As with the Vulpa-Nucian-Paravian and Echarri-Scon-Zosman groups, this trio was offered as one of the "Omega's Lost Futures" options in the August 2012 memo.

However, as the use of the longer terms in the thread title suggests, none of these three empires are "new". Two of them are sub-faction alternatives of pre-existing Omega Octant empires, while the third is still an open question as to exactly how different they would be to their counterparts in the Alpha Octant or the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.

As with the others, this thread is meant to collate what is known about them so far. But to be honest, I personally would see only one of these three as worth pursuing (if that); the other two probably work better as alternates of current (or future) SSDs for their "standard" empire counterparts. But, since it's not my call to make (and to be fair to the concepts which have been put forward so far), I'll try to see what is known so far about this trio.


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The Jindarian Freehold is the only place in known space where this species is known to hold a permanent territory. Bruce Graw had some ideas about how, and why, this happens in the CL36 article, but the JF would essentially count as a neutral hex on the map which no-one (other than the Andromedans) would have a hope of conquering.

The Loriyill Splinter Collective can trace its origins from the early Y190s, as the major Loriyill task force that tried (and failed) to get to Bolosco space in time to prevent the collapse of the Merchant Guilds to the Souldra. Isolated from the Home Stars for several years, this armada formed its own group consciousness as the Splinter Collective, and succeeded in destroying the Souldra holdings at the Black Sun in Y198. Once the invasions came to an end, they set themselves up in what had once been Bolosco space, in order to maintain an ongoing vigil against the threat of a Souldra return.

The Hiver Unihive was formed when a Hive Queen elected to flee Hiver core territory in Y200. The Unihive (which didn't end up going too far, in fairness) was uncovered by the Echarri Dynasty in Y208, who wait a year to make sure the Unihive is no longer supported by the other Hives before moving in for the kill. Rather than accept slavery in the Dynasty, the Unihive Queen commits suicide, ordering those of her hive who survive to seek out their own fates. A surprisingly large number of them "go rogue" and become a persistent (ahem) thorn in the side of the Echarri, some using Hiver bases to stage their attacks. This complicity will draw the Hivers and Echarri into a full-scale war from Y215-Y220.


As with the V/N/P and E/S/Z threads, there will be one post for each (sub-)faction with the same kind of topics listed there and in the Omega Warships thread.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:04 pm: Edit

Omega's Lost Futures - The Jindarian Freehold

Bruce Graw's idea for the Freehold hex was for there to be some sort of local phemonenon (such as a black hole or X-ray pulsar or whatnot) which prevented the star systems in this region from forming planets. Instead, you'd have dozens upon dozens of systems filled with massive asteroid belts, which (to the Jindarians) would the next best thing to paradise.

So, the Freehold would have a large number of Caravans living there on an effectively permanent basis, which would group together just long enough to ward out any attackers before going off to do their own thing.

The Freehold would, however, accept (or at least tolerate) a number of exiles and outcasts from other part of the Octant; Bruce suggested a lost Vari cell, a set of rogue Hivers, or whatever might work to help make the place an interesting RPG setting.

Historically, only twice was the Freehold bothered by an outside aggressor. The Andromedans had a go at the Jindarians in Y199, though presumably the Jindos held on long enough to still be around by the end of the Invasions. The Alunda, driven to desperation by their parlous economic state, made the foolish effort to seize a portion of the Freehold in Y209 (as part of an attempt to acquire new feeding grounds for their Host ships). Suffice it to say, it didn't work out for them.

It should be noted that these Jindarians have apparently been in the Omega Octant as long as their counterparts in both the Alpha Octant and the Lesser Magellanic Cloud were in their respective regions of space; about 100,000 years or so. None of them seem to know where it is they actually came from, and none of the three groups knew about the others prior to Operation Unity and the voyage of the Sakharov.


