The Macross designs got around. IIRC, the Valkyrie fighter also was licensed to be the Transformer Jetfire.
As noted in an earlier post, the Gorns are known for their use of plasma torpedoes - albeit with a very different approach to things than that taken by their Romulan adversaries. But there is more to the Gorn story than this. Not least when one factors in their distant genetic relatives: the Paravians. ----- In the Star Fleet Universe, no-one knows where the ancestral Gorn home world is, or was, located. Rather, the known pre-history of the Gorns (and of the Paravians) began approximately 13,400 years before Y1, when populations of Stone Age Gorns were transplanted to a number of habitable worlds across a broad region of space. On three of these worlds, the Gorns thrived; in the "modern" era, these are considered to be the three Gorn "home planets". Aside from a few superficial differences, the Gorns on these planets are more or less genetically identical, though it took more than a century for all three populations of Gorns to be brought up to the same technology level after First Contact between them took place. On a fourth planet, located closer to the great Void separating the Alpha and Omega Octants, things took a very different course approximately eight hundred years after the transplantation, when an asteroid impact caused severe ecological damage. The surviving Gorns rapidly evolved into the bird-like Paravian species in order to survive; once conditions stabilized again, the Paravians steadily climbed the ladder of civilization. (One of the art works printed by ADB shows a sample Paravian as more of a "space bird"; another shows a more "bird-Gorn" look, complete with Gorn-esque eyes.) Although no-one realized it until much later, there were two points of trouble brewing on Paravia. For one thing, the Paravians had no conscious memory of ever having been Gorns. For another, those Gorn fossils they had uncovered on their home world were interpreted as being demons or devils; even with the onset of paleontology (at which point the Paravians realized they were not native to their home planet), it didn't occur to anyone that these "demon" remains were in fact those of their own ancestors. So when First Contact took place between the Gorns and Paravians, and an exchange of data revealed the truth behind the Gorn-Paravian genetic connection, things rapidly spiraled to the point where the Paravians launched a full-scale campaign of extermination against all Gorn "demons". ----- However, in logistical and technological terms, it was one thing for the Paravians to declare war. It was quite another to be in a position to prosecute it. On the one side, once the Gorns realized what was happening, there were only so many resources they could spare to the Paravian front - not least since they soon had a major headache on their hands elsewhere, in the form of the Romulan Star Empire. But on the other side, the Paravians hampered their own efforts by refusing to plant extra-solar colonies. Unlike the Gorns or Romulans, most Paravians were genetically disposed not to "leave the nest"; they would send long-range raids into Gorn space (which, given the limitations of non-tactical warp drive, could take years to make a round trip), but would not build a "traditional" star empire. By the onset of tactical warp drive, this refusal to build a star empire would prove costly. While the Gorns were able to use tactical warp to keep the Romulans in check long enough to finally muster a concerted response to the Paravian threat, the Paravians themselves had to wait until their ships returned all the way back to the home world in order to be upgraded to tactical warp drive, and to "warp-class" weapons such as phasers and quantum wave torpedoes. Eventually, the Gorns were able to arrive in force at the Paravian home system, where they destroyed the Paravian fleet yards and placed the Paravians under quarantine. The idea being that once the Paravians "grew up" and started negotiating, the Gorns would consider lifting the blockade. However, this backfired catastrophically once a Sun Snake - a kind of "deep space life form" - plunged itself into the Paravian home sun, causing it to go nova. A a stroke, the Paravians had (seemingly) become extinct; the resulting "Paravian Guilt" caused the Gorns to hold back from quarantining the Romulans to their various planets in the decades prior to the Treaty of Smarba, lest the same thing happen again. While the Gorns would later expand into the old Paravian region of space during the General War, the old "Paravian Guilt" would remain in place... until Y219, when a certain piece of news brought back to the Alpha Octant by the Star Fleet advanced Galactic Survey Cruiser NCC-1821 USS Sakharov would spread across the Confederation of the Gorns like an electric shock. ----- This is what an unpainted Paravian heavy cruiser miniature from Shapeways (in 3125 scale, in Smooth Fine Detail Plastic) looks like: And here's a WIP attempt to apply some paint to it: On a side note, the SFDP minis on Shapeways might be handy for those interested in Romulan (or Orion) ships, as the unpainted versions work well as-is for "cloaked" ships. Anyway, my point in posting these pics is not to try and mimic the ADB on Shapeways thread, but to help illustrate Paravian design philosophies. This miniature represents a Paravian heavy cruiser, as presented in Star Fleet Battles Module C6: Lost Empires and in the Federation Commander Lost Empires Preview Pack. It shows what they would have built in an alternate timeline in which they managed to survive as a star-faring power into the "modern" era in the Alpha Octant. (In two of those timelines, a "Mapsheet P" emerges in which an "on-map" Paravian empire is allied to the Romulans against the Gorns and the Inter-Stellar Concordium. In a third, the Paravians rebuild at a distant "off-map" colony world to launch long-range raids into Gorn space.) As opposed to Gorn vessels, which are designed as "line" ships to serve solely in open space (and to be upgraded from one bubble to two bubbles as soon as the stingy Gorn legislature can be convinced to pay for it), Paravian ships are designed to act as "raiders", capable of landing on planetary surfaces. To that end, Paravian ships tend to have large numbers of boarding parties on a class-for-class basis. In space, Paravian ships are more agile than their nearest Gorn counterparts. In the Early Years, they had a problem where their Turn Mode in a certain direction would decrease if enough warp engine damage was sustained on that side of the ship; the "lost empire" versions in Module C6 assume that they had ironed out this deficiency by the onset of the Middle Years. ----- The key weapon system used by the Paravians is (or was) the quantum wave torpedo. Unlike plasma torpedoes, which take several turns to arm, a QWT can be armed and launched every turn. The individual warhead strength is relatively weak, but it does include a "splash" element that spills over to the two adjacent shield facings. (A similar "splash" element would later feature in the Inter-Stellar Concordium's plasmatic pulsar device.) Actually, this makes it a fairly useful "pirate" weapon, in timelines where the Paravians stick around long enough for the Orion Pirates to gain access to it. In the "modern" era, QWTs can be (or could have been) overloaded. However, while a standard load QWT can be armed from any source of power, the added energy for the overload must be warp power. Since even the "wartime construction" Paravian ships in Module C6 do not get auxiliary warp reactors, this warp power must be sourced from the warp engines themselves - either directly or via the ship's batteries. QWTs do not have a bolt or carronade option; they are strictly seeking weapons only. ----- So what is this about Y219, you might ask? It turns out that the Paravian species was not quite so extinct after all: a group of Paravians would later rise to deadly prominence over in the distant Omega Octant. As previewed for SFB in Captain's Log #54, these Paravians would eventually gain access to powerful antiproton weapon technologies sourced from a previously-defeated Omega species. What these antiproton weapons look like, and exactly who (and where) the Paravians of Omega plan on using them against, are topics for another time.
