With my wanting to play a Ssi-Ruuvi Naval Officer, my thoughts have turned to what happens immediately after the Battle of Terminus has concluded insofar as what the Ssi-Ruuk do, in addition to whatever the Alliance and Empire does. Besides beginning the corralling up of people to start mass entechment on the planet there will also be significant amounts of refugee ships along with perhaps minor naval assets retreating along both hyperspace lanes out of Terminus. While the Ruu would certainly send pursuit forces to capture as many people as possible, it would make sense to send secondary invasion flotillas to whatever planets are next in order to establish forward beachheads while they await whatever immediate counterattacks might be orchestrated by the Empire and/or the Alliance. Also a prominent point will be dissecting and assimilating superior technology, particular in regards to military tech. Stronger Ion Cannons, Tractor Beams, learning about Mag Pulse torpedoes and perhaps even capturing an Interdictor Cruiser? That last would be a very scary addition to their arsenal and wouldn't need too much to incorporate, could modify a Shree or Sh'Ner type vessel and probably not even had the domes exposed to enemy fire, power the projector with life energy. Thoughts?
I'm not particularly interested in weaponry R&D unless its driving a story, but the strategic goals you mention are solid. I definitely could see the Imperium fleet looking to rout fleeing ships while the getting's good and expanding their toe-hold into more strategic worlds - especially ones on the two hyperlanes Terminus sits on. I know we've got a player here that's had a Shreeftut account, but she's mainly planning on sneering at our heroes from a distance, not sure if she'd be interacting with your officer. I will say that one story we could easily tell that's less an R&D story and more of the good guys trying to stop the dinos from doing things is if the Ssi-Ruuk discover information on the old heavy Malevolence ion weapon and try to develop one of those. It fits with their style and is a very terrifying option that the rest of the galaxy would have to stop somehow. I wouldn't immediately leap on that one yet, keep it in reserve imho.
The idea of the Ssi-Ruuk gaining new technology is an interesting one, but I would caution against doing too much of that too quickly. From a narrative perspective, the Ssi-Ruuk are new and different, so we should probably spend some time showcasing those differences before we have them adopting/absorbing the same old familiar tricks. Also, we don't want to paint ourselves into a corner writing the other factions either: those technologies that we have that the Ruuk don't are what give us an edge that we can exploit, and it's the source of the creativity that is going to drive how the Empire and Alliance responds. The Ssi-Ruuk are already nigh unbeatable, I don't think we should be in a rush to make them even more unbeatable. That said, the Ssi-Ruuk showing an obvious interest in acquiring new tech is an interesting one. As someone with an Inderdictor Cruiser, there's a certain appeal to knowing that there might be paranoia in how the Empire deploys such ships, worried about using certain ships out of concern the Ruuk might assimilate them. We might even want to save certain technologies - like that Malevolence ion weapon - for the Alliance/Empire to use against the Ssi-Ruuk: looking to our recent history for desperate options to fight back. That way, we're repurposing history that we have and that the Ruuk do not (turning our past into a strategic advantage), rather than merely have our villain work their way through the Star Wars bad guy greatest hits.
Ah, I hadn't even considered that. Might be a cool option to plumb the depths that the Alliance is willing to go in particular. We already have an idea the Empire is comfortable with it, but these guys will have to act in some ways as a unified front as time goes on. Another thing to consider is that Terminus sits on two major space lanes that both immediately plunge into Imperial and Alliance territory, meaning that both factions will be in the shit pretty quickly.
Good thoughts Park! I'm not terribly savvy on the lesser known planets in the Star wars universe and I see there are quite a few planets along the Imperial hyperspace lane. In particular Bespin, since we already have that planet pretty well established at Swfans, could we say most of the Imperial refugees flee there? Perhaps it's there that the first real battle between the Ssi-Ruuk and the Imperials takes place as well. With the pursuing Ssi-Ruuk forces clashing with Imperials already present at Bespin. Perhaps the Imperials lose that battle as well. Previously I mentioned an Imperial thread depicting the Imperial leaders discussion and response would be fun to do. In that realm, I wonder what reports/information would they know about? -Likely an emergency broadcast from Terminus, with the Ssi-Ruuk's standard, ""Be glad! The joy that we bring goes beyond mere sensory happiness. Yours is the privilege of assisting the Ssi-ruuk in liberating the other worlds of the galaxy." -Followed by the panicked report of whats occurring with some rough scans, images of whats happening before the transmission is cut. -Then reports from Bespin, largely news from survivors. Maybe a few military vessels that escaped. From there, the military would discuss response options. During this discussion we could have word come that Bespin is now under attack as well. Forcing the Empire to respond with haste. Then we could start another thread from the Bespin perspective, with the planet under attack and things looking particularly grim until the Imperials arrive in proper force. I was thinking though, instead of winning we could have a DS9, second battle of Chin'toka moment. Where the Empire isn't prepared to deal with the Ssi-Ruuk and it goes particularly poorly. The result ranging from a costly victory to a complete route and defeat. I think this would provide some momentum toward balancing the fields between the Rebellion and the Empire with the Empire suffering a significant loss of forces. It would also give the Bespin setting some new spice to cook with. I echo Charley's sentiment on the tech side of things, as long as it drives story. I think it can also add some interesting elements with the various factions, including criminal elements, getting hold of Ssi-Ruuk technology and trying to adapt it for various means, which would fuel the cold war in some regard. I remember someone making the point that the Ssi-Ruuk tech being the a factor in what makes Starkiller tech obsolete. So it would make sense to keep sub plots involving Ssi-Ruuk tech in the minds of the readers.
