The Star Fleet Universe is the setting of games released by Amarillo Design Bureau and, formerly, Task Force Games. It is drawn in part from the ship designs and other source material from the Star Fleet Technical Manual. It is the setting of Star Fleet Battles, Federation and Empire, Star Fleet Battle Force, Prime Directive and Federation Commander. This interpretation of Star Trek also became the setting for Interplay computer games developed by Taldren, such as Star Trek: Starfleet Command.
The Galaxy of the Star Fleet Universe
Governments
Kzinti Hegemony
In the Starfleet Command series of games, the Hegemony is referred to as the Mirak Star League. It should be noted that the SFU's portrayal of the Kzinti varies significantly from that seen in Larry Niven's works.
Hydran Kingdom
In the Star Fleet Universe, the Hydran Kingdom sits on the far side of Klingon territory. Both the Klingons and their other neighbors the Lyrans are enemies, and both have occupied Hydran territory in the past. The Hydrans' closest allies are the Kzinti, but the two races are only able to assist each other in a limited fashion since they do not share a border.
Hydrans are short non-humanoid creatures, approximately four feet tall, with three arms, three legs, and three eyes. They also have three genders (male, female, and matriarchal), and all births are triplets - one of each gender. Hydrans are methane breathers; their home planet, Hydrax, has a mostly nitrogen-chlorine-methane atmosphere. The Hydran Kingdom is ruled by a monarch, as the name suggests, who may be either male or female. There is also a class of nobility, as well as a civil service that handles the daily affairs of the government.
Hydran ships are large and durable, with a shape that vaguely resembles the classic rocketship design. Their heavy weapons are based on nuclear fusion technology. Older ships are equipped with short-ranged fusion cannons, while newer ships are equipped with hellbores, which fire longer-ranged magnetic fusion bombs. Only a few of their ship designs, usually the largest types such as dreadnoughts, carry both weapons. Because their weapons are intended for short-range combat, a Hydran ship is designed to be able to take a reasonable amount of damage while closing with the enemy without losing its firepower capability. Once it gets into close range, it unleashes a devastating salvo that cripples or destroys the enemy. This was the standard design philosophy and tactic for ships equipped with fusion cannons. Later hellbore-equipped ships could hold their own in ranged combat, but the basic design philosophy of building a ship that could remain combat-effective after taking a punishing blow did not change.
Interstellar Concordium
In the Star Fleet Universe, the Interstellar Concordium (ISC) is a union of several sentient races, similar to the Federation, beyond the Gorn and Romulan empires.
Please note that the following text, while based on the representation of the Interstellar Concordium in the SFU, is not in itself to be considered canon, the official descriptions of the history, technology and various societies of the ISC are available in the C2 module for Star Fleet Battles as well as other sources from ADB. This article is an unofficial representation of the ISC and is intended as a reference point for those unfamiliar with the Interstellar Concordium.
- ISC Culture and Society
The ISC is avowed to the principle of nonviolence, in the sense that they have no compunction about intervening in even the smallest conflicts between factions, races or empires. They are governed by an ISC Parliament in which several major member races are represented, such as the Pronhoulites, the Rovillians, the Veltressai, the Q'naabians, the Korlivar and (in Starfleet Command) the Meskeen.
- ISC Technology and Tactics
The vessels of the ISC are advanced, due to the level of the ISC's technology base, as well as their covert observations of the other races' fleets. Concordium starships possess phasers and plasma torpedoes, akin to those used by the Gorns and Romulans, as well as the unique long-ranged Plasmatic Pulsar Device.
This combination of technology and equipment allows ISC vessels to form an Echelon formation in order to maximize their combat potential. This would place their PPD-armed heavy warships at the core of the formation, with a gunline of plasma-armed frigates and destroyers as a vanguard. While this resulted in higher-than-average losses of these smaller ship classes, it allowed a greater number of cruisers and dreadnoughts to survive engagements with the enemy. Only the Tholians (whose ability to generate energy webs enabled them to effectively disrupt echelon formations) and, to a far greater extent, the Andromedans (who were able to use their dispacement devices to either forcibly move an ISC ship out of formation, or place a fearsome Andromedan warship into close range of the heavier ISC vessels) were able to effectively counter it.
