i'm glad they went with my idea to use hexagon arrays for the radiators. kinda sad they put them inside rectangular cut outs instead of sticking to the hexagon theme. (i'd suggesting just having clusters of hexagon radiator assemblies)
As noted a few posts back, the Tholian Holdfast had run out of its "naval" warships by the end of the Early Years era. Once the particle cannons on all six ships (and the web casters on the two naval destroyers) were gone, that was it so far as both systems were concerned. So, the Tholians took measures to try and address this shortfall in other ways. They launched daring raid into Klingon pace in order to capture samples of disruptor bolt technology. They found a means of padding out the "wedges" of a Patrol Corvette in order to produce a new Destroyer design. Since Patrol Corvettes were being used as "line" ships, the Holdfast cooked up a smaller Police Cutter design to handle "space police" duties. Most importantly, once the Klingons began fielding "modern" cruisers like the D6 and D7, the Tholians found it possible to weld two Patrol Corvette hulls together in order to field a passable Cruiser design - and, later on, three PC hulls in order to field a (relatively weak) dreadnought. The Klingons formed a dedicated Tholian Border Squadron, which launched constant raids and incursions in an attempt to keep the Holdfast off-balance during "peacetime". While the Federation was kept at arms' length, the Tholians were acutely aware that any serious Klingon attempt to subdue the Holdfast would require some sort of intervention by Star Fleet to avert disaster. From the Federation perspective, any sentiment regarding how those Klingon colonists in the region had fared under Tholian rule was outweighed by the spectre of what would happen to the UFP itself were those planets to once again be part of the Klingon Empire - leading them to adopt a posture of realpolitik towards the Holdfast, to the point of later providing samples of photon torpedo technology. Even so, by the mid-point of the General War, it looked as if the Tholians' luck was about to run out, as the Klingons launched Operation Nutcracker in a bid to destroy the Holdfast once and for all. Since the Tholians refused to allow Star Fleet ships to enter their territory, the Alliance had to deploy Gorn and Kzinti ships as expeditionary forces into the region. Yet even this was not enough to prevent the Tholian fleet from being forced back to their home sphere. Yet at the very eve of victory, the Klingons were surprised by the appearance of new and powerful Tholian ships: what they referred to as the "Neo-Tholians". In fact, these ships were themselves centuries old: they were "naval" hulls from the 312th Battle Squadron, a force which had itself fled into exile, arriving in the Milky Way close to a century after the Holdfast sphere. The cruisers and dreadnoughts of the 312th had a larger command module than that seen on the frigate or destroyer; while the ships' web casters were operable, the particle cannon mounts had to have disruptors installed instead. Even so, ships such as the Neo-Tholian heavy cruiser were a nasty shock to the Klingons, who were eventually driven back out of Holdfast space. Indeed, the arrival of the 312th led to many innovations. Working together, the two groups of Tholians were able to begin a limited production run of new web casters, enabling these weapons to be installed onto a handful of "Archaeo-Tholian" ships, such as the DPW refitted dreadnought. (There was no way to bring particle cannons back into production, though the Tholians by this time were content with using disruptors and photons instead.) Further, advances in welding techniques led to ships being built with one wedge partially built "behind" another, such as on the war cruiser. And when first-generation X-technology was available, both "Archaeo" and "Neo" designs could be fielded as X-ships. Meanwhile, a third group of Tholian exiles was approaching the Milky Way, but they were forced to re-direct to the Draco Dwarf galaxy before making contact. They succeeded in sending ships to reach the Holdfast during the Andromedan War, yet it would not be until after Operation Unity was completed before plans could be drawn up in earnest for sending a task force to reach the Tholians of Draco.