To keep things over on the "eastern" side of the Alpha Octant a while longer, it might be worth taking a closer look at how technology helped drive the history of the Inter-Stellar Concordium - be it in the "standard" timeline, as well as in the "Mapsheet P" timelines noted in the previous post. ----- The five species which founded the ISC (shown here) evolved in a relatively small region of space, thousands of parsecs from any other warp-capable species. Four of these species - the humanoid Veltressai, the reptilian Pronhoulites, the felinoid Korlivilar, and the "turtle-dolphin" Rovillians - have home worlds in Federation and Empire hex 5910; the Q'Naabian (humanoids, yet breathing an oxygen/chlorine atmosphere) home world is in F&E hex 5810. While these five species each developed non-tactical warp drive at or around the same time, the version of NTW they each developed was short-ranged and unreliable. This effectively kept them cooped up in a contested region of space known as the Resource Worlds, over which all five would squabble for close to two hundred years. The onset of W-era tactical warp drive changed things in two key ways. As "warp-class" weaponry lagged a few decades behind, it became impractical to continue to fight over the Resource Worlds while still armed with "sublight" weapons. Not least since thousands of new star systems, far beyond the Resource Worlds, were now within reach. Fortunately, by the time the five species deployed "warp-driven" ships armed with phasers and various plasma-based heavy weapons, this new reality was beginning to sink in: there were more than enough New Worlds to go around. Yet despite a series of treaties bringing the Resource World wars to an end, it took time for trust to build between these five former rivals. It took even longer for the first steps towards economic, cultural, technological, and ultimately political integration to be taken, turning the Inter-Stellar Concordium from a protocol into an alliance, and then from an alliance into a government. Even so, by the time a series of "two-prong" Y-era hulls had been drawn up to serve as the backbone of a unified ISC Navy and Police, the five species had taken a key lesson to heart: warp equals peace. ----- One key branching point between the "standard" and "Mapsheet P" timelines is when this deeply-held belief was shattered. In the "standard" timeline, this took place in Y160, when an ISC ship detected energy flashes from a battle between the Gorns and Romulans, withdrawing before being detected themselves. Shocked that warp-powered species would go so far as to fight one another, the ISC took several years to construct a fleet of "three-prong" ships with which to defend itself; to design a new direct-fire heavy weapon (the plasmatic pulsar device) along with a new tactical formation (the Echelon) to build around it; and to prepare enough mobile bases for them to seize and defend a ring of space at the outermost edge of their Trusteeship Territory at the same time the "western" side of the Alpha Octant was kicking off the General War. Over in the "Mapsheet P" timelines, however, a fateful First Contact took place with the "lost empire" Paravians in Y110. In this instance, an ISC ship found out the hard way that the deep-seated Paravian hatred of the Gorns extends towards all reptilian species - despite the Pronhoulites being genetically unrelated to the original Gorn "demons". A cascading set of interactions would lead to the ISC and Gorns being set against the Paravians and Romulans in a series of wars ought over the border provinces surrounding the neutral world of Circle Trigon (in F&E hex 5109). It would also see the "three-prong" hulls enter service decades earlier, giving the ISC an extended "Middle Years" era compared to what it had over in the historical timeline. ----- The plasmatic pulsar device is a large (and expensive to arm) heavy weapon. It requires two centerline adjacent option mounts, but cannot be installed on an ISC (or Orion Pirate) hull smaller than Size Class 3. How the PPD functions differs radically depending on which game system it's used in, but there are some commonalities: it's a two-turn arming direct-fire weapon, which has a "myopic zone" that prevents it from being used at close ranges. The PPD has a series of wave pulses, that each include "splash" elements (akin to that seen with Paravian quantum wave torpedoes). In Star Fleet Battles, these wave-pulses are spread over multiple consecutive impulses (4 in a standard load, or 6 in an overload), enabling it to sandpaper off the defences of a target ship. In Federation Commander, there is no overload function - but the wave-pulses all hit in the same impulse, turning the PPD from a scalpel into a sledgehammer. Ironically, while the PPD is a difficult weapon to use against the Andromedans in SFB (which led the ISC to switch to a variety of plasma variants in response to the invasion), this weapon is quite useful against the Andros over in FC... The Echelon formation is intended to keep the PPD-armed cruisers and dreadnoughts in an ISC fleet screened by a "gun line" of frigates and destroyers. In practice, getting the Echelon to work on the tabletop varies in difficulty from one game system to another, even before the Andromedans show up to ruin the party. ----- In the "standard" timeline, the ISC sat out the General War, but was