Star trek general /STG/

Theory requesting time, /stg/:

How would a Klingon warrior with Bat'leth fare against, say, his physical equal armed with the likes of a short sword and a large body shield, ala a Roman Scutum, one-v-one?

What about a bunch of Klingons with Bat'leth against an actual Roman Legion? Bat'leth seem like they're absolutely fucktrocious weapons for formation fighting what with all the wide sweeps and spins and such. (We'll assume the possibility that the Klingons have missile weapons if we also ignore the Roman's auxillaries; also no non-muscle powered technology, nothing that a blacksmith forging steel couldn't make.)

Against Romans? Fucked even with their redundant organs and extra armored skeleton.

That is if ancient Klingons are like post-Praxis Klingons. Personally, and this is because I prefer the Klingons being Russians, I would think they would be a riding animal culture, and thus would annihilate the Romans like the Scythians.

But, that is unlikely.

This post is going to get pretty /k/, so please bear with me.

There are a number of ergonomic and psychological reasons why you'd want a stocked &/or 2-handed phaser weapon even if there was no increase in range, firepower, or extra functionalities. First and foremost, ranged weapons with a stock are much easier to shoot accurately. You might argue that built-in sensors and targeting give redshirts UFP flavored aimbot, but what happens when the alien horror you're fighting doesn't conform to a known profile? 2) Trainees and sidearms area messy combination. Accident rates for pistols is 10+ times that for longarms. It takes a lot of time to become safe and effective with pistol type arms. If most of your enlisted folks are beaker-heads and tricorder-jockeys, everyone will be better off with phasers that are harder to self-vaporise with. 3) A two-handed weapon sans sling enforces an aggressive readiness on recalcitrant mooks. A type 1 or 2 phaser has a holster and you can bet it'll still be in that holster when you get ambushed by randy Klingons. The phaser rifle has no holster. Assuming you don't let your shirking, good-for-nothing away team members set it down, it will be in hand as they get slaughtered in melee combat but the panic-fire might just take down enough warriors for your subsequent plan to work.

Bat'leths aren't really great as a formation weapon. More likely you'd see Mek'leths and some form of buckler type shield if the Klingons were mobilizing as a melee army.

>I just don't buy that the Feds are willing to let that sort of thing go so easily.
perhaps they don't, and what you end up seeing isn't as tense because the characters don't have a personal stake in it

>Bat'leths aren't really great as a formation weapon
Bat'leths are a failure as a weapon, period. It's a solidification of the SPIKEY BITS INDICATES MEAN trope

According to the guy who was responsible for developing the fighting style for it, using a bat'leth is all about deflecting hits and disarming your opponent. Then killing them. Which is hilarious to my mind, since everyone know honor is all about killing defenseless opponents.

For every klingon except worf, "honor" is a highly malleable concept

That was my point, really: I was brainstorming a bunch of Dominon-war era Kingons who have a lot of experience with MUH HONOR DUELS and boarding actions against Feddies and other types who don't habitually carry or practice with melee weapons AT ALL forced into a melee-only confrontation with an army of "those soft pinkskins" who actually made their living using gladii and scutum to subjugate the living fuck out of people who had no interest in being subjugated, who fight as a team in formation.

Even if they tried to fight in formation, it would be ridiculously loose and easy to drive through, or they'd be as much of a threat to the warrior next to them as they would be to the enemy in front of them.

For the klingons, victory is honor.

This idea of "personal honor" is a pretty modern one. Klingons (and most historical human beings) counted honor by how their peers perceived them, therefore "external honor".

Worf is a klingaboo who has a very human idea of personal honor. He won't do things he considers dishonorable, even though actual klingons think that so long as they get away with it, gaining victory by any means necessary is perfectly okay.

Blowing up unarmed refugee vessels and claiming it was a Cardie armada? Perfectly fine.

Getting caught blowing up Cardie refugee vessels? Not fine. Not fine at all.

And when someone calls you out on it, you kill them. Via challenge by combat, no one can now doubt your words. It truly was a glorious fight against that Cardie armada!

(and mind you, you can't back down from a challenge to your honor - it's cowardly, definitely dishonorable)

>And when someone calls you out on it, you kill them. Via challenge by combat, no one can now doubt your words. It truly was a glorious fight against that Cardie armada!
>(and mind you, you can't back down from a challenge to your honor - it's cowardly, definitely dishonorable)

Don't forget the Quark clause, though: standing ready to be executed by someone who challenged your calling them out on it, because you're right about the facts and know you won't win the fight, is the Klingon jurisprudence version of Summon Bigger Fish. See also: The House of Quark.

youtube.com/watch?v=Q65l7RHUx2A

Quark should have stayed married to Grillka. She was a Klingon QT2.13 badass.

Yeah, but you're more likely to see shipboard Klingons using Mek'leths and d'k tahgs, rather than full sized bat'leths. Just saying.

You just want excuse bring a Roman planet in space into the Federation, don't you?

Quark called them on their hypocrisy, and Gowron would have looked weak if he'd allowed Quark to be slain - and moreover, the klingon who was fixing to kill him was an idiot if he couldn't see how badly his reputation and honor would be stained by gaining Grilka's house via killing an unarmed alien in view of the High Council. He probably wouldn't have lived through the night.

I would totally marry a klingon. I agree that Quark should have stayed married to her, if for no other reason than Quark could have made stacks of latinum through his now iron-clad contact with a klingon house headed by someone as clever as he is.

