Blackout

The Blackout is a phenomenon of disruptions to subspace leading to the failure of subspace-reliant technology: warp drive, long-range communications, and long-range sensors. It struck the Alpha and Beta Quadrants at the start of March 2402. Rather than a blanket effect, the Blackout fell in a seemingly random, criss-crossing pattern, as if impenetrable walls light-years thick had fallen to isolate star systems and sectors from the rest of the galaxy.

In April 2402, the cause of the Blackout became apparent when Underspace apertures opened across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, unleashing the invading forces of the Vaadwaur. With the Blackout cutting systems and sectors off from each other, stopping defenders from rallying, the Supremacy enjoys a massive strategic advantage.

Overview

While cross-Federation communication is impossible, experts in subspace mechanics across the quadrants have identified the core problem: massive and unpredictable fluctuations of subspace harmonics in the affected areas. Technologies are reliant upon predictable subspace harmonics to interface with the subspace spectrum; warp fields and subspace communication waves must be calibrated to these local subspace harmonics. Their disruption results in the collapse of warp fields and the dissipation of communication waves. Long-range sensors reliant on subspace are likewise blinded.

The Blackout has fallen like a series of boundaries across the quadrants in a seemingly random pattern. Some systems have fallen within its direct effects, while others have been ‘walled off’ by the Blackout, cut off from even the nearest stars. The Blackout’s boundaries are often larger, with whole stellar clusters, sectors, or even the occasional sector block itself unaffected, but cut off from the rest of the galaxy.

Even where the Blackout falls, its effect is not always total. In some regions, ships can sustain a weak warp field at a low warp factor, enabling travel, but only very slowly, taking potentially months or weeks to travel between star systems. Likewise, communication and sensors can sometimes breach the Blackout with careful calibration and, often, enormous power. This means that massive subspace sensor arrays have been able to scan some regions of the galaxy, but this process of ‘remapping’ Federation space is time and resource intensive.

Range of Effect

The Blackout has not instantaneously impacted the entire galaxy. Based on what limited information can flow through the Barzan and Bajoran wormholes, it is not affecting the Delta or Gamma Quadrants at all.

Even its effect on the Alpha/Beta Quadrants was not instant. Reports reached Starfleet of peripheral regions going silent, but by the end of the first week of March, the impact of the Blackout was total, with warp travel further than 20 light-years all but impossible almost everywhere. Starfleet has confirmed that the Blackout is affecting the Klingon Empire, Romulan Factions, Cardassian Union, and other powers of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants.

Impact

Some regions are worse affected than others. Many star systems are self-sustaining, particularly in the Federation, and will not experience a collapse of infrastructure, logistics, economy, or food supply. Others are more reliant on the interdependence of the Federation, particularly densely populated star systems who ship in their food. Almost all such locations have reserves which will last them some weeks.

Tensions across the Alpha/Beta Quadrants are, of course, high. Regions are isolated, and while in some places this means that disparate peoples are coming together in the face of adversity, in others, the Blackout is a spark put to a powderkeg. In some regions, local antagonists may see the Blackout as an opportunity to strike against their enemies, whomsoever they may be. Starfleet is particularly concerned about criminal elements and Klingon border houses who may be emboldened if Federation targets are cut off from defences.

If it is difficult to ascertain how regions of the Federation are faring under the Blackout, it is all but impossible to ascertain the status of other governments, or conditions within their territories. Any captains learning of intelligence of regional conditions within international borders are warned to not extrapolate: how one Klingon house responds to the Blackout, for instance, may not reflect conditions under another house.

Starfleet Response

An organised Starfleet response is, of course, all but impossible. Standing orders for emergencies such as this do not exist, per se, but most afflicted regions have transmitted distress signals, and as such, Starfleet captains are duty-bound to aid whenever they receive them. These ships are often operating without support, often out of contact with the wider chain of command, which renders them both the only people who can extend assistance, and, in many places, the highest local Starfleet authority.

As the Blackout began to fall, and Starfleet suspected it would only get worse, some ships or units were dispatched to locations Command knew would be in particular peril if isolated. It is often unclear if ships ever reached their destinations.

