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Post by trynda1701 on Dec 18, 2020 8:46:34 GMT -7
The Klingons Who Live In Asteroids If you are a Klingon who lives on (or, most likely, in) an asteroid, you are not well-regarded in Klingon society. There is a stigma attached to Klingons living on asteroids and it is not a kind one at all. The stigma, to be fair, is not entirely undeserved; As with all generalizations, there is a tiny kernel of truth to it. Klingons who live in asteroids are sort of like our contemporary situation of people who live in remote cabins far off in the wilderness, usually in cabins that have no electricity or running water. You wonder about the psychological state of those people. The same can be said of Klingons who live in asteroids. These Klingons tend to be religious but not of the main or majority religions by Klingons. In Klingon society, there are many religions but all of those religions are tied together. They are interconnected, sort of like the sects of Christianity; They may be different but they have some fundamental similarities to them. In Klingon society, the minority religions (those that do not connect together with the majority religions) are looked upon very negatively. They are almost considered as cults and it is certainly not a topic that you bring up in polite conversation. Klingons who live in asteroids tend to be male, older (but not elderly), with not a lot of money or high-technical skills. They are not necessarily hermits (although quite a few of them functionally are) but they do not go out of their way to be social. They are the people who never keep their lights on during Halloween nor do they put up Christmas lights but they will wave to their neighbor (maybe even smile) should they see you when they walk out to their mailbox. Women also live in asteroids and, unlike the men, they do tend to skew on the hermit side and not even acknowledge you should they see you when they walk out to their mailbox. A lot of the asteroids that they live upon tend to be in asteroid fields, logically enough. Unlike science fiction, the asteroids are plenty far apart so that you would need magnification to even see one from another. However, an interesting dynamic is that this community uses unconventional visual communication in order to communicate with one another. Imagine, if you will, a kind of satellite dish that points to another and flashes light (much like semaphore) extremely quickly. This form of communication is very cheap, somewhat secure & very reliable. Sensors on the dish know when others want to communicate with you and turns towards that direction to receive a message. It's almost as though they communicate almost exclusively by telephone answering machine (although sometimes they communicate directly in real-time). These Klingons do not live lavish lifestyle. They live fairly spartan; Opulence of any kind is rarely seen. It is fairly amazing that the Orions have a somewhat robust trade with them. Although these Klingons do not purchase any luxury goods, they do certainly buy staple items. Revenue for a lot of these Klingons comes from the asteroids themselves; When they dig out the portion of the asteroid in which they want to live, they sell that material. They may also be willing to be a "weather station" or have remote listening stations independently installed upon their asteroid and rent out that ability to others. Since these Klingons live a spartan life, they don't need a lot of money to lead an existence. In recent years, the Imperial Navy has struck upon a rather interesting strategy in dealing with them: They are merely nice to them. If the Navy is cruising by, they'll be more than happy to supply medical services and, in conversation, the Klingons will tell the Navy about local happenings and gossip which is often far more valuable than whatever incidental medical services are rendered. And these Klingons certainly have no qualm about being indirect explorers, either. There have been several times when the Imperial Navy has asked them if they want to relocate outside of known Klingon space and just so happen to be placed on an asteroid that houses automated listening and surveillance stations. The answer is far more "yes" than "no" and crews are amazed at how little these Klingons will live on and shun modern types of entertainment and luxuries. If you're nice to the strange, eccentric old codger who believes in silly cults, you can get them to do some pretty valuable things for you. Who knew, right? Nice to see that in your universe, the military FINALLY realise that not all Klingons need be warriors!
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 18, 2020 19:59:47 GMT -7
Here's the thing: The Klingon Imperial Navy needs all the help that it can get. Let me explain. One of the peculiar things about the Klingons is that they're the only one of the 3 major powers that doesn't really have a "strong" navy. You wouldn't think that if you looked at their stats on paper; They've got TONS of warships and TONS of soldiers and they're OOZING military out of every crevice of their society. On paper, they should've crushed the Romulans like a tin can when they first encountered them & while the Feds would've made them sweat a little, they should've defeated the Feds without too much of a problem. So why did they lose to both the Feds AND the Romulans (at least, in my bizarro alt-universe)? Simple. They weren't organized. See, the Klingons do things differently than the Feds & the Romulans. Both the Feds & the Romulans have a national-based military. Sure, they have police and they have regional-based militaries (a "state national guard," if you will) but the national-based military is their prime offensive/defensive organization. The Klingons have REGIONAL-based militaries; It's the equivalent of having a country be defended by a collection of state (or province or prefecture or district or however your country geographically divides itself) militias. The national military is fairly weak; It's only raised when there's a national threat. It's there; It exists but it's threadbare and no one really gives it the attention that it deserves. Back before the Roms & the Feds & the Klingons all met one another, the Klingon Imperial Navy hardly existed on anything other than paper. The reason? The regions inside of the Klingon Empire are all competing against one another. They can hardly stand one another, much less fight together. Even after losing two major wars, the Klingon Imperial Navy is still fairly weak in comparison to Star Fleet & the Romulan Star Navy. It's gotten better but the stigma of serving in the Imperial Navy still exists. If you're a Klingon, the honorable thing to do is to serve with your buddies in the regional navies; That's where the prestige is. So the Imperial Navy is really fighting a war on all fronts, including against the regional Klingon navies that really don't want to give them the time of day because that would take away from their own prestige. All of these regions want to be the seat of power in the klingon Empire and they don't want to look weak in front of the others and so they're all squabbling and skirmishing with each other. Now, all of this squabbling & skirmishing does, in fact, make them stronger on a REGIONAL basis. Make no mistake about it; Klingons aren't pushovers by any stretch of the imagination. However, they are very poor in organizing themselves as a national-based fighting unit. There's just very little incentive; Why help your neighbor since your neighbor is vying for the same power and prestige as you are? How did the Feds & the Roms manage to win against a foe that's so formidable on paper? For the Roms, they did it through very precise surgical strikes using cloaking shield-based ships. It certainly wasn't done using standard "stand-up-and-fight-toe-to-toe" tactics. Roms got their pointy-little ears handed to them the few times that they tried to pull that. The Roms also didn't really have the means of doing that anyway, as they were still recovering from the Hannurians & the Vulcans (read about all of that in earlier posts). For the Feds, they did it through exploiting the fact that the regions didn't talk to one another. There wasn't any coordination between them. Regionally, the Klingons were strong but inter-regional cooperation was lackluster at best and the Imperial Navy, although it had the same types of ships & the same types of crews that the regional navies had, just didn't have the same spark and zip that the regional navies had and the regional navies didn't bother coordinating with the Imperial Navy a lot. The old saying "Speed Kills" may be true but "Lack of Communication Kills" is also true as well. Now you'd think that after two major losses, the Klingons would've learned their lesson: Beef up your Imperial Navy because, let's face it, both times their enemy has let them off the hook. The Romulans were given a seat at the table and a small chunk of Klingon space, neither of which they really wanted; They just didn't want the Klingons to invade their space any longer. The Feds didn't want territory either, just their prisoners of war and some reconciliation and a big honking promise never to pull that stupid crap ever again. Both the Romulans & the Feds could've really done some huge damage to the Klingons if they really wanted to but they didn't; Each one did just enough to make the Klingons stop. Yet the regions have absolutely no incentive to beef up the Imperial Navy because if the Imperial Navy becomes powerful, the regions lose power. So the Imperial Navy has to do whatever it can to keep up with all of the political power plays going on in the Klingon Empire. And one small way they do that is to gather intelligence on the regions, knowing who hates who and why and the how and what's really going on as opposed to what they're being told. And how do they partially do that? They make friends and talk to people, like the people who live in the asteroids whom everyone thinks know nothing but in fact know everything because everyone thinks that, even if they know things, they can't act upon them but, of course, they do. They spill their secrets to the Imperial Navy and so the Imperial Navy can have a better negotiating stance whenever they talk to or need assistance from the regions. A little knowledge goes an awfully long way when negotiating with another party.
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 19, 2020 18:57:58 GMT -7
Whose Navy Has Improved the Most?
In my alternate universe, there is an uneasy calm. Each of the three major powers (the Feds, the Romulans & the Klingons) have now had two major conflicts with one another. The Orions have had heated skirmishes with the Klingons. The Romulans went through two coup attempts (one of which resulted in a bloody civil war). The Federation & the Gorn had a few heated skirmishes of their own. The Federation is constantly having to deal with secessionist movements (mostly small but some sizable enough for their to be lasting damage) of their own.
So after all of this conflict (to say nothing of the criminal element which is always persistent), whose navy has improved the most now that we are in the "present day" of the timeline? As always, it's subjective. If you're a fan of the Romulans, you'd naturally say the Star Navy. Fan of the Federation? Obviously, then, it's Star Fleet. However, I'll try to be as empirical as possible. Nobody likes "List-icles" (an article that's essentially a numbered list) but here's one anyway.
Now, let's get this opinion out the way now: ALL of the navies have improved. It's just the nature of progress. Weapons get better. Shields get better. Tactics get better. A computer today can typically beat the snot out of a computer made ten years ago. That's just how things are. All of the navies have improved it's just HOW MUCH they've improved is the nature of the list.
Let's start at the bottom: the Gorn.
The Gorn don't care that they're at the bottom. They just don't. They don't even know why they need a navy to begin with. The very idea that a society is so desperate for resources that they'd harm someone over those resources is... A pretty far out concept that they still can't completely wrap their minds around. These other civilizations are DEFECTIVE; Why not just sign a treaty or a trade pact and get the resources that way? Again, they don't value life in the same way that any of the other civilizations do and so the concept of conquest and conquering... Completely foreign.
Yet they've got a navy because their neighbors are crazy and, when you've got crazy neighbors, you've got to adapt to the fact that your crazy neighbors are going to do something completely crazy from time to time. And so the Gorn have a navy. The Romulans are the Gorn's friends and they've sort of propped up the tech of the Gorn's navy to a certain degree. The Gorn do military research themselves but there's just no emphasis on it; The Gorn's bread and butter is bio-engineering research because that's the important stuff to them. Finding a better warp drive or a better laser weapon just isn't important.
And yet the Gorn's navy has improved. They've got a navy, it performs military drills, it actively discourages criminal elements from the Romulans, Feds & even the Orions from exploiting the resources of their territory. They don't worry about the Klingons; They're on the other side of known space and there's a huge Federation/Romulan buffer between them.
Coming in at number 4... the Orions.
The Orions are sort of like the Klingons in that they don't have a NATIONAL military. Each caravan has it's own military & policing forces. However, the Orions have always relied upon the sheer size and number of the caravans to actively discourage conflict. If there's 10,000 ships, not all of them have to be battleships for them to do damage to, say, 60 ships. There's safety in numbers and there's a lot of safety when that number is heavily lopsided. Some of the biggest caravans have hundreds of thousands of ships. That's a lot of ships. When the other powers go to war with each other, the number of active warships in a major battle might be 500 total. TOTAL. For a major, war-deciding battle. A typical caravan has between 10,000 - 30,000 ships.
Granted, most of those ships have minimal weapons and shields. A lot of them aren't military ships but ordinary, regular civilian ships. And just go ahead and try to convince the caravans to beef up their militaries. A pound of weapon is one less pound of merchandise that they can carry. Not exactly a winning argument for a merchant.
Yet skirmishes with the Klingons and general coolness with the Romulans have motivated many of the caravans to beef up their defenses. Most new ships have at least one weapon that they can use; It's usually a torpedo-type weapon and the logic goes that, if it's a weapon of limited ammunition, the ship's captain will think twice about using it and NOT engage in combat.
