You mean Rockford Files?

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 11:34 am: Edit

We're going to make an SSD for Jim Garner? What's his BPV?
regards
Stacy

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 03:43 pm: Edit

For stellar shadows #2, I had proposed a manuever which I had called the Rockford Manuever where if you paid for a HET and rolled your BD rating, you can pivot your ship 180 degrees and continue in the same direction.
Effectively, you're ship pivots within your own warp field.
SVC had mentioned (long ago) that it was under consideration for SSJ2 but he didn't feel the use of the name was a good idea.
Just throwing this out for SSJ3.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 03:47 pm: Edit

The Rockford thing is called The Rockford Slide. It's been a long time since I've done one; a long time since I've been in a car that was appropreate for it (I wouldn't do that in someone elses car).

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 04:00 pm: Edit

I think the manuver is called either as "Bootlegger 180" or "Bootlegger Reverse".

Remembering a discussion from way back with a friend who used to teach aggresive(defensive?) driving tactics for a goverment agencies.


B^)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 04:35 pm: Edit

George... well, yeah, for those really old timers it's called that.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 04:47 pm: Edit

Actually anyone who ever played "Car Wars" calls it that. Although if memory serves me correctly there was a HIGH probability of blow outs if you did it...
regards
Stacy

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 05:19 pm: Edit

I never had a blow out doing it.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 05:32 pm: Edit

I never needed to do one.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 06:10 pm: Edit

It's fun. I never NEEDED to do one but I can if I do.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 07:13 pm: Edit

I participated in a regular (read as bi-weekly) Car Wars campaign that lasted from 1982 through 1985 and I can't every recall seeing anyone successfully pull off a "Boot-legger Reverse" at any speed greater than 25 or 30 miles an hour.
Any faster, and they ended up rolling multiple times, usually accompanied by fire, and smoke, and death!!!!

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Death can ruin your whole day.
regards
Stacy

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Regarding my proposal (which I no longer have in written form so therefore would need to recreate from scratch), I was wondering, SVC or SPP, if you still have it under a file or had it been rejected?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 12:10 am: Edit

Yikes, I would never try it faster than 25; 30 would be absolute top end and I don't think I'd do it. It's not a high speed maneuver since you are going from reverse to forward (or vice versa... which I've never done).

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 08:13 am: Edit

Guys, can we take the Car Wars and Bootlegger Reverse discussion to a more appropriate topic?

Thanks.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 11:46 am: Edit

Romulan Warp, some observations.

If the Romulans developed warp independently, you are going to have take a serious look at the history. THIS DOES NOT KILL THE CONCEPT (emphasis), but it does mean that it is not a simple thing.

We already know the Klingons attacked the Romulans before the Tholians showed up. If this event remains (and it would require messing with a lot of other things to prevent it), and the Romulans had warp capability, then the Romulans would likely have a good enough record to know it was the Klingons and not the Tholians.

It would be entirely possible that the Tholians arrived in the middle of a Klingon Romulan War.

To avoid that, you might want the date of Romulan warp to be after the Arrival of the Tholians.

Warp capable Romulans would probably NOT have developed the cloaking device. The problem is that it took a long time to get the cloak right, and the money and resources that went into that were there because the Romulans did not have warp. Give them warp, and the probable result is no cloak.

I would imagine that the Romulan ships would look largely like the ones they have now, except that there would be no armor. That might give up the ability to land on planets. The ships would have roughly the same outlines, but would have more internals. The Romulan Eagle Class of the General War would be the Romulan "National Guard", except that no "King Eagles" would be developed. (There would be a command cruiser version of the War Eagle, but it would not have 15 box warp engines.)

While it is easy to imagine the Romulans involved in internal conflicts, the fact is that Civil War within the Empire was not common. More assassination and raids rather than open conflict. No one house was ever allowed to gain enough power to move on the Emperor, and no alliance of houses to displace the Emperor was ever formed (sub-houses tended to look to their own self-interest making keeping such an Alliance secret a near, and thus an effective, impossibility). This does not definitively mean that a civil war could not be part of such an alternate Romulan history, but it is less likely.

You would need to take into account the larger dynamics of the situation. (It is not just the Klingons).

Does a warp capable Romulan fleet show up in time to draw off enough Gorn military might that they fail to blockade the Paravians? If there are Paravian ships on the loose when the Sun Snake strikes, what happens to them? Would any of them reach and join the Romulans?

Would the Romulans, in their search for resources, encounter the ISC sooner? What would be the effects of a Romulan-ISC war unknown to the Gorns? A Romulan Star Empire that managed to conquer the ISC would be immensely powerful.

Or would the Romulans forgo expansion into the nether regions in seach of "new enemies" to concentrate on their existing ones?

There is an entire alternate history to be written with many things to consider. Key incidents that do occur (the Tholians are going to arrive) and other incidents that might not (the total extermination of the Paravians). Smarba might never occur because the Romulans are still mad at the Klingons, because it just happens that the Romulan House that was most affected by the Klingon incursion is now the dominant House when the Klingons offer the Alliance.