increasingly convinced that the war's outcome would settle nothing. If left to themselves, the "barbarian" empires would be back at each other's throats within a decade, and sooner or later the conflict would spill over into ISC territory. So, in order to prevent this from happening, the ISC launched a full-scale Pacification Campaign after the General War came to an end. They set up a series of cordons running along the Neutral Zones dividing the former Alliance and Coalition belligerents, while intervening in a series of post-war conflicts which erupted a the war's end (or which had carried on from the war proper). The most powerful tools at the ISC's disposal during the Pacification were their X-ship Echelons; the most notable ,the Echelon of Judgement, was perhaps the most powerful squadron of first-generation X-ships ever fielded in the Alpha Octant. Over in the "Mapsheet P" timelines, however, the ISC did not have the luxury of sitting out the General War; with the Paravians on the side of the Coalition, the Concordium would find itself on the side of the Alliance. ----- In the "standard" timeline, the Pacification Campaign came to a disastrous end through the onset of the Andromedan invasion. With so many of their ships scattered across a thin line of Neutral Zone hexes from one end of the Alpha Octant to the other, the invaders were able to score a series of devastating blows - and worse, prevent a large number of ships from making it back to defend ISC home space. Technologically, this would lead to a significant fork in the road. Back home, the main fleet yards would build and convert as many "war" classes as they could, in a desperate attempt to hold the line. Meanwhile, those Pacification forces left orphaned elsewhere in the Alpha Octant coalesced into a series of cantonments, where a range of "system" upgrades were installed that added combat power but at the cost of a lower battle speed. In the "Mapsheet P" timelines, one could imagine that the "war" classes would appear much earlier, at or around the same time as other "wartime construction" hulls across the Alpha Octant, But having had its hands full during the General War, there would be no Pacification Campaign - but with its "post-war" fleet concentrated in its home space, there would thus be no isolated cantonments in which the "system" refits would need to be installed during the Andromedan War. ----- This is what an unpainted ISC heavy war cruiser miniature from Shapeways (in 3125 scale, in Smooth Fine Detail Plastic) looks like: And a WIP attempt to paint it: Actually, it might make more sense to show the underside of the ship, so as to explain how the ISC shipwrights built it out from the ISC destroyer: The destroyer has a pair of warp engines on the underside of the hull. The war cruiser adds a third destroyer-sized warp engine and an added superstructure to the underside; the heavy war cruiser has a similar superstructure, but instead adds a pair of frigate engines to the top side of the hull. As the frigate engines block the topmost phasers from having a 360* fire arc, this in effect gives the HCW a more aggressive combat posture. Which helps against the Andromedans in the "historical" timeline, and perhaps against the Romulans and Paravians over in the "Mapsheet P" timelines.
Even within Federation space, there are certain species which, for their own reasons, have chosen not to join the UFP. An example of this is a feline species known as the Bis'en (in Federation and Empire hex 2806). They were first mentioned in the Federation sourcebook for the Prime Directive RPG line, and were subsequently written up in more detail in Captain's Log #45 and in Away Team Log. Oddly enough, while the Korlivilar and the Bis'en apparently evolved on their own respective home worlds, their DNA is quite similar. To the point where the two species can interbreed, though the resulting offspring would themselves be infertile without medical intervention. But whereas Korlivala has long since established itself as a key member world of the Inter-Stellar Concordium, Bisalia remains a friendly, yet formally independent world within Federation space. That said, Bisalia is a committed ally to the UFP, and many individual Bis'en have served in Star Fleet and in the Federation Marines. ----- In the "historical" timeline, the ISC soured on the Federation in the aftermath of Operation Remus, when a Star Fleet capital ship crashed unto the surface of the planet Remus (which in SFU terms is, or was, a class-K world similar to Vulcan), triggering a catastrophic loss of life. The ISC interpreted the destruction at Remus to have been a deliberately xenocidal act; as a result, by the time the Pacification fleets reached the Neutral Zones surrounding Federation space, the UFP was viewed no differently than the other "barbarian" empires. But even if that was not the case, the Concordium is quite content to be its own "federation", just as the Gorns are in no hurry to seek either UFP or ISC membership. On the other hand, there is a place elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy where successive Federation, Orion, Klingon, Lyran, and ISC blow-ins find themselves obliged to work together in order to survive. Perhaps a future post in this thread might take a look in that direction, if anyone was interested in reading more about what is going on over there...
