Archive through June 02, 2008
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW EMPIRE BOOKS:
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Archive through June 02, 2008
General Tholian RPG questions
Guys, I really don't know how much I will be able to answer questions here. I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about this topic.
Questions about the SFU normal history era (Y0 - Y204+) will be easier but not all things can be revieled.
Questions about the old galaxy are even tougher to answer lease I give away all the surprises (I mean, I do want you all to buy the book).
On my end many things are written and developed. On the other hand nothing I've written that is unpublished is official by its nature of being unpublished. For that matter, most of what I've written for PDT is in Captain's Log and that is playtest-ish.
So I have lots of stuff that is as yet, unofficial. This will make it hard to answer questions in detail. However, if there are thing you've read that don't make sense or you are just curious about, I will do my best to answer them.
Lastly, I don't have FC Tholians and so I haven't read that book. I understand there is a bit of data there about Tholians and Seltorians. So, if your question stems from FC:Tholians Attack please site the background.
I will try to answer all questions. I just want you to understand, up front, the situation I'm in.
Once PDT is publish this topic will be a jolly fun one for me.
My only question probably can't be answered with anything other than "When it's done!" - when will the book be out? :D
I am really looking forward to this sourcebook! Judging by the fiction you've written that I've read, I've high expectations.
Thanks Andrew. It’s inspiring to hear such things, truly.
I've been side tracked a bit of late (some personal but things are getting WAY better). Mostly there are two things regarding my ADB work time. I did the illustration for the main story in CL36 where I honed my workflow a great deal. They are my best, I think. One earned me the back cover.
I also completed and have been polishing (with Jean helping me hone my grammar skills to a new level) a new story that was very personal to me. It is for the SFU. I'll be sending it to SVC soon with the hope he likes it, too, as he had some part, as a person, in its inspiration.
I also had done a little bit of stuff for PD Feds.
PD Tholians is top priority again. A great deal of it is written and there is a lot of manual work for me to do. One of the stumpers is the Seltorian section but I think I've got that dialed in.
So when? Well, I don't know exactly but I want to make major steps in the short term. I wish would be to have it ready for the next round of scheduling.
Hi Loren.
Yay, a thread for discussing PD Tholians!
First up - have you found a way to integrate the Drex-Tholian wormhole war I mentioned to you a while back, as regards what time period the wormhole connected to in M81, what ships (Tholian, Seltorian or other) would have fought on the M81 side, and whether it had any kind of lasting implication for how the Will might have considered the Milky Way Galaxy?
I understand if all you can say is yes - I don't mind waiting to read it in PDT!
Secondly, you may recall my asking about whether a Y-era (or even Middle Years) module could be spun out of the history you are writing for M81 or not - is there enough in there about races, ships, technologies and whatnot to make such a project for SFB or Fed Commander feasible?
Thirdly, will the M81 history extend to the modern era - as in up to Y225? It would be interesting to see what happens to the Seltorian Suzerainty over the recent centuries, as it handles running a galaxy, while dealing with Tribunal expeditions, pirate and rebel forces, and so forth...
(I'd love to see whether or not M81 gets hit by an extra-galactic invader - one of those wormholes such as that which temporarily connected Drex and Will space could be handy in giving a Souldra or Andromedan force an excuse to get busy!)
Fourthly, while there is an SSD for the Nest Ship, and there was some discussion about a possible 4-bay mothership for the Selts (I got the idea that if someone converted a Hive Ship out of two of the new Nest Ship/BW minis, there would be enough spare to make a 4-bay ship, which could perhaps be called a lair ship, or something else suitably base-ey...) - and as you may know, so far there has been no word on whether the Selts ever showed up in Omega, the Magellanic Cloud, the Iridani Cluster, the Sigma Octant, or elsewhere in the Milky Way's neighbourhood - with a mothership of any size.
Will you be adding in details on some of the other expeditions sent by the Seltorians to other galaxies?
Gary,
I know I wrote some notes but don't recall the Drex wormhole solution yet. You have to realize that the ancient history covers the broad scope how the Tholians built a galactic empire and how they lost it with special attention to how that affects who the Holdfast Tholians are (like why are they paranoid-ish). It is a pretty big history section. From what I recall (and don't hold me to this for now) it think the Drex incursion would be, at most, a minor campaign in the grand scheme of things, and depending on when it happens in M81 history, they (Drex) are facing and enemy with huge resources. I will let you all in on this detail, M81 is a different place, physically, than the MWG. It real physical characteristics are that it is smaller in dimension but more dense with many young stars. Natural resources are exceptional compared.
