Hydran Stingers ARE seeking weapons

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Observation: The Tholians won. They imposed their rule on the entire galaxy. That does not mean there was not the Tholian version of Cannae during the Second Punic War, but it does mean that there is not going to be an anti-Tholian force with anti-Tholian weapons. You are not going to overwhelm the Tholians or circumvent their technology with your own clever weapons that enable you to do this. There may be that noble victory at Isandalwana where you crushed a Tholian force that was under an incompetent and deployed his ships so they could not support each other, but you are more likely to suffer at the hands of a small Tholian forces like the Defenders of the "Rorke's Drift Asteroid Field."

Sure, you could have your own empire that could have destroyed the Tholians before they ever got off their planet, or built enough of a population base to crew their first Dyson Sphere.

But you are inevitably faced with the simple fact that what ever you come up with HAS TO FAIL. You cannot defeat the Tholians in their home galaxy, unless you are doing the Seltorian Revolt.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 03:44 pm: Edit

Weapons: These can be effective against ships (even Tholian ships), but perhaps fail against the Tholians Web. Perhaps they had plasma torpedoes, drones, death bolts, quantum wave torpedoes, type-H drones,hyperdrones, Tachyon Missiles, etc. but whereas in the Alpha Octant of the Milky Way these all "stuck" in webs (okay, Speed 32 drones in a strong web are subject to crumpling up), in the M81 galaxy they all were destroyed by web (even a Speed 8 drone striking strength 1 web breaks up and is destroyed). Lets you at least harass convoys with patrol corvettes and frigates escorting it putt a destroyer on notice.

Maybe a similar thing affects fighters so the Tholians did not adopt seeking weapons or fighters and considered they so worthless against the web they were struggling to figure out how to deal with them in our Galaxy (perhaps especially without Cast Web after they lost the two destroyers).

Keep in mind the history.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 04:31 pm: Edit

I'm not disputing the History, I'm just trying to determine what was "the best" the Tholians' opponents could come up with lacking a true "anti-web" weapon and assuming their tech was more or less on par with the Alpha Octant (minus those items which SVC has explicitly banned).

No one native to the Alpha Octant sees the Tholians as their primary antagonist and even Seltorian ships were not (originally) designed to fight Tholians so this was a thought experiment on how ship design/doctrine might have evolved in the later stages of the Great Martial War when the Tholians were "the Big Bad" everyone was trying to beat.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 05:51 pm: Edit

Douglas Saldana:

Just remember that I have been through this before. Someone creates something, and suddenly he wants that something to be (for good and valid reasons, i.e., he thinks it will sell) better than anything else. Thus (as an example) the Magellanic Cloud could not fall to the Andromedans, but eventually the Magellanic Resistance was the Reason the Andromedan invasion failed. That was expanded to the point that (even before the Andromedans headed off to invade the Alpha and Omega Octants) the Magellanic Resistance had destroyed two of the three Intergalactic Trunk Lines between their forward supply base and home (okay, they did not completely destroy the base that was the second link, the Andromedans were unable to repair it during recorded history). And the creator of the Magellanics insisted that despite that the Andromedans would have ignored a powerful threat HISTORICALLY within striking distance of their one remaining link to go haring off and invade the Alpha and Omega Octants, so that it could "save the day" when Operation Unity was "faltering" in the Face of Andromedan resistance.

So, forgive me if I tend to look at what is being proposed with a little trepidation. Historically we know the Tholians conquered their M81 Galaxy until the Seltorians revolted, and that has been going in two directions in the last decade, with the Tholians preparing to invade neighboring galaxies before the revolt and multiple mobile Dyson spheres, to their NOT having completely conquered the M81 galaxy, (but still prepared to invade other galaxies. Why? No one knows, but population pressure and lack of resources does not see likely and there is no indication that in a 1,000 years the M81 Galaxy will be destroyed by some natural calamity).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 11:52 pm: Edit

I wasn't involved in any of the development which led up to the publication of Module C5, though I have since become aware that there had been serious points of contention which had to be ironed out in order to make the "final" Lesser Magellanic Cloud timeline compatible with the broader history of the Star Fleet Universe. And of course, there are plenty of C5 errata items which have been noted in the years since.