So its a big, scary hunk of metal that's good for frightening a bunch of pajama wearing space-Marxists. Sounds perfectly suited to the Klingons' needs, a terror weapon for boarding actions that looks awesome on the armory wall when they aren't out coup-de-gracing honorless scrubs.

>Yeah, but you're more likely to see shipboard Klingons using Mek'leths and d'k tahgs, rather than full sized bat'leths. Just saying.
They do seem to go for Bat'leths more than anything else, really. Mek'leth would be more practical for use in formation fighting, but still not very practical - it's a slashing, hacking weapon, not a thrusting one. The d'k tahg is a knife, basically - it can be used for thrusting, but it's going to be at a range disadvantage against even a gladius, notwithstanding the fact that Romans like to use their gladii next to giant fuck-off body shields that are going to deflect even a Klingon-wielded Mek'leth or d'k tahg.

Actually, I was more thinking of a post-Dominion-War pack of Klingons on a starbase, going on and on about how yes, the Feddies were, ultimately, right, and the Dominion, not the Federation, was the real enemy, but that doesn't change the fact that they're all SOFT and cannot into melee. They then boast that any Klingon is worth five humans, and get challenged on it - cue twenty - nah, we'll be generous, forty - Klingon warriors finding themselves in a gigantic holodeck to face a hundred Roman legionnaires.

The Dominion has the best aesthetic of all the factions. Fight me, faggots.

Why the hell is it so hard to find high-res renders of their ships?

>Quark called them on their hypocrisy, and Gowron would have looked weak if he'd allowed Quark to be slain - and moreover, the klingon who was fixing to kill him was an idiot if he couldn't see how badly his reputation and honor would be stained by gaining Grilka's house via killing an unarmed alien in view of the High Council. He probably wouldn't have lived through the night.

Grillka would have killed him herself by way of vengeance for her husband, Quark.
But yeah, that guy WAS a greedy idiot - which is a shame, because a general who understands economics and knows how to apply force to someone's economy will be able to win wars, whilst a general whose only trick is "use fleet on fleet" can only win battles - if he's lucky. Which he won't be, when the other guy's economy has snowballed to the point that they're able to "use fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet & fleet on fleet"

>I would totally marry a klingon. I agree that Quark should have stayed married to her, if for no other reason than Quark could have made stacks of latinum through his now iron-clad contact with a klingon house headed by someone as clever as he is.
Not to mention that Klingon and Ferengi cuisine has a lot in common, and "Brunt, FCA!" would have been a lot more toothless if Quark could snap his fingers and six Klingon bouncers that Brunt assumed were customers surround Brunt and his two Naussican goons, and he can smug back "Quark, House of Quark."
Also Grillka is one canny, clever, conniving bitch who knows how to play xanatos speed chess with the best of them - as evidenced by marrying Quark as her countermove to dickhead's insistence that her first husband died honorably at Quark's hand in battle.

Meh. I like Federation ships, pre- and post-ToS. Movie TOS is great, ENT is actually great (I'll cut you if you disagree,) TNG is great.

>Mek'leth would be more practical for use in formation fighting, but still not very practical - it's a slashing, hacking weapon, not a thrusting one.
I thought you were going for a "boarding party beams on to the USS GNAEVS POMPEIVS MAGNVS with hand weapons and finds Centurion Marcus and his Security Legionnaires," so I was thinking of weapons that would actually useful in tight corridors, which a bat'leth is not. If it's a field fight, then yeah bat'leths, and the Klingons would probably get cut down. Their culture doesn't seem to be about fighting for the whole as it might have been during Kahless's day.

Holy shit, now I want to create a fleet based on this. And I'm already trying to write up my "Dominion War Era mothball fleet" stuff for /stg/.

Purple is my favorite color, but the Jem'Hadar ship designs don't feel like they fit the species' aesthetic, like the Founders just grabbed ships that worked and shoved them into their warriors' hands.

>Holy shit, now I want to create a fleet based on this. And I'm already trying to write up my "Dominion War Era mothball fleet" stuff for /stg/.

Are you the user who came up with the idea of the Dominion War being fought mainly by remobilized Mirandas upgunned into glass cannons with neglected shields because 23rd or 24th century shields didn't really make any difference against the Borg (but definitely would have Vs. the Dominion?)
Because I'm totally using that as headcanon, and the backstory for the idea I have in mind for this crazy harebrained scheme I have to run a Deciphertrek game.

>Purple is my favorite color, but the Jem'Hadar ship designs don't feel like they fit the species' aesthetic, like the Founders just grabbed ships that worked and shoved them into their warriors' hands.
That... That could well be exactly what happened, in all frank honesty. That seems very like the Dominion - just gank the best hulls and weapons their engineers can make work together, throw the Jem'hadar aboard don't give a fuck how it looks.

So if they'd won, you might later see Jem'hadar cruising around the Gamma Quadrant in purple-painted knock-offs of Galaxies, Defiants and Sovereigns.

I wonder: do you think with the clusterfluffle that was the end of the Dominion War, any large numbers of Vorta got stranded in the Alpha quadrant? I'm thinking like, by the era of STO, could you see Vorta who have never held any alliegance to the Dominion working in Starfleet?

Enjoy getting your toothpick nacelle struts blown off.

If I had to pick, NX-01 or Sovereign would be my favorite designs too.

Yeah, it's the purple glow that does it for me. And the idea of a headset that shows outside in 3d instead of a viewscreen is brilliant.

Well, the Founders wouldn't need ships, as they can fly in space themselves. And they seem a bit too self-absorbed to be designing ships for their forces, anyway. Perhaps the ships are all designed by the Vorta?

