Alex Lyons:

We have explained this before. It is not possible, you can find longer extent explanations of why it is impossible for the Chomak to be unknown in the archives of this topic.

In simple terms, the Andromedans had to have the equivalent of Military Intelligence. As they knocked over Magellanic forces (including civilian operations) they would have studied the records of those people. This in turn would have told them that:

not only the Eneen, but the Baduvai, had contact with the Chomak

That the Chomak were militarily superior to the Eneen and Baduvai, so much so that these empires feared the Chomak (and forces from these empires were able to destroy a Desecrator on their own)

That the Chomak were more advanced (able to circumnavigate the entire Magellanic Cloud without a chain of bases to support the operation)

Among other things.

The only way for the Chomak to have been unknown to the Andromedans would have been for them to be unknown to the Magellanics themselves.

They were not.

So they are not.

And their history of contact with the Magellanic Cloud as recorded by the Magellanics themselves made it impossible for the Andromedans to fully commit to an invasion of the Milky Way without first eliminating the threat to their logistics.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 11:06 pm: Edit

well i atleast hope at some point the chomaks could be printed because it would be nice to see what the big issue with them is

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 12:52 am: Edit

It would be interesting to see what can be made for the Yrol Septs, too.

(At least they have some kind of background data in print about them; the Core empire the Maghadim crushed in their initial expansion don't have much to go on.)

Speaking of the Yrol, it's going to be interesting to see what they might do to survive the Andromedan conquest... if they managed to survive at all, that is.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 08:10 pm: Edit

i just got done reading the LMC timeline and it says alot of things about the Chomaks in it which provides good background information on how they are, which i think makes them look pretty much like an DXD is compared to a D6, they are the innovators...i like that

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Tuesday, February 08, 2011 - 01:34 pm: Edit

i know at some point the chomaks had to be developed some so is there anyway the chomaks could be released just as an unnoficial race for players like my group who dont do scenerios or things like that?

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 10:22 pm: Edit

I dunno if it would fit here or in a shadows product, but I would like ot see their fleets filled out with enough ships to make them viable as a general major race-- IE, at least a few SC 2 hulls and for late scenariors, X-ships.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Saturday, June 18, 2011 - 02:01 am: Edit

i dont think they will do that for the simple fact that they force the timeline firmly and as such according to the timelines they would never get to SC2, and they wouldnt have the time/resources to hit X-Ships. but i definatly do agree i want to see these things even if its just an unnoficial ship because my group plays non scenerio pickup games.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, June 18, 2011 - 02:17 am: Edit

Well, it is noted that the Jindarian caravans in the LMC adopted X-tech after Operation Unity; though their systems might be considered more directly compatible with Alpha X-tech than whatever the younger Magellanic empires used.

If the Alpha empires can get a range of conjectural battleships (and light battleships, and Y-era battleships, and...) I don't see why the LMC couldn't get a few conjectural DNs, at least. (The Chomak were noted as having blueprints for several; why not show what they would have looked like had the Community fielded them?)


Actually, it would be interesting to see what, if anything, held the Chomak back in that regard; not least if you compare them to, say, the Iridani, who also come from a small extra-galactic cluster, but who were both willing and able to field dreadnoughts (and battleships!) for use in their most high-profile Quests.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Saturday, June 18, 2011 - 11:01 am: Edit

while the Chomak did have blueprints for the larger ships both of the Steve's are VERY upset over the Chomak and basically dont even consider Chomak for any LMC thing they do anymore (however i would still like to see them)

By Mark Albert Temple (Mithril) on Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 02:11 pm: Edit

to be honest, a 7000 year history suggests to me that perhaps looking at the history of China might be a good idea?
China's history as a civilization goes back over 3000 years, and for most o that time their military tech did not advance all that quickly.

this was because their society very quickly developed an imperial structure and a fairly rigid social class system. maintaining Order and conformity became the main pressures on the civilization, which meant new technologies were slow to propagate and be applied, despite the fact they actually invented a lot of stuff.

didn't stop them from fighting a ton of wars and civil wars (and during the times of warfare military tech advanced fairly rapidly) but generally after each the new dynasty rapidly brought things back to near the old status quo.

the Chomak having a similar historical set up might be worth looking at.

this also wouldn't prevent the kind of long range trips the Chomak take either. in chinese history you have examples like Zheng He's great fleet from the 1500's, which was a huge fleet for the time, of very impressive ships, that sailed half way around the world half a dozen times, and which would have made china a huge trade power had a new emperor not ascended to power who didn't much care for anything outside his own borders.

