Archive through April 23, 2009
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
Other Proposals:
Threat File -The Masters (Captains Log#3, page3):
Archive through April 23, 2009
Possible Master scenarios
The Botched Abduction - An attempt is made to abduct a ship...but a second ship shows up unexpectedly shows up in the middle of the abduction.
Abducting an X-Ship - The Masters try to abduct an X-ship and find it isn't as easy as they thought. A riff off "first of its kind"
Hunting the Talent Scouts - A group of Master "talent scouts" and their Orion ship are ratted out by a Cartel lord to the Galactic powers.
Unwilling Defenders - Ships on the trail of the Master's solar system have to fight gladiator ships sent to destroy them.
Battle for a Great Machine - The attack on the masters' world.
Masterplace Theater - A set of X1R scenarios not unlike the Romulan civil War. Includes versions of Unwilling Defenders and Battle for a Great Machine among other things.
We might even consider a solitaire "boarding" scenario where a ship discovers a "talent Scout" in the midst of "prepping" a ship for abduction.
give the "talent Scout" a "stun Beam" or some such thingee... and the ship its normal Boarding parties and any militia parties it can mobilize for helping in the search.
if the Talent Scout can "stun" 100% of the crew he wins.
If the crew successfully capture the "talent Scout", they win.
if the talent scout is "retreived" by the masters (presumably by the same manner inwhich the talent scout appeared on the ship in the first place...) it is a tactical draw...and a strategic defeat for the Masters.
You know, the Masters could have made a killing by selling the tri-video rights of their "contests" to the galaxy at large... the syndication rights alone would have been worth a stupendous amount...
Besides, think about all of the "reality" shows that the Masters could have stage managed... "Deal or No Deal" has a host of connotations that could have qualified as "must see Tri-Video".
If we "turned it around" and looked at possible scenarios from the Masters POV, you could have any number of GURPS PD scenarios where a highly advanced/psionically gifted race of Omnipotent beings (A.K.A. the Masters) could be deploying spies in all of the major and minor races in the Alpha Octant.
Sort of like running Chaotic Evil/Lawful Evil characters in D&D/AD&D, the object is to sabatoge/commit espionage for trade or technical secrets or even just the old "steal the (Fill in the name of your favored race) Master Plans for Galactic Domination".
If the Masters "instant teleporter service" is dependent on preplanning without any instant communications capabilities... you could even have some interesting "Masters agents waiting at the pick up point" when the local constabulary/spy chasers show up.
Atleast its a different way of looking at the issues.
Speaking of looking at it another way - so far we've talked about the Galactic powers coming after the Masters. What if the Masters marshaling their fleet of thralls came out to conquer the MWG?
regards
Stacy
Stacy,
Thats a very real possibility, if what John Trauger said very early in this discussion were true...
Yet we have no evidence that the Masters have any indigionous ships or technology.
All that has been seen IMO has been examples of ships and prisoners stolen by the Masters and administered by various "minions".
Even under the threaat of punishment, its doubtful that the hodgepodge collection of pre and early General War ships/Crews that the Masters have collected would be willing to participate in an attack on either their own home worlds or that of Alpha Quadrant races.
And, as we had discussed earlier, if the masters are limited in the number of ships that they can control at any given time. Its possible that they can't muster the power necessary to threaten any Alpha Quadrant race...though an attack on the WYN system by a mixed Alpha Race of Master Controled thralls might prove interesting.
Consider, for a moment, if the Masters could deploy a fleet of 10 star ships into the WYN cluster that does not suffer the debilitating effects of having to travel through the energy barrier?
It might be possible for the Masters to end up owning the WYN System... and the question then becomes what next?
I can't see any scenario that would allow the masters to expand outwards in the face of the General War active races bardering the WYN system... and a very likely scenario that the weakened forces hodliong the WYN system captured by the MAsters might very well fall to a Klingon or Lyran led invasion.
