Oh, yeah, I can see that. Actually, is the SFU, ship mounted phasers are on ball turrets, so I went with that.

An advanced version might just have a hole in the ball so as to not give visual clue as to where the weapon is aiming (not that you'd have any time to react while it changed targets on you).

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 12:24 am: Edit

also a bit of the early BOLO'S

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 12:30 am: Edit

Heh, but having the barrel helps scare the Barganites.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 01:25 am: Edit

Jonathan, this is a Fed not a Klink design.

The Klingon design is similar and has an open mouth with teeth painted on the front (like a WWII Flying Tiger P-40), plus for the addition of 6-8ft long fangs welded on to impale a Bargentine or three with, when it runs them over.

Gives a whole new meaning to a an Overrun attack...

By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, January 29, 2010 - 12:59 am: Edit

You don't need all that to scare the Bargentines, all you need is a big sign with the word "BOO!" painted on it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 01:09 pm: Edit

The little fender turrets are actually good art and bad military design, but I let them stay. I really should have changed it to one coax and one turret-top machinegun (errr. phaser) but the art was just so cool I couldn't ask Loren to do that.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 01:52 pm: Edit

What's coax?

By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Co-axial, as in on the same axis as the main gun. I'm no military engineer, but I think it would give the phasers better arcs of fire, since the turret can traverse 360 degrees and a phaser on top of the turret would be the same. As illustrated, the phasers' firing arcs are restricted and can't be quickly brought to bear on infantry behind the tank, which could be enough to give them time to destroy the tank with a tribble launcher through the thinner rear armour.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Coax = coaxially mounted weapon; essentially a small weapon carried in the same mount as a larger one and firing parallel to the main weapon. In some cases, the small weapon might have separate elevation control, but would still traverse with the main weapon.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 07:07 pm: Edit

I imagined the fender turrets as having firing arcs arcs, put in SFB terms, as FH +LS/RS. They can fire directly to the rear although there would be an area of an expanding 1 or 2 degrees starting with the width of the tank itself. It wouldn't take much of a shift on the tank possition to cover that gap (the main turret would stay on target independantly of the main body).

But I'm not going to argue. There might be some practical matter why they are there that isn't apparent to todays science.

You might notice that the tank isn't a wide as an M1 Abrhams. This is because it has to fit on a heavy transport shuttle. Height might have been an issue for putting the phasers on top of the turret.
This isn't the only design of tank either. I'm sure there are other tanks, maybe even variants of this model that has a phaser on top of the turret.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, February 07, 2010 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Will there be a note in PD Federation about the pre-disappearance version of Aurora III?

According to the R-section for the Federal Republic of Aurora (OR17.0) the 'loss' of the Aurora system in Y130 resulted in a major political scandal for the Federation Council, and hampered coreward efforts at exploration - from which Aurora was intended to be a jump-off point - for decades.

I don't expect any post-transfer data to show up (though a note referring to the 'discovery' of the FRA in Y214 is not something I'd complain about, of course!) but it would be neat to see some data covering the Aurora colony as it had been since its Y112 foundation.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Sunday, February 07, 2010 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Gary, I don't think there is a lot. I know it is mentioned in the Government section, but we just don't have the space to cover every single colony in the Fed portion of the SFU.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 12:33 am: Edit

I would consider human-Klingon hybrids to be like Spock, rare individuals with an interesting story. The whole galaxy might have a dozen. I don't see any need for a "society" of them.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 12:42 am: Edit

There might be more than that if you consider the situation of the FRA...

I mean the Klingon's there might find their mating options somewhat...constrained.

regards
Stacy

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 12:59 am: Edit

Yes, but the human women would just say they were too Klingie. Girls hate clingie guys.

Now, some of the human men might go for a Klingon woman, and any children born from such a mating would be fatherless (having died during the process of conception... but with a smile.)



[ducks and runs from Jean and the ol' #8]

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 01:59 am: Edit

Anything I could add would be suggestively lewd.

So just use your own puerile imaginations to fill in the blank.
regards
Stacy

By Fred J. Kreller (Kreller1) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 01:59 am: Edit

Nice knowing ya, Loren. :-)

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 07:22 am: Edit

LOREN!

WHANG!

(Where? His knees. He needs his brain to do PD Tholians. He needs his hands to type. He'll type better if he is able to sit. Taking out his knees will encourage him to sit. Thus, he has a "learning experience" and is able to work more on the book. A win-win situation.)

Jean
WebMom

By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 08:59 am: Edit

I think Jean learned that from SPP. "You need your eyes to fly the helicopter. You need your hands to fly the helicopter. You don't need your teeth to fly the helicopter..."

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 10:24 am: Edit

OH, my previous work injury slowed me down and I didn't consider the low blow to the knees. Now I can neither sit (work injury) or run. I'm just flopping around on the ground. G.O.D. help me!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 12:12 pm: Edit

Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll:

What can I say, I am a product of my life experiences and my education, including what I have learned from the mass media and reading various books (a great deal of science fiction for example). One of the things I learned is to try to think things through, i.e., "I need this man to fly a helicopter; what does he need to be able to do that?"

There was a sci fi story (for example) about an effort to establish a colony. One of the women decided that she wanted to be the #1 female in the colony, so she murdered all the other women, having determined in her own mind that there would be nothing that could be done to her (she then being the only woman). Thus she would be unassailably unpunishable for the mass murder. The colonists decided that what she had done merited her own death, but they needed her alive (as she had planned). The solution (horrible as it was): they gave her a pre-frontal lobotomy thereby "executing" her but retaining a "biologically functional" female body.

Mind you that is not something I think I would have ever come up with. I have a personal abhorrence towards reducing anyone to a drooling idiot (I would rather die than be so reduced myself). That abhorrence is so strong that it is pretty much why I will not read anything else David Stirling writes after reading (I think it was) the third novel of his "Draka" series. Truth to tell, I was already pretty disgusted with the Draka, but the third book . . . I will not even pick up a book with that author's name on it.

A similar plot line in the Man-Kzin War series was suffiecent to make me drop that series also.

There are horrors and evils I can face dead on and not even blink (at least when they are on the printed page). Killing someone outright does not really faze me. Robbing someone of their intelligence while otherwise leaving them intact . . . somehow that triggers an inexplicable deep-seated rage

By Terence Sean Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 08:20 pm: Edit

SPP: My comments were more intended to poke fun at Jean than anything else. Should have put a smiley on the end

I feel the same way about destroying someone's intelligence. I have a particular horror of suffering Alzheimer's or some similar disease. (BTW, there is evidence that excessive consumption of carbohydrates, i.e. sugar and starch, makes your brain shrink and increases the risk of degenerative brain disease.) I know what you mean about the Draka; an entire species of sociopathic monsters is abhorrent. Although I did enjoy the General series he wrote with David Drake. In that series, the protagonists had to do some horrible things and suffer the personal consequences, but it was all in the name of restoring civilization, so the message was ultimately a positive one.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 08:23 pm: Edit

SPP
I agree with your assessment of the Draka novels. But, I do recommend his Island In The Sea of Time series. But I too found the Draka novels unpleasant in topic, although I can't fault the writing.
regards
Stacy

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 08:28 pm: Edit

It is a horrible thing to see. I used to do a lot of volunteer work at rest homes. I don't think I've ever experienced anything I'd consider closer to Hell than what those people there are experiencing. Even in text such states get to me.

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Monday, February 08, 2010 - 10:21 pm: Edit

What about someone whose intellect is intact, but who can't communicate and is trapped in a useless body? The Captain Pike syndrome...my dad lived like that for 13 years.