BETA SIM OOC THREAD

[Lt. Staplic]

Jacorn: Having been recently liberated from a dictatorial system the Jacorn would have been under Federation protection for the next few years as agreed upon by the Federation Council and Jacorn provisional government. This eventually would have lead to the Jacorn joining the Federation if the SIM had survived that long.

Tholians: The Tholian Civil War was ongoing, oskctc was actually thinking about making a come back to the SIM and would have been running the rebels, and if victorious would have taken over the Tholians IC

The Federation: With the Federation leaving behind their policy of non-interfearance a large domestic movement began to urge the Federation into war with the Cardassians. The continued aggression and territorial expansion of the Union worried many in the Federation that if the Union wasn't stopped they would soon be at war with the Federation, with an economic backing to provide a serious fight. Therefore the President likely would have been forced into a war within the next year or two before they could rearm.

Additionally, the federation fleet returning to Jacora attacked and destroyed a large group of Romulan vessels, the force consisted of multiple task forces, not the 1 that the Romulans were lead to believe were responsible. This battle was the basis for the fix to the damage ship calculations which had the Federation fleet returning with over half it's fleet damaged after two rounds with the Romulans whom they outnumbered nearly 3:1

The Romulans: They were continuing their acquisition of Klingon territories, and it was going rather well, until the Federation attack. This gave many in the empire pause. A new inititive was handed down to drastically increase the production of ships.

There was growing anticipation of the Federation's war with the Cardassians on Romulas as many hoped to take advantage of the situation and attack the Federation, creating a war on two fronts they believed they could win.

The Breen: The Breen made vast improvements to their fleet in the few years following the removal of the Federation from their territory. most of this can be attributed to a secrete alliance they held with the Romulans for a short time. During the time the Breen were able to focus efforts on increasing torpedo technology, which they traded to the romulans for advanced beam technology. the Breen were also recipiants of Romulan cloaking technology in exchange for armor advancements the Breen had procured from the Ferangi.

The breen war was a roller coster. The Cardassians dominated the first few months of the war. Quickly overwhelming the border fleet and making their way to Breen. There the large breen fleet decloaking provided the first advantage to the Breen, but even still the Cardassians responded with an effective tactic that wiped out all but a small scout party that had been dispatched.

Following this is when the Breen started to thrive. Using subterfuge instead of open warfare. They were able to cut off supply lines and force the Cardassians to pull back from their search of breen leaving two of their biggest systems intact with starbases, shipyards, and a lot of reserved ships. The Breen had one of the luckiest rolls in the SIM when the managed to cross into CU space without detection.

The next three month turn was dominated by the Breen early. They were able to get back into Cardassian space, and defend 86. Their plan was to wait out the 3 months when they would receive a shipment of a few hundred Norexean Cruisers from the Romulans. They started off well, the Cardassians were unsure of their numbers, and underestimated the Breen's firepower sending in bite sized portions of their fleet that the Breen were able to overpower and destroy.

The Breen were on their way out of the war however, the last battle of 86 had their last starbase destroyed after ramming tactics were used by the few remaining Cardassian ships to get their kill. The Breen fleet had an endurance of 4 months and the war would have been finished by Septermber 12 had they not found or captured a starbase for their use.

Lastly the Cardassians: most of the Cardassian action was described with the Breen, and their war. They lost large portions of their fleet through a series of unfavorable engagements. When they finally destroyed the Breen Starbase the Breen out numbered and outgunned the Cardassian Fleet occupying Breen space, leaving the Ferangi Occupation Fleet, the NTS blockade fleet, and their internal fleets as the only remaining fleets.

The Cardassians were also planning to start a change in the Klingon civil war by dispatching over 900 of their older generation destroyers to the Az'roth Clan. The ships would have arrived at the beginning of the next year.

the Klingons: The Klingon War likely would have dramatically inflated with the Romulans starting to move in on the stronger clans, the Cardassians fueling ships to the Azroth, and the letters of Marque against the now weekend and Civil warring Tholians. The conflict would have quickly escalated.

