Star Trek: The Quadratic War

[General Havoc]

Chief Archivist’s Forward:

History is an unforgiving discipline, written with the benefit of hindsight in judgment of people whose decisions were made without. My colleagues, to say nothing of my superiors, have reminded me of this many times in suggesting, always with the noblest of purposes in mind, that I delay analysis and translation of the logs recorded and transcribed herein. With respectful deference to their learned opinions, I have chosen to act otherwise, not because I believe my own contributions to be of any particular value, but instead because of the deep reverence I hold for the subject itself, and the wealth of material that this record, wholly unique in all the annals, represents in our quest for understanding, a quest that has eluded us for so long, and which I have made my life’s work.

The people of Earth described space-time as a fabric, one that warped and folded on itself to create all the majestic wonders of the cosmos. If the functions of space and time can be reduced to a unified theory, as physicists insist they can, then the tapestry of history is surely ruled by the same woven currents, threads diverging and converging to form patterns of such complexity as to elude identification by their weavers, and even oft-times by those who admire it from a distance. The facts surrounding the events of the end of the Quadratic War are patchy and sparse, marked by gaps in our comprehension that yawn all the wider for the brief glimpses of the truth that we are periodically granted. These bits of illumination, obtained through painstaking labor, inference, and the occasional leap of genius, cast shadows upon the events that have been wholly lost, swallowed up by the entropy of time.

There is so much about the Quadratic War, and of the great Empires that fought it, that we will never know. So many of the actors, motives, and even the very events have been lost to us, and while we strain and struggle to piece a cohesive framework together, yawning mysteries remain. Who created the Gash, and how? What was the truth behind the so-called “31st Section”? What became of Klingon Chancellor Martok after the Battle of Qu’onos? And of course, the question that has tantalized historians of the Late Federation Period and the Quadratic War most of all, what, ultimately, happened at Sagittarius A? Yet even if we knew the answers to these questions, they would not permit us to understand the mindset of the various beings, the Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Andorians, Bajorans, Gorn, Remans, Orions... the people of the Alpha Quadrant, people who watched their worlds burning, their species dying, and who waited for their own ends, or fought against the dying light to carve out one last glimmer of starshine. We can read Admiral Picard’s speech to the fleet at Neptune. We can listen to the musical strains of the last transmission from Memory Alpha. We can fly the space, and even, in some cases, walk the very ground of the Quadratic War, but true understanding of the events of that turbulent period will ever elude us.

For this reason alone, the Argonaut Chronicle would be a find of spectacular proportion, a primary source documenting the fears, the thoughts, and the agonies of one of the contemporaries of that epic conflict. But given the authorship of the Chronicle, its value is far more than that of a simple journal. It is an eye-witness account, moment by living moment, of the people whose deeds amidst the ruins of their own civilizations shaped the Galaxy for ages to come. Their names today are well known by any who profess even cursory knowledge of the past, yet they were not beings of myth and legend, nor all-seeing geniuses of impeccable foresight, but people, frightened, despairing, tormented, enraged, in some cases even mad. The events they bore witness to and participated in, the choices they made, in pursuance of what they thought was right without benefit of hindsight or omniscience, cemented their names into the woven fabric of history forever. None were perfect, indeed some exhibited lapses of judgement that baffle scholars even today. Some were cruel, even reprehensible, but then the times they lived in were equally cruel, and all played the greatest of roles in one of the most pivotal series of events in the history of the Galaxy.

I have chosen to release this translation unabridged, without comment as to content or character, so that those who would know what befell the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Republic, and all the other civilizations of the Alpha Quadrant, as well as what momentous events transpired in the wake of their fall, might read it, and decide for themselves. My only comments (indicated by footnote) will be those that serve to explain terminology, names, or references that a reader unacquainted with the history of the Alpha Quadrant may not comprehend. For this purpose I have drawn upon the collected scholarly works of many of the giants of this field, whose conclusions and debates I present in as coherent a form as I can.

There are those, of course, who believe that I am mistaken, even perverse, in releasing such a thing, pointing out quite rightly that the study of the Argonaut Chronicle is still in its preliminary stages, and that solid conclusions have yet to be drawn about many of the passages that permeate it. Though I do not debate their analyses, I stand by my dissemination of this document regardless. If the history of the Quadratic War has taught me nothing else, it is the frailty of the strands of history, and the relative ease with which they can be severed forever. Should disaster befall myself, the Chronicle, this planet, or even my entire race, I would have the knowledge of what happened preserved, such that some day, on a planet many light years from mine, a researcher might one day read this work. Should he do so, I do not ask that he agree with me, nor refrain from condemning my hubris. Only that he read the words I have written or translated, and perhaps thereby, even for only the briefest of moments, understand.

Chief Archivist Hyrzix
Department Chair, Federation Studies
Institute for Historical Research

[General Havoc]

In a time long past, the Borg came to the Alpha Quadrant. Their forces numbered in the uncountable millions, and the power of their weapons, and of their untiring legions of the assimilated were were without equal in all the great empires of the Quadrant, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, and the greatest of them all, the United Federation of Planets.

The end of the Dominion War had seen the ruination of attempts by the Gamma quadrant's rulers to extend their Dominion to the Alpha Quadrant, and the events surrounding the return of the USS Voyager had dealt what was believed to be a crippling blow to the Borg, slaying their queen, destroying their Unimatrix, and annihilating much of their battle fleet. In 2381, three years after the end of the Voyager mission, a long-range Starfleet probe confirmed what the people of the Alpha Quadrant had come to believe. Broken and battered, the Borg had retrenched around their core systems, no longer even sending scouting forays into the galaxy at large, a threat supposedly expunged for a generation or more.

The Alpha Quadrant's last days of peace were those of a golden age, little though it seemed at the time. The great alliance of the Dominion War held, albeit with strains on the part of the Romulans, and minor brushfire conflicts simmered around the borders of minor powers as usual. But the War had catapulted the Federation into the undisputed position of the mightiest power in the Alpha Quadrant, and left it securely allied with the the second-mightiest. Secure in its unassailable strength, the Federation reverted to its roles of exploration and diplomacy, adding new members to their ever-expanding union. For ten years, the Federation and its allies lived in relative peace, guarded by fleets of white ships that crossed the galaxy bearing the logo of the wedge and the stars.

And then the Borg came.

They came from the Delta quadrant, in numbers unguessable, not one cube, as before, nor a fleet of cubes, as the worst catastrophists in the Federation had guessed might occur, but an armada that darkened the skies and shook the very fabric of spacetime. Grouped into six titanic battlefleets, each one capable of laying waste to everything that might conceivably lie in their path, they came armed not only with Cube and Spheres, but with ships of alien design, encrusted with Borg weapons and technology, but plainly not of Borg make. And with these terrible weapons, they sought nothing less than to conquer the entire Quadrant, and to destroy that which could not be conquered.

