Star Trek: Death of the Federation

[Jason_Firewalker]

Maybe I am not expressing this right, but basically all I want is the ship to go really really really fast, be super efficient on antimatter and able to do it for super extended periods of time... There has to be a way to do that without generating mass energy that I could use with other systems. Basically I don't want the mass of power/energy to use, I just want to be mega-fast and able to do it for massively sustained amounts of time

[rhoenix]

I've said this to you on AIM already, but I'll say it here for posterity.

If you want to go really really fast, just install a modern warp engine in your ship. You can even paint it red.

For added awesome, you can include a transwarp engine.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Yah... ya know what Rheonix, I am going to have to bow to your advice on this one... Basically lets say that the engine is just a normal circa-2385 Nebula core, but that the ship was a testbed for a Transwarp Generator or a Slipstream Drive also, basically allowing it to travel at extremely high warp for extended periods of time. These things would not add power output to the ship but instead just allow it to go blindingly fast warp speeds for extremely extended periods of time. At that point the sheet would look like this:


Captain's Name: Blentarith
Captain's Species: El-Aurian
Captain's Background: Born in the Delta Quadrant at what would translate on Earth to October 9th 1776 (making him approximately 622 years old). Blentarith is ancient by most species standards. He was a musician on Aurian 7 for the first 100 years of his life. He grew bored with attempting to use the instruments provided for him by his species past and sojourned to the stars to encounter new forms of music. Spending almost 100 years traveling around the Delta Quadrant he learned to take care of himself quite well, becoming handy at most repairs on-board a starship.

A skilled linguist and diplomat he mediated peace through talk like most El-Aurians are easily capable of. He migrated to the Beta Quadrant around the year 2000, exploring the music and tones of so many new cultures. He then decided quickly after encountering the Orion Syndicate's nanescent form and accidentally providing them with warp drive, to be much more careful in his explorations of cultures and music. In 2162 he was on Earth for the first time, happening to also be there at the time of the signing of the Federation Charter. This was the time he first encountered Guinan, and fast friendship formed. Soon thereafter they headed together back to the Delta Quadrant only to find their civilization destroyed entirely by the Borg. Escaping as best they could they were caught in the Nexus and Blentarith became inescapably linked to it.

Joining Starfleet soon after in 2300 he kept his species and history secret from his superiors. He saw Starfleet as a safe way to explore the galaxy. His specialty at the academy was Xeno-Anthropology, Xeno-Linquistics and Xeno-Biology. He intentionally held himself back as to not attract attention to himself. Serving aboard a myriad of Starships between 2300 and the beginning of the Dominion War, it was quickly figured out that he was not the human he claimed to be. Confronted by Starfleet command, he revealed his nature and his age only under duress and potential charges. Serving out the majority of the war on the sidelines on Earth he was almost killed in the Breen raid on Starfleet Command. Achieving the rank of Captain shortly after the war ended. After the return of Voyager from the Delta Quadrant he became concerned. Even with the destruction of the Unimatrix and the Queen, Blentarith was frightened. He knew something was afoot. His sixth sense of "Something is wrong here" that he had developed over his then 600 years of life told him the stink-o-meter was off the chart. He brought his concerns to Starfleet command. They dismissed him. Repeatedly he returned, each time louder and stronger in conviction. Each time the dismissed him and began to believe him a paranoid fool. His voice went unheard.

Unheard and disgraced he was assigned to a backwaters assignment aboard a station along the Tholian border. His assignment was as the first contact specialist for the sector and the official diplomatic link between the Tholians and the Federation. It was a dead end assignment. Then the cubes came. He watched in horror as the Borg descended over his new home of the Federation. Destroying everything in their path the Borg made him weep tears of fury. He was on a forgotten post in the middle of nowhere. The station was in line for a Borg attack and the only way out was the USS T'Kumbra which had docked there for a Baryon Sweep (See ST: TNG Season 6 Ep "Starship Mine"). Evacuating the 205 station personel onto the T'Kumbra along with the crew of the ship after the Captain of the T'Kumbra (Jah Meltan, an unjoined Trill) beamed aboard and prematurely ended the Baryon Sweep.

