(R2.116) Each major member planet (Earth, Mars, Vulcan, Andoria, Rigel, Cygnus, Arcturia, Alpha-Centauri.) was allocated one of these cruisers as the flagship of their National Guard.

Names: Revenge, Warspite, Tuqareg, Stalwart, others


I have no listing that I can find that says which ship belongs to which Major Member.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, February 14, 2011 - 11:27 pm: Edit

Not even a guard ship would see someone captain for more than four or five years, and even that's unusual. Serving on the ship for 35 years would be extraordinarily exceptional for anyone but a vulcan. I doubt if there is more than one such human in the entire epoch of history, and, well, I'm not going there and neither are you. (Hint: I'll change if if you try that, and I'll make the change as messy and awkward as possible, so fix it before you send it.) Captain for two years, on the ship for 12.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 02:30 am: Edit

I know Helvetia is another name for Switzerland (French?) so I reckon they'd be like the Swiss: neutral (they are in the Neutral Zone), wealthy, and armed to the teeth.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 07:55 am: Edit

@George/Ryan - Because the reader is undoubtedly human (at least in my lifetime), I made the hero of the story, human. For "racial" diversity, I made the crew representative of the major Federation races. But I do give a reason for that in the story.

@SVC - No problem. The point behind the story is that the captain is an old guy with a ton of experience. And that's how he wins against those "young punk" Romulans and their brash moves. His experience doesn't necessarily have to come from Starfleet. It's a small change.

@Terry - Yes, neutral, but instead of making them stereotypically wealthy and armed, I chose to make them the "owners" of a valuable but obscure resource and very hard to get to, both physically and psychologically. F&E "economic points" come from Helvetia from this obscure resource, among other things...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 10:32 am: Edit

Randy: If it's a guard ship, the crew will all be from one planet. Also, you cannot have it both ways. If the guy has a ton of experience, he got it in Star Fleet, not the Guard. So he's either a political guard appointee who has been on the ship since he left starfleet 12 years ago, or he left star fleet a year ago after a long and distinguished career commanding a frigate, then a light cruiser, then a heavy cruiser, retired to his home planet and was given command of their "guard" ship because he was a local hero, politically neutral (he's been gone long enough he doesn't remember the local parties), and the most qualified man for the job.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 11:53 am: Edit

@SVC - Ah good! Excellent clarification there sir. It's really no big deal to modify the names/races of the crew, but I'd like to keep the captain a human, if possible. Do you foresee any difficulty with a human captain and a Vulcan crew. (The saboteur was a Romulan sympathizer who was a Vulcan.) I suppose I can make the captain a Vulcan, but it will totally change the tone of the story. Well, from my perspective, would actually ruin the story.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 02:45 pm: Edit

I don't quite agree with the idea that a Federation protagonist has to be human; the Powell was captained by the Rigellian Win Folomar in CL40's Nature of the Beast.

For stories set in the likes of the UFP (or ISC, FRA or Mæsron Alliance, for that matter) there should be ample room for stories told from many points of view.

Indeed, after over a century's worth of co-operation, perhaps there would be some degree of emigration to (and immigration from) the various major Fed planets? In principle, you could have some ethnic Andorians born on Earth, or ethnic Vulcans raised on Rigel IV etc; some of those might go on to choose service in the National Guards of their adopted worlds.


(If the Romulans were to be "young punks", could it be more apt to use Hawk-series ships? There were Snipes in service well before the first Republic-class cruiser was commissioned...)


Oh, and Terry, Helvetia is Latin; the county is la Suisse in French.

Interestingly enough, one of the few languages to still refer to the place by the old name is Irish; an tEilvéis.

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 03:17 pm: Edit

It may also be that the guard was called into national service as per our lastest wars

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Randy: There is virtually no situation I can imagine in which a Guard ship would have a human captain and a vulcan crew. A human crew with a few Vulcans who are running some kind of experiments or installing new sensors or something, maybe.

Robert: Unlikely in the SFU. The US National Guard has the same equipment as the regular Army and is specifically trained and organized to fit right into the regular Army. The SFU guard is organized as planetary government self-defense units. Guard ground troops and Guard fighter squadrons might well get called into service, but Guard ships would be worse than useless as they are too slow and lack firepower and would be logistical nightmares as they don't use the same spare parts. A guard ship is either going to (1) guard the owning planet, or (2) protect the owning planet's interests (perhaps by evacuating a colony owned by the owning planet), or (3) at most, protect the owning planet's economy by escorting convoys during the last week of travel to the owning planet. None of that involves being integrated into star fleet. Far more likely, the crew of the guard ship would be called into service, individually, a few at a time, on brand new NCLs and DWs. (One function of the guard is to train a lot of locals to be ready to go into Star Fleet in wartime.)

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - 08:26 pm: Edit

@SVC - Ok, so a human captain and crew COULD have a Vulcan on board. That's all I need. The ship will have a human crew then. All I need to do is massage the captain's experience a little bit and it should be fixed.
I'm about 3/4 done with the first draft. Should be done before the end of the week...

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 08:03 am: Edit

Ok, this story is taking longer than I expected (it'll probably be about 7500-8500 words), and I have some technical questions.

The bridge crew:
Who is the person who says, "incoming plasma torpedoes!"
Does the helmsman fire the ships weapons or is it someone else?
Does the science officer tell the captain that a Romulan ship is decloaking or is it someone else?

There is a "white paper" on this somewhere, and I did read it a couple of weeks ago, but I don't remember if it addressed those questions specifically, and I don't want to get lots o' red marks from SVC when I submit the story.

