Out of Character Discussion

I believe somebody said something about "why doesn't the Romulan empire just buy their ships from DI?" or "why doesn't SoL buy their ships from DI?" or something. Essentially: buying a ship is extremely expensive, even relatively cheap ones like DI's. It's FAR cheaper for the Romulans to rent, since they did so as a temporary boost to their defense force. As for SoL, well I imagine their budget is far from large enough to even rent a large portion of DI ships, which is why Daragon lent them six or seven, just because he supports the cause. However, that does have PR repercussions-- it was good PR to support a popular and noble cause, but when that cause has to make distasteful decisions, as Candirith explained, it's just too dangerous to risk the company's reputation on a cause that isn't pivotal on the grand scale.

OK, I guess that makes sense. I was thinking that soL would just rent too and crew the ships themselves, since then Daragon could technically claim innocence,but I sice realized we wouldn't really have the manpower to do that.

Exactly-- SoL probably doesn't have the resources in money or crew to hire enough starships to make a difference.

Which is weird because the PCG is involved... and yet no involved... confusing....

Yeah... SoL is a... different RP. If the entire force of the PCG was involved there would be no contest between the Rommies or the Federation.

I don't think the PCG being as big as is claimed is really feasible. Aside from the discussion yesterday on the chatbox involving how the PCG supports such a massive fleet without any connection to other governments, without asking for payment from the systems it protects, and basically without any real method of income aside from mining operations, which I don't see supporting a fleet of tens of thousands no matter how large without the PCG becoming a mining operation with a defense force on the side; if the PCG was really that large, how are there ANY badguys or sketchy groups out there? How is the "SAF" even around, if the PCG could just send waves of thousands at them? It seems to me that there would be massive fleets of ships just sitting at key points around the galaxy, and every time something looks like it might be slightly sketchy, BOOM, there's thirty starships to check it out. Turns out to be dangerous? BOOM, there's a hundred more. Entire enemy fleet? BIBBITY-BOBBITY-BLASTER, there's five thousand warships swarming the system like it's nothing. Aside from the fact that most entire star systems can only support a dozen or so starships, making the constant production, cycle, repair, and resupply of THOUSANDS questionable for a faction of any size (especially one without any systems or income of its own), it seems a bit absurd to think that the PCG would ever have any trouble dealing with ANYTHING, when they have that much power lying around. Why don't they rule the galaxy? Why aren't there ten ships at every known system, with dozens more within minutes of any possible trouble spot? Why is war still around, if a force of this immense power exists, led by a group of flawlessly altruistic leaders, commanded by flawlessly altruistic captains, and manned by flawlessly competent crew, exists?

These are honest comments, don't take this as instigation of an argument. It just seems to me that it would be VERY easy to make the PCG's existence reasonable, by shrinking its theoretical force to a few hundred, maybe a thousand, ships, and explaining that old ships are sold as civilian models, or as scrap metal to junkers, or torn apart to patch newer ships, which, combined with the mining operation described by Dino, and perhaps a defense tribute paid by the Federation to compensate for protection, should be enough to pay for that many ships.

^@Supe: I half agree with you. I think that it's perfectly possible for enemy forces to still be around (i.e. terrorist organizations today), but on a much smaller and lesser scale. They could do operations in uncharted areas but would never be able to openly engage anyone or anything without being, as you said, crushed by massive fleets. Still, it's plausible that they're still around, but they would be a negligible threat. Likewise, I agree with you on almost everything else; I can easily see it crushing even massive Borg Cube fleets with their tens of thousands of ships, if it's really that big. Can't you just launch preemptive strikes again the Spectres?

And, Supe pointed something else out: sustainability. And it's not power; fusion, solar, and antimatter can easily solve that problem. The larger issue is in manufacturing. How can you generate such large quantities of metal for the construction, even with replicators? How can you afford so many replicators? Where can you find the crew to man them? Yes many functions can be automated, but you need several dozen to several thousand crew to operate vital functions. How can you afford to build the shipyards and starbases required to maintain your fleets? How can you have such advanced tech without the money to research them and the resources to manufacture them?

Another question is organization. It would be a massive logistical nightmare trying to organize your forces when it has thousands of ships at its disposal? How can you keep track of all its ships? How can you train enough commanders with intelligent tactical knowledge? Where do you get skilled commanders to control the fleets of ships and thousands of additional fighters?

As Supe said, I'm not trying to be antagonistic against the PCG. But its general portrayal as a massive naval force without any actual territory makes it seem very unrealistic. It would sound unrealistic for almost any group, at least currently. IK I may seem accusatory of the PCG a especially since Supe raised the issue first and I followed up, but I think that this really has to be reconsidered.

I agree that tens of thousands is too big. As I said yesterday "thousands of ships." The other factions are this large. We're not sure how many we really have because... we need to take inventory or something. That,  and we keep building more.