Can you suggest anywhere else the Masters could attack with up to 10 ships (noting that as of the last sighting, no dreadnoughts had been captured by the masters, (thus no 10 F&E Command rated ships would be available)?
Jeff
I don't know. But from what I have seen the limitations of the Masters seem more like self imposed limitations that might be used for experimentation or dare I say it? GAMERS! What if they chose to redefine the experiment (or play a different game)?
regards
Stacy
Stacy
Might be interesting either way, but If the Master/gamer thugs could redefine the experiment, the question left begging to be answered, 'is why haven't they?!?'
Until or unless someone writes a fiction thing the steves are willing to publish, I just don't see any justification for assuming that the masters are any more powerful than what we've seen to date.
Can't be certain, but its possible that the Masters are in the situation of the old west cowboy with a 6 shot colt revolver and no spare ammunition... if he's a good enough shot, he could expect to successfully shoot the first 6 enemies that he comes up against...its #7 plus all the others afterwords that he will have to deal with, and do it without ammunition in his gun.
I'm sure if it came down to survival, the Masters wouldnt hesitate to use rather extreme measures... but conquering the universe may simply be beyond their abilities.
Jeff
They don't move until they have gained enough information?
I dunno, given the TREMENDOUS amount of energy it would require to pluck a starship THOUSANDS of LY away and bring it to the the Lair Of The Masters (Sounds Scary huh?) it's hard for me to believe that they are limited much from the perspective of the starfaring races.
Jeff, I think any scenario that allows us to postulated overt combat with the Masters means we have assume things not yet said about them.
regards
Stacy
Stacy,
We know that they can pluck single starships from pretty much anywhere in the alpha quadrant...once every 2 months on average.
I question your assumption that they could do it in unlimited quantities at any time.
If they were true gamers, they would buy the full set to play immediately... but from the story, it seems clear that they had to budget their acquisitions of star ships over a 2 year period.
Doesn't sound like they have unlimited power available to me... 
As to your suggestion that overt combat with the masters is impossible due to absence of knowledge of the masters... perhaps...or perhaps not.
I suspect if the Steves received a compelling story concernoing the masters, they might well publish it.
But if we have to make some assumptions about the masters, I say, 'so be it!'
The first assumption that I think is reasonable, is that they have a finite limit on transporting star ships.
I'm comfortable with 1 transport every 60 days or so (heck, it might even be 70 or 75 days... we just don't know other than the fact that they collected 12 starships in 24 months (two of which were destroyed in the mock gladitorial games they were in.)
But attributing infinite power to the Masters just seems wrong to me, somehow.
If the Masters were that powerful, we would have heard more about them than we have.
Jeff
OK, those limitations are based on being THOUSANDS of LY away. What if they were CLOSER?
regards
Stacy
"First rule of Fight Club is 'don't talk about Fight Club.'"
The Masters have not called attention to their presence. Whether this is due to disdain or healthy concern is another matter, but the odds are weighted in the favor of healthy concern. If the Alpha Octet races posed no threat to the Masters, they would abdust in "broad starlight" if you will. But they don't, which implies the Alpha Octet Powers pose a potential threat if the masters' game were made known.
This is further backed by the Master intent to found a colony. With sufficient breeding stock, they won't need to abdust from the alpha octet. If they succede in keeping the abductions they do make quiet, they'll just leave a string of unsolved mysteries. That or abduction takes an unacceptably large amount of resources to do endlessly, supporting Jeff's idea that they can't abduct at will.
My theory on the 2-month average gap between abductions is based on the idea that the Masters are hiding their presence.
if you want to abduct a good fighting specimen and you don't want to be seen doing it, you have to wait until he and his ship are "off the grid" somewhere alone. These kind of circumstances simply aren't common.
So they're hiding but can't resist playing games with races they regard as at once "lesser" but also as a potential threat. We're dealing with sentients who have too much time on their hands but probably aren't interested in conquoring.
