| By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, November 23, 2009 - 03:33 pm: Edit |
Hi.
Seeing the work being put into getting a new version of the Juggernaut into the Starline range (hopefully as a regular item this time!), checking out the online ship card for the Klingon Armada take on the Juggernaut, as well as re-reading the fine story Snap Count from CL33 all led me to think over a few ideas (and questions) regarding these mysterious arrivals.
One thing which appeals to me about the Juggernauts, aside from their level of AI (which might arguably make them more like Andromedan ships that talk, as opposed to your average space monster) is their adaptability. Beta was shown to learn lessons gained by Alpha, using these to both safely navigate the galactic energy barrier (which had stymied Alpha, as shown in CL35's The Silence of the Dead) and devise new systems (such as the Shriek missiles). Gamma and others in the daisy chain have been able to take on the experiences earned by their forebears and adapt their own systems accordingly. In my view, such an evolutionary progression could allow for some interesting ideas in future Juggernaut scenarios, whenever (and wherever) they may occur...
So, this post is something of a mix between questions regarding Juggernaut data already published and ideas about other potential options.
*Are the two smaller Juggernaut hulls from CL35 (the CL and CA) canon, or are they simulator opponents only?
(When it comes to creating an encounter scenario in a place like the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, it might perhaps make for a proportionally more even battle to have the locals take on either of the SC3 opponents, rather than be faced with the battleship-equivalent foe which has been seen in Alpha... but then, the Andros didn't play fair either, when they sent Dominators after the Triple Pact in the Y180s.)
*In Snap Count, Beta is shown to operate some kind of teleportation device - such as when taking Thomas Crawford prisoner, then placing him and other captives aboard the Eagle prior to Beta's demise. However, this system is not (apparently) represented as a transporter, or other such system, on any of the Juggernaut SSDs.
If no specific box on the SSDs accounts for this system, can it be assumed that its operation is somehow abstracted into some other system on the ship/s?
Further, given the examples of hit-and-run and boarding operations which various Juggernauts might observe (or, at least, the failed attempts their foes might make at such against it) could it be possible for future Juggernauts to reconfigure their teleportation systems into something equivalent of the transporters seen on other ships' SSDs?
*Alongside the SSDs already in print for the 'main' Juggernaut itself, and the CA and CL seen in CL35, could there be scope for DD and FF hulls following a similar template?
Even if they were only available as opponents in a simulator exercise, they might make for useful opponents against individual ships or smaller squadrons.
(Plus, they could be ripe for conversions to FC and/or KA, where the issue of 'real vs conjectural' is less of an issue.)
That said, I would personally like such ships to be canon - thus providing the Juggernaut armada with the kind of variety that the range of Space Dragons currently provide.
*While the level of electronic warfare faced by Alpha and Beta was not overly high, future Juggernauts may find themselves dealing with the effects of being on the receiving end of a fleet's worth of special sensors to be troubling - not least in terms of the strategic advantage such systems offer to a Juggernaut's foes.
Could it be possible for future inbound Juggernauts, of whatever size, to create (or capture) special sensor technology?
(If they ever did get smaller hulls, scout or survey versions of those hulls might be useful in terms of data gathering, or perhaps in supporting one of their larger brethren in direct combat.)
*While Juggernauts, of any size, are fearsome opponents to TL12 enemies, I wonder about them remaining competitive in the advanced technology era. Be it when faced with X-squadrons like the Echelon of Judgement, or a SatShip-loaded pair of Andromedan Dominators, they might be less of a threat than they would have been in earlier eras.
Whatever the overall mission Gamma and other unaccounted for Juggernauts are on might be somewhat compromised if they cannot keep pace with local innovations or rival extra-galactic opponents.
Now, that might be part of the point - like the Andromedans, the technology curve could be something they just
So, could it be at least hypothetically possible for Juggernauts, of any size, to develop some sort of X (or XP) modifications? In the (presumed) absence of a forward shipyard for applying such refits, could the robot crews get by with at least a partial upgrade, or would the data only be useful to whatever (if any) home base the ships would have been launched from?
