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Reposting from elsewhere. Thought it'd be fun to post in a Trek forum .
From TrekLit: Beneath the Reaptor's Wing:
Impulse/sublight speed:
Page 173 said:
According to the nav computer back board the Bird-of-prey Dhivael... Commander T'Voras and his attack wing now moved at the agonizingly torpid pace of less than half of luminal speed.
Unfortunately, the dwadling crawl of T'Voras's two ten-vessel squadrons was something he had no power to influence, any more than he could avoid the necessity of leaving his command, the Dhivael on a long orbital trajectory just beyond the remote orbital debris zone that marked the far boundaries of the red giant star's planetary system... would be to risk immediate detection... triggered instantaneously by the entry of any unauthorized warp-driven vessel.
A sublight Nei'hrr-class attack raptor, however, had no such limitations. Therefore the small assault T'Voras now piloted, leading nineteen of his b ird-of-prey's finest flyers to coast ever deeper into the massive red giant star's deep gravity well...
Provided, T'Voras reminded himself, that we succeed in entering the planet's atmosphere at the proper coordinates, and at the the appropriate angle.
... Even after the squadrons reduced their velocity for entry approach, the raptors would hit the atmosphere at multiple hundreds of mat'drih per eisae and would have to endure hull temperatures of several thousand onkians as their deceleration continued...
To sum? After the Vulcans install warp detectors around allied planets. Romulan attackships still sneak past via sublight fighters. This stuns the Coalition leadership until...
Page 256 said:
Archer placed Sol almost directly in the center of the forward windows and open up the throttle to one-quarter of the shuttlepod's maximum sublight velocity; Archer felt the force of acceleration push him into his chair for an instant, until the interntial damping system kicked in and restored the local gravimetric conditions to a static one g.
... Without a warp drive, a ship could take hours or even days to cross the gulf that separated the farthest extremities of the detection grid from the planets it protected... but only if interloper vessels generated the war pfields necessary to set off a systemwide alarm.
Archer thought the odds of anyone making visual contact with the tiny shuttlepod before it got within striking distance of Earth were pretty remote. Even at subwarp speed the little craft was moving at a not-inconsiderable fraction of c, which would make a chance sighting highly unlikely. Besides, the shuttlepod's precise location and angle of approach to its inner solar system targets had been deliberately withheld from Starfleet for the purposes of today's war game. And added to that was thes here scale of the space that the shuttlepod was now crossing.
The resumption of the quiet allowed Archer to focus his thoughts inward as the distance gauges on his pilot's console began monitoring and reporting each milestone the shuttle pod reached: the equivalents of the relative distances from Sol of the orbits of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, the asteroid belt, and Mars, with the shuttlepod maintaining an off-the-ecliptic trajectory that kept the vessel well away from any planet, minor planet, or asteroid.
The whole passage took nearly twenty-two hours... as Earth grew steadily nearer and nearer until the blue world of his birth looked close enough to touch right through the forward windows.
TL;DR - The Vulcans were too smart for their own good.
Shipbuilding:
Page 213 said:
... the intricate latticework of metal trusses and beams that made up the largest shipbuilding and repair yard in the Centauri system. The sprawling orbiting shipyard... although the vast open-architecture facility steadily dwindled in size on the screen, signs of furious activity - tiny enviromental-suited figure nudged massive yet weightless components into position amid the brilliant orange flashes from the beam-jacks' arc-welders while small workpods fluttered about from worksite to worksite - remained mainfestly in evidence. Ships of human manufacture, fully half which were Daedalus-class vessels, like Yorktown, filled each of the complex's sixteen unpressurized but solar-flare shielded repair bays - except for the two micrograv hangers that were conspicuously dark. One of these was the one in which Yorktown had just completed her repairs. The other had for nearly a year served as the cradle and incubator for one of Starfleet's newest warp-five-capable ships of the line.
It would be an image for the history books and the news reports, once operational security was no longer a concern: an armada of no less than one dozen Daedalus-class starships, some newly constructed, some very recently refitted, their hulls glinting dully in the dim, distant Sol... the largest single naval action the United Earth government had ever undertaken using only its own resources.
... the largest starfaring attack force Earth had ever assembled didn't hurt either.
* After bullying Admiral Gardner, Captain Carlos Ramirez of Intrepid fame joins the hunt.
MACO Deployment:
Pages 367 said:
Once the sixty-odd small troop transports were away form the ships that carried them...
Even before the explosive bolts ejected the dropship from the Dykstra's belly, Private Colin Idaho had known t expect his stomach to try and claw its way out of his belly... (he vomits planetward)...
"Why couldn't these friggin' dropship come equipped with those really efficient inertial dampers that Starfleet uses?" Idaho said while still in the throes of his agonies.