Trek doesn't work like that.
1 The Federation has done away with money, although everyone else still uses it. Don't ask me to explain it, it's just Trek canon, I'll link to Memory Alpha if you want. Don't ask it to make sense because I agree with you, it's silly, but it is actually a quirky perk.
2 The Trek galaxy is a VERY big place. It can support FAR more ships than you realize, as seen in the Dominion War. If you watch any of the Trek series, you'll see that help was often VERY far away, that's because even massive fleets are simply tiny compared to the massive vastness that is space, and even Warp is limited in how quickly you can get somewhere.
3 The Federation has a similar number of ships as us, as does just about every major power, with the Federation having pretty much the same (known) resources and systems supporting it as the PCG. The difference is that while Starfleet uses old explorers, we use warships.
4 We're not infallible. W're not this perfect system. We do make mistakes, we DO have weaknesses. But we're the good guys, most of the time. We're good because that's what we stand for, it's who we are.
5 We have trouble dealing with anything because there are bigger, badder bad guys out there. Like the Borg. Remember, Borg adapt. And our ships can still be destroyed and our crews can still die. Sometimes, the pirates and little factions get overlooked when all life is at stake. There's always another bully.
6 Logistics. I'm pretty sure computers have advanced to the point that they can do all the math needed to keep track of everything while the commanders focus on what needs done. Remember, if the (pretty often incompetent) Federation can do it, then I think we can too.
7 We DO have territory, but not the massive amounts of private space owned by the big factions.
8 Resources: This is something that I have yet to see Trek explain, honestly. How the "no economy economy" thing works, how mega-factions can keep up with the demand for raw power and materials to fuel the replicators and run their ships. This is something I haven't seen thought out too well. I wish I had seen it much more fleshed out, but as it stands, if they can do it in 50 years of canon Trek, then we can do it here. Which means other factions can do it too... (hint hint, we're not trying to be unrealistically more powerful than everyone else. ) One set of resources would have to be grateful worlds that we protect. Repeatedly having your backside saved from the Borg has a way of making you want to be sure that the guys doing the saving will have the resources to do it again if the Borg come back.
9 Manpower is easy to explain. There are SO many cultures out there. Assuming that we have 8,000 ships, with an average crew compliment of 500, then we'd only need 4,000,000 actual ship's personnel. That isn't a stretch (with enough money, fuel, and power) in modern times, MUCH LESS when we have so many trillions of lifeforms in the galaxy. Fighter crews, maintenance personnel, ground troops, engineers, support crews, etc, would probably raise to somewhere around what, ten times that? But for a future with thousands upon thousands upon thousands of inhabited worlds, 40,000,000 persons would be doable for the biggest peace-keeping/war fighting group in existence

I haven't looked at Dino's arguments, but I have several things to point out myself.

A. We're large because we've been around for a while.
B. Because we have (or had a lot of members) All you other factions out there? Yeah... you only have one a piece.
C. We actually DO have territory that we get materials from... it's just not very well known. It's given to Johnnyred by Mutt (Ant's character) in Fires of War (in a part that hadn't been uploaded)
D. We also have a large income from both jobs that we do and also from profits from Adventure Comix. Think... uber popular TV show/movie series and how much they make on Earth. Not expand that throughout all the planets within the Federation.
E. Manpower - We have a lot of robots and automated systems, I've explained this many times before.
F. Why are there still various enemies in existence? Because we allow them to be. We don't fight unless there's a reason to fight or we are attacked. The SAF are pirates yes, but unless they attack us directly, there's no reason for us to fight them. Also, for the most part we follow the rules of the Federation unless there's something that we think isn't right. (IE a colony is being attacked, we want to defend them, the Federation doesn't want us to even though we both know the colony will be destroyed, we jump in anyway.)
G. Without us, you wouldn't be in existence.

Again. I'm not trying to be antagonistic either, but I am tired of people trying to tear down the PCG itself and constantly questioning the PCG, yada yada yada. I could easily question a massive star empire run by a single person. But I don't. I don't mix into other people's factions unless absolutely necessary.

Let's step back and agree that there are lots of great groups out there and none of us are going to be perfectly realistic?

Man, I don't feel like negotiating between sides now. I'm too tired. I pulled an all-nighter working on my next SoL post... which I am having trouble with, first, because my computer lost it when I was almost done with the original, and two, because writing this serious stuff is hard without it sounding totally corny and melodramatic. Me? Melodramatic? NAH!

Everyone seems to have a different interpretation, so might as well add mine....

if the PCG was really that large, how are there ANY badguys or sketchy groups out there? How is the "SAF" even around, if the PCG could just send waves of thousands at them?

They also have big fleets.

It seems to me that there would be massive fleets of ships just sitting at key points around the galaxy, and every time something looks like it might be slightly sketchy, BOOM, there's thirty starships to check it out. Turns out to be dangerous? BOOM, there's a hundred more. Entire enemy fleet? BIBBITY-BOBBITY-BLASTER, there's five thousand warships swarming the system like it's nothing.

OK, the logistics are a bit more complicated than that.

Aside from the fact that most entire star systems can only support a dozen or so starships

Yeah, if the only planet in the system had a few farms and a bar.

