Archive through March 11, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW KINDS OF RPG PRODUCTS:
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Archive through March 11, 2003
wouldnt say a cold war would be boring from the ship to ship combat side, especially as there are no nukes that keep the VSE and ISC from daring to engage the other side, it would be just that neither side would be willing to push things beyond skirmishes. and while both sides would interfere heavily in the affairs of the inbetween states, neither side would want to shift the balance of power by conquering, or even heavily dominating one of the buffer races away from its current political position.
Marc: But from the Gurps PD point of view it could work. For SFB and F&E it's almost dead time.
war cruisers, destroyers and frigates engaging in numerous duels with the occasional fleet action against the romulans, gorn, paravians, or orions is deadtime? but agreed as far as f&e it would be dull, until some form of shadow war/economic war federation and empire gets put out, where the objectives are less big battles and more projections of force.
I wouldnt refer to the cold war europe or middle east for this, cold war africa or indochina would be a better model.
Loren,
From the point F&E point of view, looking only at the VSE and ISC, yes it is dead time.
But from the Gorn/Romulan/Paravian point of view, it is very interesting with SFB and F&E. There will be plenty of wars going on. These will likely even include VSE and ISC ships, just not major elements of their fleets. (As Marc mentioned, they wouldn't want to be fully engaged.)
From the SFB point of view, they would be pretty busy all of the time. Probably not a whole lot of VSE v ISC action, but some and a lot of interaction with and between the others.
I'm sorry guys. I said too little about what I was thinking. I was refering strickly to the statement "The ColdWar sounds cool, but to an SFB'er that sounds like 'few and minor battles', which is boring."
I'll make myself more clear. A cold war between the VSE and the ISC could work because it would be a fun setting for GPD. In that setting, during that time, there wouldn't be much going on for SFB and F&E. But that dosen't matter because it's a big quadrant and there will be a lot going on just about every where else. This module needs to feed all three games so it could work.
In other words: I agree.
That said I want to point out that I prefere MY ideas and a cold war dosen't fit in with that. Even if it could work. So...neener neener! 
Seriously, I wasn't complaining. It's OK for things to be quiet here and there, now and then. And for GPD nothing could supply more complexity and fun than a good Cold War. James Bond was not a military man, ya know. Consider the foder for the small playing group. A Cold War would provide a great setting for two person play. A GM and a Player Character.
Heres a question that's a little off the subject of what the LGU empires should be like but is very important to the RPG part of the game if the campaign includes going between universes. Will a character from one universe have a counterpart in the other, and how similar should the counterpart be? What should the default be and how does this relate to the GURPS advantage/disadvantages "Temporal Inertia" and "Unique"?
My sugestion would be that a character normaly has a counterpart whom he could pass for on a casual inspection (a medical scan would find diferences, old scars ect) also the counterpart may have a diferent personality skills and profesion. All your counterparts stat's are normaly up to the GM and if he want's he can have fun with it like making your conterpart the oposite sex, give him a higly visible scar or other obvious diference (but maintain race), unless you have Temporal Inertia or Unique. If you have Temporal Inertia your character's counterpart is as close to your character as possible, ie identical atributes similar personality similar skills and background. If OTOH your PC has Unique there is no counterpart, or record of anyone like your character.
So is this a good idea or a bad idea? Should this be left up to individual GM's?
I can see reasons to go either way, but it's entirely up to the GM as to how they want to handle it. The only exception IMHO might be a adventure setting book someone might publish (Us? SJ Games? Someone else?), in which the GM had to stay close to the book for things to work.
The "Unique" and "Temporal Inertia" advantages DO give players a little control over the situation, but it is the GM's universe you're playing in.
The manual might should have some guidelines so there would be at least a minimal continuity. If GM wish to diverge from that continuity (and nothing is stopping them) then they should mention it.
Richard: Very good point to bring up. It's something we all had seemed to glass over (no punn intended).
war cruisers, destroyers and frigates engaging in numerous duels with the occasional fleet action
See that doesn't sound like a ColdWar to me. More like mid to high-intensity conflict.
Now if a Coldwar was to evolve after some major fleet actions as a result for a limited period of time, so be it.
As to the duplicate characters idea, yes I would think they would exist, and they would be very different or similiar as the DM desired.
