Normally this blog focuses on active Kickstarters. But today I want to kick off a series that documents my own thoughts and experiences with a piece of wargaming history. A legacy so rich and deep that it practically founded the microgames concept, made wargaming accessible to a wide audience, acted as the prototype for the well known Star Trek game Star Fleet Battles (SFB), practically founded the 4x genre, spawned numerous books, and inspired Honor Harrington – one of the top selling science fiction franchises in existence today! I am, of course, referring to: (Gotta love those 80’s “computer” fonts) But let’s not get ahead of ourselves My first forays into serious board gaming were interesting. I was young, I had a family, and thus I didn’t have much money. What’s a inquisitive young individual to do? Print’n’Play, of course!
Except, we didn’t call it Print’n’Play back then. We just looked for “printable” games.
I remember running across a blog post that pointed me to a couple of really cool games that I could print out and play. I became infatuated with. More than the game itself, I just loved the idea. Here I could play a complete historical simulation without a computer or graphics or any of the trappings I’d gotten used to with computer simulations. All I needed was some printouts and some scissors! (Probably my favorite memory was when I convinced my wife to play with me. We had a lot of fun with those printouts!) At the same time I was getting my first introduction to adult board gaming, I was tearing through book after book from my new favorite author:.
For those of you not familiar with Mr. Weber, he is the author of a New York Times best selling series known as Honor Harrington. The series focuses on interstellar conflict and the minutia of space naval conflict.
It’s a lot of fun to read, especially if a combination of Naval Warfare and Space Opera is your thing. As I ran out of HH books, I found that he had previously written for a similar yet slightly different book series.
This series eschewed much of the political backdrop in favor of even more space battles! And why shouldn’t it? Turns out that the series was based on a board game. More specifically, a wargame with a space setting. Hex maps, cardboard chits, D-10 and all. And it turns out that Mr.
Weber was the guy who developed the Starfire III: Empires expansion that brought galaxy-spanning 4x strategy to a simple 1 on 1 tactical game! As I’m reading about all these cool interstellar conflicts in the books, all I can think about is how cool it would be to play these out on a board game! So I started saving my money and headed over to to pick up a copy. Only, things were a bit interesting at SDS.
Turns out that David Weber had stopped developing Starfire years ago. The company that owned it, Task Force Games, had gone out of business and sold the rights to a gentleman named Marvin Lamb. Lamb was on a quest to pull all the crazy expansions, various editions, house rules, and other wide and varied aspects of the universe together into a single, unified edition that reduced confusion and conflict between the various rule sets. A worthy goal for sure! His first major attempt was the release of Galactic Starfire. This was a boxed release containing multiple hex maps, 2 separate rule books (!), more punch out counters than you could shake a stick at, and one lonely D-10 die.
It’s worth noting that the components of the game hadn’t changed much over the years. Marvin quickly realized that the constant rule updates were the real problem and was working on electronic rules known as Ultra Starfire.
Coming into this I had no idea what was going on. There was too much history and not enough context for a newb like myself. Figuring that the older products would be simpler than newer products, I ordered the Galactic Starfire package. When the box arrived, I was so excited! There were tons of components and no less than two rule books! Wait Two rule books?
These things weren’t thin, either! And thus began a long adventure in learning rules. You see, Starfire consists of two games molded into one.
There’s the original tactical game that pits fleets of ships against each other in pitched battles. Then there’s the strategic game that’s all about empire building and 4x expansion. In effect, the empire game provides context for the battles that occur. How evenly those battles are played is highly dependent on the resources and ships built in the strategic game. Being completely new to wargaming, I struggled to understand what all these rules were for and how to execute them as a cohesive game. Eventually I managed to figure out the tactical game (basically the that exist today), designed my first ship, and convinced my wife to try it with me.
At this point I made two critical mistakes. The first was starting with only one ship. Even though we were just beginning, a single ship doesn’t offer much tactical flexibility.
Which leads to my second mistake: thinking that the forces should be even. Being used to playing games like Chess, I assumed that the best place to start would be with the exact same pieces. And since we were playing our first game with only one piece, why shouldn’t they be the same type of ship? Obviously the game turned into a slugging match with the winner determined by a dice roll. With all the record keeping going on (which we were not used to!) it didn’t feel very fun. It was obvious to me that the problem was that we weren’t playing enough of the game to make it work well, but I didn’t see a good path to learning the rest of the game.
