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This page briefly describes some of the adventures of "Horseflesh", a dwarf from the Time Bandits genre who appeared in my 2002 SFB Campaign.
Horseflesh was creating a Map of all the time holes in the universe for the Supreme Being.
Horseflesh visited many alternate realities, such as the "Mirror Universe" and the "Shattered Universe".
Thirteen alternate universes are described here (one for each main race).
Each has a very short description and an SSD.
More SSDs might be added later to some of the universes.
Feel free to use these SSDs in the "normal" universe if you like; I tried to make the SSDs fairly generic.
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(#1) The "Sparse Universe" has considerably fewer systems with intelligent life than the standard SFB universe.
A race on the far side of the galaxy sent out intelligent "von Neumann probes" to nearby systems.
The probes self-replicated and sent out more copies of themselves.
Their population was exponential with time, and eventually the entire galaxy was overrun with these probes.
Many species were wiped out due to the radioactive emissions these probes generated.
Since habitable systems were so far apart, gigantic "Combining Ships" were built.
These allow multiple ships to dock and move together as one larger unit while in warp.
Since (in my rules) your "maximum speed in warp" is based on how many warp boxes you have, allowing your ships to combine meant very fast speeds were possible.
Generic 0Xl Trailblazer Combining Ship
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(#2) The Galactic races of the "Repeating Universe" use a strange mechanic called "Repeating Systems".
A scientist in the Federation developed this system, and other races soon copied the concept.
A Repeating System costs 5 times the amount of energy to arm and hold, but it can be used every impulse (in my 10 impulse system).
Since each Repeating weapon typically replaces 3-5 normal weapons, ships with repeating weapons lack a "one impulse crunch", but can slowly wear the enemy down.
Races with plasma torpedoes were incredibly powerful under these rules (as you get a lot of plasmas on the map).
Federation 0Xl Delaware Command War Cruiser
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(#3) In the "Silakkan Influence Universe", the Old Kings never left our galaxy.
The Old King empire expanded to cover much of the known region of space, all the way to the ISC.
A powerful race from another galaxy called the Silakkans were secretly influencing the Old Kings, looking for ways to penetrate the negative energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy (built by the T'kan Empire centuries ago).
Since the Old Kings never migrated to the LMC, the Andromedans were able to build a much larger fleet, and their incursion into our galaxy was much larger.
The Silakkans knew this would happen, and were waiting for the RTN (Rapid Transit Network) to make a permanent hole in the energy barrier for the Silakkans to travel through.
The Klingons were kept as a servant race of the Old Kings, and eventually were allowed to operate their own ships, as the SSD below shows.
The ship uses a Klingon boom on an Old King rear hull, and is able to apply UIM and DERFACS to all of its weapons (including the phasers).
Klingon 0Xl Old Kings Converted C-2K Cruiser
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(#4) The Romulans and Vulcans never split up in the "Romulan/Vulcan Universe".
Surak was able to convince the Romulans (who were Ancient Vulcans at the time and had not adopted the "Romulan" name) to stay and embrace logic.
Eventually the Vulcans/Romulans joined the Federation.
Unfortunately, this left a rather nasty race called the Remans (who are a lesser race of the Romulan Empire in the standard SFB universe) to expand and eventually find the Rulavian technology on Romulus.
The Remans developed a terrible weapon which ejected their owned Forced Singularity (which they used as a power source) into essentially a "Black Hole Torpedo".
Even though firing the weapon was fatal to the Reman ship, a rather small frigate could destroy a very large ship (or base).
This weapon made all ships (of any size) equal, to the point where the Federation considered any ship class larger than a Destroyer pointless.
Reman (Romulan) 0Xl Suicide Frigate
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(#5) All races had individual national fleets in the "Independence Universe".
Even minor planets would operate their own mini-fleets of their own designs.
Civil wars were also fairly common, even within "unified" races such as the Andromedans.
The Kzintis had five major fleets, each aligning with a "Division" (representing a region of Kzinti space and reporting to the Patriarch).
The Marquis Division (no SSD yet) had a system called "Massive Drone Array", which got more effective the larger it was (so a 6 box MDA was a lot better than a 5 box MDA).
The Baron Division (SSD below) had no particularly new systems, but they did have one innovation:
Two struts running back from the sides of the forward hull, each with two more forward modules for drones.
Kzinti 0Xl Baron Division Strut Battlecruiser
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(#6) Horseflesh was forced to flee this universe very quickly.
Most beings in the galaxy were infected with some sort of horrible contagious disease.
They became a form of "undead"; draining life essences from the living around them.
The Gorn (and several other races) became completely overrun with undead, but (even after undead) continued to operate a fleet and develop technology.
The new undead Gorn ships land on planets, extract magma with a "core-driller" system, convert it to energy, then release the energy as a modified plasma torpedo.
Monsters were also infected, Horseflesh observed a "Space Dracolich" in orbit of a plant world, rotting all life there.
Eventually, even matter in the central undead areas would decay into subatomic particles.
Gorn 0Xl Core Driller Battlecruiser
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(#7) The Klingons and Romulans are allied and powerful in this universe, and share a large common border, since the Tholians never arrived in our galaxy.
The Kzinti are taken over by the Lyrans, and the Federation is unable to help them (due to Klingon/Romulan pressures).
Curious about what happened to the Tholians, Horseflesh teleported to the Tholian Home Galaxy, and discovered the Tholians were still there.
For whatever reason the Seltorians never conspired against the Tholians, and still served the Tholians faithfully.
The SSD shows an NDD with two in-line rear hulls with a Collar in between, with a couple of new web innovations the Tholians developed.
