Fought how?

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 08:08 pm: Edit

Hehe, a war rampaging through Fed space and parts of Tholian space. A different four powers war...

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 11:49 am: Edit

The Tholians could have been conquered by the Romulans, after a border dispute initiated by the Tholians which goes bad, which is the reason the Federations does not interfere until too late. It would finally give the Romulans subject races Tholians and Klingons.

Then the Romulans are unwilling to give the former Klingon territory back to the Klingons. Since they paid dearly to take it in the first place starts the war.

The Federation takes in Tholian refugees, and gets drawn into the Romulan-Klingon Conflict, making it a three powers war. The Romulans and Klingons would be fighting to control the former Tholians space. The Federation's goal is to restore the Tholians, to maintain the separation of the Romulans and Klingons.

By Jay K Gustafson (Jay) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 12:13 pm: Edit

The Romulans never did like the Klingons and during the early years the Klingons did detroy there ships.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 12:26 pm: Edit

The Romulans haven't got what it takes to conquer the Tholians. Both the Klingons and Romulans tried and failed.

Romulans most of all have the greatedst difficulties with web. Cast Web is even worse.

After the General War is over the Romulans would consider the Tholian border a secure one. This allows them to concentrate their efforts (which they must do due to limited resources) to the north and east. They should be capable of offsetting considerable real assests on the Fed border with political assests.

After the failier of operation Nutcracker and the loss of the General war, the devestation of the ISC Conquest and the horor of the Andro Invasion I really can not see the Romulans wanting the spend effort against the Tholians who are not only not a threat but also provide a secure border.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 01:59 pm: Edit

Loren you forgot the Civil war as well.

BTW: I agree the Roms would consider the Tholian border a secure one and would not want to go rocking the boat.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Indeed.

Actually, were it not for raids the Fed and Gorns might consider the Romulans to be a secure border!

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Friday, September 03, 2004 - 10:30 am: Edit

I would think that historically from the Romulan point of view the Federation and to some extent the Gorn are secure borders, as normally the Gorn and Federation don't initiate hostiles. And now that the ISC gave up it pacification campaign that border is relatively secure.

So the Romulans are in a unique situation in that their borders are all facing races who don't initiate wars, maybe a raid or two form the Gorns, but that is about it. This is why I said the Tholians started the border dispute, and that the Romulans took advantage of the situation. They quickly subjugated the Tholian holdfast, to present an opportunity to raise the ire of the Klingons, and draw in the Federation.

Because if the Romulans start it then the Federation has a reason to intervene, this would bring the Klingons in as Romulan allies, and not Romulans protagonists, which was the point of interest a Romulan Klingon war.

BTW, I think either the Romulans or Klingon could take out the Tholians as long as it was their only focus.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 03, 2004 - 09:51 pm: Edit

There's also the "coaxing them other guy into making the first move routine." that's soemthing the roms might do.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 14, 2004 - 08:26 am: Edit

I was thinking...if we don't like the 12Ph-1s Vs 8Ph-5s thing be brought about by a treaty, we might need to keep it for technicaly reasons.

So what if the Ph-5s produced an inordinate amount of heat that required extra volume aboard the ship to house the cooling systems ( thus only 8Ph-1s could be mounted on a cruiser ). When the tradwars really kick off and the X2 cruisers need to feild 12Ph-5s to fight the Xorks; we can just say that a new highly advanced coolant was developed and the cooling system required was the regular size and thus XCAs could start mounting 12Ph-5s just like the old CXs mounted 12Ph-1s.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 04:35 am: Edit

How about they're just too expensive? How about they produce the age-old problem of shock? Sort of like the "phaser shock limit" that Scott Doty came up with, that kind of goes along with MJC's overheating idea.

Frankly the only treaties I see coming out of the wars would define territory and what's done with territory. Enforcing a treaty that tells someone what to do inside their own territory is hard to do, short of being the Organians. What happened to them by the way?

