Federation Commander

Dear Nerroth,

Many thanks for the outline of Omega Sector entities. Is there one master reference for this, or is what you cited culled from various sources such as Captain's Logs, SFB Modules, etc. ?

Thanks !

Gary

The best port of call for the Omega Octant as seen in SFB is the Omega Master Rulebook; it's been an indispensable resource for myself, not least when working on the conversion project.

For the Lesser Magellanic Cloud SFB-wise, Module C5 is the way to go; though you can have a look at the Magellanic timeline here, if you like.

The Triangulum Galaxy was previewed in Module E2 (with a further glimpse in CL23 that I'm waiting to pore over) though it's still awaiting formal publication in a full module.

domingojs23 wrote: Very true ! They could be Canadians ! Half-kidding aside, this is a cool idea. Taken to its logical -ahem- conclusion, collectivist thinking would ultimately result in something like the Borg, assimilation of all sentient species encountered.

The Borg couldn't be communist though, they're the ultimate imperialists: exploiting the biological/mineral resources of everything they find.

Trust me when I say you don't ever want to mention the word 'imperialism' around communists, the rage gets out of hand

pinecone wrote:There could be an entire "empire" in one leg of the galaxy. But the "Empire" is more of a caotic political system in which fleets of varying political factions fight more than just debates. The Space Communists and Space Nazis (until we decide on better names for them) are always battling each other over territory in hopes of causing the public to fear them. The Space Socialists are what remain of the original "government" before it broke down into the seperate factions, but they are working only to rally support for their cause by giving money to people, rather than building a fleet to regain control. The Space Rebublic is a place of free voting and buisness owning. But while the Republic citizens are safe, they republic cannot expand because their fleet cannot match that of the SN or SC. The Space Anarchists don't have any control, and are merely the "pirates" of that area. What do you guys think?

This sounds fantastic! I love the idea of a warring group of splinter societies from a single empire who fight amongst each other for political/economic/military dominance. Quite a bit different from the one empire = one government approach.

I'd urge that we would take care that we don't make *any* definitive, or even suggestive, statements about which of these factions is on the moral high ground. After all, none of these factions are on speaking terms, so all they know of each other is the constant propaganda swirling around from each of them... nobody knows what any of them are really like! Most importantly, we wouldn't want any of them to have a clear dominance or superiority over the other... that's what the players want to fight over

I'd envision something a bit like this, as far as in-game effects:

The Worker's Collective (communists): Lots of attrition units, hordes of intensely loyal soldiers (lots of marines). Larger ships are good for support but not great in a firefight.

The Empire (colonialists): Wealthy faction with big, strong cruisers, but lacking in defensive capabilities given the focus on imperial expansion.

Corporate Alliance (capitalists): Sleek, shiny DNs with the latest weaponry. Big alpha strikes when given the chance, but slow movers.

The Reich (space nazis): Brutal war machine built for conquering. Strong on base-busting with their hefty V-series rocket warheads!

The Egalitarians (socialists): Strong on defence, with innovative shields and defensive systems. Their defensive formations are tough to crack (think Tholians). Once you get through, though, the ships are quick to break apart!

What do you guys think? It's just a few ideas to play around with.

All these factions would have lots of things to fight about, and as a player fighting out your favoured ideology against the others would add something extra to each battle Giving each side advantages/disadvantages that balance well and capture some element of their ideologies could be really fun.

I like it! Here are a few more:

The Bleachers (Anarchists): Have no law or order whatsoever. The Pirates of that leg of the galaxy, they use anything they can find.

The Peoples' Nation (Conservatives): Use Varying, solidly built ships, but do nothing with non-energy weapons due to the costs.

The Coup (Rebels): Use stealthy ships for hit and run attacks.

The Clan (Culture-Oriented Society): A group of tightly-nit family members who believe that they could fix all the problems of the society if the were in charge. They use All attack/no defense ships, somewhat like the Kzinti, but without the Ph-3s

I think if we're serious, maybe someone should email ADB or something. Whatcha' guys thinking?

@ Nerroth - thanks for the Omega and Triangulum background; I've never bothered with Omega - I have enough trouble keeping the Alpha stuff straight - so it was interesting to see some of the ideas used there.

@ Everyone else, I think you're overlooking one of the great motivating - and divisive - forces. Religion.

The Necromongers from Chronicles of Riddick come to mind. The 'Holy Half-Dead who has Seen The Underverse' mantra is no more bonkers than the chatechisms of various real-world faiths, and the great thing about SF is that since it's all fiction you don't usually get a stiff telling off from the vicar, or a fatwa.