>And the idea of a headset that shows outside in 3d instead of a viewscreen is brilliant.
I once upon a crazy harebrained scheme found myself writing a Star Trek self-insert fanfic in which I found myself aboard the Enterprise (NCC 1701-D) during its final days. Long-term plans included introducing augmented reality to the setting.

>Are you the user who came up with
Yeah, I just don't want to namefag in two threads. I'm building a theoretical TO&E for how those old ships would be deployed at the moment.

>I wonder: do you think with the clusterfluffle that was the end of the Dominion War, any large numbers of Vorta got stranded in the Alpha quadrant? I'm thinking like, by the era of STO, could you see Vorta who have never held any alliegance to the Dominion working in Starfleet?
Probably not. The only cloning facilities were in Cardassian space, and even with the civilian Detapa Council, I doubt the pragmatic Cardassians would leave a potential threat there. I'd hope Iggy Pop Vorta would show up again though.

>And the idea of a headset that shows outside in 3d instead of a viewscreen is brilliant.
I've always been uncomfortable with how small the control panels are for everyone, with little to no separate screens for crewman, forcing them use the main viewer for reference. The 3d HUD would probably be a bit much, but I'd give the Primary Flight Controller and Ops (the two forward consoles on the Ent-D) and Tactical their own full sized screens to use. Plus a damn chair for Worf, holy shit.

>I would totally marry a klingon. I agree that Quark should have stayed married to her, if for no other reason than Quark could have made stacks of latinum through his now iron-clad contact with a klingon house headed by someone as clever as he is.

Addendum:
youtu.be/ilNBC36v-qI?t=5m15s

That is all.

This is exactly why Quark would stay OUT of the Empire (for the most part) and let Grilka handle things on that side of the business.

The poor bastard is a magnet for punishment.

>Worf is a klingaboo who has a very human idea of personal honor.
That moment when you realise Worf got the 24th century equivalent of some white parents adopting a black kid, and teaching him how 'his people' should behave based on stereotypes they'd seen on tv.

"Now Worf, threaten to kill people a lot, and hold your disruptor sideways."

>Yeah, I just don't want to namefag in two threads. I'm building a theoretical TO&E for how those old ships would be deployed at the moment.

My thinking is that, after the Dominion War, Federation has won but is desperately low on hulls. They're out of Mirandas that don't need actual shipyard time or aren't in current service - any Miranda left in the boneyards is going to be one that was damaged so badly it was easier to lay her to rest and reactivate/refit another one.
So now they're pulling the lesser-known, built-primarily-to-fight-the-war-that-never-happened classes, like the Akula and Loknar, out of the boneyards, and taking the time to give them a PROPER refit, including shields.

>Probably not. The only cloning facilities were in Cardassian space, and even with the civilian Detapa Council, I doubt the pragmatic Cardassians would leave a potential threat there. I'd hope Iggy Pop Vorta would show up again though.

Yes, but any Vorta who wound up under Federation jurisdiction - and I imagine an awful lot of them would have preferred to surrender to the Federation than the Cardassian Union - would thereafter be someone the Federation has a duty of care for - said duty of care ensuring their reproductive rights.

>I've always been uncomfortable with how small the control panels are for everyone, with little to no separate screens for crewman, forcing them use the main viewer for reference. The 3d HUD would probably be a bit much, but I'd give the Primary Flight Controller and Ops (the two forward consoles on the Ent-D) and Tactical their own full sized screens to use. Plus a damn chair for Worf, holy shit.

Agreed, though I think the inference is that most people's displays are on their consoles. But yeah, a more heads-up display would help.
For Worf, I'm not so sure. He seems to be the kind of guy who likes to work on his feet, and he doubles as bridge security, so it is in theory part of his job to be on his feet. (In practice, his job is to draw his phaser, growl something authoritative, and get his ass handed to him to show the viewers that this threat means business.)

You could definitely use some kind of additional heads-up display for the Tactical station, though. Preferably something that does not shatter, because if it shatters, it's raining down on Jean-Luc's head... But yeah, the Enterprise bridge is not a very well-designed bridge for operating a starship, it's a well-designed bridge for looking good on TV/on the viewscreen.
Pic related: A bridge which was actually designed for operating a starship, and a literal shipload of sexy space elves in need of the James T. Kirk treatment.

I know, right? I'm pretty sure the only persons on the station who haven't physically assaulted Quark are Molly O'Brien and Jake Sisko.

Wait what, the founders can fly in space? I guess I have not gotten that far, but dayum.

I'd actually gone with the idea that they weren't just pulling Mirandas out of storage, but damn near anything with a warp core and a good weapons package, with the Mirandas we see on screen most of the time there because it's cheaper to animate dozens of the same six ships, rather than dozens of individual ships. Go with what works for your own headcanon though. I just like the idea of old Enterprise, Akula and Loknar class ships hauled out of storage for one last time to save the Federation, rather than ending up as fleet filler in a post war environment.

>Yes, but any Vorta who wound up under Federation jurisdiction
I'd imagine most of them were repatriated to the Dominion simply as a peace making gesture, but imagine Vorta art and food critics. And investigative journalists. Weyoun in a blue suit, anyone?

>Agreed, though I think the inference is that most people's displays are on their consoles. But yeah, a more heads-up display would help.
The few times we see the flight controller's station on screen the display is about the size of a large cell phone screen, say about 4-6 inches. I'd be leery as fuck about trying to pull into space dock on something that small.

