In the midst of discussing the "Stellar Shadows" concept of "modern" Fed planetary fleets, I stumbled upon a pair of ideas which I wanted to post about here, if I may.

Firstly, the first Republic-class YCAs were being worked up, I was wondering if the forerunners of the design team that would later propose the Fed OCA as a "design competitor" to the Constitution-class CA might have considered stretching the hull of the Terran-hull YCL in a similar manner. In an alternate "no saucer-and-nacelle hulls" timeline, perhaps such a ship might have become the standard Terran Y-era heavy cruiser (as upgrading the Terran WCA seems to have been a less than favourable proposition). In the "real" timeline, perhaps it might make for an interesting foreshadowing of the OCA itself?

Secondly, there is something of a generational gap between the Terran WDD and the Federation POL(/Auroran FF). While it's noted that the Federation Police made use of second-hand Terran WFFs for a while, I wonder if there might be scope for an historical YPOL to help bridge this gap - akin to how the Klingons provided more powerful hulls to the Internal Security Forces once the earliest Orion Pirate ships began operating in Imperial space. (And in an alternate "no-saucer-and-nacelle" timeline, such a ship could perhaps have been used by the Terrans as a Y-era frigate, as the Terran WFF had reached the limit of its own evolutionary design path by then.)

Of the two, I wonder if perhaps the YPOL might be more likely to have existed historically - though, as always, I defer to ADB's wisdom in either case.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, March 18, 2020 - 09:50 am: Edit

I thought the competitor for the YCA was the YCL.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 02:31 am: Edit

Gary, there so little room between the SSD of the WDL and of the POL, I'd have no idea how to shoehorn a YPOL in the gap.

The WDD-->WDL adds one ARMOR, two CARGO, a second TRANS, and one more Crew-unit. The WDL-->POL gives up four ARMOR and gains one C-HULL and one APR (pushing the TRAC to the forward section), plus upgrading PH-2 to PH-1 and four-box Warp to five-box Warp. The POL's Y168 Plus-refit adds 2xPh-3 and one Drone G-rack.

The WDD/WDL has one advantage over the POL: crew size. The WDD/WDL has 40/50 more crewmen, 10 of which are Marines (2xBP).

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In my mind, the internal workings / deck plans of the WDD/WDL and the POL are vastly different, especially in the aft hull section. There would be a lot more engineering systems, mainly engine cooling and such, so the crew quarters would probably end up being 6-12 man barracks and gang showers, vice individual private quarters and with a share lavatory for each pair of rooms.


Garth L. Getgen

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 02:23 pm: Edit

If anything, the YCL likely pre-empted the creation of a "saucer-and-nacelle" Y-era light cruiser, much as the "modern" CL did prior to the creation of the Kearsarge-class NCL. But while there were those who historically argued in favour of foregoing the WCL-to-YCL upgrade in order to build more YCAs, the demand for ships in an increasingly dangerous galactic octant meant that it was necessary to supplement new YCA construction with continued use of the Terran light cruiser hull.

The process of building the Y-era "saucer-and-nacelle" designs was one which required an unprecedented degree of co-operation among the major Federation member planets from both a technological and a logistical viewpoint, as well as one consuming the political capital saved up by more than one Council Chairman (as noted in Prime Directive Federation) in order to overcome the reticence among the planetary governments to willingly make their own builds obsolete. Even though we know in hindsight that it all worked out, the Terrans of that era might have considered a "YOCA" design as a backup in case it didn't. And in an alternate timeline in which the very idea of a United Star Fleet failed to take hold, the Terrans would still need a Y-era alternative to the Republic-class YCA.

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In the case of the YPOL, I would sooner suggest working "back" from the POL, rather than "forward" from the WDD. In other words, make it a Move Cost 1/3 hull, with a pair of 4-box engines (capable of moving the ship at Speed 24), and have the internal configuration more closely match that of an unrefitted "modern" police cutter. In other words, to establish that the process of building a new ship to an old external configuration began here with the YPOL, rather than skipping ahead to the POL itself.