If they were interested in conquoring, why do they need alpha Octet sentients to crew ships? If you're going to be breeding your invading starship crews, you are 1) not in any hurry and 2) Not breeding a whole lot yourself. The problem here is technological advantage has a shelf life.
The bottom line is the picture painted of the Masters is a race that is short on resources but those resources are very, very high-tech.
They are in a Mac vs PC problem with the Alpha Octet. Even if you're technically superior, you are competing at a 10-to-1 disadvantage,
Well, another good question... if the range for the Masters teleporation trick isn't material... perhaps its the nature of the device itself... if it takes 60+ days to recharge the sucker... then its maybe good for a single starship move... and it doenst seem to matter if it its a single light year or 100,000 parsecs.
Generally, the argument might be made that there is a tradeoff between range and the number of actual teleports.
if this were a kind of linear trade, youmight have the Masters Teleporter able to transport a single ship say 200 F&E hexes (call it 100,000 parsecs) or perhaps 10 ships up to 20 F&E hexes during a 2 month period... but the evidence seems to disprove that idea.
It might well be 1 ship every 2 months (or so).
It might even be better than that... what if the "Masters Magic Machinetm" (as John Trauger termed it) could make a single transport every 2 months... person ship, letter doesnt matter.
Perhaps it is an artifact left over from the Old Kings... and the Masters are simply scavengers who managed to get it partially working and are using it for their own sick entertainment.
If that is the case, then John's list of proposed scenarios is the best way to handle documenting and possibly defeating the Masterstm.
Just a thought...
John posted while I was composing... (drat!)
Actually, you bring up several more points that are very relevant.
Something you posted, made me wonder if perhaps there isnt more to the Masters than we thought of?
What if... they know more about the future of the Galaxy than we (well, perhaps not the steves...) know?
What if they know about the threat that the Andromedans, the ISC and the Zorkians pose?
Instead of "just" gaming for entertainment sake, the masters are building their own fleet of ships to defend them from the various threats that are soon to arrive?
Could they possibly be building their own "Jannisary navy" like the old Ottoman-Turkish empire had Jannisary's? That only makes sense if the breeding program is intended to provide enough bodies for any conceivable "cannon Fodder" needs.
Jeff,
I don't really buy the janissary idea.
The masters would have to make one important assumption: that the Galactic Powers are not up to the task of defeating the Andros or Xorks.
The question then becomes how they seriously plan to save the galaxy. Not only would they have to build a vast empire-and-more-sized fleet. they would have to be able to build replacements to keep fleets up to strength, as well as manufacture and stage supplies across a notable area of the galactic disk.
Furthermore they would need to be able to demonstrate to the galactic powers they are trying to save that they aren't merely competeing with these invading powers to see who gets to control the galaxy.
personally the most interesting masters in my mind is a small group of sentients posessing advanced technology that they can use but not build more of. These would be aliens who happened to find and use advanced alien technology or sentients that have so outsmarted themselves that they have the tech but can't make more.
John,
Just throwing out ideas... personnally, I'm not wild about a captive breeding program, but that is in the original source data.
Besides, do we really know that the Masters are altruistic enough to want to to save the Galaxy?
I'm simply suggesting that they might want to build up enough of a defense force to protect themselves from conventional threats... they may not need much when coupled with their ability to teleport starships anywhere...
And yes, I'm in total agreement with your last point... a small group of sentient beings sounds right... and if they are afraid of the Apha races, they may have other fears we don't know about yet.
The Master don't really sound that altruistic. they sound rather bloody minded actually. Bored, dillitantes with a taste for antimatter bloodsport.
I can imagine any undestroyed gladiators would function as defense. I imagine they have some ships of their own. They'd be boring if they didn't.
The Masters' first defense appears to be anonymitiy. Not showing up on anybody's radar except as unsolved disapperances of notable captains and ships.
Have you noiced how recent the masters interest in the Alphs Octet is? The captain longest in captivity has only been there two years. There's no evidence that there was anybody there before him. It's as if the masters only recently discovered the alpha Octet...or only recently discovered their super-tech. the Masters could be new at the game themselves.
