Which, by the way, they frequently do. The amount of times people have flown into the Whaladon's imaginary hanger bay, I'm amazed there's anything left of it at all. Haha, can you imagine the scene onboard?Originally Posted by Barton Henning
"Oh, no, not another one! Brace! Brace! Brace!"
Okay, I'm far too tired to contribute anything of worth to this discussion tonight. I waffled my way through the last post and forgot what my point was supposed to be. I shall return on the morrow!
I understand what you're saying and I agree - having background information like this in place would help make the Wheel seem more like a real place and make RPing richer. I think we've tended to err on the side of "free form writing" and avoided "bean counting" so much that doing a level of world building with the Wheel has gone by the wayside. Also, it takes a consensus to create something like this, and we hate rocking boats. Or Whaladons.
So.
1. Travel between ships of the Wheel - Shuttles must be available from the Challenger, when Jedi need to go there and back again. The Whaladon, as Droo adroitly pointed out, is too small and has no hangar bay. No shuttles live on the Whaladon!
2. Liason with the Alliance - Lok was doing a great deal of this, but that's not going to happen now for obvious She's A Sith reasons. Navaria was slated for this in the past, I say we just move her into that position to take over from s'Ilancy.
3. Supplies, Et Cetera - Perhaps someone to coordinate with Alliance friendlies who know of the Wheel (the Barton and Ben ships) and who bring in supplies. Maybe Zem can take care of this busy work in between practicing singing in the shower.
4. Coordinate training with available knights for padawans with no masters - Seems like this should be Loki's job. We don't have many NPC padawans but I know Sol was RPing bringing new blood to the Wheel, so we do have them knocking about.
5. Ships - We have the Whaladon and some personal freighters (Serena's and Sol's) as far as Jedi ships. We need more. I know (I think I know) that Inyos and Lok were finding Jedi starfighters. If we can 'acquire' a ship to support these and become our main Jedi ship it can house shuttles as well to get from ship to ship as well as be the main 'docking hub' for our flotilla when not in motion. If we want other sorts of specialized ships I guess we could always go in for an Ithorian cityship if we want to go ginormous.(just kidding)
Er, just a few ideas. I guess I didn't assign Serena or Daria anything but Serena is a healer and a diplomat so she could be in charge of the Jedi medcorps and er... somethingsomething...
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Carra..._light_cruiser possible addition to the Wheel, crewed by Jedi? It only takes two to crew it, carries 142 passengers and 5 starfighters. I don't know how many Jedi Starfighters we're getting. *shrug*
That could be too small, but if we add a big cargo ship with lots of open space that could work.
Or this http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Escort_carrier
Last edited by Serena Laran; Apr 23rd, 2012 at 08:07:42 PM.
there is no passion; there is serenity
there is no death; there is the Force
I don't think it's necessarily the case that the Whaladon *can't* have a hangar bay: it's a big cargo ship, so there's presumably some way of offloading supplies via shuttle without it having to land on the surface. It's more an issue of having sufficient internal space to park everything we've allegedly got parked inside.
Would there be a problem with having the Jedi Starfighters and shuttles on the Challenger, as opposed to a separate ship? The Challenger has a ridiculous amount of parking space... and any Jedi who want to be trained in piloting will likely learn it from the Rebels on the Challenger anyway.
We could potentially use the Challenger as the "airport" for the Wheel. All incoming traffic and supplies land on the Challenger and go through security checks before heading out to the rest of the Wheel... a good security measure to avoid more Vega mishaps?
You're correct about Lok and Inyos obtaining Jedi Starfighters. The way that Christin and I envisaged it (I think) was that the fighters are sort of like horses for the Jedi Knights - a way for them to go on missions without necessarily needing their own ship. There would presumably be an amorphous non-specific number so that we always have enough for whatever we need them for.
What if we snagged some other ships as well? We could use Republic Gunships as our fleet of Space Buses, for example.
