I wasn't sure how much this counted as a new scenario or a new proposal; but since there would be a number of new elements that may need to be set in place in order for this idea to (one day) work, I figured it was as well to put it here.

In any case, this is not intended to be looked at any time soon. But I thought it might perhaps be something to note for later consideration.


In Captain's Log #39 (and in Away Team Log) there is an article called Tholians of Draco written by Loren Knight, the author of the in-development module covering the Tholians in Prime Directive.

This snapshot takes a look at a group of Tholian exiles led by the NBB War Havoc and the survey ship Sojourner, which eventually established itself in the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (a satellite of the Milky Way).

The Draco-Tholian Enclave was established when this exile group discovered Tholiax, the only planet in known space (outside of the Tholians' ancestral world of Tholia Prime) where this species could run an "open-air" colony. However, the surface temperature was roughly a hundred degrees Celsius higher than the Tholians could live with. The solution was to tow a series of asteroids near the planet, use a web lattice to hold a cloud of asteroid dust in place, and use it as a kind of sunshade. (The War Havoc, in no shape to continue service, was landed on the surface to help establish the first colony on Tholiax.)

Historically, the first the Holdfast Tholians knew of any of this was during the Andromedan War, when the Sojourner led an expedition through the galactic energy barrier in the midst of the Andromedan invasion. After Operation Unity, the Holdfast organised a return expedition led again by the Sojourner, which formally established contact between it and the Enclave.

So far as is known, there are no local space-faring empires to cause the Draco-Tholians any trouble, and nor is there any confirmed Andromedan (or other) presence at this time.


There are a number of reasons why I'd consider the DTE to be of interest, at least at some future point.

For one, it has a number of new ship classes that are yet to be published in SFB. One of which is the Sojourner itself, said to be of an experimental type which possessed some sort of passive sensor technology. (And I suppose you could include any rules needed to handle the web-based sunshield as being "new", in case an aggressor made it as far as Tholiax itself.)

For another, there is the possibility of the Enclave having certain known hull types in service which were not around in the Holdfast of the modern era. (I wrote a scenario for FC which was posted in Communiqué #86 which involved a simulator exercise held for Draco-Tholian cadets. But the reason why I made it a simulator exercise was to avoid pinning down whether any of the Draco-Tholian ships listed therein were "real" or not.)

And in light of Minor Empires coming out in the not too distant future, my thought was that the DTE might make for an alternate location for the Torch expedition to arrive at. Had the Tribunal force arrived there instead of the Alpha Octant, the Seltorians would have had no access to the Klingon-inspired upgrades seen historically. But on the other hand, with no sphere backing up whatever space-borne assets the Enclave is able to support (let alone manage to build; there's no word yet on what, if any, fixed assets the Enclave was able to establish during their period of isolation), the prize might be easier to claim than the Holdfast would be.

Plus, I suppose one could set up an alternate in which the Holdfast sphere itself (and/or the ships of the 312th) went to Draco rather than the Alpha Octant, and it was there where the Torch expedition fought it out with their ancient nemeses. (But then, if the Sphere ended up going here and not through the energy barrier, perhaps it may have still had its engines working?)


In the long run, once Andro War is being worked on, the question of what might happen to the post-contact Enclave (or what the Sojourner might get up to during its stay at the Holdfast sphere) might be worth looking into.

I'm hoping that Module X2 might talk a little more on what kind of priority the Draco-Tholians might be to the Holdfast Tholians in that era. But that would be a topic for a much later time.


That said, it may be that the Tholians of Draco would themselves have to wait until after Prime Directive: Tholians is published before any further development on what is to be found there in F&E terms could be looked at.

But since Draco Dwarf is the only other place this side of the home galaxy where a known group of Tholian exiles has survived into the modern era, and since the Holdast Tholians and Draco-Tholians do historically link up later in the timeline, the Enclave might perhaps have a use - if only to give the Seltorians (or perhaps the Andromedans) a fresh target to pursue.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2014 - 11:48 am: Edit

Just want to point out that the War Havoc fleet followed the Seltorians who were following the Sphere, so I don't think the Seltorians could have ended up in contention with the Draco Tholians.

IIRC

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 20, 2014 - 01:12 pm: Edit

In that case, perhaps one could postulate a separate Nest Ship expedition uncovering the Enclave instead? Just as their cadets would be trained on anti-Seltorian tactics in duels or squadron actions, there may be a similar drive to prepare for such an eventuality at a strategic level.