Blentarith took command of the T'Kumbra, which had been the testbed of a new hyper efficent, non-subspace damaging and higly powerful warp drive system prototype. Blentarith ordered a full retreat at maximum warp away from the incoming Borg fleet and back towards what remained of the Federation. Over the years since the fall of the Federation and Starfleet, Blentarith has had to replace over 47% of his crew with survivors of other ships and colonies he has come across. The T'Kumbra has been outfitted with several odd upgrades since then as well thanks to his Chief Engineer Rodney Melhorn.


Ship Name: USS T'Kumbra
Ship Class: Nebula-class Light Cruiser (upgraded to testbed new warp drive system)
Crew composition: 827, 440 of which are former Starfleet officers, the rest are castoffs and survivors from many places. This number does include a group of Tamarians (3) and six pairs of Binars. The Binars are apart of the team that keeps the special warp drive running.

Special Systems and other Acquisitions:

1: Testbed Transwarp Generator: The ship is a testbed for an attempt by Starfleet pre-Borg invasion to achieve an even faster and more sustainable FTL drive. The Transwarp Generator is the product of a think tank of scientists working on Transwarp theory since the failure of the Transwarp drive on the USS Excelsior, and they were only able to achieve completion of the project after Seven Of Nine/Anika Hansen joined them to assist. The TWG allows the T'Kumbra to propel itself for 10 days on end at Warp 9.99999 without having to stop and cool down as well as achieve such a velocity.

2: Enhanced Ramscoop Tech: The ramscoops on the T'Kumbra have been upgraded to increase efficiency 765% to assist in the use of the Transwarp generator as the Ramscoop's magnetic field generation is key to the activation of the TWG.

3: Enhanced Sensor Suite: All sensor range and detail is increased thanks to the Binars by a factor of two.

4: Mining Probes: 7 specially retrofitted Type 11 shuttles designed to use their phasers to dig holes in asteroids and planets then specially re-calibrated transporters to beam out the needed minerals. The transporter on each is then able to store up to 300 metric tons of material (non-organic) and bring it back to the T'Kumbra.

5: Special Replicator Factory: Four (as opposed to standard 1) industrial replicators are aboard the T'Kumbra, allowing her to fabricate almost anything needed to repair systems on any major class of ship with ease at the drop of the hat almost.

6: Enhanced Transporter Systems: Allows the USS T'Kumbra to carry almost 90,000 metric tons of non-organic material in an effective suspended animation state for a nearly unlimited time frame

(Note: Numbers 4 thru 6 were added post-Borg invasion, and are not standard issue for the ship).

Ship's Weakness: A total lack of upgraded weapons and or defenses, she is more of a transport vessel and flying factory/command center. She has had to replace one of her fore and one of her aft torpedo launchers to fit the enhanced transporter storage buffers. Her phaser relays are in dire need of replacement so much so that her phasers operate at 60% efficency and could blow if used too intensely but the crew has yet been unable to find a particular un-replicateable mineral required for the job.

Service history to-date:
Comissioned 2352
Assigned Cardassian Border Patrol 2353 to 2373
Served Dominion War 7th fleet 2373 to 2375
Brought to Utopia Planetia to serve as a testbed for new Warp Drive System 2375
New Warp System Install Complete 2387
Fleeing to Bajor 2389

[Cynical Cat]

Maybe I am not expressing this right, but basically all I want is the ship to go really really really fast, be super efficient on antimatter and able to do it for super extended periods of time... There has to be a way to do that without generating mass energy that I could use with other systems. Basically I don't want the mass of power/energy to use, I just want to be mega-fast and able to do it for massively sustained amounts of time

Speed is the capabilities of the warp drive, the power of the engine, and the mass being hauled. So have a highly capable warp drive, a good power plant, and comparatively small ship. That's baseline. Havoc's willing to give people all kinds of cool shit so top of the line warp engines are definitely in. Power's going to be an issue, but you don't need a wank triple power engine to have a lot of power. You'll want a powerful one and you'll want to be light on unnecessary mass. Antimatter is easily solved.

Don't use an AM/M warp drive.

The Romulans use a quantum singularity drive instead of antimatter for their warships. They've had it for decades so its possible someone else either swiped one or is experimenting with making their own. No antimatter issues.

