So, I have a question here--how do the various powers deal with nomadic species? It was mentioned that the Andromedans were initially thought to be a group "just passing through" and of coures we have the Jindarians.

On the one hand, a fair number of nations probably don't approve of people crusing through their space, while on the other hand, shooting up that little scout might be embaressing if it turns out it was a Scout for the Invincible Armada of Ming the Merciless.

So to use an example, if a fleet of nomads enters Fed space, do they engage? Try to bring them into custody? Contact them and then just keep tabs to make certain they're just passing through?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 12:57 am: Edit

Curious question, Charles. I'd imagine each power would likely react a little (or a LOT) different. Certainly, I would expect the Federation and ISC to be a lot more likely to try to peacefully contact them than, say, the Lyrans or Tholians, but who's to say.

Perhaps how such contacts might be resolved might make for interesting RPG campaigns.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 09:32 am: Edit

I think there's actually a TV show that deals with this question. I can't remember the name, but it first aired in 1966.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 11:03 am: Edit

As a sometime Jindarian player, the answer is obvious - "Leave us alone"!

For shame. If the Federation captain engaged a peaceful people, he would immediately be court marshaled by Starfleet. Besides, that captain might discover that WRG's do about the same damage as fully overloaded photon torpedos and hit much better! Note that a Jindarian Convoy is full of WRG's and might have other nasty things (FTRs, Bombers, and PF's depending on the year).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Basically, any empire that encounters a new empire has "first contact protocols." Even the Klingons know better than to just attack head on without any knowledge of what is on the other side of the screen. You are at this point asking did the Klngons start shooting the moment they first saw a Federation ship. That is not the way you build an empire. The First Lyran-Hydran war began when the Lyrans, trying to outflank the Klingons, attacked a Hydran mining colony thinking it was a Klingon outpost.

Basically you can assume that if you have a nomadic species you are going to enter into negotiations, on their passage. If their demands are too great, you are going to marshal the Star Fleet to attack them. If it turns out they just want to trade as they pass through, define terms for such trade. If they happen to be "Fleeing Cylon Tyranny" it could come down to whether or not you want to fight their war for them (the Seltorian tyranny for example the Klingons allowed to help them and gradually learned it was not a good idea to harbor Seltorians).

The upshot is "It Depends" and "See First Contact Protocols."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 04:48 pm: Edit

The above being said, it should be obvious if the "scout" opens fire, you are going to fire back and do the best you can. But remember, :Scout" covers a host of sins. If the "Scout" is the equivalent of a Federation X-Press, and you happen to be C8K Dreadnought, then the entire species is probably insanely xenophobic and there is little you can do but kill them (try to take prisoners still, as information is always valuable).

Same if you are the Federation X-Press and they are the dreadnought and you are just trying to call out what happened before you were erased from existence (Still assuming they attacked for not reason.)

But the most common form of meeting a completely unknown empire is going to be the ubiquitous Star Trek response of "Open a Hailing Frequency" and talking, i.e., Initiate First Contact Protocols..

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 05:34 pm: Edit

It's good to see this discussion. This is exactly what I wrote about for the Doomward.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 05:40 pm: Edit

Don't we also have to understand that space is big, so would you really find a single ship unless you were looking for it?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, January 15, 2021 - 07:21 pm: Edit

While space is HUUUGGEE, Ken, there's a need among the curious to get close to the interesting things in order to study them. I suspect most "Encounters" would occur when two (or more) interested parties run across the same interesting body or event.

(By the way, if anyone is interested, I've come up with a pretty mind boggling "Model" that can help showcase just how big space is. Please feel free to email me at storm61285 at gmail if you're interested. )

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, January 16, 2021 - 03:12 pm: Edit

Would Star Fleet Battles Universe United Federation of Planets assemble and maintain a museum ship collection?

Real World nations have and continue to do so. The U.K. HasH.M.S. victory (Nelson’s flagship), H.M.S. Belfast is anchored in London. The U.S. has preserved the U.S.S. constitution Charlestown navy yard in Boston. Numerous WW2 ships have been saved. Japan has the Mikasa.

The latest season of Star Trek discovery had a cataclysmic event that destroyed all star ships with active warp cores, leaving Star Fleet composed of mostly museum ships reactivated after the burn. One of which was the U.S.S. Voyager. It also included a Constitution class CA.

