Blow a blood vessel?? More like coffee out my nose! That was funny!

As for delays, thank god for Jean. She is helping SVC is ways none of us ever could and will get the Prime Directive line rolling at a much better pace than it has been. There is a plan, it's being implemented, and will replace Perpetually Delayed with a real schedule soon.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 12:42 pm: Edit

That was coffee? I was afraid it was blood! Hard to see from a couple thousand of miles away!
regards
Stacy

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Stacy Brian Bartley!

How dare you make me laugh right out loud in the library!

If you damage Loren's nose, he might not be able to type up the rest of Tholians and then I should be most vexed with you.



(And Jean whips around the corner of the BBS corridor to laugh out loud some more)

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Jean
Most sorry but it IS fun to see that vein pulse on Loren's forehead!
regards
Stacy

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 05:38 pm: Edit

And my right eye twitch?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 05:47 pm: Edit

I probably shouldn't ask if the Draco-Tholians hinted at for CL38 have anything to do with this - but it is interesting how said cluster seems to have an awful lot of dark matter presence.


Might be a good place for the Souldra to set up...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 06:08 pm: Edit

That's the place but I'll say no more. Once the article is out I'll explain how it all came about.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 06:09 pm: Edit

I see.


*Hopes Loren planted a Souldra presence among all of that juicy dark matter...*

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 07:39 pm: Edit

During my research of the local galactic area I discovered that most spheroidal clusters have an abundance of dark matter (or so is the theory) and many of those are closer than the Draco Dwarf.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Well, even in the invasion of Omega, the Souldra weren't just striking from the Void - they had bases in the Wasteland, and beyond the galactic rim.

Plus, there is a scenario showing a Souldra presence all the way in the Core of the Cloud!


So, maybe they have a number of places where they have crossed over from their home dimension - but I would then also wonder how many, if any, of these other places have seen the Loriyill search for them at some point or other.

(The Loriyill, in turn, are hinted at going to the Cloud at least once, and are said to have travelled across the entire Milky Way Galaxy in their time.)

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 10:52 pm: Edit

One hook for a Souldra presence in the Alpha sector could be the disappearance of the USS STAR LEOPARD in Y182 (CL#27 page 25). The Klingons also lost ships in the same general area. The unknown force mentioned in R2.91 (Module R7) could be a Souldra force in the ALpha Sector.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 08:12 pm: Edit

Well, I had hoped - and still hope - that the Distant Zone of the ISC, which approaches the Void, could have one or more Souldra encounters, albeit ones in which the latter are mistaken to be "deep space life forms"...

...at least until the Y190s and the Andromedan invasion, when the matter of keeping the true 'nature' of the Souldra from the Concordium would be less relevant.


But, hoping and suceeding are two separate things...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Joseph Carlson said: In Module R7 (R15.26) the background on the Nest ship indicates some expeditions included a nest ship. A Nest, which was damaged while transiting the rift, is at the rally point. It has a minimal crew and no queen.

Response: One aspect is not possible. Given the short life spans of Seltorians, the lack of a queen would lead to a ship with insufficent crew to keep it operational in a very short period of time. The purpose of the ship is to lie in wait with virtually no contact with other Seltorian forces short of having to act as a rally point. With Seltorian lifespans being about five years (except for the Sages and Experts) you would wind up having to send courier ships to deliver either replacement crews or new batches of eggs. Such movement would reveal the location of the ship. Essentially, for this to be viable at all, there has to be a queen to keep the crew up to strength. Consider also if no queen made it to the ship after a disaster, the thing would quickly become a dead hulk. There is no way the Seltorians could have predicted that some means other than a queen would have enabled them to reproduce. So leaving the ship without a queen is not a realistic option. Further, background seems to indicate that there is more than one queen on a Hive or Nest ship.

There is nothing, I say again, NOTHING, altruistic about the Seltorians. They are not going to hate the Xorkalians because the Xorkalians treat their subject races as slaves. The Seltorians treat their own subject races in their home galaxy not just as slaves, but as the occasional snack item. The Seltorians are going to consider the Xorkalians as enemies based on two factors:

1.) Are they protecting Tholians?

2.) Are they attacking Seltorians?

The only way the Seltorians, if they survived, could conduct raids and hope to not be discovered would be if they used Orion ships. Otherwise the evidence would indicate their presence irrefutably. Warp engine signatures would be uniquely theirs. Log Buoys would show their unique ship designs. And even the best laid plans would invetiably have failures where there would be survivors or communications about what was attacking.

As to Seltorians showing up in Hydran space and asking for directions . . .

Think it through. The Tholian 312th showed up. What did the 312th tell the Hydrans? Probably not that they were being chased by somebody. Probably they just asked "seen anyone that looks like us?" And the Hydrans said "Well, we have not met anyone like you, but we have pictures that someone that looks like you is over there a ways."

When the Seltorians showed up, they simply said "Hi, we are looking for someone that looks like this, can you help us?" And the Hydrans thought "oh, they must be running away from something too and be friends of the other guys, so we will just send them on the way too."

The Hydrans did not KNOW that the 312th itself might be hostile to the Holdfast (the Holdfast does not seem to have said "we are hiding from a race of intelligent insects"). For all the Hydrans knew the 312th would attack the Holdfast (exporting a civil war from someplace else). There is no reason to assume that the Hydrans knew the Seltorians were on their way to attack the Tholians, and no reason to assume the Seltorians were stupid enough to announce their "alliegance" to aliens that might, afterall, have already allied themselves with the Tholians. Assume some basic diplomatic skills and some thought going into Seltorian actions. Doubtless the Seltorians also felt out the Klingons before announcing that their purpose was to kill Tholians.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 03:14 pm: Edit

I didn't realise that Seltorians ate other sentient life forms - I don't remember them having the same racial modifier (in GURPS terms) that the Lyrans, Kzintis and Carnivons have.

