Hrm, I like the mothball fleet idea. While the Eneen and Budavi may be winning most battles they have with the Chomak, the Chomak keep showing up in new ships. This would give the other LMC powers pause, just how big is the Chomak fleet? Do we risk antagonizing them?

Meanwhile the Chomak themselves are an ancient dwindling race, perhaps their ships are mostly robotic, like Drex ships, and the Chomak aren't even really paying attention.

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 12:34 pm: Edit

For the Chomak to be able to circumnavigate the cluster they would have to have either have the big ships that Mark suggested, or else a unique drive that didn't need to refuel for a long time, or one that could get fuel from space; sort of like the Souldra.

The Chomak would have unique characteristics. It seems that they would be better than any of the other Magellianics to do what they did with the amount of space they controlled. I am sure about the idea of a mothball fleet. They would need not just a mothball fleet, but the experienced crews to man them. Maybe their Destroyers are the equivalent of the other Magellianics heavy cruisers.

As to why it was so hard for the Andros to conquer them, perhaps the Chomak weapons are especially good against the Andros. In any event, the Andros wore them down in a 10 year war of attrition, before finally overwhelming their defenses. Then the remnants of the Chomak fleet withdrew to wage a weak guerrilla war.

Perhaps the campaign against the Chomak weakened and delayed the invasion of the Galaxy, so that the Chomak did contribute to ultimate victory.

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 12:49 pm: Edit

It just seems to me that the idea of mothball fleet in unnecessary. While having some ships mothballed is plausible, having a huge fleet just lying around seems implausible.

Rather, as the war progressed, the Chomak would be frantically building ships, improving them as they did. In the end, the superior numbers of the Andros wore them down.

By Mark Albert Temple (Mithril) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 05:49 pm: Edit

Stephen, when you start talking about tech being better or worse it makes for a huge headache in terms of balance.

and yes while manpower would be a limiting factor, it would not be a huge one. it is always going to be easier and faster to train a crew than it is to build a new ship. and it will be faster to pull a ship out of a stockpile and re-commission it than it will be to build an all new ship as well.

what this basically would allow them to do is more rapidly replace their losses. lose half a dozen ships? not much later they're getting 8 to replace them. makes it seem like they've got massive resources (which would scare people) when in reality most of those ships were built years or decades before.

part of this comes from further inspiration using the "chinese empires" idea. the ancient chinese kingdoms made a policy of stockpiling massive amounts of weapons, armor, and supplies. their standing armies were usually not all that big, but they could expand it rapidly because all they had to do is draft manpower and train the resulting units. this also played an economic role. the production of war materiel was a huge industry and required specialized skills. by keeping these people in constant employ they preserved those skills (both the current workers and those being trained), and it supported a lot of other industries related to the raw materials.

all i'm doing to taking that concept and updating it for starships.

wayne, at the time pretty much everyone sailed in that fashion. but the chinese fleets were so large that they could not easily resupply at non-chinese ports. consider that Zheng he's fleet had something like 300 ships for most of these voyages, about half of them those massive ones. most other nations in the world at the time didn't even have that many ships in their navies, for the most part, and those being much much smaller ships. the chinese fleets had to bring most of their own food with them because they literally could eat a port out of food otherwise. ports at the time were not really set up to support a fleet with over 50,000 mouths to feed. heck most of them had populations only a tenth that size in cities.

the chinese trips did involve a lot of port stops, but they mostly spent those trading (goods from china like silk and spices) for local goods, and giving and receiving tributes as part of diplomatic processes. the Ming Emperor that had the fleets built and commanded their use was looking to have other nations outside china recognize chinese power.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 06:26 pm: Edit

I was wondering about the Chomak and what this was all about. So went and researched the cloud and time line tech.

The Chomak are a old race. Have been around a long time. The other races in the cloud are afraid of them. If there tech was so scary they would have been able to hold of the Andros if not destroy them.

That said the stockpile of ships and weapons would be a way to have a large force. In the Alpha quadrant there are robot killer machines left over from ancient wars. The Chomak have such ships.
There racial numbers are dwindling they are on the decline. They could not keep up the colonies in the cloud. The other races did not want to face large numbers of robot ships.

