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Request/Idea: Battle of Procyon V Temporal Cold War Variant Ships
leviathan99
Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
Okay... So I've discussed this in relation to lockboxes but I wanted to gauge people's feelings about these ships, as we look at rumors of "time" oriented ships and discussions of what future ships in the vein of the mirror ships might emerge.
On Enterprise, we saw three familiar ships at the 26th century Battle of Procyon V, serving in the fleet that was engaged in the Temporal Cold War.
They were a Prometheus, a Nova, and a Vor'cha, all of which were Federation ships as the Klingons were members in that timeline. They were seen at a distance. We didn't get a good look at their hull or markings. I think they would make for fun variants in the vein of the mirror ships for use in STO, particularly if you play with the idea that 100+ year old ships likely would have served different functions in the future fleet.
First of all, I'd look at a special hull for these three ships and optional U.T.S. registry prefix. Like with the mirror ships, owning the hull would unlock it for all ships of the same model. Only one ship has been confirmed by CBS to have the UTS prefix (the Aeon) but I think it makes sense for ships serving in the Temporal Cold War. (The Vor'cha would be for Klingon players but would have the U.T.S. prefix option, reflecting its role as a future Federation Klingon ship.)
Now, these would not be MIRRORED (they're not mirror universe ships) but would instead fill out a different functionality.
Ideas for stats are as follows:
Temporal Cold War Advanced Escort (Fed)
Lt. Tactical, Cmdr. Tactical, Ensign Engineer, Lt. Cmdr Engineer, Lt. Science
Weapons: 4/3
Consoles: 4/2/3
Standard Shields: 3,846
Standard Hull: 32,000
Crew: 150
Turnrate: 15
+10 to Weapon Power, +10 to Engine Power
(The idea is that this rounds out the Advanced Escort options with the more Science and Tactical focused versions.)
Temporal Cold War Science Retrofit (Fed)
Ensign Tactical, Lt. Tactical, Lt. Cmdr Tactical, Lt. Engineer, Cmdr Science
Weapons: 3/3
Subsystem Targeting, Sensor Analysis
Consoles: 3/2/4
Standard Shields: 4,772
Standard Hull: 25,900
Crew: 100
Turnrate: 14
+10 to Weapon Power, +10 to Auxiliary Power
Temporal Cold War Vor'cha Retrofit (KDF) (Note: May use U.T.S. or I.K.S. registry. Made distinct from standard Vor'cha for gameplay purposes by using Fed hull textures.)
Lt. Tactical, Ensign Engineer, Lt. Engineer, Lt Cmdr Science, Cmdr Science
Weapons: 3/3
Subsystem Targeting, Sensor Analysis
Consoles: 2/4/3
Standard Shields: 5,500
Standard Hull: 34,000
Crew: 1,500
Turnrate: 12
+10 to Engine Power, +10 to Auxiliary Power
Cloak
(Here, I tried a number of things but ultimately decided that this is the perfect place for a true Klingon Science vessel, both because there's not a pure one and because it makes sense coming from a future Empire that is a Federation member. It reflects something you wouldn't ordinarily see. It keeps a number of Vor'cha defining traits but is clearly hybridized, a cruiser-y Science vessel. It feels weird for Klingons but I figure this is the perfect place to add a ship that WOULD feel weird for Klingons.)
On Enterprise, we saw three familiar ships at the 26th century Battle of Procyon V, serving in the fleet that was engaged in the Temporal Cold War.
They were a Prometheus, a Nova, and a Vor'cha, all of which were Federation ships as the Klingons were members in that timeline. They were seen at a distance. We didn't get a good look at their hull or markings. I think they would make for fun variants in the vein of the mirror ships for use in STO, particularly if you play with the idea that 100+ year old ships likely would have served different functions in the future fleet.
First of all, I'd look at a special hull for these three ships and optional U.T.S. registry prefix. Like with the mirror ships, owning the hull would unlock it for all ships of the same model. Only one ship has been confirmed by CBS to have the UTS prefix (the Aeon) but I think it makes sense for ships serving in the Temporal Cold War. (The Vor'cha would be for Klingon players but would have the U.T.S. prefix option, reflecting its role as a future Federation Klingon ship.)
