Beyond Alpha Centauri: Discussion Thread

[History Guy]

Right, looks good. I will try to post soon. Heavens, this week has been very busy for me.

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted in the sign-in thread; I think I've got this messed up
Spartan group, Sprayber shall have to give his consent, though I like the idea. If you do get to do them give them a Sounds like a good idea. You are welcome to join in General. As for the break-off historical name that has something to do with the historical Spartans of Greece. "Hoplites" doesn't really sound that great, but it would be a possibility. Delians, perhaps? They were a bunch of Athenians and Spartans that led the Delian League just before the Peloponnesian War.

Originally posted in the Sign-in thread
Either your a DL of mine or you have gotten inside my head somehow. If you look above I reserved a place for the factions called firaxis. I was going to basically do what you described, but was also going to throw in former PK colonists as well. Kind of like several groups of colonists have gotten lost in the early years of exploration and found there way to Firaxis. there they meet up with other colonists from other factions afer years of fighting among themeselves they decided to cooperate when the Spartans and PK came calling wanting to add them to their empires. I called it Firaxis cause I didnt' have a better name and kind of paid tribute to the company. So if you want to take this one that would be cool. feel free to change the name or whatever. But I would like them to be on the Spartan-PK border. That way we can have lots of fun playing the two great powers off agaisnt each other. OR if you sill like your idea that would be cool too. Oh yeah, lets move the discussion over to the discussion thread

Other possible names

Helot-the name the ancient spartans gave to their slave population (formally called the Messenians.) The spartans conquered them and made them do their labor.

Laconia-region where the spartans came from. (you may have the spartans enraged if you call it that. Its kind of like the current situation with the greeks not wanting the country to their not north to be called macedonia.

Agis-name of a spartan king who refused peace with the romans IIRC and was killed in battle against them. this is what one site said about him
quote: An interesting event occurred in connection with Agis's death. He had fought gloriously and fell with many frontal wounds. As he was being carried by his soldiers back to Sparta, he found himself surrounded by the enemy. Despairing of his own life, he ordered the rest to make their escape with all speed and to save themselves for the service of their country, but he himself armed and rising to his knees defended himself, killed some of the enemy and was himself slain by a javelin cast; he had reigned nine years.

I quite like the idea about the faction being on the PK border, I think I'll ditch the alien idea. So the new story goes like this: A couple of Spartan colony ships are grabbed by dissenters (carrying, I might add, a quite substantial stockpile of Spartan military hardware) and run to an unexplored system to escape pursuit. In this system, a PK colony ship dissapeared some time ago after it's FTL drive failed and it was presumed lost. The Pk colonists landed and are surviving but not by much when the rebels also land. The two groups are in conflict for a short while before the PK colonists decide to join the rebels and form their own faction.

I'm not entirely sure what their ideology would be, I think it would be basically a more human and less militarstic version of the traditional Spartan one. As for the name, I think 'Lakedaemonians' (ancient name for the land that Sparta ruled) sounds good, you could shorten it to 'Lake-Ds'.

By the way Sprayber, what did you mean by DL?

[Frankychan]

Hey General Tacticus!

It's good to hear that you're getting things developed nicely. (I gotta suck up cause you might be another potential ally ) just kidding!

Anyway, just a reminder. Please create a timeline for your faction and post it in the Sign-In thread. That way all we have to do is look there to see the events that led your faction up to 2700.

Also, can you describe some of your characters and post in the Character Thread? If you're having trouble creating characters, just take a look at the other factions characters....but hands-off on the Hive !

Sorry if this sounds bossy, but we kinda have to keep the discussion thread small cause I've noticed its getting kinda large!
Also, that's what we all had to do.

Hey History Guy and Silence!

Where's your timelines? So far in the Sign-In thread there's the Spartans, the Drone Republic, The Greater Hive Empire, Gaians.....hey what about the Sol solar system and the rest??? I kinda wanted to see what all the other events that led up to 2700!

[[LordLMP]]

Timelimes will be posted on the webpage, it will be DONE before this weekend.........................................
General, no string disruptors and do be aware that there was a huge war against the Proginators sometime between 2221 and 2380.

-LMP

[Sprayber]

LMP: (I have some pictures of the ship you are talking about. If you want I can post some here and see if you want them or I can post them on my site and you can see them there. On one site it had pictures of the original model used in filming. The model was something like 18 feet. And very detailed.

I said that the Spartans were convervative, but I never said they were smart for being conservative. About the Comm systems. I think it would be possible to block communications. Not compleatly of course, but good enough to hamper ship to ship communications. And your right about the visual targeting systems, but a space fleet should take away as much as they can from the enemy. Thing about invading the Syrma system or any other advanced system for that matter is the element of surprise. Most of the bigger factions will have lots of territory around their home system. And even thougth sensors may not be able to tell exactly what is coming or how many, they will diffietly know something is coming. So that is something everyone should remember. A surprise attack is very hard to pull off on core systems. Now fringe systems are a different matter.

I can't believe anyone else said anything about my post. Only one to take up the issue was LMP.

I thought I would have gotten some more WTF is he talking about posts. Anyway, I have found some really cool ships to use as my SPCs. They will do very nicely if I do say so myself. I will update my page tonight.

Oh and the real reason I put the ion cannon on there is for two reasons. One, I was waiting for everyone to come to come kind of agreement on what kind of weapons we should have. Two, I just wanted to see if anyone actually looked at my stuff.

Coming attractions

Spartan Military Station and associated Craft
Spartan Orbitial Habitation Station
The new and improved System Patrol Craft.
And maybe some Character stuff.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
By the way Sprayber, what did you mean by DL?

It's short for Double Login. I was just commenting on how similar our ideas were. I like everything you said about your new faction. Just don't cozy up to the PKs too much or Sparta will come knocking on your door.

Guardian is going to love your new faction when he gets back. Guardian is the writer for the PKs. Or, he will be when he comes back.


I may still try and do some kind of independent planet. Nothing too much. Mainly a neutral world where everyone is welcome. Could be a good place for the Pirates to get out and streatch ther legs every now and then.

Here is another picture that I have LMP. I even have two pictures of the view from the bridge.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by frankychan
hey what about the Sol solar system and the rest??? I kinda wanted to see what all the other events that led up to 2700!

http://personal.phpoint.net/bac.htm - Click on "Terran Timeline"

[[LordLMP]]

Sprayber, thanks That ship may not look like a pirate ship, but the Pirates are still a force to contend with.

Way i see the Pirates:

The faction is pretty much seperated into various "Gangs" (if someone as a better word that would fit the pirates, please do tell ). Each Gang is different and have different specialties, but culturally pretty much the same. Think of the Clans in Battletech and the Tribes in the Starsiege universe, along with typical modern "gangs". There won't be any central government and they pretty do their own thing, yet, they usually work together when dealing with a common enemy....especially those few occasions another faction and so on attempt in eradicating the Pirate menace some work together for mutual survival, trading, and etc...they would have too as practicly all of the factions dislike them... The Pirate Faction as a whole is scattered all over Human space, even in other factions territories in Starbases, outposts, ground bases, big mix match wandering desserter ships (think of those nomadic human wanderer ships in that animated movie Titan A.E.), and etc....... They don't control any solar systems to themselves and don't control any habitable world. because of that, it is hard to completly eliminate them. The only serious real territory any pirate gang controls in the bases on Chiron, controlled by the Nautilus gang (they don't go off pirating and so on, as they seriously don't need too. They also control some ship yards and a Starbase around Chiron. They generally represent the Pirates in the Chiron Council, but other factions can't exactly give them heck for what other gangs as done...but they do get pressured at times for supplying some of the other gangs ships, fighters and supplies.) The Pirate population is pretty mix....largely born Pirates, but good portion of the pirate general populace is comprised of other factions undesirables and defectors. the worse of them (murderers, rapers, etc) are disliked and turn away by practically all of the gangs....except for the Larionov (the most evil gang) and the Blood Eagles (a evil version of the spartans) The Pirates are naturally the master Survivors and Scavengers. Some gangs actually operate mines and so on...but they generally survive by pirating, raiding, privateering, trading, mercenaring, etc.
At the moment, one dominating gang ias been gaining a lot of power in the last several decades via various means then just their typical Pirate stuff. Will be part of the Pirate timeline and the main story focus concerning the pirates in the gaming. Oh, the Data Angels are also pretty much integrated with teh Pirates, helping each other out. The Angels do have their own "gang", but they are not much into the pirate stuff...they pretty have their factional agenda. since they are pretty much merge with the pirates, they know how the inner pirate's frontier like politics are.
The favourite factions the pirates like to pick on is the Morganites and the Free Drones, occasionally the Spartans when they see the opportunity... (Sprayber, can the dominating Pirate gang have somehow and miraculously steal one of the Spartans' "warlock" capital ships? could be an embarressing lost for the Spartans...and also when the Spartans starting to consider the Pirates as a serious threat ) The Factions the Pirates GENERALLY (each gang have each their own preferences and relations with each faction) don't bother to much is the Cyborgs, Peacekeepers and the Gaians. So technicly, they will pick one the bigger factions most

Frank, there seriously won't be any Pirates in the Hive's core territory...as they are outside of the Pirates influence...but there may be Pirates at the edge or just inside Hive territory....

