From jeffj@baudelaire.princeton.edu Mon Jun 8 08:16:35 1998 Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 09:19:38 -0600 From: "Jeffrey J. Jenkins" To: INDIGO FLEET List Serve Subject: [INDIGO] USS PROMETHEUS: Picking up the pieces ---OFFICIAL INDIGO FLEET TRANSMISSION--- Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 13:32:10 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jeffrey J. Jenkins" Subject: [INDIGO] USS PROMETHEUS: Picking up the pieces NRPG: Apparently, this did not get through when I sent it on Friday, so I am resending it today. Jeff. --- FMD 6.1710 PROMETHEUS coasted out of warp and began to drive in-system as fast as her impulse engines would carry the battered ship. The warp drive had let her put a great deal of distance between the Dalriadan attack fleet and the ship, but it could not let her close with the station, using warp drive in a star system was simply too dangerous. To everyone's surprise, the Dalriadan attack fleet had simply turned around. Three battleships and twenty-five support vessels had simply reversed course, headed out system and jumped back into hyperspace. It was definitely a bad sign. Had whatever information NOVA was carrying been so important as to send that large a fleet after a single battlecruiser? And if it had been, why let her run freely? Certainly the forces in the Terebellum System could have mustered together and put up a fight, they probably could have eventually massed enough ships to defest the attacking fleet, but it would have taken time. The Dalriada might have even been able to catch NOVA in that time. However, NOVA would have already been able to tranmit her data by that time. The fact that the Dalriada didn't press the attack meant a cool head was in charge and that there was likely to be a master plan at work. That did not bode well for INDIGO Fleet. All of these thoughts worked their way through the background of the chief engineer's mind, for John Walker did not have time to counsciously think about the future or to morn for AGAMEMNON or for the Captain. He had a ship to hold together. He hadn't even been watching the external monitors when the sister ship of PROMETHEUS went up. The engineering problems of his own ship were far too critical for him to be doing anything but keeping the ship in one piece. However, he didn't need to see the monitors to know what had happened. Immediately before Sovak's order to go to warp, a shock wave had passed over the ship. It wasn't the tortured bucking of the ship under the savage barrage of the x-ray lasers. It was the more ominous shiver throughout the hull of a ship close to a warp core breach on another ship. Walker had felt it once before when his ship was engaged in a rescue of the crew from a stricken merchantman. They'd barely gotten clear of the area when the core on the other ship breached. It was something that the engineering officer had never wanted to experience again. One of the repair teams finally restored the main lighting in engineering. As it came back on, it brought the commander back to the present. The white light amplified the full extent of the destruction and the real peril that the ship had been in. A large black hole, almost ten centimeters in diameter, cut its way cleanly through the bulkhead less than half a meter from the main plasma conduit out of the warp core. The same x-ray laser had burned its way through the opposite bulkhead as well. Had the targetting of the missile been even a faction of a degree towards the core, PROMETHEUS would have been instantly incinerated. Since she had not been destroyed, it was Walker's job to see that she was put back together quickly. All of the hull breaches needed to be sealed. Force fields could fail in combat much more readily that duralloy plating, so every square centimeter of the hull needed to be scanned for atmospheric leaks and reinforced as needed, While vacuum suits had saved countless lives when chambers depressurized during the battle no one wanted to rely on them any more than necessary. Helm control also needed to be restored to the main bridge. While the battle bridge was fully capable of controlling the ship, it left no backup. The navigation console in engineering had been destroyed during the battle and the bridge helm control link had also been severed. He cursed to himself, not for the first time. Through the whole of this war so far, the Dalriada always seemed to be one step ahead of the Federation. They were controlling the time, place, and scope of the battles. If the Federation was going to stand a chance, they had to make a stand and throw a monkey wrench in the Dalriadan plans. The only problem was that no one had fought ships like those used by the Dalriada. The rules of war had changed and it was time for some innovative thinking just to stay alive long enough to even think about winning this thing. --- Respectfully, LCDR John A. Walker Chief Engineer USS PROMETHEUS, NCC-25005 NRPG: This is quite a bit shorter and rougher than the last series of posts. It is mainly to get people thinking. The Dalriada are *not* an insurmountable obstacle, but they are also not going to go away easily. The analysis is correct, they are controlling