In seven years, they reduced the great powers of the Alpha Quadrant to carrion and ash, leaving a trail of burnt or assilimated planets behind them. The Romulans, closest to the Delta Quadrant of the major powers, were overcome in a single week, their fleets caught off guard and gutted, their core planets bombarded with nanoprobe torpedoes and assimilated wholesale. The scattered remnants of their once-proud fleets were left to twist in the interstellar winds as the Borg consumed their populace and Empire out from under them.

The Klingons stood and fought, filling entire sectors with Borg wreckage, setting planets alight before falling back to new ones, fighting to the literal death in their thousands and millions. For three whole years, the Borg turned their fire against the Klingons and their allies relentlessly, but in the fourth, even their matchless skill was finally broken and subsumed in the tide of Grey.

The Federation fought, first to try and save their allies, then to try and save themselves, with all the fury of a people desperate to hold back the tide. They called on their fleets of sparkling ships, on their enormous and diverse population and matchless technology to stop the Borg. They devised super-weapon after super-weapon, prototype after prototype, desperate devices of such cataclysmic power as to sweep the Borg from before them, and yet it was not enough. For every cube that fell, the Borg deployed three more, and with them, laid waste to the Federation's planets and people despite all that Starfleet could do to stop them. After five years of bloodshed, the Federation gambled all on a last-ditch defense of Earth itself, calling to their aid all of the remaining powers of the Alpha Quadrant, old friends and bitter enemies alike. Shoulder to shoulder with the fleets of the entire quadrant, they faced down the Borg armadas, and lay such ruin upon them as to turn space itself red with blood. Yet even that was not enough. The battle raged for weeks, but the resources of the Borg proved inexorable in the end. The handful of ships who escaped the Battle of Earth spoke of the Borg invading the planet wholesale, so secure in their victory that their fleets began to skirmish with one another like wolves fighting over the spoils of a kill. And then there was silence.

Two years after the fall of Earth, with the Federation burned to ashes alongside allies and enemies alike, it came to pass that the sole remaining core world among the once-vast Federation, Bajor, now was all that was left to defy the Borg's dominion over the Alpha Quadrant. Bit by grasping bit, such ships as remained intact, with such crews as were willing to still obey the call to battle, began to gather there, in preparation for one final, desperate stand against the approaching Borg.

Heroes were born in the fire and bloodshed of the battles that followed, and their names and deeds will never be forgotten...

[General Havoc]

The Federation is dead. Its planets are in ashes or groan under the weight of Borg drones. What little remains of the once-mighty Federation and their former enemies and allies, is being remorselessly exterminated by the Borg. Such ships and crews as have survived seven long years of bloodshed have done so by a number of means, none of them orthodox, many unthinkable just a few short years before.

Players may have any ship, commanded by any race, and any crew, of any power in the entire Alpha Quadrant. You may have a Romulan Warbird with a Klingon Commander and a mixed crew of Tholians and Naussicans. You may have a Vulcan Admiral commanding a Ferengi Marauder, or an Orion Pirate in a stolen Akira-Class Cruiser. The Borg do not care what race you are, nor whose ship you command. They have likely devoured the better part of your entire species, your culture, and your family, and will do the same to you.

The only restrictions on you and your command are as follows:

1: No Dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts were a rare enough class before the war, even amongst the most violent races in the galaxy, and absolutely none of them have survived this long, being long-since overwhelmed by the Borg. This means no Negh'vars, no Scimitars, no Jem'Hadar Battleships. Note that the Sovereign-class is technically a Battlecruiser, and thus is permitted, but with the reservation that I will be treating it like a Battlecruiser, and not like the invincible death machine it is often made out to be. Other large cruisers like the Vor'cha or D'Deridex will exceed the Sovereign's capabilities in some ways.

2: No prototypes. Many superweapons and ultra-modern ship designs were tried against the Borg over the course of the war. All worked to a point. None survived. Every prototype ship that was constructed was used to try and stop the Borg, and for all the Borg they killed, none managed to turn the tides. This extends globally, to weapons and other types of technological systems. It also extends to ships that are for all intents and purposes unique. No V'ger system-wreckers, no Planet Eaters, no crazy apocryphal bullshit. You get stock ships only.

3: Your ships are beaten up. The vast resources of the Federation and other empires have ceased to exist. Your ships have not seen the inside of a spacedock in years, and battle damage and incidental wear and tear have taken their toll. Every player is required to propose one major weakness in their ship relating to their time spent eluding the Borg. These weaknesses do not have to be utterly crippling, but are required to be significant. I will not accept that the recreational facilities are malfunctioning, or that the Captain has become "lost to pity by his traumatic experiences". Real weaknesses in a real setting. Moreover, due to certain complications that arose in the last game, I am insisting that this requirement be met by a single, major weakness. You're free to have a host of minor weaknesses if you want in addition to this, but this requirement can only be met with one serious flaw in your ship. Feel free to apply to me for help on producing one.

All of that having been said, I will now explain the factor I'm allowing in compensation:

4: Within the above restrictions, you can have anything you want.

Want Triocobalt torpedoes salvaged from the ruins of the Vulcan science ministry? Have fun with them. Illegal subspace-disrupting phase rift projectors grafted onto your deflector array? Make sure to keep them polished. A platoon of berserk Klingon Dahar masters who live only to shed the blood of the Borg living in your cargo bay? Hope your replicators serve good Blood Wine. Seriously, while I reserve the right to reject things that are total patent bullshit, you are all encouraged to go hog-wild. Planetary-grade disruptor arrays, self-replicating mine launchers, quantum singularity drives, nukes, knives, sharpened sticks, whatever the hell you want, and whoever the hell you want to have them. All I require is that you make the backstory of your ship reflect where and how you picked these shiny toys up, and that you restrain yourself from going too insane. I'm not gonna set discrete limits, but if I wind up with four players who have two toys each, and one with fifteen, chances are I'm gonna intercede.

The Borg are approaching, gentlemen. What you do about them, is entirely up to you.

Character sheet is as follows:

Captain's Name:
Captain's Species:
Captain's Background:

Other Crew of Note (Optional):

Ship Name:
Ship Class:
Ship Type (see below):
Crew composition (as detailed or approximate as you like):
Special Systems and other Acquisitions (give some idea of what the bloody things do):
Ship's Weakness:

Service history to-date:

[General Havoc]

Ship Types

Star Trek canon is an unceremonious mess. Ships do things in one series or episode that they cannot do in others, while specifications for weapons, combat ranges, tactics, explosive yields, and every other thing vary wildly even within the same series. As such, I am establishing a few baselines for what I expect various ships to be good and bad at. These are guidelines, not hard rules, and represent only the general trends of the different types of ships out there. Not every ship within a given class should be considered equal, as the qualities of ships vary by nationality, construction, and age. Still, this should give everyone an idea as to what roles various ships may be particularly good at, though as always, the modifications made will alter things.