Indeed, if none of the above in-universe options are plausible, could there at least be simulator versions of X- or XP-ships of the Juggernaut fleet, made up for use as conjectural opponents?
*Finally (for now, at least) - there is a hint at some kind of overall plan which the Juggernaut fleet has been tasked with by their original creators. Presumably, whatever it is has yet to take place in any known location of space, at least up to the period at which historical data has yet to be fleshed out for each given location.
However, while I'm not asking for any such details (if they exist) to be spelled out just yet, could there be room somewhere in the Star Fleet Universe for such a plan to come into effect - whatever it may be?
| By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, November 23, 2009 - 04:45 pm: Edit |
Quote:*Are the two smaller Juggernaut hulls from CL35 (the CL and CA) canon, or are they simulator opponents only?
Quote:there is a hint at some kind of overall plan which the Juggernaut fleet has been tasked with by their original creators
Quote:So, could it be at least hypothetically possible for Juggernauts, of any size, to develop some sort of X (or XP) modifications? In the (presumed) absence of a forward shipyard for applying such refits, could the robot crews get by with at least a partial upgrade, or would the data only be useful to whatever (if any) home base the ships would have been launched from?
| By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 05:48 pm: Edit |
When it comes to a plan, Snap Count still has Gamma refer to there being one in place, despite the loss of its crew.
(Where is it said that the Juggernauts killed their own crews? The impression I got was that they all died out themselves.)
The problem that Juggernauts would have in the X-era is two-fold - the faster speeds that X-squadrons (and Andros on the RTN) can reach, plus the extended detection range and EW capability that special sensors would provide to such foes.
Even if X- or XP-tech was too much to acquire by themselves, would the same be true for things like special sensors?
| By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 05:55 pm: Edit |
That is the big point. The juggernaught may not be able to evolve X-tech, but that doesn't tell us what it can evolve.
Orion engine-doubling coupled with the Juggernought's regeneration would be particularly nasty. Maybe shields on top of armor as well.
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 05:58 pm: Edit |
Juggernauts develop Y-Tech. What's Y-Tech? One generation later than X-tech that's what!
BWA-hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
regards
Stacy
| By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 06:03 pm: Edit |
I think you might mean X2-tech, Stacy... unless you want to give Early Years fleets some fits in the simulators.
(Actually, a simulator Juggernaut-YCL could be fun to play around with in ye olden days.)
When it comes to doubling, it meed not be Orion-style, with the warp engines as the basis. Perhaps one might adopt the Eneen's use of high-powered reactors instead, or maybe some kind of high-output impulse engines? If one wants to use any sort of doubling at all, that is.
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 06:20 pm: Edit |
Well, ok Gary since you insist Z-Tech.
regards
Stacy
| By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 06:50 pm: Edit |
Quote:When it comes to a plan, Snap Count still has Gamma refer to there being one in place, despite the loss of its crew.
Quote:Where is it said that the Juggernauts killed their own crews? The impression I got was that they all died out themselves.
| By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, November 27, 2009 - 10:56 am: Edit |
"All this has happened before. All this will happen again."
Quote:...there is a hint at some kind of overall plan which the Juggernaut fleet has been tasked with by their original creators...
| By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Saturday, December 05, 2009 - 05:11 pm: Edit |
I thought I read that the Juggernaught will use technologies that it "captures." This is how it has been evolving.
I also thought that one of the Captain's logs had a article where the Juggernought was destroyed. Part of it was left behind to rebuild and re-invent itself.
| By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, December 05, 2009 - 06:08 pm: Edit |
I don't recall any articles in which J.No was destroyed and reinvented itself. There was the story Silence of the Dead in which the damaged Juggernaut Beta was repairing itself, and in between the major battles near Arcturus there was concern that Beta might repair itself. Apparently the Juggernauts have considerable self-repair capability, but once they blow up, that's it. Gone.
| By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 10:31 pm: Edit |
So a question-- the Juggernaut's published in CL 41, since I can't afford it yet-- how close are they to forming the basis of a playable fleet? Also, how ugly is the Juggernaut BB? Equal to a dominator?
| By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 04:07 am: Edit |
Pretty close I'd say, IIRC they have a fairly full array of classes from frigate upwards. Can't remember the Juggernaut battleship in detail, but it's very very big. I think it would certainly give a Dominator a run for its money.
| By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 02:49 pm: Edit |
The Juggernaut Battleship is a 768 point beast of a ship with 8 Phaser-4s and 44 phasers total, along with up to six Shrike missiles.