Is that something that will be added to their racial profiles in PDT?


In any event, given the numbers of globular clusters and satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way, it would seem something of a waste to leave a factory ship as a dormant rally point, when it could be used to conquer a cluster (or claim a corner of a larger satellite galaxy) and use the local resources to build up its own forces...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 03:23 pm: Edit

SPP:
"The Seltorians treat their own subject races in their home galaxy not just as slaves, but as the occasional snack item."

Where is this written?

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 03:24 pm: Edit

The problem with bugs is that, no matter how many you kill, you can't really ever kill them ALL.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 03:44 pm: Edit

Eeeh, the nest ship at a hidden place might still be a good idea even if there aren't any queens and the current batch of Selts die off.

That ship would probably contain information regarding the Tholians... so when the next batch of Seltorians arrive... the war's on again.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 04:01 pm: Edit

One could argue that any Seltorian ship has some eggs in storage for replacement crew, since workers die in five years (and any given ship would have some workers of every age from 6 to 60 months). I am not sure what turns an egg into a queen but I wonder if every Nest/Hive ship might not have a couple of "queen eggs" just for emergencies. I don't know. My memory has long since failed me but I don't remember the Seltorians eating people and I really couldn't tell you how the Seltorians treat the rest of M81 (but I suspect not as "liberated equals").

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 04:37 pm: Edit

My thinking has been that Seltorian treatment of subjects was not as liberated equals, definately, but not in the same way a the Tholians considered them either. Mainly, just different with things better for some and for others things are worse. That's been my thinking anyway. One might think of it as going from slaves to indentured servitude (which is certainly a form of slavery and not freedom in any real sense). To be sure, the Seltorians "told" people things would be better, but things must be tightly controlled during this difficult time of transition. And gee, it takes a LONG time for a whole galaxy to transition from the terrible place it once was.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 08:51 pm: Edit

If you take 20th century Earth as an example, the oppressed often become the oppressor. It's very tempting, not to mention lucrative, to be at the top of the food chain.

Freedom, openness and democracy might be better for the galaxy as a whole but it might not be better for the Seltorans in particular, so they'd be very tempted to prepetuate the old system, just under new management.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 09:38 pm: Edit

There are way to see things completely different yet net the same results. I wouldn't want to be the politition that points out with facts to back it up that these Sletorians are no better than the Tholians. Seriously, if you are ever in the company of a Seltorian, do NOT compare them to the Tholians unless it is to point out how must nicer and cooler they are. (bada-bum)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 10:10 pm: Edit

"Come and see the violence inherent in the system!"

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 10:45 pm: Edit

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!!!"

regards
Stacy

PS "Bloody Peasant!!!!!!"

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Monday, July 28, 2008 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Summary and some changes to proposal.

Ships that have escaped:
In module R11 (R15.38) The DDP MOUNTAIN of IRON INGOTS is presumed destroyed by either the ISC or Klingons, but actual fate is unknown.
Module X1R includes a Seltorian CAX and DDX. The CAX R-sections has some interesting information: The Selts were building a CAX in one of the bays in the Hive Ship.

The ISC records do not indicate that any such ship was encountered.

What is left was a nightmare scenario; it escaped and would link up with another Hive Ship. Since the ship couldn't survive on its own this lead to speculation that the Selts left some kind of base or other unit outside of, but close to, the MW Galaxy.

The DDX R-section speculates did they (2 DDXs) escape and are they traveling with the CAX.
Hive/Nest Ship: They all have multiple queens. There could be variants of Hive/Nest Ship ships not yet seen (added to the game). I have suggested that a nest ship stayed outside the Alpha Sector.

New Proposal: A Hive ship, of new design, (instead of the previously suggested nest ship) arrived with the fleet. This ship stayed outside, the Alpha Sector at the rally point/planet.

This ship has multiple queens. The ship is designed to convert into a shipyard, which can produce size class 2 (SC2) ships in addition to the CA to FF classes. This design is the reason it stayed behind. Building SC2 takes more resources and has a longer build time the expedition didn’t want to risk losing this ship during first contact. Workers would construct ground bases to extract resources and building ship parts. Small survey ship would be built to explore other systems in the globular cluster to locate new resources. (I have produced an SSD that has the forward part of a CA and rear part of a BCH. The center boom is from the DN/BCH and the two side booms are from an NCA; has 44 warp, 4xbatteries, 10 APR, and 6 impulse)

The X-ships and DDP would bring new types of technology. The Seltorian sages would take 1-2 decades to build an invasion fleet. Another type of nest ship could be built that has only four bays and is able to keep up with a battle fleet and perform repairs but not build anything larger than a PF (not offered as an alternate to the proposed Lair ship; I made an SSD for this thing several months ago). Alternately could just go with Gary’s Lair ship.

I suppose the Seltorians have created an SFU version of soylent green; there is raw and processed.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 01:58 pm: Edit

Here is a thought on Seltorian goverment.

The Seltorians may have a more Soviet/Klingon style of goverment, i.e. Seltorians are First amoungst equals. This may be part of the reason they approached the Klingons instead of the Romulans, unless they managed to spend enough time on espionage to learn the depth, and reason of the Klingons dislike of the Tholians.