Molecular fires blazed across the hull of the brand-new NX-class starship, and had already nearly consumed the forward sections that had been closest to the nuke which the Romulans had surprised them
... When he'd served aboard Enterprise, most hostiles had used directed energy weapons of various sorts rather than old-style nukes. Such weapons could be lethal when detonated within a certain radius of a starship's hull, despite the latest in hull-polarization systems. In this case, the nuclear blast had blinded and crippled the ship just long enough to enable the pack of Romulan fighter craft to inflict mortal damage.
What Reynard recalled about the battle was he had stayed at his post throughout the merciless exchanges of phase cannon fire and Romulan disruptor bursts. Through the ceaseless hail of torpedo strikes and the less frequent, if more terrifying, eruptions of spherical nuclear fireballs - one of which had detonated close enough to Endeavour to completely melt her portside defensive hull-plating system...
"A patrol?" Genorex said, his words painting a vivid picture of disgust at the younger man's naivete. "Consisting of at least eight ships? During a time of increasingly scarce hevam war material?"
* Said flotilla is seven Daedalus and 1 NX. Guess who?
Enlistment Age:
Page 128 said:
"The MACO is no place for a kid your age," Miguel said, backing up Dad completely. "Sixteen is nowhere near old enough to make this kind of life-or-death decision."
"Sixteen is as old as I have to be," Owen said. "Go look it up."
"I mean we won't be getting there anytime soon. The warp drive is fried. We still have impulse power, but that won't do any better than accelerate us to high tahll velocity."
"How high?" T'Luadh asked.
"Ninety percent of light speed, if what's left of the equipment cooperates," Trip said. "Maybe a bit more if we're lucky. Either way, those last few eisae of our journey to Carraya IV could end up taking as many fvheisn." Start with a vast cosmos, stir in a little unexpected engine damage, and days suddenly begin stretching into years.
This is after a Loque'eque infected Haakonan civilian ship attacks the Romulan scout ship.
Recalling 1 eisae is ~ 1 Earth day, a fvhesisn sounds like a year.
Page 261 said:
Archer deliberately kept his tone light. He had finally convinced Admiral Gardner to devote the lion's share of Starfleet's resources to the Cheron operation. If he turned out to be wrong, two dozen critically needed Starfleet vessels might have traveled seventy-five days to reach a system fifty-eight light-years from Earth only to discover that they had been deployed to the wrong location.
Crossing the 515-AU-wide gulf that separated the two fleets would have taken Zefram Cochrane's prototype warship nearly three days. Moving nearly at Enterprise's top safe speed, the Romulan force would close that gap in considerably less time.
"What's the Romulan fleet's ETA?" Archer asked. T'Pol answered with her usual alacrity. "At present speed, twenty-six point two minutes."
"That same instant, the viewer emitted a momentary blinding flash and went abruptly dead. The shock wave arrived a split second later, upending Archer's vestibular system as the ship's grav plating and inertial dampers struggled to null out the rolling and bucking of the deck. Darkness engulfed the bridge momentarily, replaced several heartbeats later by the dull red glow of the emergency lighting.
"Romulan atomic warhead, Captain," Malcolm said.
Archer nodded. He wiped something wet from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. It appeared to be blood, and a twinge of pain confirmed that he'd bitten his tongue during the explosion.
"Report."
"We seem to have surfed on the shock wave instead of being vaporized by it. Looks like we managed to put maybe fifty klicks between us and the device before it detonated," Malcolm said.
Brooks responded with an unhappy nod. Judging from the earliest news reports, Madrid and Tunis had learned the hard way that each of the Romulan fighters had carried at least one medium-yield nuclear warhead, in addition to its complement of disruptors and other armaments.
"Gardner answered with a curt nod. "You're right about that, Jon. I saw what the bastards did to Tunis and Madrid."
Archer suppressed a wince; he, too, had seen the mushroom clouds over Europe and North Africa, when Enterprise had come streaking through the troposphere in hot pursuit of that final Romulan attack craft, after Earth's defenses had finished dispatching its brethren."
"Alert the fleet," he told the female centurion who was running the communications hub. "Prepare to move all eighty ships from concealment."
"A message?" Valdore said, scowling. "From whom?"
The young officer turned toward him, her face a study in surprise. "It's from the hevam flagship—from En'ter'priz."
Captain Archer, Valdore thought, his heart pounding with martial eagerness. "What does it say, Centurion?"
"There's a great deal of interference, Admiral. I am attempting to clean it up, translate the initial message, and put it on audio."
Tension-filled heartbeat after heartbeat passed. Just as Valdore was about to admonish the centurion, a burst of tinny sound emerged from the command deck audio system.
"—athan Archer. There's no need to be coy, Admiral. Come out, come out, wherever you are."
Valdore growled, intensely angry at whatever unjust force was responsible for robbing him of the element of surprise at the very last moment.
"Helmsman!" he roared, sitting back in the thronelike chair that dominated the command deck. "Do not keep the hevam waiting any longer!"
Sixty-plus against twenty-four, Archer thought. He tried to use his incredulity as a shield but found that offered scant protection. "How fast are they approaching?"
