol Detachment on the ISC border. This way, the KR fleet is closer to its spare parts and can be responsible for keeping the link open. IE: the Senate can blame the Klingon ships for not maintaining it if/when it gets cut.

And the Romulan eastern provinces would have been explored already. They might even have an Offmap Area like the other races empires. The PD may be a little small to keep an eye on the ISC border though. To fix this put the Imperial War Reserve into it and upgrade a few WEs to KEs.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 09:35 pm: Edit

For the Early Warp Romulans, you need to make a very early, very important decision: Do you want to keep Smarba or not? Once this decision is made, you can proceed from there.

If you want to keep Smarba, just make sure the warp is relatively limited. The WE maxes out pretty early, and the other classes can be limited as necessary. Maybe their warp bubble was always less stable than everyone elses? Maybe they ran into capacity and resource issues. Who knows. Just make sure their designs are limited (and not necessarily as much as I tried to in the old thread Dale mentions), and they will always have need for the Klingons' influence.

If you don't want Smarba, then the sky is the limit. Who knows what designs they would come up with then. Maybe even use it as an excuse to make TNG-ish designs and go from there. And in that case, only the W-designs need to be "eagles". You can always make the branch point with the Y-designs. Make them "super-eagles" or some such (I know more than one person has done this anyway for GW tech. Just do it with Y-tech instead.)

Or, you can always try to do *both*. While it is much harder, you could end up with a divided Romulan Empire, with the major faction using independently developed technology, while the insurgents (who conveniently happen to be right by the Tholians) end up making a Smarba-esque agreement with the Klingons.

Another, entirely different, approach is to assume that the Klingons gave them the technology to enlist their help in destroying the Tholians. The "Smarba" treaty would then occur in Y75-80, and could consist of giving the Romulans D3/F3 type ships for their upgrades, and the Romulans could then make Hawk-esque ships for their Y-series. This would mirror the "real" history, but give it an excuse to happen eight decades earlier.

Really, the options are endless. You just have to decide which way you want to go.

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 01:25 am: Edit

SVC:

How about taking one of my INSANE DESIGNS and putting it into STELLAR SHADOW JOURNAL #3 ? I could get you the "Alternate Universe History" on whatever ship you decided on.

Just a thought from this "NUTTY GORN"

"THE GODZILLAKING"

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 02:02 am: Edit

Who remembers the series where the actor who once played as the lead in the maverick (the original series) as a western gambler. In this series, he was a P.I.
Truly, this is related to the topic here.