Archive through May 12, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW EMPIRE BOOKS:
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Archive through May 12, 2005
I have a better version of the Fed Express ship that was in capt. log. I fixed one or two major glitches and some minor ones, and more detail and such. Do you want to use that, or the Fed FF from Prima Alpha? Or both? Are they still selling Prime Alpha, or is that dumpster bait with the other 3rd edition stuff?
I was going to use the FF.
We still have about 50 copies of MPA we didn't dumpsterize but haven't sold one in weeks.
Which is more proper for use in a fiction story: Cygnus or Shresha-Cygnus??
FYI: I have a not-so-short story in the works (22,000 words and counting, and I just now finished the mission brief) in which I mention "an illegal human colony" of ~8,000 people on the edge of Kzinti space. It would probably be on the border of hex 1804 and 1905 ... which one it's actually in depends on who you're talking to. That's not where my action/combat sequence takes place, but it's mentioned to help set something up I'm planning for later in the story. No idea if you'd want to use it for anything, but I figured I toss it out there.
Garth L. Getgen
The common term is Cygnus (name of the planet). Shresha is the name of the star. I cannot fathom any point in saying "Shresha-Cygnus".
Now, perhaps, somebody colonizes a planet around the star Arglebargle and calls it Cygnus (a name that the real planet Cygnus takes about as much offense to as Greece does to Macedonia calling itself Macedonia). People on this planet might use the terms "Shresha-Cygnus" and "Arglebargle-Cygnus" to distinguish the two planets, perhaps in some bizarre twist of political correctness in an effort to portray their pathetic little colony Cygnus as being the social equal of the major industrialized high-tech multi-billion-inhabitant Cygnus.
Shresha is the Cygnans own name for the star in their language; I'd go with Shresha.
Mantor: 2006 would be my next choice, as it is in Fed space adjacent to the F-K-Z neutral zone. But there is a BATS in 2006, and I don't recall if the Mantors have a base in their system.
If we go with 2006, we need to decide if the BATS is in the Mantor system or not. John, is there anything already published on Mantor that affects that decision?
Mantor's system defense status during the General War era has never been fleshed out.
In CL 24, it mentions that Mantor purchased a lot of system defense type stuff from both the Feds and Kzintis in the Y100-Y120 period. This does not appear in the scenario that takes place at Mantor, but that was because the Kzintis in the scenario were only there to take out the Fed police ship and were waiting for the main body to move up before tackling the Mantorese defenses.
By the time Mantor joins the Feds in Y167, the situation coudl have changed in any number of ways. Hex 2006 looks like a perfect location for Mantor given the published background. The BATS could certainly be in the Mantor system if that is OK with SVC. But it doesn't have to be.
I don't think that the BATs needs to be in the mantor system. I don't object to it being in their hex.
Ok, then let's say that Mantor is in 2006 but that the BATS is not in the Mantor system proper. Fine with me.
How has much about the Federation police planned/written/assigned? That's what I was running through my mind.
Also, I had also submitted an article a few months back to SVC entitled 'Federations within the Federation' which details multisystem substates within the Federation. The idea was that there were several groups of planets who pooled their resorces to do those things that other major systems could do on their own.
Donovan: I still have your fed-in-fed article. I have some conceptual problems with it that may make it unusable or at least require major changes, but I can't deal with them until I finish the fed government section (which I'm doing).
I'll do the fed police as part of the government thing.
Understandable.
SVC: Thanks. I'll do a quick search-&-replace on my story. 
At this point, it's so long that I'm simply viewing it as a hobby / release for me. I suspect it'll be well over 75,000 words, of not over 100K, before it's "done" ... much too long to expect publication.
Gary, the person talking about Shersha-Cygnus in my story is a Police officer stationed there, so I'll go with Cygnus. No reason to think she's a native. But thanks for the input.
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As to players, GMs, and/or writers sticking settled planets in "just anywhere" they feel like (such as my "Rio Verde" colony mentioned in the previous post) --- here's some math (I've posted this before):
A F&E hex is 500 parsecs across, of course. To over-simplfy the math, I'll make it a cube: 500x500x500 = 125 Million cubic parsecs per hex. If we assume an average of 5 parsecs (~16.5 lightyears) between astronomical objects, that give you 100x100x100 = One Million objects per hex.
