It has been a while since I last posted here, yes...
I do intend to continue it, though I'm not sure what pace I'll be able to maintain for this thread in the near to mid future.
-----
This time around, I'm going to take a detour back to the Alpha Octant - albeit in a way that would still have implications for events over in Omega.
As noted earlier in the thread, there are alternate timelines to consider: to include the "dark future" encountered/created by the wayward USS Darwin, or the various "lost empire" timelines in which the Paravians and/or Carnivons continue to exist in the "modern" era of the Alpha Octant.
Perhaps the most dramatically divergent of these timelines is the "Reflection Universe", which is outlined as one of the alternate timelines published in SFB Module R4J: Shadow of the Eagle.
Note that the "Mirror" timeline seen in the on-screen Franchise is not part of the SFU. But in any case, the chief point of divergence in the Reflected timeline is not on Earth: rather, it is on ancient Vulcan.
-----
In the "standard" timeline, as well as in most "standard-adjacent" realities, the teachings of "Kya-yai", or "Logic", prevailed on Vulcan. This led the most committed cadre of those following the rival philosophy of "Kyai ri-ha-nai", or "Unifying Duty", to go on a decades-long Exodus to Romulus.
In the Reflected version of events, however, Surak died before he was able to gain a critical mass of followers. Instead, a "new normal" formed on Vulcan which retained a more militaristic outlook; even so, there were enough of Surak's followers to go into Exile.
While the "warlike Vulcans" were able to manipulate the pre-warp Terrans, Andorians, and other species in their immediate vicinity towards an outlook more in line with their expansionist aims, this did not lead to a Vulcan-dominated star empire. Instead, after (official) First Contact took place, the Earth humans invited the other worlds to form the Federal Imperium - through which each of the member planets would share in the spoils of galactic conquest. Still, Vulcan retains enough power and prestige within this realm to mostly satisfy its ambitions.
Meanwhile, the exiles made it to Romulus and founded a "Logic-Romulan" republic. Over time, these Romulans built up their population and industrial base, returned to the stars, made peaceful First Contact with the Gorns, and later found themselves at war with the Federal Imperium.
Other changes reverberated across the Alpha Octant - and beyond.
While the Paravians lost their home star system to the Sun Snake, enough of them survived to establish a series of exile colonies. Notably, since the Orions in this timeline joined the Federal Imperium as "normal" members, it was these exile Paravians who became the chief "pirate" faction instead.
While the "western" Alpha timeline played out more or less as normal, things changed during the General War - when the Federal Imperium took advantage of the Lyran and Klingon attacks on the Kzinti Hegemony to invade both the Klingons and the Kzintis! Over time, both the Logic-Romulans and the Gorns were drawn into this conflict; for their part, the ISC sat out the war, only to launch their own Pacification Campaign thereafter.
-----
As you can imagine, the technology of the Reflection Universe is quite different in some ways to that of the "standard" timeline.
The Federal Imperium maintains a vast and aggressive star fleet, which never developed the "Third Way" (of using F-111 fighters and SWAC shuttles) nor the use of phaser-Gs. Nor did they deploy plasma-armed combat variants, since they never aligned with the Gorns in this timeline. However, they deployed Interceptors and fast patrol ships as soon as these technologies became available.
The Logic-Romulans progressed through the various eras of tactical warp drive, as accounted for in Module R4J.
As for the Gorns: on the one hand, they deploy Romulan-type fighters and bombers - perhaps with "mercenary" Romulans and/or Gerlunians (a reptilian species distantly related to the Gorns who exist on a planet close to the Galactic Rim) flying them? On the other hand, since they are on good terms with these Romulans, these Gorns never developed the plasma carronade, at least not prior to the onset of first-generation X-technology.
In a case of form following function, the "pirate" Paravians use ships that are functionally equivalent to Orion Pirate designs. The main difference being that, regardless of operating area, these "pirates" retain access to phaser-1s and to quantum wave torpedoes as "home" technologies.
-----
Beyond this, there are a few details which are not formally spelled out in print as of yet, which might be of interest someday.
For one thing, how might the WYN Cluster develop when one accounts fo the "pirate" Paravians?
For another thing, it is noted that a sub-group of Paravian exiles fled to Omega, before the onset of the "pirate" ships in Alpha; perhaps this means the Omega-Paravians in this timeline still emerge more or less as normal in that Galactic octant.
And, indeed, is there a Reflected counterpart of Omega's Federal Republic of Aurora - and, if so, might they use "volatile warp" Interceptors and PFs, in keeping with their counterparts back in the Federal Imperium?