Now, these would not be MIRRORED (they're not mirror universe ships) but would instead fill out a different functionality.
Ideas for stats are as follows:
Temporal Cold War Advanced Escort (Fed)
Lt. Tactical, Cmdr. Tactical, Ensign Engineer, Lt. Cmdr Engineer, Lt. Science
Weapons: 4/3
Consoles: 4/2/3
Standard Shields: 3,846
Standard Hull: 32,000
Crew: 150
Turnrate: 15
+10 to Weapon Power, +10 to Engine Power
(The idea is that this rounds out the Advanced Escort options with the more Science and Tactical focused versions.)
Temporal Cold War Science Retrofit (Fed)
Ensign Tactical, Lt. Tactical, Lt. Cmdr Tactical, Lt. Engineer, Cmdr Science
Weapons: 3/3
Subsystem Targeting, Sensor Analysis
Consoles: 3/2/4
Standard Shields: 4,772
Standard Hull: 25,900
Crew: 100
Turnrate: 14
+10 to Weapon Power, +10 to Auxiliary Power
Temporal Cold War Vor'cha Retrofit (KDF) (Note: May use U.T.S. or I.K.S. registry. Made distinct from standard Vor'cha for gameplay purposes by using Fed hull textures.)
Lt. Tactical, Ensign Engineer, Lt. Engineer, Lt Cmdr Science, Cmdr Science
Weapons: 3/3
Subsystem Targeting, Sensor Analysis
Consoles: 2/4/3
Standard Shields: 5,500
Standard Hull: 34,000
Crew: 1,500
Turnrate: 12
+10 to Engine Power, +10 to Auxiliary Power
Cloak
(Here, I tried a number of things but ultimately decided that this is the perfect place for a true Klingon Science vessel, both because there's not a pure one and because it makes sense coming from a future Empire that is a Federation member. It reflects something you wouldn't ordinarily see. It keeps a number of Vor'cha defining traits but is clearly hybridized, a cruiser-y Science vessel. It feels weird for Klingons but I figure this is the perfect place to add a ship that WOULD feel weird for Klingons.)
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I yawn because all of it (the Temporal Cold War) can be summed up via the Voyager ep. "A Year of Hell" and the TNG ep. "Taperstry" -- aka mucking around with the past in the hopes of getting a better future as a result .
Both eps lead the viewers to the conclusion that that was a very bad idea .
Too bad the creators of Enterprise didn't adhere to the lesson they themselves sought to teach via those episodes , and instead were overcome by "those who fight to save the timeline will be seen as OMG HEROES , so let's take the idea of a Time Police and blow it all out of proportion" syndrome .
Plus I just do not believe in the concept of a "Cold War" as far as time is concerned .
If you know that "the other side" has the power to wipe you out (either via trying to manipulate the past a-la Enterprise or via directly effecting it a-la Year of Hell) -- you will not enter into a Cold War with them , but rather you would seek to eliminate such a foe via the most direct , and most uncompromising means possible .
This IMHO simply does not work on the same principle and on the same level as the "let's get other countries to do our dirty work for us (while espousing our ideology) " that the Cold War between the USSR and the USA worked on .
This goes way beyond it .
And thus requires a far more radical and immediate solution .
You simply can't live with a "well maybe they'll change our past and maybe they won't" style of Cold War .
And let's be honest ... , Enterprise had 3 seasons to do something with this concept ... , and as far as I'm concerned , they failed , and gone nowhere with it .
At least Manny Coto was gracious enough to tie up that "loose end" at the beginning of S.4 .
So to make it clear , I do not see all the efforts of all our beloved captains go to waste in a future where a Temporal Cold War exists .
I've lived through one Cold War and I think it sucked on a multitude of levels ... and I'm not in favor of all my Captains & Crews efforts to have gone into a future that came to the suckage of a Temporal Cold War.
ones we may see are ships like the time ship relativity and the smaller one man shuttle timeship, the borg can time travel and the enterprise-E followed in the wake of the temporal opening, they themselves could not generate this effect until the borg were eliminated on the ship, probably left instructions behind. however starfleet in the 24th would never allow it. Voyager had a few encounters like TOS and one on ds9 but in each case the ships in question were victims of chance and were not the result of a deliberate time travel. there are the krenim, but i tend to discount it since that timeship never existed in the prime universe when the timeline was restored to that sector of space. there is shuttle craft 6 with the klingon distortion device attached, but this was a one off by janeway to divert voyager from another 15 year journey.