The Marun, T'Glok and Azroth Clans all would have been vying for power. the T'Glok had the best opening advantage, but hte Marun had taken over the QonoS and got a huge lead that way. the Klingons would have likely begun extracting significant losses from any continued Romulan invasion, as well as basically taking over the Tholian Assembly.

The end result would mostly likely have left a toss up between the Marun and Azroth Clans depending on who attacked and conquered who and how the Romulan's played in. Either way it would have been a rather anti-Federation Klingon State and the Romulans would have felt the toll of the war before too much longer.

Projection: Within a year the whole SIM should have been at war. The pressure on the Federation to go to war would have taken them to war with the Cardassians, I had anticipated a greater Cardassian victory then they found leaving them capable of putting up a fight, and the Romulans would have soon been in on the fight as well. considering the Romulan ship sale to the Breen and the Cardassian one to the Klingons which would have inflicted losses on the other, I think it would have been safe to say that the SIM would have ended in a three way war with the Federation fighting on two fronts and the Romulans/Cardassians fighting their way through the Federation to fight eachother.

Anyway, that's a basic run down of things ongoing. I only posted basic stuff, if people want to add feel free, if anyone has questons for me about specific goings on that were kept secrete, I can probably tell you know.

Speaking of which, the mid-game attempted theft of the transphasic cloak from the Federation, was the tholians. They hired the orians to do it; however the Orians kept the technology they acquired (a fake device the Federation used to try and track the theft back to its source when the caught the thief). So even if successful the Orians wouldn't have let something that valueable out of their hands.

That's the only thing I can think about at the moment, but like I said as and I'll try and dig it up.

[BigJKU316]

From my perspective the following were big events that changed the course of the sim

1. A Federation/Klingon Fleet getting in the way of the Cardassian attack on the Ferengi.

This happened due to a mix of things. The Ferengi were goaded into a neutrality for protection scheme early on in the game primarily because in my view they were the key to any of the southern/western powers really posing a threat to me. Even combined none had the economic chops to really threaten the UFP seriously, particularly so long as the alliance with the Klingons was in force. But if they had the Ferengi that would change.

The guesswork on the timing of the attack was based on me finding some clues that had the Breen not attacked the CU then the CU would have attacked them during the war. No one really knew how far some of my sensors could see (a long long way as they were not cheap) so I picked up on the junk fleet of Breen hulks from the Dominion War that was stashed in CU space. The tactic in the Breen against CU/UFP war then became to punish the Breen but also to keep the CU from getting bigger. Once that door was shut the Ferengi were the logical choice.

IC it was impossible to believe they could plot something like that. They had basically crapped all over themselves apologizing for their involvement with the Orion's when we really pressed them. They were not going to stage a war between the CU and Breen. It just didn't make sense. We dropped a fleet in there mostly as a tripwire in case the CU came knocking and a war resulted.

During that war I damn near made a fatal misstep. The force levels sent were doubled late in the planning process for me as I stripped ships from the Romulan and Tholian sectors believing that a) They were not prepared to attack on a large scale and b) If they did I could extract my forces fairly quickly while the Klingons held things down for a bit. Had that not happened the CU shell game of hiding its fleet strength would have made things interesting.

Once this war happened and no one else stepped into help the CU the early and mid-game period in my view were effectively over. The CU was aggressive but small enough economically that they could not really threaten me. The Klingons were rebuilding fast and could in theory at least equal if not exceed the Romulan and massively overwhelm the Tholians. Our alliance was strong and we got along well enough that I was comfortable that even if the game ran for 100 turns no combination of powers then on the board could have seriously threatened the stability of things if we elected to stay the course.

2. The Klingon collapse

This happened at a time the sim needed something to shake loose really. The hard work had all been done very early in this sim. So long as the Klingons and UFP stayed united in my view no one else was really a threat. The collapse actually put me in a bad place strategically for a while.

Previously my major mobile forces had been deployed in a patter somewhat resembling a 5 on a die. 2 fleets forward (north and south) towards both the CU and Romulan border and a major reserve fleet in my core. I had border fleets that were fairly strong and would slow things down if an attack came as well. The collapse of the Empire caused me issues because previously one of my two Romulan oriented fleets had been additionally tasked with dealing with the Tholians.