As for circumnavigating the cloud if you have a force of robots and a few scientists the supply problem is not insurmountable.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Mark,
I am thinking that with the Seltorians already having large ships that can carry and do repairs on smaller ships, the Chomak may be better with some other way of doing their thing.
Of cause having a mother-ship, a mobile base of supplies, can work for traveling such distances and staying for long periods of time in hostile territory.
The mother-ship would also be a priority target to be destroyed.

I have taken the Magellanic Cloud rule book out, having a read.

By Mark Steven Hoyle (Markshoyle) on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Seltorians are a different story, in that when they needed crews they laid eggs and created them in short order (someone who knows will have to point out what that time period was).

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 07:21 am: Edit

The Chomak, travailing long distances and operating for extended periods of time, perhaps had on the fringe out of the way outposts on moons and asteroids.
They could have modular(concealed)shipyards that were moved from time to time(like the Jumokian).
The Chomak TUGs may have been more capable ships.

In the Magellanic Fleet Restrictions, the Chomak Community are noted as a minor power(MS1.112).
The Omega sector races(species) are known to have entered the Cloud (MS1.29), was one of those times in Y67.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 08:13 am: Edit

Perhaps the Chomak had unbelieveably potent fixed defenses or extremely potent short ranged defense ships? this could explain why it was always stay OUT of Chomak instead of be afraid they will come out to get us?

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 10:25 am: Edit

Does it really take a lot longer to build a war ship than fully train a crew? Does anyone really know?

According to the timeline supplied by SPP, the following could be seen as plausible. The Chomak are a very old race. When the other Magellianics arose, they sent a fleet, with their long range capabilities, to scout them out. They concluded that they were not a threat at the time, both because of inferior technology, and because they were fighting each other. The Chomak aren't aggressive: they just wanted to be sure that they weren't threatened. When the Andros appeared, they sent out a recon force, and realized that the Andros were a real threat. At this point they began to really build ships and defenses. That they had very strong fixed defenses seems plausible.

That the Chomak have superior tech to the other races seems to be already built into their background description. Why can't a 150 BPV Chomak DD fight a 150 point Magellianic CA, and so on?

I can see the Chomak having some mothballed ships. A few dozen possibly. But a large fleet just seems implausible to me. Ships are expensive, and the technology improves over time, and why spend a lot of money on ships that might never be used, and might be somewhat obsolete if and when they finally were used? (Though of course in this case they would end up being used.) Would a ship built and mothballed in year 120 be useful in battles against fleets built in 180? True, the Chomak usually change slowly, but they would have to be aware that the other races were rapidly improving.

Just my 2 cents worth. SPP: any comments?

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 10:58 am: Edit

Oh derp...I was confusing the Chomak with the Maghadim (with their WYN type radiation zone).

Why are there no Chomak ships or "R" section?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 11:47 am: Edit

Randy Blair:

Because the Chomak have never been published beyond the information that is in Module C5 (same with the Yrol Septs).

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Is there a plan to do so?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, December 10, 2015 - 03:34 pm: Edit

One would hope so.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, December 11, 2015 - 11:34 am: Edit

Randy Blair:

This topic is not so large that you cannot review it to see the problems.

Right now all that exists of the Chomak (and the Yrol Septs) is what the history says (as I have said several times just recently). With so much going on "out of the office" of late I have not had the time to go into some of the longer responses that have been posted in here (I am not ignoring them, but long responses take more time to review and check their data and that time has been kind of in short supply the last few days . . . no fault to the authors, just a lot of my time is being grabbed for other uses recently). Someone may have had an idea that I have not found as of yet (because I have not been able to review the long responses). And I have to be careful of my own pre-dispositions while looking at other people's ideas so that I do not reject something just because it conflicts with my own concepts.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, December 11, 2015 - 03:55 pm: Edit

Gary Carney:

I have read your last post starting with the Helgardians, and I cannot overlook some issues.

1.) When the Helgardians started they were the only tactical warp capable empire, and they provided warp to what became their opposition. The known history of the Chomak vis a vis the rest of the Cloud is that they were overwhelming when the other empires developed warp on their own. Further, the history does not say the Andromedans abandoned 10 attempts to reach the Chomak, it says the 10 attempts were "rebuffed." I.e., the Chomak were strong enough to repel the Andromedans ten times on their own. And again a Chomak force operated within Andromedan conquered space for THREE YEARS pretty much undefeated before returning to Chomak space.