I've had a few people read the story, who don't play the game, and I tailored it specifically for the non gamer (to hopefully attract them). Everyone has said that the story was engaging and exciting, so I am just in the "technical details" stage now.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can answer my questions.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 11:46 am: Edit

Incoming plasma is the science officer (acting as the tactical intel or tactical situation officer, but just say science officer).

the weapons officer fires the weapons. (Actually, sometimes he pushes the "fire" button and sometimes he pushes a button that tells the gunner for that particular weapon "fire on THIS target at the optimum time" but for dialogue he fires the weapons.)

The science officer detects the uncloaking ship.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 12:21 pm: Edit

Thank you SVC!

I'm glad I got it right.

In the TOS, Chekov was the weapons officer, right? Sulu was the helm/navigator? Just making sure who sits where.

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 09:42 pm: Edit

In TOS Chekov was the navigator (season 2 and 3) and Sulu was the helmsman. Sulu also fired the weapons from his station.

In the movies the weapons station was against the wall to forward left of the captain.

In TOS there were times when Sulu had no problem firing phasers and photon torpedoes from his console, but there were other times when he had some sort of viewer scissor-up from within the console.

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 09:45 pm: Edit

TOS showed that the weapons could be fired using either the helm or navigation stations.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 07:45 am: Edit

That could mean that the order to fire from the Nav or Helm stations was simply a communications meassage to the phaser control room/Photon Torpedo Control room to actually fire weapons.

IIRC there was an old TOS episode where Spock had to get into the phaser control room to fire the phasers (and then rescue the incapacitated crew members trapped inside! what a hero!

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 08:44 pm: Edit

This has happened before...and it will happen again.

The writers wrote whatever they had to in order to make a hero seem heroic. In Balance of Terror, Spock had to go help in the phaser control room. In Arena he spoke with someone in phaser control who said they had no power. Other times weapons were fired directly from stations on the bridge.

It would be nice to think that upgrades were installed as the series progressed. If one ignores the sequence of the episodes, perhaps that is a viable position.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 11:25 pm: Edit

Actually, the answer I gave (and have given many times) is more than adequate.

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 08:08 pm: Edit

I was just trying to be helpful. Since he posted in a public area instead of using email, it seemed as if he might have wanted other input.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 08:16 am: Edit

OK, story is finished.

It's entitled "Last Waltz with Warspite"

I sent it out to some non-gamer friends (and some gamers, including Xander) to "proof" before submitting.

It didn't unfold exactly as I thought. I played the whole thing out on an SFB map, rolling weapons, DAC hits, etc. The results truly changed the ebb and flow of the battle.
But so far, I've been told that the story is exciting and engaging.

My plan is to submit to SVC on Monday. I hope he likes it better than my previous submissions.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 08:51 am: Edit

The main objection to Xander's artwork seems to be that there's no real reason, under current SFB rules, for the ship to descend into the atmosphere. However, the draft rules for SFM:A do allow starships to descend to give ground support.

My idea for a story/battle runs something like this: A ship receives a distress call from a colony world. When it arrives, a ship (possibly a pirate, maybe a Romulan eagle class) is landed and ground troops from the ship are about to overrun the colony. The captain of the ship beams in Marines as soon as he can but it clearly isn't going to be enough, so descends to just above the ground combat location and employs phasers, with devastating effect. The sudden appearance of the GCA and its firepower (almost equal to a company of tanks) routs the attacking infantry. However, the attackers have another ship (cloaked) in orbit, which reveals itself and attacks, trapping the defending ship low in the atmosphere.

I don't know how you'd turn that battle into a story though.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 11:35 am: Edit

I dunno about the starship fire support thing. That rule may be booted to the next module because it turns into a zoo of special rules. Even so, it's gotta be just ... wonky.

Xander's art (and the story that came in for it) shows that when you try to create a story for an existing piece of art, you get bad results. Better to do the story and then do the art.

We may have to have Xander change the art to make any story workable.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 12:38 pm: Edit

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Quote:

The main objection to Xander's artwork seems to be that there's no real reason, under current SFB rules, for the ship to descend into the atmosphere

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Well, there is my term paper that explains launching ground assault and troop transport shuttles from the air. The fighters could be coming from something else.

Maybe there is a ground assault going on and the Fed ship is a troop ship (change ship name) about to land support units and was damaged on the way in.

Further the damage was the plasma fire thing I mentioned earlier.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 05:05 pm: Edit

There is a problem with any story in that it is very easy to get down to the critical scene, and not think about all the things that need to happen in order for the critical scene to happen.

You have to explain why perfectly competent people utterly fail to take rudimentary steps that make your brilliant scheme fail, or at the very least would cause your subordinates to consider mutinying and removing you from command for suggesting a plan that relies entirely on your opponent not taking rudimentary precautions.

You have to consider the background of the year you choose. What is going on? Why are we (both sides) here? Why are my apponents going to allow me to execute my brilliant plan when rudimentary precautions would make my brilliant plan completely unworkable?

I am not taking digs at Randy Blair here. He studied the rules carefully to set up his story, but missed asking himself the basic question of if he was the captain of the Federation ship, inside the neutral zone, during a period when Romulan privateers and Orion pirates are making frequent attacks, and he knows he is going to have a period when his weapons will be offline, why did he not set up a listening post? Why did not the commander of the ground base set up a listening post? At that point, while Randy did not intend it, he essentially had various officers who were supposedly compent and capable fall into the category of incompetent and incapable.

Setting up an ambush is one thing, but you need to be able to explain how your force was able to set up an ambush under the very noses of your opponent, knowing in advance that your opponent was going to be utterly complicit in your doing so by not taking basic precautions.