Why aren't there ten ships at every known system, with dozens more within minutes of any possible trouble spot?

There are. Not enough to stop a 3,000-strong Cor Redor fleet. once you factor in all the ships required to patrol, those stationed in fleets, those in drydock, etc., it's pretty much not more than necessary to hold down the fort.

How can you generate such large quantities of metal for the construction, even with replicators?

They're super-effective!

Also, we do all our own mining and stuff, so it's pretty cheap.

Where can you find the crew to man them?

What Dino said.

Another question is organization. It would be a massive logistical nightmare trying to organize your forces when it has thousands of ships at its disposal? How can you keep track of all its ships? How can you train enough commanders with intelligent tactical knowledge? Where do you get skilled commanders to control the fleets of ships and thousands of additional fighters?

Computers, plus a LOT of experience.

But I digress; we should wait for Dino to become un-tired and make the problem magically go away, as usual.

Aaaand the conversation now consists of point-by-point refutation of other peoples' points. From my regrettable experiences on the LMB roleplays, this is where the argument is best set aside for awhile.

Just a third-party observation.

I must agree with MAD. Still... tired. can't... do the magic.

MAD the peacekeeper/Nobel prize winner. Is that ironic? (I hope someone gets the reference to the LUCL)

I think that it's good to have some friendly debate, but that friendly debate needs some moderating...

In the old days (when men were more honorable and less given to flaring tempers), debating used to be an art form exercised by men and women of education, whit, and morals. We're not in the old days, I'll concede to that, but we can still agree and disagree in an educated, witty, and, above all, considerate fashion.

I've noticed this before: it seems as though every time the slightest sustained disagreement arises, the fear of a "flame war" or some other large-scale squabble is voiced. This does not have to be the case. We're all humans here, which means we can use a virtue that all human beings are gifted with in one form or another: self-control. We have wills. We can choose to disagree in a pleasant manner. We can choose to not take offense if somebody is a bit curt in their response to us. And, when things totally get out of hand, we can also choose to walk away and move on to other matters.

There's one more choice we can make: we can choose to have a friendly disagreement. People today too often think that, just because a person disagrees with you, you're automatically enemies. Yes, that's sometimes true, but not always. For example, true friends don't always agree in everything, but what makes them friends is that they love each other as friends even though they may not see eye-to-eye on everything. And when disagreement or conflict arises, they do their best to handle it like mature adults and not easily-offended children.

Now, since this is the SoL OOC Topic, I think that, if we're to have a sustained debate about the need to iron out the overly-fictional nature of things in the PCG and ST universes, then we need to move it to another topic or, even better, a PM conversation AMONG FRIENDS.

That's my two bits. That's also an order from the GM: if you're going to disagree any further, take it elsewhere or to a PM conversation.

(PS: I do believe that these are worthwhile questions that have been raised and that they ought to be discussed...but not here. )

Shoot, I thought I had a post here... I spent a lot of time on it and now it's gone. D:

Guys, I'm not trying to start a war here, and Jred, I'm not attacking the PCG. I'm asking some very simple questions that tend to be ignored (as they are in ST) that I believe need addressing. We aren't the ST universe, we're our own universe, and we need our own backstories and history, and we need it to be reasonable. "Because we can," "because ST did it," and "because we've been around longer" aren't really viable answers, if we want to take the universe we're creating seriously.

There was more, but I'm too tired to remember.

Take it to PMs, Supesy.

I believe you that you're not trying to start a war...you've raised some legitimate questions. But read my last post and you'll understand why I'm asking for the conversation to be moved elsewhere.

Must write... so tired... will... catch... up...

I am so sorry, I JUST realized that I copiedx and pasted the wrong version of my last subplot entry... Grrrrr. I will edit it. The corrected version will contain less typos, and slightly less melodrama. Sorry for that. I'll try to dov that today, and get the next part written and up very soon.

Keep calm and carry on, Dino!

It turns out that I was wrong... I DID have the correct version saved... in a PM to Scare. I just had to make a couple of edits, but the CORRECTED version is now up, and has replaced the old version. If you're closely following my subplot, and have the time, then I would encourage you to read the newer version. If you're "eh" about it, or are busy, that's fine, as this SHOULDN'T have a direct effect on my plot. It's just a bit less melodramatic (my entire plot is pretty melodramatic, but, given the amount of praise I get for it, I've apparently managed to balance realism with melodrama up till now.) At any rate, the new version has toned down the melodrama slightly from the previous version. And I am much happier with it... now I just need to make ABOUT 2-4 more posts and I'll be back with the fleet, and at the standard time. (instead of a day behind)

I didn't personally find your sub-plot to be melodramatic at all, but maybe that's just me.

Is anyone still alive? Or did we get sneak attacked by the Romulans and all of us died?

Um.... I'm alive... I just need to motivate myself.

GET THAT BLASTED STICK AWAY FROM ME!!! DON'T POKE ME!!!

I'm alive! I'll do something! JUST PUT THE STICK AWAY!!!