- What do we know about their technology? Out in the LMC, the Jindarians there are said to have the various "pre-Y1" ships and technologies which the species operated in Alpha prior to the onset of things like "war" classes, fighters, and PFs. If the same principle was applicable here, you would have a number of metal-hull and asteroid ships from Module F1 which would work pretty much right away. You'd only have to worry about what innovations would emerge in the Omega Octant proper; fighters, gunboats (which would likely use "volatile warp"), etc.


- Can they refit their "middle years" ships? This is less of an issue for the Jindarians than it is for others. Would they bother to adopt any local weapons? (The LMC Jindos never adopted local shields, warp-tuned lasers, or mass drivers.)


- Are they required to build wholly new "war" classes? If they are able to covert their hulls to "war" editions, they would not look like the ones in F1. They'd probably be quite late in the timeline over here, though.


- What about X-ships? The LMC Jindos are said to have adopted Alpha Octant X-ship designs after making contact with the Operation Unity task forces, according to Module X1R. However, it may be more likely that the Freehold Jindos might have adopted Mæsron-standard X-technology well before the Sakharov shows up.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Omega's Lost Futures - The Loriyill Splinter Collective

As noted in the opening post, the Splinter Collective was born from the task force which eventually conquered the Black Sun, and later set up shop in the former Bolosco space.

Bruce had an idea of giving them some sort of access to Singer technology, just as the Singers themselves incorporated samples of Loriyill tech perior to their fall in Y194.

But then, if the only Singers alive post-Y194 are refugees in the Home Stars, why would the Splinter Collective be the one to adopt their tech? If anyone was going to do so, would it not be the "home" Loriyill, who actually have the surviving Singer exiles there to work with?

If it was worth giving any Loriyill ships access to Singer-tech, I'd swap it around and have the Home Stars get such ships, and the Splinter Collective rely on more "standard" Loriyill technology.

And in truth, I'd simply recommend offering a few samples of "Singer-tech" ships as options for the Loriyill, and not bother treating the Splinter Collective as a distinct faction.


- What do we know about their technology? Aside from the proposed Singer connection, there is nothing really new for the Splinter Collective to use.


- Can they refit their "middle years" ships? Whatever the case is for the Home Stars Loriyill would apply here.


- Are they required to build wholly new "war" classes? Whatever the case is for the Home Stars Loriyill would apply here.


- What about X-ships? See above.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:21 pm: Edit

Omega's Lost Futures - The Hiver Unihive

The Unihive had less than a decade of existence before the Echarri invasion, but would live on through its numerous "rogue" ships.

The only real excuse to treat the Unihive differently is in (OR10.02), which notes how a number of Hives made use of particle phasers, particle beams, and/or tachyon guns instead of the "standard" Hiver loadout of wide-angle phasers and sting torpedoes.

If it is said that the Unihive was one of these "awkward" Hives, that would make doing some ships for them worth the effort. But if they used the regular Hiver weapons anyway, one should simply use standard Hiver SSDs instead.

(But then, how many SSDs with alternate weapon loadouts would be necessary? Would it not be as well to incorporate the Unihive variants into the "standard" Hiver SSDs, as and when it is deemed appropriate?)

- What do we know about their technology? Standard Hiver tech, unless they are one of the "awkward" PP/PB/TG users.


- Can they refit their "middle years" ships? Same answer as the Hivers.


- Are they required to build wholly new "war" classes? Same answer as with the "home" Hivers. But if the regular Hivers do get "war" classes, it might only happen after the Unihive left - and there might not be enough time for the Unihive to work it out for themselves by the time the Echarri rolled in.


- What about X-ships? Technically, they would be the same as Hiver X-ships. Historically, it's quite likely the Unihive was gone before Hiver X-ships were first introduced, and never learned about them until it was too late.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:25 pm: Edit

If the Freehold Jindarians gain access to "volatile warp" technology, building their own gunboats sounds eminently reasonable. If Omega workboats become a thing, they'd be liable to build (and export) those, too.