>For Worf, I'm not so sure
Right, but not everyone is Worf, and the wishbone tactical railing is standard on the Galaxy class, with no chair. And you've got to remember that these are 6 hour shifts where you're literally standing in one spot, for when you're not a Klingon who thinks painstiks are toys.

Yeah, it was a context thing. The fact that Whatsisname was willing to just murder Quark, who wasn't able or willing to fight back, a pathetic Ferengi half his size, in front of everybody, while sneering about it?

That suggested he really was the honorless p'taq that the Ferengi and Grilka had been claiming he was, and unworthy of being the head of a Great House, let alone a Klingon.

If he'd just had Quark killed before the duel, or killed him before he could throw his weapon away and make his speech, he might've gotten away with it, too.

So I finished watching DS9 and...
... it just kind of ends. Rather suddenly.

The Breen are barely even there except right at the very end, the Dominion War itself wasn't even 1/4 of the plots, and I suspect Vic fucking Fontaine got more screentime than Dukat (who just jumps the fucking shark like three times in the final season actually they both kind of do)

What the fuck

The Borg have gotten 100x more screentime in Star Trek than any of the unique parts of the DS9 setting, and the Borg are really fucking boring by comparison.

>>The Breen are barely even there except right at the very end,
It's a shame, because the Breen are the most interesting faction in Trek, second to the Cardassians.

The Dominion War was less the focus of the show and more a catalyst for events. Dukat's actions are magnified by happening across the backdrop of the war, since the loss of Jadzia prompts Worf to do what he does, and the Dominion itself is a dark mirror to the Federation, with Humanity and the Founders holding roughly equal positions in their respective organizations. This is a crisis of faith to the egalitarian Federation's ideals. The show ends where it does because showing the Federation rebuilding would take up seven seasons all on its own.

>The Breen are barely even there except right at the very end
A species developed solely so it wasn't all Cardies and the Dominion, apparently. A way to show the "Anti-Federation" of the Dominion at work.

I like the novels' idea that the Breen aren't one race, so much as many species who wear the suits to protect their Confederation's secrets. Fascinating idea.

>Not being a true patriot

>but damn near anything with a warp core and a good weapons package

To me, it makes the most sense if they were pulling out the Mirandas first.
Remember, the Miranda has been in active service, they have refit crews who know how to take a Miranda manufactured any time from the 2370s to the 2440s and bring them up to modern spec - same with any Excelsiors. Meanwhile, pulling out a Constitution, let alone a Loknar, Akula, Abbé, etc, is risky AF. They MIGHT be able to lay their hands on like, six Vulcan engineers who have hands-on experience working aboard/wrenching on that class of ship from eighty years ago, but those guys are either teaching at SFA, teaching at the VSA, or are active-duty command-level personnel. You'd need to get them together and have them spend monthsjust developing the refit procedures for the old class.

To bring an old ship up to spec, instead of, say, just use her as a warp-powered torpedo, you'd need to rip her up and give her a huge overhaul. You CAN do that with a ship that the refit crew isn't intimately familiar with, but it's going to be a lot slower than if they're dancing to the tune of a song they know well - IE, the Miranda.

>I'd imagine most of them were repatriated to the Dominion simply as a peace making gesture, but imagine Vorta art and food critics. And investigative journalists. Weyoun in a blue suit, anyone?
Depends on if they asked, though frankly the Feddies can sometimes seem bipolar with their ethics - they're super-ethical, but sometimes send people to face the "justice" of people who, frankly, Canada wouldn't extradite to.

>The few times we see the flight controller's station on screen
Yeaaaah... They didn't really put all that much thought into how things worked from an in-universe PoV.

>Right, but not everyone is Worf,
Granted, but the wishbone station is also huge compared to one person. I'd imagine on most ships, there's two officers trading off standing the post and the other is sitting behind that guy. Not only does this mean they're getting a healthier standing/sitting workplace environment, but you've got two guys on the guns.

>could you see Vorta who have never held any alliegance to the Dominion working in Starfleet?
Hope so, they're super cute. I thought you could recruit some or make a vorta character in STO?

I was initially going to go with no, they lack reproductive capabilities, but >liberals in spaaaaaace
Yeah, maybe. Still, I have a hard time believing there aren't hard feelings after the war and they'd just want to get rid of them. The Vorta probably wouldn't be too happy without serving their gods, either. Maybe there are some who could transfer their loyalty. Shrug? I think you could fluff it either way.

>Vorta art and food critics
Haha, would make pretty shitty food critics without a sense of taste.
>"The texture on this food is fuzzy, yet turns smooth as it warms in your mouth"
I think I just grossed myself out.

memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/File:Laas_as_spacefaring_lifeform.jpg
Yep.

>Hope so, they're super cute.
Yeah, that was my thought, too. Fuck the Jem'Hadar, but we'll keep the Vorta.

>Yeah, maybe. Still, I have a hard time believing there aren't hard feelings after the war and they'd just want to get rid of them.
Look at it this way: if the Federation is willing to not seek justice for Starfleet personnel whom Klingon warriors LITERALLY tore the throats out of, then Vorta, who are largely administrators, diplomats (such as "just do what we tell you and the Jem'Hadar won't subjugate you the hard way" passes for Dominion diplomacy,) and support personnel should very easily find bygones within the Federation.

>The Vorta probably wouldn't be too happy without serving their gods, either.
One of the Weyouns tried to defect, they're not all brainwashed and crazy.