I'll add another faction - The Chosen. They are not a single race but a movement composed of converts from many species. Their main tenet is that once all sentients in the multiverse accept the truth of their faith, time will end and an eternal paradise will follow.

The actual beliefs are mostly a closely guarded secret known only to their leaders, the Council of the Elect*; everyone else is expected to follow with blind faith, worshipping a pantheon of gods in the images of all known sentient species.

Since their only *known* belief is that their followers should pay taxes only to The Chosen and not to their local governments, they are cordially hated by every administration they take converts from; hence The Chosen's clandestine fleet.

They operate from undiscovered bases in otherwise barren systems; their ships are fast, stealthy, heavily shielded, and have some armour; they carry strong defensive, but limited offensive armament, and have large banks of transporters and big marine complements. Their primary tactic is not to destroy hostile ships, but to get close enough to take down an enemy shield, and then board and capture - to produce more converts.

Of course, once they are strong enough, they will look to take over whole planets. They will start building invasion fleets...

* I based that bit on the real-world Druze.

pinecone wrote:I like it! Here are a few more:
[snipped - they're in my post below!]

I think if we're serious, maybe someone should email ADB or something. Whatcha' guys thinking?

Brilliant I'd love to help out on constructing a background on this empire, how it grew and how it eventually splintered. If ADB would take us seriously on this as something we could put together for real, then we should hash it out and get a topic on the BBS put up!

I'm not sure how it could be presented; perhaps a Briefing-style book? A selection of the key ships for each faction, background and scenarios. An intelligence report gathered from scraps picked up around the border of the Alpha Octant with another part of the galaxy, perhaps?

@Dan, that idea is great too, and gives me an idea for a possible background that could work:

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Imagine in another area of the galaxy, beyond the borders of the Alpha Octant, a great Empire grew to encompass countless star systems, dozens of sentient species making up its varied citizenry. Over time, the Empire managed to create a bounty for its citizens: new nanomachine technology allowed the synthesis of matter from scattered atoms. Suddenly, starvation, poverty, and conflict were a thing of the past, as the new technology swept the Empire into a post-scarcity age of plenty.

For a hundred years or more, peace reigned. The citizens of the Empire enjoyed an existence free from the normal struggles of daily life. Machines handled all daily concerns, and gradually the people realised that the old bureaucracies and social organisations were wearing out their usefulness. Society began a period of sudden, precipitous change.

However, the diversity of the Empire created a debate regarding the best way forward. Sharp minds and strong leaders, idle for so many decades, suddenly snapped into action once again, seeing an opportunity to regain their previous greatness. Groups formed, each espousing a different way for this new way of life to be governed, to have meaning, to interact with other empires they may find in the Universe.

Over time the schisms grew, converts became more fanatical in their devotion to their chosen cause. The groups became armies, the armies became governments, and soon the octant was plunged into endless war.

Some factions believed that the remains of the Empire could only achieve greatness through conquering the rest of the Galaxy with overwhelming force (The Reich).

Others felt that only by harnessing the productivity of the working classes, those who made society work before the days of the nanomachines, could a prosperous society rise once again (The Worker's Collective).

Some set their sights on restarting the old days of Empire, building great fleets to expand their meagre holdings across the octant in a new colonial expansion (The New Empire).

Still others set their sights on the profit to be made in the remains of a previously wealthy and utopian Empire, and gathered the brightest business intellects they could find to start on the path to financial dominance (The Corporate Alliance).

Some of those business minds shunned the wastefulness and ostentatiousness of building sleek new fleets, however. They were resourceful, repurposing old Empire starships and making them fit to protect their interests once again (The People's Nation).

Far from seeking to conquer, one lone faction sought to safeguard the ancient technology that allowed the Empire to prosper without poverty or suffering. They hid it behind great shields, and built nigh-impenetrable defensive systems on their ships to protect their holdings (The Egalitarians).

Meanwhile, in the oft-forgotten hidden corners of the old Empire, a few shadowy groups sought to change the status quo using more subtle methods.

A loosely-aligned group of anarchists snatched and grabbed whatever they could from the pitched battles of the other factions, building a ragtag fleet of variously-outfitted raiding ships (The Anarchists).

Others gathered together small fleets using stealthy technology, swooping in on weak points in the other factions' defenses to swipe useful resources for themselves (The Rebels).

A small, unified clan, a family stretching back to the early days of Empire, managed to gather in another portion of the octant. Living a nomadic existence and travelling in heavily-armed convoys toward whatever temporary safe zones they could find, they quietly built their forces with an eye toward spreading their ideas for an entirely new way to run an Empire (The Clan).

