These were massive pre-revolt troop transports similar in design to the later Battlewagons (of which they could be considered a variant).

The 6 forward bays were armed with Shield Crackers while the rear bays were converted to shuttle hangers (12 boxes per hanger) for HTS and GAS shuttles. Some of the internal volume of ship was converted to transporters (probably 12 additional) and barracks.

Unlike smaller troops ships, the presence of a queen meant that Horde Ships could quickly replace casualties (there was always a "new generation" in training). These ships had a limited manufacturing ability as well, allowing them to build shuttles, ground vehicles, and even small ground military garrisons (GMG).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 09:32 pm: Edit

I like it.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 11:23 pm: Edit

It would give the Seltorians a good reason to have ships that size pre-Revolt. In the case of a particularly bad breakout of rebellion more than just a few commando ships would be needed to properly (i.e. brutally) put it down, making these one of the most feared ships in the Home Galaxy.

If anything, this and a Nest Ship-sized sister would have been the original classes which were then weaponized for the Revolt. The big question is why would it need so many shield crackers, as I imagine it would always have had a decent number of escorts. Maybe they have some minor EMP effect - something any SFB-relevant target would be way more able to resist, but which effectively disrupts lower-tech/civilian infrastructure. Which, as before, could be done by accompanying warships, but the additional damage this would wreck upon a world would make the appearance of a Horde Ship all the more terrifying. As well as the subsequent destruction of Tholian Dyson Spheres all at hands of these ships being very ironic.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 11:54 pm: Edit

According to the R-section data in Captain's Log #47, the earliest iterations of the "Hive" and "Nest" hulls were the cargo haulers presented in that issue. The Seltorians would be assigned circuits along which these haulers would dock freighters from various subject species not trusted to know the location of the nearest Sphere construction project, transfer the cargoes from said freighters to the hauler itself, and then present this "tribute" to the Tholians before setting out on the next circuit.

I could see pre-Revolt siege variants of the Hive and Nest haulers being used to support campaigns against holdout Nebuline colonies, as described in the Pirates of M81 Galaxy article in Captain's Log #41. Given the difficulties which both Tholian and Seltorian forces would have when fighting inside a nebula, a siege engine of this size would at least be a lot of hull boxes for the defending Nebuline forces to try and deal with. Although, since shield crackers don't work inside a nebula, the Selts might need to install phaser-1s in their place for anti-Nebuline operations.

Actually, depending on how things are for the Seltorian Suzerainty post-Revolt, they might find themselves with a need for combat variants which aren't so overly focused on anti-Tholian operations - not least if there is any truth to the Fire in the Deep fiction and scenario in CL41, in terms of what new threats might be heading M81's way...

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 11:48 am: Edit

I had totally forgotten about those versions, thank you Gary! Cargo to mass troop carrier to pre-Revolt siege ship to Revolt siege ship to Tribunal mobile construction yard?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Comment: Even with a galaxy wide (albeit a small Galaxy) empire the Tholians are going to have bean counters. And keeping such large collections of troops around is going to cost, especially when they are not really doing anything to earn their keep (unlike the patrolling ships). So, I do not see such ships just floating around with their mouths to feed, and it is not like there are threats from outside that can justify this expenditure or monsters that can be defeated by such ground forces.

Frankly, you can allow planets to have large ground armies (more or less) and the threat of bombardment [lay web around the planet and then bombard at leisure, per the scenario "Rebel Reduction" (SG49.0) Scenario Book 2]. Your problem is something that can interrupt the placing of the web (a strong force of ships attacking the bombardment forces from behind).

That being said, if the Tholians needed to marshal a landing force, they could in theory use the cargo haulers, and troops "dragooned" into service from "loyal" planets (Tholians look disdainfully on getting down in the mud for combat). Once the troops go in to storm the planet that failed to surrender, and the goal is "extermination" to "make the point" that "resistance is futile," there is no need for Tholians to do other than "supervise." (Ah, the good old days as they say in the Tholian Holdfst).