That said, I would consider it to be unfortunate if any of this detracted from recognizing the high quality of the work which went in from all sides towards making the "formally published" product what I consider to be by far the most successfully realized non-Alpha setting to date; one which inspired me to attempt a conversion of the Magellanic material to the Federation Commander game system. (I leave it to others to gauge how well, or otherwise, I've managed to do this.)

I hope that the LMC might one day be further explored via a "Module C5R". Although I would argue that such a project would need to wait until after Module X2 was out the door, so that the "post-Unity" history of the Cloud can be more fully accounted for.

-----

So far as the "pre-conquest" history of M81 is concerned, I agree that the "end point" of Tholian pan-galactic dominance must remain in mind, so as to avoid the kind of troubles which cropped up when hammering out the history of the LMC.

But at the same time, I would hope that, just as Module C5 portrays the "pre-Andromedan" LMC as a vibrant and dynamic setting in its own right - which only highlights the scale of the tragedy which befell the Magellanic empires via the Andromedan conquest, and the kindling sense of renewal sparked amongst the surviving Magellanic exiles by the onset of Operation Unity - the potential exists for the "pre-conquest" M81 Galaxy to do the same.

And of course, I would also hope that whatever new rules and SSDs were to be published for M81 in SFB would be relatively easy to convert over to FC.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 03:33 am: Edit

Douglas,

Yesterday there was a brief discussion of "Nightmare Weapon Combos" if the Tholians could integrate someone else's technology. I offered the opinion that the REAL nightmare combo (from the perspective of Tholian opponents) is web technology plus a robust seeking weapon capability. You responded:

---

Quote:

Seems tricky using allied ships in web defense since they're kind of stuck wherever you put them and they can't help maintain the web.

Would the advantage of their seeking weapons be enough to justify those disadvantages?

---

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 02:31 pm: Edit

There are background issues with the Tholians.

How long did it take for one (1) planet to eventually produce enough population to conquer and run a galaxy (albeit a small one)?

How long did it take to build and populate multiple Dyson spheres?

How many Dyson spheres, theoretically each the "capital" of its own province (how many provinces would the M81 Galaxy have been divided into). How long to populate all of them?

One person imagined all of the above, including the conquest of the Galaxy, took only a few hundred years (including suppressing the revolts) and the Tholians had only just finished the conquest when the Seltorians revolted. I have never been able to visualize the above not having taken at least a few thousand years, if for no other reasons then population base and building the Dyson spheres.

It is a problem in that it is established that in their entire galaxy, there was only one (1) planet that could support and sustain Tholian life (their homeworld), which meant Dyson spheres were an essential part. (Yes, they could have "domed cities" on otherwise uninhabitable, by Tholians, planets, and orbital or deep space facilities.)

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Given their dependence on artificial habitats I think the Tholians might have originally occupied the same niche in M81 that the Jindarians do in the Milky Way: living in mobile habitats (asteroids and small moons) and mining asteroid fields.

This would have given them the opportunity to spread across M81 over many millennia without initially being seen as anything more than an occasional nuisance since they weren't competing for control of habitable planets and didn't need to reside permanently in any one place. Web technology was convenient for this lifestyle since it allowed you to quickly construct formidable defensive positions shortly after moving into a new area.

As Tholian habitats grew larger and more elaborate this nomadic lifestyle became less practical forcing the Tholians to establish permanent enclaves and take greater interest in regional politics. When the Tholians turned to conquest they would already have footholds throughout the galaxy and a much larger fleet than would be guessed by any of their regional opponents.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 04:46 pm: Edit

According to Prime Directive Federation, several of what are referred to as major or minor industrial planets in Federation and Empire terms within the United Federation of Planets are colony worlds with domed and/or orbital habitats; be they on (or in orbit of) a "rocky" planet, or on (or around) the moons of a gas giant. In the UFP capital district, this would include Luna and Mars in the Sol system; the Vulcan colony world of Vultrax; the Andorian colonies of Sapphirex and Zhurkarak; and the Rigellian colonies of Thell'naar (Rigel II), Yeee'laa (Rigel III), and Filli'lon (Rigel VI). This does not include domed or orbital colonies in the home systems that no doubt contribute to the economies of their respective home planets in various ways; to include those at Jupiter, Saturn, and other worlds in the Sol system.

