Star Fleet Fiction
This is Steven Petrick Writing:
There are a lot of players who have a gift for writing fiction. Their biggest problem tends to be finding a story to tell that "works". And, as SVC will tell you, I tend to be the biggest headache for any writer.
I tend to insist that the background makes sense, that the tactics make sense, that the story not rely on one side being complete idiots, or simply rely on the "heroes" being somehow "legendary".
If the basis of the Story is that a squadron of ships is intercepting an enemy squadron of ships to save a base, it has to make sense that the interception is better than, say falling back on the base itself and using its firepower to support your squadron and thus repel the attack. In short, an enemy force that is large enough to destroy the unsupported base, but small enough to be repelled, or at least engaged on near equal terms by your "hero's" squadron is simply not a threat to the base if the hero simply took his squadron to it. You would need something more to make such a story work.
An option might be to have the enemy force be a "follow up attack", the base having already been heavily damaged by a previous assault and needing time to make repairs. In such case, even if your hero tried to defend at the base, the base would be too vulnerable to enemy fire. This gives a logical reason for the hero to lead his squadron to intercept the approaching enemy.
Another problem is, of course, to not have the hero act as if he has perfect and complete knowledge of the enemy. For example, no commander of a Federation Force engaging a Kzinti force in the first Federation-Kzinti War is going to be able to operate as if he knows for a fact that the Kzintis only have type-I drones. Even if his intelligence reports indicated that the Kzintis were having problems resupplying their front-line combat units with drones such that few type-IVs (much less type-IIs or type-Vs) were available, he would always have to be leery that the Kzintis he is fighting might have a few. Consequently, if a pair of Kzinti ships launch six drones at his YCA, he cannot simply target one phaser-2 on each drone and act as if the problem is solved. And of course there is a a 16.67% chance that even if all the drones are type-I a phaser-2 shot will fail to kill it. So such a Federation Captain should know that he is gambling and be relieved that all the drones are destroyed (good luck does happen), or glad that only one got through (the average), or perhaps dismayed that two (or more) got through (bad luck does happen too, especially when you gamble).
And luck is another thing to avoid too much of in a story. If the Federation Captain fires eight photon torpedoes at ranges greater than one, and is getting constant reports of the photons hitting, i.e., they never miss no matter what range he fires them at. Well, a scenario written to simulate that battle is going to have a drastically different outcome than the one in the story.
Watch the weapon fire and recycle rates. It is amazing the number of submitted stories that will have a Photon armed ship firing the photons at twice the rate the Disruptor armed ships are able to fire in the same battle (lets not mention how the disruptors are somehow far less accurate than the photons when they do fire).
Another thing is hand weapons. While Television shows often have advanced science hand weapons that instantly disintegrate their targets, the logic of the situation is that it cannot work that way. How does the disintegration beam know to just exactly disintegrate that one humanoid (or other alien) form and the things in direct contact with it (clothes, weapons, incidentals), but nothing else? And how much of the person has to be hit to accomplish this? Does the beam hitting an exposed leg disintegrate the whole person, or does that only happen if the beam hits the center of the target's mass? And consider the amount of energy being released. A disintegration beam is in essence converting matter (the target) to energy. When the Power Module in the target's weapon suddenly becomes energy, what happens to all the energy that was stored in it? The result of such disintegrations would of necessity be "explosions". And could you picture trying to recruit people to be in the ground combat units if that was the effect of being hit with an energy beam? So in fiction where combat between individuals is occurring, allow your hand weapons to wound and kill, but do not disintegrate.
There are a lot of players who have a gift for writing fiction. Their biggest problem tends to be finding a story to tell that "works". And, as SVC will tell you, I tend to be the biggest headache for any writer.
I tend to insist that the background makes sense, that the tactics make sense, that the story not rely on one side being complete idiots, or simply rely on the "heroes" being somehow "legendary".
If the basis of the Story is that a squadron of ships is intercepting an enemy squadron of ships to save a base, it has to make sense that the interception is better than, say falling back on the base itself and using its firepower to support your squadron and thus repel the attack. In short, an enemy force that is large enough to destroy the unsupported base, but small enough to be repelled, or at least engaged on near equal terms by your "hero's" squadron is simply not a threat to the base if the hero simply took his squadron to it. You would need something more to make such a story work.
An option might be to have the enemy force be a "follow up attack", the base having already been heavily damaged by a previous assault and needing time to make repairs. In such case, even if your hero tried to defend at the base, the base would be too vulnerable to enemy fire. This gives a logical reason for the hero to lead his squadron to intercept the approaching enemy.
Another problem is, of course, to not have the hero act as if he has perfect and complete knowledge of the enemy. For example, no commander of a Federation Force engaging a Kzinti force in the first Federation-Kzinti War is going to be able to operate as if he knows for a fact that the Kzintis only have type-I drones. Even if his intelligence reports indicated that the Kzintis were having problems resupplying their front-line combat units with drones such that few type-IVs (much less type-IIs or type-Vs) were available, he would always have to be leery that the Kzintis he is fighting might have a few. Consequently, if a pair of Kzinti ships launch six drones at his YCA, he cannot simply target one phaser-2 on each drone and act as if the problem is solved. And of course there is a a 16.67% chance that even if all the drones are type-I a phaser-2 shot will fail to kill it. So such a Federation Captain should know that he is gambling and be relieved that all the drones are destroyed (good luck does happen), or glad that only one got through (the average), or perhaps dismayed that two (or more) got through (bad luck does happen too, especially when you gamble).
And luck is another thing to avoid too much of in a story. If the Federation Captain fires eight photon torpedoes at ranges greater than one, and is getting constant reports of the photons hitting, i.e., they never miss no matter what range he fires them at. Well, a scenario written to simulate that battle is going to have a drastically different outcome than the one in the story.
Watch the weapon fire and recycle rates. It is amazing the number of submitted stories that will have a Photon armed ship firing the photons at twice the rate the Disruptor armed ships are able to fire in the same battle (lets not mention how the disruptors are somehow far less accurate than the photons when they do fire).
Another thing is hand weapons. While Television shows often have advanced science hand weapons that instantly disintegrate their targets, the logic of the situation is that it cannot work that way. How does the disintegration beam know to just exactly disintegrate that one humanoid (or other alien) form and the things in direct contact with it (clothes, weapons, incidentals), but nothing else? And how much of the person has to be hit to accomplish this? Does the beam hitting an exposed leg disintegrate the whole person, or does that only happen if the beam hits the center of the target's mass? And consider the amount of energy being released. A disintegration beam is in essence converting matter (the target) to energy. When the Power Module in the target's weapon suddenly becomes energy, what happens to all the energy that was stored in it? The result of such disintegrations would of necessity be "explosions". And could you picture trying to recruit people to be in the ground combat units if that was the effect of being hit with an energy beam? So in fiction where combat between individuals is occurring, allow your hand weapons to wound and kill, but do not disintegrate.
posted by Federation Commander at 5:48 PM
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