Gendarme Escort
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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R09: HYDRAN PROPOSALS:
Gendarme Escort
Has anyone ever proposed an escort variant of the Gendarme? It could serve alongside the Gendarme carrier variants in police service and might possibly be borrowed by the fleet during emergencies.
Conversion: replace fusion beams with gatlings. Add limited aegis. Would regular aegis be installed in Y175, or would the police not have access to that?
Obvious variant is obvious.
I like this idea and have actually played with it before. The end result is, in some ways, better at the assigned escort role than the escort version of the Hunter; the latter doesn't have either fighter reload boxes and the former has cargo boxes that can use the Federation Carrier Escort Cargo rules.
That brings to my (alleged) mind the question of why the Hydrans apparently never did this conversion. The only thing I can guess at is that it has something to do with some pretty complicated, arcane rules for who can do what in the Kingdom; rules similar to those that left the history of the Pegasus such a mystery to outsiders.
Why don't empires in general use police hulls as carrier escorts?
See E3A (and FF escorts in general) for answers to this question.
Gendarme with Fusions replaced with Gatlings would be better in EVERY way than the base hull. Not least because you can hold a gatling for 0 energy and averages something like 15 points of damage at range 0.
IIRC the gatling is superior to a fusion out to range 4?
Maybe gatlings are too expensive for police ships? Maybe the escort version replaces the fusions with phaser 2s because the fleet won't give up a larger share of gatling production.
We have rejected this many times as being so good it would replace EVERY Hydran frigate.
Honestly, I like John's suggestion: replace the fusions with Ph-2s. That solves the "too good" issue, but still leaves it useful in its intended role.
The Hydrans never do this on escorts, I don't think it makes sense that they'd do it on this one.
Eh, that's for SPP to decide, but I still don't see why not. Gendarmes are exceptions in a number of ways, including being police ships, not fleet ships. While no *fleet* ship escort would do this, we don't know what *police* ship escorts would do. If the fusions are subbed with Ph-2s, then we find out what the police would do.
In-game it is completely reasonable for two reasons:
1) It would be way cheaper, and Ph-2s are still more useful for drone defense than are fusions.
2) The Hydrans might want to do it this way to keep the police in their place and make sure they don't get a ship that is better than fleet vessels.
Meta-game, this also provides two nice uses:
1) It fills a gap that is a reasonable request in a way that doesn't break anything. Fundamentally, it stops any more requests for a Gendarme escort with a reasonable entry in that space.
2) It expands the precedent of what has been done before so that other options are available for future conversions.
I would not shoot down the phaser solution.
I could see Phaser 2s being subbed in.
Or a pair of Phaser 3s for each Fusion.
While I can see police hulls being fashioned into replacement ships for some fleet duty ships, the background for police carriers across the Octant says they operated as unescorted carriers. As such, I cannot see the police of any empire developing a carrier escort unless SVC decides to change the background. Some police carriers when pressed into duty in support of the fleet were provided with fleet escorts, but currently the established background says the only way you can get an escort version of a police ship is if the fleet converts it to the task for its own use. Police carriers pretty much just operate as standard police ships that happen to have fighters.
(R2.24) Federation Police Carrier: "During its final mission in Y178, Sheriff was under Star Fleet Command and was provided with fleet fighters and escorts. This was during a critical point in the General War, when Federation carrier strength was at a dangerous low, and the ship was destroyed in combat with the Klingon carrier Vindicator (R3.28)."
(R2.137) Federation Light Police Carrier: "The ships usually operated alone, but any of them might be paired with another police cutter (R2.12) to serve as its escort. Unlike the police carriers (R2.24), no light police carrier was ever assigned a fleet escort."
(R3.40) Klingon E4V Escort Carrier: "When operated by the Internal Security Force this ship frequently would have no escort, but would sometimes have an E3D drone escort (R3.81) (through Y176) or a G2 police cutter (R3.19), more rarely an E3 escort (R3.18) or (rarest of all) an E4I police escort (R3.140), as an informal escort. Informal escorts would never have fighter ready racks or other carrier supplies. Some E4V escort carriers were sometimes provided with E3E carrier escorts (R3.26) or E3A aegis escorts (R3.26A) escorts after the Deep Space Fleet discarded them in Y175. E4A escorts (R3.25A) were available to the Internal Security Force beginning in Y180, but it was still not unusual to find an E4V escort carrier operating with no formal escort or any escort at all."