So

cutting edge warp drive
high output reactor
quantum singularity warp drive

And you have a speedy, very fuel efficient design without getting the GM to beat you to death. The less heavy crap you're carrying the better, of course.

[Charon]

Sorry to disrupt the flow.

Jason, could you edit your signature so that it isn't 21 lines long? Maybe more like 10 or 12?

[Hotfoot]

What is it with the Nebula Class that makes people assign it whatever roles they want? I mean, it's a nice ship design, and I chose it as one of my captain's prior commands because according to what research I could do on Memory Alpha, it had a pretty decent sensor array and thus made a logical choice for an exploration and science vessel. There are, from there, several possible applications to its use as a warship, down to it being a lighter, more maneuverable cousin to the Galaxy.

But as a fleet tender/mobile shipyard? That's way out of left field. Not that the concept of a fleet tender by itself is a bad one (though mobile shipyard should be pretty much right out), or that even the concept of using existing and/or outdated hulls as the baseline for such a project is itself offensive. It's just odd that anyone would expect an industrial replicator capable of maintaining critical systems to be on board a starship, much less one that did not have the role of being a tender.

Moreover, replicators themselves are not magic make anything devices (despite what some episodes of the various shows would have us believe). In fact, there are some pretty hardcore limitations. If there wasn't, Starfleet could just turn asteroid belts, gas giants, and dead stars into entire fleets with the only real limitation being the amount of energy needed. The specifics of these limitations are, of course, up to our illustrious GM, but suffice to say that there is still some need for fabrication in a traditional sense.

That said, if you want to create a mobile fabrication ship, hey cool. If you want to take a Nebula and say you patched on a bunch of fabrication gear and so forth to the frame at the expense of other stuff, awesome. If you want to have an up-gunned tender (which would probably be some sort of made up design we could come up with), that should work too. Best estimates on a standard Nebula's firepower are 8-10 beams and 2 tubes as baseline.

And we could definitely use a ship capable of fabrication in some way or another, that is for sure.

Transwarp, meanwhile, tends to defy the standard Warp factors. As such, one does not measure Transwarp speeds using Warp factors. It's a crazy, messed up system.

[LadyTevar]

I guess the Spector can share shields. I don't intend to have my ship close any further than optimal torpedo range.

[rhoenix]

I guess the Spector can share shields. I don't intend to have my ship close any further than optimal torpedo range.

Perfect.

[General Havoc]

All right, gentlemen, I've put it off long enough, so here is my comment concerning Firewalker's ship before us:

Firewalker, the notion of a ship tender is one I'm certainly willing to grant. The primary problem, as it stands, is that your ship is not a tender. In fact, your ship at present is a bunch of completely unrelated technologies thrown together for no rhyme or reason.

Here are my issues:

1: As Hotfoot pointed out, what you are describing for your engines is not Transwarp. Transwarp drive exceeds Warp 10 via methods that are not entirely clear. We already have one ship capable of projecting the entire fleet into Transwarp. While this does not mean you can't have an independant Transwarp engine, Transwarp does not simply mean "really fast". It is an entirely different means of propulsion. Warp 9.9999 or whatever it is your top speed is is simply a matter of an extremely efficient and fast warp drive. There are many ways to achieve such a warp drive, several of which have already been suggested by Cyncat and others. You may have a powerful reactor and a fast engine in your ship, but I need one that makes some degree of sense.

2: 765% of anything is completely right out, and I don't care if we're describing the efficiency of the sewage treatment facility. That being said, my main concern is not the numbers but the actual use to which you will be putting these advanced Busard collectors to. What do, in your view of this ship, these advanced collectors permit you to do? If you're simply gathering in Hydrogen at an advanced rate, that's fine, but otherwise we need to have a discussion as to capabilities.

3: A fleet tender or otherwise "cleric"-like ship, has neither a need for enhanced-range sensors, nor a purpose for them. If your ship is designed to support major fleet actions, then I see no reason for such a sensor suite to exist. Moreover, such enhancements would come from technology, not the crew operating it, Binars or not. I strongly recommend scrapping these sensors.