I say Nest Ship, since one of those might offer a more scaled-down opponent for the Tholians of Draco to try and handle, as opposed to a larger Hive Ship.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2014 - 05:56 pm: Edit

I think the Draco Tholians would be quickly wiped out by a nest ship and the ships one carries.
As I recall being told, Draco would have no ship building ability for quite a long time. It certainly wouldn't start until after the Holdfast expedition returned.
But then, the Holdfast had a whole sphere with a ship forge and they had quite a lot of trouble getting rolling.

What I think would have to happen is just before the Holdfast return expedition gets there a Seltorian Nest ship finds Tholiax. The battle manages to come to a stalemate so the Seltorians get to gathering resources to build up a few squadrons to attack again, but as they do (after a few years) the Holdfast Expedition arrives. Freighters are emptied and converted to auxiliaries and the escorts are pressed into service. Naturally, the Holdfast Expeditionary Fleet (HEF) has an X-ship or two so they lead the attack.

This would be a campaign small enough to play in SFB I'd think. It would be a quick F&E scenario too. A one-nighter, as it were.

While the HEF wouldn't have any thing to build a ship yard it would probably bring an MB and maybe the basics to build shuttles and fighters. I suppose that would take about a year to set up.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2014 - 05:59 pm: Edit

One could assume that the Seltorians intercepted the reports from their predecessors and knew about fighters and shortly after seeing them deployed by Tholians would start to manufacture their own (yeah, a new fighter type).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 20, 2014 - 06:46 pm: Edit

They may be able to figure out how to operate their own PFs, if the blueprints sent by the Torch expedition allowed them to be built (and if the Selts were able to re-tool their onboard production facilities without Klingon assistance).

But in the absence of "mercenary" pilots, which were needed in the Alpha Octant due to the inability of the Selts to fly fighters themselves (as portrayed in CL36's Web of Deceit fiction piece), there would be no means for the Selts to use them in this case.

Unless the Selts are allowed to use remote-controlled fighters? In which case, that would still force them to be deployed in a strictly defensive role.

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - 04:12 pm: Edit

The trouble Seltorians have with fighters is a mental inability to pilot them on the part of Seltorian workers (R15.20). Having them sit in a ship and use remote controls wouldn't seem to fix that.

It's not impossible that Sages and/or Experts might be able to fly fighters, and operating remote controlled fighters would at least save them from being killed at attrition unit rates, but there would be limited numbers available and mean having them not doing other jobs.

And that limited use of fighters could only come after inventing brand-new fighters of their own design anyway with new fighter-scale weaponry of their own design. We don't even know if the MW Seltorians even manufactured their own tooling for fighters; they may well have used Klingon-made tools in their copies of Klingon factories to produce, to Klingon designs, copies of Klingon fighters that depended on copies of Klingon drones and disruptors to be effective.

On the other hand, workers on their own can operate PFs just fine (R15.PF1), and the Seltorians made their own-design PFs with facilities on the Hive Ship. And while the retooling is said to have been done with some Klingon design help, nothing was said about Klingon construction help (R15.13C).

Which is to say, Seltorians on their own making and using PFs, especially if they have data from the Torch, is plausible. Their making and using fighters is rather less plausible.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - 10:05 pm: Edit

Seltorians probably just need to work in groups or be lead by Sages. On a PF you'd have that.

I think any fighter developed in Draco by the Seltorians would be something that would require a full range of development starting with an F7 type based on a modified admin design (no drones though). The first step to begin building fighters would be more speed and a second phaser.

Although, I suppose that the Tholians would start much further ahead with at least the S-1 and S-2 designs.

On the other hand, might the Holdfast just send some S-IV's as planetary defense? With a more limited population it might be easier to crew them. Does an S-IV require more maintenance than two S-1/2's? Seem a good way to bolster planetary defense quickly.

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - 03:44 am: Edit

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Quote:

Seltorians probably just need to work in groups or be lead by Sages. On a PF you'd have that.

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By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - 12:04 pm: Edit

How big is Draco? WYN cluster size?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - 06:56 pm: Edit

It's pretty small. Off the top of my head I'd say about that (Wyn sized).

It would probably make an excellent campaign for an operational scale game.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 08, 2017 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Somebody needs to work up a list of just what ships Draco has. Then we can see if we need new counters. If we do, they'll go into a future product. If we don't, this could be a simple balance module to be published in a future captain's Log.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, February 22, 2021 - 09:16 pm: Edit

Some thoughts on the size of the Draco Dwarf Galaxy:

I think a “one hex” galaxy concept might be too small to be interesting on the F&E scale. The WYN are playable as a one hex empire because they border other empires which have greater strategic depth and the Cluster plays an important role in the history of both the General War and the Usurper War. Plus the WYN cluster is essentially a “capital hex” which gives the hex an internal geography.