>Haha, would make pretty shitty food critics without a sense of taste.
No sense of taste? Gah! That sounds awful!
Maybe... Headcanon time. Vorta clearly are supposed to have a sense of taste, but the Founders switched it off as irrelevant. Easily enough switched back on.

>To me, it makes the most sense if they were pulling out the Mirandas first.
Certainly, but for my own stuff, I'd written up that the Feds had basically emptied their mothballed ship supply for the war. I do agree that the most reliable hull would be first out of the gate, but as fast as the Mirandas went down, they'd need replacing. That does pose a good question though. We know the Defiant class has a crew of 50, but what about these larger ships? Are they running full crews? What kind of captain could condone sending the 1000 crew of his Galaxy class into combat, with maybe a third of that would be necessary?

>Meanwhile, pulling out a Constitution, let alone a Loknar, Akula, Abbé, etc, is risky AF.
I'd disagree, if only because of how much of the fleet looked like it was standardizing in the 2270s and 80s. Assuming they all followed the basic internal planning of every Starfleet ship, you could do a decent turnaround on a refit. Of course, if every SF Engineer was as crazy as Scotty, then we're looking at ships that probably have conduit maintaining Tribbles in their Jefferies tubes, and that's if the ships were left alone in refit. Could you imagine some bored engineer who just maintained a half dozen of the things not fucking around with the old hulls?

>You'd need to get them together and have them spend monthsjust developing the refit procedures for the old class.
I sort of assumed they started doing that in the 2360s as a response to the Borg, since they knew they'd need the ships later.

>One of the Weyouns tried to defect, they're not all brainwashed and crazy.

To the one Rogue God he knew of.

Then he committed suicide to save said God.

>Certainly, but for my own stuff, I'd written up that the Feds had basically emptied their mothballed ship supply for the war.
I would have thought that they were going at it slow, doing full, proper refits, up until Wolf 359, at which point they go into glasscannon mode. That, and the fleet that they're activating is absolutely XBOX Huge - it was built to fight the Klingon Empire when it was at its heydey, and its exact capabilities were unknown. So I'd have expected they have a LOT of Mirandas in storage. So much so that pulling out the exotic hulls to replace Miranda losses didn't become necessary until so late in the war that things were starting to turn around - production of proper ship classes was reaching its legs, and Akiras, Steamrunners, Defiants, Sovereigns etc, were holding the line and taking the pressure off.

>Are they running full crews?
A Miranda in Kirk's day would probably have run a crew of about 200-400, but in Picard's day we know it's ~25-40.
In times of war, I imagine that a Federation ship can run with a much smaller crew than its rating, with no loss of combat effectiveness - you don't need barbers, schoolteachers, astrophysicists, planetary geology specialists, etc, to go to war.

>I'd disagree, if only because of how much of the fleet looked like it was standardizing in the 2270s and 80s.
Even if they're largely similar, they're still going to be hugely different on the drawing board, let alone at the level of each individual hull you pull out of the boneyard, as you mentioned. Perhaps not entirely dissimilar, but you'll still see a big slowdown if you take a refit crew that can refit a Miranda quickly and they suddenly find themselves aboard an Abbé.

>I sort of assumed they started doing that in the 2360s as a response to the Borg, since they knew they'd need the ships later.
I agree, but the Battle of Wolf 359 was 2367. The Dominion War started in 2373. 6 years is not a super-slow time, but you have to factor in lead-up time: time to build new refit yards to increase throughput, to train more refit crews, to relax the standards at SFA from "Perfect" to merely "Excellent," etc. Then they wind up fighting the wrong war, and they're in trouble, but I reckon they'd still have a massive stockpile of Mirandas to blow through before they need to start looking at the ships that resemble the Mirandas.

I think the Federation has/had alot more Mirandas laying around than we're giving them credit for.

>well-of-souls.com/outsider/bridge_annotated.html
Fuck yes, I love seeing ideas like this. I still firmly believe that VR headsets are the way of the future, and we'll all be walking around in them during all of our waking hours within 100 years. Even better once they figure out how to feed data directly into the optic nerve, though IIRC Geordi's visor is the furthest they've gotten in the Star Trek timeline?

I'm also a fan of the Star Destroyer bridge design where the operator consoles are on a lower level that the commander can look down on and see. Why I haven't seen a design in between that and your pic, where it's kinda like reverse stadium seating, I don't know.

>The 3d HUD would probably be a bit much
What. Being able to look around as you maneuver being 'a bit much'? How??? I can't imagine going back to 2d after that.

Yeah, the Breen were criminally underused. Their ship designs are pretty sexy, too. I wish the entire series had been the Dominion War, not just the last few seasons.

This guy was extremely creepy and extremely believable. A good example of how Federation ethics may not be everpresent in their government.

Quality post.

All right, post it. You're user, so no one is going to know it's you who wrote it.

Yeah, they exist: sto.gamepedia.com/Category:Vorta_duty_officers

>That, and the fleet that they're activating is absolutely XBOX Huge - it was built to fight the Klingon Empire when it was at its heydey, and its exact capabilities were unknown
I think part of my disconnect is I use a little bit of everything, fluff wise. Hell, FASA had Starfleet consisting of thousands of capital ships, and I toned it down a lot. So Mirandas are a pocket Cruiser, getting produced in medium numbers, while stuff like the Loknar, Abbe and others are getting churned out in redshirt levels. Another note I've got to make my organization. Though I was just planning on something generalized anyway.