As for the solar systems......they are big and prefer to keep that feeling in the game....so no startrek sublight speeds where they can go from Earth to Pluton in 30 to 60 minutes at max impulse. In sublight speeds in 2700, the fastest STL ship should only take a couple or more days to get from Earth to Pluto (if you don't consider the astoroid belt being in the way).

Will also have to have some FTL rules ...which i base it on the Honor Harrington books FTL laws and the Battletechs.... FTL within a system is pretty dangerous.....to be safe, ships should enter by FTLing to the edge of the system, where there is a nav buoy, and then proceed in STL. Of course, there will be those jumps into the system, to get shorting travelling time, but that is dangerous.....even more so if you don't have proper up to date nav charts of the solar system! The bigger the star...further the safe limit is... think of a solar system being in a Saucer shaped bubble.....the edge of the bubble is the safe limit..... so meaning, if your destination is a World is in the core of the system, you'll be better to jump to on top....... does anyone get what i trying to say here?

As for detecting FTL "footprints", you would need a good long range FTL detector sensors, which is pretty large (usually as huge sensor array platforms) that can detect FTL footprints under 1 lightyear away of the FTL detector. Usually only big core systems have such detection arrays in their system........
If let say a fleet of ship jumps in close together, the FTL detector will only detect a large fluctuated FTL footprint, so making it hard to guess how ships there is....but can detect multiple footprints if the ships are away from each other. the detector won't be able to tell you who the ships belong too or where they are going in the system.....you would need more conventional scanners/sensors to find that out. It is possible to make faint FTL prints if the ship is small and have a very smooth "quiet" FTL drive. Some very good FTL Detectors can tell the difference between a Sol FTL, a CHiron FTL, a Fraal FTL(the fraal ftl is quite smooth , so hard to detect) and so on.... so meaning, can the different betweem FTLs that uses different technologies/designs

what you people think? will make these rules point form on the site thought.

-LMP

[Sprayber]

Do all the Pirate gangs have those ships or just some.

About stealing a ship. I don't have a problem with that but if I may let me suggest a scenario that will allow the Pirates to get one, but not make the Spartans look completely incompetent.

The Warlock ship is a relatively new class of ship for Sparta. It is cutting edge technology but they take a lot of time to build. But the Spartans are pushing the Drones (Who are jointly involved in the warlock project) to produce more in a relatively short period of time. The Drones insist that it takes time to build these ships especially since the paranoid Spartans insist on them building the ships in Spartan territory(hence a large population of Drone and Morganite citizens living in the Spartan Home system) But the Spartans are impatient and ask the Drones to begin building them in other shipyards. But most of the Drone shipyards are already being used by other projects. (It could come out later that the Drones asked if more room should be built and the Spartans had declined the offer) Anyway, the Drones have to improvise and one of the corners cut was that warlocks were being built in a out of the way system supposedly under Spartan protection, but ended up that one of the Pirate gangs managed to fight their way in or sneak in and steal one of the Warlocks before completion. The more sensitive components had not been installed as of yet(Can't have all my secrets on the black market ) but the FTL drive had been installed. That way the Pirates can put whatever they want in the ship.

This way, the Spartans will be to blame for pushing the drones to build more ships without the local Spartan commander providing adequate protection. Of course Mr. President will have to agree since we would be using the Drones.

[Sprayber]

Oh and shouldn't the Pirates be more interested in a faction like the Peackeepers with a lot of easy to pick targets then the Spartans who travel around in armed convoys for just about everything? And some wonder why the Spartans are aggressive. They have enemies on all sides.

[Frankychan]

Thanks Kass! I'll be 'net surfing there soon.

For LMP------> instead of "gangs", how about "clans"? I know it sounds cliche but it does sounds appropriate. Or if not "clans", how about "houses"? Just trying to throw some idea's out for ya!
Also, thanks for respecting my creativity. If no Pirates were in Hive territory, that would be GREATLY appreciated!

Well, I just took my last final today so I'm gonna P-A-R-T-Y!!!!!!!!!

You all take care this holiday season and I'll see you all in my next post...probably a few days from now!