Tholian 0Xl New War Battlecruiser
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(#8) No Humans? Horseflesh found a universe completely devoid of Humans.
Apparently they wiped themselves out hundreds of years ago.
The Orions (with the Vulcans and a few other "Federation" races) formed the "Orion Colonies", basically the right half of the Federation (as we know it).
The left half of the Federation was controlled by the Klingons and the Kzinti (these two races had an alliance against the Lyrans).
The Orions, not being pirates, do not have warp doubling, stealth, or option mounts.
Orion 0Xl War Destroyer
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(#9) The Hydrans in the "HydranGuard Universe" got overrun by Klingons, and were forced to flee.
The Federation offered sanctuary to them, and the Hydrans colonized worlds in Federation space.
Since Hydrans live on different planets than most humanoids, they were able to assist in the defense of Federation worlds, without causing a population problem.
Eventually, the Hydrans started to incorporate Federation technology into theirs (and by 2X switch completely over to Federation designs).
Hydran 0Xl Underseer Battle Destroyer
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(#10) Then all hell broke loose for poor Horseflesh over the next four universes. :)
The "RingRTN Universe" is completely dominated by an 8X version of the Borg.
These Borg have the ability to transmit transwarp subspace signals to remotely assimilate others.
The Borg assimilation technology is on the molecular level, and Borgified humanoids do not appear much different from their non-Borgified versions.
Horseflesh fled from the "Medusan Borg" (as he dubbed it, all you had to do is look at them and get assimilated) for a while (using his QWARP-based vessel).
Several ISC-based (Veltressai) psionic Borg mentioned having already encountered Horseflesh, even though he was certain he was never in this universe before.
After settling down in a safe location, Horseflesh studied the Borg at a distance, and learned what happened.
The Andromedans did not become insane on their voyage to the Milky Way.
These Andromedans (like the original Andromeda Galaxy ones) were in fact quite friendly, and assisted several LMC races in solving some problems they had.
The Baduvai and the Magellan Confederation (LMC races) helped the Andromedans build their ship construction facilities in remote systems.
The Andromedans were able to build the huge ships that were never seen in the normal SFB universe.
They even included normal sized corridors and hospital facilities for humanoid visitors.
After peacefully visiting the Galactic races, they offered to build a "Ring RTN" around the Milky Way Galaxy, so the races there could visit each other easier.
The Galactic races stupidly agreed.
Soon, the Dominion, the Hirogen, the Borg, and several other nasty races were in direct contact with the 0X Galactic races.
Andromedan 0Xl Colossus Super-Battleship
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(#11) Fleeing the RingRTN Universe (the nasty Silakkans noticed the energy barrier was weakened due to the huge RTN and commenced their operations), Horseflesh jumped through a time portal.
The "Endless General War Universe" was precisely that; the galactic powers continued fighting well after the normal end to the General War.
Ship construction was at an all-time high, the construction facilities here being much more efficient than the normal SFB universe.
The Lyrans could combine ESGs into a massive field that could surround an entire fleet.
The SSD shown below is an alternate DN, it has three Lyran booms combined to a central hull (instead of the usual two).
Curiously, Horseflesh was met with hostility everywhere he went; everyone seemed to know his name and called him a pillager and a thief.
After interrogating some people who claimed to have met Horseflesh before, Horseflesh calculated which time gate was used before to leave here, and he travelled through the gate to see what would happen...
Lyran 0Xl 3-Hull Dreadnought
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(#12) Horseflesh then met himself, at Earth in the "Loop Bandits Universe".
The other Horseflesh was older, and was using his knowledge of time holes to acquire technology from other realities.
A fleet of bizarre 2X (and up) ships with tons of degenerate systems was in orbit of Earth, all in the service of Horseflesh.
The standard racial borders were shattered, as the 0X races jockeyed to capture or negotiate a trade with Horseflesh's uber fleet.
Fragmented groups of small fleets unaligned to any empire appeared everywhere.
One such WYN fleet, oddly enough had "WYN Conversions" of WYN fish ships.
Since they had limited ship hulls available, they made every ship count.
The other Horseflesh was quite insane, and had built a computer to calculate a series of time holes, in order to be able to plot a course to any point in space and time in any universe.
The other Horseflesh also babbled about attempting to find a universe called "The Time of Legends".
Horseflesh attacked the other Horseflesh and a large temporal battle ensued.
The other Horseflesh was defeated, and the entire "Loop Bandits Universe" was rewritten out of history and became one gigantic time hole...
WYN 0Xl (WYN Modified) Tiger Shark
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(#13) ...And Horseflesh found the ISC with complete control over the Alpha Quadrant.
In this universe, the ISC Conquest succeeded, and the ISC (using their psionic powers) were in the process of "re-educating" the known races.
The "Psychic Friends Network" educated conquered races in the ways of psionics, and at the same time influenced them towards the ISC way of thinking.
The Psionic Link between sentient minds was massive (locally it was 1 light year radius, not quite long enough to go directly from system to system yet).
The lesser races of the ISC built ships to keep control of local areas, the SSD shows a Q'Naabian design.
The ISC quickly learned of Horseflesh, and attempted to influence him to learn what he knew about this odd form of time travelling he was using.
Horseflesh travelled through time to stop the ISC Conquest from ever succeeding, which once again caused the universe to be rewritten out of history and become one gigantic hole...
Q'Naabian (ISC) 0Xl Heavy War Cruiser
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...It was at this point that Horseflesh gave up on this particular mission, and left his map as it was. :)
In my 2002 SFB campaign, I had the "evil" version of Horseflesh annoy the party until he was eventually killed due to his own arrogance.
Well, that's it. Several of these universes could be expanded upon, of course, which I'll probably do a little bit of later.