the way that this war is being fought. Unfortunately, there isn't much that we can do about that in the short term. One quick note before I go into some technical commentary, I am out of town until the 24th (Sunday). I will start sorting through mail that morning and will _try_ to catch up with everything and answer any questions by Monday at the latest. Feel free to write to me directly if you have questions about the Dalriada or their technology. Here are some basics: Ship classifications are based on firepower and shielding. A Federation heavy cruiser has about the same total firepower and shield capacity as a Dalraidan heavy cruiser, etc. However, there a a number of things that are different. A Dalriadan warship is dedicated military vessel, unlike her Federation counterpart. This means that there are fewer systems dedicated to scientific exploration, crew quarters are not as luxurious, etc. They also do not have normal-space warp drives, relying on hyperspace (dimensional warp) drives for faster-than-light travel. This ends up meaning that their ships are less massive and, therefore, more maneuverable at sublight speeds. They will outmaneuver any Federation ship of comparable or greater tonnage. This means that their battlecruisers are as maneuverable as our light cruisers...which is very bad for our light cruisers which have no where near the shielding or weapons of their battlecruisers. Of course, this advantage is only true in a star system. If we could get a Dalriadan vessel into combat outside of a star system, we could use warp drive to run circles around it. However, since we have no way to force a ship out of hyperspace, we have to live with this limitation. If you look at the Ship Combat Guide, you will note that their ships have a better defensive value when maneuvering than our ships. This is because of their better subspace acceleration. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Dalriadan drive system as well. The gravity wedge is used for sublight propulsion. It forms gravity bands above and below the ship which cannot be penetrated by weapons fire.. The bow, stern, port, and starboard sides of the ship are protected by normal shields. These shields are also focussed gravitational fields, just like Federation shields. The solution, now that we know of the problem of the gravity wedge is to fire around it. Now, the ship that you are firing on can turn so that the wedge is between the bulk of incoming fire and its hull, but that means that the ship can't fire back...or that she would have to roll to fire at the very least. So, you should be able to get some of your shots from an angle not protected by the wedge. This means that you are facing only normal shielding. Plasma cannon, particle beams, and pulse phasers on Dalriadan warships are approximately quivalent to phaser cannon, normal phasers, and pulse phasers on Federation vessels. The plasma cannon are actually not quite as powerful as phaser cannons, but most large ships carry several of these. A battleship carriers enough to have the firepower of two phaser cannons. As already noted, the Dalriada carry most of their weapons in broadsides. Unfortunately for them, the plasma cannons are too large to mount in broadsides, so they need to turn their bow (or stern since their ships are almost symmetric fore to aft) towards an enemy to use the cannon. I will follow up on the information that NOVA has brought us on Sunday and the implications for the continuing mission. Until that time, feel free to post through FMD 7. There will be no more attacks until at least FMD 8 and I will kick these off. You will get a chance for combat in this attack. In the mean time, check out http://baudelaire.princeton.edu/jeffj/dalriada. This page includes information that the Federation reall does not know of fully appreciate at this point, but it is all information that the NOVA will be able to provide shortly. (In other words, this is important background information for you as writers, but your characters *should not* act like they know the material in these files.) Captains, if any of your crew are not recieving posts, please make sure that you forward posts from this list to them. I am manually archiving this thread at http://baudelaire.princeton.edu/jeffj/fleet, but have not had a chance to update this archive in a while and will not get to it until after the holiday weekend. Lastly, happy Memorial Day to all of my fellow Americans or Yanks or people from the States or whatever anyone wants to call the citizens of the good old USA. ;) Likewise, to our international writers, have a good weekend. Jeff. /---------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Jeffrey J. Jenkins | "Fortune is not on the | | http://baudelaire.princeton.edu/jeffj/ | side of the faint-hearted. | | mailto:jeffj@baudelaire.princeton.edu | -Sophocles, Phaedra. | \---------------------------------------------------------------------/ | Copyright 1998, Jeffrey J. Jenkins, All rights reserved. | \-------------------------------------------------------------/ ***This message sent by an official member of Indigo Fleet*** Are you also posting your message to the newsgroup?!!! ---END TRANSMISSION---