Finally, while others bickered over territory and political ideas, one shadowy group seeks to prevent the resurgence of another spiritually bankrupt Empire. They seek nothing less than an Empire devoted to their faith, one built purely to give praise to their gods and spread their faith Universe-wide. They strike suddenly, silently, invading ships and bases with marines and missionaries spawned from dozens of races, taking whoever they can convert and shooting those they cannot (The Chosen).

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Sorry, that was longer than I expected it to be What do you guys think? This was the first thing I could think of that could encompass such a large range of ideologies. Of course we'd need much more detail, but this basic story could work as a framework to set the tone at least

I love it!

Rules for thier ships would be needed as well, but as for the actual storyline, it's developing well

My one concern is that It would have to appear first in SFB before FC. I myself am not a SFBer, but perhaps I can get the master rulebook if we are serious about moving forward with this.

I need to go to bed now... see ya tommmorow

pinecone wrote:I love it!

Rules for thier ships would be needed as well, but as for the actual storyline, it's developing well

My one concern is that It would have to appear first in SFB before FC. I myself am not a SFBer, but perhaps I can get the master rulebook if we are serious about moving forward with this.

I need to go to bed now... see ya tommmorow

Cool, glad you like what we've got so far

Definitely need to think about how to put the ships together. Not sure what SVC would say about how to proceed with this, maybe we do need to do SFB versions first? I'm not sure how open ADB is to introducing stuff like this to FC only.

If we have to go that route, I've got a huge stack of SFB stuff to start with. Of course I'd have to gain a better understanding of some specifics first, which is maybe easier said than done

Well lets see...

Juding from the history, real "weapons" did not exist during the time of prosperity, as they were not needed, except on some military/police "protector" ships. Before that (Early Years time) they may well have been needed, before everyone decided to combine for the better good.
Or perhaps not. Maybe the Emipre as it grew usd only it's weapon systems, and people who opposed (who were few) used Generic weaponary.

As for the main weapon, how about Gamma-Ray phasers? Just an idea...

Perhaps 2 or 3 energy, like phasers but they pass through shields due to their short wavelength.

Of course if that's the main weapon then who would bother with shields?

pinecone wrote:Well lets see...

Juding from the history, real "weapons" did not exist during the time of prosperity, as they were not needed, except on some military/police "protector" ships. Before that (Early Years time) they may well have been needed, before everyone decided to combine for the better good.
Or perhaps not. Maybe the Emipre as it grew usd only it's weapon systems, and people who opposed (who were few) used Generic weaponary.

As for the main weapon, how about Gamma-Ray phasers? Just an idea...

Perhaps 2 or 3 energy, like phasers but they pass through shields due to their short wavelength.

Of course if that's the main weapon then who would bother with shields?

Actually I had a vaguely similar idea. If the Empire was able to transmute matter into other forms, thus eliminating the need to struggle for food, water, any rare materials, etc., they would have mass-produced ways to extract and blast matter from asteroids, nebulas, etc., where usable, non-essential matter was plentiful.

That would mean things like mining lasers, rock-blasting weapons, heavy tractor beams, matter displacers, etc. So imagine they had massive gamma-ray mining lasers which are designed to penetrate thick rock formations... and as such, they 'burn through' shields at a higher rate than normal weapons. For every 5 points of shield damage, 1 point burns through as internal damage. They're useless beyond 3 hexes range, though.

Meanwhile, the Reich snatched up all the rock-blasting/planet-cracking munitions and attached them to massive torpedoes. After launch, they proceed in a straight line and blow up after 4 impulses, doing damage over a 7-hex blast radius (torpedo's hex and the six surrounding hexes). However, they are not seeking weapons, and the triggers are a bit finicky... every impulse after launch, there's a one-in-three chance the warhead detonates prematurely! The idea here is an unreliable but scary weapon that will send enemy fleets scattering away in terror... though really, the chances of it working properly are quite low

The ubiquitous mining operations of the prosperity era also led to the perfection of 'tractor shuttles', small vehicles that could yank just the right asteroids out of crowded fields and hold them until the big, ponderous mining ships arrived. Obviously they could only tractor an enemy ship very briefly, since they're larger than an asteroid, and only if the target doesn't have a few spare energy points to ward off the tractor. Maybe they even developed tractor (or anti-tractor) drones once the wars began?

Of course, occasionally bigger objects needed to be tractored as well, to allow mining lasers time to work or to get explosives set. These heavy tractors later became weaponised during the war, allowing the attacking ship to spend 2 energy to trigger a blast of tractor energy that changes a target's facing by one hex-side (or forces a side-slip, or something along these lines). Longer-range than normal tractors but much more specialised application.

Mines would be great for this setup, I think, since we're talking about races with easily available heavy explosives made for blasting apart large asteroids/small planets. In SFB this would be no problem at all, but in FC it has to be much easier!