Overall, there are more military ships in Orion caravans now than before and those military ships are better equipped than before. Even though there's a lot of inter-caravan squabbling (oh, you have no idea!) and infighting, the caravans know that they have to rely upon each other if they are to survive. Unlike the Klingons, different sides can put aside their differences in order to unite around a common cause. And the Orions are naturally friendly with the Federation and the Federation has military vessels that can go toe-to-toe with just about anyone in the known universe.
Yet the Orions have not resolved the fundamental weakness in their strategy that they'll never be attacked due to their sheer size. They still think that no one is going to attack them for that. It's their philosophy and they're sticking to it.
In at number 3? Here's a surprise - The Romulans.
This whole alt universe started out as Romulan-centric so you'd think I'd be in the bag for the Romulans. But they're in at #3 for sort of the same reason as the Orions: Because they've been slow to adapt with the times.
Make no mistake; The Romulans are better fighters today than they were back when they were fighting toe-to-toe with the Hannurians. Across the board, they've made improvements: Better warships, better training, better tactics, you name it. Today's Star Navy is just better and a lot of experts think that today's Star Navy could wipe the floor against the Hannurians of yesteryear.
But they're not fighting the Hannurians. They fought the Klingons and won because they had a wonder weapon that the Klingons had no answer for: The cloaking device. They fought the Federation and lost because the Feds neutralized that cloaking device and the Romulans... Had nothing. And, unfortunately, the Romulans haven't really changed. They're still fighting the Hannurians in their head and not fighting the enemy in front of them. They're still basking in their clever defeat of the Klingons and not realizing that the Klingons have made all sorts of defenses for cloaked vessels. They're still grumbling over the defeat by the Federation, thinking that if only they had more cloaked vessels, that they could've won the war.
The Gorn are allies with the Romulans but the Gorn's navy is pretty threadbare if push comes to shove. If the Romulans need to rely upon the Gorn for military help, that's a very bad day no matter how you spin that event.
In at #2 is... The Federation.
Now, if this list was the best navy, the Feds win that contest hands-down. Romulans come in at #2 on that list as well. But this is the list of the most IMPROVED navy, improved since before the powers met one another.
The Feds have improved a lot. A lot of their bureaucracy is gone. There's still some bureaucracy and inefficiencies because it's a military but wars and battles and skirmishes have a way of shaking a lot of that rust off. The Feds adapt to their battles and neighbors; they don't stand up in a line anymore like British soldiers and fire their muskets. The Romulans made them be clever & the Klingons made them be brutal.
The Federation has the most competent NATIONAL military navy of the three major powers. They practice military drills non-stop; They retire old ships no longer fit for active service; They upgrade constantly. So why aren't they #1? Easy...
The #1 reason that the Klingons are #1 is because the Klingons actually have a NATIONAL navy now. It's a really low bar to clear.
The Klingons used to only have an Imperial Navy on paper and paper alone. Oh, sure, two regions would stage war drills together but there was never a demand for a NATIONAL military. A national navy would take away from the regional navies. Take away resources, personnel, vessels, money... The regional navies have been dragged kicking and screaming into allowing the Imperial Navy to be there.
So it's this reason alone that the Klingons get the #1 spot for the most IMPROVED navy; Because when you hardly exist beyond the paper that you were printed on to begin with, having a functional National defense is a huge leap forward as compared to the alternative.
Granted, the Klingons have a long ways to go before they have a competent national defense. The Imperial Navy needs to talk to the regional navies and vice versa. Their equipment is poor in comparison to what they need. So is the training. So is the personnel.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Jan 19, 2021 18:00:11 GMT -7
The Empirical Society (or "How the Heck Did the Vulcans fit so Easily Into the Federation Civilization")
In my alt-universe, the Federation was not excessively diverse to begin with. There were humans... And humans... And other humans... And, oh yes - Humans... In fact, before the Vulcans arrived, the Federation was just one big heaping pile of humans. Humans, granted, from different parts of the Federation but humans, nonetheless. Vulcans were the first "aliens" to arrive in Federation space. And, while the Vulcans were mostly humanoid, they were still aliens. They were weird looking. They had pointy eyebrows and long, pointy ears. Didn't speak with a lot of emotion.
In short, this was going to be one heck of a culture clash. An entirely different language. Significantly different cultures.
And there was a lot of them.
When the Vulcans escaped the Romulan Empire, it wasn't a few rag-tag individuals. It wasn't a few starships filled with them.
It was MILLIONS. Tens of MILLIONS of Vulcans. Over a hundred million in all. And not just all at once but an initial large wave of Vulcans and then an additional steady but dribbling stream of them.
But let's back up. Did over a hundred million Vulcans try to sabotage the Romulan Empire? No. But when the Romulan Empire decides to hunt down a certain demographic of their own kind and you feel that you vaguely match that demographic, are you really going to wait around to see if any angry mob decides if you fit their description of what a traitor looks like?
No. No, you aren't. So, in that batch of refugees, some of them are going to be smart enough to figure out that even though they aren't exactly Vulcan-tier stoic or logical, they're still going to be smart enough to flee before they get their pointy-little ears handed to them.
At the time, the Vulcans didn't know that the humans were there; They were just fleeing in the direction that was both most convenient for them and the direction that was best not associated with the Hunnarians (who were the absolute exact opposite of the Vulcans, even when compared the angry mob that was the Romulan Empire). Bumping into the humans was, at the philosopher Bob Ross used to say, a "happy accident."
And yet, humans aren't exactly the polar opposite of Romulans. They look similar to Romulans, laugh like Romulans, cry like Romulans, get angry just like Romulans... Meeting humans could have really gone sideways for the Vulcans but it ultimately didn't and, if you're a historian, you'd have to admit that the integration went far more smoothly than it ever deserved to be.
So, what gives? How did the Vulcans and the Humans integrate without a whole lot of friction?
The answer? The Empirical Society.
And what is The Empirical Society? Well, for THAT answer, you need to understand the early history of the Federation.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Jan 20, 2021 18:13:25 GMT -7
The Empirical Society, part 2...
On paper, the Federation should have never held together. By far, it was the "weakest" of the 3 major powers.
Of course, it had a national military. And it had local law enforcement. It had courts and jails and justices and juries and branches of government... The Federation was like any other modern society.
Where it was weak was in cohesion.
The Romulans had very strong social cohesion, although for the wrong reasons. They had just undergone TWO coup attempts: One by the Hunnarians & one by the Vulcans. The Hunnarians were war-like and militant; The Vulcans, by complete contrast, were logical, reasoned & measured. No one in Romulan society, after the coup attempts, wanted to be seen as being identified as either. Therefore, there was a lot of social pressure to conform. You couldn't be too militant but you also couldn't be too "logical." You had to be, in a word, very very moderate and forgiving of the status quo. Otherwise, well... Do you really want to be branded as a 'radical'? That wouldn't get you very far in society (and that's before anyone got violent on you).
The Klingons had strong cohesion but of a different type. They were so obsessed with dominating each other that they formed diverse tribes. Although these tribes shared a common language and physiology, the hyper-competitiveness in their culture bound them together. A Klingon from one tribe could never truly integrate with a Klingon from another tribe; There were different customs and social norms and the whatnot. Even if a Klingon did "defect," if you will, they would never truly be trusted by Klingons of that other tribe that they defected to. After all, once a defector, always a defector... Therefore, although there was some social cohesion within a tribe, at least Klingon society, as a whole, was allowed to have some overall diversity amongst the tribes.
The Federation really didn't have either social cohesion or hyper-competitiveness to keep itself together. What it did have, though, was the enticing allure of empty space. And a lot of it.
During the early years of the Federation, everyone wanted to have their own empire, their own kingdom, country, land, galaxy, you name it. There were no borders; Space was very accessible. All that one needed to start their own fiefdom was a spaceship and some willing volunteers. And there were a lot of spaceships and a lot of willing volunteers. After all, who doesn't want to be their own president, prime minister, king, or dictator?
The problem, of course, was that the COST of MAINTAINING your own empire, not starting one, was relatively high. Planting a flag on a planet was cheap; Maintaining a steady power supply, a food supply, adequate medical care, robust defenses, trade routes, sanitation, judicial systems... It's a little like escaping from a prison; A lot of care is taken in planning the escape but not as much in maintaining your freedom from the authorities.
As a result, a lot of these efforts failed. A lot of them. Some ended with a lot of casualties. Some ended with the volunteers simply immigrating back into the Federation.
And, to the Federation's credit, there was hardly ever any legal consequences. There were always some prosecutions for the illegal use of lands, of resources, of absconding with material, etc. so forth but the gallows were hardly ever used except for extreme cases and even then such capital punishment was reserved for the leaders as opposed to the people who mopped the floors or who worked in the mines. If anything, the Federation would often learn a lot about what NOT to do from these many failed attempts at starting new civilizations when exploring and trying out new types of civilizations and new techniques. This education, if anything, explained why the Federation was so adept at ultimately expanding: Because they were able to figure out what worked the quickest, as opposed to the Romulans & the Klingons who, for the reasons listed above, were not keen on rapid expansion. By knowing what worked and what didn't in expansion & colonization, the Federation was able to expand their territory the fastest.
So what does this have to do with The Empirical Society? It has to do with what the Empirical Society DIDN'T do...
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Jan 22, 2021 6:00:57 GMT -7
The Empirical Society, part 3...
So what was The Empirical Society, you ask? Well, it was an organization that governed itself through rational laws.
OK, so it was like a business or a non-profit organization? Nope. It wasn't that.
OK, so it was like a religion? Nope. It wasn't that.
OK, so it was like one of those micro-nations that you sometimes see on the Internet? Nope. It wasn't that.
In order to be a member of 'The Empirical Society,' all that you had to do was adhere to & advocate for it's laws (which, of course, weren't legally binding). The Empirical Society, in brief, were sort of like the human-equivalent of being a Vulcan except, of course, for the stoicism.
And The Empirical Society was smart in that they never tried to be their own kingdom or fiefdom or empire. In fact, they went out of their way to AVOID going out into unknown space and establishing their own society. Why? Well, it all had to do with the concept of influence.
Suppose you had a group of 100 people. 60 people want 'Law A' while 40 people want 'Law B.' The people who want 'Law B' would always lose in a democratic system because there's less people who want 'Law B' as opposed to 'Law A.' In a typical turn of events, the people who want 'Law B' would say, "to heck with this!", leave the group, form their own group and establish 'Law B' (to much rejoicing).
However, there's a downside to this strategy: By segregating themselves, now there's no more pressure in the original group for there to ever be a 'Law B' and, since the goal of those 40 people were to have all 100 people observe 'Law B.' And now there are all of these additional costs associated with having your own society which could very well dilute the effectiveness of implementing and maintaining 'Law B,' along with the stigma that 'Law B' is seen as a 'radical' law and not one that a mainstream society could implement or enforce.
The Empirical Society knew all of this and so they never wanted to establish their own society because it would remove any pressure from the Federation to adopt the more rational laws and rules that the Empirical Society wanted. Sure, there were elements within the Federation that were constantly annoyed with The Empirical Society (some far more than others) but The Empirical Society saw their long-term strategy as one of attrition and, believe it or not, it was kind of working. While other groups broke off and tried to be their own empire, The Empirical Society stayed and, as a result, became MORE influential within Federation space and, when those groups failed, what The Empirical Society advocated for became more attractive and influential.
But, of course, two can play at this game and this would greatly influence where the Vulcans would ultimately settle...