The Recluse from STO I might have as an X-ship… There was another computer game that had an interesting ship https://klingon-academy-ii-empire-at-war.fandom.com/wiki/Sapphire_Class I liked this http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163393160.0.html ENTERPRISE made them look metal, which I didn’t like. Misc https://screenrant.com/star-trek-q-most-powerful-race-organian-metrons/
With entire fleets of ships equipped with web casters, the Tholians back in M81 found it possible to conquer a galaxy - the parts of it in open space, at least - as well as to deal with rebellious planets should the need arise. Yet, given the vast chasm between the Tholians and the various organic species under their rule, it was a challenge for them to actually run a galaxy-spanning Tholian Will by themselves. So, at some point they decided to contract an "enforcer species". Such a species would operate warships designed to keep tabs on various pirate and rebel forces at large across the home galaxy, as well as to shepherd the "tribute" being supplied by the various subjugated species to the Tholians themselves. However, these "enforcers" would themselves rebel, be crushed by the Tholians for their trouble, and be replaced by a new "enforcer" species... which would itself rebel, be destroyed in turn... and so on and so forth. Eventually, the Tholians tired of this vicious cycle. Instead, they decided to uplift a semi-intelligent insectoid species, install a "loyalty gene" as part of their genetic modification, and provide them with the tools needed to serve the "enforcer" role. This species became known as the Seltorians. ----- Seltorian ships - which may or may not have been the same designs used by prior "enforcer" species - were comprised of one or two forward booms of various sizes that were attached to the appropriate size of secondary hull. Unlike the case with Neo-Tholian ships, Seltorian ships are not intended to separate these booms. For example, two small booms plus a small secondary hull produces a Seltorian destroyer; two medium booms plus a medium secondary hull creates a Seltorian heavy cruiser; whereas two large booms plus a large secondary hull results in a Seltorian dreadnought. They were armed with phasers, the same particle cannons as on old galaxy Neo-Tholian ships, plus a weapon known as the shield cracker. As the name suggests, this weapon is designed to target shields, but not to score internal damage. This, together with the large numbers of boarding parties, transporters, and shuttles per ship class, enabled the Seltorians to board and capture rebel freighters in a manner that reduced the amount of internal damage needed to be repaired before the freighter in question was put back into service (with a new, "loyal" crew). Unsurprisingly, the shield cracker was a useful weapon for the M81 pirates also. Further, the Tholians provided the Seltorians with immense Hive - and Nest-sized cargo haulers. These gigantic vessels could go on circuits to dock freighters from subjugated planets, transfer their cargoes aboard, and then bring this "tribute" to the construction sites for new Tholian Spheres (or to keep active Spheres operating). ----- In a misfortune for the Tholians, a growing number of Seltorians were born without the "loyalty gene". While the "disloyal" Seltorians were careful to maintain the appropriate façade of loyalty, they hoped to one day reach the critical mass needed to launch a large-scale rebellion. Yet this in and of itself would not have been enough to dislodge the Tholians from their commanding perch. What turned a misfortune into a tragedy for the Tholians was the surprise discovery of an alternate firing mode for the shield cracker: a means by which to break the bonds of web itself. For the first time, an enemy in open space would have the ability to counteract the Tholians' ultimate weapon - and the means to undo the threads by which their Spheres were held together. To compound this pending disaster, the Seltorians found it possible to modify the Hive and Nest haulers by installing rows of side-firing web breakers in their hangar bays. So long as the doors of these bays remained closed, no-one would be any the wiser. But once these doors were opened, the resulting Battlewagons and Assaultwagons would serve as devastating siege weapons. And so, during the Seltorian Revolt, the Tholian hold over M81 would be shattered once and for all, while the bulk of the Tholian species would be wiped out through the use of these Battlewagons and Assaultwagons to crack most of the Spheres themselves. (Even so, a number of Seltorians still had the "loyalty gene" by the time of the Revolt, and fought to the death on behalf of their doomed masters.) Once the Revolt was complete, the Seltorian Suzerainty stood as the new master of M81. Yet, for the Seltorians, there was a problem. A number of Tholian groups had escaped; at least one had had to be chased after and crushed before they could launch a counter-revolution. The answer for them was to convert a number of cargo haulers into Hive and Nest ships, designed to act as floating starbases in support of Tribunal expeditions sent to other galaxies. One such Hive Ship, the Burning Torch of Vengeance, would be sent towards the Alpha Octant of the Milky Way...