As for making a playable fleet, they are still missing a ship or two between the 105 point destroyer and the 235 point light cruiser. Maybe a 150-180 point war destroyer or heavy war destroyer could work.
| By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 03:07 pm: Edit |
I saw a one-on-one duel between a Juggernaut and a B10. It was Pyhrric. A massive drone strike destroyed the Juggernaut, but the Juggernaut downed a facing shield on the B10 and the resulting destruction blast of the Juggernaut destroyed the B10.
| By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, March 01, 2021 - 02:36 pm: Edit |
As of late, I've been thinking a bit more on what might be useful to see for the Juggernaut armada, were they to further their transition from "occasional monster opponent" to "campaign-compatible empire" - and to do so in a way that remained distinct from other extra-galactic invaders, such as the Andromedans.
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First, a quick roundup of what is available in print for SFB thus far.
The original Juggernaut "dreadnought" was presented all the way back in Captain's Log #1. This would represent the historical Juggernaut Alpha in this galactic octant, and possibly the "Juggernaut Primus" supposedly encountered by the Seltorian Hive Ship Star of Redemption in the Fire in the Deep short fiction in Captain's Log #41.
As that fiction work tells it, the Star had been in pursuit of a group of Tholian exiles when they encountered waves of Juggernauts heading towards the M81 galaxy; Juggernaut Primus stated that the Tholian exiles had already been destroyed, but this claim had not been conclusively verified by the time the Seltorians back in the home galaxy lost contact with the Star expedition. However, the accompanying SFB scenario (SL288.0) is presented as a computer simulation, as it is unclear as to whether or not the ships being encountered by the Star expedition were in fact Juggernauts.
Juggernaut Beta, or "Juggernaut Secundus" as Fire in the Deep tells it, is covered by the updated "dreadnought" SSD in Captain's Log #33. This is where the dreaded Shriek missiles are introduced, and where the shield lock rule is lifted for Juggernauts going forward.
Captain's Log #35 presents a Juggernaut heavy cruiser and light cruiser, while CL41 presents the Juggernaut battleship, missile dreadnought (which might, or might not, represent both Juggernaut Gamma and Fire in the Deep's "Juggernaut Tertius"), destroyer, and frigate, plus a handful of errata notes for other Juggernaut hull types.
Most recently, a full range of Juggernaut Empire miniatures, from the humble frigate all the way up to the mighty battleship, have been added in Omni scale to the Shapeways storefront.
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I agree with the suggestion in an earlier post that some sort of "heavy destroyer" might be useful, to sit somewhere between the DD and CL in BPV terms.
I'd also like to see a Juggernaut medium cruiser, to sit between the light and heavy cruisers. For comparison's sake, the CA has (among other things) a Move Cost of 1, a set of four phaser-4s, and a rotating shield which (as of CL41) has been errata-ed up to 70 points; whereas the CL has (among other things) a Move Cost of 2/3, two phaser-4s, and a rotating shield errata-ed up to 50 points. I'd like to see a would-be Juggernaut CM with a Move Cost of 3/4, a set of three phaser-4s, and a 60-point rotating shield.
I'd also wonder what kind of bases and support units the Juggernaut empire would use. I'm not sure what would work for them that would be both distinct from "standard" logistical networks (as seen in the Milky Way, the LMC, or in M81) and from other "invader" factions such as the Andromedans.
For example, if a Juggernaut battle station was intended to be a "fixed" installation, would it thus have elecrostatic armor in all six facings, and perhaps have a reduced explosion strength (if one were to assume that the powerful warp engines are the primary cause of a Juggernaut warship's high explosion strength)? Or, if such a base was designed to be mobile (akin to the Sigvirion light mobile base, or the "Roadbed" station which the Klingons speculate as being how the Andromedans established their Intergalactic Trunk Line, according to Captain's Log #49), might such a base retain the same degree of vulnerability that a Juggernaut warship has in its #4 facing?
