Archive through September 02, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development:
Module RM81 Tholian Home Galaxy:
Archive through September 02, 2021
Recent events prompted (yet another screwball) thought on the Tholian Home Galaxy; sure, the Seltorians deposed/replaced the Tholian Overlords, but is it possible for chaos to erupt as a result of this change of administration?
IIRC, there's only one published scenario that specifically has Seltorians suppressing rebels; a Seltorian FF has orders to capture rebelling freighters. By contrast, I can think of two scenarios off the top of my head involving Tholians suppressing rebels; one with a planet in revolt, the other with a Tholian reformer "Being put in his place."
How many folks MIGHT see the lack of Web Casters as an "Invitation" to potentially throw off the shackles of oppression? How many might see the Seltorians as, while highly intelligent, potentially too close minded and hivebound to truly manage the proactive elements of a totalitarian intelligence/spy (Soviet KGB?) system?
I think you would see a lot of conflict, for the simple reason that the big winner the Tholians had was web. I mean, even in the Alpha Quadrant, if you have a Tholian "AU" empire with anything like unlimited production of web casters and a population base to support bigger fleets, they can pretty well curbstomp most of the other empires.
The seltorians have nothing like that, and so in strategic terms are far less able to cut up revolting factions and dispose of them piece meal.
Your problem is building fleets to oppose an existing occupation force. The Tholians created the Seltorians after they had stomped every other species flat. If you want to revolt against the Tribunal, your starting fleet is a bunch of armed freighters. If you start building a bunch of Construction Docks to build a real fleet, the Seltorians will come. If you start building more ground bases than the Tribunal authorized, the Seltroians will come. And the Seltorians are well versed in the Tholian Will's policies for planets that are revolting.
Sure, the Nebuline pirates might help, or might leave you holding the bag.
I suspect the Nebuline were tolerated by the Will* as a way to monitor which planets needed a visit, whether or not the Tribunal will do the same remains to be seen.
*You have a galaxy of resources, and an enforcer species you are willing to spend freely, either the Nebuline are the universe's hide and seek champions, or useful**. Having a "relief valve" to track overly ambitious planets makes a lot of sense.
**I suppose a third option would be that the area the Nebuline control is so vast that the Will does not in fact control M81, but has split it with the Nebuline is a third option. We only have the Will's and Tribunal's version of M81 (and, eventually, the Bolosco's***) so the reality may be rather different than the Official version.
***Assuming their original galaxy is still M81.
I remember seeing in a Captain's Log (I can't remember which one) the "Original Immense Freighter on which the Hive Ship was based."
IIRC, the "Color Text" for that ship said that they were manned by subjugated peoples because ethnic Tholians saw that sort of work as "Beneath" them and, while there were (undoubtedly) folks aboard akin to the Klingon Security Stations, I can imagine the call-up of Seltorians to revolt against The Will could leave more than a few without the requisite "Security/ISF" people.
Would the Tholians have left hidden self-destruct charges aboard many of these ships? I kinda doubt it; if they had, the revolting Seltorians wouldn't have had the logistics they needed to overthrow the Tholians on a galaxy wide basis.
So, then, at least to me, it follows that, after finding out how the Seltorians converted some of these freighters into the Hive and Nest ships for their genocidal campaign, it wouldn't be much of a stretch for some banditoes, now "Claiming allegiance to their new (replacement?) Seltorian Overlords" to have a couple of these ships, allegedly destroyed during the long campaign to "Liberate the Galaxy from the Evil Tholian Overlords," converted into mobile shipyards/operational bases for folks seeking independence from, if not actually bringing down, the Seltorians.
At any rate, even though it might (and probably will?) ultimately be rejected, I'm still having fun with the idea (and crayons on graph paper 
).
While the Tholian conquest of the M81 Galaxy took time (since it started from a single point and gradually spread), the Seltorian Revolt took surprising less time, not a "long campaign." The Seltorian revolt pretty much started EVERY WHERE in Tholian controlled space, because the Tholians ruled all of space and their Most Trusted Subject Species operated ships everywhere the Tholians were and had logistics networks all through that space alongside the Tholian one. Ultimately, the revolt succeeded in part because the Tholians believed their own propaganda, that revolt was impossible because the Seltorians were genetically engineered to make such a thought impossible. So such a thought never occurred to the Tholians.