Draco, however, would just be a single resource hex in the middle of empty space. Any enemy travelling to Draco would have to occupy the same hex as the Tholians turning the conflict into a quick fight to the death, a siege, or perhaps a game of “King of the Hill” with each party taking turns evicting the other from Draco.

I think an argument can be made for making Draco larger. From Wikipedia it appears that Draco is about 1/3rd the diameter of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. So, based on the Magellanic map in Module C5 I would guess that Draco is about 7 hexes across (a 3 hex radius circle).

To make things interesting I would suggest making the center 7 hexes of the Galaxy impassable (a radiation zone perhaps). This would turn Draco into a “ring” of 6 provinces. Therefore, if Draco were inhabited by 2 or more warring factions, each opponent would have two hostile borders to defend. Of course, since Draco is likely too small to have an energy barrier, an enemy could leave and reenter the galaxy in an attempt to outflank your border defenses but it might be difficult to do so while keeping in supply and maintaining a path for retreat.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Some speculation on the size of the Draco-Tholian Economy.

Likely, the Draco-Tholians would have struggled with developing their economy. Unlike the Milky Way Tholians, they arrived without a sphere and the one habitable planet they did find required significant terraforming. Although the Sojourner would have been useful in locating resources the equipment, labor, and industrial base necessary to exploit those resources would have been lacking so the Draco-Tholians would have struggled just to establish living space and maintain their badly damaged ships in some semblance of working order. I’m guessing that colonial development would take much longer than it would under normal circumstances, a least several years if not a decade.

My suggestion would be a starting economy of 3 EP (1 colony, 1 province) for a hypothetical conflict taking place sometime between Y195 (when the Sojourner left for the Milky Way) and Y207 (when the Sojourner returned). Until the Sojourner returns the Draco-Tholians probably can’t build much more than skiffs and defense battalions (without fighters) and conduct repairs to damaged ships. After Y207 they can build fighters, PFs, and undertake some minor conversions but any new ships would have to be provided by the Holdfast.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 02:58 pm: Edit

Douglas Saldana:

You have a problem in that you are working with an unknown, and there are a lot of variables.

But one thing is that a "province" in Federation & Empire includes a lot of minor colonies that have developed over the years. The Draco Tholians have at the time Sojorner left for the Holdfast just 13 years to establish their colony and occupy a province. Given that their "colony" is in essence their "homewold" and had no resources other than what the fleet had when it arrived, I do not see them having a "province," and I do not see their "colony" having a lot of economic potential either because the fleet was defined as having used up "the last of its resources" to repair the damage caused by the energy barrier trying to reach the Holdfast.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 03:21 pm: Edit

I will say that, in one sense the WYN Cluster was in a worse state than the Draco Tholians. They were starting with a "known" small force of ships [see the "Death of the Usurper" scenario, (SH257.0)]. They had 20 years before the Orions found them, and almost 20 more years before they were revealed to the Klngons. Still they were a small force compared to the Tholian refugee fleet. The difference was that after the Orions found them they had access to the technological base and infrastructure and population of the surrounding empires, a thing the Draco Tholians lack and cannot be given. There are no surrounding "Tholian" life forms to increase the size of their population and no Orions to smuggle infrastructure and goods into the Draco Tholian enclave. The Aurora Colony was better situated when it transferred to Omega and landed in a gold mine of derelict civilizations to help them.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 06:27 pm: Edit

So it sounds like they have a subsistence economy (0 EP) unless there is some native civilization with a technological base that would be willing to help them.

Or perhaps they could get income just from the hex Tholiax is in giving them a “peacetime” income of 1/5th an EP? That would allow them to build a small “rainy day fund” over a decade or two.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 07:17 pm: Edit

Except peacetime incomes don't carry-over but limited-war does and like our Tholians, they have a longer timeframe to use it.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 27, 2021 - 07:49 pm: Edit

I don't think F&E rules really reflect well as to what is going on here.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Sunday, February 28, 2021 - 01:09 pm: Edit

If I understand this correctly, the Draco Tholians start with enough ships that EVERYONE was able to live on a ship, for a prolonged period (like decades).

They don't need to build new ships, not for several generations.

Production levels are irrelevant, they have enough hulls for a much larger fleet than they can afford to maintain and man and F&E abstracts away those costs. As their population increases, they'll simply refurbish and man the EXISTING hulls that they arrived with for generations.

The key question is how fast Tholian populations increase, not what their production is in F&E terms.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, February 28, 2021 - 01:42 pm: Edit

How Large was the Draco-Tholian Fleet?

