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Topic: How does the New Alliance win the war? (Read 10587 times)
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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I don't believe that after the destruction of the Sa-Matra and the "rebirth" of the Dnyarri, there would be any instant war epilogue following the Hierarchy - Empire of Zelnick conflict (at least for the Kzer-Za). Seeing how the tides of war have changed, but not in their favor, it's much more likely to assume that the UQ (as veteran warriors and tacticians they are) would instantly warp the hell out from this quadrant some 1000 parsecs coreward to the space that they already conquered...then they would lick their wounds in some distant solar systems orbiting around the forgotten moons of lost and devastated worlds hidden in the vast asteroid fields escaping from the hungry eyes and tentacles of various space beasts and star dragons...after some time, when they've rebuild their power a bit, they would probably send a hyperspace call to the battle thralls left in those regions of space, a call they must answer...and answer it they will; after many years (decades?) in which they were hanging still and silent from their Dreadnaught ceilings, plotting and waiting in the shadows of the dark suns, waiting for the right time to come, a decision will be made...and their now vast and combined battle thrall fleet would issue an order to return to the space they were so easily repelled from and finish what they started so long ago...This epilogue would be similar to what happened to the Kohr-Ar after the first doctrinal war, but how the story would go from there it is impossible to tell. What would happen to Kohr-Ar themselves, I cannot speculate  being more warlike than the Kzer-za, they would probably fight until the last of their Marauders was disintegrated to stardust by all powerful terrawatt lasers. Then the remnants of their race would be either slaveshielded (after appropriate trial by the Empire of course) on some remote planet and safeguarded by Chmmr Avatar contigent or the Empire wouldn't bother at all and slaughtered the bastards for their crimes against life...or not? As for the Empire, with the absence of an immediate threat it would probably just rebuild and after some time prosper. It is safe to assume that as the time passes they would lower their guard feeling that there is no one left to challenge their joined supremacy...in that way making an excellent prelude for SCIII  Unless a conflict between the allies erupts before the UQ return of course. God knows what would happen then my 2 cents 
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« Last Edit: February 22, 2009, 12:16:53 pm by Son_of_Antares »
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Lukipela
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The Ancient One
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A few points I'd like to add to this excellent topic
Human starships
While the ending credits do mention ships rising from Earth, was there actually any mention of them being warships/cruisers? I can't remember if there was an actual image of cruisers but I don't think so. It would probably be easier for humanity to construct some simple transports, and they might even be permitted this since the Starbase apparently gets its crew exchanged now and then. It might be found more efficient for the Kzer-Za to let the humans fly their own recurits up rather than to go down and transport them up. Those transports would probably have a fairly small travel capacity. In addition, the Commander mentions something about one of the crewmembers hiding the crusier blueprints after they were thought destroyed which would imply that Earth can't construct cruisers. I suppose someone on Earth could've done the same though.
Chmmr fleet
There are quite a few threads on what the Chmmr were going to look like floating around in the archives. It's stated in-game that the process isn't complete, so obviously what we see isn't the final form. This is also evidenced by the fact that the Chmmr knew about the Sa-Matra and were going to counter it, but their ships are pretty worthless against it. The theories tend to range from much better Avatars (with more ZapSats, longer lasers and so forth) to converting the entire planet to a large battlestation (and possibly a singular hivemind) that would dominate the Ur-Quan. Personally I think the latter (without the hivemind) coupled with Avatar producing facilities makes sense. That'd give you a large baseship and smaller fighters where it can't be used. If that was the case, then maybe the Chmmr had only gotten as far as constructing the support ship factories but not far enough to have converted the entire planet. Seeing as their entire planet seems to be crystal, it might be easier to hide things under the surface there than on Earth.
Possible Kzer-Za Battle Thralls
There's been a lot of discussion about this in the past. One of the points brought forth is that if there are other Battle Thralls, there must be Kzer-Za left behind to guard them. Look at what happened in our sector, in just a few years discipline broke. If this is the case, then the Kzer-Za can probably call up a lot of reinforcements. This seems counterintuitive though, surely all Kzer-Za would have joined the Doctrinal Conflict? Another possible explanation would be that the Kzer-Za slave shield their Thralls before leaving a Quadrant. We don't know how the Thrall contract looks, it might be a temporary state. This could be supported by the fact that the Kzer-Za don't seem to have brought any "foreign" Thralls to our sector. In this case they've got no reinforcements coming.
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What's up doc?
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Lukipela
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Just watched the end sequence again. It says both Ur-Quan were defeated by the Chmmr and allied forces in "more than three weeks" (at most), and only then was Earth freed (a detail I'd forgotten  ). So whether Earth built Cruisers or not is irrelevant to this discussion really... And indeed, it didn't say the ships were Cruisers or show any of them.