The Splinter Collective is already noted to have standard Loriyill space control ships in their territory, so would use standard Loriyill PFs (and/or workboats, should any exist in the Home Stars).

As noted in the Omega Warships thread, I like the idea of the Hives getting "volatile warp" drives, and using them to field "war destroyers". It would likely be developed after the Unihive left, and not reach the self-isolated hive in time to help hold back the Echarri.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:29 pm: Edit

All in, I don't think these three ideas are strong enough to hold up a module in and of themselves.


I would recommend deciding whether or not to incorporate the Splinter Collective and the Unihive into "standard" Loriyill and Hiver SSDs respectively (akin to how the LDR is shown as an option on Lyran Empire Ship Cards in FC).

Then I would suggest working out how many/few "new" SSDs the Freehold Jindarians need (which is probably not that many, at least prior to the onset of X-tech).

And then I'd simply use the leftover SSD space (of which there will be quite a fair amount) to help lighten the load for those modules planned to flesh out the 21 currently-published empires.


But then, parsec-ages may vary. Does anyone have another idea as to what to do with this trio?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, March 12, 2016 - 08:08 pm: Edit

There was an idea posted elsewhere on the BBS which might make for an interesting option with the Unihive: Size Class 7 "fighters" flown by Hiver pilots, which could be deployed from F-111-esque bays installed into a variant of the Barb-H "heavy frigate".

Since the Unihive may struggle to build larger hull types given its relative economic weakness (and isolation from the broader Hiver community), perhaps it could use captured tachyon missile technology as a means of increasing its combat power in an alternate manner.

Their standard "fighters" could be set in what another empire may refer to as a "swordfish" configuration (with no explosive warheads, but a phaser-W or phaser-P mount instead), akin to the phaser options available for TMs under (OFD1.252).

Plus, one could use various space-sized craft as "fighters", "heavy fighters", and/or "bombers" respectively.

The "main" Hiver empire may choose to reject such a technology option, or perhaps be given some sort of technological reason why they could not adopt it. Say, if the Unihive was obliged to specialise in some manner in order to pursue this line of development, in a way that was impractical for other Hives to pursue. But it could be a way to help make the Unihive distinct, or at least to give them (or their post-Echarri survivors) something else to bring to the tabletop someday.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 20, 2022 - 05:00 pm: Edit

In light of a discussion held elsewhere on the BBS, I was considering what Singer technologies would actually be of use to the Loriyill - and how they might go about incorporating them.

Sonic pulsers would be an ill-advised choice. Not least since, even if a ship has a phaser capacitor to draw power from, the presence of the SP does not itself add to the capacitor system aboard a given ship (OE25.22). Plus, unlike Singer ships (which have large battery decks primarily in order to arm their own SPs), Loriyill ships don't have much battery capacity to spare for this weapon.

So that leaves the various types of tachyosonic beam. This would perhaps involve installing light TSBs in place of fireballs on certain fighter or PF variants, and/or heavy TSBs in place of some or all of a given ship's fireballs.

The main issue here is that, whereas fireballs tend to have hemispheric arcs (on ships and PFs, but not on fighters), TSBs are typically shown as having 120-degree arcs. So an FH arc FB would be swapped out for an FA TSB; given the Singer side-mount preferences, perhaps LS and RS FB arcs would be reduced to LF+L and RF+R arcs respectively. Unless one were to leave the side-mounted fireballs in place, and only swap out the FBs facing forward.

Note that in all cases, the weapon charts in the 2011 OMRB should be used, not those on the current Singer SSDs. Although I'm not sure if the BPV adjustments should be based on the rules in (OE24.13), or those marked in Annex #8B.

So far as the enhanced TSB goes, it's noted in (OE24.37) that no Singer ships equipped with ETSBs made it as far as Loriyill space. So even if the Loriyill, together with the Singer exiles, were to get "back" to that point, I would restrict the use of ETSBs to would-be Loriyill X-ships.