2) I've come up with many new races, but there is room for more when the time comes. There are three major ancient history periods that are separated by a LOT of time.
3) The premise of PDT is data the Federation is able to gather circa Y204 in a new file discovered by me; an obscure link in some small unprocessed GIA files sent to me from SVC. At that time the Federation had no data on what was happening in M81 since basic corrospondance between the Hiveship and M81. That puts the news of M81 at around Y0. However, they may be files found in the Y205+ data that may shed some light but right now PDT is going to be quite full.
I'll note that it has always been part of my ground work that M81 be suitable for developement in SFB and F&E.
4) That doesn't realy fit the background for the Nest/Hive ship hull. There might not be many more Seltorians in the vicinity of the MWG as the ones that arrived here were specifically on the trail of a renegade Tholian fleet. It's a pretty long way between M81 and MWG with a far bit of other places Tholians may have gone that are much closer (and more of a threat). Then there is the fate of the Hiveship that went to Andomeda. We expect its fate was not good but did it get a signal off to M81 before it met its end? What did it see there? How did the Seltorians react to encountering such a vile new enemy? How did the Andromedans react to the Seltorian incusion? I mean, the Selt ships aren't that nasty of a design but they breed like bugs! (which IS a threat to anyone that can project numbers.)
I don't have details on other expeditions, just the two major ones, including the Holdfast sphere. The details of other expedition will be open for developement should the need arrise. I do thing we all will have our hands full with what is developed already. The other detailed expidition is the The Last Will and Testement at M82.
I wonder - if there is a file in Y204, does that mean that the Federation might have known about the Drex (from the data file) before they even made contact with Omega directly (in Y214) or would it be assumed that the record of the race in one file was matched to the files that Auroran analysts - or the crew of the X-GSC Sakharov (who went through the wormhole to Aurora on a five-year exploration mission, returning to the UFP via Iridani space in Y219) - who found out from the Drex perspective of things?
And as far as factory ships go, do you think room could be made for a 4-bay stablemate of the Hive and Nest ships? Even if not used for expedition fleets, they would be good for supporting operations in M81 proper.
[continued, with no introduction, from the CL37 topic]
Right, Experts.
Anyway, both Experts and Sages will live for a long, long time (potentially a couple centuries each).
However, Sages apparently occur in no greater numbers on ships than officers do in the other fleets. Potentially less. That means, even if they capture a squadron, there likely won't be enough Sages to crew a ship.
Experts are even less of an issue. They seem to be insanely rare, and you likely won't have more than a bare handful on a ship. They really don't affect the total numbers by much at all.
Finally, the workers will die out in less than a decade. So we don't really need to worry about them.
And, don't forget that every one of them are sterile. None of them can reproduce. And there really isn't anything any of them can do about it because there are no Queens. And, even if there are any Queens, there are no juvenile males to turn into Rams. (The Sages can't do it, as they are permanently sterile.)
So, even if there are a couple thousand, they just can't do much other than linger around in the hopes that more Seltorians eventually show up. And even then they will likely have been so changed by the passage of time, that would end up being a problem, not a solution.
The only hope they would have would be to genetically modify an Expert. Or potentially genetically modify a clone of an Expert. Either way it is quite a long shot to be able to do that much genetic engineering to create a fertile Queen from an Expert (or an Expert's genetic material).
But, if they did do that, they would have to know that the resulting race would be 1) not really Seltorian anymore, and 2) be anathema to any real Seltorians that might eventually show up.
So, in short, once the Hive ship is destroyed (and the resulting Queens, Rams, and juvenile males are all dead), the Seltorians are doomed and (in our galaxy, anyway) a dying race. Whether it is six individuals or six hundred doesn't really matter. They are doomed.
Mike,
that is probably a good conclusion but not a foregone one. One could consider the simple logic of the Seltorians stashing eggs in secrete places. Betrayal is hardly a new concept to them.
Still, that is a decision beyond what I can make and perhpas it's a little too easy. I'm fine with them being basically doomed.
However, that was not really the original question. You seem to think that the numbers of Sages and Experts would be a few dozen. My original presumption before recent publications was that there were perhaps a lucky handful that escaped destruction (1 or 2 and no more than 4 or 5). With the recent Wyn-Selt history it is clear that considerably more survive. Six hundred WOULD make a difference. That IS enough to have enough to run a starship. A slightly larger than minimum crew on a CR would certainly be something of interest AND IF there was a stash of eggs somewhere, well, that would be a considerable thing indeed.