Yay! My memory works.
Anyway, destroying both UQ fleets in only three weeks means the Chmmr must've had an insanely huge fleet hidden in there already.
Yeah, didn't remember that. Sounds like some amazing production facilities combined with disarray in the Ur-Quan ranks.
Possible Kzer-Za Battle Thralls
Seeing as the Battle Thralls in our region of space were able to do pretty much whatever nonsense they wanted, it's possible that the Kzer-Za simply left all Battle Thralls everywhere unattended, planning to get back to them after dealing with their brethern, the true threat.
It seems terribly inefficient and stupid to go to the trouble of conquering loads of races and retrofiting their ships with more advanced technology, only to leave them unsupervised, armed, able to contact each other and knowing that you are out there. It's liek arming your enemies and telling them "We'll be back in a thousand years, remember to behave and not stage any coups or build up any giant armies"
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Megagun
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uofLSzn8o84 at around 2:50
The "Chmmr battle-planet" idea seems terribly inefficient, too: it'd take a lot of energy to move the damned thing, and even then the Kzer-Za could just ignore the battleplanet and go somewhere else. A plethora of Sa-Matra sized battleships would be much, much more efficient.
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Draxas
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I've never seen any of the 3D0 movies before, and that one lends a particularly interesting spin on things. At the very least, it does with the volume off...
It looks like the Cruisers sent up from the surface had no intention of making contact with anyone, but were instead "blockade runners," a do-or-die attempt to send ships up from the surface in every direction and into hyperspace as soon as the shield was dropped. Presumably they were sent to try to slip past the Hierarchy and found new colonies wherever they could, in order to contact the Alliance once more and resist the Ur-Quan in whatever capacity they could. Considering the Ur-Quan's likely response to this (not only destroying the escaping ships, but exacting punishment on those still on Earth), it's a pretty ballsy move.
So clearly Earth had the capacity to create and launch Cruisers even while they were slave shielded. We don't see a very large number of ships being launched, and there is no reason to presume they held any back on the surface, though this could be because the scene cuts away quickly. So the actual size of this fleet is questionable.
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Lukipela
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Cool. Never saw those since I played the PC version.
The "Chmmr battle-planet" idea seems terribly inefficient, too: it'd take a lot of energy to move the damned thing, and even then the Kzer-Za could just ignore the battleplanet and go somewhere else. A plethora of Sa-Matra sized battleships would be much, much more efficient.
Well, assuming it can move as fast as the Sa-Matra it'd neutralize that threat, and if it can produce Avatars those can probably mop up any of the Ur-Quan they were designed to fight. Maybe after destroying the Sa-Matra it'll spend it times eating other planets and spewing forth more Avatars?
It looks like the Cruisers sent up from the surface had no intention of making contact with anyone, but were instead "blockade runners," a do-or-die attempt to send ships up from the surface in every direction and into hyperspace as soon as the shield was dropped. Presumably they were sent to try to slip past the Hierarchy and found new colonies wherever they could, in order to contact the Alliance once more and resist the Ur-Quan in whatever capacity they could. Considering the Ur-Quan's likely response to this (not only destroying the escaping ships, but exacting punishment on those still on Earth), it's a pretty ballsy move.
Another option might be that they expected the Chenjesu to crack the shield during intense combat. Maybe the Ur-Quan just open a small hole somewhere rather than shutting the whole shield down? They did get a message telling them to stay put until the Chenjesu and M:bots could come free them, didn't they?
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Resh Aleph
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Rottem Tomatoes
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It seems terribly inefficient and stupid to go to the trouble of conquering loads of races and retrofiting their ships with more advanced technology, only to leave them unsupervised, armed, able to contact each other and knowing that you are out there. It's liek arming your enemies and telling them "We'll be back in a thousand years, remember to behave and not stage any coups or build up any giant armies"
A thousand years?  *checks the Ultronomicon*... Wait, it took 20,000 years to roam half the galaxy? Then SC2's region of space definitely isn't 1/20 of the galaxy, as someone estimated the other day. More like 1/10,000, with very optimistic assumptions for the Drake equation. In that case, my suggestion does seem a bit silly.
Oh, there's a 3DO version. Right. Of course.
Well, it looks like the Cruiser is just there for the drama effect. It could be leftover from the first war or something.
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Marines on Maulers and limpets on Earthlings / Bright Podship plasma and warm Kohr-Ah death rings /
Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips / These are a few of my favorite ships! © meep-eep
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SuddenDeath
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from Sunstrike's image pack
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Just watched the end sequence again. It says both Ur-Quan were defeated by the Chmmr and allied forces in "more than three weeks" (at most)
Eek! That doesn't make much sense - hell, it would more likely take them 3 weeks just to reach the Ur-Quan SoI! There's no way they could have cleaned the whole Ur-Quan sphere of influence in just a few days... unless it was the actual fighting that took 3 weeks, and even that idea seems a stretch.