Shield crackers are relatively short-ranged and low on damage output; they don't necessarily mesh well with the ISC's preferred Echelon doctrine. One way they are useful is how they interfere with a ship's ability to otherwise use general shield reinforcement to block inbound transporter operations. (In SFB, at least; general shield reinforcement does not exist in FC.) So, a Seltorian (or M81 Pirate) ship might consider using its phasers and/or particle cannons to weaken a target shield facing enough so that, when dropped by the shield crackers, the subsequent hit-and-run raids or boarding actions can be undertaken with a minimum of fuss (and with the minimal amount of damage to the target hull). ----- By the time the Torch expedition arrived in the Alpha Octant, the General War was but a few years away from winding down. With the Romulans effectively knocked out of the war by the recent catastrophe at Remus, and with both the Klingon and Lyran economies rapidly running out of steam, the Klingons in particular had their hands full dealing with an increasingly assertive Alliance. Thus, when the Seltorians showed up along the Galactic Rim in Klingon space, announcing that they were here to kill Tholians, the Klingons were only too happy to oblige. Indeed, the degree of Klingon-Seltorian co-operation was quite substantive. The Klingons granted the Seltorians use of an unoccupied world close to the Tholian border, where the Seltorians parked their Hive Ship and unpacked the prefabricated auxiliary shipyard they had brought with them to augment the Torch's own production capacity. Since the Seltorians are physiologically incapable of operating fighters, the Klingons provided "mercenary" squadrons of their own fighters (and pilots) to serve aboard newly-built Seltorian carriers. Further, the Empire provided samples of "hot warp" gunboat technology, which the Seltorians reverse-engineered to build their own flotillas of fast patrol ships. The Klingons even suggested "three-boom" starship designs like the new light cruiser and light dreadnought, which the Seltorians themselves (apparently) had not thought of fielding - and even provided the processing power to run the balance studies required to make the engineering work. Despite the great shock felt by the Tholians by this turn of events, the Torch expedition would not be enough to destroy the Holdfast by itself. Word was sent back to M81, where a larger force of Seltorian warships would be assembled and sent to the Alpha Octant - but it would not be due to arrive for another 200 years, long after the end of the recorded history in the U.S. Air Force data tapes. So the Seltorian Tribunal ships already present settled in for the long term, continually pressing the offensive against the Tholians even as the Klingons wound up their own anti-Tholian operations at the end of the General War in Y185. ----- Things changed decisively when the Inter-Stellar Concordium launched their full-scale Pacification campaign. When the ISC established one of their Pacification cordons in the region, they called upon both the Tholians and the Seltorians to cease all hostilities at once. While an attempt to intervene against the Tholians failed dismally, it became clear to the Concordium that it was the Seltorians who were the instigators of this conflict - and that they would not relent in their efforts. So, as part of a broader intervention against the Tribunal expedition, the X-squadron Echelon of Judgment was sent to extinguish the Torch itself. Once this was done, the back of the Tribunal expedition was broken; the Klingons (who by now had second thoughts about their erstwhile Seltorian allies) moved in to mop up most of the survivors. A handful of captured Seltorian hulls would later be sold to the WYN Cluster; other Seltorian ships still at large would launch a kamikaze attack against the Holdfast as one final act of vengeance. No-one was quite sure whether or not any of the Tribunal ships managed to escape - or worse, whether or not they made off with the first samples of Seltorian X-technology. There isn't much confirmed data on Hive and Nest Ship expeditions to other galaxies - or, indeed, to other parts of this galaxy - but at least one other Hive Ship, the Star of Redemption, had its fate speculated upon in Captain's Log #41.
This supplement looks nice: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/74229/star-fleet-battles-module-r12-unusual-ships Over at the RPF, some work is being done on the Star Command (of Jason fame). That might be a good asteroid station on the neutral zone…or maybe a Jindarian design. The only asteroid ship in Trek novels was Omen’s Erewhon. https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Erehwon For Jindarian ship minis, maybe put the text description from the novel into DALL-E or IMAGEN? Each ship being an asteroid will have a different shape: https://astrocamp.org/blog/3d-printing-asteroid/ https://www.etsy.com/listing/1024329883/433-eros-asteroid-globe-3d-printed-model The Jindarians should have among the toughest hulls.