These classifications are not intended to tell you all how to play your ships, nor are they intended to be iron rules, unbreakable by any means. Canon in Star Trek is a very subjective thing, and I am posting this classification system to explain my viewpoint on how ships are intended to operate. Your ships can, and will, violate the boundaries of the classifications below, but this is what your ships were, at some point, intended to do. It also should give you a rough idea for what other, NPC ships are and are not capable of. When I describe the target you are firing at as a "Heavy Cruiser", you will thus know approximately what I mean by that statement.

Classifications, in rough order of size ascending, are as follows:

Frigate:
Example classes: Sabre-Class, Steamrunner-Class, Miranda-Class, Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, Breen Frigate
Frigates are the lightest classification of capital ship commonly used by Alpha Quadrant powers. While lighter ships do exist, they tend to be intra-system craft or motherbase-supported light vessels such as the Federation's Danube-class Runabout or Peregrine-class Attack Fighter. Frigates are light, small ships, usually decently fast, and not infrequently sporting considerable weapons-power. They are generally designed as escorts and supports for the ships of the line, pursuant to old-Earth age-of-sail classifications from six hundred years ago, but unlike Destroyers, are not usually designed for engaging in sustained combat operations against larger ships on their own. Due to their size and weight, frigates tend to be extremely fragile in heavy ship-to-ship combat, as the casualty figures for the Miranda-class vessels during the Dominion War can attest to. That said, a squadron of Frigates or even a lone Frigate with the right position and weapons complement, can inflict terrible destruction on even the heaviest vessel, should that vessel be unprepared for the Frigate's attack.

Destroyer:
Example classes: Defiant-Class, Klingon Bird-of-Prey
Destroyers are an uncommon class in the Alpha Quadrant, as even the most martial races tend towards multi-role apex battleships of enormous size and durability. Destroyers however are designed to pack the immense weapons throw-weight of a heavier ship into the smaller frame of a frigate, and the few designs that have managed to overcome the tremendous technical difficulties inherent in such an effort are among the most reliably lethal vessels in the galaxy. Destroyers are warships through-and-through, incapable or at least highly unsuited for most other types of missions. Packing tremendous firepower and above-average speed into a small package or frame, Destroyers are (usually) close-quarters nightmares, closing to knife fighting range and lathing their enemies apart with powerful burst cannons or salvos of torpedoes. Only infrequently does one encounter a Destroyer, but the event is generally a memorable.

Light Cruiser:
Example classes: Nova-Class, Luna-Class, Akira-Class, T'varro, Ferengi Marauder
Light Cruisers are ships of the line designed for something other than standup combat. Within the Federation, they tend to be science vessels or other support ships, capable of defending themselves in a pinch but not designed for it. Light Cruisers mid-sized ships, armed and armored only to the extent necessary to defend themselves, whose combat roles tend to be specialty support, ECM, science support, or even carrier duties. Other Light Cruisers are converted civilian vessels, modified to join the fight with ersatz weapons or enhanced power grids. Light Cruisers do not tend to stand well in the line of battle, but can be invaluable in a support role.

Cruiser:
Example classes: Constitution-Class, Excelsior-Class, Galor-Class, Keldon-Class, D-7 Class, Nebula-Class
In the old days of Starfleet, Cruisers represented the ships of the line, the capital vessels designed to deploy to the far-flung regions of space and handle any situation they encountered there. Though the modern classifications have bifurcated into all manner of other cruiser types, the standard cruiser remains as a testament to what starships are, at their core, intended to be. Medium Cruisers are large, stately ships, designed to give out and receive punishment with equal facility. The relative age of the classification generally dates most of the ships that fall within it, but starship hulls are designed to last, and periodic tech upgrades make these ships still competitive against the horrors of the modern galaxy. Modern Medium Cruisers still show up today, particularly among minor powers unable to afford the larger cost of heavier ships, but the increased size and scale of modern vessels have pushed most ships of the line into heavier categories.

Heavy Cruiser:
Example classes: Ambassador-Class, Galaxy-Class, D'Deridex-Class
Heavy cruisers are immense vessels, massive and imposing, capable of sustaining tremendous punishment. Designed as omni-role capital vessels of the latest design, they are among the toughest and most indomitable vessels found in space, their thick shields, redundant systems, and sheer mass rendering them capable of holding the line against all opponents. While Heavy Cruisers vary between well-armed and tremendously well-armed, their primary defense is not their weapons, but their sheer capacity to absorb punishment and continue to function. Short of dreadnoughts, Heavy Cruisers are the toughest vessels in space, and destroying one is a task in and of itself. That said, the sheer size and weight of a Heavy Cruiser often limits its mobility, allowing a more nimble opponent to strike at weak spots and vulnerable flanks. Responses to these weaknesses vary from the Federation's omnidirectional weapons systems to the Romulans' cloaking technology. But in every case, Heavy Cruisers are designed to simply stake out a place in the battlefield and destroy all comers that dare attempt to shift it.

Battlecruiser:
Example classes: Sovereign-Class, K'Tinga-Class, Vor'cha-Class, Valdore-Class
Battlecruisers are in many ways the apex of modern military engineering. Faster than a Heavy Cruiser, Battlecruisers sacrifice the all-round nature and unsurpassed durability of their heavy counterparts in favor of raw, thunderous firepower. The particulars vary by nation, age, and technology level, but battlecruisers tend to sport the most powerful weapons available to their navies, combined with hulls large enough and power systems potent enough to mount them in quantities that most people would regard as highly unwise. Though none would ever call them fragile, Battlecruisers cannot, by and large, sustain the battering that Heavy Cruisers can for an extended period. Most Battlecruiser captains regard this fact as irrelevant however, given the propensity for their opponents to be obliterated under a deluge of weapons fire capable of laying waste to large continents.

Dreadnought:
Example classes: Negh'var-Class, Scimitar-Class, Jem'Hadar Battleship
Towering above their fellows, the Dreadnoughts are the titans of the battlefield, enormous mobile starbases armed with enough firepower to level entire planets. Employed as the central hub of full battlefleets, Dreadnoughts, by virtue of their size, cost, and operational requirements, are almost never encountered alone, and represent the mightiest single units of force that any Alpha Quadrant government has available to it. Though unquestionably the most powerful ships in the field, Dreadnoughts are prohibitively difficult to maintain, crew, and support, and cannot be deployed independently in the manner of most capital ships. For this reason (among others), the later stages of the Quadratic War saw the near-extermination of these vessels, whether through selective targeting by the Borg, or the simple inability to maintain the purpose-built vessels in the absence of a dedicated infrastructure.

[White Haven]

Ship Name: USS Scylla, NCC-2417
Ship Class: Excelsior-class cruiser. Modified. Shaken, not stirred.
Crew complement: 632, 24% human, 62% Andorian, remainder consisting of assorted Federation species.



