Author Feedback: Steve

[frigidmagi]

Okay Steve good story questions:

1: Can we get a fact sheet or data dump or something? I want to know about the Ferengi, the Gorn, the Klingons, the Breen and everyone. What are the alliances and the such? Does the Ferengi economy rival the Federation economy? Do the Feds have any allies?

2: Is this set in the DS-9 years or TNG years?

3: Are you gonna touch on the Wormhole at all?

4: We gonna see any other canon characters? Are there more inserts lurking about?

5: Are we gonna see other races within the Romulan and Klingon empires?

6: Why didn't the Federation finish off the Cardies in this timeline? Did the other empires jump and say no?

[Steve]

Okay Steve good story questions:

1: Can we get a fact sheet or data dump or something? I want to know about the Ferengi, the Gorn, the Klingons, the Breen and everyone. What are the alliances and the such? Does the Ferengi economy rival the Federation economy? Do the Feds have any allies?

Some of this will be revealed in future stories. Suffice to say the Federation's primary enemy ATM is the Klingon-Ferengi Alliance.

2: Is this set in the DS-9 years or TNG years?

5th Season TNG equivalent.

3: Are you gonna touch on the Wormhole at all?

Eventually.

4: We gonna see any other canon characters? Are there more inserts lurking about?

Again, you'll see.

5: Are we gonna see other races within the Romulan and Klingon empires?

Maybe.

6: Why didn't the Federation finish off the Cardies in this timeline? Did the other empires jump and say no?

The next story, "Conflicts", will briefly refer to the reasons of that conflict's end.

[frigidmagi]

Given the Gorn's neighborhood, wouldn't they look to the Feds as a natural ally?

Does the Fed have alot of minor power allies?

Oh and...

Lt. Commander Kristina Ivanova

You just had to do it didn't ya?

[frigidmagi]

Bloody Hapsburgs! We could use more stories about them and how the Alliance deals with them I think.

[frigidmagi]

An interesting start Steve, I don't suppose you could post up a timeline or something to help us all digest the red head?

For the record in her speech to the cops, there were references to Hindu, Buddhist, Greek myths, Dune, and Stargate. I'm wondering if that travel to a distant galaxy to establish a colony is a Star Wars reference or just an Atlantis one?

[frigidmagi]

A good if question provoking installment. I applaud you as always Steve.

Why is an emperor traveling in a Federation Starship? Doesn't have any of his own?

Why were the resistance groups considered to radical? Also I would think massive pardons for collaborators would led to alot of bitterness and hate on Bajor. Why do it?

I approve of Major Anders and hope to see more appearances as warranted in the future.

[Steve]

A good if question provoking installment. I applaud you as always Steve.

Why is an emperor traveling in a Federation Starship? Doesn't have any of his own?

He's not traveling on Enterprise but is merely coming over while they're en route to see the Enterprise. And thus you'll see the standard banquet and stuff, the red carpet, etc.

Why were the resistance groups considered to radical? Also I would think massive pardons for collaborators would led to alot of bitterness and hate on Bajor. Why do it?

The situation was incredibly complex for the Federation, due to the varying shades of gray in terms of collaboration, and in the end the decision was made to try a "malice toward none, charity toward all" approach. Of course, Kira's not exactly a moderate viewpoint, she probably considers Bajoran storekeepers who sold goods to Cardassians as "collaborators".

And since the Federation encouraged moderate-minded, secular government on Bajor, it probably incensed both religious extremists and political radicals alike, and xenophobes were already opposed to the Fed taking Bajor in.

So you'd have these small but highly vocal groups, like the Kohn Ma or the Circle, that are opposed to the current administration there. And their numbers include old guerrila fighters like Kira who know how to wage terrorist campaigns.

Now, one might ask why a guy like Shakaar, who came off as pretty moderate in canon, was also shunted aside. I'll be explaining more regarding these issues as the story progresses. As you might expect, Kira's going to play a big role in the story and I picked the title based on that.

I approve of Major Anders and hope to see more appearances as warranted in the future.

Oh, I'm sure Major Anders will be seen again.

[frigidmagi]

The situation was incredibly complex for the Federation, I had in mind, due to the varying shades of gray in terms of collaboration, and in the end the decision was made to try a "malice toward none, charity toward all" approach. Of course, Kira's not exactly a moderate viewpoint, she probably considers Bajoran storekeepers who sold goods to Cardassians as a "collaborators".

