Star Trek: The Quadratic War

[Josh]

god we're fucking old

[Josh]

Worst name, best design

[rhoenix]

Worst name, best design

Yeah, that's pretty apt. It is a beautiful ship that Romulans would be proud of... if it weren't for that name. The name makes it sound like unisex groin protection, not a proper and respectable ship.

[Cynical Cat]

Worst name, best design

Yeah, that's pretty apt. It is a beautiful ship that Romulans would be proud of... if it weren't for that name. The name makes it sound like unisex groin protection, not a proper and respectable ship.

Fuck you. That ship is glorious, even the name.

I kicked so much ass with that ship. :tears up:

[Josh]

Chandleys and Reliants were my twink machines.

Looking back, I can freely admit that FP-4 torpedoes were the cheesiest fucking overpowered bullshit.

[Cynical Cat]

Chandleys and Reliants were my twink machines.

Looking back, I can freely admit that FP-4 torpedoes were the cheesiest fucking overpowered bullshit.

FASA certainly loved the Feddies. And fucking Chandleys were even more bullshit than Enterprise class cruisers.

[Josh]

Romulans got assfucked sooooooo hard. Looking at the stats on the original Bird of Prey, you wonder how a stock Connie wouldn't just laugh in its face before casually obliterating it. At least the D-7 made a fairly good decent matchup for a Constitution, especially with the Klingons tending toward wolf packs.

http://ststcs.slightlysilly.com/

One of these days, amigo, one of these days.

[Cynical Cat]

Romulans got assfucked sooooooo hard. Looking at the stats on the original Bird of Prey, you wonder how a stock Connie wouldn't just laugh in its face before casually obliterating it. At least the D-7 made a fairly good decent matchup for a Constitution, especially with the Klingons tending toward wolf packs.

http://ststcs.slightlysilly.com/

One of these days, amigo, one of these days.

No, the Roms did fine. The original Bird of Prey is weak sauce compared to a Connie (and to be fair, it spent most of the Balance of Terror hiding from the Enterprise) but the Romulans have so many good cruisers that they can't complain, including that widely produced murder machine (Gallant Wing I think) that's equal to a Connie and available during the same time line.

[Josh]

Eh, I probably just didn't go up against anybody who used 'em well.

The main thing is how hard plasma gets nerfed over what we saw in the episode, where it was a giant ball of ship-consuming death. In the game a straight hit by plasma was a nasty event, but could be mitigated and torpedoes were just pound for pound so much better. Especially pretty much any common make of Fed torpedo which was low-energy high death. (Enterprise, Reliant, Excelsior being torpedo-slingers of doom.)

Plus the Excelsior could romp the Z-1 any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but that was more Fed-wanking.

[White Haven]

I want a magazine sufficient to be a torpedo-spraying doomhose. :(

[Josh]

I want a magazine sufficient to be a torpedo-spraying doomhose. :(

Enterprise-class was your friend.

[Josh]

Good god a'mighty, you'd think I'd be beyond being shocked by how atrocious a lot of FASA's art was in the eighties books, but it still manages to surprise me every time.

[Agent Fisher]

Cause I really wanted to post, here's kind of an intro post to the Samuel B. Roberts


USS Samuel B. Roberts
Picket patrol


Shepard yawned, rubbing her face, trying to spark up some more energy. She lifted her coffee mug, finding it empty. The burnette looked around the compact bridge. Even more compact than a regular Defiant, it was easy to look around the dim lit room, the low light signalling it was Ship's Nighttime. The bridge was quiet, the Mid-Watch underway, a few soft conversations occuring to keep the boredom away. She shifted in the Chair, looking over the datapad held in her hand. She was running a double shift. It wasn't her normal watch, these weren't her normal bridge crewmembers of First Section. Second Section worked for Lee. And Third Section, who Shepard only saw when she was coming onto her shift, was under the leadership of Lieutenant JG Motti, a Bolian. Each was good in their own way. Shepard would admit to an affinity for First Section, but Third Section seemed to have this annoying ability to stay at the top of Alert-Readiness drills that the Senior Chief liked to suddenly announce. Lee was down with a flu or something, so Shepard had decided to cover his shift as Officer of the Deck. She stood, walking over to beverage replicator, setting her mug inside, a fresh cup of coffee appearing.

Taking her mug, the burnette walked around the small bridge, checking in with each station, taking the oppurtunity to touch bases with Second Section. Ensign Terrance was manning the helm, with Chiefs' Brown and Adkins were on sensors and engineering respectively, with Fire Controller Second Class M'Rell, a Caitian female, handling tactical. Lieutenant JG Willis was manning operations. He was one of the lucky ones, his two daughters had been evacuated on the Sammy B. from Earth to Bajor. The two young children had been practically adopted by entire crew. Even salty old Senior Chief, who was said to have never smiled, doted on the two girls who had started to call him 'Grandpa Chief'.

Shepard settled herself back in the Chair. Another blissfully boring picket run. No sign of Borg on the scanners. Lord, how she missed peace-time. Those long, slow patrols along the DMZs and borders. Of Enforcement Patrols in the Cardassian Territories, ensuring the Cardies weren't up to anything. Then it was patrols along the Romulan DMZ. Then a few minor conflicts with Breen or other rogue states. Oh how she missed those days when the most she had to deal with was transfer requests and a seemingly uncaring crew. Lee had helped, so had Senior Chief Sachs, leaving her with the issue of supply manifests, the occasional dust-up and trying ot figure when they would return to their home port for R&R with the families.

Now, she worried about the Borg. About when they would appear next. It had been quiet for the Sammy B. since Earth. She had watched the planet fall. Had watched the USS Jaeger, a nearly crippled Intrepid class, manage to engage her flickering warp drive and ram that Sphere. Had watched her father die so that she could jump to warp along with the transports.

Shepard shifted in her chair, typing out a request to what remained of Command for time in one of the few precious Mobile Docks, hoping to get a chance to replace the armor long since burned away fighting the borg. The Sammy B. had good shields, but Shepard wanted her armor back.

She looked up, seeing the tactical plot on the viewer. She watched the ship reach the end of it's assigned picket route, reversing course, Bajor to her side and off in the distance, the Badlands. Scuttlebutt said a mixed fleet element was in there, trying to scrounge resources. Shepard wished them luck.

[frigidmagi]

Good News everyone!

Due to hardware issues everyone who is somewhat nervous about remaining under Captain Anderson's leadership can relax! Cat is now Squadron CO! As you may have heard, my modem is no longer among the living. But I know that I leave you in the best of hands.

Captain Kadon's hands.



Seriously, I am sorry about this and am doing everything I can. I remind you that if I come back and find that you've been using the Immortal as a IED finder or a clay pigeon that I have kept up certain skills and I am know for a certain type of petty grudge keeping at times. But I'm sure everyone will cool. Havoc if you need a call made on what the Immortal is doing, ask Julian please. If he doesn't want to (and it's no problem if you rather not Julian), ask Hotfoot or CT. If all else fails, shoot White Haven.

Good luck and I'll be back soon as.

[Lys]

Hey Havoc, would lowering the missile yield on Khanjar to 1/3 photorp be acceptable? Because that's what feels right, especially after Marcao (thanks man) pointed out that we do have something of a surfeit of capital ship* murdering power.

*

Spoiler: show

The terms that distinguish a Miranda from a Danube are that the former is a ship, the latter is a boat. In common parlance ship and boat are interchangeable, but in naval terminology they are not. The Miranda and Constitution were capital ships when they were new, but a century later they'd been superseded in the role by larger and more modern combatants. To call a frigate in the modern Star Trek day a capital ship, is to call all ships capital ships, which makes nonsense of the term. The classification system you outlined yourself establishes dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers as capital ships. Had you called Sovereigns frigates and Mirandas battlecruisers, then frigates would be capital ships and battlecruisers not. The designations are themselves arbitrary and unimportant, what matters is what kinds of ships they are applied to. In short Peregrine is a boat, Akira is a ship, Sovereign is a capital ship.

If all else fails, shoot White Haven.

Immortal words of wisdom, spoken like a true Commissar.

[White Haven]

S'cool, I've got the redundant shield generators to survive long enough to scream in terror. I'm...actually not sure where that sentence was intended to go anymore, come to think of it. That may have sometime to do with customers walking in no fewer than three times and interrupting the typing of this post. I'm...sure there was a point here originally.

Good luck getting your ISP unfucked, man.

[Josh]

Good luck, Garvin.

*begins making plans for using the Immortal for phase cloak target practice*

We'll take good care of your ship and fleet!

[General Havoc]

It was certainly not my intention to classify everything else as a non-capital ship. The classification of the World War II era may have stated as such, but a Capital Ship is not defined in such ways in the context of a space navy. I have held here to the definition the Royal Navy used from way back in the day, that a Capital ship was a ship sufficiently powerful as to be capable of executing the interests of the government to which it belonged while deployed by itself in its own theatre of operations. Given this definition, Miranda-class Frigates such as USS Reliant (which was stated in Star Trek II to be engaged in a four-month solo mission to assist the Genesis project) or Light Cruisers such as USS Voyager (which served as a Capital Ship whether it wanted to or not), would qualify.