The Cold War could be a result of neither side, VSE or ISC, thinking they could win a decisive victory(after a war between the two becomes a stalemate). So active hostilitys end and the Cold War begins with each Empire trying to win over the Gorns and Romulans. Subverting those parts of those Governments that want to side with the other. Also sabotaging the other Empires plans whenever possible. Not to mention the twisted web of secrets and underhanded deals that go with it.
That reminds me of something. If we can do it, I'd like to see AU Tournament Destroyers or CLs -- something other than CAs. Been there, done that.
Loren, that's what I was getting at. Sustained if low intensity conflict between all parties in the east. Then one major power(VSE or ISC) drives hard into a minor race (gorn, rom, paravian, pick one) and is met by opposing forces from the other. A major operation shot to hell including assaults, supply, advance, retreates, etc.
THEN maybe the coldwar can set in.
Gary, new tourney sets are so far outside of the scope of this module it really isnt worth discussing here. "magellanic, omega, or other tcs" would be the spot. But I don't see it happening myself.
again, dont refer to cold war europe for the model, look at africa and indochina, where the local powers bickered and fought almost non stop while the cold war was going on, with the US and other powers occasional stepping in with either all out invasions, or with plausibly denied covert military actions, guerilla warfare and so on. not a clearly defined, or even acknowledged war, but costing almost as much in terms of forces lost, and forces employed. main difference would be that unlike the USSR and the NATO powers, the ISC and VSE would not bend over backwards to avoid any direct conflict, and thus losing the occasional the smaller ship every few months would be sop for both sides. During this whole time of course, neither side acknowledges that they are at war, and actually likely still have mutual embassies and trade going on.
Of course it does occur to me that this sort of situation would be heavily influenced by the Romulans to ensure it continues while they are rapidly infiltrating the VSE, and doing what they can to subvert the ISC, causing its sub races to get less and less friendly to eachother.
I don't see any reason to MODEL a LGU Cold War after anything that happened on Earth. I don't see how we could anyway. The situation is that all Governments involved are Super Powers. Some more super than others. The VSE, ISC, Romulans and Gorns are all capable of devestating planets in minuts or hours. All compleatly capable of hight tech. subterfuge and espionage, etc. Yes, two of the Empires are more capable of wiping out the others but my point is that there really never has been a model for that situation here on Earth. I'm not a historian but I don't recall a Cold War involving four Super Powers.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can creat something wholly original without a model.
Destroying a planet in the larger universe is not a major issue. It is about the same level of difficulty as destroying a city during the Great Power era. One does not model after a historical analogue; one tries to seek inspiration from the historical period to improve the final universe design.
The problem with a Cold War situation (be it 1950, 1850 or Traveller's 1100) is that most of the conflict is done in lesser powers. To do the same in the SFU requires minor states to exist around the fringes. The standard SFU lacks that.
hmmm as for lesser powers, you have the paravians, the two romulan subraces, the three gorn subraces, perhaps the klingon romulans, the seltorans when they make yet another attempt to expand, and what ever lesser one planet races that were never detailed.
You could have the Hydrans secretly aiding and inciting the Dolphin Peladine race to fight against the air-breathing Racoon Peladine race, who are being supported by the Lyrans...
I thought of a killer use for SFBs Module NCA (which might end up as Module R10). As I'm sure all of you know there are no NCA veriants exist in historical SFB. SO here is my explaination with a partial history.
On the brink of war all the races are suddenly facing a new enemy. The ISC. (Move up the ISC time table). Not just satisfied on separating the warring races they come in full force bent on nothing less than total disarmorment. After several years most of the races are left with just about only their home fleets (or equivelent). Suddenly within a year the ISC withdraw and disappear. All the races begin to rebuild their fleets and then a combined scouting mission finds out why the ISC left so quickly...the Andromadins! The ISC are fighting for their lives and the Andromadins are comming this way!
So, all the war cruiser designs go into full production. Standard ship designs are set asside for the faster to build New Cruisers including ALL THE SHIPS FROM MODULE NCA. Then X-ships begin to appear. After the Andros are expelled there begins the mad grab for Territory old and new.
I suppose this time line might be a bit longer, say, to about 220. And there is lots of room for stuff inbetween.
OK, that's my new idea. Back to the regularly scheduled programming.