Frankly, if this ship existed (rather than a cargo hauler), I do not see any reason to arm it (and many reasons not to), but as for the bays, I can see them holding not shuttles (or not just shuttles) but skiffs (landng boats) and once the fleet has finished reducing the planet's guns, the cargo hauler comes in, so adding weapons is (again the bean counters) a waste. They wold never appear where anything could shoot at them (unless you really messed up or were in a hurry) and more transporters are probably needed.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Petrick, the one key difference here is Seltorian reproduction - they can effectively order up the troops needed for such a vessel and mission as needed, and the ship can otherwise operate in cargo mode.

There's also the question of: how many such operations would be joint Tholian-Seltorian actions and versus just Seltorian units dealing with a rebellion. I do recall reading a passage in one of the (R15.0) background sections that the Tholians, after a certain point, largely relied on the Seltorians for intel on rebellions and uprising, which to me implies the Seltorians dealt with at least a fair number of incidents themselves, with Tholian Will ships sometimes but not necessarily present.

As for weapons - I'm not at home so I can't check the CL47 SSDs to see what the cargo haulers mount, but for a more offensive version there is also a case for bean-counters being overruled on the principle of, if something does go really wrong or you are trying to get there in a hurry, it's better to have such a ship able to contribute.

Alternately, reduce the number of shield cracker bays to have some of the bays as repair bays for at least SC 4 ships? This allows it to repair damaged ships "on-site" while the planet itself is being brought back into compliance, as well as foreshadowing their eventual use as mobile shipyards.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Would the troops on this ship face serious opposition in Black Flag exercises?

How would it fare against a Raid?

(Or, for you old timers out there) Could the troops be made to Flit away?

(... Iiii'm headed back to The Booth, aren't I...)


In all seriousness, the biggest problem I see with a ship like this is that it can only be in one place at a time. Sure, that's valuable if there's ALWAYS a big uprising, but more likely, there would be smaller ones here and there; ones that the existing Commando Ships, the CMD (R15.11) and CMF (R15.12) are more than capable of handling.

Also, sure, this large ship can handle any potential uprising, but it can only be in one place at any given time. For the same expense and quantity of troops that would be required for this one ship, there can be several smaller ships able to respond to multiple problem situations.

Besides, I think that if there really WERE a large enough uprising to necessitate the troops such a ship would be able to bring to fight, the Tholian Overlords would likely just order more of the aforementioned Commando Ships into the theater.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 04:59 pm: Edit

It could also be more of a one-off, "some admiral's bright idea" conversion or terror weapon (Death Star, except full of bugs) that for the various factors above, wasn't repeated - but the design files were there for the Seltorians to adapt into the BW and AW designs.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:05 pm: Edit

I was relying on this bit of background from the F&E Minor Empires product:

“Rather than destroy rebellious starships and planets, the Seltorians relied on massive numbers of ground troops (hatched from eggs weeks earlier) and the Tholian provided shield cracker weapon to board ships and invade planets.”

I think the mission of the Seltorian ground forces was pacification, not extermination. Just as their ships were expected to use their shield crackers to “return outlaw vessels to proper service with minimum expense for repairs” (Module C3) so were the ground forces expected to occupy rebel planets with minimum damage to infrastructure (including the native workforce) so they could continue to produce tribute with a minimum of interruption. The Seltorian soldiers themselves were expendable in a way that would be unthinkable in the Alpha Quadrant. There deaths were of no consequence to the Tholians, or even to the Seltorians themselves. Therefore a ground invasion of even a major planet was not unheard of.

The Horde ships, like the Cargo Haulers, may have had assigned “circuits” where they visited garrisons to replenish troops (a frequent occurrence when your soldiers only live for a few years), overhaul local defenses, hold exercises, and maybe just “show the flag” (nothing like a Horde Ship in orbit and a Seltorian Army marching down Mainstreet to remind the locals not to get any ideas). As such, there was always a Horde Ship "on call" when one was needed and there was no need for the delay of diverting and outfitting a Cargo Hauler.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:12 pm: Edit

I don't think a horde ship would fly around for years, not even on a circuit. I think this is a temporary reconfiguration of a cargo hauler for a specific mission. The ship (or Seltorians generally) can hardly print soldiers on demand. The published Seltorian biology description says it takes months for them to reach adulthood and then be trained for their tasks (six months total).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Alex Chobot:

A galaxy wide empire (even if only a small galaxy) would be sending an awful lot of supplies to this ship when it was not needed, and the ship would not be producing goods for the Tholian will (I think I said this before).