4: As Hotfoot pointed out, Industrial Replicators are not magic buttons pressed to summon anything your heart desires. Don't get me wrong, I do see the benefits to having a ship with Industrial Replicators, and I am prepared to accept them, but you need to give me some idea of what you believe the replicators are (roughly) capable of doing for you. Can they make weapons? Ship components? Warp Drives? Entire Ships? The answer to that last question better be no, by the way.

5: The part I can't figure out, Firewalker, is that if your ship is a fleet tender, why does it posses no real capacity to actually tend to ships? Where are the flights of worker bees? Where are the enhanced tractor and deflector grids for manipulating damaged or disabled vessels? Where's the facilities and internal workspace necessary to perform major repairs, or rebuild damaged sections of nearby vessels? If you want to play a Cleric, in short, where's your actual Clerical functionality? The Mining probes and transporter buffers are a start towards that, but those sorts of things, things that will actually allow you to lend proper support to the rest of the Fleet, will serve you one hell of a lot better than enhanced Warp engines and sensors. After all, your ship has nearly no guns. What exactly is the good of a hyper-fast warp drive if the ships you are accompanying can't keep up?

My strong suggestion would be to drop the extraneous stuff and focus on what you're actually going to be doing.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Same Captain, new ship concept folks, as I cannot seem to pin down the other style of fleet tender, I think I might go for this style of fleet healer...

Captain's Name: Blentarith
Captain's Species: El-Aurian
Captain's Background: Born in the Delta Quadrant at what would translate on Earth to October 9th 1776 (making him approximately 622 years old). Blentarith is ancient by most species standards. He was a musician on Aurian 7 for the first 100 years of his life. He grew bored with attempting to use the instruments provided for him by his species past and sojourned to the stars to encounter new forms of music. Spending almost 100 years traveling around the Delta Quadrant he learned to take care of himself quite well, becoming handy at most repairs on-board a starship.

A skilled linguist and diplomat he mediated peace through talk like most El-Aurians are easily capable of. He migrated to the Beta Quadrant around the year 2000, exploring the music and tones of so many new cultures. He then decided quickly after encountering the Orion Syndicate's nanescent form and accidentally providing them with warp drive, to be much more careful in his explorations of cultures and music. In 2162 he was on Earth for the first time, happening to also be there at the time of the signing of the Federation Charter. This was the time he first encountered Guinan, and fast friendship formed. Soon thereafter they headed together back to the Delta Quadrant only to find their civilization destroyed entirely by the Borg. Escaping as best they could they were caught in the Nexus and Blentarith became inescapably linked to it.

Joining Starfleet soon after in 2300 he kept his species and history secret from his superiors. He saw Starfleet as a safe way to explore the galaxy. His specialty at the academy was Xeno-Anthropology, Xeno-Linquistics and Xeno-Biology. He intentionally held himself back as to not attract attention to himself. Serving aboard a myriad of Starships between 2300 and the beginning of the Dominion War, it was quickly figured out that he was not the human he claimed to be. Confronted by Starfleet command, he revealed his nature and his age only under duress and potential charges. Serving out the majority of the war on the sidelines on Earth he was almost killed in the Breen raid on Starfleet Command. Achieving the rank of Captain shortly after the war ended. After the return of Voyager from the Delta Quadrant he became concerned. Even with the destruction of the Unimatrix and the Queen, Blentarith was frightened. He knew something was afoot. His sixth sense of "Something is wrong here" that he had developed over his then 600 years of life told him the stink-o-meter was off the chart. He brought his concerns to Starfleet command. They dismissed him. Repeatedly he returned, each time louder and stronger in conviction. Each time the dismissed him and began to believe him a paranoid fool. His voice went unheard.

Unheard and disgraced he was assigned to a backwaters assignment aboard a station along the Tholian border. His assignment was as the first contact specialist for the sector and the official diplomatic link between the Tholians and the Federation. It was a dead end assignment. Then the cubes came. He watched in horror as the Borg descended over his new home of the Federation. Destroying everything in their path the Borg made him weep tears of fury. He was on a forgotten post in the middle of nowhere. The station was in line for a Borg attack and the only way out was the USS Yitzhak Rabin which had docked there for a Baryon Sweep (See ST: TNG Season 6 Ep "Starship Mine"). Evacuating the 205 station personel onto the Yitzhak Rabin along with the crew of the ship after the Captain of the Yitzhak Rabin (Jah Meltan, an unjoined Trill) beamed aboard and prematurely ended the Baryon Sweep.

