This got me thinking. I might turn my response into a Nice fan fic too
Anyway, here is my take on any situation like this.
Oh Goody. This should be fun.
A UFP Civil War/Rebellion, and how I would handle it.
By Solauren
Ship Acquisition
I need more ships. Lots more. I need them fast, and I need them now. Why? Do you really think I’m not going to stop until I’ve taken over the Federation? Guess again.
First, I would approach the Klingons. I would offer to trade them technology for all their old surplus ships in reasonably good condition, including frieghters, shuttles and the like. Basically, if it’s space worth, hand it over. In exchange I would give them Ablative Armor Generator Technology, Bio-Neural Circuitry, and Transphasic Torpedo Technology. I’d also offer them Phase Cloak technology in exchange for them equipping all those old ships with holoemitors in the same style as the Prometheus class starship.
I’d also see about other technology exchanged Starfleet probably avoided, like shields and weapons. This includes Metaphasic ((Ref TNG 248 Suspicions) and Multispacial shields (VOY 197 Extreme Wish).
Next, I would approach the Romulans. I’d give them the same offer as the Klingons. I’d also see if they wanted to form a 3-way alliance with the goal of the Romulans and Klingons taking over the Beta Qaudrent, and my Empire taking over the Alpha-Qaudrent (minus allied territories). If need be, I’d give the Romulans the Neutral Zone, and I’d give the Klingons a chunk of space. (either that, or give the Klingons the Romulan Empire later)
I would also approach the Gorn and Breen, and offer them the “ships for technology offer”. I’d make the offer to the Cardassians, but they probably don’t have surplus ships. I’m not sure if Tholian technology and ships are compatable with humans. I would approach the Talarians (TNG Episode Suddenly Human) and offer them better weapons (say, Movie era Phasers and Torpedeos if they don’t have them. They don’t appear to, as they are using X-Ray lasers and chemical rockets) in exchange for lots of ships. I’d also approach the She’lac with the same “ships for tech” offer.
Finally, I’d approach the Ferengi, and see if they are willing to build ships and give me surplus in exchange for technology they can sell to other cultures, and the right to contact low tech societies in Federation territory to jointly sell technology too. The Ferengi, being greedy, would probably jump at the chance.
I’m not done there. You’ll have to admit, the technologies I’m offering are pretty tempting to the local powers. However, I plan to go elsewhere, provided the next thing I'd be working on pans out.
Provided I could do it safely, I’d use a Geodesic Fold (Ref Voy 252 Inside Man) to go into the Delta Qaudrant.
Now, this is the first part of my plan that does have holes that can’t be fixed with simply sweetening deals or offering territory. The reason Voyager didn’t use the Geodesic Fold (or rather, Starfleet didn’t let them) was because the radiation in the fold would have killed the Voyager crew. Seven of Nine discovered that even with the shield modications and anti-radiation drugs, Voyager would die as well. In other words, flying through one of those things is not a good idea for a Federation ship.
Hopefully, what I want to do offsets it.
I would equip a Defiant Class starship with holoemitors and a holographic crew, with a volunteer crew as well. (If need be, I’d break the Ferengi that created the fold they tried to captured Seven of Nine with out of jail and force them to show me how to do it. If this meant getting a Ferengi ship, so be it)
I’d also equip it with Ablative Armor Generators (and if possible, ones that make thicker AND dense armor. I’m not planning to do high speed manevers with the armor up), as well as multiple layers of shields. The layers would go, from outside to in; Metaphasic, Multispacial, Standard Federation, Klingon, Romulan, etc etc, and if needed, I’d slap on another Warp Core.
The ship would also be under Phase Cloak if that would further lower the impact of the radiation, and I’d put the organic crew in stasis and incase them in a few inches or feet of high density non-radioactive metal. I’d then aim have the holocrew fly into the geodesic fold. Hopefully, all the extra shielding, combined with the Ablative Armor would be enough to stop the radiation in the geodesic fold from hurting the crew. If not, and the encased-stasis pods were enough, I’m in business. If even that is not enough, I work on the problem until I find away to defeat it.
