As noted over in the M81 Galaxy discussions elsewhere on the BBS, one of the major enemies faced by the "pre-conquest" Tholians in the Great Martial War was the Nebuline. While the end of the war saw the Nebuline driven back to their scattered home colonies inside various active nebulae, the Nebuline persisted as an annoyance to the Tholians all the way up to the Revolt - not least due to their efforts in helping to keep the M81 High Pirate Bands supplied with OGRs and OGDs - and, perhaps, remained a factor for the post-Revolt Seltorian Suzerainty to account for.

It is noted historically that, every so often, the Tholians would send task forces into a given nebula in order to try and flush out the local Nebuline colony. Either by sending in their own task forces, or by ordering the Seltorians (or a pre-Seltorian enforcer species) to do this on their behalf.

Yet while it remains to be seen what "key Nebuline technology" provides that faction with "a serious advantage in combat" while fighting inside a nebula, one can see how the Tholians and their enforcers struggle to fight inside nebular terrain.

For the Tholians, the only permitted web function inside a nebula is the web fist (E12.546).

For the Seltorians, shield crackers cannot be used inside a nebula (E15.373). Further, since transporters, tractor beams, and shuttles cannot be used either, they can only leverage their copious numbers of boarding parties if it turns out the Nebuline have space-based installations which the Seltorians can manage to dock with directly.

Which might be difficult to find, depending on how sharply one might consider the gathering of Tactical Intelligence to be restricted while inside of a nebula. While "on-table" Tactical Intelligence gathering is presently affected under (D17.2251), I'm not sure if there's ever been any formal means of quantifying a nebula's effect on gathering Tactical Intelligence at strategic levels S1 to S5.

As a side note, any such rules governing strategic-level detection ranges inside nebulae would also impact campaigns involving the Ryn Nebular Wall (OR19.06) over in the Omega Octant of the Milky Way.

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On the other hand, consider (SL288.46) in the Fire in the Deep scenario from Captain's Log #41: this allows the Seltorian ships taking part in that scenario to swap out their shield crackers for phaser-1s, with the same firing arcs, on a 1-for-1 basis.

In that instance, this swapout was due to the Seltorians realizing that shield crackers are essentially useless against the Juggernaut Empire warships they are (postulated as) fighting against.

I propose that, due to the need to deal with the occasional Nebuline colony, the Seltorians (and/or the various pre-Seltorian enforcers) did the same to the warships assembled for this task, in an attempt to a least partially mitigate the disadvantage they'd face while inside a nebula.

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Further, I might suggest that the Battlewagon and Assaultwagon variants of the Hive and Nest Ships might have been used as siege engines prior to the Revolt - perhaps even during the Great Martial War itself, if the earliest enforcers were already fighting on the Tholians' behalf back then - and thus could have their L and R shield crackers swapped out for phaser-1s during nebular operations.

Their shielding would be as reduced as that on Seltorian "line" warships, yet the sheer amount of "padding" a BW or AW brings to the table might make for a tough nut for the Nebuline (plus any M81 pirates assisting in the defence of a given Nebuline home colony) to crack.

Actually, if it turns out that there really are waves of Juggernaut Empire warships heading towards M81 in the post-Revolt era, as postulated in Fire in the Deep, one could imagine the Seltorian forces defending the home galaxy installing similar refits, as seen in the CL41 scenario.

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In Federation and Empire terms, such variants would have the "B" factors removed, but might perhaps have their combat factors adjusted in turn.

Although this would be a more notable adjustment for the BW and AW, given the sheer numbers of shield crackers that were to be swapped out under this proposal.

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Since these are combat variants intended for use in the home galaxy, I wouldn't be in a hurry to make them available to the Seltorians in the Alpha Octant. Even if one were to consider them to be historically viable, perhaps they could be held in reserve until (or unless) a would-be M81 Galaxy module were to be assembled for SFB.

So, does anyone think that such variants would make sense for the M81 setting, or should the Seltorians (or any pre-Seltorian enforcers) be obliged to use their "standard" warships when trying to take the fight to the Nebuline on their home turf?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 13, 2022 - 09:47 pm: Edit

I forgot to note that the concept of pre-Revolt siege variants of the Hive and Nest Ship hulls was earlier raised over in this thread, to give credit where credit is due.

To re-calibrate my replies to that thread in the context of this one: if it turned out that an early "enforcer" species was already in service to the Tholians by the time of the Great Martial War, then perhaps these enforcers used "standard" Battlewagons and Assaultwagons (with the shield crackers left in place) in order to attack major planets and fixed installations held by the Tholians' opposing empires in open space. While the "phaser" variants discussed in this thread might have been used to invest certain nebulae held by the Nebuline - either during the GMW proper, and/or during those instances when one of the holdout Nebuline colonies was being targeted before (or possibly after) the Seltorian Revolt.