Beyond Alpha Centauri:::::::Discussion Thread 7

[Guardian]

/me suddenly appears out of nowhere.

Ooops... I must be in the wrong universe...

-Or perhaps not... Actually, I believe this is where I meant to be at this particular time.
Oh, and Sprayber, I tried to reply to your PM, but was told your Inbox was full.
Then I tried to send you an email instead -and was told you wouldn't allow it.

(@£$%&#?! Spartans and their security precautions... )

Anyway, I've heard rumors that History Guy is a part time Peacekeeper now. I might have to take a look at that. He had some interesting ideas when I thought about coming back this spring...

Anyway, I just dropped in to say hello. Now I have to be off again. You all have a nice day now, you hear!? Catch you guys later!

/me vanishes in a puff of smoke.

[Frankychan]

Guardian! What's up?!

Wow, a lot of old (new?) faces in here....

Well Urban and Sprayber- I'll try and compile events all the way up to the start of the story into one summarization thread later on.

But like GeneralTacticus has said, we've basically gone with the tech tree of SMAC, but have also made factions have "specialties". In the story each faction has a certain edge over the other factions. Since I'm the Hive author, I'll give you an example. The Hive has superior numbers and operates secretly. We also have limited cloak technology. But to counteract these benefits, the Hive's overall technology is below par to the other factions. It would take an average of 10~15 Hive soliders to equal 1 Spartan soldier.

Okay....I'll start searching for all the past events prior to the storyline...

[History Guy]

Hope everyone thought well of my latest post.

I am trying to make it appear as if the UN is in decline, and becoming totalitarian, as most every democracy has become (including the US), and PC. I am trying to make it appear as though the people no longer run the government, but the government runs the people.

[Frankychan]

History Guy- good post! I'm also glad to see you're still alive and kicking!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Frankychan
But like GeneralTacticus has said, we've basically gone with the tech tree of SMAC, but have also made factions have "specialties". In the story each faction has a certain edge over the other factions. Since I'm the Hive author, I'll give you an example. The Hive has superior numbers and operates secretly. We also have limited cloak technology. But to counteract these benefits, the Hive's overall technology is below par to the other factions. It would take an average of 10~15 Hive soliders to equal 1 Spartan soldier.

Okay I am assuming everyone has FTL travel or nobody gets anywhere.

As for specialisation that makes sense, so each faction uses its own strength against each other.

[Urban Ranger]

More questions

Thanks for the answers people. I now have more questions

1. How is production determined? I ask this question mainly to see if the military strength of various factions is a function of production, or whether they are set at some agreed upon level and remain static.

2. How big are the fleets of various factions and what are their composition?

3. How many ship sizes/classes are their and how do they compare (on the same tech level)? Is a battlecruiser bigger than a heavy cruiser, say?

4. Is trade encouraged between various factions? What about within factions?

5. What is the status of Earth? Is it unified under UN?

6. Who is controlling what faction? Are they all there or have some been, um, integrated into others?

[Frankychan]

Urban- I'll help you out with the Hive facts....I think each BAC author should answer you in their own way.

1. Hive production is fast...trailing behind the Drone's in the production. Mass production is below quality but specialty produce goods (for the highest echelons of Hive society) is fine tuned. Usually, when we are going to introduce new things, we ask the other authors if it is feasible and then go on to an informal vote/consensus.

2. How big fleets are depends on what type of operation is being performed and which faction is involved. The Hive (or GHE) uses "swarm" tactics. Meaning in most Hive fleets, there's going to be at LEAST one carrier. Hive tends to use a lot of smaller ships and less of the larger ships. Sparta uses good, well rounded tactics that can be tailored to whatever situation may come up.

3. Ship classes depend on which faction you are concerned with. If you click on "Visit Frankychan's Homepage", you will find the Hive's version of BAC...with links to the Spartan Federation.

4. Hive is independent, as of right now, so we don't trade with anyone yet....although we're working with the University. The "Big Three", Spartans-Morganites-Drone'es, IMHO, have strong trade relations. Unfortunately, I don't know what they are...gotta ask History Guy, Sprayber, and Mr. President.

5. Earth is alive and kicking. Kass has taken over the Earth-now called Earth Coalition. You'll have to ask him about what's going on.

6. According to recent Hive data the faction leaders are as follows. (or you can see my Hive relations page)

Spartan-Marcus Kessel.

Morgan-Nwabudike Morgan

Drones-Kristy Adams

Gaians-AFAIK-Deidre Skye

Cult of Planet (absorbed by Gaians)

PK's-unknown

Laekdaemon Cadre (offshoot of Spartans)-Contested title. Official Head of State is Menelaus.

Protectorate of Man (2nd attempt at Unity Project)-Protector Ian.

Believers-unknown. Miriam confirmed dead.

Saturn Republic (unofficial title/offshoot of Earth)-Queen Sanchez

University-Randius Zakharov, Prokhor's son.

and of course....

Hive-Emperor Sheng-ji Yang.

[Frankychan]

unfortunately, I haven't yet gotten to making the Hive's history yet.

Sorry.

[Sprayber]

Re: More questions

1. Production is agreed to by everyone in a somewhat vague fashion. This is a more story oriented thread and the technical details are eluded to but not gone into any great detail. Take Sparta for example. It is agreed that Sparta does not match the output of the Hive or Drones but the quality of ships and other hardward is better. There are work arounds however. In many cases the Spartans have contracted many of their industrial needs out to the Drones who are extremely close allies despite the Drones being more democratic than the Spartans would be willing to be. The Morganites have a relitive small military as is a trait of their faction. But in some regions of Morgan Space that is vital to Spartan interests, Spartan warships patrol instead of Morgan ones.

2. Fleet sizes are usually determined by the faction and the situation. A Sparta fleet would consist of hundreds of vessels and two fleets combined would then become a taskforce. There are provisions for assiging detachments consisting of down to a hand full of ships. Other factions will have other ideas of the size. Again, we depend on talking back and forth and keeping the sizes reasonable. We do this for fun and are willing to work with each other.

3. Sparta has numerous ship classes ranging from small scouts to the larger fighter carrier ships. In BAC the type is determined by length. It's just a general thing that we use to keep everyone on the same page. the difference between a heavy crusier and a crusier may be determined what they are used for. Sparta has a vessel they call the Command Carrier. It is not as large as the standared fighter carrier that all the factions have, but in fact its a mid sized vessel. the Spartans use it for Command and Control purposes and call it a Command Carrier.

http://www.geocities.com/beyondalphacentauri/starships.html

4. Sparta Trades with the Drones, Morgans most of all. There is some trade with the PKs and small abouts with the Believers and University.

5. The people that stayed behind after unity left were not all killed. The Terrans(earthers) are a little behind as far as the Chrionions are because Earth was devastated. Right not they are in the middle of a coup IIRC.

6. Dee is in deed still alive as is Santiago but she no longer is in charge in Sparta.

[Mr. President]

1. How is production determined? I ask this question mainly to see if the military strength of various factions is a function of production, or whether they are set at some agreed upon level and remain static.

Hmm, complicated-sounding question. The way I usually understood it was that it was related to production, technology, and training.

2. How big are the fleets of various factions and what are their composition?

Varying depending on the faction. The Drones have lots of middle-sized ships to patrol space lanes, whereas the State of Firaxis would have mainly smaller short-range vessels (since they're only one system).

3. How many ship sizes/classes are their and how do they compare (on the same tech level)? Is a battlecruiser bigger than a heavy cruiser, say?

I think we talked about this once but, being the sad, macromanaging, non-short-term-remembering person that I am, I forgot.

4. Is trade encouraged between various factions? What about within factions?

Plenty of commerce. Once again you've got different specialties between factions. For example, the Drones make heavy machinery and industrial products (putting all their other other heavy machinery to good use ), Sparta supplies top-of-the-line military items (largely to its Drone and Morgan allies, as well as small states like Firaxis), Morgan I think has his fingers in lots of things, and Firaxis exports fruits and vegetables. (Don't laugh. People still need vitamins in the year 2700.)

I envision each system or sector in the Drone Republic (as I've taken to calling it ) having a trade authority that co-ordinates the movement of goods mostly within the system or sector, and also into and out of the system or sector once approved by the central government.

As for your last two questions, I think they've been somewhat covered. Hope you keep on reading.

[GeneralTacticus]

2. How big are the fleets of various factions and what are their composition?

The Cadre fleet is probably the weakest of all, as they're a fairly new faction and haven't had much time to devote to building a big fleet - it consists of a bunch of escorts of varying sizes, used mainly for patrol duties.

3. How many ship sizes/classes are their and how do they compare (on the same tech level)? Is a battlecruiser bigger than a heavy cruiser, say?

I don't know that this has ever really been discussed.

4. Is trade encouraged between various factions? What about within factions?

As Mr. President said, trade is encouraged between allies. The Cadre doesn't do much trade at the moment, but we expect this to change as we've recently signed some trade deals with the free Drones for minerals (from us) in return for weapons (to us).

[History Guy]

Well, I'm playing the Morganites mostly (though part-time Peacekeeper...)

For Morgan:

1) Our production is Morgan Interstellar is not at an incredible rate of speed, as might be found in Drone territories, but it is very fast, all the same, with huge production lines. Whole moons are relegated in some cases to the production of various materials. We are industrious in our own way, but our thoughts lie largely in the economic arena.

2) Our military does not have many large fleets, though we do have control of some of the largest and most technologically advanced ships around (i.e. biotech). Relying heavily on smaller, swifter skirmish ships, or Dreadnoughts for close quarter fighting, we have only small groups of fleets, made much smaller by the Terran War. By last count, we have 15 large fleets in Morganite controlled territories. This includes the huge Morganite/Believer fleet which is securing Capella.

3) Most of our ships are of Drone construction and designation.

4) We Morganites encourage trade above all things. We trade with most everyone except various Pirate factions, the Hive, the Cybernetic Consciousness, and the Terran Alliance.

5) The Solar System is dominated by the Terran Alliance.

6) Morgan Interstellar is controlled by President and CEO Nwabudike Morgan.

[Frankychan]

Sorry to go off on a tangent....

Sprayber-would it be alright if I had Yang watch the interview that Kessel gave? I kinda wanted to make a post with his point of view....it'd only be him and no action, but would show the reader what Sheng-ji thinks.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Frankychan
Sorry to go off on a tangent....

Sprayber-would it be alright if I had Yang watch the interview that Kessel gave? I kinda wanted to make a post with his point of view....it'd only be him and no action, but would show the reader what Sheng-ji thinks.

Sure

[Urban Ranger]

Okay, if nobody objects, I'll take over Gaia's Stepdaughters. In fact, part of my idea is to have the Green factions integrate, which is aide by the happy fact that they in fact did in this universe.

What I envision this combined faction is they specialise in the life sciences - biology, xenobiology, planetology, medicine, genetics, that sort of thing. They export top of the line medicine and have cures for many diseases other factions can't tackle. They are very good at observing how organisms do things (such as how do marlins swim so fast in water) and duplicate the effects. Their production tend to be low because they reserve all planets with any higher life forms (microbes don't count) to be residential only, relegating industrial production to barren planets, lifeless moons and asteroids. On the flip side, their citizens have the highest morale because of all the exotic planets they can choose to reside.

Their military is on the low side, mainly because they are not aggressive. However they do have the most number of exploration vessels to seek out new planets and new lifeforms

If everybody okays this, I'll start writing my first entry.