Crew:

--Commanding Officer: Lieutenant Commander Jason Leyton
Growing up in the shadow of a Starfleet admiral is never an easy thing, not when you want to make a name for yourself. It becomes less so when that admiral is unable or unwilling to play the patronage game. All of that goes triple, however, for the only son of Vice Admiral James Leyton, the architect of an attempted coup d'etat against the government of the Federation. A less stubborn man would have given up on Starfleet long ago. Jason Leyton is not that man. Slogging up through the ranks against a stiff headwind caused by his father's treason, the younger Leyton would most likely have ended his career in obscurity but for the Borg invasion rendering peacetime Fleet politics and promotion boards a thing of the past.

When the initial attacks took place, the very stigma that had so long hampered his career saved his life. Assigned as the executive officer to a nearly-unarmed science ship assigned to routine survey missions, he was spared the initial holocaust of the Borg offensive. The ship's commanding officer was assigned there for much the same reason as Leyton; the distrust and scorn of the Admiralty. In Commander Vargas' case, however, it was far more warranted; Leyton unilaterally seized command of the ship after it became clear to him that indecision was simply not an acceptable response to the crisis.

Given the lack of combat capability represented in the survey vessel, Leyton ordered the ship to the nearest Starfleet reserve yard, which happened to be in the Andor system. Running the warp drives to the redline and beyond, the Marie Curie was able to beat the Borg offensive there. A brief survey of the mothballed vessels returned dismaying results; the most combat-capable starship present (at least by this point, the reserves had already been raided more than once) was an aging Excelsior-class, one that had received only a partial set of the Dominion War-era upgrades before being sent back into mothballs again.

Anything would serve better in the coming apocalypse than the Marie Curie's four phaser banks and light deflectors, however. Leyton ordered the science vessel stripped down to the frame, part of the work done even as the ship was en route to Andor, the rest taking place as the ship drifted alongside the dormant Scylla. Even as crew and supplies and equipment were beamed and shuttled onto the ship, he contacted the mainly-Andorian engineering crews aboard the reserve yards and offered them a simple choice: accept transport down to the surface of Andor in advance of the Borg incursion, or start shifting maintenance supplies and stripped components from other mothballed ships to the Scylla in exchange for a berth when it departed. Unsurprisingly, the caretaker crews and engineering teams overwhelmingly opted to depart on the Scylla rather than wait around in unarmed, unarmored dockyards for the Borg advance.

The Scylla departed Andor packed to the deckheads with components stripped from other ships of all descriptions, plentiful fuel for the various salvaged reactors and numerous purloined engineers, but precious few munitions; the yards' stocks of torpedoes had been largely emptied by previous visitors.

A stock Excelsior, low on torpedoes and with an inexperienced, ad hoc crew, would be no match for even the smaller ships that had been reported accompanying the Borg advance. Accordingly, Leyton ordered his brand new and very unofficial command into a nearby nebula, there to allow the crew time to train according to a grueling schedule and the wildly over-sized engineering complement time to refit the ship into something approaching combat capability. By the time Leyton's command emerged from the communication and sensor blackout of the nebula, the Federation was in flames, Starfleet was splintered, and realistically, only two options were left open: Run and never look back, a task for which the oversupplied, long-legged refit was uniquely suited for, or fight back and try to save as many lives as possible.

Given that a large portion of the Scylla's crew was made up of engineers who had already fled the Borg once, the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion. Leyton's opposition to that philosophy subsequently made a mutiny seem a foregone conclusion. It was at this point that Leyton truly proved that whatever else he may not have inherited from his father, the elder Leyton's personal charisma was not one of them. Standing alone on the bridge of his own ship against a band of his own crew intent on seizing helm control (and with the ship's intercom system discreetly activated), Jason Leyton was able to turn perhaps judicious cowardice into a seething, righteous wrath that fueled a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Borg. The Scylla was a ghost, almost never seen by either side of the war, always rumored to be in the area whenever something vital and expensive-looking exploded unexpectedly. The call to arms, the Fleet's last attempt to rally at Bajor, finally drew Scylla out of the night. For the first time since she was mothballed years earlier, she would fight alongside the rest of Starfleet.

--First officer: Commander Lesschey zh'Rethen (Andorian Zhen (Female-analogue))
Despite outranking the substantially older Leyton, Commander zh'Rethen has never contested the lieutenant commander's claim to the Scylla's captaincy. Initially, this was out of gratitude for the rescue of the teams aboard the Andor reserve yards, of which she was the commanding officer. As time went by, however, her reasoning evolved into genuine loyalty and belief that Leyton really was simply far more qualified for the command than she was. zh'Rethan was and is an engineer first and a commander second, and the same could easily be said for the majority of the crews taken from the reserve yards. The majority of the crew of the Marie Curie were science officers of some stripe or another. Leyton, as a result, was not only the officer who stepped up and took command to begin with, but also ended up as one of a small handful of tactical officers aboard his new command.

zh'Rethan accordingly serves in a peculiar role, less a conventional executive officer in the in the tactical sense (although she handles an XO's duties administratively) and more the a senior engineer on the bridge, one able to work seamlessly with Leyton and the rest of the small tactical staff. Given the Scylla's reliance on unconventional warfare, that has proven an essential post more than once.

--Chief Engineer: Lt. Commander Rennthek ch'Tel (Andorian Chan (Male-analogue))
While not senior to several of the engineers who work under him, ch'Tel displayed a positive brilliance for improvisation and unconventional thinking that prompted Leyton to assign him the post midway through the Scylla's refit. Unlike Leyton, however, ch'Tel's personal charisma is quite lacking; he is blunt to a fault and has little patience for bruised egos and drama. Given the frankly bizarre mix of subsystems interwoven throughout the Scylla, however, sheer skill and knowledge trumps social graces any day of the week in spite of the fact that ch'Tel keeps both zh'Rethan and Leyton himself busy soothing ruffled feathers in his wake.

--Chief Science Officer: Lieutenant Commander Adrian Houston (Human Male)
The head of one of the few well-staffed departments aboard the Scylla, the rest of the crew suffers under the aegis of Houston's obsession with his namesake and 'Texan History.' Going by Tex when off-duty, Houston has inflicted late twentieth century country and western music upon the crew more than once, to the point that Leyton has been forced to ban him from use of the ship's intercom system completely. The cowboy hat...just pretend it's not there. Please. The fact remains, however, that despite his...questionable taste in music and dubious grasp on present society, Houston was one of the best electronic warfare specialists in Starfleet, back when Starfleet was an entity that could actually track that. As Starfleet was never terribly concerned with electronic warfare or stealth, and as he annoyed the hell out of his prior COs, he ended up shuffled off into the beyond aboard a little science ship called the Marie Curie.