The distinction between a ship and a boat is also archaic in the context of a space navy. A boat, traditionally, is a vessel that can be taken out of the water by some means, for repairs or the like. A ship is a vessel that is effectively permanently water-bound and thus requires the services of a dry-dock, or a heavy lift-ship to access its lower portions. Obviously, this definition was always problematic, as even the mightiest ships of the Napoleonic era could be careened on a convenient beach for hull-scraping. The distinction was further muddled when Submarines, which were originally all boats by the old standard, ballooned into modern monsters of the Ohio or Typhoon-classes, and yet were still, by tradition, referred to as "boats", irrespective of the fact that they were larger in many cases than a Northhampton-class Heavy Cruiser.

As such, given the use to which Frigates and Light Cruisers such as the Miranda, Luna, Nova, or Intrepid-classes were intended for, and largely employed in, despite the exigencies of war, I have chosen to classify them as Capital Ships, whether that dovetails with the boat/ship distinction or not. I recognize that this may cheapen the term for those used to a "Capital ship" meaning something with the weight and fire of a D'Deridex, Vor'cha, or Galaxy. Your crews are all welcome to use any definition of this permanently nebulous concept that you like. But these lighter ships were plainly designed to operate on their own as major instruments of policy.

[General Havoc]

As to lowering the yield of the missiles to a third of a photon torpedo, that will do for these purposes. Your ship can certainly beat the hell out of things that come your way, but this will enable you to better deal with the perhaps less cube-like vessels in a somewhat more efficient manner.

[Lys]

Do note that i specifically said a ship like the Miranda was clearly a capital ship during the movie era. By TNG, however, it has been superseded in that role, and we generally do not see ships in the Miranda's weight class operating independently. Moreover, you called an Executor a capital ship while simultaneously saying that it normally deploys in groups, which rather belies the definition you are using yourself. To me capital ships are by definition the principal and most powerful combatants in a navy or fleet, the ones that task forces are built around. A late 19th century gunboat or sloop designed for service in distant colonies, the type of vessel that gave rise to the term "gunboat diplomacy", is not a capital ship, it's not even a ship, even if it's designed to operate independently as an instrument of state policy.

Anyway, this is on the whole of no great importance. What is important is the first part of my prior post... and it seems you've answered it! This is most excellent, you have my thanks! ^_^

[General Havoc]

Yes, this is all completely irrelevant. But you forget that I enjoy debating certain irrelevancies.

I'm afraid I never called an Executor anything, by virtue of the fact that there is no such ship as the Executor, unless we're talking Star Wars, wherein it is unquestionably a capital ship. As such I have no idea what you are talking about. If you mean the Exterminator-class, that is a Borg frigate, employed in packs because even if the Borg consider some ships Capital and others not, their context for such things is entirely alien to the concept. Moreover, I did not claim the Exterminator was a capital ship, as I made no such classifications vis-a-vis the Borg in general. It was not my claim that every frigate is ipso facto a Capital vessel, merely that Starfleet both employs and regards the majority of their Frigates as such.

Consider this: When deploying a fleet in World War II, high commands on both sides would describe the fleet solely in terms of the quantities of capital ships employed. Japan deployed four carriers at the Battle of Midway, while the US deployed three. In reality, Japan sent twenty+ ships to Midway, eleven of which were destroyers, but none of those vessels are considered relevant to the overall strategic calculus in play. Similarly at Trafalgar, we speak of Nelson's 27 ships to Villeneuve's 33, ignoring the half dozen frigates that either side employed. Those ships were not capital vessels, and thus considered irrelevant to strategic discussions of overall strength.

Now tell me, when Starfleet describes the strength of a force, what terms do they use? In every operation, be it major or minor, Starfleet describes its forces in terms of "ships". Not battlecruisers or Sovreigns or Galaxies or warships-of-the-line, but simply "ships". Operation Return involved 600 "ships". The Seventh Fleet deployed a hundred and twenty odd "ships". They don't state that the fleet has nineteen heavy cruisers, they say it has a hundred and fourteen-odd "ships" in it, which is considered a sufficient ballpark of force. Mirandas, Excelsiors, Galaxies, everything lumped together into one giant clump. It does the same for the enemy. 1,200-odd "ships" comprise the enemy fleet during Operation Return, with no mention of whether they represent that many Jem'hadar Attack Ships or Battlecruisers. They do this despite the fact that a Miranda and a Sovereign (to say nothing of an Attack ship and a Battlecruiser) have vastly different capabilities, because Starfleet's standard operating principle is that, on the strategic level, a ship is a ship is a ship, and any ship should, by rights, be able to perform the independent duties that Starfleet requires of all of its vessels. This is the very reason why Starfleet designs its ships to be omni-role to whatever capacity they can (there are, of course, exceptions). Any given ship should be able to deal with the sorts of situations that individual ships are intended to deal with, military, diplomatic, or otherwise. This isn't to say that there aren't ships better for some duties than others, but simply that they prefer, no doubt for logistical reasons, to be able to simply send "a ship" to deal with a given situation or mission.

