Episode 2.01: Brushfire!

[Doug Burke]

Sorak nods, "I am certain you will not be disappointed, sir. The toys are ready." He glanced at the power curve and status indicators back at his station and nodded in satisfaction.

[Renny]

Durham Cole listens to the conversation between Captain and Engineer from his station with amusement as he had heard variations of this interplay almost daily over the last few months. The reality is, he thinks, this new ship has plenty of toys to go around.

[Davy, aka GM]

OOC: Data on Neural

Neural is a once-peaceful M-class world with a primitive pre-industrial civilization that had yet to develop gunpowder; two primary cultures coexisted on the main continent: The agrarian Village People and the hunter-gatherer Hill People. Though divergent, they traded often, and conflict was rare.

The planet was first surveyed by the crew of USS Farragut in 2255; one Lieutenant James Kirk was landing party lead, and his reports resulted in Neural being named a Federation protectorate. In 2267, operatives from the Klingon Empire visited Neural and began accelerating the warfighting technology of the so-called "Village People," naming a master smith, Apella, as the leader of his faction. When Kirk returned to the planet with the Enterprise in 2268, he found that the Village People had flintlock muskets and had started warring against the Hill People; Kirk uncovered the Klingon interference and armed the Hill People in a similar fashion, matching advancement for advancement and stabilizing the balance of power.

Following Kirk's recommendation, Starfleet stationed a warship over Neural to prevent further Klingon incursions (either a destroyer or fast frigate) while the inhabitants of Neural continued to fight an on-and-off war; a brief overture of peace in 2275 was met by the assassination of Hill People leader Tyree during negotiations, and a retaliatory massacre of an Apellan village the following weeks. Both sides then vowed to wipe out the other.

When it was discovered in 2276 that the Village People, now being called the Apellan Faction by Starfleet, had introduced a 17.5mm musket to their inventory, Starfleet analysts surmised that the Klingons were using cloaked ships to ferry messages and technological improvements to the Apellan leaders. The Federation armed the Tyreen Faction (Hill People) with a similar improvement, but also added the 12mm long rifle to better take advantage of their natural guerilla tactics.

The technological balance remained steady throughout the 2280s, and no improvements have been detected in Apellan weapons since 2283. Fighting has been sporadic for the past eighteen months, and it appeared the Apellans had begun to take a less aggressive stance by mid-2288; however, evidence that they have been training on new squad-level tactics in the past three months leads Starfleet to believe a new technological leap is around the corner.

[Davy, aka GM]

Having assembled in the main briefing room, the senior staff listen in on Lt. Hodgkins A&A briefing on the history and current state of affairs on Neural.

"The 17.5 millimeter smoothbore musket remains the primary weapon of both factions, although the Tyreens are showing a preference for using the 12 millimeter rifle, even in more formal skirmishes where the longer reload times would be a hindrance," he says. "Starfleet analysts are split, with a slight majority believing that it shows a reluctance on the part of the Tyreens to fully commit to defeating the Apellans, even if doing so would end the war in their favor. The remainder say either the Tyreens are remaining true to their hunter-gatherer cultural roots, which just don't go away in a generation, or that they don't have the sophistication to adopt newer tactics; the latter is only held by a small minority.

"Any questions?"

[Patrick Goodman]

"Why would they be reluctant to end the war, especially if they could win in the process?" the captain asked.

[Davy, aka GM]

"I think the reluctance is to changing tactics to match the Apellan style of warfare, but I disagree with the notion that the Tyreen could win the war outright if they did so," the anthropologist explains. "What I see going on is that the Tyreen instead are adapting their tools to their preferred tactics, which means the rifle over the smoothbore."

[Patrick Goodman]

"Which leads me to ask why introducing the rifle to the Tyreen didn't upset the balance of power."

[Davy, aka GM]

"Significant differences in available population, Captain, for one, and those long rifles have about half the firing rate of the smoothbore," Hodgkins offers. "While the Tyreens can attack from further away, they just can't put the same amount of lead on target over an extended engagement, and will often have to fall back or be overrun by superior numbers.

"Frankly, the Tyreen will need superior weapons to take any total war to a successful conclusion; our current course of action will only result in the eventual destruction of the Hill People, unless we can somehow negotiate an end to the war."

[Renny]

"I take it we are confident that if the Klingons are responsible for whatever has happened to the Rostov, that they are likely to favour the Apellans in a resolution of the conflict?" Cole asked Hodgkins.

[Davy, aka GM]

"Well, I think we're confident they've always been in favor of an Apellan victory, even if they haven't publicly admitted their involvement and still take pains to mask their visits - I don't think we've detected a Klingon life form on Neural in what, fifteen years?"

[Nolmir]

"Who is Starfleet dealing with in the Tyreen faction now that Tyree is dead?" Tobin asks.

[Davy, aka GM]

"I don't know that...," Dan says as he starts looking through his assembled electronic clipboards. On his third, his face lights up in an "A-ha!" moment, and he raises the clipboard triumphantly. He looks at his notes on it and reads, "Someone named Yutan, I think that's how it's pronounced."

[Patrick Goodman]

Treyva nodded. "Let me digress for a moment, Mr. Hodgkins," he said. "Something doesn't make sense. There's been a Starfleet combat vessel orbiting Neural for twenty years; even during the escalation on the planet, there weren't any orbital hostilities. Assuming the Klingons were brazen enough to destroy the Rostov, it means something significant has changed."

He turned to his science officer. "Mr. Les, what have we got on the Rostov?"

[Davy, aka GM]

OOC: Going to answer for Tobin for this. Sorry for the hijack, Nolmir.

"USS Rostov, NCC-2333, Kiev-class fast frigate, complement of 153. Commanded by Captain Lawrence Styles since 2286, she's been stationed over Neural for two months of a scheduled seven-month deployment."

OOC: The Kievs have been around since 2271, are capable of wf 7/9/12, and almost always have a tactical profile.

[Renny]

OOC: Is this the, James B. Sikking, Lawrence Styles?