Wow, three different things to follow up there, John.
1. Bloody minded is as bloody minded does (if you don't object to a paraphrase of Forest Gumpisms!) either they are juvenile delinquents with a bloody powerful teleportation system... or they are not. What would Onipotent beings with virtually god like powers want with a squadron of star ship toys? on the face of the evidence, dilitantes may be the best way of describing these guys yet.
2. depends on who and what the Masters really are... if they are the remnants of the Old Kings that refused to flee the immpending end of the Galaxy (3+ billion years until the black holes in the center of the Galaxy gobble up everything in it, as one old theory had it) they might have starships able to cruise Galaxies the way the UFP Star Fleet cruisers through star systems)... or they are scavengers from somewhere else that found the equipemnt and figured out how to use it... if its the second, I could see them getting to the "dillitantes" stage quickly.
3. IMO, the idea that they use their anonymity as a shield may actually reinforce the idea of scavengers using their new found power to enslave others...
What if we built the scenario/campaign around the idea of a small population of scavengers finding/discovering a ***GREAT MACHINE***tm (as you phrased it earlier) say sometime shortly before the start of the General War (circa year 165 or so?!?).
That not only means that they would have some familiarity with the ALpha Quadrant races... the selection of captains of noteriety may be less accidental than we first thought... what if these "escaped scavengers" were actually from the Alpha Quadrant and chose the "Masters Game" as a way to punish the Captains that put them into prison in the first place?
Perhaps victims of circumstance in multiple ways?
That way we aren't trying to tie into the Andromedan, ISC or Zork plots... its a simple story of revenge and opportunism.
Jeff,
I kind of like the idea of people who find god-tech myself. It's much easier to explain why the tech doesn't spread of they conquor the galaxy.
If they're new to the whole thing, then it explains why there are no Jindos or Loryill among the captains or ships. the actual reason is they hadn't been created yet, but it supports the idea that the master just started their stuff recently and have a limited range of choices.
The one thing that's worrysome, but not very, is that an Orion Pirate was unable to identify the species of the Master he talks to. The guy's been around. he ought to recognize a known subrace of a known power. The Master could be an android built to look alien while the actual Masters are known species and keep this hidden.
Well, that's a different topic to follow up on... there is no way to tell what race the bozo was (is?!?) it might even have been a costume to hide what his real race was...for security purposes?!?
Remember, Deth O'kay didnt seem to have any equipment with him in the story... no hand phasers, no tricorders, no hand held equipment at all, IIRC.
And as to your idea that the limited choices was a function of timing for the "Masters"... if they really were just a pack of scavengers... say they got there via a vortex or a mis-jump using non standard SFBs technology (suppose it was a Travelertm style jump drive misjump say... perhaps the scavengers were experimenting with a new type of FTL drive (that mimics the Traveler system) and ended up in the core of the galaxy by accident?!?
here you have a single Skiff with perhaps 30 or 40 individuals and a "GOD MACHINE" that they could use to bring in any starship they want... given enough time, they could figure out how to use the technology... what would you do with an opportunity like that?
I'd guess most rational people would use it to get to a place of safety, taking any possible short term profits that they could from the site... and destroy the machine as the last person left...
But what if you had sociopaths or psychopaths inthe crew? what if they were escaped Orion prisoners who had been force to test a new "untraceable" Faster than Light intersteller star drive?!?
Wouldn't capturing Orion Pirates and pitting them into a series of death duels against 4 to 1 odds (or worse) be some "payback" agaisnt the "slave stealing Orions?
Have to think about that some more... as a story it needs a lot more filing in.
In the trek time period theree are plenty of ways to conceal one's identity.
Androids. Holograms. Masks. Plastic Surgery. The only limit is how far you want to take the joke.