The Hive and Nest haulers in Captain's Log #47 were used by the Seltorians (and, presumably, by the prior "enforcer species") pre-Revolt. They were sent out on "circuits" extending to and from various Sphere construction sites. At each stop along a given "circuit", the hauler would dock freighters from less trusted subject species (which were themselves prevented from knowing the locations of the Sphere construction sites), transfer their "tribute" cargo aboard, send the freighters back to their respective home ports, and then move on to the next stop along the "circuit".
Design-wise, the "rebel" Seltorians converted a number of haulers into Battlewagon and Assaultwagons for anti-Sphere operations. After the Revolt, once the concept of sending Tribunal expeditions to other galaxies arose, they converted a number of these craft into Hive and Nest ships in order to lead such missions.
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It should also be noted that, according to the data in CL47, the "rebel" Seltorians had not succeeded in fully supplanting their "loyalist" counterparts by the time the Revolt itself broke out. Many "loyalist" Seltorians fought and died on behalf of the Tholians during the conflict. Plus, it would have taken time for even those "rebel" cells in existence at the start of the Revolt to have gained access to the all-important web breaker technology.
So even if a Federation and Empire-scale scenario were to be drawn up showing the Tholian and Seltorian orders of battle on the eve of the Revolt, perhaps there would have been two - or even three - sub-groups of Seltorians involved: one of "rebel" Seltorians with access to the web breaker, who are the first to fight openly against the Tholians; one of "rebel" Seltorians without access to the web breaker, who might perhaps require some sort of technology transfer from the first group before they turn on the Tholians; and one of "loyalist" Seltorians who remain on the side of the Tholians through to the bitter end.
(Well, perhaps there could be a fourth, "neutral" set of Seltorian groups, who might wait and see what happens in their respective corners of M81 before declaring for one side or the other.)
Gary Carney:
No such thing as "neutral" Seltorians. Either they adhered to their genetic programming and attempted to fight for the Tholians, or they went with the rebels (which means their genetic programming did not stick). If the Tholians saw them, the Tholians killed them because they were paranoid about the failure of their genetic programming and did not know if the Seltorians professing loyalty had a few "bugs" (to coin a phrase). It was simpler and safer to kill them all than to have them suddenly change sides. The Seltorians could "prove their loyalty" by lining up for execution. Being executed was the only sure sign that they were in fact loyal. As to the Web Breaker, once the revolt started there was no need for secrecy and the Seltorians simply broadcast it widely over subspace. The weapon was, after all, useless to the Tholians (the basic shield breaker was given to the Seltorians by the Tholians, so they could have built and deployed it if they wished), and if some subject planet built some, that is a problem for the Tholians, but not for the Seltorians in any case.
Here in this galaxy, there were a number of situations (primarily gunboat actions) between Tholians and Seltorians that ended in mutual annihilation.
Makes me wonder how many actions in their home galaxy between Seltorians who were part of the revolution and those who were slavishly loyal to The Will also resulted in mutual annihilation.
Additionally, with regards to my desire to have new (even minor) powers arise in their home galaxy, how many power vacuums may have been left for various folks who'd been permitted minor, short ranged "Police Forces" to defend their immediate area from Nebuline.
Jeff Anderson:
The Tholian Will does not seem to have allowed any true warships (which includes Police ships) to anyone except their Most Trusted Subject species. The Tholians fielded their own Police ships (Patrol Corvette) and used Seltorian frigates to augment them.
Jeff Anderson:
To be clear, the Tholian Will had endured revolts, including by its "Most Trusted Subject Species" (before the Seltorians), so they did not trust the other species. The Tholians were, however, subject to the spoiled laziness that comes from having the Galaxy all sewed up (except for the Nebuline). So they wanted a Trusted Subject species so they could relax. But they did not trust anyone else, so they did not allow them warships.
