Cestus: Fiction

Kazarelth

29-11-2007 23:36:57

Dark Greetings everyone.

Karel, Sato and I had done a very basic discussion on the House's fictional standing. It was nevertheless fruitful. We were also helped by Rekio and BF, of course.

I am quoting BF here:

"The majority of the Cestus Complex was underground. I am of the impression that some of it survived. Yes, the orbital bombardment happened, and I suppose I should've made it clear that probably not all of the base survived. However, as Rekio mentioned, it's not going to matter in the end, because I'm going to be implanting the Corsair into the surface of Koros in order to destroy the remaining pockets of undead, and pretty much stamp out whatever is left of the underground base. The VSD Corsair will be the new Cestus base. You won't be able to move the ship, but you will have the benefit of having turbolasers and such as weapons, and I'm of the opinion that the shields will still function and such. "


To add to those, I have a few suggestions relating to the locations of the offices etc.

The head-office : The bridge?

Combat training hall: The hangar?

I believe the communication ports will still be alive within the ship. We could merge the comm. office with the bridge, so that the summits can easily monitor the communications and give an answer as soon as possible. {That is if the comm. office is not already a part of the bridge. I have very little understanding of ships. If anyone can help me out here, I'd be very grateful :) }

Apart from these, we still have the reactor. It supplies energy for the ship, but I am thinking that a lot of these would be unused. The engines, for one will never be used. Can this excess energy be utilised for some enhanced functionality of the ship? For example, can we modify the tractor beams to function as a sort of repelling rays? That is, it develops a pressure field around it, so that any ground-based assault is repelled to gain time?

We can also set up a few smaller bases around the moon's surface. Maybe for now they are only small shuttles with a tiny garrison with nothing to do except stare at Yridia II. But we can use them in future competitions.

So here are my suggestions. Do add to it, and take from it as you please. :)

Sith Bloodfyre

30-11-2007 01:24:41

As far as I'm aware, sensors and communications would be run from the bridge. That would be the "brain" of the ship, so to speak, and would continue to be so even with the ship now a "downed bird." I'd imagine that the bridge would need some personnel routed to it (and the House) to run the base and such. I'm thinking they'd be like regular military/army personnel and such. Which might make sense to have House leadership quarters kept somewhere close by, at least within a minute or two on foot to get there in case of emergency.

Having the hangar act as a training ground could work. It's also possible that certain sections of the ship were damaged and needed to be gutted and rebuilt. So pretty much, the exterior of the ship would remain the same, but it's possible to assume that the interior can be remade however you guys want it to be. Maybe Oberst, Armus or Donitz will get in on this discussion, and give their opinions on the state of the ship and such.

Seth En-Saeur

02-12-2007 04:26:24

Sounds like an excellent idea for the base and it would give writers something to do, whether it be as mundane as fixing up the ship or something like organizing an expedition into the ruins of the base to clear out the undead. Could be run-on material or perhaps some good group fiction. Either way I love the idea.

I assume the dormitories on the ship would act as barracks and perhaps we could refit an entire section of the ship for training rather than the hangar, because wouldn't we still need a hangar to store and maintain at least a fighter defense force? or even just a place to store personal ships?

Perhaps we could repurpose and strip out some of the old walls that would have separated some of the now irrellevant parts of the ship like the offices or the brig?

Just throwing out some ideas....

Kazarelth

02-12-2007 07:29:42

Perhaps we could repurpose and strip out some of the old walls that would have separated some of the now irrellevant parts of the ship like the offices or the brig?

A good idea! But, what we want are the "irrelevant" parts of the ship. First we need to identify these parts of the ship, and think of a new function for them. If we can't, then we modify that part to suit our needs.

And the hangar. Hmm. I believe the ships usually enter the VSD through a docking bay which is currently mashed between the ship and the old base :P.
However that is a good point you've raised. Where exactly do we land small ships?
For now {as was true in the History month RO} they land outside on bare ground. And, if we use the hangar as a hangar, where do the Dark Jedi of the House train?

I see one answer. Consider this:
A single Victory I-class Star Destroyer required 4,798 crew members and 402 gunners for optimal operation and could transport up to 2,040 troops, 8,100 metric tons of cargo, several ground vehicles like the AT-AT, and two squadrons of starfighters. {From Wookiepedia}
4,798 is quite a large number. And the fact that we are never going to have more than 30-40 Dark Jedi and let's say 600 {We need them gunners :P } Yridians working here, we could smash quite a number of dormitories and make room for a training area, and lots more. This could come under the "irrelevant" parts of the ship.
That is, unless I am wrong.