We don't know the details on the other ships there. But I think it would be cool if they were treated as official particpants in the Temporal Cold War and made to be variants like the mirror ships, which I think were a nice idea.
It's not so much that it would be the Temporal Cold War plot coming to STO directly so much as it would be ships from the TCW showing up alongside the time ships as "artifacts" of an aborted timeline. Think of them like the jet engine in Donnie Darko.
Something like:
"The origins of these ships appears to be an alternate timeline in which a Temporal Cold War took place. Temporal Investigations theorizes that the ships' temporal shields managed to protect them from alterations to the timeline but burned themselves out in the process and were ineffective in preventing the crew of those ships from being altered or erased. The status of the crew of these ships remains unknown but the ships themselves appear to be artifacts of a temporal front in a war that now may never happen."
Hehe, maybe make it crossfaction just because no one has any idea who built the one that was at Procyon V. (Species 116 built the original prototype)
My character Tsin'xing
so the UTS prefix would not be appropriate based solely on that ship class's participation in the battle.
actually, DTI: Watching the clock answers a lot of these problems.
basically, during the 25th century every major alpha and beta quadrant nation was protected by a network of satellites which prevented time travel. no one knew who built them (and the tech involved looked to be a multi-racial effort), but they prevented time travel from the 25th century onward, except for a few specific allowed forms. those groups that didn't have a network already at the time of discovery quickly copied it for defense.
this is why all the factions in the TCW were from the 25th century or later. after the 25th century, it is impossible to use time travel to destroy an enemy faction.
the temporal cold war's main fronts were being fought over groups who dislike the limits this network create, and their efforts at changing distant history of various races in order to alter or eliminate the network before it can be built. since no one knows who built it though, its all guess work.
the secondary battles are groups like "shadow guy" who helped the suliban, who was using genetic manipulation of the past via augments in order to force changes in federation society and ultimately create the conditions for his own existence, or the sphere builders who lost a war in the 26th century and turned to time travel to try and retroactively undo the results of that war.
the novel also adds in groups like Aegis (the organization Gary 7 was part of) and at least 3 different federation time agencies (the department of temporal investigations, the department of temporal enforcement that replaced it, and the temporal assessment group that in turn replaced the DTE..), and DTI equivilents for the klingons, tholians, romulans, cardassians, etc...
the whole reason that things are so uncertain as to what will happen when these groups change the past is the fact that everyone wants to keep their own possible timelines relavent. the federation is trying t ensure that the actions of their enemies don't unravel the federation, or the temporal defense network. their enemies are doing much the same themselves. the minor players are trying to alters events to acheive their own ends without wiping themselves out in the process (not always successful). and you have groups trying to undo specific parts of their histories or to gain an advatage retroactively over contemporary enemies.
and all of these are going on at the same time. if it was just one group trying to change history, prediction would be simplier, but you have dozens of groups, some of which are part of the same faction technically, but from different timeframes, all stepping on each others toes and altering things and unaltering things.. there are so many variables going on that it is impossible to predict what will happen.
and there is also the mechanics of timetravel. watching the clock introduces the idea that you can have multiple timelines superimposed.. 'quantum timelines' if you will. so each change creates a different thread of a given timeline. only one can dominate, and that is the one with the highest entropy. since time travel from the future to the past injects entropy at the destination time, the one that tends to come out on top is the one which had the most timetravellers effecting it. but specific events between the many timelines tend to vary after the timelines collapse, so the specific changes will always lead to the final result, but may not be exactly the ones made. it takes a huge change by a time traveller no entangled with their original time to create an alternate timeline that won't just merge back into the originals at some later point.
so with so many different timetravellers trying to change or correct things, and combined with micromanagement of specific events by groups like the DTE (like we saw in voyager, where seven of nine was looped through the same mission over and over until it went right), the timeline is complete chaos except in hindsight from far enough later.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
Standard thinking is that Starfleet cribbed the design from Voyager's logs.