We (KE and UFP) had designated the Tholians a secondary concern. They were a long way away from our major industrial centers and in our view were kind of a mess. We figured they would surge out, then we could cut them apart at our leisure. The absence of the KE changed this and many other things. The major counter attack there would by necessity be a Klingon led advance. They have the troops and the...mentality to clear out planets overrun by lizards and bugs. Additionally the Klingons were a major part of a defense plan against the Romulans.

Now the Romulan fleet was free to focus on the UFP. In the most dangerous scenario I would be facing the full weight of the Romulan and CU fleets plus possibly the Tholian fleet and suddenly I did not have enough pieces to deal with everything comfortably anymore. This is when the UFP sort of went into a shell and let things run their course. I could not in my view risk sending major fleets as far out as I did during the CU/Ferengi war and still get them back quickly enough.

3. The Jacorn Thing...

This really came down in a way I never intended.

I fully admit I set out to create as much political instability in the Jacorn as possible once they, in my view, moved closer to the Tholians and abandoned our alliance. Things had not just gone bad with the Empire but now my only other counter-weight on the Tholians was gone. I knew the people liked the UFP so I pushed it very very hard to make it nearly impossible for them to conduct business in the way they wanted. I did not care if they were willing allies or even allies at all so long as there was a threat they would move against the Tholians if they moved on me.

The coup kind of caught me short. I did not really want to start a fight among Jacorn territory, I would rather have absorbed them by political pressure. That being said an opportunity dawned on me. If I move against the Jacorn the Tholians are probably silly enough to move to their defense. This was the perfect solution to my issues in my eyes and I faced three major obstacles I could overcome.

a) Not wanting to move my forces all the way down to Jacoran space due to my above problems would be solved as I could send decoy and old forces that way and then just romp through Tholian space with my main forces, crush them as a power and liberate the Jacorn.

b) If the Tholians moved in I could politically marginalize the regime on Jacora even more as it would be "clear" they were in the pocket of the Tholians based on this.

c) It would remove any threat to my Southern space and let me get back to my preferred deployments against the CU and RSE.

I wrote a 20 page plan designed to implement all of this....then Mark got sick and the Tholians did not react. I am still 99% sure that had he been here he would have moved to Tsuki's defense and I could have done what I wanted. With the Tholians wiped out as a power I would have been perfectly content to leave the Jacorn to rebuild their government with some monetary support and that would be that. Instead I was scrambling in what I am sure Tsuki thought was a very odd campaign.

I had sent old ships and scrapped up border cruiser wings to be the decoy force moving into Jacora. When the Tholians collapsed into anarchy I had to send more forces to Jacoran space in case they did not move. When the Tholians did nothing even more ships had to be sent. The jamming of communications was designed to keep Tholian forces in Jacoran space once they had been drawn there. It should have been cancelled once they didn't move because by doing it I simply delayed the fleet battle I wanted to get fought and over with as the Jacorn could not coordinate forces that well.

With the Tholians not out I felt I had to hold onto Jacorn space as a lever against the Tholians in the future. But initially my whole plan was to use them effectively as bait to let me smash the Tholians and be rid of that problem.


Things I never figured out

1. What were those things on the Romulan border?

I did a lot of testing trying to figure out what was on the Romulan border. I presumed it was some sort of sensor system but was never sure. All were targeted for destruction on day 1 of any war by a long-range demolition weapon I had developed just to be sure but for all I know they were modern art pieces left floating in space to fuck with me.

2. Why the Jacorn abandoned their alliance with the UFP?

This one always baffled me both IC and OOC. The Jacorn and UFP were very close and as far as I could tell we had done very little to anger them in anyway, even going so far as to basically supply them in a war they elected to get into.

3. What really happened in the Tholian/Yrridian War?

I think I know what happened but was never sure. The Tholian actions were always a great mystery to me and I spent many hours puzzling over them.