The Naval Treaty of Washington keeps coming up as an example of what could be done, but look at what the "weakest" signatory to that treaty did. Japan hid the construction of the two most powerful battleships in the world until 1944. They built the most powerful carrier force then in the world. Enforcement relied on integrity, it could not be policed. Look what Japan did in one hemisphere on one planet. Imagine trying to enforce a treaty like that over countless parsecs.

Territorial treaties can be enforced by presence and deterrence. To me that seems more realistic coming out of the "galactic" wars.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 10:06 am: Edit

The fact that the treaty can and will be broken is central to the future conflict that SFB relies on.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 06:38 pm: Edit

But look at from within the perspective of the story. Why would you sign a disarmament treaty you know your enemies will break when a territorial treaty can be enforced by you?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 07:09 pm: Edit

The Federation would honor the treaty because they signed it. Period.

The Klingons and Romulans would honor it (for a while) becasue they are broke and need time for the economy to recover.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 08:29 pm: Edit

So why would the Federation sign it, knowing their enemies will break it sooner or later?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Could be they'd sign it because the Federation Council is sick to death of fighting and won't risk reignighting the war because of a refusal to sign. As a democratic body, they'd be the most likely to sign it, even if they know it would eventually be broken. Remember, Star Fleet doesn't run the show...the council does, and they don't necessarily think in terms of military realities.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 09:28 pm: Edit

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Quote:

So why would the Federation sign it, knowing their enemies will break it sooner or later?

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 10:17 pm: Edit

The Feds would sign, even push the treaty, because it still gives a reprieve that everybody needs, including the Federation.

Who knows what could happen during the reprieve. Everybody figured out how to work together fighting the Andros. Perhaps some P & C (Peace and Commerce) could reduce racial frictions.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 10:55 pm: Edit

I suppose if there was an "opt-out" clause then the major powers might go for it. What would the disarmament treaty (since that's what we're talking about) seek to codify? What gets reduced? What gets eliminated? What gets to stay? What gets quotas? Etc.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:14 pm: Edit

At a guess I'd say limit offensive phasers and heavy weapons to YXXX (Y168?) standards.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:15 pm: Edit

Actually, if it's like the Washington Navy Treaty, it would not be arms-reduction so much as rearmament-limiting.

Nobody scraps ships but there are limits put on the size of ships, armament and the number that could be built during a given year.

Fleet-size has been trashed by two decades or more of warfare so the races agree to rearm slowly, which provides less mutual provocation toward renewed fighting.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:34 pm: Edit

You'd have a lot of wierd re-classifications going on to get around the new-build limits. Say, a "destroyer" that's really a cruiser with two of the photon tubes not installed. Once the war starts up again, just cut a hole in the hull and drop the photon into place.

Or bizarrely overbuilt "conversions"--after all, a conversion isn't a new build. Imagine an NCL with a DNH secondary hull bolted onto it. (Or an F5 boom with a C8 rear hull.)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 02:43 am: Edit

Well of lot of the bizzarr construction would be new technologies.

You might be limited to choosing either 8Ph-5s or 12Ph-1s and you might be limited to Four Photons (or Disruptors) and two drones...But who says you can't have an A.S.I.F. or a speed 32 ship or some kind of uber-sensor array or Admin shuttles that can opperate simaltainiously as an SS & an SP.


And then that's where we get to add new colour and flavour to the X2 era.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 07:33 pm: Edit

In SFB terms the treaty can break it down by move cost, which would equate to tonnage.

Say new construction ships below MC=1/2 may not mount more than two heavy weapons and 4 primary phasers, plus 2 defensive phasers.

Ships starting at MC=1/2 and below MC=2/3 can only mount 3 heavy weapons...

And so it goes. I'm not going to write out the whole treaty.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 08:06 pm: Edit

Tos & John, rather than setting actual limits, it defines baselines and "templates?"

For example, if we set a maximum of 2 heavies per Frigate, the Federation might be encouraged to build 24pt photons for Frigates (where larger hulls stick with the 16-20pt photons). That technology could then be retrofitted onto larger hulls during wartime.