The Foundry Roundtable Episode 90: Yesterday's Roundtable

drogyn1701

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman and Greendragoon with special guests HippieJohn.

Watch on YouTube

Listen on Soundcloud

Direct Download

Subscribe on iTunes

-- FOUNDRY NEWS

---

Foundry editor to reopen

-- REVIEWS

---

"Exitus Acta Probat" Part One by Lazharra
Starship Experimentation by Bazag

-- DISCUSSION

---

A review of 2 years of Foundry Roundtable
Cryptic using Foundry characters


We livestream on Wednesdays at 7:30PM EST/4:30PM PST on twitch.tv/thefoundryroundtable with episodes launching the following Monday.

If you have a topic you'd like to see us cover, have a mission you want promoted, or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

bazag

One podcast that you guys forgot to mention was "BroadcastUGC"

thay8472

What about a console or something in the social hubs for the top 3 list missions that start in the hubs?...

I.E.

A console in the shuttle bay on ESD

Console in one of the holodecks at SFA

Science Console on Defera

etc...

thegreendragoon1

thay8472 wrote: »

What about a console or something in the social hubs for the top 3 list missions that start in the hubs?...

I.E.

A console in the shuttle bay on ESD

Console in one of the holodecks at SFA

Science Console on Defera

etc...

I'd be partial to some sort of assignment officer.

thay8472

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

I'd be partial to some sort of assignment officer.

Yeah, that could work too.

drogyn1701

bazag wrote: »

One podcast that you guys forgot to mention was "BroadcastUGC"

Ah but that one is less a podcast and more an "insane asylum" lol

paxfederatica

Re: State of the RSE post-"Cutting the Cord"
I've posted my view of the current state of the Star Empire, or what's left of it anyway, here. It is, natch, heavily based upon my own missions. (The TL/DR version: Think Russia in the first decade or so after the collapse of the USSR, complete with the equivalent of loose and/or missing nukes.) I meant it mainly for drogyn1701, but I suppose Taco might be interested too.

Re: Jumping puzzles
I do believe the unknown-title mission you were referring to is "Amicus Apparatus" by kortaag - one of the few Foundry missions I gave up on after getting tired of trying to complete the course only to fall and have to start over... and over... and over again. A shame, because visually that is one of the most jaw-dropping ground maps I've ever seen.

Re: Foundry NPCs used by Cryptic
Of my various NPC creations, Black Snow and Admiral Zashek strike me as the ones most apt for adoption by Cryptic. The former is the closest thing the Feds have to James Bond; the latter fills a key position in the Romulan Republic (the head of Republic Intelligence) that Cryptic has yet to address. Indeed, drogyn1701 has already said he'd like to use Zashek in his overhauled "Dissent" series.

bazag

drogyn1701 wrote: »

Ah but that one is less a podcast and more an "insane asylum" lol

I can't really argue with that.

starswordc

As far as the current status of the RSE, worffan and I wrote a piece for one of the literary challenges starring our Roms. Basically the Empire fragmented again a la the immediate post-Hobus years in several different ways:

• The Hobus revelations prompt many of the Empire's border planets to break away from the Empire in protest (some turn independent, others apply for Federation or Republic membership). This jibes with the Rihannsu novels Cryptic heavily borrowed from for its Romulans: the Grand Fleet spends a lot of its time suppressing revolts, and the Free Rihannsu rebellion led by Ael and Kirk starts in the fringe colonies.
• Civil war in the Empire's core due to decapitation of a by-now-heavily centralized dictatorship. Recall the mentions in the Path to 2409 of Sela taking power in a military coup (using both Grand Fleet regulars and her Hirogen allies), and then declaring herself Empress and decreeing that the Senate would now serve at her pleasure. An absolute monarchy doesn't tend to do well if the monarch is suddenly removed with no heir apparent.
  Worffan's and my fic Saith Daehpahr hrrafv Llaiirrevha (literally Peace Forged in Fire) posits that General Velal, who was fleet commander under Taris, then backed Sela*, comes out on top of the resulting power struggle thanks to having the backing of most of the military, is named Praetor, and then reaches out to the Republic for a peace deal because he's got enough problems without needing to fight plot-armored player characters.
• With the Tal Shiar's role in Hobus revealed, they break ranks with the Empire altogether to avoid loss of power and become yet another faction in the ongoing civil war. They want to become the de jure rulers of the Empire.
  The Grand Fleet, however, has always had an interservice rivalry with them. Not the derision the CIA and the other alphabet soup agencies get from the US military (e.g. "Central Intelligence Agency is an oxymoron), but the fear and hatred the Wehrmacht had for the SS (ref: TNG: "Face of the Enemy"). Not only do they kind of inherently question a warrior's loyalty (impugning their honor and potentially making them lose face, a mnhei'sahe no-no), but they render basically irrelevant the Fleet's own intelligence branch the Tal Diann (the direct Romulan counterpart to Starfleet Intelligence).
  So in SDHL we wrote early on that the Tal Shiar were already in open warfare against the Grand Fleet loyal to Velal, and try to sabotage the Empire-Republic peace talks. SPOILER: Naturally this backfires rather badly and ends up driving the two powers into a full-on alliance.

* I theorize because he saw her as the lesser of two evils at the time, and has been kicking himself for the last decade.

paxfederatica

starswordc wrote: »

The Grand Fleet, however, has always had an interservice rivalry with them. Not the derision the CIA and the other alphabet soup agencies get from the US military (e.g. "Central Intelligence Agency is an oxymoron), but the fear and hatred the Wehrmacht had for the SS (ref: TNG: "Face of the Enemy"). Not only do they kind of inherently question a warrior's loyalty (impugning their honor and potentially making them lose face, a mnhei'sahe no-no), but they render basically irrelevant the Fleet's own intelligence branch the Tal Diann (the direct Romulan counterpart to Starfleet Intelligence).

This raises a significant question: What, exactly, is the proper name for the RSE's regular military? I presume the "Grand Fleet" name comes from the referenced Rihannsu novels, but they're not canon. In one RomRep storyline mission, Cryptic refers to them as the "Star Navy". I've also seen them called the "Imperial Navy" (my preferred terminology) and the "Imperial Armada", but none of those are canon either. We know from canon that the Federation's military is called Starfleet and the Klingon Empire's is called the Klingon Defense Force, but I don't think there's ever been a canon-established name for the Romulan Star Empire's military.

Anyway, I concur with the point likening their military to the Wehrmacht and the Tal Shiar to the SS. I raised a similar point in the linked document, though from "Face of the Enemy" the Tal Shiar also seem to function as the RSE's equivalent of the Gestapo. (At one point Toreth talks about the Tal Shiar dragging away her father in the middle of the night, which strikes me as more Gestapo territory than SS. The dialogue I wrote for Tiaru Jarok on the post-credits map of "Valley of the Shadow III" also suggests a secret-police function for the Tal Shiar.)

starswordc

paxfederatica wrote: »

This raises a significant question: What, exactly, is the proper name for the RSE's regular military? I presume the "Grand Fleet" name comes from the referenced Rihannsu novels, but they're not canon. In one RomRep storyline mission, Cryptic refers to them as the "Star Navy". I've also seen them called the "Imperial Navy" (my preferred terminology) and the "Imperial Armada", but none of those are canon either. We know from canon that the Federation's military is called Starfleet and the Klingon Empire's is called the Klingon Defense Force, but I don't think there's ever been a canon-established name for the Romulan Star Empire's military.

There isn't a canon term; Memory Alpha just calls it the "Romulan military". Memory Beta's article uses "Romulan Star Navy" for its title, but that's from FASA's RPG. It also lists "Romulan Imperial Fleet" from the reference book Starship Spotter and "Grand Fleet" from the Rihannsu novels.

Also Rihannsu fanon uses the Romulan term Galae s'Shiar Rihan, which directly translates to "Romulan Imperial Fleet". Factiod you might like: the word "galae" ("fleet") apparently refers to massed airpower rather than seagoing ships, indicating that the Romulan space fleet draws its cultural heritage from the Air Force instead of the Navy.