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"Running the Gauntlet" OOC Thread
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Wednesday, 11 Jul 2012, 1:28 PM | Message # 1 |
 Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
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| Management has convened on this.
Jamie makes plenty of good points in this post, the problem with them being that Adam hasn't seriously claimed to have found Alsakan's base accidentally. Thus, we can't "have the thread in which Adams slavers discover the Alsakan base through a sheer turn of luck" "overturned and stricken from the record" because, to our reading, there is no thread in which this occurs. Adam's argument is not that it was found accidentally but that Alsakan's repeated forays into Hutt Space and the inevitable re-supplying of Alsakan's base would, over time, narrow down a particular area of space where Alsakan must be operating from based on where its ships have been sighted.
(Unless, as Adam pointed out, Alsakan is going to great lengths—costly and redundant hyperspace jumps, etc.—to conceal where its ships are going and how they're getting there; there's been no indication of this, however).
The rebel bases weren't easily found, but they also weren't, apparently, bases from which attacks were directly launched. The absence of any capital ships or any significant number of starfighters at either Yavin Base and Echo Base are proof enough of this. If Alsakan's warships came and went from Yavin Base and Echo Base on frequent anti-slaving incursions, no doubt these bases would have been discovered sooner (there exist in the canon methods of tracking ships).
Adam's original post is consistent with this. For instance, the following passages both indicate that Alsakan's base wasn't happened upon accidentally.
Quote (RhygarValencia) There, just beyond the edge of their sensors, the pilots knew, were the elements placed by the accursed Alsakan naval forces to inhibit slave trading.
Quote (RhygarValencia) Enough slavers had been captured, or survived by the skin of their teeth, to give an accounting of some of what the Alsakan forces could throw out
He went on to argue the following points. (Note that we've crossed out the points that aren't really pertinent or plausible.)
Quote (RhygarValencia) 1) It's possible more than one slaver band stumbled across it.
2) The bases would still require resupply and unless they're not rotating forces, there has to be a steady supply of switching manpower, which requires vessels which in turn, can be tracked.
3) With the Alsakans raiding slavers leaving Hutt Space up and down the line, I'm fairly confident the Hutts would put their own investigative techniques to use.
4) Even if the above trio of reasons failed, then we can fall back on the fact that, as slavers, they made the discovery by accident, knowing full well that other slavers had been attacked on the routes they'd taken and therefore executed a different jump path that led them to where they stumbled across the stations. Either way, this post was up since well before June 20th. You've had quite a bit of time to debate this prior.
The first and fourth points have been crossed out in agreement with Jamie--it's simply not plausible for Alsakan's base to be found accidentally. The third point has been crossed out because there remains some confusion about whether or not Alsakan actually has been making incursions into Hutt Space at this point; while there has been mention of the anti-slaving bases, it isn't clear whether there have been any threads that the Hutts have had to respond to. (There haven't been, to my knowledge.) The extent of Alsakan's operations, thus, are vague and we don't know whether it's attracted the attention of the Hutts or not. Either way, it's easiest to set this point aside.
The second point is the most compelling to us. That, and simply the location of Alsakan's anti-slaving hits eventually narrowing down, statistically, where in general the ships must be coming from. As long as A.) Alsakan is launching operations from this base and, B.) the location of the base remains unchanged, the probability of the base being discovered over time is as close to 100% as it can be. Adam's posts, in our opinion, are consistent with his character checking out a general area in which there's reason to believe Alsakan's base is located, for the above reasons.
None of this addresses the OOC time limit on posts, which doesn't seem to really be at-issue here since no attack has been made. It would, however, be preferable if Adam were flexible on this since, truly, no one can be expected to read every thread, especially a new thread without any indication in its title or subtitle that it's directed at you. So far, in this sort of instance, it's been management's policy to say "Tough" and adhere to the 4-day posting rule. That's been the policy, and it'd be unfair to change it now. But from now on, some effort must be made to make a new thread directed at a particular player more noticeable to that player. (Something in the title, perhaps. Or a note on the OOC forum. Or a mention in Messenger, etc.)
Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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| Verence_Terrawin | Date: Thursday, 12 Jul 2012, 4:20 AM | Message # 2 |
 Major general
Group: Users
Messages: 285
Status: Offline
| The base at had 30 GR-75 transports present - comparably sized to small capital ships. They also has the reactor from a star dreadnaught at hoth.. I doubt they transported that there other than with capital-sized freighters.
Even if they didn't though - Hoth is a world - its a known location, a point of reference.. It's not the infinite void of interstellar space.. There's no way to discover such a location randomly.
My base is completely unknown - its not been announced publicly. With Alsakan Frigates patrolling the area around Hutt Space the logical approach would be to assume the fighters are launched from them - not a hidden base. Thus it doesn't make any sense for them to find a deep space base because they have no reason to believe that one exists.
As for general area notion of narrowing down raids - that's a ridiculous middle world argument - fighters can travel thousands of lightyears. The rebels launched multiple raids from various bases in a hit and fade manner and were not found in many cases. You can't effectively search deep space with star wars technology - that is a fact. This isn't like the real world where if someone an attack from an island in an island chain from another you can work out from the range of the fighters attacking you where they come from. This is star wars - this is deep space - these fighters have the ability to traverse a galaxy, in addition to often being given in-flight refuelling by tenders close to the Frigates patrolling, these are fighters with a range of the whole galaxy who can and will be launching raids across an appreciable fraction of that galaxy (look at the size of Hutt space, it's not as if they're going to raid just the area around their base).
