Archive through January 13, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW EMPIRE BOOKS:
RPG FEDERATION:
GURPS FEDERATION:
Archive through January 13, 2005
I like what Mike West had to say. The simplest explaination would be the most seamless.
The AC only built a navy because they realized they had to protect themselves but this was so not their way. Like I'd proposed earlier, the men aren't well suited to ship building and the women would rather crew and command them than build them. Once they had found a friend in Humans from Sol and a strong ally in the Vulcans they needed only a slight push to drop their Navy and move on to what they liked most. It was proposed (by Andy) that they converted their ship yard to building civilian ships to haul crops and such. Throw in my random Ion storm (no nova needed) and you have the straw that broke the AC's will to continue naval ship construction.
Not very dramatic but simple and by not being dramatic no one will wonder why it was left out of prior publication. 
Or... a strange ion storm came up and swept the AC shipyard to somewhere in the Omega Sector...
Still with a natural or semi-natural disaster, there would be other effects to AC in addition to the loss of shipyards. Most other orbiting facilities would also be destroyed and not immediately replaced. Alpha-Centaurians would also be uncomfortable on an orbiting facility possibly causing the addition of an extra phobia to the racial template.
Kerry Drake: LOL.
R Wells: That's why I chose an Ion Storm. I figure most things in orbit would have protections such as shields and the planet has it's magnetosphere and atmosphere. But the ship yard is in the open.
Had they not encountered humans and circomstances were different they might have rebuilt. But the timeing just gave them an excuse to quite the Navy biz.
It probably would have an effect on how systems conduct shipyard operations too. Probably a lesson each Empire had to learn on it's own in the early eras. This might have led to the shielded Drydock and FRD.
I think adding phobias (or whatever) to the AC profile is not a good idea.
The idea here is to reconcile the discrepancy between Y1 and the F&E LSM. It is not to recreate the AC.
Therefore, it would seem that the smallest, simplest solution would be the best option. This papers over the issue without drawing attention to the paper. Ideally, no one outside this discussion would even know the paper was there.
Rampaging space dragons, ion storms, novas, Jindos, or whatever just seem like so much overkill.
and if you were just plastered by the Jindos would you decide to abandon your fleet or build an even better one so that you didn't get plastered the next time they come around?
I agree with mike west. there's no need for there to be a disaster or other spectacular event here.
nobody says that AC has no ship building capability, just that they don't build warships, well neither does Vulcan, but in the EY Vulcan had a shipyard as well, if it takes a disaster to get rid of a shipyard then there are going to be a lot of them taking place.
all it takes is that when the new starfleet started it's new design the Earth's shipyard was upgraded to build that design, the AC shipyard was converted to civilian use and AC doesn't show on the map becouse it's not large enough economicly and it's so close to earth (about 4.5 min away at dash speed) that it didn't need seperate defenses
Loren Knight: I don't care if the ion storm gets used with no one taking credit, but I refuse to sit by while you claim my idea was yours.
Quote: By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 11:10 pm: Edit
A large-scale ion storm could render unshielded production facilities useless, while causing no more on the surface than really pretty auroras. If you're already a member of the Federation, Gary's right: Why rebuild?
One big question.
How many orbital shipyards do they need to make the number of ships they had in the early years fleet?
If it takes more than 1 then you can expect the second to be orbiting on the far side of the planet and that in turn would shield the other ship yard from the; sunspot, nova, solar-flare, Ion Storm or Asteroid impact.
Troy J. Latta:
Good greif, I'm sorry. Honestly I did not see your post and thought I was persuing my own idea. I checked back and indeed you did post that idea first. They are suprisingly similar. Credit is yours before mine of course!
I apologise, I really didn't see your post.
Troy:
Of course, my possition is now that I back YOUR idea 100%!
Loren: no biggie
MJC: It's true a space disaster would be directional, but a planetary shadow is still relatively small. As an example, if something (a large ion storm, perhaps? ;) hit Earth from the direction of Cancer, an orbiting object would have to be in the direction of Capricorn and Saggitarius to be protected. Anything in Aquarius or Leo would still get fried.
A disaster is okay, but I don't think it's necessary.
Y4: Alpha Centauri, with a relatively small number of NT Warp ships, participates in the founding of the Federation. For the next 36 years, they cruise along with only their minimal production facilities best suited for freighters and the like. Even if the Federation breaks up, AC's too small maintain a fleet to defend itself from big nearby Earth, while too close to Earth for Earth to let anybody else conquer it. And, hey, they're family.
Y40: With the Romulan invasion of the Federation, AC engages in a shipbuilding program that seriously stretches the economy. Components are largely built in surface factories turned from normal industrial uses, and much ship assembly is in barely-adequate, jury-rigged/temporary space cradles. Even then, they can't handle the program all by themselves -- Earth supplies them with some of the impulse (NT warp) engines for their ships (facilitating the installation of either native or Earth engines is the origin of AC engine encapsulation).