Efforts to counter the Blackout continue. Rather than try to coordinate research until that became impossible, research clusters were quickly assembled and physically gathered in key, scattered locations with access to critical resources, such as major subspace sensor arrays. Likewise, many Starfleet R&D facilities have turned their eye to technologies that may allow interstellar travel and communication without reliance on subspace harmonics.

As-yet, there has been no centralised response to the Blackout, or codified, reliable means of bypassing it.

The Fourth Fleet

The Fourth Fleet formally has no specific duties compared to the rest of Starfleet: to help people in need, and try to find a way past the Blackout. Most ships of the Fourth Fleet are expected to be in distant fringes of the Federation, beyond its territory, or within the vicinities of fleet and task force facilities.

By mid-March, the Blackout seems to have stopped expanding. Regions surrounding task force facilities appear to be cohesive and unbroken, though lone star systems or clusters of systems may be cut off. While these regions are isolated from the rest of the galaxy, the Blackout does not appear to have disrupted travel or communication within the following areas:

• The Typhon Frontier
• The Deneb Sector Block (not extending as far as Cait, or Starbase 514, but including Deneb and Janoor III)
• The Thomar Expanse
• The Former Demilitarized Zone
• The Triangle
• The surrounding regions of the Romulan Neutral Zone to Starbase 93 (reaching as far as Yadalla and Qualor, but not as far as Tranquility Station, Gateway Station (SB-23), or Starbase 39-Sierra)
• Starbase Bravo and the Mellstoxx Sector, including the Paulson Nebula

Fourth Fleet facilities in these regions are thus major regional centres of operations in Starfleet’s response to the Blackout, with task force staff holding increased responsibility for the local areas.

Vaadwaur Invasion

In April 2402, the arrival through Underspace tunnels of the forces of the Vaadwaur Supremacy shone a light on the Blackout's origins. While the Vaadwaur are not immune to the Blackout's effects, their mastery of Underspace for travel, sensors, and communication has given them a massive strategic advantage.

Initial responses by Starfleet quickly learned the truth: the Vaadwaur are responsible for the Blackout. Prefabricated structures, platforms a kilometre in radius, have been towed into place through Underspace tunnels. Equipped with powerful emitters that affect the tachyon flows of the tunnels, they are the cause of the disruption to the fluctuations in subspace harmonics leading to the Blackout. These platforms are large, powerful in their own right, and well-defended by the Vaadwaur. So long as they are in place, a nearby region will experience the Blackout's effect.

Their presence, influenced by their deployment and where the Underspace tunnels stretch, explains the inconsistent nature of the Blackout: where it affects, where it does not, and why some unafflicted regions are larger or smaller than others. While the Vaadwaur are causing the Blackout to aid their invasion, they are still limited in their deployment by resources and the natural path of Underspace tunnels. Starfleet's directive is that these Blackout Outposts, well-defended and in unknown locations in the depths of the Underspace network, must be destroyed wherever they are found to lift the Blackout, and allow cut-off reinforcements to support invaded regions.

In response to this invasion, and after weeks of studying the Blackout, the Fourth Fleet has given a new directive: for starships rallying in response to the invasion to use any means necessary to bypass the Blackout. This includes the use of any available FTL Technology; the use of emergency reserves of benamite, the construction of graviton catapults, or slipping past Vaadwaur forces into Underspace tunnels. Now, the Fourth Fleet should use any means necessary to face this catastrophe.

In Play

• The Blackout begins at the start of March 2402 and by mid-March is considered to afflict the whole of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, including non-Federation territory. It is not believed to affect the rest of the galaxy.
• It is isolating whole pockets of space. Sometimes this is a star system, sometimes a sector, sometimes - rarely - a sector block. Travel and communication may be normal within this region, but the region is wholly isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
• The Blackout is enabling the Vaadwaur's invasion, isolating regions they attack and choking them off from support. The Vaadwaur overcome it through their direct use of Underspace for travel, communications, and sensors. They are not immune to the Blackout itself.
• Ending the Blackout in a region means destroying one of the well-defended Vaadwaur Blackout Outposts that is causing the phenomenon. When one is destroyed, the localised Blackout effect ends.
• In some places, the Blackout’s effect is not absolute. This is down to writers who may wish to tell stories where the Blackout simply means interstellar travel or communication is long and hard, but not a years-long undertaking. Such moments of overcoming the Blackout’s disruptions should be depicted as lone acts of genius rather than some reliable protocol.