"They're moving toward us as a unit," Malcolm said. "At a uniform speed of warp four point six."
"No more vessels are emerging from the high particle-flux region," said T'Pol, leaning over her scanner's hooded visor. "I now read a total of eighty-one ships in the Romulan contingent."
Archer braced himself, his hands clutching hard at the arms of his command chair. Very little time remained before immovable object and irresistible force were to collide in the war's biggest engagement to date.
* The majority of Starfleet's forces are at Iota Horologii, 82 Eridani, Gamma Equuleiand elsewhere *
"... Only Enterprise and three retrofitted Daedalus-class vessels have warp-five capability. The remaining twenty ships in our contingent would be unable to outrun the Romulans."
* T'Pol conceives of a plan to trick the Romulans. *
"What happened to the hevam ships, Subcenturion?" Valdore rumbled. "Where is En'ter'priz?"
"The enemy fleet appears to have, ah, changed location," T'Velekh said, his voice unsteady.
"That much I could have told you already," Valdore said. "What I fail to understand is how they could have 'changed location' without your having noticed it."
Subcommander Threl rose from behind the main tactical panel, inclining his silver-helmeted head toward Valdore as he executed the time-honored elbow-over-heart military salute. "I believe I may be able to explain what happened."
"Speak," Valdore said, scowling. He hoped his tone made clear that he wasn't fishing for excuses or apologies.
"Whenever our ships drop out of superluminal mode and reenter normal space," Threl said, "there is a very brief delay between the time when our superluminal sensors disengage and the sublight sensors become active."
...
"How much of a delay?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.
"It is extremely small," Threl said. "A couple of heartbeats. No more than a small fraction of an ewa."
* 11 Starfleet ships remain. 38 Romulan ships remains. *
* Suddenly, 31 ships arrive and attack. The Romulans turn their focus. *
* Its rogue Andorians under Shran and Klingon pirates/outcasts/criminals led by Kolos. Bitchin'.*
*After Trip's tricks self-immolates 3 ships, Valadore assails the allied fleet.*
297 said:
"The enemy force has been cut in half yet again, Admiral," Subcommander Threl reported.
"Our losses?" Valdore asked.
"A total of six warbirds thus far. The avaihh lli vastam vessels remain safely in the rear as we continue driving the enemy toward the system's periphery and away from Cheron's orbit."
Archer could scarcely believe what he was seeing. Dozens and dozens of—
"Vulcans, sir!" Malcolm cried, completing Archer's thought as a great whoop went up across the dark and smoking bridge.
The phalanx of Vulcan ships had been accompanied by other vessels whose designs Archer quickly recognized. The long, dual-nacelled lines of Andorian heavy cruisers, ships whose sleek forward sections reminded him of the business end of a terrestrial Venus flytrap, blended in with their Vulcan counterparts with remarkable grace, as did—surprisingly—the rounder and more bulbous shapes of at least ten Tellarite frigates."
"The Romulans are withdrawing," Malcolm said. "Those that still can withdraw, at any rate."
A nuclear fireball erupted near one of the far edges of the spreading ship-to-ship melee, annihilating no fewer than four of the alleged warp-seven ships that the Romulans had taken such pains to protect. Moments later, three other apparently crippled Romulan vessels initiated the same maneuver, vanishing in globular clouds of orange, fission-generated brilliance as their still-mobile sister ships abruptly brought themselves about before exercising the better part of valor.
"The Romulans have come to a relative stop," Malcolm said, keeping a weather eye on his tactical displays. "Thirty-eight vessels, keeping station at about one point five AU."
"Sensors confirm a distance of approximately 225 million kilometers," T'Pol added.
"They could come back within weapons range in a matter of seconds," Malcolm said."
... Malcolm's expression abruptly turned grim. "They're not firing. They're accelerating. Going to warp."
"Speed?" Archer said.
"A little better than warp two," Malcolm said. "They'll be on top of us in approximately eighty seconds. And their weapons will be hot when they arrive."
* While imprisoned on Valadore's flagship, Trip manages to transmit command codes to the NX-01. *
Page 290 said:
"The Romulan fleet is coming out of warp," Malcolm said, looking up from behind his tactical displays. "All thirty-eight vessels have dropped back into normal space, approximately two light-minutes from our current position. They're still closing, but only at one-quarter impulse. They'll enter weapons range in about eight minutes."
"Twelve ships remain in our combined force," she said. "Shran's vessel is intact but has been disabled. Kolos's ship was destroyed, and much of his force has been scattered or disabled."
Archer nodded. "And the Romulans?"
"They outnumber us more than two to one, sir," Malcolm said...
God, I love Christopher Bennett for doing this series. The Enterprise era is my favorite era and the early Federation is so rife for further exploration.
After the ROTF, SF Year 1. Yes, its not part of the canon, but it is a nice little piece on its own and deserves review.
