Archive through April 25, 2018
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: The Magellanic Cloud:
Magellanic Proposals:
Archive through April 25, 2018
In reading about the problems with using the Chomak just now, I had a REALLY weird idea that might just make them powerful, but with a limit to their power in a multi-scenario situation.
Imagine this...
A ship with four units of warp power and a movement cost of 2, possessing hexagonal outer shields of extremely high strength; possibly as much as thirty, but only armed with a couple of twin lasers.
HOWEVER, this ship serves as a platform for what amount to remote controlled bombers; unshielded, but possessing no crew and are very heavily armed.
These "Remotes" are powerful fighting craft, but with the innate limitations on all remotely piloted fighters (or bombers) can only go a short distance from their base.
Furthermore, while these things are potent in fights, when they're lost, the base ship has only a very limited ability to replace them.
This means that a fight against the Chomak, if this route is taken, will turn into a "Carrier Duel," with the addition that the carrier can't be resupplied easily; the relative weakness of their Magellanic opponents was such that they never needed to develop any sort of FCR and their mobile bases/ships are too slow (strategically) to get to a world for resupply easily.
Also, if this is a pattern that has worked for them for millennia, then what about suggesting that they're in a decline and unable to ramp up production of their mobile units. They've always had enough of a padding to not have to worry about it, but after ten years of constant grinding by the Andromedans, they just plain ran out, possibly for the first time in their racial history.
Anyway, this is just a gut thought that probably can't be made to work, but maybe this thought can inspire something good...
I don't think that limiting the Chomak to such such extremely weak manned ships would make much sense, or be that fun to play. However, your idea of them using a lot of remote controlled units might work. Sort of like the Borak, only more so. In my opinion, they would need regular (manned) ships along with whatever remote controlled units they used. Maybe the large ships would be manned, while the smaller ones be remote controlled.
The Chomak are supposed to be a very old race. This might make them very conservative in their approach, and if they are in slow decline, and their population is not as great as other races (Perhaps a billion or less.), they might want to go our of their way to conserve lives.
How that would work in the rules as how remote controlled ships would operate, would of course mean a lot of work and play testing.
I was just rambling, Stephen
(it happens with me sometimes...) 
The idea with the "Weak Ships" is that they'd be extremely tough, but as they were reliant on attrition units for any "Hit Power," be it offensive or defensive, any loss that they take would be hard for them to repair (or in this case, replace). If they lost enough of these attrition units, they'd be unable to attack or even defend themselves FROM attack.
With a large, but still finite store of these attrition units in stock, it would be a further extrapolation of what was said about the ISC Gunlines; "They have two of them; the one you destroy in this battle and the one you destroy in the next one."
As such, as I was (almost?) thinking, any attack made against them by their neighbors in the past ran into the hard hitting peripherals, which they HAD been able to kill, and the inoffensive control ships, which they pounded on all day withOUT hurting/killing, while the peripherals ripped the attackers apart.
Thus, when the Chomak reached the end of their reserves, so had their attackers, but the latter didn't know that the former had; they just knew that not only had they run out of reinforcements, but they still apparently had done nothing to even bring the Chomak to a stressed point.
With the Andromedans, the Chomak faced something new; something that matched their peripherals with Sattelite Ships, but also had mother ships with considerable firepower themselves.
Adding in the slow tactical (and strategic?) movement of the Chomak controller ships, then the Andromedans would easily be able to disengage, conduct repairs (especially to PA degradation on their SatShips) and come back in. Meanwhile, the Chomak could do some (limited) repair on their damaged Peripherals, but compared with the repairs the Andromedans could do, it would be wholly inadequate.
Also, an Andromedan mother ship which LOST its SatShips could disengage, while the Chomak that lost its peripherals would be unable to.
As far as the Chomak being in decline and wanting to preserve the lives of their people, I hadn't thought specifically in those terms, but yeah, I think that if this screwball idea (motherships and peripherals) can be made to work, that idea would really work with them!
I'm glad you posted it!
Taking it a step further, with them being in decline, maybe they've lost the know-how to boost production of their peripherals, which is why they started running out of their strategic supply of them...
