c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on Apr 21, 2020 4:39:43 GMT -5
I also wanted to add that I have never watched Babylon Five, so I have no idea how that crept in! My goal and inspiration was a sort of nuclear submarine in space. I have no practical experience of that, and so have had to rely on too many Tom Clancy novels and Google! It just seemed to fit the setting as per Spocks info dump in BoT, and the excellent ship design.
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Post by Falconer on Apr 21, 2020 7:20:35 GMT -5
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Post by Ronin84 on Apr 21, 2020 11:40:05 GMT -5
I also wanted to add that I have never watched Babylon Five, so I have no idea how that crept in! My goal and inspiration was a sort of nuclear submarine in space. I have no practical experience of that, and so have had to rely on too many Tom Clancy novels and Google! It just seemed to fit the setting as per Spocks info dump in BoT, and the excellent ship design. Seaquest and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea might be more of what you are referencing...good stuff btw.
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c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on Apr 21, 2020 14:30:21 GMT -5
Many thanks Ronin84, glad you found it interesting so far. Yes, I was a "Voyage" fan back in the 70's in the UK, so maybe that and "The hunt for Red October" are my inspiration?
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Post by ufc465537 on Apr 21, 2020 21:43:35 GMT -5
No, the site is run by Bryan Jecko - I think he has the handle 'walrusguy' on other boards. Hes the "go to" guy for FASA starship combat content! That page is actually a section of the former XON Gaming site. The site owner distributed sections of his site to us FASA 'old timers' to host for posterity purposes. Hes been helping me update my site for years and in exchange Ive been hosting his updated pages.
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Post by Falconer on Apr 22, 2020 6:46:43 GMT -5
Ah, okay, I was wondering why I was seeing similar-looking pages on different domains. Very cool! I love old HTML sites full of great, original content, and I hate to see them disappear.
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Post by ufc465537 on Apr 22, 2020 9:18:00 GMT -5
Us FASA old school guys with websites are a dying breed on the internet. Everything has pretty much moved to FB, blogs and other group boards (like this one!!). Mark (Xon gaming guy) has been archiving FASA sites (current and defunct) for years just so they're not lost or relegated to wayback machine backups lol
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Post by Falconer on Apr 22, 2020 13:25:35 GMT -5
LOL, I know, man, I was dragged kicking and screaming from Usenet and Listservs to forums. The line must be drawn here!
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c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on May 11, 2020 13:19:26 GMT -5
With RL being a bit busy recently, I am now just getting back into brainstorming this campaign. I need to concentrate on the abstract, skill based space combat rules, and decide how to manage the problems arising from my desire to have boarding party and ground actions, against Spock's canon line, from BoT, that Humans and Romulans never saw each other. Space combat needs a lot more work, but I am working on both a preferred and default plan for the troops. My preferred plian is that the troops are Romulans, and so they are (occasionally) seen by Humans,and their resemblance to Vulcans (Earth's new ally) is recognised. But, so as not to rock the boat with the Vulcans, these occasions are supressed by tptb. I guess I am asking for the learned opinions of the Star Trek gurus here. Is it (in your opinion) reasonable to expect that the myriad veterans who encountered Romulans (looking too much like Vulcans) during the war, will all take that secret to the grave? My default option is that the troops are all alien subject janissaries - which seems a bit too tame. All advice is greatly appreciated.
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Post by Falconer on May 11, 2020 23:49:11 GMT -5
I think at the end of the day you have to just have as many “explanations” up your sleeve as possible, and then just see how the game plays out, and play it by ear what your players will care about and what explanation will work for them.
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Post by coyotepunc on May 12, 2020 0:45:08 GMT -5
There's a good possibility that any human that saw a romulan might be dead before they got back to human space. Atomics are nasty shup-to-ship weapons.
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c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on May 12, 2020 3:18:03 GMT -5
I think at the end of the day you have to just have as many “explanations” up your sleeve as possible, and then just see how the game plays out, and play it by ear what your players will care about and what explanation will work for them. Falconer, great "outside the box" advice , thank you. I was focusing too much on the implications of the canon line from BoT, rather than considering the myriad ways that this issue may play out in-game. I guess it just comes down the conceit that what the Players know (dependent on their Trek knowledge) and what their characters know can be two different things. And so, as you advise, I will need to have a plan to manage each of the options as they arise.
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c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on May 12, 2020 3:31:23 GMT -5
There's a good possibility that any human that saw a romulan might be dead before they got back to human space. Atomics are nasty shup-to-ship weapons. Coyotepunc, yes that is very true. BoT seems to imply that this war was a vicious bloodbath, with massive fatalities on both sides. The Neutral Zone seems to be United Earth's way of "slamming the door and throwing away the key" on a terrible episode in their history. So, you are right that the vast majority of crews didn't make it back home, and so very few veterans were left to keep the Romulan/Vulcan secret. Which along with direct orders from tptb not to blab, should ensure it remains to anger, confound and surprise Stiles and Spock a hundred years later!
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Post by ufc465537 on May 15, 2020 17:03:26 GMT -5
You could go a few different routes to explain the non-visual exposure, and combine several to at least appease the players.
1. Romulans wore full headgear, hiding their physical attributes.
2. Ground troops were Reman
3. Maybe they had a personal self destruct weapon that destroyed themselves and their DNA, like a thaloron type thing.
4. The romulans nuked everything while retreating- a scorched earth tactic.
5. Maybe the upper echelon of the federation knew all along but kept it under wraps for the sake of maintaining good relations with the vulcans.
6. Maybe the history was changed by a temporal incident and BoT is no longer relevant.
Add more. Mix. Match. Some. All. It all works if the group is having fun playing.
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c57d
Lt. Commander
Posts: 169
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Post by c57d on May 23, 2020 13:42:25 GMT -5
You could go a few different routes to explain the non-visual exposure, and combine several to at least appease the players. 1. Romulans wore full headgear, hiding their physical attributes. 2. Ground troops were Reman 3. Maybe they had a personal self destruct weapon that destroyed themselves and their DNA, like a thaloron type thing. 4. The romulans nuked everything while retreating- a scorched earth tactic. 5. Maybe the upper echelon of the federation knew all along but kept it under wraps for the sake of maintaining good relations with the vulcans. 6. Maybe the history was changed by a temporal incident and BoT is no longer relevant. Add more. Mix. Match. Some. All. It all works if the gjroup is having fun playing. Ufc465537 (love your title by the way - where did you get that from?) my apologies for not replying to your post sooner, but my creative inspiration has been a bit lacking recently. However, coming back to this campaign after a few weeks, I am greatly inspired by your ideas, thank you. And I am definitely going to incorporate a mixture of your 1. 3. 4. & 5.ideas I wasn't aware of thaloron - having never seen that film - but love it as a way to destroy the evidence all the way down to the DNA level. So, a combination of obscuring helmets,thaloron unit linked to a dead-mans-switch, Romulan scorched earth/self destruct policy and Terran leadership's supression of the highly inconvenient truth, seems to fit the bill. I just need to get back to writing the starship combat rules now.............
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