As it happens, a few of the ships mentioned in this thread, such as the ISC HCW and Seltorian Battlewagon, were formally introduced to Star Fleet Battles via Module R12. Also, there are minis on Shapeways for "metal-hull" Jindarian ships. ----- To stay out in M81 a while longer: while the Orion pirates represent one form of "space pirate" design philosophy, one can also consider how the High Pirate Bands of the home galaxy operate by comparison. Their story begins with the Great Martial War, one of the major conflicts the Tholians fought on the path to pan-galactic dominance. One of the primary enemies the Tholians faced in that war was the Nebuline: a species which, as the name suggests, prefers to settle within the bounds of active nebulae. We don't yet know what the Nebuline themselves look like as a playable faction, but they reportedly have some kind of advantage when fighting inside a nebula that makes flushing out their home colonies a difficult proposition. (Recall that most web functions, as well as shield crackers, do not function inside a nebula.) Which meant that, despite being on the losing side of the war, the Nebuline avoided being conquered outright. In the process of devolving from belligerents to insurgents, and then on to privateers, the Nebuline adapted "wingless" ships from their home fleets into "winged" hulls better suited to piracy in open space. Over time, they developed "export" models of these "winged" raiders - with key Nebuline technologies removed (or perhaps never installed in the first instance) - for sale to various bands of outcasts fleeing subjugated planets across Tholian-controlled space. These High Pirate Bands would each last only so long before the Tholians and/or their current enforcer species got around to crushing them; yet so long as the Nebuline holdout colonies remained in place, there would always be the potential for more bands to emerge in their place. Of course, the Tholians themselves considered this to be unacceptable, yet even they had not managed to deal with the problem by the onset of the Revolt - leaving the post-Revolt Seltorian Suzerainty to decide how best to handle this matter going forward. ----- This is an M81 Pirate Raider miniature in 3125 scale, in Smooth Fine Detail Plastic: And this is my less-than-stellar attempt at painting the same: Note the row of tractor beam emitters on the underside of the oversized port wing, as well as the "guard rails" to either side. These are designed to enable the ship to dock to a target freighter and to carry it off in its entirely to a hidden location! This is also why there is a third warp nacelle on the wing; in SFB terms, that engine cannot be used for movement while a freighter is undocked (yet still provides warp power for other purposes); only once a freighter is attached can it be used to aid in the ship's movement. This ship has five weapon option mounts; four on the prow, and a fifth off-set on the port wing. Based on what is known about the M81 Galaxy thus far, one can install phaser-1/-2/-3s, particle cannons, and/or shield crackers into those option mounts. (The port wing is sturdy enough so that the fifth mount is not a "wing" mount the way an Orion pirate would undertstand it.) It's not yet known for certain whether or not the pirates gained access to web breakers during or after the Revolt. Note that, when used by the M81 Pirates, this ship is no more capable in a nebula than any other (non-Nebuline) empire's vessels. Despite how large the miniature itself is, in terms of box count the SSD (or Ship Card) is approximately light cruiser-sized. There is a smaller Raider Destroyer type, which has only three weapon option mounts (two on the prow and a third on the wing), and fewer tractor beams on its port wing.
Reminds me of the sling ship of the space rangers: https://www.tyruben.com/sb028abc.html https://twitter.com/thespaceshipper/status/1090915609322369024 Not these guys https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/galaxy-rangers-interceptor.339192/#post-5282270 https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/discussion/10000905/galaxy-rangers-ranger-one
In order to begin looking at this next topic in more detail, it's worth taking a look back at certain ships from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, in terms of how their "Franz Joseph" designs are interpreted in the Star Fleet Universe. As shown here, the "Franz Joseph" take on the Saladin-class destroyer has two photon torpedoes and six type-I phasers, whereas the "Franz Joseph" Hermes-class scout removes most of these weapon mounts. The "ADB" take on the Saladin-class incorporates the various refits installed by the onset of the General War, yet otherwise hews relatively close to the original. In contrast, the "ADB" Hermes-class is covered with no less than eight sensor dishes on its saucer: four installed where the Saladin's photons had been, plus four others on the outer rim of the saucer itself. So where did all these sensor dishes come from - and what purpose do they serve in being there? ----- Before one can answer this, it's worth considering the kind of sensor and scanner systems ships in the SFU typically possess. A ship's fire control suite is typically capable of operating in two modes: by "actively" emitting signals akin to the use of radar or sonar back on pre-warp Earth, or through "passively" detecting the emissions of various object in the vicinity (such as enemy warships). Running an active sweep is necessary in order to maintain a "lock-on" - in order to do things like, say, guiding a drone towards its target. A ship operating under passive fire control can still launch self-guided seeing weapons (such as plasma torpedoes), but needs to give the torpedo at least 50,000kms to run before it can achieve its own lock-on. On