Anyway, assuming that I solve the Geodesic fold problem, I aim one at Kazon territory, and take through a refitted and up-gunned Galaxy or Soverign Class (which ever I can make more powerful), using all the special technology I listed below, and go find the Kazon.
I make the Kazon an offer. The appears to be below TOS series technology. They are more then likely below TOS Movie-Era technology. I make them a deal like I did the Klingons etc, but with a diffence.
They give me every ship they can find (accept from the Trabe and each other), build or steal, and I pay them off in technology. Ships would be assigned ‘point’ values. Every time they reach a certain number of points, I had them what the need to incorperate, use and reproduce more advanced technology. I’d start with non-weapon systems first, and move onto more advanced systems. If the Kazon when nuts just trying to get ahold of Voyager, imagine what they would do for the ability to make holodecks (sold as tactical training alternatives. Why go to the expense of turning a planet into a facility, when a 40x40x40 holodeck and a reactor will do the same thing?), better computers, phasers, photon torpedoes, and even old Klingon Cloaking Devices. It would be like me traveling back in time to the start of the home computer market and offering to give MacIntosh and IBM everything they need to start making current, top of the line, hardware and software.
I’d also have the Kazon make the ships to altered specifications. Less lifesupport (holographic crews don’t breath, eat or sleep) comes to mind, with lots of space for more weapons. I’d basically want the hulls and warp drives, and maybe power plants.
Next, with the Kazon now working as my newest shipyard facilities, ones Starfleet knows nothing about, I’d go find the trabe convoys, and make them an offer. I give them a new homeworld on the other side of the galaxy (I explain about the Geodesic Fold, and even taken a few leaders back to my territory) if once they are there, I get there ships. All of them. There new homeworld would have cities waiting for them on it.
The only problem with this I can see is the radiation in the Geodesic fold killing the Trabe. Well, since I’m willing to kill the Trabe to get there ships, I have a few options
1- I could equip smaller ships, Interpid size, with shield emitors powerful enough to encompass a few trabe ships at a time going through the Fold. This spares the trabe lives, and gets me the ships.
2- I send over advisors crews, to handle the problem of navigating the GeoDesic Fold, that are really holograms with hidden emitors (if I have mobile emitors. Actually, that may not be a problem. Just ones as small as the Voyager EMH might be.) They fly through unshielded, the trabe all die, and I net a fleet of ships
3- I refit all the Trabe ships with the shields and armor to survive the geodesic fold.
If they don’t agree to my offer, I’ll use Subspace Rebound Transporters to ‘beam’ biological warheads onto there ships, and give them a nice funeral afterwards. Once there ships are empty, I rig up remotes and bring them through the Geodesic Fold, or use holographic prize crews. (My reasons for adding Subspace Rebound Transport to my weapons and technology are dealt with below) (I also handle mobile emitors below)
I’d also go looking for any space nations Voyager encountered, even if just briefly, and offer to buy there old surplus ships in exchange for technology. I mean, they are not using those surplus ships, and I am offering them some fun toys. I’m sure Transphasic Torpedoes meant to blow the borg to hell would be a big seller.
Finally, I’d pull ‘raids’ using the Geodesic Fold (aimed away from sensors) and cloaked ships on supply depots, etc, to get any surplus ships from Starfleet I could find, regardless of age or class. Hey, if I can fit a Q.Torpedo launcher on it, it’s being armed and given shields. I don’t care if they are fast, since I’d be using Geodesic Folds to get around with my fleets. And since my crews will be holographic (see below), It’s not like anyone is dying when they get blown up. I can imagine that an old Consitution Class starship (NCC1701) armed with say, 4 Rapid Fire Burst Qauntum Torpedoes launchers and 8 Rapid Fire Phaser Cannons could do some damage to a modern Federation starship before it get’s blown up. More if I put a Defiant class shield system and Ablative Armor generators on them.
Obviously, my shipyard(s) have a lot of refitting to do. That’s why the would just be making weapons and shields etc until all the surplus ships were refitted. Actually, some of the ships might not need refitting. After all, the Kazon ships are pretty low tech, and they did fine against Voyager in numbers.