>Perhaps not entirely dissimilar, but you'll still see a big slowdown if you take a refit crew that can refit a Miranda quickly and they suddenly find themselves aboard an Abbé.
Yep. Though the magic of Starfleet engineers could probably make up for it, but mainly I just want to see ships other than the Miranda get some love too, which is coloring my perception.

>What. Being able to look around as you maneuver being 'a bit much'? How??? I can't imagine going back to 2d after that.
I meant for the people at home, mainly. Most people aren't used to the idea of a free floating HUD, and want to see people in science fiction looking at their instruments, not wildly looking around the room.

>I think part of my disconnect is I use a little bit of everything, fluff wise. Hell, FASA had Starfleet consisting of thousands of capital ships, and I toned it down a lot. So Mirandas are a pocket Cruiser, getting produced in medium numbers, while stuff like the Loknar, Abbe and others are getting churned out in redshirt levels. Another note I've got to make my organization. Though I was just planning on something generalized anyway.

I kind of see it both ways - the Miranda is a Light Cruiser, it's just that the Federation's economy gearing up for the Big One with the Klingon Empire is SO HUGE that they're producing Light Cruisers in Redshirt Numbers, because it's extremely practical for them to do so. They're cranking out Akulas, Abbés, etc, in large numbers too, but other than the Akula, which occupies a distinct, lower size tier (Destroyer rather than Light Cruiser, but otherwise serves the same generalist purpose and so gets made in Redshirt Numbers,) the others are more specialist ships.

The Abbé and Loknar appear to be the same weight as a Miranda, roughly, but the Abbé is a "fuck you, have torpedos" specialist ship, whilst the Loknar, I think, is a tank - in the MMO sense, it has like, four shield generators to the Miranda's one, and three of its four torpedo launchers are forward.

So when the war never happened, Starfleet needed a huge draw-down; they didn't want to be maintaining a giant, aggressive fleet which would make the Romulans and Klingons nervous, but they definitely wanted enough firepower on-hand to make those guys NOT want to start shit.
So they focused on the bigger vessels, and more importantly, the NEWER ones - Excelsiors, Constellations. The Ambassador Class might have been a gleam in someone's eyes at this point. Miranda became the workhorse, and Akulas were deemed to be way too heavy to be system defense boats, and too light to go out doing Starfleet Stuff, so they got put away. Most Mirandas got put away, too.

>Yep. Though the magic of Starfleet engineers could probably make up for it, but mainly I just want to see ships other than the Miranda get some love too, which is coloring my perception.
The reason I'm talking it up this way is specifically to that end - take a group of fresh-faced Ensigns to the boneyard. Tell them that Starfleet needs a lot of working ships, faster than they can build new ones - which are going to the farthest areas first. So they need to put those refit yards to work and update the old ships, in the post-Dominion-War era; these are the ships that will be flying around the interior of the Federation, with so many Mirandas now so much scrap duranium. Their first task is to get a ship running and get it to a refit yard.

Basically, giving the players their choice of Akula, Abbé and Loknar. Stepping aboard, they find themselves in the TOS Movie Era, and need to get it to where it's going to be shinified and LCARSed-up, a process in which they will be involved in, because let's face it, nobody quite knows what to do with these old girls anyway.

>All right, post it. You're user, so no one is going to know it's you who wrote it.
Eh, fukitol, why dafuq not.
drive.google.com/open?id=1dlVfelVtToMlIgf-ohpjCnBpJ7QR0xxluslOWT5w3qw

Here you go. I make no guarantees of quality or fitness for any use or purpose. I stopped writing it somewhere partway through Ch5, for some reason.

Apropos of nothing:
youtube.com/watch?v=0i4Uy8OT6DA
Kira/Odo was one of the mostly weirdly workable romances in DS9. Pity it ended.

>I meant for the people at home, mainly.
Aw hell. Sorry, I got stuck in in-universe autism mode. That makes perfect sense.

I'm not sure how one would ideally handle 3d interfaces for film/TV. Maybe switch perspectives between what the officers on the bridge are seeing as it becomes relevant? Have a combined viewscreen display that the captain is seeing?

>Aw hell. Sorry, I got stuck in in-universe autism mode. That makes perfect sense.

Screw the viewer at home, I want my AR visor with incorporated tricorder sensors and heads-up display. Why should Geordie by the only one who gets to enjoy the benefits of transhumanism? Do you gotta put your eyes out around here to get an upgrade? I know a guy who can arrange a transporter accident.

Hell, if I was going to switch to that, the two flight controller positions and tactical would be in a holo tank, while the captain's chair has its own control stations and crossbar over his lap that would act as a secondary HUD in combat situations. The Viewscreen is to chat with the alien of the week, not feed him his own organs.

I think I'd save the full holotank treatment and captain-having-a-console-at-his-seat treatment for the Battle Bridge.
As you say, the Viewscreen is for chatting with the alien of the week. You don't want the main Bridge to look TOO hostile - though some more displays and AR glasses would go a long way.

So by all accounts, the Federation is pretty ship blind in building fleets. A lot of the time combat units are pretty much just thrown together with whatever ships are in the area, and even the novels state that you could see a science configuration Nebula head up a fleet of Akira and Norway ships with no one batting an eyelash. Not quite what I prefer to see, since the Fleet should be smarter than that, at least at the organizational level during a war. To that end, I've got two general guidelines for how Fleet Battle groups would be arranged, one for a "Frontline" fleet, consisting of mostly modern ships, and a "Second line" fleet consisting of refits lead by an older front line ship, like an Ambassador.