I'll point out that if these 'attrition units' cannot easily be replaced, then they aren't actually attrition units, as that's kind of the opposite of the meaning of attrition unit. :p
Personally, I would prefer the Chomak to be in the same boat as the Chlorophons or Helgardians, in the sense that they would rely on ships, but perhaps not have access to attrition units themselves.
The idea of a mothership with remote-controlled attrition units sounds like it might make for an interesting monster - perhaps one found in the Hiver/Alunda/Branthodon zone of the Omega Octant.
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For what it's worth, there are four named technologies for the Chomak in Module C5's Early Years notes: the Energy Mantlet (YMD4.0), Chomak Pulsars (YME8.0), Fuser Torpedoes (YMFP2.0), and Warp Lock Torpedoes (YMFP3.0). All the notes say is that the Chomak do not go through Early Years restrictions in the LMC - or, perhaps, one could interpret that as meaning they had long since passed such a stage by the time the "younger" (non-Jindarian) Magellanic empires appeared. There is no published data on what these systems do - or any guarantee that the "final" Chomak fleet would make use of them.
But, as a point of pure speculation, if the pulsars were to be a unique phaser-equivalent (akin to how the Helgardians have unique use of the graviton beam), might they then have a better plasma damage ratio than warp-tuned lasers, thus giving them an advantage against Eneen plasma-Es? And if the fuser and warp lock torpedoes were to act as some sort of plasma-equivalents (as hinted at by the "MFP" designations), and if these torpedoes were to be capable enough to cause laser-armed opponents trouble, might that enable the Chomak to place a unique (for the LMC) kind of pressure upon the likes of the Baduvai and the Eneen?
And, if "standard" phasers were to work better than warp-tuned lasers in shooting down these torpedoes, might that make life easier for the LMC-Jindarians.... or, perhaps, for the Andromedan invaders?
Not sure what to make of the "energy mantlet", though. Perhaps they use it instead of multi-layer shields? Or could it be some sort of secondary (or tertiary) defence, akin to Helgardian rotary shields or Neutronium armour? And whatever it does, should it be less effective against the Andromedans for some reason, or would that be going too far in the wrong direction?
I would see something called an energy mantlet being something similar to ESGs or Worb SEFs, i.e. something that counters mass drivers, and maybe has a secondary attack ability. Since the historical Andros lack seeking weapons, it would have little effect on them.
Read the LMC history. The Chomak are mentioned several times, including doing a circumnavigation of the LMC. Huge ships are mentioned (if I recall correctly) and the LMC empires pretty much knew to be scared of the Chomak and grateful the Chomak did not have "imperial aspirations."
The one thing that is inescapable is that the Chomak have to be conquered by the Andromedans. It is simply not possible, particularly in light of the destruction of two of their three Desecrators (okay, one destroyed and one apparently crippled beyond repair as anything but a kind of shipyard), that they could leave such a powerful potential threat against their one remaining logistics node and proceed with an invasion of the Milky Way. The fact that the Andromedans require a link to their own galaxy for their own operations makes the concept that they could ignore the Chomak impossible, and they would turn all of their available military force to the conquest of that threat before they invaded the Milky Way.
While I agree with that in theory the history supports the Andromedans not being too good at the whole "strategy" thing.
They attacked every Alpha octant power simultaneously and wiped out the LDR. Then, instead of using raids and their RTN to keep the other powers off-balance and scared, while targeting one or two powers for conquest, they begin a general conquest of all of them at once.
Makes sense from a gaming standpoint because it lets you create scenarios with all the powers but I think the Andros never really believed the octant powers were separate or something. Maybe some kind of psychological or cultural blind spot they just could not get around?
It worked for the Andromedans in the alternate future that is explained in their history...
Working and being the optimal approach are not the same thing.
Never discount the power of arrogance to lead to bad plans and/or decisions. Maybe the Andromedans just see Milky Way species as inferior, and don't believe that they can possibly lose to them. They have no respect for them, so they believe they can easily defeat all of them at once.
You are thinking like an American, maybe the Andromedans think more like Nazis.
Jon Murdock:
We planned on three (3) connections to home base.
Two (2) were knocked out by the inferior powers of the LMC.