One thing that has suprised me about this LGU discussion is that I have seen no suggestions of making the extragalactics behaving differently on a large scale, i.e. the Andros wopuld still be invading and the tholians would still be hiding etc. How about this for a radical difference. Although the Seltorians still rise up against the Tholians, they do not do this with web breaker, and so totally fail, with a few Hive ships leaving the Tholian galaxy. One of these arrives in the power vacuum with the romulans and gorns, and although their forces are weak they keep on the move, raiding for the rescources they need. However, their effect on the tholians is to make them entirely xenophobic, wiping out all other sentient life in their galaxy and then looking to other galaxies. First target, the andromeda galaxy. The inhabitants of this galaxy, apart from a strange phobia of being seen, are a peaceful race that developed their tractor beams into a weapon to fight the large numbers of space monsters that are constantly ravaging their space. Of course these andromedans are overwhelmed by the tholian armada, and using a new experimantal system manage to build an intergalactic displacement device to escape. This device is used 3 times, but only the first one is successful, transporting a star system to the Milky way (somewhere on someones borders). The other two turn the star systems they are used on into rubble. Arriving in this galaxy they set up a border area and start building ships to defend it. Although using a more aggresive form of defence than the Tholians use in our universe, they do not really expand their territory beyond a few empty star systems around their system. their fleet would be curtailed heavily compared with the 'normal' andros, with only sat ships being available, (the cargo sat ships would have to be able to tow base components around, and may be able to tow sleds) and Dis Devs would be unavailable until later.
At some point on, the Tholians will turn their aim to the milky way galaxy, violently attacking every one they see, until the Seltorians finally discover web breaker, giving the galactic fleets some assistance in fighting back.
And that's my take on how to make things different.
Wasn't one of the earlyer ideas proposed having the Seltoran rebelion go the oposite way and have Seltorans refugees arive where the Tholians are in the main universe?
I had a thought about how to make the LGU even more different. Supose Kahns side had won the eugenics wars on Earth. With some liberal borowing from Gurps Bio-Tech we could replace Humans with multiple types of Transhumans. This could also help explain Vulcan dominance, not only are LGU Vulcans more agresive, but the Humans are more concerned with species improvement and internal strife and so aren't a major competitor.
Mark, if the tholians arrive as you describe they would not have X-technology (after all they haven't developed it in the thousands of years of the tholian Will so what would change that now without examples, and the turnaround for getting the examples they run into here back to the home galaxy and new ships getting back to us would just be to long)
as such they would be very much like the andros, devestating when they first appear, but becoming significantly weaker as the technology improves and they don't
David: The Tholians would be very like that. However, they would still be a significant threat if they arrived earlier. (no ISC pacification to allow ships to rebuild, to start with.)
Richard: If the humans have developed like that then they would not only be incorporated in the VSE, they would (after serious mental conditioning) become the elite ground forces used by the VSE. So, they would still be a major factor, just not on their own. Idea: have the humans attempt a rebellion against the VSE, with the assistance of the Klingons or the romulans. Or even support from both the Klingons and the romulans allowing them to build Kestrel series ships.
Mark: The trouble is not all transhumans would make good ground troops. In fact some might have no use at all other than to match someones idea of a perfect society. Instead of humans becoming the VSE's ground troups you'd have a factionalized humanity with groups ranging from pseudo-borg to pseudo-eloy and everything in between. Some of these the VSE will use, some they will destroy as treats and others they will likley ignore as irelevant.
I would have thought that there would be two types of culture that would lead to use of Eugenics, and so to transhumans.
1) Communist states that would try to make their people into idea cogs in the machine. Because that culture values the state above the individual, individuals would be slightly suicidal if they were working to forward their states agendas. If the agenda just so happens to be in line with the VSE taking over the known universe, then the VSE has just gained some fearless general troops.
2) Dictatorial (often Fascist) states would try to make their people into the ideal warriors to try to force the idea of their superiority on others. These warrior supermen would be the ones that would be used by the VSE as shock troops. After all, they may even exceed Vulcans in strength.
These two would be the only types of state to use Eugenics on a large scale. In freer states (the democracies of the world) It would be an individuals choice to go into the eugenics and cybernetics programs, and so the presence of transhumans would be rarer, and probably because of the prejudice caused, be far less obvious. By the time that the Vulcans invade however, it would be likely that most of the Earth would be controlled by the military empires of genetically manipulated superwarriors, all fighting each other. There would be other groups of transhumans, but these would be isolated groups, and would probably be in hiding most of the time.