"The Fleet", A.K.A. The "Fridge", the "Lampshade"

[wowzewow]

Lore Impact (Small/Medium/Large): Small

Species: (Skrell, Tajara, Human, Vaurca, Dionae, Unathi, Synth, General) General

Short Description: A fleet of SCC/Biesel ships trailing the Horizon

How will this be reflected on-station?: Somewhere for escape pods/the escape shuttle to go to.

Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Not to my knowledge.

Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Yes.

Long Description:

Odin and Biesel were general "anchor points" for characters.

Back then they were used as convenient lampshades or places to keep and/or develop characters nearby the Aurora without writing them out.

With the exodus from the Aurora (HAR HAR HAR, GET IT?) we have lost this ability.

 

With this proposal I plan to see a generic "fleet" of ships that trail behind the Horizon, taking the mantle of the former Odin/Biesel.

These will not be full replacements, but will carry the same function. Likely a large command ship, some smaller engineering and research vessels, and a decent security convoy.

 

Now, this raises some questions - why, during ship combat/disasters, does this fleet not simply help the Horizon? Because that would be largely boring for gameplay.

Because they are deliberately a few parsecs behind - the SCCV Horizon is intended to be a semi-secret forward scout/research vessel for Phoron (similar to the Aurora)

Simply bringing the Horizon along would bring too much public scrutiny.

 

Anyway, that's basically my pitch. I've yet to hammer out some salient details or whatever, but I can work with Loredevs on this I suppose.

 

[N8-Toe]

I think this would be a negative addition to the lore. Currently the Horizon often in a way being "on its own" is an excellent narrative device. The ship's crew has to live and die by its own decisions, and can't just wait for the SCC to come bail them out. On the Aurora we lacked that tension, central is a short shuttle ride away. Escape, Rescue, or Support was a call away and we never felt in "real" danger or risk, with many gimmicks or events needing to come up with an excuse for why Odin couldn't just come bail us out.

 

I think adding in a security convoy lagging behind will pull the rug out from that narrative. Much like it did on the Aurora station. Why should I be scared of hijackers coming to take the ship, the support fleet will just fly to us in a day or two. Why should I IC be afraid the ship took critical damage or a major fire, the repair ship can be with us in a day or two. If we need a lore explanation of how does the Horizon get support in the field I think it should either be a handwave of the SCC just pays local entities to help us, give repairs, or resupply us. Or if we want something more tangible. throw a 100k more cash in the vault and say its for paying for repairs and supplies.

 

On developing characters. I think having that "oh and they're on the Odin for abit" sort of building or such is just something we loose by having a mobile ship. Which I think is a reasonable trade off. If people really want an IC excuse for why they're new, or havn't been around. Can just say been on different shifts, or came aboard at a recent supply stop

Edited September 24, 2023 by N8-Toe

[DatSamTho]

I feel like this is a good idea, but I think that I partially second what N8 says, and making the fleet have a security component would have to involve a lot of awkward "sorry, we can't help you". I would agree with this idea, if the fleet was only an unarmed, mainly supply one.

[N8-Toe]

I'll agree with Tomkiel to the degree of establishing "the horizon meets supply ships from the SCC every once in awhile, which cycle crew, and bring aboard heavy equipment or supplies that can't be easily bought out in the field". But establishing they come only semi often. Enough to establish a way for new people to come and others to leave, but also not something you can really IC "rely on" to help you. like yeah the supply ship might be a few days or a week behind you, but its a freighter that can't exactly save you if your hijacked or burn down

[Dreamix]

I'd really love this idea, "the fleet", as long as like, it doesn't really have any warships or other combat spaceships. This would explain A LOT of stuff that are currently just handwaved.

[La Villa Strangiato]

We've fairly unanimously decided to deny this for a couple reasons:

1. It cheapens the impact of the Horizon being on its own and frequently out of range of help.

2. How do we explain it for arcs where we're staying in one system? Is the support fleet just hanging around one system away?

3. The Horizon has already been fairly established as a self-sufficient exploration ship. It's pretty easy to explain cargo stuff as coming from SCC outposts nearby and whatnot.