Federation Commander

OK, this is not so much a license question as it is an in-house historical one. Suppose I were to come up with a story/scenario with original characters and set it aboard a ship listed on an "official" NCC list. I'm an old SFB player who drifted away in the 80's (life happens), and recently got lured back by FC. During all that time, a LOT of historical material has been published -- more than I could ever track down and absorb. Now then, regarding my storyline, if I were to choose a ship that has already got some published history to it, would it be rejected on that basis?

If you wanted it to have a chance at publication, your story/scenario would have to mesh with existing data on that ship you chose. That doesn't mean you can't add to that ship's history, but you can't invalidate anything that is already in the SFU canon. Obviously, you can write anything you like for you and your group's own enjoyment, but to get published, it has to match the existing history.

The less "well known" of a ship you choose, the less likely there will be conflicts. Superstar SFU ships like U.S.S. Kongo, U.S.S. Lexington, U.S.S. Eagle, IKV Destruction, IRV Imperial Standard, etc., have made several appearances each and don't leave a lot of wiggle room. Their exploits are well known, but not all of them - but, anything added in the gaps has to be carefully placed.

Ships like a lot of the frigates have much less history in-place. It still takes work to check though (note all SVC's work, confirming the locations and history of all the FFs on the Klingon border for Day 1 of the invasion).

The General War era cruisers and destroyers have even less. There were a lot of them and there is less fiction around saying what they did or didn't do in their careers.

You could always pick a name and ask folks around here who have the knowledgebase.

Will beat me to it... but our best bet would be to let us [meaning the members of this forum... not just Will and I ] know which ship you intend to use and approximately when in the timeline the proposed tale will be set.

Someone on this list can let you know if that violates any known history concerning that vessel.

Yeah, what those said. Re-using a ship name won't get the story rejected out of hand. If they like the story, they could change the name to avoid conflict.

If you want ADB to publish the story, you need to have a combat scenario to go along with it. (There have been a small handfull of stories that got published without one.) The hard part isn't making the story fit into SFU history; rather, it's getting all the combat sceen 100% correct to the rules. You also want good tactics that make sense.

Before Steve Cole will consider publishing a story, he'll have Steve Petrick review it. First, that guy knows the rulebook better than anyone else in the world, including SVC. Second, he's prior-service military and will take a hard look at the tactics and command decisions in the story. "And tell me again, why did the ship's captain decide to go 100 lightyears off course to go thru a nebula when his orders were to stay clear of any navigational hazards?"

However, comma, if you intend on posting it on fan-fic-dot-com, you need to strip out anything that's SFU-specific. Two reasons for this. First, obviously, is the copyright legal issues. Second item is if your story has combat that is not 100% true to the rules, ADB they has to contend with players reading the story and then trying to use that as a basis to "correct" the rulebook.

Well cool. If anyone knows any history of these ships, they would have my gratitude: DD-502 Darius, DD-511 Alexander, or DD-534 Eisenhower.
Any of those would get me started. If they're all spoken for, I'll have to dig a little deeper (which would be a bummer, cause those are the coolest names-- I'd hate to be forced to use USS Jimmy Carter).

Darius is destroyed in combat in Y173. Reference SL 89 Encounter at Denebola in Capt Log #5.

I found two references to the Eisenhower.

The first is in scenario book #1 (SH 38-Y178) where she is shown as a DD+. The historical outcome identifies that many ships were damaged.

The second is in scenario book #2 (SH 141-Y179), where she is shown as a DDL+ in the scenarios setup list of ships. There is a disconnect in that the historical outcome identifies that the Marius was destroyed. The Marius is the name of a DDL in the web sites ship name registry list, but the Marius is not present in the scenario setup list of ships. As the Eisenhower is not listed as being converted to a DDL, I suspect the DDL in the setup list of ships should be the Marius and not the Eisenhower.

Aside - I have gaps in my historical material as well and there may be errata that talks about SH 141.

Additional Aside - I have similar gaps in my historic reference material as well, so there may be additional scenarios with the DDs that you are looking to use.

Thanks, Ghost. 2 down 1 to go. I've got my fingers crossed for Alexander.

Eisenhower: Federation DD+ NCC-534. Helped recover data from planet doomed by Black Hole Y178 fighting Romulans (allied with Gorns) SH38.

Darius: Federation DD-502.
o mentioned en route to scene, Objective Juggernaut.
o Y171 Fought Romulans in pre-war skirmish SH69. Received plus refit.
o Y172 Fought Romulans in pre-war skirmish SH96.
o Y173, part of Sixth Fleet, sent to Denebola with Williams and destroyed in the resulting battle, Day of the Eagle, Encounter at Denebola.

Alexander (the Great): Federation DD-511.
o Y168 served on Tholian border, mentioned en route to the Juggernaut battle Objective Juggernaut SL1.
Lost in combat sometime before Y180 as it was replaced by a DDX of the same name.

Ooh - excellent information for modeling minis!

I was going to suggest that you pick up Captian's Module AoG4-A the "Captain's Starship Registery", but I don't see it on the showing cart. Not only does it list all the ship names, it also has a snippet of the history for those that were in any fiction story. My copy is painfully out of date (8/2/95).

I could really use that! Anyone know where to get one?

http://www.starfleetgames.com/mailorderbonus.shtml

Mail order bonus #3

[pacepalm]

I've been around how long, and I didn't know about those Mail Order Bonus downloads?

pace palm???
Are you walking into your palm?

I have the actual hard copies of those from back in the day... but I didn't know hte downloads were there.

I now have copies of them on my SFUSB drive.