so the Chomak could have a very lengthy near continuous society for 7000 years, if they have a stratified social system, ritualized and tradition centric society, and as a result, long periods of relative technological stasis broken by bloody wars where tech advances.

their relative isolation from the rest of the local powers would help prevent something China's fall to the colonial powers.

after the andromedans kick their rears, the Chomak could either chose to rebuild their old society.. or have it fall apart, leaving a vacuum for something totally different (much like how fighting with the europeans, and then the japanese, resulted in the downfall of the Chinese imperial state, resulting in the rise of the communistic one under Mao Zedong)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_occupations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Tuesday, December 01, 2015 - 01:12 pm: Edit

Mark: You analysis makes sense. They are relatively stagnant, but have a pretty advanced technology because they are so old. Is anyone working on the Chomak now? I mean both in technology and ships and also how they are as a race?

By Mark Albert Temple (Mithril) on Sunday, December 06, 2015 - 04:56 pm: Edit

using that inspiration, the Chomak's fleet could probably draw a bit from the treasure fleet of china. for example, how the Chomak can do such long range trips.

the Zheng He's fleet was able to travel such long distances because at its core you had the great "treasure ships".. giant ships larger than anything else on the ocean at the time. in a time when most ships were under a hundred feet long, these were over 300. they were also mostly cargo bay, holding vast amounts of supplies for the fleet's crews while also having plenty of room for trade goods.

a model of one of these treasure ships alongside a european sailing ship of the same time period (early 1400's)
http://f.tqn.com/y/asianhistory/1/S/L/E/-/-/ZhengHesShipbyLarsPlougmannFlickr.jpg
the rest of the fleet was smaller, more conventionally sized ships, which served as scouts, defenders, etc.

the Chomak's long range expeditions may well have employed a similar approach.. their regular fleet is smaller ships like the rest of the Cloud.. but over the millennia they'd built up a small fleet of massive "mobile starbases" to serve as a self-propelled logistical hub for a fleet traveling outside their cluster. call it huge cargo capacity, space for crew R&R aboard, maybe a limited spacedock capacity for repairs. probably not going to be able to build all new ships, to minimize strategic ripple effects.

during the andromedean conflict ships like these would allow the Chomak to do some long range campaigns.. and after the cluster is crushed, for some survivors to stick around doing resistance efforts for some time after loosing their main worlds.

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Monday, December 07, 2015 - 01:23 pm: Edit

Again, that makes sense. The alternative would be to have a unique movement system for the Chomak--which might be interesting but would add complications to the rules. I do think that the Chomak should have some unique abilities, seeing how different their situation is from the rest of the Megellianics. But again, is anyone working on getting the Chomak ready?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 07, 2015 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Ken had decided in his development of the Cloud that the Chomak would successfully resist the Andromedan Invasion (something we did not bless or accept), and provide, from their impenetrable bastion, the economic proceeds by which the other Magellanic empires were able to conduct their guerrilla war against Andromedan domination.

The problem is that if all this were so, the Andromedans simply NEVER WOULD HAVE ATTACKED OUR GALAXY, much less intruded into both the Omega Octant and the Alpha Octant.

Ken's apparent theory (and I am not saying any of this to be negative, nor implying that Ken said any of this, I am only trying to make what seems a logical progression to me) was that the Andromedans were Nazi Germany, and the Chomak would be England, while our Galaxy would be Russia (the Alpha Octant) and Africa (The Omega Octant).

The problem is that would only make sense if the Andromedans originated in the Magellanic Cloud themselves. The Cloud is (for the Andromedans) an assembly area for operations against our Galaxy and a major logistics node (the link to the Andromedan Galaxy). If the Chomak Community resisted Andromedan Conquest, the Andromedans would NOT be able to ignore them. They would exist as a constant threat to their communications back to their Home Galaxy. Given Ken's developed background that saw the Magellanic empires successfully destroy all but one of the existing Andromedan Links to their Home Galaxy (the other Desecrators), the Andromedans would not have been able to accept the potential risk to the one remaining Desecrator, and thus would not have been able to intrude into our Galaxy until it (and thus their Line of Communications) was secure and they could afford to leave only "local security forces" in the cloud.

Thus if the Chomak survived, i.e., were able to prevent the Andromedans from violating their space while supporting the insurgency, the Andromedans would have been forced to leave major fleet units to guard against any possible attack on the Desecrator by the Chomak. Which in turn would have prevented any intrusion into our Galaxy.