Everybody has a sociopathic side. most of us are simply too civilized to listen to it. If you want to go really, really ISC on me, simply playing SFB in RL...killing hundreds of sentients even if they're only imaginary...can be considered an exersize in sociopathy.
Well, having 30 or 40 "social outcasts" with a god machine who hate Orion Pirates might be the makings of a decent Captains Log fiction thing... telling it from the POV of the "Masters" and extrapolating from there.
It would explain why 2 of 10 ships that the Masters had collected "Just happened to be" Orion Pirates.
The problem with "Concealing one's identity" is that If I Recall Correctly, Bedalia (the female keeper/slave) that Deth O'kay formed an attachement to would almost have to be one of the scavengers/Masters if the theory that the Masters are only 30 or 40 total population, were true.
If Deth O'kay had formed an intimate relationship...(Ah,well, perhaps we shouldn't follow that line of reasoning too far...)
point is, you have one of the best captains of the Orion Pirates not being able to identify the race of the masters even after being in close proximity to them?!? just not too beleivable, IMO.
Jeff,
You assume Deth Okay is forming a relationship with a master. What is she's just some girl he met? What is she was the "Captain's Woman", to borrow an Imperial Earth Starfleet concept, even before the Hammerfield was abducted? After all, Okay is very new to the masters but his relationship is already established.
The master who discusses her status with Deth Okay is very clinical in his references to her, discussing her ability to have children as heavily bearing on the Master's desire to take her away and mate Okay with someone younger. If she is a Master, she is one in secret, not in the open.
It stands to reason that the Masters would have practiced abduction by taking freighters and other civilian ships before dealing with a naval starship. Deth's girlfreind could have come from one of those if she wan't already living on the Hammerfield.
John,
I won't insist that my guess is accurate in anyway... just open conjecture.
so fine... we have 10-12 star ships and anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000+ starship crew members (and atleast a portion of those would be Hydran...) 30 to 40 "Masterstm" and 10 (or so) "Named Captains" not all of whom have been identified in the published SFU history.
We also have a "Breeding Program" sponsored by the Masters (purposes unknown...) so presumably there is a suitable habitate for such near by (possibly a class M planet) in addition to the "God Machine" that the scavengers found and are using to abduct starships and crews.
could be fun!
I wonder if we have enough data to reconstruct John Traugers ***God Machine***tm?
What kind of attributes would such a thing have to have?
at a start, it would need to create a Vortex/worm hole thingee that it can open up 1 time every 60 days (or so), and able to beam objects up to size class 3 through (and it must be omni ditrectional... meaning that it can send a ship in either directions). (what if the artifical worm hole machine costs (oh heck, pick a number) 60 points of power to open a portal? and say that the engine power plant of the antient ship can creat 1 point of stored power a day? say that it has some kind of "worm hole energy capacitier" that the tricle of power can feed, and 1 time per 2 months its ready for use?!?)
Second, the Vortex/ worm hole/portal (whatever we want to call the sucker) must be able to deploy the "sleep ray" thingamabob that allowed the masters to incapacitate the crews of standard technology ships prior to transport.
Third, the Thingamabob must be able to transport individual human sized objects (the recruiters that John Trauger talked about earlier) into and out of the vortex/worm hole/portal thingee.
Forth, there must be some limits on what kinds of ships and targets the sleep ray can effect... it appears the masters did not try to capure planets or bases... so perhaps a gravity well (such as is created by planets) or the interferance of positional stabilizers prevents the sleep ray from functioning? (note the question mark, not a declaritive statement, but is a open question for discussion or debate.)
fifth, is the ***God Machine***tm on a planet, in a orbital base, or even on a derilict antient star ship (perhaps a old kings specimen collection ship, or the race of beings that created the feline races (the Kzinti, lyran and Carnivons)?!? (another open conjecture...what if the antint starship that holds the ***god Machine***tm is really just a malfunctioning star drive that opens a artificial worm hole/vortex/portal that the ship is supposed to travel through instead of normal warp drive?!?
lots of possibilities...