I crave for fiction set in the Early Years of the Fed. 2160 - 2200.
Speaking of...
From TrekLit: A Choice of Futures
Political Scene - Tandar & Suliban:
It had been over eight years since the factions in the Temporal Cold War had ended their intrusions into the twenty-second century, leaving the Cabal with no instructions from the future to guide them or genetic enhancements to motivate them. The directionless Cabal had fragmented, some former members using their augmentations for petty piracy and crime, others simply fleeing from the Tandarans, Klingons, and others whom they'd wronged in service to their twenty-eighth-century sponsor's unknowable agendas. But it had been years more before the Tandaran government, having killed or imprisoned most of the Cabal's surviving leaders and suffering no further attacks, had consented to close the camps once and for all, under pressure from Tandaran activists who had learned of the conditions there from former prisoners like the ones Archer had helped free a decade ago.
The Malurians are also still pestering Archer and company:
... as Phlox drew the scalpel deftly and efficiently across the side of the raider's mottled face. Archer was a bit startled as well; his source, well-trained in the ways of secrecy, had not fully briefed him on what to expect. But as soon as it became evident that there was no blood emerging from the cut, he began to realize what he was about to see. Indeed, a moment later, Phlox pulled back the Suliban face to reveal a different alien face underneath—humanoid in structure with a compact nose and thin lips, but covered in gray reptilian scales, with low, gently curving ridges of raised scales adorning the cheeks and forehead and forming crests above the eyes.
"What is that?" Valk cried.
"A Malurian, General," the doctor replied, the showman in him relishing the reveal. "The other is as well, and so, I daresay, were the rest."
"Their dermal camouflage is quite ingenious," Phlox said. "It stretches, respirates, perspires, even heals and grows hair, if necessary, just like the real thing. It can be worn for weeks without needing repair or replacement, barring accident. And it can even mask the Malurian biosigns within."
"... For generations, the Vulcan High Command imposed its 'benevolent' interference on its neighbors, often at the point of a plasma cannon. Now they claim to have retreated into pacifism, but only after their human protégés rise to power with unprecedented speed, build a massive war fleet that drives the Romulans into retreat, and assimilate the once fiercely independent Andorian and Tellarite nations! Giving your so-called Federation of Planets the strongest battle fleet outside of the Klingon Empire as a result, even with the Vulcan fleet in mothballs. And no sooner have you dealt with the Romulans than you begin pressuring the Denobulans, Arkenites, and others to submit themselves to your rule as well."
Still, the general's basic premise was correct; as with the deflectors, it was proving difficult to integrate the (Vulcan/Andorian/Tellarite/Other) technology effectively with the human ship's systems—in this case, the targeting sensors, which were susceptible to the gravimetric distortion induced by the beam.
"But why did they attack our colony?" Valk pressed. "And why in Suliban disguise?"
Archer faced him. "To provoke exactly the reaction you had, General. To try to trigger a war between Tandar and the Federation. See, when the major spacegoing powers band together to promote peace, law and order, that's not a good thing for the criminal element. They want to nip the Federation in the bud before it gets too strong—or at least keep us so busy fighting our neighbors that we won't be able to focus on them."
Admiral Archer was still getting used to the sight of him in the new Federation Starfleet uniform. Although the various space agencies of the UFP's five founding members still existed and oversaw their own ships and specialties within the combined fleet they jointly administered, they'd agreed they should adopt a common uniform with elements reflecting all its member states.
Endeavour had been the sixth NX-class starship built by Earth... but that class had suffered badly in the Earth-Romulan War - production of the state-of-the-art ships had been suspended in favor of mass-producing older, simpler designs... Enterprise herself had survived, but with her spaceframe too compromised... Thus, Endeavour was now the last active survivor of the NX class.
The Endeavour has been refitted into a new design called Columbia class.
The Intrepids were an offshoot of the NX-class warp 5 technology, a smaller variant built from the same basic components. Like their parent class, they'd seen their construction put on hold during the Romulan War in favor of simpler vessels.
"That's right."
"I'm glad they've put them back into production, sir. They're good, solid ships. As advanced as an NX—er, Columbia class—but stripped down to the essentials. Lean and mean."
The tightly packed design allowed for a compact, relatively low-power warp bubble, enabling the ships to go faster with less power expenditure. The Intrepid class had started out as a backup plan to repurpose NX-class components for ships that could get up to warp 3 or 3.5 in case the warp-5 engine program had been a failure. But even though that program had succeeded, Earth Starfleet had seen no reason to let that hard work go to waste, and Intrepid herself was put in service within two years of Enterprise's launch. She and her classmates had been a valuable contribution to the Earth fleet in the year of the Xindi Crisis and afterward.
"With the new engine core," Captain Reed was telling him enthusiastically as the inspection pod drifted under the ship's tail section, "we should be able to get Pioneer up to warp five-point-six in a pinch."
"And it's a small ship, only forty-six crew—it's not unusual for the first officer to be of lieutenant commander's rank."
Whatever flimsy filament of trust General Valk was willing to extend to Starfleet did not include trusting his bodily integrity to the transporter, a technology the Tandarans lacked.
"And the Andorians and Tellarites didn't get transporters until they began trading with humans," T'Viri added with another glance at Shran...
"Determining its causes and devising solutions could take years or decades further. For all we know," the middle-aged, auburn-haired Vulcan said, "there may be fundamental quantum-mechanical limits that will preclude ever making transporters completely safe."
"But other races use transporters," said the round-faced, white-haired Gardner. "The Klingons, the Orions, the Osaarians, the Xindi."
"And the Malurians," Archer put in.
"Not exactly races known for their high standards of safety or responsibility," said Admiral Thy'lek Shran...
"And nobody else in the Federation has a superior technology?" Vanderbilt asked. "Selvok, your people are so far ahead of the rest of us in so many ways."
Fortunately, Endeavour's chief engineer, Michel Romaine, was one of the designers of the vessel's upgraded engine, and thus was able to apply his expertise to get the engines up to warp factor 6.3 and keep them there for over eight hours, enabling the vessel to close on the two Suliban carrier ships while still on the outskirts of the binary system. The Grentra was the Tandarans' fastest available ship, but though it could reach warp 6.5 for brief periods, it could not sustain such velocities for long without slowing to let its engines cool. The Grentra was thus lagging behind Endeavour but closing in at best speed as the carrier ships came into the Federation vessel's visual range.
The Starfleet vessel had positioned itself ahead of the enigmatic ship, catching it in the crossfire that had now neutralized its propulsion—though of course its momentum still carried it forward at a fifth the speed of light, the other ships coasting with it at equal velocity.
The aliens' weapons inflicted significant damage on one of the Rigelian scouts, tearing through one of the stout wings of the slender, conical gray vessel and coming dangerously close to its starboard warp nacelle. The scout veered off, decelerating.
"Their navigational deflector's taken damage," Sato relayed. "They can't maintain this speed."
As usual not many feats, but lots of nice worldbuilding for this lost era.
How Klingons view the Vulcans:
Page 3 said:
"A weakling race (Lorillian's)… they were jeghpu'wI' of the Vulcans, more or less."… aware the Vulcans would've used a less honest label for their conquered subjects – even before one of those subject races, humans, had managed to overthrow Vulcan rule, take over their empire, and absorb the Andorians and Tellarites into it. Though the humans liked to hide their conquests behind pusillanimous labels like "Federation" and "democracy".
Even after nine years, it shamed him.. By that quirk of fate, had fallen prey to the virus that stripped the planet's Klingon inhabitants of their warriors pride, the cranial ridges that declared their houses and heritage. He had been fbordidden from returning to his ship lest he infect the rest of his crew. He had lost his dignity along with his possessions and standing.
Higher class Klingons afflicted with the Augments Virus were able to cling to their status, but lower class Klingons had no chance to buy or build their own houses now.
Page 5 said:
In the years since, as he'd struggled to acquire a new ship and crew and resume his raiding activities in alien space, he'd come to realize he may have been better off where he was. Most QuchHa' in the Defense Force had been reassigned to segregated crews and sent to patrol the borders, given the chance to redeem their shame in battle with the Empire's enemies—or, more bluntly, to die as cannon fodder since the Empire had no other place for them. But there were those who plotted rebellion, convinced that the only way the QuchHa' could survive was by seizing the High Council from the HemQuch majority. And there were HemQuch factions who saw the plague as proof of the current leaders' weakness and plotted their own takeovers. The Council had fought off coup attempts from both directions in the past few years, and the Empire teetered on the brink of civil war. All in all, Lokog found it preferable to stay in unclaimed space, beyond the crush of the Empire's racial politics.
…the subtle nuances of body language and scent that an experienced space traveler like Reed had learned to pick up on, was weak but deeply relieved by the survival of most of her engine crew—particularly since the three included her "breeding partner," as she called him, plus their adolescent daughter and a cousin of some sort. It seemed Lorillian freighter crews were much like the "Space Boomer" communities from which Therese Liao and Travis Mayweather hailed, living on low-warp ships crewed largely by families. Still, several of the dead had been family as well…
The growing pains of the early Federation isn't over. Tellar had laid claim to Iota Pegasi nearly two decades ago ~2140's and only post-Federation did interest in mining the system restart. But the Tellarite mining/colonization fleet had discovered the ECS freighter Voortrekker had:
Page 17 said:
…established a colony of their own within the system's asteroid belt, burrowing into one of its larger members and spinning it up to provide simple artificial gravity while building solar collectors, heat radiators, and other necessary machinery into its surface.
