Federation Commander

Is there one, combined map of the Alpha Octant/Quadrant? I know there are some snazzy ones on the Fed Commander webpage, but it's like east and west. Is there a combined one? I checked the downloads but found only the magellenics and Omega and . .. galaxy map.

Actually, I think it would be pretty cool to have like a combined, alpha area map for each of the "settings" (Early, Middle, General War, and . . . X-era?? I dunno what the others are). Maybe Middle and GW don't change enough to justify separate maps, I don't know. I realize that it's likely a lot of work, for . . . who knows what advantage. But, I'm thinking some SFU fanboy might have made one himself and it's secreted away on some obscure webpage? Anyone know of such a thing?


Heck I might as well throw some other questions in here too. Seems like discuss is a reply only sort of forum, and I couldn't find any appropriate topics so I'll just do it here:

1. So these ISC guys. I'm reading the timeline, and the ISC "conquers the galaxy by invading the various neutral zones." Why the heck did the Feds and/or the Tholians allow them to get across all their space with whatever massive fleet they had?? Heck why did the Gorn and Romulans allow them for that matter. Or did they circumvent the major powers by flanking coreward of them?

2. Did the Organians stop the general war? Seems like a bit of a God in the machine sort of thing. I would have rathered they just disappeared and stayed disappeared until the Alpha guys wised up and signed some peace treaties. I don't think the Organians are in TNG or the later series at all, so could have writ them out. I suppose this is more of a comment than a question anyway.

3. What the heck are all these symbols all over my Lyran ship cards? Sub factions or fleets? Are there rules stipulating that you can only use ships together if they have the appropriate symbol? (excepting the LDR of course) I don't have distant kingdoms yet, as the store didn't have it in stock or else I likely would've bought it.

Hmmn, that's all the questions I can think of.

Paul B wrote: 1. So these ISC guys. I'm reading the timeline, and the ISC "conquers the galaxy by invading the various neutral zones." Why the heck did the Feds and/or the Tholians allow them to get across all their space with whatever massive fleet they had?? Heck why did the Gorn and Romulans allow them for that matter. Or did they circumvent the major powers by flanking coreward of them?

The ISC invasion brought the general war to a halt and the various races could only fend off the ISC with what had survived the war. The tholians were able to pull off armed neutrality, but the others were unable to offer much more than token resistance. This was exactly what the galaxy needed, as the enforced end to raiding each others' industry allowed for a surge in ship building that got new vessels working up as the andromedans kicked their invasion into high gear.

Paul B wrote: 1. So these ISC guys. I'm reading the timeline, and the ISC "conquers the galaxy by invading the various neutral zones." Why the heck did the Feds and/or the Tholians allow them to get across all their space with whatever massive fleet they had?? Heck why did the Gorn and Romulans allow them for that matter. Or did they circumvent the major powers by flanking coreward of them?

To expand on the previous comment...
By the time the ISC arrived, all of theoher races had been at war for many, many years (18 years for the Kzinti / Lyrans). Every race was ired of war, tired of fighting, and economically exhausted. Many of their capital ships had been destroyed and not yet replaced...
The ISC, OTOH were fresh out of the gates. They had a thriving economy, ships that were equal to the best the other races could field, and they had a rapid deployment method that we haven't seen yet.
When ISC War is released for Federation and Empire, we will find out how they managed to quickly establish themselves across the nuetral zones.
They didn't defeat the rest of the Alpha Octant so much as provide them a reason to step back, stop fighting (without losing face), and reset their borders to the pre-war areas.

2. Did the Organians stop the general war? Seems like a bit of a God in the machine sort of thing. I would have rathered they just disappeared and stayed disappeared until the Alpha guys wised up and signed some peace treaties. I don't think the Organians are in TNG or the later series at all, so could have writ them out. I suppose this is more of a comment than a question anyway.

IIRC, according to the timeline - the Organians did "just vanish". Perhaps they evolved into an even higher life-form or maybe they just got tired of the incessant warfare betwen the so-called developing races. Either way, it ws the coming of the ISC that brought an end o the General War... just in time for everyone to build their forcs to fight off the Andromedans.

3. What the heck are all these symbols all over my Lyran ship cards? Sub factions or fleets? Are there rules stipulating that you can only use ships together if they have the appropriate symbol? (excepting the LDR of course) I don't have distant kingdoms yet, as the store didn't have it in stock or else I likely would've bought it.

Those are the symbols of the various Lyran Counties.
The Lyran Empire is divided into four Duchies (each rules by a Duke). Each of those is in turn sub-divided into various counties (rules by a Count). Each one has his own symbol. This link shows you the various symbols and which faction they represent. In also shows the divisions... HomeWorld Duchy, Rad Claw Duchy, Enemy's Blood Duchy, and Far Sars Duchy - and which Counts serve under them.
Going even farther than that, the background color behind each image is the base hull color of ships from that duchy / county.
[And if you're curious about their locations... the Red Claw Duchy is located on the Kzinti border, he Enemy's Blood duchy is located on the Hydran border, the Far Stars duchy is the Lyran survey zone, and Home worlds is of course located at the Lyran homeworld.