Starfleet's loss, Leyton's -- and later the Scylla's -- gain. Houston is singlehandedly responsible for the early survival of the Scylla by managing effective sensor damping out of hardware never intended for it, and the team he's drawn from the science department have continued that legacy. They themselves are the reason that if you see the Scylla at all, it's quite likely far closer than you expected.

--Chief Medical Officer: Lieutenant Cynthia Bates (Human Female)
The less said about the Scylla's sickbay staffing, the better. A light science vessel has little need for a fully-staffed medical bay, and a reserve dockyard has even less. As such, Bates fills both the roles of Chief Medical Officer and Chief Surgeon herself, and with a critical lack of help. Over the long guerrilla war against the Borg, she's developed an unfortunate addiction to artificial stims simply due to the workload of keeping a crew the size of the Scylla's alive with a relatively miniscule staff. Whatever experience and skills she may have lacked in her previous post as the Marie Curie's doctor have been more than remedied by the pressures of her job; by now she'd be fully capable of teaching combat medicine at Starfleet Academy. If it existed anymore.

--Helmsman: Acting Ensign Scylla (Upgraded and heavily modified Starfleet computer core and custom operating system, female?)
The Scylla is a complicated beast to pilot, largely because it can't see the ass end of the Starfleet Design Bureau past the blizzard of design modification blueprints. It gets even worse given that the modifications are ongoing, changing the performance envelope of the hodgepodge ship on a weekly basis. Fortunately, one of those very modifications has provided what will hopefully be a solution. The Scylla's original layout is a relic of an earlier era, an era with, notably in this case, far more primitive computing technology. Accordingly, the internal space allocated to the ship's computer core is proportionally much larger than it would be on a more modern ship.

A ship full of engineers and scientists were bound to take advantage of that fact.

With nothing else to do with the excess computer hardware stripped from numerous newer hulls and salvaged from wrecked ships, much of it ended up integrated together into an over-sized cluster of smaller cores running in parallel, giving the Scylla ridiculous amounts of processing power to work with. After a series of near-disasters stemming from the overcomplexity and variability of the ship's modifications, Project Helmsman was born. Lacking the Emergency Medical Hologram support hardware of newer ships (something the ship's minuscule medical staff would have killed for), a fully holographic officer was out of the question.

After a lengthy development cycle and a simulated time-accelerated training program that ran both the computer systems and the entire tactical staff ragged trying to keep pace, Acting Ensign Scylla was ready for duty. Given a provisional commission by Leyton, a crash-course in combat maneuvering by what tactical staff the Scylla hosts, and a full, realtime link to every internal structural sensor and damage control reporting system the ship has, the Scylla finally had a helmsman who could push the ship to her treacherously-variable limits. There was some discussion of turning over weapons control to the AI, but Leyton vetoed the idea on the grounds that no Acting Ensign in Starfleet history had ever simultaneously held the posts of helmsman and tactical officer at the same time, and this wasn't the time to change that.

When asked about the AI's gender, one of the science officers responsible just shrugged and said, "Ships are female, and who ever heard of a man named 'Scylla' anyway?"

--Additional Crew: The lion's share of the crew is made up of Andorian engineers, with a few belonging to the medical branch who were also stationed at the Reserves. The balance of other species come primarily from the Marie Curie's crew, and are equally biased towards the sciences. By now, many on both sides of the divide have received a crash course in space combat tactics simply out of necessity; the Scylla's tactical section is woefully understaffed. While the ship's crew numbers few representatives of Starfleet Security, Leyton recognized the danger of Borg boarding operations. Long drills in tactics and mandatory firing-range time have proven their wisdom more than once in the ship's long, quiet war against the Borg.

Technical Specifications

Length: 467 meters
Width: 182 meters
Beam: 78 meters

Max Warp: 9.0
Cruising Warp Speed: 8.5

Standard Armaments
12 Phaser banks of mixed marks, none state of the art
9 arced evenly around the forward 270 degrees of the saucer section, mounted on the edge. One on the tail end of the fuselage, one each on the trailing tip of each nacelle. All twelve are capable of bearing into the dorsal or ventral arcs. Phasers have been slightly modified to allow for a higher fire-rate mode at the expense of per-shot power, to serve as point defense. This mode is optional.

40 photon torpedoes, four torpedo tubes (two fore, two aft)

Special Systems and other Acquisitions:

Redundant, heavy-capacity cargo transporters
Stripped from the yard itself and several of the salvaged ships there, the Scylla possesses a number of high-capacity bulk transporters capable of moving large amounts of people or matter remotely. These are often employed for rapid salvaging, explosive emplacement, and in general whatever depraved scheme the tactical-trained engineering staff can dream up this week.

Heavy, numerous tractor beams
Salvaged from a number of other ships, the Scylla's tractor beams are legion. They use stock components, so no one of them is any stronger than those found on other contemporary craft, but in concert, they can reliably hold and move much more massive objects than most other craft.

Does It Explode?
What do you get when you put a shipload of salvage, a vast quantity of engineers, and a mandate for war in the same package? Many, many things that go bang very enthusiastically. Jerry-rigged fusion bombs, warheads out of torpedos with defunct thrusters, salvaged spare warp cores, you name it, it's probably in the Scylla's bays somewhere. Aware of the danger that represents, those bays have been equipped with emergency jettison systems in the event of critical damage threatening them, as well as heavy force fields protecting them in combat situations. At least one cargo transporter array is maintained on hot standby if it becomes necessary to aid in the ejection of munitions should it become necessary.

Redundant Shield Generators
While the salvaged shield generators mounted in the Scylla can't be run simultaneously due to catastrophic interference, the skilled engineers aboard can and do bring them up in sequence, giving her extraordinary shield longevity, but without the spike damage protection of more modern shield generators.

Multiple Reactors
One thing the Scylla never lacks is power. Multiple matter/antimatter and fusion reactors power its systems, giving it phenomenal staying power. Ageing systems don't allow the throughput that that would suggest, but as a result the Scylla can sustain relatively high power outputs that would drain a similar ship for long periods of time. This especially manifests in its very high warp cruise velocity, although its somewhat antiquated warp drives do not allow a substantially higher sprint.

Refit Impulse Engines
The only true Starfleet-spec modification the Scylla received before being shoved back into mothballs was a set of bolt-on impulse engines. Set to either side of the original drive on the rear end of the saucer section, they provide the old ship with a surprising turn of speed and maneuverability for a ship its age.

More Engineers Than Even Makes Sense
When it comes to modification, refit, or damage control (especially damage control!), having two and a half slews of engineers comes in beyond handy.

Sensor Damping
Not anywhere close to a true cloaking device, the Scylla's skilled electronic warfare department, staffed partially from the science section and partially from Engineering, is generally effective at making the Scylla difficult to spot from long range. This, of course, does not function in any way when the ship's power rises to proper combat levels.