an SFB SSD, one might find separate "sensor" and "scanner" tracks. The sensor rating is used to establish how many control channels a given ship has in order to guide seeking weapons, whereas the scanner rating affects the ship's ability to aim direct-fire weapons at a given target. Ships with no seeking weapon mounts of their own often have their sensor rating reduced by half; certain specialist ships have double seeking weapons control instead. In addition, ships in SFB are affected by electronic warfare: power can be assigned to ECM (in order to make one's own ship harder to hit) and/or ECCM (to try and "burn through" an enemy ship's ECM). Unsurprisingly, these EW options were less effective back in the Middle Years, and more so for first-generation X-ships. Also, while players of SFB (or of Federation Commander) are able to review a given SSD (or Ship Card) in order to get a sense of what a given enemy ship might be capable of, a bridge crew in-universe does not always have quite such a luxury. Instead, they are obliged to gather what SFB refers to as "Tactical Intelligence": This is the level of information a ship, base, or other unit is capable of gathering on its opponent a a given point in time, at a tactical or strategic level. Players in SFB can try "double-blind" scenarios in order to represent this, perhaps with an umpire in order to help keep track of things. ----- Beyond the typical sensors and scanners aboard a given ship, certain "scout" ships are equipped with special sensors: these are marked as distinct boxes on an SSD (or Ship Card). Often, these sensor mounts replace a given phaser or heavy weapon mount on a scout variant of a "line" warship - as seen in the case of the "ADB" Hermes design above. Note that in SFU terms, a "scout ship" does not range ahead of a given fleet, but rather uses these special sensors to act as the fleet's eyes and ears instead. Each special sensor box can be assigned a certain mission, provided the ship can spare enough power to operate it; SFB offers a broader range of missions than the more streamlined sensor rules over in FC. While some of these functions are mostly useful in combat (such as, say, causing an enemy drone to lose its external guidance), others (such as gathering information) have both military and scientific uses - making special sensors useful to install on survey ships as well as on battle scouts or on bases. However, special sensors can be blinded by certain types of weapons fire from ships, though bases with active positional stabilizers do not have this problem. ----- In the Early Years, only the Vulcans (among Federation member species) had special sensors. However, while they might have preferred to use their "National Guard" ships to perform survey missions, several of them were tied up on patrols of the UFP's growing border areas - leaving less capable Terran-hull survey ships (lacking special sensors) to take on much of the Federation's survey duties in this era. Things changed significantly in the Middle Years, when Star Fleet was at last capable of installing special sensors into its own ships. This led in one direction to the fabled Hermes-class, though it would eventually be realized that having so many scout channels is of limited use outside of peacetime with only a limited amount of power aboard ship to actually power them. As a result, wartime scouts like the new scout cruiser (a mission variant of the Kearsarge-class new light cruiser) had fewer sensors, but packed more power to use the ones they had installed. In another direction, the Second Fleet - the home of those officers and crewbeings most inclined to pursue the "highest calling" of exploring new worlds, encountering new civilizations, and so on and so forth - started with building a light survey cruiser based on the Terran-hull old light cruiser. Then, when construction of a third "old heavy cruiser" hull was abandoned when Star Fleet passed on pursuing the OCA design further, the Second Fleet arranged to complete the ship as an "old survey cruiser" that, despite being a one-off design, offered certain innovations that would feed into the design of arguably the most successful survey ships in Alpha Octant history: the Byrd-class Galactic Survey Cruisers. Ironically, the GSC was so good a ship that the other fleets were able to requisition a number of them for use as heavy scouts, light carriers (with six of its eight admin shuttles swapped out for a half-squadron of F-18s), or in one case as a commando variant. Which left the less glamourous light survey cruisers to soldier on in the "off-map" Survey Area through to the end of the General War. And as if the Byrd-class was not capable enough, the Second Fleet would deploy the first Einstein-class advanced technology survey cruiser after the end of the General War. Little did anyone realize a this time just how critical these ships would be for ensuring the very survival of the Federation itself - or, indeed, for expanding the horizons of known space to an unprecedented degree...
Never - ever liked the look of a pile o' sensor dishes sticking out all over the ship. Silly idea that doesn't make any sense. What did they think the domes on top and bottom were "chopped liver"?
Modern AESA Radar is hidden behind a protective cover panel. Surprisingly, ST: Discovery with the USS Discovery's change of their Deflector Dish follows this IRL update instead of using one large dish.
Yes and no. From a gaming perspective, it's handy to be able to visually identify "scouts" (which are really electronic warfare ships) when the mini is on the table. Much different type of sensor. Those are, I guess, passive sensors mainly used for navigation. They aren't used to detect enemy ships at very long range, nor can they be used for jamming scanners of enemy ships in combat.