Crewing all those Ships[/]
I agree, that could be a problem. However, I’d equip them all with hologrids like the Prometheus had/has, and like the Hirogen tried to do with Voyager, and did with there own ships. Since I’m not running multiple, huge, massive, complex simulations, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’d then have my ship run by holograms, with the Command and Engineering crew being the only organic crew members.
Also, for boarding actions, I’d be using holographic and robotic soldiers. Depending on how big a holo-emitterr is, I’d just give the emitters batteries, say from a hand phaser. I’d hide them someplace not likely to get shot (like the shins) or armor them and put them in the torso, and I can use Subspace Rebound Transition Transport to send them to enemy ships. However, if I can duplicate Voyager’s EMH’s Emittor, that’s better. I’d hide them in there boots.
Robotic Boarding troops would be simple. Think T-800 Terminators minus the flesh, with a brain based on Holographic programming. I don’t want Data level crew members, I want walking skeletons that know how to aim a gun and pull a trigger. Just cover them in anti-phaser armor, and off they go.
All troops would be armed with pulse phaser fires, or good old fashioned machine guns. After all, machine guns work in dampening fields.
Ship Refits
I’d be refitting ALL of my ships as Warships.
First, I’d redesign the warpcores so they were safer. More safety features, etc. If I somehow got safer warp core technology (i.e I think Romulan Warp cores are safer and possibly more powerful. I could be wrong, but they are just an example), I’d switch too them, and I’d install two or more on my ships. Also, if safer warp cores meant less powerful, I’d add in more.
With holographic and robotic crews, I wouldn’t need nearly the amount of lifesupport on the bigger ships. Like I said, just the command and engineering crews would be alive. That’s what, 30 – 40 people at most? On a ship like a Galaxy Class, designed to hold 1000 crew and up to 5000 Passengers, that’s a lot of free space and free power that used power life-support. You’d need the life support systems on the Defiant (most of the info I have seen suggest the Defiant has maybe 40 crew members at most), and have the rest of the ship for power generation, shield generation, and weapons.
Using a galaxy class starship as an example, here is a general idea of how I’d refit them.
Saucer Section
I’d gut the entire thing except for the shuttle bay and shuttle support. I’d enlarge that to hold a full squadron of fighters (a galaxy class ship is supposed to have about 2 shuttles, with lots of space between them. On my ships, the Peregrine fighters would be almost wing to wing, with maybe a metre to spare between them and another ship or a wall, and in a rack system so I can fit more in. I might be able to fit an entire squad into a galaxy class main hanger. I’d need numbers to work with to figure that out)
Next, all of Deck 10’s outer sections (i.e 10 forward) would be replaced with Rapid Fire Phaser cannons. As would Deck 7, and Deck 13. I’d also put more phaser cannons under the hull, including if I knew how to make them, a big phaser cannon like from Q’s future in “All Good Things”.
I’d also put in warhead storage, and put in Qauntum Torpedoe launchers. Preferably high speed, rapid fire burst launchers. I’d replace Deck 1 with another Shield Generator, with it’s own dedicate Warp core for power. I might do that to the forward section of Deck 9 and Deck 11 too. Depends if I have room after the power and weapon upgrades.
The rest of the Saucer section would be given over to power generation.
In the stardrive, that’s where crew quarters would be. The rest would be rapid fire phaser guns, shield generations, and power generators.
I’d also add in another set warp nacelles below the current one (upside down to it) and one inbetween that like Voyagers are. Only the top set would be warp naccelles. The rest wold be disguised weapon pods/phaser cannons.
However, these would be special phaser cannons. The “collectors” at the end of the “nacelles” would infact be one or two (or more, depends on the technology) shield emitors. By the looks of it, I’d say two, maybe four, Defiant level deflectors. Each one would have its one power core. The purpose of these shield emitors is not to protect the ship. (That’s what the other ones I stuck on are fore). The would be used the same was the shield-weapon from Best of Both Worlds. In a fight, my ship targets the alien ship, and fires, and that’s a lot of power begin tossed at them (by Star Trek standards). If I could make Phaser Emitors that powerful, or prevent the Shield Emitors from burning out, even better.
However, if that’s not practical, then they are used for shielding.
