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Topic: Doctrinal War, or how to move around the galaxy (Read 16764 times)
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Steve-O
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That's somewhat ironic - had the Alliance surrendered sooner, they might have avoided complete annihilation at the hands of the Kohr-Ah (given that nobody knew about the Precursor vessel). Then again, nobody knew about the Kohr-Ah, either, until later on... and it's really lucky on the grand scheme that Earth just so happens to be at the rendezvous point of the two Ur-Quan species: had the doctrinal war been fought anywhere else, then humans would either end up annihilated, or the Precursor vessel wouldn't have got very far with the entire might of the Kzer-Za fleets concentrated on hunting it down.
In any fictional story there are some things you just have to accept on faith, otherwise there's no story to tell. The fact that important things happen in the general vicinity of the heroes is one of those things.
That could be well over 100-200 ships, easily. 10 dozen = 120, 20 dozen = 240. These are not small numbers, and even larger ones could still quite handily be referred with the term 'dozens'.
10 dozen I'll give you. 20 dozen is getting to the point where the terms "hundreds" would be more accurate than "dozens," though, I think. Even if Fwiffo did mean something on the order of 240 ships when he said "dozens" that still gives us a rough figure of 720-800 ships in the whole Ur-Quan fleet. That's still not a lot for conquering a whole sector of the galaxy, let alone roaming around enslaving everyone they find for the last 25,000 years. (The fact that they've had 25,000 years to gather resources and build more ships makes this total figure even more ludicrous.)
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Elerium
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I'm sure the Ur-Quan has thousands of Dreadnoughts as commented by both Hayes and the Dynarri which IMO makes them as a race that basically brute forces things down to enslavement. The fact they have cloaking technology, automated drones and other such technological things aboard their ships (plus an intricate analysis of the Sa-Matra which they man and probably studied for a long time since the end of the First Doctrinal War) shows they have a massive tech advantage. However they don't seem to be too bothered about implementing it within their own ships as the Dreadnoughts are made to be planetary siege platforms. The Ur-Quan initially attacked the Alliance weak spots, avoiding strong resistance, probably because every lost Dreadnought hurts the war effort for the Second Doctrinal War so instead I guess their tactics was for every individual Dreadnought that hams at a weak spot they also have a bunch of slaves helping out. From this, the thralls would suffer all the losses and hard work, whilst the main Dreadnought fleet remains in the home systems to enforce the Kzer-Za thralls/warm up for the Second Doctrinal Conflict. Also I guess from this the Kzer-za would grant some portions of their tech to the races that would fight for them competently but as of yet had no means of helping out (for example, giving the Ilwrath cloaking tech).
Then as we all know the Alliance resisted too well by which they could defeat the Ur-Quan stationed on the front lines and with the Kohr-Ah approaching they became desperate, so they used the Sa-Matra and pulled out the fist from the glove with their thousands of Dreadnoughts but unfortunately strayed right into the Shofixti which, upon seeing defeat from the Ur-Quan steamrolling everything blew up their sun reducing their fleet by 30%. The impression the game gives is that the Ur-Quan were really fooling the Alliance around before they just mowed everything down and then lost a massive chunk of their of fleet when they actually tried to speed up the annexing of the Alliance.
"Dozens" I think is just Fwiffo being Fwiffo, describing how the Shofixti wiped themselves out not really bothering on ship specifics (they were probably hearing about their dominance unfold being stationed away from the Sa-Matra so that might place them around the Earthling-Vux-Yehat triangle when the Delta Gorno sun blew).
The Ur-Quan are not a civilization that enjoys the company of even it's own race. How many of the race are there? How quick do they reproduce and then mature?
I imagine the Kzer-za reproduce slowly, having territorial instincts that would force them to kill one another should two actually meet, hence the need for only one aboard a single Dreadnought which that Ur-Quan claims as his. They're also somewhat nomadic yet they all bow to Kzer-Za Lord #1 who makes the decisions apparently. I guess they can reproduce under controlled conditions, perhaps the Kzer-za have some sort of gene bank held somewhere where they can make new Kzer-za (perhaps a relic from the Dynarri's gene tinkering days) without engaging in a "violent mating ritual". I'm sure they have a strong genetic memory of sorts as well, which would explain why every Ur-Quan can feel the pain of being enslaved under the Dynarri from their parents and their grandparents..