I wasn't referring to the WYN Cluster - but yes, that is also a place with a Klingon, Lyran, and Orion presence, though the Kzinti population there plays a major historical role. ----- Speaking of the Lyrans: It appears that there has been quite a few instances of "ancient alien" shenanigans across the Alpha Octant. The "transplanting" of ancient Gorns as noted in previous posts being but one of many examples of this. Another such instance took place more than a hundred thousand years before Y1, when a Stone Age feline species was placed on numerous worlds in the Gamma and Delta Sectors of the Milky Way. Each group evolved in a different direction, but only three are known to have emerged as star-faring species in the present era; the tiger-like Kzintis, the lynx-like Lyrans, and the wolf-like Carnivons. The Lyrans (pronounce "lear-uhns", as opposed to the "Lie-runs" over in a certain other science fiction setting) are human-sized lynx-people, with great physical strength and a ferocity in battle to mach. As with the Kzintis, yet unlike the Carnivons, it's not unknown for certain Lyrans to eat captives from other sapient species. All three species hold a xenocidal hatred for the other two... with the exception of those Kzinti and Lyran exiles living and working together in the WYN Cluster, to the embarrassment of those "on the outside". Politically, the Lyran Star Empire, like the Kzinti Hegemony, is a feudal realm. The King-Emperor "owns" the home world, the various other industrial planets in the capital hex, plus the rest of the Homeworld province; this includes the primary fleet yards. There are four Dukes: Foremost (on the Klingon border), Red Claw (facing the Kzintis), Enemy's Blood (towards the Hydrans), and Far Stars (in the "off-map" Delta Sector). Each controls their own province, along with their own starbase. The other provinces are ruled by their respective Counts; some of these control the base stations (later upgraded to battle stations) on the Empire's borders. An exception to this is the former Dark Star County, at the cross-roads of Lyran, Hydran, and Klingon space. Initially, the Dark Star County was part of the Enemy's Blood Duchy. A bloody coup led to the violent overthrow (and liquidation) of the entire ruling noble family; rather than place a new noble family on the throne, the rebels instead installed a democratic government. This "Democratic Dark Star County" was seen as a problem to some, as it showed how the "game of thrones" typically waged between noble families across the Empire could be upended by a commoner uprising. But to others, it made for an opportunity to weaken the hand of the Enemy's Blood Duke, so long as any efforts to "export revolution" could be kept a lid on. So, the DDSC eventually broke free from the Empire as the Lyran Democratic Republic; the LDR would manage to walk a careful tightrope amidst their array of powerful neighbours for several decades, only for its existence to be brutally curtailed during the Andromedan War. ----- In terms of starship design, the Lyrans began the warp-refitted era with phaser-2s and disruptor bolts. By the onset of the Y-era, however, they had deployed the weapon that defines Lyran ships more than any other: the expanding sphere generator. As with the PPD over in the Inter-Stellar Concordium, the ESG functions quite differently depending on which game system you use it in. The way Star Fleet Battles has it, the ESG is a "hollow" sphere of energy that, despite the name, does not actually "expand": it appears a a set radius determined upon activation. The strength of the ESG varies depending on how wide a radius is set, as well as how many points of energy are fed into it. Each sphere lasts for 32 impulses, and has a 32-impulse delay before it can be raised again. In Federation Commander, the ESG instead "expands" from the generating ship. It can emit a "defensive" burst, against enemy seeking weapons which ave impacted the ship; or it can be set to emit an "offensive" burst, hitting everything (friend or foe) in the same hex, and then in the surrounding hexes, all in the same impulse. In the Early Years, an ESG was limited to only two points of power, and (in SFB) could be set to a radius of zero or one only. By the Middle Years, this went up to five points of power, and a radius of up to three hexes. Just before the General War, a capacitor refit enabled energy to be stored for use by an ESG; prior to this, the timing required when arming an ESG was much trickier. X-ESGs can use up to seven points of power, but have the same arming cycle as non-X ESGs. Defensively, the ESG is useful when dealing with drone-like seeking weapons. Offensively, it can be used to "ram" enemy ships, as well as to sweep enemy attrition units from space. ----- In the Y-era, as well as in the subsequent Middle Years, most Lyran warships were "catamarans", such as the Tiger heavy cruiser. Armed with four disruptors and a pair of ESGs, the Tiger is a fine cruiser design. Notably, it includes a flag bridge, from which a given Count can command the warships of their feudal domain. While the Lyrans experimented with the concept of "filling in" the gap between the port and starboard hulls in order to produce the likes of the Royal Tiger early dreadnought, this concept had been discarded by the onset of the General War in favour of a "trimaran" setup, in which a central hull section would be installed between the outer hull sections. An example of this was the King Jaguar new heavy cruiser, which was built up from the Leopard destroyer by way of the Jaguar war cruiser. With the onset of X-technology, the Lyran advanced command cruiser marked a major upgrade. Notably, the Lyrans had an advantage in deploying X-ships in that, while other empires could not upgrade ships built to "wartime construction" standards to X-technology (they instead had to build an entirely new ship of the same design to "peacetime construction" standards), any trimaran "war" classes with port and starboard hulls built to "peacetime" standards could have the "wartime" central hull removed, and then either be upgraded to a "catamaran" X-ship design or have a new central hull built to "peacetime" standards installed in order to produce a "trimaran" X-ship. All told, the Lyrans have excellent ships. Which might lead one to wonder: why are they not a more powerful empire than they already are? Fortunately for the Klingons, the chronic infighting that is so often triggered along the feudal fault lines criss-crossing Lyran space makes the Klingon Empire - with its strong central organization - the senior partner in the Klingon-Lyran Coalition.
La Sirena looks Lyran to me. The Carnivons remind me of these guys https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Vargr For the Federation Battleship I might have had a container for a secondary hull.