Now, in practice, yes, some ships are simply no longer capable of functioning in a capital role. Mirandas are probably among them. There are also vast distinctions between the capabilities of some of these ships and others (a Sovereign is not a Steamrunner) But the line is not drawn around the basis of who is and is not a heavy cruiser. Akira, Nebula, Intrepid, and Nova-class vessels are all lighter than a heavy cruiser, and yet all serve as capital vessels when required, as do the Excelsiors, only slightly newer in most cases than the Mirandas. We see these things happen all over TNG and DS9. There are also some Starfleet ships that are plainly not Capital vessels, mostly escorts such as the Sabre, Venture, and Defiant classes (Sisko's efforts notwithstanding). This is the case despite the fact that a Defiant is capable of leveling nearly any ship deployed. It is not designed to operate independently (Defiant is based out of a starbase, and Valiant was lost behind the lines) for long periods of time, nor to respond to a full panoply of missions and requirements. It is not a Capital ship. The Excelsiors it could so easily destroy, are.

The definition you use, of the major units that a fleet is built around, is fine for WWII, and fine for your own IC internal purposes, but plainly not how Starfleet regards their vessels. Enterprise-D, flagship of the Federation, and Capital ship beyond question, was not the core of a powerful task group, escorted by lighter vessels to perform tasks of earth-shattering import, not even when such tasks needed doing. It was an independent vessel, like hundreds of others, and was often sent to check in on other such vessels (or more frequently, their remains), grouping together with other ships only when a task force needed to be assembled, and quickly being scattered again once the mission was over. You mentioned 19th century gunboats, sloops, or other colonial-service ships as being not capital ships. By the definition of the age of sail, they were not. But Starfleet's entire fleet is comprised of the larger descendants of such gunboats and colony servers. There is no powerful home-fleet of battleships, reserved in home waters for confrontation with the main enemy, never showing their face beyond Earthspace. There is only the Starfleet, spread throughout the Federation and beyond on hundreds of individual missions, coming together when the circumstances require a major show of force. Starfleet is not the Royal Navy, nor the US navy, nor the Imperial Japanese navy, though it resembles each of them in part. It is not really even a Navy. Starfleet is a collection of Federation starships. And with the exception of those clearly not designed for such things (Defiant, Saber) or those so old as to be obsolete in all but emergencies (Miranda, Constitution), they're pretty much all Capital Ships, at least in my view.

Indeed, the fact that almost every ship in Starfleet is a capital vessel, is one of the reasons I like Star Trek so much.

[Lys]

If you mean the Exterminator-class, that is a Borg frigate, employed in packs because even if the Borg consider some ships Capital and others not, their context for such things is entirely alien to the concept. Moreover, I did not claim the Exterminator was a capital ship, as I made no such classifications vis-a-vis the Borg in general. It was not my claim that every frigate is ipso facto a Capital vessel, merely that Starfleet both employs and regards the majority of their Frigates as such.

Yes Exterminator, not Executor. Apologies, the words are similar. You said the following with respect to Exterminators:

Frigates though they are, these are capital ships, easily as lethal as a Jem'Hadar attack ship or Klingon Bird of Prey if not moreso.

It looks like you said the thing which you claim to not have said. Perhaps you did not mean it? It was my objecting to the idea that Exterminators, Jem'hadar attack ships, or Klingon Birds of Prey are capital ships that started the tangent in the first place. A tangent that clearly catches your interest far more than mine, as evidenced by the relative length of our responses thus far. So the rest of your argument will have to be let lie, i'm afraid.

[General Havoc]

Huh. Well all right, then. I apparently did describe them as Capital Ships, albeit, in my defense, I did so literal years ago as a throwaway remark.

No, by my definition, the Exterminator frigate is indeed not a Capital Ship. The reason I described it as such was so that people would not dismiss the Exterminator as a "mere" frigate, unable to hurt them. Exterminators merit their name, after all. As to Jem'hadar Attack Ships and Klingon Birds of Prey, I do not know if they are capital ships or not. I assume not. The empires that produce them do not seem to employ them on the sorts of missions that would warrant inclusion in the term. This does not make them any less lethal. Defiants are not capitals either, after all.

[Cynical Cat]

Cynical Cat rolled 1d100 and got a total of 52:
52

[General Havoc]

General Havoc rolled 1d100 and got a total of 83:
83

General Havoc rolled 3d6 and got a total of 14:
6, 3, 5

General Havoc rolled 3d6 and got a total of 12:
3, 3, 6

General Havoc rolled 3d6 and got a total of 11:
6, 4, 1

The above was performed via tests.