Later on I would learn that the pure tactical game was missing something that was core to the original Starfire: Scenarios. Scenarios are tactical layouts (usually with some background story) that set the stage for the battle. They specify how many ships, of what types, how the ships are configured, and where they start on the map. In typical wargaming these scenarios would be asymmetrical with each side having certain advantages over the other.
Unfortunately, this is something I wouldn’t learn for another few years. Join me in my next article when I talk about rediscovering the original Starfire rules. Comments are enabled for posts in this series.
Feel free to share your thoughts below!
STARFIRE is a game of starship combat that was originally created by Steve Cole in 1976 and published in a revised version by Task Force Games in 1979. STARFIRE was designed as a fast-paced game of fleet-level starship combat with an easy-to-use starship design system and a progression of technological development. The first edition was followed by two supplements: the first added fighters and the second included a campaign system. Over the years the game has been expanded but it remains essentially the same quick-playing tactical starship combat game that it begin as. STARFIRE began as a purely tactical fleet-level table-top starship combat game. It had an incredibly simple system for building and handling starships and it lent itself well to campaign play.
But what made STARFIRE unique was the concept of Warp Points for interstellar travel. Rather than assuming 'Faster Then Light' (FTL) travel was necessary for interstellar travel, STARFIRE-space presumes that natural 'wormholes' exist all over space and allow for sublight ships to travel between star systems. In fact, no 'strictly' FTL technologies exist in STARFIRE at all STARFIRE includes not only tactical and strategic (campaign) levels of play, but the combat system uses an operational scale as well. Battles are always resolved at a tactical scale on a hex-grid map, but just above the tactical level there is the system scale. Here, at the scale of an entire star system, starships maneuver to detect enemy ships and bases and then attempt to move where they will have combat to their advantage. This added 'Fog Of War' makes operational level maneuver hugely important to how tactical battles play out – and often who wins The official history of the Third Edition of STARFIRE is based on the writings of David Weber and Steve White:, and. STARFIRE novels are published.
EXTREMIS EXTREMIS is the newest novel in the STARFIRE novel series, and is written by Steve White and Dr. Charles Gannon. The release date for EXREMIS was on May 3rd, 2011.
Published by, EXTREMIS continues the story from EXODUS of the Terran struggle against the Arduan invaders in the Beaumont Cluster of Terran Republic Space. We have a with Steve and Charles on our forum. Update Feb 2013: It was recently announced that Steve and Charles have at least TWO more books planned in this series. You can read more at the news announcement on our forum,. Steve White is a long-time author of STARFIRE novels, having written Crusade, In Death Ground, Shiva Option, and Insurrection with David Weber. He has an extensive list of works including The Disinherited, Debt of Ages, and Prince of the Sunset. Charles Gannon is a new author to the STARFIRE universe, but has an extensive writing background and has written for Traveler, 2300 AD, and other gaming systems.
A professor of American Literature at St. Bonaventure University, he has also written several academic publications. You can find out more about Dr. Gannon at his website, and about his involvement in the Starfire universe at his.
First Edition STARFIRE Collectively the first and second editions of STARFIRE are known as ORIGINAL STARFIRE. The first edition of STARFIRE was published as a pocket game by Task Force Games in 1976 and 1979.
It was contained in a plastic bag with a counter sheet, hex grid map, and a small rulebook. This edition was purely a tactical combat game but it did have ship design rules, repair rules, and was easily used for a simple campaign game by players willing to setup rules for it. In this edition the three interstellar empires of David Weber's STARFIRE history were introduced: Two supplements were published for first edition: STARFIRE II: STRIKEFIGHTER Designed by Barry Jacobs and released in 1980, it added fast, powerful, and tiny fighters which had to be carried aboard carriers to reach other star systems.
In that supplement another race was introduced, the Rigelians: a race who had perfected the fighter before anyone else and had a religious imperative to exterminate all other sentient species. STARFIRE III: EMPIRES It introduced a simple campaign system of simple exploration and building. Created by David Weber, it gave players the opportunity to build empires and fight battles with resources that weren't limited solely to a single scenario.
Two additional supplements were announced by never completed: GROUNDFIRE and CHAMELEONS. Second Edition STARFIRE In 1984 Task Force Games decided to revive the STARFIRE series by republishing it in a boxed version and combining the STARFIRE and STARFIRE II rules into a single product with improvements. Dave Crump and David Weber collaborated on this revision and on NEW EMPIRES, the campaign supplement that followed.