It is fairly clear that Seltorians do stash eggs in stasis as well as using queen diet to control their population. Stashing Queena dn Ram eggs would be one of the first things I'd do when establishing ANY new settlement/presense.
Loren and Mike West (and others discussing Seltorians in the CL# 37 topic),
The art depicting Selts has them rendered like a grasshopper but they reproduce an ant or bee.
Background proposal.
Grasshoppers are herbivorous insects of the suborder Caelifera. The female lays her fertilized eggs about one to two inches underground (from Wikipedia). Grasshoppers and Locust are not hive insects with a single queen laying eggs (from Wikipedia).
Hive insects, which are eusocial insects, have a single queen. The most familiar examples are insects such as ants, bees, and wasps (order Hymenoptera), as well as termites (order Isoptera), all with reproductive queens and more or less sterile workers and/or soldiers. Some species have mated queens which are in hibernation (from Wikipedia).
If we combine aspects from both orders/suborders above then the Seltorians could be:
Eusocial with a single queen, but have mated queens in hibernation.
Look like grasshoppers and have some locust like tendencies. Examples: Avenger teams; the high productivity seen when in large number like on the Klingon planet.
When in smaller numbers, such as after the destruction of the Hive ship and colony, the physiology of the female workers changes so they live much longer but produce a lot less. The queen is smaller and lays a smaller number of eggs. You could have the colony density controlled by the head sage. They need a Hive ship to become “locust like” again.
In these smaller numbers they become marauders. They would seek materials to survive, build small types of ships, and accumulate materials to be build a smaller version of the Hive ship called a Colony ship.
Let’s face it, for lack of a better word we are trying to discuss Xenoinsectiaology. How the Seltorians did, or if they survive the Echelon of Judgement/Klingon Betrayal as a race is moot. Whatever SVC and SPP decide to say happens, happens. We are talking about a Species that looks like Grasshoppers, Mates like a Praying Mantises and have a Hive/Colony somewhere between Bees and Ants. Though I would say more Bee like since it lacks a distinctive Warrior/Soldier Class.
Now if I remember from High School Biology correctly what separates Drones (read Rams) and young Bee Queens from Workers is the feeding of a substance/secretion that was called Royal Jelly??? Also staying with the Bee Analogy they did breed and keep multiple Queens at a time. When the Hive/Colony got to big they Swarmed and split the Colony/Hive among the Original Queen and the new Younger Queen(s). What this is leading up to saying is that making the assumptions that it is impossible for Seltorians to still be out there doesn't really fit existing Science let alone some possiable Science Ficition. Lets not forget that other “Dead” Races occasionally pop up.
We have the possibility of Hidden Egg Catches, The Possibility of a Biological/Hormonal Change in one or more of the Workers or Experts and also in the Sages, as well as flat out cloning. If cloning was used why would it not produce a "True" Seltorian Royal, Sages may simple be Rams minus certain Hormone, same might be said for Queens and Workers/Experts?
The bigger Question would be who controls the Seltorian Society. Queens or Sages, we have read that Sages are more than capable of killing Rams that deviate too much from accepted behavior. Do the practice Regicide as well? If a Colony of "Free” Seltorians Royals was established, what would it do. Decide to build up and go back to attacking the Tholians, Build up and attack any and all races they feel threaten them, Adopt a more Jindarian type of lifestyle, Wait for the next wave of Seltorian Tribunal Ships to arrive, or Would they start trying to figure a way to head back home to get more help? Whatever does happen, it looks like it is not going to happen before 205 and Operation Unity, but you never really know...
A question for another time is why do Rams not survive with out the presence of a Queen is it something Biological or some unknown form of telepathy, Also does it really matter...
While SVC does have the final say it is I who must write the details in PD Tholians (which is also Seltorians). These are some interesting posts, though. I want to be careful to not draw too heavilly on existing earth science to explain the Seltorians. They are an inteligent species from another galaxy and they should do something in entirely new and alien ways.
That said, Queens might produce a sort of royal jelly that keeps Rams alive. If they mate they die. If they don't the royal jelly turns them into sages. Perhaps.
You know, in my mind, I would think the Klingons would make sure that once they moved against the Selts, they would finish it. Intergrating them as subjects might have worked except for the simple fact that the Selts used to be a subject race. A subject race that _sucessfully_ managed to revolt and destroy its former masters. And among the Sages (and maybe the Experts), there may be some that actually remember this, considering their lifespan.