Unlike the Milky Way Tholians, the Draco-Tholians had to fight a series of engagements after leaving M81. The first was described as a “great battle” which nearly annihilated a Seltorian fleet and this was followed (6 months later) by a series of running battles with “a massive assault force” that ended in the destruction of the sphere just outside of Holmberg IX satellite galaxy when the Seltorians “threw everything they had” into destroying it.

The Tholian fleet is simply described as “a task force” under the command of a “Grand Admiral”. There is no description of its size though we know it included the NBB War Havok and the survey ship Sojourner.

Regardless of its size, the defense of the Dyson Sphere would have been a “do or die” effort for the Tholians. This was, after all, an “older provincial sphere” which, unlike Tholia, would have been fully populated (billions? vs. Tholia’s “tens of millions”), with complete defenses and the full assortment of personnel, skills and equipment to be expected of an established Tholian industrial center. The sphere also had the opportunity to collect resources for a full 6 months in Holmberg IX so had the Sphere escaped to another Galaxy, they would have been well situated to hit the ground running.

That’s why its odd that any of Grand Admiral Gavanexx’s fleet survived at all. I can only conclude that either part of his fleet was lured away from the sphere by some stratagem (allowing the sphere to be destroyed before the fleet was fully engaged) or, at some point prior to the final Seltorian assault, Gavanexx concluded that the defense was hopeless and decided to abandon the civilians. Given the incalculable value of the sphere as a military and industrial asset (not to mention its population) I think the former scenario is more likely.

Whatever happened, Gavanexx’s fleet after the destruction of the sphere must have been much smaller than the task force that left M81. At this point some of the remaining ships had to be “cannibalized for spare parts”. At minimum, the remaining fleet consisted of the NBB War Havoc, the survey ship Sojourner, and at least 4 other ships since at least 2 were lost attempting to enter the Milky Way in Y182 and 2 ships accompanied the Sojourner to Tholia in Y195. There must have been more warships since it’s unlikely that the Sojourner would have left Tholiax undefended during its prolonged stay in the Milky Way (the NBB having been grounded to serve as a colony base).

Gavanexx is also referenced to have gathered “logistical units” after the destruction of the sphere. It is not clear how these ships survived the destruction of the sphere but they would not have included freighters (since these were operated by subject races) but may have included civilian transports, fleet oilers, hospital ships, and repair ships since these types were sometimes crewed by Tholians in the Home Galaxy. I believe the oilers and transports would have been cannibalized and abandoned prior to arriving in the Milky Way since they would have been a drain on resources once their stores were depleted. The repair ships would not have been abandoned under any circumstance and the hospital ships may have been needed for reviving crewman from hibernation.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, February 28, 2021 - 02:06 pm: Edit

So we can only confirm a minimum of 3 ships in the Draco-Tholian “fleet” as of Y195 although they almost certainly had more. Nonetheless, it is improbable the fleet was very large given the numerous opportunities for attrition over the course of their journey:

1. Battle at Holmberg IX
2. The series of “running battles”
3. The final battle for the Sphere.
4. Cannibalization for spare parts after the battle.
5. Ships abandoned during the journey to the Milky Way.
6. Ships destroyed attempting to enter the Milky way
7. Ships grounded or cannibalized after reaching Draco

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, March 01, 2021 - 01:13 pm: Edit

Douglas Saldana:

I tried to send you a file about the Draco-Tholians, I do not know if you got it, but in reading your recent posts, I suspect you did not receive it. Can you confirm if you did or did not?

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Monday, March 01, 2021 - 01:25 pm: Edit

Yes, it initially went into my spam folder so I didn't notice it until today. I'll take a closer look at it this evening.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Tuesday, March 02, 2021 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick:

Read the Draco-Tholian file. Sent some unsolicited feedback (hope you don't mind).

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, March 07, 2021 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Been reading up on the M81 group of galaxies and came across an interesting fact about the Holmberg IX satellite galaxy.

According to a paper published in 2008 in the Astrophysical Journal (referenced on Wikipedia), Holmberg IX is "the nearest young galaxy" and is less than 200 million years old (younger than the dinosaurs!).

It seems unlikely that such a young galaxy would have had time to develop life, much less intelligent life. Since Holmberg IX was M81’s nearest neighbor that might explain why the Tholians were slow to take an interest in exploring their satellite galaxies. An uninhabited region is neither a threat nor likely to be easy to exploit economically.

I suppose that Holmberg IX could have had a population transplanted from elsewhere (refugees from the Great Martial War for example) but there might not be any planets capable of supporting life in such a young stellar region so they would be limited to hostile environment colonies.

So it’s unlikely that the Talxithol Sphere had any reason to fear that an empire local to Holmberg IX would impede them as they stopped there to gather resources in preparation for their flight to NGC 3077.