If the Chomak survive as an unassailable bastion and logistics node for the Magellanic Resistance, the Andromedans would never leave the Magellanic Cloud (unless the numbers of ships they had available was so huge that Operation Unity would fail at its inception).

This always got back to the problem that the only way the Magellanic Cloud worked is if the Andromedans could consider it "secure." Now, secure does not mean that they have tracked down and destroyed every Magellanic ship, but it does mean that there is no significant threat to the Andromedan "line of communications" back to their Home Galaxy, and no chance of such a threat developing within the cloud.

So, yes, there would be a resistance, hidden bases, etc. And the Magellanics would be in a constant state of decline, not able to replace ship losses (or even crew losses) as fast as they were losing them. Starved for resources. But still able to win a local fight here and there (knock off a few Cargo Sleds and their escorts, hit an isolated mining colony, rescue a few "slaves" here and there). On the whole, they would be doomed to eventually being ground down to nothing.

It had to be that way, or the Andromedans simply would not have moved on to our Galaxy.

I do not at this juncture know what the Chomak are going to look like. There is simply no way the Andromedans can turn their backs to the Chomak if the Chomak are able to resist them and conduct any kind of offensive operations. Even if all the Chomak are doing is resisting invasion effectively, it would tie down large numbers of Andromedan ships and resources to watch them because they would remain a threat to the last remaining intact desecrator (it is not known why the Andromedans did not build more for redundancy after losing one of the first two and having the second apparently made incapable of serving as an anchor for the trans-galactic RTN from Andromeda).

You can try to say that the Germans did invade Russia, but that overlooks several other caveats.

The Milky Way was totally unaware of what was happening in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud; the Soviet Union was marshaling for war because it could see what the Germans were doing (although Stalin thought he had more time to prepare) and Germany was aware that the Soviet Union was building up its military.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Monday, December 07, 2015 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Maybe the Chomak waited to bide their time, quietly building up ships for a decent offensive?

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Monday, December 07, 2015 - 09:26 pm: Edit

SPP: I don't disagree with anything you wrote. Mark might just think that if the Chomak had these large, long range ships, one might have survived the conquest and aided the resistance, weak though any such resistance would doubtless be. The Chomak were occupied for a shorter time than the other Magellianics, which might mean less damage to their worlds, and a quicker recovery phase.

By Mark Albert Temple (Mithril) on Monday, December 07, 2015 - 09:50 pm: Edit

pretty much. Chomak cluster falls, mobile base leads rag-tag fugitive fleet away to try and preserve what it can.

one of the reasons i suggested such "self propelled bases" should have ability to repair ships but limited ability to build new ones. repair means such ship can easily keep a (shorter range*) fleet going over long trips, but if it can build new ones at any useful rate it's gonna throw the andromedan war out of whack.


* thinking on ship building.. since the Chomak's cluster is fairly small astrographically speaking, and if we take the idea of an insular society with limited outside contact, the regular Chomak ships probably wouldn't be designed with long distance travel in mind. in fact, they probably have just enough warp ability to redeploy across their cluster, and not a lot more. probably a lot slower than everyone else would build. not much need for high strategic speed when everywhere you usually go is practically right next door.

not sure how that would translate to game stats. still inexperienced with the rules really. but i would guess smaller warp engines than most powers would mount on a given hull size. and then they make up the power difference with either special warp tech (like the orion doubler system thing) or non-warp engine generators of some kind.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 11:41 am: Edit

Randy Blair:

That issue has been addressed, repeatedly (sorry).

In brief:

The Andromedans MUST have something concurrent with "military intelligence."

Once they begin operating in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud they are going to collect information on what the different empires thought of each other.

What they will find is that the Chomak were extremely capable and more powerful than the other Magellanic empires (this is embedded in the existing history).

At that point, once again, they cannot ignore the Chomak threat to their logistics, they cannot advance on the Milky Way until the Chomak threat is eliminated.

Mark Albert:

The "huge supply ship" with smaller escort/supporting ships concept already exists in the Star Fleet Battles Universe; See the Seltorians (R15.0), specifically the "Hive Ship (R15.13)" (which can internally dock two heavy cruisers and six destroyers) and the "Nest Ship (R15.26) which can internally dock two heavy cruisers and four destroyers).

