I'm hoping to be as accurate with on-screen canon as possible, as my friends are huge ENT fans. I don't really care if I contradict the books, but am taking some inspiration from the books in developing the setting. I'm a fan of the main site's description of ST tech level that doesn't contradict canon, so I'm hoping to use that for this campaign.
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Starbase 12 Campaign
This campaign is based in the ST:ENT universe in March 2156, during the beginning of what is being called the Earth-Romulan war. Playable characters are Starfleet officers stationed at Starbase 12 in the Deneva system, attempting to maintain the peace in an important United Earth colony while preparing for the war effort. Character options:
- Engineer leading first Coalition research project, goal: coordinate team of engineers from Starfleet, Vulcan, Tellar, and Andoria to develop countermeasures to Romulan cloaking technology. Coalition partners are not always willing to share technology.
- Tactical officer to secure the Deneva system amidst domestic disturbance and mount a counter-attack on the conquered system of Beta-Aquilae. United Earth’s control over Deneva colony has been shaken by citizen uncertainty about whether United Earth can keep them safe from the Romulan threat.
- Diplomat to encourage Coalition partners to commit forces to the front line, even through unofficial means. While Earth colonies have taken the major brunt of attack, the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites have been unaffected and have remained distant from the front-lines. United Earth needs the support of its allies to survive.
United Earth’s remote colonies have been under surprise attacks by hostile fleets from the Romulan Star Empire. Generally, the Romulans have used their cloaking device to conduct hit and run bombardments of the planets and orbital infrastructure of distant United Earth colonies. However, four months ago (December 2155), the Romulans attacked Beta Aquilae colony and seized the system in a decisive blow to Starfleet. Ten Daedalus class starships were lost in the attempt to retake the system as the Romulans have begun fortifying the system and laying cloaked minefields. At this time United Earth has formed a loose alliance with Tellar (the Tellarites), Andoria, and Vulcan called the "Coalition of Planets". United Earth has called upon its coalition allies to assist in retaking its colony, but so far no joint fleet action against the Romulans has taken place. United Earth has been particularly vulnerable to Romulan cloaking technology, which gives Romulan ships a decisive combat advantage and makes them impossible to detect while at warp.
Location
Starbase 12 is located in the Deneva star system, home to some of United Earth's first colonies: the M class world of Santosha (Deneva II, 100 million ppl), the D class Mitra (Deneva IV, 10 million ppl), and a thriving asteroid belt economy centered around asteroid Shan (distributed 50 million). Starbase 12 is a research outpost that has been retrofitted to be a military research installation and shipyard for prototype technologies in orbit around gas giant Deneva VI. The Deneva star system is not a remote colony, but is closer to the Romulan front than Earth is, and so efforts are being made to install defensive measures in the unlikely event of an attack. Deneva is closest to Earth, then Tellar, then Vulcan, with Andoria relatively far away. Starfleet has deployed an early warning subspace detection satellite network in the system’s Oort cloud. Currently Starbase 12 is defended by 3 Daedalus class starships, but reinforcements are en route from Earth.
Systems of Interest:
Coalition of Planets
United Earth: Sol (homeworld Earth), Alpha-Centauri, Sirius, Deneva, Vega, Beta-Aquilae, Berengaria, Cygnia Minor
Vulcan Confederacy: Omicron Eridani (homeworld Vulcan), P’Jem, Chara
Andorian Empire: Procyon (homeworld Andor), Weytahn, Zalvijava
Tellarite: Tellar (homeworld), Altair, Duroc
Other members: Denobula Triaxa
Romulan: Cheron, Draken, Galordon Core, Algeron, (?)