Sato Khan

02-12-2007 21:19:47

I'd imagine that we'd need a crew in the area of at least a thousand to take care of the day to day operations of the ship...gunners and all are nice...but who's going to feed them, do the maintenance, and clean the refreshers?

Sith Bloodfyre

03-12-2007 02:30:49

The ship/base would be another (new) Clan location. Clan personnel would come in and staff it, at least at a minimum. As more of the areas were repaired and rebuilt, more people might be brought in. The support staff wouldn't be much of an issue, other than figuring out who/what would be needed.

Oberst

04-12-2007 21:53:10

I always figured that there were open positions on either side of the ship for docking and landing fighters and shuttles, with the large umbilical thing being for much larger ships.

And while the majority of the base might be the ship itself, why not build landing pads on the superstructure itself? This would give a direct access route for much larger shipments.

As for personnel, I wouldn't worry too much about who's there, like Bf said. It's a Clan resource and a military resource, so there would be staff and a garrison.

With the engines producing excess energy, I figure...why not just scale back what they're producing? It'd help with wear and tear and fuel expenditures. With the shields up, I doubt there's anything out there that could develop a large enough punch to get through those shields.

Seth En-Saeur

09-12-2007 20:04:20

Well it appears the issue has been resolved? If so would it be alright if I proceeded to write a piece of fiction for Seth and the new base?

Sith Bloodfyre

09-12-2007 21:05:24

I wouldn't say the issue has been resolved so much as people just haven't had any other ideas. You're welcome to be writing fiction that involves you in the base. I wouldn't try to define anything that hasn't been decided on yet, but if you have ideas, you're welcome to bring them to Karel and Kaz. And you're encouraged to do so. It's all of your House. Karel and Kaz are leading, but it's still a group thing. Everyone in Cestus will work to define the aspects of the House.

Ji

17-12-2007 00:43:52

This is probably a poor place for my first post, but I found it an exciting topic and ideas started burbling forth from my skull (I may need to get out my trephining kit to make holes so the pressure doesn't pop me :( )...

You mentioned originally that things such as the engines are not in use anymore (since the ship is well... beached) and that a lot of unnecessary rooms would be opened up into larger rooms...

Also there is the problem of having a crew (probably largely unwanted as ancillaries are a pain in the butt to write and often get corny when they're killed in such huge numbers).

The only obvious solution I can see is droid factory ... O-)

A hulled VSD full of moving heavy industry producing droids for cleaning, battle, maintenance, etc would make an awesome place for acrobatics training, saber training, honing force skills, and maybe even meditation (for our grease-monkeys at least).

The only problem with that is... where is the material coming from... from the VSD itself! If the droids are made from hull-scrap (which I assume is possible considering how much metal, computing, and wiring is not being used) then we could have some seriously wonky (and terrifying) looking droids.


Apologies if this doesn't match up very well, I'm letting my imagination escape again...

When in doubt, turn to droids! I love writing fanfic ;)

Sith Bloodfyre

17-12-2007 04:17:35

No worries. :) All ideas can be good ones. And the input is always appreciated. Welcome to Cestus and Tarentum, Huldrych! It's good to have you getting involved.

Ji

17-12-2007 04:43:56

Thank you :).

Just took the Capital Ship test... man that took me like 2 hours.

Anyway I love tech, so chances are any ideas I put in here are either going to be politic-heavy or involve droids and ships :).

Kazarelth

17-12-2007 05:50:46

OK. That is an awesome idea from my point of view. Kudos to you :)
BUT building droids isn't that good a business venture, considering the fact that although the VSD has a lot of material resource in it, these resources aren't exactly 'usable' for such an undertaking: The Corsair is a prized property of the Clan. Even in this "beached" condition as you said. Using bits and pieces of the hull to form droids does not show the respect we have for the ship.

However, the engines could be used for manufacturing other things. {BF, Rek, Oberst, Armus, anyone else: What can of raw materials are available around Koros OR the Itaana field?}
This could add up financially to Cestus. (I have a plan of terraforming the surface, actually :P. Can we do that?)

Ji

17-12-2007 14:36:22

Factory VSD still sounds like a cool idea. I wasn't aware we were attempting economic might, but that's pretty awesome too :D.