Ship's Weaknesses:

Starfleet Design Board's Nightmare
The Scylla is a bastardized abomination of subsystems from a dozen different ship classes spread across half that many decades. It absolutely requires a crack engineering team to make it work at all, which it has, but even then, failures do occur. Many of the systems operate with incompatible software, resulting in manual control being required for coordination between them. Battle damage and decompression are a constant threat, as a large number of critical systems can't be run remotely with anything even approaching reliability.

You Came In That Thing? You're Braver Than I Thought
Excelsiors are old. While redundant, the ship's shields are weak to the sheer output of modern weaponry. Her top FTL speed barely scrapes warp 9 on a good day. Her phaser banks are far from state-of-the-art, two of them actually dating all the way back to the original Kirk-era installations. She dates back to before Starfleet began armoring their ships, so her hull is thin and fragile. Leyton and his crew have done all they can to help the Scylla punch and survive above her weight, but nothing can change the fact that Excelsiors are bloody old.

You Would Defeat the Cybermen With Four Daleks?
The Scylla's tactical section is absolutely beyond understaffed. Talented engineers and science officers have been crosstrained somewhat, but that is not and will never be a replacement for a fully-trained and experienced Starfleet tactical department. As such, while they can generally get by decently enough under optimal conditions, the Scylla has a vanishingly-small margin for error where tactical causalities specifically are concerned. Her sickbay is understaffed by a similar, though slightly less critical margin; while her damage control teams can quickly return the ship to fighting trim, the same cannot be said for her crew.

*Andorian genders simplified because I'll be damned if I'm keeping four entire sets of gender pronouns straight in my head reliably.

[Cynical Cat]

Captain: Kadon zantai Khemera

Race: Imperial Klingon

Background: Tall, lean, and broad shouldered, Kadon zantai Khemera has by Klingon standards, a fencer's build. His hair and beard and kept short and neat. Kaden was a cadet during the Dominion War and rapidly rose in rank during the war and in post war skirmishes on the borders thereafter. A long standing feud with his older brother lead to him founding his own line when he was given command of the Riskadh.

Then the Borg came and the Empire burned. Kadon fought bloody battle after bloody battle, winning Pyrrhic victories and retreating from crippling defeats. Kadon fights on. Perhaps the last strategist left in a race notable more for tactical skill than strategic brilliance, Kadon fights on. There is too much klin in him to fall to despair.

Ship: IKV Riskadh, Vor'cha Class Attack Cruiser

Crew Composition: Over ninety percent Klingons. The remainder are non Klingon citizens of the Komerex Klingon (Klingon Empire).

Crew Notes: Junior officers and crew rescued from the dying IKV Koloth have brought the Riskadh to just over normal crew strength for the first time in years.

Marines: Force Leader Menmoth commands a full contingent of heavily armed Klingon Marines.

Ship Notes: The Riskadh was built after the Dominion War and, as typical with post War designs, includes upgrades and modifications in line with the lessons learned from the conflict and the technological improvements of the era.

Special Weapons and Upgrades

Enhanced Capacitors: The Riskadh, as a late model Vor'cha, can devote larger amounts of power to its disruptor array and handle overcharge with only a small chance of blow out.

Impact Shielding: The Dominion War taught some ugly lessons about the effectiveness of ramming. Tying in navigational deflectors and tractor emitters to main shields allows the Riskadh to have a good chance of deflecting ramming attacks by smaller ships instead of suffering a direct impact.

Tricobalt Torpedoes: The Riskadh, in addition to its standard load out of high yield photon torpedoes, retains a store of highly destructive multistage tricobalt warheads. There are currently 2522 tricobalt torpedoes on board.


Ship Weaknesses

Light superstructure and armour damage: Lacking down time in a major dockyard, stress damage to the superstructure from high speed maneuvers is beginning to accumulate and cruiser's tough armour has been weakened in several places.

Weak flank shields: Power conduits and shield generators have been stripped and rerouted to repair and replace damage to forward and aft shield systems. As a result, port and starboard shields can muster just over sixty percent of standard strength.

Notable crew Biography

Force Leader Menmoth sutai Vorbash: Of average height but built like a stormwalker, Menmoth has lead his men in countless engagements against Cardassians, Jem Hadar, and the Borg and has a staggering amount of scars to prove it. Ruthless, relentless, and almost fearless the Marine commander has a veteran's swagger. He favors high powered disruptors and projectile weapons as personal weapons and nerve gas for clearing Borg ships.

Executive Officer Arikel "Resh" sutai Labarga: The executive is known for her almost Vulcan like calm and her mastery of physics, leading to a few jokes about her being a Vulcan fusion despite being clearly a member of the Imperial race.

Chief Engineer Trakka Seragal: A squat reptilian barely a meter and a half tall, Seragal is a Shelvanian, a member of a species that joined the Klingon Empire almost a hundred years ago when Klingon intervention on the side of one their world's nation states made them masters of their world. Seragal isn't a fighter, but he's a damn good engineer. As a citizen of the Empire's periphery, he hopes that many of his species made it off world before the Borg arrived.

Weapon Master Kallor vestai Robash: In another age, Kallor would be looking for a position that would allow him a chance of dying in battle. Now there are no shortage of opportunities for an elderly Klingon to die. His skill and knowledge are tremendous assets and he seeks to pass them on to his juniors while he still lives. He spends much of his time maintaining and repairing the ship's combat systems as his specialized engineering knowledge is formidable.

Operations Leader Morizan sutai Suhlash: A friend of Kadon's from childhood, Morizan is responsible for hanging the nickname "Thought Captain" on him. Morizan is deceptively jovial and good natured for a Klingon, making it is easy for many of the Riskadh's officers forget that he rose to high rank in Imperial Intelligence. There is no tactic, strategum, or manipulation Morizan will not consider and his preferred weapons are the people he uses as tools.

Lieutenant Khedira vestai Labarga: A young woman approaching her thirtieth year (Klinzhai standard, slightly longer than Federation standard), Khedira is from a long standing family that is one of the components of the Labarga line. She is, by the standards of the Imperial Race, slender and on the shorter side of average. Her reflexes are superb, rivaling those of her captain and her mastery of the helm is unequaled on the ship.

Lieutenant Aaveroke tai Rostev: An almost painfully young officer who has somehow not lost the young cadet shine despite surviving the destruction of the Komerex Klingon. A surprisingly unmartial Klingon officer, he is the ship's unofficial mascot. A long running joke is that he is actually Starfleet and got lost in a paper work shuffle. He is extremely intelligent and his technical skills are intimidating in one so young, attributes that have earned him a place on the Riskadh's bridge.

Service history to Date: The Riskadh was commissioned just before the Borg invasion began as the latest and most formidable upgrade of the fearsome Vor'cha class attack cruiser and incorporated several advances that were product of the Dominion War. The first six months of Kadon's command consisted mostly of showing the flag in the empire's border areas. Then the Borg came.