Attempts to negotiate and bribe the other to leave resulted in the Tellarites appealing to the Federation government to intervene. They have claim to the system – all the system. Including this asteroid. Thus Captain T'Pol of the USS Endeavour is here to help. The Tellarites think they're here to support the Belters, the Belters think they're here to support the Tellarites.
Page 17 said:
"Particle cannon fire from the surface!" Takashi Kimura called from tactical. "It missed the lead cordon ship by nine hundred meters. A warning shot."
"This is Captain T'Pol of the Endeavour. Please understand that we are not here to provide military aid to anyone. We are all Federation members here, and the Federation has mechanisms for dispute resolution between its member governments. The use of force by one Federation member against another is unacceptable and will not be tolerated—in either direction."
Stark appeared on the screen again. "That's where you're wrong, Vulcan," the human female replied. "We're an independent colony. We never agreed to submit to your Federation's rule. Damn it, the whole reason we chose to settle out here was to get away from your creeping federalism."
"Your vessel operates under Earth registry, ma'am."
"A flag of convenience."
"Even so, it carries with it the obligation to abide by the laws of the flag state."
"Maybe on a ship, but a colony is no ship. We will resist any attempt by the Federation to impose its will on us, and bringing in a prettier starship to do their dirty work won't change anything. We'll fire on anyone who tries to come down!" She shut off the feed.
This little dispute is just one of many crisis the Federation is dealing with. Every member had to make concessions, but not everyone agreed or wanted to make those concessions. The prior year saw the Orions and Malurians try to incite a war with the Mutes, and convince the Vulcans to withdraw from the Federation due to their new pacificist reconciliation.
Page 62 said:
Professor T'Nol, leader of the Vulcan Anti-revisionist Party and—until today—one of multiple candidates for Federation president in the election that would be held later in the year (2164).
"Professor, your movement up to now has advocated rolling back the post-Kir'shara reforms on Vulcan and restoring the High Command and its policies—including its antagonistic stance toward Andoria. How do you reconcile that with backing Councilor Thoris's candidacy?"
T'Nol, a stern-featured and rail-thin Vulcan woman just past middle age, gave a measured reply. "It is true that there are many points of conflict between the traditional Vulcan values we represent and those of the Andorian Empire. But one thing on which we agree is our right to preserve that very freedom of dissent—the right of every world, every species, to retain its unique and separate identity… Thus, the logical solution is to cooperate in standing against that which we all oppose, at least until we have succeeded in its defeat… I have assessed the relative standings of the various Planetarist candidates and have determined that the candidate with the highest probability of victory over Councilor al-Rashid is Councilor Thoris… If the Anti-revisionists, Lechebists, and other Planetarist and pro-independence factions combine their support behind Anlenthoris ch'Vhendreni, our estimates show his odds of victory to be at least sixty-one percent, based on currently known variables."
It had been a year since Lecheb sh'Makesh had been elected governor of Alrond, a colony world in Andoria's home system, and declared it the seat of the Andorian Empire in exile, in defiance of Federation authority. At first it had seemed to be mere words, with the Alrondian government pursuing no aggression but simply wishing to be left alone. But as the election drew closer, the rhetoric from Lecheb had become increasingly confrontational, helping to fire up the Planetarist and isolationist factions that sought to weaken or dismantle the Articles of Federation that they claimed had been forced upon them. Thanien still wanted to believe these were just a small fringe of the Federation population, a disproportionately vocal minority too small to have any real impact. But he feared that they might be more than a mere nuisance."
"But I'm concerned by the precedent it sets. There are enough fringe groups already trying to rebel against the Federation or dismantle it. The separatists on Alrond, the Anti-revisionists on Vulcan, the Centauri First movement—I'm worried enough about their popular support, especially with an election coming next year. And these groups seem like more of the same. I think it's more important in the long term to make a strong stand here."
The Andorian crewman advocates a firmhand with the Tellarites/Boomers. Others say this would only stroke tensions and make the Federation appear authoritarian. Others feel this only endorses their separatism from Federation law.
So how does the Federation resolve the issue after 4 days of meditation?
Page 22 said:
"Both parties have agreed to Commander Sato's proposed resolution, Admiral," T'Pol reported over the monitor on Admiral Jonathan Archer's desk. "The United Planets of Tellar will cede its claim to the Voortrekker asteroid, and said asteroid will be relocated to the neighboring Ross 271 system... Hoshi's insight was in recognizing that Boomers are accustomed to taking their homes with them. All they wanted was to keep the asteroid; where that asteroid is located is secondary. Ross 271 is close enough to the Tellarite-Denobulan trade routes to suit their needs nearly as well as Iota Pegasi.
"Archer shook his head. "Still—moving an asteroid that size across interstellar space won't be easy."
"Lieutenant Cutler has calculated that the asteroid can be accelerated to a maximum of twenty-seven percent of lightspeed before ablation from interstellar dust would become a serious hazard. Allowing for acceleration and deceleration, they should be able to reach the red dwarf within twenty years.
He whistled. "Twenty years. That's a long haul even for Boomers."