Chomak history already establishes that Chomak ships, if anything, have inherently greater operational range than those of most other known empires. It is not just that they circumnavigated the entire Magellanic Cloud with no supporting bases, perhaps with a huge mothership but I am just not sure we want to go there again having already done that with the Seltorians), but that they are recorded as having intruded into the cloud at other intervals, including a three (3) year operation while the Andromedans were dominant (and in and of itself that decisively proves the need for the Andromedans to eliminate the Chomak threat before they can advance on the Milky Way).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 03:17 pm: Edit

Once again, a background point.

What ever the Chomak are, they have to be T E R R I F Y I N G to the two principle Magellanic empires (Baduvai, Eneen, the Maghadim were not that familiar with the Chomak because of their late emergence from the core region). This is what the history says. They cannot be technologically or militarilly inferior to, or even just equal to, the other Magellanic species.

As noted before, from the published history in Module C5:

Y36 After consolidating their hold on N'gaawm, the Eneen expand northward to Grelish, and are dissauded by the Chomak. The threat of Chomak intervention blocked the Eneen Northern expansion for more than thirty years.

Y67 The Chomak withdraw from the rest of the Magellanic Cloud for unkown reasons. The justifiably cautious Eneen do not move into the vacated space for another three years.

Y122 A Chomak squadron circumscribes the Fringe, stopping at the boundaries of the Line, making contact with the Baduvai in the process.

Y163-Y165 A Chomak task force intrudes into Andromedan controlled space. After three engagements, they withdraw to their own space.

Y172 The Andromedans work their way through the Fringe and stumble on Chomak itself, and are beaten back. Over the next decade, the Andromedans make several attempts to establish RTN links into Chomak space. All are rebuffed.

The above history establishes that the Chomak are "A Power." So powerful they blocked the Eneen for 30 years, and when they withdrew for their own reasons the Eneen only occupied the abandoned space with great caution three YEARS after the Chomak withdrew.

A Chomak squadron wandered around in Andromedan occupied space for three YEARS, and the Andromedans were not able to destroy it. It simply chose to withdraw back into Chomak space.

The Chomak rebuffed efforts by the Andromedans to break into their space for a DECADE.

As has been noted, if all of this is true (and it is published history, and the published history also says that the Andromedans do finally destroy Chomak), it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Andromedans to advance on the Milky Way with such a threat so close to their major logistics node.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 06:58 pm: Edit

For what it's worth, I had posted my own thoughts regarding how to potentially handle the Chomak earlier in this thread (on January 10, 2011).


So far as their relative power vis-à-vis the three "modern" Magellanic Powers, perhaps the closest point of comparison I might use is how the Helgardian stronghold stands relative to other empires over in the Triangulum Galaxy - at least up to the point in the M33 timeline we get to see in Module E2.

On the one hand, the Helgardians would easily qualify as an "elder" power by most others' standards. They had been in space for eleven thousand years by Y1 (though the first ten thousand was back in their home dimension). In terms of starship design and construction, They enjoyed a significant technological head-start over other Triangulum powers right up to the Y120s. And they hold the unparalleled advantage of possessing a Ringworld orbiting the Helgard home sun; arguably the most significant asset they had inadvertently brought with them when they were displaced into the "Prime" SFU timeline. Plus, they enjoy numerous biological benefits as a species, to include thousand-year-long life spans and an advanced immune system which renders them immune to Arachnid assimilation.

But for all of this, there are significant factors in play which rein in the Helgardians as a power. Their longevity is offset by a very low birthrate, which prevents them from founding more than a handful of new colonies each century. (Their former empire in the home dimension was far larger than the one they have in "our" one, but it took a very long time for it to get as large as it did.) Their technology level, military-wise, effectively stagnated due to lack of external competition; in the "modern" era of Triangulum history, they are at best able to only keep up with new developments by the younger powers. And their very long-term way of thinking coupled with their arguably naive way of looking at less developed species led them to sign Warp Pacts which uplifted a host of other worlds into space - each of which promptly pushed their R&D projects in order to catch up with their elders, their colonization efforts to spread much more quickly across the galaxy than the Helgardians themselves were capable of doing, and their fleets to wage war on one another (and to risk entangling the stronghold itself into a web of interlocking power blocs and blood feuds).

Thee sum total of this leaves the Helgardians of the Y120s as "merely" the first power among (near-)equals, rather than the supreme hegemon they might otherwise have been.


While the Helgardians are perhaps the most relevant example of an extant power to consider (biologically speaking, at any rate), it is worth noting that the Loriyill and Chlorophons both seem to have ancient pedigrees to consider.