Klingon: Qo’Nos (homeworld), Raatoras, Bre’el, Qu’vat, Xarantine
Non-Aligned: Nova, Coridan, Draylax, Nausicaa, Mazar, Tandar, Kretassa, Risa
The Romulans
The Romulans are a mysterious race to Starfleet. No human has ever spoken to a Romulan in person, or heard even reports of what they look like. In 2152, the Enterprise ran into a cloaked Romulan minefield surrounding an uncharted planet that nearly disabled the ship. Romulan starships decloaked and demanded they leave the system. Starfleet intelligence has little information about Romulan culture or politics, but suspects that the Romulans are a xenophobic and fiercely territorial race and have been provoked by United Earth expansion into their territorial claims.
Covert hostilities against human colonies began in October 2155. Unconfirmed reports of raids on warp freighters servicing outlying colonies were later confirmed to be the first wave of Romulan raiding parties. In November, Romulans began cloaked raiding operations on outlying United Earth colonies in Berengaria and Beta-Aquilae. The Romulans targeted infrastructure assets distributed throughout the system, cloaking and escaping before direct engagement with Starfleet ships. The Romulan attackers refused to communicate other than demanding Starfleet retreat from these systems. In December 2155, Romulan forces outmaneuvered Starfleet and occupied the Beta-Aquilae star system. Since the occupation, no subspace signal has been received from that system. Ten Daedalus class starships were lost in the attempt to retake the system as the Romulans have begun fortifying the system and laying cloaked minefields.
Starfleet intelligence is concerned that the Romulan cloaking device may be an insurmountable tactical advantage. In Beta Aquilae, the Romulans were able to use their cloak to both hide their numbers and to take advantage of vulnerable locations on the Starfleet starships. Developing countermeasures to the cloak is thus a top priority and may even be required for successfully retaking Beta Aquilae.
United Earth History and Current Standing
In the late 21st century, the major nation-states of Earth attacked one another with thermonuclear weapons, resulting in massive depopulation of the planet. In the aftermath of the war, a fascist regime overtook a majority of the world promising purity and ordering the death of those suffering from radiation poisoning. Ultimately this regime splintered into geographic bodies in a state of Cold War with one another. The world was shocked by Zephram Cochrane’s warp flight and humanity’s introduction to sentient life outside their planet by meeting the Vulcans. After this revelation, leaders from war-weary nations mutually agreed to form a strong unified central government to allow humanity to rebuild from the ashes and have a potential future as a space-faring society. These governments thus formed United Earth.
United Earth is not only a political organization, but an ideology and philosophy that firmly states that humanity has “grown beyond its infancy”. Key to the philosophy of United Earth is that each human’s purpose is to seek to improve themselves and all of humanity. United Earth prioritizes technological advancement, discovery, exploration, and expansion. Citizens are highly motivated to take jobs as scientists, engineers, explorers, and colonists. Cultural pursuits and the arts are also encouraged, but generally not of central focus. These priorities and the systems to achieve them were encoded into the United Earth charter.
Centralized planning of the economy provides a comfortable standard of living for all citizens using technological innovation and resource rationing. While United Earth credits are used as currency, housing and most services of living are provided by the government, and citizens are given a guaranteed income of credits. United Earth philosophy explicitly states that citizens do not work for the purpose of making money, but for the purpose of bettering humanity. Excessive personal interest in accumulating wealth is considered taboo and accumulated personal wealth can be re-allocated by the government. United Earth ministers and commissioners coordinate resources and capital for meritorious enterprises that are conducted within United Earth under their supervision, thus negating the need for private investment.
This system is maintained through the centralized coordination of the social structure of United Earth. Government influenced cultural forces and mandatory education throughout a citizen’s life emphasizes service to humanity and self-improvement as goals and encourages citizens to find meaning and purpose through their work. Citizens who exhibit “un-evolved” traits of greed or sloth are committed for re-education. While freedom of thought and expression are pro-forma protected under the United Earth charter, the centralized social coordination thought to be essential in maintaining the enlightened attitudes for building a free society necessitated that these rights be limited in practice. Freedom of religion and cultural practices are tolerated, but clearly de-emphasized for citizens compared to United Earth priorities.