As for rules regarding usign them together... there are none. At various times during Lyran history, each of the counties has been either allied to / or at war with every other county. This means you can freely mix them when fighting Federaion Commander battles... althoug it makes for some intersting "Civil War" type scenrios also - see the Battle of the Long Claws scenario for an example.

The role of the Organians is clarified somewhat in a one-page article in CL38.

The Organians never stopped anything, they just provided a hotline between Feds and Klingons. Everything about them "leaving" to cause the general war and "returning" to stop the general war is just fantasy.

Paul, while this information may not be much help, our Prime Directive books (currently available for GURPS, d20, and most recently for d20 Modern) have a map of the whole kit and caboodle--from the Lyrans and Hydrans in the west to the ISC in the east. We also have a couple of historical maps from Y75 and Y126.

Jean wrote:Paul, while this information may not be much help, our Prime Directive books (currently available for GURPS, d20, and most recently for d20 Modern) have a map of the whole kit and caboodle--from the Lyrans and Hydrans in the west to the ISC in the east. We also have a couple of historical maps from Y75 and Y126.

Ah yeah, probably not. Not really interested in the RPG and I've already got lots of books I never use. Maybe Federation Admiral, the campaign thing that VBAM is doing will have a map in it. (though obviously not different time periods)

Thanks though. I was just curious really, after browsing some of the website and reading the timeline.

If one was careful, one could combine the images of the two halves of the Fed and Empire map on the site and make a single image out of it...

...but bear in mind that it's still not quite all of the Alpha Octant - since it abstracts out the more distant regions (including the whole of the Delta Sector).

True enough.
Hey I found one VERY small map of the Alpha Octant, apparently a scan from F&E: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memor ... Octant.JPG.

Who are those purple guys anti-coreward of the ISC?

Well there is another one lets hope SVC doesn't have to take offical notice of.

And Paul there is noone on that map CoreWard (North) of the ISC on that map. Now there is a different shade of Romulan RimWard (south) of the ISC. That is the Territory the Romulan Star Empier has already claimed but not developed until the General War actually starts. They have to use Survey Cruiser/Scouts to open it up just like the Fed, Lyrian, and Klingons leaseing space do.

Paul B wrote:

Jean wrote:Paul, while this information may not be much help, our Prime Directive books (currently available for GURPS, d20, and most recently for d20 Modern) have a map of the whole kit and caboodle--from the Lyrans and Hydrans in the west to the ISC in the east. We also have a couple of historical maps from Y75 and Y126.

Ah yeah, probably not. Not really interested in the RPG and I've already got lots of books I never use. Maybe Federation Admiral, the campaign thing that VBAM is doing will have a map in it. (though obviously not different time periods)

Thanks though. I was just curious really, after browsing some of the website and reading the timeline.

I've heard of the Fed Admiral game, but have yet to finsd any info on it, does anyone have a link to where I can find more info on it?

Go to www.vbamgames.com and look in the "Federation Admiral" section of their forum for more info...

Talking to Jay Waschak (of VBAM) recently he said they were fairly well along in the development process, and I'm guessing the book will be sent to SVC in the comparatively near future (early 2009? Not sure). Not sure how that will translate into a release date once it's in Steve's hands though. I imagine it might go through another round of playtesting with ADB's playtesting groups, but I don't know.

Some of the things I've heard, I think the book is supposed to have some 3 different types of campaigns. In one campaign type, you play a commander in charge of one section of a border. I guess there are lots of random missions that come up to keep you fleets busy during peace time as well as war time. And interesting I think the concept in that campaign was to avoid war (though not conflict). There was some sort of track on regional tensions, which could be raised (and maybe lowered??) via different actions. If it ever raised high enough for war to be declared, both players I think lose because I don't think the player's commander who triggered a full scale war will be particularly popular with either empire. Sort of an interesting idea.
That's theone I've heard of, but I'm guessing there are some more traditional sort of campaigns as well. (the whole 4X thing)

Scoutdad wrote:By the time the ISC arrived, all of theoher races had been at war for many, many years (18 years for the Kzinti / Lyrans). Every race was ired of war, tired of fighting, and economically exhausted. Many of their capital ships had been destroyed and not yet replaced...
The ISC, OTOH were fresh out of the gates. They had a thriving economy, ships that were equal to the best the other races could field, and they had a rapid deployment method that we haven't seen yet.
When ISC War is released for Federation and Empire, we will find out how they managed to quickly establish themselves across the nuetral zones.
They didn't defeat the rest of the Alpha Octant so much as provide them a reason to step back, stop fighting (without losing face), and reset their borders to the pre-war areas.

The ISC Invasion basically consisted of ISC fleets cruising at will through any and all space except for the areas immediately around the capital of each empire (noteable exception being the Tholian Holdfast - the ISC realized early on that the Tholians largely wanted to be left alone, and Tholian web technology made it more trouble than it was worth to try and attack the Tholians; the Seltorians, on the other hand...).