I've got a proposal for simple mine rules for FC that don't get complicated (10-damage, 7-hex radius, always visible to all players, 1-6 hex fuse marked along with damage on MINE tracks on ship card), but who knows if we can go there. The goal would be to add a nice tactical wrinkle usable basically only for defending fixed points or deterring close pursuers, NOT to complicate the game to the point of intractability. Maybe we could push this as something for the Borders of Madness crowd, or a Stellar Shadows type of thing?

Anyway, that's enough late-night rambling for tonight Feeling creative today, having been confined to bed with a virus all day! Any thoughts on these ideas?

Perhaps the Reich does outfit those missiles with mini shield generators, having the option to charge them with energy so If they explode prematurely their ship wont take any damage.

Also, if Gamma-Ray phasers are a useable weapon, then what about infared phasers? They have superb range, but don't burn through at all. and they do the same (mediocre) amount of damage at any range, making them advantageous at long range and only disadvantagous at close range. They also require slightly less energy then the Gamma-Ray phasers.

Mining lasers would be somewhat useless against sheilds but would crush a ship's inner hull.

*chuckles* I think some of you are partialy describing the Battletech background with a generous helping of the Honorverse as a side dish.

Sweeper wrote:*chuckles* I think some of you are partialy describing the Battletech background with a generous helping of the Honorverse as a side dish.

Well, I did own a copy of Saganami Island Tactical Simulator from Ad Astra Games... sadly destroyed along with my F&E collection, FC collection and half of my SFB collection in my recent move out of Japan I've already re-purchased my FC collection, then I ran out of room in the budget Maybe my few plays of SITS infected me somehow!

I never had a chance to check out the Honorverse books on the CD that came with the game though. What's the background like then?

On Basilisk Station starts out with the People's Repbulic of Haven, ( Welfare State in space that is expansionist primarily to pay the welfare recipients in order to keep the Legislaturist families in power), setting their sites on the Star Kingdom of Manticore ( Small, Constitustional Monarchy with a strong economy and Military) as their next conquest as thier Basilisk wormhole junction that provides sizable income in tolls and tarrifs. They try to incite a revolution on the planet of Basalisk in order to have their Navy to come in and take control under peace keeping pretences.

The results of the book lead to Haven declaring war on Manticore, claiming false pretenses.

I'll leave it to you read and discover and what happen next in the series.

Sweeper wrote:On Basilisk Station starts out with the People's Repbulic of Haven, ( Welfare State in space that is expansionist primarily to pay the welfare recipients in order to keep the Legislaturist families in power), setting their sites on the Star Kingdom of Manticore ( Small, Constitustional Monarchy with a strong economy and Military) as their next conquest as thier Basilisk wormhole junction that provides sizable income in tolls and tarrifs. They try to incite a revolution on the planet of Basalisk in order to have their Navy to come in and take control under peace keeping pretences.

The results of the book lead to Haven declaring war on Manticore, claiming false pretenses.

I'll leave it to you read and discover and what happen next in the series.

People's Republic of Haven, eh? Sounds like Space Commies to me, time to read those books!

Of course we've got tons more factions going on along with the Space Commies, so David Weber has a lot of catching up to do

As for the comparisons to Battletech I take that as a compliment, personally, I won't hear a bad word said about those wonderful stompy robots

pinecone wrote:Also, if Gamma-Ray phasers are a useable weapon, then what about infared phasers? They have superb range, but don't burn through at all. and they do the same (mediocre) amount of damage at any range, making them advantageous at long range and only disadvantagous at close range. They also require slightly less energy then the Gamma-Ray phasers.

Mining lasers would be somewhat useless against sheilds but would crush a ship's inner hull.

I like the idea, but we'd have to work out how balanced these kind of things would be. SFB/FC is primarily a game of manoeuvre, and weapons with completely steady damage over long ranges could be pretty powerful, particularly against factions which have to get in close.

I thought the same about the mining lasers, that's why I thought about the extra burn-through. SFB has 'spearfish drones' that punch through shields, doing just a couple of internal damage points. That doesn't seem like much, but a little luck on the damage allocation chart can make those a serious advantage when both ships are still heavily shielded.

In fact, I just had a look at the SFB rules for spearfish drones, and the fluff describes them as focused beam blasts derived from nuclear explosives! That sounds just like the sort of penetrative power these mining lasers would have. Maybe then it'd be better just to have each laser blast have a similar effect to the spearfish drone? Just limit the range heavily and raise the energy requirements for firing to keep them in balance.

What do you think? That might capture the shield-punching flavour of the mining lasers that you want, and make the rules simpler than the burn-through idea to boot