Radar Picket subs like the Triton were the largest before the boomers came around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Triton_(SSRN-586) The closest we ever really got to Seaview. The dishes are nice on scouts. For Trek map fans--here is what Earth's path through the Milky Way really looks like https://phys.org/news/2022-08-scientists-earth-path-galaxy-tiny.html
In fairness, these sensor dishes are being used to emit and/or detect "trans-light" signals, as opposed to the signals on the electromagnetic spectrum present-day radar operates with. So this might be what they have to look like in order to work in-universe. Or something. Also, I appreciate how Shapeways has allowed a certain degree of finesse in how special sensors are placed on a given ship - not least how the Tholians make a point of using hexagonal types on their scout ships. ----- Typically, when a given empire encounters another for the first time, Tactical Intelligence (be it from a ship's own fire control suite, and/or the use of a scout channel assigned to this purpose) is part of a broader spectrum of data being gathered by both sides and (if one or both sides survive the encounter) being reported back to their respective admiralties. If both sides operate more or less "in the open", such as the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, there are a variety of signals intelligence, espionage, and/or (in peacetime) diplomatic and cultural exchanges which can be pursued. Of course, operating "in the open" is not the same as being "open" in terms of what is being exchanged; the UFP is much more comfortable sharing certain aspects of itself in comparison to how the Klingons speak of their own empire. Then you have factions which, to various degrees, tend to operate "in secret". Be it a star empire which is liable to obscure the deployment of their ships (such as the Romulan use of the cloaking device) yet which still needs to operate at least part of their empire "in the open" (as even the Romulans need to maintain a network of bases and patrol ships in order to scan their territory for potential threats). Or be it a "pirate" faction which, for obvious reasons, wants to hide both the movement of their ships and the locations of the bases needed to support them; see the Orions (even those without access to cloaks) or the High Pirate Bands of M81. Those factions can be talked with, should they wish to engage in conversation: whether it's the negotiation of a new treaty between the Klingon and Romulan empires, or perhaps the signing of a mercenary contract with a given Orion negotiating agent. But what do you do if even such options as those aren't on the table? ----- The beginnings of this problem from an Alpha Octant perspective was in the mid-to-late Y160s, when hitherto-unknown "Intruders" were first encountered by the various star fleets. Or rather, the first instances in which an Alpha ship survived to report such encounters took place. One of the very earliest such encounters was dramatized in Captain's Log #25. A Federation police cutter close to the Federation-Klingon border was destroyed by an unknown type of alien vessel; when a Star Fleet destroyer leader, a squadron of Klingon frigates, plus an Orion salvage cruiser converged on its last known location, the intruder appeared with a collection of smaller ships in tow. This and other battles fought against Intruders elsewhere led to a series of startling discoveries. For one thing, these new aliens did not use shields; they instead appeared to use some sort of panels capable of absorbing energy from incoming weapons fire. These panels appeared to be hemispheric, as opposed to the six-sided shields used by most types of Alpha Octant starship. Remarkably, while opposing ships could not beam through such panels, the Intruders themselves could beam through them - making hit-and-run raids (via robotic boarding parties) and transporter bomb operations more dangerous prospects. But that wasn't all their transporters were good for. Indeed, it appeared that the larger "Motherships" could beam the smaller "satellite ships" in their entirety and deploy them out into open space, or directly onto a planetary surface - and/or to retrieve them via transporter also! As to how these hangar bays actually function, it was unclear if the satellite ships were being fit "snugly" (as opposed to the leeway Seltorian ships have when docked inside the bays of a Hive or Nest Ship), or - to borrow a term from a different science fiction universe - if the Motherships' hangar bays are somehow "bigger on the inside". Further, while they appeared to use a "medium-caliber" weapon more or less akin to a phaser-2, their heavy weapons appeared to be a weaponization of tractor beam technology to a remarkable degree, in that they could be used to "shake" a target to pieces. Fortunately, the tractor-repulsor beams on the satellite ships appeared to have only half of the strength of those on the Motherships. Most remarkable of all was a system which enabled the operating ship to displace certain types of object from one location of space to another - or, in the most extreme of circumstances, into the molten core of a nearby planet! However, it appeared that only certain types of unit could be so displaced; for example, bases with active positional stabilizers could not be affected by this system. Further, it appeared that no more than two ships were able to use their displacement devices at once, limiting the number of Motherships and satellite ships that were encountered accordingly. ----- Throughout the General War, the number of encounters with these intruders increased, along with the range of Mothership and satellite ship types being recorded. A light cruiser equivalent was given the Federation class designation of Conquistador; the original small satellite ship (designated the Viper) was followed by medium and heavy types, listed by Star Fleet as the Cobra and Mamba respectively. Cobra- and Mamba-sized satellite ship types were observed with displacement devices of their own; the first was referred to as the Reconnaissance Cobra, and the second type as the Python. Most worryingly, near the end of the General War, a larger and more powerful Mothership type was encountered: this was designated as the Dominator. And while conjectural fighters and Adder PFs were drawn up and programed into the simulators at Star Fleet Academy (as seen in Star Fleet Battles Module C3A), the only attrition units observed in use by these aliens were a series of Interceptor-esque mobile weapons platforms. Yet still there was not much to go on, save for the data being recorded by the encountering ships' fire control suites and active special sensors. These intruders made no attempt to open communications; left no definitive clues as to their origins, or even their very identity as a species; and (since their ships tended to violently explode when destroyed, due to cascades from the power being stored in those absorber panels) left little in the way of wreckage for Alpha Octant engineers to study. They did, however, begin to leave clues as to their ultimate intentions. Approximately mid-way through the General War, they adopted a more aggressive posture, attacking Alpha Octant ships on sight. As dramatized in Captain's Log #27, a Dominator launched an attack on the Federation colony of Rimworld during the era of the ISC Pacification. And while the Usurper was otherwise engaged in the War of Return, a dramatic attempt to invade the WYN Cluster was carried out. Fortunately for the WYNs, power absorber panels don't appear to mix well with the WYN radiation shell, though the exact nature of these interactions has yet to be spelled out in SFB terms. In any case, the wreck of an invading Dominator was salvaged as a war trophy and tourist attraction; through the study of this wreck, the WYNs found evidence that the ship had come all the way from M31: the Andromeda Galaxy. Thus, by the time the first wave of large-scale attacks broke out against the ISC's Pacification cordons in Y188, these aliens were being referred to as the Andromedan Invaders.