Fighting a war in the SFU requires a lot of equipment. You've got to have warships, and warships are very expensive to build.

The Klingons, Lyrans, and Kzintis, had all been at war for nearly two decades. The Kzintis had lost nearly all of their territory that's shown on the map with the noteable exception of their capital, and even that had been hammered pretty badly. The Klingons had suffered from Alliance drives into their own territory, and had also suffered under raids on their capital systems.

(I've no idea what happened to the Lyrans, though presumeably they suffered in a fashion similar to what the Klingons went through; I haven't seen much on the war in Lyran territory while the Alliance was on the offensive)

The Hydrans entered the war a couple of years after the races listed above... but ended up losing ALL of their territory shown on the map. The Hydrans eventually recovered most of it (with the exception being the areas stolen by the Vudar scam), but the entire infrastructure in those areas would need to be rebuilt from the ground up in situations like that. This wasn't the Hydrans' war anyway. They only got involved in it because the Klingons and Lyrans attacked the Kzintis, and the Hydrans knew that they'd be next on the list if the Kzintis were crushed. Fat lot of good that did the Hydrans, obviously (though the Hydran efforts did bleed resources from the Klingons and Lyrans that otherwise might have helped to hold back the Alliance).

The Federation suffered a surprise attack by the Klingons (the Feds were economically assisting the Kzinti, and the Klingons were concerned that the Federation would get more heavily involved), and the Klingons launched a drive deep into Federation space, devastating everything in their path. The Federation barely managed to stop the Klingons short of Earth... and then got hit by another surprise attack, this time by the Romulans. Once again, the Federation barely managed to stop the Romulans short of Earth.

The Romulans themselves had just barely finished upgrading their fleet from decrepit sub-light warships to the brand new Skyhawk/Sparrowhawk/Firehawk ships, and had as a result had basically rebuilt their entire fleet. That meant that they had a lot of excess ships (their older ships along with the converted Klingon hulls), but it also meant that the government had already spent ridiculously large amounts of money just to get the fleet up to parity with the Romulan Empire's neighbors. And then the USS MacArthur slammed into Remus and had its warp engines explode... Instant nuclear winter on the second most important planet in the Romulan Empire. Imagine what the result would be to the US if it suddenly lost its entire Western Seaboard.

The Gorn entered the war last of all (declaring war on the Romulans to support the Federation), and I don't know if much has been stated about the progress of the war from their point of view. I don't know how much of their territory was ravaged, and I don't know if their core systems were ever attacked by the Romulans.

So in essence, you're talking about a number of empires that had all spent ridiculous amounts of money over the last dozen or so years (or even longer in some cases) to finance a major war, had nearly all had the industrial infrastructure on many of their most important worlds significantly hurt, and that in some cases were barely hanging on.

And then the ISC shows up and basically says -

"You're all going to play nice with each other. And to make sure that you do, we're going to send ridiculously powerful battlefleets to patrol all of your borders. And because all of those extra systems that are beyond the bare minimum distance from your home systems merely fund your war machines, our fleets will "protect" them from you."

And the major empires said, "Well, at least no one's going to be dropping nukes on our home planets..."

The primary concern for the empires was to stabilize the economic damage that had been sustained due to the demands of the war, put the basic static defenses back in place (i.e. things like the starbase and battlestation networks), put the finishing touches on the new advanced technologies (i.e. X-Ships) that were becoming available, and rebuild the fleets to a reasonable level of strength.

And then something could be done about the ISC...

And things weren't exactly peaceful during that time period. The Romulans underwent a major civil war. The Senate deposed the Emperor, which caused one of the fleet admirals to revolt. The admiral eventually lost (he cut a deal with a Senate fleet to defend a Romulan planet from an ISC attack, and then was treacherously backstabbed by his "ally" during the battle), but the Senate ended up installing his daughter as an Imperial figurehead (the details of the admiral's death angered an awful lot of Romulans who might otherwise have supported the Senate). The head of the WYN Star Cluster, a Kzinti known as 'The Usurper' (based on the fact that his ancestor a couple of generations back had tried to overthrow the Kzinti Patriarch) launched his own attack on the Kzinti Hegemony with some support from elements inside, starting the Kzinti civil war. No one's sure who won that one (seriously!). The Seltorians tried to continue their own private war against the Tholians... and brought down the wrath of the ISC as a result.

Goodbye Seltorians...

In short, it wasn't exactly a peaceful time period. And the Federation and the Klingon Empire (which in the SFU is motivated more by "practicality" than by anything else) did manage to establish a shaky truce that allowed them to keep the ISC a little further at bay than the other Empires.

What would have come of it eventually is easy enough to predict. Eventually some of the empires would have recovered enough of their own strength to make plays at regaining their old areas of control. And before long the ISC would most likely have crumbled.

But the Andromedans attacked first. The ISC, as the dominant power as well as the most spread out, took the brunt of the offensive, and all of the ships that the various Empires had been building to use against the ISC ended up being used against the Andromedans instead.