New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

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Where should our two new Task Forces be set?

Poll ended at Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:01 pm

The Borderlands
6
26%
The Northern Frontier
9
39%
The Gamma Quadrant
1
4%
The Delta Quadrant
7
30%
 
Total votes: 23

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Williams
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New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Williams » Sun Aug 14, 2016 8:01 pm

As we mentioned in the monthly meeting, the PFA has plans on the table to expand the fleet out from its current state of one Task Force, to a total of four: the Niche Task Group (Warehouse 13) will become its own TF, called Division 47 "Special Projects Division". The remaining 13 sims of Task Force 11 will be split into three Task Forces, of 4, 4 and 5 sims each. Task Force 11 will be one of those Task Forces, and will remain in the Galactic South, with its current story arc of the Klingon/Gorn war. The other two as-yet unnamed Task Forces will each have their own area of operations and will each run their own story arcs within that region.

Details regarding seeking new TFCOs and dividing the sims in the fleet up between these Task Forces will come later, but first we needed to decide what regions to set these new Task Forces in. We have narrowed the field down to four options, and we would like to ask the fleet membership to help us decide which ones we should set our two new Task Forces in. The options are:

The Borderlands: This is the region to the 'West' of the Federation, entirely on the Alpha Quadrant side of the divide. It spans from Sol (Earth) right to the borders the Federation shares with the Tzenkethi Coalition, Cardassian Union and Talarian Republic. It gives a lot of possibilities for stories; there is the question of how Cardassia is doing now, over a decade since the end of the Dominion War. Are they still rebuilding? Are they still 'occupied' by the Federation/Romulan/Klingon alliance, or have they been cut loose of whatever those requirements of the post-war treaties would have been? There would likely be military factions or extremists who want the Union to go back to its old ways. The region also has the Tzenkethi, who we haven't seen much of outside the post-Nemesis novels, but who hate the Federation, and were involved in a war with us pre-DS9. The Talarians we know very little about, and have strong potential for development to create of them something unique to Pegasus Fleet.

The Northern Frontier: As the name suggests, this region is in the very "North" of Federation territory, facing the Galactic Core. The Task Force would likely be HQ'd at Deep Space 5, and the territory would stretch from the upper borders with the Romulan Star Empire over to Deep Space 3, where the Breen, First Federation and Ferengi Alliance are the closest neighbours. This region has lots of potential for the unknown, with potentially new and powerful races to be discovered in the unexplored region of space, but it also has its fair share of known races to contend with; the Romulans are always cooking up a plot against the Federation, and it would be interesting to see what their priorities are like near their borders with us following the Hobus Supernova that (in PF's canon) severely damaged the Romulan homeworld. The Breen are very mysterious to begin with, being only seen really in the Dominion War, and even then not much was known. And what of the Ferengi under Grand Nagus Rom? Has their society changed in the way he hoped? Are they becoming helpful neighbours selling things for a fair price? Or are they still trying to exploit everyone as much as ever, fighting against the new laws being imposed by their Nagus?

The Gamma Quadrant: It's been over a decade since the end of the Dominion War, and we don't know anything about what has been happening on the other side of the Bajoran Wormhole. Has Odo joining the Founders really changed anything within the Dominion? Are they still hostile, or have they become benevolent? Have they fractured into factions amongst themselves, or withdrawn inward to contemplate the lessons Odo has been teaching them? What of the unexplored space away from Dominion territory? DS9 gave me the impression that there was a region of non-Dominion space immediately around the Wormhole, which then met quite quickly with the Dominion border; but what would we find if we skirted around it? Would the Dominion tolerate us doing even that? There is a lot of potential for exploration and creating new species and storylines with setting a Task Force here, and it could get quite interesting.

The Delta Quadrant: The specifics of how we would get there are still being discussed, but the Delta Quadrant is one of the first places I thought of when trying to come up with new areas of operation. It's far away, it is mysterious, it is full of alien races - both those we saw on Voyager and those we can create on our own. Exploration would be the primary focus to a Task Force based here, and meeting new races will feature heavily, but likely be paired with dealing with the consequences of Voyager's seven years travelling through the quadrant, trying to get home. As I said, we haven't settled on how we would get a Task Force there yet, but our current ideas range from slipstream drives for specific classes of ships, to graviton catapults to reverse-engineered (or just straight-up hijacked) transwarp corridors. We'll likely try to define the 'how' further if this option gets chosen.


Those are the options, and we'd like to open it to a vote of the fleet. Everyone gets two votes (one for each new TF), but it comes with some caveats; we've decided that it would not be wise to set both of the new TFs in different quadrants, so if both the Delta Quadrant and Gamma Quadrant get the highest votes, we'll take the higher of the two, and then the highest Alpha/Beta Quadrant choice. We've also decided that since the Borderlands and the Gamma Quadrant would both draw heavily off of Deep Space 9, it wouldn't be a good idea to use both of those either, so the same rule applies; if both of them get the most votes, we'll take the top one and the next down the list.


