Know Thy Enemy

by Ed Crisler
Y157

In the weeks since the incident at Cestus III the Gorn Council and Space Command had been in constant debate over what should be done about these aliens, this FEDERATION. After years of warfare with the Romulans, many Gorns no longer trusted alien contact.

Commander S'faret did no share the same opinion in this matter, as his fellow Gorn. Years of war had left S'faret tired on fighting. In his opinion, no decision should be made without more information. Contact with this federation had been limited to brief sub-space communications, due to the paranoia in Space Command. Even the translations of their language where incomplete, personal contact needed to be made.

S'faret's ship, the cruiser Kraagera, had only left space dock 2 weeks ago. She had received some experimental upgrades. Her assigned patrol area was the Romulan border, very near the disputed area with the Federation.

When his sensor officer reported three Federation ships on an intercept course, S'faret hit upon a plan to learn more about these aliens.

(SP?.1) NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2; the Gorn player and the Federation player.

(SP?.2) INITIAL SET-UP TERRAIN: Use a standard open space map.
Gorn: CA Kraagera in hex 4207, heading E, speed 12, WS-II
Federation: SC Corvus in hex 1729, DD Loki in hex 1930, DD Etzel in hex 1530, all ships at WS-III, heading A, speed MAX.

(SP?.3) LENGTH OF SCENARIO: The scenario continues until the Kraagera has been destroyed, captured or disengages. If the Kraagera has not disengaged by turn 15, it is considered destroyed by Federation reinforcements.

(SP?.4) SPECIAL RULES

(SP?.41) MAP: The map is floating. The Gorn vessel may only disengage by acceleration or distance in direction B off the 42xx edge. Federation ships may only disenage off the 01xx edge.

(SP?.42) SHUTTLES AND PFs: None of the shuttles have warp booster packs.

(SP?.421) No ship in this scenario is qualified to carry an MRS shuttle.

(SP?.422) No fighters are used in this scenario.

(SP?.423) There are no PFs in this scenario.

(SP?.43) COMMANDER'S OPTION ITEMS

(SP?.431) The following ships have the equipment listed below in lieu of Commander's Option Items.
Gorn CA Kraagera: The Kraagera has a Legendary Marine Officer and had 2 boarding parties replaced with Commando units.
Federation (All Ships): All the Federation ships are carrying a full load of T-bombs.

(SP?.432) All drones are "slow," i.e., speed-8. Type-II and type-V drones (speed 12) are available for purchase as special drones.

Each drone-armed ship can purchase special drones up to the historical racial percentages as part of the Commander's Option Items. Note that (S3.2) allows drone ships extra points for this purpose.

(SP?.44) REFITS: Gorn:The Kraagera is the first Gorn ship to be equipped with swivel mounts on the Plasma tubes. The torps are still type G however.

(SP?.45) SPECIAL RULES: Due to the unusual nature of this mission some special rules need to be used to make the mission possible to complete. If the Federation player can be kept in the dark about what the Gorn objective is then ignore this rule. If the Federation player has read this scenario then the Federation ships may not place any guards with the exception of the bridge in the early parts of the scenario. After the first hit and run raid by the Gorn the Fed player may place guards on all the control areas. When the Gorn player conducts a raid on the labs the Federation player may place guards on the labs as well. (There are no restrictions on placing guards on weapons and engines.)

(SP?.5) VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Federation player wins the scenario if he is able to capture, destroy or drive off the Gorn without the Gorn completing his mission. The Gorn player wins the scenario if he is able to get any Federation crew and disengage by distance or acceleration. The level of victory for the Gorn is determined below.

Each Control area unit captured counds at 1/2. Each lab area unit captured counts as 1/4. The other units that could be captured will not be valuable enough for the purposes of this mission to count.

Capturing 1/4 to 1 1/4 units Minor Victory
Capturing 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 units Victory
Capturing 2 1/2 or more units Major Victory

If one or more of the Federation ships are destroyed then reduce any victory conditions to Minor and reduce a Minor Victory to a defeat. (The Federation just considers this another attack by the Gorn.) If one or more of the Federation ships are disabled then reduce the Victory level by one. A minor victory becomes a Draw.

HISTORICAL OUTCOME: The Kraagera managed to make a quick battle pass on the two destroyers and reduce their shielding, allowing a few quick hit and run raids. After this initial pass the Kraagera was forced to fight a quick withdraw as she was quickly overcome by the Federations ships superior firepower. The Captian of the Loki was one of the Federation crew that was captured. S'faret was able to finally get him to listen and talk while the Kraagera ran for home. Once they had opened communications and the Federation Captian made to understand the plan S'faret had, the Federation captives were given more freedom and treated ad honored quests. The Loki's Captian was able to convince the pursuing Federation forces of what was going on. Open talks between to two races began in earnest about 3 weeks later and this eventually led to the treaty.

DESIGNER'S NOTES: I have always thought that the Gorn Federation conflict was soemthing that was overlooked. When I designed this senario I discovered during my playtest that it could be made very fun for beginning players. If you have 4 players, place the three least experienced on the Federation team. The most experienced of these three should command the Scout while the destroyers are under the command of the other players. The Scout commander is in command of the Hunter/Killer Group.