Plus, I’d toss on Ablative Armor Generators and Phasing Cloaks.
New Ship configurations
I own the FASA Star Trek RPG Federation Ship Guide, and going over that, I’d be making ships based on these designs (provided they are not canon/offical), but armed with modern level weapons and shields etc, once my ‘surplus ship refits’ were done. Even without the geodesic folds, I can still get surplus ships from the local powers and possibly the dominion. (the Geodesic fold’s big advantage is Starfleet would have no idea those ones were coming, that and that nice convient Trabe convoy should arm up nicely. How many ships were in that, a few hundred? A thousand?)
Anyway, Here they are, by Space-Power
Federation/Starfleet
Corvettes: Scorpio Class
Cruisers: Brenton
Cutters: Epsilon, Solar
Escorts: Griffon, Remora
Frigates: Kiev, Chandley
Scouts: Bader
Warpshuttles: Greyhound, Pulsar
Modern Ships from Starfleet I would start producing. All are with my refits in mind. Note: the Defiant class looks as maxed out as possible
Defiant Class
Delta-Flyer (more weapons, less internal volume for movement)
Soverign Class
Peregrine Class Fighters
Galaxy Class
For alien designs I’d be adapting
Dominion: Jem’ha’dar Fighters (armed with Defiant Class Rapid Fire Phaser Guns and Engines)
Klingon (FASA Book)
K-23 Little Killer Escort (194m)
K-24 Winner Escort (98m)
K-3 Kalath Gunboats (53m long)
K-5 Watcher Gunboats (94m long)
K-4 Enforcer Gunboat (56mlong)
K-6 Administrator Gunboats (54m long)
Romulan FASA Guide.
Most of these ships are wide via there wings, which make up ½ - 2/3 there width and end in warp nacelles. I’d drop those and put on Defiant style warp engines. Actually, The romulan classes appeared to have inspired the Defiant. Drop the wings on them and replace them with Defiant warpdrives, and they look like they are in the same family.
V-1 Starglider Cruisers (60mx40mx30m)
V-2 Hunter Cruiser
P-2 Ranajmar Cutters (47mx30mx12m)
P-3 Caladan Cutter (45mx32mx12m)
P-12 Comilius Cutter (54mx20mx10m)
T-2 Death Talon Destroy (115mx165mx40m)
N-8 Mandukam Gunboat (53mx29mx9m)
S-3 Free Flight Scout (80mx132mx30m)
S-9 Wind Carrier Scout (72mx120mx20m)
H-4 Praetor Warpshuttle (20mx21mx6m)
I’d be mass producing the modified Gunboats, Cutters and Warpshuttles as Starfighters. I’d arm them with weapons, animate them so one person could fly them. Imagine the look of surprise on a Starfleet captains face when a few squadrons of 100 year old Romulan Gunboats come flying at his ship, and open fire with modern Defiant weapons, raise Defiant shields and generate Ablative armor, and start manevuering like the Defiant. Sure, this might mean shoring up structual integrity, but hey, I’m sure a modern warp core is up to powering that on a ship smaller then the defiant. Sure, there are other issues, but that’s for my engineers to fix. I’d also tell them no technobabble solutions.
New Ship/Tactical Weapons
As a real cute trick, I’d also be finding all the asteroids I could over 100 meters in diameter, and strapping warp and/or impulse drives on them, maybe hollowing them out, and arming them to the teeth. The rock material I tunneled out of them I’d be loading into Rail guns/massdrivers and launching back at enemy ships. After all, who needs to build starships when you can find whole starsystems full of ships just waiting to serve?
Overlooked Technologies I'd put into use, and how
Subspace Rebound Transition Transport aka called Interdimensional Shift aka Dimensional Invertor (Reference: TNG EP 160 ‘The High Ground’)
I’ve already mentioned this technology before. Here is the break down of it.
You have a mini-armband. You press it. You teleport (no molecular break down involved. It actually looks like Q’s teleportation). It also appears to bypass shields
Problem: This method of transportation is damaging to living tissue
Solution: Fine, I’ll use them to transport weapons, and my crew and boarding parties are holographic anyway.