Blentarith took command of the Yitzhak Rabin, which had been the testbed of a prototype Subspace Shield Regeneration Induction Matrix Device. Blentarith ordered a full retreat at maximum warp away from the incoming Borg fleet and back towards what remained of the Federation. Over the years since the fall of the Federation and Starfleet, Blentarith has had to replace over 47% of his crew with survivors of other ships and colonies he has come across. The Yitzhak Rabin has been kept together thanks to his Chief Engineer Lt. Commmander Rodney Melhorn, a tireless example of humanity.


Ship Name: USS Yitzhak Rabin (NCC-63293)
Ship Class: Akira-class Cruiser (upgraded to testbed new shield system)
Crew composition: 428, 247 of which are Starfleet officers, the rest are castoffs and survivors from many places all with viable skills. This number does include a group of Tamarians (3) and six pairs of Binars. The Binars are apart of the team that keeps the special Shield Matrix running.

Special Systems and other Acquisitions:

1: Subspace Regenerative Shield Induction Matrix: This device allows the USS Yitzhak Rabin to project a unique subspace bubble around a starship who's combat shields are up and at at least 1% strength. The Matrix goes to work warping the shields of the ship, increasing its shield regeneration rate by a factor of 3. This system can only be used at a range of 3 kilometers or less.

2: Enhanced Medical Facility: The sickbay aboard the Yitzhak Rabin has been upgraded. Instead of covering only about 500 sq meters it now covers close to 1000 sq meters with two secondary facilities of 250 sq meters on other decks. The whole ship is internally outfitted with holo-emitters and the entire medical staff has been replaced with a team of 20 LTMH (Long Term Medical Holograms).

3: Shield Expansion Matrix: Not a unique system but a side effect the Binars were able to discover about the Regenerative Matrix that was installed. It allowed the Yitzhak Rabin to personally expand her shields around a vessel up to Galaxy-Class in size and not loose efficiency or defensive output.


Ship's Weakness:

1: Rather Bi-Polar captain: Blentarith witnessed the fall of his people to the Borg and he is scarred for it. The loss of his new home in the Alpha Quadrant has made him rather unstable. He is energetic and ready to fight the Borg one day, the next near suicidal and ready to set off the Rabin's self-destruct mechanism. His instabilities have caused him to become unsure of his decision making processes when he has time to think. He has begun to second guess old decisions from fights with the Borg over the last few years. He is wallowing in his own despair at times, near suicidal but at the same time he realizes that the galaxy needs him and he must do EVERYTHING in his power to stop the Borg, a reluctant hero if there ever was one.

2: Internal Super-structure degeneration: Along the port side of the saucer section slightly aft of the center line there is an area of weakness in the internal superstructure of the ship. In the battle for Iplex Prime just 8 months ago a Borg carving beam cut through that part of the ship and removed a section of the internal structure that supports the ship. It has been replaced and patched over but its somewhat of a "duct tape and pray" situation. Sustained transit at over Warp 8.9 (over 3 hours at a time) will cause the SIF field of the Rabin and the warp field to begin to buckle. The Rabin will need to drop out of warp and realign both systems to continue, a process that takes about an hour.

3: Shield Nuances: Use of the SRSIM requires detailed scans of a vessel's shield geometry to work to full efficiency, without those scans the SRSIM only works at 75% capacity thus providing a doubling rather then tripling of shield regeneration. It also requires a cool-down period after heavy use. Able to be used four times in rapid succession (within five minutes) the SRSIM will require a cool-down period of about ten minutes per "charge" used once the full compliment of four charges is used. With even a ten minute break with even one charge remaining in ship the SRSIM will be at capacity of four again.


Service history to-date:
Commissioned 2352
Assigned Cardassian Border Patrol 2353 to 2373
Served Dominion War 7th fleet 2373 to 2375
Brought to Memory Alpha for installation of Subspace Regenerative Shield Induction Matrix for advanced field testing 2387
Fleeing to Bajor 2389

EDIT: To fix a spelling error....