If we assume ten percent of those are stars (100,000), and ten percent of the stars have planets (10,000), and ten percent of the planetary systems have worlds that are remotely usable (1,000)-- and then further assume that one percent of the worlds are "Class-M" or close enough as to be settled or at least terriformable, one can say that there's an average of ten worlds of interest per hex.
If that number is still too high for comfort, then we can assume that only one percent of these have anything significant on them (ie, more than a dozen prospectorers looking for the motherload), then we're at one worthwhile planet per ten hexes, which is pretty reasonable.
Garth L. Getgen
I would think that is too low. I would think there are many inhabited worlds in each hex (although many will often be small groups (mining, science, whatever). The planets shown on the F&E map are just the most industrialized ones with populations in the billions.
An F&E province (anywhere from 2-8, but usually 5 or 6 hexes) generates 2 EPs, the minor and major worlds (which are the most important planets mentioned above) generate 3 and 5 EPs respectively. That 2 EPs per province is the collective income of a number of worlds and minor colonies. If you only had 1 useful world per 10 hexes, most provinces would be zero income, and that is not the case.
Garth, I've always figured there to be several hundred inhabitable worlds per hex. Finding them among a million objects would be a lot of work and habitalbe and comfy are two different things. There are several classes of planets that are habitable, one of which is Class M. So one hex might have two or three class M planets and another might have a dozen or more.
I imagine there to be a great many habitable gas giant moons.
Then there is teraforming which becomes available at TL13 IIRC.
The rule of thumb is 50 inhabited planets per F&E hex, many of them (in outer area) only small colonies, with another 150 yet-to-be inhabited planets. That's just class M. Small mining colonies in airtight bubbles are beyond that, and are essentially infinite in the number of available worlds/moons/asteroids.
Thanks SVC for the info on planetary numbers.
I was told by SPP that at least one Selt got to the Federation and was "employed" by them, post the Klingon extermination.
QUESTION, is there room for a "selt getaway" scenario? I was thinking that the Selts might have had contingencies to send at least one ship loaded with data (GW tech, politics, astrography, local biology, X tech, Tholian status and designs etc) to meet the grandmuster fleet that is supposed to be following the fleet that came to Alpha...
D'Oh! That was supposed to remain secret...I thought... for now.
Michael C. Grafton. I am writing that piece about the one Selt. There isn't going to be a big get away senario BUT what is happening is far more frightening that you could ever imagin. (Well, maybe since I did...and SVC... us together did.) It totally fits the established history so clues are actually there... sort of.
What I do plan on is after writing RPG Tholians/Selts is to continue developement of the M81 galaxy hopefully into a full blow SFB/F&E module series. I hope. But first things first and that's RPG Tholians.
SVC said
Quote:We still have about 50 copies of MPA we didn't dumpsterize but haven't sold one in weeks.
Probably because it is not on the shopping cart anymore. I wouldn't mind getting one still, how much are they?
five bucks.
MPA was very cool. A lot of the miscellaneous articles found their way into the new GPD4, but the info on the Hydrans and the frigate deckplan are very unique and worth having.
It's on the cart.
Do we have any unclaimed races that need a history and background?
The last list was:
Plana: Fralli, Cygnans
Mark Costello: Mynieini
Mike West: Rigellians
John Sickels: Vulcans, Orions, Mantorese
Matthew Francois: Deians
Bishop: Andorians.
Nick Blank: deckplans, Tellarites
Donovan Willett: Brecon
Missing Fed Academy templates (already done)
Steve Cole: Humans, Martians, Alpha Centaurans.
Unassigned: Prellarians, Arcturian. Nobody who has an assigned race can ask for another one (or propose a new one) without completing his assigned races first.
New races: We will consider these if space is available but let's be clear that:
1. there are absolutely no promises made about any given race not on the above list. There are no races "tentatively scheduled for" any previous product and not used and therefore first in line for this product.
2. We may or may not have space. We have a lot of things to do in the book and while chapter 7 (Visions of Glory) is the accordian file which can be as big or small as the remaining number of pages, we won't reduce it below the minimum size needed to accomplish its objectives just to include another new race.
3. New races, if any, will be selected by how useful and interesting they are, not by who did them. I wouldn't mind seeing an uncontacted pre-industrial race or an evil race kept bottled on their system.
4. No promises that SSDs would ever see print.
Let's also be clear that SVC is the only person handing out assignments. If you're doing an article because somebody said it would be cool and you haven't talked to me, then there is NO committment on the part of the company to use it.
I'll take the Tellarites if no one else is doing them.
Nick