"Indeed. It should be interesting to observe how their culture develops over time. It is possible that the generation that comes to maturity once they reach their destination will be so accustomed to living in space that they see no need to remain in orbit of a star."
"Who knows? They wouldn't be the first Boomers to wander clear out of known space." He smiled. "I have a feeling that future explorers are going to find some unexpected human offshoots out there."
Admiral Archer and T'Pol - to the Beta Rigel system to seek their membership into the Federation (and curtail Orion/Malurian influence in the region).
Malcolm Reed and Travis Mayweather - Trying to negotiate with the governmentless Kaferians.
Hoshi and Phlox - crew on the respective starships.
Section 31:
Trip is still working for them. Still dead.
Page 53 said:
T'Pol had to concede he had a point. The agency he worked for had ambiguous legal authority at best, relying on a certain interpretation of the imprecise wording of Section 31 of the Earth Starfleet charter—a section that, perhaps suspiciously, had been copied without alteration into the Federation Starfleet charter upon the merger of the founder worlds' space services. Officially, their actions were performed without the knowledge or sanction of Starfleet Command, and thus they had no legal protection if their actions were exposed.
"Because I don't trust corporate government. You know what happened on Earth when the corporations got too much power. Political parties used as fronts for dismantling environmental and ethical regulations. Justice becoming a commodity to be bought. The wealthy few impoverishing the masses, the homeless walled inside Sanctuary Districts."
"They're the de facto government of the Rigel worlds—at least, the allied ones. The individual planets and colonies have their own local governments, but it's the Trade Commission that's managed commerce and communication among the inhabited worlds of the system since it was founded six hundred years ago. So it's evolved into the administrative body that holds the alliance together."
"Sort of like the way the British East India Company ran the British Empire's colonies."
"Something like that, but more egalitarian and not for profit. Almost like the Federation in some ways, just on a more local scale. That's part of why the president thinks they're a good prospect for membership."
But there are still some security concerns, which Archer tells Malcolm:
Page 90 said:
...the First Families of Rigel IV. They're not part of the trading community, and they're basically pirates and gangsters. But they have a strong influence on much of Rigel II and the Colonies. I'd like to know if their corruption spreads even farther, and how much of a threat it poses to bringing Federation law to Rigel."
There is also the mystery of Rigel VII (SNW Fans know the answer!) that the RTC refuses to talk about or let Starfleet investigate.
Page 113 said:
"The Kalar were originally a racial group native to Four, alongside the Zami." Kirk had gotten used to hearing Rigelians refer to their planets by number, a custom adopted to avoid favoritism toward any one people's language. "But they were larger, more aggressive. They terrorized and enslaved their neighbors. In the first century of interplanetary contact, as the Jelna pursued economic development on Four, the Kalar were a major obstacle. As Zami prosperity grew from offworld trade, the Kalar coveted what they had, and chose to take it by force." He shrugged. "Or maybe they felt threatened by the Zami's growing power. In any case, they became a greater threat to both species' interests. And so the Jelna and the First Families mutually agreed to relocate the Kalar to Seven."
He went on solemnly. "The Kalar resisted fiercely but could not prevail over Jelna technology. They were transported in chains, in terrible conditions, for months as they made the crossing from world to world. Afterward, the relocated . . . survivors . . . were understandably resentful toward outsiders. Ever since, the Kalar have maintained a policy of total isolationism. Any offworlder who sets foot on Rigel VII cannot expect to live for long."
Meanwhile Garos is on Rigel seeking to expand his own federation. An alliance of criminals, pirates, outlaws, and slaver enterprises to combat the Federation's crackdown on their activities.
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"The First Families," Garos went on, speaking mainly to Thamnos, "are the strongest rival bloc to the Trade Commission—the only native rivals with interests spanning multiple Rigelian worlds and including interstellar business partnerships. Thus, you are in the best position to undermine the Federation's attempts to co-opt the Commission."
"This is where Rigel began." Rehlen Vons, assistant director for Rigel V, gestured proudly at the antique telescope mounted in its carefully maintained brass fittings. "It was through this very telescope," the craggy-faced Jelna exomale went on, "that Lovar Dleba first detected the fires that the Zami of Rigel IV used to manage and clear the forests of their world. Her studies over the ensuing years confirmed the regularity and design behind the fires, and eventually she refined the instrument enough to detect the smaller fires of their permanent settlements and migratory bands. This proof that intelligent life existed on their neighboring world inspired Jelna science and engineering as we sought to develop the means to communicate with our neighbors. In time we realized the natives of Four were not advanced enough to detect us in return—but within two centuries of Dleba's discovery, a robotic probe bearing her name made the first landing on Four and sent back the first images of the Zami people."
"Incredible," breathed Lieutenant Samuel Kirk. "It took humans over three hundred and fifty years between Galileo's first telescopic observations and the first robot probe landing on Mars."