The Loriyill are hard to gauge properly, since they are perhaps the most "exotic" of species that still deigns to communicate, after a fashion, with humans and other "young" species. It is unknown just how long they have been in space, how far their early efforts at exploration went, why the Home Stars are so delineated (as in, why did the borders of "core" Loriyill territory settle where they did historically), and what kind of steps they took in order to reach the "technology" level they possessed as of Y1. It does seem that whatever developments they may have went through prior to then (such as when fighting their first Souldra war) may not have gone in quite the way one might have expected; for one thing, they reportedly lacked any sort of phaser type until acquiring (or mimicking) quantum and micro phasers in response to contact with the current crop of Omega Octant empires.

As for the Phons, they have both biological and political reasons why they had to effectively start over in the current era. Since a Phon can only command a ship in a certain phase of its life cycle (a phase which is itself restricted based on the size classes the Phons would be capable of building at any give point in time, and by the capability and/or inclination of the individual Phons involved), there would only be so many potential candidates available to run a star-faring empire. Founding new colonies would be a problem, too, since there would be no "elders" present to guide a new colony to further development (since an elder Phon simply cannot be transported there, unless the Phons have some sort of as-yet-unpublished transport ship that can carry an older Phon in a purpose-built "starliner" pod of sorts).

Perhaps that itself might explain why the Phons had such a fitful history with warp technology. It might have been simply too difficult for them to make star travel work when they first tried it. Or perhaps they felt it necessary to establish seedlings (and Keeper populations) on the first wave of colonies, wait a few thousand years for a critical mass of Phon colonists to emerge on those worlds, and then go back into space to see how they were doing before moving yet further.


To go back to the Chomak, there can be numerous reasons why things went the way they did historically.

Perhaps part of their dynamic was biological and/or societal in nature, as seen with the Helgardians or Chlorophons.

Perhaps their early warp development came in fits and starts, akin to what happened with the five pre-ISC planets. If Chomak non-tactical warp drive was as restricted as its equivalent in the Resource Worlds, even exploring the Cluster itself would have been a major undertaking - let alone traversing the Fringe region between it and the "main" LMC proper.

And it's worth bearing in mind that both the Baduvai and Eneen were still in their "middle years" technology levels by the time the Chomak withdrew from the northern LMC. Baduvai expansion northward had been held up by their initial troubles with the Uthiki, coupled with the major expanse of building up their side of the Line. The Eneen were hindered by their own need to fortify the Baduvai border, as well as their ongoing problems with getting a handle on "modern" warp technology. (The Eneen "old fleet" was stuck with Y-level warp engines, and the experimental designs they tried to come up with at this time proved far less than ideal.)

By the time the Baduvai and Eneen introduced their respective "war" classes, the dynamic had shifted courtesy of the Maghadim. Even if the Eneen wanted to have a go at the Chomak at any point prior to the Andromedan conquest, the kind of logistical effort needed to move fleets across the Fringe and to strike the Cluster directly would have left the Protectorates critically exposed to Baduvai and/or Maghadim opportunism.

So I don't think the Chomak need to be capable of curb-stomping the Magellanic Powers by the time the Andros roll around. They merely need to be strong enough to make it counter-productive for the Baduvai or Eneen to bother messing with them.


There is one other point of comparison I might make - with the extra-galactic Iridani Cluster, relative to the Omega Octant proper.

While Iridani home space was essentially secure from assault by any of the "local" Omega factions (as not even the Zosman Marauders could establish operations there), both known efforts by the Iridani to establish colonies in the Milky Way galaxy failed utterly. While part of the problem in each case came from the lack of a unified political will inside the kingdom in support of these efforts, the local conditions in each case proved fatal. (The Koligahr pre-empted the first effort, while the second attempt was scuppered by the Andromedans.) And while the sense of complacency engendered by their solidarity and isolation left them uniquely vulnerable to Andromedan conquest, the Iridani learned these harsh lessons well, as they strove to fortify the liberated Cluster while launching ongoing Crusade Quests against the Andros still in Omega.

But the Iridani make for a useful point of comparison in other ways, too. They, along with the likes of the Bolosco and Qixa, are not shy of making attempts at long-range explorations into uncharted space. Yes, they tend to rely on pre-established logistical routes (chains of supply docks linking the Cluster to the galaxy for one, and the establishment of trade routes for the other two), but there are cases when each has set out off the beaten path, as it were.