I can see letting the shopkeepers walk, but the Bajorians who actually helped them enslave other Bajorians should have gotten the long drop with a short rope. At least then they could say there was some justice and satifiy the GP (remember what the French crowds did to collaborators during the liberation in WWII? I'm thinking arrests and trails avoid that).

And since the Federation encouraged moderate-minded, secular government on Bajor, it probably incensed both religious extremists and political radicals alike, and xenophobes were already opposed to the Fed taking Bajor in.

So does the church still own most of the property on Bajor then? It seemed that way to me in the series... Is the Kai still knocking around?

Oh, I'm sure Major Anders will be seen again.

Sweetness.

[Steve]

Well, the most egregious cases - the Lavals and Petains of Bajor - likely did get dealt with. But there are grades of collaboration and not all of it would be the enthusiastic type or those using it to their advantage, but people just trying to survive in the existant order. To more radical members of the Bajoran Resistance even such mild collaborators - collaborators of necessity and circumstance one might say - should be banished, killed, or at least stripped of power. (Exceptions made for those who used their position to help Bajorans, or more importantly the Resistance: Odo as Terok Nor's constable works in that fashion as he was considered "even-handed" and trying to ameliorate Cardassian actions.)

But if you're the Federation, and you're trying to dispense impartial justice and fix the tangled skein of the Occupation while keeping the planet going, you can't afford to just condemn en masse thousands, perhaps millions, of minor officials, clerks, tribal/community leaders, magistrates, etc. who had to work with the Cardassians during the occupation to preserve their communities and make the planetary economy work. So you're going to run a brief inquiry, maybe a tribunal, to weed out those who directly aided in the Cardassian crimes, as well as direct tribunals to punish the highest-rank collaborators, but the rest will be ignored. Think of it, in a way, of Patton refusing to fire every single German administrator in Bavaria because they had held Nazi Party cards, since they had to be Nazis just to hold those positions and he believed they were needed to help manage the American OZ.

But that, of course, has consequences....

[frigidmagi]

A good point, I'm not sure Odo would fall under the list though as he practically had a Bajorian fan club.

[Steve]

Yeah, mentioned that already.

[frigidmagi]

The story is opening pretty well I think. Course I'm wondering if Sisko has as much influence in the Federation as he did in the series? Or more?

If the Alliance just completely replaced Terak Nor, what happened to the shop owners and what not like Garrick and Quark? Were they just moved or bought out and sent on their way (this opens the question of where else can Garrick go, but then I always wondered why he wasn't murdered to prevent him from chatting secrets to the Feds).

Is the crew pretty much the same as in the series?

[Steve]

The story is opening pretty well I think. Course I'm wondering if Sisko has as much influence in the Federation as he did in the series? Or more?

About the same. Lots of old friends in Starfleet and his success in the handling of the delicate political situation regarding Bajor would've given him sufficient prestige. Plus in TGG he still becomes the Emissary of the Prophets, giving the Federation some good press among Bajorans.

If the Alliance just completely replaced Terak Nor, what happened to the shop owners and what not like Garrick and Quark? Were they just moved or bought out and sent on their way (this opens the question of where else can Garrick go, but then I always wondered why he wasn't murdered to prevent him from chatting secrets to the Feds).

Terok Nor was destroyed during the Winter War. The Prefect of Bajor (not Dukat, a Gul Korel IIRC) blew it up after evacuating it of everyone who wasn't a Bajoran (which earned him the hangman's noose at the Khitomer Trial) since he knew he couldn't hold it against the imminent Alliance invasion.

In the months following the war the ADN put up the Bajor Orbital Station to help deal with the load of commercial traffic and, at the time, Alliance military traffic through Bajor. Said station was later put under Federation authority after the Treaty of Oakland and redesignated Deep Space Nine. Quark and Garak resumed their businesses aboard.

Also, the show itself indicated why Garak wasn't just assassinated: he was Enabrin Tain's son and had somehow betrayed him, so in punishment Tain decided to let Garak live ultimately, but only because he was living among Bajorans and thus doomed to living out his life far from home among people who utterly hated him.

Is the crew pretty much the same as in the series?

Yeah. Only major difference is that Kira ended up getting a commission in the Bajoran Marines specifically and that there's another character, which we haven't seen yet, that commanded the Bajoran military's starfighter wing attached to the station. There were also likely a few ADN technical advisors aboard, though the Federation did the lion's share of that work on DS9 proper.