The inferior powers of the LMC were pretty much terrified of the Chomak, the Andromedans would know this, and know about the incursions by the Chomak into the broader LMC and about their capability to circumnavigate the LMC.
With only one (1) link left to the Andromeda Galaxy you are faced with either leaving major forces to watch the Chomak, weakening your assault on the larger Milky Way, or utilizing optimum combat power to eliminate the threat in isolation before engaging the broader Milky Way.
Calling on the Andromedans to have so much hubris that they literally ignore that threat just does not work. Literally, even without knowing the Chomak existed their operational plan absolutely had to call for converting the LMC into a secure base in order to launch the assault on the Milky Way.
There is just no justification that works for ignoring the Chomak or further subdividing their available forces to keep a strong force watching the Chomak.
According to (MS1.33), the Chomak reportedly had blueprints for several Size Class 2 warships, but there are no reliable reports of any of them being fielded.
However, perhaps one way to help make the Chomak "stand apart" could be to have them waive, or at least loosen, the deployment limitations imposed on other LMC fleets under (MS1.22)? If the Chomak are thus able to deploy a higher ratio of cruisers in their battle fleets than the Baduvai or Eneen, that might make them suitably daunting from a Magellanic perspective - but not quite cut the mustard from the perspective of the Andromedans.
Plus, there are a number of Milky Way empires which have particularly large Size Class 3 units, to include the Ymatrian Battleaxe Battlecruiser (OR15.3) or the Worb Heavy Cruiser (OR16.6). In principle, the Chomak could have command ships (and/or support ships) with a Move Cost of 1.25, which might give even the largest ships of the three Magellanic Powers pause for thought - but may not be quite such a deal-breaker when pitted against a Dominator or two.
SPP:
While excising the Chomak seems ideal I would ask what would be the expected losses to the Andromedan forces to wipe them out? The Andromedans would have to leave forces to defend their last starbase in any case.
Would the Chomak still be a credible threat worth the cost in materials to eliminate? How threatening were the Chomak?
Not saying the Chomak would not be wiped out. That would be my default decision if I were the Andromedan leader just to keep the LMC neat and tidy behind me but I am not sure it is the only decision.
Then again, you and SVC make the final decisions so presumably they were defeated.
Jon Murdock:
Again, the Andromedan plan had to envision making the LMC a "secure base" from which to attack the Milky Way. The Intention had to be that the resulting "base area" would require minimal forces to garrison allowing the maximum application of combat power to be applied to the assault on the Milky Way.
You can at that point get into questions of how the Andromedan High Command viewed things because they were inevitably drawing from their own historical background. We have no way of knowing what the historical background looked like.
The Andromedans decided that to support the operation they would need three links. It is possible that at least one of these links was actually a 'back up' in case something happened to one of the other two. From OUR standpoint, that is unlikely based on the costs (even with an entire galaxy supporting the operation, and we do not know if that was so, i.e., maybe the Andromedans are on the losing side of a war in their own home galaxy and what we are seeing is an effort to evacuate to someplace else, we honestly do not know).
And you have to keep that in mind. Every Andromedan Mothership (except possibly the Devastator class) came from the Andromedan Galaxy. Satellite ships, Sleds, Mobile Weapons platforms, etc., were built in the LMC, but motherships were only available from the "home front."
You can make a case that the Andromedans might have been willing to ignore the Chomak and rely on numbers (three bases) and the RTN network to allow them to quickly reinforce any Desecrator under attack. But that goes out the window when (once again) the inferior LMC forces destroyed one base and crippled a second (destroying its ability to serve as a link to home) leaving only one. At that point, the entire operation hinges on that one base which must be protected at all costs. Lose it, and the entire operation is over (as happened historically when Unity succeeded).
We KNOW the Andromedans were able to access records of the empires they fought (it was how they planned their campaign and who to target in the Milky Way). So we know they read data the Eneen, Baduvai, Uthiki, and others (probably not the Maghadim except what the Maghadim had themselves learned about the Chomak from reading files they captured from the other empires) about the Chomak. The Chomak can cross the distance to the LMC pretty much at will, have ships more powerful and threatening to the other LMC empires, have essentially mapped the LMC (circumnavigated and gathered intelligence) and are doubtless talking to the defeated LMC holdouts.