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« Last Edit: January 08, 2012, 11:15:41 pm by Elerium »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Fwiffo could have heard a propagandized version that minimized the losses. On the other hand, "30% of the fleet" could mean 30% of that assault fleet, not 30% of all combined forces. Or it could refer to devastating losses among the thralls but merely several dozen dreadnoughts lost. So there's a lot of leeway there.
And of course it could have killed their best tactical and strategic planners.
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oldlaptop
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Now that i think about it. don't the Yehat mention they had over 2,000 ships in their home system ready to engage the Ur-Quan in a final battle before the queen surrendered? If that is the case, and the queen was certain they would loose the fight, exactly how many Ur-Quan ships must they have had coming to them in the end? Further, when you consider that number, how many ships must have been in the fleet in total. If they truly lost 30% of their fleet to that nova, how many ships were still in the other 70% that they could overwhelm such a massive defense fleet in Yehat space and STILL manage to keep a front on the remaining alliance powers?
Honestly, I think we in the end, we really are talking about thousands if not 10's of thousands of ships in the entire Ur-Quan fleet.
Those aren't going to be all Dreadnoughts though. Dreadnoughts are the Hierarchy's capital ship, the cream of the crop. The majority (say 50-70%) would have been thrall vessels. Also, at the time the Yehat were under siege, there were no other Alliance powers left in the game. The Chenjesu, Mmrnhrm, and humans were most probably slave-shielded already, the Syreen would have been in the middle of finding a homeworld, and Delta Gorno had already flared. Even 70% of the Hierarchy fleet would have been enough to eventually overwhelm the Yehat's remaining forces, though I'm sure the Ur-Quan were relieved when the Yehat surrendered - had they fought to the death there may not have been enough of an Ur-Quan fleet left to delay the Kohr-Ah past 2155.
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Hunter
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I don't see why the 30% needs to include "other Ur-Quan fleets" any more than Earth had to be hit by the glory device. Clearly there was a range, so even if most of the fleet was involved with the Yehat, the rest of the Ur-Quan nation, so to speak, wouldn't be.
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Stardrake
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Regarding the proportion of the Hierarchy fleet at Delta Gorno - I suspect the Ur-Quan were just as surprised to see the Yehat abandoning the Shofixti as the Yehat captains themselves were. They were probably expecting Delta Gorno to be the last major battle of the war (which it technically was, just not in the way they thought) which would result in the Shofixti being defeated and the Yehat fleet decisively broken, after which the actual conquest of the Yehat would be a simple mopup campaign. Under those circumstances, it makes sense to go in with a significant proportion of the fleet.
When it comes to their reaction to the destruction of the Sa-Matra - I don't think it's really easy to say for sure what they would or wouldn't do. Even more than the Yehat, the Ur-Quan have gone for millenia without any foe achieving a military victory over them apart from each other - they were the military arm of the Dnyarri slave empire, and the fall of the Milieu didn't come about through military conquest. Both paths are based upon the assumption that the Ur-Quan will be able to beat anything they encounter in a conflict of ships and weapons - and if that assumption falls down against a foe that doesn't allow them to escape, then suddenly they could be the ones facing a choice of slave-shielding, thralldom, or destruction. The destruction of their Great Prize and defeat of their fleets by an alliance might be enough of a shock to their system that, with careful diplomacy, an avoidance of any intimation that they be put into a subservient role, and possibly the reappearance of the Taalo (or at least mention of how close the Taalo came to saving them), I could see the Ur-Quan coming around to the idea of an alliance that has the strength of multiple races being potentially a better defence than domination.
Of the two, it'd probably be the Kzer-Za that are more likely to make this realisation. Partially because they have some experience with the advantages of combined-race fighting already, and partially because they seem to be that much saner on the whole than the Kohr-Ah (Not just in their eschewing xenocide - given that the Syreen are the next best thing we know to Dnyarri in terms of psychic compulsion, it's quite telling that the Kzer-Za showed them the compassion they did.
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Stardrake
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Sure, we know they were defeated by the allied fleets (and, cross-referencing with the 3DO version, were last seen "hightailing it towards the Clouds of Magellan") - my whole point is that that defeat might shock them into rethinking their doctrines. It's more a question of what could or couldn't happen afterwards.
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