The new campaign rules greatly improved over its predecessor and included the concept of variable scale – the idea that units moved on system scale with the whole star system present, then moved into an interception scale for pre-combat manuevering, and then finally onto a tactical scale during the actual battles. Other changes in the second edition included dropping half points of damage, including variable hull sizes, and reducing the capability of fighters. Another supplement was made for Second Edition STARFIRE: the GORM-KHANATE WAR. This supplement added a new race, the Empire of Gormus, a relatively peaceful democratic state of intelligent beings that made first contact with the Khanate shortly after the Khanate's demoralizing second loss to the Terrans. The Gorm determined that they had to make a quick and decisive attack on the Khanate in order to make it too expensive for the much larger Khanate to conquer them. In this new supplement several new rules were introduced, including crew grade and drive rooms.
It was also during this time that the NEXUS magazine was published (through 1986) with 18 issues. NEXUS included many articles on the STARFIRE game system. After it was discontinued there was no new STARFIRE material released until the next edition.
STARFIRE miniatures were also produced by Task Force Games during the second edition. They were of small size and intended for use on a regular hex-grid map. Most of the ship types in the game were represented. However, there were no empire-specific ship designs in the line and only painting determined the difference between races. Older editions of STARFIRE have been out of print for decades and can be difficult to find.
They can sometimes be found at gaming conventions or through privates sales at websites like ebay. Good condition copies can cost more than their original value.
CLASSIC STARFIRE (3rd edition) In 1992 Task Force Games released the third edition of STARFIRE, designed by David Weber. Many new changes were made, most notably changing the dice to a 1d10 system rather than the older 2d6 system. The rules were redesigned to integrate the strategic rules directly into the tactical system. In 1993 the campaign system IMPERIAL STARFIRE was released. Over the next few years nearly all of the third edition products were released: FIRST CONTACT (1993), STARS AT WAR (1993), CRUSADE (1993), ALKEDA DAWN (1994), and SKY MARSHAL #1 (1995). In 1997 Task Force Games worked with the Starfire Design Studio to produce several electronically published STARFIRE products.
This allowed the publication of the long-delayed SKY MARSHAL #2 (1997) and ISW-4 ARACHNIDS (1997). The release of ISW-4 introduced three more major races: the Arachnid Omnivoracity, a hive race of insectoids who treat all other being as food animals to be gathered into pens and slaughtered. The Star Union, a federation of races that includes the Crucians, Telikans, and Br'stoll'ee. And the Star Union's ally the Zarkolyan Empire. They have been hiding and preparing after losing the first war against the arachnids a century ago. In November of 1997 Task Force Games sold the STARFIRE gaming system to Marvin Lamb (Starfire Design Studio). The SDS immediately decided to go the route of electronic publishing and worked over the Internet to generate and sustain interest.
The Electronic Communique (EC) was born in 1997 and continued until 2000 with more than 40 issues. Andy Blazel updated and modified Marvin's own ship designer program so it could be released as SHIPYARD. In 1998 the SDS released INSURRECTION, a supplement based on David Weber's novel of the same name, and STARFIRE 3RD EDITION REVISED. In 2002 the SDS and 3rdR Design Group released an additional product called the UNIFIED TECH MANUAL. It combined all the technologies from all the 3rd edition supplements and added a few new technologies. This was the last third edition product for STARFIRE. NON-WEBER SUPPLEMENTS (3rd edition) Between 1995 and 1997 there were two additional supplements published by Task Force Games that were not officially part of David Weber's Starfire history.
These were FIRST CONTACT and ALKEDA DAWN. ALKEDA DAWN was a totally new history created by Mark Costello and Bryant Wu. It detailed the flight of the Vestrii from their homeworld, feeling from the Hre'Daak, an ancient empire that believed everyone must join them or be eliminated. The Vestrii flew across the stars for centuries, meeting a race of religious fanatics (the Kess), and a race of mind-controlled robot fleets that wander the galaxy harvesting organic and inorgranic resources from whomever they meet (the J'Rill). FIRST CONTACT was to be a bridge between the ALKEDA DAWN history and the Weber history, briefly detailing when the Vestrii found the Grand Alliance and fought briefly against the Tangri raiders. It is generally regarded as a novelty item and not officially part of any STARFIRE history. GALACTIC STARFIRE (4th edition) During the production of STAFIRE 3RD EDITION REVISED it became obvious that there were several problems with the rules – particularly in weapons balance and campaign play.