United Earth strongly prioritizes egalitarianism and is opposed to inequality or discrimination both within its society and in other societies. United Earth is generally friendly to outsiders, with a key precept of bettering humanity by sharing technology and knowledge with other civilizations. A number of non-humans have applied and been accepted for citizenship, but the process requires complete assimilation and acceptance of United Earth principles. United Earth citizens generally report a very high life satisfaction, particularly in the core worlds.
While the United Earth charter strictly defines many features of the government, United Earth is a representative republic. United Earth citizens are represented by a single elected president with executive powers and a legislative council with a senator from every region within United Earth, with voting power proportional to population. The number of senators and their scope of their constituencies vary, with senators representing a specific region on a planet to representing entire star systems. Judges are appointed by the president, and ratified by the council to interpret the United Earth charter.
By the 22nd century, nearly all humans were part of United Earth, with major pre-existing government bodies federalized beneath its governing authority. People who objected to living in United Earth territory were free to leave and renounce their citizenship. As United Earth began colonizing the planets and moons of the Sol system, mild skirmishes between United Earth forces and rebels were common. Ultimately, the rebels retreated to the Oort cloud, where they conducted intermittent piracy. The rebellion with the most lasting significance occurred in the first United Earth colony out of the solar system, Terra Nova. The colony declared independence over disagreements regarding colonization plans at a time when United Earth did not have sufficiently fast starships to enforce its authority. Future United Earth colonization efforts were more coordinated, with early colonists carefully selected for allegiance to United Earth principles. Terra Nova remains an independent colony on good terms with United Earth. United Earth colonies have local representative governments which are given limited governing authority, but are mandated to maintain United Earth social and economic ideals in operation.
In the 2250s, United Earth is viewed by its interstellar neighbors as a surprisingly ambitious and rapidly developing upstart interstellar civilization. Their rapid rate of progress have caused some civilizations, particularly the Vulcans, to become concerned that they are acting recklessly. However, in general, humans are generally considered as empathetic, if somewhat foolish, with a strong sense of moral justice. They have earned a trust-worthy reputation as an honest broker, and were thus instrumental in achieving peace among the local spacefaring civilizations.
The Coalition
Alliances between the Coalition members have been strained. Andor and Vulcan have had a long history of conflict with border skirmishes. Tellarites have been quarrelsome and are generally considered untrustworthy. And while Administrator T’Pau has reversed the High Command’s policy of aggressive expansionism, her new policy of pacifist isolationism is inflaming tensions further, especially in the context of an external threat. The saving grace for the Coalition has always been that humans have independently maintained positive relationships with all parties involved.
Vulcan starships are individually the most technologically advanced with sophisticated weaponry and warp engines unsurpassed by any other race able to achieve Warp 7. However, after the Cyranite reformation, many of their ships were disarmed or unmanned. Vulcan has not participated in any forward actions in the conflict between Earth and Romulans.
Andorian starships are more well armed and armored than Earth vessels, but Vulcan ships are still more powerful. The Andorians lack transporter technology and have less sophisticated scientific and sensor instrumentation compared to Earth vessels. The imperial guard is currently at peak strength and while certain military leaders have expressed interest in front-line operations against the Romulans, the Imperial Guard has currently been maintaining defensive operations.
Tellarites do not have a unified military force, but instead operate as a group of independent factions. Their vessels are greatly varied in their functionality and armaments compared to other empires. There is mixed consensus, but generally very few Tellarites have shown willingness to be involved in what is considered Earth’s problem.