Action IV transports are pretty small, actually. Just saying.
Yeah, but so are some shuttles.
Also, isn't the Whaladon an Action VI, rather than an Action IV? Not much difference in size, granted, but in the Essential Guide to Ships, the Wild Karrde (an Action VI) is shown with a docking bay underneath. It's not huge by any means, but I'm sure it'd be big enough for shuttles to actually land, rather than having to dock via airlock, or whatever.
Edit:
In fact, the Wookieepedia page describes it as having a compliment of "Starfighter or shuttle (1) (optional, in cargo space)".
Last edited by Amos Iakona; Apr 23rd, 2012 at 11:53:45 PM.
I have no idea to be honest
We're not so much looking at the Council now as the way that the whole of the Wheel operates. What level of detail do you think would be useful for us to go into? I have some ideas about a 'Newcomers Guide to the Wheel' that I'll write up when I get home from work, but having an idea about how much detail you think should go into it would be helpful.
Topics I'm thinking of could be:
- How to find the Wheel
- Arrival - both as a newcomer, and as a resident
- Size - physical size and population of the Convoy
- Movement - how the Wheel navigates and how to move between ships within the Wheel
- Departure - what happens when you leave the Wheel, how do you find your way back
- Resources - how is the Wheel supplied
- Features - what type of facilities are there aboard the various ships
- Specialists - which Jedi or Alliance personnel to consult about a certain topic
These are just initial ideas in my head. I'm not sure whether it's more or less detail than you're thinking of, and these certainly aren't the only topics I could think of, but I have to go to work now!
I had a thought about that this morning. Perhaps there can be a protocol in place for characters who want to return to the Wheel, whereby they leave a certain type of advertisment on the Holonet which to the casual observer appears harmless enough, but is in reality is a coded message to the Alliance requesting pick-up. Presumably the phrasing of the advertisment would change from time to time to avoid detection.
I love the notion of Knights being "mounted" and having their own fighters here and there.
I will help write a few articles, sure
Would Zem be a good fit as a replacement for s'Il as the liaison to Vansen?
The two seem like they would have compatable personalities; Zem certainly has the patience to work alongside Vansen. He's also got the kind of age, experience, and worldly wisdom that Vansen would respect; and that would be useful in doing the job effectively. Plus, given Zem's relationship to s'Il, he might feel a certain responsibility to replace her.
That would leave Navaria free to represent the Jedi in a political sense (to the High Council, Alliance Intel, etc) while Zem is focusing merely on the more military / logistics side of things within the Wheel itself. It has been established that a lot of what s'Il and Vansen did related to paperwork and such: it might be unwise burdening the leader of the Jedi Council with those sorts of tasks.
Perhaps, given the security lockdown, we could have the Whaladon dock indefinitely with the Challenger.
Presently, the Jedi are holed up in that stuffy little ship, and presumably, the idea was to allow no ships to access or leave the Whaladon directly without going through the Challenger first. So, if someone arrived at the Wheel they'd have to board the Challenger, recieve security clearance, then be shuttled over to the Jedi ship. It's a bit convoluted and by docking with the Challenger, the tedious ferrying of personnel and supplies is halved. It would also allow the Alliance to have a closer eye on the Jedi, which is in their best interests right now, and it means Vansen and the council have access to each other more readily. Also, the Jedi would have access to facilities and equipment they never had stranded on the Whaladon, which would also facilitate the pilot training, and any other potential non-Jedi training ventures. And it goes without saying, given the fact that it has none of its own defenses whatsoever, the Whaladon would be less vulnerable in this position.
Those are the in-character benefits. But OOC it would help us deal with the issue of having a bunch of characters effectively locked up aboard a tiny ship, running out of things to do. If we're going to have our characters sealed away like that, I'd rather it were in a bigger and more diverse environment. Sharing the Challenger would help with that. We'd be able to interact with other types of characters more freely, such as pilots and other military personnel, and we'd be in a better position to plan and execute missions together.