In the case of Mars, ongoing efforts at terraforming the planet are expected to bear fruit by approximately Y250. By the "modern" era, the world is more or less considered to have a class-K environment, yet the atmosphere is still too thin for humans to breathe without a respirator. So the Martian populace remains tied to their domed colonies and underground habitats for a while longer. As a "full" member world, it is worth noting that Martian corporations have already contributed to the founding of a number of extra-solar colonies across Federation space, to include Morkedia III (in F&E hex 3414) and Pollux IX (in F&E hex 2213).

Thus, even at the heart of the largest economy in the Alpha Octant, a substantial proportion of the population is housed in sealed environments of some kind.

-----

That said, it's quite possible that the concept of "farming" subjugated species for EPs was a significant portion of the Tholian economy quite early on, when they were still growing as an empire.

I had suggested earlier that the very first "enforcer" species could have been contracted prior to or during the Great Martial War, as the pre-conquest Tholians reached a critical mass of subjugated species they needed to keep in line. Perhaps this process began much earlier than expected, if the Tholians felt it necessary to do so.

In other words, an F&E scale map of pre-conquest Tholian space would mark Tholia Prime itself, a number of the largest and most prominent "sealed" Tholian colonies, the home world and the most important colonies of the original "enforcer" species, and a number of the most productive subjugated species home worlds and colony planets, as key contributors to their economy - with a fleet of Tholian-built warships and police ships, backed up by an increasing number of "enforcer" ships, in order to control their holdings.

-----

There is the question of exactly how large a given Sphere is supposed to be. Or, perhaps, if not all Spheres are created equal.

I vaguely recall a note somewhere on the BBS to the effect that the Holdfast Sphere is approximately 30,000 kilometres in diameter, thus covering seven SFB hexes in total. This might not be the case, however; I defer to the experts in terms of what the "true" answer should be.

That said, the real issue might be what, if any, acceptable size the Tholians can build a Sphere. What size can the artificial sun at its heart be? How far does the inner surface of the Sphere need to be from the artificial sun in order to maintain a Tholian-friendly environment? Is the outer surface of the Sphere a solid object, or is it instead a collection of "plates" linked to one another by web? And how are they able to build, install, and operate engines large enough to produce a stable warp field around the Sphere?

I wonder if there might be two or three sizes of Sphere, built to certain thresholds: a "small" one (which would more or less equate to a small moon in SFB terms); a "medium" one (about the size of a typical class-M planet); and a "large" one (covering seven SFB hexes in total). Perhaps the largest ones cannot in fact be moved, and have to be built in place; which would have been most unfortunate for its inhabitants at the time of the Revolt.

In any case, I would picture Spheres (of any size) as being somewhat of a "luxury item" prior to the onset of pan-galactic conquest, with the pace of Sphere construction accelerating only once the galactic security situation warranted it.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:04 pm: Edit

The thing about a Dyson sphere is that it's suppose to enclose a star in the middle (primary power source). Even if the Tholians like it at 400Cm, one would still like a fair bit of distance between the star's surface and the inner edge of the sphere (say Mercurian orbit or about 45 Gm) depending on their original star.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Tholian spheres use an "artificial sun" which probably isn't really a star since even the smallest naturally occurring star would be just slightly smaller than Jupiter and thus too large to even fit in a Tholian sphere.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:28 pm: Edit

The spheres are IIRC red dwarfs in the center. There's not any reason I know of to assume the original home system was ever made into a sphere. The radius of the star is thus only about 100,000 km and the sphere need only be a bit over twice that. So more like 0.20 Gm depending on the dwarf.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:51 pm: Edit

I recall the same note that Gary remembers reading on the BBS that the Holdfast sphere was probably not more than 30,000 km across so even a red dwarf would be too large.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:52 pm: Edit

Douglas Saldana:

I will admit that Tholian history is pretty much unwritten before they became Galactic overlords of the M81 Galaxy. Loren Knight had his own ideas, but in terms of starting up a population base that was large enough to handle a Galaxy, perhaps yours is the best I have seen.