I'll expand on that idea:
Perhaps the Chmmr spread out their fleet in a wide formation along the Ur-Quan west and southwest borders of the Ur-Quan SoI, while the Vindicator (and its escorts) went in alone in order not to alarm the UQ. As soon as the Chmmr fleet heard what happened at Crateris (hyperwave signal?), they charged in. The Yehat/Pkunk could join in from the south, and the Utwig from the northeast. If there were no long battles, the Allies could quickly trample their way to the other end of the Ur-Quan sphere... with the UQ either surrendering or fleeing. If the Ur-Quan actually had fortified any systems, that might have slowed down the Allies' march.
Hmm, even without major drags it seems unlikely to me that 3 weeks would be enough 
A thousand years? *checks the Ultronomicon*... Wait, it took 20,000 years to roam half the galaxy? Then SC2's region of space definitely isn't 1/20 of the galaxy, as someone estimated the other day. More like 1/10,000, with very optimistic assumptions for the Drake equation. In that case, my suggestion does seem a bit silly.
Keep in mind that the UQ may have faced many wars... that would have slowed them down, though I'm not sure by how much.
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« Last Edit: February 23, 2009, 09:20:44 pm by SuddenDeath »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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I figured that the Ur-Quan were busy engaging in or recovering from self-mutilation, which tends to be distracting; and their fleets were not oriented correctly for battle -- the Chmmr would basically execute a full strategic flanking maneuver.
There is one nitpick on the plausibility, which is that I believe three weeks is not even long enough for the Ur-Quan to cross their own sphere of influence! Unless the Chmmr Avatar, like the precursor tug, has much better hyperspace speed than its battle speed, how could they even get there?
That of course suggests that the Avatar does indeed have superior hyperspace speed, which is a strategic advantage which it is clear can be turned into decisive tactical advantage.
Sure, the Avatar may be evenly matched with one Marauder or Dreadnought; but give them local numerical superiority of, say, four to one, and the casualties either flavor of Ur-Quan will be able to inflict is quite limited. The Chmmr could pick apart battle groups and feed them one by one into laser shredders, sometimes cycling out the occasional ship for repairs, and keep doing it as long as it needed to be done.
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SuddenDeath
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Oh, and one more thing: Delta Crateris was packed full of ships of both UQ subraces. The Sa-Matra's explosion caused a huge blast that even swept the relatively far-away escape pod with a semi-dangerous dose of radiation, right?
Can the explosion perhaps be of a scale nearing Delta Gorno? If so, then the Ur-Quan are looking at some very massive losses (on the scale of Delta Gorno?  ).
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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In-combat and out-of-combat speeds may be correlated, but are not the same. A max speed Vindicator is the fastest ship out of combat, but gets run down easily by several ships in combat.
The Vindicator travels 20 hyperspace distance units per day at max speed (128). The Ur-Quan sphere of influence is 500 such units wide. In two weeks at Vindicator speeds, you can thus cross almost all of Ur-Quan space. Dreadnoughts and Marauders are much slower than the Vindicator. The source code may or may not have a value for the Avatar.
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psydev
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Why don't all races have point defense lasers?
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This could be supported by the fact that the Kzer-Za don't seem to have brought any "foreign" Thralls to our sector. In this case they've got no reinforcements coming.
Wow, wouldn't it be a great idea for the sequel if, after the Sa-Matra's destruction, the Kzer-Za retreat to a far away sector of the galaxy where their original thralls are. The Kohr-Ah join the new alliance against the Kzer-Za in a new game with 14 new races of early battle thralls. Of course, why they left them behind might be a good question... maybe the supply lines from far away star systems makes it not worth it to have species be too far from their original sphere of influence. Only the Ur-Quan and its (supposedly existing) huge mobile fleet of factory and refinery ships move on from sector to sector, subduing every race in their path, with the help of nearby aliens who are also subjugated. (Heh, kind of typical colonial behaviour).
- On Chmmr:
Everything they would do under the slave shield would in theory have to be in total secrecy, since the Ur-Quan probably aren't dumb enough to leave them unsuperised. Unless they considered the Ilwrath to be suitable guards. Still, one would expect that inspections and regular crew changes would be in order, so changing your planet into a giant mega-mind would probably arouse the attention of your slave masters due to all the required intense industrial activity.
BTW, what is the policy about posting SC3-(actual) ideas on the board? Should we not post our ideas in case FF and PR3 use similar ideas and someone gets uppity and claims they ripped their idea off? I don't mind posing "disclaimer: the creators can use this idea as they see fit". Has anyone posted on this?
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