This would set a bad precedent within the Empire. The result would be (in my thinking), that once the Hive ship was destroyed, the Klingons would basicly declare 'you are of no more use to us' and finish the job once they had them contained. It wouldn't be from minute one, but I would expect that the Klingons would gather survivors/surrenderers together on some old mobile base they were getting ready to refurb, and when they thought they had 99% of them, gas and vent the station (and then send it off for the refurb on schedule).
This may sound cold, but it fits in the 'need of the Empire' mindset. Its far better to elimiate the Selts than to have them inspire (or if they manage to get a queen, possibly lead) a revolt against the Empire.
Of course, these are my opinions...
I agree but how successful they are is the question. The Klingons also know that more ARE coming, albeit, not for quite some time.
I dunno...
Force the surviving sterile Seltorians to split up, and I think you've removed the basic problem of them. The Empire is controlled enough that you can probably keep tabs on them through basic controls that already exist (and they're unusual enough in appearence to make it difficult for them to move around without being noticed). If you can find a job in which they can't do much harm, then you can still get a lot of use out of them. These are, for the most part, highly skilled individuals with a lot of experience under their "belts", so to speak. Killing one or two such individuals is one thing. Wiping out a bunch of them en masse is basically throwing away a potentially valuable resource at a time when the Empire needs all of the help it can get (after the exhaustion caused by the General War).
Though if the Klingons were to suddenly discover that they had a Seltorian population that was expanding, then all bets are off as to how they'll respond (aside from, of course, immediately moving to kill the Queen and any Rams).
Presumeably ships that voluntarily surrendered (as at least two did) had crews that wouldn't have been averse to trying to cooperate with the Klingon Empire.
I assumed in my original post (CL27 thread) that any surviving Seltorians would be split up. The question at that time was if they could get together in any notable numbers. One possability I mentioned was that perhaps a Pirate Captain found them to be efficient, obedient, and cheap crewmen.
Of course, it would have been the first Seltorian under his command that influanced the recruitement of more of his kind (by talking to the individual Seltorians as they come accross them, and getting them signed on cheap). Could there be enough , over time, to see these Seltorians through a successful mutiny? Could a Pirate Captain get greedy enough to overlook having too many Seltorians on his crew?
A lot of questions, I know, but it sounds like a good story to me. 
Part of the bennefit has already be gained, though. The discussion about the specifics of Seltorian reproduction has been helpful.
I was speaking more of the Seltorian survivors talking to the legacy Klingon subject races.
Oh, I figure any contact between a Seltorian and a subject of the Klingon Empire would end in a nice reward for the Klingon. That is, Seltorians would be avoiding any contact with anyone connected to the Klingons.
I guess the big question is what would the Wyn do with any they got. We do know of ONE Seltorians that joined the crew of a Priate ship (CL36). It is probably not the only case but certainly one of just a few by the same means. However, it looks like in the Wyn history article that there is at least a frigate crews worth that may have survived to, at least, see the inside of the Wyn radiation zone.
So, what did the Wyn do with them? I'm not sure if that is under my perview to answer.
I think that the Seltorians would be restricted enough that they would be unlikely to show up in any particularly large numbers from then on out. I suppose a sufficiently motivated pirate could go around "gathering" them, but the ISF probably keeps good enough records on things like this (and the Empire would want to try and keep tabs on any surviving Seltorians) that if a pirate did start, say, hijacking freighters that "coincidentally" all had Seltorian crew members, then the ISF would start substituting Q-Ships for any remaining freighters in question.
The Empire has a long history of dealing with numerous races as potentially rebellous second-class citizens. The Seltorians are no doubt considered a higher security risk than most, given that they were only "subjegated" recently. But for the most part they're just another version of something that the Empire has dealt since its inception.
Any Seltorian the Klingon Empire has tabs on is a dead Seltorian, I'd think.
The Empire is not likely able to have any control over how the Orion Cartels manage their crews.
I don't think the Empire would spend any where near the cash it takes to assign a Q-ship over a growing group of Seltorians. They might assign a Dagger Team to hunt them down IF they find out about the gathering (worth it to get several at once). If the Pirate ship is causing particular trouble then the Empire would handle it on those terms.
I think the threat of 50 to a 100 Seltorians gathering on one ship would be lost in red tape in the Empire.