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 07:49 pm: Edit

I too like Douglas Saldana's ideas on how the Tholians conquered a galaxy - very slowly and then all at once.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 08:13 pm: Edit

It's noted in the Pirates of M81 Galaxy article that the Tholians "expanded into the northern half of the M81 Galaxy" only after they won the Great Martial War. Presumably this means that Tholia Prime is somewhere in the southern half of M81.

Unlike the Jindarians, who (if they ever had a terrestrial "home world" in the distant past) are exclusively nomadic in the "modern" era, the Tholians seemingly never fully gave up life on Tholia Prime. So there might still be a need for them to maintain a "traditional" empire in order to protect it.

-----

Here's a proposed rough outline, borrowing heavily from Douglas Saldana' ideas:

1. The Tholians climb the ladder of civilization on Tholia Prime - which I propose to be located close to the Galactic Rim, deep in the "south" of the M81 Galaxy, and far from other space-faring species.

2. As they gradually become aware of how rare their form of life is, they adopt a twin-track approach towards outward expansion. On the one hand, they slowly expand their holdings in the vicinity of Tholia Prime, taking care to keep a low profile in the process. Meanwhile, as Douglas suggests, they establish a number of semi-nomadic "Jindarian-type" colonies across the southern half of the M81 Galaxy. Meanwhile, the Nebuline do something similar over in the northern half of M81, spreading from their "home" nebula to establish colonies in other nebulae; holding "traditional" open space territories in some areas, while negotiating agreements with surrounding empires in others.

3. Fast forward a few centuries (or a few millennia), and the Tholians find themselves less able to keep Tholia Prime in "splendid isolation", while their distant colonies begin to outgrow their semi-nomadic origins. So they begin a more forceful effort to build a "traditional" star empire, seeking to link up the territories across which their distant colonies can be found. Somewhere at or around this point, the Tholians co-opt one of their target species as the first enforcers, who use the same ships and weapons which would later be passed on to other "enforcer" species - and ultimately, to the Seltorians.

4. After various eras of conquest and consolidation, the Tholians dominate most of the southern half of the M81 Galaxy. Over time, the now-sedentary colonies become construction sites for the earliest Spheres, though only a handful of these are completed by the onset of the Great Martial War. The "enforcer" species is at this time limited to frigates, destroyers, base stations, and Hive and Nest cargo haulers.

5. The Great Martial War breaks out. This is the Grand Campaign of the M81 Galaxy, in which the Tholians fight an assortment of northern empires for the prize of total galactic dominance. While no northern empire can stand against the Tholians alone, the Nebuline work to build an anti-Tholian alliance. At this point, the Bolosco (who I propose arose in the far north of M81's Galactic Rim) had already fled on their own stellar exodus; the KoTanrho empire which drove them to flee the home galaxy might be part of the GMW, or perhaps might have met another fate prior to this point in time.

6. The Great Martial War steadily escalates, as more northern empires join the fray in fear of what a Tholian victory would entail. In response, the Tholians permit their "enforcers" to build light cruisers, heavy cruisers, and battle stations.

7. At the final escalation of the Great Martial War, the Tholians break the deadlock in part by permitting the "enforcers" to build battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, starbases, and the first Hive and Nest siege variants. This helps decisively swing the GMW in the Tholians' favour, eventually leading to Tholian pan-galactic conquest.

8. After securing victory in the Great Martial War and expanding their reach across the northern half of the M81 Galaxy, only the surviving Nebuline colonies escape outright conquest and subjugation. However, one last major hurdle sees the "enforcers" become emboldened enough to launch the first great rebellion against Tholian rule. They fail.