But if I ever were to expand that out, I might play with the idea that either the Borg built it (after all, they have the FULL BLUEPRINTS stored in the Collective) or that Arturis' race was freed from the Collective, built those ships, and used them alongside the Federation in the TCW.
Especially with so many Liberated Borg in STO, why not have "lost" species like Arturis' people or more El Aureans emerge?
HECK! Tolian Soren's children could be out there!
We don't actually know where they came from or who they were with. It was a TEMPORAL war.
It is somewhat interesting in the sense that AGT/Timeless/Endgame/The Visitor could all be the same future and that their DTI might have made minor "edits" to keep their overall loose timeline (or cluster of timelines) on track in spite of Picard, Admiral Janeway, Kim, and Sisko's foreknowledge. It resonates in a way with the final shot of DS9 being a recreation of a shot from The Visitor.
And it would seem they mostly succeeded in STO given that all of those future's technology, relationships, and events came to pass.
It also matches my idea of why the Mirror Universe has managed to evolve so closely parallel to the regular universe and even how the Terrans were able to rebuild in STO: I think they have "Guardian Angels" of a sort in the form of a future Department of Temporal Investigations trying to cultivate their history on a similar track to the Prime Universe's. (Also why the J.J. verse is so similar.) Ie. there are future DTI agents making sure that the right people meet and that certain important historical events happen in all universes, trying to make sure that at least one of the universes can be guided to a point where they can do a bit of snipping and sewing and make it their own past.
If you really did come up with a great idea your primary goal should be to sell it, less is more, so short and easy and cheap to implement.
Possibly even something that explains itself in the topic title.
Like "fleet lockboxes!" period.
But to be cynical I think the developers have their own plans and ideas and I very much doubt they'd listen no matter how great an idea it might be. Unless it was over the top easy to do and a huge tied turner it's an outside chance.
Not to take away from your long hours of reflection over abstract concepts, it has it's own merits
Reflector behavior?
Well, in the lockbox thread, I did kinda just "sell it." But I figured if I was approaching the community with it, the Trek deep approach was the way to go.
a lot of it is explained through quantum entanglement. that if the time travel method leaves the traveler entangled with both the time they started at and the time they arrived in, the two timelines can't split and create an independent universe, and you get two (or more) competing timelines where only one can manifest.
if the travel doesn't entangle (the example used in the novel is a hypothetical based on the JJ Abrams trek film), the changes split off a completely new timeline.
since nearly all controllable time travel uses entanglement (according to the novel), nearly all timetravel has the risk of creating a timeline that can overwrite what already exists.
actually, in the novel all the "temporal accord members" (a treaty signed in the 25th century after time travel became easily controllable) avoid meddling too much with the stretch of time between the romulan war and the 2390's where (in the novels) the borg were defeated. because every accord member (in the novels) comes from the timeline where the borg have been defeated, and the borgs origins stem from a timetravel related event during the romulan war, and their defeat came in the late 24th century. any changes that would prevent either results in timelines too different from their own.
likewise the future federation kept the 24th century DTI from punishing yoyager for admiral janeway's actions in endgame, because all the accord nations came from a timeline where voyager came back early.
there is a degree of 'self correcting' to timelines as described in the novel too. when travellers go back, they entangle past and future. these entanglements mean that even if the past is changed, it will often end up producing a similar 'future' anyway. this is why even lower entropy events can end up manifesting even when events from a higher entropy timeline should override it.
so in effect, 'history' and 'the future' are a cats cradle of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff..