[Cynical Cat]

Off the top of my head:

1) You would have never gotten a commission in Starfleet because you lied on the entrance exam and the medical tests would out you as a liar.

2) An unstable is looking to be relieved of command by a medical officer.

[rhoenix]

Damn.

Just... damn. Havoc, I had kind of expected your NPC to have lasted a bit longer - but that was one hell of an exit.

Lady and gentlemen, this is for the Argonaut as well as everything else now. We must ensure that Commander Kalpov's sacrifice was not in vain.

[Cynical Cat]

Damn.

Just... damn. Havoc, I had kind of expected your NPC to have lasted a bit longer - but that was one hell of an exit.

Lady and gentlemen, this is for the Argonaut as well as everything else now. We must ensure that Commander Kalpov's sacrifice was not in vain.

Stop being a drama queen. He's been boarded. It's not good, but that doesn't mean it's over.

[rhoenix]

Stop being a drama queen. He's been boarded. It's not good, but that doesn't mean it's over.

Yes, the ship has been boarded, not lost.

However, given the situation, that character is likely gone. I've a sinking feeling we might see him again with a couple more accessories later.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Stop being a drama queen. He's been boarded. It's not good, but that doesn't mean it's over.

Yes, the ship has been boarded, not lost.

However, given the situation, that character is likely gone. I've a sinking feeling we might see him again with a couple more accessories later.

rheonix, buddy, I have know GH for over a decade. I know from experience attempting to make assertions to what his plotline will entail will only cause him to completely change everything and screw with his players all the more. Just as an FYI

[rhoenix]

rheonix, buddy, I have know GH for over a decade. I know from experience attempting to make assertions to what his plotline will entail will only cause him to completely change everything and screw with his players all the more. Just as an FYI

Goodness, I had no idea. Really.

[Dark Silver]

I won't be making a final post, but Heritage has fallen to the Assault drones, it's crew either dead, dying, or assimilated.

Thank you Havoc for the opportunity to play.

[rhoenix]

I won't be making a final post, but Heritage has fallen to the Assault drones, it's crew either dead, dying, or assimilated.

Thank you Havoc for the opportunity to play.

Dammit!

Fine, I claim his torps, then.

[Hotfoot]

Dude, it's not over yet. You're bloody, but not yet dead. Being boarded in this game is an inevitability we all are most likely going to have to deal with.

[Charon]

That's why I threw in that nifty bit of tech to hopefully give me an edge in the event of being boarded.

[rhoenix]

That's why I threw in that nifty bit of tech to hopefully give me an edge in the event of being boarded.

Honestly, I think DS has other things on his mind right now. I talked with him today, and he said he just wasn't feeling the game anyway.

So to alleviate his worry, I decided to make the noble sacrifice and take the remaining torps from his ship to remember the Heritage by.

[Cynical Cat]

If DS is leaving the game because he doesn't feel it well then that's his choice.

On the other hand, Hotfoot is absolutely right. We're all likely to be boarded at some point. Several of us have strengths or weaknesses that specifically relate to boarding. Frigid, Hotfoot, Marcao, Nitram, and I all have them and that's just off the top of my head.

How many times did the Borg board the Enterprise in the series? What is the Enterprise's track record against the Borg? Oh yeah, definitely not the end of things by a long shot.

[SirNitram]

And those were Redshirts with ladies' shaver model Phasers. We've got rifle-style, and as I mentioned, my Combat Drones are clumsily rebuilt shotguns.

[General Havoc]

As I've not been shy of pointing out, you're all liable to wind up with unexpected guests aboard in the course of this game. Many of you have systems and weapons designed for that precise eventuality. Even those who don't must, by necessity, have devised some method for fighting them off.

Being boarded by the Borg sucks, don't get me wrong, but it is not intended to be a death sentence (circumstances depending).

[Dark Silver]

I'm not leaving the game because I got boarded, I'm just not feeling it anymore.

I could have taken the Heritage out in a fiery explosion, but being pragmatic, I figured I'd bow out, the crew went down in a glorious last stand against the invaders, and other ships can send over crews to finish off the drones / salvage the ship for parts.