- ISC History
- Early Contact and the Founding of the ISC
The worlds located in what is now the home sector of the Concordium, Veltrassa, Pronhoula, Rovilla and Korlivala, gave rise to a range of sentient races which eventually discovered each other and set a course of peace and common cause by founding the Interstellar Concordium on a Declaration of Ideals of 'peace, order and good government', with Veltrassa established as the capital world and location of the main fleet shipyards.
The ISC spread throughout the neighbouring sectors of space, incorporating several additional alien races, colonising worlds and protecting several worlds populated by pre-warp races, to allow their natural development to interstellar travel - and the eventual prospect of Concordium membership.
In Star Fleet Command, the Meskeen are presumably either founders or later members of the ISC, but the location of their homeworld and their date of membership is unknown. Since all of the current capital ISC worlds are established as belonging to another race, it could be postulated that the major planet in the ISC Distant Zone could have been intended to become the Meskeen homeworld, but this is merely conjecture and has no evidence in either the background of the SFU or provided in SFC.
The ISC expected that any race capable of warp drive would be similarly inclined to peaceful - and profitable - means of conduct, yet this illusion would not soon last once the Concordium began to venture towards the borders of the Gorn Confederation and the Romulan Star Empire.
- The ISC and the General War
The ISC first came into contact with the Gorn and Romulans, and were disturbed to find the two races at war with each other (the ISC found it hard to believe any sane race of advanced spacefarers would resort to warfare or pursue it with such viciousness), and were even more shocked upon learning that all of the other major powers of the region, from the far distant Hydran Kingdoms to the Klingons and Federation were in a state of war which had devastated known space.
The ISC were in a fortunate position, in which their expansion into their outer provinces bordering Gorn and Romulan space was unchecked as the rest of the region was involved in the brutal General War, and drew plans to forcibly pacify the rest of known space, as clearly the other races - even the supposedly-altruistic Federation - could not be trusted to themselves after the armistice which ended the War, as in their eyes both the Coalition and the Alliance were merely buying time to jump at each other's throats again in another ten years - a not entirely unfounded accusation!
By the time of the Pacification, the ISC armed forces were a match for any three of those of the belligerents of the General War combined and unlike those races had not had their considerable economy - the only one in known space which could rival the Federation's - exhausted by nearly 2 decades of war.
- The Pacification Campaign and the Andromedan invasion
The ISC launched their campaign of enforcing peace between the belligerents, known as the ISC War of Pacification, on the 14th of February of Y186, placing a string of battle stations in the neutral zones dividing the various empires and driving any belligerent naval assets from any provinces bordering the respective Neutral Zones. The other races did exactly what the ISC predicted they would do if left to themselves and worked feverishly to rebuild their armed forces.
The good fortune of this for the indigenous races of the galaxy was only apparent in Y188 when the Andromedans struck with their invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy. The ISC fleets were scattered across known space, their unique formation tactics mercilessly countered by the highly advanced technlogy of the Andromedan armada, and 80% of the Concordium's armed forces were annihilated, but the buildup by the other races' armed forces was just enough to hold out against the invaders and eventually turn the tide, ending the invasion in Operation Unity of Y203-205.
Afterwards the ISC abandoned any attempts to forcibly pacify the other races.
History
General War
the General War was an 18-year conflict waged between various empires, with the Coalition of the Klingon Empire, the Lyran Star Empire and eventually the Romulan Star Empire at war with the Alliance of initially the Kzinti Hegemony (Mirak Star League in Starfleet Command) and the Hydran Kingdoms, eventually including the United Federation of Planets, the Gorn Confederation and the Tholian Holdfast (the Tholians are not represented in Starfleet Command).
A summary of the General War exists at http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/general_war.htm