Tactical Note: According to the TNG Tech Manual, when a Starfleet ship goes to Red Alert, it’s shields come on to full power unless the captains says otherwise. In ‘The High Ground’, they ordered a Red Alert, and the terrorists were still using this transporter method to get onboard ship. After all, that’s how they got the bomb into engineering that nearly blew up the ship.
Combat Tactical use: I have one Sovereign Class starship, with it’s cargo holds full of Tricobalt Devices and Quantum Torpedoes. The warheads have been modified to scan to see if they are still on my ship, or are remote activated, whichever is best. (That’s for engineering to figure out) I am facing a large fleet of enemy ships (federation or other). I give the alien fleet the choice of surrendering there ships or I kill them all. The enemy laughs. I Interdimensional Shift the warheads over near there warpcore on a ½ delay timer for when they arrive. A few seconds later, my ship is fine and they just lost the fight as they all blew up from the inside out. Either that, or I “Shift” over weapons designed to kill/incapacity the aliens crews, send over robotic/holographic soliders to turn of there shields, and beam over prize crews the regular way.
Tactical Note: This method of transportation doesn’t seem to have any of the limitations of normal transporters. Use just need a personal transporter band, and off you go. I can transporter Robot troops around, or clones or holographic troops just fine. I could also use them to kidnap people off there ships.
Also, this method seemed to be damaging by affecting DNA. A possible counter method would be modified borg nanoprobes designed to repair the damaged DNA. Just a thought, but I wouldn’t use that method unless I proved it worked. I am assuming for this it does not. I mention it for the sake of completeness.
Over-looked Weapon Technologies
Verteron Weapons (Ref TNG, EP 261, Force of Nature)
Verteron based particle weapons. Veteron particles are highly disruptive to subspace-based technology, such as shields and warp drives. A Verteron pulse generated by a small satellite the size of a navigational buoy has been shown to be enough to disable an Galaxy class starship.
Note: I don’t remember if the enterprise raised it’s shields before being hit by the pulse. If it did, hey, that’s even better. If not, That’s what SRT-Transport is for. ‘Beam’ a generator inside the enemies shields, and zap them. Then send over boarding forces, and wait for the capture report to come in. Either that, of it there shields are down as a result and I don’t want the ship, blast them into atoms.
I’d keep this technology off the records from my trading allies. It makes it more of a surprise when I use it on them later.
Baryon Weapons (Reference TNG EP 244, Starship mine).
SBR-Transport over a few Baryon weapons, say that act like grenades or field generators, into the important areas of a ship, like the bridge, and you can pick yourself up a nice starship. Sure, it will need repairs from Baryon damage, but hey, that annoying bridge crew is out of the way
I’d keep this technology off the records from my trading allies. It makes it more of a surprise when I use it on them later.
Isokinetic Cannon
(Ref Voy Ep 185, Retrospect)
The Isokinetic cannon purchased by Voyager, but for some reason never used, should be installed on all Federation ships immedately, and research begun to augmenting it’s considerable firepower. Because it works purely on kinetic energy, it also would be a highly effective anti-borg weapon, much like the TR-116
I’d offer this to the Klingons for surplus ships/tactical support as well
Biological and Chemical Weapons
I’d be sending these over to enemy ships to deal with the crew. I just included the name and source. They’d all be modified to have faster incubation periods and require different cures then the normal form.
Rapid Aging Viruses; Tos Ep 40 The Deadly Years, TNG Ep 133 Unnatural Selection, Tos Ep 12 Miri
Omicron Ceti III spores; Ref Tos EP 25, This Side of Paradise
Miscellanous Viruses; ‘Riker Egramatic Bacteria (TNG 148 Shades of Grey)
Barkley’s Proto-morphosis Syndrome,(TNG 271 Genesis)
The Bajorian Aphasia Virus (DS9 405 Babel)
Macroviral lifeforms (Voy Ep 154 Macrocosm).
Also the mutation “virus” from Tarchannen III (TNG 192 Identify Crisis).
[mutates victims to a rather timid lifeform with little intelligence and renders them invisible to Visual Spectrum light, if altered so the incubation period is minutes, not years, could be devestating if released as an airborne weapon.]