First up is the composition of a battle group. A normal arrangement is 6 ships, with a brevetted Fleet Captain commanding in a Cruiser or heavier ship, followed by two lighter (or less advanced) cruisers, with three other lighter and/or less advanced ships. Any ship recommendations are simply for ease of reference, and not specific.

A Front line battle group would be deployed like so:

>Heavy Cruiser (Sovereign, Galaxy or Nebula)
>2 Medium Cruisers (Akira, Ambassador, Excelsior, or New Orleans)
>3 Destroyers/Light Cruisers (Norway, Saber or even another trio of Akiras)

Ships like the Defiant and other lightweight pocket cruisers could anchor their own battle groups, which could be deployed as 1 Defiant, 2 Akiras or Sabers, and then 3 Sabers or Norways. Otherwise, feel free to insert 2350s-2360s ships in as you'd like.
>cont.

A Second line Battle group would consist of:

>Cruiser (Akira (rare, or else exceptional captains), Ambassador, Excelsior, Constellation, or New Orleans)
>2 Cruisers or Destroyers (Excelsior, Miranda, or Constitution Refit/Enterprise Class)
>3 Destroyers (Constitution Refit/Enterprise Class, Miranda, Loknar, or Akula)

The second line ships consist of your 2350s and earlier heavier ships, as well as the odd BENJAMIN MOTHERFUCKING SISKO leading a group of lighter and older ships into the fight.

Additionally, for engagements such as Operation Return or where cooperation between two (or more) battlegroups are required, the more senior of the two Fleet Captains is referred to as Commodore, and the fleet reforms to allow the trio of each group to act as a single unit of 6 vessels while the other six vessels act as the anvil.

Amen to that, but it's easier written in a book IMO. I don't think it's insurmountably difficult to film, I just can't call any good examples to mind where it's been done well.

This is an interesting philosophy. I do a lot of videoconferencing at work - I wonder if they determined that a table in between you and the person/people you're communicating with was too distant/offputting.

I don't think they have many Constitution Refits around. I think that those are the ones that were most likely to go down fighting, or get hammered so hard they just scrapped them outright.

Also, even a Nebula configured for science is still an Explorer. I think it would be best to think of Nebulas as being a Galaxy variant.

>Amen to that, but it's easier written in a book IMO.
Aye.

>This is an interesting philosophy. I do a lot of videoconferencing at work - I wonder if they determined that a table in between you and the person/people you're communicating with was too distant/offputting.
I think it depends on the setting.

If it's colleauges/superiors & subordinates, I think a table might help to establish the formality of the situation - also if it's like, diplomacy taking place not face-to-face. For more immediate, ship-to-ship things, I think that it helps if the bridge looks less overtly "tactical" - hence, space for the captain to stand up and greet the person on the other end of the viewscreen as though he were standing in the door of his home and welcoming guests.

>I don't think they have many Constitution Refits around
No they don't, but since there was at least 1 at Wolf 359, there may be more. They're tough ships too, so I would be surprised if some of them survived to the war and afterwards.

a drunk off ass
couldn't decide best general to ask
respect Veeky Forums regardless
sorry I couldn't even format a poem

looking for music while buzzed
still got another 4 shots left
gods help me

>drive.google.com/open?id=1dlVfelVtToMlIgf-ohpjCnBpJ7QR0xxluslOWT5w3qw
I'm about halfway through, and honestly, I'm finding it really entertaining so far. Your character is by no means a gary stu, and the dental records thing is clever.

>presenting on the central topic of a meeting in less than 8 hours
>promptly get embroiled in debates on 3 different threads
>can't stop drinking and debating because this is the only time of day I'm genuinely happy and I don't want it to end
Looks like it's going to be another all nighter. Fuck my fucking genetics & personality. Glad I'm not the only one.

>Easily enough switched back on.
(shrug) Perhaps. Perhaps the Fed could also give them contact lenses for their shitty eyesight, too. Man, they really got screwed on at least 2/5 senses (that we know of).

>if the Federation is willing to not seek justice for Starfleet personnel whom Klingon warriors LITERALLY tore the throats out of
Not sure if you're referencing a specific incident here - right now I'm reading it as general Fed vs Klingon wars, so please correct me if that assumption is wrong.

Seeking revenge vs. neglecting captives and/or seeking to trade them away require two very different levels of risk and effort, and I kinda see the Federation as a bit conservative and/or lazy like most human governments these days.

Anyway, clearly they exist in STO, so all this conjecture is just me practicing my typing, I guess.

I like this idea - old ships brought out of storage and running on a skeleton crew (maybe this is assuming more than you said, but what if crew members were operating multiple functions?) in an emergency situation ties in with (I believe it was) your idea last thread of why the Fed was so weak in the final battle against the Dominion.

>genuinely busy and working
>busy and have need to drink
arghujaspofjgidodfj understanding
All I can do
thebest404pageever.com/
keep hitting f5 to refresh for random

>michaeldavis.swf
Glorious.

>thebest404pageever.com/
>immediately get a link featuring a guy dancing in VR headset like what we were discussing wearing on the bridge before: thebest404pageever.com/swf/virtualboy.swf
Superb webzone, my brother.

is there a guide to star trek table top and board games?

Searched for relevant thread links for the sake of it
thebest404pageever.com/swf/StarTrekRave.swf
thebest404pageever.com/swf/klingon.swf

Dunno, consider BoardGameGeek, aka BGG? I guess there's a Star Trek version of every popular game right now ranging from Monopoly to Catan. I myself play Star Trek Attack Wing, which seems to be the less popular of options despite being the only DS9 era Wargame out there.