[[LordLMP]]

Sprayber, the dominant gang (maybe i will use clans, but i still looking for another word....the word can be from another language, as long as it sounds right for the Pirates) as been getting a lot power, which as started in the last half of the 2600s... when they were information trading with an Fraal ship (more like getting useful tinbits from the fraal then trading)... Fraal mention of another species 10 thousand lightyears away or so and they have a large ship of theirs 300 lightyears or so away from human space. So the pirate gang went off in an expedition to locate and contact that species for some strange reason....so the gang wasn't much seen for about a year or so. they succeeded and located the ship, and the rest of its task force, 180 lightyears away from human space, with bit of help from the Fraal "mainly providing clues". So the gang had a peaceful first contact with this alien species. they realize that the large ship and the group they belonged too was informed by the Fraal of the human race, so they sent an expedition. the gang's leader explain the Fraal have informed them of them. They both shruged, agreeing that no one knows why the Fraal does things. both the gang and the alien fleet tagged along in the middle of nowhere for a couple months, exchanging all sort information about each others species and eventually technologies. The gang fleet came back to human space with some inovative, yet not very advance, technologies and ideas. The gang quickly made full use of the technologies...after a few years, they built a few ship yards at some hidden location and started building some new breed of ships.....like the Heavy Cruiser, Strike Cruiser, Assault Carrier and so on.... with the gangs reputation of being good in diplomacy, they may various deals with some the other gangs, th data angels, so on.... So they started being the dominant gang of the Faction and it is seems they pushing for an united Pirate Faction base on the Macky government doctrines...which is pretty much only improving the the faction internal politics. Because of that, the other factions are starting to see the pirates become more organized, starting to work together more often, having new odd ships, and most of all, they seem to have Real purpose with their latest pirate attacks, raids, pirating, etc a long with actions which is a bit unusual for the pirates. One of the big instances that drown a lot of attention to the pirates is when the they (later discover to be of the dominating gang) somehow succeeded in capturing one of the SPartans newest capital shipp, the warlocks. (this is here we need to figure out, but here is the scenario i was thinking of) A Spartan Warlock and some escorts received a distress call from a local Spartan convoy who is being attacked by pirate ships near the a asteroid belt.... so they made a short and dangerous jump to the area the convoyu is being attacked. once in range, the pirate ships just simply started attacking the warlock's escorts and few minutes later, about 7 pirate strike cruisers a long with some other smaller ships appeared out of the belt. the Strike Cruisers started firing EMP missiles at the Warlock from long range.... it was quite a battle, where the spartan escorts eventually got eliminated and the Strike Cruisers started launching some odd tug like ships at the warlock, which was by now semi-dissabled, its STL engines almost dead and a destroyed FTL drive. The Spartan Captain, making the judgement that the tug like ships must be the pirate's new bording ships, followed protocol by starting the self-destruct of the ship to avoid capture (besides, the damaged convoy is long gone by now). When its Reactors was about to go critical and explode, the Tugs still continued towards the warlock, surround it while starting firing these strange purplish tractor beam like beams at the ship....next thing you know, the reactor simply shut down, avoiding self-destruction while the other s-d mechanisms got dissabled. Then, the surviving crew simply started to lose control of their ship while the pirates started bording the ship with their infamous marines....was quite deck to deck battle for the ship, both sides don't mind causing even more damage to the ship. The pirates eventually won the ship by eliminating 2/3 of the remaining crew and stunning the rest...yet the ship was quite beat up from the in and out, yet the structure of the ship was still intact. The spartans succeeded to manually destroy their computer cores and other vital systems. The spartans sent more ships to the area, but the pirates and the warlock simply dissapeared....which doesn't stop the spartans to have a large system wide search. almost a year later, the stolen Warlock appeared in the pirates' hands, leading an attack on some morganite outpost. of the most ironic things, the warlock was called the Impossible, which the Pirates kept.... currently, the warlock is being use as flagship by the gang's leader.
Is that okay?

Doesn't the Free Drones excel in Industrial Automation and Robotics? I am sure they succeeded in having worker droids to do most of the construction at ship yards

-LMp

[Sprayber]

http://www.geocities.com/hydro070/temporarypreviewfile.html?1008914387910

I updated my ship section. Check out the New System Patrol Craft and my station.

[[LordLMP]]

just to say, that HALO soldier is a geneticly engineered and technologicly enhanced SPARTAN-II soldier

-LMP

[Sprayber]

LMP: That is a Spartan All-Enviromental Marine. I know, the name is definitly messed up but hey.

I thought it would be fun to do something with my webpage. So I put up a quotes page. Quotes about Spartans from other people. Kind of a historical record if you will. Feel free to contribute, and I will put them up on my page. Here are some samples

BTW. I'm not implying that Spart did all the fighting against the Bugs. Thats just how the Spartans saw it at the time. I'm sure the Pks, Hive, Pirates and others saw the Spartan contribution in a different light.

http://www.geocities.com/hydro070/SpQuotes.html

Mr. President: You starting another story already.

What do you think about my scenario about The Pirates getting a Spartan ship from a Drone shipyard. Feel free to change it a little or reject it. I was just putting out ideas.