I think the Seltorians (Old Galaxy Only) should have a Police ship. The Battleship is the only other ship class that the Tholians had that the Seltorians did not. I can see why the Old Galaxy Tholians wouldn't want anyone else to have a Battleship but why not a police ship? (Or did I miss this getting published somewhere?).
The Seltorians did not need a true police ship in Tholian service. Their frigate would serve as an adjunct to Tholian police ships, but the Tholians did the general policing to keep an eye on their subject species. The Seltorians were called in when combat was necessary, and from a Tholian point of view could not be trusted to do the police job (not in terms of they would take a bribe to look the other way, but in terms of their lack of interest/curiosity might cause them to fail to catch things). The Tholians were aware of this because they had genetically engineered this trait into the species.
Wouldn't the Seltorians need a police ship post-revolt? They may even have used such ships during the revolt (to handle police duties in areas under their control).
Douglas Saldana:
See: Seltorian Frigate.
The KNOWN (as in stuff that has been published) history of the Seltorians said they were not innovative. Look at the ships in our own galaxy and recall that it was the Klingons who suggested designs and helped develop their PFs.
It could of course be my own lack of imagination, but then I commented at the time that removing the Tholian "check" on Seltorian expansion was probably a real disaster for the Thoilian home galaxy. The Seltorians would fill the galaxy with workers, and expand to other galaxies with no check on their expansion. Of course, if the universe is lucky, the liberated Seltorians would eventually make war on each other and perhaps drive themselves back to the Stone Age.
Personally, I suspect that the M81 Seltorian Empire was short lived.
The subject races KNOW that the Seltorians are fast breeding and expansive. EVERY subject race has strong incentives to be desperately interested in over-throwing the new order ASAP.
On the opposite side, no matter how fast Seltorians breed, they only have so much shipyard capacity and most of their fleet and some of that capacity probably just went BOOM! And they are diverting lots of their limited capacity to extra-galactic expeditions and they are used to getting lots of resources and parts from the subject races so what production they have is limited by subject race cooperation.
I suspect that subject races began arming freighters, building ground bases, and upgrading their yards before the rebellion was even over, and then just kept their heads down for as long as the Seltorians were mostly directed outward toward pursuit, and that about 5 minutes after the first time the Seltorians even LOOK like they are THINKING about expanding inside M81, every subject race rose at once.
Seltorian command might not TELL their expeditions of such a problem at home, it might divert them from the vital job of finding and killing Tholians after all. Or if Seltorian command is smart enough to see the problem in advance, they might simply rule with a much lighter hand than the Tholians and try to avoid triggering an actual shooting war (collectively the subject races are better off with a mass rising at the first good opportunity, but individually the Seltorians are much stronger than any one subject race, you go first).
Douglas Lampert:
I disagree. There is an established hierarchy, and you can look at occupied counties, to see that those in power at the time generally try to suck up and retain their positions of power and comfort. Most planets had ground defenses (the Tholians allowed this since they had the web, they would be problem for the Seltorians, but not one they had not dealt with before). Basically even during the Seltorian revolt any planet showing signs of arming would find itself suppressed. And the Tholian Will was particularly brutal, so you are going to have a lot of planets not poking the dragon, and some serving as object lessons of why you do not poke the dragon. The Seltorians are going to be on top of communications, so it will be hard to organize between planetary systems. The fact that the Seltorians wiped out the Tholians in short order, despite Dysom Spheres and Battleships, gives a pretty good indication that they were a lot stronger than the Tholians, who relied perhaps too much on their three Trump Cards (The Web, Battleships, and the Genetically engineered Loyalty of their most trusted subject species).
I wonder what the general condition of M81's economy was after the Seltorians took over. The destruction of all the Tholian Spheres (built up over centuries) must have been a huge blow to Galactic GDP as would the disruption to trade. Sure the Seltorians are fast breeding, but I think even they would need time to replace that much lost industrial capacity.