Perhaps the Chomak make a distinction between their "home" ship designs, those which would be tasked with patrolling the Cluster proper, as well as the Fringe worlds nearest to it; and a handful of "exploration" hulls purpose-built to operate far from home. (Perhaps not quite to the same extreme as the divide between "out-Cloud" and "in-Cloud" ships built by the Qixa, though.)


Hopefully, they (along with the Yrol Septs) may one day get a chance at being more fully fleshed out in SFB terms, should a chance at a "Module C5R" ever roll around.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 08:00 pm: Edit

That's really a lot of weird stuff to digest in what you said, too much for me to wade through it.

Could you keep things to alpha or magellenic empires or history, which most players are more familiar with (at least as far as I know)?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 10:25 pm: Edit

Realistically, given what we already know about the Chomak, touching other published works beyond Alpha is appropriate.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 10:28 pm: Edit

Mayhaps, but Gary goes far beyond touching I would say. That being said, I'd like to see the Chomak some day, though I dunno how such a thing would be done.

By Mark Albert Temple (Mithril) on Tuesday, December 08, 2015 - 11:28 pm: Edit

@ Steve Petrick
my point about suggesting the giant ship wasn't that it was unique (i am aware of the Seltorian hiveships), rather that the idea of a massive supportship used as the core of a fleet would address one of the issues i perceive..

the Chomak stay in their cluster for the most part. limited outside interaction. yes they send a fleet to circumnavigate the cloud. yes one task force caused some issues for the Andromedans.
the point is that what info we do have suggests they are NOT an expansionary power. they mostly stay in their cluster, which means their military is going to be much more defensively minded.

this suggests that, since their territory is so small (4 hexes wide at the widest on the maps i've seen, more like 2-3 across most directions) they don't really need the kind of high strategic redeployment speeds other factions in the cloud and in the milky way use. which suggests their tech probably developed along the idea of their ships having limited endurance for strategic travel. and limited endurance, while great for a defensive force that only has to stay within its own territory, is terrible at long distance power projection.

yet we know the Chomak have done this. several times.

so obviously they came up with a solution.
my suggesting something like the Chinese treasure ships addresses the problem. not by giving them some special tech or a whole 2nd fleet design.. but by basically postulating the idea that they did those long range trips by building cargo-ships large enough to replenish the regular ships on the go. with the cloud being generally more "cruisers are your big ships" in terms of fleets, a cargoship the size of say, a klingon Battleship would be impressive. even if it is minimally armed. being able to carry enough food, fuel, and spare parts to keep a fleet of shorter ranged ships going though would allow some impressive forces to deploy well past their borders.
i call them "mobile star bases" mainly to establish they aren't meant as combat ships, rather as a way to keep a fleet going away from normal supply lines.

think a Depot Ship crossed with a Replenishment oiler, cranked to 11.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replenishment_oiler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depot_ship


and yes the Chomak would have to be very scary. but that doesn't automatically mean that their tech has to be superior. it just means the Chomak fleet as a whole is scary.
you could well get that kind of situation through numbers rather than per-ship power. considering their society has been around for thousands of years longer than the rest, but their tech cannot be much better for reasons of balance, we've pretty much agreed their tech had to be stagnant.

one of the side effects of a stagnant tech base is it allows you to stockpile stuff in times of peace.. and know that it'll still be useful when you do need it.

so perhaps when they are not actually fighting anyone, they continue to build new ships at a steady rate. when their fleet exceeds a certain size they just put ships into mothballs. a major war comes along and they're taking losses, rather than have their shipyards ramp up production.. they start pulling ships from mothballs. which would mean their reinforcement rate, at least over the short term, would be massive. eventually they'd run low on mothballed ships and reinforcement would slow down massively.

this could explain why the rest of the cloud was so wary of them.. when they seem to have an unending supply of new ships, other races would think they're much bigger and more powerful than they were. it would make it seem like they had massive industry, rather than the limited industry they actually have.

the "stockpile fleet" idea too would help explain why the Andromedans eventually beat the Chomak. after a decade of constant war (going by the timeline available on the site), their stockpiles would have been depleted, weakening their defense with every loss. then the andro's took out the shipyards and that's all she wrote. the remaining ships all die in valiant last stands or flee into the greater cloud.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 02:19 am: Edit

I am not 100% on the Chinese treasure ships, didn't they move mainly following the coasts and also stop regularly for supplies, as well as avoiding the rough seas.