Sorry, but that does no fit the history of the Helgardians, or the Iridani. I am still stuck with the Chomak being very powerful ships, powerful enough to stand in front of the Andromedans for a decade when the Baduvai, Eneen, Maghadim, Uthiki, and Yrol Septs all fell.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, December 11, 2015 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Mark Albert Temple:

I cannot consider the huge mothball fleet concept workable. A fleet as huge as you are describing runs out of available reservist crew to man it pretty quickly. leaving you with ships and pretty much totally green crews. Make no mistake, you are calling for a very regimented society in order to have crews standing bay to activate the ships to take them into combat.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, December 11, 2015 - 05:17 pm: Edit

If the Chomak would be very vulnerable to maulers*, then maybe it would work out. Andros spend a long time probing the Milky Way before launching the full invasion which could match with efforts to render the Chomak harmless. Still would require many timeline fixups.

* IIRC, Andro mauler YIS roughly matches the change in Andro strategy.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, December 11, 2015 - 06:14 pm: Edit

On the Mothball Fleet and crewing, this was why I suggested robotic crews.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, December 12, 2015 - 12:24 am: Edit

SPP,


There is a data entry for Y182 in the LMC timeline which indicates that "a major Andromedan assault on the Chomak" had begun in or around that year - and that the efforts of the Chomak themselves (plus a Maghadim exile force operating in the Fringe region) were insufficient to forestall this effort.

For what it's worth, my reading of LMC history has the Andromedans engage in two (known) waves of full-scale conquest against the indigenous Magellanic empires, with periods of less active operations between (and after) these.

The first wave ran from Y146 (with the initial strikes against the Baduvai and Eneen) through to c. Y160 (after those two empires had been defeated or driven into exile). The second wave would cover the early-to-mid Y180s, and cover both the cracking of the Core and the final subjugation of the Chomak home cluster.

With the bulk of their efforts in the Y160s and Y170s aimed at expanding the RTN over in the Milky Way Galaxy, the efforts in the LMC proper seem to have ebbed somewhat. With the failed attempt at the Core in Y164, it would appear that the Andromedans waited until they had made sufficient preparations before making their second assault in Y183. Similarly, it may be that the Andro efforts on the Chomak front were less fully committed in the first few years, and may have been aimed at probing the Chomak defences while gathering more information on these new opponents.

Plus, with the RTN being more widely known about in the LMC by this time, the Andros would have been reduced to the kind of situation covered in (MS1.26), assuming the Chomak are under the same operational and strategic warp limitations as other LMC empires. While the Andros had to build the RTN as they went during the initial wave of conquest, they at least had a time in which the network had been unknown to their opponents. (It would appear that the Andros are less than comfortable with undertaking major operations without having first done their homework in terms of prepping a local RTN ahead of time.)

Perhaps, as seen with the cracking of the Core, the Andros waited until they had a critical mass of forces (to include the first set of Dominators) on hand - and, on a broader level, had already built up a substantial RTN in the Alpha and Omega Octants - before they got serious about dealing with the Chomak.

Which would have made the Chomak defensive operations of Y172-Y182 somewhat deceptive in nature, in terms of just how effective they truly were at deterring a major Andromedan war effort.

-----

As for the Chomak side of the equation, there were a few other thoughts which had come to mind.

One would be in what kind of support variants (such as survey hulls) they might operate. Unlike the three Magellanic Powers, who were obliged to depend more heavily on Size Class 4 hulls when fielding commando, survey, and other such "mission variants", the Chomak would have had the luxury of being able to pick and choose what kind of hull types to assign to such tasks. So, while the others would be stuck with survey frigates, corvettes, and/or destroyers, the Chomak could operate a survey cruiser closer in size and capability to the Galactic norm.

Also, as part of the Chomak long-range expeditions across the Cloud, perhaps they chose to assign one ship in each squadron to act as an equivalent to the Paravian raid mothership types from Module C6. In the Chomak case, such a hull would not be Size Class 2 [though perhaps one of the blueprints they are reported to have had for SC 2 hulls in (MS1.33) could be for such a unit] - but it might still be a means of extending the operational range of a task force beyond that which a regular tug or LTT might accomplish.