So, those are the options, and those are the caveats. Vote away, and of course discuss the options in here too if you've got something more you want to add!
Last edited by Williams on Mon Aug 22, 2016 4:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Links added to maps of the borderlands and northern frontier

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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Williams » Sun Aug 14, 2016 9:18 pm

I've added links to (not quite complete) maps of the Borderlands and Northern Frontier (click on the underlined names above). They still don't have starbases for non-Federation powers in there (though you may see an example icon with no name attached to it), but it should give an idea of the regions.

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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Aaron » Sun Aug 14, 2016 10:07 pm

I voted for the Northern Frontier since we are in the South we should also expand the North. I also voted for the Gamma Quadrant because I commanded a ship in another fleet in the Gamma and it was alot of fun to be out there kind of on your own but also just a wormhole jump away from the rest of the fleet. We also played that we were not really welcomed there and the wormhole was cut off for a time and we had to fend for ourselves. I think all 4 options would be great.
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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Grif » Mon Aug 15, 2016 3:52 am

I voted for the Delta Quadrant, and in my opinion its probably one of the best choices on the list. Starfleet was already in the process of exploring the Gamma Quadrant before the Gamma Quadrant broke out, going every way they could from the mouth of the wormhole.

The Delta quadrant meanwhile... all we saw as a small sliver of the quadrant, the course that Voyager took in it's endeavour to get home. While they did explore a little bit, they never went super out of their way in any direction to investigate anything. They had a core mission and that's what they followed. Thanks to that though we do have a small idea of what the region looks like, something that we can expand on in a lot of ways. Additionally we also have vast areas of the quadrant that Voyager never got to, areas that they had to bypass to survive because of their size. With a decent sized ship or fleet those areas could be surveyed. Areas that Voyager did stop and investiage could be gone back to and explored more. We could re-establish relations with a number of people Voyager established relations with. Such as the Moneans and their water planet, the Antarians and their race, and some of the space stations Voyager visited with all those species milling about.

We also have set enemies that we wouldn't have to be afraid of provoking like the Dominion. The Viidians are decent foes, the Kazan, the Devore Imperium. The Krenim possibly as well, but we don't know where relations stand with them after all the time travel mumbojumbo.

There's the option of the Borg as well, though personally i'd want to avoid them. Borg missions are... eh.

Then there's the possibility of the inclusion of new technologies into the fleet that could expand what other ships could do. With Gamma, it'd just be using the wormhole, but with the Delta Quadrant, they'd be pushing the bounds of technology either with Quantum Slipstream, a Transwarp corridor, or something like a Graviton slingshot. This could open up possibilities to Pegasus beyond the Delta Quadrant in the future.

So.. yeah.. Delta gets my vote.
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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Yunalesca » Mon Aug 15, 2016 2:49 pm

As my ship specifically lists exploring areas south/west of the Talarian republic, the Borderlands naturally got my vote. I do think that, considering we HAVE a borg-oriented sim(Tempest), a Delta Quadrant task force would be fun, and I'd love to see how we orchestrate getting ships there, and where they would resupply, so that most definitely received my other vote.
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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Kaede Kayano » Mon Aug 15, 2016 2:50 pm

I like the idea of both the Borderlands and the Northern Frontier. Those areas of space have a lot of potential for some good story writing, especially since that area hasn't really been seen since the end of the Dominion War. I would vote for either of them as its quite a nice change of pace than just the bog standard Klingon, Romulan or Borg Missions.
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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Taylor_Isley » Mon Aug 15, 2016 2:55 pm

Delta Gets my vote as well. Not only do I like it for Oberon's plot but as Grif as said there is a lot of undeveloped or underdeveloped plot points we can build on in the Delta quad.

I feel like with the other areas there is so much known about what is going on that the unknown of the Delta is appealing. It will allow us to write a lot more unique fleet cannon. I feel the same can be said about the Gamma but personally, I like the idea of running into the borg more than running into the Dominion.
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Re: New Task Forces - Areas of Operation

Post by Williams » Mon Aug 22, 2016 4:39 am

OK, this has been up a week now, so I'm calling the poll to a close. Final results are:

The Borderlands: 6 votes
The Northern Frontier: 9 votes
The Gamma Quadrant: 1 vote
The Delta Quadrant: 7 votes


So with that, our two new Task Forces will be set in the Northern Frontier and the Delta Quadrant! With the votes that the Borderlands received, if we choose to expand to another Task Force again in the future, that one will be next on our list.

I'll be sending out an announcement about how those COs interested can apply for TFCO positions and what the next steps are soon.

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