The LMC holdouts probably have a good idea of where the third Desecrator is, and no doubt are providing that intelligence to the Chomak, meaning the Chomak might attempt a "Dec 7" on that base at any time, which could come from any direction. (Given the ability to circumnavigate the LMC they do not have to follow a direct path from their own space to the target, and the remnant LMC forces might be scouting routes for the Chomak to make such an approach undetected.)
That gets you into questions of quality versus quantity.
If you leave a covering force to mask the Chomak, the Chomak have the initiative and are likely to have superior force in any conflict, inflicting greater casualties (and again, motherships have to come from Andromeda). On the other hand, if you attack, you gain the advantages of splitting the Chomak ships to defend different targets of your attack and gain the advantage of having the quality of quantity on your side. And once the Chomak are defeated it would take fewer ships to garrison the defeated than it would take to mask them and defend the Desecrator.
One of the great mysteries (which it often surprises me that no one asks) is why the Andromedans, between Y163 and the success of Operation Unity were not only unable to repair the second Desecrator as a link to home, but unable to build a new one in the 40 years between. And it is that which points to the fact that they could not leave the base open to any possibility of attack (the history of the Chomak says they are in attack range). With only one link to home, the loss of which ends the entire operation, they had to follow through with the original plan, which had to be the completely secured base area for launching their assault on the Milky Way so that minimal garrison forces could defend it. (NOTE: Data from the Omega Octant says that there was a later attempt to build a fourth Desecrator in Iridani space, at which point they might have abandoned the LMC base, but it does not change the fact that the LMC base had to be secured because it was the only link to home, and without that link the offensive dies anyway.)
There is an article in Captain's Log #35 and Away Team Log which suggests that the Andromedans may have targeted other satellites of the Milky Way, as well as the Lesser Magellanic Cloud (and the Iridani Cluster). Beyond that, there is the question of how many other galaxies the Andromedans set out to invade; would they also go after Triangulum, for example.
It could be that the Intergalactic Trunk Line to the LMC was but one of a number of such routes laid out from the Andromeda galaxy (or from one or more of its satellites, if the Andros were somehow unable to use a point in M31 itself as an ITL terminus) - or, perhaps, that while the invasions of the Alpha and Omega octants were launched from the LMC itself, more distant regions of the Milky Way could have been targeted via an Andromedan springboard in some other satellite, or satellites (such as the Greater Magellanic Cloud).
If so, one might then be able to view Andromedan efforts in the LMC in this broader context. Perhaps a concurrent assault on another Milky Way satellite (perhaps even the GMC itself) might have been going less well than expected, obliging the invaders to deploy more logistical assets along another ITL route instead of building more Desecrators in the LMC. Or perhaps the cost/benefit analysis was such that, once the Core was successfully ringed by satellite bases in Y165 (thus limiting the ability of the Triple Pact forces therein to stage another breakout), the Andros felt less threatened from that direction to the point where the "high command" back in M31 could send fresh Desecrator base components elsewhere - either to another Milky Way satellite, or perhaps to the vicinity of Triangulum.
In all honesty, the only way I see you getting a significant post Unity Chomak presence is to have a minor, or major, planet type outpost that is somewhere unusual enough that the Andros never thought to look.
Given the use of Jindarian-type asteroid shipyards by the various Magellanic exiles in the Fringe region, it would not be entirely amiss for the Chomak to make similar preparations for life in exile, at least once it became clear that defeat was inevitable. (If the Chomak were to end up using pulsars instead of warp-tuned lasers, they might then need distinct asteroid yard SSDs to account for their unique technologies.)
However, the problem for such Chomak remnants might be in how long it would take for the post-Unity task forces to make their way over to the Chomak cluster in order to provide any kind of meaningful support, when there is still so much to do in terms of supporting the Baduvai, Eneen, and Maghadim in the "main" Cloud region - to include figuring out how and when to flush any Andromedan remnants out of the Core. Just as the Chomak were the last to fall, they may well end up being the last to be effectively liberated.
