This idea, or something like it, is likely not all that new; however, in light of the recent dipping into the Stellar Shadows pot for the ADB-Mongoose joint venture, I thought I might try to re-frame things somewhat.


As Prime Directive: Federation shows, the political will required to found the United Star Fleet was by no means a foregone conclusion. More than a few politicians from the various member planets were reluctant to see their home-grown fleets superseded by the unified fleet; plus the formalisation of the various "training squadrons" into the National Guards showed how the member governments were not quite as ready to hand things over to Star Fleet as the latter might have liked (even if you don't count the rather sharp reaction sparked in the Orion Enclave).

Also, even leaving aside the continued use of the old Terran CLs or the re-toling of the Terran destroyer into the modern police cutter, we see examples (in the Federation) as late as the mid-Y120s of rival design teams coming up with hull types inspired by older designs rather than the saucer-and-nacelles which most prominently marked the unified fleet; though the likes of Alfred the Great were unable to outbid the Constitution, leaving a certain lost colony in a more distant part of the galaxy to do neat things with old Terran hull types...


However, in an alternate Stellar Shadows timeline, perhaps the various major members were less willing to turn things over to Star Fleet; or, perhaps, even to vote for the creation of Star Fleet in the first place.

In this alternate setting, rather than a common saucer-and-nacelle set of Star Fleet ships, one could envision separate Terran, Vulcan, Andorian and other hulls; designed to take the next step into modern (TL12) technology that had been pre-empred historically by the Franz Joseph designs.

In terms of how such ships might look, the OCA could be a relevant example. That ship looks nothing like the original WCA which had been flown by the Terran navy, but rather is an extrapolation of the venerable Terran light cruiser. Even so, there's no mistaking the ship as "Terran" in its design heritage.

So, if the Vulcans were to build a "VCA", there is no particular reason to say it has to look exactly like the YVC; so long as it had a design aesthetic that was recognisably "Vulcan" (without crossing into anything that could be construed as Franchise territory).

Not least since, in miniature terms, it wouldn't then pre-empt the potential of doing up an official set of Early Years Fed planetary fleets at some future point.


In terms of actual combat doctrine, one thought I had was to essentially keep the kind of distinctions that exist in the older planetary fleets, but to re-work these "fighting Instructions" to fit in the modern era. For example, rather than use a standard hull and make a drone variant by replacing its weapon mounts, this version of the Federation would instead rely on the Andorians to provide drone options for multi-planetary fleets. Similarly, the modern Vulcans might no longer retain the exclusive use of ship-mounted special sensors, but they could still be the primary users of this system; their ships would act as the premier electronic warfare platforms, survey vessels, and what have you.


The resulting logistical isseus for this kind of Federation force would be much more daunting than it is for the United Star Fleet; but that would be part of the point. The UFP in this Stellar Shadows timeline would be making life more difficult for itself, but the balance of popular sentiment would make it so that the major planets would rather stick with the status quo than convert to the saucer-and-nacelle setup.

(Although, one could include a couple of the smaller saucer-and-nacelle hulls as "internal export" models; which could be sold to minor member planets unwilling, or perhaps unable, to adopt this or that planetary model for its own uses.)


And in miniature terms, having a few sample "modern" planetary ships from a Stellar Shadows timeline would allow Mongoose to look into hull designs that were both "new" (in terms of not using the standard saucers) and still recognisably "Federation"; while still having ships that, like the OCA, could be compatible with the modern era (so wouldn't require a new Ealry Years module for ACtA:SF to be written before they could be fielded).


Does any of this sound like it might be interesting; and if so, are there any ideas out there as to how "modern" planetary fleets might look in such a setup?

By Rick Smith (Rick_Smith) on Friday, March 16, 2012 - 05:35 pm: Edit

Sounds neat!

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, March 16, 2012 - 06:38 pm: Edit

I would support this idea if the minis could made so they could be used for "real" early years ships (maybe with slight mods) and for the SSJ Middle and General War Designs as well.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, March 17, 2012 - 01:44 am: Edit

I'm not so sure; for what it's worth, I would personally want any would-be modern planetary ships to look as distinct from their warp-refitted brethren as, say, W-era Lyrans do to their modern (and Y-era) successors.

One day, I would hope that there might perhaps be room for a proper expansion of the Starline 2500 line back into the Early Years; and should that happen, I would hope that any "National Guard" (or "pre-ISC", for that matter) hulls that might then appear would have room enough to be showcased in their own right, without necessarily being pre-empted by what (if anything) might come of ideas here.

But parsec-ages may vary, of course; perhaps it could be said to vary from one planet to another, in terms of how newly envisioned one generation of ship design might have been from its historical predecessors.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, March 17, 2012 - 02:40 am: Edit

Ehhh...Gary, I think if you want this to work, some crossover would be useful.

As you say, even in the "established" history, the Terran destroyer became a police cutter and Terran cruiser became the OCL.

I think we can assume that...while the 'newer' designs may have only a passing resemblance to the originals...in this hypothetical 'hyper-nationalist' alternate reality, the Y-era designs (and W-era refits) would like have stuck around a lot longer than they did historically.

But from a pragmatic point of view...selling to the 'Stellar Shadows' crowd is going to be hard enough on its own. Sure, this does let you chuck in the 'anything new is cool and we must buy the miniatures' group that we are looking to get cross over from WH40K (and its ilk)...but to be REALLY successful in sales, having some "real" tie-in to established SFU history will be required to keep the die-hards interested.

So I wouldn't be so casually dismissive of the idea of "this also lets us get the Y-era miniatures done at the same time". That, IMHO, is a 'win-win' proposal, there. Two birds with one stone, and all.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, March 17, 2012 - 01:59 pm: Edit

But would sales of a 2500-series OCA be hampered by it not looking anything like the old Terran WCA?

Should there be a re-working of the Terran National Guard ships for Starline 2500 at some future point, there will still need to be at least three new hull types which are not covered by the CL or POL/WDD; but, hopefully, that force would still be able to stand on its own merits should that point be reached.

If, for design purposes, it makes sense from a background perspective for a given modern ship to have a direct design heritage from its Early Years predecessor, fair enough; but if it's more "logical" for the demands of TL12 tactical warp to be expressed in a wholly new fashion, there should be scope to go there, too.

The Early Years are a long way off in 2500 terms, if they ever show up at all; but the point I was trying to get at is that they do not need to be shoe-horned in earlier, if a newer design can fulfil the "modern Vulcan/Andorian/etc ship" niche more naturally.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 31, 2012 - 05:13 pm: Edit

While certainly doable as a Stellar Shadows/Alternate reality product, it would be a tremendous amount of effort for something with probably little sales potential, certainly not enough to justify the cost of counters.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, March 15, 2020 - 07:46 am: Edit

Very late to this discussion, but it occurs to me that counters are not the point.

Players could use any other empires counters to substitute for “the real thing”.

The product module ***could*** be produced without counters.

The only real challenge here is the idea of expanding the miniatures line with the “missing” hulls of the Terran National Guard ships.

And again, players using miniatures often substitute a different miniature for those times the do not happen to have the right miniature.

IMO, the issue that kills this idea is the amount of SPP time needed to complete this module verses it’s sale potential.

That said, is it worth discussing what planets could have participated in such an project?

For example, the Orion Enclave discussion referred to the National Destroyer police ship(and its variant carrier design.)

Is it impossible to consider a Vulcan National Survey Destroyer that other planets could have purchased or built under license for their local police duties?

What if the Orion’s offered their police destroyer at a discount compared to the Federation POL?

Is there room for an Andorian Drone national police destroyer?

What about Cygnus? Would they offer to sell fighters for use in Orion license built carriers?

While the case has long been made that no single planet could design and build a full fleet of warships in the SFU... this is a case that each planet could concentrate its efforts on just one part of the fleet, in cooperation with many other planets.

Talk about a hodgepodge fleet!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, March 15, 2020 - 11:22 pm: Edit

It is true that, outside of Orion Enclave space, the lines between "federal" and "member-state" territory in the Federation are much blurrier than, say, the clear lines of distinction between the various feudal domains in Lyran space.

That said, Prime Directive Federation notes that there are many "sponsored colonies" founded by a specific member planet, as opposed to colonies founded by the Federation government on the one hand, or by "private" groups or corporations on the other. (Indeed, the Orion government is itself quite entitled to found colonies elsewhere in UFP territory.) While some of these colonies eventually go on to gain independence from their founding planets and to stand as Federation members in their own right, others remain politically affiliated with their "home planet".

To give two examples: The Sigma Draconis system, marked as a major industrial world in F&E hex 3509, was first settled by the Earth government in Y50, and gained independence in Y159. While Naramar III, the minor industrial world in hex 3005, was founded by an Orion industrial cartel (no, not that kind of Orion Cartel... we hope) in Y59, but drifted away from the Orion government to the point that they reused to follow the Enclave when the latter declared neutrality during the General War.


Even if one were to factor in some kind of "inefficiency tax" (in that the logistical demands of running multiple planetary fleets would be higher than settling on a shared set of designs and spare parts), I suspect that there'd be a sliding scale of member worlds, in terms of how large a fleet - and how broad a range of hull types to be found in said fleet - one might expect to find in the absence of the "saucer-and-nacelle" designs. The Terrans would no doubt be top of the list, followed at varying distances by the likes of the Vulcans, Andorians, and Rigellians. But it is quite possible to picture less economically powerful members, such as the Alpha-Centaurans, struggling in the long run to field, or perhaps to continue fielding, some of the larger ship classes - perhaps relying on one or more of their fellow member worlds to try to cover the shortfall.

In retrospect, one could see why the argument was won to found the United Star Fleet historically: if left to itself, even with the best of intentions, the Terrans would have simply continued to run so far ahead of the others that the "Federation fleet" would have more or less ended up being a Terran fleet by default.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, March 16, 2020 - 11:17 am: Edit

Gary, in a sense, there are already two “Corporation Fleets” documented in Star Fleet History.

One is the Federation Express Corporation, and the other is an Entertainment thing that runs gambling ships and cruise liners. They were both mentioned in the Fed Ex article in Captains Log. I do not remember if GURPS PD Federation repeated the same information, I know part of the article was edited, but I don’t remember the exact wording.