And while circumnavigating the LMC is a significant effort in local terms, there are comparable distances which other factions have crossed within the Milky Way. The Chlorophons voyaged across much of Omega, far from Association home space, during their early investigations of the Andromedans - though the full details of Phon logistics have yet to be explored. Similarly, the Paravians of Omega have engaged in several long-range operations of their own, to include their technology raid on the Nucian Cluster in Y172 and their discovery of the Ymatrian home world in Y206 (though it's as yet uncertain if those Paravians operated the kind of raid motherships postulated for the "what-if" Alpha-Paravians of Module C6).

To bring things closer to home, Star Fleet itself has had cases of ships being sent on long-range missions into uncharted space - most famously with the NCC-1821 USS Sakharov, which spent ten years in the LMC after Operation Unity before setting out in Y212 on what would eventually become the first successful round trip to and from the Omega Octant. (The Fed class history article in CL41 speaks of voyages by other ships, such as NCC-1810 USS Columbia's missions towards the Galactic Core, and NCC-1823 USS Fermi's own mission to the LMC.)

Which is not to take away from the accomplishments made by the Chomak; but rather to note that they would be far from the first, or only, ones to make a go at such far-ranging operations.

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Perhaps something like this would work. The Chomak were a couple of generations ahead of the other Magellianics when they made their grand tour. That, and the fact that the Chomak have some means for long voyages impressed the others enough so that they decided to leave the Chomak alone. The Chomak conclude that the other races are backward and, even more importantly, so antagonistic towards each other that they do not pose a threat to the Chomak. The Chomak are not aggressive, they just want to keep what they have.

After the Andros invade, the Chomak send a task force to judge how dangerous the Andros are. They repulse the Andros in 3 engagements, and then leave, realizing that the Andros are a major threat. They may have some technical advantages over the Andros. However, the Andros don't send enough ships to destroy them because they decide to deal with the other Magellianics first by surrounding the Core.

The Andros do begin attacks on the Chomak a few years later. They are repulsed, but begin a war of attrition that lasts more than a decade. The Chomak are gradually worn down. They use up any mothball ships, and losses exceed builds. There might not be that many Chomak. (There might be a couple of billion of them, just not the many billions that other races may have.)

Then, in 185 the Andros send Dominators at the Chomak who are surprised by them, and are defeated.

The Chomak have a definite technical edge at the beginning, which diminishes as time goes on. They go for quality more than quantity, They also do not change as rapidly as the other races, being a very old and conservative race.

This seems to me to be plausible, and consistent with published history.

Any comments?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - 07:57 pm: Edit

One aspect could be the relative cost of the Chomak fleet; in terms of how expensive it is for them to construct new hulls, to maintain those already in service, or to install various refits.

Like other empires which stood in "splendid isloation" for an extended period (such as the Helgardians and ISC), it may be that the Chomak came very late to the concept of "war" classes. While the Baduvai and Eneen spurred one another to develop such ships (which, in turn, encouraged the Maghadim to counter these developments with new collar types), the Chomak may not have felt the need to forego their standard "peacetime" construction methods - at least until the sheer scale of the Andromedan threat to the Community started to sink in.

Alternatively, there may be some sort of technological or biological restriction that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the Chomak to field "war" hulls at all. (To use the Phon example, it has yet to be stated whether or not the Association eventually adopts "war" classes. Even if they could do so, are enough individual Phon "captains" available to make it worth the effort? Is there any sort of corner that can be cut when building a ship designed to be commanded by a giant spherical tree? Might the Phons have to rely on former Mæsron and Probr colonists left behind in Association space to crew such "war" classes - or would they be considered to be too politically unreliable for such a role?)

Although even the ISC comparison might make an "exile" Chomak faction distinct from their pre-conquest fleet. If the Chomak are able to adopt the same kind of Jindarian-sourced asteroid shipyard technology used by the Jumokians and the Triple Pact exiles, one could see a very different set of ships still in service by the time the Operation Unity task forces roll in.


Actually, here's a thought: perhaps the Chomak have a series of quarantined or subject planets under their sway, who (in normal circumstances) are either barred from space outright (as seen in Kzinti or Lyran space) or are only permitted to use civilian units (as the Hydrans allow for the Borak and the various "exile species"). But if the Chomak find themselves struggling to sufficiently crew an expanded fleet of "war" classes on their own, perhaps an increasing sense of desperation might oblige them to risk recruiting these subject species in a manner which the Klingon Deep Space Fleet may find familiar.