Thus why wasn't Dantooine discovered - I can list off a dozen more worlds rebel fighters flew from attacking a much more powerful and organised enemy than the Hutts - with the ability to detect them and track them - by your logic why wasn't every rebel fighter base wiped out?
This is as ever another one of Adams miraculous deus ex machine which does not - if you think about it - add up.
Just asking for management to reconsider this in the light of the facts I've mentioned - and to open their minds a little to the sheer size and scope of space. For all that's known the base could be outside the galactic disc.. Or above it.. Or below it.. It's surely off the hyperspace routes and the raids it launches are random, and utilise support ships so they can strike anywhere, anywhen - these aren't world war 2 fighters with a limited range.
Even if they were checking out "where it was suspected", they would be faced with dozens of lightyears with nothing but celestial phenomena to look at - and sweep - before they found the station. Even if you had the station hidden between earth and alpha centauri, it would be 40,000 years before a star wars ship at one of the top sublight speeds documented could make the journey, and scan the million kilometers star wars regular sensors are estimated to be maxed at.
And even then.. You'd only be scanning a million kilometre tunnel with active sensors. Passive ones could read any emissions for a goodly distance around - but could passive sensors pick up something so distant and small? Unlikely. Dust clouds, gas clouds, asteroids etc all mask such scans, and frankly, it's a small metal gun platform between two much larger asteroids with hangars - kinda hard to say one of the asteroids wouldn't block passive scans of the platform, at such a distance.
Add to this all - none of the slavers would know what they're looking for. How would they know it's a gun platform and two asteroid bases? How would they further know that the two found belonged to the Alsakans? Pretty sure lots of shady groups (Hutts among them) operate random deep space operations - there's nothing which could lead them to expect to find the bases.
1. They don't know they exist.
2. They have nothing to indicate their location (even vaguely).
3. Even if they did know the rough area - they'd not be able to find them without thousands of years of intensive search.
4. They don't know how big the Alsakan base is or what it comprises of - for all they know it could be based on one of the many Alsakan Frigates as mentioned.
So why not see some actual roleplay be done to find them? Follow some Alsakan ships, roleplay capturing one even perhaps?
Yes this is mount improbably for Adam, but let's see him use a crane instead of a skyhook to get up it - I'd have no objection to serious roleplay being done to discover the bases - I just object to these cheap threads which tend to start "A theta class shuttle appears" which gain highly secret information - largely by luck rather than any effort to work.
Verence Terrawin
Senator of Alsakan
First Lord of the Foreign Office, Alsakan
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Thursday, 12 Jul 2012, 9:49 PM | Message # 3 |
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Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 2245
Status: Offline
| Just for the record, I'm speaking now for myself and not for management.
I think you acknowledge in your final sentences that in an RP, it simply doesn't do to have a base from which attacks are launched on another player* indefinitely without ever being discovered. I think we can agree on this, and it was a principle that guided the ruling in no small part. Also, in lieu of quite a lot of information heretofore unknown, certain good faith assumptions were made about Alsakan's base; i.e. it's on the galactic plane. But, and here I digress, whether it is or isn't the veracity of my statement—"the probability of the base being discovered over time is as close to 100% as it can be"—is correct.
You give us new information now about how Alsakan's forces have operated that hasn't been available to us before because of the absence of these forces in the course of the RP so far. It would have been useful to us when the dispute was first raised. Note that in the ruling we do say that there could be countermanding facts about how Alsakan's ships are operating that would make the discovery of the base more difficult for Rhygar, but that we don't know how Alsakan's ships are operating. We do now, and so, naturally, the base is going to be more difficult to find.
* I realize at this point Alsakan's forces haven't attacked anyone. Maybe? There's some ambiguity on this point.
Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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| Verence_Terrawin | Date: Thursday, 12 Jul 2012, 10:27 PM | Message # 4 |
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Major general
Group: Users
Messages: 285
Status: Offline
| As yet no. Just intelligence gathering - I was just referring to ability to launch comprehensive strikes.
As regards to always avoiding detection - that isn't the case - I mention in my previous methods it could be found in my previous post - but I'd like to see it roleplayed not just declared.
Verence Terrawin
Senator of Alsakan
First Lord of the Foreign Office, Alsakan
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| Jaron | Date: Thursday, 12 Jul 2012, 11:01 PM | Message # 5 |
 Major general
Group: Administrators
Messages: 252
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| I'm going to have sit on the "It can be found, but just needs to be RPed out" gang that seems to be forming here. Adam? Anything to say here?
Jaron Park
Manager from June 2009 to Present, Administrator from December 2011 to Present
(pre-April 2012 posts) (post-April 2012 posts)
Pre-2009 Archives
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| Alyn_Stark | Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2012, 5:11 AM | Message # 6 |
 Generalissimo
Group: Users
Messages: 1359
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| Well I mean, if he has the stations but he's never used them, there isn't much anyone can do. Obviously there's no foot to stand on here.
Alyn Stark
Lord of Kinyov
Senior Captain, Retired, Republic Navy
Head of House Malos (former)
Licensed bounty hunter
Majority shareholder, Lorrd Engineering
Owner, Stark Defense Conglomerate
Civilian Medal of Honor recipient
Representative, Lorrd (10 BBY-9 BBY)
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