[Lt. Staplic]

1. They had multiple functions. They were deep space sensors, with much the same range your dedicated ships had, but on a larger, non-mobile platform. A later addition also gave them communication interference capabilities for any invading ships.

2. This was Tsuki's decision entirely. I flowed with it because he had selected an isolationist party as part of his group, and overall had picked parties that were more focused on internal improvement and developing the self-worth of the Jacorn State.

3. The Tholians planted agents on Yrridia that planted information concerning a WMD and an attack into their database. The same agents later bombed the subspace arrays the planet used to communicate when the Tholians invaded preventing them from defending themselves or calling for help until the Jacorn fleet entered orbit and their regular communications could be used through the Jacorn's subspace comms to address the galaxy at large.

[Tsukiyumi]

Remember, I came into it in turn 33 or something; I saw the political deck was stacked towards the Federation, so I played to form an alliance with Mark that could actually be more than a political pawn for another power.

[BigJKU316]

Remember, I came into it in turn 33 or something; I saw the political deck was stacked towards the Federation, so I played to form an alliance with Mark that could actually be more than a political pawn for another power.

Yeah, OOC I know why it happened and it was interesting to game out. IC for the UFP (never the most self-critical of folks anyway) it would have been a totally baffling development so I tried to play it that way. That whole invasion was such a mess due to Mark not being here to do what I thought he would do.

[Sonic Glitch]

I'll admit, I wish I had thought of just leaving pieces of Modern Art on my border...

And I am actually disappointed Big and I never got the chance to go to war

[BigJKU316]

I'll admit, I wish I had thought of just leaving pieces of Modern Art on my border...

And I am actually disappointed Big and I never got the chance to go to war

I was about to publish my plans for dealing with you just for kicks.

[BigJKU316]

I just wanted to add a thanks for running it for Staplic. Even if there were disagreements these things are very difficult to run and I know from experience at times you get trapped by decisions you made long before and trying to be fair. It is not easy and for what it is worth I had a great deal of fun while it lasted. I do think that with the CU down and my council hot for action there was not much left to happen really. My fleet makes the Taiidan fleet in Alpha look like weak by comparison. I will publish more on that later but unless someone was massively more powerful than I suspect they were it would have been a very very tough mountain to climb.

[Reliant121]

I appreciate my time in the game, even if I felt constantly having to pay catch up to my much more powerful ally in the Federation. I took a gamble very early on against the Cardassians as I thought that it would be benefiting of the Breen to play the opportunist role; sure, it didn't pay off but I have always played to role play, not to win.

I'd love to try it again with different races. I'd adore the challenge of playing the Federation.

Many thanks to Staplic for the running of the sim.

[Tsukiyumi]

...I am currently planning on starting it in 2150, rather than the typical 2380 start date for A1,B1, and A2. It will still be some time before I'd be ready to start this SIM, though...

So, Enterprise-era?

I assume economies, technology, and shipyard output would be scaled way down? Could be interesting.

[Tyyr]

I would definitely like to thank Staplic for running the sim. I know how much work it was and I really do appreciate it.

[Lt. Staplic]

...I am currently planning on starting it in 2150, rather than the typical 2380 start date for A1,B1, and A2. It will still be some time before I'd be ready to start this SIM, though...

So, Enterprise-era?

I assume economies, technology, and shipyard output would be scaled way down? Could be interesting.

Yes, there will be some things that are going to change from enterprise, and probably some other little changes from TOS cannon (i.e. there will be no "phase cannons" it'll be laser tech, Q'onoS will be more than 5 days away at warp 4)

a lot of the growth models will remain somewhat the same, but their starting points will be smaller so that we hopefully grow into the starting point's we've been having.

The other interesting thing I'm toying around with is first contact situations. Obviously Earth had no idea about the Cardassians in 2150, and I'd like to make those situations and unknowns about what's out there part of the SIM. we'll see how well it goes over in the set up.

[stitch626]

I would so be in for that. What will be interesting is how much ships change compared to Canon Trek. If we can manage to go for more than 100 years...

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

Definitely sounds like an interesting idea.

[Tyyr]

Given the distances involved and the speeds ships can move at year turns might not be appropriate.