Also the Tholians may not have been the only ones to have suffered local extinctions. The Seltorians needed Web Breakers to destory the Tholian Spheres but the Tholians wouldn't need any special technology to bombard Seltorian planets. I would imagine quite a few Seltorian planets were rendered uninhabitable before the Tholians threw in the towel.
I think civilization, so to speak, was wrecked in the Tholian Home galaxy for the forseeable future.
One of the inherent problems is that we do not know enough. There is no question that the Seltorians originated on a world somewhere in the M81 Galaxy. However, there is a real question as to whether or not they spread to other planets. It could well be that they existed on Starbases and battle stations, and not planets. The war doubtless messed with the economy of the M81, mostly shipping commandeered and destroyed, and doubtless a few planets bombarded to deny resources to the other side if for no other reason. But except for the Tholians, there was no major effect on the overall population directly attributable to the Revolt (starvation because there were no ships to move food stuffs from apicultural worlds to industrial worlds, sure). But overall the rebellion had little effect on the worlds as the Tholians lived on Dyson spheres and (except for the planet they evolved on) could not live anywhere else and the Seltorians pretty much lived on bases.
If the Seltorians's mostly lived on bases their intitial population could not have been very large and it would be difficult to divert resources towards colonization in the middle of a rebellion. Perhaps the Seltorians established secret colonies before the Rebellion? This would have given them a head start on expanding their population and industry and it would be time consuming for the Tholians to locate these worlds once they learned they existed.
Douglas Saldana:
The Seltorians stockpiled eggs, and queens were constantly laying more (which the Seltorians could control the output by reducing the caloric intake). The Average Seltorian life span (for a worker/soldier) was only five (5) years. So having a starting population on bases and ships and rapidly expanding it was not an issue.
I don't think the issue is expanding the population per se but having the infrastructure in place to support a larger population. Starbases are big compared to a warship but not very roomy compared to a planet or Dyson Sphere. You could, perhaps, support a population the size of a large city at a single Starbase though much of that capacity would already be in use prior to the Rebellion.
Also, you cannot easily expand the number of experienced Sages. The number of Sage candidates (Workers or Rams who could eventually become Sages) will expand proportionate to population growth but it will be years before they gain the necessary experience (and they will require mentoring by the limited supply of existing sages).
So even if you do have the living space and resources at hand to expand the population the percentage of that population that are experts will shrink and probably not recover until after the war's conclusion.
How similar are Seltorians to arthopods as we understand them? My reason for asking is the thought of a mad scientist genetically engineering a cortyceps fungus that specifically targets Seltorians; a zombie plague that affects only one race in the galaxy.
Naturally, such a mad scientist would have been executed IMMEDIATELY by the Tholians during the time of The Will, whether the fungus was released or not, and I'm sure the Tribunal would do so as well, BUT what if it were too late? What if the Seltorian Zombie Cortyceps was already on the loose...
(BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!)
(Okay, I'll calm down for a bit. Sheesh!)
Anyway, in the "Tropical Jungles" episode of "Planet Earth," David Attenborough talks about how the Cordyceps take over the minds of their insect victims, leaving the poor bugs "Deranged" (his term) before killing them and sprouting the deadly fruiting body.
I can imagine a genetically engineered super weapon that fruits and spreads its spores MONTHS before its chemical maturity, a time in which it causes the Zombification of its victims. That might allow the fungus to spread across many hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of Seltorian communities across the galaxy.
Then again, if the initial mind-altering effect is one of increased endorphins (or whatever passes among Seltorians for them) and heightened sensory awareness, it might even be considered as beneficial by the Sages before the #2 hits the atmosphere agitator.
At any rate, in the SFU, there can be a couple uses for this sort of threat; one that comes foremost to my (alleged) mind is for Seltorian versus Seltorian scenarios (with Seltorian Zombies, pehaps, being under the rules for "Poor Crews" but their Boarding Parties being a special, highly effective weapon?)
On another note, I think I wasn't too clear when I brought up subject races other than Seltorians possibly having police ships. I really was thinking in terms of nothing more than Skiffs or the occasional Armed Freighter, at least initially.