While we are on Bespin and DS9 parallels, what if the Ssi-Ruu actually take cloud city and it becomes their Terok Nor for a bit?
I like it. I didn't think of it before but due to Sanye and Miranda's relationship the response could be even more dramatic. Further explaining the ill-prepared and quick response.
I'm not terribly savvy on the lesser known planets in the Star wars universe and I see there are quite a few planets along the Imperial hyperspace lane. In particular Bespin, since we already have that planet pretty well established at Swfans, could we say most of the Imperial refugees flee there? Perhaps it's there that the first real battle between the Ssi-Ruuk and the Imperials takes place as well. With the pursuing Ssi-Ruuk forces clashing with Imperials already present at Bespin. Perhaps the Imperials lose that battle as well. I really like the idea of refugees flowing to Cloud City. They'd probably end up elsewhere in the Greater Javin in the long run, given Cloud City's limited size/resources, and the plethora of much bigger and better-equipped worlds across those three sectors, but having Cloud City be the Ellis Island for that is a really intriguing concept, and could do a lot to help drive forward the overarching narrative in that area. That said, I am a little nervous about the idea of a Battle of Bespin, and it isn't something we should rush towards. Cloud City is a significant enough locale that it has its own forum, and there are a lot of characters there who would potentially be affected or impacted by such a storyline. It would be the sort of event that I think we would need to discuss with the wider community as it's own thing, and I feel as if something of this gravitas is season finale territory, something that we would need to build towards and take seriously in order to do it justice. Also, on a personal note, having put a lot of work into trying to get the Greater Javin off the ground as a replacement for the Corporate Sector, it would massively suck for me to have all of that burned to the ground in the wake of a Ssi-Ruuk stampede towards Bespin. If we're looking for more of a Chin'toka situation, it might be better to focus on one of the other worlds in the Greater Javin instead. In the grand scheme of things, Bespin is small potatoes: there are worlds of millions/billions sitting around next door, and there's little reason for the Ssi-Ruuk to choose Bespin over one of those worlds - aside from the OOC impact of having a canon world attacked. If what we want is a significant defeat for the Empire, potentially with that turning into a costly victory (perhaps with Alliance reinforcements?), we might be better served by going for a world like Isde Naha. That's a sector capital, and it's essentially the gateway into the Greater Javin. It potentially has a lot of the same social/narrative impact as a Battle of Bespin might, but without the risk of being quite so destructive/disruptive of Cloud CIty as a roleplaying setting. Previously I mentioned an Imperial thread depicting the Imperial leaders discussion and response would be fun to do. In that realm, I wonder what reports/information would they know about? I would definitely be onboard with some sort of Imperial leaders discussion. The Minister of the Interior (Home Secretary / oversees COMPNOR/ISB/Intel/etc) is probably the character most likely to get involved in that. I also have a Grand Moff kicking around from a storyline that fell through, who was intended to be overseeing the region around Bespin / Terminus / etc, so he would presumably play a part in things. As far as reports coming out of Terminus, a complete lack of communication might be more ominous than a message of intent from the Ssi-Ruuk. An enemy that doesn't feel the need to gloat could be quite menacing, and if they regard us non-saurian species as inferior, they might not even feel that we're worth that sort of a gesture. We do have a few Imperial Captains kicking around - the best way to get information out of Terminus might be to have a ship or ships perform recon, and then recount what they saw to our Leadership Council. That way we get the emotion of what they witnessed alongside the cold hard facts.
Just chiming in before I crash out for the night... Since Cloud City is kinda the main area for a damn lot of my characters.... realllyyyyy rather another location was chosen instead of Bespin for next desctruction as it would basically utterly upend everything I’ve been kinda working on there? not to be utterly selfish, just kinda rather not have to revisit a ton of characters and try to figure them all out all over again now that I’m just getting them situated. though I totally get it’s not “mine” by any damn means... just kinda rather not screw over a giant chunk of characters in one go.
Yeah no worries, we can always find a juicy target elsewhere