9. Afterwards, the Tholians try again by recruiting a second "enforcer" species, handing them the same ship, base, and weapon templates used by the first "enforcer" species. Meanwhile, Sphere construction efforts accelerate, as more and more resources are poured into building these "ideal" environments.

10. Over the next thousand years, this cycle of recruitment and rebellion repeats at least two or three times over... until the Tholians uplift a certain insectoid species which would one day become the architects of the Tholians' ultimate tragedy.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 11:35 pm: Edit

I kinda like a variant of Douglas Saldana's theory of Tholian origins, not as wandering gypsies but as people who (like the Hydrans) settled on super-hot planets nobody else wanted (e.g., Mercury).

Imagine a human society that has spread to Mars and Titan and floating cities in the upper atmosphere of Venus. One day the Tholians show up and take over Mercury. They don't threaten us but show no real interest in trade. We can see them coming and going but they don't talk to us. This goes on a few centuries then one day a whole bunch of extra Tholians show up and guess what, we're now subjects of the Tholian Will.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 12:41 pm: Edit

The discussion on the Dyson sphere omits one important part. Once a full Dyson sphere is completed, all life on planets in the solar system probably dies.

The Dyson sphere completely encases the solar systems star. In those systems where the Tholian's complete a sphere all solar energy stays within the sphere. The fact that the Tholians can move a gravity well like a star is what is really impressive. Dyson formulated the sphere would be 1 AU from the sun (same distance as the Earth from our sun).

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 02:29 pm: Edit

The background given in YR7.0 states that the Holdfast Sphere (and presumably all spheres) had an "artificial sun". It also refers to a "containment system" which suggests that something mediates between the "sun" and the inner surface.

In the real world, the term "artificial sun" is sometimes applied to various types of devices described as "plasma generators" or "superconducting fusion devices". So, in all likelihood, Tholian "artificial suns" are just giant reactors of some sort.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 02:51 pm: Edit

As to the ability of the Dyson Spheres to move, I’m thinking that the engines they use are powered by the artificial sun (rather than generating power themselves) and utilize web technology in some way.

Although the engines are undoubtably large, they are probably not nearly as large as a warp engine would need to be in order to move a planet (given that warp engines tend to increase in size proportionate to the mass of the object they are moving).

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Ken, remember that the one AU was for Earth-like conditions, the Tholian sphere is probably smaller for Tholia-Prime living conditions ...

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 08:20 pm: Edit

Do we even know what type of star Tholia Prime orbited? Distance to the habitable zone varies by type.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 09:28 pm: Edit

As an aside, most discussions of Dyson spheres I see these days refer to using a white dwarf, not a red dwarf. So, the core sun is the size of Earth, not Jupiter. Besides size, this is extremely important because red dwarfs are prone to flares, while white dwarfs tend to be very quiescent.

Doesn't necessarily apply to the Tholians as they, as noted above, they used an artificial sun, not an actual one.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, April 13, 2021 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Whereas the Tholian atmospheric data available thus far in GURPS Prime Directive only refers to the "climate-controlled" conditions aboard the Holdfast Sphere, it is noted elsewhere that the Draco-Tholian colony world of Tholiax orbits a red giant star. Although a web-based sun shield is required to lower the surface temperature down to comfortable enough levels for the Tholians of Draco to establish an "open-air" colony there.

-----

I was thinking a bit more about both SVC's and Douglas Saldana's suggestions, and was wondering if perhaps the Tholians might have taken a mix-and-match approach in different conditions.

In other words, perhaps the Tholian groups sent far from Tholia Prime chose the option which best fit the local circumstances. If the "political conditions" in one area of space better suited colonizing Mercury-type planets, well and good. But if semi-nomadic "Jindarian-type" asteroid colonies were more viable in other areas, that might work also.

While both sets of populations would eventually be transferred to a growing number of Spheres, it might make for an interesting dynamic to set up these different categories of "pre-Sphere" inhabitants, rather than following a single developmental path for those who did not migrate to a Sphere directly from Tholia Prime.