On the big ship, 16 phaser-1s, six phaser-3s, two shield crackers and four particle cannons.

On the small ship, 14 phaser-1s, four phaser-3s, two shield crackers, and four particle cannons.

Again, if planet A revolts, you sent a task force of ships to web it up, bombard the planetary defenses to silence the guns, which cannot hurt you as you are behind web (you have to get your own Tholian grasping members dirty for this). If the planet resists there is plenty of time to direct a cargo hauler visit a few other colony worlds and dragoon troops that the Will is not paying for (they might even have the same life support needs as the planet they are suppressing the revolt on) and bring them to the scene.

But keeping a standing army for such a mission with dedicated hulls is wasteful once the galaxy is conquered.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:37 pm: Edit

I think Alex was asking about the armament on the Cargo Haulers, not the Hive and Nest Ships.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:42 pm: Edit

As to extermination.

Sometimes the Will must make an example. Wiping out a planetary population just to prove they can do it and letting the universe know is a small price (for a whole galaxy) to pay for peace and stability. You can then colonize it, so there is only a blip (again, on a galactic scale, even if only a small galaxy) in its ability to produce goods (mind you the record indicates the Tholian Homeworld was the only suitable planet for Tholians, so the colonists would, again, be dragooned from the neighboring planets, and they would be able to attest that resistant to the Will would be met, if need be, by extermination. Because they would be colonizing amongst the remains of those who rose up against the Will.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 05:44 pm: Edit

douglas Saldana:

Those were the weapons on the Cargo Haulers.

Note the Hive Ship has the same armament as the Hive Cargo Hauler and the Battlewagon has the same original armament, plus an additional 14 web breakers.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 06:05 pm: Edit

O.K., so adding 14 Shield Crackers would increase the armament of a Cargo Hauler by about 50% (42 weapons vs. 28) though Shield Crackers (prior to development of the Web Breaker) are more of a secondary or support weapon, certainly not the equal of a phaser-1 or particle cannon and no better than a phaser-3 at close range.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 07:25 pm: Edit

Aside from the prospect of using a pre-Revolt siege variant to go after a Nebuline colony, perhaps one other use for such a unit could be in expanding the Tholian Will into M81's satellite galaxies.

There are various notes (or at least hints) that the Tholians were in the process of conquering one or more of M81's satellites, or were in the midst of making preparations to do so, by the time of the Revolt. While we have no data on the kind of ships and fixed installations the Tholians might expect to find, it's not entirely implausible that there might be the equivalent of starbases (or even stellar fortresses) which would need to be subdued in the course of their extra-galactic expansionist efforts.

-----

To double back to the Nebuline, there is the question as to what kind of environment the Tholians might expect to fight through.

If given nebula is "hollow", akin to the Ryn Nebula over in the Omega Octant, the major concern would be getting caught by the Nebuline colony's "wingless" naval forces, plus any "winged" raider ships recalled to aid in the colony's defence, while making the wall crossing. But once the Tholians and Seltorians made it into the "clear" area of space behind the nebular wall, they would be able to deploy the same advantages they typically possess in open space.

However, if a given nebula is "full", or perhaps like the Qixavalor Cloud in terms of having pockets of "clear" space, the situation would be very different.

Of course, we are missing the other side of the equation, in that we don't yet know what "key Nebuline technologies" exist to give them an advantage when fighting inside a nebula. But say, for argument's sake, if they were able to maintain a fixed installation inside nebular terrain indefinitely; the Tholians and Seltorians would have to either use their phasers and particle cannons to pummel the base into submission and/or try to dock directly with it in order to launch a boarding action (since transporters could not be used).

But on the other hand, if a Nebuline base is in a "clear" pocket, akin to the "clear" areas which form around planets in the Qixavalor Cloud, a more "traditional" set of boarding actions could be carried out, albeit with much thinner margins than in a "hollow" nebula.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 07:59 pm: Edit

I googled "planets in nebula" and found the link to a striking picture of a nebula (HL Tauri) with "gaps" (like rings) caused by planets. If the Nebuline live on planets in nebula than it is very likely there are clear pockets (in the form of rings).