Now, of those Seltorians mutinied and gained control of a starship AND the Empire knew about it, they would no doubt put out an APB: Destroy on Sight order on that ship.
If there are to be any surviving Seltorians in Alpha, aside from our friend in CL36, perhaps they would end up inadvertedly taking advantage of the chaos caused by the Andromedan onslaught to survive the pressure applied by the ISC and Klingons.
(Oh, by the way - would the ISC intern, kill, or even offer asylum to any Seltorians they may have discovered in the aftermath of the EoJ's destruction of the hive ship?)
The ISF and DSF forces which could have been tasked with hunting down any rogue Selt ships - or Orion vessels with Seltorians aboard - might well have been destoryed or diverted by Andro raids or fleet actions, and thus provided a slim window of opportunity for Selt holdouts.
Indeed, what kind of position would the not-too-far-away Vudar Enclave hold regarding surviving Seltorians - would they take the lead from their Klingon 'neighbours' in hunting them down, offer them asylum, or do something else entirely?
Your first line is the one that I disagree with.
The Empire has been dealing with planets full of potentially rebellious subjects for centuries now. What're a few sterile bugs going to do?
Assuming that you take the crews of the Frigate and Destroyer that voluntarily surrendered, you're probably only dealing with a few dozen individuals at most (you can discount the workers, since they'll all be dead in a few years anyway). Are a few dozen bugs really going to cause that much trouble for the Empire?
Meanwhile, the Empire is suffering from the loss of personnel and resources that occured as a result of the General War. It needs people who can manage various tasks that require trained personnel. It wouldn't be that hard to split them up among various worlds and ships and put them into low security-risk jobs where they can't really cause trouble but that allow the Empire to take advantage of their skills. You don't have to worry about more than a few of them getting together at a time because they're scattered all over the place in a controlled society, and they've probably all got tags in the ESS/ISF security files. That Frigate had a sage who was a Chief Engineer. Oh, and hey! Here's a freighter that makes a regular run between Klinshai and Walkuria that just happens to be short an engineer. Stick him on the ship, and have the regular updates regarding the ship to the ESS contain a section that focuses on the bug's attitude and how well he's fitting in with the crew. The Empire still gets some use out of the Seltorian, and the Seltorian is no doubt happy that he's still alive. He may eventually decide to cause trouble, but in the meantime the Empire gets work out of him. And in the event that the ESS doesn't figure out that the bug is up to something, there's not much that the bug can do to the overall Empire from the engineering station in a small freighter.
So unless the big "secret" is something that justifies killing off every last Sage and Expert, I think the reward for keeping the Seltorians alive outweighs the risk of them doing something potentially dangerous to the Empire.
Joseph Riggs:
The difference is that the Empire deals with whole planets or populations one way. It is another matter to track down individuals, and yet another matter to track down individuals protected by a Pirate Cartel (like those being recruited as crew). So, a few sterile bugs are going to hide away as best they can. Their first mission is to survive. Very likely this means getting out of the empire. Their colony wasn't very deep into the empire and the Federation isn't far away. The Empire cannot hunt you so well when you are in another empire.
I never said they would be causing trouble in or for the empire. The Seltorians know how to be patient. They live almost three times as long as a Klingon so they aren’t looking to expose themselves by starting trouble in the Klingon Empire. They would be trying to get together and possible gain control of an adequate ship. A cloaking pirate ship would be the ultimate success. Their next mission would be to get to a stash of eggs and then get that stash of eggs to somewhere out of the Klingon Empire and start reinforcing their numbers. The secondary mission is to keep the records of what happened and continue observing and watching for the second Seltorian wave due in a couple centuries.
However, I think that no Seltorian would serve the Empire after the betrayal. The Empire would get some of them but not many of those that make good cover. And the secret that scarred the Klingons so much WOULD drive them to imprison or execute any sages/experts they find.
It seems likely that the Seltorians had to have stashed eggs away. This has been neither confirmed nor denied, but the Klingons would surely have considered this too. Seems to me there would be a bit of a race to find Seltorian egg sactuaries on both sides. LOT's of room for some fun adverturing there (could almost make a Sci-Fi Channel series out of that). I might even do a story on that very subject. Hmmm.
Now, I wonder what the relations of Seltorian refugees and the Federation would be. On one hand, the Selts are running from Klingon persecution. On the other, though, the Federation had been fighting them for several years, and if the Tholians found out, what little diplomatic relations between them would cool. I don't see the Federation simply turning them over to the Tholians or Klingons, though.