I wonder if theFederation had chartered colonies and Corporation enterprises similar to England’s John company (aka the east India company. The Dutch also had a corporate tinge to its colonial empire, but was not as able to survive challenges like the English did. Portugal also had colonies other than Brazil. See the loss of Formosa to the Chinese.)

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, March 16, 2020 - 01:38 pm: Edit

My guess is I'm WAY off from what you're thinking, Gary, but are you asking about what the Federation Star Fleet might look like if the various national ships from the W-era had been upgraded like the Terran WCL (YR2.2) was to make the classic OCL (R2.5)?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, March 16, 2020 - 04:10 pm: Edit

yeah.

You are correct. (I think.)

VeryWAAYYY OFF the reservation.

It looks like he is trying to wedge open the door to General War era designs for some planetary navy ships for MajorWorld members of theFederation.

Guess we should count our selves as fortunate that Gary decided against blasting the door with combat grade explosives.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, March 16, 2020 - 09:51 pm: Edit

On the one hand, I'd be wary of allowing any other W-era Fed ships to be upgradable to "modern" tactical warp standards. In my view, the Terran light cruiser should be unique among pre-"saucer-and-nacelle" Fed hulls, in terms of how it could successfully handle so many successive warp upgrade iterations.

But on the other hand, I'm not entirely against the precedent set by the Terran-WDD-to-Federation-POL(/Auroran-FF) development, in that one could have a ship which followed a superficially similar hullform to an earlier generation of ship type on the outside, yet be essentially an entirely new build on the inside.

Particularly if the ongoing Shapeways project were to eventually look "back" to the Early Years the way it is now looking "forward" with its first wave of X-ships. If the only way to make a would-be modern-tech Vulcan cruiser viable was to declare that it looked "close enough" to its warp-refitted forebear to make the changes required from one miniature to another a matter of adjusting the weapon and/or special sensor mounts rather than having to re-draw the entire hull, fair enough.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, March 16, 2020 - 10:59 pm: Edit

There must be some factor in the design or composition of Terran navy ships that allowed for the conversion to advanced technology.

Heck, other than the Romulan first gen conversions (eagle, hawk, condor etc.) most other empires simply had nothing comparable. Even the D-4 cruisers were limited in how far they could be upgraded.

To date, the Federation has no direct competitor design for the Romulan battle hawk class ship...which in theory would fall somewhere in between the OCL and the POL.

I don’t know what such a ship would look like in terms of star fleet battles, but the POL is a 2 COMPOT unit, and the OCL is a 6 COMPOT, so (2+6)/2=4 . Means the Terran destroyer variant fully upgraded for the General War would fit between the POL and the fed FFG.

In otherwords, useless for fleet duty.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 11:40 am: Edit

COMPOT?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 11:52 am: Edit

Combat Potential.

It’s an F&E term that quantifies the relative power of Fleets in that game as part of the resolution of battles.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 12:32 pm: Edit

The Fed POL is F&R is 4 compot, bot 2.

The difference in firepower between the POL and FFG is one weapon.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 05:47 pm: Edit

Yes, but remember Richard that the POL counter has no crippled side, unlike the FF with a value of 2.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Oh, and Gary, the Klingons only had one Y hull that was (semi) convertible to middle years tech -- the C4 to the C4B. It still didn't get any more advanced nacelles though.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Well, there are the Rom old style hulls.

From Snipes, to King Eagles...

They get upgraded from the earliest of EY to X tech.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 07:37 pm: Edit

They just go back to civilian duty when crippled, that's why POLs don't have a crippled side.

It doesn't mean they explode instead of being crippled and in some empires there are 'naval service' versions of POL type ships that DO have a crippled side.

In the case of the Fed POL, if you HAD to have a factor I would assume it is 2 on the crippled side.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - 08:58 pm: Edit

If or when there was ever to be an opportunity to present the Federal Republic of Aurora in F&E form, one could perhaps picture the Auroran FF (which uses the same base hull as the Federation POL) as having a 4/2 set of factors.

So far as "design competitor" ships go, there are SSDs for the Kzinti YCA and CAM in Captain's Log #50 and the CL50 Supplemental File. Both hulls are derived from the WCA, from which the Kzintis historically branched out towards their Tug designs. If I recall correctly, Steve Zamboni may have presented a work-in-progress CAM in one of the Shapeways discussion threads. That said, I'm not sure if the Kzintis are capable of upgrading a YCA to a CAM, or if the latter are intended to be new builds (or to have been such, had the Kzintis historically built them).

So far as other (non-CL) Terran hulls go, it's noted that the Terran WFF could not be upgraded any further, and that the Terran WCA had an awkward warp engine arrangement and a set of ongoing maintenance issues that made it difficult to work with. Perhaps one could imagine the Terrans to have considered a Y-era equivalent of the OCA, had the Republic-class YCA never been built.

Actually, if the "saucer-and-nacelle" YFF was never built either, perhaps there might have been an interim step between the WDD and POL, in terms of the Terrans fielding a Y-era forerunner of the POL itself as their Early Years frigate?