The "ancient alien" shenanigans which have taken place across the Alpha Octant extend beyond merely seeding certain life forms on various planets. In some cases, it also involves making contact with pre-spaceflight species for one reason or another. ----- A prominent example of this is with the Hydrans. As star-faring species go, the Hydrans are quite unorthodox by Alpha Octant standards. The Hydran home world is a class-S gas giant, with continents that "float" atop a "sea" of methane-ammonia. As noted in the Hydran species profile in Module Prime Alpha, the Hydrans themselves "breathe" ammonia, but "breathe/eat" methane, as well as consuming "plant" and/or "animal" matter from other life forms in the Hydran biosphere. Hydrans have three tentacles and three legs, and even three genders: the male, female, and matriarchal. All Hydran births result in triplets, one each of the three genders. Hydran genealogy is somewhat complex, as most of them are anything but monogamous: the royal family of the Hydran Kingdom is comprised of approximately 30,000 individuals, to include approximately 1200 Princes (both male and female). Since, in theory at least, any one of those Princes could ascend the Hydran throne, court intrigue and "palace coups" are not uncommon. Not least since the Guilds, which dominate the Hydran economy, often play kingmaker in order to ensure whoever holds the throne is suitably pliant to their commercial interests. The Hydrans were first brought to the stars by the Spirit Kings, a precursor species that reached Hydrax approximately a thousand years before Y1. The Spirit Kings (which is what the Federation refers to them as; no-one knows what exactly they called themselves) entered into a mutually productive agreement with the Hydrans: they helped them settle other class-S worlds in the region and even provided impulse-powered civilian ships, in exchange for a share of the proceeds from these worlds. When the Spirit Kings eventually departed for reasons unknown, they left the Hydrans in control of their own spaceships; from then on, it was up to the Hydrans themselves to go about the business of running their own star empire. ----- When the Hydrans first developed tactical warp, their Early Years ships, such as the Fusilier warp-converted cruiser and the subsequent Grenadier early cruiser, were mostly armed with phaser-2s and a short-range heavy weapon known as the nova cannon. A handful of Early Years Hydran ships were equipped with a prototype heavy weapon known as the hellgun, but further development of that weapon was curtailed when catastrophe befell the Kingdom in Y87. The Hydran Kingdom has the ignominy of being conquered by the Klingons and Lyrans not once, but twice. The first time was in Y87; only a handful of colonies over in the "off-map" Delta Sector evaded the conquest. No samples of hellgun technology survived to be brought to these "Lost Colonies". Instead, the Hydrans refined the nova cannon into the more powerful fusion beam; developed both the phaser-1 and the dangerous gatling phaser; and became the first empire in the Alpha Octant to deploy warp-powered attack shuttles, in the form of the Stinger fighter. In Y135, a new series of "modern" warships, such as the Ranger heavy cruiser, would lead the charge to restore the "on-map" kingdom. For the next three decades, the primary Hydran tactic was to close for a devastating point-blank strike. However, the Ranger had the same warp engine problems as the Kzinti strike cruiser, in that they were slower and less powerful than those on a Klingon D7 or a Lyran heavy cruiser. Eventually the Hydrans revisited the concept of the hellgun by further developing it into the hellbore: a dangerous long-ranged weapon not only capable of causing enveloping damage on all six shield facings, but which automatically scores the most damage on the weakest shield facing(s). Hellbore-armed ships, such as the Dragoon heavy cruiser, reduced (or eliminated) the number of fighters carried aboard in order to make room for the added power systems need to support the use of the hellbores. Other refits brought the warp engines up to "speed 30" standards. Alas, even this was not enough to prevent the Klingons and Lyrans from once again conquering the "on-map" kingdom in the early part of the General War. For a second time, the Hydrans were forced to retreat to the "off-map" Old Colonies; Hydrax would not be liberated this time around until Y180. And even then, the three easternmost provinces, plus the old Neutral Zone hexes which had separated them from "pre-war" Klingon space, would be claimed by the "neutral" Vudar Enclave. As a result of all of this, the Hydrans were slower to adopt first-generation X-technology than their rivals, though the likes of the Tartar-X medium cruiser would be available in time to face the Andromedan invasion. ----- It's worth taking a look at the various oxy-nitrogen species within the Hydran Kingdom. In "on-map" Hydran space, there are a number of Klingon and Lyran subject species who were settled in the region during the first era of occupation. Once the first restoration took place, these species were incorporated into the Hydran economy, on generally favourable terms compared to how the Klingons had treated them (and on highly favourable terms compared to how the Lyrans had treated them). Any "ethnic" Klingons or Lyrans on such worlds were instead repatriated back to their respective home empires. In the "off-map" Old Colonies, a species known as the Borak had emerged to settle a number of class-K/L/M/N/O worlds in the area. In the wake of the first conquest of Hydrax, the Hydrans "dealt with" the Borak fleet, but would continue to draw up a set of "what-if" Borak ships for use in the simulators. The Borak themselves were treated similarly to the Klingon and Lyran exile species in the "on-map" provinces, though the Hydrans generally kept the Borak apart from them.
I don't remember the exact quote, but there has been some trashcan-related shade thrown in the Hydrans' direction from certain quarters...
When I first heard of them…I thought that—from the ship names—that they were some Medieval human-like beings that stumbled onto crashed ships…so that they got energy weapons without even finding gunpowder. Hydran ships are what my FASA addled brain thinks Gorn ships should be…and I might use Borak ships as Klingon fast patrol ships. The hellebore is something I would love to see on screen. I have this image of it looking rather like Mach cones emerging from the Space Shuttle Main Engines (RS-25s): Each cone would strike a ship, surround the vessel, and even expand a bit….as each successive burst expands out they bunch up, and implode violently inward, draining off in a minor V’ger type crackling towards whatever was most vulnerable. Now I can’t think of how an expanding sphere…the best thing to block a hellebore with…wouldn’t look like a Romulan plasma torpedo…. This maybe? https://fineartamerica.com/featured/space-bubbles-sandy-balkow.html Or clear? https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/mi...-fLTOmGvYIXSDq7t-Hqmfbfkb7X3ZdvMDgXyJC4QKhLco https://senseable.mit.edu/space-bubbles/
There has been some Lyran and Hydran starship art on the cover of various Federation Commander modules and booster packs. Also, while not part of the SFU proper, the first two-and-a-half Starfleet Command games from Taldren offered their own ways in which they portrayed the hellbore, the ESG, and (in SFC2) the PPD. And yes, there is a unique interaction between a hellbore and an ESG, though how it is implemented again varies depending on which game system you are using. Generally-speaking, however, the ESG causes the hellbore to automatically hit, but at the same time is able to absorb some of the incoming damage.