Starships
United Earth
NX class (4 in operation: Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis)
Warp 5, phase cannons, photonic torpedoes, 250 m length, 83 crew, CR 3
Daedalus class (40 in operation)
Warp 3, plasma weapons, spatial torpedoes, 140 m length, 120 crew, CR 1
Vulcan
D’Kyr class (~5 in operation: Seleeya-B)
Warp 7, disruptors, 147 crew, 600 m length, CR 6
Suurok class (~25 in operation: Ti’Mur
Warp 7.5, disruptors, 120 crew, 350 m length, CR 4
Andoria
Battle cruiser (~50 in operation: Kumari-II)
Warp 6, 5 particle cannons, 86 crew, 360 m length, CR 5
Romulan
??? Bird of Prey (?? in operation)
Warp ???, 2+ plasma cannons, ?? crew, 130 m length, cloaking device
Important Historical Context
2154: Joint fleet operations first started between the United Earth starfleet, the Vulcan High Command, the Andorian Imperial Guard, and the Tellarite Armada to track down a marauding alien spacecraft that impersonated other starships and attempted to start a war between these local powers. The Starfleet flagship Enterprise was instrumental in coordinating these joint fleet activities that ended up destroying the marauding chameleon ships. The origin and intentions of this alien ship was never revealed. However, limited joint fleet operations have sporadically continued since this point.
2155: The Earth embassy on Vulcan was bombed by forces loyal to administrator V’Las from the Vulcan High command as part of a plan to attack Andoria on the pretext that they were using Xindi weaponry. This prompted the Vulcan Cyrranite reformation that led to the dissolution of the High Command and the introduction of administrator T’Pau, who instituted a pacifist, isolationist foreign policy. Starfleet is still unsure why V’Las believed Andoria was planning a pre-emptive attack on Vulcan with Xindi weaponry.
2156: A ceremony at Starfleet headquarters on Earth where ambassadors from Tellar, Vulcan, and Andoria were convening to formally form the Coalition of planets alliance was nearly disrupted. Xenophobic tensions among United Earth citizens following the Xindi incident lead to a group of lunar miners seizing the Verteron array on Mars and threatening to destroy Starfleet Headquarters. The group attempted to inflame tensions by creating a Human-Vulcan hybrid created from crewmembers of the Starfleet ship Enterprise. Their attempt was foiled and the Coalition of Planets treaty was ultimately signed.
Technology Notes
Warp Drive: an advanced technology outfitted on a relatively small number of ships that uses a dilithium-moderated M/AM reaction to generate warp plasma that is run through warp coils in nacelles to generate a warp bubble. The warp bubble is a subspace displacement field that can be shaped to some extent based on the configuration of the coils and the alignment of the warp plasma. When an intact bubble is created around the ship, the warp drive can accelerate the bubble and the ship within it to FTL speeds relative to the outside universe without violating causality.
Warp 1
1c
0.002 ly/day
Warp 2
10c
0.02 ly/day
Warp 3
39c
0.11 ly/day
Warp 4
102c
0.28 ly/day
Warp 5
214c
0.59 ly/day
Warp 6
392c
1.1 ly/day
Warp 7
656c
1.8 ly/day
Subspace Sensors: subspace particles (tetryons) can be detected using specialized sensors without the need of a warp bubble. Active subspace sensors operate by emitting tetryon particles that travel at very high speeds (Warp 9+) and are scattered when interacting with objects that have subspace signatures. Massive objects, moons/planets/etc have a subspace shadow, this allows for navigation. Starships using warp drive have a significant subspace shadow, and can be detected using subspace sensors
News bulletin #1
Starfleet Command again promises “overwhelming force” to liberate Beta Aquilae
DNN (Deneva News Network)
February 4, 2156
Tian Peizhi reporting
It has now been four months since the Romulan Star Empire has seized Beta Aquilae, a star-system 12 light years from Deneva with a United Earth colony of 3 million humans. Since the invasion, the system has been under communication blackout, and the fate of the citizens under Romulan control is unknown. In a press conference on Starbase 12, Starfleet media officer Ishwar Kamal was asked by DNN correspondent Tian Peizhi about whether there was a plan to drive the Romulan Star Empire out of Beta-Aquilae. Kamal stated, “Starfleet will not allow any United Earth citizens to live under the despotic rule of the Romulans. I can reveal that numerous Starfleet admirals have been in direct communication with President Samuels. While we cannot reveal specifics, we can say that we plan to deploy overwhelming force, in conjunction with our Coalition allies, to free our citizens.” Kamal did not take further questions.