Holy fucking shit, I did not remember this part of the series:
youtube.com/watch?v=XGcAbI-4_io

luck of the RNG
I've yet to hit that one
holy shit I keep trying and still have not hit the bottom

I'll drink to that!

Thank you.

>(shrug) Perhaps. Perhaps the Fed could also give them contact lenses for their shitty eyesight, too. Man, they really got screwed on at least 2/5 senses (that we know of).
Why would they need good eyesight? They were modified to be diplomats, not soldiers.
Frankly, the Founders are A-Holes.

>Not sure if you're referencing a specific incident here - right now I'm reading it as general Fed vs Klingon wars, so please correct me if that assumption is wrong.
There's a bit where Sisko, Et Al, infiltrate this big Klingon ceremony whilst looking for Changelings, during that brief Federation-Klingon war. During it, some Klingon brags about how he "ripped the breathing tubes right out of" some soft Federation captain. Sisko beats the shit out of him, and covers by shouting "Brag all you WANT! But don't get between me and the bloodWINE!"
So naturally, all the Klingons present take that as an excuse to laugh at the guy he beat the shit out of.

>I like this idea - old ships brought out of storage and running on a skeleton crew (maybe this is assuming more than you said, but what if crew members were operating multiple functions?) in an emergency situation ties in with (I believe it was) your idea last thread of why the Fed was so weak in the final battle against the Dominion.

It's that other user's idea. They're not just bringing old ships out of storage and throwing them straight at the Dominion, that would be suicidal, even more than how badly it already was. The problem is that they were geared to fight Borg, whose weapons made a mockery out of all of Starfleet's shields; so they just up-gunned all those ships to use them as glass cannons vs. the Borg. Problem was they went to war with the Dominion (after a brief interlude fighting the Klinks,) where having shields would have been useful.

>Why would they need good eyesight? They were modified to be diplomats, not soldiers.
Reading microexpressions from across the room is extremely important for diplomacy. Maybe they only conduct diplomacy up close? It doesn't make much sense otherwise.

>There's a bit where Sisko, Et Al, infiltrate this big Klingon ceremony whilst looking for Changelings, during that brief Federation-Klingon war.
Oh shit, I totally forgot about that. I'm a bit surprised Sisko didn't murder that Klingon. Maybe he did, offscreen? Maybe he demanded extradition after the brief war? I'm still going to stand by my point though even though I've forgotten why, oh god why am I doing this, what is wrong with me? - taking obvious offense at the Fed's death and killing him over it, or demanding his execution after the war, is a lot more work than killing/putting someone on trial who is already in your possession.

>It's that other user's idea
Oh sorry, my bad.

>thebest404pageever.com/swf/Patrick_Stewart_Precision_F-Strike.swf
kek

>Friggin parasitic rodents

>Star Trek Attack Wing,
>wizkids.com/attackwing/star-trek-attack-wing/
wew, that looks suspiciously similar to the x-wing game

or is the x-wing game copying yet another thing?

Wiz-Kids got a license for the X-Wing game.

The big problems were basically that Star Trek is too big. And 2ndly that Star Trek is too big. By the time they finished addressing major complaints, the system had addressed Borg and other major complaints.

Anyone else disappointed that the female redshirts don't die horribly in the new movies? Not to sound sexist but I feel that it's really unequal to show the males dying and all the females live. I'd like to see this changed desu.

>Reading microexpressions from across the room is extremely important for diplomacy. Maybe they only conduct diplomacy up close? It doesn't make much sense otherwise.
Microexpressions may be unreliable across species boundaries, and so making them blind to them (so they had to use other, more logical cues,) may have been a feature, not a bug.

I dunno, really, and to be frank, I don't care. I just want the possibility of a QT3.14 Vorta lass in a Starfleet uniform.

>is a lot more work than killing/putting someone on trial who is already in your possession.
Summary execution - or indeed, any execution at all - isn't the Federation's style, and most Vorta would be administrators, not war criminals.

youtube.com/watch?v=RJudJ9S579A

so i was watching this episode of ds9 and in it they sent o'brien into the future and he met his future self but the time travel thing he was using caused him to get sick from radiation and put him in critical condition and so he sent future o'brien to the past to take o'briens place but wouldnt past o'brien dying in the future also cause future o'brien to die

...

>What. Being able to look around as you maneuver being 'a bit much'? How???
Not him, but why limit yourself to only whatever 120-degree cone that's in front of your face? Just have a holographic projection of the complete volume of space around you, and you can look at the whole thing at once.

>wouldnt past o'brien dying in the future also cause future o'brien to die
The universe doesn't let o'brien get off that easy

>gets made a professor of Engineering at Starfleet Academy
>ends up having to teach Cardassians after they join the Federation.

Romulan Ale
Andorian Ale
Vulcan Port
Gorn Meriador
Some types of Kanar

Why do so many races have Blue drinks?

I think the better question is why isn't Terran Ale blue?

Because it's cool to be blue

Because Ale is a beer, rather than a spirit made with grain and hops. Tellingly, the Romulans refer to Romulan "Ale" as Kali-fal, even with a universal translator, so it's likely they're version of Whiskey or Brandy. Though the recipe I used, as well the canon description, for it once would seem to imply it's more like moonshine or Poitín.

>YO LISTEN UP HERE'S A STORY...

>Poitín
oh god, no wonder romulan ale was banned, it's a biological weapon

Fair enough. Though, we can always bust out the absinthe when we need to impress the aliums with our bright and vividly-colored alcoholic beverages.