(R4.119) Romulan Police Carrier: "While ships of this type normally operated without an escort, in some cases a Snipe-P police frigate (R4.42A) [after Y182, sometimes a SeaHawk-A frigate (R4.76)] would be assigned while in normal police service. More rarely, a Snipe-E escort (R4.68), SeaHawk-D escort frigate (R4.79), or SeaHawk-E escort frigate (R4.80) might be assigned if the ship was being pressed into service by the fleet, but such groupings were very rare and lasted only as long as the mission (often less than a month)."
(R5.70A) Kzinti Police Flagship Carrier: "These ships were never provided with formal escorts, not even if one were otherwise available."
(R5.A12) Kzinti Police Escort Carrier: "Like most police carriers, the ship did not have a regularly assigned escort, even when operating as part of a fleet and an escort was available. Most tended to operate as normal police corvettes in all ways, although due to the increased firepower of their attack shuttles, police sector commanders tended to use them as "trouble shooters.""
(R5.A16) Kzinti Police Cutter Carrier: "Even when escorts were available, the Kzintis never assigned an escort to this class of carrier. The ships sometimes operated on a specific mission with one or more other police ships (or even fleet ships), but was never given a formal escort."
(6.84) Gorn Police Carrier: "There are indications that in at least one case in Y180 a pair of frigate carriers, together with some escorts, operated as a light carrier task force with a full squadron of fighters (including an electronic warfare fighter) in a manner similar to the Romulan WarHawk (R4.7) groups. This may have been a deception operation allowing the small force to launch fighter strikes and convince the Romulans that a carrier (R6.16) or heavy destroyer carrier (R6.27) group was operating in the area, but the records are unclear.
(R7.A14) Tholian Police Carrier: In the end, several ships of the class were constructed and largely operated as normal police cutters and never had escorts.
(R9.92) Hydran Gendarme-V Light Police Carrier: "Note that Gendarme-V light police carriers were operated by the police forces and would only receive a naval escort (Escort Hunter frigate/Aegis Hunter frigate) prior to Y177 if they had been seconded to the Fleet for an operation. In police service, they often operated without any escort at all, or in company with a Gendarme police ship."
)R9.108) Heavy Police Carrier: "Note that heavy police carriers were operated by the police forces, and would only receive a naval escort [Aegis Hunter frigate (R9.13A)/Antelope Hunter aegis destroyers (R9.79A)] if they had been seconded to the Royal Navy for an operation and the Navy could spare it. In police service, they often operated without any escort at all, or in company with a Gendarme police ship or heavy police destroyer."
(R11.84) Lyran Police Carrier: "These ships were almost never given formal escorts, but sometimes another police ship would act in that role. If one of these ships were to be used to support fleet operations, it is probable than a formal escort would be assigned, if one were available, but no escort larger than an escort frigate would ever be assigned to this ship."
I do not see anything above that nails the door shut to police escorts for police carriers. It may be rare but the door does seem to be open. I do not see this as a change. It does seem to be empire by empire with Kzintis and Tholians firmly slaming their doors.
The ships usually operated alone
but it was still not unusual (to have no escort)
would be assigned while in normal police service
might be assigned
together with some escorts
they often operated without any escort
were almost never given formal escorts
compared to
These ships were never provided with formal escorts,
never assigned an escort
never had escorts
The MSSBs say "no escorts" on the chart but that could just mean there were never enough for every province to have an escort for the police carrier assigned there.
I do wonder if anyone will BUY these.
Well it would depend on the player if one would buy the SSDs.
As for the Romulan police carrier. I can not use it in a fleet are squadron fight as it can not cloak. For escorting freighters it is great and just adding a second police works but a escort might prove useful if armed with plasma Ds.
Now the Parvian escort carrier and police carrier. A police carrier does not need a escort. This is like wow i get a few fighters but do not need to buy the escort and will work in a squadron are fleet action. As well as its intended role of escort carrier for a few freighters. So why bother if i use the police carrier with a fleet i can assign a regular escort to it if i want.