Not sure how wide they would be in SFB but HL Tauri's gaps look extensive, though they vary in width. Curiously, HL Tauri resembles a Tholian base surround by layers of web. A "Nebuline Wedding Cake" if you will. So Tholian attacks on the Nebuline may be an odd role reversal with the Tholians having to fight their way through several layers of impeding terrain (separated by gaps) to reach their objective.

By mark russman (Phaser) on Thursday, February 25, 2021 - 03:45 pm: Edit

Cake and eat it too...

Steve, you postulate that they would not need such a large ship....

What if said ship, was filled with stasis chambers, effectively freezing both the Queen, and all her troops?
Such a vessel could be docked, shut down, while the Base ran the power for the stasis units.
When trouble was found, power it up, send it to the location. On route, the crew could be revived and readied for their mission...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 25, 2021 - 05:09 pm: Edit

Mrk Russman:

I think the only use of that technology in the under lying background was the episode "Space Seed." I do not recall it ever being used other than that episode (I admit that my memory of such could be wrong), but if it was available and reliable sure the Tholians would have made use of it when crossing the voids of space instead of a crude sort of system with a large death toll (not that the Tholians wold have minded if non-Tholians died).

And while the costs would be dramatically reduced, there are still costs. And he ship is not producing profit.

I still pretty much favor diverting a hive cargo ship to pick up troops from neighboring planets and using them under Tholian supervision and safeguarded by threat of bombardment of their homeworld if they do not do the job and we still control all of the warships.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Thursday, February 25, 2021 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Both the Milky Way and Draco-Tholians are referenced to have placed most of their respective populations (including military personnel) in hibernation. I don’t see any reference to deaths resulting from hibernation although it is mentioned that some of the capsules (on Tholia) were “hastily built”. I would note that the Draco-Tholians were able to do this despite the prior loss of their Sphere.

I think “dragooning” subject troops from neighboring worlds would not be very efficient. The cargo haulers are very slow (in F&E terms) so stopping at multiple worlds for troops and equipment would take a lot of time (as opposed to a Horde ship traveling straight from a sector army depot using strategic movement). This is not the mission that local militias train for, there are the complications of coordinating a “multi-national army”, and their loyalty is suspect assuming they are not already in rebellion themselves (not all revolts are limited to a single world).

However, this is precisely the purpose that the Seltorians were created for. Their loyalty is (pre-revolt) without question, their lives are cheap and freely given, and they are trained and equipped for this mission. I would think it would be odd for the Tholian Will not to have some sort of standing (or sleeping) army. Though that army might be small in comparison to the size of their empire, even a small part of that Army would seem huge when brought to bare against a single world.

By mark russman (Phaser) on Thursday, February 25, 2021 - 08:18 pm: Edit

Steve,
True. There would be a cost, but the benefit would be the enormous savings over an active unit, which consumes massive amounts of resources, over a stored unit that can be used as a fire extinguisher, then put back to sleep.
Think of it as a "National Guard". You pay very little for it, but when war breaks out, you have massive amounts of trained troops available, almost instantly.
Maybe more like an insurance policy..

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Thursday, February 25, 2021 - 09:43 pm: Edit

Tholian "cryo-storage" would be called a beer fridge by Humans....

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 26, 2021 - 11:48 am: Edit

Mark Russman:

Fear the bean counters. You make your argument (as in presenting an idea, not some disparaging comments about the opposition) and I will ask "Have you looked at the go to war stockpiles lately?" As in Nato found its War Time stock piles insufficient to even complete their Libyan operation without calling on the U.S. to support them. How often did revolts occur in the M81 Galaxy? How often were they of the type that required heavy use of ground troops? So how many of these cryo storage ships are REQUIRED to have one near enough to a possible revolt to activate and move to suppress it?

Again, it is cheaper to divert an existing cargo hauler that is working to produce goods for the Will, pick up an army of janissaries (more like a division I think) and bring it to the planet in question if ground troops are required.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Friday, February 26, 2021 - 12:54 pm: Edit

ie. freezing the bugs....

There is a real world example...
Supplier raise and keep Lady Bugs in coolers...
Then ship them to farmers to fight Aphids....