[frigidmagi]

Enabrin Tain's son

And after Tain had died? Not to mention Dukat hated him. I mean... HATED!

[Steve]

Tain going MIA in the mid-3rd Season story with the Obsidian Order and Tal'Shiar attacking the Founders involved the Order being destroyed, at which point there was nobody in Cardassian authority who would really want Garak dead save Dukat, who had far more important things to do.

Then "Way of the Warrior" happened and Garak fed information on the imminent Klingon attack to Dukat culminating with the two fighting side-by-side to protect the Detepa Council from the Klingon invasion of DS9. At that point Dukat's historical hatred for Garak was tempered by the grudging realization that they'd worked together and that, in fact, Garak hadn't shot him in the back when he had the opening (As Garak himself would later ruminate on in "Call to Arms" with Dukat's Dominion fleet heading to DS9, replying to Odo's remark on Garak regretting it with, "When this day is over, we're all going to regret it").

Eventually that enmity did resurface, especially sharp given that Dukat's half-Bajoran daughter was growing close to Garak, but it did so in the two-parter where Dukat joined the Dominion, at which time he had more important things to do. Note that the prospect of Dukat killing him is why Garak boards Defiant when DS9 is evacuated in the end of Season 5.

[frigidmagi]

That reminds me, what ever did happen to Dukat's poor daughter?

[Steve]

I haven't decided on her fate in TGG. In DS9 Damar killed her as the Cardie-Dominion forces evacuated Deep Space Nine after hearing her admit to Dukat that she helped Kira and the others escape the holding cell to sabotage DS9's weapons.

Damar shooting Ziyal as she was with her father is what helped send Dukat into madness and his eventual dalliance with the Pah'wraith.

[frigidmagi]

Yes, I know I saw the series Steve. I am asking specifically about TGG.

[Steve]

Yes, I know I saw the series Steve. I am asking specifically about TGG.

Oh, duh. Silly me. DUR.

[frigidmagi]

Good fight, although I missed where the general showed up?

[Steve]

Good fight, although I missed where the general showed up?

" For the attacking force came a further complication. Just as a couple of the Jem'Hadar ships to have evaded Worf's covering attacks pulled to within easy weapon's range of the Defiant, they came under fire from the decloaking Rotarran, General Martok's command ship joining the battle."

Not quite the dramatic entrance Martok's ship made in the canon fight, but that's because DS9's superior firepower mauled the force sent after Defiant.

[frigidmagi]

Daniel's much nicer about the whole thing then I am. My first reply to the ancients would have been a suggestion that they preform some anatomically impossible acts with a cannon. Mainly because whatever Meavh's Legions of Sins might be, she didn't leave me ass out and naked when someone was trying to destroy all fucking life in the Galaxy!

I've never really been a fan of the ancients and this only confirms how short signted and self involved they are to me. I mean fuck their explanation is one long string of "we did really bad shit and never put any real effort into fixing it... But's it's really everyone else's fault and she's meaner!" Fuck'em.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A picture of Maedhv's No-Ship the Xihuatlatl with an ISD by it for scaling purposes. The ship was Maedhv's flagship at the Battle of Terra in Golden Lanka and is somewhat showing her age despite constant repair efforts by the nanite maintenance and repair systems and swarms of maintenance bots, due to the lack of certain parts they can't easily manufacture new aboard the vessel. Broadly it has about one-third of the firepower of Nirrti's flagship the Lord Krishna in Golden Lanka, and was the largest Asvin design, but the Asvins favoured more, smaller ships and so built rather more of them than the Sarasavsati did of their Great Ships.

[frigidmagi]

A 20 kilometer long ship!?!

Geeze Duchess you don't skimp when it comes to the ride do you?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A 20 kilometer long ship!?!

Geeze Duchess you don't skimp when it comes to the ride do you?

Consider where it was stored for millions of years, too:

In the mantle of a planet. It was floating like a submarine in an ocean of molten rock. For millions of years. Xihuatlatl is intended to be, and is, a terrifiyng manifestation of the sheer power and scope of the Asvin and Sarasavsati Empires. And to escape her firey tomb, her guns were quite capable in the space of about a minute of blasting through the crust, though I grant that the Naquadah enhanced missiles from the Prometheus had already weakened it. It's telling when the idea of hiding a ship is to blast through so much of the crust as to create an artificial Deccan Trapps and then use the lava sea to dive into the mantle and let the crush re-harden over the ship.