And speaking of explosion strengths, I was recently asking elsewhere on the BBS if it might be worth reducing these strengths for Juggernauts when used as a playable empire, lest i be too easy for them to sacrifice even their smaller ships in order to take out enemy fixed installations. Or would that risk be part of what would make an invading Juggernaut armada a distinctly dangerous opponent?
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In the long run, some sort of ePack for the Juggernaut armada would be welcome in SFB - and over in Federation Commander also. Both to provide a new and dangerous set of invaders for... someone in known space to have to deal with, and to further leverage the range of Juggernaut miniatures over on Shapeways.
Is there anything more you would like to see for the Juggernauts going forward, or would you refer they remain a "monster" rather than an "empire"?
| By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, March 01, 2021 - 09:23 pm: Edit |
Juggernaut Thought #12:
Do Juggernauts Dream of Electric Shrieks?
| By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, March 02, 2021 - 07:40 pm: Edit |
Are there Juggalos? Scary to the clueless, but basically harmless?
| By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Friday, November 01, 2024 - 05:13 am: Edit |
One thiung I thought about is the more recent fiction had the Juggernaut abiding by various galactic rules for treatment of POWs and such.
I'd be interesting to play that up. Juggernauts do not shoot at civilian targets: ever. They do not engage ships past being able to fight.
So you have a situation where a big juggernaut incursion could render a region fo space more or less "lawless" in the sense that the local galactic powers cannot, or have not yet, amassed the force to chase them out.
But teh civilian infrastructure is there, intact, and little economic damage has been done, leaving the undefended zone a fat target for anyone willing to risk running into a juggernaut.
And of course it opens up plots where maybe you try to divert a juggernaut into an enemy nation...
one thing I would like ot see for future juggernauts, especially if they're to be more extensively used would be both a manufacturing ship (since they are fluffed as failed extra-galactic colony ships) and attrition units.
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, November 01, 2024 - 06:59 am: Edit |
Why stop at half measures?
Why not include a F&E Juggernaut player option in a f&e free for all scenario. Instead of the General War regular start, place a Juggernaut fleet on the map attacking both the Kzinti and The coalition. Then historically, each time an empire was scheduled to be attacked, insert a new Juggernaut fleet perhaps with Charles manufacturing ship?
Too bad this wasn’t suggested yesterday.
It would have been a worthy scary “ship” proposal.
| By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, November 01, 2024 - 10:18 am: Edit |
Juggernaughts do attack civilians, if only to bring on worthy opponents
| By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Saturday, November 02, 2024 - 01:52 am: Edit |
True, but the moment you stop getting opponents, there's no reason to continue an attack. (especially since nobody is going to defend a world you just zorched).
also, since this wouldn't be canon, we could possibly have a sliding scale of willingness to attack civilians, which would vary by juggernaut force, which would keep local powers from being able to predict what any given juggernaut would do with confidence.
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, November 05, 2024 - 06:30 am: Edit |
What if… one or more Juggernauts joined one star empire Against a neighboring Empire?
Not sure how that would work… perhaps a bidding process paid in terms of economic points? (Not currency, actual barter of resources the Juggernaut’s use to produce more Juggernauts….)
In effect, the Alpha Empires would be contributing to their own eventual defeat.
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, November 05, 2024 - 08:49 am: Edit |
Methinks it would be interesting to have a Captain's Log story where investigators going through a wrecked Juggernaut dig into its memory banks to find out what happened to the original builders (as they were, at one time, crewed ships). Essentially using the investigators as the framing story around the actual origin story.
| By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Wednesday, November 06, 2024 - 02:07 pm: Edit |
Jessica, your idea is interesting, and difficult. CL stories usually, if not always, have a playable scenario attached with them. This is the difficult part as the only opponents to the Juggernauts are SFB empires. This could be overcome by all of the combat being boarding party combat.
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