Hi.


I was thinking about some non-related matters concerning the ISC lately, which led me to have a fresh look at Module Y2.

One thing that struck me was that while the unified fleet eventually made as much sense for the united Concordium to use as the saucer-and-nacelle designs did for the Federation, there could still have been the odd rival design offered up by this or that planet's engineering teams, to run in competition with the two-prong hulls.

(The Star Fleet equivalent I can think of is with the Terran-hull OCA, which was offered as an alternative to the venerable Constitution-class in the mid-Y120s - or perhaps one could look at the efforts the Orions went to build their own Y-era National Guard ships.)


Also, while the five planets historically chose to all use the same new ships, it might not have been entirely implausible for one government, for whatever reason, to be stubborn about using a ship type of their own design. As a real-world example, I think of France insisting on the Dassault Rafale, while Germany, the UK and other European Union member-states instead joined forces to develop the Eurofighter Typhoon.


Further, one interesting note I saw in Y2 was not to do with an ISC ship, but might have some degree of relevance in this case. It's noted in the R-section for the Gorn YDN (YR6.14) that

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Quote:

The Gorns conceived their first dreadnought by taking the earlier sublight battleship design and stripping out systems no longer needed and then scaling things up to make use of the new technology. The result, while superficially identical to the WBB, was a completely new design.

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 26, 2025 - 01:52 pm: Edit

Since the question of what might have happened had the "unified" ISC Navy and Police hulls never appeared has been talked about elsewhere, I thought it might be worth taking a second look at the concept here - at least, in terms of considering what Y-era iterations of the five "warp-driven" fleets might have looked like, before getting so far as the "modern" era.

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There is a broader question that might need to be answered before doing so, however.

In such a setup, would there still be a "looser" Inter-Stellar Concordium in play - and, if so, what kind of limits might there be in terms of formal integration, beyond the avoidance of a unified fleet?

Or, might there be no ISC at all, with each of the five planets forming their own separate star-faring society - and, if so, how might this look on the F&E hex map?

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This might be a particular issue, in terms of bases and civilian units.

In the "standard' timeline - and, indeed, in the "Mapsheet P" timelines from Module C6 - the ISC adopts a "standard" range of space docks, early base stations, freighters, and other such units. For the most part, these are armed with the same type-F and type-G plasma torpedoes as seen on the "two-prong" Y-era Navy and Police ships.

But in this setup, do the five planets build their own separate bases, transports, and other such units - and, if so, how would they be distributed on the map?

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Indeed, in the case of "Mapsheet P" timelines: it might be of particular relevance to determine which of the five species is expanding in which direction, in terms of which one(s) is (or are) likely to confront the "lost empire" Paravians, and/or the "Shadow of the Eagle" Romulans of Module R4J.

Since the Q'naabian home world (in F&E hex 5810) is at a remove from the other four home systems (in hex 5910), it would seem logical for them to expand further in the "south-west" direction, thus taking them closer towards Romulan space. But, each of the other four species could be set to go in their own, different direction from this.

Of particular importance might be to decide upon which way the reptilian Pronhoulites found themselves going. If they are the ones the Paravians run into first, would one or more of the other four species be dragged into the inevitable war between them? But, if they are not, and the Paravians learn of their existence later on, might the latter go to war regardless, so as to fight their way over to where this new "demonic" foe can be found?

That said, even in terms of dealing with the Romulans, "Mapsheet P" presents other challenges, also. In those timelines, the ISC expands towards the Galactic Rim, in an attempt to compensate for the loss of territory to coreward. Which is less of an issue for a "unified" Concordium; but, if certain species are able to gain more real estate to rimward, and decide not to share it with the others, how might this affect the balance between them overall?

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And beyond all of this, it would be interesting, from a tactical perspective at any rate, to see how ships armed with the five "plasma-type" weapons might fare against Romulan and Paravian opposition, in a "Mapsheet P" setup.

Or, indeed, how they might be able to coordinate with allied Gorn ships against such enemies...