Advanced Tactical Options
Geodesic Fold, Regardless of shielding
Lots of ships crewed with holograms and robots would start pooring out of a Geodesic Fold and start blasting away.
This would actually give me the ability to strike anywhere I wanted to in Federation territory whenever I wanted, or at least fairly rapidly.
If I want to take out a base, I send a 100 meter+ asteroid equipped with impulse engines and automated warhead launchers through the fold. Its main computer takes it to the base and starts firing. When it’s out of missiles, or just because, ram the base at full speed. The warhead launchers are for planetary targets. Ramming is for space borne targets, like spacedock.
Finally, I’d have a few tactical revisions as well.
How my forces would be ordered to perform Starship combat.
While Verteron Particles and SRT-Transport are still tactical options, I want to capture as many enemy ships as I can. This will save on my production costs, and if they have new technologies, gives me something to play with.
Shields do not top Verteron Particles;
Just blast them and disable the ship, and then start boarding operations
Shields stop Verteron Particles, but they haven’t found a way to stop SRT-Transport;
Beam over a mine/generator weapon, and blast them from inside there shield bubble. If there shields are skin-tight, this might not be an option. However, if the pulse works even if inside the ship, go for it.
Shields stop both, but Verteron Particles still work;
Blast them until there shields are down, then Verteron them
Neither work
Do it the old fashioned way, followed by biological weapons to disable the crew if the ship is to be captured
If the Deflector Weapons in the fake warp nacelles are a go
Target them with the Deflector weapons, and knock out there shields (depending, this might not need a full power discharge). If the ship is to be destroyed, blast it apart. If it’s to be captured, Verteron/Baryon Weapons fire, or if those are shielded against, send over Biological weapons.
If all my nice tactical edges are gone.
Just open fire and pound on them with modern weapons.
Other Thoughts
I’m not sure what else there is to say. Sure, a lot of my forces, if I pull it all off, would be old surplus ships, but that’s not really important once they are armed and shielded with modern systems.
You see, since most of my forces would be robotic and holographic, who cares if a ship gets blown up? They’d be programmed to ignore death. Only the larger, powerful modern ships would have command crews.
So, the old surplus ships would be basically mobile suicide weapons. So what? So are Jem’ha’dar fighters, and look how well they did in the Dominion war over all. Just fly at the enemy ship, and start firing until it blows up/is disabled or you are. If its’ disabled, send over boarding troopers. If your about to blow up, ram it.
You don’t need sturdy/new/flashy ships to do that.
A good comparison would be strapping a modern tank gun on a jeep or a minivan (this is ignoring recoil and fuel and such, since phasers and beam weapons don’t have one we have ever seen. If they do, I’ll need to reinforce the ships. This is just to demonstrate a point about firepower) and opening fire on a modern tank. Sure, one hit, the minivan is toast. However, the minivan is a smaller then the tank, so it might be harder to hit. However, if the minivan hits the tank, it’s still going to hurt the tank as if another modern tank had shot it. If it took 3 shots to blow up a tank, then just use 3 or 4 minivans, and don’t miss.
A good, more understandable comparison would be a pack of timber wolves vs an adult tiger. Sure, one on one, the tiger will probably maul the wolf. But against a couble or more, the wolves are just gonna swarm the tiger and kill it. If they lose a wolf or two in the process, that doesn’t matter.
Much like how the Federation deals with a Borg cube. They swarm it. I’m just giving all ships involved equal shields and firepower.
Well, what does everyone think?
Oh, after the Federation, if the Geodesic Fold idea is working, well, there is so much charted space out there, and so many people just waiting for me to rule them...
). Sovies, especially the Nem refit versions would lay serious smack down. Take the Prometheus, throw out MVAM but keep overall styleing, upping weapons storage and general redundancy with the space saved by removing the docking clamps.
) Far better to have the design of a heavy cruiser based allong similar linked style lines without the MVAM support IMHO.
and I don't think enough Intrepids could be built to replace all Excelciors and/or Miranda class. Kind of like the US still uses Spruance and Perry class vessels even though they are really obsolite.