It would be interesting to consider how the use of TSBs might affect Loriyill tactics - not just against the Souldra nemesis, but perhaps also against any other would-be troublemakers which might bother the Home Stars and/or the Splinter Collective during the Seventh Cycle of Omega history. For one thing, the higher power demands of the TSB relative to the fireball might lower the battle speed of a Singer-tech Loriyill variant - and with no enveloping mode, could yet require a healthy number of fireball variants to be present in a squadron expected to deal with Souldra soul shields.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - 11:08 am: Edit

If one were to take the opportunity to consider treating the Unihive as one of the "heterodox" Hives in existence - as opposed to the "orthodox" Hives armed with wide-angle phasers and sting torpedoes - one of the details that might need to be worked out at some point would be how the Barb fighter rules (OJ1.0) might need to be adjusted so as to account for the use of particle phasers, tachyon guns, and/or particle beams.

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The particle phaser part should be relatively simple: swap out any phaser-W1s and/or -W3s for -P1s and -P3s respectively. (Presumably the phaser-P2 would be off the table in this instance, as would the ship-mounted particle phaser stabilizer.)

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Tachyon guns might be trickier.

For non-Hiver tachyon gun fighters [(OJ2.1)], each charge is armed over two turns aboard the carrier in a "+" designated bay, akin to arming a photon torpedo fighter. Size-1 tachyon gun fighters are limited to one or two points of power per arming turn (or four points in total); size-2 fighters have the potential to arm as many as three points per turn (or a total of six), though such fighters have yet to be shown in SSD form.

If the "heterodox" Hivers must stick to those same limits, then size-1 Barb variants would be limited to four-point TG warheads, though a size-2 Barb variant might be permitted to arm six-point warheads.

Although, given that Barbs are more sophisticated internally than your average fighter, and given the precedent of the "orthodox" Barb-2 being allowed to overload its sting torpedo, I might wonder if a Barb-2 variant armed with a tachyon gun could be granted an exception permitting it to arm a six-point warhead also.

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As for non-Hiver particle beam fighters [(OJ2.2)], those are re-armed in a similar manner as disruptor fighters. Carrier-borne particle beam capacitors hold up two shots as standard; the current crop of Vari particle beam fighters have two particle beams apiece, but can only one shot per weapon in the course of a single turn, using no more than one point at a time (so no overload shots). Although the rules as written leave the door ajar for more advanced fighters, plus their supporting carrier capacitors, to have different options.

While a similarly restrictive limit could be imposed on the "heterodox" Hivers, again I'd argue that the comparatively sophisticated power systems aboard each Barb might give them more flexible options in this instance.

So, again using the sting torpedo precedent, I might limit a Barb-1 variant to the equivalent restrictions to those the "orthodox" Barb-1 is under - as in, it can fire its particle beam twice in a single turn, but with standard loads per shot only - while enabling Barb-2 and Barb-H variants to overload one or both of their respective particle beam shots per weapon per turn.

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Also, in terms of designation: perhaps one could use "-W" for wide-angle phasers, "-P" to mark the use of particle phasers, "-S" for sting torpedoes, "-T" for tachyon guns, and "-B" for particle beams.

So, for example, a range of Barb-2 variants would be:

Barb-2-W/S (the "orthodox" Barb-2 model, with wide-angle phasers and a sting torpedo),
Barb-2-W/T (wide-angle phasers and a tachyon gun),
Barb-2-W/B (wide-angle phasers and a particle beam),
Barb-2-P/S (particle phasers and a sting torpedo),
Barb-2-P/T (particle phasers and a tachyon gun), and
Barb-2-P/B (particle phasers and a particle beam).

So whichever phaser and heavy weapon combination the Hive itself sets as standard, the Barbs used by said Hive can follow suit.

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On a side note: since the playtest Zosman Marauders are permitted to operate salvaged Hiver technologies, there might one day need to be a rule added to (OJ2.6) describing to what level size-1 or size-2 Zosman fighters armed with sting torpedoes can, or cannot, arm those particular weapons...