Ultimately, whatever was done would need to be balanced very carefully to result in a good history that works.

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 01:16 pm: Edit

You need to do this SPP... the alternate history you wrote for the Paravians in SJ#2 was excellent reading.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 02:35 pm: Edit

On the balance issue, one of the big things that would have to be done is tone down the Pl-Rs. Having warp capable YWEs and YVLs running around, even at speed 16, with Pl-Rs will serious unbalance things from the start. They will likely need to have another step of development involved, or something. Otherwise the Federation is going to have some *serious* problems.

As for the alternate history, I suggest trying to keep it close to "known" history. This can be done by modifying the Romulans as necessary to get the desired power balance. Otherwise it is not just the Romulans that change, but the entire Alpha Sector history.

That all said, while it is not necessarily an easy job, I would like to see it done. I think it would be a fun alternative to have *balanced* warp capable Romulan forces to play with in the Early Years.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Mike West:

That is a significant problem that is not given of a simple answer because the plasma-R is integral to the War Eagle. It makes it virtually impossible to remove it from Romulan history short of deleting all plasmas. There is simply no way they would have improved the plasma-F and plasma-G and not applied that improvement to the plasma-R. If plasma-Fs are no longer limited to bolts, than neither are plasma-Rs.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Mike West. Would replacing Plas-R with Plas-S solve that issue (and yes, I understand this changes the development date of the plas-S)?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Andy, that is the direction I was leaning in.

My explanation is this. We already know that a Pl-R can be downgraded to a Pl-S, even in the Early Years. This means that the Pl-S was always known. Rather, the problem was that they had no way to arm it in a Pl-G launcher; it could only be armed in a Pl-R launcher.

Put another way, Romulans have three sized launchers:
- Large (fires Pl-R and Pl-S)
- Medium (fires Pl-G)
- Small (fires Pl-F)

The idea to to change history to say that the Romulans don't learn how to fire Pl-R from the Large launchers until Y130-ish, but can only fire Pl-S.

Again, please note that this does NOT give the Romulans Pl-S early. The Pl-S capabilities are already there. Instead, it leaves the existing Pl-S alone, and only takes away the ability to fire Pl-R.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 05:07 pm: Edit

A completely different approach to Early Warp Romulans is to do exactly that: take away plasma.

The idea here is that the Tholians arrive a short bit later (or the Klingons attack slightly earlier). Either way, the Klingons launch their war and and make steady gains. However, the Tholians arrive and cut off their supply lines and major "linking" bases. This leaves the Klingon expeditionary forces exposed and vulnerable. The Romulans are able to capture a base and an example ship or two (like an F3 and E0 or something), gaining access to Klingon technology.

Since this is pre-Mask and pre-Seeking plasma, the Romulans simply adopt Klingon technology wholesale. They are then able to use their refitted ships to fight back and eventually eliminate the Klingon invaders. I figure the whole thing would take 20 years or so from initial Klingon invasion to full Romulan victory.

The refitted Romulan ships (with warp and disruptors) are the W-series ships. The Y-series ships would be new technology ships that also use warp and disruptors. (The resulting ships could be rather "hawkish" in design in order to show the Klingon influences.) I figure the Romulans wouldn't bother with drones and later work on plasma again once they see the Gorn's seeking version (having given up on the bolts). This means that by the Middle Years, the Romulans could be using some combination of plasma and disruptors.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 05:12 pm: Edit

I think that if the Romulans had warp capability a lot sooner the Feds would have to be the "Militant" version just so they can keep pace with the constant attrition on the Rom border. And have a credible enough threat to keep them from being invaded every other decade.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 05:22 pm: Edit

Maybe, maybe not.

Sure, there will be more border confrontations with the Federation and the Gorn. And it might drive the Federation and Gorn to meet each other earlier than "historically".

However, to me, the big thing (especially in the second "plasma-less" scenario) is to scale the size of the Klingon invasion so as to keep the Romulans busy and wreck their economy enough that they can't take advantage of their situation quickly enough.

So, yes, the Federation and Gorns must become more "militant" in the face of a warp capable Romulan fleet. But as long as the Romulans are kept busy enough with other concerns, they won't topple the "existing" balance of power, but will rather simply shift it slightly.

And, again in the latter scenario, this doesn't even save the Paravians. Quite frankly, the Gorns won't be pressed by the Romulans until after they finish cleaning up the Paravians. (Well, unless we *want* to save the Paravians.)

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, February 04, 2008 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Ok, what is the point of Stellar Shadows again? To be in an issue of SSJ, does an idea/tactic/ship/fiction/device/etc have to be plausible, but things just didn't quite work out that way? Or is it something so outlandish, it just couldn't be out in the "real" SFB universe? Better yet, is it something SVC/SPP can make a quick decision on without going through all the universe balancing decisions they normally have to go through to avoid messing up anything in SFBverse. (The Mockingdrone article in the current Captain's Log for example... detailed example). I am somewhat confused here.