I might still suggest making it difficult, if not impossible, to upgrade a YPOL to a POL; however, if it were possible, an interesting historical quirk might be if one or more of the "police cutter" hulls at Aurora in Y130 had in fact been old YPOLs due to be landed for use a de facto colonial platforms (as was planned for some of the older CL hulls which had been brought to the system by the time of transferrance) - only for the Aurorans to upgrade and convert them into their FF design once the need presented itself.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 02:56 pm: Edit

In the case of making a YOCA, I'd argue it couldn't happen because of politics.

Remember two very important things going on at the time:
1) The CL is a *Terran* design.
2) A major point of the Y-fleet was to unify Star Fleet.

Having the dominant power in the nascent Star Fleet force their own design down the throats of everyone else would have been politically disastrous. It would have been the height of conceit and hubris that could have stalled, if not broken, then entire unification effort. Politically, it would be very important to keep the new Y-fleet as "unaligned" as possible.

In fact, the YCL was probably a huge political risk as it was. That it was also a cost savings effort was probably the only reason it could succeed. Trying to throw in a whole new design would be completely untenable.

Plus, if the YCA design failed, then the whole "saucer" fleet goes away. It isn't just a replacement to the YCA, it would mean no YDD, YFF, YTug, or YDN. All of that would go away, because the YCA is the linchpin.

Fundamentally, because the YCA was so important to Federation history as we know it, you are really asking for two things:
1) What the Federation would look like if (at best) the unified fleet effort failed or (at worse) if the Federation fell apart?
2) For a whole new Y-fleet, as the only current Y-ship that would be unchanged is the YCL. All other Y-ships would have not been built and would have had other designs in their place. In fact, as the whole unified fleet concept would have disintegrated, each would be replaced by multiple designs.

TL;DR:
Asking for an alternative to the YCA is the same as asking what would happen if the Federation failed.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 03:09 pm: Edit

To clarify, I was not suggesting that the historical Terrans would propose that the YOCA be built instead of the YCA by the other member planets. My intent was that, while the Terrans were committed to the establishment of a United Star Fleet - and to the "saucer-and-nacelle" designs needed to realize it - they might have kept a YOCA design in reserve as part of a "plan B" which they themselves could have built in case things didn't work out with "plan A". (Another part of this "plan B" might have also seen the Terrans use the proposed YPOL as their own frigate design, in the absence of the "saucer-and-nacelle" YFF.)

As suggested in the "Stellar Shadows" proposal thread linked to in my opening post, the absence of the "saucer-and-nacelle" designs would likely have obliged the other major planets (Vulcan, Andor, etc) to have built their own Y-era ship designs. Although given the dominance of Earth, it's likely that this would have led to the Terrans yet furthering their lead over the others as time went on - which indeed would result in a very different-looking Federation to the one we know of.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Shouldn’t this discussion be moved over to folder 13, early years ships?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, March 20, 2020 - 09:55 am: Edit

Sounds like it really should be moved to one of the Stellar Shadows topics since this has now entered into "alternative history" territory.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, March 20, 2020 - 09:58 am: Edit

Yes, one or the other.

Especially after SVC went to all the trouble to clean up theBBS! Grin.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, March 20, 2020 - 03:42 pm: Edit

I might yet argue that there is room for the YPOL to exist historically, as an iterative step towards the "modern" POL. Although how many of them would be built prior to the onset of the Middle Years is another matter.

As for the YOCA, I would like the Terrans to have historically built at least one as a "proof-of-concept" - or, perhaps, as a "control variable" against which to gauge the relative success of the Republic-class YCA design. But if ADB deems such a ship type not to be found this side of Stellar Shadows, fair enough.

At this point, I wonder if I would have been better off posting separate proposal threads for the YOCA and for the YPOL...

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, March 20, 2020 - 11:00 pm: Edit

Gary, it might have been better if you had separated the YPOL from the YOCA.

For one thing, the two designs are not naturally linked together.

Second, I suppose that while the YPOL could have existed (however briefly) as a real ship in history, the same may not be true of the YOCA.