I've edited the opening post to include links to various topics/posts of note, if that helps any. ----- Be it in the Alpha or Omega Octants of the Milky Way, in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, or even in the M81 or Triangulum Galaxies, there appears to be one common theme: wherever there is insufficiently-guarded wealth to be found, there are those minded to acquire it through fair means or foul. In these cases, when the ones making the acquisition are backed by a functioning (and formally recognized) state apparatus, they are referred to as "invaders". For those non-state actors who engage in such activities, however, they would be referred to as "pirates". (Or perhaps as "privateers" or as "mercenaries", depending on whose behalf the third party is operating.) ------ In the Alpha Octant, the terms "pirate" and "mercenary" are most commonly associated with the Orions. But then, there is the question: exactly which type of "Orion" should one refer to? Firstly, there is the Orion species, whose home world is in Federation and Empire hex 2812. There is the Orion Enclave, a seven-hex province approximately halfway between Earth and the Federation-Tholian border. And then there are the Orion Pirates, an array of cartels operating across the Alpha Octant, plus a significant number of "independent operators" - a large number of whom have few, or even no, "ethnic" Orions in their ranks. What, if anything links these three? ---- The pre-warp history of the Orion home world is detailed in Prime Directive Federation, and is well worth a read. But for the purposes of this story, we begin in Y21, when First Contact took place between the Federation and the Orion Enclave. Relations were cordial, with a series of trade roues soon established. However, there was no rush on either side to see the Orions join the Federation just yet. Things changed in the midst of the First Federation-Romulan War. The Orions, negotiating from a position of strength, extracted a number of significant concessions - some of which were not quite obvious at the time, but would have major repercussions much later on. For their part, the Federation agreed to the deal as they needed the Orion economy and military forces to join the war effort. And so it was that Orion support indeed helped turn the tide against the Romulan invasion, driving the front lines back to where they would solidify in the form of the Fed-Romulan Neutral Zone. As tactical warp technology was adopted by the various Federation member planets, the Orions refitted their own ships to match. The Orions maintained a relatively large fleet, not least since they were tasked with certain missions which in the rest of the UFP were eventually taken over by the Federation Police (which is barred from operating inside the Orion Enclave). However, when the Federation Defense Act of Y113 formally incorporated the "training squadrons" of the member planets into the National Guards, no less than sixteen Orion ships - together with around nine thousand skilled crewmen - mutinied and disappeared. A large portion of these mutineers fled into Romulan space, where a series of "pirate kingdoms" took advantage of the relative weakness of the Romulan hold on their more far-flung territories in that era. Over time, these pirate kingdoms evolved into the first pirate cartels; more and more Orion Pirate ships would appear across the Alpha Octant, co-opting (or eliminating) local "pre-Orion" pirate groups along the way. Of course, there are plenty of law-abiding "ethnic" Orions who are citizens of the Federation, to include those who have migrated from the Enclave to other worlds in Federation space, and those serving in Star Fleet and in the Federation Marines. Many of those see the pirate Cartels as a slander against their people; many more were profoundly conflicted when the Klingon invasion of the Federation triggered an unexpected political decision within the Orion Enclave itself. ----- As with other Federation members, the Orions started by building ships of their own design. The ships of the Orion National Guard are capable of landing on planets, but are generally designed to operate as "line" and/or "police" ships. The first "pirate" hulls - those designed to serve as such from the outset - did not appear until Y113. (Although, given how much effort must have been put in towards designing and building them, one might wonder for how long - and by whom - they had been in development.) These Orion Pirate ships were designed with a reduced hull profile, together with a stealth "coating" to make them easier to hide. As a consequence, they were relatively small for their class, to the point where even their cargo boxes each have a reduced capacity compared to those on other ships. In the Early Years, the stealth coating on these ships had only a marginal effect. The ships themselves were armed with phasers, photon torpedoes, and drones. They developed a "no surrender" doctrine, choosing to self-destruct rather than be captured. In the absence of probes or lab boxes, the pirates were instead able to use one of their "control" spaces as a lab if needs be. Once "modern" warp drives became available, the next iteration of Orion Pirate ships, such as the Raider Cruiser, truly began to mature in technological terms. The stealth coating was refined, providing additional protection. The phaser-2s of the early Raider cruiser were replaced with phaser-1s. Further, the photon and drone mounts were replaced with weapon option mounts, allowing the CR to have a variety of weapons installed to better suit local operating conditions in different parts of the Alpha Octant. Although the "wing" option mounts are less structurally secure than those on the forward centerline, so are more limited in terms of what can be installed into them. Most dramatically, the "modern" Raider gained the ability to double its warp and impulse engines, but at the cost of causing damage to the engines themselves. And once the Romulans developed the cloaking device, the Orions operating in Romulan space were able to capture this technology for their own use; however, the majority of Orion Pirate ships do not possess cloaks. As time marched on, Orion pirate ships found themselves running into new and unexpected situations. One Raider cruiser, the Throne of Ozymondas, had been lurking under cloak in the Aurora system when the entire star system vanished without a trace; its fate would not be known in the Alpha Octant until Y219. A Light Raider, expecting to die, plunged into the WYN Cluster... only to strike a deal which established a new Cartel behind the confines of the hollow WYN radiation shell. Another Orion ship would take part in an unusual battle against the extra-galactic Juggernaut Alpha. With the outbreak of the General War, a new wave of "wartime construction" pirate ships emerged, such as the Battle Raider. Politically-speaking, the Orion Enclave withdrew from the Federation and declared neutrality, in order to prevent being attacked by the Klingons. For their part, the Klingons accepted this declaration, as did the Romulans once they launched their own invasion of the Federation. This "Orexit" would not be reversed until Operation Wedge, when a strong counterattack saw Star Fleet encircle the Enclave on the way towards the old Tholian border - at which point the Enclave saw fit to re-join the Federation. More and more Orion ships entered service as mercenaries during the General War, with new ship classes (such as the War Destroyer) optimized for mercenary, rather than pirate, use. As first-generation X-ships emerged, the likes of the Advanced Raider Cruiser took advantage of this new technology. However, both the various pirate Cartels and the Orion Enclave proper would face dangerous new challenges with the onset of the Andromedan War. Speaking of which, it's worth taking a brief look at Orion logistics. One of the key ships available to a given pirate operating area is the Salvage Cruiser, designed to serve as a mobile support unit and fence for pirate raiders in a given area. It just so happens that one such ship was present during one of the earliest recorded encounters with an Andromedan Mothership in the Alpha Octant...