A full history of the Andromedan invasion is beyond the scope of this thread, but there are a number of articles, story fiction works, and historical scenarios which look into this conflict in more detail. At this point, I should add a disclaimer: a handful of said works, such as Captain's Log #49's A Brief History of the Andromedan War, were written by myself, though of course each of those was edited and refined by the folks at ADB prior to publication. ----- In the Alpha Octant, the first wave of the invasion - not counting the aforementioned attack on the WYN Cluster - was targeted at the widely-dispersed Pacification fleets of the Inter-Stellar Concordium, as well as at those ISC ships on patrol back in their home space. As portrayed in an SFB scenario from Module X1R, one of these attacks reached as far as Korlivala, one of the five ISC home worlds. In desperation, the X-squadron Echelon of Judgement - the same one which had extinguished the Torch during the ISC intervention against the Seltorians - raced all the way back just in time to defend the planet from a pair of Andromedan Dominators. Other attacks on the ISC home words took place at or around the same time. Any sense of schadenfreude which might have been felt by the other Alpha empires was short-lived, as they soon realized that the invaders would not stop there. By Y192, the war had widened to the point of including the Federation and Klingons, who somehow managed to put aside their General War-era animosities in order to present a common front against the Andromedans. ----- But then, in which direction might such a front face? In more "conventional" wars in outer space, a given star fleet might be able to move across a given axis of advance - say, from Klinshai to Earth - or in turn be pushed back to the pre-war border. Meanwhile, those areas not in the line of advance, such as the Federation's "off-map" Survey Area, could be leveraged to provide the resources required to build the ships needed to turn back the invaders. And as demonstrated by the Hydrans, it was possible to relocate the capital to said "off-map" areas in the event that the original capital fell to the enemy. But in the case of the Andromedans, this dynamic was turned on its head. Given the tactical limitations imposed by the displacement device, it was difficult for the Andromedans to muster the forces needed to launch a large-scale attack on an enemy capital, as they'd have to turn off the devices on the first pair of Motherships long enough to allow the next pair to arrive, and then repeat this process long enough to build up a sizable attack force. Yet at the same time, the Andromedans could appear almost anywhere else across a given empire's territory - even out in the hitherto-safe "off-map" zones. Which left the various opposing star fleets with a pressing dilemma. If one keeps one's forces close to the capital, or to other key worlds or bases, that leaves a host of other convoys and colonies vulnerable to Andromedan attack. But if you spread your forces too thinly by responding to these attacks, you might not be able to muster them back again in the event that the invaders take this opportunity to hit your key worlds while their defences are weakened. And since the key resources needed to build and operate your ships are in those convoys being attacked, even keeping your ships bottled up at home is ultimately a losing proposition. Yet at the same time, the Andromedans themselves had to be using some sort of logistical network to support their invasion effort. Uncovering it just might be the key to ending the invasion - or, at lest, so was the hope at the time. Thus, a number of ships were assigned to investigate, including the Star Fleet Galactic Survey Cruiser NCC-1802 USS Darwin. Alas, that ship vanished without a trace in Y195, leaving others to continue the search in its absence. ----- As outlined in a timeline printed in SFB Module C3A, the next 12 years marked a "dark future" for an increasingly beleaguered Alpha Octant. Earlier in Y195, the invaders had succeeded in launching a large-scale attack on Demorak, the capital world of the Lyran Democratic Republic. The Lyran Empire itself fractured over time, as each Duke sought to defend their own holdings at the expense of the empire at large. The nominal unity of the Kzinti Hegemony and the Romulan Star Empire buckled under the same strain. Things got so desperate that the Federation, which had rejected the use of the proposed Thunderbolt fast patrol ship back during the General War, revised this decision and pressed this gunboat type into service. Five years after the Darwin's disappearance, a Lyran ship at last managed to uncover the truth behind the Andromedan logistical network. As efforts were subsequently undertaken to uncover and destroy