What followed was even by Klingon standards a long, waking nightmare of war. The Riskadh was redeployed to the main lines after the initial invasion and fought battle after battle. A year's worth of fighting left the Riskadh with a fearsome array of wounds and the ship retreated to the Navy base at Moscatal for refit and rearming. Then the Riskadh plunged back into the fight. The Riskadh claimed kill after kill but it was not enough. The Empire was dying.

Kadon was made Squadron Leader and given a squadron of three and he lead his ships. It didn't last. The Borg advanced was slowed but never stopped. Losses were titanic. The Empire fell and the Riskadh was one of the survivors that made it to Federation space where the ship continued to fight. Too far away to participate in the Battle of Earth, prevented from reaching there by the Federation's own scorched subspace tactics, the Riskadh learned of the planet's death by subspace radio. The losses they have suffered and the death of the khomerex have taken their toll on the captain and the crew, but the klin still fills them. They fight on.

[Charon]

The Barbarossa under the command of Hizir Rais shall be returning.

[LadyTevar]

It's restarting?

Huh.. where did I hide Capt. Kirk

[General Havoc]

For those looking for their old characters or posts from the original OOC that might have been mutilated by the move to the new boards, a fully functioning copy of the old OOC thread can be found here:

http://libriumarcana.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8152

[Josh]

If this is in the fashion of an STGOD type dealie, I'll draw up a modified Bird of Prey in bit.

[General Havoc]

Call it a cross between an STGOD and a standard forum game. You each get a ship and a crew to sail her by, as detailed or non-detailed as you like, and I get to be the evil bastard who throws Borg (and such) at you.

The old IC thread is still on the board if you wish for an example.

[rhoenix]

(post removed, and added to proper thread)

[Josh]

Call it a cross between an STGOD and a standard forum game. You each get a ship and a crew to sail her by, as detailed or non-detailed as you like, and I get to be the evil bastard who throws Borg (and such) at you.

The old IC thread is still on the board if you wish for an example.

Alright you sexy bitch, I'm in.

[General Havoc]

Call it a cross between an STGOD and a standard forum game. You each get a ship and a crew to sail her by, as detailed or non-detailed as you like, and I get to be the evil bastard who throws Borg (and such) at you.

The old IC thread is still on the board if you wish for an example.

Alright you sexy bitch, I'm in.

...

What have I done?

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

[Charon]

You gave Hizir someone to get along with you poor bastard.

Maquis for life! *secret handshake*

[General Havoc]

I hate you all. So much.

Josh, I normally demand a single weakness, but when someone's insane enough to suggest taking on the Borg in a D-12 Warbird, I don't think I need to make trouble. I'm trying to figure out how to fire Borg weapons at you without vaporizing your ship. Because the weapons will be fired. Oh yes. The weapons will be fired.

Anyway, your character looks fine to me. Bear in mind that Phase Cloaks are an untested technology that will work approximately the way you expect, but may react... interestingly... to some of the more exotic weapons available to your enemies. Like the torpedoes that rip spacetime apart. Also bear in mind that I am an asshole. The others will attest to this.

Rhoenix, I'm grandfathering your character in from the last game, assuming that there's nothing new that's been added save for some changes in backstory. The backstory itself looks kosher to me, though I'll mention that if you married your Romulan XO, then I can understand why you no longer fear the Borg.

[rhoenix]

Rhoenix, I'm grandfathering your character in from the last game, assuming that there's nothing new that's been added save for some changes in backstory.

I changed the wording of a few things, but nothing that would cause a game mechanical effect.

The backstory itself looks kosher to me, though I'll mention that if you married your Romulan XO, then I can understand why you no longer fear the Borg.

Calling it an "extended tactical engagement" might be more accurate - the real heart attacks will come when the fate of their two ships and crews are finally revealed to their respective (and former, in some cases) governments. But yes - after that, Solheim will have a blushing Romulan bride, and a significant lack of fucks to give regarding Borg intimidation and psychological tactics.

[Josh]

I hate you all. So much.

Josh, I normally demand a single weakness, but when someone's insane enough to suggest taking on the Borg in a D-12 Warbird, I don't think I need to make trouble. I'm trying to figure out how to fire Borg weapons at you without vaporizing your ship. Because the weapons will be fired. Oh yes. The weapons will be fired.

Anyway, your character looks fine to me. Bear in mind that Phase Cloaks are an untested technology that will work approximately the way you expect, but may react... interestingly... to some of the more exotic weapons available to your enemies. Like the torpedoes that rip spacetime apart. Also bear in mind that I am an asshole. The others will attest to this.

All I ask is a good death.

[White Haven]

Well done, you magnificent bastard. What, did you take Scylla's advancing age as a challenge or something?

[Josh]

Well done, you magnificent bastard. What, did you take Scylla's advancing age as a challenge or something?

Unfortunately the original Argo was already assimilated.

[White Haven]

Challenge Accepted, Josh. Challenge accepted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outpost 2-Gamma
4th Moon of Proxima Centauri VI
The Most Remote and Secret Installation in the Federation

The Borg were coming. This was, by now, not a new idea in general terms, but the steadily-approaching tide of dead listening posts and burned worlds had finally given way to the ominous signatures of Borg propulsion systems marching steadily towards Sol and, by extension, the star closest to it. The war, of course, had ground on for years by this point. Most minor outposts like this one ha been abandoned entirely. Even this one had been reduced to a single crew member, one who was at present staring at the returns from the outpost's long-ranged sensors with mounting horror.

The Borg were coming. That wasn't new. The Borg, however, were going to be arriving shortly. That was new. And that accounted for the sour scent of vomit being slowly drawn away by the low hum of the small facility's ventilation systems.

Ensign Alfred Mayhew's eyes finally broke away from the display and its menacing iconography and flicked over towards the one control panel that made Outpost 2-Gamma stand out from all the other minor listening posts strewn about the Federation. The one that predated the modern LCARS computer interface that Starfleet had long ago standardized on. The one that was built into a grey metallic box with hard edges, rather than the smooth, beige polymer of everything else Starfleet built these days. The one right next to a case with a modest-sized hammer hanging from a pair of hooks on it. The one with a genuine glass shield over its single, red button.

The one labeled 'IN CASE OF APOCALYPSE, BREAK GLASS.'

Alfred's eyes drifted back to the thousands of distinct Borg contacts meshing together into a tidal wave of extinction. And then back to the stenciled lettering on the glass shield. Apocalypse.

Yeah.

He didn't know what the control would do. In his darker moments, he'd speculated that it was just a placebo, a sop to give the crew stationed at the last listening post before Earth some faint hope. In his more wishful hours, he'd fantasized about a superweapon, perhaps a communications channel direct to The Sisko, something to drive the Borg into the outer darkness and destroy them. He didn't know for sure. He didn't know anyone who knew for sure. He'd never heard of anyone who had heard of anyone who knew for sure. The only thing he did know is that it was his duty. And the listening post's sensor readouts most definitely spelled 'APOCALYPSE' in flaming letters ten light-years high.