As noted in previous posts, both the Kzinti Hegemony and the Lyran Star Empire are feudal entities, with plenty of opportunities for nobles to play the "game of thrones". One of the most dramatic instances of this was in the Early Years, when the Kzinti Duke (who controlled the Klingon border region) decided that he was best qualified to rule the Hegemony. The fact that the current Patriarch was very much alive was merely a technicality. The resulting Usurper War is covered in part by a series of scenarios in Star Fleet Battles Module Y2 - but to put a long story short, the Duke (now known as the Usurper) lost his bid for the Patriarchal throne. Rather than surrender, he and his last remaining loyalist forces chose to die by plunging their ships into the WYN radiation zone. (A side note: "WYN" is pronounced "win", not "W-Y-N".) ----- Only the Usurper survived. It turned out that the deadly radiation zone was a hollow shell; the WYN Cluster found therein had no less than eight habitable star systems, yet with no native inhabitants. (Apparently there were a few wrecked Carnivon vessels left over from a prior failed crossing, but none of their crews had survived.) So the Usurper set about building a new society behind the relative safety of the radiation shell. Over time, other ships plunging into the shell (each expecting to die in the process) found themselves on the Usurper's front porch. When an Orion ship passed into the Cluster, its crew cut a deal that led to the formation of the Cluster Cartel, and (eventually) to the construction of an Orion shipyard that sold (or "donated") ships to the burgeoning WYN Navy. When a Lyran ship dove in, a surprising agreement saw "ethnic" Lyrans and Kzintis work together as part of WYN society, to the later embarrassment of their counterparts back in Kzinti and Lyran home space. When the Klingons realized what was going on, they decided to ship some of their malcontents into the Cluster, where they could be more useful as productive WYN citizens (and, in some cases, as spies) than as political prisoners within the Klingon Empire proper. For much of this time, the WYN Navy - such as it was - had a somewhat rag-tag aspect to it. It comprised of a number of auxiliary cruisers (armed freighters); a number of "imported" Kzinti, Klingon, and Lyran hulls given various "factory unauthorized" modifications (such as the pocket battleship); plus "WYN-Orion" ships that lacked some of the features (such as the ability to double their engines) of "true" Orion Pirate ships. Many of these ships have option mounts, to be equipped with a variety of weapons sourced by the Orions from elsewhere in the Alpha Octant. For two reasons, this was enough to hold the line, for a while at least. First, the harmful effects of the radiation shell compromised any invading ships just long enough to enable the WYNs to muster an effective response. And second, none of the three surrounding empires could tolerate either of the others gaining control of the fabulous wealth of the Cluster, so they would often deploy their forces so as to prevent such incursions in the first instance. ----- Yet this was not enough for the Usurper, nor for his son, nor even for his grandson. All three held the ultimate goal of returning to Kzinti space and seizing the throne once and for all. As part of this, the WYNs seized control of the Orion shipyard, using it to construct an excellent series of "fish ships", such as the Orca war cruiser. (No, an Orca is not a fish - but most of the other hull types in this series were given "fish" reporting names by the Federation.) While showing clear Orion design influences in the hull proper, the "fish ships" use Klingon-type warp engines. To simplify construction, most "fish ships" have a standardized phaser, disruptor, and drone armament. Further, the WYN engineers found that it was possible to build X-ships in this new series, such as the Carcharodon-X advanced heavy cruiser. However, the Usurper could not hope to seize the throne by himself. Fortunately for him, a succession crisis in the Hegemony opened the door, when the Count (who controlled the Lyran border) agreed to support him against the Crown Prince. As for the other Pentarchal nobles, the Baron (who controlled the Kzinti "off-map" area) supported the Crown Prince, while the Marquis (on the Federation border) and Duke remained neutral. Thus, soon after the General War came to an end, the War of Return saw the Usurper lead a powerful force of WYN warships out of the Cluster and towards their destiny. Exactly what that destiny is depends on who is doing the telling; no-one seems entirely sure if the next Patriarch was the Usurper, the Crown Prince, or even an unexpected third party. In any case, the WYNs left behind promptly launched a "palace coup" that re-weighted the balance of power on the governing council (which had been dominated by the WYN-Kzintis hitherto), only to find trouble on their doorstep courtesy of the ISC and the Andromedans. Still, a squadron of (non-X) "fish ships" would later be sent out of the Cluster to take part in Operation Unity.