If SFBs did have a ship museum, it might not be in earth orbit, being the capital of the Federation the sky must get crowded.

The moon (Luna) might be an option.

Might even be adjacent to the mothball fleet reserve. Possibly in orbit of Jupiter? With all the moons there, not a lot of thru traffic would blunder thru.

What ships would be preserved? A Old Style Federation Light Cruiser? A unrefitted R class cruiser? What about a un refitted Y or W Dreadnought? Would the Police rate a museum ship? How about the Marines? A landing boat exhibit? Would a GSC /CVL be considered? Perhaps the preserved fighters include a Variety of fighters? F-4, F-8, F-12,F-18, F-101 and a pair of admin shuttles?

Depending on the year, the collection must change radically.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, January 16, 2021 - 05:28 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

We have alluded to ships no longer in service being in parking orbits waiting their turn at the breakers, and we have disaster involving one such museum ship in the ISC. There is little doubt there are such museum ships, but you would need a disaster tantamount to that alluded too in Discovery to make it anywhere near consideration to reactivate the hulls, and the lack of spare parts since they are no longer in service would make it unlikely.

None of the Museum ships of modern nations can easily be reactivated.

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Saturday, January 16, 2021 - 06:49 pm: Edit

On another thought, I have the idea for a short story, but wanted to ask a question--in Y186, after the Armistice ended the General War, there would have to be a fair amount of... not cooperation, but collaboration, woudln't there? I'm certain the terms mandated that the various powers provide assistance in clearing minefields and caches that they left behind before the end of hostilities.

I'td be an interesting setting--the War's over, but by exhaustion, rather than victory, and now here you are, helping the enemy (until last month) defuse the mines that last month even talking about in a bar would have counted as High Treason.

I'm not certain how to put the required bam-pow in it, perhaps an Andro or an Orion who is attempting to do his part for the Peace by removing those terrible weapons of war left in the Klingon Cache.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, January 17, 2021 - 08:09 am: Edit

I would not see cooperation extending beyond providing the location and codes. The Feds are absolutely NOT going to let Klingon minesweepers return to Fed space. Your other problem is that minefields are never laid in the middle of nowhere but only around valuable specific points where you KNOW the enemy is going to come.

How about this? The Feds Pickaname System had a lot of good minerals and metals and fissionables and other stuff. The Klingons exploited it for a decade after capturing it. When they were forced to retreat they seeded every planet with orbiting mines just to delay the Federation resuming valuable war resource production. The Feds recapture the system and discovered the mines, decided they didn't have time to deal with it right now, posted a warning sign, and moved on.

During the last couple of years of the war, some unscrupulous miners (connected to the Orions) came in and did some illegal mining, rearranging the mines a bit so they could get in but nobody else.

The peace treaty then says "cooperate to remove mines" and the Feds say "honor the treaty" and the Klingons send a junior engineer officer with a minefield map (and a trusty corporal-servant who is really a spy) to help the Feds remove the mines. He's helping the crew of a Fed minesweeper (maybe hastily converted from a worn out frigate) but relations are tense to say the least.

This gets worse when the mines aren't all where the map says they are and don't all have the codes the Klingon "expert" says they have. He says "believe me, guys, somebody screwed with our mines." Some of the Feds believe him, some do not. Things get worse when the corporal is caught spying. The Feds are ready to hang the Klingons as spies.

Then an Orion ship wanders into the system to grab the last few hundred tons of already-mined stuff laying in the secret cave type warehouses and decides to blow up the minesweeper in order to get the stuff. Time is tight as the minesweeper sends a subspace call for help. Maybe a Fed police ship comes running and (unaware of the specifics) runs into a mine. A destroyer is on the way but needs an hour to get here. An hour is a long time in combat.

Some of the Feds think the Orions are in cahoots with the Klingon spies and the Orions are only too happy to feed the paranoia. After all, Klingon intel/specops sold the mine day to the Orions just so the Orions could steal the stuff and smuggle it to the Klingons.

Then the Klingon engineer officer has a suggestion.

Heck, if Charles doesn't write that one ... I WILL.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Sunday, January 17, 2021 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Scenarios are fine...

I generally like scenarios.