The SDS committed to a long-term focus on campaign gaming and the '4 TH Edition' project was started immediately after. Throughout the rest of 1998 and all through 1999 the next version of the rules was worked on. Countless emails between the seven original SDS members were traded as every rules section and game concept was re-evaluated. By the late spring of 1999 two playtest campaigns were started. By the end of 1999 it was clear that there was far too much work for only one person to edit. Matthew Olson was sub-contracted in December 1999 to help coordinate the volunteer effort and work as a pre-publication editor. By April 2000 the edition had been named GALACTIC STARFIRE and was nearly ready for the printers.
While Marvin focused on getting GALACTIC STARFIRE to printing, Matthew was tasked with taking an idea of Marvin's and turning it into a product. The result was ADMIRAL'S CHALLENGE, which became available in May 2000. Finally, an interested STARFIRE players (beta testers) invested the money needed for final production and by Origins and GenCon in 2000 the SDS was proud to have GALACTIC STAFIRE available for sale. By late 2000 the work was complete and Matthew's contract was up. While he continued to work as a player volunteer, STARFIRE continued to sell well despite the limited visibility and the inevitable slow down in the progress of future products. In 2002 the SDS released the ELITE STARFIRE supplement to GALACTIC STARFIRE, which added optional rules and a few re-worked rules sections that were all considered too big to be included with the original release. In particular, the Small Craft and Automated Weapons rules were significantly re-worked.
In 2004 the SDS worked out a deal with CorbyNova to make the CorbyNova website the official GALACTIC STARFIRE gaming support module. Corbynova created an online browser-based assistant program to help players with their games and run campaign turns. ULTRA STARFIRE (5th edition) In November 2004 the SDS released ULTRA STARFIRE.
Updated over the next 5 years, the goal of ULTRA STARFIRE was to produce a set of rules that were streamlined, had reduced paperwork, and had fully balanced technologies to provide the best player-versus-player competitive gameplay possible. Designed without a background history, the ULTRA rules were designed for the player who wants to fully create his own path. In ULTRA all rulebooks and documents have been fully integrated into a cross-linked set of electronic documents (PDF). Occasional errata, updates, and other corrections will be made but with an electronic document the rules can be sent again to the players who purchased ULTRA STARFIRE. Since ULTRA STARFIRE was the first fully electronic product from the SDS, no cover art was created for it. SOLAR STARFIRE (6th edition) On February 1st, 2012, the SDS released the newest version of STARFIRE.
Based on the ULTRA ruleset, these rules have been designed to work best with the SDS's new background history. The History of the Terran Solar Union.
With changes to numerous rules sections, much of the technology, and plans for continued updates and revisions based on the events in the history, SOLAR STARFIRE is being built for the player who wants to play scenarios and campaigns in the universe of the background history.
Contents. Editions The Starfire game is currently published by the Starfire Design Studio (SDS), but was formerly published. There are six editions of the Starfire Game. 1st edition Starfire The first edition consisted of three products: Starfire (1979), (1980), and (1981); the first by Stephen V. Cole; the second by Barry A Jacobs, and the last one by the notable writer. Later versions combined the first two into Tactical Starfire, and the third was largely rewritten as Strategic Starfire. 2nd edition Starfire Starfire, 2nd Edition (or sometimes known as boxed starfire since the first edition was packaged in resealable plastic baggies.) (1984) is a game of sublight space combat on the small-fleet scale.
Speed of play is often touted as an advantage of the system; it does have a major advantage in fleet handling over (Steve Cole's other starship wargame at the time), but there are many other games around of similar handling time to Starfire. Starfire is one of the few games in which the player has nearly complete design control of his spaceships. Starfire, 2nd Edition is based on the original version of Starfire, and on its sequel Starfire II.
The rules booklet is divided into 'modules'. Module A is an introduction to the game series. Module B is titled Starfire and replaces 1st. Edition Starfire. Module C is titled 'Strikefighter' and replaces Starfire II'.
