Can someone tell me exactly how foolish during The 1st of my 1st edition Pirates of Drinax Campaigns where I let my players capture A custom build half a million ton Super-Heavy Mega-Freighter and let them convert it into The Heaviest Carrier in all of history that had A 74,820 ton Fighter Bay, 240 60 tons of briefing rooms and 5 3,140 ton repair bays that contained 910 10 ton, 607 20 ton, 334 30 ton, 122 40 ton, 17 50 ton and 8 70 ton Fighters or a total of 104,920 tons
Exactly how foolish was I?
- Thread starter JMISBEST
- Start date
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
On a scale of 0 to F, this was a 0.0001
NO ONE within the Drinax campaign has the capability to capture a ship that large, especially in episode 1.
NO ONE within the Drinax campaign has the capability to capture a ship that large, especially in episode 1.
M J Dougherty
Mongoose
You don't seem to comprehend the scale of these things or their implications.
Leaving aside the question of who built this thing and why, and how they can afford to operate it... and why the Imperium and the Hierate tolerate its existence, and... well, leaving aside the implausibility of its very existence...
The effort required to turn a whole crew this size traitor would be immense (assuming you can do it all). Why would the Zhodani do this on behalf of some tin-pot world in the middle of nowhere? If word gets out they can do this, the backlash would be incalculable. So any ship the Imperium sends near the Consulate can be suborned telepathically? The implications of that are... staggering. This is even more daft than having worlds change allegiance on a couple of skill checks.
Leaving aside the question of who built this thing and why, and how they can afford to operate it... and why the Imperium and the Hierate tolerate its existence, and... well, leaving aside the implausibility of its very existence...
The effort required to turn a whole crew this size traitor would be immense (assuming you can do it all). Why would the Zhodani do this on behalf of some tin-pot world in the middle of nowhere? If word gets out they can do this, the backlash would be incalculable. So any ship the Imperium sends near the Consulate can be suborned telepathically? The implications of that are... staggering. This is even more daft than having worlds change allegiance on a couple of skill checks.
Also....when producing such over-detailed numbers, why don't they add up?
You've listed only 37,550 dTons of small craft.
Also, Drinax buying it in the first place seems a bit unlikely - yes, Drinax can empty out the cupboard drawers and sell some priceless artwork to buy fresh underpants and drain cleaner, but if they could club together the millions upon millions of credits required for a monster the size of a Tigress-class dreadnought then they could for a far more reasonable price have acquired a few dozen mercenary cruisers - initially with mercenaries included - and rebuilt the star kingdom of Drinax 'properly' without needing Rao's privateering plan decades ago.
More fundamentally, where do you get something like that converted? There are precisely zero shipyards in the reach which can handle a major hack-job on a ship the size of a naval superdreadnought. Heck, you can probably count on your fingers and toes the total number of systems in the Spinward Marches where you could get something like that done.
Finally - if Drinax bought it....why do you need to convince the crew to turn traitor?
You've listed only 37,550 dTons of small craft.
Indeed. for a 500,000 dTon ship, even unarmed and capable only of jump-1 and 1G, my very quick back-of-a-spreadsheet calculation suggests a crew somewhere in the order of 1500 people.
Also, Drinax buying it in the first place seems a bit unlikely - yes, Drinax can empty out the cupboard drawers and sell some priceless artwork to buy fresh underpants and drain cleaner, but if they could club together the millions upon millions of credits required for a monster the size of a Tigress-class dreadnought then they could for a far more reasonable price have acquired a few dozen mercenary cruisers - initially with mercenaries included - and rebuilt the star kingdom of Drinax 'properly' without needing Rao's privateering plan decades ago.
More fundamentally, where do you get something like that converted? There are precisely zero shipyards in the reach which can handle a major hack-job on a ship the size of a naval superdreadnought. Heck, you can probably count on your fingers and toes the total number of systems in the Spinward Marches where you could get something like that done.
Finally - if Drinax bought it....why do you need to convince the crew to turn traitor?
It was a well-staged financial fraud by a shady government deal, which benefited several individuals a lot, hundreds smaller by some, and indebted millions. The latter were not in-fact indebted directly, but with the government trying to amend things in the rigid way they can, passing the ball from one institution to another, the citizens were the ones to take the collateral damage of increased taxation, planned in long term to cover some of the missteps of the badly planned budget for the shady deal.
Since this whole ship endeavour existed somewhat on paper (or storage drives), and with the attempts to hide/cover/remedy/fix and in general -deal- with the aftermath, some of those documents still exists in some register, with tracks almost untraceable by conventional means.
So your players got an actual 100-ton scout ship, TL-11, which did not get overhaul, refit or even maintenance for two decades, hull eroding, circuits fried, with a cargo full of holes.
Since this whole ship endeavour existed somewhat on paper (or storage drives), and with the attempts to hide/cover/remedy/fix and in general -deal- with the aftermath, some of those documents still exists in some register, with tracks almost untraceable by conventional means.
So your players got an actual 100-ton scout ship, TL-11, which did not get overhaul, refit or even maintenance for two decades, hull eroding, circuits fried, with a cargo full of holes.
JMISBEST said:
This size freighter should NEVER have been in this zone in the first place. It's ridiculously huge and not needed. Not only that, you mentioned it's 'custom' built - who built it? Who ever did is going to hunt them down and get their ship back.
And just how are they going to pay for all this? Pirates don't operate on this scale.
M J Dougherty
Mongoose
I just noticed the claim that the Zhodani psionic treachery was faked. OK, so Drinax revealed they have Zhodani allies who will do stuff like this for them. That's a death sentence from the Imperium, who will not tolerate a Zhodani puppet state (especially one receiving such epic levels of support) in the area. Also a death sentence from the Zhodani, because Drinax has made people believe they can (and will) suborn whole ship crews and thus vastly increased the tensions between psionic Zhodani and non-psionic everyone else. Every overdue ship results in claims the Consulate stole it. Zhodani are not impressed and take it out on Drinax.
By way of comparison, this whole scenario is a bit like someone operating one of the world's biggest container ships on island-to-island trade among the small Caribbean islands, then St Kitts buys it (somehow) and converts it (somehow) into an aircraft carrier, only nobody seems to notice it's missing from its normal route. Then they convince everyone that China suborned the crew and made them change allegiance.
So now a tiny island nation has a giant super-aircraft carrier and everyone thinks China is backing them. Only sillier than that.
By way of comparison, this whole scenario is a bit like someone operating one of the world's biggest container ships on island-to-island trade among the small Caribbean islands, then St Kitts buys it (somehow) and converts it (somehow) into an aircraft carrier, only nobody seems to notice it's missing from its normal route. Then they convince everyone that China suborned the crew and made them change allegiance.
So now a tiny island nation has a giant super-aircraft carrier and everyone thinks China is backing them. Only sillier than that.
The thing is, it's not impossible for Drinax to end up with a ship like this, albeit significantly smaller.
The Prophet Zomon - from Game of Sun and Shadow - is a 30,000 dTon ship that's been fitted out with "cargo webbing", and "bay doors able to accept ships up to 1,000 tons".
All it needs to turn it into a passable carrier is fitting some maintenance shops and fuel and weapons stores into the expansive cargo decks, and you've got what is - by the standards of the reach - a freaking supercarrier, and one that is - most importantly - able to pack in not just fighters but Lord Wrax's TL15 system defence boats from the Drinaxi Star Guard, which is a big deal as - when you can cope with their lack of jump capability - they're probably the equal of any light warship in the reach. Plus the Zomon also only needs about 150 people to crew it.
As a shanghaied merchant ship, rather than a naval warship per se, it's a lot more likely you can 'disappear' the ship, or impound it, if the 198th Flotilla suffers a tragic mishap, in a way you couldn't dream of seizing the Eurisko without having a navy BatRon come knocking on your door to explain that what you did was very, very silly and Mr Strephon would very much like his ship back. Now.
The Prophet Zomon - from Game of Sun and Shadow - is a 30,000 dTon ship that's been fitted out with "cargo webbing", and "bay doors able to accept ships up to 1,000 tons".
All it needs to turn it into a passable carrier is fitting some maintenance shops and fuel and weapons stores into the expansive cargo decks, and you've got what is - by the standards of the reach - a freaking supercarrier, and one that is - most importantly - able to pack in not just fighters but Lord Wrax's TL15 system defence boats from the Drinaxi Star Guard, which is a big deal as - when you can cope with their lack of jump capability - they're probably the equal of any light warship in the reach. Plus the Zomon also only needs about 150 people to crew it.
As a shanghaied merchant ship, rather than a naval warship per se, it's a lot more likely you can 'disappear' the ship, or impound it, if the 198th Flotilla suffers a tragic mishap, in a way you couldn't dream of seizing the Eurisko without having a navy BatRon come knocking on your door to explain that what you did was very, very silly and Mr Strephon would very much like his ship back. Now.