I suggested droids because I thought we were looking self sufficiency. I'll start thinking about other things to make :).

Ji

18-12-2007 19:20:48

Sorry about the double-post... been putting some serious thought into it...

According to Star Wars wiki, a Victory I Star Destroyer's hypermatter annihilation reactor produces 3.6x10^24 Watts... which is ~3.6 Trilliard (Sextillion) Kilowatts...

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like more than enough (especially since we do not need engines, hyperdrives, navigation suites, etc...) to power an entire factory, fortress, or laboratory, which I think are the three main options...

Factory
I think having a factory is a fun, economical way to use a beached VSD... Whether we build war droids, starfighters, walkers, or small arms, it would provide a the other houses of Tarentum a valuable resource while at war and would greatly boost the influence of Cestus, as other houses come to rely on it for military armaments. My personal favorite is war droids, but it's likely that starfighters or walkers would be more useful and small arms the most economical.

Fortress
As I remember reading somewhere that Koros serves as a guardian for Yridia II, the Corsair could be an invaluable defensive asset for the planet. With this option it would be best to clear out the innards of the ship (most of the quarters, galleys, and hangers) and invest in converting most of the turbolasers to much more powerful long range turbolasers and ion cannons. With such a long range, it would be beneficial for enemy fleets to disable the Corsair before moving onto Yridia II, giving friendly fleets time to assemble and counterattack. To that end, a much stronger shield generator would need to be improvised, especially to make up for the poor hull strength of the ship (which would have suffered severe structural damage during the crash). Since most of the ship itself would be turned into a fortress, the crew area should be moved underground. I'm assuming most of the undead died in the crash? And the ones that are left should not pose to much of a threat (again, I'm assuming.. I haven't finished reading everything). Since the base is partially intact it could be used as the command suite and tunnels and caves could be dug to provide the quarters for the crew. A massive complex beneath the star destroyer sounds like creepy fun to me! To that end the Star Destroyer itself would be used like a giant shell over the real important stuff (albeit a shell full of shield generators, weaponry, and hangers).

Laboratory
Since necromancy is the specialty of Tarentum, it's possible that a laboratory would make the most sense. While the least useful from a military and political standpoint, it would adhere to the Krath quest for knowledge. While not all aspects of necromancy are entirely scientific, it might be fun to delve into the biology of the study, instead of just necromancy via the force. To this end, a Victory Star Destroyer would provide endless power to creepy, fun experiments and individual laboratories, as well as a fun new hierarchy within the house (lab assistant, what have you, etc...).


Personally, I think fortress is the most fun, but what do you guys think?

Oberst

19-12-2007 00:10:41

Most of the surface of Koros is thinly atmosphered. You need an environment suit to get around. The undead infestation have no such limitation.

Also, the Itanna Belt exist towards the edges of the system, while Koros orbits Yridia II. Between Koros and Yridia II is the Platform Aegis.

Not to rain on your parade, but war droids wouldn't benefit the Clan. We tend to like organics, for the simple reason that organics that fall can still serve the Clan.

Ji

19-12-2007 00:22:18

Yeah, that's fine. Like I said, war droids make the least sense... I just like them :).

Kazarelth

19-12-2007 03:41:18

The VSD did not "crash" per se. It was brought down by the combined might of BF and Trev. So, well most of the hull is intact, except the lower part, from which I imagine that a few of the undead crawl out at random times to make for good fiction comps :P

And beneath the VSD lies the doubly ruined Old Cestus Complex. And here again, I envision us cleaning up and establishing the tunnels that you said. Yes, "creepy" fun :P And the 'shell' idea is good. But to implement it, would take us time. I believe we shall have a Run On sometime in the future, that shall decide stuff.

I am interested in the factory idea. Like I said before, terraforming Koros would be a good goal, as it is the base planet of the House. And this would help us with economy.
I am pretty much blank about what we're going to manufacture. Though I'd say no explosive substances for obvious reasons.

Concerning the lab: We have one. A large one in Yridia IX: The Mystics Asylum. And I expect that Major-Tiered Dark Jedi with an interest in their powers would have a small personal lab attached to their living quarters. I think I have one (Yes, I just made up one for myself :P) So that's that.

So, a factory is a fine idea, as I said before. Think of something that we can manufacture for a huge profit, the end-product benefits the Clan AND which is non-explosive. :)