Dalriadan Alliance: Difference between revisions

{{aliens}}<center>[[Image:Dalriada.gif|Dalriadan logo]]</center>

The Dalriadan Alliance is a multi-system, multi-species cooperative built around the core words of the Star Kingdom of Dalriada.  The Alliance border reaches its closest point to Federation claimed space a mere 30 light years away from Starbase Omega.  The Alliance is the largest (known and contacted) government native to the region coreward of the Federation, numbering over 200 star systems.

The Dalriada themseves are a group of homo sapiens native to this region of the Alpha Quadrant.  The Federation does not know how they got here, although biological evidence collected from those who have visited Starbase Omega indicates they are indeed homo sapiens, and therefore probably came from Earth at some point in the past.  These humans founded the Star Kingdom of Dalriada and built around the core of its constitutional monarchy and alliance of many systems.  

There are many in the pro-Federation faction of the Dalriada that have been trading with the Federation settlers for several decades. There is even a fairly large amount of Dalriadan merchant traffic in the Terebellum (SB OMEGA) system. Others, however, see the Federation as a threat to Dalridan dominance in the region.

The Dalriada were originally created for Indigo Fleet and have since made appearances in Gold Fleet which is presently responsible for their maintenance.

Contact with the Dalriadan Alliance dates back to 2351 when the first colonists of the "new frontier" region which would eventually become the Indigo Fleet partol cordon met merchant ships under the flag of the Star Kingdom of the Dalriada.  For decades, a history of peaceful exchange of good progressed.  But the Federation colonists became resentful of the profits that Dalriadan merchants made by selling them basic goods, which they could not obtain from the distant Federation, at what they considered elevated prices.  That the Dalriada were actually helping their neighbors and selling at somewhat less than local market prices because of the volume of sales that they could obtain by trading with the colonists was lost on the Federation civilians at the time.

By the time that Indigo Fleet was established in 2408, the path to an armed conflict had already been set.

In 2409, the Federation's came close to open hostilities with the Dalriada came because of the Tabilin system.  There the Dalriada were exploiting the dilithium resources for profit, and trading minor goods with the Cabbali, the aboriginal natives of the system.  Federation merchants, unhindered by the Federation and Star Fleet policy of non-interference since they are outside of Federation space, also began to exploit the dilithium resources.  With the reluctant approval of the Dalriada, the Federation set up an outpost on the planet to insure trade with the surface is kept at a low level of technology and that no substances harmful to the Cabbali are brought to the planet. While the Dalriada considered these actions more than a bit silly and wasteful, they were unwilling to create an interstellar incident and accepted the Federation proposal.  However, some of the Dalriada still took their trade a bit further.  They provided primitive firearms, similar to those used and made by the Cabbali, but in much higher volume than the aborigines could produce.  Moreover, they supplied a replicated version of a narcotic to the Cabbali.  This narcotic has the rather nasty side effect of driving users insane, if used for an extended period of time.  Also, as with most narcotics, it deadens pain sensation.  The weapons and drugs were exceptionally inexpensive for the Dalriada, and were traded for slave labor in the Dilithium mines.  With the large amount of profit to be had in the Tabilin system, they were able to convince Federation authorities to be less than vigilant in their duties.  It backfired when they overproduced narcotics and underestimated the problems of large-scale addiction and the resulting insanity.  

In 2410, tensions came to a head with the destruction of the USS Lexington and the invasion of the Dante and Terebellum systems by the the Royal Dalriadan Navy.  Only the last-minute arrival of a relief force from the Sol system which had been requested months earlier by Admiral Brooks due to growing tensions staved off the invasion.  Subsequently, a truce was negotiated and has lasted since.  However, tensions remain high and certain factions of both Federation and Alliance governments continue to advocate a military solution to the problem.

The Dalriada have, for the past 50 years since they discovered the first Federation scouts to this sector, made a concerted effort to remain a mystery to their cousins from the Federation.  They have systematically hidden their technological differences, creating real-space warp drives when their own engineers had long used hyperspace (as with Federation dimensional warp  

drives) for faster-than-light travel for centuries, developing ion drives similar to Federation impulse drives rather than reveal their gravity drive technology, and, above all, hiding their ability to generate stable artificial wormholes.  This has only recently become apparent to a Federation, which now finds itself ill prepared to deal with a growingly hostile Dalriadan Alliance.  Most of the Federation information comes from two encounters: the Q-ship DSF SPECIAL DELIVERY and DSF APOCALYPSE. On beginning a study of Dalriadan starship technology, one thing becomes abundantly clear.  The Dalriadan Alliance warships are like nothing the Federation has ever encountered.

Their lineage appears to originate in the Celtic tribes of the British Isles and Northern Europe.  They seem to be, basically, Scots and Picts.  Their customs, dress, language, culture, and genetics all show signs of this descent. According to Federation geneticists, two millennia away from Earth has given them a significantly different perspective in many affairs. However, at their core they are still very much human, although they have been separated from Earth about as long as the Vulcans and Romulans have been apart.  

As one can readily see, most ships in this region of space are considerably lighter for the class (weaponry, shields, and armor being the primary factors that go into classification) than Federation ships.  They gain this advantage by sacrificing comfort for the crew and extensive multi-mission capabilities. BC's and BB's mass with Federation ships since the Federation also sacrificed luxury and multi-mission capability in its big warships.  However, a light cruiser capable of going head to head with a 5Mmt Galaxy or 4Mmt Hood might only displace with a Federation DD, like a 1.5Mmt Franklin.  

Think what kind of armament a 12 million mt superfreighter can carry if, inside its hull and outside of a few cargo bays, it is really a warship.  A United Federation of Planets Zeus-class battleship only displaced 10Mmt. Certainly, there is a lot of tonnage dedicated to making this ship look and behave like a merchantman both to visual scans and on sensors. It handles like any big ship does at sublight speed, but with military grade drives and inertial compensators, a superfreighter-sized Q-ship is easily capable of pounding it out with a Federation battlecruiser of 7Mmt. The real advantage of a battlecruiser in such an encounter is that it is more maneuverable and faster to accelerate because of her lesser tonnage.  

INDIGO Fleet has encountered two Q-ships to date.  The first was DSF Special Delivery, which was destroyed by USS Hood in self-defense in the Tabilin system.  The second was DSF Apocalypse, which severely crippled USS Prometheus in battle and subsequently enabled the Dalriadan Alliance to claim Burrakis, the source of bursite (see below).  

The primary key to strategic operations between the Alliance and the Federation has been economic in nature.  However, a secondary interest of the Alliance has come to the attention of the Federation, bursite.  Bursite is an alien crystal originating on the planet Burrakis.  The source of its power is not known.  All scientific evidence to this point suggests the source of the power-producing element or compound is contained inside the crystal and may be released by burrowing through the inert matrix with a laser or other energy beam.  Alternatively, the power source may be split from the matrix by applying a strong magnetic field to the crystal.  

The origin of the power source is unknown.  It seems to react in much the same manner as anti-matter, but scans of bursite crystals clearly indicate it is not. What is known is that the crystals can generate a tremendous amount of power, making them a very powerful resource for whoever controls Burrakis.  

On its last mission, the USS Prometheus discovered Burrakis, but was driven from the planet by a Dalriadan Q-ship. It is to be expected that the Dalriadans will utilize this unique resource of power, but it is not known how.

Recent incursions by the Dalriada into Federation space near the Romulan border seem to have arisen from interest in the apparent Romulan discovery of a source of bursite somewhere accessible to their Beta Quadrant home.

* The Dalriada pages were developed by Jeffrey Jenkins for OSFI and BATA.