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steve
Commander
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Post by steve on Jan 23, 2021 5:48:45 GMT -7
The Empirical Society (part 4, or "Success has it's Disadvantages")
The Empirical Society wasn't some secret organization; They clearly spelt out what their intentions were: For society to be governed by rational, scientifically-proven laws. What they were sneaky about was going about as to how to accomplish all of that. They avoided the obvious option in the Federation at the time, which was to gather up all of their followers into a few starships, head in a random direction for a few months, stop, set up camp and call themselves an empire until it all collapsed for one or more painfully obvious reasons, usually related to the logistics of, you know, setting up and maintaining an entire civilization all by your lonesome.
Instead, the Empirical Society implored their members to simply be active in their community and to continue to endorse their rules at the local, state, federal, and intergalactic levels. By letting all of the other radicals leave, The Empirical Society actually began to grow a little bit in influence as a result, such as:
"Oh, look; All those radicals who thought that everything should be constructed using only used umbrellas were wrong after all." "Hey, those radicals who left thinking that society should be founded upon only using words that end in the letter 'W' were wrong after all." "Golly, those radicals who thought all of life would be better if we just sang songs from old musicals whenever bad things happened to us were wrong after all." "Geez, those radicals who believed that everyone should own copious amounts of firearms and use them however they please were wrong after all."
Even when these new-fangled civilizations didn't outright collapse in a fury of sound and explosions, they usually became such a farce that their public image completely nullified their whole philosophy. For example, what better way to advertise the joys and freedoms of unfettered communism than for it to be so dictatorial that there would be public, daily executions?
Granted, not EVERYONE in The Empirical Society (or those like-minded) observed abstinence from forming a new civilization and you did have science-oriented ones from time-to-time. These attempts, of course, failed to certain degrees or outright collapsed for one reason or another and The Empirical Society could point to them and tell their fellow members, "See? What did we tell you?!" in order to reinforce the 'just stay in society and keep doing what you're doing' tactic.
But as grizzled criminals always like to say, the only two things that will tear a criminal gang apart are 'success' and 'failure.'
And, eventually, The Empirical Society did have some successes, just not in the way that they desired.
See, just as one group can leave another if that other group is annoying (remember the whole "Law A" & "Law B" example from before?), the reverse can be done as well. So, what happens when enough people leave so that "Law B" becomes a reality? "Law B" becomes a reality.
And what happens when people see that "Law B" isn't such a bad law after all? Well, some other areas of the Federation adopt it... But you also get the phenomenon of people immigrating to the area where "Law B" is, which makes "Law B" and other laws like it more feasible.
And, slowly, over a few generations, The Empirical Society had what it wanted the least: It's own de-facto "civilization."
And now, The Empirical Society was going to get what it had wanted the most: To see if those laws and rules could truly govern a society to a brighter future.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Feb 1, 2021 18:03:27 GMT -7
What you worry about when you go to sleep at night (If you're the commander of the military)...
No navy in this Star Trek alt-universe is perfect; Far from it. Granted, all navies are going to present themselves as top-of-the-line and capable of stomping the snot out of whomever dares mess with them. Privately, though, all of the commanders of these navies go to bed at night with certain nightmare scenarios that they most definitely do not want to face. And here they are:
FEDERATION - You'd think that the Federation would have the least worries of the group; You'd be wrong. Granted, their starships, individually, are the best of all of the bunch. They're also the best navy for learning from their mistakes and correcting them; They're a far more capable navy now than they were before they met the Romulans, Klingons, and the rest of civilizations. However, they are not without their concerns.
Mainly, they can't afford a two-front war. If the Klingons & Romulans ever ganged up on them, they'd lose at least 2/3rds of their territory before they could mount a formidable defense or counter-offensive. When the Federation was making a calculation about whether to expand more or build more military starships, they chose "expand more" due to their usually precarious domestic politics. The calculus was that, if they expanded more, more, it would 'naturally' resolve more of the tension between groups trying to secede in one form or another.
Another concern is that many groups want to start their own civilization and, to stick it to the Federation, talk a big game with being friendly with the Klingons and/or the Romulans. The last thing that Star Fleet needs is to try and pay attention to yet another threat and a domestic one as well. Star Fleet already thinks that the Klingons & Romulans know too much about their operations; Having domestic spies spying for the Romulans & Klingons would practically make it impossible to keep any of their sensitive operations truly secret.
KLINGONS - The Klingons are known for being tough hombres who only back down from a fight if they're dead. "Tactical Retreat" is a new concept that they barely understand and rarely, if ever, use. Yet, for all of their bravado, Klingons have nightmares just as all of the other navies:
First and foremost, it's important to remind the audience that the Klingon Empire is defended by TWO navies: The Imperial Klingon Navy (the "National" navy) & the regional navies that defend each region of the Klingon Empire.
The regional navies do not trust the Imperial Klingon Navy at all. At. All. The IKN is responsible for coordinating any attacks upon foreign civilizations; They are an offensively-minded navy. That is the role that they are entrusted with and the regional navies worry that the IKN just isn't up to the task.
The IKN, in turn, has no faith that the regional navies are going to defend the Klingon Empire if a foreign enemy slips past their defenses. The regional navies hate one another; Trying to get them to cooperate even in training exercises is an exercise in futility. The regional navies are good at defending themselves from EACH OTHER; That doesn't translate to the Federation or the Romulans. The Klingons have been defeated twice in part because the regional navies did not coordinate with one another on defense. So far, they haven't looked as though they've learned their lesson.
ROMULANS - The Romulans are known for being suspicious and cunning. They have good reason to be as such: They've survived two coup attempts and are always on the lookout for an ambush aimed at them, regardless of which direction that it might occur. Amongst their many, many concerns:
The Romulans are absolutely petrified of the Hunnarians, the militant Romulans who tried to overthrow them so long ago. The Hunnarians live rent-free inside of the minds of the Romulans and the Romulans spare almost no expense to hunt down the Hunnarians to finish them off, once and for all. As formidable as the Neutral Zone may be, the back border between the Romulans and where they think that the Hunnarians fled to is even more heavily defended.
The Romulans are also concerned about their Cloaking Device falling into the hands of the Klingons, Federation or anyone else (including the Gorn). For now, no one can figure out the secret but the Romulans know that they eventually will at some point (they strongly suspect that it will be the Federation, given that they shelter the Vulcans and the Vulcans know all-too-well how Romulans love their wonder-weapons).
ORION - The Orions are merchants first, explorers next and, when absolutely necessary, soldiers when need be. That doesn't mean that the Orions don't know how to throw a punch and land it; They just don't want to do so to a potential customer. Here's what they fear when they go to sleep at night:
They know that they can't sustain a conflict & this is why their caravans have to be so intimidatingly large. The Orions fear that, at some point, the other powers will figure out how to cut through the "bulk" of their caravans and it is the volume of their caravans that intimidates the other civilizations the most. However, with familiarity comes complacency and the Orions know how irritated the Klingons are to their very presence. The Orions have practiced taking over planets through ground invasions but taking over a planet and using it's resources to quickly aid in a sustained conflict is a theoretical tactic not borne out of actual experience.
The Orions also fear that their caravans are too sparsely protected and trying to get more Orion caravans to more heavily arm themselves is an exercise in futility that has seen little, if any, progress.
GORN - The Gorn are known for using raw numbers and brute force to manage their way through being a modern civilization. Being a former slave race, running a modern civilization all by themselves is something of a new experience for them. For the most part, the tactic has worked because no one sees the benefit of overrunning what others feel is an "inferior" civilization. However, the Gorn have their worries:
The Gorn think that the other civilizations are absolutely bonkers and that makes them tremendously nervous. They know that they are the most technologically-poor when it comes to starship technology and only recently have procured resources to catch up. Even still, such a realization makes them angry that they have to defend themselves at all, taking away from vital efforts from exploration and exploitation of natural resources.
The Gorn are also paranoid that the technology that they have of their former "masters" may be stolen. They consider this technology far superior than anything anyone else has even if they do not understand it or have the ability to utilize it. They fear that, if they do not figure the technology out, it may become obsolete as the other civilizations will surpass the technology all on their own.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Feb 15, 2021 18:37:46 GMT -7
Do the Hannurians still "exist"? Maaayyybbbeee...
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine of a Romulan Star Navy commander than the thought of re-discovering the Hannurians. In my alt-universe, the Hannurians were a segment of Romulan civilization that attempted to overthrow and take over the Romulan civilization... And nearly did. The sudden, brutal and bloody coup attempt that turned into a civil war still haunts the psyche and memory of the Romulan Empire to this day. When the Hannurians escaped into unknown space after being defeated, the Romulans were too weak to mount a serious attempt to go after them and crush them for good. As a result, speculation has always existed where the Hannurians went, how many there are and what technology level they may be at after all of this time.
Yet there is a growing number of people inside of the Romulan Empire that wonder if the Hannurians still exist at all... And some of their evidence is rather compelling.
Consider the possibilities:
First, the Hannurians weren't well-prepared to leave into exile. Colonization is hard; Maintaining a colony is even harder. You have power usage, medical issues, water & sanitation concerns, food concerns... Even something as simple as a single-domed colony of, say, fifty people is pretty tough to manage and that's IF you know what you're doing. The Hannurians had to leave in a hurry because, when you get defeated in combat and your only options if you get captured is "die," "die" or "die," you tend to not want to get captured... In a hurry. And that's what the Hannurians did once they realized that their attempt to overthrow the Romulan Empire had failed. Hundreds of thousands (maybe even upwards of three million!) of Hannurians left Romulan space in all manner of space craft never to be seen again; Not exactly the most well-thought out plan. Certainly, those craft were not space-worthy enough to keep going; It's the equivalent of someone driving their car from the top of Canada all the way down to the south of Argentina... While wearing only one set of clothes... and only using whatever money they have in their wallet at the time. Could it be done? Possibly. But likely?
There have been attempts to recreate such voyages in as authentic a manner as possible. Each time, the re-enactors have encountered considerable obstacles in even getting an appreciable amount of distance. And, of course, there hasn't been much in the way of physical evidence that the Hannurians made any pit stops along the way.
Second, it's possible that the Hannurians sneaked their way back into Romulan territory to live out their lives in semi-anonymous fashion through unauthorized distant colonies. It took the Romulans YEARS before they could recover enough to be a civilization again; Whole parts of their territory could legitimately be considered a "Wild West" environment that was controlled by unscrupulous and morally-ambivalent characters. Illegal colonies in the tens of thousands were often discovered once the Romulans were able to mount credible efforts to reorganize and restrengthen their society. Could any of these colonies have secretly been Hannurians? While nothing is beyond the pale, the having whole colonies be former Hannurians would have been difficult to achieve. Hannurians were not known for being "moderate" and it would've been fairly difficult for whole colonies to have hidden certain policy positions, traditions & culture from the Romulans. While it's entirely conceivable for individuals to have sneaked back into Romulan territory (and there are some fairly convincing allegations of those events happening), having entire colonies of Hannurians doing that is a bit incredulous given the current evidence.
Third, there is speculation that the Hannurians were eliminated by the Klingons before the Klingons realized that the Romulans even existed. This is a fairly unsubstantiated claim and it is not backed up by very credible evidence. People have to remember that Klingon space, for the longest time, was not defended by a central navy but by regional navies. Imagine, if you will, that every state in the United States had to mount their own military and that military was wholly responsible for the defense of that state. In the case of the Klingons, those states often did not cooperate well with one another and were, often times, at odds with one another to the point of constant skirmishes and even wars.
