 March 16, 2012 - 12:38pm | The sathar space armada quickly overwhelmed the eorna, wreaking
destruction across the planet. Within a matter of days the worms had
nearly driven the gentle eorna to extinction. Still, the eorna fought
valiantly, and were able to resist complete annihilation because the
sathar had over extended their supply lines. interesting word armada, immediately conjures images in my imagination of Sir Frances Drake and the Spanish armada This is sort of a stream of consciousness thread- just talking to myself, if no one else posts comments, here about the sathar armada 1. it shows up first and fore most to wipe stuff out witness Truane's Star in SW1 and Volturnus 900 years before the UPF. yet the worms dont always wipe things out: zuraquor and mhemne races 2. It has a capability to ravage and destroy- likely means nukes and other WMDs, many of their ships they deploy in the KHs board game come equipped with torpedos which are specifically designated as being nuclear armed. 3. is prone to being over extended witness the cannon statement in Crash on Volturnus above and its incredibly piss poor performance in SW1. Little doubt that it comes with bio constructs and attack monsters as well as hordes of lower caste infantry. but again how much of that stuff can they carry? I think the Ares mag article on Von Neuhman machines detailing a robotic sathar factory that churns out robotic tanks was an effort by one sathar clan to over come the natural sathar limitation in over extended supply lines RE: interesting that SW1 was so brief and that the UPF suffered what amounted to a few dozen incursions over the decades; this could be very indicative of the fact that the sathar must come a long way to attack; they've plagued the Rim for a long time and failed to conquer it so more of the same on this point. 4. Clan structures and dominant and wanna be dominant clans: we can assert only 2 to exist: clan x and clan y but we should presume at least a Z is out there as well as any number more desired by individual gms. Clan x can be said to have a specialty with bio-constructs and attack monsters while clan y has a focus on fighter operations, I would propose that clan z is the roboticists of the lot- producing the various distinct sathar robots that we see as well as the Von Neuman machine equipment from the named magazine article above. I'm guessing that a true armada is an assemblage of regional? clans lead by the dominant clan. This may explain the seriously poor tactics witnessed in SW1 with the splitting of their forces into two task forces that were quickly defeated in detail. Jockeying for control and political infighting leads to divided command structures (lucky for their victims) 5. The fleet or armada that showed up at the end of the volturnus series was defeated too easily and thus I think it represented purely the assets of one clan, with perhaps a few fealty troops "paid" to the dominant clan by the subservient clans that responded to the obelisk beacon. 6. After a defeat: after the defeat of SW1 the dominant clan suffered a blow to its status but not one that dethroned it. However after Volturnus, since it lost its force and the other clans did not I imagine a round of in fighting that witnessed clan x rising as a dominant clan (it will be dominant over clan y during the Beyond the Froniter series) So perhaps clan Z was dominant during SW1 and The Volturnus series. Composition of the armada: destroyers are the work horse ship class for the sathar. plus light and heavy cruisers as well as carriers. We can assume troop, support and other ships in the fleet. No solid statements limit us on what the composition of the armada is so we can develop this as best we think. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 16, 2012 - 1:10pm | thinking back on the sathar math thread their octal math influences fleet structure: a tentacle = 4 destroyers or in UPF speak a division or squadron of destroyers a fleet with 4 tentacles of destroyers would have 16 destroyers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 16, 2012 - 1:24pm | Here's an interesting thought. (I worked up the numbers on this a few months ago but can't find them at the moment). If you wanted to a) deviate a little from the KH construction rules but base things on ship volume and b) pack your lower cast sathar ground troops in to large "slime pits" for transport, you could reasonably put something like 800-1000 sathar ground troops plus landing shuttles and their crew into in a HS 6 destroyer after all the other ship systems have been accounted for. So given that the KH rules say that the sathar ships of SWII dwarf those of SWI, I can envision the Sathar fleet during SWII to be lots of small, lightly armed ships that double as troop transports. Maybe almost all the ships are based off a HS 5-10 hulls. I imagine a fleet composition something like:
Four task groups each composed of:
Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
March 16, 2012 - 1:40pm | I think we should double your numbers on the bigger ships at least to have two respectable task forces to split for Cassidine and Dixon's STar. but otherwise I dont think I'd quibble too much with your numbers. from your suggestions of armament I think I smell some SW1 KHs scenarios in the offing. i think we can work something up on that, combined with a history thread article on the SW1, with your timeline and KHs scenarios that will make a good series of articles in issue 19 or 20. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 16, 2012 - 1:52pm | We might want to bump up the number of larger ships. Although I don't really see them splitting the fleet up. I see them (and I think this is how I wrote it into my time line) hitting Truane's Star, gathering the fleet after occupying the planets, heading to Cassidine, getting defeated there (losing 1/3 of the fleet) and falling back to Truane's Star, and then moving on to Dixon's Star and then Prenglar. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
March 16, 2012 - 2:05pm | I'm still thinking about the implications of "over extended" what if they dont bring much in the way of support ships? if all their troops are whats on board the war ships? this would explain the over extended thing and in ability to continue operation. Though I just cant see myself not including supply ships- something has to transport their von neuman factory in the ares article. I always viewed the time frame on the move on Dixon's star and Cassidine as being short and since splitting of a force in the face of an enemy is a classic tactical mistake I feel that it gives a reason for Morgaine's rag tag fleet to succeed despite their not having drilled together prior to this. Simple fact is that a hastily assembled common muster is a recipe for a cluster screw up of epic proportions. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 17, 2012 - 4:41pm | What if this particular sathar fleet was part of a clan that needed a quick victory to re-establish itself in the Clan system (or please the Master Computer). That would account for the low numbers. I guess. Remember the sathar has been around for a long time, there shouldn't be a large difference in the fleet size and tech used between SWI and SWII. I think the only way to resolve this is an over-stretched fleet with no slave races to assist. Ask yourself, "What problem are we trying to solve." |
March 17, 2012 - 4:59pm | Its a strong implication that they dont innovate for themselves, seeing as how they have a 900 year space faring history and are not significantly more advanced than the Frontier in space tech. In the White Light mod they tried to steel the Osprey becuase they had no answer for the assualt scout. That supports the non innovation contention a little. I think they groom client races now as a development in the last 900 years because new tech comes out of that, albeit slowly. They also study and steel from their victims. Given enough time the Frontier and the Rim will out innovate the sathar and then it will be "Now You Look Out Worms" I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
(if you took half the volume of the ship, and assumed you needed 4x the volume of a HS 1 ship for it's bay, crew, maintenance material, etc. you could put 500 fighters in a HS 8 ship)