The 2nd edition product line continued with Starfire New Empires (1985), the first strategic-level game in the 2nd edition series, and The Gorm-Khanate War (1986) which was a campaign game utilising Starfire New Empires for the strategic part of the campaign, and Starfire, 2nd Edition for the tactical battles. Starfire New Empires is a game of building a space empire, inspired by the original Starfire III: Empires. Players must decide what to invest their income in (, trade, military, exploration, etc.) to determine both the nature of their empires and their ability to survive and conquer. 3rd edition: Imperial Starfire The 3rd Edition of Starfire is a boxed version called Starfire (i.e. Tactical Starfire) while the Strategic Component is called Imperial Starfire. These, along with Stars at War and Crusade were written by David Weber and produced.
TFG also produced Sky Marshal #1, Alkelda Dawn, and First Contact. Thereafter, the Starfire rights were sold to Starfire Design Studio (SDS).
SDS updated the Tactical Rules with the 3rd Edition Revised manual (3rdR). Sky Marshall #2 updated the Imperial Starfire rules making them more usable. SDS also released Interstellar War #4: Arachnids (ISW-4) (electronic only), which was written by David Weber and sold to SDS in a preliminary form by TFG; Insurrection (electronic only) is based on the book of the same name by David Weber and; and Shipyard is a computer program to speed the designing of ships. Admiral's Challenge is a small scale strategic game (actually more of an operational level game) that uses the tactical rules to resolve battles. There was also a freeware 'campaign assistant' named Starfire Assistant, by a player in England.
It started out with approval from the SDS but due to changes and additions not supported by the core rules it fell out of favor. It automated most of the record-keeping of the campaign game, leaving only actual combat needing maps and counters. It also allowed PBEM, or play-by-email, campaigns. 4th edition: Galactic Starfire The 4th edition of Starfire is called Galactic Starfire. This edition combines all the rules (Tactical and Strategic) back into a single rulebook, and replaces the earlier system of Technology Levels with Tech Trees. It is one of the few printed products released by the Starfire Design Studio. Elite (PDF) is a supplement to Galactic Starfire.
5th edition: ULTRA Starfire The 5th edition of Starfire is called ULTRA Starfire. It is a single complete PDF manual of roughly 375 pages. The manual is one of the most integrated rulebooks in the gaming industry with every reference hotlinked to the referenced rule. This rulebook was updated directly and an entirely new set of integrated rules sent to the owners quarterly. The Ultra edition includes 50 levels of technologies and rules covering Tactical Combat, Ship Design, Squadrons and Carriers, Galaxy Creation (e.g. The map), Empire Building, Surveying, Intelligence Gathering, R&D, Political Treaties and Alliances, Non-Player Races (NPR), and NPR governments (so that each NPR acts differently).
Likewise, optional Technologies, Galactic Oddities, Random Events, and finally a set of rules for the creation of races that can live on gas giants, hot planets, cold planets and in the vacuum of space. 6th edition: Solar Starfire The 6th edition of Starfire is called Solar Starfire and was released in 2012 in both PDF and CD formats, and is being actively expanded on, as ULTRA was. There is an active forum for fans of the game. A new campaign setting is being developed for Solar Starfire. Gameplay and strategy The game involves maneuvering ships into optimum range for their own weapon systems to destroy enemy ships. This is not always easy, as each ship's movement is limited by its speed and ability to turn, and the impulse based movement system that has players moving almost simultaneously.
Each ship also has its own unique assortment of systems, including shields, armor and weapons, which are destroyed by enemy fire in a specific order, so part of the strategy involves choosing which enemy ships to target based on which enemy systems a player wishes to destroy. Some weapons have a better chance to hit and inflict different damage at different ranges, and some weapons have the ability to bypass shields and/or armor. When point-based and campaign ship creation is allowed, a new layer of strategy is added, not just in which systems one chooses to put on one's ships but also the order in which they are arrayed and thus destroyed under fire. Some elements of the game are similar to that of, which was also created by Task Force Games in 1979, including the impulse based movement system and a ship sheet with shields, armor and weapons that are destroyed in a specific order.
Starfire is a much faster-player game designed for far bigger fleet combats, not including such elements as ship speeds that carry over from turn to turn and weapon and shield facings which are included in SFB. It also lacks the concept of defining speeds over shorter intervals than one turn, and this eases the elimination of advance plotting of movement. Races Though the game emphasizes custom designed ships, an official setting was provided for the first to third editions, along with star-faring nations to populate it. Arachnid Omnivoracity – As the name implies, the Omnivoracity was made up of large creatures with a resemblance to spiders. While the Arachnids were intelligent, communication with them was found to be completely impossible.
As a result, little is known about them other than the fact that they were quite advanced, considered all other intelligent races to be food sources (treating captured subject populations much the way a herder treats sheep or cows), and did not care about their own kind, taking absolutely no measures to preserve their lives in battle and showing complete indifference to the massive losses they took. Due to physiological limitations, the Arachnids were completely incapable of operating strikefighters, though they did develop a gunboat-style vessel to compensate for this. The first encounter between Federation and Arachnid vessels led to Interstellar War 4. As with the Rigellians, the attitude of the Arachnids toward other races made peace impossible, and all known Arachnid worlds were destroyed by bombardment from space by the combined fleets of the Alliance – save one small colony hidden, isolated from its homeworld by a hidden warp point. Interstellar War 4 and the fate of the Arachnids is described in the novels ' and '. Empire of Gormus – The Gorm are a race of hairless centauroids that discovered the Khanate shortly after Interstellar War 2, and came to the conclusion that the Khanate would soon attack them. As a result, the Gorm decided to strike first.
Robin Vs Starfire Games
The war was eventually ended in favor of the Khanate, but the Gorm impressed the Khanate sufficiently for the Khanate to allow the Gorm to continue as an effectively autonomous client state with minimal interference from the Khanate. Gorm have an unusually high radiation tolerance, and as a result are able to 'tune' their engines for longer periods of time than other races.
This practice causes the engines to emit radiation that can prove harmful over a period of time, but also allows the starship to move faster while the engines are being tuned. Due to their size, they are unable to operate strikefighters. J'rill Directorate – The J'rill were a race of cybernetic brainships. They were originally created to act as cybernetic rulers of their star empire, who were expected to be able to act impartially. But too much time out of the body led to the leadership losing their humanity. Inhumane acts began to occur because the Directors viewed them as the most practical choices. The subjects eventually revolted, but the J'rill had control of nearly every computer at this point, and the subjects were punished for their revolt by being completely wiped out.
A J'rill ship used a single brain to control all functions instead of a normal starship crew. Each 'fleet' would be centered around a single ship that contained that fleet's director. Other ships within the fleet would be operated by brains that had been conditioned for the tasks needed (so that, for instance, a brain on one of the small J'rill suicide ships wouldn't refuse to obey an order to ram an enemy ship and blow up). The J'rill suddenly appeared during the middle of the war between the Kess and the Vestrii. The fleets encountered had no planets of their own, and appeared to be interested in harvesting populated worlds for raw materials (including the body parts of the local inhabitants).
The J'rill only ceased to be a threat when new fleets suddenly quit appearing on the edge of Alkelda space. Kess Dominion – The Kess were a four-armed, red-skinned race that developed around their state religion. They spread their religion to other races through 'Chapter-Missions' that were created from elements of the church, the starfleet, and the marines. Races that refused to convert were punished – frequently by complete xenocide of the race. The Kess is known at this point primarily because Chapter-Mission Koshgari – I – 4 became lost in a nebula, and eventually stumbled across the Vestrii in their original home. Attempts to convert the Vestrii did not go well, but what the Kess hadn't realized is that the initial Vestrii world that they discovered was only a small colony of a larger nation.
The Kess attempted to forcefully convert the entire nation using their initial technological edge, but the Vestrii were able to catch up in time to build a fleet that could push the Kess out of their space. The Chapter-Mission eventually gave up and found its way back to Kess space, hoping to get reinforcements.
But the Kess had already been swept away by the same aliens that would eventually drive the Vestrii from their homes. Khanate of Orion – A race of humanoid felines that believes strongly in honor and fighting, the Khanate was the first empire encountered by the Federation. The Khanate and the Federation clashed during Interstellar Wars 1 and 2, but new leadership and a common enemy during Interstellar War 3 brought the two enemies together as allies. They have remained on good terms since that time. Ophiuchi Association – The Ophiuchi are a race of humanoid avians who excel in strikefighter combat due to genetic traits inherited from their flight-capable ancestors. The association is composed of multiple races, but the Ophiuchi are the dominant race and make up the majority of its membership.
The Ophiuchi first encountered both the Federation and the Khanate during the first battle of Interstellar War 2. While initially hostile to both nations, the Ophiuchi eventually chose to align themselves with the Federation, providing them with a decisive edge and bringing the fighting to a close. They have remained close to the Federation ever since then. Unlike the other races, the Ophiuchi inhabit a pocket of space with warp points that lead exclusively to dead end systems, or to systems occupied by foreign powers. As a result, they are unable to expand the space under their control.
Rigellians – The Rigellians were a xenophobic race that had a passing resemblance to humanoid badgers. The Rigellians attacked all races that they encountered, and killed the inhabitants of any planets that they conquered. Several less developed races were encountered and destroyed before the Rigellians simultaneously came into contact with the Federation and the Khanate in Interstellar War 3. Initially, the Rigellians had an advantage due to their exclusive use of strikefighters.
But the other two nations were able to quickly develop their own designs, and the massive weight of numbers against the Rigellians eventually caused their defeat. Due to the genocidal tactics used by the Rigellians during ISW-3, it was decided that the only way to bring a real end to the war was to bomb every Rigellian world encountered, and the Rigellians were nearly destroyed as a race. The only known survivors were on a planet belatedly discovered some time later. The Rigellians on that world had fallen back to a pre-space level of technology, but were just as xenophobic as they had been when they flew through the cosmos.
1978 mariner outboard 55 manual. Keep individual cylinder parts together. NOTE: Do not mix valve train parts (valve pads, camshaft caps, camshafts). Loosen timing belt tensioner and remove tensioner spring.
Interstellar War 3 marked the first time that the Terrans, Orions, Gorm, and Ophiuchi all fought on the same side as the 'Grand Alliance'. Star Union, The – A collection of races banded together in one empire. The Crucians were the first race, and are the most dominant race within the Union, so humans and others often append 'of Crucis' to The Star Union's name. The Star Union encountered the Arachnids before humanity, but were able to avoid subjugation because the section of Union space that bordered the Omnivoracity was filtered through a closed warp point (a warp point that could only be detected from one side). The Star Union erased all evidence of the warp point on the side facing the Omnivoracity, and were able to safely withdraw through it – though this led to the loss of the homeworld of one of the races (none of the Union races knew what the Arachnids did to captured subjects at that point in time).
During the 4th Interstellar War, Alliance survey ships stumbled into Star Union space, helping the Union Star Navy (USN) survive the Arachnid onslaught with considerable technological assistance, prior to the USN's offensive to breakthrough to Alliance space. Tangri Corsairs – A race of centauroids with a clan structure. The different clans all have their own colony worlds, and are able to operate somewhat autonomously of each other. The homeworld has exclusive control of strikefighters and carriers, and acts as the united front for the clans when needed. Tangri view other races as unintelligent creatures that ape true intelligence (and it is noted that there are actually creatures on the homeworld of the Tangri that truly do exhibit this sort of behavior). Because of this, Tangri view themselves as the 'Raider Supremes' of the galaxy, and feel that it is their right to plunder and pillage any colonies and starships of the other races that they come across.
However, the Tangri realize that they must be careful to limit themselves, as the other races will only tolerate so much piracy. For instance, the Tangri originally appeared during Interstellar War 4, when they launched a huge raid on the Khanate. Because of this sudden threat, the Khanate assembled a fleet which backtracked the Tangri, and smashed the base that they originated from. The Tangri claimed it was all a mistake, and because of the more pressing Arachnid threat the Khanate accepted this claim.
Since then, raids have been smaller, with all nations suffering as a result of Tangri depredations, but too weary of war to want to gather the forces necessary to finally resolve the Tangri problem once and for all. Terran Federation – The Terran Federation is composed of humans from Earth. The Federation enforces a strict non-interventionist policy in the affairs of pre-starflight races within its borders, and as a result, humans are the only race represented by the Federation. The Federation has fought one civil war, as detailed in the novel Insurrection. Founded in the late 21st century, the Terran Federation is a federal republic, originally consisting of the nations of Earth, then, as humanity spread throughout the galaxy, its colony worlds. The Federation has seen several waves of expansion, most of them coinciding with or happening in the aftermath of interstellar conflict. There are three major political/astrographical blocs within the Federation: the Heart Worlds, consisting of the oldest and richest planets, including Terra itself; the Corporate Worlds, strategically located systems dominated by major corporations and industrial combines; and the Fringe Worlds, the systems out in the frontier, which tend to be the last refuge for iconoclasts and peoples wishing to preserve their ethnic identities.
The Terran Federation is the largest and wealthiest power in the Starfire universe (as of the end of the 4th Interstellar War, 2370, in David Weber's The Shiva Option), a fact that garners mixed admiration and resentment among the other galactic powers. The Federation fought several wars with the Khanate of Orion during the 23rd century, until the events of the 3rd Interstellar War forced them to ally against the genocidal Rigellian hordes. Since then, the Federation and Khanate have had a mostly friendly relationship, further solidified by the horrific experiences of the 4th Interstellar War in the late 24th century. Thebans – An alien race from the other side of an unexplored warp point near the Federation/Khanate border.
Due to an odd confluence of events, the Thebans worshiped the planet Earth as 'Holy Terra', and claimed to be Terrans. They embarked on a vicious campaign to 'free' humanity and 'return' them to the worship of Holy Terra. Despite initial Theban successes, the Federation ultimately prevailed. The peace treaty following the war invoked severe limits on the Thebans, and prohibited them from building their own starships. Details on the Theban War can be found in the novel Crusade. Umbra of Vestrii – The Vestrii are a race with an unusual physical structure composed largely of nerve clusters and bundles. They subsist on food and minerals that most races would find inedible.
When dealing with other races, they typically use humanoid shells that are designed to resemble the other races (particularly humans), though no one would ever mistake one of these shells for an actual member of that race at anything other than very long distances. The Vestrii did not originate in our part of the galaxy. Instead, they are refugees driven from their homes in the Alkelda sector by an alien race that gave them the options of assimilation (with the resulting loss of Vestrii culture) or extinction. The Vestrii decided to pick a third option – flight.
They ran through a series of unstable warp points and eventually used a captured piece of prototype equipment that collapsed the warp point behind them. They eventually settled in the area of space previously inhabited by the Rigellians and Arachnids, and after careful observation decided that the Terran Federation might make good allies. To demonstrate their good will, the Vestrii embarked on an anti-piracy campaign against the Tangri. Tangri complaints (and the possibility of another large war) eventually caused the other races to intercede diplomatically, and the Vestrii were eventually welcomed into the local area of the galaxy.
One noteworthy point about the Vestrii is that all of their technology was originally quite different from the technology used by the members of the Alliance. Alliance technology had developed as a result of the different races building off of each other either to improve known weapons or to develop counters to known weapons. The Vestrii had developed away from the Alliance, and had very different weapons, ships, and tactics. In order to hide this from the races of the Alliance, they constructed what is known as the 'Sham Fleet', a fleet of warships built from technology that had been hastily reverse-engineered by the Vestrii. While the Vestrii are solid allies and willing to stick with their friends in impossible situations, they also have no problem concealing information and motives from those same allies as the Sham Fleet demonstrates.
The write-up of the Vestrii in the Starfire product 'Alkelda Dawn' indicates that when the Vestrii first arrived, they concealed much information from the Alliance. This information was revealed during something called 'The Second Visitation' during the 'Battle of Corcyra'. What a 'visitation' is, what the Battle of Corcyra involved, and what this information was is currently unknown, although the write-up suggests that it may somehow be tied to either the Kess or J'rill. Books There have been six novels published based on the Starfire universe, written. Between 1990 and 2002, and Steve White co-authored a of science fiction novels set in the game universe.
They are, in publication order, Insurrection (1990), Crusade (1992), In Death Ground (1997), The Shiva Option (2002). The Shiva Option made the New York Times bestseller list. 'Crusade' and 'In Death Ground' was later published as an omnibus edition The Stars At War (2004). 'The Shiva Option' and 'Insurrection' was later published as an omnibus edition The Stars At War II (2005). A follow-up novel, Exodus, co-written by Steve White and was released in December 2006.
The latest novels, Extremis and Imperative, were co-written by Steven White and and published in May 2011 and March 2016. Besides these professionally written novels, numerous Web sites contain written by Starfire players.
In chronological order of events within the books:. Ordering with the omnibus editions:. List of novels. ( ). ( ). ( ). ( ).
( ) is an omnibus hardcover re-issue of Crusade and In Death Ground. ( ) is an omnibus hardcover re-issue of The Shiva Option and Insurrection with 20,000 words of connecting material and restored edits. Reception reviewed Starfire in No. Winter commented that 'If you're looking for detail and realism, you won't find it here. If you enjoy maneuvering massive fleets into high-technology slaughter and don't mind an extremely simplistic treatment of space combat, you'll like Starfire.' References.
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