As a result, a regional navy encountering the Hannurians would not communicate their encounter and keep it secret in order to retain whatever advantage (or hide their humiliation of defeat) they had gained through victory. The main evidence for this theory comes from supposed secret diaries of Klingon captains who claimed that they ambushed a large group of strange-looking vessels, thinking that they were other Klingons until they realized that they were someone else. Also, a Romulan captain once claimed that they discovered ancient Romulan space craft during a cloaked espionage raid inside of Klingon territory. Of course, this "evidence" is not airtight; The secret diaries were found to use rather odd (and somewhat anachronistic) terminology for their time and the Romulan cloaked mission seems to be lacking any physical evidence of any kind.
There has even been speculation that the Hannurians committed mass suicide by initiating auto-destruct sequences on their ships with everyone inside. Hannurians were quite fanatical and this type of cult-like behavior would not have been entirely out of place. The misery and stigma of defeat would have made their side appreciable depressed and the prospect of being captured may have been too great to bear (especially considering that, by then, the Romulans were not taking any prisoners).
Yet there is no sign or evidence of this type of event occurring, at the very least, on a mass scale. A group of ships auto-destructing all at once would have left some energy artifacts (the same way that detonating a nuclear bomb would leave signs of radiation) and such artifacts have never been discovered. No debris, either vessel or biological, has ever been detected, in space, orbiting planets or on planets.
In the end, the Hannurian mystery only deepens...
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steve
Commander
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Post by steve on Mar 6, 2021 9:42:44 GMT -7
In the Romulan Empire, the "Emperor Effect" is Very Real (and a little bit embarrassing)...
At the top of the food chain in the Romulan Empire is, of course, the Emperor (It's called the Romulan EMPIRE for a reason). In the Romulan Empire, the Emperor can't just do anything that they want (at least, in what is considered the 'modern era' of Emperors but we won't get into that) but they can do an awful lot. To be certain, there are both formal checks and balances as well as informal checks and balances on the power of the position but the Emperor has a lot of leeway in what they want to do at any given moment... And the Emperor often does just that.
When we talk about "the Emperor," we also want to add that it is theoretically possible for there to be an "Empress" (yes, that would be how a female Emperor would be formally called) but there has been no such thing in the modern era of Romulan Emperors.
However, this article isn't necessarily about Romulan Emperors (as fascinating a topic as that would be) but about the "Emperor Effect" inside of the Romulan Empire.
And, just what is the "Emperor Effect," you may ask?
To understand the "Emperor Effect," you must first understand the psychology of your typical Romulan. Obviously, not all Romulans are alike and, for every rule, there is an exception. We're not stereotyping here; Just trying to explain in the easiest of terms a phenomenon that is a bit odd to the non-Romulan.
The psychology of the typical Romulan is borne out of fear. Most specifically, born out of the fear of invasion. Remember, the Romulans have been a part of TWO major coup attempts, one of which was quite bloody and brutal (the Hannurians). Even though the Vulcan coup attempt was far less bloody and brutal (they were, after all, Vulcans), it was still a coup attempt: People forcefully trying to take over what was regarded by the people as a legitimate form of government. Whether you agree with the Hannurians or the Vulcans is irrelevant for this discussion. At the end of the day, they still tried to install their own form of government through the other end of a gun barrel, so to speak.
And have we mentioned the war with the Klingons? Yeah. And have we mentioned the Federation harboring what was left of the Vulcans AND siding with them to the point of causing a war (that the Romulans lost)? And have we mentioned that the Orions only exist in huge space-faring caravans that roams through all of space (including ROMULAN space) pretty much at will, with the major civilizations all but gritting their teeth and trying to make the best of these traveling caravans?
As a result of being born out of fear, the typical Romulan is tremendously resentful on a psychological level to just about everyone else: Resentful to the Klingons for resembling the Hannurians (and always seemingly to be on the verge of invading again), Resentful for the Federation for harboring the Vulcans (and defending them rather successfully), Resentful to the Orions for being able to come and go as they please with only some cosmetic restrictions because neither side can afford an all out war... It's no reason why the Romulans absolutely LOVE the Gorn, who is the only power that hasn't demonstrated a desire to invade Romulan space.
But the typical Romulan usually can't express that fear and resentment in the open public; Get too militaristic and you're called out as a Hannurian (which is not good). Get too pacifist and you're called out as a Vulcan (or an Unicursalist, which is just like a Vulcan but with the thin veil of religion protecting them from outright discrimination)... And that's not good, either. Sure, there are no public executions but why tempt fate when you don't have to?
As a result, a lot of Romulans channel their resentment through their top leader, The Emperor.
There's an old joke amongst diplomats that goes: What's the difference between a Romulan Emperor and a Vulcan? Answer: The Vulcan smiles and laughs more.
Romulan Emperors are serious, stoic dudes. They speak rarely to the open public and have few public appearances. When they do, it's usually to say something in the form of, "We are better than [fill in other civilization here] and we shall one day [rectify injustice caused by said civilization] because [fill in something here, usually a new technological achievement or whatever]."
Because of this type of bravado, Romulans typically love their Emperors a lot. A LOT.
A LOT.
Think about it - There hasn't been a single invasion of the Romulan Empire in the entire modern era of Romulan Emperors. Even before the modern era, the Romulans WON a war with the Klingons, fought the Federation to a "stalemate" (historians would like to gently remind that the Federation pulled their punches towards the end of that conflict for many reasons far beyond the scope of this article but, hey, if the Romulans feel better about themselves calling it a "stalemate," well... who are we intercede?) and the Orions don't even go NEAR the sensitive parts of the Romulan Empire whereas their caravans travel all over the territories of the Federation, the Gorn and Klingon Empire.
As far as the Romulans are concerned, their Emperors have done a pretty good job defending Romulan turf.
And that track record means that Romulan Emperors are really well respected... I mean, really well respected. To the point of zealously well respected.
Which, of course, gets us to the "Emperor Effect."
So what happens when you have a people who really, really, really like their Emperor & Emperors who hardly make any public appearances? You get some pretty messy, embarrassingly gushing public displays of "We love our Emperor and will do anything for him." And these displays usually happen in the only area that the public can get closest to him: His palace complex.
Now, to be clear, tours of his palace complex are not the same as "his palace." Nope. If you're an ordinary citizen, you don't get anywhere close to that thing. But you are technically allowed to tour his palace complex which is sort of like saying, "You can't visit the President or the White House but the Smithsonian right down the street is open."
Imagine being a tour guide and having an 85-year old man, in full military regala ask to see the Emperor unironically because, you know, he wants to come out of retirement and rejoin the Romulan Star Navy. Or imagine being the tour guide and having a woman claim to be the Emperor's illegitimate daughter... Or having a starship designer insist on seeing the Emperor because of a new invention... Or having a group of recently retired military veterans profess their absolute love and devotion for the Emperor, right out of the blue, because, you know, they're close enough to where they think the Emperor is that maybe the Emperor will see that display of affection...
Now, there are crazy people all over the known universe. And these examples are people who were crazy BEFORE they entered the compound. However, the real fun begins when you have normal people who, once they arrive at the Palace Compound, are swept up so much in the majesty and grandeur and pomp of the Compound that they just HAVE to meet with the Emperor because they just HAVE to profess to them their love of the Empire. Right now. As in, "now now," as in, "let me borrow your access card so I can walk to the Palace myself, if you don't mind."
Yup.
This happens so frequently on the Palace grounds that there is now a separate building on the grounds devoted just for this phenomenon and only for this phenomenon. It has "contemplation rooms" (which look strangely familiar to padded cells) and psychologists and even a look-alike for the current Emperor because, sometimes, once you tell the Emperor about your wonderful new time travel device, you really do come back to your senses... Sometimes.
To be fair, a lot of times, the Romulans who get caught up in "the Emperor Effect" are not charged with any crimes. If anything, the strategy is to just get them to a point where they come back to their senses and release them back into the wild where they can go back and be productive citizens again. On occasion, these people need to be transferred to 'other facilities' (re: mental health hospitals) to help them with that goal. The few that are charged are usually let go with very lenient sentences which involve a lot of court-ordered therapy. Practically no one afflicted with the Emperor Effect is ever barred from touring the Palace Complex ever again; It's usually until the doctors can claim that you're sane again.
The effect is not new or "hidden" although it's not elaborated upon through official sources. In popular media, the effect is known and used for comedic relief to varying degrees.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Apr 10, 2021 17:28:27 GMT -7
5 things that you worry about (if you are the "leader" of the Orions)...
The Orions are interstellar travelers, living almost exclusively on their spaceships as they roam around the known Star Trek Universe. Even ignorant Romulans, Klingons & Terrans known that "the Orion" are actually comprised of thousands of caravans with each caravan ranging in the low-thousands to over two-hundred fifty thousand vessels! Think of each caravan as sort of like an individual company or even their own nation.
Even amongst all of these caravans, there is still a "national" organization and they still have "national" laws that they must adhere to (just as individual states in a country must adhere to a constitution, of sorts).
As the leader of the Orions, you go to bed at night with the following five concerns about your people:
1). An increasing "Back to Exploration" movement
Just as teenagers love to get tattoos or ride motorcycles just to irritate their parents, so too do aspiring leaders draw the ire of more seasoned caravan commanders when they speak of having their caravans leave the known territory of space so that they may have their people "go back to their roots" in traversing the universe and "living off the land," so to speak.
There is, to be fair, some truth to this movement: Orions weren't always known as merchants before they discovered the Star Trek civilizations. More accurately, when you are a space-faring civilization, carrying capacity is limited and, if you can sell some of your junk to someone else... Well, why not? Finding the Star Trek civilizations merely emphasized this behavior and rewarded it.
A lot of these "back to exploration" leaders gripe that Orions have become nothing more than traveling salespeople who are more interested in turning a quick buck than truly seeing what is out there and having the smarts to survive.
For now, the "back to exploration" movement has been small... But it has been growing. And, it's growing more influential nearly by the day...
2). War with the Klingons
Of all the civilizations in the Star Trek universe, the Klingons are the most peeved at the fact that the Orions exist.
Klingons don't like civilizations that they can't pummel and they've recently encountered plenty of civilizations that they can't pummel: The Romulans were too crafty to pummel and the Federation proved that they could trade haymakers with the Klingons and win. As far as the Klingons are concerned, they're done being humiliated at losing and looking for the first civilization that they can beat the snot out of.
Enter the Orions.
The only reason why the Orions aren't threatened by anyone is the sheer scale of bulk that they possess. Even small caravans range in the high hundreds of ships and "real" caravans start in the 15,000 - 30,000 range. That's a whole lot of ships to fight and, even if the Klingons amassed their entire battleship fleet, they might take out 2,000 or so ships before the rest of them simply swarm and destroy them by sheer scale of bulk alone.
But the Klingons are trying to change that.
The Klingons have devoted a whole lot of time and energy to find a way to cost-effectively counteract "the Orion advantage." Depending upon who you listen to, they're either really close to finding new strategies and weapons for that purpose... Or they already have them.
And the people who say "they already have them" is growing, in both number and volume...
3). Keeping the band together
Just because Orions are "Orions" doesn't mean that they don't have differences among one another. Sure, the caravans don't have to travel side-by-side but there are treaties and rules that they have to travel somewhat together and stay close enough to each other to assist...
...But each caravan is it's own entity to a degree and there's little practical sway that can be placed onto them if, all of a sudden, they just want to wander away and never come back.
Some caravans are constantly at each other's throats over a variety of issues. There's a "take it outside" rule that, when two caravans want to fight it out, they do so in unoccupied space and, quite frankly, that's been happening far more often than anyone would care for.
And then there are the Orions that are enamored with planet-living and, oh yeah, spaceships are nice but so is not having to die because of catastrophic sudden decompression or any number of spaceship hazards. Planet dwelling is frowned-upon but more Orions than ever are retiring to big balls of rock and water and calling it a day.