During much of the Early Years era, the Klingon Empire still had a number of "open" frontiers upon which to expand. One of these regions was along the Galactic Rim, on the far side of the Klingon-Hydran border, rimward of Federation space. (At this point in time, the Federation and Klingons had yet to make First Contact.) Eventually, the Klingons encountered a species approaching the same region from the opposite direction: the Romulans. In this, the Klingons could not believe their good fortune; here was a technologically-backward empire ripe for the plucking. Indeed, the initial Klingon forays against Romulan forces in the region were so successful that no-one back on Romulus had any clear sense of what was happening - let alone realize that they had become the target of what was planned to be a decisive war of conquest. Fortunately for the Romulans, and to the dismay of the Klingons, the border area which was intended to be the jump-off point for the Klingon invasion of Romulan space found itself confronted with a dangerous and unexpected foe: the Tholians. ----- In order to understand the Tholian presence in the Milky Way Galaxy, it's necessary to take a look back at the M81 Galaxy, where the Tholian species first emerged as a star-faring power. In the SFU, there were several "breeds" of Tholian which appeared on the ancestral home world of Tholia Prime. But only one group, the "Pillar" Tholians (who possess a gravamagnetic organ that allows them to float a short distance off the ground), went into space in any real numbers. The problem for the Tholians was how exceedingly rare "class-T" worlds such as Tholia Prime turned out to be: not only are there no others like it in the M81 or Milky Way galaxies, the only world in all of known space that even comes close is in the Draco Dwarf galaxy - and even that one is too hot for Tholians to live on without a sun shield lowering the surface temperature to a "mere" 204.44*C/400*F suitable for "open-air" colonization. While most of the data on the initial Tholian conquest of M81 remains to be decoded from the Air Force data tapes, at some point the Tholians hit upon the idea of using their infamous web-based technology to construct miniature Dyson Spheres powered by artificial suns. This in essence enabled them to build vast "climate-controlled" environments in which to settle. Even more remarkably, the Tholians were able to develop immense warp engines capable of moving an entire Sphere from one place to another! (In GURPS Prime Directive terms, Tholian spheres are considered to be Tech Level 14 objects, though the Tholians in M81 were otherwise at Tech Level 12.) Web had plenty of other uses, also. In open space, web can be laid around fixed installations such as bases, allowing it to trap enemy ships in place while blocking their weapons fire. Indeed, the Tholian fleet had an exceedingly useful system known as the web caster, which allowed them to project web as mobile terrain in the midst of battle, or even to use in "web fist" mode as a direct-fire weapon. Notably, however, most web functions do not function inside a nebula, making it more difficult to flush out the last remnants of opposition to their pan-galactic rule. Aside from the web, the Tholians used the same phaser-1/-2-/-3/-4s seen in the "modern" Alpha Octant. They also had a direct-fire heavy weapon known as the particle cannon; this weapon has a weaker individual shot than a disruptor, but can be fired twice in a single game turn. Tragically for the Tholians, web would one day reveal a fatal weakness - one that would engulf the bulk of their species in a galaxy-wide act of xenocide. To escape the collapse of their civilization, a number of Tholian exile groups fled M81; one such group, aboard an incomplete Sphere, managed to make it all the way over to the Milky Way. ----- While the crossing of the Galactic Energy Barrier was catastrophic in many ways, this Sphere somehow managed to make it through without being detected. But even as a full-scale stabilization effort was launched to prevent the Sphere from collapsing entirely, it soon became evident that their new region of space already had a star-faring power operating in it: the Klingon Empire. Sooner or later, something would have to be done in order to "clear" the vicinity of the Sphere from outside threats. However, the Holdfast Tholians were - and would remain - quite limited in terms of their capacity to build and operate new starships. They had auto-forges capable of churning out Patrol Corvettes - frigate-sized ships that had been used back in the old galaxy by the Tholian Police - but no capacity to build anything larger. While they had six small ships from the Tholian Navy - two destroyers and four frigates - these hulls were irreplaceable once lost. Or rather, their secondary hulls could not be replaced; their forward-mounted light command modules - which were designed to separate, operate independently (albeit in a somewhat limited fashion), and/or re-attach as and when needed - could be duplicated in the auto-forges. Further, they were able to build more phasers and web generators, but they could not produce web casters or particle cannons. Even so, in several ways they were ahead of the Klingons technologically-speaking. In effect, Tholian ships were the X-ships of this era. Bases were another matter. While the Tholians had built full-sized "modern" battle stations and starbases back in M81, this knowledge was also lost; the Holdfast Tholians had to build back up (using captured Klingon design schematics) from scratch - albeit with the key advantage of being able to install phaser-4s on these new bases, something the Klingons themselves were decades away from matching. Things kicked off in Y83, when the Tholians succeeded in establishing the Holdfast proper. This earned them the lasting ire of the Klingons, both for occupying a portion of the Empire and for preventing the Klingons from conquering the Romulans. By the end of the Early Years, the Tholians had weathered a full-scale Klingon invasion plus a handful of Romulan border incidents, though they had lost all of their "naval" warships in the process. The subsequent story of the Tholian Holdfast might have to be covered in a separate post (or few)...
Now that you have 3D prints in glass, Tholian ships can be done right I loved this ships look https://www.shapeways.com/product/HV6WHJ5C7/3788-scale-tholian-stellar-domination-ship-sds The neo Tholians look like runabouts
I would agree that Shapeways marks a major improvement upon the old Starline 2400 metal miniatures for Tholian ships in general, and for the Neo-Tholians in particular. Particularly in how "angular" the new Neos are, with none of the curved portions shown on the old metal Neos. (Even the area around the port for the flight stand is hexagonal!) On a semi-related note, the Tholian Master Starship Book for Star Fleet Battles has had its Neo-Tholian line art updated to match the new Shapeways designs.