United Earth has long been promising a decisive response to the Romulan attacks on its colonies, but many critics have voiced concerns that the authorities have not done enough to protect its citizens. Denevan representative Josefina Prado (Independent-23) stated, “Earth needs to commit to defending its citizens and must be transparent about the Romulan threat. Bluster from Starfleet admirals isn’t enough anymore!”. The Terra Prime party has a massive growth of support in Deneva, in response to the perceived inadequacy of Coalition allies in supporting Earth during its attacks. Representative Arthur Weschler (Terra Prime-35, “Humanity is under attack. Now Samuels is saying that Earth can only defend itself with the help of more untrustworthy aliens? God help us.” Even long-time Earth loyalists have become wary of perceived hesitation of Starfleet to respond to Romulan aggression. Representative Yang Ning (Unity-3), “I believe that Samuels can get us through this, but I hear from a lot of frightened constituents who are worried who will be attacked next. It’s time to go on the offensive!”
DNN sources in Starbase 12, who wish to remain anonymous, have revealed to us that Starfleet has no strategy to retake Beta-Aquilae, and that in fact an attempt was already launched to retake the system, with all vessels destroyed. When asked to comment on this source, Starfleet media officer stated that these stories were untrue and likely Romulan propaganda intended to demoralize.
News bulletin #2
Starfleet Corps of Engineers unveils first-of-its kind orbital ring system around Mitra (Deneva IV)
UEN (United Earth News)
February 25, 2156
Ishwar Kamal
Starfleet Corps of Engineers have just completed a technological marvel, an artificial ring system that surrounds the dilithium mining colony of Mitra, the fourth planet in the Deneva system. While such a system has been imagined by futurists in the early 21st century, this is the first time it has been implemented by United Earth. This system will greatly enhance the efficiency of mining operations to produce the essential dilithium for Stafleet’s growing fleet of exploratory and defensive starships.
(cool diagrams of orbital rings)
>>>Click here to learn more about this technological marvel!
This success is the fruits of nearly twenty years of work of the Denevan colonists, who celebrated this massive achievement. Senator Mishina Nikolayevna (Unity-Deneva) praised the accomplishment, “In just 100 years, our civilization has evolved from near extinction to a people that reach out to the stars, claim them, and remake the very planets for the prosperity of all. I am proud to be a citizen of United Earth and to represent the Deneva system in its esteemed Council!”
These efforts would not have been possible without the assistance of Earth’s strongest allies, the Vulcans, who contributed key engineering insights that will lead to the stability of the ring system. Ambassador T’Mpek, stationed on Starbase 12 in the Deneva system, remarked, “It was an efficient enterprise. I’m told the Vulcan advisors found the work fulfilling.”
As we journey forward into a bold new future for humanity and for all sentient beings in the galaxy, let’s remember that our quest to improve ourselves depends on each of us doing our part! Contact your United Earth recruiter today and fulfill your destiny!
(recruiting photos of smiling human engineers working in orbit)
>>> Build a Better Tomorrow! Join the Starfleet Corps of Engineers
(photos of Captain Archer and friends on exploratory missions)
>>> Seek out New Lives and New Civilizations! Apply for Starfleet Academy
(photos of MACO forces cooperating with Vulcan and Andorian commandos)
>>> Boldly Go where No Man Has Gone Before! Sign up to be a MACO
. This would prevent UE from being able to maintain the Coalition. Then they can capture some of the weakened outlying UE colonies, and use the delay and distraction that all of the major powers in the area are dealing with to strengthen themselves to conquer Vulcan (through hard or soft power means) to become the dominant force in the region. Seems reasonable?