With shaking hands he pulled open the hammers casing and slid it up off the hooks. Sweaty palms threatened to send it tumbling to the deck, but the rubber handle gave it enough traction for him to keep a grip. He paused, looking at it, then the shield, then it...and then finally brought it own with a cathartic shout and a tinkle of glass fragments. It wasn't until he set the hammer back into place in its own casing that he realized the uselessness of that act; the hammer would never again have a purpose, so why bother storing it? With a shrug and a somewhat rictus-like grin, he stabbed a finger down on the now-exposed glowing red button.

4th Moon of Proxima Centauri VI

Gas sprayed up from the surface of the rocky moonlet, ice crystals condensing quickly in the airless void as a perfectly-straight crack opened up in the surface. It began to widen with a low rumbling, unheard in the vacuum but transmitted clearly through the surface of the planetoid as a concealed subsurface silo was gradually brought into view. The system's primary was out of view, but the gas giant looming overhead provided enough light to begin to reveal a nose-cone, almost like one of the ancient rockets that carried Man's first space travelers into the cold darkness. As the silo doors finally opened fully, another rumble began, at first felt, then actually heard as exhaust gasses rushed up out of the silo and, briefly, provided just enough of an atmosphere to conduct sounds.

Mostly-hidden by the cloud, a shape thrust upwards from beneath the surface, leaping for the sky atop anachronistic booster rockets. As it cleared the cloud, the boosters began to fall away, as did a number of protective panels, exposing a pair of nacelles on thin arms that unfolded to either side of the fuselage.



A signal began to radiate out into the void using nothing but old-fashioned EM-band transmission.



"Borg? BORG?! AGAIN!?!"

[Josh]

Oh, I guess we're doing a thing.

[youtube][/youtube]

~TILDES~TO~INFINITY~
*POV FUCKERY AHOY!*

Laika floated content in the knowledge that those nice scientists were sure to come by and give her a treat any time now. Perhaps they would make the strange floating stop too.

The stars were bright through the sole window she could look out of. Her nose smudged another print in the porthole as she looked for her scientists. Suddenly the sky flashed lots of pretty colors, a sign she was sure to herald the arrival of her humans.

*
The colors pulled on the tiny capsule, the gravitational flow pulling it inexorably into the temporal anomaly. The ground controllers could only stare with puzzlement as the craft suddenly veered off course, then disappeared.
*

The capsule floated out of the other side of the anomaly and into the orbit of a massive, cube-shaped craft. A tractor beam locked onto the vessel and pulled it inside, where it came to a rest with a gentle thump.

It took the Borg mere seconds to decipher the latching mechanism and pull it open. Laika came bounding out, stopping in the center of the crowd of drones. Fur standing up, she growled at the menacing figures.

From overhead a voice called out. "We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."

Laika turned in a slow circle, assessing her opponents with a dangerous glint in her eye.

This would not stand.

Bunching her legs, she leapt forward with a ferocious bark, aiming for the throat of the nearest drone.

*****

Sputnik 2

Captain: Laika

Laika was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow. Soviet scientists chose to use Moscow strays since they assumed that such animals had already learned to endure conditions of extreme cold and hunger.[7] This specimen was an eleven-pound[10] mongrel female, approximately three years old. Another account reported that she weighed about 6 kg (13 lb). Soviet personnel gave her several names and nicknames, among them Kudryavka (Russian for Little Curly), Zhuchka (Little Bug) and Limonchik (Little Lemon). Laika, the Russian name for several breeds of dogs similar to the husky, was the name popularized around the world. The American press dubbed her Muttnik (mutt + suffix -nik) as a pun on Sputnik,[11] or referred to her as Curly.[12] Her true pedigree is unknown, although it is generally accepted that she was part husky or other Nordic breed, and possibly part terrier.[7] A Russian magazine described her temperament as phlegmatic, saying that she did not quarrel with other dogs.[10] Vladimir Yazdovsky, who led the program of test dogs used on rockets, in a later publication wrote that “Laika was quiet and charming”.[13]

The Soviet Union and United States had previously sent animals only on sub-orbital flights.[14] Three dogs were trained for the Sputnik 2 flight: Albina, Mushka, and Laika.[15] Soviet space-life scientists Vladimir Yazdovsky and Oleg Gazenko trained the dogs.[16]

To adapt the dogs to the confines of the tiny cabin of Sputnik 2, they were kept in progressively smaller cages for periods up to 20 days. The extensive close confinement caused them to stop urinating or defecating, made them restless, and caused their general condition to deteriorate. Laxatives did not improve their condition, and the researchers found that only long periods of training proved effective. The dogs were placed in centrifuges that simulated the acceleration of a rocket launch and were placed in machines that simulated the noises of the spacecraft. This caused their pulses to double and their blood pressure to increase by 30–65 torr. The dogs were trained to eat a special high-nutrition gel that would be their food in space.[9]

Before the launch, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children. In a book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote, "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live."[17]

Sputnik 2-
Sputnik 2 (Russian pronunciation: [ˈsputʲnʲək], Russian: Спутник-2, Satellite 2), or 'Prosteyshiy Sputnik 2 (PS-2, Russian: Простейший Спутник 2 Elementary Satellite 2)), was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. Sputnik 2 was a 4-metre (13 foot) high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 metres (6.6 feet). It contained several compartments for radio transmitters, a telemetry system, a programming unit, a regeneration and temperature control system for the cabin, and scientific instruments. A separate sealed cabin contained the dog Laika.

Engineering and biological data were transmitted using the Tral D telemetry system, which would transmit data to Earth for a 15 minute period during each orbit. Two photometers were on board for measuring solar radiation (ultraviolet and x-ray emissions) and cosmic rays. Sputnik 2 did not contain a television camera; TV images of dogs on Korabl-Sputnik 2 are commonly misidentified as Laika.

Advantages:

Keen sense of smell- Laika is a canine and has an excellent sense of smell. She is able to locate Borg up to a light year away by the faintest waftings of their scent along warp currents.

Weaknesses:

Overheating- Sputnik 2 was not exactly comfortable. Or survivable.

Poor housebreaking- She was a street mutt, for christ's sake.

[rhoenix]

Wow. This just happened, folks. In the last game we had the Uber-Enterprise with the Scalp Razor of the Sisko, and in this game, we have Laika on Sputnik 2.

[Josh]

Wow. This just happened, folks. In the last game we had the Uber-Enterprise with the Scalp Razor of the Sisko, and in this game, we have Laika on Sputnik 2.

I'll do anything to win.

And by win I mean die horribly in the first .6 seconds.

[White Haven]

I...I believe I must bow to you, simply because you have boxed me in, man. You've dialed it all the way back to pre-human-crewed spaceflight. Well played. You asshole. Now sit. Roll over!