Dee had an interesting way of putting it: the Whaladon aboard the Challenger would be like the Jedi Temple at the heart of Coruscant. Mainly, this suggestion is just about freeing up our options a bit, and there's only so much I personally feel I can do with Loki on that little ship before it starts to feel stale.
I am down for this if others are, sure
Why not just make it to where you can hop a shuttle and go anywhere in the wheel but have to give your flight plan? Seems we're making this too hard. The wheel should be a city. Theoretical access to all points, you just need permission, which can easily be RPed
This works for me.
Zem being the new liaison to the Alliance is cool too.
To be honest, I think the idea of people hopping shuttles everytime they fancy stretching their legs beyond the Whaladon sounds more convoluted than having it just docked inside the Challenger. Given his relationship with the Council, Loki is in some position to request shuttles, but where does that leave padawans? There has been expressed to me recently some discontent amongst people with padawan characters, they feel trapped on the Whaladon and at a loose end, and presumably this security lockdown will exacerbate the issue. I thought we could alleviate these concerns, at least for the time being, by effectively giving people a bigger sandbox.
Something to bear in mind is that the Venator has a large ventral bay: if you've watched The Clone Wars, you'll have seen one of these docked in side that. The Whaledon is only ten meters different in length from one of those ships, so would concievably fit as well. That makes it super-duper convenient, both in terms of logistics, and in terms of defense: what better to protect the Wheel than being right smack bang inside the Challenger's shields?
Theoretical access to all points via shuttle is fine in concept. But do we actually have that many points? People only really seem to need to be on the Whaladon (where the Jedi are) or on the Challenger (where the ships are). If one is docked to the other, then there are no shuttles necessary: even easier.
*
If we start adding more ships, I think we need to make sure that when we add ships, we do so because it's going to be beneficial. Spreading ourselves out across multiple residential ships (making casual encounters harder / more convoluted) might not be beneficial. However, an Ithorian ship with an arboretum / garden / hydroponics bay for growing fresh vegetables might be a useful thing to have.
That could be something cool for people to RP out actually acquiring.However, an Ithorian ship with an arboretum / garden / hydroponics bay for growing fresh vegetables might be a useful thing to have.
Whaladon being in the Ventral bay, eh? I'm not against that. Could be like the enterprise D and the detachable saucer. We punt whaladon and let her scoot away if it's a fight, etc
I like this analogy; detaching the saucer with the non-essential personnel, while the rest of the ship goes off to fight.
Adding to something that Droo touched on: this could begin as something temporary, as a security measure during the lockdown. It gives the Jedi more freedom to move without any silly security complications with shuttles, and helps keep the Whaledon extra-safe until the Dan crisis has passed.
Long-term, I think it's a good option too. As Charley says... being able to detach the Whaledon means that we can leave the Jedi behind if the Challenger ever goes on a mission; or the Whaladon can detach and jump away if the Wheel is attack, while the Challenger stays behind to cover their escape.
Also, it nicely avoids any problems with parking Jedi Starfighters: if the Jedi want to help out defending the Wheel during a dogfight, all they need to do is run from the Whaladon to the Challenger's hangar. If we have people on separate ships with shuttles carrying you from place to place, it's much harder to justify constantly being in the right place at the right time.
Edit:
Something Droo and I thought up earlier... if the Whaladon and the Challenger are having constant ship-sex, that opens up a bunch of new possibilities.- Specialists - which Jedi or Alliance personnel to consult about a certain topic
Droo suggested that maybe Jedi Padawans wouldn't be limited just to learning Jedi stuff - there's the potential for members of the Challenger crew to teach them stuff like piloting, tactics, repair skills, etc on top of of their more traditional Jedi training... extra skills to flesh out characters, and to open up roleplaying opportunities going forward.
Last edited by Captain Untouchable; Apr 24th, 2012 at 01:25:03 PM.
It's like that, and that's the way it is.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks