Minbari - Caste Fleets

[Alexb83]

I couldn't see on a search whether this idea had been considered previously; but with all the talk of breaking the (pretty substantial) Centauri fleet into eras like the EA, has anyone thought about giving variant fleet lists for the different Minbari castes? Something along the lines of the current fleet (combined 3 castes) and variants for workers, warriors and religious.

Something along the lines of having variant initiative values for each fleet, but with the tradeoff in increased CQs for damage control and SAs like run silent for workers, say, increased CQ for fighters in the warrior caste (or automatic success on skin dancing, that sort of thing).
The Religious caste might be +1 to initiative overall, but have -s to their CQ checks to stand down and be boarded (pacifists!) or take -1 to their ships' troop scores?

The other alternative I considered was adding special characters (like G'sten or Sheridan) but in the form of Delenn, Neroon (or Durhan for a broader ISD) which might have those sort of effects but on the ship which they're fitted to.

Good idea/bad idea? Any other offerings?

 

[H]

hmm, would you give the religious and worker castes access to whitestars?

 

[Alexb83]

I would've given the whole fleet access to white stars and the LotR ships, but that's just me.

For all years prior to 2260, the Rangers were under the command of the Grey Council - whitestars and other ships (such as those in LotR) were built by the worker caste...

Also, the Minbari fleet as a whole should be able to take ISA allies.

 

[H]

but scratch the LOTR ships, oh god please don't let mongoose ever make them, then we can all agree that LOTR was just a bad dream. . .

Valen, advanced ISA ship... it got shot once and is out of action?!?!
Imagine if they had sent the delegates on a Sharlin, or a victory, or even a whitestar, none of that film would have needed to be made!

 

[Alexb83]

It was a bad dream, but the ships aren't all that bad, and the Minbari fleet does sorely need more models if it hopes to reach parity with the EA and Centauri

I think that the LotR ships should also fall quite nicely into the Skirmish/Patrol slot, too.

But - back to Castes, I think that all should have the same ships available, but with something along the lines of different modifiers applied to each.

 

[H]

certainly makes it interesting, and we see enough in the show to suggest that their are a lot of single caste ships in action.

 

[Alexb83]

So then, in suggesting stats:

Combined Fleet: Initiative +4, no penalties (the existing fleet).

Religious: Initiative +5, but -1 to troops on all ships, and -1 to all Stand down and prepare to be boarded checks.
Worker: Initiative +3, but +1 to all cq checks for damage control and run silent! special actions. Also -1 to all checks for fighters to skindance.
Warrior: Initiative +2, but +1 to cq for fighters, and +2 on skindancing checks and +1 to troop scores on all ships.

 

[emperorpenguin]

I say no, the idea of the religious and worker castes operating one third each of the Minbari military was the WORST idea JMS ever had.

Do the Warrior caste perform one third of religious services or build one third of Minbari housing?

The warrior caste FIGHTS, JMS what the HELL were you thinking!? :roll:

 

[Alexb83]

Was it really so absurd? I don't think so - giving 1/3 of all of the ships to each of the 3 castes and 1/3 of all votes to each in the grey council was the only way to ensure that no one caste became dominant over the Minbari Federation.

As soon as this balance was tipped, you had civil war.

What I think you would find is that, in a specific situation of concern to one caste, they would act in unison (at least on the grey council) - all it would take is for any one caste to persuade 1 member of each of the others to gain a majority.

When all of them agree on something together, it's a terrible thing (according to Delenn).

Then again, all the ships may be crewed by Warrior caste, but commanded by workers or religious.

 

[locarno24]

I'm assuming it wouldn't be literally 1/3 of the fleet by fighting power...

I can believe that each of the others has SOME potential in each area; the warrior caste needs the ability to maintain and potentially upgrade its ships, even if it doesn't have the shipyard capacity to build a full warfleet.

The other two castes will have some fighting power because otherwise their ability to overule the warriors or protect themselves on a smaller scale becomes rather hollow (e.g. patrol ships, frigates, etc) - but there's no reason for them to have big warcruisers. The Worker Caste, though, might have various prototype ships like the Shantavi or Sharkaan classes at their disposal.

the religious caste....well....it's never been made entirely clear what the religious caste does aside from pray. I always assume they double up as administrators from the way they're described. Certainly the rangers seem to be on much better terms with them than the other Minbari Factions. As a result, Liandra-esque designs, couriers and so forth seem
appropriate - with a tendancy towards flyers rather than Nials.

 

[Locutus9956]

just because all three caste HAVE weapons doesnt make them all the proper military. The Police and intelligence services all have weapons but theyre still not the army..... (admittedly the balnce is hardly even in this case in terms of weaponry but its not THAT far fetched). Still its an interesting idea though it REALLY needs new ships to work as the Minbari simply dont have enough designs to support a fleet split like the EA (the Narns and Centauri I think could both be split reasonably though)

 

[Alexb83]

I'm assuming it wouldn't be literally 1/3 of the fleet by fighting power...

I can believe that each of the others has SOME potential in each area; the warrior caste needs the ability to maintain and potentially upgrade its ships, even if it doesn't have the shipyard capacity to build a full warfleet.

Actually in Shattered Dreams we see that the Religious caste does have warcruisers. Which is why I think the fleet selection should be the same across the board - the caste idea is just a way to change the flavour of the fleet in more subtle ways than saying 'your religious caste fleet has nothing above raid level' or 'your warrior caste fleet has nothing below war'. It's not about breaking the fleet up, but having 3 different analogues which play in different ways due to their relative strengths and weaknesses.

As for the religious caste - they're teachers, scholars, researchers, ambassadors - they mediate disputes and so on. As we see with Lennier there is a martial element to the training in the Religious caste, as well as purely philosophical. In the same way, we see that there is more to Neroon than just a warrior...

 

[Locutus9956]

SPOILER!!!!!!!











Neroon is MORE than just warrior though. He basically SAYS he's in the wrong caste before he dies!

 

[Alexb83]

Traditionally, he was in the right caste (his mother's)... in his heart he was in the wrong one.
Some Minbari moved caste as their life dictated (like Bramner).

The castes are pretty immutable, the individuals in them are all... individuals with their own skillsets. But if you were to have a fleet consisting of all warrior caste, next to a fleet consisting of all religious, I would think they would fight very differently, due to the prevailing strengths and weaknesses of their crews - which is what this was all about.

 

[Balance]

I say no, the idea of the religious and worker castes operating one third each of the Minbari military was the WORST idea JMS ever had.

I thoguht it was merely 1/3 of the fleet... Which could include a lot of 'civilian' ships if Minbari society doesn't really acept private ownership of space ships. So the 1/3 owned by the worker caste is all transport craft, colony ships, etc.

The religious caste's third is a bit more interesting. i'd wager there's a few "temple ships" but there can't be that many. Maybe they are owned by the Religious, but are 'leased' to the other castes?

Of course, devoting 1/3 of the population (if the population split is even) to religion means it's likely a significantly larger role than we'd give it today. Depending on what else they handle, they might need transports of their own, inspection ships, dedicated medical vessels, etc.

All of these would presumably be accepted as available to the warrior caste in times of need, of course.

 

[captainsmirk]

The Religious caste obviously have some fighting capability, otherwise the Minbari civil war would have been over rather quickly...


Nick

 

[Tredrick]

1/3rd of the fleet, presumably 1/3 of each type, was owned by each caste. The Warrior caste usually crewed all of the fleet, but the other castes maintained technical ownership of it and could demand the return of the fleet for their own crewing/use.

 

[Hash]

I like the idea of flavour fleets, maybe you want to write an article for Signs and Portents Alex?

Minbari castes is good (and an obvious place to start)...you could do a series...

Centauri Houses
Green and Purple Drazi fleets

err...ok am having trouble...still nice idea!

 

[Alexb83]

I wouldn't mind writing an article, Hash - but noone's really commented on the proposed mods that I made (the initiative shuffling and the bonuses/penalties).

Are they too subtle, or too pronounced? Would there be any point in taking a given fleet if it didn't give you a noticeable change?

Like I say, I dont want to play around with ship suggestion - just the underlying things like CQ, CQ checks and initiative.

 

[Commador Q]

i'd say the sugested changes are a good start but it could be taken a but further.

perhaps you should concider altering the fighter complements of the various casts as well.

persoanally i'd like to see something like this:

Religious cast: all auxilery craft are replaced with flyer flights and only flyers may be taken as indavidual wings

when it comes right down to it, the primary use of the flyer seems to be to ferry religious cast members around, and given the technologicle capabilities of the minbari the religios cast shouldn't really need anything better than flyers for any combat action the'd be likely to take by themselves

Military cast: may trade freely between all 3 types of minbari fighters

the military cas has the largest and most varied need for fighters so they should make use of all designes equally.

Worker cast: as normal except the tishat is not available to replace other flights or to buy as an indapendednt wing.

the workers build all these fighters so they should have whatever they want, but the tishat is described as having been replaced by the nail and only used by some members of the warior cast who prefer it, so i figure the worker cast probably wouldn't use them.