this network, it was eventually realized that the invaders were using the Lesser Magellanic Cloud as a staging point for their campaign. (Note that the SFU uses "Greater" and "Lesser" instead of "Large" and "Small" as regards the two Magellanic Clouds.) So, those four Alpha empires still capable of doing so - the Federation, Klingons, Gorns, and ISC - joined forces to launch Operation Codominion along two axes of advance towards the LMC. Alas, the Andromedans had two more surprises in store. On the one hand, they began deploying a dangerous new weapon, the dissection beam: this was capable of shearing off entire systems - even warp nacelles! - from a target ship. On the other hand, they began deploying battleship-sized vessels: the Devastator and Devourer. Of those, the Devourer had no less than four dissection beams, along with a dangerous suite of phaser and tractor-repulsor beam firepower. Together with their retaining enough strength in the Alpha Octant to disrupt the logistics supporting Operation Codominion, this campaign had to be called off before any of its ships had made it as far as the LMC. By Y207, things were looking grim. And yet, just as all hope seemed lost, as the X-ship Third Battle Squadron prepared to face a Devastator battleship aimed at the very heart of what remained of Federation space, the ship which graced the cover of Captain's Log #54 made a dramatic return:
The Andromedans do feature in a number of dramatic cover art pieces: ----- That last cover shows a conjectural Andromedan X-ship. Despite not historically existing - so far as we know, at any rate - a number of these Andro X-units have appeared on Shapeways, such as this 3125 scale Conquistador-X in Smooth Fine Detail Plastic:
Okay, so what is up with the Andromedans' logistics, anyway? ----- To answer that, one might need to take a look back at the very first topic discussed in this thread: warp factors and space movement. One might recall that there is a difference between "tactical", "operational", and "strategic" warp movement, as well as how these types are represented in different scales of game play. With the Andromedans, tactical warp speeds are more or less comparable to the Alpha Octant norm. Their "warp" and "impulse" engines appear to function at the tactical level in a manner that makes representing them on an SSD or Ship Card no major hurdle. Operationally, however, it appears that Andromedan ships are somewhat slower than the average for a "modern" (GPD4e Tech Level 12) Alpha starship, such as a Federation Constitution-class heavy cruiser or Klingon D7 battlecruiser. Exactly how much slower has yet to be formally dialed in, but might be something a future Andromedan module for Federation and Empire could address, perhaps. Strategically, however, an Andromedan ship can travel at a blistering speed of Warp 15 - but, crucially, only if it is equipped with a displacement device. And of course, only if there are Andromedan bases in place to act as strategic movement nodes. Speaking of which, it turns out that the Andromedans had spent the better part of three decades establishing satellite bases - each around the size of a Cobra satellite ship - across the Alpha Octant. Not only could these bases be upgraded to base stations or battle stations (a base station has a core module of the same size, plus two satellite bases attached to it; whereas a battle station has three satellite bases attached to the same core module type - see the cover art for Captain's Log #49), but they could be packed up again and moved to a new location if required. All taken together, the various bases comprised the Rapid Transit Network: the key to Andromedan offensive operations... and also, perhaps, their Achilles' heel, were the Alpha empires to somehow manage to uncover and destroy it. ----- As it happened, the Darwin's officers and crewbeings had just figured this out when the ship was struck by a temporal rift, before it was able to report back to Star Fleet Command. In the Darwin's absence, the truth behind the RTN would not be realized until Y200, by which time the Andromedans were too strong, and the remaining Alpha Octant empires too weak, for this knowledge to be exploited in full. But if the Darwin could somehow find a way back through that same temporal rift, maybe - just maybe - there might be a chance to turn the tide of the war, thus preventing the "dark future" of Andromedan conquest from unfolding. For what happened next, I might refer to the original SFB scenario from Module X1, or perhaps to the later dramatization of said scenario that served as the lead story fiction in Captain's Log #54 - though, as with the cover article in CL49, I might post a disclaimer in terms of who happened to have written said dramatization (but not the original scenario itself)...