An escort version may be more capable in some scenarios.
Mind if I reopen this subject? 
I was thinking about the timeframe of Y171 to Y180. As we all know, during this timeframe, the Kingdom was subjugated by the Klingons and Lyrans and, to quote my copy of the Hydran MSSB,
"The Hydrans barely avoided a move by the Klingons and Lyrans to advance into the Old Colonies by bluffing them into believing that the Borak Star League was not only a still viable emire in their own right, but an extremely powerful one (Module E3)."
The Borak (BTW: I do LOVE their ships ), as we know, were armed exclusively with phasers and suicide bomb fighters a purely phaser (and, with extra shuttles, mock suicide bomb fighters) armed ship would mimic the expected capabilities well.
Would a "Hydran Resistance" make use of a Gendarme with Phaser-2s replacing their fusion beams? Maybe it's just me being a total idjit, but I think so. Here's why...
1. Their Klingon and Lyran "Masters" would still permit the Hydrans to use Police ships. This would make these "Resistance Frigates" a sort of "Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing."
2. The pure Phaser armament would keep their oppressors from being able to point a finger at the Hydrans for any wreckage found; the damage patterns and residual energy signatures are those of phasers, a weapon EVERYONE has, and NOT any Hydran specific weapons, namely Fusion Beams and Hellbore Cannons.
3. Freighters targeted for capture by the Hydran Resistance would be informed to "Expect an escort," and would expect a Gendarme hulled vessel to join them, so they'd be caught flat-footed when it turned out to be a Resistance ship and would likely not even be able to get out a distress call before the "Inspection Team" took them over (non-combat rate of transporter operations).
4. Loss of shipyard capabilities would mean any other design would require a heckuvalotta retooling before production can begin, where a Gendarme based "Resistance Frigate" could start production as quickly as Phaser-2 production allows.
5. The inherent capabilities built into the base design imply an ability to operate away from supplies for a while; a VERY useful feature for a resistance ship (I think).
Anyhootch, those are some of my thoughts. What do y'all think?
Interesting idea.
I expect ship phasers, while mass produced would still leave fingerprints to their origins, but even then a clever engineer could ride that curve a long time.
I would also expect any worthy occupation supervisory power to be familiar with the various local weapon signatures and fingerprints. While not a direct analog, I am reminded of a scene from Babylon 5 where G’Kar was offering to sell Earth laser cores of Centari origin during the Membari war in order to make trouble for their rival. Such contested areas are rife for such false flags.
Still, an interesting idea.
My mind is muddled. Exactly why would the Borak Star League produce such a ship? I do not know that they would benefit from such a deception ship and cannot see the Hydrans benefitting from it.
Respectfully, SPP, I wasn't trying to present that the ship was produced by the Borak; their involvement was meant purely as a Red Herring.
I do apologize for not being clear on that point.
What I was trying to propose was that, because the Hydrans had, per Canon, been trying to bluff the Klingons and Lyrans into thinking the Borak were out there, the evidence left behind at the scene of an attack by one of these ships (namely just phaser electromagnetic resonances among the damaged scrap, not clear fusion burns) might both add credence to Borak existence AND distract attention away from the Hydran Resistance.
Naturally, of course, there's always the problem with the "Black Boxes," survivors in escape pods, and all sorts of other potential problems, so it's probably pretty worthless.
Nevertheless, the storyteller in me is thinking of an almost "Romanticized" Hydran version of the French Resistance, where the overwhelming majority of the Hydran populace hates the conquerors/oppressors, so I'll probably end up with a lot of other dumb stuff on this subject.
Jeff, I think you also made a VERY good point.
It did get me thinking...
What you suggested, with each race having its own phaser type and specific signature makes sense. Something that, to me, may make even MORE sense would be if a given phaser type weapon carried a factory-that-made-it signature. If that's the case, then the Hydran Resistance phasers might end up being identified as something other than Hydran Standard.
Is that reaching? Perhaps.
But, hey, if Orions can fit Hydran Phasers to their ships just as easily as Lyran Phasers or Klingon Phasers, it seems reasonable to me that having a factory produce Klingon or Lyran type phasers for Hydrans isn't impossible.