The larger picture is looming. In other words, the ISC Pacification is in full swing. In Y188 The ISC completes its “conquest” of the galaxy.

I'm just saying that "removing terrible weapons of war" may not really be for altruistic reasons.

By Joe Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, January 17, 2021 - 06:10 pm: Edit

SVC,

That an excellent outline!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, January 18, 2021 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Comment: As far as the rules are concerned, you cannot disarm and recover a mine, they can only be swept or (in the case of T-bombs) self-destruct when their timer runs out and they trigger their salvage fuses.

It is more probable, based on the rules, that the Orions came in, based on the wealth they could expect to amass (cost benefit analysis) swept a gap in the Klingon Mines that they mapped (they do not care about the rest of the minefield) and either

1.) Laid mines of their own and sent ships that would not trigger those specific mines (Target could not size class, in the case of target count once the ship has left the mine will eventually reset, mines have to reset the target could or your minefield could become awfully complicated after a few battles which is not safe around bases).

2.) Swept a path and then placed Dummy Mines.

3.) Swept a gap and left a small ship and a small base on the planet to control some command detonated mines.

In the cae of #3, the command mines have been switched to Automatic and the base shut down as the Orions are abandoning the site with their ill gotten gains and the control systems, but have set the target count and size classes to allow them to leave.

Someone else may have an idea, I am just extrapolating from the rules.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 02:48 pm: Edit

So, you can't even recover mines that you yourself placed?


Garth L. Getgen

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 08:10 pm: Edit

by sweeping?

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Why?
1) if one in 10,000 NSMs malfunctions you have a 35 point internal explosion at best. Do the math and tell me that is a good cost benefit.
2) they are probably made SPECIFICALLY to not be able to be disarmed/ recovered. Because bad people will figure it out.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 10:01 pm: Edit

No, you cannot recover mines, yours or anyone elses.

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - 06:20 am: Edit

Presume there would probably be a self-destruct command capability if you needed to get rid of a bunch of your own mines, perhaps carried by mine warfare ships? Not sure if that's an idea to help with the story?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - 08:27 am: Edit

No self-destruct command. Enemy might hack it.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - 07:23 pm: Edit

"Excuse me, Captain. We're ready to beam out Ensign... What's his name... over to the suspected mine position.

"Ah, yes. Ensign Redshirt... I mean Ensign Redman; the new transfer who wrote the paper on disarming nuclear space mines."

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - 11:12 pm: Edit

I was browsing through different threads and found the "Principles of Starship Design" thread. I read "#8: There is nothing wrong in proposing or requesting an "obvious variant" but you won't get designer credit for it." and had a chuckle.

Sometime in the '90s I was introduced to the ISC and the Plasma-D at about the same time. At that time if there were questions we used snail mail. I asked if the ISC FF could swap its Plasma-Fs for Plasma-Ds. My answer back was "Sure, but why would you want to?" A few months later I was introduced to CV escorts, specifically the ISC FFE with Plasma-Ds in place of the Plasma-Fs. Admittedly I wasn't thinking about escorts, but rather for a small gunline ship to throw as much plasma out as possible before getting plastered.


Where is the Auto-Reject list currently?

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 12:41 am: Edit

One of the interseting things about the aftermath of the General War (ignoring the stuff that comes after) is that 1. It's a stale mate and noboyd really wins. 2. The borders, by and large, end up back where they were. So other than the Tholians and Klingongs, there's not a lot of demand to "regain our lost X".

But the other point, and something I think distinguishes it from the RW conflicts, is the very small loss of military personel and likely civilians. this varies depending on the theater (my bet is that atrocities are REALLY common between Kzin and Lyrans), but in a lot of places, it makes no sense to depopulate a world, not wen you can destroy the defenses and move on, leaving a working population you can then use.

For ships? Most ships have under 1,000 crewmen, and fleets aren't the "ten thosuand SDs' we get in some franchices (Honor Harrington). Battles in space probably see hundreds or thousands of dead, not hundreds of thousands...

And that means the popular impact of the war, in terms of war dead, is also probably lower than in history.
So for all that it was the biggest war in history (up until that point) I have to wonder if it had as big an emotional impact as say the Andro war did. (Yes, I'm a historian. We obsess over stuff like this, to give our empty lives meaning as the Biochem majors drive by in their gold-plated cars).