I quite agree that the Andromedans would not attack our galaxy until the Chomak have been dealt with. One does not ignore a powerful enemy sitting next to one's extended supply line. Perhaps the Chomak, knowing their defeat was inevitable, and being the last Magellianic race standing, were able to prepare more for it than the other races, and establish well hidden and supplied bases from which to eventually launch a war of liberation.
Does anyone have an idea of how the Chomak's technology works? Ken Burnside perhaps?
A. David Merritt:
I do not think it is the"post Unity" Chomak that is the issue, but the Chomak period that is the focus.
The "aftermath" of Unity simply came up because someone mentioned that the LMC empires might take umbrage at the strangers from the Milky Way wandering around "their space." That just led me to comment that rebuilding from the aftermath of the Andromedan conquest was going to take a lot of time. The former fleets have been reduced to small numbers of ships, merchant fleets have been decimated, construction facilities (shipyards) destroyed along with the various support elements (bases that served as repair and re-supply nodes) have been torched. The only empire that came close to what the Magellanics went through was the Hydrans, and in their case their "off map" areas survived both times to generate the rebirth. In the Magellanics' case, all of their core regions were ravaged by the Andromedans, no outlying regions comparable to the Hydran off map area remained extant, so the recovery is going to be longer, and probably much harder than even what the Hydrans endured.
Truthfully, given history here on Earth, it is entirely possible that different and competing empires might arise redrawing the map of the LMC after the Andromedan Conquest. We already know that the Uthiki will not be back (although a remnant survived), but the Jumokians might carve out a new empire out of what was Eneen space even if the Eneen manage to start picking up the pieces of their empire. The Maghadim might subdivide (even if only one queen survived as is currently believed) or at least see some of their former core empire occupied by neighbors who will not leave (Eneen, Baduvai). And if the Chomak reestablish themselves, they might be more militarized and perhaps decide to enforce their will on the LMC to provide a better defense against the possibility of another invasion by Inter-galactic intruders (such as Juggernauts).
Consider what the Roman Empire looked like after the Barbarian invasions, as Hispania (Spain) and Gaul (France) and other areas rebuilt in the aftermath (smaller kingdoms rose and eventually combined, sometimes by force, into the modern states).
Ok some thoughts on all of this. As i do not have the LMC stuff I had to dig thru the boards and find the LMC time line.
The Andromedans have the RTN network to move ships around very quickly. The destruction of it was the turning point in the Milky Way. The speed that they can redeploy there forces is a huge.
In SFB a large fleet of ships will Maul a Andro force of that same BPV (a 10 ship fleet) In smaller battles the Andros do real well.
So if the Chomack could field size class 2 ships and a large fleet they could defeat the Andros. However there large fleets could not be every were. The Andros took more time killing the Chomak as they had to dodge the big fleets and take out economic places. As there economy was whittled down they could not replace ship losses and the big ships lost there supporting ships.
The same strategy was used in the Milky way and if the RTN network had not been destroyed it may have even worked. It is very hard to cover every were.
I would guess that SPP has some insight into how Chomak technology works. But he's not telling. There is a rumor (which may or may not be true) that he can be bribed with chocolate, in particular: milky way bars, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate marshmallows, chocolate cake (shaped like an andro dominator), and triple chocolate pie with meringue.
Stephen Parrish:
Ken Burnside left an incomplete file of rules (there is, for example, nothing that explains the Chomak "Energy Mantlet" in any way, shape, or form, even though there are incomplete rules for other elements, e.g., the Chomak Warp-Lock Torpedo has a rule, but makes no mention of its interaction with erratic maneuvers, a unit moving through asteroid or ring hexes, docking, undocking, separations, launching, temporal elevators, nebular movement effects).
Norman Dizon:
Sadly, the only chocolate I REALLY like (of the cheap variety since I do not have much access to more expensive varieties really) is plain Nestles bars which pretty much are not available any more (the crunch bars just do not taste the same.)
AH HA! SPP has revealed his sole chocolate weakness (Record in Data Banks and Quadruple Archive for Backup).
Delorean set for 88 mph. Emerge from the Time Stream when SPP was only a Boy. Commandeer as many Boxes of Plain Nestles Bars as will fit in the trunk, back seat, and passenger seat. Then it's BACK TO THE FUTURE to 2018!!!