The Jelma went on to build trade with the Zami, and later the Chelons of III. There were the usual turbulent times - cross-species diseases, political oppression, wars - but eventually they overcame it all and built the Trade Commission. A century and a half later, the Cordanites made first contact with Beta Rigel.
Saurians/Psi Serpentis:
A virus has been spreading. Blame falls on the non-natives, Starfleet. A cure appears on the tyranny continent, and the freedom-loving Global League, where the plague is spreading quicker and has more non-natives, kicks them out.
Maltuvis the tyrant is pleased.
Kaferia:
Page 87 said:
The insectoid natives of Tau Ceti III had never had a problem with the erstwhile human colony on the neighboring fourth planet (confusingly called Outer Kaferia, with the third being Inner Kaferia; the system's first explorers and settlers, the Kaferi family, had lacked both imagination and modesty when it came to naming things). Far from the stereotype of the insect hive mind, the Kaferians were fervent individualists content to let everyone, even alien colonists, go their own way so long as they stayed peaceful. But when the Romulans had conquered Tau Ceti IV and destroyed the NX-class vessel Atlantis, the Kaferians had offered safe haven and medical care for the starship's survivors—including one Lieutenant Travis Mayweather. After the Starfleet crew had been evacuated, the Romulans had invaded Inner Kaferia in retaliation. Luckily, the Kaferians had evolved the ability to hibernate underground to survive the frequent asteroid impacts the system was prone to, so most of them had managed to sleep out the four-year occupation undetected. Otherwise, the Romulans would probably have exterminated their entire race as they had the human colony.
The distress signal originated more than two light-years from Pioneer's position, roughly along the trade route between Beta Rigel and the Xarantine trade colony on Zeta Fornacis VI. Even at the Intrepid-class starship's maximum of warp 5.6, it took more than an hour to reach the coordinates. Ensign Grev's attempts to hail the Lorillian freighter produced only static in reply.
Thoris: "…Starfleet has been given too much power of enforcement in matters that should be the purview of the members' own security forces. Is it right that we even have a combined, consolidated Starfleet? Is it not better for each member world to bear responsibility for its own defense, to have forces specialized for its own particular needs?"
Thanien's mouth twisted in scorn. It was a small-minded, ignorant objection. Starfleet was still quite a diverse organization, with each member world's space agency assigned to its own particular specialty: exploration and diplomacy for the United Earth Space Probe Agency, border defense for the Andorian Guard, operational support and supply for the Tellar Space Administration, and so on. But that mix of specialties benefitted all the member worlds equally. And Thanien had learned as much from his fourteen months aboard Endeavour—an Earth-built, human-crewed ship with a Vulcan captain and a Denobulan chief medical officer—as he had from his thirty-two years in the Guard.
If I had to do Trek from the start, Vulcans would use saucers, Earth and others cylinders…with TOS Enterprise being the first combination… with the term “Starship” not meaning a craft capable of interstellar flight…but a design possible only by combining tech from different star-systems.
Lord Hierarch, welcome to the board. I've been giving some thought to this thread, because initially I was a bit confused over the format you chose. If you want to quote some examples and then discuss specific ideas, that's fine. But it would be better to have more actual discussion and not just a lot of quotes.
Lord Hierarch, welcome to the board. I've been giving some thought to this thread, because initially I was a bit confused over the format you chose. If you want to quote some examples and then discuss specific ideas, that's fine. But it would be better to have more actual discussion and not just a lot of quotes.
If that's the case, I'm more tempted to close it. There needs to be more actual discussion about some of those things, not just ideas you find interesting. And I'm glad to leave the thread open for the former, if some of the regulars want to participate.
There are also some quotes that don't really deal with specific technical stuff, which is the purpose of this forum, and might be better suited to General Trek Discussion. If you wish, I could see about moving the thread there.
A number of these ships - Minuteman, Discovery, Poseidon, Yorktown - come from Star Trek: Legacy (the videogame, not the planned streaming show with Seven of Nine), and were active circa 2159. Only ships missing from the above are the Strider class, and the Freedom class that was seen in BEY. I'll admit its news to me that the Intrepid-type is called a Neptune class, though it would fill a gap as what a Neptune class ship looked like was never clearly defined in ENT.
One thing would like to add is that even thought they make a point of the ships on both sides of the conflict having warp and being able to reach warp 7, they could have made a bigger deal of using unstable wormholes to explain how sublight ships make the distance far more. It would help explain how the Romulans were able to get back and forth between Romulus and Vulcan so quickly without needed warp drive.
After that, you should look into the TNG novel, The Forgotten War. It deal with a species called the Tarn, in what was the first war of the Federation between 2160 and 2165. and led to the establishment of the Tarn Neutral Zone.
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I've been giving some thought to this thread, because initially I was a bit confused over the format you chose. If you want to quote some examples and then discuss specific ideas, that's fine. But it would be better to have more actual discussion and not just a lot of quotes.