from the version of events in the novel, they failed, because the borg are still there. but the STO timeline could just be a timeline where the temporal defense net, the temporal accords, and the defeat of the borg have been delayed, not occurring in the late 24th but instead being in the late 25th or early 26th instead. thus all the time agencies in the 29th and 31st century that we saw in VOY and ENT could still exist, just slighlty differently because the 3rd klingon/fed war and the undine stuff have delayed the events that caused the borg war of the novels and the discovery of the Caeliar, who played a pivotal role, along with the USS Enterprise-E, the USS Vesta, and the USS Titan, in the final elimination of the borg, but not until after an armada of borg cubes destroy many worlds in the alpha and beta quadrants
it seems likely that the STO story is heading towards a period where the discovery of the iconians will fill much of the same historical roles (of causing devastation but also causing some interesting political and technological discoveries), and as long as the borg are no longer a threat by the end of it, you could drop the 29th and 31st century federation we've seen in VOY and ENT in to things without much trouble, using Watching the clocks explanation of how you can have 'existing futures' arising from altered pasts.
the novel doesn't address the mirror universe, aside from several characters expressing the opinion that it represents a natural branching of timelines that 'somehow was linked to theirs', and that the amount of similarity would gradually decrease as the differences and changes built up and made the conditions increasingly different. since the characters in the novel didn't know about the USS Defiant arriving in the mirror universe, it was left to us the readers to fill in that blank. presumably the cross over of kirk and crew reinforced that link, and the crossovers in DS9 just made it stronger, as well as adding new technology.
the JJ-verse isn't addressed at all (the time period of the novel is mostly before those events started in the prime timeline), though the implications are that the J-verse will end up similar to the mirror universe, with a number of the same people, but with a very different history and personalities.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/learnstyle.htm
ps. I didn't know you made a lock box thread, it was just a random example
/edit
pps.
"Reflectors:
Reflectors like to view the situation from different perspectives. They like to collect data, review and think carefully before coming to any conclusions. They enjoy observing others and will listen to their views before offering their own.
Reflectors learn best when:
observing individuals or groups at work
reviewing what has happened and thinking about what they have learned
producing analyses and reports doing tasks without tight deadlines
Reflectors learn less when:
acting as leader or role-playing in front of others
doing things with no time to prepare
being thrown in at the deep end
being rushed or worried by deadlines
"
personally i think it's over used in trek in general. of all the timetravel episodes i've seen (and i've seen most), the only one i actually liked was DS9:Trials and Tribble-ations. though TNG:Times Arrow parts 1 and 2 were actually quite good as well.
the stuff in voyager frankly sucked, as did enterprise, and the Original Series just seemed uninspired (though it was probably considered good for its time). the other DS9 time travel plots just seemed a bit lackluster. they could have been pretty good, but they tended to fall flat in my opinion. not bad episodes (like the VOY and ENT ones), but not really good either.
i hope that STO doesn't end up going too heavily into the whole 'time war' stuff or relying on time travel as an handwave excuse to fit anachronistic elements into the setting.
"Tiny little dots far, far away. Our eyes drawn to the twinkle of a hundred billion galaxies. Giving life to illusion, illusion to life. Something upon which to hang our hopes."
- Tobias LeConte - Dream Weaver - seaQuest DSV
It'd be easier to find say a wild west set or w/e, than it is to create something entirely new.
You don't have to develop anything, not even think about it because it's already layed out for you
It's low budgets in all the ways you can think of.
Any time travel related episode or movie is on autoskip just like roddenberry's wife playing lwaxana troi, goooodbye
Players warp into the battle with the Enterprise-J floating in the middle of the map like B'Ger with the battle raging around it and providing fire support/buffs/debuffs.
Players would need to complete various goals and defend the Ent-J to win the battle.
This easily explains the presense of 'outdated' ships in a future battle and prevents the Ent-J being mobile, something the Devs have said would be a problem for the engine.
Ah... but we do not have that limitation now do we?
I'd say it's probably more relevant.
Took the quiz.
Activist mainly. Then Reflector and Theorist. Scored very low on pragmatist.
I guess my thought is, those are three ships that people would enjoy more variants of but it's important for any variants to be DIFFERENT. And they happen to be three ships in the Temporal Cold War, which justifies them being different.
And a time travel lockbox needs three ships that use virtually no new art but which are mechanically different to parallel the Mirror Universe ships. And the Mirror Universe is deeply connected with Tholians, so you'd want three time travel ships that use standard ship art. And lo and behoid, there happen to be three.
Valid point. Does not change the fact that I am sick beyond all sane reason of the time travel plot device.