Y46: With the end of the war, the AC fleet is largely mothballed, to sit in reserve in case of another major war. Groundside factories are converted back to civilian use; assembly cradles that don't meet peacetime saftey and economic standards are sold/scrapped to help rebuild civilian economy.
Y71: The large AC fleet left over from the Romulan War is warp-refitted not by AC, but by Earth itself. Earth also partly funds their operation; with Earth's warp-refitted ships under Federation control, the AC fleet serves as local defense for both systems.
Elegant!
You guys are too focused on the Fleet. What happens to AC has to reduce their world to less than minor world status. So any solution would have to cover the ship yards, the fleet, and the economy of the homeworld. There must be a reason why a founding member does not rate at least minor status.(AC should have been a Major world and whatever happened reduced it way down.) Ion storms are not effective vs shielded bases and don't effect planets. So even if shipyards were hit by Ion storms, many components (Stardock and base stations which are shielded) would probably survive an Ion Storm. The fleet could run for cover and avoid it, and the planet would experience some communications difficulties but would otherwise be untouched. If the AC gives up its fleet that does not explain its reduction from prominent founding member world.
...
Alpha Centauri home planet is not class N and is not named Culden-Feyr.
Fine. Name it whatever you want, then.
Hugh, it appears what you are missing is that what is used for ecconomy in the SFU (F&E really) is that part of its output that is used for Star Fleet. A great deal of the SFU ecconomy is subsumed into the game and only those EP's used for ship building and maintenance are what we see. AC can have a health ecconomy but only supply that sort of stuff that people on planets use or that they use themselves. Their entire ecconomic output is subsumed into the background ecconomy. Hence in the SFU rules they are not a notable ecconomic influence on the game.
What they do contribute is absorbed into Sol's ecconomic input.
So all we need to show for the game is a move away from ship building and a lack of notable ship building suppliesgiven to the Federation. It could be that AC got the majority of it's ship building materials from other sources or that they had to work unreasonably hard to get what they needed to build their own fleet. Having to build on their own meant doing whatever it takes but once they reached out and others could handle the job so much more easilly it was illogical for them to continue their inefficient program. (hmmm, no desaster needed for that at all. Though I still like the story of an Ion storm breaking the camels back from Troy.)
Alpha Centauri is the Earth given name for the star and it would make sense that the inhabitants would have their own name for the planet.
Until now, though, I'd just thought of it as Alpha Centauri Prime but then that'd be wrong too since "Prime" is reserved for the star usually.
Loren then why didn't the other colonies and core members give up their economical input for the "cheaper route" of letting Earth build everything. They still give war material to the Federation as all other worlds do including the Orions who would be the least likely to do so. The solution must be drastic, and persistent, as the Alphas being militaristic and conservative would try to rebuild after any disaster to restore their prominent role. If the Alphas are relatated to humans they are going to be competitive, tough and adaptable and very unlikely to disappear by osmosis into Sol's sphere.
Another question is when did this conversion, disaster etc. happen? We know from Y1 that the Alphas along with all the other races maintained a Fleet up to the deployment of the Constitution class cruisers. We know that they participated in the wars with the Kzinti and Klingons. And we know that all the core races were allowed to convert many of their ships into national guard ships. So the events that brought the Alphas low must have happened between the yr113 and the general war in 168.
But that doesn't mean that they had to keep shipbuilding local to the AC system. People in Monterey own boats and use them, but they don't build the boats right there. AC and Sol aren't very far apart in a warp-powered galaxy, they're sort of like Florida and Pennsylvania of the United States.
The middle years begins roughly about 135 when the Hydrans retook their kingdom from the Klingons. The Federation StarFleet is pretty much in control during this time, so that further narrows the window to 113-135. So there is a 22 year period here where something could logically happen and not disrupt F&E or the timeline.
Something to remember is that virtually all of the races (rigelians, etc.) gave up their indigenous shipbuilding industry at the same time (when the Federation started building ships at the main shipyard).
So focusing on ships and shipyards is entirely wrong.
What you're talking about is industry, not shipyards.
In Y71, Star Fleet is formed. After that, nobody builds warships except the Fed government. Pre-existing warships are kept for local defense. By the middle years, those are all gone and replaced by Early Years ships (national guard).
What happens, apparently, is that once the Federation and Star Fleet are "formed" the various planets decide how they're going to fit into the federation economy. AC decided to specialize in agricultural production. Rigel and Andor and Vulcan and Earth specialized in industrial production.
Shipyards ain't relevant. Nobody kept theirs after Y71.
So, Basically, AC shut down their shipyard (along with everybody else) in Y71, with all planets contributing taxes to build a new national shipyard. (Some may have been used to build civilian ships and that's just not relevant.)
AC would have begun converting their economy to agricultural production about that time.
We don't need a disaster.