In Y175 (about the time of Star Trek IV-V) the Federation began the operation of "Galaxy" ships (this is not the same as "Galaxy Class"). These were ships designed for extreme high speeds and would be able to travel to the nearest galaxies in only a matter of decades. At first, it was thought that all of these ships would be robot controlled and have no crew. The first robot ships went out beyond the Energy Barrier at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy and began to deploy small refueling bases for later expeditions.
The Andromedans were finally defeated in Y202 (slightly after the first part of Star Trek: Generations with the Enterprise-B). It was then discovered that the "real" Andromedans (those in the Andromeda galaxy) were actually peaceful in nature. The Andromedans encountered by the Galactic races were a twisted and insane version of the original.
Because of the apparent peacefulness of the "real" Andromedans, and to let them know of the ill fate of their expedition, the Federation decided to have the first real group of Galaxy ships be sent towards the Andromeda galaxy. This worked out well because Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to our own.
Three Federation ships were sent:
The Klingons (currently under aid from the Federation due to the Praxis incident) offered to modify a D-7 cruiser and convert it into a Galaxy ship of their own to send along. They reasoned that if the Federation was going to Andromeda, they might want a little bit of Disruptor technology for those PAs. :)
As you can see, these ships were manned. Studies of the Andromedan Rapid Transit Network (RTN) convinced the Federation they could build one of their own. The old robot ships were sent out to deploy Transwarp Accelerator Bases (TABs). These bases could project their warp fields around other units as they passed, accelerating them towards the next TAB. As it turned out, due to their immense warp fields, TABs could be spaced fairly far apart (about 10 kilo-light-years between each one).
The robots constructed the Federation RTN in only a few years; the robots who ended up deploying the last few bases noted that the Andromeda galaxy does not have an Energy Barrier. The Galaxy ship fleet departed in Y210, and almost immediately came across a startling discovery as they left: the Energy Barrier at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy was artificially constructed. It was determined that the Energy Barrier was created about the same time as the T'kan Empire of many centuries ago. It was theorized the Energy Barrier was used as a shield in some galactic war. Based on the design of the Barrier, the war must have been fought mentally rather than physically.
The four-year trip was fairly uneventful; a small subspace monster was the only encounter of note. The fleet arrived in Y213 and encountered about a dozen starfaring races, three of which I describe below. These races were similar to the Andromedans, but controlled a very small region of their galaxy, similar to how the Galactic races controlled only a small portion of the Milky Way. Some of the races were helpful in directing the fleet towards the "real" Andromedans, others attacked on sight. All of them would not explain why 30% of the star systems had rubble for planetary systems, whispers of a powerful enemy were only hinted at. Since these races had names that were unpronounceable or meaningless under translation, the Federation supplied them names from ancient astronomers who discovered and studied the Andromeda galaxy. I provide one SSD for each race; I believe that should be enough for you to develop more if desired. I have another 9 races in a rough state and perhaps someday I'll put them up.
The Al-Sufians were the first encountered by the Federation and were quite friendly once contacted. Instead of improving Tractor/Repulsor beam technology as the Andromedans did, this race improved Transporter technology. They operate various Transporter-like systems as weapons; one of them degrades the structure of energy and matter by scattering it. Another weapon beams the offending ship short distances, but only if it cannot maneuver to avoid the beam. The Al-Sufians have an offensive version of Hangar which stores offending ships if it is captured by the huge "Ship-Transporters". They also operate a primitive version of Shielding technology as well as using traditional PAs; however they seem to have trouble raising both at the same time.
The Mariusans are a very violent (and hostile) race. There is an unfortunate interaction between Disruptors and PAs: if a ship with PAs fires Disruptors, it takes feedback damage to the PAs. This explains why the Andromedans never developed Disruptor technology. However, the Marusians did, and rely on the feedback damage to power their ships! The Mariusans are constantly firing (even if firing at nothing) and damaging themselves so they can fire again. Marusians always charge a ship whenever they detect it; they seem to enjoy taking damage. They also have a nasty command-override system which forces other ships to fire at times they may not wish to.
The Hodiernans are another violent race; they run around ramming enemy ships. Their ships seem to be built specifically to ram others. They have a PA absorber which turns off an enemy's PA panels as they ram. They also seem to favor boarding actions: their ships automatically dock to anything it rams that isn't destroyed, then the Boarding Parties flood in. The IKV Quickdeath was crippled engaging a group of Hodiernan ships; the Cloaking Device and several other items were transferred to the USS Hawthorne as the Klingon ship was scrapped.
After getting some help from the more peaceful minor races, the fleet was finally directed to the Andromedan race who visited our galaxy. The race they discovered were sufficiently different the Federation dubbed them "Neo-Andromedans". The Neo-Andromedans are a highly advanced race (currently 4Xs tech level) who are very friendly and were quite talkative (unlike their Archeo-Andromedan counterparts). They were saddened to learn of the Andromedan expedition to the Milky Way, but were not particarly surprised by it. The Neo-Andromedans have been at war with an even more powerful race for centuries, and it seems that less than 10% of the Andromeda galaxy is controlled by Neo-Andromedans. Many Andromedans had left for other galaxies; some of the evacuation fleets were not well prepared for the trip. The Neo-Andromedans use a form of TRH that can repair other ships as well as damage them. Also the Neo-Andromedans shared the true use of Energy Modules: to transfer power and protect other units.
The Federation ships stayed with the Neo-Andromedans for two years, constantly being moved from one system to another without forewarning or explanation. The fleet secretly believed the Neo-Andromedans were moving them to safe locations to avoid contact with the enemy race. Unfortunately, this protection did not last, and the enemy finally was seen by the Federation in Y215. Little did they know that the same race would participate in a war in their own Milky Way within 100 years:
The fleet watched Species 8472 appear from a singularity and destroy a heavily populated planet plus many Neo-Andromedan ships. The fleet escaped with a handful of Neo-Andromedans as Species 8472 finished its work without losing even a single ship. The Neo-Andromedans asked for whatever assistance the fleet could provide, and the fleet agreed. Over the next year, an extremely powerful class of starship was built blending Federation and Andromedan technology. The ship was designed to be able to single-handedly destroy a Species 8472 fighter. As it turns out, it could, but was left crippled in the process. It used standard TNG engine doubling with huge nacelles funneled to an auto-fire ("Poly" using a Magic the Gathering term) version of the Photon launcher. The ship had to "double away" almost all of its engines in order to fire enough to destroy a single Species 8472 ship. A specially designed Hangar for Crusaders were built to hold the new ship so it could escape after firing. Attempts were made to have the Crusaders carry extra engines for the new warship, but it took too long in battle to switch the engines.
The Federation in the Milky Way learned of the early part of the expedition through messages relayed through the RTN; they also got brief messages describing a war between powerful races. No further expeditions to the Andromeda galaxy were planned after an unknown ship of apparent Federation design sent a message saying it was destroying the RTN to save the Milky Way from the war.
There were other Galaxy fleets sent to the other Local Group galaxies, I am planning to put the expedition to the Triangulum galaxy up as well (this leads to the Star Embassy and Opposition races I've developed and would like to share). For obvious reasons, there wasn't an expedition to the Tholian home galaxy (which I am making the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte galaxy).
I hope you enjoyed reading this. I plan to make most of my new postings of this form if people like it. Send questions or comments to smileylich@smileylich.com. Bye!