4). An aging fleet of starships
Here's a joke for you: Wanna know the average age of an Orion starship? You can't because not even they really know. Orion starships tend to be patched together and jury-rigged and repaired piece-meal so many times that it's hard to even keep track of one starship, let alone TENS OF MILLIONS of them.
A scary statistic: Every minute, an Orion starship somewhere is suffering from a significant malfunction of some type, be it electrical, mechanical, structural or some other type. It's the equivalent of saying that, every minute, a skyscraper is collapsing or a bridge's cables are snapping or some house is being swallowed up by a sinkhole.
Every leader is always trying to somehow force the caravans to improve the safety of their spaceships and every leader... Fails to some degree because, ultimately, each caravan is a herd of cats that have little incentive to follow orders and, when forced, they can simply go, "Oh, look, unexplored space. Don't mind if we do... We'll send a postcard to you when we think of it..."
How can you have a viable civilization when about 35% of that civilization lives on starships that should be condemned?
5). Caravan Diversity (or lack thereof)
Not all caravans are created equal and not all caravans are equally suited for all activities. Just as companies specialize in making umbrellas or washing your automobile or paving parking lots, caravans similarly specialize in selling merchandise, creating spaceships for other caravans or creating merchandise for those caravans to sell.
Caravans are so directed to have enough capability to be somewhat independent but such a directive is hard to enforce and maintain. It's far easier to rely upon other caravans for specialized tasks and services and such dependencies causes for all sorts of networking and alliances to form that are far less manageable.
Caravan diversity is a real problem with the Orions because, the less diverse they are, the more dependent they become on other civilizations and, ergo, more leverage the other civilizations have upon their operations. It's to the point where the Orion government is practically begging caravans to invest more in certain areas so that an Orion caravan can depend upon Orion industries to resolve certain scenarios.
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 12, 2021 10:58:16 GMT -7
Sorry, been a bit distracted the last few months, and haven't been keeping up with this thread. Interesting what all the Empires worry about! A question in particular about the last paragraph of Orion worry no.3. If some Orions finally decide to give up the spacefaring nomad life, and go back to live on planets, could those planets be in any of the Empires space, considering the Orion propensity to travel EVERYWHERE, so there could be an Orion 'colony' in anyones territory?
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Apr 12, 2021 13:05:57 GMT -7
Sorry, been a bit distracted the last few months, and haven't been keeping up with this thread. Interesting what all the Empires worry about! A question in particular about the last paragraph of Orion worry no.3. If some Orions finally decide to give up the spacefaring nomad life, and go back to live on planets, could those planets be in any of the Empires space, considering the Orion propensity to travel EVERYWHERE, so there could be an Orion 'colony' in anyones territory? Not a problem. In my alt-universe, the Orions that the Star Trek universe knows is just one of 3 major divisions of the Orions: ** The Orions that live (mostly) on starships and use planets/asteroids temporarily and for convenience (they are not exactly keen on environmentalism, a dirty little secret that they only recently have been reforming). ** The Orions that said, "We're going to make our own planets, aka mini artificial Dyson Spheres and stay put, thank you very much." ** The Orions that are semi-nomadic in nature, that bounce from one solar system to another. They are quite Locust-y and, well... Let's just say they're the ones with a nasty streak in them... But more on that much later. The other major powers knows that there are other Orions that they can't see but they don't know about them specifically; They just know that they are out there somewhere. The spacefaring Orions (and, by extension, the Dyson Orions) don't even know about the semi-nomadic ones; All they know is that caravans come and go and some go and don't come back but that they were derived from the spacefaring ones. Amongst the spacefaring Orions, there is a very small percentage that just snap and say, "Screw this; I'm done. I'm living on a planet." In truth, the spacefaring Orions do need planets/asteroids for some of their livelihood and so, by extension, living on an asteroid/planet is a must. I've gone over this topic before but, in summary, Orions willfully (and enjoyably) living on a planet is sort of like nudism; You just don't discuss it in polite society. If you want your social standing amongst spacefaring Orions to remain intact, you just say, "Look, I work in X industry, we specialize in mineral extraction, I have to live on a planet. It's my job!" or "I'm a diplomat; We need our offices on the planet; That's just how reality works. Otherwise, I'd be living with you guys" or "I'm a scientist; I'm studying planet-based agriculture; I have to live down there so I can study what they do and adapt it to our own horticulture industries in our caravans." In brief, you don't openly say that you enjoy living on a planet, you make an excuse and that makes what you do tolerable with others. There is a very small percentage that just goes "Ah, phooey! I'm done living in a tin can! Planet, here I come!" Those are the people that no longer stay on your Christmas Card list and you somehow manage to lose their cellphone number. And E-Mail address. As for "Hey, this is our planet because a lot of Orions are living on it even though it's in [Fed/Klingon/Romulan/Gorn] space"... No. The major powers have made it clear that they are on their turf. You find your own darn territory to colonize, thankyouverymuch. Whenever the Orions harvest something, they pay for the major power that has it in their territory for that privilege. There CAN BE a colony of Orions but it'd be no different than, say a "Chinatown" in a city - They are still citizens of the larger civilization but they just so happen to be grouped together at that particular spot. Hopefully, that clears things up a bit.
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 12, 2021 15:24:24 GMT -7
Thanks for that info steve. Hmmm, Orions with a nasty streak, I wonder what you could mean? Plus, the mini Dyson sphere idea is a cool addition. As an aside, do the caravans consist only of starships, or do they perhaps have some converted asteroids, like the asteroid spaceship Yonada from the TV series episode "For The World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky"? I mention that, because, I know you've already mentioned Klingons hermits who live in stationary asteroids, but every time you mention Orion caravans, my mind goes to the SFB Jindaran race, who are nomads, but exist solely on asteroid vessels, who travel from system to system in 'caravans', and start mining natural asteroids there for materials.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Apr 12, 2021 16:56:55 GMT -7
Thanks for that info steve . Hmmm, Orions with a nasty streak, I wonder what you could mean? Plus, the mini Dyson sphere idea is a cool addition. As an aside, do the caravans consist only of starships, or do they perhaps have some converted asteroids, like the asteroid spaceship Yonada from the TV series episode "For The World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky"? I mention that, because, I know you've already mentioned Klingons hermits who live in stationary asteroids, but every time you mention Orion caravans, my mind goes to the SFB Jindaran race, who are nomads, but exist solely on asteroid vessels, who travel from system to system in 'caravans', and start mining natural asteroids there for materials. I may as well just shake the notebook out now. You never know when you're going to get hit by a stray asteroid or two: ** I consider the "Locust Orions" to be Klingon-tier when it comes to likeability; In other words, not really likeable on a government level but I try to give them a sound logic to why they do what they do. Personally, I'd hastily step out of the room if they and the Klingons ever met and... You never know... ** The Locust Orions are like this big, lumbering blob that just keeps getting bigger as time goes on. ** The "Dyson Orions" are peaceful but smart enough to have their own defenses and one of their defenses is that they live in the largest known artificial constructs in all of known space. Each of these things are roughly the size of Jupiter; Go ahead and try to attack THAT with a straight face. ** There is a small, religious outfit at the edge of what was once the Orion's solar system; These people stay there as a living memorial to the race's past and they are considered to be "priests" and 'neutral territory.' Not even the "Locust Orions" will touch them (although they've never come back to test that willpower). It's one of the few places where the Dyson & Caravan Orions will speak amicably to one another. ** The Dyson & Caravan Orions don't really like one another; They each think that how the other group lives disrespects the memory of their past. The Dyson people think that the Caravan people should stop pretending that they're in constant danger and, oh, I don't know, set foot on a planet; The Caravan people think that the Dyson people are crazy to trust living on a "planet" (and a huge, artificial one with an artificial sun at it's center at that) considering that the last one they lived on was vaporized. Both of them would likely despise the Locust people who's philosophy is, "We see it; We're bigger than you; We're taking it; When we're done with it, you can have it back but, most likely, there will be nothing left of it." The caravans do not consist of "asteroid starships" but just cheaply made, poorly maintained starships. I know of Star Fleet Battles but never read it extensively so I don't know of that Jindaran race. It's more like the original Battlestar Galactica (sorry to bring in other IPs) caravan, if you will.
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 12, 2021 19:08:43 GMT -7
steveOh, I get that the caravans are starships. After all, earlier, we were discussing the goal of the self repairing starship. I just wondered if maybe one of two asteroid ships MIGHT exist, cos it was shown on the TV show, and the SFB Jindarans concept as I understand it is that they seem to be a race that extensively use asteroids as their vessels. I was wondering how big the Dyson spheres might be, so thanks for answering that one. Bigger than a theorized O'Neill style orbital habitat, but smaller than the one you would get it you built Nivens' Ringworld, and kept going from there!
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 14, 2021 17:28:58 GMT -7
The Dysonian Orions could build bigger spheres but they've decided to go for quantity rather than size; "Jupiter-size" is large enough for them, thankyouverymuch, and even then there is a slight bit of unease because... You know, their solar system DID explode at one point. Best not to have all of your eggs in one basket. They've got dozens of spheres, though, in that size and many, many more in smaller sizes. And the size of the sphere does not automatically translate to luxury or high-end; If anything, when you think of 'high-end' or 'luxury,' you tend to think smaller and exclusive.
Then, of course, you've got the notion of whether you live on the "inside" of the sphere, in the "shell" (or "ground") of the sphere or if you even live on the outside ("surface"). Because they are not actual planets revolving around an actual sun, those who live on the 'surface' really live in the 'shell' but on the very outer edge.
Dysonian Orions like their ships to be fairly large; They have moon-sized (as in, our own moon) ships that slowly go from one sphere to another. There's not a tremendous amount of trade between the spheres and part of it is the psyche of the Dysonians; They've adapted to the trauma of losing their planet by having as limited interactions with the other spheres as they can. Granted, when you've got a sphere the size of Jupiter, you tend to have enough people and intellectual resources (They claim that they cap those spheres at around 50 billion people).
Building the spheres is one thing; Maintaining them is something else altogether. There's a saying that you never really stop building one of these things and that they are always undergoing some degree of significant maintenance. If Caravan Orions are known for their mercantile skills, Dysonian Orions are known for their engineering skills for it's everyone's job to keep these things up to code.
If you're an asteroid, you don't survive very long when the Dysonian Orions find you; You're new building material to maintain an existing sphere or to help build a new one. Dysonian Orions also have no qualms with finding an otherwise inert planet (no life and no chance of life) and simply carving you up to maintain their sphere.
Dysonian Orions have heard that their Caravan counterparts have found other civilizations; Their response is "That's nice." Dysonians are a bit high on themselves, partially because, you know, they've built these ginormous constructs and, likely, no one else has. And these spheres are formidable fortresses; Even a force of 1,000 warships would get brushed aside fairly easily. After all, you're fighting a Jupiter-sized sphere; I don't care how big your battleship is, it's a gnat compared to this thing and 1,000 gnats are still only gnats. And, oh, by the way, it's not like the Dysonians don't have their own "warships" that they can't deploy. Admittedly, their primary "weapon" is rather defensive: It's the power of gravity and their usage of it. For instance, they love dragging ships into their spheres, disabling them with an EMP blast and having them simply explode upon impact onto their surface. They even have designated "kill zones" on their surface for this very purpose.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2021 13:24:03 GMT -7
It's been a long while since I've added anything to this thread. That's on me: I'm not dead or otherwise incapacitated. It's just that none of my thoughts have ever reached critical mass to where I just *have* to write it down and to do so with such detail as to create a really long, detailed post.
Therefore, let me just "shake the notebook out" again and give my thoughts on my alt-univers e (in no particular order):
* Space is large: I keep wanted to write about how large the known Star Trek universe is. To go from one end of the Federation to the other takes most of an entire (our) year and that's if you're extremely dedicated to it and if absolutely, positively nothing goes wrong (which, if you keep pressing a warp engine for long enough, hard enough, eventually will). Otherwise, expect to take around 18 or so months (maybe even two years). Even then, you're not exactly sightseeing the entire time.
* The Romulans have the largest "backyard" of all the major civilizations (but that's not necessarily a good thing): All of the major civilizations have parts of their territory that simply opens up into unknown, unclaimed outer space. The Romulans have the largest of these "backyards" but that's not really a good thing; If anything it's sort of burden because their backyard might contain a civilization that's really angry at them and wants to hurt them (The Hunnarians). They're backyard is dedicated towards hunting them down and so things like scientific or commercial usage (not to mention genuine expansion) is sort of pushed aside. The Klingons, who are quite splintered, have quite an extensive backyard but it's a struggle to build walls (and big ones) to claim their own turf and exploit that turf to the hilt so that they can build more walls to prevent the other regions to invade and so science is really pushed off. The Gorn have the "smallest" backyard but they use their backyard with the most efficiency. They're just not as territorial as the other civilizations. The Federation has a modest backyard but they're... Holding a secret in their backyard... As in, they've told the Orion flatly, "You're not going here and, if you do, we shoot to kill. Stay out." Since the Orion have good relations with the Feds, they reply with, "Cool. We'll go elsewhere."
* How does a Romulan Emperor become an Emperor? That's a really good question. It's quite opaque and it's not really written down somewhere... Except on my computer where it's rather poorly formatted. In brief, it's a bit of a backroom deal with lots of backstabbing and last-minute alliance switching. The best way to become Emperor, quite frankly, is to continually avoid trying to be Emperor because no one wants an Emperor who actually wants to be an Emperor.
* The Kinshaya: Do you know how the Hunnarians are the boogeymen for the Romulans? Guess who keeps the Klingons up at night? That's right - Those guys and it's one of the reasons why the Klingons and Romulans cooperate because, unbeknownst to the Federations, the Klingons are a bit spooked as of late about what's in their backyard and since they know that it's not the Romulans, they've asked the Romulans to help them with finding out if what's in their backyard is really what they think that it is. The Romulans want to know, too, because they want to know if it's the Hunnarians.
* Space is really, really EMPTY: To give you a sense of just how empty the Romulan's backyard is, take about a quarter of a million people, place them into an empty area the size of Russia and there's your population density for the entirety of their backyard. You don't need to worry about the Hunnarians jumping out of the darkness to kill you -- The vast expanse of the darkness will kill you quite easily all by itself. And it's not just the Romulan backyard but simply space in general.
And those have been the really big thoughts. There have been much smaller thoughts along the way (the nitty-gritty about Peace planets, schisms in the Orions & even a burgeoning question about what truly IS a Vulcan).
At any rate, thoughts and comments are always welcome and I'll try to make more meaningful posts at some point.
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steve
Commander
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Post by steve on Sept 5, 2021 16:13:11 GMT -7
I'm trying to write more about my alt-universe here but Real Life(tm) (Pro-Tip: If your car is registering an emissions issue that causes the dreaded "Check Light" to turn on, check the gas cap. You're welcome) keeps getting in the way.
Maybe it's time to just throw in the towel and write summaries of what I want to write and, whenever I get the time and energy.
I've been meaning to write a lot about the Romulan emperor and the intricacies of being an Emperor. It's not all fun and games. First and foremost, just becoming an emperor is more of a crap-shoot than anything else. It's a combination of professing quite publicly that you don't want the job while angling behind the scenes to look like, if you do get the job, that you'll be the most moderate Emperor the Romulan Empire has ever seen.
There are two "roads" in becoming an Emperor: Going through the formal political process (be a politician, rise up through the ranks) and be a private advisor to the Emperor (ex. You are the industry representative for the pharmaceutical industry, you are the industry rep for the entertainment industry, etc.).
Technically, anyone can be Emperor. Yes, even you (for as long as you are a lifelong Romulan citizen, have no criminal record and a few other odds-and-ends). Realistically, only a select few will even have the chance to become one. Namely, the private advisors and the top tier of the political system. Some people in this group are traditionally exempt from becoming Emperor. For instance, the head of the military (or, for that matter, anyone in active military service) will never be chosen. Also, the head of the political "road" will never be named a "permanent" Emperor but serves as an interim Emperor during the time that a new Emperor may be chosen. There is no "Vice-Emperor" although the head of the political road does get briefings and a few other privileges so that, Romulus-forbid, anything happens to the Emperor, that guy can quickly fill in and not be a total klutz. Also, the head of the religious "industry" will never be chosen because they are always viewed as arbiters in the event that there's a dispute and everyone is pouting and sticking their tongues out at each other.
Let's say you get elected to be Emperor. Great. You're Emperor. Throw the confetti into the air and let's get on with it.
First things first: You are not slated to be "Emperor for Life." Every five years, you need to pass an increasingly difficult vote of confidence from the political "road" that you are competent in performing your duties. People don't have to like your politics but they do have to judge whether or not you drool whenever you smile. In the advisor road, the vote of confidence is every two years and this vote is whether they like your politics (who cares if you drool!)
Traditionally, most Emperors bow out when they know their time has come. There are a lot of legislative maneuvers to check the pulse of these people. Technically, there is a "mini-vote" once a year from the political road. From the "advisor" road, it depends upon how many advisors retire. If there's tremendous turnover amongst your advisors... Yeah, it's time to think about heading out the door. Most emperors resign before they are "voted out." Crunching the numbers, most Emperors last about three "political" terms before they decide to face defeat. It's almost an unwritten rule for modern-day Emperors to resign before facing their fourth political vote of confidence although there are exceptions to the rule.
Even when you're an emperor, you can't exactly do 'anything.' Sure, you can order that "Achy Breaky Heart" is the new national anthem and play it over loudspeakers 24/7 but you are not going to do that because you are also not blitheringly insane. All of your decisions are based upon "How will this hurt/help me in my next vote of confidence?"
Emperors do die in office. Emperors tend to be fairly old when they get there (our equivalent of 60+ years) and while you do get top-notch care, it has happened. At that point, the head of the political road takes over as interim Emperor until a permanent one takes his place. See what I did there? "His." While, technically, a woman can be an "Empress," it will more than likely never ever happen. It's a boys' club because the wife of the Emperor tends to be the domestic agenda setter while the husband tends to concentrate on foreign policy. There is mixing of these duties, to be certain, but the wife decorates the front yard and the husband installs an anti-tank battery to keep the neighbor's dog from leaving any unintended deposits on the driveway.
If an Emperor says "Ah Phooey! I quit!" they get the rank of Ex-Emperor and retire. Modern Ex-Emperors have zero chance of becoming emperors again but ancient times were different and they were regarded as the "back-ups" in case the current emperor can't string enough words together to make a coherent sentence. Even so, Ex-Emperors (those few that exist because, by then, they aren't exactly young) do serve as an unofficial "Advisor group" to the current emperor and they never, ever speak of politics in public. If you ask an Ex-Emperor (if you can even get close enough to one) about politics, they'll say, "Hey! That cloud looks just like a giraffe! Whoops! Gotta go! Bye!"
Emperors are extremely not emotional. There's an old political joke about Romulan emperors that goes, "What's the difference between a Romulan emperor and a Vulcan?" and the answer is, "The Vulcan laughs more." It's just cultural that you do not show emotion. Ever. At all. You represent the entirety of the Romulan civilization and you tend to have a permanent chip on your shoulder because, traditionally, everyone enjoys invading you and to dissuade them from doing so, you act as though your Preparation H is doing the exact opposite of what it was intended to do. There is one noteworthy exception to this: "The Laughing Emperor" but that guy was quite the character and the circumstances around his Emperor-ship will never, ever happen again. HOWEVER, Emperors are becoming more media-savvy and making very sedate, pop culture appearances but they are very stately and formal. they aren't playing the saxophone on the Antonio Hall show but they are making very media-appropriate appearances on select shows that doesn't harm the status of the Emperor (ex. Who can forget when the Emperor appeared as himself in a cameo appearance on the finale of a long-running comedy show to promote a comically ambitious character as a ploy for a larger plot?).
Emperors tend not to talk to individual members of the public. They will make rare appearances but never expect to talk to the Emperor one-on-one. Rare exceptions apply and, when they do, you are dressed in your finest when it happens. It's usually a ceremony of some kind where you get a medal or an honor, you shake hands, smile for the camera and that's it.
Whew! This went longer than intended. Maybe more later. Comments and questions are welcome.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Sept 6, 2021 14:05:18 GMT -7
How Many Romulan Emperors are There?!
I'm on a roll; All that I need now to complete my Labor Day Weekend of Happiness is to get fatally struck by a piece of space debris.
Here's another Pro-Tip: Don't get stung by a bee on the lip.Thankfully, I'm not allergic to bee stings (the pain, however...) and this preview of having a fuller upper lip will make all the ladies jealous.
In the event that I do drop dead (I'm told that I should have requested the bee not to sting me in the facial region, silly me!), let me tell you about the many Emperors of the Romulan Empire.
What? There's more than one?!
Well... No. There really is only one Emperor. And he enjoys being the only Emperor.
But a wise Emperor knows how to delegate and some of the people that he delegates to are often regarded as unofficial "Emperors" because, unless the Emperor really wants to put his foot down, he just looks at what those guys are doing and says, "Yup. Looks good. Talk to you later." After all, he has an entire Empire to run. Leave the details to the others.
** 'Emperor of the Backyard' ** The Romulan Empire is effectively split into two, the 'frontyard' and the 'backyard.' The frontyard is the formal Romulan Empire, what everyone (including Romulans themselves) thinks of when they think of the Romulan Empire. The 'backyard' is where they go hunting for the Hannurians because that's the direction that the Hannurians headed off towards. And the person in charge of that effort is often informally called the 'Emperor of the Hunt' or 'Emperor of the Backyard' or some other name.
** 'Emperor of the Border' ** The Romulans have many borders but 'border' in this context is the border region of the Klingons and Romulans. When the Romulans won the war between the Klingons and the Romulans, the Klingons 'gave' the Romulans an incidental piece of their land (as was their norm in fighting amongst themselves). That's what this 'Emperor' rules over.
** 'Head of the Romulan Republic' ** Remember when the Vulcans left? Sure enough, it wasn't just Vulcans who left but pretty much a lot of other Romulans who weren't Vulcans but just Romulans who liked not having Emperors and not being lynch-mobbed by Romulans who enjoyed the prospect of having an Emperor, thankyouverymuch. A proxy government was set up in the Federation to continue the considerably-less dictatorial government of the Romulan Empire. Realistically, this guy has zero influence over the Romulan Empire but it feels good to them to have a shadow government that has zero influence or control over anything.
** 'Extraneous Emperors' ** The Emperor-ship has changed over time. Slightly different rules, slightly different norms, slightly different selection process. Whenever changes occurs, a certain percentage of the population shakes their fists into the air and says to the effect, "Hey! That's not how a REAL Emperor is chosen / rules / whatever! That's not how Great-Great-Great-Grandpa did it!" And then they choose their own 'Emperor' according to either The Rules of the Past or the Rules That Ought To Be. The mass majority of these Emperors are ceremonial and have zero effect on anything. They're 'protest Emperors' and the real Emperor doesn't even bother with these guys. There's a law on the books that says that it's a crime to call yourself an Emperor when you're not but it's hardly ever used so long as the Emperor feels that you have zero sway over the population. The only time it's ever invoked is if you're also a religious leader or you're ex-military or someone with the potential to cause harm to the Emperor-ship. But if you're just the standard crank out in the middle of nowhere and you call yourself the Emperor... Yeah, good luck with that. If anything, they might call social services just to check on your well-being so that you aren't harming yourself or others.
And... I'll stop for now.
Comments and questions are always welcome. Thanks.
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Sept 8, 2021 16:56:05 GMT -7
The Safety Net In Federation Space: How Good Is It?
Look down at your watch (or smartphone) and count off a minute. In my alt-universe, at least 20 starships get into serious mechanical or navigational trouble in Federation space within that minute. Every minute.
We're not talking little intra-solar system craft; We're talking solar system to solar system.
And space is big. And empty. And, when your starship suddenly loses power or otherwise has a significant meltdown of one type or another... Space can feel very, very lonely very quickly. And deadly.
First and foremost, you can't just go ANYWHERE in Federation space whenever you want. If you're just a standard civilian starship, you have to log a flight plan (just like an airplane). The flight plan has to be approved. You even have to have contingency routes in case something bad happens. Your routes have to list off all of the waystations that it passes (should there be any) along the way and approximate times that you pass them. And if you miss your flight departure time? Then you have to register an entirely new flight plan. And get it approved again.
If all of this sounds bureaucratic and anti-freedom, the alternative has already been tried and has already failed miserably. Spacecraft that just disappeared never to be seen again. Starship colliding with one another or passing so close to one another so quickly that their gravitational ripples functionally tear the respective starships apart. And, of course, it is also meant to prevent crime of all types as well.
Even with all of that, starships still get into serious mechanical and navigational problems all of the time. It's the reason why Federation space is absolutely littered with waystations of all types. You have manned, immobile waystations ("outposts" if you want to use that word). You have patrolling waystations (think of them as roving tow trucks or support vehicles). You even have unmanned, immobile waystations that an impaired starship can use (think of it as a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere that also has a first aid kit and a few snack bars) in the case of emergency.
And Star Fleet oversees NONE of these operations. Star Fleet is military; These practices are left to local and state-level governments. There is a national-level structure for this service but it only provides a template for the lower governments to use.
If you are Star Fleet, though, you can't just go ANYWHERE yourself. You are a Star Fleet starship; You are extremely valuable. Long gone are the days of a certain Federation Star Fleet captain just "boldly going where no man has gone before." Nowadays, if you go anywhere in a Star Fleet starship, Star Fleet wants to know before you give the order to engage. And, yes, Star Fleet very much has the right to say "No" to your impromptu travel arrangements. Even when Star Fleet says "Yes," they only said "Yes" because they know that enough assets are near enough nearby so if you get into trouble, you can be rescued fairly quick. And you want those assets because, even though you're in a Star Fleet starship, you know of all of the problems that can occur and a lot of those problems can get very deadly very quickly.
The Rescue & Recovery industry in the Federation for lost or impaired starships is huge. There are non-stop operations to find lost starships or to constantly investigate non-populated planets to see if anyone has accidentally crashed into them (you know, your starship lost power, you managed to get it into an orbit but the orbit decayed and... Well, what goes up must come down...).
Ironically, it's this safety net that kind of freezes the Klingons and Romulans from invading. They know that, even if they slip past the border defenses, they'll have to face an obstacle course from all of these safety nets that, although they are designed to find lost or disabled starships, can just as easily detect a Klingon or Romulan invasion as well.
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Post by trynda1701 on Sept 17, 2021 8:42:59 GMT -7
How Many Romulan Emperors are There?!I'm on a roll; All that I need now to complete my Labor Day Weekend of Happiness is to get fatally struck by a piece of space debris. Here's another Pro-Tip: Don't get stung by a bee on the lip.Thankfully, I'm not allergic to bee stings (the pain, however...) and this preview of having a fuller upper lip will make all the ladies jealous. In the event that I do drop dead (I'm told that I should have requested the bee not to sting me in the facial region, silly me!), let me tell you about the many Emperors of the Romulan Empire. What? There's more than one?! Well... No. There really is only one Emperor. And he enjoys being the only Emperor. But a wise Emperor knows how to delegate and some of the people that he delegates to are often regarded as unofficial "Emperors" because, unless the Emperor really wants to put his foot down, he just looks at what those guys are doing and says, "Yup. Looks good. Talk to you later." After all, he has an entire Empire to run. Leave the details to the others. ** 'Emperor of the Backyard' ** The Romulan Empire is effectively split into two, the 'frontyard' and the 'backyard.' The frontyard is the formal Romulan Empire, what everyone (including Romulans themselves) thinks of when they think of the Romulan Empire. The 'backyard' is where they go hunting for the Hannurians because that's the direction that the Hannurians headed off towards. And the person in charge of that effort is often informally called the 'Emperor of the Hunt' or 'Emperor of the Backyard' or some other name. ** 'Emperor of the Border' ** The Romulans have many borders but 'border' in this context is the border region of the Klingons and Romulans. When the Romulans won the war between the Klingons and the Romulans, the Klingons 'gave' the Romulans an incidental piece of their land (as was their norm in fighting amongst themselves). That's what this 'Emperor' rules over. ** 'Head of the Romulan Republic' ** Remember when the Vulcans left? Sure enough, it wasn't just Vulcans who left but pretty much a lot of other Romulans who weren't Vulcans but just Romulans who liked not having Emperors and not being lynch-mobbed by Romulans who enjoyed the prospect of having an Emperor, thankyouverymuch. A proxy government was set up in the Federation to continue the considerably-less dictatorial government of the Romulan Empire. Realistically, this guy has zero influence over the Romulan Empire but it feels good to them to have a shadow government that has zero influence or control over anything. ** 'Extraneous Emperors' ** The Emperor-ship has changed over time. Slightly different rules, slightly different norms, slightly different selection process. Whenever changes occurs, a certain percentage of the population shakes their fists into the air and says to the effect, "Hey! That's not how a REAL Emperor is chosen / rules / whatever! That's not how Great-Great-Great-Grandpa did it!" And then they choose their own 'Emperor' according to either The Rules of the Past or the Rules That Ought To Be. The mass majority of these Emperors are ceremonial and have zero effect on anything. They're 'protest Emperors' and the real Emperor doesn't even bother with these guys. There's a law on the books that says that it's a crime to call yourself an Emperor when you're not but it's hardly ever used so long as the Emperor feels that you have zero sway over the population. The only time it's ever invoked is if you're also a religious leader or you're ex-military or someone with the potential to cause harm to the Emperor-ship. But if you're just the standard crank out in the middle of nowhere and you call yourself the Emperor... Yeah, good luck with that. If anything, they might call social services just to check on your well-being so that you aren't harming yourself or others. And... I'll stop for now. Comments and questions are always welcome. Thanks. That's an interesting take on there technically being more than one Emperor. In original Trek, I would probably say that the 'Emperor' of the backyard region might be either called Regional Govenor (or Govenors!) given its size, or perhaps Senators (if you follow TOSs' habit of following Terran Roman ranks), same with the individual/s in charge of the Romulan/Klingon border. Head of the Romulan Republic, I can see that if it occurred in TOS. But as this is your alternate take on the Trek universe, I can see how the current main Emperor might be thinking, perhaps it gives possible rivals a perceived position of power, while he runs thru his elected term/s relatively undisturbed unless something untoward occurs on the respective borders! As for the old timers, well, you can't please everyone! In real life, that's how odd little political parties pop up, trying to challenge the status quo.
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Post by trynda1701 on Sept 17, 2021 9:16:50 GMT -7
The Safety Net In Federation Space: How Good Is It?Look down at your watch (or smartphone) and count off a minute. In my alt-universe, at least 20 starships get into serious mechanical or navigational trouble in Federation space within that minute. Every minute. We're not talking little intra-solar system craft; We're talking solar system to solar system. And space is big. And empty. And, when your starship suddenly loses power or otherwise has a significant meltdown of one type or another... Space can feel very, very lonely very quickly. And deadly. First and foremost, you can't just go ANYWHERE in Federation space whenever you want. If you're just a standard civilian starship, you have to log a flight plan (just like an airplane). The flight plan has to be approved. You even have to have contingency routes in case something bad happens. Your routes have to list off all of the waystations that it passes (should there be any) along the way and approximate times that you pass them. And if you miss your flight departure time? Then you have to register an entirely new flight plan. And get it approved again. If all of this sounds bureaucratic and anti-freedom, the alternative has already been tried and has already failed miserably. Spacecraft that just disappeared never to be seen again. Starship colliding with one another or passing so close to one another so quickly that their gravitational ripples functionally tear the respective starships apart. And, of course, it is also meant to prevent crime of all types as well. Even with all of that, starships still get into serious mechanical and navigational problems all of the time. It's the reason why Federation space is absolutely littered with waystations of all types. You have manned, immobile waystations ("outposts" if you want to use that word). You have patrolling waystations (think of them as roving tow trucks or support vehicles). You even have unmanned, immobile waystations that an impaired starship can use (think of it as a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere that also has a first aid kit and a few snack bars) in the case of emergency. And Star Fleet oversees NONE of these operations. Star Fleet is military; These practices are left to local and state-level governments. There is a national-level structure for this service but it only provides a template for the lower governments to use. If you are Star Fleet, though, you can't just go ANYWHERE yourself. You are a Star Fleet starship; You are extremely valuable. Long gone are the days of a certain Federation Star Fleet captain just "boldly going where no man has gone before." Nowadays, if you go anywhere in a Star Fleet starship, Star Fleet wants to know before you give the order to engage. And, yes, Star Fleet very much has the right to say "No" to your impromptu travel arrangements. Even when Star Fleet says "Yes," they only said "Yes" because they know that enough assets are near enough nearby so if you get into trouble, you can be rescued fairly quick. And you want those assets because, even though you're in a Star Fleet starship, you know of all of the problems that can occur and a lot of those problems can get very deadly very quickly. The Rescue & Recovery industry in the Federation for lost or impaired starships is huge. There are non-stop operations to find lost starships or to constantly investigate non-populated planets to see if anyone has accidentally crashed into them (you know, your starship lost power, you managed to get it into an orbit but the orbit decayed and... Well, what goes up must come down...). Ironically, it's this safety net that kind of freezes the Klingons and Romulans from invading. They know that, even if they slip past the border defenses, they'll have to face an obstacle course from all of these safety nets that, although they are designed to find lost or disabled starships, can just as easily detect a Klingon or Romulan invasion as well. This is probably how it runs in the background of original TOS near the core worlds and disputed borders, but probably not in completely unexplored space. But further expanded by the time we get to the TNG/DS9/VOY era. Your whole concept makes perfect sense whenever. The infrastructure HAS to be there. There are hints of your concept in both eras on TV. Deep Space Station K-7 comes to mind in TOSs' "The Trouble with Tribbles", plus there are probably rescue/supply variants of the manned Communination Relay 47 in the TNG episide "Aquiel". And in real time production order, we then see the first subspace communication booster relays Echo 1 and 2 being deployed or mentioned in ENT. Your slightly more strictly controlled Starfleet seems fair, but Kirk in TOS gets a bit of an unfair rep! Yes, he tends to try and smooch his way out of trouble on occasion (or, dumbly, brings a badly executed dropkick to a knife fight - see "Journey to Babel"!), but especially in early TOS, he's definitely following specific mundane orders (yearly medical checkups in "Man Trap", or checking on lost expeditions in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"). This actually continues throughout much of TOS. The trouble then STARTS at said rendevous!! Which is of course because it's a TV drama series!
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Sept 18, 2021 16:21:04 GMT -7
How Many Romulan Emperors are There?!I'm on a roll; All that I need now to complete my Labor Day Weekend of Happiness is to get fatally struck by a piece of space debris. Here's another Pro-Tip: Don't get stung by a bee on the lip.Thankfully, I'm not allergic to bee stings (the pain, however...) and this preview of having a fuller upper lip will make all the ladies jealous. In the event that I do drop dead (I'm told that I should have requested the bee not to sting me in the facial region, silly me!), let me tell you about the many Emperors of the Romulan Empire. What? There's more than one?! Well... No. There really is only one Emperor. And he enjoys being the only Emperor. But a wise Emperor knows how to delegate and some of the people that he delegates to are often regarded as unofficial "Emperors" because, unless the Emperor really wants to put his foot down, he just looks at what those guys are doing and says, "Yup. Looks good. Talk to you later." After all, he has an entire Empire to run. Leave the details to the others. ** 'Emperor of the Backyard' ** The Romulan Empire is effectively split into two, the 'frontyard' and the 'backyard.' The frontyard is the formal Romulan Empire, what everyone (including Romulans themselves) thinks of when they think of the Romulan Empire. The 'backyard' is where they go hunting for the Hannurians because that's the direction that the Hannurians headed off towards. And the person in charge of that effort is often informally called the 'Emperor of the Hunt' or 'Emperor of the Backyard' or some other name. ** 'Emperor of the Border' ** The Romulans have many borders but 'border' in this context is the border region of the Klingons and Romulans. When the Romulans won the war between the Klingons and the Romulans, the Klingons 'gave' the Romulans an incidental piece of their land (as was their norm in fighting amongst themselves). That's what this 'Emperor' rules over. ** 'Head of the Romulan Republic' ** Remember when the Vulcans left? Sure enough, it wasn't just Vulcans who left but pretty much a lot of other Romulans who weren't Vulcans but just Romulans who liked not having Emperors and not being lynch-mobbed by Romulans who enjoyed the prospect of having an Emperor, thankyouverymuch. A proxy government was set up in the Federation to continue the considerably-less dictatorial government of the Romulan Empire. Realistically, this guy has zero influence over the Romulan Empire but it feels good to them to have a shadow government that has zero influence or control over anything. ** 'Extraneous Emperors' ** The Emperor-ship has changed over time. Slightly different rules, slightly different norms, slightly different selection process. Whenever changes occurs, a certain percentage of the population shakes their fists into the air and says to the effect, "Hey! That's not how a REAL Emperor is chosen / rules / whatever! That's not how Great-Great-Great-Grandpa did it!" And then they choose their own 'Emperor' according to either The Rules of the Past or the Rules That Ought To Be. The mass majority of these Emperors are ceremonial and have zero effect on anything. They're 'protest Emperors' and the real Emperor doesn't even bother with these guys. There's a law on the books that says that it's a crime to call yourself an Emperor when you're not but it's hardly ever used so long as the Emperor feels that you have zero sway over the population. The only time it's ever invoked is if you're also a religious leader or you're ex-military or someone with the potential to cause harm to the Emperor-ship. But if you're just the standard crank out in the middle of nowhere and you call yourself the Emperor... Yeah, good luck with that. If anything, they might call social services just to check on your well-being so that you aren't harming yourself or others. And... I'll stop for now. Comments and questions are always welcome. Thanks. That's an interesting take on there technically being more than one Emperor. In original Trek, I would probably say that the 'Emperor' of the backyard region might be either called Regional Govenor (or Govenors!) given its size, or perhaps Senators (if you follow TOSs' habit of following Terran Roman ranks), same with the individual/s in charge of the Romulan/Klingon border. Head of the Romulan Republic, I can see that if it occurred in TOS. But as this is your alternate take on the Trek universe, I can see how the current main Emperor might be thinking, perhaps it gives possible rivals a perceived position of power, while he runs thru his elected term/s relatively undisturbed unless something untoward occurs on the respective borders! As for the old timers, well, you can't please everyone! In real life, that's how odd little political parties pop up, trying to challenge the status quo. There's actually a few more 'types' that I could put up but they're really minor and it's debatable as to whether they should be included or not. The 'Emperor of the Backyard' is not an Emperor in title but, since he's in charge of that area (realistically, he's in charge of hunting down the Hunnarians and, at the same time, he's also in charge of the area)... He's functionally an emperor. The backyard is a really sparse, empty place. Imagine an area the size of Canada but with only the population of, say, the state of Vermont in it. And 60% of that population is pretty much in these little "base camps" of sorts, if we're using a hiking-up-a-mountain analogy. Being in the backyard is very dangerous just because it's so sparsely populated. If your ship sputters out there... There's not a lot of hope for you. The 'Head of the Romulan Republic' isn't so much an emperor as simply the head of the exiled government. He's (although there have been females in that position as well) got exactly zero power but he makes the exiled Romulans feel good about themselves. Not even the Vulcans take them very seriously and everyone interacts with the 'government' with a bit of an eye-roll and a suppressed sigh. The 'Extraneous Emperors' are mostly lonely cranks who need a padded cell and some soft music to listen to. A few of them have a following but, again, the Emperor's approach is to just leave them alone and allow them to sabotage themselves by inevitably speaking the quiet parts out loud because they always do. The Emperor is not a push-over, though, and if he feels that you've got ANY clout of any importance... Yeah, that's the end of you. What these guys have to deal with are the paramilitary folks who are very adamant that there's one Emperor, they know who that Emperor is and you're not that guy, so... It's time for you to conveniently slip on a banana peel and fall off a cliff. Now the Klingon Emperor... THAT guy always has some rivals... I should write about him whenever I feel up to it...
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steve
Commander
Posts: 538
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Post by steve on Sept 18, 2021 16:39:35 GMT -7
The Safety Net In Federation Space: How Good Is It?Look down at your watch (or smartphone) and count off a minute. In my alt-universe, at least 20 starships get into serious mechanical or navigational trouble in Federation space within that minute. Every minute. We're not talking little intra-solar system craft; We're talking solar system to solar system. And space is big. And empty. And, when your starship suddenly loses power or otherwise has a significant meltdown of one type or another... Space can feel very, very lonely very quickly. And deadly. First and foremost, you can't just go ANYWHERE in Federation space whenever you want. If you're just a standard civilian starship, you have to log a flight plan (just like an airplane). The flight plan has to be approved. You even have to have contingency routes in case something bad happens. Your routes have to list off all of the waystations that it passes (should there be any) along the way and approximate times that you pass them. And if you miss your flight departure time? Then you have to register an entirely new flight plan. And get it approved again. If all of this sounds bureaucratic and anti-freedom, the alternative has already been tried and has already failed miserably. Spacecraft that just disappeared never to be seen again. Starship colliding with one another or passing so close to one another so quickly that their gravitational ripples functionally tear the respective starships apart. And, of course, it is also meant to prevent crime of all types as well. Even with all of that, starships still get into serious mechanical and navigational problems all of the time. It's the reason why Federation space is absolutely littered with waystations of all types. You have manned, immobile waystations ("outposts" if you want to use that word). You have patrolling waystations (think of them as roving tow trucks or support vehicles). You even have unmanned, immobile waystations that an impaired starship can use (think of it as a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere that also has a first aid kit and a few snack bars) in the case of emergency. And Star Fleet oversees NONE of these operations. Star Fleet is military; These practices are left to local and state-level governments. There is a national-level structure for this service but it only provides a template for the lower governments to use. If you are Star Fleet, though, you can't just go ANYWHERE yourself. You are a Star Fleet starship; You are extremely valuable. Long gone are the days of a certain Federation Star Fleet captain just "boldly going where no man has gone before." Nowadays, if you go anywhere in a Star Fleet starship, Star Fleet wants to know before you give the order to engage. And, yes, Star Fleet very much has the right to say "No" to your impromptu travel arrangements. Even when Star Fleet says "Yes," they only said "Yes" because they know that enough assets are near enough nearby so if you get into trouble, you can be rescued fairly quick. And you want those assets because, even though you're in a Star Fleet starship, you know of all of the problems that can occur and a lot of those problems can get very deadly very quickly. The Rescue & Recovery industry in the Federation for lost or impaired starships is huge. There are non-stop operations to find lost starships or to constantly investigate non-populated planets to see if anyone has accidentally crashed into them (you know, your starship lost power, you managed to get it into an orbit but the orbit decayed and... Well, what goes up must come down...). Ironically, it's this safety net that kind of freezes the Klingons and Romulans from invading. They know that, even if they slip past the border defenses, they'll have to face an obstacle course from all of these safety nets that, although they are designed to find lost or disabled starships, can just as easily detect a Klingon or Romulan invasion as well. This is probably how it runs in the background of original TOS near the core worlds and disputed borders, but probably not in completely unexplored space. But further expanded by the time we get to the TNG/DS9/VOY era. Your whole concept makes perfect sense whenever. The infrastructure HAS to be there. There are hints of your concept in both eras on TV. Deep Space Station K-7 comes to mind in TOSs' "The Trouble with Tribbles", plus there are probably rescue/supply variants of the manned Communination Relay 47 in the TNG episide "Aquiel". And in real time production order, we then see the first subspace communication booster relays Echo 1 and 2 being deployed or mentioned in ENT. Your slightly more strictly controlled Starfleet seems fair, but Kirk in TOS gets a bit of an unfair rep! Yes, he tends to try and smooch his way out of trouble on occasion (or, dumbly, brings a badly executed dropkick to a knife fight - see "Journey to Babel"!), but especially in early TOS, he's definitely following specific mundane orders (yearly medical checkups in "Man Trap", or checking on lost expeditions in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"). This actually continues throughout much of TOS. The trouble then STARTS at said rendevous!! Which is of course because it's a TV drama series! The moment your trip goes from solar system to solar system, that's when the thumbscrews are tightened on where you go, how you go and why. Space is dangerous and the Romulans and Klingons wish they could kill as many Federation civilians as are killed just because their stupid starships crap out on them. Not that either of them have it any better; If anything, it's the Federation that acknowledges it publicly. And, sure, there are times when Star Fleet trusts a captain to make certain decisions but that captain is, at the end of the day, in command of STAR FLEET'S starship. You're a captain gambling with Star fleet money and Star Fleet doesn't care if you plunk down $1 dollar on a bet but $1,000? Yeah, you need to talk to us about that one and if it was so urgent that you couldn't talk to us? Yeah, now we need to talk to you even more... And it's not as though the Klingons and the Romulans have it any easier. Heck, the Romulan captains are often micromanaged down to the minute and the Klingon captains are too paranoid to do anything because they've got to deal with "political officers" who are more than happy to write up every single infraction that you did from the time you woke up until the time you go to bed. Each of the major powers have major checks and balances to make sure that their captains are not capriciously endangering their crews and and their starships. As written before, Star Fleet is not in charge of search and rescue. They will assist, naturally, if called upon but they're busy... You know, defending the Federation from everyone not named "The Federation." Therefore, it's left to the states and regional governments to deal with that. However... That's been criticized in the past. Different areas of the Federation have different standards of what 'search and rescue' is and the drumbeat to nationalize it gets louder with each starship that goes into outer space and never comes back. Of course, nationalizing anything then gets all the "Liberty & Freedom" types up in arms because [fill in your favorite political argument here]. In the end, no one likes missing spacecraft. No one likes searching for missing spacecraft. Yet there needs to be rules for keeping the missing spacecraft to a minimum. Yet those rules are a tangled mess of regional differences that are often exploited and leads to... More missing spacecraft. And no one likes missing spacecraft. It's a never-ending cycle of happiness that never stops giving.
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