(This would stand in contrast to the Eneen, who outright refused to incorporate any of their subject species into the Eneen Protectorates Armed Forces.)

Of course, whether or not that would have unintended consequences for the post-Unity Chomak Cluster might be an interesting topic to delve into later on.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Sunday, October 23, 2016 - 08:50 pm: Edit

I was just scanning over the last few comments in this thread and I had an idea about the Chomak, their issues could be more social-political. In that they may have had a history of political tension with the military and to diffuse this they developed a policy of mothballing not only the ships but the crew. Putting the trained crew into suspended animation, in this way reducing the active service members, and leaving routes open for advancement. allowing for growth to reduce pressure. But still having the trained crew ready for deployment.
In this way, they maintained a smaller active force that can be enhanced as needed. This also allowed for continual improvement to the active ships and new builds maintaining the military spending essential for maintaining the industrial base and the civil economy.
The Chomak excursion throughout the Magellanic Cloud may have been a civilian attempt to look for a foreign opponent to reduce the growing "mothball" fleet, but they found that the Magellanic powers were to weak to provide a viable threat and the civilian government did not want to give the military an opportunity for an easy victory and the option to setup new dictatorships in conquered space and disrupt the existing balance. They could have performed the tour with a size class 2 support vessel similar to the Seletorian mothership, something able to provide fuel and food processing and on-going repairs to the patrol fleet. This support ship could also have been pulled from mothballs with her crew to support the fugitive fleet operating inside Andromean space.
When the Andromdeans attacked, it was seen as a great opportunity to drain off the excess military build-up, and early threat estimates expected a fall off of Andromedean power in 4-5 years. When this did not happen and the civilian government finally started to respond to the military's dire warnings it was the beginning of the end, as the attrition continued the ships revived were older and older mothball ships, which were less and less effective against the Andromdeans. But the constant threat prevented them being upgraded and the crew re-trained in modern equipment. They were thrown into the fight to hold off the growing threat, with higher and higher casualties. Eventually leading to the fall of the Chomak Community, mostly due to the Civilian misunderstanding the actual threat and failing to respond with appropriate measures, more concerned with internal implications of releasing the military than the external threat, which was greatly under estimated.

By Stephen Parrish (Steveparrish) on Monday, November 28, 2016 - 05:33 pm: Edit

Sorry, but I don't find this suggestion plausible. I mean, would anyone think that putting many thousands of highly trained personnel in suspended animation is a good use of resources? They would be there for years or decades, contributing nothing. Would the military go along with such a project? Would the service members go along with it? I doubt it. Anyway, I don't think that the concept of a huge mothball fleet is plausible or necessary either, for reasons that I and SPP stated. That a few mothball ships existed is plausible--a huge fleet of them is not.

I think the suggestion I made last year works. A couple of things to add could be these. First, after the grand tour, perhaps as a precaution, the Chomak began building a defensive line. After the Andromedans appeared, they started to frantically strengthen it. This helped keep the Andros at bay for a while. Also, the Andros could have have taken out the Chomak at any time, if they had been willing to commit the resources. However, they preferred to take out the rest of the Magellianics and build the network to the MW Galaxy first, just keeping the Chomak occupied with a war of attrition using smaller ships until they were ready to take them out in one great push, since the Chomak territory was out of the way. Then the war on the Alphas, Omegas, etc. began.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, November 28, 2016 - 06:26 pm: Edit

Another problem is the advance of technology.

If you had placed me in "Mothball Storage" in 1989, and took me out of storage today, I would be pretty useless without a lot of retraining. And I am out of that supposedly low-tech branch known as infantry. There is lots of new commo gear, different weapons (What? The company now has its own aerial surveillance drones? Battlefield internet? Battlefield smart phones, say what, GPS guided shells and rockets? Blue force tracker? What do you mean these new guys do not know how to read maps but get around by GPS? What?)

The point is that you are (to make the mothball ships work) still going to be updating them to new technology as you take them out of mothballs. And you may have developed new systems and tactical operations that the guys you take out of mothballs have to be trained in.

Or you are going to freeze your technological advancement at the level it is when you start mothballing the people. (See how that works when you take your top of the line YCL up against the attacking empire's DDX).